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"Kind of you, Valentine," the Baron said. "I'd prefer the back of the head, if you'd oblige."
Valentine said nothing, but nodded to the man on the scout-plane car.
"Won't be the first ragged-ass general to wind up shot in a ditch. I'm in distinguished company."
"Not my style, Baron. We're saying good-bye now, but not the way you think."
He climbed up onto the flatbed with the glider. It sat on a little platform with a heavy spring. A line was attached just behind the landing wheel tucked into the bulbous canopy.
"You checked out on this thing?"
"I practically invented it," the Baron said, testing the air with a wetted finger. "We used to screw around with these as cadets in the kettles of Wisconsin. Just tell the engineers that in this light wind we've got to be doing over forty, or I might end up in the treetops."
Valentine tossed a gun belt containing one of the engineer's .357 revolvers into the Baron's lap and followed it with a box of shells. "There's a survival kit and dried food and water under your seat."
He gave a wave of the arm, and the engineer put the train in motion, taking it back to Missouri, or at least a siding where it would be derailed and have the driving wheels blown off.
Valentine watched the train pick up speed. The train had shrunk to the size of a dime held at arm's length when he saw the winged dot rise perfectly. It altered course to better catch the light wind and rose.
He felt a little jealous.
After turning a few lazy circles, the glider turned and headed back for its launching platform. For a brief moment, Valentine feared the Baron would end his flight in a suicidal crash dive into the engine, but he simply swooped low over the train to land in the clear of the siding.
The glider came to rest in the crackling rush of grasses passing under its smooth, glossy belly.
Valentine hurried to the cockpit, but the Gray Baron was already climbing out
"You called my bluff, Valentine. Always had this weird feeling we were going to end up working together, from the first I laid eyes on you."
He handed Valentine the gun belt. "I appreciate the gesture of letting me go, though I'm guessing you know I couldn't go back to the KZ, and scratching a living in the sticks isn't my style. Truth is, I love commanding those big brave bastards, and if there aren't perks that go with the job already, I'll earn some. How do I swear into this chicken run you call an army, anyway?"
The East Bank, May: Across the river from Saint Louis lies a collection of settlements known as the Tangle.
It's watched over by a lone Kurian tower, a growth on what had been a bank building in East Saint Louis. The Kurian there is an odd one-weak, reclusive, and of little import to the scoundrels and smugglers across the river from the Grog metropolis. He has but a Reaper or two, rarely glimpsed, no police force, only a few toughs with wellmaintained armored cars to shuttle his mouthpieces and churchmen about. Southern Command's intelligence service, insofar as they think about him at all, believe "Eastie" is some fallen Kurian exiled to a disputed area chiefly to keep his eye upon the Grogs across the river and maintain some manner of relations with them.
Which is just as well. East Saint Louis marks the farthest north Southern Command's "Skeeter Fleet" will operate, facilitating the activities of Logistics Commandos buying, begging, borrowing, or stealing items from the industrial centers around the Great Lakes. They have been known to tie up in Eastie's domain and deal with the shifty traders found on the Illinois side of the Mississippi riverbank.
When the barges full of well-armed Golden Ones, plus the newfound Headring Clan of Gray Grogs, tied up their barges under the shelter of the east half of the old McKinley bridge and occupied an old, gap-roofed warehouse near the river, there was not a great deal Eastie could do about it.
As it turned out, he did, however, report to the rest of the Kurian Order the mysterious flotilla of barges and their odd occupants.
Night still flowed down the Mississippi. The wind died at midnight and the air filled with mosquitoes and other night fliers, clustering around Number One's running lights.
Bats, drawn by the mosquitoes, ventured far out into the river. Valentine, watching the hazy moon through the moist night air, imagined he could hear their cries as they echolocated.
Eating distance, even in the frustratingly zigzagging manner of this great intestinal river, gave him a sense of satisfaction. Watching the riverbanks slip by without the effort of crashing through brush and bramble, with food and water a couple of steps away and a blanket and pillow that would allow him to both sleep and cover mileage brought back memories of the old Thunderbolt and its endless coastline patrols. Back then he'd marveled at the ease of water travel as well.
Even the deceptively empty banks of the river comforted. The river, running near wild here, had pushed all but transient fishers, trappers, and the river traffic back. Of course, the occasional shed showed so many bullet holes from River Patrol machine guns it looked as though the spots were part of a paint job.
Thumps, calls, clanks, and hammering noises from the barges travelled across the gentle river water.
"What are them Groggies up to?" an idling River Rat wondered.
"Making themselves bunks, I expect," his mate on watch said, watching the barges with the boat's sole pair of binoculars. Their strap had its own flotation strip, and someone had added some extra rubber cushioning to the housing. Optics were hard to replace.
The convoy travelled in two parts. Cottonmouth were the boats exploring where the barges were heading. Exodus were the barges themselves, with the support of the armored firefighting tug. Then Rattler covered the convoy from upriver, a mere two boats and the slowest ones adapted for riverine fighting.
Valentine was tempted to ask for the glasses, but he was nothing more than a glorified passenger in Number One. Besides, if he was feeling too relaxed and lazy to dig around in his dunnage for his own glasses, it couldn't be that important.
