Valentine's Exile (Vampire Earth #5)

Valentine's Exile (Vampire Earth #5) Page 8

The Tennessee Valley, August: Six former states lay claim to the Tennessee River, and benefit from the electricity it generates. Its tributaries are fed by the eighty inches or so of rain that drop on the Appalachian foothills, swelling the lakes behind the nine still-intact dams. Its total shoreline, utilized by man, bear, wildcat, ducks, geese, and wading birds, exceeds that of the entire Pacific and Gulf Coasts of the former United States.

The residents in the settlements around it pull pike, catfish, sauger, bass, and crappiefrom its waters, both to pan-fry and to plant alongside their seedcorn, a form of phosphate fertilization used by the Native Americans of the area three hundred years ago.

But there are still long stretches of river uninhabited and returned to the thickly forested banks of earlier times. The reason for the human flight: the skeeters.

Tennessee Valley mosquitoes are legendary for their numbers and virulence. With some stretches of the river overrunning flood control, swamps have formed, and the mosquitoes fly so thickly above the still water that they can resemble a buzzing fog. With them come malaria, bird flu, and some mutated strains of ravies-Alessa Duvalier could describe a bout with one strain in nauseating detail-so humans keep clear of certain stretches to safeguard their children and livestock.

There's still some river traffic in corn, soy, and grains (often concealing casks of white lightning and other illicit medications), and of course the quinine-gulping, citrus-candle-burning power plant workers and locksmen at the dams must be there. But the areas around the riverbanks and swamps belong to a few hardy individualists, fugitives, and those who hunt them-"mad dogs and warrant men" in the vernacular of the Tennessee Valley.

David Valentine encountered both in the summer of 72 at the Goat Shack in south-central Tennessee.

The heat reminded Valentine of Haiti, which is about as much as could be said of any hot day, then and for the rest of his life. Even in the shade he sweated, the humidity about him like a sticky cocoon, turning his armpits and crotch into a swamp as moist as either of the bottoms flanking the peninsula of land projecting like a claw into the lower Tennessee.

Everready's map had been accurate, right down to the "friendly" homes along the way where they could trade news and a few bullets for food, a hayloft hammock, and washsoap. But the Old Black Cat's knowledge of the area ended at the dipping loops of the Tennessee. From there they'd need another guide to get them to Ohio. And he only trusted one.

"Trains are no good. There are checkpoints at all the major rivers," Everready said as they talked routes on the top deck of a defunct casino. "You'll have to go overland. Only man who knows the ground I know of is Hoffman Price. This time of year you'll find him at the Goat Shack on the Tennessee. He can't bear to hunt in August."

The name, but not the man, sounded vaguely familiar to Valentine, but he couldn't place it.

"What's he hunt?"

"People. Real criminals, not Kurian fugitives and whatnot. Though I'm not sure that's from morals, it's more that they don't bring enough warrant money."

"What about guerillas?" Duvalier asked.

"He sticks his nose into no war-or feud, I should say. He calls the whole Cause a big feud. He's brought in a freeholder or two. Like Two-bullets O'Neil; he and his posse were going around hanging Quisling mayors and whatnot along with their families."

"What are we supposed to bribe him with?"

"Give him this," Everready said. He took off one of his Reaper-tooth necklaces, and searched the string. After a few minutes of fiddling he extracted two teeth and passed them to Valentine. One had the letter h carved into the root, the other the letter p.

"Tell him Everready's calling him on his debts."

Valentine watched the Goat Shack through his Memphis river patrol binoculars. Except for the horse tails swishing under a barn's awning and ATVs parked around the outbuildings, he'd suspect the place was deserted.

The Goat Shack certainly looked dilapidated-even abandoned. Glassless windows, the front door laid out across the wide porch, a few holes in the roof. The road-facing side had fresh cypress boards nailed on horizontally to cover a pickup-truck-sized hole. A dock, divided into an aluminum half by the shore and a wooden extension out onto the lake, ended in a boathouse. Pilings for other docks, perhaps swept away in some flood, dotted the whole riverside behind the house.

Goats rested in the shade of the porch. Valentine watched a tired-looking billy plunge his head into a water trough fed by a downspout and drink.

Valentine suspected it had once been a bar and restaurant for pleasure craft on the river.

A few feet behind, Duvalier lay flat on her back, her feet up on her pack. Ahn-Kha sat cross-legged with his back to the chestnut tree shading Valentine.

The smell of goats reminded Valentine of his first day as a Wolf.

"It just doesn't feel right," Valentine said. "It's like the place is waiting for us."

"We could try going north on our own," Ahn-Kha said. "I don't think this country is muchly inhabited."

"No, we need a guide," Valentine said. "Oh, screw it. Ahn-Kha, cover us from out here with your gun, would you?"

While he changed into the cleaner cut-down black clothes he'd worn in Memphis, Ahn-Kha unstrapped the leather belts around the blanket rolls containing his gun. Duvalier picked up her pack and slung her pump-action shotgun, then handed Valentine his U-gun.

They wandered off the small hummock the chestnut shaded and walked the broken-up road, more potholes than grade.

"What if this Hoffman Price isn't here?" Duvalier asked.

"We find someone else."

"Reaper teeth won't do us much good."

"I have some gold left."

"Just enough to be robbed of and left for dead."

Valentine put his arm on her shoulder. "As if you'd let that happen."

She shrugged him off.

The nanny goats lying on the porch watched them walk past a pair of motorcycles and up onto the porch. A mutt watched them from the shade beneath a truck up on blocks. Duvalier wrung out her neckerchief in the water trough and wiped the sweat from her deeply freckled face and neck.

Valentine heard the clatter of a generator.

"Ready when you are, Val."

"Hello the house," Valentine called. "May we come in?" The brilliant sunshine made every crack in the repaired section of wall a black stripe. There were bullet holes in the door frame and around the windows.

"You a warrant-man?" a crackly woman's voice called back.

"No," Valentine said.

"Then you're not welcome here. Be off."

"We're looking for a warrant-man, actually." Valentine heard movement inside, chairs being pushed back from tables, perhaps.

"Who?"

"Hoffman Price."

"Then come in, friend," the voice said.

It smelled like vomit in the big, welcoming room. It took Valentine's eyes a second to adjust. He instinctively stepped out of the door, and Duvalier followed him in.

A mountain of a woman, gray-haired and with a washed-out red halter top, sat on a stool at one end of a chipped bar with an electric fan blowing on the back of her neck, talking to a bearded man wearing what looked like a bathrobe. Valentine looked around what was evidently a bar. Sandbags were piled around the door and windows, and circled the entire bar at least to waist height. The floor was thick with grit, the ceiling with spiderwebs. The furnishings appeared to have been pulled out of boats and cars. Two men in leather and denim and linked chain sat at a far table, biker boots stretched out in opposite directions toward each other like the tails of a yin and yang symbol.

"Good afternoon, Black and Red," the woman with the crackly voice said, horrifying Valentine with her teeth. "I'm Greta. What can I get you?"

Duvalier was examining the wallpaper, to which was glued an assortment of wanted posters, from cheaply printed ten by twenties to full-color photos to what looked like fax paper.

"What does the house recommend?" Valentine asked.

"I like him," Greta said to the man in the bathrobe, then turned back to Valentine. "Polite goes a long way with me. I do a real mint julep."

"You're kidding," Valentine said.

"I shit you not, Black," she said.

He looked at Duvalier and she shrugged. "Two then."

"Being strangers, please put the guns on top of the sandbags there. Take a seat," Greta advised.

They disarmed themselves, but sat next to their weapons.

Greta got up from her stool, revealing a .45 automatic lying on the bar. She tucked it into a leather back-waistband holster and waddled off to a door at the back, next to the far end of the bar.

"You two got someone you're looking to bring in?" the man in the bathrobe asked.

Valentine shrugged. "You're not Price, are you?"

"He ain't allowed in here."

Valentine wondered at that. "Then I'd rather not discuss it."

"Just asking, Black," the man said. "I wouldn't jump your claim. I'm retired, like." He shifted in his seat and revealed a conspicuous lack of underwear.

"Peekaboo," Duvalier said, rolling her eyes at Valentine. He heard a grinding noise from the doorway.

Greta returned with two tall, thin glasses, the outsides slick with moisture. Valentine looked at the drinks as she set them down.

"Ice!" Duvalier exclaimed, putting both hands around the glass.

"Only ice machine for fifty miles," Greta said.

"We don't come here for the decor, Red," the man said.

"Close up shop, George," Greta said. "It wasn't a prizewinner in your best days, and nobody's going to pin a blue ribbon on it now."

Valentine sipped at the sweet drink. The alcohol dropped and hit like a sledgehammer driving rail spikes.

"My bourbon does have a bit of a bite," Greta said, and Valentine heard chuckles from the far table with the bikers. "How about some food ?"

"We'd like to see Hoffman Price."

"He was up early fishing. He'll be asleep now."

"What kind of payment do you accept? I have some Memphis scrip-"

She put her hands on her hips. "Strictly barter, Black. I'll take three shells for that twelve-gauge, or five rounds for your pistol. That'll include lunch and those drinks."

Valentine counted out pistol ammunition.

Fifteen minutes later she brought them fried slabs of catfish and hush puppies, wrapped up in old wanted posters. They read the greasy bills as they ate. "Wanted on Suspicion" seemed to be the most frequent crime, followed by theft and fraud.

When they were finished she added another oily wrap to their table. "Now that you're done, you can take Hoffy his dinner. Saves me the bother."

"I thought he was sleeping," Valentine said.

"I saw his tracking Grog up and around. Means he's up. The boathouse is at the end of the dock, just follow the ferry line. You can leave your weapons. No one's going to touch them. Shack rule."

Valentine picked up the still-warm bag and found the back door. What had been an extensive cypress patio now looked like a piece of modern art made of bird droppings. An assortment of canoes and motorized rowboats lined the bank of the inlet protected by the finger of land.

"And outhouses hanging over the river. Nice," Duvalier observed, looking at the shacks at the end of the deck.

"Could be worse. Could be upstream," Valentine said.

They walked down the dock, boots clomping more loudly than usual on the planking. If anyone wanted to sneak up on Price, they'd have to do it in a canoe.

A raft ferry built out of an old twenty-five-foot pontoon craft was attached to lines stretching to a piling in the center of the river. Another set of lines linked it to the other side. Valentine saw a turned-over rowboat there. Some kind of sign stood over the rowboat, but it was too far away to read, even with the binoculars.

Two great wet hands rose out of the river near the boat shack. A Grog, the simple gray variety distantly related to Ahn-Kha, climbed out. It was a female. She rapped something against the dock and then stuck it in her mouth. As she chewed she watched them approach.

"Hello," Valentine said.

The Grog hurriedly whipped a second crayfish against the dock, then dropped it in her mouth. She chewed and looked at them as if to say "you're not getting it now, flatface."

She let them pass to the door, which sat crookedly on its hinges. Valentine knocked. "Mr. Price?"

God, something smells terrible. Is that the Grog?

"Yeah," a clear tenor voice answered.

"My name's David. Greta gave me your lunch. Can I have a word ?"

"Door's not locked, son."

Valentine opened the door to the little shack, got a good view of river through the open door, saw a tied-up canoe-

-and was hit by a wave of odor that almost brought him to his knees. It was BO, but of an intensity he'd never experienced before.

He saw a man standing at a workbench, a disassembled Kalashnikov spread out on an oil-smeared towel. Smoke rose from a short pipe with a whittled bowl.

Duvalier stepped in behind. "Oh, Jesus," she gasped. She backed out and Valentine heard retching. Her stomach had never been the strongest-

The filthiest man Valentine had ever seen stepped away from the bench. Hairy shoulders, black with dirt, protruded from mud-stained overalls that seemed clean by comparison. Two bright eyes stared out of a crud-dark face.

Dumbstruck by the man's hygiene pathology, Valentine could only stand and attempt to forget he had a nose.

"I always enjoy the reaction," Hoffman Price said, putting down the pipe. Valentine tried to fixate on the faint odor of the tobacco, but failed. Price smiled. His teeth were a little yellow, but clean and fairly even. Valentine tried breathing through his mouth. "Greta used to call me 'breathtaking.' "

Valentine counted blood-gorged ticks dangling from the region about Price's armpits and ears and stopped after six. "Everready sent me. From the Yazoo."

"How is that old backshooter?"

"Same as always," Valentine said, not sure if he'd be able to make it across the river, let alone across two states, with this stench.

"Haven't seen him in . . . it's three year now. You looking for someone?"

The Grog hooted outside, and Valentine heard Duvalier say, "No, thanks. I like them cooked."

"Just a guide," Valentine said.

"Uh-huh. To where?"

"Just across the Ohio River. A place called Laurelton. I'll show you on a map."

"That's quite a trip, son."

"That's why I need a guide. Myself and two companions."

"That little gal out there up for mileage like that?"

"I've been to the Rockies and back with her," Valentine said, which wasn't quite true by about two hundred miles but sounded good.

"I'm on my summer holiday. Hope you've got a wheelbarrow full of incentive."

Valentine dug out the Reaper teeth. "Everready said he was calling in your debts." He held out his hand with the teeth in his palm.

"I'll be damned," Price said. He took them. Valentine resisted the urge to smell his hand to see if the odor had transferred.

"Pretty," Duvalier said, and the Grog hooted.

Price cocked an ear to the sounds outside. "Nice young gal you got. Some of the titty trash that gets brought into the Shack, they scream at her. But I have to say no, son. Too far, too long since I've been over the Ordnance ground."

"Ordnance?" Valentine asked.

"Big stretch of ground between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes," Price said. "They make the Kentucky Kurians look like amateurs. Decent bounties, but I like to spend autumn and winter down here."

"But those teeth," Valentine said.

"I'd do anything for old Everready. But you aren't him. That particular debt isn't transferable."

"Money, then. I have some gold."

"Hard to spend when you're getting gnawed on by a legworm. I'll put on the ol' thinking cap, son, and try and come up with someone crazy enough for a round cross Kentucky. But no names come to mind."

The Grog came back in, leading Duvalier by the hand. She deftly opened a tackle box and showed her collections of costume jewelry, interestingly shaped pieces of driftwood, and some old United States coins. The two men stood in silence at the strange, interspecies feminine cooing.

"I see Bee's making herself agreeable," Price said. "Nice to see someone being kind to her."

"Dzhbee," Bee agreed, looking up at Price.

"He doesn't want to do it, Red," Valentine said, wondering if Grogs operated on a different olfactory level.

"What about the teeth?"

"That deal's with Everready; you got nothing to do with it," Price said.

Duvalier looked at him sidelong, as though afraid to stare. "That makes you a welsher," she said. "As well as a skunk."

"Ali!"

"You've got no paper on me," Price said. "And nothing I want. The door's just behind, unless you want to swim outta here."

She put her hands on her hips. "When's the last time you had a woman, Price?"

Valentine felt the boathouse spin.

"What's that talk for?" Price barked.

"I'm talking about a bonus. You can have me for the duration of the trip. Interested?"

She's gone nuts. What did that fever do to her?

A tar-fingered hand passed through the knots of greasy hair. Valentine saw some things he guessed were lice fall out. "Get out of here, both of you. I've had my fill."

She passed her right hand down her breast, to her crotch. "We'll be up in the shack if you change your mind. Till tomorrow morning. I'm a limited-time offer. C'mon, Black, let's get out of here."

They walked back up the noisy planks.

"What was that all about?" Valentine asked.

"Don't tell me you're jealous? Oh shit, I think some of that smell got in your hair."

"And you were talking about sex with him?"

"Val, I let that pig Hamm drip all over me in bed. This guy's just dirty on the outside. That Grog's sweet. There's no way he can be that bad or she wouldn't be that way. He'll come round. He just needs to think about it."

"Just when I think I know you."

"Ah, but you didn't hear my conditions. I would have insisted that he take a bath, first. I'm not interested in hosting a flea circus in my crotch all the way to Ohio. I only just got rid of the Memphis brood."

They negotiated a room with Greta ("It'll be cool enough to sleep about three in the morning.") and then went out to bring in Ahn-Kha.

Which turned out to be a mistake.

"We'll feed and water him, but he can't stay inside," Greta insisted. "Grogs are strictly outdoor animals."

Valentine, watching flies buzzing in one window and out another, thought the distinction between inside and outside largely moot. Especially with goat droppings under one table.

"Sorry, Ahn-Kha. They're big on rules here."

"Your poet Kundera said 'Only animals were not expelled from Paradise,' my David. I am not an animal, save in the same biological sense as that woman."

"And this isn't paradise, old horse," Valentine finished. "I'll sit outside with you."

Duvalier joined them on the porch with the goats, drinking ice water from a pitcher that had to be refilled every half hour.

Valentine watched the Goat Shack's dubious clientele trickle in as the sun set. He heard the ferry wheels creaking twice. Greta disappeared, replaced at the bar by a gap-toothed relative who shared her peppery hair color.

Duvalier produced a deck of cards scavenged from the casino where they'd interrogated Rooster with an eggplant. The idle evening on the porch passed pleasantly enough. Muscles sore from weary days on the road stiffened.

Perhaps a dozen patrons now passed time and swatted flies in the bar. Precious little commerce seemed to be going on; most of the groups of tables were swapping drinks for tobacco, or old newspapers for a pocketful of nuts. Many of the men smoked. Peanuts and jokes cracked back and forth across the tables.

Valentine watched a man in deerskin boots swap a pipe for an unfinished bottle. A sheathed knife dangled from a leather thong around his neck, and his belt held no fewer than three pistols. Considering the clientele and the quantity of weaponry, the Goat Shack was surprisingly peaceful. Or perhaps it was due to the clientele and the quantity of weaponry. . . .

Valentine felt guilty lazing on the porch. He should be doing something. Arguing about the nature of promises with Hoffman Price, wandering through the barroom asking for stories about Kentucky-instead he was looking for another heart so he could lay down a flush and take the pot of sixteen wooden matches.

Two men wandered up from the riverbank, one bearing a dead turkey on a string. They wore timber camouflage, a pattern that reminded Valentine of the tall, dark, vertical corpses of buildings that he'd seen in the center of Chicago. The one with the turkey turned inside with a word about seeing to a scalding pot. The other, a pair of wraparound sunglasses hiding his eyes, watched their game. Or perhaps them.

"What manner of Grog is that?" he asked.

"We call ourselves the Golden Ones," Ahn-Kha said.

The bird hunter took a step back, then collected himself. "The who?"

"Golden Ones."

"Golden Ones?"

Ahn-Kha's ears went flat against his head. "Yes."

"Didn't know there was them who spoke that good of English of your sort."

"Likewise," Ahn-Kha said.

"Definitely see you later," he said, staring frankly at Duvalier. She ignored him. The hunter followed his friend in. Ahn-Kha squeezed out a noisy fart, Golden One commentary on the stink left behind by unpleasant company. Valentine heard a couple of welcoming hallos from the inside.

"The mosquitoes are getting bad," Duvalier said, putting down two pair and taking the pile of matches.

"I'll see about dinner and DEET," Valentine said, rising.

Greta's generator ran two lighting fixtures, both wall-mounted, both near the bar. One was the lit face of a clock-someone had broken off the plastic arms, and whether the remaining stubs still told the time Valentine couldn't say-and the other a green neon squiggle of a bass leaping out of the water, a bright blue line projecting from its mouth. Perhaps a dozen customers sat in the gloom, save for the two huntsmen, who were looking at a wanted poster under the clock-light.

Valentine felt the stares of the company. Because they were outsiders?

"You wouldn't have a bottle of bug repellent, would you?" he asked the slighter version of Greta at the bar.

She shook her head. "No, sir. You and your girl could come inside. The tobacco keeps them out."

"If you don't like the skeeters, you could relocate off-river, tag," a shaggy woodsman suggested. "Take your pet and go."

"Earl," the bartender warned. "Goat stew and biscuits will be up soon, mister."

A third man joined the other two by the clock, getting a light. He joined in the inspection of the bill.

"I'll buy four servings," Valentine said.

"There's only three of you."

"The Grog's got a big appetite."

"We've only got goat. No spitted youngsters," the man called Earl said. Valentine didn't like the way he kept his hand near his open-topped holster.

"You won't even get goat if you keep that up," the bartender said. "Greta hospitalitied them herself."

Valentine walked away.

"Hey, tag!" Earl called as Valentine walked away. The bar went quiet. "Tag!"

Valentine went out the door, glad to have the pile of sandbags and a cedar wall between himself and Earl.

"I think we'll spend tonight on the porch," Valentine said.

"See you in country, tag," Earl bellowed.

"Hey, Earl!" someone inside called. "Come over here and roll one. Calm down."

"Everready should have hooked us up with guerillas," Duvalier said.

"They're up in the mountains east of Nashville, for the most part," Valentine said.

"It's a place to get across this river," Ahn-Kha said. "Perhaps there are no Kur this near. Even a Reaper would have trouble with the crowd inside."

The crowd inside chose that moment to spill out the door. The two turkey hunters and Earl came out of the bar, pistols drawn. Duvalier made a move for her shotgun.

"Hold it," a voice barked from the repaired section wall. "I've got two barrels of buckshot on you."

Valentine stood up, hands up and away from his weapons. "Now hold on. I don't want-"

"You got a warrant on you, tag," Earl said, a flashlight clipped to his pistol shining into Valentine's eyes. "You and this lady here."

"Mister and Missus David Rowan," the turkey hunter read, despite his sunglasses. "He's even got that scar. It's two-year-old paper out of New Orleans, but a warrant's a warrant."

Other bounty hunters came out of the bar, forming a rough semicircle around the porch. They didn't pull their weapons.

"Fifteen thousand dollars Orleans each, it says," sunglasses continued. "Five thousand per bonus for live delivery. Payable at any Coastal Marine station. There's one in Biloxi!"

Valentine did a quick count. There were sixteen men around, if he counted the one covering them from inside.

"That's real good money," one of the leather-clad bikers said.

"Forty thousand dollars is," Valentine agreed. "If you're in New Orleans. How many of you have been there?"

None of the men said anything.

"Okay, you've got us. Let's say you take us to Biloxi, and collect your two thousand five hundred each, barring any bribes you might have to pay."

"Shuddup and face down, tag," Earl said. "We ain't all collecting this."

"Says who? Let him talk, Earl," one in the semicircle said, his hand resting on his gun belt.

Valentine continued. "Let's say you get us down there without soldiers hoping for a promotion taking us away from you. Biloxi'll pay you alright, in New Orleans dollars. They print that stuff like toilet tissue. It can only be spent in New Orleans, unless you want to trade it into a hard currency exchange at a third of the value. Boat fare Biloxi to New Orleans was four hundred dollars when I was down there. A bad bottle of Orleans gin was sixty dollars. A room's over three hundred, if you don't mind cockroaches. How far's that two thousand five getting you now?"

"It's not getting shared sixteen ways," Earl said. "Now-"

A gunshot from just behind the doorway interrupted him.

Greta stood in the door, her shotgun pointed to the sky. Valentine's ears rang from the shot, and he wondered what it had done to Earl's hearing.

"Earl, you owe me one shell and these people an apology. Nobody serves papers at my Shack. Nobody."

"They ain't warrant-men," Earl said.

"He's right, Greta," one of the spectators said.

"I knew that when I gave them my hospitality."

Greta lowered the gun and placed it against the back of his ear. The turkey hunters got out of the way of the potential blast. "Earl, holster your piece and say your good-byes. You're off my peninsula permanently."

Earl put away his gun. "I'll pay up and go." He stared at Valentine. "But you three can't retire here." He raised his voice. "Any man wants to call himself a warrant-man, kill the Grog-he ain't subject to hospitality. Later we'll track down these two and share the reward. Meet me at the old county sign."

"You just do that, Earl. You just do that," a deep voice called from the darkness. Hoffman Price stepped forward, his Kalashnikov tucked under his arm so his hands were free to work his pipe. He got it lit and sent out a puff of smoke.

"And another Grog-lover sounds off," Earl said. "You throw down on me, you skunk, and Charlie'll blow you in half with his ten-gauge."

"Bee!" Price called.

Valentine heard wood shatter and turned to see a warrant-man crash headfirst through the repaired section of wall, ten-gauge bent around his neck like a dress tie. Bee swung out through the hole, treading on the unconscious Charlie, and extracted a pair of sawed-off shotguns from her boot holsters.

"Earl, you better shut up before I've got your whole rig for damages," Greta said.

"Didn't you hear, Earl?" Price said. "These folks hired me for a little trip to Chattanooga. They're under my protection." He raised his voice. "Any man comes to serve papers on them will interfere with my ability to earn my fee. Bee's my accountant when I'm in country. I refer all financial difficulties to her."

"Let's everyone calm down. We're leaving right now," Valentine said. "Pretend none of this happened."

Greta lowered her shotgun. "You ordered four meals, Black. You and Red and your big friend eat first, then you can leave. You might as well-Earl's picking up the tab."

The warrant-men, save for Earl, trickled back inside.

They ate at the riverside. "Lots of bad blood gets built up in this business," Price said. He posted himself downwind of Valentine and Duvalier, but it didn't help much.

After some head bobbing and a mutual dental exam, the two Grogs sat down next to each other. Ahn-Kha ate a few bites of his stew, then passed her the bowl.

"She speaks northern slope dialect," Ahn-Kha said. "I only know a few words."

Duvalier was already mopping up her remains with a biscuit. Valentine marveled at her appetite. "You really taking us on, or was that just show?" she asked Price.

"I'm taking you."

"Not through Chattanooga, I hope," Valentine said.

"That was just in case Earl gets the second big idea of his life and goes to the authorities, such as they are."

"What changed your mind?" Valentine asked.

"I got to thinking that I don't have too many more years in me to pay Everready back. If I have to step off, I'll do it clean. Plus Bee got a look at your big friend when he came down to the river to hit the shitter. She got excited. Bee gets lonely for her own, I think."

"I've had my mating," Ahn-Kha said. "She is dead. Besides, we are not dogs. Our strains do not mix."

"But you share some customs, looks like," Price said.

"I've been among her kind. Do not misunderstand me. She is well formed and agreeable." Ahn-Kha broke a biscuit in half and gave it to her. "I just could no more be a male to her than you could."

"I want to put a few miles on across the river before dark," Price said. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth three times. "I have a mule. Bee and I will go load him up."

Valentine kept the food close to his nose as he ate his stew. "Is there a chance that you'll take a bath before we set out?"

"What, and spoil my camouflage?"

Duvalier looked up. "You're hoping to pass as a feral hog, perhaps?"

"No. Everready explained it to me years ago. I never could hide lifesign for shit. All the critters interfere with the Hoods. I don't read as human at any kind of distance." He walked up to the back doorstep and returned his plate.

"You want your other biscuit, Val?" Duvalier asked as Price disappeared into the stable.

"You got used to him faster than I did," Valentine said. "How did you keep your dinner down?"

"Greta in there gave me a bottle of clove oil. It's good for more than mosquito bites. A dab'll do you-provided you put it under your nostrils."