The Vampire Earth - Way Of The Wolf Part 18

Valentine scrambled up the brush-covered riverbank. He found a position near one end of the covered bridge where he could see down the road a mile in either direction. The asphalt was patched into almost a checkerboard pattern, as if tar-footed giants had been playing hopscotch along the road. The bridge was a strange b.a.s.t.a.r.d construction, obviously a well- made iron-and-concrete span dating to before the coming of the Kurians but now covered with a wooden roof. The added-on planks were layered with peeling red paint, and the warped wood seemed to writhe and bend as if wis.h.i.+ng to escape from the bridge frame.

The drone of insects and the muted trickling of the stream were soothing, and Valentine fought the urge to sleep. He counted potholes in the road, clouds, and bell-shaped white wildflowers to pa.s.s the time.

A truck appeared out of the east. It was a tractor-trailer, pulling a livestock rig. It plodded along at a gentle rate so as not to bounce its aged suspension too much over the uneven road. As it grew closer, Valentine saw that the door on the cab was either missing or removed, and the winds.h.i.+eld on the pa.s.senger side was spider-webbed with cracks.

Valentine readied his rifle and ran to the edge of the covered bridge, keeping out of sight of the truck. He heard the truck slow as it approached the bridge, and the engine noise increased as it entered the echo chamber under the roof. Valentine sidestepped out and into the path of the creeping truck, rifle at his shoulder, and aimed at the driver.

Brakes squealed in worn-down protest, and the truck came to a stop. A head popped out of the doorless side, heavy sideburns flaring out from a ruddy face.

"Hey there, fella, don't shoot," the man called, as if people pointing rifles at him were an everyday irritation.

"Step out of there, and I won't. I don't want to hurt you; I just need the truck."

A pair of empty hands showed themselves. "Mister, you've got it backwards. We've been looking for you."

"What 'we' would that be?" Valentine asked, keeping the foresight in line with the bridge of the man's nose.

"Don't have time to go into it, mister. I know one of you's named David. You're three of those Werewolf fellows from down south, right? You went to take a look at Blue Mounds.

The vampires' goons spotted you, and now there's a big net out trying to snare you. I heard it on the radio, except the David part. That came across over the Lodge's code through the telephone wires. I've been crawling up and down this road for the last hour looking for your tracks."

"Who are you?" Valentine asked, lowering his gun slightly.

"Ray Woods is my name. Wisconsin Lodge Eighteen. That guy you talked to earlier today, Owen Gustafsen, he's the Lodge leader here west of Madison. You might say we're like an underground railroad. We get orphaned kids and stuff out of the state."

Valentine wanted to believe him, badly. But Eveready had warned them time and again to look for traps. "Sorry, Ray, but I can't trust you. If you are who you say you are, you'll know why. We're going to take your truck, load our horses in it, and take off. If you are who you say you are, you won't tell anybody for a couple of hours. I could even knock you out so you have a convincing b.u.mp, if you want."

Woods plucked at his sideburns, twiddling the curly brown hair. "Maybe you can't trust me.

But I'm going to have to ask you to take care of a friend of mine."

The truck driver jumped out of his cab and went to a little door mounted in the side of his truck. He opened it and extracted a toolbox. He then pulled out a metal panel and extracted an eight-year-old boy from the narrow slit like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. The boy clung to the driver's leg, watching Valentine with hollow eyes.

"This is Kurt," Woods explained. "He's out of Befoit. His father was taken by a Reaper a week ago, and his mother just up and disappeared. We're trying to get him over the Mississippi to a little town called La Crescent. Maybe you can trust him."

Valentine looked into the eyes of the little boy, and they were filled with the hurt confusion of a child whose world has vanished in an afternoon. Valentine wondered if he had looked that way to Father Max some ten-odd years ago. Woods stroked the boy's hair.

With Gonzalez hurt, Woods was their best chance of making it out of the Kurian Zone. More like their only chance.

"Okay, Mr. Woods. I hope you know what you're doing. Maybe you can talk your way out of getting caught bringing a child from point A to B. But we're armed and wanted. If you get caught with us, the least they'll do is kill you. If you have a family, you'd better think hard about them," Valentine said, looking at the driver's wedding ring.

"Ain't got no family no more, mister," Woods said. "I don't want to be parked out here arguing all day, so what's it going to be?"

"What do you want us to do?"

Ten minutes later, the semi was moving again. Valentine sat in a second secret compartment in the truck's cabin. Concealing himself would be a matter of lying down and closing a steel panel. Gonzalez lay next to the little boy somewhere beneath him behind the false-backed tool locker.

"Of course, if they make a thorough search, we're all dead," Woods said, speaking up over the clattering engine so Valentine could hear his voice. "But I'm on the regular livestock run into Blue Mounds now. Before that, I never caused a day's trouble-at least a day's trouble that they knew about-in sixteen years, except when the old diesel gives me problems, of course."

The horses rode in the trailer, hidden in plain sight next to two other crowbait nags.

Valentine hoped the horses looked worn out enough to pa.s.s inspection as candidates for the slaughterhouse. Their saddles and bridles rested inside bags of feed. A few cows and pigs also rode in the trailer, adding to the camouflage and barnyard odor.

Woods listened to the Quislings' radio calls on a tiny CB hidden inside a much larger defunct one. He explained that the only place the Quislings never searched for guns or radios was inside the dysfunctional box, its dangling wiring and missing k.n.o.bs mute testimony to its uselessness. Woods simply popped the cover and turned on the tiny functioning receiver inside. "Only problem is, it's just a scanner, so I can't send. I'm going to get you boys in with a family in LaGrange. Alan Carlson's part of the Lodge, and his wife's a nurse. She'll help your man there. Seems like most of the searchers lit off after your other guy. He dumped one of his horses in Ridgeway, and they seem to think one of you is hiding there. They're tearing the place apart. So hopefully he gave them the slip. Better get hid, we're coming up on some crossroads. They might have checkpoints."

For the next half hour, Valentine rode in darkness, lulled by the gentle, noisy motions of the truck. They stopped at one checkpoint, but all Valentine could hear was the exchange of quick greetings between Woods and a pair of unknown voices.

The Carlson farm was a nice-size spread. According to Woods, Carlson was in good with the local authorities. His wife's brother was some kind of Quisling big shot in Monroe, so he rarely had trouble finding supplies and tools tb keep the place up. He even employed another family, the Breitlings, to help him farm the land. Under cover of picking up some livestock for the voracious appet.i.tes at Blue Mounds, Woods pulled the truck into the cl.u.s.ter of whitewashed buildings.

"Lieutenant, you can pop the box now," Woods said. "You're on Alan Carlson's place."

Valentine climbed into the pa.s.senger seat, an improvised upholstery job mummified in duct tape with a horse blanket tied over it. The door on the pa.s.senger side was missing, as well.

("The Quislings got a real bug about wanting to see all of you at checkpoints. Sucks to be me in the winter," Woods had explained.) The Wolf looked around. The truck had pulled around behind a little white house, between it and a well-maintained barn. The two-story frame house was screened from the road by trees and had the small, high-roofed look of a building trying to hide itself from the world. Three feet of foundation showed in the back, and the kitchen door could be reached only by ascending a series of concrete steps. The barn, on the other hand, looked like it wanted to take over the neighboring territory. It had grown smaller subbuildings like a primitive organism that reproduces itself by budding. An immobile mobile home stood beyond the barn, under the shadow of a tall silo. A garage with a horse wagon and an honest-to-goodness buggy parked side by side stood on the little gravel road that looped around the barn like a gigantic noose. Farther out, an obviously unused Quonset hut stood in an overgrown patch of brush, and a well-maintained shed completed the picture. Behind the house, cow-sprinkled fields ran to the base of a pair of tree-covered hills. Distant farms dotted the green Wisconsin hills.

The back door of the house opened, and a man in new-looking blue overalls and leather work boots stepped down the mini-staircase to the kitchen door. He fixed a nondescript red baseball cap over his spa.r.s.e, sandy hair and turned to wave a boy out from the house. A young teen, in the midst of a growth spurt, judging from the look of his too-small clothes, emerged, as well. He had black skin and closely cropped hair and looked at the truck with interest. Carlson said a few quiet words to the boy, who scampered off to the road and made a great show of poking around in the ditch at the side of the road with a stick.

A golden-haired dog emerged from behind the barn and flopped down, panting in the shade with his body angled to observe the proceedings.

Woods jumped out of the truck and performed his trick with the tool locker again. At the sight of Gonzalez's wound, Carlson hollered back to the house. "Gwennie, one of them's hurt. I need you out here!"

"Mr. Carlson, I don't know what you've heard though this network of yours, but my name's David, and I want-," Valentine began.

"Introductions can wait, son. Let's get your man downstairs."

A red-haired woman came out of the house, moving with a quick, stocky grace. She wore a simple cotton s.h.i.+rt, jeans, and an ap.r.o.n that looked like it had been designed for a carpenter. She pressed two fingers expertly against Gonzalez's throat. Woods held the boy from Beloit in his arms. Valentine and Carlson each took an arm and helped Gonzalez.

Gonzalez seemed groggy and drunk, and he mumbled something in Spanish.

They entered the house, skirting the tiny kitchen, and got Gonzalez into the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was homey and wood paneled, with a little bed and some clothing that matched the kind the young teen watching the road was wearing. Mrs. Carslon put a finger into a pine knot on one of the wooden panels and pulled. The wall pivoted on a central axis near the knot. A small room with four cots, some wall pegs, and a washbasin was concealed on the other side.

"Sorry it's so dark," Mrs. Carlson said. "We're not electrified on this farm. Too far from Madison. But there's an air vent that comes down from the living room; you can hear pretty good what's going on above, as a matter of fact. Let's get the injured man down on the bed."

Carlson turned back to the stairs leading up to the main floor of the house. "Molly," he shouted, "bring a light down here!"

Mrs. Carlson extracted a short pair of scissors from her ap.r.o.n and began to cut away at Gonzalez's buckskins. "What's his name?" she asked.

"Injured man of average height," Valentine answered.

"Okay, Injured," she said insistently in his ear. "Can you move your fingers? Move your fingers for me. On your hurt arm." Gonzalez came out of his trance, summoned by her words. A finger twitched, and sweat erupted on his brow.

"Maybe a break, maybe some nerve damage. I'm not a doctor, or even a nurse, you know,"

she said quietly to Valentine. "I'm a glorified midwife, but I do some work on livestock."

"We're grateful for anything," Valentine answered. "It looked to me like the bullet pa.s.sed through."

"I think so. Seems like it just clipped the bone. There's a lot of ragged flesh for a bullet hole, though. Not that I've seen that many. I'm going to clean it out as best I can. I'll need some light, and some more water. Molly, finally!" she said, looking toward the open panel.

A lithe young woman of seventeen or eighteen, with the fine features of good genes fleshed out on a meat-and-dairy diet, stood at the entrance to the secret room. Her hair was a coppery blond and was drawn back from her face in a single braid dangling to her shoulder blades. She wore boyish blue overalls and a plain yellow s.h.i.+rt. The shapeless and oversize clothes made the curves they hid all the more tantalizing. She carried a lantern that produced a warm, oily scent.

"Dad, are you crazy?" she said, looking at the a.s.sembly suspiciously. "Men with guns? If someone finds out, even Uncle Mike can't help. How-?"

"Hush, Molly," her mother interrupted. "I need that lantern over here."

Valentine watched in admiration as Mrs. Carlson went about her business. Mr. Carlson held Gonzalez down as she searched and cleaned the wound. She then sprinkled it with something from a white paper packet. The scout moaned and breathed in short rasps as the powder went in.

"Doesn't sting quite like iodine, and does just as good a job," the woman said as she began bandaging. Valentine helped her hold the bandage in place as she tied it but found himself glancing up at the girl holding the lantern. Molly looked down at the procedure, lips tightly pursed, her skin pale even in the yellow light of the lantern.

Mrs. Carlson tied up the bandage, and Gonzalez seemed to sag even more deeply into the cot he lay on.

Ray Woods spoke up. "Hate to give you another mouth, but this boy Kurt here is on his way across the river. I'm not supposed to go out that far again for a few more days. D'ye think he could have a place here for a little while?"

"Of course, Ray," Mr. Carlson agreed. "Now you better be moving along."

He turned back to Valentine. "Now we can shake, son. Alan Carlson. This is my wife, Gwen.

And you see there my eldest, Molly. We've got another daughter, Mary, but she's out exercising the horses. The lookout up the road is kind of adopted, as you might have guessed. His name is Frat, and he came up from Chicago about three years ago. On his own."

"Call me David. Or Lieutenant. Sorry to be so mysterious, but the less you know the better-for both of us."

"Well, Lieutenant, we have to get back to the upstairs. The other family who lives on the farm is the Breitlings. They don't know about this room. Same story: better for us and better for them to keep it that way. Their son is with Mary; he's just a squirt. Tom and Chloe are in LaGrange. I sent them there this morning when word came around about your little sc.r.a.pe. They're due back before dark. There's a chance, just a chance, that the house will be searched. If it happens, don't panic. So happens the local Boss is related to me, and we stay in their good graces in every way. Frat has a way of staring at our local goons; I think he makes them nervous. They never hang around long."

"Glad to hear it. You don't mind if we keep our guns, I hope?"

Carlson smiled. "I'd prefer if you did. And take 'em when you leave. Gun owners.h.i.+p is a one-way ticket to the Big Straw."

"Alan, I wish you wouldn't be so crude about it," Mrs. Carlson objected. "He means the Reapers get you."

Ray Woods put the little orphan, Kurt, down on a cot. "Now, Kurt," Ray said, "I've got to leave you here for a couple of days."

The little boy shook his head.

"Sorry, Kurt. That's the way it's got to be. You can't sleep with me in the cab again, and I can't take you to the place where I live. These people can take care of you better than I can, till we can get you up to the sisters across the Big Blue River. You said you'd never seen a river a mile wide, right?"

"Don't!" the boy finally said. Though whether he was objecting to Woods leaving or going to the river, he did not elaborate.

Woods looked away, almost ashamed, and left. The boy opened his mouth as if to scream, then closed it again, eyes gla.s.sing over into the wary stare that Valentine had first seen.

"We'll leave the lamp in here for you. We'll talk tonight if you want, after the Breitlings are in and the lights are out. Now I've got to get your horses hid in the hills. I'd give you something to read, but books are frowned on, too, so we don't have any," Carlson said. His wife and daughter stepped out the door, and Valentine caught the accusing look the young girl gave her mother.

As the door shut, Valentine realized the horrible danger their presence brought to the family. He admired Carlson's resolution. In a way, the courage of Mr. and Mrs. Carlson was greater than that of many of the soldiers of Southern Command. The Hunters risked their lives, armed with weapons and comrades all around, each of whom would risk anything to save his fellows. Here in the Lost Lands, this unarmed, isolated farm family defied the Kurians, putting their children in jeopardy, far from any help. Valentine wondered if even the Bears he had met had that kind of guts.

Hours later, Valentine heard Kurt whimpering in his sleep. He rose from his cot and crept through the darkness to the boy's bed. Valentine climbed in and cradled him until the boy gripped his hand and the sleepy keening stopped. Memories long suppressed awoke, tormenting Valentine. The smell of stewing tomatoes and the pictures in his mind appeared as awful and vivid as if he had seen them that afternoon. As he hugged the boy, silent tears ran down the side of his face and into the homemade pillow.

Eleven

LaGrange, Wisconsin: The town of LaGrange is nothing much to speak of. A crossroads with a feed store and an auxiliary dry goods shop marks the T-intersection of an old state road with a county highway. The irregular commerce that occurs there takes place with small green ration coupons, worthless outside the boundaries of the Madison Triumvirate. Across from the feed store is the house and ringing stable of the blacksmith. The blacksmith and his wife are old work-hard, play-hard bons vivants, and the breezeway between their house and garage is the nearest thing to the local watering hole. One or both seem always ready to sit down with a cup of tea, gla.s.s of beer, or shot of backyard hooch. The blacksmith's wife also gives haircuts, and longtime residents can tell how many drinks she's had by the irregular results.

The real LaGrange is in the surrounding farms, primarily corn or bean, hay, and dairy.

The smallholds spread out beneath the high western downs that dominate the county.

Their produce is transported to Monroe, and the thrice-a-week train to Chicago.

Survival here depends on having a productive farm and not drawing unwanted attention.

During the day, the patrols drive their cars and ride their horses, looking for unfamiliar faces. Vagrants and troublemakers disappear to the Order building in Monroe and are seldom seen again. At night the residents stay indoors, never able to tell if a Reaper or two is pa.s.sing through the area.

The residents live as a zebra herd surrounded by lions. There is safety in numbers and the daily routine, and sometimes years pa.s.s before when anyone other than the old, the sick, or the troublemakers gets taken. Their homes are modest, furnished and decorated with whatever they can make or salvage. The Kurian Order provides little but the ration coupons in exchange for their labor, although a truly outstanding year in production or community service will lead to a bond being issued that protects the winner's family for a period of years. The Kurians provide only the barest of necessities in food, clothing, and material to maintain shelter. But humanity being what it is, adaptable to almost any conditions, the residents find a kind of fellows.h.i.+p in their mutual deprivations and dangers. Barn raisings, roofing parties, quilting bees, and clothing swaps provide social interaction, and if they are punctuated with "remembrances" for those lost to the Kurians, the homesteaders at least have the opportunity to support each other in their grief.

Valentine remembered little of his first few days with the Carlsons. Gonzalez's condition worsened, and as his Wolf sank into a fever brought on by the shock of his injury, Valentine found himself too busy nursing to notice much outside the tiny bas.e.m.e.nt room.

For three long, dark days Valentine remained at Gonzalez's bedside, able to do little but fret. The wound had seemed to be healing well enough, though just before the fever set in, Gonzalez had complained that he either could not feel his hand at all or that it itched maddeningly. Then, on the second evening after their arrival, Gonzalez had complained of light-headedness, and later woke Valentine by thras.h.i.+ng and moaning.

Kurt, the little boy from Beloit, had been sent on his way westward, and the Wolves had the bas.e.m.e.nt room to themselves. Mrs. Carlson blamed herself for not properly cleaning the wound. "Or I should have just amputated," she said reproachfully. "His blood's poisoned now for sure. He needs antibiotics, but they're just not to be had anymore."

Valentine could do little except sponge his friend off and wait. It seemed he had been in the darkness for years, but he could tell by the growth on his chin that the true count was only days. Then on the third night, Gonzalez sank into a deep sleep. His pulse became slow and steady, and his breathing eased. At first Valentine feared that his scout was slipping toward death, but by morning the Wolf was awake and coherent, if weak as a baby.

He summoned Mrs. Carlson, who took one look at her patient and p.r.o.nounced him in the clear then hurried upstairs to heat some vegetable broth. Rubber limbed, Valentine returned to his own cot and lost consciousness to the deep sleep of nervous and physical exhaustion. That evening, with the rest of the house quiet and Gonzalez in a more healthy slumber, Valentine sat in the darkened living room talking to Mr. Carlson.

"We owe our lives to you, sir. Can't say it any plainer than that," Valentine said from the comfort of feather-stuffed cus.h.i.+ons in an old wood-framed chair."Lieutenant," the shadow that was Mr. Carlson replied, "we're glad to help. If things are ever going to change, for the better anyway, it'll be you boys that do the changing. We're rabbits in a warren run by foxes. Of course we're going to help anyone with a foxtail or two hanging from their belt."

"Still, you're risking everything to hide us."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Lieutenant. A way to reduce the risk."

"Please call me David, sir."

"Okay, David. Then it'll be Alan to you, okay? What I wanted to say was with your buddy sick-"

"He's getting better."

"Glad to hear it. But I spoke to my wife, and she says he should stay for at least a couple of weeks. Between the wound and the fever, it'll be a month before you can do any hard riding, maybe. Your horses could use a little weight anyway."

Valentine gaped in the darkness. "A month? Mr. Carlson, we couldn't possibly stay-"

"David, I don't know you very well, but I like you. But please let a guy finish his train of thought once in a while."

Valentine heard the ancient springs in the sofa creak as Carlson s.h.i.+fted his weight forward.