Tale of the Thunderbolt (39 page)

Zacharias made a note on a clipboard as the colonel spun his wheels back to Valentine. “You get back to your ship and bring it across the bay to the entrance to the old intracoastal shipping channel. There's a white lighthouse there, manned by some of the Corpus Christi crew. We've got a spy there, and this sounds important enough for him to break his cover. He'll knock out their radio and make sure our Rangers grab the place. We'll make it look like a simple hit-'n'-loot. When you see two blue lights burning, one on top of the other, bring your ship in as close as the tide'll let you, and we'll start loading up your cargo. This will happen twenty-four hours after you get safely back to your vessel. Questions?”

“Two blue lights vertically.” Valentine sagged into his chair in exhausted relief. The colonel's quick mind relieved him of his last few worries about getting his prize to the Rangers safely. He shook himself back to the present.

“No questions, Colonel. Some food and a few hours' sleep, and I'll be ready to go.”

“You'll get more than that. There's still some things we have to organize. You'll have until dawn tomorrow to eat and rest up. That okay by you?”

“Better than okay.”

“Major Zacharias, you'll have operational command. Put Flagstaff in charge of trains and logistics, use Three-Feather's reserve riders for the main force. I want plenty of scouts, too. Send two couriers now and get Harbormaster going. Ranson, you'll take our friend back to his ship and go onboard as liaison.”

“Can I bring Colorado along, Colonel? 'Bout time he started working on a longer line.”

“Sure, how often does a man get a chance to go to sea nowadays — even if it is just a ride across the harbor. Mr. Valentine, we'll meet again when your cargo is here, safe and sound.”

 

Night on the harbor. The old lighthouse near the wrecked causeway had two lights burning.

Valentine watched from his familiar bridge-perch as the ship's boats, and a commandeered shrimp boat, moved quickwood, men, and material from ship to shore. There was nothing for him to do on shore, save hear Flagstaff give gruff orders to the Rangers and contingent of laborers he commanded. Oxen stood in their traces, and smaller horse-wagons held supplies for the two hundred riders Zacharias brought to guard the precious cargo. The eight-man garrison of the lighthouse was under lock and key, though five of them expressed an interest in moving inland with the Rangers. Valentine idly listened to the sound of waves lapping against the ship as he pulled his tiny collection of books from its railed shelf, lulled by the hint of motion as the
Thunderbolt
rocked at anchor. He felt melancholy. The
Thunderbolt
had become a home.

And it was time to leave.

He would miss the sound of the sailors talking as they washed down the decks in the morning, the smell of good coffee, the wide horizons of the sea. He thought of his father, and his description of the charm of naval service: “Duty at sea, especially when you were out months at a stretch, sounds like you're away from everything, that you'd be lonely and homesick, but you aren't. To a sailor, the ship is a home he takes with him. It's like traveling with your job and all your neighbors. There's nothing like it.” His father had been right.

He also liked being able to hit the Kurians where he chose, instead of spending all his time parrying blows. Moving men, their food, and equipment was simplified by the tonnage a ship could carry. A real navy, well handled, could make the Kurian seaboard spend far more of its time garrisoning harbors and seaside towns, out of fear that a occupying force would appear over the horizon. The Free Zones in the Appalachians, the Ozarks, and the Rockies would be given breathing room. But he was just one officer, a spysaboteur trained to work inside the Kurian Zone. Putting together real sea power would take combinations of time and resources the Kurians took pains to prevent. The great ports of the world were solidly in Kur's grip. But with quickwood —

“The quickwood beams are going now, Captain,” Post reported. “These Texans are organized.”

Valentine nodded. “They have to be. This pocket doesn't have any Lifeweavers. They're going up against the Reapers with small arms and guts, and a lot of people on farms and in towns slipping them news and supplies. They're smart, they don't fight over the Rio Valley or the coast, nothing that's important to the Kurians. Texas is a big place, they've got distance on their side as long as they stay mobile.”

“I'd always heard they were just bushwackers in uniform.”

Ranson, who'd approached and caught the tail end of the conversation, cut in to elaborate. He described how the Rangers would go into some one-horse village and relocate the residents. “Then a few Reapers and Quislings come riding in, lifesign reads normal, they think it's just another town. But it's a town armed to the teeth with men who know how to use their guns. We've got a heck of an intelligence network, most everyone between the Rio and San Antonio city limits knows what to do if they see a column coming into the area. We use a lot of heliographs, since the sun's almost always shining. The Kurians have been burned too many times — now they only roll through with big pacification raids. When that happens, the Rangers scatter.”

“How much do you know about the quickwood?” Post asked. Farther back on the ship, proof of the efficacy of the weapon stood on the upper deck. A dead Reaper, frozen as a statue with skin hard as tree bark, stood gripping the ship's rail and canopy — though not truly lifeless, at least in the vegetable sense. The Reaper was beginning to sprout tiny green leaves.

“Everything,” Valentine said. “I'll give another briefing to their weapons people. I'm going to leave them some lumber and saplings. Want to throw in your seed-pouch?”

“They'll need it more in the Ozarks.”

“I'll carry it there for you, Will.”

“You've got enough equipment, what with that ugly-assed gun you tote, Val, and there's still a lot of miles ahead of us. I'll bring it myself. You'll need somebody around to carry out your godawful plans anyway, won't you?”

Valentine felt his eyes moisten. “Why the change of mind?”

“More of a change of heart. When I was watching the Chief and his girl on Jamaica, and you and — well, I got lonely for a woman. The beach beauties were willing, but I want to find my wife. Tell her I was wrong and she was right.”

“About the system?” Valentine asked, remembering their conversation before the mutiny.

“When we first got married, we didn't know each other that well. I was in uniform then, but it was for the food and the security. Gail was a sharp girl, and figured out I didn't really like
them
, or my job. We talked about us getting a posting way out on some frontier, and running for Arkansas. We used to talk like that a lot.

“Funny thing was, after I got married to her, all of a sudden I wanted to do better, have better housing and better food for us, or her really. I went officer, mustanged up from a sergeant to a junior lieutenant. Part of the process was indoctrination, of course. Lectures at the New Universal Church building — you know the routine. Then I had to spew the same stuff to my men: all about mankind poisoning and ruining the Earth, crime and overcrowding and starvation and homelessness. Then the shit that came down in '22 and how the Kurians came to restore ‘natural order,' all that Darwin stuff they come up with about men needing control. Of course, the Kurians never admit that they probably started it all — they make it sound like they saved us from extinction. But anyway, I started to believe it. You probably can't understand — ”

“But I do,” Valentine said. “I've heard a few speakers for the Church. While they're talking, it seems reasonable enough. It takes the next drained body you see to set you straight again.”

“Well, Gail and I grew more distant. She didn't like my talking about making captain, or joining the Coastal Marines to advance faster. I was drinking a little too much on days off with the others. But it was the baby that did it.”

“Baby?” Valentine asked. “You never said anything about children.”

“It would have been a baby, I guess,” Post said. “Gail didn't want to have it, she ‘couldn't bring a child into the world for
them
.' She aborted it — I hate to think how. I found out and said something stupid. I think I quoted the New Order's law on abortion like it was Scripture. She took off, I don't know where. Left me a note with her wedding ring: ‘Maybe you can replace this with a brass one.' At first, I was actually glad to be rid of her. I thought her opinions might be preventing me from getting promoted.” He ran his hands through his multitoned hair in frustration, gripping the locks at the back of his head as if trying to tear the memories out before continuing.

“I only realized later, after she was gone, that she was the thing that kept me going. All of a sudden I was ashamed every time I put on my uniform. I hated the job — I hated the people. Drinking helped me forget . . . let me go to sleep. Pretty soon it helped me make it through the day. Then wake up. Thanks to you, I got a part of my life back. I owe you that, whatever your methods. Now I want the rest of me.”

 

Valentine stood on shore with his volunteers: a smattering of Jamaicans, many of the
Thunderbolt
's remaining marines, and a few sailors who decided to go back to the Ozarks to look for their families. The group said their farewells to their comrades from the
Thunderbolt.
Narcisse sat atop a wagon, distributing voudou amulets and cheek-smacking kisses.

Captain Carrasca, dressed again in the looser pirate clothes Valentine had first seen her wearing, said good-bye to each of the men as they walked down the gangway. When she got to Ahn-Kha, she hugged him, her outspread hands making it just to the other side of his armpits. When that was over, she gave him a wooden tube that Valentine thought looked like a bamboo flute. Ahn-Kha bowed.

Valentine stood at the entry port last.

“I'm glad Will is going with you,” Carrasca said. “I'd give almost anything to keep Narcisse in the galley. Won't be sorry to see the Grogs go. We can do without their unique odor. But the two of you will be missed.”

“Torres will make you a fine officer of Marines.”

“Yes, he's already polished those railroad tracks three times, and it's only been a day.

“One more thing.” Carrasca stepped forward and embraced him in turn. Post tactfully drew the men away from the gangplank, and the pair stepped behind the lifeboat davit.

“If I ask you to do something for me, will you do it?”

“You shouldn't have to ask that question, my love. You're the best thing that's happened to me in years.” He kissed her, softly and lingeringly.

“When you're back safe in your mountains, write me. We used to get courier pouches every now and then from Southern Command, years ago before the Kurians set up their intercoastal patrol chain. Now smugglers get newspapers and pamphlets to us through your logistics men. The commodore would like to see more, and so would I. Maybe you can set up a new mail run. From your stories, it sounds like you have the experience. Anything. Just let me know that you're okay.”

“It's a promise. Write me, as well.”

“I will.”

They stood looking at each other, neither sure of what to say. She smiled.

“Almost forgot. I made you something.” She reached into the baggy pants and pulled out another leather pouch. Stitched into the leather was the legend:
THUNDERBOLT /
JAMAICA-HAITI-TEXAS 2070 / CAPT. MALIA CARRASCA.

Valentine took the pouch. It felt as though it were full of a lot of coin-sized objects, only lighter. “Your quickwood seeds?”

“Look.”

He opened it and extracted a handful of mah-jongg pieces. The bamboo pieces were delicately painted.

Valentine finally said, “Your work?”

“Of course. Should be rainproof, I lacquered them enough. You and Ahn-Kha and Post and Narcisse can play.”

“Thanks, but . . . damn. I feel like I should send you away with something,” Valentine said.

“You have,” she said. “More than you know.” Her eyes glistened with tears.

“How's that?”

“Hope. Someday we'll have ships going up the Mississippi to your Ozarks. I have a feeling . . . things are about to get better.”

Valentine felt a pleasant thrill at the latest example of their minds following similar trails. If it weren't for the quickwood . . .

“Hope for someday, then.”

“ ‘Someday.' That's all our generation has: hope.” She raised her chin. “Texas is waiting. I don't wish the men to see me teary-eyed. Back to hard-nosed captain, Captain.”

“Yes sir,” Valentine said, saluting.

She returned the gesture, her emotions under control again. Valentine felt the old wall go up. It was as if they had never kissed. As if they were strangers. Inspiration came to him.

“I left that old Coastal Marine uniform coat in the closet in my room. You're welcome to that. It doesn't mean much to me, and won't do me any good where I'm going. All I'm keeping are the boots and the pants I dyed.”

The wall vanished. “I'll make earrings out of the buttons,” she said with a smile.

“Better and better.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. Carrasca . . . caress. He smiled to himself. “Good-bye, Malia.”

“Adios, David. You can always find a home with us on Jamaica, you know that.”

“I do.” He hurried off the
Thunderbolt.
Valentine couldn't let his mind dwell on the idea.