Choice of the Cat

The High Plains of Eastern Colorado, August: A better name for this upland might be the Dry Plains, as running water is scarce much of the year. The pumps and sprinklers that fed circular patches of crops, which had dotted the flats like some giant variety of lily pad, are now nothing but rusting empty skeletons and dry as marrowless bone. A little more rainfall, and the high plains would be a lush paradise: the sun shines three hundred days a year, and the winters are comparatively mild.



Perhaps it is the sun that keeps the Kur away, or just the lack of sustainable population for their feeding. The inhabitants of Denver and the Eastern Slope might also have something to do with it. Their outpost garrisons scattered in this empty land imitate the forts of the Old West, with wooden walls high enough to prevent a Reaper's leaping over them.



The few souls living in this expanse hide their paths and habits from both the vigorous Denver Freehold in the West and the Kurians to the East. The Denverites have been known to "relocate to safety" anyone found on their borders, confiscating property too large to move at the point of a gun. As for the Kurians, it is the old story. Any group larger than a family is too hard to feed, and too big a risk of becoming a lifesign lure for a roaming Reaper.



So only the occasional house is inhabited, though the isolation can be as hard to live under as the Kurian avatars.



* * *



Valentine did not know whether to call it a sod house or a cave. The House of Cortez had none of the scope and glitter its conquering namesake inspired. The front of the structure protruded from the side of a grassy hill, as if it had been fired from a gigantic cannon and embedded there. An overhang sheltered the wide porch, with rough wooden trunks holding up the dirt-and-grass-covered roof. Flowers in hanging baskets and planters added a splash of color to the weather-beaten wood and straw-colored grasses covering the hillside and the crown of the house.



They drew near the house to a crescendo of barking. Valentine guessed three dogs, and he and Duvalier approached empty-handed.



"At least we know we have the right house. We haven't seen another one for five miles," Duvalier said.



"I've got a gun," a female but not very feminine voice called from the shadows of the house. "You're welcome to water from the pump, but there's no food or roof here for strangers."



"We're here to speak to Tommy Cortez," Valentine called over the barking.



"No one here by that name. You're lost, sounds like."



"We have some messages from Mr. Victor. We got the directions from him."



The unseen figure contemplated the news for a moment, and even the dogs went silent. "My husband's not home. Your business is with him. If you want to wait, just tell me where you'll be, and I'll tell him when he returns."



"Ma'am," Duvalier said, "we've come clear across Kansas, and we're heading farther west. We've lugged this case all the way from the railhead, hoping for some help when we got here. Food and horses, in other words."



"Horses? You see a barn here?"



Valentine put a restraining hand on Duvalier's shoulder.



"Mrs. Cortez, we're here to help if we can. Is your husband missing?"



Valentine felt the hard casing of the unseen woman's manner break inside the shadowy interior. "Three weeks and two days," a much smaller voice said from the shadows. The door opened, and a short raisin of a woman in a denim smock stepped out onto the porch, gripping a rabbit gun. Years of dusty Colorado summers were written on her face in vertical lines. "Never been gone this long. I'm about out of my head with worry. It wasn't even much of a trip, just up to Fort Rowling."



They ate a meal of corn bread and drippings and drank prairie tea under the low ceiling of the Cortez home. Like a rabbit warren built for humans, the house behind the half-buried facade was a series of rooms and passages, mostly filled with cobwebbed relics as a sort of indoor junkyard. A generator chattered away; judging from the piping, it burned local natural gas to light and ventilate the house. The musty smell was offset, to Valentine's mind, by the welcoming, earth-insulated coolness of the interior after the hot August sun.



"My husband brought me out of Garden City, Kansas, almost thirty years ago, now," Mrs. Cortez explained while moving about the tiny kitchen. She had grown garrulous after letting them in. "He always was a traveler. Tall and handsome, he was. Still is, even with the mileage. Just his size made most of the varmints in Kansas avoid him. He made money getting messages into Denver, New Mexico, wherever. The New Order had just got itself worked out by then, everything all organized to suit them. After years of fighting and starvation, lots of folks were happy to stay put where they were told and do what was ordered. But I saw there was no future in it, and when Tommy asked me to go, I went. He had found this place in the middle of a whole lotta nowhere and had been slowly fixing it up. We were happier than we had a right to be, considering what was going on beyond the horizon." She removed a pistol from her apron and sat down to her own meal.



"It's always been just the two of you?" Duvalier asked.



"Yes, we couldn't have children. Something wrong with one of us, I expect, but no way of knowing these days. Not that we failed on account of trying," she said, a shy smile creeping across her face. "There was Karl, an orphan boy



Tommy picked up on one of his trips. He stayed with us about three years, but moved on to Denver when he was seventeen. Nobody around here-he was lonely, poor boy. Or I should say nobody around here worth knowing. These lands get all sorts of trash passing through, and I'm not as brave as I once was. I get scared if I'm left alone. That's why we've got the dogs."



The curs in question snored in a companionable heap on an old sofa. They sported the curled tails and short-haired, irregular coloring of mongrels, and as soon as their mistress had dropped her suspicions, they turned into a tail-wagging, tongue-lolling trio of family pets.



Valentine cleared the table and worked the pump in the sink. As he washed the dishes, he noticed a half-folded note on the counter. Making sure that his body blocked him from the table, he dried a finger and turned it open.



To Who Finds This Note:



The house and all in it are yours. Tom's been gone these days and I must find him. I can't stay alone in this house no more or I'll be a suicide God forgive me the nights are too much and I don't sleep with him away. I will find him or. . .



Valentine folded it closed again. "I'm sorry he's overdue. Bad for us-we were hoping he could serve as a guide to this part of Colorado. But of course that's not important compared to you."



Mrs. Cortez brightened. "I used to know the land between here and Denver real well. In the years since, I've changed but the hills haven't. With you two along, I'd feel safer following the trail to Fort Rowling. And yes, we do have horses. The stable's just hid; it's in an old foundation you'd think was just a collapsed house unless you got within spitting distance. There'll be news of him there. Whether he's there or not, you can pick up a guide. Good place to hear news, too, if that's what you're after."



"Sounds like the best plan for all of us," Valentine said. * * *



Valentine enjoyed riding the dry, lonely country. The horses, tough mustangs with muscles of steel and adamantine determination to accomplish whatever the rider asked, whether bearing packs or saddles, were in better condition than most horses he had known. The three dogs added an air of a picnic to the trip, for they explored the countryside with such canine joie de vive that the accompanying humans could not help sharing in their high spirits. They were out of the KZ, no checkpoints to dodge, watchful eyes of the residents no longer on them. Finding water was the only problem, but between their guide's memory and Valentine's nose, they went from waterhole to waterhole without too much searching.



The nights passed a little more nervously. There might be slim pickings for any Reapers wandering away from Kansas, but human lifesign in such an empty land would show up all the brighter on a Hood's psychic radar. Mrs. Cortez must have thought the Cats a quiet couple. Valentine and Duvalier sat at the tiny, shielded campfires, in a lifesign-lowering trance that had many of the benefits of sleep. Her small talk continued despite her unresponsive companions until she drifted off to sleep.



Then came glorious dawns. The horizon always seemed a little higher than the observer. To Valentine, it felt as if he were in a vast shallow arena, with only high, wispy stratus clouds watching their performance.



They were a matter of "a few more hours'" ride from Fort Rowling when the dogs alerted. All three narrow snouts pointed northwest at the same moment, ears cocked to attention. Valentine's ears picked up the sound of vehicles.



"Motors. Maybe two," Valentine said, and Duvalier nodded agreement.



"It's most likely Denver soldiery, but we might want to get under cover anyway," Mrs. Cortez said, sliding off her saddle. "Guess my ears aren't what they used to be."



They took cover in the lee of a horseshoe-shaped hill among a spread of scraggly oneseed junipers. Mrs. Cortez held the horses, which took the opportunity to nose among the branches for the dark blue berries, and ordered the dogs down next to her. Valentine and Duvalier chose a spot on the crest to observe.



Two wide-framed cars, minuscule in the distance, bumped along the remains of a former road, moving south. As long as they stuck to the road, they were little threat.



"Just brownish off-road cars," Valentine called back down.



"You sure they aren't green? Denver folks have their rigs painted green, sometimes they got a white star on'em, too."



"Maybe they're just dirty," Duvalier suggested, but even she did not sound convinced.



They traveled more carefully after that. They found the road the jeeps had used, but the tire tracks told no clear tales, except that the jeeps weren't the only vehicles that had used the road recently. A mile past the road, Valentine picked up the smell of humanity on the light afternoon breeze as they walked their horses.



"People up ahead," he said to Duvalier. "Don't look startled-it's probably a stillwatch. Let's worry about it behind some cover."



They wound around a bend in a hill, cutting off the scent, and stopped. After that it was a matter of outwatching the watchers. Sooner or later curiosity would force them to reveal themselves. Duvalier volunteered to go after them while Valentine and Mrs. Cortez made a pretense of tending to the horses.



Valentine was wondering how to phrase it when Duvalier let out an exasperated breath. "Don't look like that, Val. I'll be gentle."



Within an hour she descended from the grassy hills carrying an unfamiliar rifle behind a matched pair of uniformed soldiers. A second gun bobbed on her back.



"Look, she found one," Valentine said.



Mrs. Cortez narrowed her eyes. "Good-size boy. That's a Denver regular, not one of the Rangers they use here on the Frontier. Something must be going on. I hope she was polite; the Denver troops get riled easily."



Duvalier walked her prisoner into camp, chatting with him as they approached the horses. The soldier spoke first.



"Look, friend, you're in Colorado now. Ambushing and hitting a soldier brings a heap of trouble your way, especially now. Better tell your girl to give me my rifle back. In about five minutes, you'll have twenty guns pointed at you from these hills."



Valentine shrugged. " 'My girl' is actually in charge here, more or less. I wouldn't get too heavy-handed with the threats, Private. Your sergeant might ask us some questions, and if he finds out this 'girl' about half your size surprised you and got your gun without even having one of her own, well, I wouldn't care to be you."



The soldier, who had parkston stenciled on his breast, glanced around at the crests of the low surrounding hills, as if the unnamed sergeant were in danger of overhearing that someone had taken his gun.



"But we don't want that to happen," Valentine continued. "As far as we're concerned, you nailed us from good cover, having sense enough to ask questions first and shoot later, and from our conversation you decided to bring us in to see your officer. If we give you your gun back, can we trust you not to do anything foolish?"



"Yes, sir," Parkston agreed. His comrade nodded, dispelling the suspicious air hanging between them.



Duvalier returned his rifle, a restored version of the old M-16 battle rifles of the U.S. Armed Forces. "What are you doing so far from home? I've never seen a Denver regular this far out on the frontier before," she observed.



"I probably shouldn't say," Parkston said. "Maybe the sarge can tell you more-he's leading this patrol."



The patrol in question chose this moment to reveal themselves. A line of men came over the top of the hill from the same direction Duvalier had appeared with the boy. Valentine heard others moving at the crest of this hill, staying hidden from sight but not being quiet enough to fool either him or the dogs, who at this moment were startled out of making themselves agreeable to Parker by the new arrivals.



The sergeant and a small team approached, rifles ready but pointed down.



"Howdy, folks," said the thirty-something man with the stripes. He exuded calm confidence, which was just as well since none of his team looked over twenty, and nervous boys with guns in a potentially hostile situation needed a lot of reassurance. "What are you doing this far into the DPZ?"



Mrs. Cortez ended up doing the introductions, her nasal western twang being similar to the sergeant's own. "My-name is Cortez, and I'm looking for my husband, a pack trader last on his way to Fort Rowling. These two are with me-you might say they're helping a nervous old woman."



One of his men opened his mouth to say something, but the sergeant cut in. "Seen anything unusual west of here?"



"Two vehicles a couple hours back, moving south," Valentine spoke up.



"They were too far away to tell who they belonged to, you or someone else," Duvalier spoke up. "Sergeant, I'm no stranger to the Protective Zone. I've been to the South Platte Trading Post before on a cattle drive. None of us are friends of the New Order."



The sergeant lit a cigarette, and Valentine recognized the noxious smell of clove tobacco. "The jeeps were ours. But whether you're friends of Kur or no, it won't hurt you to know that Fort Rowling's gone. Burned right to the foundation. Done from the inside too, not artillery or any kind of heavy weapon as far as we know."



"What?" Mrs. Cortez and Duvalier said, nearly simultaneously.



Valentine rooted in his pocket and came up with a pack of cigarettes. He passed out two or three each to the sergeant and his men. The youths hooted, and the sergeant lit his and threw away the homemade smoke.



"Only bodies left to tell.the tale," the sergeant continued. Valentine saw that the sergeant still held his gun in a way that wasn't threatening, but the barrel had to rise just thirty degrees to put a bullet through his chest. "Never saw anything like it before. They must have been surprised; there's a secret bunker in the gulch well back of the fort where the dependents are supposed to go if trouble's coming. Not a soul in there, or any sign of a fight, for that matter, at least at the refugee bunker. Fort Rowling put up a struggle, judging from the shell casings. They were at the walls for a bit. The gate was blown to bits. Some officers say a rocket, but I think demolition charge. The blast was just too big for anything else that you wouldn't need railcars to haul. Whoever planted the charge must not have minded machine-gun bullets."



"What was the garrison?" Valentine asked.



"Full complement is around eight hundred, but about half that is almost always on patrol or doing escort duty. Arming the camp casuals would mean six hundred men available for the defense. Fort Rowling wasn't just some little hole in the wall either. It was our strongest Frontier post. Mortar pits, two howitzers, I don't know how many support weapons. There's even a rail line that goes out to within ten miles of the fort, a project that don't look like it's going to be completed now."



"Tell them about the dependents," one of the sergeant's men said.



"Mrs. Cortez doesn't want to hear that."



"No, go ahead-I need to know. Please, Sergeant," she implored.



The sergeant tossed away his butt. "I've seen plenty of death, but not like this. Heads stuck on the ends of sticks, babies flung against walls and left on the ground like some sparrow that hit a window, houses burned with the people handcuffed inside them . . . I'm gonna be thinking about what I saw there till the day I die now, and I thought I was a hardcase." He paused to take a gulp of air and to swallow. "Mrs. Cortez, I'm sure your husband died on the walls if he was in there-if he could have carried a gun, they would have armed him."



Mrs. Cortez let out a deep breath, blinking back tears. "Maybe he ran for Denver. Oh, I do hope so."



"We'll get you there and you can find out, ma'am," the sergeant said. Valentine met his eyes and gave the NCO a tiny bow of his head in gratitude.



"Don't make sense," Parkston said. "I mean, whenever the Reapers hit somewhere, they take prisoners. It's the whole point. If people go dying on them in the fight, they're no use for ... for food."



"I'll tell you what really doesn't make sense," the sergeant said, recovering from his memories somewhat. "The tracker's report. He said that his best guess was three two-and-a-half-ton trucks carrying about fifty men. Fifty men. Fifty Reapers couldn't have taken that fort, I don't think, not that I've ever heard of that many Reapers all together anywhere but a big city. What fifty men could wipe out six hundred in a defensive position?"



"I think you'd better take us to whoever is in command now at Fort Rowling," Duvalier said.



Valentine saw what was left of the fort up close. It had been in a good defensive location, with water for man and livestock and stands of timber nearby. The wooden parts of the walls were burned, the blockhouses and bunkers demolished. The first order of business of the troops on the scene had been to decently tend to the bodies; long rows of fresh graves stood a little distance from the fort, looking out over a gully through which a sluggish stream still flowed in this, the hottest month of the year.



After surveying the burnt ruin, Duvalier asked for a chance to speak privately with Colonel Wilson and his adjutant, Major Zwiecki, of the Denver Free Colorado Corps. They left Mrs. Cortez hunting through the personal effects of the dead, looking for evidence of her husband. The colonel obligingly gave them his time. He was as desperate for an answer as any of the Denver soldiers or what was left of the Fort Rowling garrison, now returning from the patrols and convoys that had preserved their lives.



Rather than reoccupying the fort, he had pitched his men's tents on some high ground a half-mile from the fort, so the men didn't have to spend the night among the bloodstains and burned timber. Night had fallen, and the tent was lit by electric light provided by a mobile generator.



"Gasoline we got," the major said when Valentine asked about the logistics that allowed mobile electricity. "There's a lot of shale oil in Colorado. We make it in blasting furnaces; you get the shale hot enough, and it bleeds oil. I've got a brother-in-law there. He says the refinery is really something. Up in the mountains. They call it Hell's Penthouse. The name comes from the huge slag heaps everywhere, and the furnaces that run over nine hundred degrees."



Duvalier cut in. "We're here to find out what happened-let's stick to the subject at hand."



"If you've got an answer, or even a good guess, I'd like to hear it," Colonel Wilson said as the major turned* to pour coffee.



"Colonel, have you ever heard of Reapers using guns?" Duvalier asked.



"No, but I'm ready to listen to anything. Because other than an attack by a few thousand flying Harpies who carried off their dead and never landed so's to make tracks, you have to get to really weird theories to explain this."



The major added, "The more I see of the Kurians, the more my definition of 'really weird' gets pushed further and further out."



"We work for Southern Command," Valentine broke in after a look and a nod between him and Duvalier. "We're looking into some new unit the Kurians have, a group called the Twisted Cross under somebody known as 'the General.'"



The major and the colonel exchanged looks. "That's sub-stanial," Wilson said, "and I'll tell you why. We've kept this from the troops, but there was one survivor of the Fort, a very old woman who lived there with her daughter and her daughter's family."



"Pretty tough old bird," the major added.



"She didn't see anything of the fight-they were in a basement. She heard a lot of gunfire. Some men busted into the basement, dressed in body armor with heavy black helmets. They dragged the others off, but they pulled her up into the compound and made her watch what was going on. She said when they were done, one of the men in body armor 'hissed' at her 'Tell them the General did this.' Also something about coming back. That's why we kept it from the troops."



"Hissed?" Valentine asked. "Those were her words?"



"Yes, 'hissed,' " the colonel said. "I've never been close enough to hear a Reaper, but I guess they have kind of a breathy voice."



"That big tongue doesn't leave much room for vocal cords," Valentine said. "They hiss, all right. I'd like to speak to her."



"Then you'll have to chase her to Denver," the colonel said. "She's been sent there for debriefing. I didn't want the men worried about what happens if this General comes back. I'm doing enough of that for the whole regiment.



"I don't know what could stop them. If they can do this to Fort Rowling, I don't know that any of our posts outside Denver could."



They said good-bye to Mrs. Cortez inside the Denver Corps camp. She had found a bloodstained hat belonging to her husband; a bullet had come in through the side of the wide-brimmed ranch fedora.



"At least I know it was quick," she said fatalistically.



Duvalier hugged her and whispered something in her ear that Valentine did not even try to hear. Sometimes using his "hard ears" just depressed him, giving him glimpses into others' private lives he wished he had not heard.



"You two take the horses, and mine besides. I'm going west to Denver with the dogs. Make myself useful in a hospital or stable. Been out there so long, it'll be nice to be among people, even if you're living under a set of rules long enough to choke a horse." The tears were in her voice, but not in her eyes.



They held a final meeting with the colonel and his adjutant. The colonel had requested a briefing about the Twisted Cross for all his officers, but Duvalier demurred, wishing to keep a low profile in camp. They told all they knew of the General, speaking on the record as Cats "A" and "Z" of Southern Command as Major Zwiecki took notes. As far as everyone else in the Denver Free Colorado Corps was concerned, they wanted to be known as just a pair of concerned relatives looking for one of their dead at Fort Rowling. That they also were remembered as some drifters who inexplicably had their horses shoed, were given a pack saddle, canteens, food, fuel, and a pass allowing them on Denver Protective Zone Territory at DFCC expense, Valentine never learned.



They followed the Republican River east out of Colorado, traveling slowly and carefully. Avoiding contact with farm, camp, or town, they worked their way back up into Nebraska. Valentine changed back into his Private Rice attire when Duvalier judged it safe enough, and they worked out yet another cover story to explain their presence. But this corner of Nebraska, so close to the Colorado border, was empty enough to allow them to move without being noticed. And so they came to the river Platte and its adjoining roads and tracks. After looking for their faces on wanted posters at station offices and finding none, they traded the horses for travel warrants from a corrupt rail-yard chief. Soon they rode again on the railroad, this time working for their passage-riding in and cleaning out eastbound cattle cars.



They were inside an empty cattle car on a siding outside their original pseudo-destination of Grand Island, sharing a bag of corn bread, when a train approached from the west. It moved with a mile-eating speed as the powerful engines pulled it. When the train roared by, Valentine counted an extra guard-car, thirty nondescript freights, and another heavily armored guard-car before the steel-colored caboose passed by. Whipped by speed and wind, two flags fluttered next to each other on the caboose: black with a spiderish design centered on the standard.



It was the white swastika of the Twisted Cross.