It was near evening when Edouard and Berta approached the cow camp, Edouard carrying the pack now. The camp consisted of a cabin that housed the herd girls, along with the pans and utensils they used to make butter and cheese; and a springhouse, woodshed, storage shed, two long cow sheds, the hay shed, a privy, and a guest cabin for the men when they came to make hay.
A large dog bounded toward the couple, but kept some distance, not threatening, or even barking after sounding his initial alarm. His strong tail waved tentatively.
Meanwhile Macurdy and Lotta waited a couple of hundred feet away, invisible. The dog paid them no heed-either couldn't see them, or simply didn't notice them standing motionless against a background of forest.
The barking brought two aproned "herd girls" from the cabin, one a graying woman in her fifties, square, with strong square hands, the other a shy-seeming girl, slight and blond, perhaps twelve years old. The older woman, Edouard supposed, provided the know-how and confidence. The younger no doubt helped her milk and cut firewood, herded the cows and learned the trade. Their auras reflected basic mild contentment, but just now, the older did not entirely trust the visitors.
Both Edouard and Berta tried to look as fit and vigorous as they could, which was easier now that they weren't limping. Edouard told the women they were on a hiking holiday. Macurdy's pack tended to support the story, though it would have been better had it resembled the usual German rucksack.
Using some of Macurdy's counterfeit reichsmarks, Edouard bought new butter, uncured cheese, freshly baked bread, and a jug of buttermilk, promising to return the jug before they left.
"Where will you sleep tonight?" the woman asked. "It gets very cold at night, with so much snow left. The sun goes down, and 'poof', it is freezing! We always keep the cows in at night until after it has melted."
Edouard and Berta looked at one another, then back at the woman. "What do you suggest?" he asked.
"You can stay in the hay shed tonight. I will charge you-" The woman thought a moment. "One reichsmark." Edouard didn't hesitate. Reaching into his pocket, he gave her another reichsmark, and thanked her.
The dusk thickened, dew began to form on the grass, and they returned to the hay shed to sleep, Berta holding Lotta in her arms like a mother might hold her child. Edouard had told Macurdy, the evening before, why the Occult Bureau had been interested in Lotta. Macurdy wondered what kind of dreams she had.
Macurdy watched the woman take Edouard and Berta to the hay shed, leave them there and return to the cabin. Moments later Edouard reappeared, and looking toward where they'd parted, motioned to him. Macurdy and Lotta joined them, and Edouard told what he'd arranged. Macurdy agreed: Sleeping in the hay shed seemed a good idea, and a very good bargain. And both Edouard and Berta could see and read auras; they should know-suspect at least-if the woman was a threat.
After they'd eaten, they went outside in the failing daylight, to a nearby outcrop of dark rock still warm from the sun. There the invisible Macurdy worked on their feet and legs again. Meanwhile the two herd girls went to the hay shed with pitchforks, and for a while carried hay to the cow shed a few yards distant.
Despite himself, Macurdy worried again. "Are you sure the woman can be trusted?"
"I would know if she couldn't," Edouard answered, and Berta agreed. Then Berta asked Macurdy to show them again how he healed, and this time Edouard also tried to see, or at least feel the energy threads.
40
Lotta
Bruno Krieger's mood was deteriorating. To start the day, the plane's engine had failed the preflight checklist, and he'd waited on the ground in Munich for more than two hours while the pilot and a mechanic had worked and cursed, getting it ready to fly. Then, after several hours of flying, they'd had to land at Kempten and refuel, and their luck had not improved since. If they didn't find his quarry fairly soon, they'd have to leave and refuel again, which would take them till evening. Where in hell was the American bastard?
He turned and spoke to his pilot. "Fly over the Vorarlberg Highway," he said. "West from Bludenz."
It was unreasonable to expect he'd gotten that far, but this Montag was an unreasonable man, an extraordinary man, aside from any occult powers he might have. The paratrooper of whatever nationality was trained to exceptional performance, reflecting determined will even more than physical toughness. And among them, some stood out. And among those…
The pilot had said nothing, responding to the order by banking and gaining altitude, to clear the mountain ridge to the south. Short, compact, hard-looking, he was a taciturn man who smoked incessantly. Different though they were, he and Krieger were highly compatible, and through Krieger's influence, he received enough assignments to keep more or less busy, and in food and cigarettes. Like Krieger he was non-political and non-military, a highly skilled professional who mouthed party slogans only when he had to, and with reservations. Politically he was a complete cynic, militarily part cynic, part pragmatist. For him, the important thing was to fly, preferably on interesting missions, though they were the exception. In the first war he'd been a decorated fighter pilot with twenty-three kills, but at age fifty-six and with a heart murmur, the Luftwaffe was not interested in him. Nor was the SS, except as a civilian sometime-employee, which was how he preferred it.
They cleared a high crest, Krieger's calm eyes taking in the landscape to the south. Ahead lay the Ill Valley, with broad pastures, areas of dark forest, and along the river a railroad and narrow paved highway, with cultivated fields on the better ground. Here and there, tongues of forest led down to it from steep slopes higher up, mostly accompanying small streams that flowed into the Ill.
Krieger's attention became more focused as they approached the highway. If the people he hunted were on the road, it seemed to him they d be easily seen. If they were keeping to the forested land, steeper and rougher, that was something else, but the going there would be much more difficult for them.
The pilot turned west above the road, and Krieger aimed his binoculars along it. Soon he saw a man and woman walking beside the pavement, each carrying something over a shoulder. A rolled blanket perhaps. But what might there be that he wasn't seeing? His focus sharpened. Something, something-
Abruptly a retinal image popped into his consciousness, of a man in uniform, wearing a pack and with a child on his shoulders) It was as if the man had suddenly materialized a few meters ahead of the couple. A chill surged over Krieger, accompanied by exultation, then the plane was past, and not wanting to alarm them, he let the pilot continue west.
"Did you see the couple we passed on the road?" he asked.
"Yes."
"How many were with them?"
"With them?" It seemed a strange question. "None."
If verification were needed, Krieger thought, that was it. I saw the third and fourth, he did not. Therefore, the man the child is Montag, hidden in some sort of concealment spell.. He'd heard of concealment spells: Because of his own talents, he'd read rather widely on the occult-the traditional as well as popular and quasi-technical literature-but had never seen evidence that concealment spells were real. "Continue down the valley," he said, "then circle back, wide, so they do not see you. They must not suspect our interest. "
He took the microphone from its mount and called a young Officer waiting at the airfield outside Kempten, giving him instructions. The officer listened intently, jotting notes on a map, then got his squads quickly aboard their plane. While the twin engines warmed, he briefed the pilot. Ten minutes after the call, the planeload of SS Fallschirmjager rolled down the runway, lifting sluggishly with little tarmac to spare, then climbed and turned south. It would, the pilot told himself, fly better after his human cargo had jumped.