Gordon’s view of the moldy, broken-down trading post kept rotating. It was hard to focus on anything in particular, let alone the man talking to him.
He hung by a rope tied around his ankles, his hands dropping to a couple of feet above the muddy wooden floor. General Macklin sat next to the fire, whittling. He looked at Gordon each time his captive’s steady tortional swing brought them face to face. Most of the time, he smiled.
The constriction on his ankles, the pain in his forehead and sternum, were nothing to the heavy weight of blood rushing to his brain. Through the rear door Gordon could hear low whimpering — a pathetic enough sound in itself, but definitely a relief after the screams of the last half hour or so. At last, Macklin had ordered Bezoar to stop and let the women do some work. There was a prisoner in the next room he wanted tended, and he didn’t want Marcie and Heather beaten senseless while they still had their uses.
Macklin also wanted to be able to draw out his session with Gordon in peace and quiet. “A few of those crazy Willametter spies of yours lived long enough to be questioned,” the Holnist commander told him mildly. “The one in the next room here hasn’t been too cooperative yet, but we have reports from our invasion force as well, so the picture’s pretty clear. I have to give you credit, Krantz. It was a pretty imaginative plan. Too bad it didn’t work.”
“I haven’t any idea what in hell you’re talking about, Macklin.” The thickness in Gordon’s tongue made it hard to speak.
“Ah, but I see from your face that you do understand,” his captor said. “There’s no need to maintain secrecy anymore. You needn’t concern yourself any longer for your brave girl soldiers. Because of their sneaky mode of attack, we did suffer some losses. But I’ll wager far fewer than you’d hoped for. By now, of course, all your ‘Willamette Scouts’ are dead, or in chains. I compliment you on a worthy attempt, however.”
Gordon’s heart pounded. “You bastard. Don’t give me the credit. It was their own idea! I don’t even know what they planned to do!”
For only the second time Gordon saw surprise cross Macklin’s face. “Well, well,” the barbarian chieftain said at last. “Imagine that. Feminists, still around in this day and age. My dear Inspector, it seems we come to the rescue of the poor people of the Willamette just in the nick of time!” His smile returned.
The smugness on that face was too much to bear. Gordon reached for anything at all to try to wipe it off. “You’ll never win, Macklin. Even if you burn Corvallis, if you crush every village and smash Cyclops to bits, people will never stop fighting you!”
The smile remained, unperturbed. The General tsked and shook his head. “Do you think us inexperienced? My dear fellow, how did the Normans domesticate the proud, numerous Saxons? What secret did the Romans use to tame the Gauls?
“You are indeed a romantic, sir, to underestimate the power of terror.
“Anyway,” Macklin went on as he sat back and resumed his whittling, “you forget that we will not remain outsiders for long. We’ll recruit among your own people. Countless young men will see the advantage in being lords, rather than serfs. And unlike the nobility of the Middle Ages, we new feudalists believe that all males should have a right to fight for their first earring.
“That is the true democracy, my friend. The one America was heading toward before the Constitutionalist Betrayal. My own sons must kill to become Holnists, or they will scratch dirt to support those who can.
“We will have recruits. More than plenty, believe it. With the astonishing population you have up north, we can have — within a decade — an army the like of which has not been seen since ‘Franklinstein’ Civilization crumbled under its own hypocrisy.”
“What makes you think your other enemies will give you that decade?” Gordon gritted. “Do you think the Californians will let you sit on your conquests long enough to lick your wounds and build that army of yours?”
Macklin shrugged. “You speak out of very little knowledge, my dear fellow. Once we’ve pulled back, the loose confederation in the south will break apart and forget us. And even if they could put aside their own perpetual petty squabbles and unite, those ‘Californians’ you speak of would take a generation to reach us in our new realm. By then we’ll be more than ready to counterstrike.
“For another thing — and this is the delightful part — even if they pursued us, they would have to go through your friend on Sugarloaf Mountain to get at us!”
Macklin laughed at the expression on Gordon’s face. “You thought I didn’t know about your mission? Oh, Mr. Krantz, why do you imagine I arranged to have your party ambushed, and to have you brought to me? I know all about the Squire’s refusal to help anyone outside the line from Roseburg to the sea.
“Isn’t it wonderful, though? The ‘Wall of the Callahan Mountains’ — the famed George Powhatan — will keep to his valley, and in so doing, he will defend our flank while we consolidate up north… until at last we are ready to begin the Great Campaign.”
The general smiled pensively.
“I’ve often regretted that I never got my hands on Powhatan. Whenever our sides clashed he was always too slippery, always somewhere else doing mischief. But this way is even better, I believe! Let him have ten more years on his farm, while I conquer the rest of Oregon, Then it’ll be his turn.
“Even from your point of view, Mr. Inspector, I am sure you’ll agree that he deserves what’s coming to him then.”
There was no way to answer that except by silence. Macklin tapped Gordon with his stick, just hard enough to set him rotating again. As a result, Gordon found it hard to focus when the front door opened and a pair of heavy moccasins padded into view.
“Bill an’ I checked up along th’ mountainside,” he heard the huge augment, Shawn, tell his commander. “Found th’ same tracks as we saw before, up by th’ river. I’m sure it’s th’ same black bastard as slitted those sentries.”
Black bastard …
Gordon breathed a word silently. Phil?
Macklin laughed. “There now. You see, Shawn? Nathan Holn wasn’t a racist and neither should you be. I’ve always regretted that the racial minorities were at such a disadvantage in the riots and postwar chaos. Even the strong among them had little fair chance to excel.
“Now consider that Negro soldier out there. He has cut the throats of three of our river guards. He’s strong, and would have made an excellent recruit.”
Even upside down and spinning, Gordon could make out Shawn’s sour expression. The augment did not dispute his commander aloud, however.
“Pity we have no time to play games with the fellow,” Macklin continued. “Go and kill him now, Shawn.”
There was a swirl of disturbed air, and the burly veteran was out the door again, without a word and almost without sound.
“I really would have preferred to give your scout a warning, first,” Macklin confided in Gordon. “It’d have been more sporting if your man out there knew that he was up against something — unusual.” Macklin laughed again.
“Alas, in these times it’s not always sensible to play fair.”
Gordon thought that he had felt hate before this moment. But his cold anger right now was unlike anything he remembered. “Philip! Run!” He cried out as loud as he could, praying the sound of his voice would carry over the patter of raindrops. “Watch out, they’re—”
Macklin’s stick lashed out, striking Gordon’s cheek and sending his head rocking back. The world blurred and nearly faded into blackness. It took a long time for his eyes to clear, blinking away tears. He tasted blood.
“Yes,” Macklin nodded. “You are a man. I’ll give you that. When the time comes, I’ll try to see to it you die like one.”