He did feel a bit guilty about taking over this mission-it was really a job for an NCO-but: Time I got away from home for a little. Maybe I'll be appreciated more that way when I get back! And anyway, the Pentagon's ruins and bones. We're back to kings leading from the front.
"And we have to do it smart," he said. "Riding in with our lances all shiny and bright, they'll just run away again-plus the Protector's men might object; like Eric says, they claim this area too. We don't want to start that war just yet. So: let's waddle and quack like decoy ducks. Might be fun, at that."
"So you admit it's an abuse of rank for personal gratification," Eric said.
"Shut up!" Luanne said, then snorted and rolled her eyes. "Signe's got her an actual reason to do this, since her fellah's going, but will you please stop volunteerin' to get me kilt, husband? Men! It's like you're fighting over the right to muck out the stables!"
"It's a dirty job, but-" Havel and Eric began in unison, then grinned at each other. Luanne turned to her father and threw up her hands in exasperation:
"Idiots, every one, starting with Dumb Blondie here. I make an exception for you, Daddy."
Hutton shook his head. "You're too easy on me, honey pie. When I was Eric's age, I was still ridin' roughstock at rodeos and it don't come no more stupid than that; the brains kick in when you get past forty and slow down a bit. You should be gettin' to your years of discretion soon, Mike, if you live that long."
Ouch.
They'd hidden the decoy material several miles back, in an overgrown orchard just south of the Amityville-Hopewell road, with an observer in a tree up on Walnut Hill to make sure nobody was snooping. A group of senior apprentices waited there, and they helped Havel and Signe out of their war harnesses-you had to be a bit of a contortionist to shed a hauberk by yourself. The slow fall of white blossom in the mild wind made it more pleasant than usual.
Signe looked at herself in the mirror; her naturally wheat-gold hair was now a dark glossy brown; and she brushed off a few pink petals clinging to the damp locks and sighed: "Well, Miss Clairol still works. Long dark hair and short blond roots after this."
"You look a lot more convincing as a brunette than I would as a blonde, sis." Luanne smiled; then she turned to Havel and snapped open a makeup kit. "Let's get to work on the bossman."
When she'd finished he took the mirror and looked at himself. His bowl-cut black hair was now cropped until it looked like a homemade crewcut just growing out; she'd stained the distinctive white scar that ran from the corner of his left eye up across his forehead, which made it much less noticeable, and covered the little brand mark between his brows. Luckily he had a naturally dark complexion and took the sun well-probably a legacy of his Anishinabe grandmother, given that the rest of him was a mix of Finn, Swede and Norse-so the stain went well with his usual weathered tan. Contact lenses salvaged from an optometrist's in Salem turned his pale gray eyes brown-black.
The clothes were what a pair of well-to-do stock farmers from east of the Cascade mountains might wear; tough pre-Change hiking pants with cargo pockets and a couple of neatly repaired rips, check cotton shirts, boots, broad-brimmed hats, duster-style leather jackets that fastened with toggles across the left side of the torso, sewn with links of chain on either shoulder to offer a little protection from a downward blow. Their plain round shields were unexceptional, and so were the Bearkiller-style backswords and powerful recurve bows in saddle-scabbards; that type of equipment was made over much of Oregon these days, not just in the Outfit's territory, and anyway smiths in Larsdalen and Rickreall had a nice sideline in selling blades and fighting gear.
All was not quite as it looked. The leather coats were of much thinner material than they appeared, and were lined with light chain mail made from fine steel wire, with an under-layer of nylon; the hats held what Pam called "secrets"-steel skullcaps concealed by the crown of the Stetsons.
Havel's flat Upper Midwestern vowels were at least a bit different from the way a native of the Valley spoke, and Signe could sound like someone from the Bend country at need. The fifteen loose horses actually were from over the mountains, ranch-bred of good working-quarter horse stock; the type was a steady export of the eastern slope. The last element of their ensemble was a light but sturdy two-wheeled cart, also genuine-it came from a shop in Bend owned by someone who'd made equipment for rodeos before the Change-drawn by a single horse between shafts, and bearing bundles and bales covered by a tightly roped tarpaulin, as well as a little surprise cooked up in the elder Larsson's workshop laboratory. The driver was a tow-haired teenager, a military apprentice named Kendricks picked for his wits and ability to keep his mouth shut, with his bow slung on the frame beside him, along with a spear in a holder and a hatchet and long knife at his waist. Everything was in good repair, but appropriately dusty and battered, the way you would be after weeks on the road.
Signe exchanged a brief embrace with Eric, then hugged Luanne and Will Hutton too. "Don't worry, sis, Unc' Will. I'll keep Mike out of trouble."
"You do that, honey-pie," he said gruffly. Then to Haveclass="underline" "Take us about an hour and a half to get into position."
"I don't expect they'll try and jump us at the inn or on the road there, there's too much traffic. More likely to try something tomorrow, north of the crossing," Havel said. "Crusher's too smart to crap where he eats, or we'd have strung him up by now. He's been working this stretch for more than a year."
"Got me a rope ready and a tree all picked out," the Bearkillers' second-in-command said grimly. "That big one back to the tavern would do right nice."
Hutton hated bandits with a cold passion; three Idaho amateurs had jumped him just after the Change, and they'd figured out what had happened to firearms before he did; plus they'd been survivalists of a particularly nasty breed, the Aryan Brotherhood. They would have killed him and raped his wife and daughter and then probably killed them if it hadn't been for Michael Havel and Eric Larsson stumbling onto the scene, fresh out of the wilderness where their plane had crashed.
A mirror flicked a signal from atop Walnut Hilclass="underline" the All clear. Havel swung into the saddle-a plain cowboy-Western type, not the more specialized military models the Bearkillers had been making the last few years. Signe got the herd moving; she'd grown up around horses, at Lars-dalen and the family ranch in Idaho, and she was still better than he was at handling the beasts en masse.
He leaned over to speak a last word to Hutton. "Just get in place on the north side of Holdridge Creek and keep a sharp eye out for the signal," he said. "We'll take it slow to let you have time to do it without drawing attention to yourselves, and there's plenty of cover. We'll come on in the afternoon, or next morning, depending on what we find at the Crossing Tavern. If they jump us anywhere, it'll be between there and the Protector's border, so they can hide the horses in the marshland. The reports are pretty conclusive that nobody gets snagged at the tavern itself."
Of course, if they blow our cover, they might make an exception.
Hutton nodded and gripped his hand for a moment; Havel waved to the others and followed. As he went he turned and looked over his left shoulder at the Amity Hills-at Walnut Hill, in particular.
Would it be worth keeping a permanent lookout there? he thought.
The hilltop posts were useful for keeping an eye on things-he'd scavenged telescopes and binoculars everywhere they could be found-and lights and mirrors let them flash a message quickly. But building them high enough to be useful was expensive in labor and materials, and each required a crew who could be doing something else:
Like plowing this land, he thought.