Страница 111 из 120
"Or hailing and storming," he added; they'd had enough time to realize how undependable the weather was here.
The station was a small four-square brick building, with a stable and paddock to one side where the spare teams were housed; the train's driver and his assistant led their tired beasts there to be turned over to the ostlers, and began assembling the replacement. The travelers clustered around the pump to one side of the station, taking turns to work the worn hickory of the handle. Once the trough had been filled and their own horses were dipping their muzzles into it the humans held their heads beneath the flow and drank heavily from cupped hands-the deep tube wells here were generally safe.
Rudi sucked down another draught of the cold, slightly mineral-tasting liquid, then splashed some over his head and brushed the long red-gold locks back, enjoying the momentary coolness in his sweat-itchy scalp.
"Gods of my people, you always feel like it's time for a shower here!"
"Welcome-" Ingolf began.
"To the Midwest," the rest of them chorused.
Valeria was a town so small that any Mackenzie dun would have made three of it, but the streets were crowded right now. Most of that was a convoy of big six-wheeled wagons drawn by huge gray horses much like those that pulled the train, just finishing loading from a series of warehouses of pre-Change sheet metal by the side of the railroad track.
Same breed, but better horses, Rudi thought, admiring their glossy spotted coats and hooves the size of di
A man came around one of them, talking to someone behind him, then froze as he saw Rudi and his party.
No, he's looking at Ingolf, Rudi thought, as the man walked slowly towards them, eyes wide with wonder.
Then he drew himself up, coming to attention. He was in his mid-twenties, Rudi's age, or nearly. A little shorter, a bit under six feet, but broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, with short auburn hair and blue eyes and a wide, snub-nosed face; that was emphasized by the small blob of scar tissue on the very end of his nose. Most of the little finger of his right hand was missing, and a bit of the top of the next digit.
Moves well, Rudi thought. Good balance. His eyes went to the wrists and shoulders, and the swing of the walk. Strong, and quick with it, but there's just a shadow of a hint of a limp in the right leg.
His clothes were plain but good quality; knee-boots and indigo-blue denim trousers with a horseman's leather inserts on the i
He faced Ingolf, came to attention and saluted briskly. "Corporal Heuisink, reporting for duty, Captain Vogeler, sir!" he barked.
Ingolf frowned like a thunderstorm. "Sloppy as a hog in a wallow, as usual, Heuisink! You're not on your daddy's farm down in Iowa now, by God!"
Both men burst into roars of laughter and fell into each other's arms, hugging like bears, dancing around in a stomping circle, pounding each other on the shoulder and back. Then they held each other at arm's length, each examining the other with wonder.
"Jack, you miserable son of a bitch!" Ingolf said, and mimed a punch to the face. "You couldn't get a message to me in Hawarden? You know how long we waited in that lousy oozing chancre on Iowa's fat ass, eating overpriced pizza and listening to ourselves sweat?"
The other man pretended to stagger. "You expect the heliograph net to work out there, you ignorant cheesehead?" he said. "There's a surface-mail letter on its way!"
"Ignorant? I left Readstown because I had to. You were the one who thought that being a hired soldier for those cheapskate dickheads in Marshall was going to be an adventure. "
"I ended up in deep shit, far from home. That is adventure."
Rudi laughed aloud; only someone who'd had adventures knew how true that was, though it wasn't the whole of the matter. Mary cleared her throat.
"Why is it that when men play, they always play at hitting and insulting each other?" she said.
Ingolf turned with his arm around the younger man's shoulders; he was laughing, and his battered, craggy face was more relaxed than Rudi had seen it.
Younger, in fact, he thought; as if the brown beard and scars had been removed. A lot of the time you forget he's only five years older than I.
"Mary, this is Jack Heuisink, who was dumb enough to run away from a perfectly good home and enlist in Vogeler's Villains back when we were fighting the Sioux War, up north in Marshall."
"I was a teenager," Heuisink said defensively. "More… hormones… than sense."
"I kept him alive long enough to come to his senses, which happened about the time he put his right hand in the way of an Injun tomahawk headed for my noggin."
"Good as new, what's left of it," Heuisink said, flexing it. "Gave me a decent excuse to come home, too."
"Jack, Mary Havel, my intended."
Jack's eyes went wide; his eye skipped from the patch to her face, down to her feet and up to the braided yellow hair. They also skipped to the worn hilt of her longsword, and the gear on the dappled Arab behind her, and then widened a little as he realized that Ritva was identical to her-except for the missing eye and the scar.
"Pleased to meet you, Miss Havel," he said, and shook hands. "Ingolf always did have more luck than he deserved."
"I keep telling him that," Mary said, smiling.
"He's not the only lucky one," Ritva said, and introduced herself. "And if you play dice with her, use your own."
That turned into a general exchange of names. Heuisink's hand was hard and strong in Rudi's; he could see the same instant calculation in the other's eyes as they measured each other- this one is dangerous. Then the Hawkeye looked along the line of travelers.
"Well, you've assembled another prime bunch of plain old-fashioned cutthroats," he said to Ingolf when the introductions were done.
"Even if they're prettier than we were on average," he added gallantly, with a slight bow to the twins and Mathilda and Virginia.
"Rudi's ramrod of this outfit, besides having the misfortune to be my future brother-in-law," Ingolf added. "I'm number two."
Heuisink's eyes went wider. "Where's Kaur and Singh and Jose and the others? Everyone wondered what the hell happened when the Villains didn't make it back from that crazy salvage trip to the East Coast. Hell, we thought you were all dead and eaten by the wild men."
"Everyone but me is dead," he said; the pleasure of the meeting leached out of Ingolf's face for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and pushed away grief with a visible effort: "Christ, it's years ago now. I haven't forgotten, though; and we're here to get some answers, among other things."
Heuisink grunted as if he'd been belly-punched. "Jesus, all of them?"
"Backstabbed by that little shit Kuttner… and that's something we need to talk to the Colonel about. But that's old news. The latest is we're here from the West Coast. Oregon, by God!"
That brought a silent whistle. "You are one traveling son of a bitch, Ingolf. How'd you get through the Sioux?"
"We spent a while in a hocoka, as a matter of fact."
The younger man ostentatiously craned his neck to look at the back of Ingolf's head. "And you've still got your hair?"
"Not only that, you're now addressing Iron Bear, adopted member of the Kiyuska tiyospaye of the Ogallala," he said. "Mostly courtesy of Rudi here, and Miss Kane."