Page 106 of Choice of the Cat (Vampire Earth 2)
"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.
