LaGrange, Wisconsin: The town of LaGrange is nothing much to speak of. A crossroads with a feed store and an auxiliary dry goods shop marks the T-intersection of an old state road with a county highway. The irregular commerce that occurs there takes place with small green ration coupons, worthless outside the boundaries of the Madison Triumvirate. Across from the feed store is the house and ringing stable of the blacksmith. The blacksmith and his wife are old work-hard, play-hard bons vivants, and the breezeway between their house and garage is the nearest thing to the local watering hole. One or both seem always ready to sit down with a cup of tea, glass of beer, or shot of backyard hooch. The blacksmith's wife also gives haircuts, and longtime residents can tell how many drinks she's had by the irregular results.
The real LaGrange is in the surrounding farms, primarily corn or bean, hay, and dairy. The smallholds spread out beneath the high western downs that dominate the county. Their produce is transported to Monroe, and the thrice-a-week train to Chicago.
Survival here depends on having a productive farm and not drawing unwanted attention. During the day, the patrols drive their cars and ride their horses, looking for unfamiliar faces. Vagrants and troublemakers disappear to the Order building in Monroe and are seldom seen again. At night the residents stay indoors, never able to tell if a Reaper or two is passing through the area.
The residents live as a zebra herd surrounded by lions. There is safety in numbers and the daily routine, and sometimes years pass before when anyone other than the old, the sick, or the troublemakers gets taken. Their homes are modest, furnished and decorated with whatever they can make or salvage. The Kurian Order provides little but the ration coupons in exchange for their labor, although a truly outstanding year in production or community service will lead to a bond being issued that protects the winner's family for a period of years. The Kurians provide only the barest of necessities in food, clothing, and material to maintain shelter. But humanity being what it is, adaptable to almost any conditions, the residents find a kind of fellowship in their mutual deprivations and dangers. Barn raisings, roofing parties, quilting bees, and clothing swaps provide social interaction, and if they are punctuated with "remembrances" for those lost to the Kurians, the homesteaders at least have the opportunity to support each other in their grief.
Valentine remembered little of his first few days with the Carlsons. Gonzalez's condition worsened, and as his Wolf sank into a fever brought on by the shock of his injury, Valentine found himself too busy nursing to notice much outside the tiny basement room.
For three long, dark days Valentine remained at Gonzalez's bedside, able to do little but fret. The wound had seemed to be healing well enough, though just before the fever set in, Gonzalez had complained that he either could not feel his hand at all or that it itched maddeningly. Then, on the second evening after their arrival, Gonzalez had complained of light-headedness, and later woke Valentine by thrashing and moaning.
Kurt, the little boy from Beloit, had been sent on his way westward, and the Wolves had the basement room to themselves. Mrs. Carlson blamed herself for not properly cleaning the wound. "Or I should have just amputated," she said reproachfully. "His blood's poisoned now for sure. He needs antibiotics, but they're just not to be had anymore."
Valentine could do little except sponge his friend off and wait. It seemed he had been in the darkness for years, but he could tell by the growth on his chin that the true count was only days. Then on the third night, Gonzalez sank into a deep sleep. His pulse became slow and steady, and his breathing eased. At first Valentine feared that his scout was slipping toward death, but by morning the Wolf was awake and coherent, if weak as a baby.
He summoned Mrs. Carlson, who took one look at her patient and pronounced him in the clear then hurried upstairs to heat some vegetable broth. Rubber limbed, Valentine returned to his own cot and lost consciousness to the deep sleep of nervous and physical exhaustion. That evening, with the rest of the house quiet and Gonzalez in a more healthy slumber, Valentine sat in the darkened living room talking to Mr. Carlson.
"We owe our lives to you, sir. Can't say it any plainer than that," Valentine said from the comfort of feather-stuffed cushions in an old wood-framed chair.
"Lieutenant," the shadow that was Mr. Carlson replied, "we're glad to help. If things are ever going to change, for the better anyway, it'll be you boys that do the changing. We're rabbits in a warren run by foxes. Of course we're going to help anyone with a foxtail or two hanging from their belt."
"Still, you're risking everything to hide us."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Lieutenant. A way to reduce the risk."
"Please call me David, sir."
"Okay, David. Then it'll be Alan to you, okay? What I wanted to say was with your buddy sick-"
"He's getting better."
"Glad to hear it. But I spoke to my wife, and she says he should stay for at least a couple of weeks. Between the wound and the fever, it'll be a month before you can do any hard riding, maybe. Your horses could use a little weight anyway."
Valentine gaped in the darkness. "A month? Mr. Carlson, we couldn't possibly stay-"
"David, I don't know you very well, but I like you. But please let a guy finish his train of thought once in a while."
Valentine heard the ancient springs in the sofa creak as Carlson shifted his weight forward.
"What I'm going to suggest might seem risky, David, but it'll make your stay here a lot safer if we can pull it off. It'll even get you papers to get out of here again. I mentioned to my brother-in-law that I might have some visitors in the near future, within the next week. I told him about a guy I met during summer labor camp up by Eau Claire. Summer labor is something we get to do now and then, keeping up the roads and clearing brush and such. While I was there I met some Menominee, and as a matter of fact you look a bit like them. Anyway, I told Mike that I met a hardworking, nice young man who was looking to move down here, marry, and get himself a spread. I hinted that I had in mind that this young guy would marry my Molly and told him that I invited him down to meet her. Of course, he's just made up to fit your description."
Valentine's mind leaped ahead, making plans. "And you think he'd get us some papers? Something official? It would make getting out of here again a lot easier if we had some identification."
"Well, it wouldn't cut no ice outside this end of Wisconsin. But it would get you to Illinois or Iowa at least. You'd have to lose the guns, or hide 'em well. You could keep to the roads until the hills begin; if questioned, you could say you're out scouting for a place with good water and lots of land, and that's only to be found around the borders. Also, I'd like to bring your horses down from the hill corral. I hate having them up there. Too much of a chance of their getting stolen. Or us getting the ax for withholding livestock from the Boss Man."
"If you think you can pull it off, I'm for it," Valentine decided.
"Give you a little chance for some light and air. Also you can get a taste of life here. Maybe someday a bunch of you Wolves will come up north and liberate us. Or just bring us the guns and bullets. We'll figure out how to use them."
Two days later, Valentine found himself standing outside the sprawling home of Maj. Mike Flanagan, Monroe Patrol Commissioner of the Madison Triumvirate. Valentine wore some oversize overalls and was barefoot. Carlson had driven him the twenty-three miles starting at daybreak in the family buggy.
"I don't know about the rest, but the major part fits him," Carlson explained at the sight of the little signboard on the driveway proclaiming the importance of the person residing within. "Major asshole, anyway."
Valentine did not have to feign being impressed with the major's home. It was opulent. Half French villa, half cattle-baron's ranch, it stretched across a well-tended lawn from a turret on the far right to an overwide garage on the left. Its slate-roofed, brick-covered expanse breathed self-importance. A few other similar homes looked out over Monroe from the north, from what had once been a housing development. Now the mature oaks and poplars shaded only grass-covered foundations like a cemetery of dead dreams.
"Listen to this," Carlson said, pressing a button by the door. Valentine heard bells chime within, awaking a raucous canine chorus.
The door opened, revealing two bristling black-and-tan dogs. Wide-bodied and big-mouthed, they stared at the visitors, nervously opening and shutting their mouths as if preparing to remove rottweiler-size chunks of flesh. The door opened wider to expose a mustachioed, uniformed man with polished boots and mirrored sunglasses. He wore a pistol in a low-slung, gunfighter-style holster tied to his leg with leather thongs displaying beadwork. Valentine wondered why the man needed sun protection in the interior of the house, as well as a gun.
"Hey, Virgil," Carlson said, nodding to the neatly uniformed man. "I've brought a friend to see the major."
Something between a smile and a sneer formed under the handlebar mustache. "I guess he's in for you, Carlson. Normally he doesn't do business on a Saturday, you know."
"Well, this is more of a social call. Just want to introduce him to someone who might be a nephew someday. David Saint Croix, meet Virgil Ames."
Valentine shook hands, smiling and nodding.
Ames made a show of snapping the strap securing his automatic to its holster. "He's in the office."
"I know the way. C'mon, David. Virgil, be a pal and water the horses, would you?"
Carlson and Valentine passed a dining room and crossed a high-ceilinged, sunken living room, stepping soundlessly on elaborate oriental rugs. Valentine hoped he could remember the details of the story Carlson had told his brother-in-law.
The major sat in his office, copying notes into a ledger from a sheet on a clipboard. The desk had an air of a tycoon about it; carved wooden lions held up the top and gazed serenely outward at the visitors. The dogs padded after the visitors and collapsed into a heap by the desk.
Mike Flanagan wore a black uniform decorated with silver buttons and buckles on the epaulets. He exhibited a taste for things western, like a string tie with a turquoise clasp and snakeskin cowboy boots. He looked up from his work at his guests, drawing a long cheroot from a silver case and pressing a polished metal cylinder set in a stand on his desk. An electric cord ran down the front of the desk and plugged into a wall socket, which also powered a mock-antique desk lamp. Bushy eyebrows formed a curved umbrella over freckled, bulldog features.
"Afternoon, Alan. You look well. How's Gwen?"
Carlson smiled. "Sends her best, along with a pair of blueberry pies. They're outside in the basket."
"Ahh, Gwen's pies. How I miss them. Siddown, Alan, you and your Indian friend."
The electric lighter on the desk popped up with an audible ping. Flanagan lit his cheroot and sent a smoke ring across his desk.
"How are things in Monroe, Mike?"
Flanagan waved at the neat little piles of paper on his desk. "The usual. Chicago's pissed because the Triumvirate is diverting so much food to that new fort up in the Blue Mounds. I'm trying to squeeze a little more out of everyone. I'm thinking about upping the reckoning on meat out of the farms. Think you can spare a few more head before winter, Alan?"
"Some of us can," Carlson asserted. "Some can't."
"Look at it this way: Your winter feed will go farther."
"Well, it's for you to say, Mike. But I don't know how it will go down. There's been some grumbling already."
"By whom?" Flanagan asked, piercing Carlson with his eyes.
"You know nobody tells me anything on account of us being close. Just rumor, Mike. But this visit isn't about the reckonings. I want you to meet a young friend of mine, David Saint Croix. I mentioned he'd be visiting and helping me with the harvest."
"Pleased to meet you, David." Flanagan did not look pleased. In fact, he looked perturbed. "Hell, Alan, first you take in Little Black Sambo, and now a mostways Indian?"
"He's a helluva hard worker, Mike. After I teach him a few things, he could run a fine farm."
"Let's see your work card, boy," Flanagan said.
Valentine's mind dropped out of gear for a second, but only a second. "Sorry, Major Flanagan. I traded it last winter. I was hungry, you know. It didn't have my real name on it anyway."
"Dumb thing to do, kid. You're lucky Alan here has connections," Flanagan said, putting down his thin cigar. He rummaged through his desk and came up with a simple form. "Fill this out for him, Alan. Just use your address. I'm giving him a temporary work card, six months. If he improves an old spread, I'll give him a permanent one."
"I need two, Mike. He brought a friend. There's a lot of guys in the north woods looking for something a little more permanent."
"Don't press me, Alan. Jeez, these guys are worse than Mexicans; another one is always popping up outta somewhere."
Carlson leaned forward, spreading his hands placatingly. "With two men helping me this fall, I can clear off an upper meadow I spotted. I was also thinking of building a pigpen across the road and raising some hogs, since meat is becoming such an issue. These men can help me, and I can be ready to go in the spring."
"Fine, Alan, two work permits. Your place is going to be a bit crowded."
"It's only temporary. Thanks a lot, Mike. Gwen and I really appreciate it. So does Molly, of course. Stop by anytime."
"Yeah," Flanagan mused, "you're a fortunate man, David. She's a real beauty. Some of my patrollers say she's kinda standoffish, so I wish you luck." The major pulled out a seal punch, filled out the expiration dates, signed both cards, and punched them with a resounding click. "You're lucky I take this with me. I don't trust my secretary with it; she'd probably sell documents. She can forge my signature pretty good."
"I'm in your debt, Michael," Carlson said, handing over the work cards.
"You've been in my debt since I let that little Fart or whatever his name is stay with you."
"Frat."
"Whatever. That big place and nothing to work it but women; I pity you. I'd offer you lunch, but I'm too busy to make it, and Virgil's hopeless. My girl is out at her parents' place this weekend."
"Thanks anyway, Michael, but it's going to be a long way back. The horses are tired, so they'll have to walk most of the way."
"Thank you, Major Flanagan," Valentine said, offering his hand. Flanagan ignored it.
"Thank my brother-in-law and his wife, not me. Guess they want a bunch of little half-breeds as grandchildren. Up to me, I'd take you to the Order building and let you wait for the next thirsty blacktooth, seeing as you don't have a work card and you're in Triumvirate lands."
Carlson made a flick of a motion with his chin. Valentine moved past the sleeping dogs and out the door, followed by his benefactor. Flanagan tossed away his cheroot and returned to the papers strewn across his desk.
Outside, the horses were very thirsty. Ames was poking in the picnic basket.
"Virgil, please take that in, will you? We'll water the horses ourselves. The pies are for Michael, and Gwen put in a jar of preserves for you. She remembers your sweet tooth."
The smile-sneer appeared again. "That was kind of her. You know where the trough is. I'll bring the basket back out to you."
As Carlson and Valentine brought the horses over to the trough, Alan spoke softly to Valentine. "See what I mean by Major Asshole?"
Valentine clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Seems like he's trying hard for a promotion to colonel."
That evening, after the long ride back, the Carlsons celebrated the "legitimate" arrival of their guests. Even the Breit-lings attended, filling the dinner table past its capacity. As they made small talk, Valentine drew on his memories as a forester in the Boundary Waters to flesh out his David Saint Croix persona.
Valentine ate at Mrs. Carlson's end of the table, across from Molly, grateful for the room the corner chair gave his left elbow. Frat sat on his right, eating with the single-minded voracity of a teenager. The Breitlings were next to Mr. Carlson at the other end of the table, with the younger Carlson girl, Mary. Gonzalez stayed in his bunk in the basement, still too weak to socialize. Mrs. Carlson explained his absence to the Breitlings as being due to illness and a fall from his horse during the journey south.
During the dinner, Carlson told stories about his summer labor, mixed with fictitious ones about how he came to know "young Saint Croix here." Valentine played along as far as he dared but worried that the younger girl might say something about the Wolves or their horses that would blow the story. Mary kept her eleven-year-old mouth shut; her only comment during dinner was a request to ride Valentine's Morgan someday.
"Of course, once he's rested. Any time I'm not using him, that is. Of course I'm going to do some riding, looking for some nice land to get a farm going."
"Maybe Molly can show you around the county," Mr. Carlson suggested.
Molly focused her eyes on the plate in front of her. "Sure, Dad. Since you went to all this trouble to find me a husband, it's the least I can do. Glad you've given me so much say in the matter. Should I get pregnant now, or after the wedding?"
"Molly," Mrs. Carlson warned.
The Breitlings exchanged looks. Valentine figured that discord was rare in the Carlson house.
Molly stood and took up her plate. "I'm finished. May I be excused?" She went to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
Valentine could not tell how much of the byplay was real, and how much was acting.
Two days later, he and Molly Carlson rode out on a fine, cool morning with a hint of fall in the air. Valentine's indomitable Morgan walked next to Molly's quarterhorse. She wore curious hybrid riding pants, leather on the inside and heavy denim elsewhere, tucked into tall rubber boots, and a sleeveless red flannel shirt. They chatted about their horses as they headed west toward the high, bare hills.
"Lucy here is great with the cows," Molly said, patting the horse on the neck affectionately. "They'll follow her anywhere. It's like she can talk to them."
"I've always wondered if animals talk to each other," Valentine ventured.
"I think they can, sort of. In a real simple way. Like if you and I had to communicate by just pointing at stuff. We couldn't write the Declaration of Independence, but we'd be able to find food and water and stuff. Warn each other about enemies. Hold it, Lucy's got to pee."
Molly stood up in her stirrups while the mare's stream of urine arced into the grass behind her.
"You know horses," Valentine observed. "Those are fine riding pants. Do you ride much?"
"No, too much to do at the farm. My sister's the horse nut. But I did make these breeches. I like working with leather especially. I used to have some nice riding boots, but some creep in the patrols took 'em off me. These rubber ones are hotter than hell, but they're good for working around the cows. I sewed a leather vest for Dad, and when Mom does her calving, she's got a big leather apron that I made."
They trotted for a while. Watching the up-and-down motion of Molly posting left him desperate to switch the conversation back on.
"I get the feeling you don't like us staying," he finally said when they slowed to cut through a copse of mixed oaks and pines. The sun had warmed the morning, but Valentine was flushed from more than the heat of the day.
"Oh, maybe at first. Still don't know what you're doing here-"
"Just passing through. I tried to find out what was going on up at Blue Mounds," Valentine explained.
"You probably wouldn't tell us the truth anyway. I don't know much about the insurgents, but I know you wouldn't tell what you were doing so they couldn't get it out of us, just in case. Or is it because I'm just a girl?"
"It's not that. We have plenty of women in the Wolves. And I hear over half of the Cats are women, too."
"We've heard about you. Werewolves, always coming in the dark, just like the Reapers. Don't you guys go into Kansas and Oklahoma and kill all the people there, so the Kurians have nothing to feed on?"
"No," Valentine said, somewhat taken aback. "Nothing... quite the opposite. Just this spring my company brought over a hundred people out of the Lost Lands. That's what we call places like this."
"Lost Lands," she said, rolling her eyes skyward. "I'll buy that. We're lost, all right. How would you like to spend your life knowing it's going to end with you being eaten? I've developed a lot of sympathy for our cows."
"Your uncle seems to be watching out for you all," Valentine said, trying to reassure her.
"My uncle. I should tell you about him. No, my uncle doesn't mean shit. A hungry vampire could still take us any night of the week, good record or no. Uncle Mike has done everything in his life exactly as the Kurians want, and he still doesn't have one of those brass rings. And even if you get it, any Kurian can still take it away if you screw up. And if I'm all testy over the husband thing, it's just because it makes me think about something I'd rather not think about. Let's go up this hill. The view's pretty nice from up top."
They walked their horses toward the grassy slope. They crossed a field with a herd of the ubiquitous Wisconsin Hoi-steins in it, and Molly waved to a man and a boy mending a fence.
"That's the Woolrich place. The poor woman who lives there is on her third husband. The first two got taken, one while doing the morning milking, and the second when a patrol came through just grabbing whoever they could get their hands on because a bunch of Reapers dropped in for a visit."
They rode to the top of the hill and dismounted, loosening the girths on their wet animals. The horses began to nose in the tall, dry grass at the top of the rolling series of hills. Farmland stretched below in all directions, crisscrossed with empty roads. A hundred yards away, an old highway running along the top of the hills had degenerated into a track cleared through the insistent plant life.
"Is that why you don't want to marry?" Valentine asked. "You're scared of becoming a widow?"
"Scared? I'm scared of a lot of things, but not that in particular. If you want to talk about what really scares me... But no, to answer your question, I don't want the life my mother has. She's brought two children into the world, and is taking care of another, and for what? We're all going to end up feeding one of those creatures. I don't want any children, or a man. It just means more fear. It's easy to talk about living your life, trying to get along with the system, but you try lying in bed at night when every little noise might mean something in boots and a cape is coming in your house to stick its tongue into your heart. The way I see it, the only way for us in the Madison Triumvirate to beat these vampires is to cut off their food supply. Quit pretending life is normal."
"I see."
"My grandmother on my mother's side, Gramma Katie Flanagan, she was a teacher or something in Madison before everything changed. When I was about eleven, we had a long talk. She was getting old, and I think she felt her time was coming. As soon as the old people slow down, the patrols show up, sometimes with some bullshit story about a retirement home. She told me about in ancient times there were these Jewish slaves of the Romans who rose up and fought them from a fortress on top of a mountain. The Romans finally built a road or something so their army could get up to the fortress, and all the Jews killed themselves rather than be slaves again. Gramma said if everyone were to do that, it would cut off their power, or whatever they get from us."
Valentine nodded. "I heard that story, too. It was a place called Masada. By the Dead Sea, I think. I always used to tell Father Max-he was my teacher-that I wouldn't have killed myself if I were up there. I would have taken a Roman or two with me."
"If it had just been another battle, would anyone have remembered it?" Molly asked.
"That's a good question. Maybe not. I think Gandhi, you know who he is, right? I think he suggested that the Jews should have done something like that when the Nazis were exterminating them. To me, that's just doing the enemy's job for them. Maybe some of you should try to sell your lives a little more expensively."
"That's easy for you to say. You have guns, friends, other soldiers to rely on. About all we have is a broken-down old phone system and a set of code words. "John really needs a haircut' for 'We have a family at our place that is trying to go north." Not much help when the vampires come knocking."
Strange how her thoughts mirror mine. I was thinking the same thing the night I got here, Valentine mused.
"Maybe we can't all commit suicide," she continued. "But for God's sake, we should quit helping them. We feed the patrols, work the railroads, keep the roads repaired. Then when we get old and sick, they gather us up like our cattle. They got it pretty good just because it's human nature to ask for another fifteen minutes when you're told you have an hour to live."
"Brave words," Valentine said.
"Brave? Me?" She sat down in the grass and plucked at the burrs clinging to her jeans. "I'm so scared at night I can barely breathe. I dread going to sleep. It's the dream."
"You have nightmares?"
"No, not nightmares. A nightmare. It's only one, but it's a doozy. Wait, I should tell this properly. We have to go back to Gramma Flanagan again. She told me a story about when the Triumvirate had first got things organized in Madison. I think it was in 2024, in the middle of summer. They had a group of men-well, some of them were Reapers, too-called the Committee for Public Safety. About two hundred people were working for this committee, in charge of everything from where you slept to where you went to the bathroom. The three vampires on the committee were kind of the eyes and ears of these Kurians who were dug into the State Capitol building. I don't know how much you know about the Kurian Lords, but they sure love to live in big empty monument-type buildings. I bet a bunch of them are in Washington. But back to the story my Gramma Katie told me. There was this woman, Sheila Something-or-other, who got caught with a big supply of guns: rifles, pistols, bullets, equipment for reloading, all kinds of stuff. I think even explosives. One of the vampires said her punishment was up to the people who worked for the Committee, and if it wasn't to their liking, they'd kill every last one of them and get a new bunch.
"So with that incentive, the whole committee goes over to where she's being held. And they tore her to bits. With their bare hands. They took the pieces and stuck them onto sticks. Gramma said the sticks looked like pool cues, or those little flagpoles from school classrooms, stuff like that. They put her head on one, her heart on another, her liver, her breasts, even her... you know... sex parts. They made streamers out of her intestines, and painted their faces with her blood. Then they paraded back to the basketball court at the university where the Committee met and showed what they did to her to the vampires. Some of them were drunk, I guess. The Reapers looked at it all and told them to eat the bits, or they'd be killed. Gramma said there were fistfights over her liver."
She sat silent for a moment. "Maybe I was too young to be told that story. It gave me a nightmare that night, and pretty often ever since. I'm always dreaming that I've done something wrong, and the crowd is coming for me. They're all around, and they grab me and start pulling me apart. That's when I wake up, cold and sweaty. Mary says I sometimes say 'no, no' in my sleep. She calls it the 'no-no' dream. It seems silly in the daylight, but try waking up from it at two in the morning on a windy night."
"I have a dream, or nightmare, I guess, that keeps coming back," Valentine began. "Never told anyone about it, not even Father Max. My mom and dad and little brother and sister got killed by a patrol when I was just a kid. I come into the house-I remember it smelled like tomatoes in the kitchen that day, but that's not in the dream-and there's my mother, lying in the living room, dead. Her legs were... Well, I guess they had raped her, or started to anyway. They shot my dad in the head. But in my dream, it's like they're still alive, and I can save them if I just could fix the bullet wounds. I press my hands against the blood that's coming out of my mom's throat, but it just keeps pulsing and pulsing out, while my little brother is crying and screaming. But I can't save them. Can't..." he said, voice trailing off. He looked up at the clouds to try to get the tears to go away. High white cirrus clouds painted the blue sky with icy white brushstrokes.
"I guess everyone has their own set of nightmares," Molly said.
"Well, we're getting plenty of help. Whatever happened to your grandmother?"
Molly Carlson wiped tears from her own eyes with the back of her hand. "Oh, she injured her back and got taken away. The vampires got her in the end, I'm sure. She got driven away by my uncle Mike. Her son. Her own fucking son."
The following Saturday, Molly taught Valentine how to drive the four-wheeled topless buggy. The thicker reins felt funny in his left hand, the buggy whip held up in his right. Valentine was used to riding English-style with split reins, although he mostly used his legs to control the horse while riding. Driving was a completely different skill.
"You're doing great, David, really great," Molly said, beaming for a change. They were driving well ahead of the family cart, which held the rest of the Carlson clan as well as the Breitlings. "Of course, normally we drive the buggy tandem, which is tougher to manage, but they need the two horses for the big cart. And remember, if you ever have a load to carry in back, to place it evenly in the bed and secure it if you can. An unbalanced load will exhaust a horse faster than anything."
The combined families of the Carlson farm were on their way to Monroe. Mr. Carlson explained that there was a speaker in town, a visitor up from Chicago to give a lecture for the New Universal Church. A Kurian organization, the New Universal Church did not demand weekly assemblies but rather encouraged people in the Kurian Order to come to the occasional meeting to catch up on new laws and policies. But now and then a true "revival" took place, and attending them was a way of keeping in the Order's good graces.
The clouds piled up and darkened, threatening rain. Carlson opined that some would use it as an excuse not to attend, but this made him all the more determined to go. Showing up in spite of precipitation would just make their presence all the more notable, considering the long round trip to and from Monroe. "If we're going to play their game, we should really play it," he added, stowing tarps in the two horse-drawn vehicles and reminding everyone to bring rain slickers and hats.
Only Gonzalez-much improved but still not up to a long trip in the wet-and Frat stayed behind. The young man wanted to keep an eye on the stock and said he felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of white faces.
So it turned out that Molly and Valentine ended up together in the buggy, bearing four baskets full of lunch, dinner, and gifts of food for Mrs. Carlson's brother, with the rest following in the larger wagon. Valentine's Morgan trotted along behind the buggy, brought along as the equine equivalent of a spare tire.
At lunch, a few miles outside of Monroe, the first sprinkles of rain came. When they climbed back into the buggy, Valentine draped the tarp over himself and Molly and drove on, the heavy raindrops playing a tattoo on the musty-smelling oiled canvas. They used the buggy whip as an improvised tent pole and peered out from a cavelike opening, their faces wet with rain. Valentine felt the warmth of her body against his right side, her left arm in his right, helping him hold up the tarp. The rich, seductive smell of femininity filled his nostrils without his even using his hard senses. She also had a faint, flowery smell of lavender.
"You smell good today," Valentine said, then felt himself go red. "Not that you smell bad normally... I just mean the flowery stuff. What is that, toilet water?"
"No, just a soap. Mrs. Partridge, the blacksmith's wife, she's a wonder at making it. Puts herbs and stuff in some of them. I think she started doing it in self-defense; her husband picks up animals that have died of disease or whatever, turns them into pig and chicken feed. Dog meat, too. I guess he smelled so bad after working with the offal, she went into scented soaps as a last resort."
"It's nice. Hope I'm not too bad. This tarp kind of reeks."
"No. For a guy who traipses around in the hills, you're really clean. Some of the county men could take a lesson." Valentine felt a stab, remembering Cho's near-identical joke. "A lot of them are going to use this rainstorm as an excuse to skip their Saturday bath." She turned her face and pressed her nose to his chest. "You just smell kind of tanned and musky. Like the saddle from a lathered horse. I like it."
Valentine suddenly felt awkward. "So who exactly is this we're going to hear?"
"My dad says he's a speaker from Illinois, someone affiliated with their church. Kind of a bigwig. This church the Kurians run, it's not like you worship anything. The Triumvirate doesn't discourage the old churches, but they do listen to what gets said. As long as the ministers stick to the joys of the afterlife, and God's love in troubled times, they're fine. Anyone who speaks out against the Order is gone real fast. Most of them get the hint. No, this New Universal Church is more designed to get you to like the Kurian Order. They are always trying to recruit people into the patrols, or to come away and work their machinery, railroads, factories, and stuff. The real slick ones try to convince you that the Kurians came as the answer to man's problems. Some answer."
"So we just sit and listen, then go home?"
"That's about it. They try to recruit people right then and there. Take them up on stage, and everyone is supposed to applaud. Just clap when everyone else claps, and don't fall asleep. You'll be fine. I've got a feeling today's topic is going to be the importance of motherhood. They want more babies in Wisconsin."
The tent they eventually reached dwarfed the old public tent in the Boundary Waters. From a distance it resembled a sagging pastry. But as they grew closer, the mountain of canvas turned into an earthbound white cloud, complete with festive little flags atop the support poles that jutted through the material to either side of the center arch.
Horses, wagons, and vehicles of all description including cars and trucks were parked in the fields of the fairgrounds. Most of the people were already sheltering from the intermittent rain beneath the tent. The Carlson wagon pulled up, and the families all got out and released the horses from their harnesses. Tied to numerous posts in the field, the horses munched grain from their nosebags and stamped their unhappiness at being left in the weather. Carlson nodded to the uniformed patroller navigating the field, wearing a poncho that also covered much of his horse against the rain.
"Major Flanagan is inside. He's got some seats lined up for you, Carlson," the patroller called.
"Thanks, Lewis. Are you gonna get a chance to come in out of the rain?"
"Naw, we had our meeting this morning. All about how duty isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing. Your brother-in-law gave a pretty good speech. Be sure to tell him I said that."
"Deal. If you get real desperate out here, we got a thermos with some tea that might still be hot in the buggy. Help yourself."
"Thanks, Alan. Enjoy."
True to the patroller's word, Major Flanagan had some seats set off right up in front. There was a main stage, with a little elevated walkway going out into the crowd connecting it to a much smaller stage. The Carlsons, with the addition of Valentine and the subtraction of the three Breitlings, sat in a row of folding chairs lined up parallel to the walkway. A few hundred chairs formed a large U around the peninsular stage, and the rest of the spectators stood.
As part of the day's festivities, a comic hypnotist warmed up the crowd. His show was already in progress when Valentine sat at one end of the row. Molly sat to his right, then her sister, with Mr. Carlson next to her. Mrs. Carlson took the seat in between him and her brother, and they chatted as the hypnotist performed. He had a pair of newlyweds on stage; the young groom was hypnotized, and the wife was asking him to bark like a dog, peck like a chicken, and moo like a cow. The audience laughed out their appreciation for the act.
"I saw this guy in Rockford," Major Flanagan explained to his guests. "I recommended him to the Madison Bishop, and he got him up here for this meeting. Funny, eh?"
The young woman finished by having her husband lie down with his head and shoulders in one chair and his feet in another, four feet away from the first. The hypnotist then had her sit right on his stomach, which did not sag an inch. "Comfortable, yes?" the hypnotist asked.
"Very," she agreed, blushing.
The audience cheered for an encore, so she had her husband flap his arms and be a bird. As he flapped and hopped around the stage, the hypnotist finished off with a final joke, "Most women, it takes ten years till they can get their hus-bands to do this. How about that, ladies, after only two weeks of marriage?"
The audience laughed and applauded. "Let's hear it for Arthur and Tammy Sonderberg, all the way from Evansville, ladies and gentlemen."
After the befuddled Mr. Sonderberg came out of hypnosis, and his wife told him what he had been doing on stage, the hypnotist gave a good imitation of him to further laughter before they left the stage and returned to their seats.
A heavyset man in a brown suit that was simple to the point of shapelessness came onstage. He applauded the hypnotist as the latter backed off, bowing. Valentine marveled at the man's hair, brushed out at the temples and hairline until it looked like a lion's mane.
"Thank you, thank you to the Amazing Dr. Tick-Toe," he said in a high, airy voice.
"That's the bishop of the New Universal Church, David. From Madison," Mr. Carlson explained quietly across his two daughters.
The bishop stepped to the podium on the small stage at the end of the runway and picked up the microphone. "Thank you all for coming out in the rain, everyone," he said, looking at the speakers mounted high on the tent poles which broadcast his voice. "The Harvest Meeting is always a serious occasion. We have a lot more fun at Winterfest, and the Spring Outing. But I know everyone has all the coming work on their minds. Well, today we have an expert on hard work on loan to us from the flatlands in the south. Won't you please welcome Rural Production Senior Supervisor Jim 'Midas' Touchet, visiting us all the way from Bloomington."
A middle-aged, hollow-cheeked man strode out on stage, dressed in a red jumpsuit. He had thinning hair combed neatly back and held in place with an oily liquid, giving it a reddish tint. White canvas sneakers covered his feet. He took the microphone out of the bishop's hand with a flourish and a bow to the audience. He exuded the energy of a man younger than his years.
"Can you all see me?" he asked, turning a full 360 degrees. "I know it's hard to miss me with this on. You see, we're all color-coded in downstate Illinois. Red is for agricultural workers, yellow for labor, blue for administration and security, and so on. In Chicagoland, you can wear whatever you want. I mean, anything goes up there. Any of you guys been to the Zoo? You know what I mean, then."
A few hoots came from the audience, mostly from the patrollers, Valentine noticed.
"Oops," Touchet continued. "I forgot we have children present."
Valentine shot a questioning glance to Molly, who shrugged. He suddenly noticed how charming she looked with her wet blond hair combed back from her face. It accentuated her features and the tight, glowing skin of a vital young woman.
"Never mind about that. I bet you're out there wondering, "Who is this guy? What does he have to show me, other than what not to wear, ever?" Anyone thinking that? C'mon, let's see your hands."
A few hands went up.
"I bet you're thinking, "How long is he going to speak?" Let's see 'em!"
A lot of hands went up. Major Flanagan, smiling, raised his, and the Carlsons followed suit.
"Finally, some honesty. Okay, since you've been honest with me, I'll be honest with you. I'm nobody, and to prove to you what a big nobody I am, I'll tell you about myself.
"I'm from Nowhere, Illinois. Actually, more like South Nowhere. Just off the road from Podunk, and right next to Jerkwater. Typical small town, nothing much happened. I grew up quick and brawny. You wouldn't know it to look at me now, but I used to have a nice set of shoulders. So I ended up in the patrols. And the patrols in downstate Illinois, let me tell you, they're really something. I didn't have a car. I didn't even have a horse. I had a bicycle. It didn't even have rubber tires; I rode around on the rims. The highlight of most days was falling off my bike. It's a little better now down there, but back in the thirties, we were lean when it came to equipment. In the winter, I walked my route. We didn't get paid back then, just got rations, so there was no way I could even get a horse at my rank.
"I spent ten long, empty years riding that bike. Farm to farm, checking on things. I carried mail. I delivered pies and pot roasts to the neighbors. "Since you're going that way, anyway," they always used to say when they asked me. I was bored. I started reading a lot. I was curious about the Old World, the good old days, people called them. Do they call them that up here, too?"
A couple of "yeps," quietly voiced, came from the audience.
"It was lonely in the patrols, and when you're lonely, you need friends. So when I found a little hidden pigpen or chicken coop on someone's farm, and they said, "Be a friend, forget you saw this, and we'll let you have a couple extra eggs when you come by," I went along. Hey, everybody wants to be a friend. So I went along, got a friend and a few eggs in the bargain. On another farm, I had another friend and a ham now and then. On another farm, some fried chicken; down the road, a bottle of milk, a bagful of corn. I had tons of friends, and I was eating real good to boot. I had it made."
The red figure paced back and forth, microphone in one hand and cord in the other, first facing one part of the audience and then another.
"Eventually, I got caught. Like I told you, I'm nobody special. And I wasn't especially bright. One day my lieutenant noticed me wobbling down the road with a ham tied to my handlebars and a box of eggs in the basket in back. I think I had a turkey drumstick in my holster, I don't remember.
"Boy, it all came crashing down in a hurry. I think I died the death of a thousand cuts as my lieutenant walked up to me. I made the mistake of asking him to be a friend, and I'd give him everything I was collecting from the farms. He didn't have any of that.
"So within six hours of my lieutenant spotting me, I was sitting in the Bloomington train station, waiting for my last ride to Chicago. I was bound for the Loop. I was very, very alone. All those friends on all those farms, they didn't come get me, or turn themselves in and take their share of the blame. They weren't my friends after all.
"Well, it's a good thing for me I got caught in the spring of forty-six. I'm sure you remember the bad flu that went around that winter. It killed thousands in Illinois, and thousands more got so weakened by it, they caught pneumonia and died just the same. So we had a serious labor shortage in Illinois. I got put to work shoveling shit. I'm sure many of you know what that's like. But that's all I did, every single day. I-worked at the Bloomington railroad livestock yards, taking care of the hogs and cows bound for Chicago's slaughterhouses. Of course, I was just on parole. Any time they felt like it, they could throw me on the next train to Chicago, and no more Jim Touchet.
"The first day shoveling, I was happy as a dog locked up overnight in a butcher shop. The second day, I was glad to be at work. The third day, I was happy to at least have a job. The fourth day, I began to look for ways to cut corners. By the fifth day, I was trying to find a nice spot to maybe take a nap where my boss couldn't find me.
"Of course, my boss noticed me slacking. He was a wise old man. His name was Vern Lundquist. Vern had worked at the railroad station in the olden days, and he still worked there. He didn't threaten me, not really. He just called me into his office and said that if I wanted to stay in his good graces, I'd better come in tomorrow and give an extra five percent effort.
"Even though he didn't threaten me, I got scared. That night I couldn't sleep. I was worried that I'd show up at work the next day, and the boys in blue would throw me on the first train to Chicago. I could be in the Loop in less than twenty-four hours."
He stood still, next to the lectem, wiping his sweating brow. His eyes passed over the Carlson family, and he smiled at Valentine. His face took on a scaly, cobralike cast when he smiled.
"That twenty-four hours changed my life. All that night, I thought about giving another five percent. How hard could that be? Vern wasn't asking me to work seven days a week, which is what most of you out there do on your farms.
"The next day, I gave the extra five percent. It was easy. I just did a little extra here and there. Did a job without being asked, fixed a loose gate. If old Vern noticed, he didn't say anything. I got worried; what if he wasn't noticing the extra five percent?
"So the next day, I did just a little bit more. Spent an extra fifteen minutes doing something I didn't have to do. Cleaned some old windows that hadn't been washed since Ronald Reagan was president. I found it was easy to give that extra five percent.
"It turned into a game. The next day, I gave another five percent. I was compounding my interest, to use an old phrase. In tiny little baby steps I was turning into a real dynamo. Jim Touchet, the guy who leaned his bike against a tree for a two-hour lunch, who always rode home on his route faster than he ever rode it while patrolling, was trying extra hard even when no one was looking.
"Vern was real happy with me. After a month, I took the job of his assistant. Within a year, I was old Vern's supervisor. I always gave that extra five percent no one else was giving. I always did more than my boss, and usually within two years I had his job.
"I said the same words to people under me. I asked for an extra five percent. That's all. An extra five percent, when you have a whole bunch of people doing it, can turn things around.
"Before I knew it, they were calling me 'Midas' Touchet. Everything I turned my hand to seemed to turn to gold. Me, the guy who never learned his multiplication tables as a kid, who couldn't stay upright on his bike, went from shit-shoveler to production senior supervisor. I'm responsible for farms from Rockford to Mount Vernon, Illinois. I answer to the Illinois Eleven. You think you have tough quotas? What are they called up here, reckonings? I've seen the figures; the Illinois Eleven are a lot more demanding than your Triumvirate up in Madison. And last year, we were over production. I know what you're thinking; we broke quota by five percent, right? Wrong. We doubled the quota. That's right, doubled. The New Universal Church is handing out brass rings to my best people like lemon drops. See mine?" Touchet asked, holding up his hand. The coppery-gold ring glinted on his thick pinkie. He passed it through his oiled hair, removed it, and flicked it into the crowd before the platform. A woman caught it, screamed, and almost fainted into her husband's arms.
"Oh my God, oh my God," she blubbered, shoving it onto her thumb as the audience gaped.
"It's no big deal, that ring. I'll get another one this fall. Not that I need it. If I could have your attention back, I'll let you in on a secret. I've already given you one secret, the secret of the extra five percent. I'm a generous man. I'll give you a twofer.
"The secret is that you don't need a brass ring. That's the beauty of the New Universal Order," he said, lowering his voice.
Valentine looked around, trying to shake the feeling of being almost as hypnotized as the young Mr. Sonderberg.
"All the Order demands is production. Efficiency. Good old hard work. The things that made this country great before the social scientists and lawyers took over. I see some old-timers out in the audience. How was it when the lawyers ran the show? Did they make things more efficient, or less?"
"Are you kidding? Anytime lawyers got involved, things got cocked-up," one old man shouted.
Touchet nodded happily. "In the old Order, how far you went depended on going to the right school. Getting the right job. Having the right degree. Living on the right side of the tracks. Being the right color. Ten percent of the people owned ninety percent of the wealth. Anyone want to disagree?"
No one did.
"And not just the society was sick. The planet was sick too. Pollution, toxic waste, nuclear contamination. We were like fruit flies in a sealed jar with an apple core. Ever done that little experiment? Put a couple flies in with some food, knock some tiny holes in the lid, and watch what happens. They eat and breed, eat and breed. Pretty soon you'll have ajar filled with dead fruit flies. Mankind removed every form of natural selection. The weak, stupid, and useless were breeding just as fast as the successful. That isn't in nature's plan. And there's only one penalty for a species that breaks the laws of Mother Nature.
"Now you can drink out of any river, and you fishermen know the streams are full of fish again. The air is clean. It sounds crazy to say, but I'm one of the people who believes the Kurians were a godsend. The scale is back in balance. We're a better people for it. The Kurians have winnowed out the useless mouths. They don't play favorites; they don't make exceptions. They keep the strong and productive and take the slackers."
A few, perhaps surprisingly few, murmured disagreement.
"I'm not asking you to agree with me. Just hear me out and go home and think about it. And do one more thing. Think about how you can give that extra five percent. I know you all work hard. But I bet each of you can do what I did: figure out some way to do another five percent. You'll feel better about yourself, and your life will be more secure. Like me, you'll find you've got a brass ring in your pocket and not even need it because you're going the extra mile. How many of you slaughter your best milker for steaks? None, right? The Kurians are the same way. They're here, they're staying, and we've got to make the best of it.
"You've heard my story. You know I wasn't born special. No great brain, not much drive. Not even good-looking. But I've got a beautiful house-I've got pictures if any of you want to see it afterwards-a real gasoline car, and a nice house picked out down south for when I retire. So I guess that brass ring is worth something after all. Napoleon used to say that every private of his carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack. Each of you should carry a brass ring in your pocket.
You can do it. Any of you out there spend ten hours a day shoveling shit? No? Then you've all got the jump on me. You're already way ahead of where I was when I decided to give that extra five percent. Whether you're sixteen or sixty, you can do what I did, believe me. Give the extra five, and it'll happen to you, too.
"Now, before I leave for the flatlands, as you call my home, I gotta do the usual recruitment drive. We're looking for young men and women, seventeen to thirty, who want to take some responsibility for public order and safety. I won't give the usual gung-ho speech or list all the perks: You know them better than I do. I will guarantee that you won't be mounted on a bicycle with no rubber on the tires. And don't forget, even if you go to boot camp and flunk out, you still get your one-year bond, no matter what. So who's going to be the first to come up on stage and get the bond? Okay, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, now's your chance to tell those kids to come up and get the bond."
Valentine listened to the forced applause as a few youths took to the main stage, then joined in. It seemed safest to do what everyone else was doing. He wondered how many in the audience believed the story, and how many were just going along to get along.
Touchet shook hands with the bishop who'd introduced him. The bishop patted his back and said something in his ear. Touchet returned to the microphone.
"Before you leave, I have a couple of announcements. The Triumvirate has changed your quotas, or reckoning, I mean. They'll be discussed individually with you by your local commissary officials."
The audience knew better than to groan at the news, but they did quiet down and stop filing out of the aisles.
"On the good news side, there's an exciting announcement from the New Universal Church and the Madison Triumvirate. Any couple that produces ten or more children in their lifetime automatically wins the brass ring."
Valentine and Molly Carlson exchanged a significant look, and she tweaked up the corner of her mouth at him.
"The New Order recognizes the importance of motherhood and family life," the snake oil salesman continued, "and wants to get the northern part of the state repopulated. Any children already born to the family count, so you big families with five or six children are already well on your way to the brass ring."
Some more applause broke out, probably from the bigger families.
"And finally, we've had some problems with insurgents and spies recently. The standard reward of a two-year bond has been upped to a ten-year bond in exchange for information leading to the capture of any undocumented trespassers in the Triumvirate's lands. Thank you for your cooperation."
"Thank you for your cooperation," Molly whispered. "Now go home and start making babies. God knows what you're going to feed them, since they are upping the reckoning."
"Now, Molly," Mr. Carlson said quietly. The tent was emptying fast, save for a few people with questions for either the bishop or Touchet. Valentine escorted Molly to the exit, following her parents, and paused to look back at the podium. Touchet was looking at him and speaking to the bishop. The Wolf smelled trouble at that look. He hurried out of the tent, racking his brain as he tried to remember if he'd ever seen the lllinoisan's face before.
What was there about him that would draw the golden touch?
* * *
Back at the wagon and buggy, the Carlsons ate a quick dinner out of their baskets. Flanagan joined them, helping himself to a choice meat pie.
"He left a few things out, you know, Gwen," Flanagan said, treating them all to a view of half-chewed food. "In his lecture to the patrols, he elaborated a bit about how he got out of the jam after he was caught helping those folks hide animals from the commissary. While he was sitting in the depot, they offered him his life back if he would turn in each and every farmer who withheld so much as an egg or a stick of butter from the commissary. Turned out he had a real good memory," Flanagan chuckled.
"It was all part of the talk he gave on duty this morning. Oh, and the brass ring he threw out into the audience is a phony. But don't tell anyone I told you. Don't hurt nothing to have those folks believing they got it made, as long as they stay in our good graces."
"Duty, Mike?" Mrs. Carlson said. "I bet you could tell Mr. Midas there a thing or two about devotion to duty. Like putting it before family. You're an expert at that."
"Don't start, Gwen. That's in the past. I've done plenty for you since, even a few things that would get me on the next train to Chicago. Oh, shit, it's starting to rain again," Major Flanagan grumbled, looking at the sky. "Bye, kids. Stay out of trouble. Glad to see you showed up for the meeting, Saint Croix. Maybe you're smarter than you look."
On the ride back, Molly drove the buggy. Valentine was unsure of himself on the rain-wet surface, and they decided a pair of experienced hands on the reins would be best. Valentine and Molly sat together under the tarp again, but he couldn't recapture the half-excited, half-scared mood of the trip down when he first felt her close to him.
"You didn't fall for any of that baloney, did you?" Molly asked.
"No, but he did know how to tell a good story. He had me spellbound for a while."
"Yes, he's one of the best I can remember hearing. That's what you'd expect right before they increase the reckoning." She paused for a moment. "You seem a million miles away."
"I didn't like the way he looked at me. At the end, when he was talking to the bishop. Almost like he was asking about me.Funny, because I've never seen him before in my life."
"Well, according to Uncle Mike, he really is from Illinois. You ever been there?"
"I passed through it on the way here, but we stayed in the uninhabited part. Or mostly uninhabited, that is. Sorry if I seem preoccupied. You sure pegged the baby thing. How did you know?"
She smiled at him. "Just because I'm eighteen and hardly been more than twenty miles from home, you think I'm ignorant. There's a fresh batch of vampires up in New Glarus. Nobody knows when they came in with their Master exactly, but it seems like they're here to stay. That's more hungry mouths. How often do they need feeding, anyway?"
"That is one of the many things we don't know about the Reapers. According to the theories out of this group that studies them down in Arkansas, how much they need "to eat depends on how active they and their Master are. We think a lot of times the Kurians have about half their Hoods shut down. This is just guesswork, but the fewer Reapers a Kurian has to control, the better he can control them. Sometimes when he's trying to work all thirteen at once, they just turn into eating machines and do stupid stuff like forget to get in out of the daylight. But the Kurian can't control too few, either. He takes a risk when he does that. If the link for feeding vital auras to the Kurian Lord gets shut down, like say if he's got only one Reaper left and it gets killed, we think the Kurian dies with it."
Molly rewrapped the thick reins in her hand. "That's interesting. It's funny to just be able to talk about them with somebody. Discussing the Kurians is a taboo subject here. Too easy to say the wrong thing. So a Reaper can be killed?"
"Yes," Valentine said, "but you need to put that at the top of your 'easier said than done' list. I've seen six trained men pump rifle bullets into one at a range of about ten feet, and all it did was slow it down. Of course, those robes they wear protect them a lot. If they're hurt, you can behead them. A lot of times we're satisfied just to blow them up or cripple them so they can't move around much and they're easier to finish off. But again, even catching one where you can gang up on it is hard. They're usually active only at night, and they see better than us, hear better than us, and so on."
"So how do you do it?"
"It's a long story. Kind of hard to believe, too, unless it's happened to you. Now I know I've told you there are also people like the Kurians, but they're on our side."
"Yes, the... Lifeweavers."
"Good, yes, you have it. Long time ago, I think we worshiped them, and made them out to be gods. But they have the ability to awaken latent... I don't know, I guess you'd call them powers... within a human. About four thousand years ago, they made it very totemistic so the people would accept what these gods or wizards or whatever were doing. "The spirit of a wolf is in you.""
"Can they do it with anyone?"
"I don't know. The Lifeweavers select you for it, I know that much. Down in the Ozark Free Territory, they have three kinds of warriors they create, each named for an animal.
Maybe they use different animals elsewhere, like lions in Africa maybe. We're called the Hunters. We all carry a blade of some kind to finis
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