Passage

10

The oil lantern burning low on the kitchen table was clever Tripoint handiwork, a glass vase protected by a wire cage mounted on a metal reservoir, with a metal hat and wire handle above. As he slipped past, Dag plucked it up. He eased out the back hatch and closed the door before hanging the lantern on the bent nail and turning the valve key to brighten the flame. He peered out over the water. Any moon or stars were veiled by the overcast sky, and the lamplight reflected off the inky surface of the river in snaky orange ripples.

In a few moments, the ripples fluttered and the lines of light broke up as a dark shape emerged from the darker shadows. Dag made out Remo’s wet hair, then his paler face as he turned again and stroked toward the rear of the Fetch. His left arm, still scored with stitches, was up out of the water towing a makeshift raft, some driftwood hastily lashed together with vines and willow withies. Atop the raft sat folded saddlebags, and atop them a cloth bundle. Remo swam up under the Fetch’s rudder oar, and gasped, “Please…please will you take these?”

If the boy had swum from the opposite shore in this weather, he had to be chilled to the bone and close to exhaustion, youth or no youth. Dag raised his brows, but bent over the back rail, grasped the cloth bundle, and heaved it onto the deck. Ah, Remo’s clothes and boots, of course. Then the saddlebags, containing, from the weight of them, the rest of his life’s treasures. Dag grunted, but set them by the first bundle. He turned to watch Remo trying to lift himself up along the rudder pole on shaking arms, only to slide back. Dag sighed, leaned out, extended his hand, and helped pull the shivering young patroller up over the back rail as well. The abandoned raft ticked against the rudder and drifted away.

Remo nodded gratefully and bent to pick with numb fingers at the knot tying his bundle. He rubbed his naked body down with the wrapping towel and shuddered into his clothes. “Th-thanks.”

“Folks are sleeping inside,” Dag warned in a low tone. He wondered whether he ought to haul the boy indoors and plunk him in front of the hearth, or throw him back over the rail. Well, he’d doubtless find out shortly.

“Yes, right,” whispered Remo. His lip was back to normal size, but the bruises around his eye had darkened to a spectacular deep purple, just starting to go green at the edges. He finished pulling on his shirt and stood with hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, as if his next words were clotting in his throat.

He’d gone to a great deal of trouble for this private talk, Dag thought, only to choke off now. Caution reined in Dag’s curiosity just enough to convert his What can I do for you? into a more noncommittal general eyebrow lift.

It was enough to break the logjam, anyway. Remo blurted, “Take me with you.”

“And, ah—why should I do that?”

The return stare was uncomfortably Hod-like.

“Do you even know where I’m going?” Dag prodded.

“Downriver. Away. Anywhere away from here.”

This was the one, Dag reminded himself, who’d had to take his great-grandmother’s broken and wasted bone back and present it to his waiting family. It wasn’t hard to guess that the scene hadn’t gone well, though that still left a wide range of badly to choose from. Remo had been the more conscientious of the feckless partners, the one who’d tried to do the right thing. And had it come out all wrong. Well, you know how that goes, old patroller. Dag rubbed his head and sat down on the bench against the cabin wall. His arm harness being off for the night, he rested his stump unobtrusively down by his left side and laid his hand on his right knee.

Remo dropped hastily to the deck and sat cross-legged, perhaps feeling dimly that supplication went ill with looming.

“There are ten other boats heading the same way,” Dag pointed out. “Why the Fetch?”

Remo shot him a look of tight-lipped exasperation. “Because they’re all full of farmers.”

Dag wasn’t quite sure how to take that emphasis. He was tempted to haul Remo by the nose in a few more circles till he recanted his tone, but it was late and Dag was tired. One circle, maybe. “So is this one.”

Remo’s second shaft wobbled closer to the real target. “You left.”

“I was not—”

“If you weren’t banished, they as much as drove you out. Made it impossible for you to stay. I thought you’d understand.” His bitter laugh betrayed both his youth and how close to the end of his rope he dangled.

Oh, I do.

“You threw off their old rules. You rebelled. You took your own path, alone. And no one is going to say to you it’s just because you’re a stupid fool kid!”

We see the world not as it is, but as we are. “That’s not exactly what I’m about, here. Now, I can say, whatever’s going on over there between you and your family, it will pass. Great griefs must, if only because no one has the stamina to keep them up that long.” Not more than twenty years, leastways.

Remo just shook his head. Too sunk in his own misery to listen? To hear?

Dag thought ruefully of his own family, and revised his sage advice. “And while you’re waiting, there’s always the patrol.”

Remo shook his head harder. “The Pearl Riffle patrol is lousy with my family. Most of my brothers and sisters and half my cousins. Uncles and aunts. And every one of them thinks they should have been left great-grandmama’s knife instead, and they’re right.” He gulped and added, “I went to the camp knife maker yesterday to ask for my own bonded knife, and he wouldn’t even agree to make it for me!”

In your mood? Dag mentally commended the cautious knife maker. He said patiently, “Whatever your troubles are, you won’t defeat them by running away from them. My road’s not for you. What I’m saying is, the best thing you can do for yourself and Pearl Riffle Camp is go back over there and pretend this swim didn’t happen.”

Remo’s jaw worked. “I could swim halfway back. That would solve all my troubles.”

Dag sighed, but before he could marshal his next argument, the door swung quietly open and Fawn slipped through. She had a blanket wrapped around her nightdress, shawl-fashion, and a lumpy cloth in her hand. She glanced at Dag and tossed her head. “Maybe I can put a word in here. Being the resident expert at running away from home.” She opened her cloth. “Here, have a chunk of cornbread. I make it sweet.”

Remo accepted it mechanically, but stared at it in some bewilderment. Fawn handed a piece to Dag and took the last one herself. Dag took a grave bite of his own and motioned Remo to proceed. Fawn leaned against the cabin wall and nibbled, then nudged Dag’s knee with her bare foot. “This is your Remo, right? Or is it Barr?”

Dag swallowed crumbs and made the demanded introduction. “Remo, yes. Remo, this is my wife, Fawn Bluefield.”

Remo, food in hand, made a confused half-effort to stand, then settled back as Fawn waved him down. He returned her nod instead. “You’re the farmer bride? I thought you’d be…taller.”

Dag quelled his curiosity as to what several adjectives Remo had just swallowed along with his cornbread, there. Older was undoubtedly one.

“Now,” said Fawn cheerily, “the first thing I know for sure about running away from home is, plans made in the middle of the night are not always the best. In the morning—after breakfast—you can generally think of much better ones.” She exchanged a meaningful look with Dag, and went on, “It’s the middle of the night now, and you’re keeping Dag from my bed. But I just laid a big pile o’ those furs and blankets we used for last night’s visitors in front of the hearth. They’re real warm now. Toasty, even.”

Remo was shivering, his damp skin clammy in the misty chill. Strands of hair escaping his soaked braid draggled across his furrowed forehead.

“If you got yourself warm, I bet you’d drop off right quick despite your troubles, tired as you look. All that swimming, after all. I expect you’re still hurting, too.”

In all ways, not just his bruises, thought Dag. He suppressed a smile at the way Remo stared up open-mouthed, blatantly susceptible to what were likely the first kindly words he’d had from anyone for days. A pretty young woman offering him food, a soft bed, and sympathy was not someone he was going to argue too hard with, even if she was a farmer.

“Wise Spark,” Dag commended this. “Take her up, Remo; you won’t get a better offer tonight.” He had the bare wisdom himself not to add aloud, It beats swimming halfway across the river all hollow. No good sprinkling salt on wounds, even self-inflicted ones.

Remo glanced as if surprised at his hand, now empty of leftover cornbread, and around at the flatboat and the darkness of the rippling river. Only a few orange lights from Pearl Riffle Camp shone through the half-naked trees on the far hillside.

“This boat’s not going anywhere tonight anyhow,” Fawn pointed out.

Remo shook his damp head. “No, but a rise is coming on. You can feel it, out in the middle. That’s why I swam across now. By morning it’ll be too dangerous, and by tomorrow night, these boats will all be gone.”

Remo had lived in this ferry camp all his life; Dag expected he knew the river’s moods well. Further, swimming the river left no evidence behind of what direction he’d taken. A missing horse would have said north; crossing on the ferry would have left witnesses who could say south. Once he was gone beyond groundsense range, none could guess if he’d gone north, south, east, or west. Or halfway across the river.

A faint breeze raised goose bumps on Remo’s lavender-tinged skin, and he yielded abruptly. “All right.”

“Be real quiet,” whispered Fawn, her hand on the door latch. “They’re mostly asleep in there.”

“Berry?” Dag murmured.

“I told her you’ll explain in the morning. She rolled back over.”

“Ah.”

With Remo tucked into the bedding before the hearth like an oversized, overtired child, Dag and Fawn at last made it back to their own curtained bed. Their bedroll, unfairly, had chilled down. They rubbed each other half-warm, and laced limbs together for the rest.

“Wondered why you chose just then to come popping out,” Dag murmured into Fawn’s curls. “You thought he meant it about that half-river, did you?”

“This time o’ night, you do. Besides, as ragged as Remo looks, and as big as this river is, the decision might be pulled out of his hands before he made it back to the other shore.” She added reflectively, “It’s a lot bigger than the river by West Blue, that way. Drowning yourself in that one would have called for a lot more determination. Here, you could do it just by inattention.”

He hugged her tight. “No half-rivers.”

“Anyhow, I took exception to your advice about not running away from your troubles. You picnicking fraud.”

An unvoiced laugh shook his chest. “But I’m not running away. I’m running toward.” He sighed. “And just in case I miss any, they follow after and join me. It’s going to be a crowded boat, Spark.”

In the morning, Fawn found to her excitement that the cracked mud at the bow had disappeared under new water. But Berry said the rise was not yet high enough to get the Fetch over the Riffle. Since Fawn suspected the moving boat would not be safe for complicated cooking, she indulged herself instead in what might be the last chance for a while to fix a real West Blue—style farm breakfast.

This resulted in a lot of munching around the crowded foldout kitchen table, and not much talk at first that wasn’t requests to pass things, although most everyone shot curious peeks at Remo. Berry was bland about the uninvited guest. Bo was either hungover, or indifferent. Hod seemed intimidated, with lots of looks Dag’s way as if for reassurance. Whit was wary—Remo was both older and bigger than he was, as well as being a full-fledged patroller. Hawthorn had a baby raccoon, a prize from one of his coal-salvaging coins, and had no interest in anything else.

Fawn had to admit, the bright-eyed creature was wildly cute. Hawthorn was trying to keep it in his shirt, with limited success; Whit observed that he should have bought a baby possum for that. Bo said raccoons were destructive, and if Hawthorn didn’t keep his pet under control, Bo would make it into a hat.

“Now, Bo,” said Berry, cutting across Hawthorn’s hot protests. “Could be worse. Remember Buckthorn’s bear cub?”

Bo wheezed a laugh, and gave over harassing Hawthorn. Hawthorn, Whit, and Hod then fell into a debate about what to name the kit. Dag said little, but Fawn spotted him slipping the curious animal a fragment of bread.

Remo didn’t attempt to join the talk. He was medium-tall, broad-shouldered; Dag called him a boy, but he looked like a full-grown man to Fawn. He was not good-looking so much as good-enough-looking, but was probably attractively healthy when he wasn’t recovering from a beating. His hair, dry and re-braided, hung halfway down his back. He finished cleaning his plate and looked up at last. “So,” he said to Dag. “Did you decide? Can I come with you?”

Dag left off helping to spoil the raccoon kit and returned the look. “I don’t know. Can you?”

Remo frowned uncertainly.

Dag went on, “I’m not your patrol leader. More to the point, this isn’t my boat. I just work on it. If you want to arrange passage, you have to talk to the boat boss like anyone else.” He nodded across at Berry. Remo’s head turned to meet her rather ironic gaze, and he blinked.

Dag’s response seemed a bit unfeeling to Fawn, but maybe he had a reason. She waited for it to emerge.

Remo finally addressed Berry: “How do I arrange passage, then?”

“Well, you have to either buy it or work it. Everyone else here’s decided to work it.”

“How much to buy it?”

“How far are you going?”

“I…don’t know.” He glanced at Dag. “Graymouth, I guess.”

Berry named a sum of coins that made Remo’s face set. No deep purse here, it seemed. Fawn was unsurprised.

“And working?” said Remo.

“I don’t know. What can you do? I know you know narrow boats—I heard about the coal-boat boys you fellows pulled out of the Riffle. Can you man a flatboat sweep?”

“I once did it for a day. Barr took me venturing…” He broke off.

“Hm.” Berry glanced at Dag, who shrugged. “I didn’t expect to have one Lakewalker crewman, let alone two. So…how’s this. I’ll take you on trial as far as Silver Shoals. That’s my next stop. Papa and Alder were seen there last fall by some keeler friends, so I know they made it at least that far.”

Remo made an inquiring noise; Whit explained rather sternly about Berry’s quest. Remo looked a bit taken aback to be reminded that people besides himself could have serious troubles, and he squinted as if seeing Berry for the first time. Fawn imagined the view through the haze of his own misery was still a bit blurry.

“Be aware,” said Dag, with a hint of challenge in his voice, “that if you choose to work, from the time you set foot on the Fetch till the time you step off Boss Berry will be your patrol leader.”

Remo shrugged. “It’s just a flatboat. How hard can it be?”

Whit frowned on Berry’s behalf, but before he could wade in, a clunk from the back of the boat brought everyone’s head around.

“Log,” said Bo.

“Current’s moving better,” said Berry. The Fetch shifted, and the ropes from the stern to the shore flexed and groaned a trifle.

Hawthorn ran out to the back deck and returned, reporting, “The river’s going browner. Not long now!”

The cleaning up was left to Whit, Hawthorn, and Hod. At home Whit had slacked off abominably on this chore, making game of Fawn, but with Hawthorn and Hod to ride herd on, not to mention Berry watching, he became wonderfully scrupulous all of a sudden. Fawn was considering breaking out her spindle for a little hand-work, when someone on the shore path trotted past the bow and shouted, incomprehensibly, “Hey, Berry! The upstream keelers are on the tow!”

Berry rose, grinning. “Come on, Fawn. You’ve got to see this.”

She picked up an oddly shaped leather bag from under her curtained bunk. Fawn grabbed her jacket and followed; Whit trailed after.

The late morning was overcast and chilly but not foggy. More of the leaves were down from the trees, drifted into sodden yellow piles from yesterday’s rain, leaving the bare boles the same gray as the air, receding ghostly up the hill. Berry led down the path past the wharf boat and the ferry landing. The Lakewalkers’ ferryboat, Fawn saw in passing, was moored on the other side of the river, and its capstan rope had been taken down. No one would be crossing after Remo just yet.

A little above where they’d gathered coal, Berry hopped up onto some tallish rocks that gave a fine view down over the Riffle. At the bottom of the rapids, which were slowly disappearing under the rising water, two keelboats were moving along opposite shores. On the far shore, the keel was being towed against the current by a team of eight oxen handled by what looked to be a couple of local farmers. On the near shore, the keel was being heaved along by about twenty straining men pulling a long, thick rope. Fawn at last saw why all the trees on the riverside of the shore path had been cut to stumps. Both boats had men running back and forth on their bows with long poles, fending off rocks and clumps of wrack. The two crews were shouting back and forth across the water, rude insults and challenges and a lot of chaff about We’ll be at Tripoint before you!

“Is it a race?” asked Whit, staring in delight.

“Yep,” said Berry, and bent to draw a polished hickory-wood fiddle from the case. She tested the tuning by plucking at the strings and turning the pegs, stood up on the highest rock facing downstream, and drew a long note, starting low and winding high until it seemed to leap off the fiddle altogether. She added, “I’ve fiddled my keeler boys up over every shoal and riffle on the Gray and the Grace. It makes the work go easier if you have a rhythm. When the boat boss wanted them to go faster, he’d bribe me to play quicker. The boys would bribe me to play slower. It could get pretty lucrative.”

Fawn spotted a lot of fellows out on the Pearl Bend wharf boat in the distance, shouting the contestants onward. “I don’t suppose you have a bet down on this race, do you, Berry?”

The riverwoman grinned. “Yep.” And set her bow to her strings, sending an astonishingly loud ripple of notes echoing down the river valley. The grunting keelers on the near shore looked up and cheered, and bent again to their rope in time to the boatman-music. Fawn guessed it was a familiar tune, likely with familiar words, and likely with a rude version, but the men had no breath to spare to sing along. The oxen on the other side seemed indifferent to the noise.

When the repeats on the first song began to get dull, Berry switched to a second tune, then a third. Some of the other boat bosses from Possum Landing had come out to watch the show, including Wain from the Snapping Turtle. Berry moved back from the rocks to the other side of the path as the keelboat drew near and began yet another tune, even livelier, her elbow pumping. Her audience shuffled after her. Strands of her lank blond hair, loose from the horse-tail at her nape, stuck to her face, and she alternated between either blowing them out of her mouth or chewing on them in her concentration. Her fingers stretched, arched, flew so fast they blurred. Everyone else was watching the race; Whit was watching Berry, his eyes alight and his mouth agape.

The sweating keelers, passing, hooted at her, then bent and stamped and strained. She made her fiddle echo their cries almost like a human voice. They were pulling well ahead of the oxen. Berry kept her music chasing them up the shore until they reached the wharf boat, reeled in their keelboat, threw down their rope, and sent up a victory whoop. She made her fiddle whoop back, and finally dropped it from under her chin, panting.

The flatties and locals who had collected along the bank to watch tromped back up the riverside to settle their bets and hoist a drink at the wharf boat, but neither Berry nor the other boat bosses on the lookout point joined them. Instead, they peered upriver, where one of the flatboats had loosed from its mooring and was being slowly sculled out to mid-river. “There goes the Oleana Lily,” someone muttered. They were all watching, Fawn realized, to see if this scout could clear the shoals without hanging up or tearing out its hull.

“If he makes it, will we go?” Fawn asked Berry.

“Not just yet,” said Berry, shading her eyes and squinting at the drifting flatboat, which was picking up speed. “The Lily drew a shallower draft than me even before I undertook to load on extra people, a ton o’ window glass, and a surly horse. You see that long pole sticking up out of the water below the Landing wharf boat?”

Fawn gazed where she pointed at what looked like a slim, bare tree, stripped of side branches, with a limp red flag nailed to its top some thirty feet in the air. Every half foot along its length, it had a groove circling it daubed with red paint, until a few feet up from the water where it changed to black paint. “That tells you how high the water is, right? Is it safe to take the shoals when it changes from red to black?” There seemed to be several feet left for the water to rise.

“Depends on how low in the water your hull and cargo ride. When it changes to black, any fool can get his boat over.”

“The marks go all the way to the top,” said Fawn uneasily. “The water doesn’t ever go that high, does it?”

“No,” said Berry, and Fawn relaxed, until she added, “By the time it’s about halfway, the pole usually rips out and washes away.”

Fawn finally saw why the river people relied on wharf boats, instead of a fixed dock like those she’d seen around Hickory Lake. The wharf boats would rise and fall with the shifting water, could be pulled ashore for winter, and wouldn’t be torn away by floods, drifting trees, or grinding ice. Were less likely to be, she amended that thought.

A few of the boat bosses lined up on the rocks yelled comments or advice to the steersman of the Oleana Lily, which were proudly ignored, but most watched in silence. When the steersman leaped to one side and pulled hard, not a few leaned with him, fists clenching, as if to add their strength to his. When the boat sideswiped a rock, scraping along the whole length of its oak hull, the boat bosses groaned in synchrony. They bent like trees in the wind, then all straightened together and sighed at what sign Fawn could not see; but the Lily was past the last rock and clump of wrack and still moving serenely.

The group broke up and began to trudge back up the path; a couple of men trotted ahead. Berry detoured only briefly at the crowded wharf boat, collecting a couple of bone-cracking hugs from some keelers and money from several more sheepish boatmen. She refused pressing offers of cider, beer, or the drink of her choice. “I got me a boat to launch, boys. We’ve been here too long—you’ve drunk this place dry!”

She paused on the bank to squint again at the ringed pole. “Well, not quite yet. But I think we might load on that horse.”

Back at the Fetch, they did so, laying extra timber for the gangplank. Dag soothed his dubious mount across the bending boards. Copperhead snorted in dismay, but followed; the boat dipped as he clomped down onto the deck and was penned with Daisy-goat. Whatever groundwork Dag was doing to assure the gelding’s cooperation was as invisible to Fawn as ever, but she noticed Remo raising his brows as if secretly impressed.

Berry climbed onto the roof to watch two neighboring boats launch at the same time and tangle their long side oars, with a lot of swearing. Berry scrubbed at the grin on her lips. “I think we’ll go next,” she said to Fawn at her shoulder. “It’s a dice roll, at this point. With a crowd like this, you want to go late enough to get the highest water, but not so late that some hasty fool before you wrecks his boat and blocks the channel again.”

Still, the launch seemed leisurely. Hawthorn dodged back and forth untying ropes from the trees and casting off, and Hod limped around to roll them up in neat coils, two at the front corners and two at the back corners. The oarsmen did not sit to their long sweeps, but stood, walking or leaning back, pushing or pulling as needed. Berry took the rear steering oar, with Bo and Whit on one side sweep and Dag and Remo on the other. It made Berry’s shouted directions simple: “Farmer side, pull!” “Patroller side, pull!” “Now the other way, patrollers! Turn her!”

A thump shook the boat as the hull glanced off a hidden stump. A crash from the kitchen sent Fawn racing inside to make sure everything was locked down and to check, for the third time, that her cook fire was well-banked and penned behind its iron barrier. When she came out again the boat was in the middle of the river, which still looked bigger than from shore. They swung into alignment with the channel. In contrast to its earlier placid clarity, the water was an opaque bright brown and visibly rolling, carrying along storm wrack from far upstream in an impressive current. She couldn’t imagine the bruised Remo swimming it now.

Fawn debated whether to cling to the bench by the front door or climb to the more precarious roof, then decided she was tired of being too short to see things. She climbed up and found herself a spot in the exact middle just beyond the radius of any of the three oars. She sat down firmly, wishing there were side railings, or a handle to grip. Maybe she could talk Bo into adding one. But for now the view was very fine.

They entered the Riffle proper, and the Fetch picked up speed. Dag suddenly yelled, “Bear right, boss! There’s a big snag about two feet under down there!”

Berry stared where his finger pointed. “You sure? I don’t see a boil!”

“Try me!”

“All right,” said Berry dubiously, and leaned on her oar to twist the boat past, alarmingly close to some highly visible rocks on the far side. Bo had to lift his sweep to clear them, and shot his boss a questioning look, which she answered with a shrug before leaning on her oar to bring the boat around again. Whit, lending his strength to Bo, looked utterly exhilarated.

“Your boat steers like a drunk pig,” Remo said, hauling briefly backward against the current at her next order.

“Yeah, it ain’t no narrow boat, is it,” Berry returned cheerfully, un-offended. “Live and learn, patroller.”

A flatboat crowding close behind them chose to veer wider around the rocks. With a loud clunk, it shuddered almost to a stop, then began to swing around its bow. Cries of dismay and a lot more swearing followed as its crew fought to keep it from turning broadside to the current. Berry looked at Dag and raised her brows high. He touched his temple back at her.

“Well, live and learn,” Berry repeated, in quite another tone.

Fawn stared back at the receding Lakewalker ferry landing, wondering if they were being watched by irate council eyes. They passed rocks, clogs of dead trees and debris including a bloated sheep, and less visible hazards, then the river widened and the odd swirls like soup boiling disappeared. The surface smoothed.

“Ease up, boys, we’re over the Riffle and away at last,” said Berry. “It’s a straight reach for the next three miles.”

Dag and Bo stood down from their sweeps. On the easy stretches, Fawn understood, the oarsmen would take turnabout, and the boat would float along all day without stopping. Dag came over, sat down beside her, stretched out one leg, and gave her a hug around the shoulders. “All right, Spark?”

“It’s wonderful!” She stared at Pearl Bend, already falling behind on the far shore, and back to the boat boss, now leaning happily on her oar. “We’re going so fast!”

Berry’s agreeing grin stretched as wide as the river. “Fast as a horse can trot!”