Passage

16

Fawn watched in alarm as Remo took up the lantern and made his way with Dag and Whit out into the wind and rain of the back deck. Hod hovered uncertainly till Bo, staying planted in his chair beyond the hearth, told him sharply to go in or out but stop blocking the doorway like a fool cat, and Hod drew back. Hawthorn bounced impatiently behind Hod; the raccoon kit skittered off and hid in the stores. Berry put her fiddle away in its leather bag and slid it back under her curtained bunk.

Voices outside rose in debate, Dag’s deep tones overriding: “Just tie it to the rail. We can deal with it in the morning. Shipping more water’s not going to make much difference—it’s already half-swamped.”

More thumps, grunts, and muffled curses. Whit shoved the door open and handed in a bedroll, a pack, an unstrung bow and quiver coming unwrapped from a trailing blanket, and a couple of lumpy cloth bags, all equally sodden. Hod dropped them in a heap. Whit came back in, followed by Dag and a very wet Lakewalker who Fawn didn’t know. Remo trailed with the lantern, which he put back on the kitchen table, then leaned his shoulders against the door and crossed his arms, face set.

The fellow stood dripping before the hearth, breathing heavily, strained with exhaustion and cold. His lank hair, plastered to his forehead and hanging in a sorry rattail down his back, might be tawny blond when dry. He shrugged broad shoulders out of a soaked deerskin jacket, then just stood holding it in his hands as if confused where to put it, or just confused altogether. He scowled faintly at the Fetch’s crew, who were staring at him with expressions ranging from dumbfounded to dubious, but he eyed the bright fire with understandable longing.

Barr, presumably. Fawn tried not to take an instant dislike to him simply on the basis of Remo’s tale about the pretty farmer sister; such a seduction, if it had occurred as described or even at all, could well have been a two-way enterprise. And he’d been brave to help rescue those coal flatties from drowning in the Riffle. Or maybe he just liked excitement, although at the moment he seemed more distraught.

Apparently continuing an exchange started outside, he looked to Remo and said, “I was afraid I wasn’t going to catch up with you for another hundred miles!”

“Why are you trying to catch up with me at all?” said Remo, in a voice devoid of encouragement.

“What do you mean, why? I’m your partner!”

“Not anymore. I left.”

“Yes, without a word to anyone! Amma and Issi turned me on the grill for a blighted hour about that alone—like I should have known. How? By magic? You owe me for that, as well as for paddling three hundred miles in three days after you.”

“If you came from Pearl Riffle, that would be ’bout two hundred miles, unless you took a detour,” Berry observed, her hands on her hips. Hers was one of the more dubious looks.

Barr waved this away. “It was too blighted many miles, anyway. But that’s done now.” He stretched his shoulders, which cracked a bit, shook out the jacket and laid it on the hearthstones, and edged his backside closer to the fire, spreading his hands briefly on his knees. Big, strong hands, Fawn noted, although at the moment cramped from his paddle and chapped with cold. “I admit, I was glad not to find you floating facedown anywhere between there and here. We can start back in the morning.”

“Back where?” said Remo, still dour.

“Pearl Riffle, snag-brain. If you come back with me now, Amma says she’ll let us both back on patrol.” Barr straightened up with a look of, if not triumph, at least accomplishment.

Remo’s lips folded as tightly as his arms. “I’m not going back.”

“You have to come back! Amma and Issi ripped me up one side and down the other, like it was my fault you ran off!”

“So it was,” said Remo uncompromisingly.

“Well, it’s water over the Riffle now. The important thing is, if I bring you back, all is forgiven. I’m not saying things won’t be edgy for a while, but sooner or later someone else will win Amma’s ire, and it’ll blow over. It always does.” He blinked and grinned in a way that might have seemed charming, to some other audience at some other season.

“Not this time.”

“Remo, you’re making no sense. Where else would you go but back?”

“On,” said Remo. He nodded at Berry. “Boss Berry, whose boat you are dripping in, will likely let you sleep the night inside if you ask politely. In the morning, you go upriver, I go down. Simple.”

“Remo, no. Not simple. If I don’t fetch you back alive and in one piece, Amma swears I’ll be discharged from patrol permanently! I’m not joking!”

Fawn was beginning to get the picture, here. It wasn’t simply worry for a partner; Barr was on a mission to save his own well-scorched tail.

Remo looked furious. “Neither am I.”

Barr stared at him with the genuine bewilderment of a fellow who’d slid by on charm all his life whose charm had inexplicably stopped working.

Dag had been watching from the sidelines without comment. Before the go-round could start again, his unmoved voice put in, “Best dry your weapons, patroller. Your bow is starting to warp from the wet.”

Barr made a discomfited gesture, as if he’d like to protest this interruption but didn’t quite dare. He eyed Dag warily. “And you, Dag Red-Blue whatever. Amma also wanted me to tell her if you talked Remo into this. Like I knew!”

Remo snorted in disgust.

“I said I didn’t think you’d seen each other since that first day in the patrol tent. I’m not sure she believed me.” He added bitterly, “I’m not sure she believed anything I said.”

With heavy sarcasm, Remo intoned, “Why, Barr—why ever would she not?”

Before Barr’s return growl could find words, Berry exchanged a glance with Dag and shouldered forward. “It’s boatmen’s bedtime, patroller, and you’re making a tedious ruckus in our bunkroom. If you want, you could have some mighty tasty leftovers and a dry bed in front of the hearth. If you two’d druther keep arguin’ instead, take it outside to the riverbank where you can keep it up to your heart’s content or dawn, whichever comes first. Your choice, but make it now.” A rattle of sleet against the windows lent a sinister weight to her cool remark.

After a long, long moment, Barr swallowed down whatever he’d been going to snap back at Remo and nodded to the boat boss. He said stiffly, “I’d be grateful for a bed, yes, ma’am. And food.” He shot Remo a surly look that made it clear he was giving up only temporarily.

The occupants of the Fetch’s kitchen-bunkroom shuffled back into almost-normal preparations for sleep. Barr did look after his weapons, with a sidelong glance at Dag. Whit and Hod helped lay out the rest of his things to dry; Hawthorn and Berry settled the guest-furs in front of the fire; and Fawn reheated the fish, potatoes, and onions. Barr wolfed down the meal as though starved, and gaped in wonder at the tankard of beer Bo shoved in front of him. He found the bottom of it quickly. Awkwardly, everyone dodged around one another in the shared sleeping space that had suddenly become a little too shared, but all found their beds at last.

As the lantern light dimmed to the faintest red glow through the curtains of their nook, Fawn interlaced herself with Dag for warmth and whispered, “You didn’t happen to wish for Barr on those birthday candles, did you?”

Dag choked down a laugh. “No, Spark.” He grew quiet for a moment. “Not exactly, leastways.”

“Just so’s you know that last surprise was not my doing.”

“It seems to have been Amma Osprey’s. Wish I could have been listening at the window for that talk. I’ll bet it was blistering. Sounds like it was past time she put the fire to that boy’s feet, though.”

“Do you think Remo should go back with him?”

“It’s not my decision to make.”

“You wanted him to go back, that first night.”

“It’s good for young patrollers to get out and see the world.”

“You said you weren’t adopting him.”

He drew back his head to look down over his nose at her, squinting in the shadows. “Do you remember everything I say that clearly? That could get downright burdensome on a husband.”

She snickered.

He added, “Seems they can both drag back home with their tails between their legs, and Amma’ll let them in. I’m not too surprised. Nobody wants to waste patrollers. Still…I’ll hate to see Remo go, if he goes. I thought I might be starting to get somewhere with him. And he was a huge help with Hod.”

Fawn grew more pensive. “There is this. You can’t ever run away from one thing without running toward something else.” She slid a small hand up his shoulder. “You, for example. I ran away from home, and right into you. And the wide world with you. I’d never be here if I hadn’t first left there.”

“Do you like it here? This boat?”

“I’d like any boat with you in it.” She stretched up and kissed him.

“Was it a happy birthday?”

“The best in years.” He kissed her back, and added slowly, “The best in all my years. And that’s a lot of years, Spark. Huh.”

She considered poking him and demanding what that Huh was all about, but he yawned fit to crack his jaw, her feet finally warmed up, and she melted into sleep.

At breakfast, Fawn discovered that like most fine young animals, Barr was cuter when he was dry and fluffy. She’d been uncertain of his age in the strain of his last night’s exhaustion, but now she was sure he was the junior of the partners. He’d also regained his temper, or at least his arguments shifted to being less about Barr and more about Remo.

“Your tent-folk are all really worried about you,” he offered.

“Not when I last saw them,” Remo replied. “Notably not.”

“Remo, you have to realize, Amma’s only giving us a grace period, here. You can’t expect forgiveness to be held out on a stick forever.”

Remo said nothing.

Barr soldiered on. “If we don’t get back timely, she’ll have had a chance to get over being worried about you, and revert to being riled. We need to grab the moment.”

Fawn couldn’t help asking, “Won’t she be worried about the both of you?”

Barr glanced at her as if uncertain whether to speak directly to the farmer bride or not; unable to resist a chance to vent, he said, “Since she as much as told me to come back with him or not at all, I don’t think so.”

“Barr the expendable,” murmured Remo.

Barr’s jaw set, but he made no rejoinder; Remo looked mildly surprised.

After a little silence broken only by munching and requests to pass the cornbread and butter, Remo said, “Speaking of expendable, what in the world were you doing out in that weather last night?”

“It wasn’t my first plan,” said Barr. “There’s a ferry camp somewhere near here that I was trying to reach by dark, and the worse the rain got, the more it seemed worth holding out for. I sure wasn’t going to get any drier camping on shore in that blow. But I came to you before I came to it.”

“If you mean Fox Creek Camp,” Dag put in, “you passed it about ten miles back.”

“I can’t have missed it!” Barr said. “I’ve had my groundsense wide-open almost the whole way—looking for you,” he added aside to Remo. “Or your floating body.”

“Water this cold, my body might not have come up so soon,” said Remo distantly.

Dag’s brows twitched, but he said, “Fox Creek Camp mostly lies behind the hills. They dammed the creek to make a little lake back there. Likely there wasn’t anyone out on the ferry landing after dark.”

“Oh. Crap.” Barr looked briefly put out, then cheered up. “This is better anyway. If I’d stopped there, I wouldn’t have caught up with you till tonight at the earliest, and that’d be yet another fifty upriver miles to backtrack. At least.” He turned again to Remo. “Which is another reason to come back with me now. Every mile you go down is going to be that much more work going up.”

“Not my problem,” said Remo.

“Well, it’s mine!” said Barr, baited into personal outrage again. “With this current running, a narrow boat with only one paddler couldn’t even make headway going upriver! It needs at least two, and better four!”

In a practical spirit, and to divert whatever crushing thing Remo was fixing to say next, Fawn suggested, “You could trade your narrow boat for a horse at the next town and ride back to Pearl Riffle overland.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” objected Barr. Failing to notice either her stiffening or Dag’s, he plunged on, “I couldn’t get one good horse in trade for that old boat, let alone two!”

“You wouldn’t need two,” said Remo.

Whit, falling back into his old bad habits of pot-stirring, put in cheerfully, “And who says it has to be a good horse?”

Barr clenched his teeth and eyed him unfavorably.

Boss Berry’s drawl cut across the debate. “There’s this, Remo. You hired on as my sweep-man. If you jump my boat now, you’ll leave me shorthanded in the middle of nowhere, and that’s not right. Now, this ain’t my argument, but if you want to quit, at least do it at a village or town where I can hire on your replacement.”

“That’s only fair,” Remo allowed, looking at Barr in a challenging way. Barr didn’t have an immediate answer, although by his grimace Fawn thought she could see him mentally adding the upstream miles.

“Sky’s lightening,” said Bo. “Time to get out on the river.”

Berry nodded. “Me, Remo, and Whit for the first watch.”

Which ended the squabble for the next two hours at least. Breakfast broke up, and Remo and Barr went out to get the water emptied from Barr’s boat, hoist it up, and tie it down across the back deck, where, Fawn thought, it was going to be mightily in the way. Hod and Hawthorn turned to their scullery duties. Dag went ashore to collect Copperhead, who had been standing amongst the dripping leafless trees and whinnying plaintively since predawn, answered by bleats from Daisy-goat. Copperhead actually seemed glad to scramble back onto the boat, and touched noses with Daisy; the two animals had become unlikely friends. The lines were untied, the top-deck crew took to their sweeps, and the Fetch pushed off from the muddy bank, turning slowly downstream. The river was dark and fast and scary this morning, the wind funneling up the valley cold and raw, whipping the mist to tatters. Fawn put her mind to sewing up more rain cloaks and retreated inside to find her work basket, glad for an indoor task.

Fawn had her oilcloth pieces laid out on the table near the window for the light, stitching industriously, when Barr came into the kitchen, shot her a guarded look, and began puttering around setting his dried gear back in order. Patrollers were doubtless taught to travel tidy, she reflected. She returned him a nod, in case he wanted to talk but wasn’t sure he was allowed. Although maybe that was more for rigid Remo; Barr apparently had found no trouble talking with farmer girls in the past. Except not farmer brides inexplicably married to other Lakewalkers, it seemed, for when he finally opened his mouth, what came out was hardly smooth.

“You’re pretty stuck on Dag, aren’t you?” He’d sat down in front of the hearth with his knees up, to oil some leather straps, incidentally blocking the heat. But perhaps he was still core-cold from yesterday.

For answer, Fawn held up her left wrist and the marriage cord wrapped around it. “What does your groundsense tell you?”

His nose wrinkled in wonder, but not denial. “Can’t imagine how you two did that.”

“We wove them together. As partners, you might say. I made my ground follow my blood into the cord that Dag wears, which Dag’s brother Dar said was a knife-making technique. It worked, anyhow.”

Barr blinked. “Saun said you two had jumped the cliff at Glassforge, which surprised him right off, as he hadn’t thought Dag was the sort—stiffer than Remo, even—but nobody ever…Lakewalkers don’t usually marry farmers, you know.”

He was actually being sort of polite: don’t ever would have been more accurate. “Dag’s an unusual man.”

“Do you realize how old he likely is? To farmer eyes I know he looks thirty-five or forty, but I can tell you he has to be a good deal more than that.”

What are you on about? “His fifty-sixth birthday was yesterday. We had a real nice party. That was the leftovers you bolted last night.”

“Oh.” Barr squinted at her in increasing puzzlement. “Do you realize he has to have beguiled you?”

“Do you realize you are amazingly offensive?” she returned in a level tone.

By his discomfited head-duck, that wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. She bit off her short strand and tied it, then drew out a new length to thread her needle. “Dag hasn’t beguiled me one bit. He and Remo have been doing some studying on that, how beguilement really happens in groundwork, and have found out some pretty terrific things. You should get Dag to teach you.” Barr did not seem the most promising learner, but there was certainly worse out there. If Dag’s schemes were to work, they had to reach ordinary folks, Lakewalker and farmer alike, and not just a tiny elite.

But Barr had other matters on his mind. He muttered, “Can’t be her. Has to be the blonde.” Raising his voice, he said, “Remo’s after that Berry girl, isn’t he? That’s why he won’t turn around…taking after your Dag, maybe? Absent gods, he doesn’t mean to marry her, does he?”

Fawn stared over her stitches in increasing exasperation. “Berry’s betrothed to a farmer boy named Alder, who went missing on a downriver trip last fall along with Berry’s papa and brother. She’s going to look for ’em all, which is why she named her boat the Fetch. She carries on steady, because she’s that sort and it’s a long haul, but inside she’s anxious and grieving. You want to make yourself real unpopular with everyone on this boat in a big hurry, you try botherin’ Berry in any way.” Had she hammered in that hint hard enough to penetrate Barr’s self-absorption? Well, if not, she knew someone with a bigger mallet. Dag had been a company captain, twice. She doubted a patroller boy like Barr would present him an insurmountable challenge.

Barr looked down, finished treating the straps, and returned to reorganizing his pack.

Fawn stared at his sandy hair tied in that touchable fluffy queue down his back, shoved her needle through the heavy cloth with her thimble, and said abruptly, “Ha! I know who you remind me of! Sunny Sawman.”

Barr looked over his shoulder. “Who?”

Fawn smiled blackly. “Farmer boy I once knew. He was blond and broad-shouldered like you.”

Straightening up, Barr cast her a probing smile. Gleaming enough, but she wondered why it wasn’t as face-transforming as Dag’s or Remo’s. Not as genuine, maybe? Barr said, “Good-looking fellow, was he?”

“Oh, yes.” As Barr brightened further, she went on, “Also completely self-centered, a slanderer, and a liar. It wouldn’t quite be fair to call him a coward, because with those muscles he didn’t need to be, but he sure was eager to skim out of the consequences of his choices when things went sour.” She looked him over, pursing her lips in consideration, and added in a kindly voice, “It’s likely your hair color does it, but boy howdy, it’s not a recommendation. I’ll try not to let it set me against you. Too much.”

Barr cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and prudently closed it again. He made his way—or fled—out of the kitchen to pretend to check on his boat on the back deck. Fawn stabbed her cloth once more, satisfied.

At lunch, Remo stopped responding to Barr’s continued badgering altogether, which left Barr floundering. Fawn shrewdly followed Remo’s example, and Whit followed the crowd. Hod and Hawthorn didn’t talk to Barr in the first place, Hod because he was fearful, Hawthorn because he liked Remo and didn’t want him to go away, and so took Barr as an unwelcome interloper. Bo was bemused, Berry unamused, and Dag, well, it was hard to tell what he was thinking. Nothing simple, anyhow.

It was late afternoon and forty river miles before they again came upon a village big enough to boast a wharf-boat and goods-shed. The Fetch tied on and most everyone trooped up to the goods-shed, if only to stretch their legs and enjoy a change of scene.

The goods-clerk, when he saw the three tall Lakewalkers shoulder into his shed, leaned under his counter and came up wearing an iron helmet fashioned from an old cook-pot with one side newly cut out, before turning on his stool to do business with these fresh customers. He adjusted the loop of handle comfortably under his chin. Remo choked, Barr nearly went cross-eyed, and Dag pinched the bridge of his nose in a weary way.

Berry bit her lip but, not wishful to waste daylight, rattled off her questions without any comment on the unusual headgear. Regrettably, the goods-clerk knew of no local river-rat wanting to hire on for a downriver hitch as sweep-man, nor had he any memory of the Clearcreek Briar Rose stopping here last fall, although he did remember a couple of the Tripoint boats from Cutter’s list in the spring. Fawn made a few little purchases for the Fetch’s larder, and Whit sold one crate of window glass.

As they finished settling up and turned to go, Barr abruptly turned back.

“Mister,” he said to the clerk, pointing at the iron hat, “where did you get the idea for that?”

The clerk smiled at him triumphantly. “Wouldn’t you like to know, eh, Lakewalker?”

“Because it doesn’t do a blighted thing. It was a joke got up on some flatties stuck up above Pearl Riffle a few weeks back, and they bought it. We laughed at them.”

Some flatties, obviously, who had made it downriver this far ahead of the Fetch, Fawn realized. She stuffed her fist in her mouth and watched in fascination.

“Yep, I just bet you’d like to trick me into taking this off, wouldn’t you, young fellow?” said the clerk in growing satisfaction. “Laugh away. We’ll see who laughs last.”

“What, I haven’t tried to buy anything off you! Or sell anything, either.”

“Yet.” The clerk nodded, then reached up to adjust the slipping pot more firmly. “And nor will you.”

Barr’s hands spread in a frustrated plea. “Look, I know it was a joke because I made it up myself!”

The clerk sat back, eyes narrowing shrewdly. “You would say that, aye.”

“No, really! This is crazy. Groundsense sees right through a bitty thing like that. An iron hat doesn’t do anything. It was just a joke! I made it up—”

Berry gave Dag a significant look; Dag reached out and gripped Barr’s shoulder. “Come along now, Barr, and stop arguing with this fellow. Boss Berry wants to cast off.”

“But it’s—but he’s—”

Remo helped propel his partner through the door and down the muddy slope. Barr skidded to a halt and tried to turn back. “It was a joke, I made it up…”

Dag sighed. “If you want to stay here and argue with that fellow, I’m sure we can offload your boat and gear. Me, I predict we’re going to be seeing pots on people’s heads up and down the Grace and the Gray for the next hundred years, so we might as well get used to it. Or for as long as folks are afraid of Lakewalkers and ignorant about our groundwork.” He hesitated, looking down the sodden, dreary valley in a considering way. “Though I suppose if it made people feel safer, it might could be a good thing…no, likely not.” He shook his head and trudged on.

“It’s not my doing,” said Barr plaintively, head still cranked over his shoulder even as he stumbled in Dag’s wake.

“Yes, it is,” said Remo irately, blended in chorus with Fawn’s “Whose else would it be?” and Dag’s reasonable drawl, “Sure it is. Might not be your intention, but it was certainly your doing. Live and learn, patroller.”

Barr’s lips thinned, but he finally shut up. Except Fawn heard him mutter, as he stepped aboard the Fetch once more, “I made it up…”

The next morning at breakfast, Barr’s campaign upon Remo was temporarily silenced when the entire crew of the Fetch united in telling him to pipe down or prepare to go swimming. It didn’t quite cure the problem, because Barr took to staring instead: imploringly, or angrily, or meaningfully. Remo gritted his teeth and attempted to ignore him. Fawn had no idea what-all the pair were doing with their grounds and groundsenses, but would not have been the least surprised had Remo burst out, just like her brothers when they’d driven their beleaguered parents into threats of a whipping if silence did not ensue, Boss! Dag! He’s lookin’ at me! Make him stop lookin’ at me! Barr watched the shoreline slipping past and glowered harder.

Fawn herself took to sewing, spinning, and unambitious cooking, hugging the hearth. Her monthly had begun last night, and she dared to hope that Dag’s new treatments were helping her to heal, because today’s pain was merely uncomfortable, not crippling. Other hopes rose in her mind as the dull tasks filled the hours. Dag had used a number of Lakewalker tricks to avoid starting a child in her half-healed womb, but it sure would be nice someday not to need those tricks. What was wanted, Fawn decided, was not time, but a place.

She pictured it in lavish detail while she jammed her needle through the tough oilcloth and occasionally her fingers—she preferred cooking to sewing, generally. The new Bluefield place would need to be near a farmer town big enough to give Dag steady medicine work, but not so big or near as to overwhelm him. There ought to be a little lake, or at least a big pond, to grow those Lakewalker water lilies with the edible roots. A kitchen garden, of course, and room for Grace and her foal and surly Copperhead. She spent considerable time working out the garden plan, and what other sorts of animals to have. If they weren’t to follow the migrating seasons of a Lakewalker camp, she could have a house with four real walls. And an iron cook stove like the one she’d seen at Silver Shoals.

She mulled over all the names she’d ever admired, and not just for children, because they did grow up and what was pretty for a baby might sound downright silly in a mother or grandmother—Fawn, for example. Whatever had Mama and Papa been thinking? She and Dag would have more than one daughter, anyhow, that was for sure…Dag would like that. Should they be close to some Lakewalker camp, too? Would any Lakewalkers want to be close to them? What if any of those children with the dignified names turned out to have strong groundsenses…?

She was just considering whether to pick out a name for Grace’s foal, too, when a distant hail from the river broke up her daydreams. Bo, who had been dozing in his bunk during his off-watch, rolled over and slitted open one eye, listened a moment, and rolled back. Fawn set aside her sewing and rose to venture out on the cold front deck to see what was happening.

A keelboat was rapidly overhauling them. On this long, straight reach the wind was coming more or less from upriver for a change, and the keel had its sail up to push it along even more briskly than the heavy current drew the Fetch. The name Tripoint Steel was painted on the prow in fancy letters, with all the Ts in the shape of drawn swords. As the gap closed between the two boats, Boss Cutter and Boss Berry bellowed the news back and forth across the moving waters.

Berry reported the names of the boats that had been seen by the helmeted goods-clerk from their stop yesterday. Cutter mentioned a man who knew a man who’d seen the Briar Rose at a town still forty miles downstream, which made Berry narrow her eyes and wave especial thanks; it would save stopping before then. Berry wished Cutter luck, and Cutter called back, as the gap again widened and the Tripoint Steel splashed bravely on, “You girls be careful now!”

“We’re not all girls,” Fawn heard Whit mutter from the roof. “The Fetch can look after its own. Blight it.”

Dag came out to cloak Fawn in his arms and listen carefully while this was going on, and Barr leaned on the rail to watch in curiosity. Fawn explained to him about Cutter’s quest for the missing boats. “Like a river patrol, sort of. They’re looking for trouble, and armed for it.”

Barr just shook his head.

That afternoon, Barr jittered around the Fetch as restlessly as a bedbug at a family reunion, swearing under his breath at each passing mile. Fawn would have bet that kidnapping schemes now revolved behind his silvery-blue eyes, but how to bring them off in a crowded flatboat in the view—and groundsenses—of all those aboard defeated him at least till bedtime. When she trod across the bunkroom after her last visit to the back deck for the night, his open eyes still gleamed from his nest of blankets in the fading firelight.

The next morning, when she came out to start tea, she found him up and dressed before anyone else. As Fawn cut bacon and calculated how to stretch limited eggs over unlimited potatoes, Berry’s bunk curtains stopped moving. She yanked them back and rolled out dressed in her usual shirt, vest, and leather skirt, shoving her sock feet into her waiting boots. When she came in from the back deck after a brief morning wash, Barr was waiting by the door.

He lowered his voice. “Boss Berry, can I speak with you—in private?” He waved vaguely toward the bow.

She put a hand on one hip and regarded him without favor. “Might it get you off my boat?”

“Maybe.”

She looked dubious, but led him through the stores, tying her hair in its horse-tail with a scrap of cloth on the way.

Whit sat up on one elbow in his bunk and blinked. “What was that all about?”

“Barr wanted to talk to Berry. Alone. They went up to the front deck.”

Whit frowned, rose, and padded over to peer out the window. “No, they went ashore. They’re walking upstream. He’s kinda got his arm…huh.” His frown deepened to a scowl, and he went back to the bunk rack and shook Remo awake. Remo sat up looking less than delighted, but after a whispered consultation, both drew on trousers, boots, and jackets and went out as well. Hawthorn and Hod, wakened by the rustling, followed curiously.

Dag wandered into the kitchen from their bed-nook amongst the stores and sat at the table, smiling as Fawn handed him a mug of strong tea. “What’s the parade?” he asked, nodding toward the bow. He sipped gratefully and opened his second eye. In the bunk rack, Bo rolled over and groaned, then stumbled out to the back deck.

“It’s a little hard to say,” said Fawn, standing on tiptoe at the window to look up the shore. Dripping trees, gray mist, muddy bank, and no one in sight. She went back to cracking eggs and cutting onions, cheese, and bread.

She almost sliced her hand when sudden shouts broke out in the distance. Dag sat up, his head turning, brows drawing down. He tensed, but did not rise. The yelling diminished, then rose again, then stopped. Fawn certainly made out Whit’s voice, and probably Barr’s and Remo’s both.

“What’s all that ruckus?” Bo asked, coming back in and helping himself to tea.

Fawn stretched up again, squinting out into the mist. “They’re all coming back. Uh-oh. Barr’s holding one hand to his face, and Remo has the other arm twisted up behind his back. Really hard. Whit’s got hold of a big stick, and is waving it and talking. Berry’s kind of…stomping. Wow, she looks mad. Hod’s bringin’ up the rear as usual, and Hawthorn’s running ahead.”

Dag rubbed his forehead and took a long, preparing breath. Fawn took heart that he did not, himself, jump up; but then, it seemed the emergency was coming to him. Hawthorn’s thumping feet across the gangplank announced his excitement even before he burst into the kitchen to cry: “Dag! Barr’s tried to magic Berry, and Whit and Remo says they’re gonna kill him!”

More shuffling footsteps crossed from shore, the boat dipped as many feet thudded onto the deck, and the rest of the party arrived on a wave of raised voices too mingled to make out the words, except for some You dids, an I didn’t! and rather a lot of Dag! Dag! Dag winced and took a long swallow of tea, then turned in his chair as the whole mob piled into the little kitchen-bunkroom.

The left side of Barr’s face was deeply reddened; his eye was already swelling shut. Any other damage Fawn could not see, but both Remo and Whit were out of breath, and Hod, of all people, was rubbing his knuckles and looking ready to burst into tears. Barr’s voice broke briefly above the babble: “I did not! Use some sense! Is this the time of day for that sort of thing? Ow, stop that, blight you!” He rose on his toes as Remo hoisted him higher.

Dag pitched his voice, Fawn noticed, really deep: the rumble somehow cut through the noise. “One at a time, please. Boss Berry?”

The uproar died as Whit and Hod poked each other for attention to Dag, and even Hawthorn swallowed his squeaks. Berry stepped forward, grim and angry.

“That patroller of yours”—she pointed a shaking finger at Barr—“tried to do something to my head. Some sorcery.”

“Yeah, and we know what it was, don’t we?” said Remo, hoisting again.

“Ow, no, blight it!”

“Dag?” said Fawn uneasily from the place of safety she’d sought behind his shoulder. “Can you tell who’s telling the truth?”

Dag looked around, pursed his lips, and dipped his chin. He cleared his throat. “Boss Berry, may I touch your head?”

She hesitated a long moment, then looked up to seek Fawn’s eyes: Fawn nodded vigorously. Berry shrugged and stepped forward. Dag leaned back and collected Fawn in the circle of his arm, not for his own reassurance or hers, but for Berry’s, Fawn realized. Very carefully, Dag touched the back of his hook to Berry’s pale forehead. He had to have done something with his ghost hand, because Barr’s mouth dropped open and even Remo’s eyes widened.

“I thought he was just a patroller!” Barr whispered to his partner.

“You thought wrong,” Remo growled back.

“Well.” Dag sighed without pleasure. “There’s a new bit of ground reinforcement here. It’s trying to be shaped as a persuasion, but it isn’t very well made, so I’m not quite sure what it was intended to do if it had been finished.”

“Can you get it back out o’ there?” said Berry nervously.

“I can release any beguilement, and undo the shape so it’s no more directed than any healing reinforcement. Your own ground will convert it in a couple of days. There shouldn’t be any other effect than, well, you won’t be getting any headaches for a bit. Shall I do this now?” His voice, Fawn realized, had gone very gentle.

“Yes!” said Berry. “I don’t want no one puttin’ things in my head I can’t see.”

The little bit of absence in Dag’s eyes passed faster than a blink. “There,” he said, dropping his left arm. “All undone now.”

Berry rubbed her forehead. “I suppose I have to take your word for that.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I didn’t—” began Barr.

“What?” said Dag.

Just that word, with a faint twist of astonishment, but the look that went with it was like nothing Fawn had ever encountered in Dag’s eyes before. She’d never seen his waking face so absolutely wiped clean of any humor whatsoever.

Barr flinched. “I wasn’t trying to seduce her,” he got out, in a much smaller voice.

“What were you trying, then?” said Dag, still in that dead-level tone.

Barr’s teeth clamped.

“I know where Berry keeps the rope, up in the stores,” said Whit grimly. “We could hang him. Plenty of trees back in those woods.”

“I wouldn’t stop you,” said Remo. Barr winced.

Berry pressed her temples uncertainly. “It seems I took no harm. Thanks to you boys,” she added a little gruffly, with a nod all around at her crew. The young men all stood a bit taller. “Hanging might be too much.”

“Too much, or too good?” said Whit.

Hod offered helpfully, “My sister made me drown some extra barn kittens once—tied ’em in a sack with some rocks, see. We got some feed bags up front, and there’s plenty of rocks on the bank. We could do that.”

Barr’s eyes shifted toward Hod in deep uncertainty.

“Dag?” said Whit, and “Dag?” echoed Remo and Hod.

“Wait, how’d I get elected judge, here?” said Dag. “It’s Berry’s boat. She’s boss; any decision’s hers.”

“You’re the expert in Lakewalkers,” Berry said. The only trusted one, she did not add aloud, but it sort of hung in the air implied, Fawn felt.

“I’m not Barr’s patrol leader. I’m not even a member of Pearl Riffle patrol. Dag No-camp, indeed. Closest thing Barr has to a senior officer here would be Remo.” Dag tilted his head invitingly at the dark-haired patroller.

What are you thinking, Dag? Fawn wondered. Besides ahead…

Barr said desperately, “Remo, Amma’s holding me responsible for you, and I can’t make you do anything! It’s not fair!”

“Now you know how I’ve always felt about you.” Remo took a breath, nostrils flaring. “It’s Berry’s boat. Whatever she decides, I’ll abide.”

“It wasn’t what you think…”

Berry stalked up to Barr, sweeping her blistering gaze from his boots up to his blond hair. “You are about the most worthless sack of skin I ever met. You ain’t payin’, you ain’t workin’, and you ain’t welcome on my boat. So git!”

“No!” cried Barr in ill-considered defiance. “Not without my partner!”

Dag’s brows went up. “You heard the boat boss. Hod, Whit, get his boat in the water. Fawn, Hawthorn, fetch his things and bung them in. Remo…” Dag stood to his full height as Barr started to struggle. “I’ll lend you a hand.”

The crew of the Fetch scattered into action. Fawn brought the bedroll, conveniently already rolled up, and the bow and quiver, and flung them any which way into the rocking narrow boat right after Hawthorn tossed down the pack and the sacks.

Dag and Remo manhandled the struggling Barr through the door, although he stopped fighting and froze once Dag’s hook eased around and pressed into the corner of one eye. “Don’t move sudden. That’s better. Now, you got two choices,” Dag advised. “You can climb down into your boat from the deck, here, or you can climb up into it from the water, over there.”

The water was black and utterly opaque this morning, and even here by the shore the current raced, making strange patterns on the surface. And it looked so cold Fawn would not have been surprised to see little skins of ice jostling, but it was likely still too early in the season for that.

“I’ll climb down,” Barr choked. The two released him, and he scrambled over the rail, bitter fury in every jerky motion. The narrow boat rocked only a little as he sank, balanced, into his seat. Remo bent down and gave it a hard shove out into the swirling current.

Barr looked around him. “Hey!” he said indignantly. “Where’s my paddle?” He held up both empty hands in protest as his boat drifted farther from the bank.

“Oh, leave him go, just like that!” cried Whit in delight. “Downriver bass-ackwards!”

Berry, lips clamped, stalked over to retrieve one of the narrow boat’s paddles from where they lay by the cabin wall. She strode to the back rail and launched it endwise; it landed a good thirty feet downstream of Barr’s narrow boat, and was caught by the current. If she’d thrown it the same distance upstream, it would have drifted right to Barr’s reaching hand.

“There’s your paddle, patroller boy! Chase it!” she yelled after Barr.

“Nice,” said Whit, leaning on the rail with eyes aglow.

Barr, with a lot of choked muttering in which Blight! was the most frequent word Fawn could make out, leaned from side to side and began clawing the water with his hands in an effort to overtake his paddle’s head start.

“Who gave Barr the shiner?” Fawn asked, leaning beside Whit.

“Remo. And me. And Hod, but he was too scared to hit him very hard.”

“Ow,” said Fawn.

“He earned it.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

The clinging river mist closed around the narrow boat, although the disembodied cries of Blight it! drifted back for a while longer.

Berry squinted out in satisfaction. “Right. That should make the Fetch a sight more peaceful.” She dusted her hands and led her crew back in to find breakfast.

Fawn hesitated by Dag, who stood with his hand on the rail looking out into the layer of gray damp, but seeing, she suspected, much more than she did. There was scant satisfaction in him, only close attention. “There,” he said at last, straightening. “He’s got his paddle back.”

“Is that the end of him?” Fawn asked hopefully.

Dag smiled down at her. “Well, there’s this. He’s a Lakewalker boy away from home for the first time, all alone. He’s not going upstream by himself, that’s for sure. His only choice is to keep going down, like us. So we’ll see.”

She frowned at him in doubt. “Do you want him to come back?”

“I don’t like losing patrollers.”

“You kept Remo. That’s one.”

“I don’t like losing two patrollers ’bout twice as much as I don’t like losing one.”

“Well, I hope you can find more value in Barr with your groundsense than I can with my eyes and ears.”

“I hope I can, too, Spark,” he sighed.