He walked up the street to the town's edge, to the dock-side, down the wooden steps, and up to one of the two boats that rode at moorings there. She had a great deal of new wood in her hull, did Celestine, but salvage was a way of life in the backriver.
His steps aboard roused Jim out; the young riverman stirred out of the wheelhouse and gave him a look up and down as if looking for some sign of outsider about him.
"Going to have cargo this trip," Merritt said, looked anxiously up as Meg too exited the wheelhouse and crossed the deck to him. She put her arms about him; he smoothed her hair, wondering what things she had wondered, or if she had expected him back.
"Hear there's guns in town," Jim said.
Merritt shrugged. "They'll settle. They'll settle. Shuttle will set the supplies off and clear that beacon with the ship so there's no trouble with the next landing. We'll be on our way in the morning."
"Now," Meg said. And with a sharp look at the town and all the sweep of it, the ship and the lagoon: "Jim, there's Hazel here to freight those supplies upriver. Let's get out of here. Now. This minute."
Jim hesitated. Merritt started to object the senselessness of it; but of a sudden Jim nodded emphatically. "Right," he said. "Got our own business."
And he strode back to the engine, and soon enough there was life from it, a slow thumping, the while he ran to shout orders to men lounging ashore. Cables were cast off; Merritt seized up the bow cable to haul it in, coiled it dripping on the deck, the while Jim hauled the other in and ran for the wheel.
Celestine steadied, headed out into the channel with assurance. The town fell astern. The cold autumn wind and the persistent mist made it cold on deck, and Merritt hugged Meg close to him, walked into the lee of the wheelhouse.
The brown water curled away under them, and reed-rimmed banks, heaped with the trunks of trees, passed slowly by. On the second day they saw a fisher plying the river, a curious figure all tucked up and leaning over on the bank. It looked up as they passed, made a little turning of its head… naked and down-covered, one of the People, grown uncommonly bold for so far downriver.
It had a fish. It clutched its prize anxiously, rose to watch them as they went.
There was the bright scar of a road on the height, that came down from the new settlement, and went both ways along the southside. It would reach New Hope by summer.
And there were ruins, houses that were deserted now, fields that stood reed-grown, hazed in the persistent mist.
On the third day, at dawn, the shuttle would have lifted. Merritt stood at the rail, looking at the sky in that quarter, which was hazed and clouded… shrugged finally and turned away, to find Meg pretending she had not seen him look; he came and slipped his arm in hers.
"I don't miss it," he said, and looked up at the banks ahead of them, familiar territory. They had sight of the hills now, that began materializing out of the rain-haze.
"Sam," Jim called at him. "Easy steering here. Want to have a turn at the wheel? I'll trust you. I'm for a nap and keeping going tonight: station by tomorrow suppertime."
He climbed the steps up and went inside, Meg behind him, took the steering into his hands as Jim gave Meg a nod and closed the door in leaving. Meg settled on the sill that rimmed the wheelhouse, rose finally to stand beside him and watch the river.
"Going up to the new settlement when the supplies come in," he said to her. "I think we can at least get the station road finished this winter."
"I'm coming," she said.
He looked down at her, took her at her word… gave his attention to the river again, feeling the currents.
"Sam?" she said.
"They looked different," he said, "the ones from the ship. There was nothing about them I recognized." He indicated ahead, where the hills showed graygreen through the rain. "I didn't talk about that—Upriver. None of their concern… yet. When Hestians meet the ships on their own terms… so will the Upriver. That's best, I think."
"Children's children, before that happens."
He nodded, reckoning it so. Meg leaned on the sill forward, hair misted with rain, wiped the moisture from her face. In the hills autumn colors showed, oranges and bluegreens and browns, deepening into twilight haze, and finally into dark.
But there were no lights along the river this year, none, until the station.