“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?”