Remo’s lips moved, but no sound came out. He blinked rapidly.
Fawn drew breath and went on: “Cracking that beguilement mystery open was worth your coming along all on its own. That’s two. And I don’t know how many more boats and lives those bandits would have destroyed before the end if we hadn’t chanced along to stop them. That’s three. Three good reasons are good enough for going on with, Dag says.”
She glanced aside. I could wish it was less hard on Berry. But the boat boss was sitting on the log next to Whit, finally beginning to talk a bit. Whit was listening attentively. He had an arm around her waist in a comforting sort of way, and she was making no move to shrug it off. Berry’s strength still impressed Fawn, but she was glad that maybe she didn’t have to be strong so all-by-herself, now. Because that could be wearing on a woman.
“I don’t know,” said Remo. “I don’t think I know anything anymore.”
“Blight, I never did,” said Barr. “It hasn’t stopped me!” He blinked cheerily, and fell into his old, wheedling voice. “You’ve got to come along, Remo, to keep me from falling into the sea. Or to push me in, whichever.”
Remo scratched his head, and said wryly, “Hard choices.”
“Hey…!”
Leaving them to take up their comfortable, habitual squabbling, Fawn made her way back to Dag, satisfied.
A while after the last unnerving noises stopped drifting over the ridge, they all made their way back to the Fetch the long way around, back of the cave, avoiding both the woods and the new poles down by the shore. Fawn expected she’d go peek at those gruesome standards later, and then be sorry she had. She definitely wasn’t going to venture into the winter-bare woods until the crop hanging there had been harvested and planted. And maybe not even then.
Dag thought Berry would have been glad to shove off that very afternoon, as the Fallowfield family’s flatboat did, but they were all held there by the boatmen’s demands on Dag for medicine work. Yet by the following morning Chicory was doing better than Dag had anticipated, sitting up and eating, if wincing at his tender skull and throbbing headache. The Raintree men made plans to camp at the cave for a few more days, then ride home in gentle stages, taking the bandits’ horses and horse gear for their salvage share. Fawn opined that it was a good idea to get Chicory back into the hands of Missus Chicory as soon as might be to finish recovering. In all, Dag thought the Raintree hunters would be trailing home with fuller bags than if they’d managed to successfully complete their original river venture, and much sooner, so Missus Chicory might forgive the broken head. If perhaps not let anyone forget it for a good long time, or so Bearbait feared.
After Dag released his Lakewalker assistants around noon, the pair disappeared and did not return till after dark. He intercepted them at the end of the gangplank as they approached the Fetch somewhat surreptitiously, each lugging a sack.
“What’s this?” Dag asked.
“Shh,” said Remo, with a glance at the boat. Dag allowed them to lead him out of earshot along the bank.
Barr said, “We decided to patrol upstream a ways, and see if we could track where Crane and the Drums caught up with his two deserters. Which we did. We buried the bodies.” He grimaced, which Dag took to indicate the scene had been rather worse than just plain bodies. He did not feel any need to ask after the details.
Remo continued, “It took a bit longer to trace Crane’s cache. I don’t think anyone without groundsense could have found it.”
“Does Wain know about this?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Barr, “we took the goods to him first. He allowed as how since it was twice-stolen and wouldn’t have been found at all without us, we could keep it for our salvage share. We swapped out the things we didn’t want with some of the boatmen—there’s a regular market going on up at the cave just now. I couldn’t quite stomach the clothes and boots, but some of those keeler boys are not so finicky.”
“They didn’t fit us,” Remo interpreted this more precisely.
“A fellow could come back someday and do some real interesting treasure-hunting within a day or so’s ride of this place,” Barr said, a speculative look in his eye.
“That accounts for you two missing dinner, but why the tiptoeing?” asked Dag.
Remo rubbed his mouth. “Boss Berry refused any salvage share for the Fetch.”
Barr put in, “Which about broke poor Whit’s heart, I think, but he wouldn’t take any if she wouldn’t.”
Remo went on, “I know you said that wasn’t to apply to us, sir, but I figured it might be better not to trouble her mind.”
Dag, who had put his new sharing knife away deep in his saddlebags, because he flat declined to wear it around the same neck where he had kept Kauneo’s in honor for so many long years, nodded understanding. “Yes,” he agreed, “put those bags away discreetly, and no, don’t trouble Boss Berry just now.”
“Yes, sir,” said Barr brightly. Both patrollers looked relieved to be freed from responsibility for this ruling, although Dag doubted Berry would say anything even if she noticed. The pair made their way quietly across the gangplank, discretion somewhat spoiled when Daisy-goat bleated curious greetings. Dag shook his head and followed.
Berry’s hard quest was over, but time and the river flowed only one way, and flatboats perforce went with them. The Fetch left the cave landing the next dawn. Of the patients Dag was taking along, Hawthorn was recovering enough to be active, if still ouchy about his reset nose, but pleased to be let off chores for another few days. When active turned to pesky, Dag would pronounce him well. Bo was more worrisome, developing a rising fever. Dag gave up his sweep duties on the roof to sit with him and, together with Fawn, keep a close eye. Anxious for the old man, Hod proved a dab hand as an attendant, steady and careful when it came to the needed lifting and turning, and he bore up bravely even when the hurting Bo unjustly swore at him.
During the periods when Bo fell into an uneasy doze, Dag turned to another chore. Gathering up what few pieces of paper the Fetch harbored, he sat down at the kitchen table to pen a letter to Fairbolt Crow about the renegade Crane and his fate at the river cave. Whether as patrol leader or captain, the writing of reports had never been Dag’s favorite task, and he’d ducked it whenever he could. Which still meant that he’d written more of the blighted things than he could rightly remember. The lurid events and Crane’s evil history fit oddly into the well-worn forms and phrases of a patrol report, but Dag trusted Fairbolt, at least, to be able to read between the lines. Dag was not entirely satisfied with the results, but he had no more paper to do it over. Fairbolt was not, strictly speaking, Dag’s camp captain anymore, but Dag could not escape the conviction that someone with his head on straight ought to have the facts.
Bo’s fever grew worse that night, and Dag gave ground reinforcements till he nearly passed out. But in the mid-morning, the fever broke. Dag fell wordlessly into his own bed, awakening in the afternoon with an incipient cold, his first in years. Happily Barr and Remo were both able to help with that, a familiar task for patrollers on search patterns in all weathers, and Dag—with another cup of oats silently proffered by Fawn—fended it off with no worse effects than a sore throat and slight sniffle.
Dag had the Fetch stop at the last Lakewalker ferry camp on the north bank of the Grace just long enough for him to deliver his letter to the patrol courier there, turn over the effects of the murdered Lakewalker couple for possible identification, and give a very truncated account of the late doings up in Crooked Elbow to the shocked camp captain. He did not linger.