From his place in his saddle, Antan Bullrush was almost eye to eye with Dag. He did not dismount, but did ease his reins and lean on his saddlebow. His bent back revealed as much of his state of mind as his mostly closed ground: weary exasperation tempered by confusion and caution. If he’d been younger and less tired, he’d likely have been more angry. Dag understood that one, bone-deep.
His eye fell on Neeta in a way that made the girl flinch. “And what are you doing here, patroller?” he growled.
She raised her chin. “I’m off duty, sir. I’m free to go where I like.”
“Is that so?”
She had the prudence to make no reply. Thankfully. Antan turned his gaze to Dag, and went on, “I see your intelligencer has run ahead of us. So which of the tales was true, northerner? Was this an elopement, or an errand of mercy?”
“It was a five-year-old boy with lockjaw. Sir.” Dag touched his fingers to his temple in a habitual salute that had very little actual salute in it.
To his credit, the captain’s face set in what might have been a sympathetic wince. A flicker of his groundsense extended; he glanced after it toward that corner room, then nodded. “I see. It’s as well to have the facts straight, I suppose.” Even if they weren’t the facts he might have preferred?
“Told him it couldn’t be an elopement,” Remo muttered.
“Might have been an abduction, though,” Barr said judiciously, or mock judiciously—with Barr, it was hard to tell. “I might have believed that.”
A sharp downward jerk of Antan’s fist demanded silence from the pair.
Papa Bridger stepped sternly forward. “Without this lanky fellow and his little wife, I believe we’d be burying my grandson today.”
Dag turned his left arm in what would be a palm-down calming gesture, if he’d had a palm on that side. The faint threat from his hook and reminder of his sacrifice were just a bonus for Antan, he figured.
Antan took in the array of Bridger eyes upon him and said to Dag, a trifle through his teeth, “We would do better without the audience, here.”
“They’re on their own porch,” observed Dag. “You’re in their yard.” Antan looked sulky, but couldn’t very well deny this.
“What I think,” said Fawn abruptly, standing up, “is that it’s time to get everyone here introduced to each other, so’s they’ll have no excuse for talking over each other’s heads.” And she proceeded to spend the next several minutes doing so. Antan’s attempt to glower continuously at Dag kept getting interrupted by having to acknowledge names and little life stories. By the time Fawn had worked through everything including Tapp’s recent gut problems, it was plain that Antan’s plan to keep this on his own familiar terms—a stern patrol dressing-down—was slipping through his fingers.
Antan stared at the farmers, rubbed his face, grasped at straws. “How many folks know about this excursion of yours by now, Dag? Just the ones here, or more—neighbors, kinfolk?”
Fawn answered. “Neighbors, married sisters, in-laws—all sorts of folks have stopped by to help in the past few days. It’s how farmers do things, you know, sir.”
“Uh huh. So any notion that this could be kept a secret is hash?”
“Afraid so, sir,” said Dag, understanding his drift, and its hopelessness. “As I tried to explain to Neeta. But I believe she was only thinking about half of the picture.”
Neeta glanced over her shoulder at all the Bridgers and blinked uneasily.
Antan gave Neeta an I’ll-deal-with-you-later look. He said to Dag, “Did Arkady make it clear to you that this sort of thing was forbidden?”
“He made it clear he thought it inadvisable, and explained why.” Dag hesitated. “It was clearer to me that I couldn’t turn away from a youngster dying in that much agony and still be a fellow I wanted to shave every morning.”
Antan was plainly moved by this last—but not far enough. “If we have a repeat of what happened over at Hatchet Slough, my patrollers will bear the brunt of it.” He glanced at Tapp, at Neeta. Seeing broken heads? Or worse?
Dag was moved, too—but not far enough. “A good idea badly carried out is not the same as a bad idea. With unbeguilement, I believe Arkady’s old notion of setting up a medicine tent in the farmers market would be an orderly way to try a new thing, without riots at your gates. It wouldn’t have to be Hatchet Slough again.”
Antan rocked back in his saddle. “Is that the bee you have in your brain?”
Dag nodded. Oh gods, was this the time, place, and man for this argument? Never mind, keep going. “Because someday, when all the malices are gone—when that long evil doesn’t mold us anymore—who will we Lakewalkers be? I’ve seen a boatload of possibilities, this patrol. It’s not too soon to start trying new things, especially here. In a lot of ways, the south is a vision of the future of the north.”
Antan had gone rigid, like a man fighting inside his own mind as well as outside. “Listen to me, northerner—it’s my calling to hold New Moon Cutoff. To defend it, lest our traditions and our blood be destroyed by inches.”
Dag snorted. “Our traditions? Really? Where did you exchange when you were a young patroller, Antan?
“South Seagate,” the camp captain replied uneasily.
“Pretty far south for north, that is. So when did New Moon hold its last ten-year rededication? I know what a traditional camp looks like, and it’s nothing like New Moon. If you were traditional, you’d put a torch to every house in it. Because traditional Lakewalkers don’t defend. We run. New Moon has gone as sessile as its farmer neighbors. And you’re only clenching your hands so tight because you have so little left in them.”
Antan looked down at his reins, and, with an effort, undid his white-knuckled fingers from around them. He frowned across at Fawn. “I’d think you’d be newly interested in defending what’s in front of you, Dag.”
Dag shrugged. “I’d be very happy to return to New Moon and continue my training.” He spared a glance at glowing Fawn, regarding him in unshaken trust. Absent gods, would I be happy for that.
“And would you swear not to do anything in secret like this”—a wave around at the Bridger farm—“again?”
Silence. Then, “Can I have a medicine booth, so I wouldn’t have to be secret?”
Longer silence.
“That’s groveling?” Neeta muttered through her teeth.
Fawn had hunkered next to her on the step; Dag heard her whisper in return, “Dag-style, yep. Watch ’n listen.”
Dag went on more urgently, “The future is happening right here, every day. You can swim or you can drown, but you can’t choose not to be in the flood. I suppose the real insight is that it’s always been that way.” He took a breath. “I think we should start learning to swim.”
Antan snapped, “Men like Tapp and me have youngsters to defend, too. Everyone’s youngsters, not just our own.”
Dag gave a conceding nod, but swept his hand around in a loop that took in not only Fawn, but Neeta and the Oleana boys, Finch, and Sparrow and his sister upstairs. “If you really mean everyone’s youngsters, Lakewalker and farmer alike, then I’m with you. Because they may be our charges now, but they will be our judges when the waters fall.”
“Blight,” said Antan slowly. “And here I thought you were just dangerous because you were a softhearted fool. You’re a real renegade, aren’t you? Ten times more than that poor bandit fellow you knifed up on the Grace.”
“Well, sir.” And what kind of an answer was that? Not a denial.
“Gods, you make me dizzy. I sit here listening to you any longer, I’m like to fall off my blighted horse. Listen, northerner. We didn’t have a problem till you walked in. No question that the fastest way to rid ourselves of it is for you to walk out again. I don’t have time for this.”
Fawn looked off into the air, but her voice grew distinctly edged. “My mama used to say to me, What, you don’t have time to do it right, but you do have time to do it over?”
Antan broke from her
cool stare and returned to scowling at Dag. “You’re not my patroller, Dag Bluefield. Absent gods, you’re not even anyone’s tent-kin here. If you’re so set on dealing with farmers, you can take it up anywhere you like—except within the bounds of my camp. And whatever mess you’ve started here can chase after you, and not end up at our gates.”
“My training—” Dag began.
“You should have thought of that earlier.”
“I did.”
“Then you made your choice. So there’s no blighted point in me sitting here arguing with you, is there? Just don’t come back to New Moon. We won’t let you in again.”
He wheeled his horse away. Then his eye fell on Barr and Remo, sitting stricken on their mounts. “Ah.” He reined in. “You two. Are you coming with me, or staying with him?”
Remo’s lips parted in surprise; he looked at Neeta and back to Antan. “Could we stay at New Moon, sir?”
“You can apply. Your patrol leader told me that you were exceptionally disciplined patrollers.”
“Oh, not me, sir!” Barr said, in a sweetly cheery tone. “I’ve been hanging around with renegades way too long. My ground is totally corrupted, y’see. You wouldn’t want me in your patrols. Something untidy might rub off on them. Wits, maybe.”
Antan’s teeth clenched in something not much like a smile. “Right. Then you can bring Dag back his horses and gear.” His gaze swung to Remo, scythe-like. “And you?”
Remo looked in anguish at Barr, Neeta, Dag. “I—can I have a little time to think about it, sir?”
“You can have till your partner leaves.” Antan’s arm veered to Neeta. “You, go get your horse and catch up.” He jerked his chin at Tapp. “Enough of this fool’s errand. Back to camp.”
As the patrollers turned away, Barr edged his horse up to the porch. “I guess I’ll be back tomorrow with Copperhead and all. Any messages?”
“Tell Arkady…” No. Dag could hardly tell Arkady he was sorry for going out, because he still wasn’t. Only for not coming back. “Tell Arkady I’m sorry for how things worked out. But will you keep arguing for me back there as long as you can? Because Antan Bullrush isn’t the only authority at New Moon. And your mouth has nothing more to lose you at this point.”
Barr grinned like a possum and reined after the others.
12
After following Dag upstairs to watch him treat Sparrow, Fawn returned with him to the Bridger kitchen to find a family conference in progress that reminded her of table talk at home in West Blue. They all had plenty of rude things to say about Captain Bullrush, anyhow.
“Well, yes, but I have a deal of sympathy for Antan,” said Dag, as Cherry Bridger pushed tea mugs in front of them both.
“But he as much as tossed you out on your ear!” said Cherry. Finch hunched his shoulders and looked guilty.
“The man was trying to protect his camp.” Dag repeated Arkady’s story of the tragedy at Hatchet Slough, not quite in Arkady’s words.
“But that was a long time ago,” said Finch. “Before I was born!”
“It’s present memory to folks like Captain Bullrush and Arkady, though.” Dag swallowed tea, shook his head. “I think Antan senses his ways are starting to be outworn, but he’s got nothing to put in their place, so his only answer is to hold harder. There’s a lot of folks like him.”
“But Dag’s trying to change all that,” Fawn put in proudly.
“Don’t load my boat too heavy, Spark. One man can’t change all the world any more than he can change which way the wind blows. The most he can do is learn to read that wind and sail it. I figure a fellow can get quite a cargo safe from shore to shore, if he can do that.”
He scrubbed his face. “Gods, listen to me. All wind and water and nonsense. No wonder it all slips through my hand. I need some good farmer dirt to ground me, Spark. It’s all about time, see. I deeply do not understand time, and groundsense is no help; it’s stuck in time like everything else.” He glanced up at a ring of blank faces, and ducked his head. “Sorry. Too many winter nights out on patrol with nothing to look at but stars. It’s like to make a man strange.”
Fawn thought she could nearly hear the Bridgers thinking, stranger, but no one said it aloud. “So, what do we do now, Dag?”
Papa Bridger put in, with heavy emphasis, “You two would be welcome to stay here. For as long as you’ve a mind.” Lark nodded shortly, and Cherry and Mama Bridger murmured something bolstering.
Fawn tried to picture it. Could they make a life as permanent guests in that upstairs room? Doing what? Well, she knew farm chores; she could pull her weight. But she suspected there might be objections to Dag taking up medicine making for farmers this close to New Moon. And…with a baby? In some other woman’s house? Though Cherry Bridger made a tempting substitute kinswoman. They’d be safe for a time, at least…
Finch leaned forward, elbows on the table, face serious. “Fawn, do you remember those friends I told you about, who were talking about moving north?”
“Yes?”
“I passed on what you told me about your country, and it tipped the balance. We decided someday should be this spring. We thought we’d all go together, because the Trace is no place for loners. We’ve been getting our supplies in order—Sage asked his sweetheart to marry him and come along—we were all to start this past week, but then Sparrow got sick, and I was all distracted. I was to take the brown mare and two pack mules for my due-share, and my supplies and tools.”
Papa Bridger and Lark nodded.
“Sage has a wagon, so they’ll be going slower than a pack train. I figured to catch up when…well, I figured to leave one way or another.”
If Sparrow had died, Finch had meant to flee the farm in shame, he meant. Fawn nodded understanding. Mama Bridger sighed.
“I’m glad”—Finch glanced at Dag, took a deep breath—“that it’s not going to be like that. But I still want to catch up with Sage and the boys. What I wondered was—have you ever been on the Trace, sir?”
Dag’s brows flicked up. “I’ve never walked it end to end all at one time. I’ve ridden or walked most sections.”
“I’ve never been north of Alligator Hat,” Finch said.
The nearest village—some fifteen miles up the Trace, Fawn had learned, charmed by the name. She’d wondered if they in fact sold alligator hats there.
“But you, sir,” Finch went on, “if you were meaning to go home after all—if you threw in with us now—you might be a sort of guide. Mightn’t you?” He looked anxiously at Fawn.
“Of a sort,” said Dag. He, too, looked at Fawn, question in his eyes. “I’m not the medicine maker I meant to be, yet.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Before, you’d half a mind to jump into this with no training but patrol medicine.”
“Before, I was a blighted fool. A menace.”
“A mighty lucky menace, if so. And it’s not like you grew more ignorant, for our two months with Arkady.”
“It sure feels like it. Arkady opened my eyes to a whole new realm. It’s been right humbling. Maker Vayve, too—I thought I knew all about knife making from watching Dar, but Vayve’s style was quite a bit different. Between ’em, I feel like someone took my skull and shook it like a bottle of cider, and the cork’s about to pop out.”
“You don’t have to be the best medicine maker in seven hinterlands.” Although she suspected Arkady might be. “Yeah, Arkady sets a high bar, though I wonder if some of that isn’t your mama’s voice in the back of your head. She does make you crazy, you know that, Dag. But all you really have to do is be better than what folks have now. And be there.”
Dag shook his head gloomily.
“Maybe you can find another medicine maker up in Oleana who’ll take you up on your terms. Arkady can’t be the only good teacher.”
The gloom lightened slightly. “Point, Spark.” He scrubbed his hair, studied her. “You want to go home.”
Truly, if they were going north this year, it needed to be so
on. Early pregnancy was no picnic—she remembered the sickness and mind-draining fatigue—but late pregnancy would be even worse for travel. Hers, anyhow. Yeah, we need to go before I get too round to move. Dag was endearingly nervous for her health during, a concern she treasured after the frightening isolation of her first experience, but she was more nervous for what would come after. She had never been much for other people’s babies, though she’d always expected to quite like her own. Still…just how scary was it to be handed a baby you couldn’t hand back?
She didn’t need a substitute kinswoman; she had a real one now in Berry Bluefield. Best thing Whit ever did for me. If Fawn was going to end up having a baby in someone else’s house, she wanted it to be Berry’s place in Clearcreek.
Useless to try to lie to a man with groundsense, but she at least managed, “I want what you need.”
A crooked smile. “I think I need to go home, too. We need.” We-three, not we-two; she heard that, and had to smile back. Dag straightened. “Go home and get started. Arkady’s wrong about one thing; it does make a difference where you put your hand on the lever. But we’re not going anywhere without our horses. We’ll have to see what Barr and Remo—or Barr, leastways—brings us.”
Barr brought Arkady.
Also Copperhead, Magpie, and two heavily loaded packhorses. Dag, strolling out onto the porch when he sensed them, stared openmouthed at the train. Barr was riding Copperhead himself, but trailed a strange horse bearing an empty saddle and his bags. Dag looked in vain for Remo, and his heart sank at that absence.
It had been two days since Captain Bullrush’s decree of expulsion. Dag hadn’t expected Barr back before yesterday noon at the earliest. A hundred things might have delayed him, most hopefully some Barrish persuasion to reverse Antan’s ruling. The longer Dag had waited, the more his hopes had risen. But Barr surely wouldn’t have packed all that gear just for a quick return to New Moon, and for pity’s sake how had he obtained all those horses?
“What’s all this?” Dag asked, bemusedly returning Barr’s wave of greeting.