Hustingreen Regiment. Some of them probably worked on our farm in harvesttime. We saw them on market days, played with them on the ferry landing when we were boys.”
“They aren’t our enemies,” Aidan repeated. “They’re our countrymen. And they’re just following orders.”
“Follerin’ orders?” Dobro barked. “How ’bout the feller what gave the orders? Is he a enemy or not?”
It was a good question. Aidan, like his brothers and his father, had pledged allegiance to King Darrow. But that was before Darrow had turned on Aidan, before he had run Aidan’s family off its land. Was Darrow his king or his enemy? For years now, Aidan had been able to put the question out of his mind. He had been happy in the swamp and far beyond King Darrow’s reach or influence. In the Feechiefen he hadn’t needed to have an opinion about King Darrow. He didn’t have to be a friend or an enemy. But now it was clear: He would soon have to decide.
Dobro was in Aidan’s face now, poking a finger in his chest. Aidan could feel his old friend’s rancid breath on his cheek. “I asked you a question, Aidan Pantherbane. Is King Darrow your enemy or not?”
Aidan looked to Percy, but his brother wouldn’t meet his gaze. Aidan shoved Dobro back out of his face. “I don’t know, Dobro,” he said. “I don’t know yet.”
In the silence that followed, Aidan understood what he had to do-at least part of what he had to do. “Those civilizers won’t make it to the Feechiefen,” he announced. “I’ll see to that myself.” All around him, eyes narrowed as the feechies tried to understand what he meant.
“Pantherbane, I don’t mean no disrespect, and we all know you got what it takes,” Tombro began. “But ain’t a thousand civilizers with cold-shiny arms more’n you can handle? Even if your brother helps you?”
“No, listen here,” Aidan said. “If I leave the Feechiefen-and if King Darrow knows it-he’ll never send his men into the swamp.” Aidan took a deep breath before he spoke the next sentence. “I’m leaving the Feechiefen. Right now.”
The gasps of fifty feechiefolk sounded like the rustle of leaves before a thunderstorm.
“Aidan,” said Tombro, “we can hide you as long as you want to be hid, and your brother too. And if you don’t want us whuppin’ your civilizer friends, or enemies, whatever they are”-here he looked around nervously, not sure if his fellows would agree-“I reckon we could resist it.”
“Thank you, Tombro,” said Aidan, “but I won’t ask you to do that. If civilizers come into Feechiefen, there’s bound to be bad trouble. And even if you didn’t whip them, the alligators and the wolves and the quicksand would.
“No,” he continued, “every hour I stay here, I’m putting the peace of this whole swamp in danger. And I’m putting those thousand civilizer soldiers in danger-and the five thousand King Darrow will send when they’re gone, and the ten thousand he’ll send after that.”
“But, Pantherbane,” came the piping voice of a wee-feechie who had sneaked into the swamp council. “You gonna come back, ain’t you?”
“No, Betsu,” Aidan answered, “I don’t reckon I ever will.”
The stunned silence in the clearing was broken by a wave of wailing lamentations. Percy was astonished to see half the feechiefolk wallowing in the sand for sorrow at Aidan’s departure.
Aidan couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to the people who had been his gracious hosts and faithful friends these three years. He knew if he didn’t slip away immediately, somebody would start organizing a farewell feast in his honor, complete with fistfights and feechiesings and probably a gator grabble. He just didn’t have the time. He grabbed Percy by the elbow, and the two brothers disappeared into the forest.
Running for the north end of Scoggin Mound, Aidan heard the slightest rustle in the treetops, and he realized he and Percy were not alone. “Dobro?” he called. “Is that you?”
“It’s me,” came the answer from somewhere in the treetop.
“Go back, Dobro. We’re going to civilizer country.”
Dobro slid down a vine and dropped to the ground beside them. “I know,” he said. “I been thinkin’ I might take up civilizin’ my own self. Maybe get me a horse to ride around on, marry me one of them pretty civilizer gals, and raise some civilizer younguns.”
Aidan couldn’t help but smile at the thought. But he knew the swamp was the place for Dobro. “No, I think this is good-bye, friend. Maybe we can meet at the Bear Trail one of these new moons. But you’d better get back to the swamp council. Tell everybody good-bye for me.”
“I don’t reckon I will,” said Dobro, in a very matter-of-fact tone. “And I don’t reckon you could make me. I’m comin’ with you.”
Aidan didn’t have time to argue. “Maybe you could escort us as far as Big Bend.”
“Sure, I’ll escort you to Big Bend,” said Dobro. “Then I’m gonna escort you across the river, and I’m gonna escort you wherever you go in civilizer country, and me and your brothers is gonna be big buddies, and your daddy’s gonna treat me like his own son. Your fights is my fights, Aidan.”
Dobro among civilizers. Aidan didn’t see any way it could work. It had disaster written all over it. He had to think of something, and fast. So he lied. “Here’s the thing, Dobro. I don’t want you to come with me.”
Dobro just shrugged. “Want me or don’t want me. It don’t make me no never mind. I’m comin’ with you.”
Aidan looked at Dobro and sighed. He was one determined feechie. And the truest friend in the world. In truth, Aidan couldn’t bear the thought of parting ways with Dobro, whatever trouble he might cause among the civilizers.
“Come on, then,” he said.
“Haw-wee!” Dobro whooped, and he put one arm around Aidan’s neck and the other around Percy’s. “Let’s go get civilized!”
Chapter Five
Percy, Dobro, and Aidan traveled north from Scoggin Mound by flatboat, then through the treetops. Percy, like his brother, proved a natural tree-walker, swinging and leaping with the easy rhythm of the feechiefolks. They saw neither soldiers nor signs of soldiers in the Feechiefen, in the bordering scrub swamp, or in the pine flats beyond. However, when they made it to the River Tam around dusk on the second day of their travels, it became clear they had nearly waited too long.
On the south bank of the river-the feechie bank-five soldiers from King Darrow’s army were guarding a huge mound of supplies ferried over that day. In the failing light, Aidan could make out bundle upon bundle of steel-tipped arrows, piles of timber axes, two bales of extra uniforms, and stacks of shovels. A string of pack mules stamped and twitched nervously, seemingly aware that they didn’t belong on this side of the River Tam. The civilizer guards looked skittish themselves. From their perch in the tree directly above, Percy, Dobro, and Aidan could hear every word they said.
“Look at them cooking fires,” one of the soldiers said. Across the river, fifty fires flickered beneath the sheltering trees of Last Camp. “They look cheerful from here, don’t they?”
“Earl, everything looks cheerful compared to this place,” said one of the others. “It feels like this forest is gonna swallow us whole. We got no business over here.” The pitch of his voice rose with that last sentence.
“Keep your leggings on, Hadley,” said a third soldier. “Things’ll look a whole lot better tomorrow morning when the rest of the force crosses over.”
Hadley wasn’t satisfied. “You reckon we’ll even see tomorrow morning? I’m telling you, this place gives me the fantods. Ain’t nobody ever come back from this side of the river, Wat.”
“Ain’t nobody ever come a thousand men at a time,” Wat answered.
“I don’t know. It might be just nine hundred and ninety-five by morning.”
“Hush that talk, Luther,” said Earl. “You’re as bad as Hadley. Besides,” he added, “Aidan Errolson came back alive once.”
“Aidan Errolson!” a fifth soldier said. “I ’bout had a bellyful of Aidan Errolson. Weren’t for Aidan Errolson, I’d be home where I belong, mowing hay for my cattle, dandling my new baby on my lap in the evenings.”
