hard this morning.”
“To no good purpose, it looks like,” muttered Neeta savagely. She stalked off the porch and led her blown mount away around the house.
“I could wish Arkady hadn’t taken it into his head to cover for me,” murmured Dag. “I wasn’t expecting that. Did he lie outright? Ah, gods. This is going to be Hickory Lake all over again. I’m so sorry, Spark.”
“I don’t think it’s the same,” said Fawn sturdily.
“Sure puts me in mind. Blight. If only I’d had more time to earn my place, time to persuade. I thought the scheme of a medicine tent in the farmer’s market was first-rate, or could be made to be, with unbeguilement. Get it set up and running in two years or three, leave it behind as a seed when we did go north again.”
“Planting ideas? ” Fawn tested the notion in her mind. “Only works if you’re going to stay and water and weed them. And pick off the caterpillars.”
“Huh.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “It’s never simple, is it, Spark? ”
–-
Captain Bullrush bumped Dag’s groundsense within the hour. Dag went out to wait on the top porch step, leaning against the post. Fawn sat at his feet, her face propped in her little fists. Neeta lounged on the steps opposite Fawn, one booted leg outstretched, scowling. The adult Bridgers filtered out onto the porch, too, Papa Bridger and Lark flanking the front door with their arms crossed, Mama Bridger in her rocker failing to knit, Cherry and Finch anxious on the bench beside her.
“I expect Captain Bullrush will be wanting a word or two with me. I’d take it kindly if you folks won’t interrupt his say,” Dag cautioned the Bridgers.
“Fawn’s and my place back at New Moon Camp is at stake, here.”
Finch ducked his head at Fawn, his source of many lessons on Lakewalkers over the past four days-though not that one-and said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know!”
Dag gave him a dry smile over his shoulder. “If you had, would you have done any different? ”
Finch glanced up toward the corner bedroom, where his nephew lay peacefully sleeping. “I guess not. Not really.”
“Me neither.”
The little Lakewalker patrol trotted slowly up the lane. The camp captain naturally didn’t ride alone; he’d chosen his age mate Tapp to be his partner for this inquiry. Witness, too, probably. Not surprisingly, Barr and Remo trailed after. They looked relieved to see Dag and Fawn, more confused to see Neeta. The four drew up their mounts in the muddy yard in front of the porch.
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.”
