rather inescapably. First Calla, then Neeta, although Calla hadn’t hardly meant it. Neeta’s was a dodgier proposition on that score.
“Well, that’s a right flattering thing to say to a fellow my age, Neeta, but you know, I’m string-bound.” He reached to touch the cord coiled on his left arm above his harness, incidentally shifting his right arm out from under her grasp.
Neeta’s smile of invitation didn’t waver. “She’s a farmer. She’d never know.”
Wouldn’t be able to read the changes in his ground, Neeta meant.
“That’s not the point.” He needed to nip this in the bud hard and fast, but not, perhaps, cruelly. Forgive me, Kauneo, for using your memory so. But Kauneo had been a patrol leader herself, and would understand. “I think you do not see, so I’ll explain. Once only. I loved a patroller woman very much-”
“You might again.”
“No. Never again. Never while I breathe will I trade hearts with a woman who I could have the duty to order into harm’s way.”
“You’re talking about Wolf Ridge, aren’t you? It was a great tragedy, but a great battle.” Sympathy shone in her eyes like starlight.
“Actually, it was a pretty stupid battle. Since for two weeks afterwards I was too dizzy from blood loss to stand up, I had plenty of time to lie there and think about ways to have done it better. And one of the things I figured out was that if I had it to do all over, I would have sacrificed the whole company, and her brothers, and all, to save her, without remorse or regret. This is not a fit state of mind for a patrol leader or captain, which is why I never willingly took up those duties again.”
She started to speak; he overrode her. “One of the things I love best about Fawn is that she’s not a patroller woman, and never will be or could be. She’s an opposite to Kauneo in every way possible. Short instead of tall, dark hair instead of winter-red, brown eyes not silver, not my equal in age or groundsense. Farmer instead of Lakewalker, how much farther can you get? I can look at her all day long and not stir up one painful memory.” Except for the brightness of her ground; in that, his two wives were blazingly alike. He gulped at the thought, and wondered why he’d never allowed himself to think it before. “Give this notion over, Neeta. You’ll just embarrass yourself and me to no good purpose. There are better young men for you.”
“Young idiots,” she snorted.
“They grow older in due course.” Growing into old idiots? There was evidence.
She stood rigid. Dag wondered in despair how else he might say, You’re a cute young thing but your tactics are transparent and I wouldn’t touch you with a stick without offending or crushing her. He surely wasn’t the most ornamental addition to any woman’s bedroll, and he rather thought Neeta hadn’t thought of him in those terms till now-indeed, the first time they’d met, before she’d learned his ancient history, she’d looked at him like a spring beetle found crunched underfoot. But the tinge of hero worship was a dilemma.
Fortunately, before he could tangle himself up worse with his tongue, she raised her chin bravely, turned, and strode away. She was too much a proud patroller woman to flounce, which relieved him only slightly. Dag hoped he’d discouraged this approach to the argument about their direction of travel for good and all, although the possibility of Neeta sending in her partner as a second wave did cross his mind, and then he didn’t know whether to laugh or wince. He trusted Tavia had more sense.
Neeta had a problem more pressing than what man she might or might not attach to her bedroll. Dag wasn’t sure how much of a show she’d made of herself back at New Moon Cutoff to win both permission for the Arkady retrieval and command of it, but he had no doubt that for her to drag back to her camp without the groundsetter would be a considerable comedown. Still worse to return all alone, if Remo and maybe Tavia both bolted north, although Dag suspected Antan, at least, would be quite pleased if she came back without Dag and Fawn. Had her camp captain set her up to fail? Not a nice thought, though Dag could understand Antan yielding to the temptation to undercut his badgering young patroller and teach her a sharp lesson, the sharper for having brought it on herself.
So all in all, Dag was not surprised, come the dawn mist, to find Neeta and her little patrol saddling up to climb the next pass along with them. It was a long and busy day, fortunately, and by the time they’d been forced to cooperate on a dozen tasks, they’d established an unspoken pretense that the prior night’s conversation had never occurred. At least she didn’t seem heartbroken, and Dag could hardly fault her for her determination, even if it wasn’t going to do her any good.
–-
After the labors of the pass, the following day’s start was made later by a pouring rain. But the ragged gray clouds blew out by noon, the sun emerged, and a hot, bright, steaming stillness overtook the rugged country. Their cavalcade strung out along the miry road, just outpacing the first crop of mosquitoes whining in the woody shade. In the damp air, even quiet voices echoed off the rocks. Dag found himself riding together with Fawn, Whit, and Berry at the head of the line, everyone’s feet dangling beside their stirrups. Despite the lazy heat he was pleased to note Fawn upright and staring eagerly around, not as fatigued as she’d been of late.
“How many folks live in Clearcreek, would you guess? ” she asked Berry.
“Maybe seven hundred in the village, but a couple thousand up the whole valley.”
“I was wondering what was the right size of place for Dag-Dag and Arkady, now-to set up their trial medicine tent. Too little, and there wouldn’t be enough customers to keep them busy. Too many and they’d be overwhelmed. Likely Silver Shoals would be too much to start with. I don’t know about Tripoint.”
“It’s bigger than Silver Shoals,” said Dag. “I don’t know if we’ll have time this summer to take you up there and show you the city.”
“It would be something, to have ridden the whole Trace from Graymouth to Tripoint,” agreed Whit. “Still… I want to take Berry up to West Blue, too, and I don’t think there’d be time to do both.”
Whit was plainly eager to show his new bride off to his family. As well he should be, Dag thought.
“I’ve about got calluses on my backside from the Trace already,” said Fawn. “Maybe you could bring back my mare and her foal, though. And my sack of plunkin ears, which Aunt Nattie was keeping for me.”
“Oh, I thought we’d all go together,” said Whit, sounding a little disappointed.
“Well, we’ll see. How close is your place to the river, Berry? ”
“Not much more’n a mile up the Clear Creek. We launched our yearly flatboat right into the crick from our land.”
“So… you’re really almost in the Grace Valley. Do boats-and rivermen-come in off the river? Is it like a river town? ”
“Nearly. Clearcreek Landing, which sits at the crick mouth, is turning into a village in its own right, ’cept for washing away now and then in the floods. Are you thinkin’ of more trade for Dag? It’s a fact them river boys do themselves a world of hurt, time to time, even without the fevers.”
“That,” said Dag, “and something Fawn said once. That the river was like a village one street wide and two thousand miles long. I’ve been thinking for some time that if I want word to get around about what I’m doing, the river folks would ride courier for us.”
Berry nodded in approval; if Dag was not a riverman, a riverbank man would clearly be the next best thing, in her estimation. “It would be a help to me and Hawthorn if you and Fawn and Arkady was to keep our house while we was gone down with the yearly flatboat-that is, if we get a boat built for this fall’s rise. Whit still has a mite to learn ’fore I’m ready to make him boat boss and take up managin’ the goods-shed. I’d like at least one more trip on the river ’fore I get landed on shore like Fawn.” She jerked her chin toward her tent-sister’s middle.
Whit smiled innocently.
“I don’t suppose,” said Fawn, “you have a pond on your place, Berry? ”
“Why, we do, in fact.”
Fawn brightened. “Really!” Planting plunkin in her mind already, Dag could see. Clearcreek, Oleana, was looming larger in his future every day. He began to think he might deal with it right well.
“My word, this is a strange country,” said Fawn, looking around.
“Where did all the trees go? There wasn’t blight here, was there, Dag? ”
The woods had opened out, with only a few tall red oaks, their bark laced with black scars, growing out of a riot of green scrub. “No, forest fire,” said Dag. “There was a big summer drought in this valley a few years ago. It’s all coming back real good, looks like.”
Fawn peered under the flat of her hand at the new growth climbing the valley walls. “That must have been
