The town held sadness, too, for this was a place of parting. It lay on a barely navigable tributary of the Grace River, but more importantly it was where the Tripoint Trace crossed the old straight road that cut up toward Pearl Riffle, with its Lakewalker ferry and camp. Sage, Calla, and Indigo would point their wagon east up the Trace; the rest of them would take the northern way, from which in turn sprouted the back road that led to Clearcreek.
The Basswoods stopped abruptly short, when Vio dug in her heels and declared she’d had enough and wouldn’t go one more step. Well, in this busy place Grouse would have no trouble finding day labor, likely more successful for him now he was cured of his recurrent bog ague, and, really, Fawn expected the couple would do better with town life than with the demands of homesteading. Selling their rickety wagon and a pair of their mules would give them enough to start out on. She grinned, though, to overhear the phrase Our Lakewalkers fall from Grouse’s lips when he was explaining their adventures to the hotel horseboys.
She would miss Plum, who had somehow ended up under her wing, and she rather thought Dag would miss Owlet. He seemed vastly amused by his grubby Little Brother of the mud-bat adventure, and Owlet seemed to return the compliment. Though she suspected Dag used his groundsense to cheat-unless it was his arm rig that so enthralled the child, who had developed a passion for buckles. Well, I’ll just give Dag a toddler or two of his own, and he’ll do fine. Could she really object when the cheating would be on her side?
But the most important thing that happened in their stopover in Blackwater Mills, almost as good as a bow- down in Fawn’s view, was when a patrol that had come from a neighboring camp to reinforce the Laurel Gap folks-though they’d arrived after the fight was over-rode miles out of their way home to catch up with Dag and Arkady to have the tale firsthand. They seemed a little taken aback to get it mostly from Fawn and Whit and Berry, complete with a display of the sharing-bolt shards and crossbow. But their captain, as shorthanded as every other patrol leader, was highly interested in the notion of farmer help that couldn’t be mind-slaved by a malice, even if the farmers did no more than hold the horses. Dag tried to make it very clear that his walnut shields weren’t quite perfected yet, but the captain left with a gleam in his eye nonetheless, after making sure of the directions to where Dag and Arkady planned to roost.
–-
Later that night, Fawn rolled over on clean sheets atop a yielding feather mattress and snuggled up to Dag. The bedside lamp cast a gentle glow over their quiet room. Slow spring rain sounded through the real glass windows, open just enough for a cool breeze to stir the cloth curtains.
Just being inside when the rain was outside seemed pleasure enough for any sensible woman, but she had plenty more blessings to count. Her fingers reached up to flick over his quizzical eyebrows, one, two, comb through his unruly hair, three. This tally might take a while…
“Will it be enough? ” she murmured. “Those patrollers tonight? Seems to me they listened to us better than any Lakewalkers yet. Or is this just another stone in the sea? ”
Dag’s lips softened in a smile. “The world’s a pretty big sea. For all our travels, we’ve only seen a slice of it. Enough… no, not yet. But it’s a start. And this time, our rocks will make ripples.” He leaned into her hand to kiss it in passing. “Best part is, I don’t have to go around like a stump speaker trying to talk folks into being nicer to each other, one by one. Which really would be like throwing pebbles into the sea.”
He stretched over and picked up her spent walnut necklace from where it lay by the lamp, turning it thoughtfully in his hand. “These will bring folks to us, for their own reasons, and I don’t even have to know what all the reasons are. Send enough farmers out with enough Lakewalker patrols, and they will learn all about Lakewalkers, and bring their true tales home.”
“Well,” said Fawn, “only if the Lakewalkers can resist trying out patroller humor on them.”
His lips twitched. “I’d think any fellow raised on a diet of Bo stories would be able to sort it out… Maybe not on the first day.”
Fawn giggled. “Those river boys should do well on patrol, then. That learning won’t be all one way, I expect.”
“Indeed, I’m counting on that.” He held up the necklace, squinting at it. “I do wonder about what Whit and Bo said, back on your birthday when I first showed this off… that it wouldn’t be a day, after I set something like this loose in the world, before someone figured out how to misuse it.”
“I’m afraid that’s true.” Fawn sighed. “But if there’s enough folks… Those river bandits we ran into were awful, sure, but most of the rivermen were good enough fellows. The river has a reputation, but that doesn’t stop folks from going on it anyhow, and getting plenty of good from it, too. If there’s enough grease, some grit won’t stop the whole wheel from turning.”
“I hope that’s so, Spark.” He set the necklace back and found a better use for his hand, stroking over her shoulder, which made the skin of her arm stand up in happy goose bumps. “I guess we’ll find out.”
She eased back onto her pillow, and his warm palm traced over her belly in a flatteringly interested fashion. She raised her head and squinted over her torso, frowning impatiently. Her waist was still disappointingly slim down there. Six months from now she’d likely be wondering why she’d been in such a hurry to expand, but still. “Is Nattie-Mari all right in there? ”
“Seems to be happy so far. Despite all her adventures with her mama.” He tried to keep his voice light, but just a tinge of remembered desperation leaked through.
She drew a breath, then stopped to consider just how to phrase this so’s he wouldn’t take it wrong. “It’s been a pretty amazing wedding trip. Most fellows only claim they want to give their sweethearts the world. You really did.”
This won a trail of light kisses from her temple to her chin, which was very agreeable, but she couldn’t let herself be distracted yet. She caught his head between her hands before he could work down farther and rob her of words. “So don’t take this as any sort of complaint, but can we try staying home for a while? ”
He laughed. “I’d say you took your turn traveling with a patroller. It’s my turn to stay put with a farmer.” He sobered a little, though not too much, good. “It’ll be a fine, fresh new thing for me, staying home. I’ve never done that before.”
“I’ll try to see you don’t faint from the excitement of it all.”
Being kissed through a grin was good, too. His lips drifted down her throat and struck south, and they gave up talking for a warmer exchange.
–-
After a few more days of rest in Blackwater Mills, Arkady pronounced Barr able to ride again, suitably splinted and at a careful plod, on a mildeyed mare borrowed from Whit. Dag, remembering his own much less severe broken arm last year, figured Barr was still in a quelling amount of pain, confirmed by the boy’s wan smile and lack of complaint about the restrictions. Well, a quelled Barr was not altogether a bad thing.
Even at their gentle amble, the straight road north brought them all too soon to their next parting. Barr, Remo, and Rase were to ride on to Pearl Riffle. There Rase would play guest, observe a northern ferry camp in operation, and not least add his testimony to the tale of their malice kills back on the Trace, until Sumac caught up with him again.
Finch and Ash, too, planned to cross the Grace at the Pearl Riffle ferry; they carried a stack of fat letters to West Blue that would guarantee them room and board for quite a while, with lots of sound advice for homesteaders thrown in, most likely.
Sumac’s own plan was to ride with Arkady to Clearcreek, ostensibly to see him safely settled-but given the glitter in her ground, Dag would have bet cash money the couple had more intimate reasons for sticking to each other like burs for the next few days. Sumac herself was vague on whether she meant to leave Arkady at Berry’s and come back to fetch him in a few weeks after presenting Rase, and her resignation, at Hickory Lake Camp, or take him with her straightaway to exhibit to her parents, rather like a hunter returning home with a spectacular bag of game-Dag kept trying not to grin-or have a string-binding on the spot with her uncle Dag doing the blessing and tying, just to make sure, before exposing her husband to his new tent-kin. Dag was happy to stay entirely out of that decision.
Remo turned in his saddle and stared up the shade-dappled road toward his home, his brow clouded with doubt.
“Your kin and camp will be glad to see you,” Dag told him, not entirely recklessly. “Word of how you two helped put down the bandits at Crooked Elbow had to have reached the Riffle months ago, and if a patrol circular about the Trace malices hasn’t got ahead of you already, it’ll be along soon. Grab your forgiveness while the excitement is still high, and you’ll do fine.”
