Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [139]
Dag shook Skink again, leaning down on his shoulder as if Skink were a leather water-bag and Dag was trying to squeeze out the last drops. “So you lure in the boats with offers of piloting, and then what? Steal their valuables? What do you do to the crews?”
“That wasn’t how they got my boat. When I first come, the cave was still fixed up as Brewer’s Cavern Tavern. Bring us in, get us drunk, set on us while we was in a stupor…except the ones Crane saved out for his game…oh, the blood and pitifulness of it all!”
Very quietly, Bo and Barr had moved in on either side of Alder, Dag was glad to see. Berry had stepped back, her face drained, cold, distant. Fawn gripped her bloodless hand, in support or restraint or both.
“What happens to the crews nowadays?” Dag kept on.
“Kill ’em in their sleep or from behind, if we can. Can’t let any run off to tell. Ride ’em down if they run. Crane can always find ’em. Burn the boats or hide them in the blocked channel back behind the island. Can’t let any boats go down to be recognized, either. Brewer used to do that, but Crane is cannier. Brewer invented the game, too, but Crane won it in the end.”
“And the bodies?”
“Used to plant ’em in the ravine, till Little Drum showed how you could slit their bellies and load ’em with rock, and sink ’em in the river so’s they don’t come up. Faster than buryin’. Oh, gods. See, them Drum boys don’t always kill ’em first…”
Was this enough? Too much. Dag knew their urgent danger now, and surely decanting more grotesque details—what was the game?—could wait till they were not in front of Fawn, Berry, Hawthorn, and Hod. One more. “Who is Crane?”
“The Lakewalker. Our Lakewalker.”
Barr and Remo both took that in immediately; Dag could tell by the way their grounds snapped shut like mussels. A renegade? A madman? A malice’s pawn? “Where did he come from?” Dag pressed relentlessly.
“Don’t know. He was here already when I come along. Oleana somewheres, I guess.”
“Did he start the gang?”
“No! Fellow named Brewer, I said.”
“Was Brewer a Lakewalker?” Surely not, with that name.
“No, ’course not! Before me—before Alder—Crane was just a passenger on a down-bound flatboat that Brewer lured in to the Cavern Tavern. Somehow he talked Brewer out of killing him, and then he was Brewer’s right-hand man for a time, and then…no more Brewer. Just Crane.” Skink hesitated. “Brewer, they say he just wanted to get filthy rich, but nobody can figure out what Crane wants.”
“He’s alone?”
“No, there’s about thirty or forty of us, depending.”
“I mean, no other Lakewalkers with him?” Dag clarified.
“Oh. Yeah. Alone like that, I guess.”
“Where is he right now, do you know?” Nowhere within a mile, but a mile seemed suddenly much too short a distance between this madness and Spark.
Skink shook his head. “Cave, last I seen.” Alder seemed to cringe inward. Dag looked up and eyed him in cold speculation.
Berry swallowed and said to Dag, “Ask him if they took…saw the Tripoint Steel.”
“Them struttin’ keelers?” Skink snorted. “They was through here last week. Crane, he said to lie low and just let them fools float on by. Which they did.”
Dag met Berry’s eyes and read the message: No help there. But it set his mind to spinning. The Fetch’s complement was outnumbered by at least two to one, but other boats came behind in a steady stream. Clever of the bandits to take only the richest and let most pass unmolested, but even so their crimes could not go unmarked much longer. How much time did the Fetch have to prepare? Prepare what?
Some of the Raintree flatties had taken over the oars, or the Fetch would have drifted into a sand bar. They were much closer now to that feeder creek with the good lookout just above it. Dag motioned to Chicory and Bearbait. “Did you ever have the hunting of bandits up in Raintree?”
“Once,” Chicory admitted, scratching his head. “It was only a couple, not thirty or forty. Brought them in alive to be tried before