Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [45]
“Strawberry season came and went, and I left off fussing with the house and started fussing with this boat instead. The only kinsman who’d give me a hand was my uncle Bo, who’s my mama’s older half-brother that never married. The rest of my cousins have got no time for him ’cause they say he drinks too much and is unreliable, which is true enough, but half-help’s better than none, I say. And none was what I got from the rest of ’em. They said I’d got no business going on the river by myself, as if I didn’t know ten times as much about it as any of them!”
“Think you’ll find ’em? All your lost menfolk?” asked Fawn shyly.
“They’d have to be stuck somewhere pretty tight, you’d figure.” She didn’t name the more likely possibilities: a boat broken on rocks or snags and all drowned, or eaten by bears or those appalling southern swamp lizards Dag had described, or bitten by rattlesnakes, or, even more likely and grimly, all dying of some sudden gut-wrenching illness, on a cold riverbank with no one left to bury the last in even an unmarked grave.
“That’s why I named my boat the Fetch and not just the Finder, which was the first name I’d thought of. I’m no fool,” said Berry, in a lower tone. “I know what all might have been. But I scorned to go on living with the not-knowing-for-sure for one more week, when I had a boat to hand to go look for myself. Well, partly to hand.” She tilted up her tankard to drain the cider. Swallowing, she continued, “Which is why I want a crew to hand, as well. If the rise comes up sudden, I don’t want to be stuck waiting for those two scared-off fools to show themselves.”
“If they turned up anyhow, would there still be room for us?”
“Oh, yeah.” Berry grinned suddenly, making her wide mouth wider; not pretty, but, well, fetching was just the word, Fawn thought. “I don’t like cookin’.”
“If you—” Fawn began, but was interrupted by a plaintive voice from outside.
“Fawn? Hey, Fawn, where’d you go?”
Fawn grimaced and drained her own tankard. “There’s Whit. He must be done unloading. I’d better go reassure him. Dag told me to watch after him.” She rose to make her way through the gloom out to the bow of the boat, calling, “Over here, Whit!”
“There you are!” He strode down the bank, a trifle red in the face.
“You gave me a turn, disappearing like that. Dag’d have my hide if I let anything happen to you.”
“I’m fine, Whit. I was just having some cider with Berry.”
“You shouldn’t be going on boats with strangers,” he scolded. “If you hadn’t—” His mouth stopped moving and hung half-open. Fawn glanced around.
Berry, smiling, came up by her shoulder, leaned on the rail, and gave Whit a friendly-ferret wave. “That your husband?”
“No, brother.”
“Oh, yeah, he looks it.”
Whit was still standing there at the end of the board gangplank. Why should he be so shocked that his sister was chatting with a boatwoman? But he wasn’t looking at Fawn at all. The gut-punched look on his face seemed strangely familiar, and Fawn realized she’d seen it there before. Recently.
Ah. Ha. I’ve never seen a fellow fall in love at first sight twice in one day before.
7
The afternoon was waning when Dag at last caught up with Tanner’s wagon at the Possum Landing goods-shed. His roundabout chase had taken him first to Pearl Bend, where Mape had redirected him across the river. A long wait for the Lakewalker ferry, a short ride up the bank, a turn left to the Landing—Dag tensed as his sputtering groundsense, reaching out, found no spark of Fawn. But Whit was out front, waving eagerly at him.
“Dag!” he cried, as Dag drew Copperhead to a halt and leaned on his saddlebow. “I was wondering when you was going to show up. I was just trying to figure how to find you. We’ve got the boat ride all fixed!”
Tanner climbed up onto his driver’s box, gathered up his reins, and regarded Whit with some bemusement. “No