I had a fat letter from Mama, and Professor Torgeson had a thin, official-looking one from the college. She opened hers right off and glanced it over, then smiled and said, “Nothing that can’t wait. Miss Rothmer?”
I fingered the envelope. I couldn’t think why Mama would write so much, so soon, unless it was a lot of good advice she’d forgotten to give me before I left, and right then, I wasn’t too keen on advice. But I couldn’t hold everyone else up while I dithered, so I tore the envelope open.
Two smaller envelopes and a sheet of paper fell out, and I felt very foolish. The single page was a note from Mama saying they missed me already but she was sure I was working hard, and that she was sending along the letters from Lan and William that had come just too late for me to get at home.
I thought for a minute, then tucked the letters away in my saddlebag. I couldn’t see holding Wash and the professor up, and I figured I’d have time to read them after we got camp made at the wagonrest.
When I finally did get to the letters, I was glad I’d waited. I opened Lan’s first. “If you’re so determined not to come East for school, why don’t you try for one of the ones nearer the border?” was the first thing he said. Then he had a whole list of suggestions, from the Northern Plains Riverbank College where Papa taught to the University of New Orleans at the other end of the Mammoth River. I sighed. I should have known Lan wouldn’t give up his notions without arguing.
He didn’t say much else about my job with the college, except that he hoped I would have fun and to come back safe. The rest of his letter was about how much fun he was having at Simon Magus. Well, that and complaining about one of his professors, who he said was an idiot who thought he knew four times as much as he really did and what he really did know was wrong. I couldn’t follow all of it, because Lan started in on magical theory almost right away, telling me all the arguments he’d have liked to use on his professor.
The last thing he said was that he wouldn’t be home for the summer again this year. I wasn’t too surprised. He’d only been home about one year in four since he went off to boarding school, and even then, he only stayed for a month or two at most.
This summer, he and three of his friends were working with two of the professors, classifying a batch of new spells the college had imported from the Cathayan Confederacy and trying to develop Avrupan-style spells to do the same things.
That made me frown just a little. Lan had never really been interested in either of the other major schools of magic — the Aphrikan or the Hijero-Cathayan — though he didn’t scorn them the way Professor Graham did. But Lan and I had grown up hearing Papa tell his students that the point of getting college schooling was to stretch yourself in new directions, so maybe it wasn’t so surprising after all.
I set Lan’s letter aside and opened William’s. It was a lot shorter, though it covered nearly as much ground as Lan’s. William didn’t waste a lot of words. First he said congratulations on getting a position with the survey; then he said that he’d be staying in Belletriste for the summer, working for a company there that made railroad cars. He didn’t say anything about his father, but I knew William, and I knew that if he was staying in Belletriste, it meant that Professor Graham still hadn’t forgiven him.
Apart from that, I could tell that William liked Triskelion University every bit as much as Lan liked Simon Magus. He had a whole list of classes he wanted to take in the fall, and he was planning to study evenings all summer so as to convince the professors that he could handle some of the more advanced material.
I wrote Mama and Lan each a note, saying that nothing much eventful had happened and I was enjoying the work so far. I wrote more particulars to William, because I knew he’d be interested in the way the professor recorded all the little details, from types of plants to daily weather. I left all three letters unsealed. I wasn’t sure when we’d stop at a settlement where I could mail them, and in the meantime, I could keep adding things.
About the time I finished up my letters, just when the sun was going down, Mr. Carpenter showed up, looking for Wash. Not that he was hard to find; there were only three groups staying at the wagonrest that night. The wagonrest, like the settlement, had been expanded as the Western settlements grew, by adding two loops to the original log palisade, one on either side of the main circle. Mr. Carpenter’s group had made camp in one of the additions; we’d set up in the main circle, along with a family by the name of Bauer who’d come north from St. Louis, heading for some relatives up along the Red River.
Mr. Carpenter spotted Professor Torgeson and me right off. His face went kind of blank when the professor pointed out Wash, talking to the Bauers’ guide; then he put back his shoulders like he was giving a recitation in front of a whole school, teachers included, and walked over to join them.
I couldn’t hear their talk from where I was sitting, but it didn’t take many minutes before the Bauers’ guide threw his hands up in the air and walked off in as much of a huff as ever I’ve seen on anyone west of the Mammoth River. Wash talked with Mr. Carpenter a bit longer, arguing some, it looked like. Eventually Mr. Carpenter stomped off toward his camp and Wash came back to our fire, shaking his head.
“Is there a problem?” Professor Torgeson asked him, glancing after Mr. Carpenter.
“Not for us, Professor,” Wash said. “But I don’t know what the Settlement Office was thinking, letting that gentleman loose in the West.”
“He said he was heading for Kinderwald,” the professor replied. “Since the Frontier Management Department has temporarily suspended the building of new settlements, I assume he has family there, or perhaps has purchased an allotment.”
“He bought in,” Wash said. “And he’s in for a shock. For one thing, neither he nor anyone in his family speaks Prussian, and Kinderwald’s a pure immigrant settlement — their magician is the only one there who has any English at all. For another … well, he seems of the opinion that he can take on the wildlife with one hand tied behind his back, and no need for guides or protection spells.”
“He didn’t sound so unreasonable when we talked to him this afternoon,” the professor said.
Wash shrugged. “Possibly he’s not so plainspoken with ladies. From what he said to me, he wants to get where he’s going, and he’s not much accustomed to waiting. And he didn’t take kindly to being told he’s best off waiting here. There’s more traffic through Puerta del Oeste than there will be farther on.”
“Where is Kinderwald?” I asked.
“About a week south of Little Fog,” Wash said. “I told him that if he was dead set on it, he could come that far with us, but we couldn’t spare two weeks to get him all the way to Kinderwald and then get back to our route. He didn’t much like that, either. I gather he intends to pull out in the morning.”
“He’s a fool if he tries to make it alone,” Professor Torgeson said flatly.
Wash shrugged again. “I did my best. Possibly you can talk sense into him.”
The professor looked for a minute as if she’d like to try, but then shook her head and went back to her notes. Still, she did stop off at Mr. Carpenter’s camp next morning. She came back muttering about pigheaded, stubborn men. Mr. Carpenter’s wagon pulled out of the wagonrest about half an hour later, right after the Bauers’. Wash shook his head, and the professor pressed her lips together, but there wasn’t much either of them could do except watch him go.
CHAPTER 8