The more we found out, the happier Professor Torgeson got. She even stopped complaining about passing on rumors, which is what she called Wash telling the settlers about magical crops maybe not growing for a year or two.
We worked our way northward through the rest of June and into July. The hills got lower and more rolling, and we saw larger and larger patches of grub-killed forest. We were moving right along the western edge of the settlement line, so all the places we stopped were new settlements that hadn’t earned out their allotments yet. Some were only a year or two old. All of them were struggling to come back after the grub infestation, hoping to finally get a good crop after two years of failure.
The last week in June, we had another run-in with wildlife. This time it was a bear that was hungry enough to push right through the protection spells around our camp to get at our supplies. It took Wash three shots to kill it.
In mid-July, we reached St. Jacques du Fleuve on the Red River, right at the farthest edge of the frontier.
CHAPTER 13
ST. JACQUES DU FLEUVE WAS ONE OF THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS founded so far west. It started as a camp for the Gaulish fur trappers back before the Secession War. The trappers worked all winter, and in the spring they came south along the river to trade their furs for money and supplies. At first, the settlement was a temporary camp that was only set up in the spring and early summer, but after the war when the Frontier Management Department in Washington started trying to get people to move west into the territories, the Homestead Claims and Settlement Office made St. Jacques a year-round settlement.
The palisade at St. Jacques du Fleuve enclosed a lot more space than usual, because every spring the trappers still brought their furs to trade, and they needed space to stay for a few weeks. The north end of the settlement had three long warehouses near the river landings, a couple of rooming houses, and a big empty patch for tents. There was a large corral for the oxen that hauled the fur carts from St. Jacques east to the Mammoth River, two saloons, and a general store with a big cast-iron tub at the back behind a curtain and a sign that said BATH, 5 CENTS; HOT WATER, 15 CENTS and under it the same message in Gaulish. There was also a settlement branch office, so we could collect mail and send off our letters and reports. I had four fat letters from Mama, and a thin one each from Lan and William.
Professor Torgeson and Wash had mail, too. Most of the professor’s was from the college; I recognized the seal on the paper. Wash had one letter that he tucked straight into an inside pocket without looking at, and a folded-over note that he opened right there in the front room of the Settlement Office. When he was done reading it, he frowned.
“Professor,” he said, “would you object to making a small change in our travel plans?”
“How small, when, and for what reason?” Professor Torgeson asked.
“Three or four days,” Wash replied. “If you and Eff wouldn’t mind staying in St. Jacques. The Settlement Office wants me to look in at the Promised Land settlement.”
Professor Torgeson raised her eyebrows. “What seems to be the problem?”
“The note doesn’t say, just that word came from the settlement magician that they’d like a circuit magician to come by as soon as may be.” Wash shrugged. “This is still my circuit —”
“And the Northern Plains Riverbank College has an agreement with the Settlement Office,” the professor said firmly. “Magicians who teach at the college may be asked to assist with wildlife control or other settlement emergencies.”
“I don’t rightly know that it’s an emergency,” Wash said.
“It could be, by the time you get there, even if it isn’t one now,” the professor pointed out. “And that could stretch your ‘three or four days’ out to a week, if there’s anything actually wrong. We can’t spare that kind of time, Mr. Morris; you know that as well as I do. How much time would it add if all three of us go off to this settlement together, instead of having you ride out and back?”
Wash thought for a minute. “It’s maybe half a day out of our way.”
“Half a day plus whatever time it takes to look in,” the professor said. “That’s much better than three or four. We’ll make the detour. Eff and I can work on the plant and animal survey while you’re doing whatever needs doing.”
“The Settlement Office will be right happy to learn you’re agreeable,” Wash said easily.
The professor made a skeptical-sounding noise, and Wash laughed. The Settlement Office man who’d given us our mail gave us a funny look, and the professor narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t suppose you know what this is about,” she said, waving a hand at Wash’s letter.
“No, ma’am,” the man replied. “I’m just looking out for things for Mr. Saddler for a few hours. He’ll be back late this afternoon, if you’re wishing to speak with him.”
The professor shook her head, thanked him, and started for the door. As we left the Settlement Office, Wash raised an eyebrow at her. Professor Torgeson smiled slightly.
“Right now, we’re looking at going a day or two out of our way,” she explained. “But if I come back to talk to this Mr. Saddler, we’ll be lucky if we don’t have a mountain of paperwork and three more stops to make by the time we get away from him again.”
Wash laughed again. “I see you’re familiar with the way the Settlement Office works.”
“No, but I’ve dealt with college administrators, and one thing I learned from them long ago: Never give a bureaucrat a chance to hand you more work.”
We walked up the street to the more respectable of the rooming houses. I was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed again after so long, and even more to reading my mail.
Mama’s letters were mostly family news and fussing about me eating right and behaving like a lady. She said Professor Jeffries sent his regards, and Professor Graham had been ill but was feeling better.
Lan’s letter was next. He was still complaining about Professor Warren. They’d rubbed each other wrong from the start, and Lan wasn’t too happy about having to work with him all summer on the spell classifications. He was particularly worked up about a Hijero-Cathayan spell for digging out a new lake that he and his friends thought should be like a standard Avrupan excavation spell, but that Professor Warren thought should be in the same class as the Major Spells, like calling a storm or calming the ocean. I still didn’t understand half what Lan said, but it was pretty clear he didn’t mean me to. He just wanted someone to grumble at who wouldn’t argue back.
I saved William’s letter for last. He said that building railroad cars was heavy work and he didn’t much like it, but it paid well enough, and after that he talked about all the studying he was doing evenings. He especially wanted to take a class that compared all the different types of magic, particularly the three main schools. Since he already knew a good bit of Avrupan magic and had a passing familiarity with Aphrikan, he was studying up on Hijero-Cathayan magic to get ready. He asked how I was liking the Far West and whether I’d seen any interesting critters or had any adventures yet. He didn’t ask if I’d heard anything from home.
After I read my mail, I added a bit to each of the letters I’d been writing in the evenings. I’d already told everyone about the saber cats (though when I’d written Mama and Lan, I’d made it sound a bit safer than it really was). I told Lan and William that they were both studying the same kind of magic and they should maybe talk to each other, and I told William what Mama had said about his father.
Then I sat and looked at my letter to Mama for a long time. I’d already said as much about the settlements and the survey as I thought she’d be interested in hearing, but I’d been puzzled as to what to say about Rennie, so I hadn’t yet said anything at all.