"Oh, I got 'er," Mintaka said, "I do got her."
Mondragon stepped to the rim and dropped down into the well; the skip rocked, rocked again as Altair snubbed the rope about the post and offered the end to Mintaka. "Hey, you want to hold that snub, gran?"
Mintaka got herself up, limped her bent way forward and took the rope, while Altair ran alongside and made a jump for the halfdeck before it swayed out too far. Her feet shot pain to her nerves. She winced and recovered herself and took the pole from the rack.
"Let 'er free, gran."
The old canalrat pulled the snub and Altair put the pole in and shoved off, letting the skip take the gentle current to get the bow clear—hard to manage a skip when there was no option to run forward, the tarp-shelter being in the way: it was necessarily slower. But the skip was the lightest she had ever handled, no motor behind, not much freeboard either, just a light shell that rode the water like a poleboat, with a commendable trim. "Hey, she's good," Altair sang out, to please the old woman, "handles real sweet, she does."
"She does, she does," Mintaka said, and came along the slats with a canaler's rolling gait, hunched as she was. Mondragon crouched down and headed under the tarp, and Mintaka lifted the tarp edge and peered under. "Ser, you make yourself liberal there, don't mind my mess."
"You go on in with him, gran," Altair said. "He won't mind."
"I got a cap for 'im," Mintaka said, and bent down. "Son, c'n you feel about a bit and find a sack, she'll be right over to the starb'd—"
There was a bit of to-do. There were several sacks. Altair poled them out into starlight and sent the little skip scudding along at a fair rate; and Mintaka kept on at her chatter, hunting the proper sack.
"Gran," Mondragon said from inside, "come on in, I truly wish you would."
"Well," Mintaka said, and finally dithered her way inside. A nervous chuckle then, over the gentle whisper of the water. "Been a long time since I had a handsome fellow to myself in the hidey, you're such a nice boy. You got a wife?"
"No," Mondragon said in a small, definite voice. Altair gave the boat a cheerful shove.
That for you, Mondragon. Serves you right, got yourself cornered, have you? Old woman's not so old as that, is she, Mondragon?
"Here she be," came the old voice, "here she be—got all my yarns. Ogh, you do be wet, don't you? Here, here, here we be. Folk give me yarn scrap, sometime give me yarn to do up for 'em—I knit real fancy, me hands being stiff all the same—here, here, I wish I had a light, can't afford a light, 'cept my little cookstove. I do up sweaters, real fine sweaters, ain't no man wearing one of my sweaters going to catch sick, I make the stitches fine, I tell you, you ever want a good sweater, you give me the yarn, I do you a sweater better'n you get in hightown. Do you a scarf, do you nice warm socks…"
The skip glided under the starlight and Altair watched the canalside at every weaving step, this side and that. Barred windows and iron shutters showed on canal level; old brick and old board and old stone, and here and there one of Merovingen's feral cats, stopping to stare with fixed curiosity at the unusual sight of a solitary skip on a wide black canal.
Must be a good one, cat, that set-to down there. You can still see the glow. Lord, I bet a bridge caught. Probably cut 'er down quick, Lord, salvage to be had, even to the charcoal. If it don't spread.
"… I had me twenty, thirty lovers," Mintaka was saying to her prisoner. "Oh, I moved light in them days, I used ter wear a feather in me cap an' I used to work that skip with me ma and me pa—Min, pa used ter say—"
Altair looked back. It was black, empty water, dancing to city lights; a web of bridges above. Eerie solitude all about. Ahead, Midtown Bridge spanned the Grand, pilings abundant at either end and clear water to the middle where barge traffic came, a sheen of deep water there.
And beyond, down by Port outlet, a scattering of boats like shadows, reflecting nothing, on water-shine that reflected fire.
Lord. Is it on the Grand now? Those'll be boats after the city penny, them as got strong backs, keeping those fire-booms where they belong.
She kept up the pace, long since warmed, the feet long since numb.
Better to go barefoot, got no time to tend to it, don't hurt much now, anyhow.
She spared a hand to lift her cap and rake her hair with her fingers, settled it again. Took a sharp look to starboard where a small huddle of boats remained.
Old folk. Same as gran Mintaka. Same as Muggin.
The bow came into the open again, and Altair kept a steady pace, her hands swearing on the pole now as Port Canal outflow and the boats and the fire glare came closer and closer.
Questions, dammit, we don't need.
"… you buy that sweater uptown?" Mintaka was saying inside the tarp-shelter, with doubtless professional interest. "Lord, now they done used too big a needle, stuff stretches, them stitches got too much give. Now I could make ye one—"
Altair scanned the floating gathering ahead for the easiest course through, and suddenly thought wistful thoughts of taking the long way round, up the Foundry canal and up and around. It was a chancy backwater, old warehouses, an area where old Det was winning and buildings would have to be filled and torn down and built again. It had not happened yet.
Evade the questions, that was all. And oh, Lord, now there was Mintaka to reckon with.
Closer and closer, watching that fire-sheen and the drift of boats. She managed a steady pace, sweating now despite the chill of her clothing, breathing in great raw gasps.
It's all right, you're just Altair Jones, coming back with old gran Mintaka, doing a kindly act, just mind your own business—
She glided in amongst the first boats that anchored there, anchored, no less, right in the Grand channel. Families huddled on skip half decks, all wrapped in blankets, watching the commotion like it was holiday or a hanging. Intent on the fire and not on her, thank the Ancestors. Intent on the commotion of distant shouting round the bend where Port met Grand, where fire still showed, but dimmer now. Boats clustered there too, black and busy against the glare.
Mind your business, Jones, knock into someone and you'll have more than one question to answer, that you will.
There was a great deal of commotion now, noise from other boats as she worked and glided her way through. And the tarp stirred. "Lord, look at this," Mintaka's high voice said, and Altair cringed and kept poling.
"Ain't nothing, gran," she said. "You found that cap for him yet?"
"Oh, that I do." Mintaka hauled herself up and staggered perilously in the well, hunched, irregular silhouette against the fire-reflections and the passing shadows of boats. "Look at this, look at this—I tell you I ain't seen such a to-do since them two barges jammed up in the Grand. I tell you, they ought ter have a law, governor ought to do something, them damn bargefolk got no respect for nothing."
"They don't," Altair agreed.
Damn, the lonely old soul was a tale-teller. Chatter your brains away.
And come dawn gran Mintaka would have a good one, how Jones and a fair-haired uptowner showed up all wet and draggled and poled her back to safety. O Lord, Jones, now what do you do?
Scatter stories wide, that's all.
"I heard this barge run down a poleboater," she said. "There she was all blazing fire and come grinding up the bank there by Mars Bridge; and this poler, he jumped and his passenger did; and here was this uptown man swimming down the Port—did you know who that was, ser?"
"No," Mondragon said from beneath the tarp. "Myself —I had to jump when I ran afoul of a crew bringing a boom up. I hardly knew what hit me."