Alder drew breath. “It took me months to get stronger, and then I owed the camp fellows for their help, and then I thought—I went down the river to get us a grubstake, and I didn’t want to come dragging back to you with my hands full of bad news and nothing. I meant to at least replace the value of the Rose for you. But it’s took longer than I thought it would.”
Remo whispered urgently in Dag’s ear, “Dag, he’s—”
Dag held up his hand and murmured back, “Wait. Let him finish.” He stared down intently at the anguished people on the front deck, groundsense as open as he could bear. Which was not wide, at this point.
Berry cried, “Alder, you’re making no sense! You know me better, you must! How can you think I’d put a bag of coin above my kinfolks’ lives, or even the knowing of their fates?”
“I’m sorry, Berry,” Alder repeated helplessly, hanging his head. “I was wrong, I see that now. I never dreamed you’d come after me.”
A variety of expressions had moved across the listening Bo’s face, from muted pleasure to muted grief; now he was simply mute, chewing gently on a thumbnail. Fawn had tumbled out onto the deck almost as excited as Hawthorn. Her face had fallen in mirror to her friend Berry’s. Now she stood by Bo with her arms folded, listening hard. On the whole, Dag was glad she did not seem to be swallowing all this down as readily as Berry, but then, she had less reason to: Alder had sworn no heart-oaths to Fawn, and any hopes she held for Berry’s happiness teetered on a balance against fears for Whit’s. My Spark’s shrewd; she feels the twist in this.
Berry went stiff. “Alder—you’re going to have to tell the truth sometime, so it may as well be now. If there’s another girl, you’ll have to betray one of us or t’other, so you can’t win that toss nohow. If she—maybe—nursed you back to health or something, I don’t suppose I can even hate her…” Berry stared beseechingly at him. They were standing wholly apart now.
“No!” said Alder in surprise. “No other woman, I swear!”
Remo whispered, “Blight. S’ the first true thing that fellow’s said.”
“Aye,” replied Dag. And sorry he was for it; it would have been a tidy wrap for the tragedy. He added softly, “Keep an eye on that beguiled fellow. He’s getting ready to bolt.” Skink was edging toward the skiff. Remo nodded and slipped quietly down past the chicken pen. Skink stopped and edged back, looking furtively around the crowded bow.
Berry searched her betrothed’s face and decided—however wishfully, even Dag could not tell—that he spoke true. “Then come with me now! We’ll sell the Fetch in Graymouth and have all the grubstake we need. The house in Clearcreek is waiting.” Her voice skipped a breath. “I had it all ready for us.”
Alder ran a harried hand through his hair. “I can’t run off with no word to the camp fellows as helped me.”
“Of course not!” said Berry. “We can stop around the bend. I’d want to thank them myself for their care of you. Or”—she paused as a new realization apparently overcame her—“if you have debts to them, well, I have some coin as will clear them. It’s not much, but it’s enough to cover a sick man’s keep and nursing.” She hesitated again in unwelcome suspicion. “Unless they were gambling debts that got all out of hand on you…?”
“Berry, they’re a pretty rough lot. Better I should deal with them, and you take your boat straight on. I’ll…collect my things and meet you at the Wrist.”
Bo’s slow voice broke in. “You never found any bodies to bury proper?”
Alder shook his head. The roil in his ground was growing frantic.
“You don’t have to soften it for me,” said Berry in a low voice. “I know what this river can do.”
Was this Dag’s business? He glanced at Fawn, who was anxious for Berry but more anxious for the stricken Whit. At Bo, at the bewildered Hawthorn. Dag was not above supporting lies to shield someone from futile pain, but all directions seemed bad, here. So let’s have the truth out, and see where the pain falls fairly. He looked down gravely and said, “Berry…? Alder is lying to you.”
Her face turned up, white and wild. “What about?”
“Everything.”
Skink lunged for the rail.
He was caught by Remo and by Chicory, who had come out partway through the uproar to lean against the cabin wall and listen in baffled fascination. Chicory was quick enough to help catch Skink before he went over into the water, a hunter’s reflexes, but his face twisted up in doubt once the struggling man was held between them. “What are we doing here, Lakewalker?” he called up to Dag.
“I’m not sure, but that fellow is beguiled to the gills. I don’t know who did it, or when, or why.” Had it been on purpose?
“Oh, that’s no good,” said Hod. “Can you fix him, Dag?”
What would happen if he unbeguiled the unsavory Skink? It was gut-wrenching to imagine having to take in that repulsive ground-release, but beguilement was a hurt in its own way. If Dag would not leave a man bleeding or lying with a broken bone, could he turn away from this? “Why are you trying to run off, Skink? I won’t hurt you.”
Skink glared around madly. “Crane won’t like this!” he told Alder.
The fear from both their grounds pulsed like a stench, but Alder at least held his stance as Dag eased down from the roof and approached Skink. On my head be it. He lifted his left arm, not that he needed to touch the man at this range, but aligning body and ground helped him concentrate. The act was growing easier with practice; Dag flinched as the backwash of Skink’s agitated ground poured into him, but he forced himself to accept it.
Dag wasn’t sure what response he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Skink’s collapse into utter shock and violent weeping, a sudden shuddering heap on the deck. “No, no, no!” he wailed. “No, no, no…”
Chicory bit his lip in appalled fascination, tense with surmise.
Yes, Dag thought. The troop captain’s seen something like this before. And so have I.
“Skink, pull yourself together!” Alder snapped. He looked around at his gaping audience, now augmented by Barr and Bearbait. “Sorry, folks, sorry. It takes him like that when the drink wears off, sometimes. I better get him back to camp…”
Any one of Alder’s lies might have been plausible; the accumulation was surely not. What truth does he fear so desperately? This was Dag’s last chance to avoid finding out. Alas, there wasn’t much to choose between regret for a disaster from a mistake, or regret for a disaster from being perfectly correct. Strike at the weakest point; strike fast.
He strode forward, yanked up Skink’s head by the hair, and bought his attention with, if not a fence post between the ears, his harshest company-captain’s voice. “Look at me.” Skink stared up, his breath catching in mid-snivel. Dag demanded, “What are you really doing here?”
“Boat bandits!” babbled Skink. “We’re supposed to check the down-bound boats, and if they’re any good, bring ’em in to Crane and the boys for the plucking. Oh, gods!”
“What?” cried Berry. “Alder, what?” She wheeled to stare in horror not at Skink, but at her betrothed.
“The man’s in a drunken delirium!”
“The man,” said Chicory thoughtfully, “reminds me a whole bunch of those fellers we used to pick off the edge of the blight bogle’s camp.”
Dag just barely kept himself from saying, It’s related. Not a parallel he wished to draw attention to. He compromised on, “Maybe, but this is human mischief, it seems.” He yanked Skink’s hair again, refusing to let him retreat into breathless weeping. “How many bandits, where?”
“Thirty. Forty. And Crane, always him.”
“Where?”
“Cave, there’s this cave up around the Elbow. Thirteen river miles around the loop, but just three across the neck. Gives time to scout out the boats and prepare, see…”
He’s spouting good, now. Keep up the pressure. “Was there ever a malice in the cave?”
“What?”
“A blight bogle.”
Skink shook his head. “Ain’t no blight bogles around here. Just Crane, that’s bad enough. And them Drum brothers. Before the Drums come, Alder was Crane’s right-hand man, but he likes them better now, and even Alder’s not crazy enough to be jealous of them two Drums.”