“That was a tall tale, right?” said Whit, in a tone of some misgiving.

Dag let his eyes widen innocently. “Was it supposed to be?”

“Yes, that’s how the contest goes, in farmer,” Whit explained earnestly. “You’re supposed to top the tall tale with another tall tale.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Dag, ducking his head. “You’re not allowed to tell true tales, then? I can see I’m going to be at a disadvantage.”

“I…” Whit paused and looked confused. “Uh…”

Berry scrubbed her lips. Bo’s face was unreadable, but he did raise his tankard at Dag in a delicately conceding gesture.

Berry, after a glance comparing the length of Dag to the length of her bunks, offered a place for Fawn and Dag’s dual bedroll amongst the forward cargo. It was dank and dark and smelled of the stack of hides that cushioned their blankets, but Berry also donated a length of coarse cloth, which she and Fawn tacked up to the low beams and around for privacy. During this wordless concession to Fawn’s recently married state, Berry looked a trifle pensive, but she bade the pair good-night without comment.

So, it seemed the Dag-deprivation that Fawn had feared on this crowded leg of the journey was not to be. A stack of hides had no betraying rope nets to creak in time with any movement in the bodies so supported. Dag had only to muffle her giggles with a lot of kisses, which he seemed quite willing to do, as they undertook the pleasant task of finding each other in the pitchy shadows. She was reminded that his groundsense worked just the same in the dark as in the day. She missed the sight of him, bliss to her eyes, but a careless candle was like to set the curtains on fire anyhow, defeating the aim of all this smothered discretion.

After, lying up under his arm in her favorite position with her ear to his heart, she whispered, “Was that story about the flying horse really true?”

“Yep.” He added, “I’ll amend it next time. I can see I need to add in that pond.” His chest rumbled in an unvoiced laugh.

“Depends on your audience, I expect. Some boys’d likely want to hear all about how the critter burst when it hit the ground.”

“It probably did,” he said ruefully.

“I like Hawthorn,” Fawn decided upon reflection. “He seems kindhearted, for a boy. But not shy or scared with it.” Which said good things about Berry, who’d had the raising of him. “Children and animals, you can usually tell how they’ve been treated. I mean…think of poor Hod.”

“I’d rather not,” sighed Dag.

They curled tightly into each other, and even the unrhythmic blend of snores from the bunks aft, so few paces away, could not keep her awake in this cozy harbor.

Dag woke in a vastly better mood. He occupied the morning letting Hawthorn and Daisy show him and Copperhead to the patch of meadow just up Possum Run, where the boatmen grazed their animals. They had the place nearly to themselves. Dag spent a peaceful couple of hours stretched out under a tree dozing while Copperhead munched grass, which also allowed him to avoid Whit and his energetic scheme for the day of transferring his cargo, crate by crate, from the goods-shed to the Fetch. After failing to recruit Dag, Whit had tried to rope in Fawn, but she cannily claimed to be too busy with stocking the flatboat’s larder in support of her more lavish style of cooking, a task no one would let him impede.

After a lunch that testified to the truth of Fawn’s excuses, Dag retired to the rear deck. He settled down on a crate with his back to the cabin wall, out of sight of the neighbors. As he’d passed over the plank to and from shore earlier, he’d collected the usual quota of curious stares from the boat folks on the two flats moored to either side of them, cushioned, he thought, by his grudging acceptance by the boss and little crew of the Fetch. Berry, it seemed, was held in some respect by this floating community. He eyed her empty trot lines, hanging limply over the stern, and wondered if he ought to undertake to catch some fish by his own methods for everyone’s dinner, to show the value of an ex-patroller boatman. Cleaning fish was clearly a two-handed chore, however; it would have to fall to Whit. Dag grinned.

Now, if only this hazy blue autumn day would turn cloudy and rain…

Voices from the bow indicated Whit was back with his borrowed barrow and another crate, but then his swift footsteps pounded through the cabin. Whit stuck his head through the rear hatch and said uneasily, “Dag? I think you’d better come out here.”

Now what? Reluctantly, Dag sat up. “Where? Why?”

“Up to the bow. It’s…sort of hard to explain.”

Whit ducked back in. Dag stretched himself up and strode across the roof instead, the better to spare his head from the low beams inside. He came to the edge to find Boss Berry sitting with her legs dangling, bemusedly regarding the scene below.

Clutching Dag’s stick, Hod perched on a barrel in the bow next to the goat’s pen, his long face worried and white around the mouth. Fawn fussed around him. Whit popped out the front hatch and gestured anxiously up at Dag.

“I ran into him up at the goods-shed,” Whit explained. “He said he was hunting for you.”

Looking at Hod in some bewilderment, Dag eased over the roof edge and thumped to the deck. He was not best pleased to realize they’d acquired an audience. Two flatties from the boat moored closest to them leaned on their own side-rail and gawked with all the interest of men being entertained by a storyteller.

“Lakewalker!” said Hod, glancing up at him with a fleeting smile that faded to uncertainty.

“Hello, Hod.” Dag gave him a nod. “What brings you here?” Surely Tanner and Mape had planned to leave at dawn on their two-day rattle back to Glassforge. “Is anything the matter?”

Hod, his throat bobbing, said abruptly, “I brought your stick back!” He held out Dag’s hickory staff as if in evidence.

“Well…” Dag scratched his head in confusion. “That’s right thoughtful of you, Hod, but it wasn’t necessary. I can cut another in the woods. It’s certainly not something you should have walked all this way on your bad leg to bring me!”

Hod ducked his head and gulped some more. “No, well, yes. My knee. It still hurts.”

“I’m not surprised. What is it, a mile down to the Bend?” Dag sucked his lip. To say That wasn’t too bright to Hod seemed a pretty pointless remark.

“I want—I wondered—if you’d do that thing you do again. What you called it. The Lakewalker magic.”

“A ground reinforcement?” Dag hazarded.

Hod nodded vigorously. “Yeah, that thing. The thing that makes me not hurt.”

“What would make your knee not hurt would be to stay off it the way you were told,” said Dag sternly.

“Please…” said Hod, rocking on the barrel. His hand went out toward Dag, dropped back to his knee. His face scrunched up; his eyes, Dag was startled to note, were damp with held-back tears. “Please. No one didn’t ever make it stop hurting like that before. Please?”

Fawn patted him somewhat helplessly on the shoulder and looked at Dag in consternation. Dag sighed and knelt down before the feckless boy, laying his right hand over the knee. “Well, let’s see what’s happening in there.”

Gingerly, he extended his groundsense. His ground-glue was holding, certainly, the flesh healing well, but the joint was indeed newly inflamed from the imprudent exercise. He frowned.

“Now, Hod,” said Fawn, watching Dag in worry, “you know Dag can’t just do those medicine maker tricks anytime. They’re very tiring for him. He has to have time to recover, between.”

Hod swallowed. “I’ll wait.” Gazing earnestly at Dag, he sat up straight on his barrel as if prepared to take a post there for the rest of the day, or maybe the week.

Dag rocked back on his heels and eyed the boy. “You can’t wait that long. Didn’t Mape and Tanner want to leave early?” If they’d been delayed by this foolish side trip of Hod’s, they were going to be irate, Dag thought.