“Do you think Remo should go back with him?”

“It’s not my decision to make.”

“You wanted him to go back, that first night.”

“It’s good for young patrollers to get out and see the world.”

“You said you weren’t adopting him.”

He drew back his head to look down over his nose at her, squinting in the shadows. “Do you remember everything I say that clearly? That could get downright burdensome on a husband.”

She snickered.

He added, “Seems they can both drag back home with their tails between their legs, and Amma’ll let them in. I’m not too surprised. Nobody wants to waste patrollers. Still…I’ll hate to see Remo go, if he goes. I thought I might be starting to get somewhere with him. And he was a huge help with Hod.”

Fawn grew more pensive. “There is this. You can’t ever run away from one thing without running toward something else.” She slid a small hand up his shoulder. “You, for example. I ran away from home, and right into you. And the wide world with you. I’d never be here if I hadn’t first left there.”

“Do you like it here? This boat?”

“I’d like any boat with you in it.” She stretched up and kissed him.

“Was it a happy birthday?”

“The best in years.” He kissed her back, and added slowly, “The best in all my years. And that’s a lot of years, Spark. Huh.”

She considered poking him and demanding what that Huh was all about, but he yawned fit to crack his jaw, her feet finally warmed up, and she melted into sleep.

At breakfast, Fawn discovered that like most fine young animals, Barr was cuter when he was dry and fluffy. She’d been uncertain of his age in the strain of his last night’s exhaustion, but now she was sure he was the junior of the partners. He’d also regained his temper, or at least his arguments shifted to being less about Barr and more about Remo.

“Your tent-folk are all really worried about you,” he offered.

“Not when I last saw them,” Remo replied. “Notably not.”

“Remo, you have to realize, Amma’s only giving us a grace period, here. You can’t expect forgiveness to be held out on a stick forever.”

Remo said nothing.

Barr soldiered on. “If we don’t get back timely, she’ll have had a chance to get over being worried about you, and revert to being riled. We need to grab the moment.”

Fawn couldn’t help asking, “Won’t she be worried about the both of you?”

Barr glanced at her as if uncertain whether to speak directly to the farmer bride or not; unable to resist a chance to vent, he said, “Since she as much as told me to come back with him or not at all, I don’t think so.”

“Barr the expendable,” murmured Remo.

Barr’s jaw set, but he made no rejoinder; Remo looked mildly surprised.

After a little silence broken only by munching and requests to pass the cornbread and butter, Remo said, “Speaking of expendable, what in the world were you doing out in that weather last night?”

“It wasn’t my first plan,” said Barr. “There’s a ferry camp somewhere near here that I was trying to reach by dark, and the worse the rain got, the more it seemed worth holding out for. I sure wasn’t going to get any drier camping on shore in that blow. But I came to you before I came to it.”

“If you mean Fox Creek Camp,” Dag put in, “you passed it about ten miles back.”

“I can’t have missed it!” Barr said. “I’ve had my groundsense wide-open almost the whole way—looking for you,” he added aside to Remo. “Or your floating body.”

“Water this cold, my body might not have come up so soon,” said Remo distantly.

Dag’s brows twitched, but he said, “Fox Creek Camp mostly lies behind the hills. They dammed the creek to make a little lake back there. Likely there wasn’t anyone out on the ferry landing after dark.”

“Oh. Crap.” Barr looked briefly put out, then cheered up. “This is better anyway. If I’d stopped there, I wouldn’t have caught up with you till tonight at the earliest, and that’d be yet another fifty upriver miles to backtrack. At least.” He turned again to Remo. “Which is another reason to come back with me now. Every mile you go down is going to be that much more work going up.”

“Not my problem,” said Remo.

“Well, it’s mine!” said Barr, baited into personal outrage again. “With this current running, a narrow boat with only one paddler couldn’t even make headway going upriver! It needs at least two, and better four!”

In a practical spirit, and to divert whatever crushing thing Remo was fixing to say next, Fawn suggested, “You could trade your narrow boat for a horse at the next town and ride back to Pearl Riffle overland.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” objected Barr. Failing to notice either her stiffening or Dag’s, he plunged on, “I couldn’t get one good horse in trade for that old boat, let alone two!”

“You wouldn’t need two,” said Remo.

Whit, falling back into his old bad habits of pot-stirring, put in cheerfully, “And who says it has to be a good horse?”

Barr clenched his teeth and eyed him unfavorably.

Boss Berry’s drawl cut across the debate. “There’s this, Remo. You hired on as my sweep-man. If you jump my boat now, you’ll leave me shorthanded in the middle of nowhere, and that’s not right. Now, this ain’t my argument, but if you want to quit, at least do it at a village or town where I can hire on your replacement.”

“That’s only fair,” Remo allowed, looking at Barr in a challenging way. Barr didn’t have an immediate answer, although by his grimace Fawn thought she could see him mentally adding the upstream miles.

“Sky’s lightening,” said Bo. “Time to get out on the river.”

Berry nodded. “Me, Remo, and Whit for the first watch.”

Which ended the squabble for the next two hours at least. Breakfast broke up, and Remo and Barr went out to get the water emptied from Barr’s boat, hoist it up, and tie it down across the back deck, where, Fawn thought, it was going to be mightily in the way. Hod and Hawthorn turned to their scullery duties. Dag went ashore to collect Copperhead, who had been standing amongst the dripping leafless trees and whinnying plaintively since predawn, answered by bleats from Daisy-goat. Copperhead actually seemed glad to scramble back onto the boat, and touched noses with Daisy; the two animals had become unlikely friends. The lines were untied, the top-deck crew took to their sweeps, and the Fetch pushed off from the muddy bank, turning slowly downstream. The river was dark and fast and scary this morning, the wind funneling up the valley cold and raw, whipping the mist to tatters. Fawn put her mind to sewing up more rain cloaks and retreated inside to find her work basket, glad for an indoor task.

Fawn had her oilcloth pieces laid out on the table near the window for the light, stitching industriously, when Barr came into the kitchen, shot her a guarded look, and began puttering around setting his dried gear back in order. Patrollers were doubtless taught to travel tidy, she reflected. She returned him a nod, in case he wanted to talk but wasn’t sure he was allowed. Although maybe that was more for rigid Remo; Barr apparently had found no trouble talking with farmer girls in the past. Except not farmer brides inexplicably married to other Lakewalkers, it seemed, for when he finally opened his mouth, what came out was hardly smooth.

“You’re pretty stuck on Dag, aren’t you?” He’d sat down in front of the hearth with his knees up, to oil some leather straps, incidentally blocking the heat. But perhaps he was still core-cold from yesterday.

For answer, Fawn held up her left wrist and the marriage cord wrapped around it. “What does your groundsense tell you?”

His nose wrinkled in wonder, but not denial. “Can’t imagine how you two did that.”

“We wove them together. As partners, you might say. I made my ground follow my blood into the cord that Dag wears, which Dag’s brother Dar said was a knife-making technique. It worked, anyhow.”