As the sun’s light grew level and the shadows stretched, they rounded a tight bend to find a familiar keelboat drawn up to a high place along the bank. Smoke rose from cook fires, with the boat’s crew lazing around them. When they saw the Fetch, some rose and waved, and Boss Wain actually ran out to the back of the Snapping Turtle to cup his hands and hail them.

“Hey, Boss Berry! How’s about a mutton dinner in exchange for a tune or three?”

Berry grinned and bent her head to Fawn. “What do you say? Would the cook like a night off?”

Fawn looked dubiously at the rowdy keelers, now adding whooping welcomes to that of their boss. “I don’t know. Is it safe?” Berry had always been with her papa and big brother before, keeping an eye out for her.

“Oh, aye. Wain’s a loud lout, but he’ll keep the line if you do. Not that he won’t push his luck, mind. Doubt he’ll bother you, though—I mean, you have Dag.”

Dag indeed. And Whit, Remo, Hod, Bo, and she supposed Barr, and Hawthorn for the cheering on. Fawn decided to be brave, like Berry. “All right. Sure.”

Berry waved back. “You got yourselves a fiddler, boys!” She leaned on her steering oar to bring the Fetch to shore just above where the Snapping Turtle was moored. Keelers ran out to help tie their lines to the trees.

“What, more Lakewalkers?” Boss Wain cried as they all trooped up to his fires. “What are you doing, Berry, collecting ’em?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she replied, swinging her fiddle-bag. “This here’s Remo and Barr; Dag you know.”

Wain tugged on the brim of his hat in uneasy, respectful acknowledgment of Dag, and promptly begged his attention for a crewman with a hurt foot, if he’d a mind. Dag returned a nod, eyelids lowering and lifting. Nobody brought up the sand bar; maybe Wain was trying to make amends, in which case Berry seemed willing to let him.

“What’s this, Wain, stealing sheep again?” asked Bo, with a nod at the nearest cook fire, where two crewmen were turning a browning carcass on a makeshift spit. Dripping fat made the fire lick up in smoky, orange spurts, and sent a rich aroma into the cool air. Fawn’s mouth watered, and Whit licked his lips.

Wain stuck his thumbs in his braces and puffed out his considerable chest. “I’ll have you know that farmer gave us this here mutton.” His wave took in not only the roasting carcasses, but three more worried-looking live sheep tied to the trees beyond the camp.

His brawny lieutenant put in, “Yeah, he told us to take them as a present. He begged so pitiful, we finally gave in.”

“That I just plain don’t believe,” said Berry.

“It’s true as I stand!” Wain cried in indignation. A sneaky grin stretched his mouth. “See, we passed this sheep pasture up the river a ways, and the boys allowed as how fresh mutton for dinner would go down good, but the farmer likely wouldn’t give us a fair price. And I said, no, I wouldn’t allow no sheep-stealing, a riverman should be above that, but I bet Saddler here a barrel of beer I could get us them there sheep for free, and he said, No, you can’t, which was as good as a red rag to a bull, you know me.”

Berry nodded, though her blond brows had a skeptical lift to them, which only seemed to encourage the other boat boss.

“So we tied up the Turtle, and me and a couple of the boys snuck up on some of those sheep—that was a job, let me tell you, sliding around that muddy pasture—and chucked a good slug of Graymouth pepper sauce in the mouths of the six slowest.”

“Or tamest,” Fawn muttered, suddenly not liking where this tale was going. She edged closer under Dag’s arm.

“You should’ve seen those sheep run around then, shaking their heads and drooling all orange at the mouth!”

Wain’s lieutenant, Saddler, wheezed with laughter and took up the tale. “Then Boss Wain, see, goes up to the farmer’s barn and calls him out, and tells him there’s something wrong with his sheep—that they’ve taken the Graymouth murrain, horrible contagious. The fellow was practically shakin’ in his boots by the time Wain got done tellin’ him how he seen it wipe out a whole flock in a week, down on the lower Gray. And the farmer asked, what’s to be done? and Wain says, There’s no cure and nothing for it but to cull the sick ones, quick, and maybe bury the carcasses in lime, miles away from the others. And this fellow was practically crying for his sheep, so when Wain suggested he’d take away the sick ones and dispose of ’em for him, the farmer was most pitifully grateful. Which we did do, and here we are.”

“And you owe me the next barrel!” Wain said, slapping him on the back in high good humor.

“That I do,” coughed Saddler. “But it was worth it, to see the thankful look on that farmer fellow’s face when we carted off his poor sick sheep. And you have to admit, Wain spoke true—they didn’t live the day!”

The gathered boatmen laughed, and even Barr and Remo smiled. The tale finished, the group broke up to tend to the dinner preparation, including tapping a new keg set up on a nearby stump. Dag went off to see the fellow with the bad foot. Fawn caught Whit’s eye and scowled the grin right off his face.

“What’s your trouble?” he whispered at her.

“Those could’ve been Papa’s sheep,” she muttered back.

His brow wrinkled. “I don’t think Papa would have been taken in by some smoky fiddle about the Graymouth murrain, Fawn. He knows his sheep better than that.”

“That’s not the point. That farmer may not be as smart as Papa, but I’ll bet he works as hard. Tricking’s same as stealing, in my eyes. And it was cruel on him.”

The smoke wafted their way, and Whit inhaled appreciatively. “Well, those sheep are beyond saving now, Fawn. Best anyone can do now is see they didn’t die in vain. Waste not, want not, as Mama herself says.”

“Well, I’m not eating any!” she declared. “And you shouldn’t, either.”

“Fawn!” he protested. “We can’t go complaining and being—being walking, talking blights and spoiling everybody’s party. These keeler men work hard; this is a pretty innocent pleasure, here. A picnic and a sing-song!”

“That farmer worked hard, too. Harder than rivermen, or you wouldn’t be thinking of switching, now would you?”

“That’s not why I—oh, crap anyways. Don’t eat that tasty-smellin’ mutton if that’s what pleases you, but don’t be ragging me.” He stalked off, to console himself pretty promptly with a tankard of the Turtle’s fresh Raintree beer.

Fawn’s jaw set, but truly, what right had she to blight the party? Especially if it was, more or less, Wain’s apology to the Fetch and its boss about that sand bar. But she remained determined to touch no tricked-away mutton. Remo was now helping Dag with the fellow with the hurt foot; she withdrew quietly to the Fetch and watched the camp on shore from a perch on the edge of the cabin roof. The sun set, and the firelight blazed brighter and more invitingly.

The noisiness of the boatmen grew more repellent. Bo was staggering already, grinning foolishly, though Hod seemed to be looking out for him. Hawthorn was showing off his raccoon kit’s tricks, such as they were, to an appreciative or at least tolerant audience. Barr and Remo were sitting together eating along with the man with the freshly bandaged foot, so even they weren’t being standoffish Lakewalkers. Wain, Saddler, and Whit were all grouped tightly around Berry. Fawn began to wonder what the point was of spurning the affair for principle’s sake if nobody was going to even take notice.

At least one person noticed. Dag walked across the gangplank and lifted himself up to the roof to dangle his legs over beside hers. “What’s the trouble, Spark? You feeling all right? I thought your monthly was past.”

“It is.” She shrugged. “I just keep thinking about that poor farmer that Wain robbed. Or tricked, whichever. It’s just not fair!” She eyed him suspiciously. “Are you going to eat that stolen mutton?”