On Blue's waters

“It wasn’t that long after you,” he told me. For a few seconds he paused to gawk at the mossy leather stretched tight by Seawrack’s breasts. “Mother was fine then, and the sprats were fine too.”

Seawrack smiled. “Did you take good care of her while you were there, Sinew?”

“No.” He had summoned up the courage to speak to her directly. “She took care of me, like she always does. See, my father-hey! What are you doing?”

I was taking his hunting knife from the belt of my hide over-tunic, sheath and all. “Returning this to you.” I held it out; and when he did not accept it, I tossed it into his lap.

“I can’t give your needier back.” He eyed me, clearly expecting me to explode.

“That’s all right.”

“I had it. I should have left it at home with Mother, only I didn’t. I took it with me in the old boat, and it was a really good thing to have, too. I used it a lot before I lost it.”

He turned to Seawrack. “Father wanted me to take care of the family, and for a couple of days I tried, only there wasn’t anything to do. He thought I’d take the paper to town in the little boat, our old one that wasn’t much bigger than my old skin boat. Only it leaked and wouldn’t hold near enough, and as soon as everybody found out he’d gone away and left my mother there, Daisy’s mother came over and said they’d take Mother and our paper in their fishing boat anytime she wanted to go. This new boat here is like a fishing boat, that’s what we copied it from when me and Father built it, only we put in these big boxes, too, to keep the paper dry. He keeps rope and stuff in one, though.”

“I know,” Seawrack said.

“Real fishermen keep theirs up front under that little deck that they stand on when they’ve got to fool with the forestay or the jib.”

“That’s where we sleep now, Sinew, your father and I.” Seawrack’s tone thrilled me as much as it must have pained him; even tonight I thrill to the memory of it.

He stared, his mouth gaping. His hands fumbled with his knife, and for a moment I believed that he might actually try to stab me with it.

As if she spoke to a child, she asked, “Do you want to come with us? Where will you sleep tonight?”

“Yeah. In my boat, I guess. That’s where I’ve been sleeping. I’ll get in it and tie it on in back.” He looked to me. “Is that all right?”

I nodded.

“Only if you’ve got a blanket or anything that would be great. I brought some, but I lost them.”

I was about to say that we had brought only one, and had slept for most of the voyage under sailcloth and our clothing, but Seawrack explained that we had bought blankets in Wichote and rose to get him one. I suggested that he might want some sailcloth as well, in case of rain.

“All right.” For a second or two he fingered his reclaimed hunting knife. “We could trade for some furs with people around here, if you’ve got anything to trade.”

I nodded and said that I should have thought of that when we put in at Wichote.

“They’d skin you there.”

(My irony had been wasted.)

“Only out here and farther west you can get good furs cheap because they don’t want to have to load them in their boats and take them down the river to sell.”

He accepted the blanket that would be his from that moment forward. “After we bring back Silk I’m going to build a real big boat and just go back and forth trading. I’ll buy slug guns and stuff like that back home and sell them for furs all up and down the river, and then go back for more.”

It recalled what the traveler had said, and I asked him whether he had been farther west than we were now.

“Oh, sure. I’ve been to Pajarocu. I hung around there about a week waiting for you, then I started back down looking for you.”

Seawrack said admiringly, “You’re very brave to travel alone here in that little boat.”

“Thanks.” He smiled, and for a moment I actually liked him. “See, a little boat like mine is what you need out here, so you can get way over to one side and paddle. My father’s probably hanging on to this big one ’cause we’re going to have to have it to bring Silk back to New Viron in. We’ll have to have something that can make it across. That’s right, isn’t it, Father?”

Back to Seawrack before I had a chance to reply. “This one will do it. It’ll be fast, too, when we’re going back down, bringing Silk back. We’ll need it because the lander’s coming right straight back to Pajarocu, when it comes back.” He waited for one of us to challenge him.

“You bet it is. They’re not going to let a thing like that get away from them. Would you? There’s quite a few towns over on the other side that’ve got landers that work. That’s what I heard. Only they won’t let anybody but their own people get anywhere around them. Just try it and you’ll get shot. Some won’t even own up that they’ve got them.”

I cleared my throat. “I’ve been thinking. I want to propose a plan to both of you.”

Sinew held up his knife, inspecting its blade by the last light of the day that was now past. “You nicked the edge,” he said, and inspected the place with a thumbnail.