Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

And that was the first day, traveling.

The second day, they rose before dawn, ate dried meat and drank water. Then the soldiers brought river water up in a little iron pot, made a small fire to heat it, and shaved their faces with their knives, the lieutenant first. After that, they went marching again. No one spoke to Martha – or spoke among themselves, either – except the lieutenant once said, "Pick up the pace," and they did, marching faster down the middle of the River Road, crunching through shallow, ice-skimmed puddles with everyone they met standing aside to let them pass. They went faster, but Martha kept up, her cloak flapping at her calves. It had became a pleasure to her to march with soldiers, to leave where she'd always been to go to someplace new, someplace that would be a surprise, with a surprising reason for coming to it.

Even so, sometimes a dread came rising that she might be being taken where an example would be made of girls who hammered men. But Martha swallowed those fears like little frozen lumps, managed to keep them down, and decided not to ask again where she was bound, or why, for fear of the answer.

Instead, she gave herself up to marching, and often could see the river on their right, flashing gray-white through stands of trees along the bank. Its icy current – still fed by Daughter Summer's melt, far upstream at the Wall – was too wide to see across, and milky with stone dust washed from the great glacier in Map-Ohio.

Several times, she saw barges and oared boats far out from the shore, still summer-fit this far down the river, sailing with black-and-orange flags and banners fluttering in the river's wind.

Martha's legs were aching in the worst way by the time they came to Landing in the afternoon. Landing was the farthest from her home – the farthest south – she'd ever been. The Ya-zoo River came to Kingdom River there – though her father had said it was the other way round, and Kingdom had grown over to Yazoo as blessing and welcome. Her father had brought horses down for the fair, that time, and she'd come with him, riding Shirley. Some rough river-boys had made fun of her.

But now, though hard Ordinaries – wagoneers, sailors, warehousemen, and keel-boaters – stood drinking outside whorehouses and dens with their girls or pretty-boys all down the muddy road to Rivers-come-together, none had a word to call to hurt her feelings. They were quiet as the soldiers marched by – still in step through mud, horse-shit, and wagon ruts… then past a summer storage yard of huge racks of ships' skates and runners, long beams whose heavy bright blades gleamed greased and sharpened for winter-fitting.

They marched past loads of stacked lumber, sheep hides, sides of beef, pig, and goat… sacks of coal from Map-West Virgina, crates of warm-frame cabbages, onions, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower… barrels of pickles, brine kraut, smoked and salted river char.

The docks were even busier, noisier. Martha hadn't remembered everything being so large, loud, and confusing. The soldiers marched past starters shouting and flicking their slim blacksnakes at sweat-slaves trotting pokes of last potatoes up the ramps of two big pole-boats painted dark blue. Martha could spell out the letters on the company flags. Jessup's Line. … A herd of spotted cattle was being run down to a black barge, forty or fifty of the animals, driven by rust-colored dogs and three men with long sticks to prod them.

Martha had had a dog named Parker, when she was a little girl, a coon-hound with a blind left eye. Because of the eye, she'd been able to buy him with fifteen buckets of blueberries – no softs and no stems. Only two days' picking…

Those herding the spotted cattle, though, were different dogs, squat, barky, and quick. Interesting to watch work. Martha thought it had been worth such hard marching to come to Landing, with so much to see. And smell, too; the docks had the rich stink of the Rivers-come-together running beneath them, dirty float-ice, rotting mud, and fish guts… Someone was playing a pluck-piano; she could hear the quick, twanging notes up the road behind them as a den door opened.

"Some moments for beer, sir?" The first thing Ralph-sergeant had said since morning.

"No," the lieutenant said, and led them to a dock at the far left, calling, "Clear the way!" to a work gang of skinny tribes-women, naked, with fox-mask tattoos covering their faces. They were smeared with pig-fat against the cold wind the river brought down… The women stood aside as the soldiers marched out onto the planking, the wide boards booming beneath their boots. One – thin, and with teeth missing – stuck her tongue out at them. Two of the others called out to the soldiers together, in an up-river language that sounded like sticks rattling. It wasn't Book, wasn't even near book-English. Martha couldn't understand a single word.

A ruined barge was sunk along the left dockside, so only its rails and pole-walk showed above swirling water. Gray sea-birds – come all the way up from the Gulf Entire, Martha supposed – strutted and pecked along the railings. The birds had pale yellow eyes, crueler than crows'.

There was a wonder floating at the end of the dock – a galley beautiful as the circus boat that once came down from Cairo. But this one was painted all red as fresh blood, not striped green and yellow, and there was no music coming from it. A long red banner hung from the mast, stirring a little in the breeze.

The galley had one bank of oars, just above where the iron skate-beam fittings ran – and a red sail, though that was bundled tight to a second mast slanting low over the deck, reaching almost from the front of the boat to the back. A lateeno, Martha's father would have called it.

The lieutenant marched his men and Martha right up a ramp and onto the red galley. Everything there was the same bright red, or brass this-and-thats so bright in the sunshine they hurt her eyes. A line of men sat low on rowing benches along each side. They were naked as the tribeswomen had been, but with steel collars on their necks, and none of them looked up.

"You're late!" A soldier, standing on a high place at the back of the boat, had called that. This soldier wore a short-sword on a wide gold-worked belt. A long green-wool cloak, fastened in gold at his throat, billowed slightly in the river wind. His chest was armored in green-enameled steel, but with pieces of gold hanging from short green ribbons there.

"Late," he called again, as they came along the deck. He was much older than the lieutenant, and had an unpleasant face, made more unpleasant because his lower lip had been hurt, part of it cut away so his teeth showed there. He had five blue dots tattooed on each cheek.

… Martha had never seen a Ten-dot man before. Never seen more than a Six-dot, and that was the Baron Elliot, and she'd seen him only once at the Ice-boat races.

"I'm at fault, milord," the lieutenant said, "and have no excuses."

"No excuse, is not excuse enough," the Bad-lip Lord said. "So, three months pig-herding on Fayette Banks, for you and your slow men."

"Yes, sir."

"And this" – Bad-lip pointed at Martha – "this Ordinary is the object of the exercise?"

"Yes, sir."

"You, Big-girl – sit up here out of the way, and rest. We have cranberry juice; would you like some of that?"

"Yes, thank you." Martha came and sat on a little step below where he was standing. She wrapped her cloak around her and thought, too late, she should have said "milord."

The Bad-lip Lord leaned down and gripped her shoulder. "Some muscle there. Did the soldiers treat you with respect and kindness?"

"Yes, they did… milord." Martha thought of saying "especially Ralph-sergeant," but didn't.

The Bad-lip Lord nodded, then called, "Captain! South, to Island – at the courier beat!"