Lois Bujold - Passage

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Tanner nodded toward the ferryboat tied next to the wharf boat. It looked like a barn floor laid out on a barge, except for a pole sticking up on one side like a short, stubby mast. “Across the river, and up past the Riffle. This load goes upstream from Possum Landing.”

Well, Dag could doubtless find her even over there. Fawn went to Weft’s head to coax her up the broad gangplank, which rather resembled a barn door tossed on its side, while Whit did the same for Warp. The horses were dubious, but at last seemed convinced that it was only some sort of strange bridge, and did not disgrace themselves or their former owner by trying to bolt. The boredom of the lead pair also helped.

The stubby mast turned out to be a capstan; a thick hemp rope was wound about it a few times, high up, one end leading to a stout tree up the bank, the other, supported by a few floats, to a similar tree on the other side. Fawn was a little disappointed not to ride on the famous Lakewalker ferry, but watched with interest as the two Bend ferrymen stuck oak bars into holes on the capstan and started turning it. Whit, equally fascinated, volunteered to help and went to work pushing the squeaking post around, winding and unwinding the rope and slowly pulling the ferry across the river. The water seemed clear and calm to Fawn’s eye, but she jumped when a log floating just under the surface thumped into the side, and she was reminded that this was no quiet lake. Working the ferry might not seem so pleasant when the water was high or rough, or in rain or cold. From out here in the middle, the river looked bigger.

“How do the other boats get past the rope?” she asked Tanner, watching the big log catch, roll under the obstruction, right itself, and sluggishly proceed.

“The ferrymen have to take it down,” he said. “They haul it back and forth across the river with a skiff, usually, but with the river this low nothing’s going over the Riffle anyways, so they just leave it up.”

When the ferry nosed up to the far bank, the ferrymen ran out the gangplank on that end. She and Whit repeated their reassurances to the horses, and the rig rumbled safely, if noisily, onto dry land once more. They both clambered up next to Tanner as he turned the team onto a rutted track leading upstream.

Fawn sat up in anticipation as they topped a rise and the line of flatboats tied to the trees beyond Possum Landing came into view. They were as unlike the Lakewalkers’ graceful, sharp-prowed narrow boats as they could be, looking like shacks stuck on box crates, really. Ungainly. Some even had small fireplaces with stone chimneys, out of which smoke trickled. It was as if someone’s village had suddenly decided to run off to sea, and Fawn grinned at the vision of an escaped house waddling away from its astonished owners. People ran away from home all the time; why shouldn’t the reverse be true? On one of these, she and Dag would float all the way to Graymouth. All running away together, maybe. Her grin faded.

But even such odd thoughts could not quench her excitement, and when Tanner brought the wagon to a halt in front of another rambling shed-warehouse, she hopped down and told her brother, “I’m going to go look at the boats.”

He frowned after her in frustration but stuck with his task as Tanner directed him to unlatch the tailboard and start lugging. “You be careful, now,” Whit called. More in envy than concern, she suspected.

“I won’t even be out of sight!” She just barely kept herself from skipping down to the bank. She was a sober married woman now, after all. And besides, it would be a tad cruel to Whit. Deciding which, she let herself skip just a little.

Reaching the bank, she caught her breath and stared around eagerly. There were fewer folks in view than she’d expected. She’d seen some fellows hanging around up at the storage shed, others down on the wharf boat, which Tanner had said doubled as a general store for the riverfolk. One or more of the houses in the hamlet, still obscured by the half-denuded trees, probably served as taverns. Maybe some boatmen had gone hunting in the hills to replenish their larders during this enforced delay. But a few men were quietly fishing off the backs of their flatboats—one, strangely, wore an iron kettle over his head like a helmet, although Fawn could not imagine why. Perhaps he’d lost a bet? A group of several men atop one level boat roof had their heads down over some game of chance; dice, Fawn thought, although she couldn’t see for sure at this angle. One looked around to watch her pass and drew breath for what was likely going to be a rude catcall, but some turn of the game sent up hoots and a murmur of comment, and he turned back. A woman came out of the shack on one boat and emptied a pan over the side, a reassuring domestic sight.

Fawn strolled along the row, looking for likely candidates for their boat. Some had long top-sheds that clearly left no room for a horse. Others were carrying livestock already—one had four oxen stalled on the bow end, quietly chewing their cud, so the boats could carry big animals, but that one was plainly full-up. Several had chicken coops, on top or tucked into a corner, and some had dogs, though none roused enough from their naps in the sun to bark at her. She stopped and studied a likely prospect. A fellow sitting on a barrel in the open bow tipped back his floppy hat and grinned in return with what teeth he had.

“Do you take passengers?” she called to him.

“I’d take you, little lady!” he replied enthusiastically.

Fawn frowned. “It would be me, my husband, and his horse.”

He swept off the hat with a flourish, revealing greasy hair. “Oh, leave the husband and his horse. I bet I can give you a better ride. If you—ow!” He clapped his hand to the side of his head as a small wooden block from seeming nowhere bounced off it with an audible clonk. Looking up to his left, he complained, “Now, what’d you go and do that for? I was just bein’ friendly!”

Atop the flat roof of the next boat over, a figure in homespun skirts sat in a rocking chair, whittling. As Fawn squinted, she saw it was a surprisingly young woman, almost lanky in build, with straight blond hair escaping from a horse-tail tied at her nape. She had light blue eyes and a wide mouth, both pinched with annoyance.

“To remind you to behave your fool self, Jos,” she replied tartly.

“Now apologize.”

“Sorry, Boss Berry.”

This won another wooden missile, which Jos did not dodge quite fast enough. “Ow!” he repeated.

“To her, you nitwit!” snapped the blond woman.

Jos put his hat back on, for the purpose of tugging its brim, evidently. “Sorry, miss—missus,” he mumbled to Fawn. He shuffled into his boat’s shack, out of range.

“Dolt,” observed the woman dispassionately.

Fawn strolled on a few paces, noting with interest that while Jos’s boat had its hull stuck in the mire, Berry’s, moored farther out, still floated. And it had an empty animal pen in one corner of the bow. Some chickens were penned on the opposite side, pecking up a scattering of corn, and their coop didn’t stink in the sun, unlike a few she’d passed; someone here cleaned it regularly. She put her hands on her hips and stared up at the woman, who didn’t look to be much older than Fawn herself.

“What are you carvin’ on?” Fawn called up.

The woman held out a rounded block. “Floats. Cottonwood makes good floats, for ropes and whatnot. A lot of softwoods do.”

Fawn nodded, encouraged by the sociable explanation and an almost-smile that erased the earlier tightness from the woman’s face. She might have just said floats, or none of your business. “So…does this boat take passengers?”