“And what makes you think he set foot on my boat?" Captain Achelous Salimahum Fitzulmo kept his arms crossed and his paws carefully still. Only his tailtip stirred. He hated having to wear his jacket when they made port but the shorebound and suchlike businessfolk had to have some way to tell who was in charge, didn't they?

“You questionin' my authority, sir?" The bloodhound sheriff was tall, and gaunt, skin and bones but if the bones were all of unbendable steel. Now he'd spoken, he had a voice like granite echoes in an empty mausoleum. It was easy to see why he'd let the plump starling handle the talking up till now.

“Now there," the plump starling put up a hand to the bloodhound's arm as if to hold his partner back, though thought better of actually touching him, “Nobody's questionin' anything, 'cept myself and my colleague questionin' the whereabouts of the fugitive in question."

“Well," the otter eyed the sheriffs, weighing their moods. The starling looked flushed and flustered, and if he'd been alone Fitzulmo would've wagered a month's profit this fella could be talked into turning around and leaving the Irene's Goodnight to load her cargo in peace. But the bloodhound clearly wasn't the kind of man who could be talked out of anything. He dressed more like a preacher than a sheriff, wore perfectly round dark glasses, and it was hard to believe the fellow had any eyes behind them at all. “I don't hold with stowaways, so if you think I got one, you're more'n welcome to see for yourself. I'm just sayin'," Captain Fitzulmo stepped aside to let the lawmen board, “If he were on my boat, I'd know."

The sheriffs swept onto the deck, heavy boots sounding hollowly in the hold. The crew—otters, nutria, muskrat—sweated shirtless and barefoot as they sang the barrels and crates into the hold:

  Well when I was a baby the river flooded wide

  My mother stirred the wreckage and discovered me inside

  If wiser or more fortunate she'd've left me where I lay

  But she had no choice to keep me, all else had washed away.

  Well when I was a young boy, the river called my name.

  I followed him. He broke my heart, he mended it again.

  Now some would say I ran away, but twas the river's plan,

  He handed me a tiller and made me a riverman.

  (You take unto the river, boy, the river makes you a man)

“Is it strictly necessary, Captain," the starling's eyes were pained, “for them to be making so much racket? And for them to be in such a state of indecency?"

  Now I am like the river for he's loved many men.

  However much they leave his bed they can jump right in again.

  The frigid lakes, the babbling streams, they'll tell you he's a whore,

  But however many rivermen, there's always room for more.

  (However many rivermen, there's room for 'nother score.)

“Why, that fellow," he averted his eyes theatrically as a beaver hauled himself over the railing with one hand and shook riverwater out of his fur, “is nude as the day he was born!"

“Course he is," Fitzulmo snorted, “you expect a man to swim in waterlogged clothes and still get any work done? Anyway, you here to preach Sunday School at my crew, or look for a stowaway?"

“He ain't up here," the bloodhound pronounced, like a dirge, through a nose eagerly in the air, “I'd smell him."

“Perhaps he's below?" offered the starling. He didn't sound hopeful, which was no more than he deserved.

“This fella you're after, what was his name?" Fitzulmo made idle conversation as he guided the lawmen past the cargo stacked on the hold ramp, “And what'd he do that's so dire?"

“Tiberius MacClarence. Day laborer on diverse farms. His parents' sundry financial obligations," the starling adjusted the badge on his lapel, which had been knocked askew on the barrel of maple sugar he'd squeezed past, “were unexpectedly called due this last month, and they proved quite unable to meet them. Naturally, the magistrate saw there'd be no sense in sending them to debtor's prison, for then the debt would never be paid at all! So their son was remanded to custody in their place. Only till the debts are settled, of course! But young people never see reason, do they?" The sheriff shook his feathered head gravely at the folly of youth.

Fitzulmo acknowledged a young fellow mightn't be likely to see the reason of that. “How'd he escape?"

“He didn't," the bloodhound paused, glared at Fitzulmo. “I'm still on his trail, so he ain't escaped yet. An he won't. No man escapes me."

Which seemed to be all there was to say on that subject.

He followed the sheriffs all over his own hold. The starling didn't seem to have any more idea than the otter what the bloodhound was doing or how long he'd be. “So there, Captain, have you… been working a riverboat long?" sighed the starling as the bloodhound peered behind a pile of wool bales for the third time.

“Born on one," Fitzulmo replied.

“And, uh, how do you find the life suits you?"

“I'd hope I like it well enough, by now."

“That sounds fascinating," said the starling as if it didn't. “Tell me, how long before you hope to retire? Take to quiet respectability?"

“He ain't here!" the bloodhound bayed, indignant, offended, and saving the otter from having to answer.

“I told y'all that an hour ago!" Fitzulmo said.

“What do you mean," the other sherriff cut him off, “he ain't here?"

“I can't smell him nowhere on the ship!" growled the dog through clenched teeth.

“Does that mean I can get underway?" Fitzulmo said, “she's loaded, current's pullin, and every boat what gets to Louisiana ahead a' me knocks my prices down!"

“I don't understand," the starling grumbled as he stepped off the gangplank, “Our informant said she clearly saw him board this vessel."

“Well, maybe she didn't get as good a look as she thought she did, or she wanted the reward money, or she jes thought lying'd be funny, sure I wouldn't know." Fitzulmo nodded up to Cairo at the helm, and the green heron whistled for the crew to begin casting off.

“I smelled him," The other sheriff muttered, grim as a gravedigger, “when we come on the boat."

“I suppose," Fitzulmo could have danced in frustration, but no, still wearing the damn coat, got to be gentlemanly, “He might'a dove off, swum for the opposite bank? Could be on the Kentucky shore by now, if he was a strong swimmer. More likely he's sleepin on the bottom of the river, t' be honest."

“You'll check in with a telemancer, Captain," the Starling cupped his feathers around his beak to shout as the crew poled the Irene's Goodnight off the dock to take the current, “when you reach your destination? In case there are any developments?"

“That's like to be at least three'r four weeks," Fitzulmo was counting the seconds in his head till he could relax, “but if'n you insist, officer!"

The starling turned to walk away, but the bloodhound stood watching on the bank, baleful stare burning into Fitzulmo through dark glasses till the otter turned to step behind the cookshack. Then he could peel the heavy captain's jacket off, feel the cool humidity the river exhaled slide through his back fur, shiver in relief.

He was on the river again.

He was home.

“All's well, cap'n?" Aitkin asked. It apparently still hadn't occurred to the beaver to put on pants, but Fitzulmo didn't bother to remind him.

“All clear," the otter answered. “Let's see to our passenger."

He and Aitkin hauled up the Irene's Goodnight's fenders—wooden barrels wrapped in rope, hollow and buoyant, the sort of place a canny lawman might suspect a riverboat of hiding smuggled goods—one by one. The last one was pretty heavy, but they'd each been lifting cargo for years and it didn't take long before it too lay on the deck, dripping muddy-smelling water.

Fitzulmo reached down, gave the top of the wooden fender a twist. There was a click, and after a moment the entire thing opened. Out crawled a ferret, wet, bedraggled, and plainly frightened. His clothes were soaked, a cloth cap was jammed over his ears, and he was shivering.

“Now then," said Captain Achelous Salimahum Fitzulmo, “the hell're we gonna do with you?"

“You really landed us in it this time!" Early wheezed. The old cook sat on the edge of the 'upper deck,' which was what he insisted on calling the cookshack roof, dangled his wrinkled but still vibrantly orange legs over the side.

Fitzulmo frowned at the killdeer, but it wasn't worth uncrossing his hands from behind his head or sitting up. “I done nothing of the sort, old man. He's just another runaway to the river, ain't he? We seen dozens like him and we'll see dozens more."

“Don't you lecture me about riverways, sonny, I been shippin' on the Irene's Goodnight longer'n you and I've-"

“Forgotten more'n you know about what it means t'be a riverman," Fitzulmo and Cairo finished in unison with Early.

“Old man's got a point, cap'n," said Cairo, in the same monotone drawl the heron would use to say 'my neck itches' or 'there's a tornado bearing down on us.' “We know fer a fact he's got sheriffs after him an all. Hard to make a run downriver pay if we all get arrested."

“Which is why they ain't gonna find him." Fitzulmo said with as much authority as he could while lying down. It wasn't much. But the feeling of sun-warmed wood on his back, the gentle sway of the boat beneath, the sounds of cicadas made indistinct with distance, the smell of the batch of biscuits Early had pulled out of the dutch oven, didn't those all matter more than captainly authority? What was the point of captianly authority if it meant you had to skip all the best things about the river?

“How the hell d'ye reckon?" Early snapped.

The old kildeer really was gonna make him sit up, wasn't he? “Cairo," Fitzulmo said as he did, “what's our next port?"

“I'd-a hoped you'd know, cap'n," said the heron leaning on the tiller. The otter gave him a sharp look. Damn the bird and his sarcasm. “Well then. It's Maysville, then Cincinnati after."

“And that's four days away, five if'n a headwind comes up." The otter gestured toward the front of the Irene's Goodnight. Aitkin was hanging the ferret's soaked clothes up to dry. The lad himself was sitting by the railing, wrapped in a blanket. Someone'd given him something steaming to drink in a tin cup.

“Don't think I caught yer name, mate!" The beaver said, cheerfully, as he hauled the last of Tiberius's clothes into the air like a flag.

The ferret hunched in the rough blanket the big otter, who seemed to be in charge, had tossed him. “Uh, Tiberius MacClarence," he ventured.

The beaver leaned back on his tail, hands in the pockets of the pants Tiberius had talked him into putting on. He seemed to be trying to come to terms with that one. “Well, that's a mouthful. What'd yer ma call ya?"

“Uh, Tiberius."

“Oh. What about yer pa?"

“Tiberius. Or Mr. MacClarence, if he was mad. Or if he was tryin to talk some farmer into hiring me fer the day."

These were not, judging by the beaver's expression, particularly useful answers. “You got anything shorter? Like… when the cap'n wants me, he just yells," the beaver grinned, then bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Aitkin!"

The nearest riverman, a nutria, dropped his fishing pole with a curse, slipped into the water to retrieve it, and resurfaced, dripping wet and glaring daggers at the beaver.

“Sorry Natch!" The Nutria ignored him, stalked away to strip off his sopping clothes. Aitkin turned back to Tiberius. “You know you'll dry faster if you drop the blanket and lay on it? Sun can't reach yer fur through that."

The ferret clutched the blanket tighter. The beaver shrugged and continued. “Well, we oughta come up with a name for you as is easy to bellow, if'n the cap'n needs to. So let's see… where yer from, what's the name of the river?"

Tiberius felt as if he'd missed a step. “What river?"

“Well, everyone's gotta live near a river, right?" Aitkin shrugged, “Or how else'd they get anywhere?"

The ferret decided this wasn't worth the effort. “I guess the closest was the Shenandoah?"

“Then what say we call ya Shen? Short for Shenandoah?" grinned the beaver, with the confidence of a man to whom it has never occured that folk might be named after anything other than rivers.

“Oh, I don't know…" Tiberius winced and stared into his cup. Some kind of broth, tasted like it had rough whiskey in it. “Ma and Pa didn't hold with goin' by nicknames. They always said we were on our way to bein' a respectable family, and respectable folk don't go by nicknames none." Or smoke, or drink, or swear, or play cards. Or let themselves be seen in the company of indecent ruffians such as riverboatmen. Though apparently respectable folk DO run up secret debts they don't tell their kin about, then turn those kin over to the law in their place. Apparently respectable folk don't even tell their kin this sort of news to their face, they leave it to whatever sheriff hauls you out of gaol after a terrified and sleepless night spent sure you were about to be hanged. Apparently respectable folk leave their own flesh and blood to make a run for it, hungry and homeless. That's all fine. But absolutely no nicknames!

“I feel like Shen suits you well enough," Aitkin was saying when he looked up. “Don't think nobody else aboard's from there, so there ain't like to be no confusion."

“You give him that soup?" Fitzulmo asked.

“I did," Early lit a foul-smelling corncob pipe, “Lad was frigid and scared and best I could find out hadn't eaten in three days. Sainted Ma Fenimore in heaven ain't gonna look down and watch her son turn away a soul in need."

“How is that different from givin him passage?"

“Because the law ain't gonna come down on me fer givin a man a cup of soup!"

“Yes they would," interjected Cairo.

“You say you know the river better'n anyone," the otter lay back, folded his hands on his belly, made himself comfortable again, “though I'll note: of the three fellas up here, you aint the one that's the captain and you ain't the one at the tiller. But wouldn't you agree the river works powerful changes in a man?"

“Yes…" the killdeer answered, suspicious.

“Why, even shorebound folks know to come to the river for their baptizin."

“I suppose…"

“And this fella ain't a fool. He talked Aitkin back into his breeches, no mean feat."

“That don't prove nothin."

“And having four, maybe five, days of the river oughta be sufficient to make a decent start on his education?"

“I ain't rightly certain of that."

“Well, I am, and I'm captain, so I say wait and see. I'll wager a jug of rum that by the time we hit Vicksburg, he'll belong to the river firmly as any a man of us. So much that a sheriff could look him in the face and not recognize him."

“Not sure I'm eager to test that last bit, cap'n," Cairo croaked.

“You're on." Early spat over the rail into the water. “River's my witness."

Tiberius gulped down the rest of the broth, winced at the burning taste. Yup, definitely whiskey. “What kinda fella would be named Shen, anyway?"

“Well," the Beaver's face was in deadly earnest, “I'd reckon he'd have a good singin voice, he'd be quick at the oars and poles if it's time to get into port, and he's a hell of a shifter when a fella needs a fella to walk backwards down the plank with the other half of a barrel or a bale. And I'd hope maybe he wouldn't mind sharin a hammock, of a lonely night or two?"

The ferret felt himself blushing again. But the whiskey was doing its best to encourage him, and he could see how having a new name might be useful for someone on the run from the law, and it honestly didn't look like respectability was on the table any more anyway.

“Well," said Shen, “I been told I got a good enough singin' voice. Supposin' we start by learnin' me that part of the job?"

“Sure can!" Aitkin grinned, “Give a listen and follow after me:"

  Now when you're on the river he can take you anywhere

  Just listen to your riverman, and pay your easy fare.

  And those who cheat a riverman will face the river's wrath,

  For they'll be headed overboard, and bound to take a bath.

  Now aint no thing needs carryin that riverboats can't hold:

  We'll take lumber, iron, cotton bales, take silver, and take gold.

  We'll take your salt or sassafras, your grain or whiskey too.

  And when you're in a hurry, boy, we've saved some space for you.

  (We'll take your goods and cargo, boy, and then we'll take you too.)

“Now you philosophical gentlemen'll excuse me," Early pulled himself to his feet, stretched his wings till his shoulder popped, “but some of us got work to do, and apparently an extra mouth to see about feedin."

“Go on then," the captain answered, “Afore your sainted Ma takes umbrage."

The kildeer bustled down the ladder, back into his cookshack. The heron sank back into a gently swaying, meditative reverie, eyes playing like reflections across the water ahead, weight balanced on the long tiller.

The otter watched a ferret spend the evening learning to tie knots from a beaver, grow comfortable in his drying fur, in the pants and cloth cap he reclaimed, without the shirt he didn't bother with, and in his new name, as if he were breaking in a new pair of boots.

  Well here's your stop, fine gentlemen, take care now where you step.

  There's mud upon the riverbank, there's tar upon the deck.

  Your fine clothes are all dirty now and not fit to be seen.

  But if you were a riverman the river'd wash you clean.

When they docked in Cincinnati, the otter, who Shen was doing his best to think of as 'captain,' told him to lay out the fenders and tie off to the dock. He watched carefully, though, how the nutria, Natch, and the muskrat, whose name was harder but he finally remembered it was Weiser, poled them close enough in before the dockman tossed a rope.

Shen did his best to catch it as if it weren't his first time.

He'd been afraid of the loading, the unloading. From the way the crew—the REST OF the crew, he corrected himself—talked about it, he was afraid it'd be bone-breaking, back-crushing, soul-destroyingly hard work, he'd fail miserably, he'd be exposed as a fraud and told he would never make a riverman. But it proved to just be lifting and carrying. No different than he'd done as a farmhand, easier, even, because there wasn't as much of it.

Aitkin explained they almost never unloaded anything, this leg of the trip, “see, the farms upriver, they're mostly lookin' to sell goods downriver, so they sign papers with the capn', load up their grain 'r wool 'r whatever it is, then we sell it at a big port downstream! And then somehow, cap'n sends some a' the money back to the farmers, and gives us our pay outa the rest. I dunno how, don't really care so long as I get mine."

Which was why after loading a dozen or so barrels, Shen spent the rest of the morning lounging on the deck, watching captain Fitzulmo pace on the edge of the dock like a restless animal. A couple times the captain struck up a conversation with passerby—a big clydesdale in overalls, a puma in a preacher's collar, a coyote who was likely some kinda vagrant witch or conjure-man looking to sell unlawful spells—but mostly he fretted for a couple hours till he sent Weiser to the tavern to fetch everyone back so they could depart.

Shen hadn't gone. He didn't want to give any lurking sheriffs the chance to get between him and the Irene's Goodnight.

“There a problem, cap'n?" the ferret brought himself to ask.

“Oh, nah," the otter reassured him, “I'd like a full hold, just float all the way to Louisiana without stoppin, but gossip says they had a dry spring, we probably ain't getting it till Louisville, maybe even Memphis."

“You just seem uneasy, is all."

“Cause I wasn't on the river." The captain peeled off his jacket with evident relief. “Make sure we're ready to cast off soon as everyone's back aboard, Shen."

“Aye captain." And wasn't it a pleasant surprise how natural saying it felt.

  Well here's your stop dear madam, here is where you'll stay.

  You'll see that there'll be dancing yet upon your wedding day.

  And there's your happy ending. Don't keep it waiting long.

  But such ain't for the likes of me, I must be rolling on.

"Let's get you a feel for her, lad," the captain gripped Shen by the wrist, when the ferret got to the top of the ladder, and pulled him up to the cookshack roof.

The green heron, who if he had let go of the tiller even once since Shen had set foot on the Irene's Goodnight then the ferret hadn't seen it, looked at him through half closed eyes.“You ever steered a boat before?"

“Can't say as I have," Shen answered.

“Well, you're about to." Captain Fitzulmo said, before Shen could say the part about how he wasn't sure this was a good idea, “Cairo, you been up a day'n a night'n then some, get to your damn hammock."

“Don't run us aground or nothin" was apparently what Cairo said instead of goodnight.

“I really don't wanna run us aground, though," the ferret whined the second the heron was out of earshot.

“Calm down, lad, she's easier than she looks, and the river aint tricky here." The otter made room beside the long wooden beam. “Take a grip and I'll show you."

Shen set his hands to the smooth wood. The tiller was easily the length of a whole tree, and about as heavy, and even with his arms around it the ferret couldn't see how he was supposed to move the damn thing. But then the captain was right behind him, was moving his shoulders, shifting his arms, pulling him back against the otter's chest. “Like that. Lean back into it. Let the tiller hold you up. You don't steer with your arms, you steer with your weight. You don't push a boat through the water, you just slide her sideways into a current'll put her where you want her." His arms wrapped around Shen to reach the tiller himself. He smelled like sweat and sun-worn wood and sweet water. “Now she'll turn whatever way the back end, in the water, pushes. Which means the front end goes the other way, got it? So to go port," Shen felt the otter's muscles roll and his fur shift against his back, “you go starboard."

The Irene's Goodnight drifted, gently, toward the left bank.

“And to go back starboard," the Captain pulled against Shen's shoulders, leaned him, made him hang his weight on the tiller, and miraculously he felt it respond, “you go port."

“Don't it get confusin, backward-like?" Shen could feel the captain's breath, moving in the otter's chest, against his back and side.

“You get used to it. If it's bogglin' you, think on it like you're bracin' against the tiller and pushin' the boat with your feet."

That made it make more sense, Shen found. And every mile that slipped by on either bank Fitzulmo let go a little more, till Shen held the tiller himself and the captain's hands were just hovering close enough to his shoulders to barely feel at the edges of his fur.

“Reckon you got the basic idea, then?" The otter ducked to the other side of the tiller.

“Reckon so, captain," the ferret answered.

“Reckoned you would," said Fitzulmo.

“Cap'n," Shen hesitated, “you ain't plannin on me… takin this over, are you? Cairo ain't goin nowhere, is he?"

“What? No! What? Hell no, boy!" the otter laughed. “Cairo knows this river better'n the back of his hand, I ain't lettin him go nowhere! You just oughta know how, is all. Every riverman oughta. Fact you caught on swift is proof you're meant to be a riverman, but I ain't gonna look to you to steer. Least not alone. Least not for a long while!"

“I don't know as it's so funny, cap'n," Shen blushed. “Just seemed in a hurry to turn me inta the genuine article fore I barely been a prentice, is all." And if Fitzulmo shot Shen a sharp, guilty look then, one that wondered if someone had talked too much about Vicksburg and jugs of rum to be won, Shen was too busy staring down the length of the tiller to catch it.

So the otter just reassured his pupil: no, there was no hurry, the river don't hurry so neither should a riverman. And anyway there was still all the business of reading the surface ahead, seeing how the standing waves meant submerged logs or rocks, the cross-current ripples meant a bank of silt or sand. And by then he was behind Shen again, arm past his face to point forward, other hand on his shoulder, bare chest to bare back, pressing body and brawn on the tiller with him and next to him, and so Shen's momentary concern was soon entirely washed away, like mud in a river.

  Now a riverman knows how to drink. A riverman can brawl.

  And in his rolling hammock he can find no sleep at all.

  A riverman knows how to sing, he's singing all night long.

  He has no need to learn the words, he sings the river's song.

  (So join him in his hammock and you'll sing the river's song.)

Shen lay atop Aitkin. The beaver had pulled their shared hammock—and hadn't it been a surprise to learn the offer to 'share a hammock' was both practically permanent and mostly because the Irene's Goodnight didn't HAVE any unoccupied hammocks—up on the deck, tied it off between the clothesline and the bow railing. It was gonna be a beautiful night, he'd said, and summer was always short enough. You had to sleep under an open sky whenever you got the chance.

Shen knew well enough what Tiberius MacClarence's mother would have said. Night air outdoors was how you got the Scarlet Fever—well, that and eating watermelons—and without a shirt? Or shoes? And with this ruffian wearing nothing at all, not that that was unusual for him? Might as well pick out your headstone now and save time! But Shen was finding he didn't have much of a good opinion of Mrs. MacClarence or her medical advice. So the ferret relaxed, his feet stuck over the end of the hammock, the back of his head on the beaver's belly, the beaver's hands on the ferret's chest, and looked at the stars.

“I once had a shipmate," Aitkin mused, “said there was a story about how the Milky Way up there was all campfires. Everyone who's ever died, while they're makin the trip to heaven or hell, makes em when they stop for the night. Gotta wonder what kinda river they're travelin, if it goes either place."

“What makes you think it's a river?" Shen asked.

“They're travelin' ain't they? What else'd it be?"

“Supposin we find the fella who told you the story, then," Shen stroked the rough fur on Aitkin's forearms, “and ask him? Where's he gotten to?"

“Assumin' the story's true," Aitkin waved a hand at the river-shaped cloud of stars, “at a campfire up there somewhere."

Shen felt Aitkin's grip on him tighten. On the other end of the deck, Natch and Early and the two taciturn otters whose names Shen had finally learned—Sven and Rufus, brothers they claimed, though they looked nothing alike, from somewhere up the Mississippi headwaters they called 'the cabin'—were playing cards by lantern light. The only time they were audible was when someone swore over the jingling of pennies and buttons changing hands, or the occasional general laughter when someone added an article of clothing to the pot. Otherwise Aitkin's breathing, the distant sound of crickets, and the comfortable silence of the river beneath were all there was to hear.

“You were," Shen said, cautiously, “sweet on him?" He felt the beaver nod.

“I get sweet on a fella pretty easy, I guess." Aitkin admitted. “Reckon you mighta noticed. Don't often wind up havin' em sweet on me back, but I take things easy. I figure, I got the fella I'm sweet on in my arms, and he don't mind bein there? Still better'n a lot o' folk do."

Shen was trying to figure what, if anything, to say, when another sound interrupted his thoughts. A tin whistle, or some other kind of cheap flute. A tune slow and not a little bit sad. Every few notes, one would hit just a little wrong, but the song went on as if it paid a wrong note no mind.

He was almost invisible in the darkness, but atop the cookshack roof, technically still steering by leaning his elbows on the tiller as he played, the starless outline on the night that was the Captain was barely visible.

“And yer sweet on the cap'n," Aitkin said, without accusation or bitterness.

Shen twisted back to face the beaver, and slid to the side, where the hammock held them tight together. Aitkin chuckled, shifted himself to make more room, stroked silence into the ferret's cheek before Shen could put together an answer.

“I ain't dumb, Shen. Folks think I don't bother learnin' things I don't care to know, and true enough, its'a mess a trouble to no purpose. But I can see what's plain plain enough."

“I don't… Aitkin, I ain't gonna jes… I mean, I couldn't... I'd never… drop you, or nothin'" Shen stopped and started four or five different denials in a hushed whisper, but could find what he meant in none of them.

“An thank you kindly," Aitkin chuckled. “Gives me a chance to maybe persuade you some. Ain't gonna ask you to stop bein' sweet on the cap'n. Seen the appeal m'self. But maybe you can find yer way to gettin a bit sweet on me, too."

Shen found his head resting on Aitkin's shoulder, wondered when he'd done that. “I guess I maybe could," he said, “I learnt a powerful many new bits of work, of late, oughta be able to add one more."

Shen felt Aitkin's lips find his forehead. “Jes listen to me. Said we're out here to enjoy the summer night, and all we do is jaw at eachother."

“Well then," the ferret nuzzled the beaver's neck, “shut up and let us enjoy it!"

“You comfy?"

“I got you, don't I? Who needs a feather bed, they got a big lug like you to sleep on?"

Then they were, in fact, quiet. And for the rest of the night, there might have been very few things in the world, as far as they were concerned. The cool smell of river water. The sound of distant, innocent insect song. The closer, more bittersweet music of a cheap tin flute, inexpertly played. And eachother.

But for one of them, there was also the captain, and the ghost of who he had been before the river.

  For when I was a young boy, the river called my name.

  Couldn't help but follow him once the river'd made his claim.

  I washed the road dust off my feet, I bid the shore goodbye,

  And I will be a riverman until the day I die.

“Starboard!" Fitzulmo bellowed backward as well as he could without turning. Had to keep his eyes as far forward as possible. The Irene's Goodnight needed every inch of visibility she could get. It wasn't just how the rain hammering down meant there was scarcely less water in the air than in the river, it was also that the river himself'd risen considerably with the influx of rainwater, and they were being carried very much faster than they'd planned.

Least the farmers would stop complaining about the dry spring.

“Starboard!" Shen repeated the warning, back toward the tiller, in unison with Weiser, and he and the muskrat both backed water on their oars. Sven and Natch would be driving on the other side, and Aitkin and Cairo would be hauling on the tiller, but it had been over an hour—as far the ferret could tell, which didn't count for much—since Shen had had the stamina to look up at any of them.

“Starboard!" the captain bellowed again. He and Rufus swept back and forth with the landing poles, like a blind man's cane, at the bow, as a last line of defense against underwater hazards, though with the speed they were going, what good would those do if the ship did bear down on something?

“Starboard!" the crew answered, hauling their oars, hauling the tiller, because there was nothing to do but grope for the cleanest current available and trust the river wouldn't break them. Rain had soaked the crew's clothes till they clung and bound and the only thing to do was pull them all off and now Shen's fur was just as soaked and he couldn't remember what being dry felt like.

“Port!" yelled the captain, and no, he wasn't getting hoarse, because he couldn't afford to, so he wasn't and he wouldn't neither! They were within fifty miles, he'd guess, of the confluence with the Mississippi, which was a bad time to not be able to see the river ahead, to not see other river traffic.

“Port!" Shen shouted back, pulled his oar with burning arms and aching back. He could no longer tell if anyone else called with him. Maybe he and the captain were the only ones left. Maybe he'd look up and find himself alone on the boat, alone on a shoreless river, alone in a landless world, nothing left in existence but a lonely riverman and the clothes all his shipmates had discarded on the deck before they'd been washed away in the rain.

“Starboard" shouted the captain.

“Starboard" answered the crew.

“Port!"

“Port!"

“Starboard!"

“Starboard!"

“Port!"

“Port!"

It turned into a dull droning antiphon, like a endurance march at an aperiostasic church service, the kind where a fella lost track of how long he'd been doing it till he couldn't even remember which was the last one he'd said and done, was it Starboard or Port or Starboard Starboard Port Starboard Port Port Port?

“Starboard" Fitzulmo yelled, and ah shit the bank was getting closer much faster than it should. Where had this rain even come from? It'd been a sultry night, even a little warm for the season, then suddenly they had been drenched and scrambling. Before the sun could rise, even. What was the river playing at, throwing this at them?

“Starboard-" Shen felt the Irene's Goodnight lurch as it crossed a standing wave, felt his oar miss the water, felt the rain-slick deck slide under his feet, and then he was on his back. Too tired to move. Too tired to care if the water in his face was rain or the river closing over and claiming him.

He felt someone shaking his shoulder. He didn't know how long he'd been on his back, but the deck was still there. He didn't think he'd lost consciousness but who was he to say? 

“You still with us, lad?" came the captain's voice. Seemed probable, therefore, that the figure standing over him was the captain.

“Far as I can tell." Shen managed to croak.

“Well that was a storm." Fitzulmo said. There might have been meant to be more to the observation, but for the life of him the otter couldn't be bothered to say any more. He reached down to help Shen back to his feet, only had the strength to get the ferret to his knees, so he surrendered as well and flopped to a seat beside him.

Shen collapsed to the side, supporting himself on the captain's back. There was still rain in the air, but the sun was shining and the drops were lit like falling stars. The river beneath them had slowed, which… should it have? Wasn't like the water had anywhere else to go, even if the rain had passed. Something must've happened, like…

Which was when Shen looked up and noticed the other river. The one they were now in. Wider, slower. The storm-stuffed Ohio had pushed them into it, like a fist into a rising loaf, and now the Irene's Goodnight bobbed gently in a currentless eddy until the two rivers worked out how to weld their waters together.

Cairo draped himself limply from the tiller. Early bustled around the deck, dragging soaked, cast-off clothes to the line to dry. Aitkin practically crawled down the ladder, almost managed to reach Shen, and settled for collapsing against Fitzulmo as well.

There wasn't a single scrap of dry cloth on the ship. Nothing for a crew to do but lay naked on the deck and let the sun take its sweet time.

Shen, purely by reflex, huddled against the captain.

“Hell, lad, you're shivering." Fitzulmo said. He nudged Shen around himself till he could put his arms around both his crewmen. “Get in closer, here."

Aitkin clutched Shen tight, and his body was warm enough, and Shen was tired enough, that this might as well be what he'd meant to happen.

“Now you see," Early said, as he came by again, “a truly experienced riverman knows the necessity of at least one fella holding back, so there's someone to stick the kettle on if'n everyone else's too wore out. But then, I know'd on account of I been shippin on the Irene's Goodnight longer'n any o' y'all."

“Early you smug bastard," Fitzulmo glowered at the gently steaming kettle and the clutch of tin cups, “you gonna give us our tea or talk us to death?"

“I'm sorry, I must'a not heard that, maybe losin' my hearin in my old age, did someone say 'thank you, Early?'"

“Cap'n, why is he like this?" Shen muttered.

“Wish I knew." Fitzulmo answered.

“I'll do it," Aitkin's voice was muffled by Fitzulmo's chest, “Thank you, Early."

“Why, you're VERY welcome!" The killdeer poured a cup of hot, molassesey, mint tea.

He left it with the captain, who growled “Y'heard that alright, I guess" as he moved on to the next little pile of exhausted, soaked bodies.

To the east, shafts of sunlight pierced the crumbling obsidian remnants of the stormwall.

To the west, fragments of rainbow smeared across a dazzlingly white sky.

In between, on a small boat in a large river, the ferret lay between the otter he loved and the beaver who loved him. He knew he'd have a thing or two to feel about that, later, but not now, please, if it was all the same? For now he had just enough energy to pass the hot cup between the three of them, till their weary hands had stolen enough heat from it to drink, and then to let the tea within and the sunlight without revive them under a gentle sunshower.

And that was how Shen first met the Mississippi.

  Well the devil's out to catch me, but he aint caught me yet.

  He can't cross runnin water lest his cloven hooves get wet.

  His lawyers and his landlords, the land they may control,

  But I'll stay on the river and the river'll get my soul.

The hold was full by the time they reached Memphis—they'd topped off with hogsheads of tobacco in Randolph—and the Irene's Goodnight wouldn't have stopped, but there was a figure standing at the end of the dock, waving a pink handkerchief at the passing river traffic.

“Why are we putting in?" Shen asked Early, who had come out to dump a basin of dishwater.

“Informal signal. Folks doing that?" the killdeer jabbed a thumb at the handkerchief on the deck which was waving faster now its owner saw they were approaching, “means a passenger wants a ride. Betcha wished you'da knowed, eh? Woulda saved ya the trouble of stowin' away!"

Shen ignored the killdeer's cackling and caught up a landing pole, in anticipation of the dock. From here he could see a beak, a broad sunhat, sturdy canvas pants, and a shawl draped over an enormous pack.

Whoever this was, she seemed eager to get aboard.

“Well I'll be!" Early grinned as her well-worn riding boots clomped up the gangplank. “Maggie Heckaday, you ol' baggage, ain't I seen the last of you?"

“Early Fenimore!" the crow grinned back. She set her oversized pack in the middle of the deck, clearly relished the thump. “Ain't you dead yet you, twisted old hunk of driftwood?"

“Still swearin, Maggie!"

“Well, gon' be time enough for catchin' up once we're underway," she waved a wing as if to brush the shore away like crumbs off a table. “Ah certainly ain't meanin' to cause any delay or nothin!"

“Not," Fitzulmo's bark, echoing like a mad hermit emerging from his cave though he was only coming up from the hold, stopped Shen and Natch with the gangplank halfway up, “till she pays her passage. In advance this time if you please, Mrs. Heckaday."

“Well well. Captain Fitzulmo, you ain't got no time for a little courtesy?" the old lady smirked, like a gambler whose bluff has just been called.

“I weren't the one," Fitzulmo replied, “Trying to talk folk into castin' off before a passenger's paid their fare. Any particular reason for the hurry this time?"

“Oh, who can tell what sorta nonsense the close-minded businessfolk of a backwater like this," by which, presumably, she meant Memphis, the most populous place in the state of Tennessee, “might start believing about an honest widow just doing what needs must to make ends meet? Why, they might start makin up slanderous excuses to explain little shortfalls in their checkbooks! Best for all concerned if everyone moves on, wouldn't you say honey?"

“Seems sensible to me." Fitzulmo said, “Sounds like you oughta pay your fare so we can get on, then."

They locked eyes, icily, for a moment. Then the old crow chuckled, reached in a pocket Shen couldn't see, and came up with a dollar coin between two fingers. “Well, Ah guess you learnt a lesson'r two since our paths last crossed, captain. My sincerest congratulations."

“Welcome aboard, Mrs. Heckaday," Fitzulmo took the coin and nodded at Shen and Natch, who were still holding the gangplank, and they pulled it up and poled off back into the current.

“So, you got any of that special blend fer sale?" Early asked, once Mrs. Heckaday had her luggage settled against the cookshack, just under the overhang of the roof.

“Ah have heard it tell, honey, that smoking is an ungentlemanly habit." The crow answered, adjusting her sunhat.

“That's rot, Maggie, ain't a fancy nitwit on any one o' them fancy steamboats don't got a cigar shoved in his mouth!" the killdeer protested.

“Ah didn't say Ah wouldn't sell you none, Ah just said it was ungentlemanly!"

“Ain't nobody ever accused Early Fenimore," squawked Early with no small pride, “of bein a gentleman!"

“Only thing you got to persuade me of, honey," she said, “is that you can pay."

Which seemed to satisfy Early, who sauntered inside, presumably to fetch something barter with. Freed of her immediate social obligation, Mrs. Heckaday's eyes immediately flitted to Shen. “Well, Ah don't believe we've been introduced, young sir."

Shen glanced behind him, just in case. “Uh, no ma'am. Seemed like you knew Early and the Captain, in passing."

“Oh yes, seems like every time Ah need to travel, Irene's Goodnight's the first boat as happens to show up," and whatever she meant by that, it sounded forward.

“Well, my name's Shen." If she was a regular then probably there was no harm in her knowing, right? “I, uh, only joined on with the crew this run."

“Mrs. Maggie Heckaday, purveyor of almanacs, herbal remedies, and patent medicines. Charmed, Ah'm sure." She held his hand in both of hers. “Well, shall we get acquainted?"

And that was forward enough that Shen was immediately on alert. “How d'you mean exactly ma'am?" he squeaked.

“Nothin' elaborate, honey," she laughed, “Ah just fancy takin' a look at who you really are." She held his hand cupped in hers, palm upward, till his dark pads reflected the sun like polished stones. After a cursory glance, she met his eyes and said “Well?"

Shen was baffled. “Well what?"

“Honey, Ah got professional standards to uphold." Maggie tilted her head back, primly, the picture of dignity. “Ah can't do this for free, you understand?"

“Oh, I don't 'zactly have any money," Shen said, relieved and ready to reclaim his hand. “Don't get my pay till end o' the run."

“I'll give a half penny," Aitkin's paws landed on Shen's shoulders. How long had he been there? “If'n twas your idea, ma'am, then anythin' oughta be enough."

“You're not about to do any spellcraft or nothin," Cairo's head snaked over the edge of the roof with every inch of neck at the heron's disposal. “I know for a fact you don't got no license." Was the entire crew gonna come watch?!

Maggie sniffed pointedly. “It's only barely gon' be spellcraft, Ah know for a fact it wouldn't be the first thing as happened on this boat the law ain't to know about, Ah don't recall you objectin' when Ah read you last year, Cairo Marsh, and why yes of course honey, a half penny'll do JUST fine!" She vanished Aitkin's coin somewhere behind her ear, looked at Shen's hand, cleared her throat. “Well, you got some complications in matters of the heart, I'd say."

“Oh, we know'd." Aitkin grinned and squeezed his shoulders.

Maggie was still deep in examination of the ferret's paw, and after a moment the smile slipped off her beak. “You're drownin', honey."

Shen let out a confused breath. “Well, I'm a riverman ma'am. Suppose that's a end more likely'n old age, considerin'."

“Hush boy. Ah mean you're drowning now." She traced some pattern on his palm Shen couldn't see, experimentally, as if testing the temperature of a bowl of stew. “You been drowning a good while, Ah'd say." She spat on Shen's paw, clapped his palms together, rotated them half way round eachother.

“What're you doin?" Cairo said.

“Ah said hush," Maggie pulled Shen's palm up again, lifted a pair of spectacles on a string around her neck and peered through them. “We mighta been playin afore but we ain't gon' be playin now."

The feathers on the bridge of her nose fluffed up, and Shen felt something like cold water slide up his back, but he didn't seem to be able to move. “There's two of you, honey." Heckaday said, very serious. “If the one dies, then the other gets to live. If the other dies, then the one dies as well."

“Well which one is which, then?" Shen said, baffled.

“That's what Ah'm tryin' to study on." Her free hand lifted Shen by the chin, turned his face now to one side, now the other, then two fingers traced a line down the center of his chest as if feeling for a broken bone. She brought her forefinger to her beak, tasted his sweat carefully like a sip of coffee, then wet her finger tip, and held it up in the breeze as she looked deep into his palm a third time. When she spoke again it was slow and strained, as if there was no small effort involved. “You undergo the long baptism. Your blood is danger. Comes the time of its testing. Hold both where your heart wants and where your head would have it want."

She released Shen's palm like it was a hot pan, and stepped back, breathing heavily.

“Sorry 'bout that," Early popped jauntily out of the cookshack door. “Took a while to find me pipe! Ain't had much call for it lately."

Heckaday collected herself so quickly Shen's eyes missed the change. “Well, you took your time, Sir, but Ah suppose I got nowhere else to be. Let's make a bargain!" The crow bustled over to her pack, fished out an oilcoth pouch. “Ah'll let you pay in favors owed, even, Ah'm in a generous mood."

  Well there's a river up in heaven, which the angels fear to swim.

  And when God's on the other side they cannot cross to Him.

  If they'd just hire a riverman, they'd find their way made straight,

  But they're too high and holy, so in limbo they're gonna wait.

“Ah heard there's some fella smugglin folk as want to be smuggled." The sunset, for a moment, was just at the right angle to turn the steaming plumes from Maggie's cup of tea a vivid and luminous crimson. “Stealin' away slaves or debtors or just poor farmers fed up with unfriendly land. A wolf, tall, wearin a mask. Just turns up 'round dusk, talks quietly to folk, then in the morning whoever t'was is just clean gone. Ah heard he spirited away more'n half the folk from a reservation up by Fort Blush, in Nebraska territory. Army there never saw or heard a thing all night."

One of the favors owed, apparently, included in whatever bargain Heckaday and Early reached, was Early had to go all out and actually serve a proper dinner. For all the difficulty of living with him, the old killdeer was an excellent cook, even when he only alternated between biscuits-and-bacon and biscuits-and-fish-stew. So when he presented the crew with spiced rice and peas, and baked ham, and apple and raisin sauce—tasted like the apples'd been canned in whiskey but never mind—then Shen was perfectly willing to overlook every acerbic insult for the rest of Early's natural life.

Which left his mind free to worry about what Mrs. Heckaday had told him.

“Ah'm sorry, it don't work like that," she whispered to him when the ferret found a spare moment to ask what she had meant. “Ah know what Ah already told you, and no more."

The captain seemed entirely reconciled to the old crow for her part in coaxing such a feast out of Early's cookshack. He sat by the small tent she'd set up against the cookshack wall—and how it had fit in her pack Shen couldn't conceive—swapping news, while Shen, on the tiller so Cairo could have a second helping, listened in.

“Where're these folk windin up?" Incredulity dripped from Fitzulmo's voice.

“Depends who you ask," Maggie said. “Some say California. Some say Canada, mostly if the tale's of a runaway slave. Others say some manner of church, in the desert out west. Others say Oregon Territory. Now, to my mind those're all just folk hearin someone's gone, and assumin they musta gone wherever they last heard of folk settin' off for. Only place Ah heard tell that don't sound like that? Is some say an island in the sea, west of the Columbia, is where they're windin up."

“And," Fitzulmo scoffed, “Does nobody grow old there? They got ancient kings who never died but were took away by angels? Are the mountains made of rock candy, and the water tastes like wine?"

“Ah suspect, Captain," Maggie grinned, “you're a mite skeptical of this tale."

“I suspect so." Fitzulmo said. “Look, it's supposed to be a wolf in a mask? So any wolf, or hell, any coyote or dog or fox if they look enough the type, all he's gotta do is just put on a mask, and then who's to say the difference? Who's to say it ain't twenty different fellas? Nah, if this happened, and ain't just a tall tale, then this's a swindle."

“A distinct possibility, captain." Maggie sipped her tea. “But that makes it your turn."

“When I was up in Louisville," Fitzulmo began, “heard Staggerlee's been up that way. Say he's kilt again, though those I heard it from weren't rightly certain it were him."

“That'd make, what, the sixth murder to his name in as many months?"

“If it were him."

“If it were. And for any reason?" Maggie frowned when Fitzulmo shook his head. “It's a bad business, captain."

“They say it's worse'n a bad business. They say at his last killin, someone, dunno if it were who Staggerlee were comin for, or someone else just wanted to put a stop to it, got to him first. Put him in the ground. And then the next night, Staggerlee came right back anyway to finish the job."

There was a pregnant silence before Maggie remarked “On the topic of stories Ah don't beleive on account'a they could be more'n one fella, Captain, Ah think the man who's supposed to be dead still carryin' out a murder comes in ahead of mine."

“Mayhaps it does," Fitzulmo grinned.

Maggie swirled her tea, considering. “Y'all heard about the MacClarence case?"

Shen froze.

“Couple a spendthrifts, weasels Ah heard. Husband got a flour mill, lady runs a general store. Well, turns out they ran up a whole barrowful of bad debts. Heard some say gamblin, heard some say land speculatin', Ah don't suppose it greatly matters which, or both, or neither, point is the magistrate ordered their son to prison in their place."

“That," Fitzulmo was acutely aware Shen was in earshot, “don't sound fair."

“Way of the world, Ah'm afraid," Maggie continued. “But this time the boy escaped. They're sayin' he disappeared, maybe up into the mountains, maybe to sea."

“Good for him, then," Fitzulmo kept his voice very carefully balanced exactly between 'sympathetic because as a trustworthy riverman I do not hold with lawmen' and 'not quite sympathetic enough that anyone might conclude I got a personal connection.'

“Maybe. Maybe not." Maggie leaned forward for the juicy part. “Magistrate ruled, since goin to prison woulda solved their debts, then by runnin' away boy'd in effect stolen from them an amount equal to the sum total of whatever it was they owed. Hundreds of thousands, surely. So now they's acquitted, and he's gon' be runnin' for that crime too, and there's enough dollars written on it he's facin' the noose, at least, if he's caught. Poor fool likely don't even know."

“That's a powerful unfair piece of news," Fitzulmo turned, as slowly as he dared, to make sure Cairo was listening. “Well, it's been a pleasure goin over the latest doings with you ma'am, but I still got a boat to captain. Cairo, can you take the tiller?"

The heron looked up, saw the tiller was unmanned, looked back at his captain with wide eyes. But the otter's expression stopped his alarmed words in his beak. “Uh, aye cap'n," he said, instead, and headed for the ladder.

Shen sat, curled up tight, arms around his knees, at the corner of the stern rail.

The magistrate had ruled that by running away, instead of going meekly to prison, he'd stolen from his parents an amount of money equal to the total of their debts.

He stared down into the dark water behind the boat. The Irene's Goodnight, carried by the current, had but little in the way of a wake. Not nothing. The current still broke and refracted enough so, in the lowering night after sunset, Shen couldn't make out his own reflection. All there was to see was the water: dark, restless, and hungry.

The magistrate had ruled that by running away, instead of going meekly to prison, he'd stolen from his parents an amount of money equal to the total of their debts.

He didn't want to see himself. He didn't want to see anything to do with the pair of hypocrite turncoat judases who'd made themselves innocent twice over, in the law's eyes, by damning him twice over. Even telling the truth would make no difference!

Because the magistrate had ruled that by running away, instead of going meekly to prison, he'd stolen from his parents an amount of money equal to the total of their debts.

And why should it matter? It shouldn't make any difference to him! He was already never going to see them again. He was already never going to forgive them. His old life was already over and lost and done, sure as if he'd died. This changed nothing, surely?

He belonged to the river, didn't he?

So why did he have to care?

The magistrate had ruled that by running away, instead of going meekly to prison, he'd stolen from his parents an amount of money equal to the total of their debts.

He didn't even know how much that was.

If every old peddler woman, or whatever Maggie was, had heard about this, then it was well known. It was in newspapers, surely. More than just the one pair of sheriffs would be after him. Those two, whom he'd given the slip by stowing away into being Shen, there must be someone to whom they'd have to report, sooner or later. They'd say where it was they lost him. Maybe some would think he drowned. Maybe some would think him still hidden in Ohio.

But it would occur to some, at least, to start looking at riverboats.

He was putting the ship, the crew, Aitkin, and the Captain in danger just by being here.

The shanty Aitkin had taught him—and didn't the beaver deserve someone who could love him better than Shen could?—bubbled up from under his thoughts, which was at least better than the repeated realization that the magistrate had ruled that by running away, instead of going meekly to prison, he'd stolen from his parents an amount of money equal to the total of their debts. He found himself humming it, not as quietly as one might expect considering it was just to himself:

  Well when I'm an old riverman, I'll roll down to the sea.

  I've carried all your burdens, but the river'll carry me.

  And where the river carries me, that's none of your affair,

  But every single riverman'll be waitin for me there.

  (And if you're like to seek me out, you'd better follow there.)

Well, he could think of one way to do that. To make sure his crew was safe, no lawmen nor magistrate nor traitorous parents never got to say they'd caught him, and nobody but the river, in the end, got to claim him.

Nobody'd ever really gotten around to teaching him to swim, had they?

“There y'are, lad!"

Shen contracted further in on himself as the captain turned the corner, called over his shoulder for Aitkin, then took a step or two to squat beside him. “I was fixin' to ask if you heard the news, but looks like I don't need to."

“It shouldn't matter." Shen croaked.

“It shouldn't'a happened, is what it shouldn't!" Fitzulmo contradicted. “I don't think I never been wronged as bad as you have, specially by my own kin, but I been wronged and it stings. And I wouldn't'a let nobody tell me it didn't matter."

“No, see," Shen tried to explain. “It shouldn't matter, cause it shouldn't matter to me. That's the affairs of Tiberius MacClarence, not Shen the Riverman. Tiberius was a sorry, stunted little thing who let folk use him up and throw him away and never dared say boo! Tiberius coulda never made it on the river! Tiberius went and fell in love with the first man what did him a good turn in his whole life, like a fool, and Shen shouldn't still care, cause it means he can't let go o' bein Tiberius the fool! The whole point of bein a riverman was leavin Tiberius behind, and if I can't do it, then it means it didn't work and there ain't no gettin away from none of it! And I'd be better off if'n I'd stayed put in gaol!"

Fitzulmo put his arms around the ferret and pulled him close, gently but very firmly.

“I reckoned if I could make myself a riverman," Tiberius confessed, muffled against the otter's neck, “then whatever I was before wouldn't matter. But it does matter. I can't make it not matter. So I don't guess I turned out to be no riverman after all."

Achelous held him close, for a good long moment, before he spoke, “So, this fella who did you this good turn, if'n y'asked me to guess his trade, and I said 'riverboat captain,' would I be right?"

The ferret groaned heavily, into the otter's fur.

“Don't go accusin' yourself none for that. You ain't the first riverman's fallen for a fella he maybe shouldn't. Hell, I spent more'n a few months, to put the time all together, in the arms of this or that scoundrel in this or that port who brought me nothin' but misery, in the end." Fitzulmo leaned back, against the wall of the cookshack. “Part of the river's call, I guess."

“But I'm not-"

“You are," Fitzulmo cut off the voice from underneath his chin and pressed the other riverman's face securely back onto his chest. “You heard the call, you done proved it every day since you set foot on my boat. You can't mistake a riverman for nobody else once he's got a good boat under his feet, lad. Least I can't. Now, I dunno about makin whatever's in your past go away, cause I don't know of no riverman ain't got things in his past which he ain't never lookin' back at, but don't you never let nobody tell you Shen ain't a riverman. And if Shen's maybe got a knot or two on his heart for his captain, well, he ain't the first riverman to do that, neither, and it ain't nobody's business but the captain's."

Shen squeezed Achelous, like the otter was a tree trunk in a flood and the ferret was trying not to be swept away.

“I guess it's maybe Aitkin's business a little too, at this point. But he's easygoin with suchlike matters. Least he was when I was sharin' his hammock." Fitzulmo stroked Shen's ears. “Speakin' of which, get over here, you," He beckoned with a jerk of his head, as his arms were occupied.

“Is he alright? Is he safe?" Aitkin's knees hit the deck with a thud. He leaned over both of them, arms out, but hesitated, as if worried he'd break something if he actually touched them.

“He's grieved, and no wonder, but he ain't hurt." Fitzulmo flinched. A drop of cold water had landed on his cheek. “Lad, you're dripping wet. I tol' you to look for him, where did you go?"

“I…" the beaver gulped, “I dunno, cap'n, I was scared, and then I couldn't find him in the hold, and so I just, I started swimmin' down sides o' the boat, and t'were too dark to see him there so I kept goin back and forth…"

“Well," Fitzulmo said, “He's here now, and so're you. No harm done. Howbout you go dry off and-"

“No," Shen lifted his head from the captain's chest, grabbed Aitkin by the wrist and pulled him close. “Stay. Please."

“I won't go nowhere, Shen" Aitkin heaved heavily atop both of them, fighting sobs.

Fitzulmo sighed. “Least we're all wet together, I guess."

The moon was high and half full, and scattered a path of skittering reflections over the river, by the time Shen got back to his feet and stretched. “Sorry I made y'all worry over me."

“Don't never apologize," Aitkin pulled him into a less wet, still not quite dry, hug, lifted him so his toes left the deck for a moment. “for me worryin' over you! I love you!"

“You want to hear it from me too?" Fitzulmo cocked an eyebrow in the moonlight.

“Thank you, that's considerate," Shen blushed, “but ain't necessary, captain."

“Then I won't, for now." The captain said. “But there'll come some night, some afternoon, you do need it said, and Aitkin's agreeable-"

“I am," the beaver sniffed.

“-then you're welcome to come share a hammock, or a patch o' deck, or wherever I happen to be. But for now, I'm-a go dry off and get what sleep I can, so I'll give y'all some privacy."

The captain left them there. Shen and Aitkin leaned against eachother, their arms on the stern rail, their feet trailing in the water. Under the moonlight, the river no longer looked turbulent or hungry, it was just the river. As it had ever been.

“There is something I oughta ask," Shen finally said.

“What?"

“Can you teach me to swim? Maybe startin tomorrow? Ain't right, a riverman not knowin' how."

The beaver looked back at him with utter bafflement. “There's folk," he said, “who don't know how to swim?"

There were sheriffs waiting on the dock when they reached Vicksburg.

“Captain Fitzulmo!" the starling's shout, as the Irene's Goodnight approached, was full of hostile exultation. “You were told to contact us by telemancer, as I recall!"

“As I recall," Fitzulmo shouted back, “you said 'when you reach your destination,' which it don't look to me like I done yet!"

“Enough time wasting, sir!" the starling snapped, apparently miffed his barb hadn't landed. “You have nowhere to run! We have a gunboat blockading the river, sir, and-"

“Is this why," an angry voice came from another boat tied up at the landing, “you bastards won't let no one pass?"

There did seem to be an unusual crowd of boats waiting around the Vicksburg docks, now someone mentioned it. Enough that the angry muttering, spread from boat to boat, began to feed on itself, to build steam, and maybe even to-

A shot rang out. The muttering died down. The bloodhound sheriff, who since the Irene's Goodnight's approach had never once taken his eyes off the ferret standing on her deck, held a smoking sidearm overhead for a long moment, then slipped it back into his holster.

“There is a fugitive from justice on your boat, Captain." The starling marched to the end of the dock. Less than a foot of river water stood between him and the otter. “All you need do is put down the gangplank, and my colleague and I will be able to say you cooperated. Get you some leniency. Your boat will be confiscated, of course, and your crew will be tried, but I trust we can arrange for you yourself to face only a nominal fine."

“Well, I don't know about any of that," Fitzulmo held his captain's coat, by the collar, draped over one shoulder. “You're more'n welcome to come aboard, officers, but I already told you in Ohio, there ain't no fugitives or stowaways or criminals on my boat. If there were, I'd know." Captainly authority was all well and good, but there were days, after all, when a bare chest and a riverman's lazy sneer got the message across better.

“You DO know, captain, that's precisely what you're being CHARGED with-"

“Enough talk," the bloodhound growled as he pushed past his partner and loomed across the plank Weiser and Rufus set down. He went straight for Shen. “Tiberius MacClarance, you are under arrest."

Shen kept his arms crossed and his paws carefully still. Only his tailtip stirred. “I ain't," the ferret said, “no MacClarence. My name is Shen. I never been anything but a riverman."

He met the bloodhound's black glass stare. Neither of them moved.

“You almost pushed me in the water!" muttered the starling as he bustled up behind the bloodhound.

The bloodhound said nothing.

“Ain't nobody by the name Tiberius MacClarence on this boat." Shen said firmly.

“Well?" the starling snapped, “put the cuffs on him! What's the delay?"

The hound's jowls quivered. “This ain't him."

“What? He's the ferret on the Irene's Goodnight, of course he is!"

“This," the bloodhound repeated, furious howl creeping into his sepulchral voice, “ain't him! His smell ain't the same! Nowhere close!" He cast about, nose trembling, “Can't smell him nowhere on the boat!"

“Oh for nonsense," the starling stepped around his partner. “We've been after him for months, who cares whether he smells like the right man or not!" He reached for Shen's wrists. 

Before Shen saw the sheriff move, the bloodhound had the starling's collar and lapels in his grip, had lifted the bird to his toes. “You propose arrestin' what I know to be the wrong man? Thereby letting the real fugitive, still out there somewhere, my lawful quarry, escape?" His lip twitched, and just a tiny flash of cruelly sharp teeth appeared, like lightning, for a moment. “Nossir. No man escapes me."

The bloodhound stormed off the Irene's Goodnight, heedless of his sputtering partner. “All y'all're free to go," he bayed, disgusted, as he stepped back ashore.

“We're not done here, captain!" the Starling pulled himself to his feet, dusting his sleeves as if the deck weren't impeccably clean.

“Oh, I think we might be," said Captain Achelous Salimahum Fitzulmo, in a tone which subtly drew one's attention to how very many angry rivermen, on boats delayed due to, as they had just found out, a futile search for the wrong man and a false accusation against one of their own, now surrounded them and were leaning forward, just a little, in grim anticipation. “Get the hell off my boat."

“Well?" Early pouted.

“Well what?" Fitzulmo said.

“You bet me he'd be a riverman by the time we made Vicksburg. I din't think he'd make it, but I swore, and never let it be said Early Fenimore don't keep his word."

Fitzulmo blinked. He'd forgotten entirely. But wouldn't do to let Early see that, would it? “I'll be 'spectin a jug of rum at your convenience, then."

“You'll have it when we supply up in N'awlins," Early fumed, and left the captain with several very colorful expressions before storming into his cookshack.

“You handled yourself admirably, honey," Maggie Heckaday hoisted her pack and shook Shen's hand when she could, as it had taken some time for Aitkin's jubilant embrace to loosen. “Ah declare, courage like that? Makes me feel like a girl of sixteen again."

“I dunno how I did it, ma'am," Shen admitted. “I dunno what came over me."

“Ah do," she smiled. “And captain, thank you ever so much for the ride, but now Ah seen what I came to see, and Ah got other business to tend to, other folk to meet. Till we meet again, sir!"

Fitzulmo and Shen watched the old woman stride down the docks toward another boat, a houseboat, with a raccoon and an armadillo relaxing on the porch. Then the otter turned to the ferret. “Outa curiosity, how did'ya handle that?"

“I dunno, cap'n. Really." Shen cofessed, “I jus' told myself when I go down, I was gonna do it a riverman all the way through. And mebbe the river took me at my word, there."

“May be he did, at that." Fitzulmo said.

“Cap'n!" Aitkin stepped over, “Other boats say they want us goin' first, now the blockade gunboat's movin'. Other cap'ns," the beaver grinned like a schoolboy, “say it's only fair!"

“Ain't gonna argue with 'em," Fitzulmo picked up a pole. “Aitkin, you'n Shen take the tiller. I feel like castin off my own self."

The Irene's Goodnight rolled proudly into the current. Atop her cookshack roof, the one in the other's arms, two rivermen balanced their weight on the heavy tiller. Below them an old cook, still fuming, put on the kettle for the rest of her crew. And at her bow stood Captain Achelous Salimahum Fitzulmo, in triumph. Perhaps not so very much triumph, as the world accounted it, but as a seasoned riverman he was prepared to be content with whatever triumph the river sent him.

The otter grinned, decided why not, lifted his voice. His crew, and across the water the other crews as well, joined the song they all knew without having ever learned, till it seemed the river itself sang.

  For when I was a young boy, the river called my name.

  My life, my heart, my very soul, will nevermore be the same.

  On the river I will pass my days, with the river I will lie,

  For I will be a riverman until the day I die.

  And I'll still be a riverman when life has passed me by.

  My grave it may be lonely but it never will be dry,

  For I will be the river's man until the day I die.