Shen has found his place, happy enough aboard the Irene's Goodnight. But the past follows, and the making of a riverman is not yet complete.

Today’s story is the second and final part of “The Baptism Is Long But The Song Is Everlasting” by Rob MacWolf, who has decided that all his stories having the same theme is a good thing, and you can find more of his stories and poetry at rob-macwolf.sofurry.com. Today’s story will be read for you by the author himself.

Last time, Tiberius, taking the name Shen, determined to make himself a riverman and prove that his past, and all the lawmen in it, have no claim on the new version of him. But he is torn between Aitkin, the shipmate who loves him, and Captain Fitzulmo, who he loves. And the past may not be so far behind as he believes...

Today's story includes a character who

temporarily endures thoughts of self-harm.

You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

Today’s story is the second and final part

of “The Baptism Is Long

But The Song Is Everlasting”

by Rob MacWolf,

who has decided that all his stories having the same theme is a good thing,

and you can find more of his stories

and poetry at rob-macwolf.sofurry.com.

Today’s story will be read for you by the author himself.

Last time, Tiberius,

taking the name Shen,

determined to make himself a riverman

and prove that his past,

and all the lawmen in it,

have no claim on the new version of him.

But he is torn between Aitkin, the shipmate who loves him,

and Captain Fitzulmo, who he loves.

And the past may not be so far behind as he beleives...

Please enjoy “The Baptism Is Long

But The Song Is Everlasting”

by Rob MacWolf, Part 2 of 2,

read for you by the author himself. “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, Sven and Rufus.

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. Which was good,

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 a 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