The Bird of the River

by Kage Baker

  “This must be where the gods will smile on us at last,” said Eliss.

  “Don’t count on it,” said Falena in a dull voice. But she followed her daughter to the edge of the dock.

  “Excuse me.” Eliss waved to get the attention of a small boy who sat on the nearest capstan, fishing. “Could we come on board and see Mr. Captain Glass?”

  “Captain’s drunk again,” the boy informed them.

  “See?” Falena said to her daughter.

  “But you can talk to my daddy if you want.”

  “Well, is your daddy the—”

  “Daddy! There’s some ladies want to talk to somebody. Some ladies and a . . .” The child stared at Alder. “And they got a greenie with them!”

  Alder ground his teeth. “Well, there it goes,” said Falena, turning away. “I told you.”

  “Wolkin, what did I tell you about climbing up there?” A man strode toward them, a sack of meal on his shoulder, but he was glaring at the boy.

  “Not to do it when we’re hauling cable. But nobody is, Daddy. And anyway—” The boy pointed at Eliss and her family. “She needs to see you about something, and there’s a greenie.”

  “Are you the first mate?” Eliss asked the man, grabbing at Falena’s arm to keep her from skulking away. “Mr., er, Rattleman?”

  “Rattleman Riveter.”

  “Right! That’s who we were supposed to ask for. You need to hire a diver, right?”

  Mr. Riveter looked them over uncertainly, shifting the sack to his other shoulder. He was a man of average height, lean and bearded and fearsomely tattooed, but his face was open and rather innocent.

  “I suppose we do,” he said. “Do you know one who’s looking for a job?”

  “She is,” said Eliss, pulling Falena closer and waving her certificate at Mr. Riveter. “She’s certified and trained and everything.”

  “Daddy, look at the greenie!”

  “Wolkin, that’s not a nice word!” Mr. Riveter peered at the scroll, slightly cross-eyed. “So, er, you’re Miss . . . Mrs. Hammertin?”

  “Don’t call me that again,” said Alder to the boy, quietly.

  “You want to mess with me?” Wolkin threw down his fishing pole and jumped to his feet on the capstan. “You don’t want to mess with me. I know Mount Flame assassin moves!” He balanced on one foot and struck an aggressive pose.

  “And, er, it says here you’re certified to deep dive. We don’t pay deep divers’ wages, though,” said Mr. Riveter.

  “That’s all right. She doesn’t mind taking a shallow-diver’s pay,” said Eliss.

  “I’m a Yendri,” said Alder to Wolkin. “You don’t want to mess with me either.”

  “And, er, Mrs. Hammertin, do you have any, er, health problems of which I should be informed?” said Mr. Riveter.

  “My chest hurts sometimes,” said Falena.

  “She’s been a little sick,” said Eliss. “But she’s getting better fast.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s nice to hear.” Mr. Riveter eyed Falena, scratching his beard. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “Mount Flame assassins kill! You never even see them coming! Yaii!” screamed Wolkin, launching himself from the capstan at Alder. He judged his leap badly and missed the edge of the dock, vanishing in a fountain of green water.

  “Wolkin!” A woman in a diver’s harness ran to the edge of the barge and looked accusingly at Mr. Riveter. “He wasn’t supposed to go in the water until his ear is better.”

  “I don’t think he meant to fall in,” said Mr. Riveter.

  “He came in crying last night for the drops in his ear—” began the woman. She paused, waiting for Wolkin to surface, but the little trail of bubbles coming from below stopped. “Wolkin!”

  Mr. Riveter dropped his sack, and Wolkin’s mother began to scramble over the rail, but Falena had already slid out of her tunic and dived into the green water. Mrs. Riveter was poised on the edge of the dock, ready to leap in after her, when Falena resurfaced with Wolkin in her arms. The little boy’s face was pale, he was coughing and gagging, and began to cry when his mother took him from Falena.

  “He got caught under a cross-piling,” said Falena.

  “Please don’t make me wash the dishes,” Wolkin begged.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” said Mrs. Riveter. She looked at Falena. “Thank you. Were you trying to get a diving job?”

  “Yes, she was,” said Eliss.

  “You should hire her,” Mrs. Riveter told Mr. Riveter, and carried Wolkin away up the gangplank. And that was how they joined the crew of the Bird of the River.

  Eliss did not see Captain Glass until the next day, when they were making preparations to cast off. Mr. Riveter was the one who ran around shouting orders, making sure that the last of the supplies were stowed under hatches, that all the crew were present and accounted for, that all the children were firmly in the grips of their mothers when the cablemen cast off and the topmen swarmed up to let out the great sail.

  Eliss was standing with Wolkin’s family aft (Wolkin himself was in the family cabin, complaining from under four quilts) when she saw a big man emerge from the aft cabin and haul himself up the companionway. “Who’s that?” she asked Tulu, Wolkin’s twin sister.

  “Him? That’s the captain,” the little girl replied.

  The man was wide too, like a boulder dredged up from the depths. Eliss had expected someone with a name like Glass to be haughty and aristocratic, but Captain Glass looked nothing like the noblemen she’d seen, or even like a well-heeled gang lord. He wore only a pair of trousers, much strained at the seams. His beard was vast and untidy. Each of his arms was as big around as Eliss’s whole body, yet for all his muscle he moved slowly. His eyes were dull, his features blunt.

  He walked forward and stood watching the sail being set.

  “There’s not enough wind to get us upstream, Mr. Riveter,” he said, in a bass black as mud.

  “No, sir.” Mr. Riveter saluted. “But we’ll wet the sail and that’ll help a little.”

  Captain Glass shook his head. He walked to the rail and stood there a moment, staring downriver. “The tidal bore’s coming,” he announced.

  The men in the rigging turned to look; people ran to the rails and craned their necks to see. Some people cheered. Eliss, looking with the rest, saw a disturbance in the river far downstream. It was a wave, sweeping inexorably upward against the current, like white horses galloping up a green road. Marsh fowl rose flapping and squawking where it passed. It surged under the docks and lifted them until they nearly touched the underside of the trees hanging over the river gorge. Fishing boats rose and strained at the moorings. The Bird of the River pushed forward under its thrust, moving smoothly and steadily out upon the river, and began her long journey upstream.

  “We’re away, sir!” said Mr. Riveter, saluting again.

  “Good,” said Captain Glass, watching as the town at the river landing fell behind them. Eliss watched too until the town swung slowly out of sight around a bend in the river. She turned and saw that the way ahead was more of the same, white clay bluffs rising to either side and the green trees above leaning out, so that in places the Bird of the River nearly moved down a tunnel roofed over with branches. The air was hot, thick, wet, but at least was no longer motionless, now that they had gotten under way.

  Some men went up on the aft deck with musical instruments—a pair of fiddlers, a man with a concertina, a boxhorn player, and a drummer. They sat down and lit up a pipe of pinkweed, passing it around. Eliss narrowed her eyes, watching them. Pinkweed wasn’t as expensive or dangerous as Yellow, but it still made Falena forgetful. When the pipe had gone around, the musicians began to play, a creaking monotonous tune that was somehow comforting. Eliss was still watching them when she became aware that Captain Glass had settled his gaze on her. She turned to face him. “Who’re you?” he asked.

  “She came aboard with the new diver, sir,” said Mr. Riveter. “Mrs. Hammertin has
two children.”

  Captain Glass grunted in acknowledgment. “Where’s the new diver?”

  “Here, sir.” Mr. Riveter waved Falena forward and she came obediently, with an uncertain smile.

  “You can go,” the captain told Mr. Riveter. “We’ll talk.”

  He looked closely at Falena and spoke to her in a low voice. Eliss tried to edge near enough to overhear but couldn’t seem to make out their conversation. Tulu ran up and pulled her into service in the relay-chain of children dipping buckets of water and passing them up to the topmen, who poured them down the great sail. Being wet made the slack sail catch a little more wind, but Eliss wondered if they’d have to do this the whole way upriver. By the time she turned back to the rail, Falena was stalking away from the captain, clutching her chest and looking furious.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He said I was a drug addict!”

  Eliss’s heart sank. “Well, you are.”

  “Not anymore! I stopped. Don’t I get any credit for stopping?”

  “Are we going to have to leave?”

  “No. He told me he’d give me a chance, because of you kids. Nice of him!”

  “Well, then, everything ought to be all right,” said Eliss, desperate to be hopeful. “Shouldn’t it?”

  “It damn well ought to be,” muttered Falena. “Because nobody on this stinking barge has any Yellow.”

  “You mean you’ve already asked?”

  Falena just threw her a look and went stalking away to lie down in the little tent they’d been given.

  Eliss stood along the rail for hours, watching the riverbank creep past. After a while she saw something red on the surface of the water, a long way upstream. Just as she was wondering what it might be, she heard a hoarse cry from the platform up on the mast.

  “Red marker! Red marker at the bend!”

  Mr. Riveter scrambled up into the shrouds to peer forward. “Strike sail!” he shouted. Instantly the topmen swarmed out along the yard and the great square sail rose like a window shade, and in no time was furled up tight. At once the Bird of the River lost her forward momentum, even beginning to drift backward on the current.

  “What are they doing that for?” Eliss wondered aloud.

  “Poles!” Mr. Riveter bawled, and then in a normal voice as he turned to her: “What?”

  But Eliss was so fascinated by what happened next, it was a moment before she could reply. The musicians, back on the aft deck, struck up a brisk dance tune. Men ran from everywhere on the barge and, grabbing long poles from the port and starboard lockers, took up positions along the rail. They raised the poles all together, as though each man was poised to spear a fish.

  “Strike down,” ordered Captain Glass, and in one smooth wavelike movement the lines of men struck their poles down into the water, and leaned. The Bird of the River stopped her backward drift.

  “What are we—” began Eliss.

  “Ahead half pace!”

  The polemen walked the barge forward against the current so that she seemed to crawl upstream on so many centipede legs. “It’s because of the red buoy,” explained Mr. Riveter, drawing Eliss away from the rail as the first of the polemen came running back to the end of the line. “Even the Bird would sink, if she ran on that snag at full speed.”

  “The buoy marks where a snag is?”

  “Where a bad snag is. You’ve never been on this river before, then?”

  Eliss shook her head. Mr. Riveter looked glum. “Your mother hasn’t either?”

  “She might have,” said Eliss cautiously.

  “See, this river—see all the trees? This river flows slow, and changes its course. Changes it all the time. This year there might be seventy bends between here and Karkateen; next year there might be fifty, or a hundred and fifty. And when the river moves like that, it cuts out the riverbank from underneath and the trees fall in. They become snags.

  “River only flows one way, so all the snags point in the same direction. Downstream. Like hairs.” Mr. Riveter stuck out his right arm and ran his left hand along it to demonstrate. Eliss was distracted by his tattoo, which showed a naked diver and the words MY BEAUTIFUL CLOWD MIST BELOVED.

  “If you’re traveling downstream, you just run over the snags, bump bump bump. They can’t hurt you. But if you’re coming upstream, then all the snags are pointing at you and it’s like running against a phalanx of spears, see? And then you sink, and nobody upstream ever gets your cargo, and people go hungry, and then the owners fire you.”

  “And you’d know, eh?” said one of the polemen in passing. Mr. Riveter gave him a reproachful look.

  “Which is why people going downriver are supposed to mark snags when they notice them,” he continued. “So that the Bird can come along and remove the snag. See? Red buoy means a Class One snag, the worst, then a yellow buoy, which isn’t so bad, then a white buoy, probably not so bad but worth collecting for the wood.”

  “Is the wood worth something?”

  “Well, yes. I mean, it’s about the only way to get free wood without pissing off the bloody Yendri—” Mr. Riveter halted and grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” said Eliss. Most people weren’t nearly as careful what they said.

  “I mean—I mean I’m sure your brother’s father was a, er, a fine—man—” Mr. Riveter looked fixedly at the buoy, which was slowly creeping nearer. “It’s just that, you know, the rest of them get all angry with anybody cutting lumber in their forests. Which we never, ever do, because there are a lot of them along this river and we don’t want to start any more wars, see? I guess I’d mind if they came into our cities and, er, dug up our pavements or something like that. But they don’t mind if we take the snags. So we do.

  “I mean, I get along fine with some of them. World isn’t big enough to go getting into fights with everybody. . . .” Mr. Riveter’s voice trailed off into an embarrassed muttering. He wandered away forward. Eliss looked back at Alder where he sat in the mouth of their tent, driven out when Falena had gone in to lie down. He was staring at the deck, looking unhappy. She went and sat down beside him.

  “We have a place to sleep,” she said, beginning the old game they had played since he had been little.

  “We have a place to sleep and a warm blanket,” he recited dully.

  “We have a place to sleep, and a warm blanket, and dinner tonight.”

  “We have a place to sleep, and a warm blanket, and dinner tonight, and breakfast tomorrow.”

  “And who knows what, when summer comes?”

  “And who knows what, when summer comes? And summer is coming soon. Eliss, I don’t like it here. They called me a greenie.”

  “Just that one boy. That Wolkin.”

  “The other boys will want to fight me.”

  “Maybe not. People seem nice here.”

  “Sometimes I wish—” Alder began. He looked over his shoulder into the tent, and then shook his head.

  The Bird of the River drew level with the buoy at last, and dropped anchor. “Divers!” cried Mr. Riveter.

  “Mama, that’s you!” Eliss turned to shake Falena awake. She came scrambling out between them, looking dazed. But the other divers had gone below to change and were now striding up on deck, big round confident women, fitting on their goggles as they came. “Mama, where’s your goggles?”

  Panicked, Falena rummaged in her bundle. “That’s all right,” said a rumbling voice from behind them. They craned their heads back and saw Captain Glass standing there. He didn’t look angry or impatient; he had no particular expression at all. “You just watch, this time. This is a deep snag.”

  Wolkin’s mother was one of the divers. She paused to kiss Mr. Riveter before she arched her body and dove from the rail, going so smoothly into the water there was hardly a splash. The other divers followed her. The men on deck began to recite the Prayer to Brimo, and around the time it ended Eliss saw the divers’ sleek wet heads emerging from the water. They conferred brie
fly with the men and were passed the hooked end of cable from the nearest capstan. One diver was given a hacksaw. The divers went down again, the prayer was once more recited. A few small branches floated to the surface and drifted away downstream. Then, one by one, the divers bobbed up on the far side of the snag, and signaled.

  Four men on deck grabbed up capstan bars and began to turn the capstan, round and round, hauling in the cable. It drew in, it grew taut; drops of water flew from it in all directions. There was a disturbance on the smooth green water and then, slowly, grudgingly, the snag broke the surface. It gleamed wet, pouring out liquid mud, a monstrous mass of snakelike roots and clumps of smaller roots like hair. Little eels dropped from it as it was winched inexorably toward the barge; little yellow crabs scrambled to keep hold, or ran to and fro and threatened vainly. Following the root ball was the long black trunk, like the neck of an animal, trailing the red buoy. It hit the edge of the deck with a clunk that resonated through the whole barge as the root ball was pulled level with the capstan.

  Now the rest of the women and even the older children ran forward, everyone grabbing a root or a lower branch, and helped to pull the snag on board. It lay at its full length on the deck in a pool of still-flowing mud, a sodden massive thing, a defeated behemoth. Everyone cheered. The divers swam up to the barge and were helped back aboard, and an older woman came forward with hot drinks for them.