Dominion, Fred Saberhagen [uplifting book club books TXT] 📗

the Frenchman’s Bend landing, you angled downstream between a certain large island and the small one next to it, which gave you the benefit of a slightly accelerated current; coming back upstream, if you hugged either shore you’d find yourself in slack water much of the way and have to work against the current.

   Already the great gentle bend of river behind the canoe had taken the railroad bridge and most of the distant cottages out of sight, as well as the buildings of Frenchman’s Bend itself. They were now passing between the two islands, both thickly overgrown. All of the islands here were small chunks of permanent wilderness, preserved from cottage-building by the high water that drowned them at least once a year, the spring ice jams that gouged bark from their trees and sometimes sprinkled them with kindling that had once been a boat dock or a shanty somewhere upstream. In summer the islands tended to be well populated with flies and mosquitoes, but they were visited sometimes by picnickers and fisherfolk nonetheless.

   The island now passing on the right of the canoe was large, a couple of hundred yards long. It was the one where Simon earlier had thought he’d seen a figure moving. No reason, he repeated to himself now, why someone couldn’t be there. It was just that the figure he’d seen had seemed designed to evoke things in his memory.

   No boats had been visible on either side of the island, which was the shape and he supposed about the size of a large ship, prow and stern carved narrow by the endless flow of water, maybe fifty yards across the beam amidships. In a couple of places along its shoreline, willows hung far out with their leaves trailing in the water, making under the curve of branches green dim caves in which a small boat might possibly lie tied up in concealment. Simon, gliding past, stared intently into the shadows under the willow branches, until he was sure that there could be no boat. A narrow shoreline rim of mudflat running virtually the whole length of the island was unmarked, as far as he could see, by any kind of recent human activity. At a faint splash of the canoe’s paddle the mud gave up a droning wasp, and then the blue-green drifting stiletto of a dragonfly. Simon could feel sweat trickling on his face. The middle of the island would be a green Brazilian wilderness today, with a thousand insects whining in the heat. Not a place where anyone would want to spend much time.

   Now, for a minute or two, all the works of humanity save for the canoe and what was in it, had completely vanished.

   Trickle of water from the paddle, and a drab hum of insects. And then there on the shoreline was some broken glass, and this was after all not the Amazon. A moment later the canoe had emerged from between islands, and now it was again possible to see a stretch of highway running close along what was now the farther bank. A car was passing a grumbling semitrailer, only a quarter of a mile away.

   To Simon’s left, on the small island he had not been studying, something now moved slightly but suddenly in the bushes, and once more a crow flapped up with raucous noise. Simon turned his head sharply. Under the crow’s racket he heard a half-note of something that was almost music—from insect, bird, or human throat? It had reminded him of laughter … but now there was nothing to be seen by the near-jungle quiet in the heat.

   The canoe was now aimed more directly toward the southeastern shore. Ahead Simon thought he could make out the place where the castle’s floating boat-dock had once been moored. He was not surprised to see that it was gone. All the better for his plans if there were no regular landings here. But the girl had asked him at once if they were going to the castle; that certainly suggested that others had recently come this route.

   He turned his head to speak to the boy.  “Do you carry many passengers this way?”

   “Nope.” The youth didn’t seem to think anything of the question one way or another.

   “Have you taken anyone before us?”

   “Unh-unh.” Inflected to mean no.

   “Your sister just seemed to assume this was where we were going. I wondered. By the way, are you twins?”

   “Yep.”

   As they drew near the landing place, now simply a narrow spot of sandy beach, Simon could detect no sign that other boats had recently come to shore. When the canoe grated on bottom, he edged past Marge, hopped ashore, than reached back to give her a hand. Then he turned to the boy, who was watching them uncertainly. “Just wait for us, okay? It could be as long as a couple of hours, but it could be just a few minutes. I’ll pay for your time. I’ll throw in a five dollar bonus. Will you wait?”

   “Yeah,” said the boy. He got out of the canoe and with Simon’s help pulled it far enough out of the water to keep it from drifting. Then he pulled a paperback book out of the hip pocket of his jeans and sat down crosslegged on the sand, as if prepared for a lengthy wait.

   Margie had her bag slung on one shoulder and looked ready for whatever came next. Simon smiled at her and led the way. In the narrow strip of riparian grass the path was less defined than he remembered it, in fact it was almost completely overgrown. All to the good. The new heirs were evidently no longer river people. They certainly must have more expensive toys now than canoes, and they could seek out more inviting waterways than this. They’d probably forgotten this part of their domain.

   As there was almost no flat land at all along the shore, the