off'n his master when he was a prentice smith."
"And I suppose that pleases you?" asked Peggy.
Mike Fink shook his head. "No ma'am."
And in truth, as she looked into his heartfire, she saw no future in which he harmed Alvin.
"Why are you still here? Not ten miles from Hatrack Mouth, where he shamed you?"
"Where he made a man of me," said Mike.
She was startled then, for sure. "That's how you think of it?"
"My mother wanted to keep me safe. Tattooed a hex right into my butt. But what she never thought of was, what kind of man does it make a fellow, to never get hurt no matter what harm he causes to others? I've killed folks, some bad, but some not so bad. I've bit off ears and noses and broken limbs, too, and all the time I was doing it, I never cared a damn, begging your pardon, ma'am. Because nothing ever hurt me. Never touched me."
"And since Alvin took away your hex, you've stopped hurting people?"
"Hell no!" Mike Fink said, then roared with laughter. "Why, you sure don't know a thing about the river, do you! No, every last man I ever beat in a fight had to come find me, soon as word spread that a smith boy whupped me and made me howl! I had to fight every rattlesnake and weasel, every rat and pile of pigshit on the river all over again. You see this scar on my face? You see where my hair hangs straight one side of my head? That's two fights I damn near lost. But I won the rest! Didn't I, Holly!"
The other ferryman looked over. "I wasn't listening to your brag, you pitiful scab-eating squirrel-fart," he said mildly.
"I told this lady I won every fight, every last one of them."
"That's right enough," said Holly. "Course, mostly you just shot them dead when they made as if to fight you."
"Lies like that will get you sent to hell."
"Already got me a room picked out there," said Holly, "and you to empty my chamberpot twice't a day."
"Only so's you can lick it out after!" hooted Mike Fink.
Peggy felt repulsed by their crudity, of course; but she also felt the spirit of camaraderie behind their banter. "What I don't understand, Mr. Fink, is why you never sought vengeance against the boy who beat you."
"He wasn't no boy," said Fink. "He was a man. I reckon he was probably born a man. I was the boy. A bully boy. He knew pain, and I didn't. He was fighting for right, and I wasn't. I think about him all the time, ma'am. Him and you. The way you looked at me, like I was a crusty toad on a clean bedsheet. I hear tell he's a Maker."
She nodded.
"So why's he letting them hold him in jail?"
She looked at him quizzically.
"Oh, come now, ma'am. A fellow as can wipe the tattoo off my butt without touching it, he can't be kept in no natural jail."
True enough. "I imagine he believes himself to be innocent, and therefore he wants to stand trial to prove it and clear his name."
"Well he's a damn fool, then, and I hope you'll tell him when you see him."
"And why will I give him this remarkable message?"
Fink grinned. "Because I know something he don't know. I know that there's a feller lives in Carthage City who wants Alvin dead. He plans to get Alvin exerdited to Kenituck."
"Extradited?"
"That means one state tells another to give them up a prisoner."
"I know what it means," said Peggy.
"Then what was you asking, ma'am?"
"Go on with your story."
"Only when they take Alvin in chains, with guards awake and watching him day and night, they'll never take him to Kenituck for no trial. I know some of the boys they hired to take him. They know that on some signal, they're to walk away and leave him alone in chains."
"Why haven't you told the authorities?"
"I'm telling you, ma'am," said Mike Fink, grinning. "And I already told myself and Holly."
"Chains won't hold him," said Peggy.
"You reckon not?" said Mike. "There was some reason that boy took the tattoo off my butt. If hexes had no power over him, I reckon he never would've had to clean mine off, do you think? So if he needed to get rid of my hex, then I reckon them as understands hexes right good might be able to make chains that'd hold him long enough for somebody to come with a shotgun and