to the wharf. The men with no luggage jumped ashore at once. Mike Fink laid down his pole and, sweat still dripping down his arms and from his nose and grizzled beard, he made as if to pick up her bags.
She laid a hand on his arm to stop him. "Mr. Fink," she said. "You mean to be Alvin's friend."
"I had in mind more along the lines of being his champion, ma'am," he said softly.
"But I think what you really want is to be his friend."
Mike Fink said nothing.
"You're afraid that he'll turn you away, if you try to be his friend in the open. I tell you, sir, that he'll not turn you away. He'll take you for what you are."
Mike shook his head. "Don't want him to take me for that."
"Yes you do, because what you are is a man who means to be good, and undo the bad he's done, and that's as good as any man ever gets."
Mike shook his head more emphatically, making drops of sweat fly a little; she didn't mind the ones that struck on her skin. They had been made by honest work, and by Alvin's friend.
"Meet him face to face, Mr. Fink. Be his friend instead of his rescuer. He needs friends more. I tell you, and you know that I know it: Alvin will have few true friends in his life. If you mean to be true to him, and never betray him, so he can trust you always, then I can promise you he may have a few friends he loves as much, but none he loves more than you."
Mike Fink knelt down and turned his face away toward the river. She could see from the glinting that his eyes were awash with tears. "Ma'am," he said, "that's not what I was daring to hope for."
"Then you need more courage, my friend," she said. "You need to dare to hope for what is good, instead of settling for what is merely good enough." She stood up. "Alvin has no need of your violence. But your honor - that he can use." She lifted both her bags herself.
At once he leapt to his feet. "Please ma'am, let me."
She smiled at him. "I saw you take such joy from wrestling with the river just now. It made me want to do a little physical work myself. Will you let me?"
He rolled his eyes. "Ma'am, in all the tales of you I've heard around here, I never heard you was crazy."
"You have something to add to the legend, then," she said, winking. She stepped onto the floating dock, bags in hand. They were heavy, and she almost regretted turning down his help.
"I heard all you said," Mike told her, coming up behind her. "But please don't shame me by letting me be seen empty-handed while a fine lady carried her own luggage."
Gratefully she turned and handed the bags to him. "Thank you," she said. "I think some things must be built up to."
He grinned. "Maybe I'll build up to going to see Alvin, face to face."
She looked into his heartfire. "I'm sure of it, Mr. Fink."
As Fink put her bags into the carriage in which the men who had crossed with them impatiently waited for her, she wondered: I just changed the course of events. I brought Mike Fink closer than he would ever have come on his own. Have I done something that will save Alvin in the end? Have I given him the friend that will confound his enemies?
She found Alvin's heartfire almost without trying. And no, there was no change, no change, except for a day when Mike Fink would go away from a prison cell in tears, knowing that Alvin would surely die if he wasn't there, but knowing also that Alvin refused to have him, refused to let him stand guard.
But it was not the jail in Hatrack River. And it was not anytime soon. Even if she hadn't changed the future much, she'd changed it a little. There'd be other changes, too. Eventually one of them would make the difference. One of them would turn Alvin away from the darkness that would engulf the end of his life.
"God be with you, ma'am," said Mike Fink.
"Call me Miss Larner, please," said Peggy. "I'm not married."
"So far, anyway," he said.
* * *
Even though he hardly slept the night before, Verily was too keyed up to be sleepy as he entered the courtroom. He had met Alvin Smith,