coughed herself awake and looked at him, amazed, as if confused to find the branch was suddenly a man. She squeezed him around the middle, murdering his ribs.
“Don’t let go,” he said.
She clutched him even harder in surprise, legs around his hips, hands fastened to his back. Her irises were dark—he couldn’t see her pupils—and she seemed about to talk but coughed herself delirious. He realized only now, having caught her in his arms, that he didn’t have the strength to get her to the bank. He would barely save himself if he tried swimming back and so they held each other close, stranded in the flood.
He couldn’t hear a thing except the noise of rushing water, and he couldn’t feel his hands or verify his grip. Any moment they’d be loose and headed for the falls. He looked at her with false reassurance to console her. Once he did—once she stared at him and seemed to understand—he knew for certain, falls be damned, he would hold her to the end.
A long wooden pole cracked him on the noggin. When he turned to see its source, it struck him on the nose. He bled again and blinked, smarting from the blows, and there was Ichabod the ferryman at last, right beside them.
He was balanced on the tethered raft, lanky and disheveled, reaching with his driving pole and almost falling in. The raft was broad and strong, railed on either side and stable enough for horses, made of planks atop a sturdy pair of dugout canoes. Ichabod was sweating from his fight against the current. He was a lifelong mute and now he spoke with his expressions, subtle changes in his close-set eyes and bony jaw that Tom interpreted to mean, “Grab the pole. Only choice. Any closer and I’ll knock you underwater with the raft.”
He was right. The raft was bobbing too erratically to trust. Tom dropped the gaff and lunged to get the ferry pole. He caught it but the woman’s limp weight pulled him down. She was fading out of consciousness and dragging on his neck and Ichabod, though wiry strong, could barely keep his footing. Tom inched along, hand over hand. The woman started slipping underwater through his arms.
“Grab her hair,” Tom yelled, finally at the raft.
Ichabod wove his bony fingers to her roots and kept her head above water, high enough to breathe. Tom hauled himself up and didn’t let her go, aching from his injuries and growling like a winterbear. They pulled her up together to the safety of the deck. Ichabod removed his shirt and handed it to Tom, who wrapped her up and held her, cradling her head. They shuddered close together in the cold, misty breeze. She had flowers on her throat and petals in her ears.
He wrung the water from her hair and rubbed her shivery skin, summoning whatever faint warmth she had left, his swollen nose and broken ribs and reasonable questions overpowered by the wonder of beholding her alive.
Chapter Two
“Hours in the dark catching murkfins and you come along, steal my gaff, and catch a woman.”
Silas Booker, smiling broadly at the curious passersby, stood in the mud of Center Street and blocked Tom’s way. He wore the same fishy breeches he’d been wearing at the river—possibly the only pair of breeches Silas owned. The season’s first horseflies twirled around his legs. Townspeople noticed Tom and Silas in the road; they were active with the business of a fair-weather morning—airing houses, running errands, trading for supplies—but they had all heard the story of the rescue in the flood.
“I’d gripe again about that bellywallop,” Silas said loudly, “but there isn’t any question that you went and took the brunt.”
No, there wasn’t, Tom agreed. He had a bandage on his wrist, a wrap around his rib cage, and grape-and-ash bruises underneath his eyes. The river chill had left him feeling feverish and brittle. His fatigue had only deepened from the necessary tavern work, especially now in spring when travelers braved the road again, no longer hindered by the valley’s great snows.
They would soon arrive from Grayport, seventy miles southwest, or from Liberty, a hundred-odd miles northeast. Root was in the middle of the wilderness between—four hundred people in profound isolation with the river up the side and the forest all around them: a miniature town with a small, common green and farmland radiating outward from the center. If not for the road that linked the cities, they would likely be forgotten. As