We camped that night at a stance about a day’s drove above Middenmarsh. It was a broad, open place with a creek, where the cows could bed down and drink their fill.

While the drovers was getting the cattle settled for the night, I cooked a big pot of beans to share with them. A drover mostly eats flatbread and jerky on the road; traveling afoot, he can’t very well carry a big iron beanpot. So when we invited the drovers to join us, they didn’t wait for us to ask twice.

We didn’t have plates and spoons enough for everyone. Somebody scrooged around and found chunks of bark off a rotting log to use as plates. They banged the pieces together to knock off some of the rot dust and to frustrate whatever grubs and roaches might be living in the bark. Drovers aint prissy about that sort of thing—not when hot beans is on offer.

I flopped a hill of beans on everybody’s bark plate, and they fell to. We didn’t have spoons for them, but not being Tambluff dandies or schoolmarms, they was more than happy to eat with their fingers. The cowdogs, of course, was right in amongst them. It’s a sweet thing to see a rough old drover take tender care of his dog—scooping a bite of beans to finger it into his own mouth, then holding out the next scoop for his dog to lick off his finger, one-for-you, one-for-me, until the beans is gone. You never seen a mama bird pay better attention to her babies at feed time than them drovers with their dogs.

By the time the dogs had licked their drovers’ faces clean, everybody was in a merry mood. Whatever suspicions the drovers had about us was gone now, swallered up by their thankfulness for a good, hot feed.

It was only after supper that they finally introduced theirselves to us. Aster we already knew by name. He was the foreman of the outfit, probably in his thirties, which was old for a drover.

Basel and Osbern were brothers, older teenagers or maybe in their early twenties. Basel was the tallest of the bunch and broad framed. He looked like he wouldn’t have any trouble rassling down any cow needed rassling down. Osbern was tall too, but more wiry.

Some fellers have an openness about the face so you can always tell what they’re thinking, whether it’s good or bad. That’s the kind of face Basel and Osbern both had. They looked a man square in the face, and they were quicker to smile and to trust than most folks. Folks with that kind of face would never make it in our line of work.

Arch was a little older than the brothers. He reminded me of a cowdog—short, thick across the chest. He was square jawed and a little jowly, with drooping mustaches. He didn’t have much to say, though he had more to say than Wiley, the youngest of the outfit. Wiley was a shy feller, probably fourteen years old—about my age. I could imagine being friends with Wiley, if I had any friends.

After the beans was gone and we was lazying by the cook-fire, Arch went to singing an old favorite drove song.

Whoop! I’m a scaper and
Whoop! I’m a rover.
The one life for me is
The life of a drover.
Whoop! I’m a rover.
I’m trouble all over!
The one life for me is
The life of a drover.

Whoop! I’m half horse and
I’m half alligator.
I can eat a small farmer
Like a roasted potater.
Roasted potater!
Whoop! Red tomater!
I can eat a small farmer
Like a roasted potater!

Every Whoop! was longer and more yodelly than the last, and none of it was especially tuneful. When Arch was two stanzas into it, Osbern’s dog, Crowder, decided he had something to add to the performance; he went to howling about an octave higher than Arch was singing. By the time he got to the third stanza, Arch was looking pretty discouraged. He carried on though:

Whoop! Bow your neck when
I drove past your town.
If you look at me sideways,
I might knock you down.
Whoop! Knock you down!
Whoop! Knock you down!
If you look at me sideways,
I’ll sure knock you down.

We couldn’t even hear Arch the last few lines because Crowder was howling so loud and so feelingly.

Arch went to hollering. “Osbern, can’t you shut that infernal dog up?”

“I might could,” Osbern said, “but I don’t see why I ought to. Crowder’s singing is a sight better than yours.”

Crowder howled some more at that, he was so pleased with hisself. That got all over Arch. “I aint teasing, Osbern,” he said. “You shut that worthless mutt up, or I’m going to kick him.”

At that, Osbern got to his feet. “Worthless mutt? You aint going to insult my dog, Arch. I won’t stand for it.”

“I aint insulting your dog, Osbern. I’m telling the truth. He’s worthless, and he can’t sing at all.”

Osbern got right up in Arch’s face. “Crowder is a dog of highest character and tender sensibilities. Your Tug don’t even deserve the name of dog next to my Crowder.”

That done it. Arch fetched Osbern a swipe across the cheekbone. Osbern staggered back a step, but it didn’t take but a second for him to get his wagon back in the road. He flung at Arch and knocked him to the ground; they rolled around for a while, neither one able to land a square punch or get a good holt of the other.

Arch butted Osbern’s head and appeared to be getting the upper hold when Crowder jumped into the rumpus. He clamped down on the sleeve fringe of Arch’s buckskin shirt and set his feet, pulling like all nation to get Arch off Osbern and growling and shaking like he had mistook Arch’s shirtsleeve for a rattlesnake.

About that time, Arch’s dog, Tug, come sailing in and tackled Crowder. Both dogs flipped over a time or two, snarling and snapping the worst kind, and trying to get holt of each other’s ear.

When Arch and Osbern heard the snarls, they unclenched and jumped up to get between the dogs. There was no way they was going to let them dogs hurt each other. It’s a ticklish business, separating dogs that want to fight—especially dogs as strong and enterprising as them two cowdogs. But when they seen their drovers was through fighting, Tug and Crowder wasn’t quite so interested in fighting each other.

By the time they got the dogs apart, the men was panting like dogs theirselves. Arch looked Tug over for hurts, and Osbern looked Crowder over.

“He all right?” Arch asked.

“Looks to be,” Osbern answered him. “How’s Tug?”

“He’s fine.”

“Tug’s a good dog,” Osbern said.

Arch nodded. “So’s Crowder. I didn’t mean them things I said about him.”

Arch and Osbern shook hands, and then they hugged each other so the dogs would know that everybody was friends and the fighting was over.

Things got quiet around the fire after that. The dogs stretched and gaped and went to sleep. Basel took first watch, and the rest of the men was starting to nod when Wiley, the young feller, said, “Mr. Perfesser, you said you been looking for feechies?”

Floyd snapped up straight. “Yes, son. Did you see one?” He said it real eager, with a hungry look in his eyes.

Wiley shrunk back at Floyd’s enthusiasm. “Oh, no sir. I aint never seen a feechie. Except in a puppet show.”

“Drat them puppet shows, misrepersenting a noble and warlike race as buffoons and petty scapers!” Floyd said. “No wonder nobody believes in feechiefolks! If all I knew of feechiefolks come from them puppet shows, I wouldn’t believe in them either. That kind of feechiefolks aint worth believing in.”

“What have you seen of feechies besides the puppet shows?” Aster asked. It was more of a challenge than a real question.

Floyd squinted at Aster across the fire. Then he waved his hand in front of him. “I aint going to waste your time and my breath telling you stories you won’t believe.” He poked around in the fire and pretended he didn’t mean to say anything more.

Aster looked like he felt bad for hurting Floyd’s feelings. “Aw, go ahead,” he said. “We got nowhere to be, and I wouldn’t mind hearing some different lies for a change.”

That was encouragement enough for Floyd, who never needed much encouraging anyway. He stood up, put one hand on his heart and the other in the air, and looked off at the spot where the first stars was starting to twinkle.

“I have seen feechies by the hundred poling their flatboats across the black waters of the Feechiefen to a swamp council. I have seen the great chieftains in their costumed splendor—their alligator-hide loincloths, their breastplates made from the bones of panthers and bears, their plumed headdresses spraying like white foaming fountains.

“I have sat around their cookfires and heard stories and songs of their deeds of bravery in battle and in the hunt. More than that, I have seen their deeds with my own eyes—deeds you would not believe. I have seen feechies rassle alligators and bring down wild boars with their bare hands. I have seen them shin up bare tree trunks and chase one another like squirrels, leaping limb-to-limb and tree-to-tree across the forest canopy. I have seen a feechie swim across the river Tam and only come up for air once. Once!”

Floyd was so earnest in the telling that the sweat popped out on his brow. “Oh yes, friends,” he said. “I have seen feechies that wasn’t in the puppet shows. I should say I have.”

Most of that business come straight from his old lecture. I couldn’t count how many times I had heard it. But when Floyd told it that way, them old lies felt true even to me. He had the drovers hanging on every word.

Floyd quit talking and went to staring into the fire. He had a little smile on his face, like he was remembering old times but was keeping them to hisself. The drovers looked at one another. They all wanted to hear more, but none of them wanted the others to know they did.

Aster, being the foreman, was the first to talk. “You saying you’ve been into the Feechiefen and back out again?”

Floyd seen the skeptical looks on the boys’ faces. “I know what you’ve heard—that nobody’s ever gone into the Feechiefen and come back alive. It’s mostly true. But I’ve been to Feechiefen, and I’ve come out again. Spent almost two years down there when I wasn’t much older than these boys here.” He pointed at Wiley and me. “I had a hankering for adventure, and I got it, I don’t mind telling you.”

“So how’d you manage to come out alive if nobody else has?” Arch asked.

“The feechiefolks took a shine to me for some reason. Decided not to kill me. Who knows why. I never had much luck understanding feechiefolkses reasoning.”

“What did you do with the feechiefolks for two years?” Aster asked.

“Just lived like a feechie. Slept in a hammock. Ate a lot of duckweed. Caught fish. Climbed trees. Never got the hang of rassling alligators.”

“Did you like living with the feechies?” Wiley didn’t have the same doubt in his voice that the older drovers had.

“Sure, I liked it.”

“So why didn’t you stay?”

“There’s only so much duckweed and lizard eggs a civilizer can stand. That’s what they call us—civilizers. I got to missing the comforts of civilization; even frontier living was a sight more comfortable than feechie living. And then there was the fistfights.”

“Fistfights?”

“Feechiefolk would rather fight than eat. It’s their entertainment. And they’re good at it. I got tired of getting beat to a pulp every other day.”

“I thought you said they liked you,” Aster said.

“They did! I reckon they’d have killed me if they didn’t. I’m telling you, feechiefolks fight the way you might play a hand of cards—all in good fun. They got particular pleasure out of fighting me because I was so much bigger than them.”

“You aint a big man,” Osbern observed.

“I aint a big man for a civilizer,” Floyd said, “but I was half a head taller than the tallest feechie in the swamp; and I hadn’t even got my full growth yet. They’re little folks—short and ropy. And ugly! You aint never seen such ugly people in your life.” He pointed at me. “You see my boy there. You think he’s ugly. But if there was a feechie beauty pageant, he could win it.”

It was one of the nicest things Floyd ever said about me. Still, it was hard to know how to take it.

“They slop theirselves all over with mud to keep off the swamp bugs. Makes them look like they just rose up out of the muck of the swamp—like they’re crawfish or something.”

Floyd was talking soft now. It was one of his tricks. The drovers all had to lean in to hear him, and the more they seen one another leaning in, the more they begun to think Floyd’s tale was believable.

“They aint just in the Feechiefen, you know,” Floyd told them. “Every swamp on this island is full of them. And feechie scouts are forever going up and down the forests along every river, keeping an eye on us civilizers, making sure we don’t have designs on their swamps.”

“Who wants their swamps?” Arch asked.

“I tried to tell them when I lived with them that civilizers don’t care a thing for swamps,” Floyd said, “but they didn’t believe me. They can’t imagine anybody not loving a swamp as much as they do. They’re convinced that us civilizers are just biding our time in the high grounds, waiting until we’re strong enough to invade the Feechiefen and the Bayberry—all their swamps.”

He let that settle in before he spoke again. “I have a feeling they’re getting more and more worried about us; I have a suspicion that’s why folks all over Corenwald has been seeing feechie signs. I think the feechie scouts is getting more and more aggressive, taking a few more chances. Who knows what the feechiefolks are up to.”

Things got real quiet again around the fire. Finally Aster spoke. “I don’t believe you.”

“I aint asking you to believe me. I’m just telling what I know, and you can do what you want to with it. I know the feechiefolks would be glad to know you don’t believe in them. Makes their life—and their plans—a whole lot easier.”

Floyd poked around in the fire. Then he pointed up at the trees all around the stance. “Them treetops could be full of feechie scouts, and we’d have no way of knowing it. Feechies might have heard everything I said tonight. You never do know.”

I noticed a couple of the drovers shivered in the firelight.

Floyd poked at the fire for a ten-count longer. Then he said, real abrupt, “Well, boys, I’m beat. I think I’ll head to bed.”

He disappeared into his tent. But the drovers sat there by the fire a good while longer, none of them saying a word.