by Terry Mahoney

Created on: June 11, 2008

It was fortunate for the man that it was the wrong season for blue crabs to be moving down the Sasfras river, or he might have had his bones picked clean. They were hibernating, waiting for the warm season to pass into the hot season. Their six-inch claws would have torn the unresponsive muscles from the man's bones; they probably would have cracked the smaller bones to get at the marrow.

Instead, a couple of kids from Better found him. He was half buried in the mud, and they thought he must be dead. They ran to find the harbormaster, and soon the men of the village had dragged the body onto the shore, and with a couple of husky watermen working the pumps, sprayed him clean.

He was wearing auld boots, and at his belt was an auld knife. If there had just been a few present, these treasures would have disappeared and the man would have become all-dead, instead of just half-dead, like he was now. The harbormaster was enough of a deterrent, though, and the others looked to him for guidance.

"Look at the mark on his arm," said the harbormaster after a long pause, "I know that mark."

The others waited, excitement slowly dying, as the harbormaster settled on his haunches next to the man. He moved the limp right arm to get a better view of the mark, and then swore under his breath.

"He's for the Kent," the harbormaster said, in a matter-of-fact tone that brooked no argument. There was the slightest sigh of longing, as the men looked at the ancient artifacts again.

The visitor woke hours later, bumping along in the back of a cart. The huge oxen that pulled the cart stumped down the track, oblivious to the patches of blacktop spitting up from the mud and weeds. One section of the auld road was like an accordion, and that caused the bumping that roused the man.

He came to with a start, and was on his feet in the blink of an eye. The healer at Better had bandaged his lacerated head, and he tore off the dressings as he rose to his feet, blinking in the bright sun.

One of the boys who had found him was sitting up front, occasionally tapping the oxen with a long pole. In the cart with the visitor was the harbormaster, who now displayed his broken-toothed grin.

The man reached for his belt, and then looked wildly around, unable to find his knife.

"Looking for this," the harbormaster asked, his grin widening as he produced the blade, handle forward.

"Is this a dagger which I see before me," the man asked in an affected voice, clearly put at ease by his fellow passenger's actions, "The

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