The Baptism is Long but the Song is Everlasting

"MACCLARENCE FUGITVE"
"Debt Boy On The Run!"

You find the lone front sheet of the newspaper blowing through the dusty stagecoach yard. It's been a dry spring, and where there should be the heady, sweet, stuffy smell of thick growing grass there's instead the smell of parched soil slowly sublimating into windblown dust.

"Federal Sheriffs are seeking any information on the past or present whereabouts of one Tiberius MacClarence, wanted fugitive! After being remanded to custody in Manassas District Court the criminal escaped during transport and is currently at large! His aims and destination are unknown, but a source within the Sheriffs' division, who spoke with this reporter on condition of anonymity, speculated that he may he seeking revenge on his family, and so is likely to return to the Shenandoah Valley! Readers in that lovely district should be especially alert for any-"

The rest of the page is torn off.

The Early 1800s were the golden age of riverboat traffic in the United States. Before the railroad or national highways, the only practical route to export the large quantities of agricultural products that drove the economy was to ship them down the Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi rivers. It may look brief, in hindsight, but for a window of time the Riverman was a unique archetype of freedom within American society.

If the only escape available is a brief window of time, then a brief window will have to do.