“Don’t tell me how to be a good father!” roared Father, and it might have started up again except now there were six strong men looming around him, making it clear that they would tolerate no more nonsense from him. Two of them went into the house with him.

Sellet went to Kyokay all right, but the others went to young Umbo, who was now being held by his mother. Father might have struck with the flat, but the blade was still there, and it had cut willy-nilly all over young Umbo’s head and shoulders and arms.

“Nothing’s bleeding hard,” one of the men said. “But I think the skull is broken here. Look how it’s swelling, but it looks dented anyway.”

“I’m sorry, Enene,” said one man. “But I don’t like the look of his head.”

“Umbo saved me,” said Kyokay feebly, and then cried out in agony as Sellet pushed one of his bones into place. Father came out with thongs and bracing sticks that Umbo recognized as dismantled frames for stretching leather. He was still angry and Umbo could see that he wanted to kick young Umbo again.

“What are you doing?” said a man. Umbo couldn’t remember his name, though once he had known it. “One son all broken up, and this boy saved him, and you already broke his head. He may never be right again, you fool.”

“He was never right! He was never my son! I say it out loud—does he look like me? All the others do, but not him! And now he tried to get us to commit murder by his false accusation! That’s no son to me!”

They got the splints and thongs out of his hands and then he was roughly walked far from the scene. Mother continued to weep over young Umbo.

Only then did Umbo himself jump back in time just enough to allow him to arrive at the riverbank only moments after he had carried Kyokay up from the boat. With two boats on this side, it was easy enough to hop into the one he had just left and row urgently back to the other side.

Though there was no urgency. Only in his own heart and mind. He had all the time in the world, because he was not going to let this happen.

Umbo was coming up out of the water for the last time on his second day of swimming, when he saw a vision of himself standing on the shore only a few feet away.

“I’m not here! I’m not going to make two fools where one will do. You can’t do it. It’s a disaster.”

“What’s a disaster? You’re all right,” said Umbo.

The vision of future Umbo seemed distraught, about to cry, but also angry and ashamed and . . . urgent.