The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume VI (2 page)

But he didn’t. Because the money didn’t fit. There was too blamed much of it.

Arthur Stuart started laughing and kept laughing till he had tears running down his cheeks.

“So now who’s the weeper?” said Abe.

“He’s laughing at me,” said Alvin.

“Why?”

“Because I clean forgot that you and Coz probably wasn’t the first folks they robbed today.”

Abe looked down at the full wallets and the coins that Alvin and Arthur Stuart were still holding and it finally dawned on him. “You robbed the robbers.”

Alvin shook his head. “You was supposed to think they just dropped your money and ran or something,” he said. “But I can’t pretend
that
when you go finding more money than they took.”

Abe shook his head. “Well, I’m beginning to get the idea that you got you some kind of knack, Mr. Smith.”

“I just know how to work with metals some,” said Alvin.

“Including metal that’s in somebody else’s pocket or purse some six rods off.”

“Let’s go find Coz,” said Alvin. “Since I reckon he’s due to wake up soon.”

“He’s sleeping?” asked Abe.

“He had some encouragement,” said Alvin. “But he’ll be fine.”

Abe gave him a look but said nothing.

“What about all this extra money?” asked Arthur Stuart.

“I’m not taking it,” said Abe. “I’ll keep what’s rightfully mine and Coz’s, but the rest you can just leave there on the planks. Let the thieves come back and find it.”

“But it wasn’t theirs, neither,” said Arthur Stuart.

“That’s between them and their maker on Judgment Day,” said Abe. “I ain’t gettin’ involved. I don’t want to have any money I can’t account for.”

“To the Lord?” asked Alvin.

“Or to the magistrate,” said Abe. “I gave a receipt for this amount, and it can be proved that it’s mine. Just drop the rest of that. Or keep it, if you don’t mind being thieves yourselves.”

Alvin couldn’t believe that the man whose money he had just saved was calling him a thief. But after he thought about it for a moment, he realized that he couldn’t very well pretend that he simply
happened
to find the money. Nor that it belonged to him by any stretch of the imagination.

“I expect if you rob a robber,” said Alvin, “it doesn’t make you any less of a robber.”

“I expect not,” said Abe.

Alvin and Arthur Stuart let the money dribble out of their hands and back down onto the planks. Once again, Alvin made sure that none of it fell through the cracks. Money wouldn’t do no good to anybody down in the water.

“You always this honest?” said Alvin.

“About money, yes sir,” said Abe.

“But not about everything.”

“I have to admit that there’s parts of some stories I tell that aren’t strictly speaking the absolute God’s-own truth.”

“Well, no, of course not,” said Alvin, “but you can’t tell a good story without improving it here and there.”

“Well, you
can
,” said Abe. “But then what do you do when you need to tell the same story to the same people? You gotta change it then, so it’ll still be entertaining.”

“So it’s really for their benefit to fiddle with the truth.”

“Pure Christian charity.”

Coz was still asleep when they found him, but it wasn’t the sleep of the newly knocked-upside-the-head, it was a snorish sleep of a weary man. So Abe paused a moment to put a finger to his lips, to let Alvin and Arthur Stuart know that they should let him do the talking. Only when they nodded did he start nudging Coz with his toe.

Coz sputtered and awoke. “Oh, man,” he said. “What am I doing here?”

“Waking up,” said Abe. “But a minute ago, you was sleeping.”

“I was? Why was I sleeping here?”

“I was going to ask you the same question,” said Abe. “Did you have a good time with that lady you fell so much in love with?”

Coz started to brag. “Oh, you bet I did.” Only they could all see from his face that he actually had no memory of what might have happened. “It was amazing. She was—only maybe I shouldn’t tell you all about it in front of the boy.”

“No, best not,” said Abe. “You must have got powerful drunk last night.”

“Last night?” asked Coz, looking around.

“It’s been a whole night and a day since you took off with her. I reckon you probably spent every dime of your half of the money. But I’m a-tellin’ you, Coz, I’m not giving you any of my half, I’m just not.”

Coz patted himself and realized his wallet was missing. “Oh, that snickety-pickle. That blimmety-blam.”

“Coz has him a knack for swearing in front of children,” said Abe.

“My wallet’s gone,” he said.

“I reckon that includes the money in it,” said Abe.

“Well she wouldn’t steal the wallet and
leave
the money, would she?” said Coz.

“So you’re sure she stole it?” said Abe.

“Well how else would my wallet turn up missing?” said Coz.

“You spent a whole night and day carousing. How do you know you didn’t spend it all? Or give it to her as a present? Or make six
more
friends and buy
them
drinks till you ran out of money, and then you traded the wallet for one last drink?”

Coz looked like he’d been kicked in the belly, he was so stunned and forlorn. “Do you think I did, Abe? I got to admit, I have no memory of what I did last night.”

Then he reached up and touched his head. “I must have slept my way clear past the hangover.”

“You don’t look too steady,” said Abe. “Maybe you don’t have a hangover cause you’re still drunk.”

“I
am
a little wobbly,” said Coz. “Tell me, the three of you, am I talking slurry? Do I sound drunk?”

Alvin shrugged. “Maybe you sound like a man as just woke up.”

“Kind of a frog in your throat,” said Arthur Stuart.

“I’ve seen you drunker,” said Abe.

“Oh, I’m never gonna live down the shame of this, Abe,” said Coz. “You warned me not to go off with her. And whether she robbed me or somebody else did or I spent it all or I clean lost it from being so stupid drunk, I’m going home empty-handed and Ma’ll kill me, she’ll just ream me out a new ear, she’ll cuss me up so bad.”

“Oh, Coz, you know I won’t leave you in such a bad way,” said Abe.

“Won’t you? You mean it? You’ll give me a share of your half?”

“Enough to be respectable,” said Abe. “We’ll just say you…invested the rest of it, on speculation, kind of, but it went bad. They’ll believe that, right? That’s better than getting robbed or spending it on likker.”

“Oh, it is, Abe. You’re a saint. You’re my best friend. And you won’t have to lie for me, Abe. I know you hate to lie, so you just tell folks to ask
me
and I’ll do all the lyin’.”

Abe reached into his pocket and took out Coz’s own wallet and handed it to him. “You just take from that wallet as much as you think you’ll need to make your story stick.”

Coz started counting out the twenty-dollar gold pieces, but it only took a few before his conscience started getting to him. “Every coin I take is taken from you, Abe. I can’t do this. You decide how much you can spare for me.”

“No, you do the calculatin’,” said Abe. “You know I’m no good at accounts, or my store wouldn’t have gone bust the way it did last year.”

“But I feel like I’m robbing you, taking money out of your wallet like this.”

“Oh, that ain’t my wallet,” said Abe.

Coz looked at him like he was crazy. “You took it out of your own pocket,” he said. “And if it ain’t yours, then whose is it?”

When Abe didn’t answer, Coz looked at the wallet again.

“It’s mine,” he said.

“It does look like yours,” said Abe.

“You took it out of my own pocket when I was sleeping!” said Coz, outraged.

“I can tell you honestly that I did not,” said Abe. “And these gentlemen can affirm that I did not touch you with more than the toe of my boot as you laid there snoring like a choir of angels.”

“Then how’d you get it?”

“I stole it from you before you even went off with that girl,” said Abe.

“You…but then…then how could I have done all those things last night?”

“Last night?” said Abe. “As I recall, last night you were on the boat with us.”

“What’re you…” And then it all came clear. “You dad-blasted gummer-huggit! You flim-jiggy swip-swapp!”

Abe put a hand to his ear. “Hark! The song of the chuckleheaded Coz-bird!”

“It’s the same day! I wasn’t asleep half an hour!”

“Twenty minutes,” offered Alvin. “At least that’s my guess.”

“And this is all my own money!” Coz said.

Abe nodded gravely. “It is, my friend, at least until another girl makes big-eyes at you.”

Coz looked up and down the little alleyway. “But what happened to Fannie? One minute I was walking down this alleyway with my hand on her…hand, and the next minute you’re pokin’ me with your toe.”

“You know something, Coz?” said Abe. “You don’t have much of a love life.”

“Look who’s talkin’,” said Coz sullenly.

But that seemed to be something of a sore spot with Abe, for though the smile didn’t leave his face, the mirth did, and instead of coming back with some jest or jape, he sort of seemed to wander off inside himself somewhere.

“Come on, let’s eat,” said Arthur Stuart. “All this talkin’ don’t fill me up much.”

And that being the most honest and sensible thing that had been said that half hour, they all agreed to it and followed their noses till they found a place that sold food that was mostly dead, didn’t have too many legs, wasn’t poisonous when alive, and seemed cooked enough to eat. Not an easy search in Barcy.

After dinner, Coz got him out a pipe which he proceeded to stuff with manure, or so it smelled when he got the thing alight. Alvin toyed with putting out the fire, but he knew he wasn’t given his makery gift just to spare himself the occasional stink.

Instead he took his leave, hoisted his poke onto his shoulder, made sure Arthur Stuart unwound himself from his chair before standing up, and the two lit out in search of a place to stay. None of the miserable fleabitten overpriced understaffed crowded smelly firetraps near the river. Alvin had no idea how long he’d be staying and he only had limited funds, so he’d want a room in a boarding house somewhere in the part of Barcy where decent people lived who aimed to stay a spell. Where a journeyman smith might stay, for instance, while he searched for a shop as needed an extra pair of arms.

He wasn’t thirty steps out of the tavern where they’d dined afore he realized that Abe Lincoln was a-following, and even though Abe had even longer legs than Alvin’s, there was no point in making him hasten to catch them up. He stopped, he turned, and only then did he realize that Arthur Stuart wasn’t walking with
him
, he was with Abe.

It was disconcerting, how Arthur had learnt a way to keep Alvin from noticing his heartfire. Not that Alvin ever failed to find Arthur when he was looking for him. But it used to be Alvin always knew where Arthur Stuart was without even thinking, but ever since Arthur had figured out a bit of real makering—how to het up iron or soften it, which was no mean trick—it seemed he’d also figured out how to make Alvin not notice when he sort of drifted away and went off on his own.

But now wasn’t the time for remonstration, not with Abe a-lookin’ on.

“You decided Coz could be trusted with his own money tonight after all?” asked Alvin.

“Coz can’t be trusted with his own elbows,” said Abe, “but it occurred to me that you and Arthur Stuart here have become right good friends, and I’d be sorry to lose track of you.”

“Well, it’s bound to happen,” said Alvin, “since the only way to get your profits back north is to buy passage and get aboard afore Coz falls in love again.”

“You seem to be a wandering man,” said Abe, “and not likely to have a place where a man can send you a letter. Me, though, I’m rooted. I don’t make much money doing much of anything yet, but I know where I want to do it. You write to Abraham Lincoln, town of Springfield, state of Noisy River, that’ll reach me right enough.”

Alvin had no shortage of friends in his life, but never had a man he liked so well upon such short acquaintance made it so plain that he liked him back. “Abe, I won’t forget that address, and indeed I expect I’ll use it. Not only that, but I do have a way that a fellow can write to me. Any letter posted to Alvin Junior in the care of Alvin Miller in the town of Vigor Church would reach me in due time.”

“Your folks, I reckon.”

“I grew up there and we’re still on speaking terms,” said Alvin with a smile.

But Abe didn’t smile back. “I know the name of Vigor Church, and a dark story attached to the place.”

“The story’s dark enough, and also true,” said Alvin. “But if you know the tale, you know there was some as didn’t take part in the massacre of Prophet’s Town, and didn’t have no curse upon them.”

“I never thought about it, but I reckon there had to be some as had clean hands.”

Alvin held his hands up. “But that doesn’t mean as much as it once did, because the curse has been lifted and the sin forgiven.”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

“It isn’t much spoken of,” said Alvin. “If you want to learn the whole of the tale, you’re welcome to visit my family there at any time. It’s a welcoming house, with many a visitor, and if you tell them you’re a friend of me and a certain stepbrother-in-law of mine, they’ll serve you extra helpings and perhaps tell you a tale or two that you haven’t heard afore.”

“You can be sure I’ll go there,” said Abe. “And I’m glad to think tonight won’t be the last I’ll hear of you.”

“You can’t be any gladder than me,” said Alvin.

With a handshake they parted yet again, and soon Abe’s long legs were carrying him back toward the tavern with a stride that parted the flow of the crowd in the street like an upriver steamboat.

“I like that man,” said Arthur Stuart.

“Me too,” said Alvin. “Though I think there’s more to him than making folks laugh.”

“Not to mention being the best-looking ugly man or the ugliest handsome man I ever seen,” said Arthur Stuart.

“Speaking of nothing much,” said Alvin, “I wish you wouldn’t do that trick of hiding your heartfire from me.”