The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume VI (23 page)

Alvin sighed and sat down. “I wish I were a boy again.”

“With the Unmaker dropping roof beams on your head and sending preachers to bleed you to death under the guise of surgery?”

“At least then it was only me I was trying to save. I can’t go follow Calvin to Mexico and try to bring him back, because I got me five thousand or so runaway slaves and refugee Frenchmen from Barcy that I got to find a place for.”

Tenskwa-Tawa motioned with his arm to indicate the island where they were sitting. “If you think you can fit five thousand here, you’re welcome to it. But only the runaway slaves. My people wouldn’t bear it to have these white Frenchmen you speak of living on our land.”

“No,” said Alvin. “I reckon not.”

“Canada is not such a lovely place that we trust the French to be kinder and less bloody than the English or the Spanish.”

“We got some of them, too,” said Alvin. “Poor folks who threw in their lot with us. But we don’t want to live here.”

“Good,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “Because it would be beyond my power to persuade the nations to let you.”

“What we need,” said Alvin, “is safe passage.”

“To where?”

“North. Along the edge of the river. North till we’re across the river from the United States. Or, more particularly, the free state of Noisy River. Won’t do to cross back into slave territory.”

“Five thousand people,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “Eating what?”

Alvin grinned. “Whatever the land and the kindness of your hearts will provide them.”

“Five thousand people leave a scar on the land when they pass through.”

“It’s harvest season,” said Alvin. “Fields coming ripe, fruit on the trees. Are times so hard this side of the river that you can’t spare enough for folks escaping from bondage and oppression?”

“It would take a great amount of effort,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “We aren’t like you. We don’t grow the food here and then carry it on wagons or trains or barges to sell it there. Each village grows its own food, and only when famine strikes in one place is food brought from another.”

“Well, wouldn’t you say that five thousand people with no land or food is kind of a walking famine?”

Tenskwa-Tawa shook his head. “You’re asking something very hard. And not just for those reasons. What does it tell all the whites of the United States and the Crown Colonies when five thousand runaway slaves cross over the river despite the fog and then emerge again five hundred miles north?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“We’ll have them trying to cross into our land by the boatload.”

“But they won’t make it.”

“The fog is fog,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “We instill it with fear, yes, but those with enough greed or rage can overcome that fear. A few try every year, and of those few, now and then a man makes it over.”

“What do you do with them?” asked Alvin.

“They wear hobbles and work with the women until they find it in their hearts to take the oath of peace and live among us.”

“Or what, you send them back?”

“We never let anyone go back.”

“Except me.”

“And these twenty-five black men. You can take them with you whenever you want. Because they won’t tell tales of this paradise just waiting for the right army to come and drive out the heathen, unarmed savages.”

“So maybe we got to make the crossing so spectacular that nobody thinks they could do it in a boat.”

Tenskwa-Tawa laughed. “Oh, Alvin, you have a showman’s heart.”

“You’ve put on a couple of spectacles in your day, old friend.”

“I suppose if it looks like a miracle, the United States Army and the Royal Army won’t think they can do the same. The only flaw in your idea, Alvin, is that your crossing of Lake Pontchartrain was pretty much a miracle, and that didn’t stop them from sending an army in pursuit of you.”

“Once I took down the bridge,” said Alvin, “they didn’t try to cross the lake.”

Tenskwa-Tawa shook his head. “I have a war on my hands with the Mexica, and now I have to help you pull off a miraculous crossing of the Mizzippy, putting the great peaceful nation at risk.”

“Hey, that goes both ways,” said Alvin. “Here I am trying to save five thousand runaways and you up and tell me my brother is heading into the mouth of a volcano that you can’t stop.”

“Isn’t it good we like each other so much,” said Tenskwa-Tawa.

“You taught me everything I know,” said Alvin.

“But not everything
I
know.”

“And I gave you back your eye.”

“And healed my heart,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “But you’re a lot of bother all the same.”

After the second night, word went on ahead of them and it got harder. Mistress Cottoner didn’t talk, La Tia said so, but her son did. And the people at the second house, Arthur Stuart had to use makery to seal the doors and windows of a room in their house so they couldn’t get out, because they wouldn’t calm down, they kept screaming, It’s our life you’re taking, you’re making us poor, you have no right, these slaves are
ours
, until Marie wanted to fill their mouths with cotton, all the cotton that had ever been picked by their slaves, just stuff it down their mouths until they were as fat and soft as the huge pillows they slept on while their slaves slept on hard boards and straw in filthy rat-infested cabins.

As filthy and rat-infested as the cabin her mother had made her grow up in back in Swamptown. Only her mother wasn’t a slave. We’re finer people than these scum, her mother would say. We’re Portuguese royalty, only Napoleon drove us out and forced us into exile in Nouveau Orleans and then he sold it to the Spanish so that
we
could never go home. Because you are the granddaughter of a duke, and he was the son of a king, and you should be married to at least a count, so you must learn fine manners and speak French and English very well and learn how to curtsey and stand straight and…

And then Marie got old enough to understand that not everybody could see into people’s bodies and feel whether they were sick and whether they would die of it. And all of a sudden her mother’s story changed. Your father was a great wizard, she said. A maker, they call such a man here. Facteur. Createur. He could carve a bird out of wood and breathe on it and it would fly away. And you have some of his gift, and some of mine, because my talent is love, I love people, my dear Marie, you have that love and it lets you see inside their hearts, and the power from your father lets you see their death because that is the ultimate power, to stare death in the face and be unafraid.

Her mother, such a storyteller. That was when Marie knew that her mother’s stories were all lies. In Portugal her name had been Caterina, and they called her
Rina
for short. When she came to Nouveau Orleans they made a joke of it and called her
Rien
, which was French for “nothing.” Or even “de rien,” which was what the French said after “merci,” so it was like the English “you’re welcome.” Because now Marie understood that her mother was a prostitute, and not an expensive one, either, and her father had probably been a customer, back in the days before she had a hex against pregnancy that worked.

But she pretended to believe her mother’s stories because it made her mother happy to tell them. And Marie was actually relieved, because she had always been afraid that someday Napoleon would fall from power or die, and the Portuguese royal family would be restored to the throne and they’d come looking for them and find them and it would be fine for Mother, she could go back to being what she was raised to be, but Marie wasn’t good at curtseying and her French was not elegant and fine and she was dirty and always covered in skeeter bites and they would despise her and mock her in the royal court, just like they did here on the streets of Barcy. Only it would be worse, because it would be fine ladies and gentlemen doing it. So she hated the idea of being royalty. It was better just to be the daughter of a cheap Portuguese whore in Nueva Barcelona.

But now, far from being the most despised people in Barcy, they were actually important. Because Alvin and Arthur Stuart and La Tia treated them with respect, because they were the ones who went to the doors of the houses, everyone looked up to them. They got to wear fine clothes and act like royalty, and even though it didn’t really fool people because the clothes weren’t fine
enough
, it was still fun to pretend that Mother’s story had been a little bit true after all.

The third day, though, as they approached the house La Tia said, “This house is not good. Pass it by.” And they would have done it, but then three men came out on the porch with muskets and aimed them and demanded that they surrender.

So Arthur Stuart—such a clever boy, bless him—made the ends of all three of their muskets go soft and droop, so they couldn’t shoot anymore. The men threw them down and drew swords and began to run at them, and Arthur Stuart made the swords soft too, like willow wands, and La Tia laughed and laughed.

But there was no pretending this time. The people of this house, of the whole neighborhood, had heard of the huge army of runaway slaves who captured plantations and raped the women and killed the men and let the slaves burn everything to the ground. Of course it wasn’t true, not a bit of it—except for the part about how two French women would come to the door and get themselves invited inside, and while they were in there the two slaves that traveled with them, a mammy slave and a young buck, would go provoke a rebellion among the slaves of the plantation and then it was all murder and rape and burning.

There’d be no more deception at the door. Every house would be more like a military campaign from then on.

So that third night, with all the white men tied up in the barn and all the white women locked in the upstairs of the house and not a slave to be found because they had all been sent away, La Tia and Arthur Stuart and Mother and Marie met with the council of colonels to decide what to do.

“If we could hear the greensong,” said Arthur Stuart, “we could travel by night and not get hungry—like we did crossing Pontchartrain.”

“I don’t remember no greensong,” said La Tia.

“Yes you do,” said Arthur Stuart. “Only you didn’t know that’s what you were hearing.”

“What be in this song?” said La Tia. “What make it green?”

“It’s the song of the life around you. Not the human life, that’s just noise, most of the time. Not machines, either. But the music of the trees and the wind and the heat of the sun, the music of fish and birds and bugs and bees. All the life of the world around you, and you let yourself be part of the song. I can’t do it alone, but when I’m with Alvin, he can catch me up in the song and then I hear it and it feels like my body is running itself, you know what I mean? I can just run and run and at the end I feel like I just woke up from a good long nap. And I’m not hungry, not while I’m running. Not thirsty, either. I’m just part of the world, turning around from night to day, wind blowing over me, plants growing up out of me, animals moving through and over me.”

It was lovely to hear him talk about it, his face so lighted up like it got. This young half-black man, he loved his friend, his brother-in-law Alvin, even more than Marie did. Oh, to hold Alvin’s hand and run through the trees and hear that greensong and see the bushes and branches bend out of the way and the ground become smooth and soft under her feet….

But La Tia, she didn’t get dreamy hearing it. She was making a list. “Fish, birds, trees,” she said when Arthur Stuart was done. “You don’t get hungry, you don’t get thirsty. Wind. And bugs, yes? Heat of the sun. What else? Anything?”

“You think you can make a charm that does the same thing?”

“I give it a try,” said La Tia. “Best I can do.” She grinned wickedly. “This my ‘knack,’ boy.”

She immediately sent her friend Michele and a half dozen others who had obviously run her errands before, looking for the things she needed. Feather of a bird, fin of a fish—that was the hardest one—a living beetle, leaves of a tree. A pinch of dirt, a drop of water, ash from a fire, and when it was all in a little sachet she would blow into it and then seal it closed with the hair of a long-haired woman, who happened to be Marie herself.

By morning she had made a sachet for Arthur Stuart and one for herself, and sachets for each of the colonels. “Now we see if we hear this greensong as we walk,” she said.

“What about me?” asked Marie. “And my mother?”

“You hold my hand,” said La Tia. “Your mama, she hold Arthur hand. I do it otherway, but you get thinking about love, you.”

Arthur looked at her and raised his eyebrows as if the idea were ridiculous. Ignorant boy.

She held La Tia’s hand and Arthur held Mother’s hand and they started walking and…nothing happened. It was nothing like what she had felt crossing the bridge.

“I guess we just need Alvin,” said Arthur Stuart. “Though you’d think it was something that could be learned. I mean, he wasn’t born with it. He learned it from Ta-Kumsaw himself.”

La Tia groaned loudly and smacked him softly on the forehead. “You silly boy, why you no tell La Tia this be red man thing, this greensong? Get the colonels, all they, bring they sachet to me.”

Soon the march was again halted and the colonels were gathered while the people mumbled and murmured about another delay in their journey.

One by one, La Tia opened each person’s sachet and said, “All right, you. One drop of you blood, right now.”

Well, how many people could do
that
without an argument? But Arthur Stuart, he came up and he said, “I can let a drop of your blood go from your finger, and it won’t hurt, but only if you say yes.” Well of course they all said yes, and sure enough, Arthur held their hand and closed his eyes and thought real hard and one single drop came out from under their fingernail and dropped into the sachet.

Once again La Tia blew into the sachet and closed it, but this time she added a blade of grass to the strand of Marie’s hair to tie the top. “Now maybe,” said La Tia.

And this time as they walked, the charm seemed to have some effect. Marie couldn’t be sure she was actually responding to the greensong—she hadn’t heard it, really, crossing the bridge. It had been more like a sort of intensity inside her as she pushed the wheelbarrow, so that her hands never got sore from the chafing of the handles, and her back never got weary, she just stepped on and on.

Well, something like that began to happen now. She had long since given up the wheelbarrow, and she and her mother had taken turns carrying the ball of bloodwater Alvin had created for her. But now she didn’t need her mother to spell her off. The burden was still heavy, it just didn’t make her tired. Didn’t even make her shoulders ache where the straps dug in.

But she did get hungry and hot and thirsty during the day. Yet she didn’t
mind
being hungry and thirsty and hot. And her feet always seemed to find the right place to step.

The only person it didn’t work for was Arthur Stuart, until he finally took off the sachet and gave it to Mother. “I reckon while I’m spending all my thinking on making this fog stay ahead of us and behind us, and watching for heartfires of them as might mean us harm, this charm just don’t affect me.”

“Too bad for you, child,” said La Tia. “Keep doing what you doing, we all pray for you.”

Arthur Stuart tipped his hat to her and grinned and then strode on ahead.

Marie wanted to run to him and hold his hand and walk with him. But that was foolishness. For one thing, she needed the sachet to help her. For another thing,
he
needed to keep his mind on his work. And for a third thing, he probably wouldn’t want her to.

As for the rest of the people, the sachets seemed to help. Little children kept up better. Adults who carried babies didn’t get so tired. There weren’t people constantly dropping out to rest and then losing their place in the company. So even though nobody walked faster than before, they actually made far more progress during the day.

They also waited until later to pick a plantation to be their host for the evening. “We’ve gone so far,” said Arthur Stuart, “maybe the people here will think they’re safe and not be looking out for us.”

“You think I gonna walk up to no house?” said La Tia. “Wake up from you dream, you.”

“What else can we do?” said Arthur Stuart.

“Kill them in their houses.”

They all turned at the voice. It was Old Bart, the butler from the Cottoner house. “You heard me. You got this knack, boy. Use it. Reach into they hearts and stop them from beating no more.”

“That would be murder,” said Arthur Stuart.

“It ain’t murder,” said Old Bart. “It’s war, and they be winning it, less you do what soldiers do, and kill them as would kill you.”

“Not here,” said Arthur Stuart. “Not today.”

“You kill them,
we
win,” insisted Old Bart. “Nothing but what they deserve, what they done to us.”

“You dead?” asked La Tia. “Your heart stop beating?”

Old Bart whirled on her. “Don’t you tell me how angry to be. I was dead inside for all them years, me a man, and couldn’t
act
like one.”

“Funny way to be dead, you got. Stand there talking. Bet you piss three time a day, too, you! How many dead man do that?”

Old Bart probably had an answer for that, but the laughter of those nearby convinced him that this wasn’t the day to argue with her. But Marie saw that he hadn’t changed his mind. Just changed his mind about
talking
about it.

“Kill them in they house,” La Tia went on scornfully. “We want food. We want a place to sleep. Kill somebody for that in they own house?”

Arthur Stuart shook his head. “If I was in his place, I think I might feel the same.”

“You men,” said La Tia. “Killing just a thing you do.”

“You know that ain’t so,” said Arthur Stuart. “But when it needs doing, I bet you glad you got somebody to do it.”

This had gone far enough. “I know,” said Marie. “I go alone.”

“No!” her mother cried.

“They look for two women with two slaves. I go alone, and Arthur Stuart and La Tia, they come another way. Arthur, you look out for me, won’t you?”

“I will,” he said.

“I just go and explain to them. We only want food and a place to sleep. Only…maybe you show power to them, while I’m talking. Put fog at every window. Show them it’s better just to let us stay one night and go away.”

They thought about it, and Arthur only improved on it a little. “All the windows but one,” he said. “Clear sky through one window.”

“Then we better do it before the sun goes all the way down,” said Marie.

Only after everyone agreed and they headed for the house they had chosen did Marie start to realize what she had just done. What if they had shotguns
this
time? How fast was Arthur Stuart?