The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume VI (16 page)

“Sure enough,” said Bowie.

“But do you pass mine?”

No sooner had Calvin said this than he felt a knife blade poking into his belly. He hadn’t seen it coming, not in Bowie’s heartfire and not in his body. All of a sudden there was a knife in his hand.

“If I wanted you dead,” said Bowie, “would you have had time to stop me?”

“I reckon you got a knack a man can respect,” said Calvin.

“Oh, that ain’t my knack,” said Bowie. “I’m just dang good with a knife, that’s all.”

Alvin woke only because he had to pee. Otherwise he could have slept for another ten hours, he was sure of it. There wasn’t a deep enough sleep in the world to give him back his strength.

But when he got up, he found that he was surrounded by duties impossible to avoid. Things he had to do before he could even void his bladder. Only his mind wasn’t clear, and his eyes were still bleary with sleep, and as people bombarded him with questions he found that he couldn’t bring himself to care about the answers.

“I don’t know,” he said to the woman demanding to know where they were supposed to find breakfast in this godforsaken place.

“I don’t know,” he said to the man who tremulously asked, in broken English, whether more soldiers would come in boats.

And when Papa Moose came to him and asked if he thought there was fever on this side of the lake, Alvin barked his “I don’t know” so loudly that Papa Moose visibly recoiled.

Arthur Stuart was lying nearby, looking like a gator sunning itself on the shore of the lake. Or a dead man. Alvin went and knelt by him. Touched him, because that way he could see his heartfire without exerting himself. He had never been so tired before that merely looking into somebody’s heartfire felt like an impossible burden to him.

Arthur was all right. Just tired. At least as worn out as Alvin. The difference being that nobody was pestering Arthur Stuart with questions.

“Let this man be,” said La Tia. “You see he bone tired, him?”

Alvin felt hands on his arm—small hands, thick arm—trying to raise him up. His first impulse was to shrug them off. But then a soft voice said, “You hungry? You thirsty?” It was Dead Mary, and Alvin turned to her and let her help him rise to his feet.

“I got to pee,” he said softly.

“We set folks to digging latrines,” she said. “We got one not far off, you just lean on me.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She led him along a short path through the underbrush till he came to a reeking pit with a plank across it. “I think this wouldn’t be hard to find in the dark,” he said.

“Bodies got to do what bodies got to do,” she said. “I leave you alone now.”

She did, and he did all his business. A lot of leaves had been piled up for wiping, and a couple of buckets of water for washing, and he had to admit he felt better. A little more awake. A little more vigorous. And hungry.

When he came back to the shore, he saw that La Tia was doing a good job of keeping folks calm. She had a line of people waiting to talk to her, but she answered them all with patience. But it’s not like she had a plan, nor was she organizing things for the journey ahead. Nor did it seem that anybody was working on the problem of food.

Alvin looked along the shore, which was teeming with people for half a mile in either direction. He also scanned for gators, which would have no qualms about snatching any child who strayed too close to shore. None here so far; and now he felt strong enough that scanning for heartfires took no noticeable effort.

Mama Squirrel and Papa Moose were not too far off. Alvin started to make his way over to them. At once he found Dead Mary at his side, offering her arm.

“I’m too big to be leaning on you,” said Alvin.

“You already did, and I was strong enough,” she said.

“I’m feeling better.” But then he did lean on her, because his balance wasn’t all that good yet, and the sand on the shore was irregular and treacherous, the damp grass just inland of it slippery and creased with ditches and rivulets. “Thank you,” he told her again. Though he still tried not to put any weight on her.

Papa Moose strode up to him—strode, his legs showing no sign of his old limp. “I’m sorry I plagued you the moment you woke up,” said Papa Moose.

“I’m glad to see you’re doing better your own self,” said Alvin. “And walking well.”

Papa Moose embraced him. “It’s a blessing from God, but I still thank the hands that did God’s work on me.”

Alvin hugged him back, but only briefly, because he had work to do. “Mama Squirrel,” he said, “you packed up a lot of bags of food.”

“For the children,” she said defensively.

“I know it’s for the children,” said Alvin. “But I want you to consider—if folks get desperate enough, how long do you think you can keep those bags from getting hauled away? There’s farms with plenty of food not too far inland, but we need to travel together. Share this food now, at least with all the children who aren’t from your house, and I can promise you more food by nightfall—for everybody.”

Mama Squirrel weighed this. He could see that it plain hurt her even to think of sharing away what her children would need. But she also knew that it would hurt to see other children starve, when hers had plenty. “All right, we’ll share it out with children. Bread and cheese, anyway. Nothing we can do with raw potatoes and uncooked grain right now.”

“Good thinking,” said Alvin. He turned to Dead Mary. “Do you think you can get La Tia to spread the word among the blacks, and you and your mother among the French, that children should be brought here to line up quietly for food?”

“You dreaming, you think they all line up quietly,” said Dead Mary.

“But if we ask, some will,” said Alvin.

“Asking is easy,” said Dead Mary. She took off at a trot, holding up her skirt to hop over obstructions on the way.

People were pretty orderly in line, after all—but those adults that had no children were getting loud and angry. As Alvin walked against the flow of children and their parents queuing up for the food, one of the men with no children called out to him from the trees. “You think we don’t got hungry, mon?”

“Thank you for your patience,” Alvin answered.

A stout black woman called out, “Starving to death don’t look like freedom to me!”

“You got a few good hours of life left in you,” called Alvin. That won him some laughter from others, and a huffy retreat from her.

Soon he was with La Tia again, and Dead Mary and her mother. “We need to organize,” he said. “Divide people up into groups and pick leaders.”

“Good idea,” said La Tia. Then she waited for more.

“But I don’t know any of these folks,” said Alvin. “You got to do the dividing of the folks as speak English.” He turned to Dead Mary and her mother. “And you have to divide up the French. And each group of ten households, tell them to choose a leader, and if they can’t choose one without bickering, I’ll pick one for them.”

“They don’t like me,” said Dead Mary.

“But they know you,” said Alvin. “And they fear you. And for right now, that’s good enough. Tell them I asked you to do it. And tell them that the sooner we get organized, the sooner we’ll all get away from Pontchartrain and get fresh water and good food. Tell them I won’t eat till they all eat.”

“You get mighty hungry, maybe, you,” said La Tia.

It took longer than Alvin expected. It seemed such a simple task, but the sun was well past noon when La Tia and Dead Mary reported that everyone was organized. They had their groups of ten, and then out of each five leaders, one was chosen to head a group of fifty, and out of every two leaders of fifty, one was designated the leader of a hundred.

The way things worked out, that gave them ten leaders of a hundred households that sat down on the shore of Pontchartrain as the Council, to plan the trek with Alvin, La Tia, Dead Mary, and Arthur Stuart, who was finally awake. Rien, Mary’s mother, was one of the leaders of a hundred—chosen by the people, to her surprise—and Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel weren’t counted in anybody’s group, since their household was so extravagantly large.

People fancied titles, Alvin knew, so he designated the leaders of hundred as “colonels,” the leaders of fifty as “majors,” and the leaders of ten as “captains.”

“Reckon that makes you ‘general,’” said Arthur Stuart.

“It makes me ‘Alvin,’” said Alvin. “You can be general.”

“
I
be general,” said La Tia. “Not this boy. Who gonna follow this boy, him?”

“You will,” said Alvin, “when I leave.”

La Tia wanted to answer him sharply, but she held her tongue and listened while Alvin explained to the Council.

“We got no place to go,” said Alvin. “I can get us north into farm country, and we’ll work out a way to get food without leaving any farmers’ families to starve. But the longer we keep marching around the countryside, the bigger the armies they can raise up to destroy us. We’ve got to get out of slave-owning country, and there’s only one way to do that.”

“By sea,” said Dead Mary. “We need boats.”

“Boats do us no good without willing crews,” said Alvin. “Anybody here know how to navigate?” No one did. “But that was a good idea, all the same,” said Alvin. “And I appreciate you making suggestions. That goes for everybody. No such thing as an idea that shouldn’t be suggested, at the right time and place.”

“Where we go, then?” asked La Tia.

“Well, General La Tia,” said Alvin—not smiling at the title, which made her preen just a little, “only one place we
can
go, where white men won’t follow.”

“Don’t take us to red land!” said Rien.

“We can’t stay there,” said Alvin, “but maybe Tenskwa-Tawa will let us pass through. Maybe them red folks’ll help us with food and shelter. But my point is, I know Tenskwa-Tawa, and so I’m the one that’s got to go and talk to him and see whether we can use his land as our road north. Can’t send nobody else. So you folks is gonna have to follow General La Tia.”

“But I don’t know the way.”

“Go north for a while, and then find a road that leads west to the Mizzippy,” said Alvin. “Be resourceful. What white folks along the way won’t tell you, black folks will.”

“But what if an army comes?” said Dead Mary. “We got no fighters here, except maybe a few of the French men. We got no guns.”

“That’s why General La Tia has to consult with Arthur Stuart here.”

“I don’t got any guns,” said Arthur.

“But you know what to do with any guns that are raised against us,” said Alvin. “Every plantation you come to, you got to be there, Arthur, to make sure no guns get fired. At night, you got to make sure there’s fog keeping bad folks from finding us. You got to follow the heartfires to make sure no one strays.”

“No,” said La Tia. “I can do that. I know how to do that, you can’t lay so much on that boy, him.”

Arthur nodded gratefully. “Watching heartfires ain’t as easy for me as for you, Alvin. And making fog—that’s what Calvin done, not me.”

“But it’s not hard,” said Alvin. “I’ll teach you today. And there’s another thing. You’re the only one speaks
all
the languages, Arthur. You got to make sure everybody’s understanding everybody else.”

“Heck, Alvin, half the time I don’t even understand
you
.”

Everybody laughed at that, but in truth they were all frightened—of the dangers on the road, but, even more, of their own inexperience. It wasn’t the blind leading the blind, really. More like the clumsy leading the clumsy.

“And one more thing,” said Alvin. “There’s gonna be lots of complaining. That’s fine, you just keep your patience, you leaders—all of you, make sure they know. Listen to everything, don’t get angry. But if somebody raises a hand of violence against a leader—you can’t stand for that. You understand me? Person raises a hand against a leader, he’s out of the company. He’s not one of us any more. Because we can’t be afraid of our own people. We have to know we can trust everybody to be gentle with each other.”

“How we gonna throw out this angry hitting man?” said La Tia. “Who gonna do that?”

“The general will ask some strong men to put the offender out of the camp,” said Alvin. “And then Arthur will see to it he doesn’t find his way back.”

“What if he got family, him?”

Alvin sighed. “General La Tia, you’ll always find a good reason not to punish a man. But sometimes you got to punish a man to save a dozen other men from needing punishment. And sometimes you have to have a hard heart to do what needs doing.”

Arthur snorted softly.

“Arthur knows,” said Alvin. “But when I’m not here, it’s not my job. The decisions are yours. You make them, you make them stick, or you don’t, and then you live with the consequences. Either way, you live with them.”

“That why you going?” asked La Tia.

“That’s right,” said Alvin. “Just when things get hard, I leave.”

He stared her down. When she looked away, it occurred to him that maybe that didn’t happen to her very often. Giving way like that.

“When you leaving?” asked one of the colonels.

“Not till we’ve had our first meal,” said Alvin. “Not till we’re all bedded down for the night. Inland. Dry and away from these skeeters.”

Margaret walked up the stairs into the attic room where she had slept as a child. It was a storeroom now. Father kept a room on the main floor for her, when she visited. She had tried to get him to rent it out like any other room in the roadhouse, but he wouldn’t do it. “If other people pay to sleep in it,” he said, “it ain’t your room.”

It was the room where Alvin had been born twenty-five years ago. Father probably didn’t remember that. But every time she walked into that room on the main floor, she saw that scene. Alvin’s mother lying on the bed, in desperate pain but even more desperate grief, for her firstborn son, Vigor, had been swept away by the Hatrack River scarcely an hour before.

Peggy—“Little Peggy” then, since her mother was alive, and doing the midwifery—had a job to do. She rushed to the woman lying on the bed and laid hands on her womb. She saw so many things in that moment. How the child was lying in the womb. How the mother was clamped down and couldn’t open up to let the child out. Her mother had done a spell with a ring of keys then, and the womb opened, and out came the baby.