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It's 1825, in a version of America's past that doesn't look like the history
books. The folk magic of the American people really works, though whites,
blacks, and reds go about their acts of power in different ways.
The land we call America isn't just one nation. New England is still a colony
of an England ruled over by the Lord Protector. The slave states of the south
are the Crown Colonies, ruled over by the King in exile. In the middle is the
United States, struggling to exist half slave and half free. This story,
however, takes place in Nueva Barcelona -- once called New Orleans, when the
French founded it.
To this city comes Alvin Smith, the seventh son of a seventh son, who makes
his living as a journeyman blacksmith; and beside him is Arthur Stuart, a free
young man, half white and half black, pretending to be Alvin's servant while
they're in slave country. They're on a mission here, and they're determined to
accomplish it ... if they can figure out what it is.
"Walking on Water" is the first third of The Crystal City, the
penultimate novel in the Tales of Alvin Maker. It will be serialized on the
Hatrack River site in 14 parts, a new one appearing every five days or so. (The
first two parts of this serialization appeared previously in The Rhinoceros
Times.)
Supper that evening was bedlam, the children moving in and out of the kitchen
in shifts with the normal amount of shoving and jostling and complaining. It
reminded Alvin of growing up with his brothers and sisters, only because there
were so many more children, and of nearly the same age, it was even more
confusing. A few quarrels even flared, white-hot in an instant, then promptly
silenced by Mama Squirrel flinging a bit of water at the offenders or by Papa
Moose speaking a name. The children didn't seem to fear punishment; it was his
disapproval that they dreaded.
The food was plain and poor, but healthy and there was plenty of it. So much,
in fact, that both serving pots had soup left in them. Mama Squirrel poured them
back into the big cauldron by the fire. "I never made but one batch of soup in
all the years we've lived here," she said.
Even the old bread and the half-eaten scraps from the children's bowls were
scraped into the big pot. "As long as I bring the pot to a long hard boil before
serving it again, there's no harm from adding it back into the soup."
"It's like life," said Papa Moose, who was scouring dishes at the sink. "Dust
to dust, pot to pot, one big round, it never ends." Then he winked. "I throw
some cayenne peppers in it from time to time, that's what makes it all edible."
Then the children were herded upstairs into the dormitories, kissing their
parents as they passed. Papa Moose beckoned Alvin to come with him as he
followed the children up. It wasn't quick, following him up the stairs, but not
slow, either. He seemed to bob up the stairs on his good foot, the clubbed foot
somewhat extended so it stayed out of the way and, perhaps, balanced him a bit.
It was wise not to follow too close behind him, or you could find out just how
much of a club that foot could be.
They all lay down on mats on the floor -- a floor well-limed and clean-swept.
But not to sleep. One-hour candles were lighted all around the room, and all the
children lay there, pretending to be asleep while Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel
made a pantomime of tiptoeing out of the room. Naturally, Alvin glanced back
into the room and saw that every single child pulled a book or pamphlet out from
under their mat and began to read.
Alvin came back downstairs with Moose and Squirrel, grinning as he went.
"It's a shame none of your children can read," he said.
Papa Moose held to the banister and half hopped, half slid down the stairs on
his good foot. "It's not as if there were anything worth reading in the world,"
he said.
"Though I wish they could read the holy scriptures," said Mama Squirrel.
"Of course, they might be reading on the sly," said Alvin.
"Oh, no," said Papa Moose. "They are strictly forbidden to do such a
thing."
"Papa Moose showed our ragged little collection of books to all the children
and told them they must never
borrow those books and carefully return them as soon as they're done."
"It's good to teach children to obey," said Alvin.
"'Obedience is better than sacrifice,'" quoted Papa Moose.
They sat down at the kitchen table, where Arthur Stuart was already seated,
reading a book. Alvin realized after a moment that it was written in Spanish.
"You're taking this new language of yours pretty serious."
"Since you know everything there is to know in English," said Arthur Stuart,
"I reckon this is the only way to get one up on you."
They talked for a while about the children -- how they supported them,
mostly. They depended a lot on donations from likeminded persons, but since
those were in short supply in Barcy, it was always nip and tuck, allowing
nothing to go to waste. "Use it up," intoned Papa Moose, "wear it out, make it
do or do without."
"We have one cow," said Mama Squirrel, "so we only get enough milk for the
little ones, and for a little butter. But even if we had another cow or two, we
don't have any means of feeding them." She shrugged. "Our children are never
noted for being fat."
After a few minutes the conversation turned to Alvin's business -- whatever
it was. "Did Margaret send you here for a report?"
"I have no idea," said Alvin. "I usually don't know all that much more about
her plans than a knight does in a game of chess."
"At least you're not a pawn," said Papa Moose.
"No, I'm the one she can send jumping around wherever she wants." He said it
with a chuckle, but realized as he spoke that he actually resented it, and more
than a little.
"I suppose she doesn't tell you everything so you don't go improving on her
plan," said Squirrel. "Moose always thinks he knows better."
"I'm not always wrong," said Papa Moose.
"Margaret sees my death down a lot of roads," said Alvin, "and she knows that
I don't always take her warnings seriously."
"So instead of giving you warnings, she asks you to help her," said Squirrel.
Alvin shrugged. "If she ever said so, it would stop working."
"The woman is the subtlest beast in the garden," said Papa Moose, "now that
snakes can't talk."
Alvin grinned. "But just in case she actually sent me here for a purpose, do
you have anything to report to her?"
"Meaning," said Arthur Stuart, looking up from his book, "do you have
anything you'd be willing to tell Old Alvin here, so he can figure out what's
going on?"
"Isn't that what I said?"
"There's all kinds of plots in this city," said Papa Moose. "The older
children eavesdrop for us during the day, as they can, and we have friends who
come calling. So we know about a good number of them. There's a Spanish group
trying to revolt and get Barcy annexed by Mexico. And of course the French are
always plotting a revolution, though it don't come to much, since they can't
come to any agreement among the parties."
"Parties?"
"Them as favor being part of an independent Canada, and them as want to
conquer Haiti, and them as want to be an independent city-state on the Mizzippy,
and them as wish to restore the royal family to the throne of France, and two
different Bonapartist factions that hate each other worst of all."
"And that don't even touch the split between Catholics and Huguenots," said
Squirrel. "And between Bretons and Normans and Provençals and Parisians and a
weird little group of Poitevin fanatics."
"That's the French," said Moose. "They may not know what's right, but they
know everybody else is wrong."
"What about the Americans?" asked Alvin. "I hear English on the street more
than French or Spanish."
"That depends on the street," said Moose. "But you're right, this city has
more English-speakers than any other language. Most of them know they're just
visitors here. The Americans and Yankees and English care about money, mostly.
Make their fortune and head back home."
"The dangerous plotters are the Cavaliers," said Squirrel. "They're hungry
for more land to put into cotton."
"To be worked by more and more slaves," said Alvin.
"And to restore some glory to a king who can't get his country back," said
Squirrel.
"The Cavaliers are the ones who want to start a fight," said Papa Moose.
"They're the ones who hope that a revolution here would make the king step in to
bail them out -- or maybe they're already sponsored by the king so he'd just use
them as an excuse to send in an army. There's rumors of an army gathering in the
Crown Colonies, supposedly to guard the border with the United States but maybe
it's bound for Barcy. It's one and the same -- if the King came in here, in
control of the mouth of the Mizzippy ..."
Alvin understood. "The United States would have to fight, just to keep the
river open."
"And any war between the U.S. and the Crown Colonies would turn into a war
over slavery," said Papa Moose. "Even though parts of the United States allow
slavery, too. Free-state Americans may not care enough to go to war to free the
blacks, but if they won the war, I doubt they'd be so stone-hearted as to leave
the slaves in chains."
"Does all this have anything to do with Steve Austin's expedition to Mexico?"
asked Alvin.
They both hooted with laughter. "Austin the Conqueror!" said Papa Moose.
"Thinks he can take over Mexico with a couple of hundred Cavaliers and
Americans."
"He thinks dark-skinned people are no match for white," said Squirrel. "It's
the kind of thing slaveowners can fool themselves into believing, what with
black folks cowering to them all day."
"So you don't think Austin and his friends amount to anything."
"I think," said Papa Moose, "that if they try to invade Mexico, they'll be
killed to the last man."
Alvin thought back to his encounter with Austin, and, more memorably, with
Jim Bowie, one of Austin's men. A killer, he was. And the world wouldn't be
impoverished if the Mexica killed him, though Alvin couldn't wish such a cruel
death on anyone. Still, given what Alvin knew about Bowie, he wondered if the
man would ever let himself be taken by such enemies. For all Alvin knew, Bowie
would emerge from the encounter with half the Mexica worshiping him as a
particularly bloodthirsty new god.
"Doesn't sound like there's much useful for me to do," said Alvin. "Margaret
don't need me to gather information -- she always knows more than I do about
what other folks aim to do."
"It kind of reassures me to have you here," said Squirrel. "Iffen your Peggy
sent you here, stands to reason this is the safest place to be."
Alvin bowed his head. He would have been angry if he didn't fear that what
she said was so. Hadn't Margaret watched over him from her childhood on? Back
when she was Horace Guester's daughter Little Peggy, didn't she use his birth
caul to use his own powers to save him from the dealings of the Unmaker? But it
galled him to think that she might be sheltering him, and shamed him to think
that other folks assumed that it was so.
Arthur Stuart spoke up sharp. "You don't know Peggy iffen you think that," he
said. "She don't send Alvin, not
nowhere. Now and then she asks
him to go, and when she does, it's because it's a place where his knack is
needed. She sends him into danger as often as not, and them as think otherwise
don't know Peggy and they don't know Al."
Al, thought Alvin. First time the boy ever called him by that nickname. But he couldn't be mad
at him for disrespect in the midst of the boy defending him so hot.
Papa Moose chuckled. "I sort of stopped listening at 'not nowhere.' I thought
Margaret Larner would've done a better job of learning you good grammar."
"Did you understand me or not?" said Arthur Stuart.
"Oh, I understood, all right."
"Then my grammar was sufficient to the task."
At that echo of Margaret's teaching they all laughed -- including, after a
moment, Arthur Stuart himself.
During the day Alvin busied himself with repairs around the house. With his
mind he convinced the termites and borers to leave, and shucked off the mildew
on the walls. He found the weak spots in the foundation and with his mind
reshaped them till they were strong. When he was done with his doodlebug
examining the roof, there wasn't a leak or a spot where light shone through, and
all around the house every window was tight, with not a draft coming in or out.
Even the privy was spic and span, though the privy pot itself could still be
found with your eyes closed.
All the while he used his makery to heal the house, he used his arms to chop
and stack wood and do other outward tasks -- turning the cow out to eat such
grass as there was, milking it, skimming the milk, cheesing some of it, churning
the cream into butter. He had learned to be a useful man, not just a man of one
trade. And if, when he was done milking her, the cow was remarkably healthy with
udders that gave far more milk than normal from eating the same amount of hay,
who was to say it was Alvin did anything to cause it?
Only one part of the household did Alvin leave unhealed: Papa Moose's foot.
You don't go meddling with a man's body, not unless he asks. And besides, this
man was well known in Barcy. If he suddenly walked like a normal man, what would
people think?
Meanwhile, Arthur Stuart ran such errands for the house as a sharp-witted,
trusted slave boy might be sent on. And as he went he kept his ears open. People
said things in front of slaves. English-speakers especially said things in front
of slaves who seemed to speak only Spanish, and Spanish-speakers in front of
English-speaking slaves. The French talked in front of anybody.
Barcy was an easy town for a young half-black bilingual spy. Being far more
educated and experienced in great affairs than the children of the house of
Moose and Squirrel, Arthur Stuart was able to recognize the significance of
things that would have sailed right past them.
The tidbits he brought home about this party or that, rebellions and plots
and quarrels and reconciliations, they added but little to what Papa Moose and
Mama Squirrel already knew about the goings on in Barcy.
The only information they might not have had was of a different nature:
rumors and gossip about them and their house. And this was hardly of a nature
that he would be happy to bring home to them.
All their elaborate efforts to abide by the strict letter of the law had paid
off well enough. Nobody wasted any breath wondering whether their house was an
orphanage or a school for bastard children of mixed races, nor did anyone do
more than scoff at the idea that Mama Squirrel was the natural mother of any of
the children, let alone all of them. Nobody was much exercised about it one way
or another. The law might be filled with provisions to keep black folks ignorant
and chained, but it was only enforced when somebody cared enough to complain,
and nobody did.
Not because anybody approved, but because they had much darker worries about
the house of Moose and Squirrel. The fact that the miracle water a few days ago
had appeared in the public fountain nearest that house had been duly noted. So
had the traffic in strangers, and nobody was fooled by the fact that it was a
boardinghouse -- too many of the visitors came and went in only an hour. "How
fast can a body sleep, anyway?" said one of the skeptics. "They're spies, that's
what they are."
But spies for whom? Some were close to the target, guessing that they were
abolitionists or Quakers or New England Puritans, here to subvert the Proper
Order of Man, as slavery was euphemistically called in pulpits throughout the
slave lands. Others had them as spies for the King or for the Lord Protector or
even, in the most fanciful version, for the evil Reds of Lolla-Wossiky across
the fog-covered river. It didn't help that Papa Moose was crippled. His strange
dipping-and-rolling walk made him all the more suspicious in their eyes.
There were more than a few who believed like gospel the story that Moose and
Squirrel trained their houseful of children as pickpockets and cutpurses,
sneakthieves and nightburglars. They were full of talk about how there was coin
and silverware and jewelry and strange golden artifacts hidden all in the walls
and crawlspaces of the house, or under the privy, or even buried in the ground,
though it would take six kinds of fool to try to bury anything in Barcy, the
land being so low and wet that anything buried in it was likely to drift away in
underground currents or bob to the surface like the corpse of a drowned man.
Most of the stories, though, were darker still -- tales of children being
taken into the house for dark rites that required the eyes or tongues or hearts
or private parts of little children, the younger the better, and black only when
white wasn't available. With such vile sacrifices they conjured up the devil, or
the gods of the Mexica, or African gods, or ancient hobgoblins of European myth.
They sent succubi and incubi abroad in Barcy -- as if it took magic to make
folks in Barcy get humpty thoughts. They cursed any citizens of Barcy as
interfered with anyone from that house, so those wandering children was best
left alone -- lessen you wanted your soup to always boil over, or a plague of
flies or skeeters, or some sickness to fall upon you, or your cow to die, or
your house to sink into the ground as happened from time to time.
Most folks didn't quite believe these tales, Arthur Stuart guessed, and them
as did believe was too scared to do anything about it, not by themselves, not in
a way that their identity might be discovered and vengeance taken. Still, it was
a dangerous situation, and even though Mama Squirrel joked about some of the
rumors, Arthur Stuart reckoned they didn't have any idea of how important their
house was in the dark mythology of Nueva Barcelona.
It was a sure thing they never heard such talk directly. While he was still
introducing himself as being the servant of a man staying at the house of Moose
and Squirrel, people would be real cooperative but say nothing in his presence
about that house. That was no help, so he soon started telling folks the equally
true story that he was the servant of an American trader who came down the
Mizzippy last week, and then it didn't take much to get folks talking about
strange things in Barcy, or dangers to avoid. And it wasn't just slave chat.
White folks told all the same stories of Moose and Squirrel.
"Don't you think it's dangerous?" Arthur Stuart asked Alvin one night, as
they were both in bed and going to sleep. "I mean, anything bad goes wrong, and
folks are gonna blame these good people for it. Do they know what folks think of
them?"
"I expect they do, but as with many warnings and ill portents, they get used
to them and stop taking them serious till all of a sudden it's too late," said
Alvin. "It's how cats stalk their prey, if you've noticed. They don't hide. They
move up so slow and hold still so long that their prey gets used to them and
thinks, well, it hasn't harmed me so far. And then all at once they
pounce, no warning at all. Except there's been plenty of warning, iffen that
poor bird or mouse had had the brains to just get up and move."
"So you see it my way. They gotta get out of here," said Arthur Stuart.
"Oh, sure," said Alvin. "They think so, too. The only difference of opinion
is about when this great
migration ought to occur. And how they're supposed to get some fifty children of
every race out of town without nobody taking notice of just how far they've
flouted the race laws. And what about money? Think they've got the passage for a
riverboat north? Think they can swim Lake Pontchartrain and fetch up in some
friendly plantation that'll be oh so happy to let a whole passel of free black
children stay the night in their barn?"
Arthur was annoyed that Alvin made it sound like he was dumb to have wanted
them to git. "I didn't say it'd be easy."
"I know," said Alvin. "I was exasperated at my own self. Because you know
what I think? I think Peggy sent me here for exactly that purpose. To get them
out of here. Only I didn't guess it till you thought of it."
"Three things," said Arthur Stuart.
"I'm listening."
"First. It's about time you realized what a brilliant asset I am on this
trip."
"Shiny as a gallstone," said Alvin.
"Second. There's no chance this is what Peggy sent you for. Because if that was what she had in mind, she
would've told you. And then you could have told them that she'd given warning,
and they'd do whatever it took. As it is, they're just gonna fight you every
step of the way, since they don't think you and me is so almighty smart that we
can see how things are in Barcy better than they can."
Alvin grinned. "Hey, you're getting to be almost worth how much it costs to
feed you."
"Good thing, cause I got no plan to eat less."
"Well, it'll still take you ten years to make up for how much I've wasted on
you up to now when you wasn't worth a hair on a pig's butt."
"So this ain't what Peggy wants us to do," said Arthur Stuart, "and we can be
pretty sure Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel don't want us to do it. So the way I
see it, that makes it just about our number one priority."
"I'll talk to them."
"That always works."
"It's a start."
"And then you'll sing to them? Cause that might do more toward getting them
to move out."
"So what's the third thing?" asked Alvin. "You said three things."
Arthur had to think for a second. Oh, yes. He wanted to ask Alvin why he
hadn't done anything about Papa Moose's foot. But now it seemed pretty silly to
ask. Because wasn't as if Alvin hadn't noticed Moose's club foot. He'd have to
be blind not to notice it. And it's not as if Alvin didn't know what he could or
couldn't heal.
And besides, there was something else.
Wasn't Arthur supposed to be a prentice maker?
"Just my suggestion about singing to them," said Arthur.
Alvin grinned. "So you changed your mind about the third thing."
"For now," said Arthur Stuart. "I already used up all my brains thinking up
how you ought to talk to Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel.
But there wasn't a chance to talk to Moose and Squirrel about it, because
next morning five of the children were sick, screaming with pain, shaking with
chills, burning up with fever. By nightfall there were six more, and the first
ones had yellow eyes.
"Walking on Water" is Copyright © 2003 by Orson Scott Card. All rights
reserved.