Introduction
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.)
Part 1
Nueva Barcelona
It seemed like everybody and his brother was in Nueva Barcelona these days.
It was steamboats, mostly, that brought them. Even though the fog on the
Mizzippy made it so a white man couldn't cross the river to the west bank, the
steamboats could make the trip up and down the channel, carrying goods and
passengers -- which was the same as saying they carried money and laid it into
the laps of whoever happened to be running things at the river's mouth.
These days that meant the Spanish, officially, anyway. They owned Nueva
Barcelona and it had their troops all over it.
But the very presence of those troops said something. One thing it said was
that the Spanish weren't so sure they could hold on to the city. Wasn't that
many years since the place was called New Orleans and there was still plenty of
places in the city where you better speak French or you couldn't find a bite to
eat or a place to sleep -- and if you spoke Spanish there, you might just wake
up with your throat slit.
It didn't surprise Alvin much to hear Spanish and French mingling on the
docks. What surprised him was that practically everybody was talking English --
usually with heavy accents, but it was English, all the same.
"Guess you learnt all that Spanish for nothing, Arthur Stuart," said Alvin to
the half-black boy who was pretending to be his slave.
"Maybe so, maybe not," said Arthur Stuart. "Not like it cost me nothing to
learn it."
Which was true. It had been disconcerting to Alvin to realize how easily the
boy had picked up Spanish from a Cuban slave on the steamboat that brought them
downriver. It was a good knack to have, and Alvin didn't have it himself, not a
lick. Being a maker was good, but it wasn't everything. Not that Alvin needed
reminding of that. There were days when he thought being a maker wasn't worth a
wad of chawn tobackey on the parlor floor. With all his power, he hadn't been
able to save the life of his baby, had he? Oh, he tried, but when it was born a
couple of months too soon, he couldn't figure out how to fix its lungs from the
inside so it could breathe. Turned blue and died without ever drawing air into
it. No, being a maker wasn't worth that much.
Now Margaret was pregnant again, but neither she nor Alvin saw much of each
other these days. Her so busy trying to prevent a bloody war over slavery. Him
so busy trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with his life. Nothing
he'd ever tried to do had worked out too well. And this trip to Nueva Barcelona
was gonna end up just as pointless, he was sure of it.
Only good thing about it was running into Abe and Coz on the journey. But now
they were in Barcy, he'd lose track of them and it'd just be him and Arthur
Stuart, continuing in their long term project of showing that you can have all
the power in the world, but it wasn't worth much if you was too dumb to figure
out what to do with it or how to share it with anybody else.
"You got that look again, Alvin," said Arthur Stuart.
"What look is that?"
"Like you need to piss but you're afraid it's gonna come out in chunks."
Alvin slapped him lightly upside his head. "You can't talk that way to me in
this town."
"Nobody heard me."
"They don't have to hear you to see your attitude," said Alvin. "Cocky as a
squirrel. Look around you -- you see any black folks actin' like that?"
"I'm only half black."
"You only got to be one-sixteenth black to be black in this town."
"Dang it, Alvin, how do any of these folks know they ain't one-sixteenth
black? Nobody knows their great-great-grandparents."
"What do you want to bet all the white folks in Barcy can recite their
ancestry back all the way?"
"What do you want to bet they made up most of it?"
"Act like you're afraid I'll whip you, Arthur Stuart."
"Why should I, when you never act like you're gonna?"
Now, that was a challenge, and Alvin took it up. He meant just to pretend to
be mad, just a kind of roar and raise up his hand and that's that. Only when he
did it, there was more in that roar than he meant to put there. And the anger
was real and strong and he had to force himself not to lash out at the boy.
It was all so real that Arthur Stuart get a look of genuine fear in his eyes,
and he really did cower under the threatened blow.
But Alvin got control of himself and the blow didn't fall.
"You did a pretty good job of looking scared," said Alvin, laughing
nervously.
"I wasn't acting," said Arthur Stuart softly. "Were you?"
"Am I that good at it you have to ask?"
"No. You're a pretty bad liar, most times. You was mad."
"Yep, I was. But not at you, Arthur Stuart."
"At who, then?"
"Tell you the truth, I don't know. Didn't even know I was mad, till I started trying to mime
it."
At that moment, a large hand took a hold of Alvin's shoulder -- not a harsh
grip, but a strong one all the same. Not many men had hands so big they could
hold a blacksmith's shoulder afore and behind.
"Abe," said Alvin.
"I was just wonderin' what I just saw here," said Abe. "I look over at my two
friends pretendin' to be master and slave, and what do I see?"
"Oh, he beats me all the time," said Arthur Stuart, "when no one's looking."
"I reckon I might have to start," said Alvin, "just so's you won't be such a
liar."
"So it was play-acting?" asked Abe.
It shamed Alvin to have this good man even wonder, specially after spending a
week together going down the Mizzippy. And maybe some of that pent-up anger was
still close to the surface, because he found himself answering right sharp. "Not
only was it play-acting," said Alvin, "but it was also our business."
"And none of mine?" said Abe. "Reckon so. None of my business when one of my
friends reaches out to strike another. Guess a good man's gotta just stand by
and watch."
"Didn't hit him," said Alvin. "Wasn't going to."
"But now you want to hit me," said Abe.
"No," said Alvin. "Now I want to go find me a cheap inn and put up my poke
afore we find something to eat. I hear Barcy's a good town for eatin', as long
as you don't mind having fish that looks like bugs."
"Was that an invitation to a meal?" said Abe. "Or an invitation to go away
and let you get about your business?"
"Mostly it was an invitation to change the subject," said Alvin. "Though I'd
be glad to have you and Coz dine with us at whatever fine establishment we
locate."
"Oh, Coz won't be joinin' us. Coz just found the love of his life, a-waitin'
for him right on the pier."
"You mean that trashy lady he was a-talkin' to?" asked Arthur Stuart.
"I suggested to him that he might hold out for a cleaner grade of whore,"
said Abe, "but he denied that she was one, and she agreed that she had plain
fallen in love with him the moment she saw him. So I figger I'll see Coz
sometime tomorrow morning, drunk and robbed."
"Glad to know he's got you to look out for him, Abe," said Alvin.
"But I did," said Abe. He held up a wallet. "I picked his pocket first, so
he's got no more than three dollars left on him for her to rob."
Alvin and Arthur both laughed at that.
"Is that your knack?" asked Arthur Stuart. "Pickin' pockets?"
"No sir," said Lincoln. "It don't take no knack to rob Coz. He wouldn't
notice if you picked his nose. Not if there was a girl making big-eyes at him."
"But the girl would notice," said Alvin.
"Mebbe, but she didn't say nothing."
"And since she was planning on getting what was in that wallet herself," said
Alvin, "seeing as how you two already sold your whole cargo and she no doubt saw
you get the money and divvy it up, don't you think she would have said
something?"
"So I reckon she didn't see me."
"Or she did but didn't care."
Abe thought about that for a second. "I reckon what you're saying is I oughta
look inside this-here wallet."
"You could do that," said Alvin.
Abe opened it up. "I'm jiggered," he said. Of course it was empty.
"You're jug-eared, too," said Alvin, "but your real friends would never point
that out."
"So she already got him."
"Oh, I don't suppose she ever laid a hand on him," said Alvin. "But a girl
like that, she probably doesn't work alone. She makes big-eyes ..."
"And her partner goes for the pockets," said Arthur Stuart.
"You sound experienced," said Abe.
"We watch for it," said Arthur Stuart. "We both kind of like to catch 'em at
it, iffen we can."
"So why didn't you catch them robbin' Coz?"
"We didn't know you needed lookin' after," said Arthur Stuart.
Abe looked at him with calculated indignation. "Next time you go to beatin'
this boy, Al Smith, would you be so kind as to lay down one extra wallop on my
behalf?"
"Get your own half-black adopted brother-in-law to beat," said Alvin.
"Besides," said Arthur Stuart, "you do need lookin' after."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because you still haven't thought about how Coz wasn't the only one distracted by her big
fluttery eyes."
Abe slapped at his jacket pocket. For a moment he was relieved to find his
wallet still there. But then he realized that Coz's wallet had been there, too.
It took only a moment to discover that he and Coz had both been robbed.
"And they had the sass to put the wallets back," said Abe, sounding
awestruck.
"Well, don't feel bad," said Arthur Stuart. "It was probably the pickpocket's
knack, so what could you do about it?"
Abe sat himself right down on the dock, which was quite an operation, seeing
how he was so tall and bony that just getting himself into a sitting position
involved nearly knocking three or four people into the water.
"Well, ain't this a grand holiday," said Abe. "Ain't I just the biggest rube
you ever saw. First I made a raft that can't be steered, so you had to save me.
And then when I sell my cargo and make the money I came for, I let somebody take
it away from us first thing."
"So," said Alvin, "let's go eat."
"How?" said Abe. "I haven't got a penny. I haven't even got a return
passage."
"Oh, we'll treat you to supper," said Alvin.
"I can't let you do that," said Abe.
"Why not?"
"Because then I'd be in your debt."
"We saved your stupid life on the river, Abe Lincoln," said Alvin. "You're
already so far in my debt that you owe me interest on your breath."
Abe thought about that for a moment. "Well, then, I reckon it's in for a
penny, in for a pound."
"The American version of that is 'in for a dime, in for a dollar,'" said
Arthur Stuart helpfully.
"But my mama's version was the one I said," retorted Abe. "And since I got
exactly as many pennies and pounds as I got dimes and dollars, I reckon I can
please myself which ones to cuss with."
"You mean that was cussin'?"
said Arthur Stuart.
"Inside me there was cussin' so bad it'd make a sailor poke sticks in his own
ears to keep from hearin' it," said Abe. "Pennies and pounds was just the part I
let out."
All this while, of course, Alvin had been using his doodlebug to go in search
of the thieves. First thing was to find Coz, of course, partly because the woman
might still be with him, and partly to make sure he hadn't been harmed. Alvin
found his heartfire just as he was getting clubbed in the head in a back alley.
It wasn't no hard thing to make it so the club didn't do him much harm. Put him
down on the ground convincingly enough, so they wouldn't feel no need to give
him another lick with it, but Coz'd wake up without so much as a headache.
Meanwhile, though, the woman and the man was strolling off as easy as you
please. So Alvin searched them with his doodlebug and found the money fast
enough. It was no great difficulty to make the man's pocket and the woman's bag
unweave themselves a little, and it wasn't much harder to make the gold coins
all slippery. Nor was it so hard to keep them from making a single sound when
they hit the wharf. The tricky thing was to keep the coins from slipping through
the cracks between the planks and falling into the slack water under the dock.
Arthur Stuart, of course, had enough experience and training now that he was
able to follow pretty much what Alvin was doing. That was why he was stringing
out the conversation long enough to give Alvin time to get the job done.
In a way, thought Alvin, we're just like that pair of thieves. Arthur
Stuart's the stall, keeping Abe busy so he doesn't have a clue what's going on,
and I'm the cutpurse and pickpocket. Only difference is, we're sort of unstealing what was already stolen.
"Let's go eat, then," said Arthur Stuart, "instead of talking about eatin'."
"Where shall we go to find food that we can stand to eat?" said Alvin.
"This way, I think," said Arthur Stuart, heading directly toward the alleyway
where the coins had all been spilled.
"Oh, that doesn't look too promising," said Abe.
"Trust me," said Arthur Stuart. "I got a nose for good food."
"He does," said Alvin. "And I got the tongue and lips and teeth for it."
"I'll happily provide the belly," offered Abe.
They had him lead the way down the alley. And blamed if he didn't just walk
right past the money.
"Abe," said Alvin. "Didn't you see them gold coins a-lyin' there?"
"They ain't mine," said Abe.
"Finders keepers, losers weepers," said Arthur Stuart.
"I may be a loser," said Abe, "but I ain't weepin'."
"But you're a finder now," said Arthur Stuart, "and I don't see you doin' no
keepin'."
Abe looked at them a bit askance. "I reckon we ought to pick up these coins
and search out their proper owner. No doubt somebody's going to be right sorry
for a hole in his pocket."
"Reckon so," said Alvin, bending over to pick up a few coins. Arthur Stuart
was doing the same, and pretty soon they had them all. It was quite a bit of
money, when you had it all together.
"Gotta carry it somewhere," said Alvin. "Why don't you put it into those
empty wallets you got?"
Alvin fully expected that Abe would realize, when he started loading it in,
that it was exactly the amount that had been stolen.
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 chuckle-headed 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.
"Walking on Water" is Copyright © 2003 by Orson Scott Card. All rights
reserved.
