The Crystal City

11

Flood

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 other way, 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?

Just before they got within sight of the house, Arthur stopped them. "There's four grown men in this house, and six women. And no shortage of guns. And no children."

That was a bad sign, Marie knew. The children most likely had been sent away.

"Good sign," said La Tia. "They don't sent away the women. They don't think we come tonight."

"Fog as soon as I get inside," Marie reminded Arthur Stuart.

He squeezed her hand. "Count on me," he said.

Then he let go and she walked alone down the road and turned up the long drive to the house.

Long before she got to the house she had been spotted and three men were on the porch, holding muskets.

"You crazy, girl?" said the oldest of them. "Don't you know there's an army of raping and pillaging runaways coming this way?"

"My papa's wagon overturned up the road, I need help."

"Your papa's out of luck," said the biggest of the men. "We, ain't leaving this porch for nobody."

"But he's hurt, when he try to stand up, he falls down."

"What's that accent?" said the youngest man. "You French?"

"My parents are from Nueva Barcelona," she said.

"Being a Frenchwoman in these parts ain't such a good idea this week."

She smiled at them. "Can I change who I am? Oh, you must help me. At least send a couple of servants with me to help right the wagon and bring my father here, can't you do that?"

"Slaves are all locked up, ready to be marched away in the morning, and we ain't letting any of them out on the road, neither," said the big man.

"Then I see that Providence brought me to a house with no Christian charity," she said. She turned her back and started back down the road.

It sort of made sense that when she seemed willing to leave, that was what convinced them. "Ain't never turned folks in trouble away from my house before," said the old man.

"Ain't never been no slave revolt, neither," said the big man.

"But even during a time of slave revolt," said the young man, "wagons can still overturn and honest men can still be hurt and need help."

Marie didn't like lying to these men. The old man wanted to be kind, and the young man wanted to trust her. The big man was doing no worse than looking after his people. And since his suspicions were all completely justified, it hardly seemed fair that he was the one made to seem uncharitable. Well, it would all be clear soon enough. She hoped that this one bad experience would not put them off helping their neighbor in the future. It would be a shame if their journey did nothing but make the world worse.

"Come back," shouted the old man.

"No, stay there!" shouted the big man. "We'll go with you." And he and the young man bounded down from the porch and started trotting toward her.

This was not the plan. What would she do with them out here? "But we need to bring him water."

"Plenty of time for that when we've got him to the house."

Now they were beside her, and there was nothing she could do but lead them down the drive.

Suddenly a fog came up. Out of nowhere, and then there was a chill in the air and a fog so thick she couldn't even see the men beside her.

"What the hell," said the big man.

"I can't see my feet on the drive," said the young man.

Marie, however, said nothing, for the moment the fog came in, she turned around and started walking back toward the house.

In a moment she was out of the fog. She did not glance back to see what it looked like, to have a single thick cloud- she wondered if it was like the Bible story, a pillar of smoke.

The old man wasn't on the porch.

And then, as she got closer, there he was, with a musket in his hands. "I know devil's work when I see it, you witch!" he shouted.

He fired the musket.

It was pointed right at her. And the barrel was not soft. She thought she must surely die on this spot.

But when the noise of the gunshot died down, she felt nothing, and kept walking toward the porch.

That was when the lead bullet popped out of the barrel of the musket and went maybe two yards and plunked on the ground. It made a pool of lead there, flat as a silver dollar.

"I'm no witch," she said. "And you are a kind and good man. Do you think anybody will hurt you or the people you love? Nobody will hurt anybody."

From inside the fog came shouts. "Who's shooting! Where's the house?"

Now she did look back. Two thick clouds barely taller than a man were moving swiftly across the lawns, but neither one was headed for the porch, and neither one was holding a straight course, either.

"We heard what you done in those other places, you liar!" shouted the old man.

"You heard lies," she said. "Think about it. If we killed everybody, who would tell you there was two French women and two slaves that came to the door? That's what you were watching for, no?"

The old man was no fool. He could listen pretty well.

"We want food," she said. "And we will have food from this house. You have plenty, but we don't take all. Your neighbors will help you replenish the lack. And you won't need as much food, anyway."

"Because you're gonna take all our slaves, is that it?"

"Take them?" said Marie. "We can't take them. What would we do, put them in our apron pockets? We let them travel with us if they choose to. If they choose to stay with you, then they can stay. They do what they want, like the children of God that they are."

"Abolitionist bastards," said the old man.

"Abolitionists, yes. In my case, also a bastard." She deliberately pronounced the word with a thick French accent. "And you, a man who knows to be kind to strangers, but keeps human beings as property. Even as you do it to the least of these, my brethren."

"Don't quote scripture to me," said the old man. "Steal from us if you want, but don't pretend to be holy when you do it."

She was standing on the porch now, facing the old man. She heard the door swing open behind her. She heard the click of a hammer striking the Hint. She heard the sizzle of the gunpowder in the pan.

And then the plop of the bullet hitting the porch.

"Damn," said a woman's voice.

"You would have murdered me," said Marie without turning around.

"We shoot trespassers around here."

"We don't hurt personne, but you with murder in your heart," said Marie, and she turned to face the woman. "What is your food, that you could shoot a woman in the back for asking you to share it?" She reached out a hand toward the trembling woman, who cowered against the door. She touched the woman's shoulder. "You have your health," said Marie. "That's good. Treasure it, to be so strong, no disease in you. Live a long life."

Then she turned to the old man and reached out to him. Took his bare hand in hers. "Oh, you're a strong man," she said. "But you're short of breath, yes?"

"I'm an old man," he said. "Ain't hard to guess I'm short of breath."

"And you have pains in your chest. You try to ignore them, yes? But they come again in a few months, and then a few months. Put your house in order, say your good-byes, you good man. You will see God in only a few weeks time."

He looked her hard in the eyes. "Why you cursing me?" he said. "What did I ever do to you?"

"I'm not cursing you," she said. "I have no such power, to kill or not kill. I only touch a person and I know if they are sick and if they will die of it. You are sick. You will die of it. In your sleep. But I know you are a generous man, and many will mourn your death, and your family will remember you with love."

Tears filled the old man's eyes. "What kind of thief are you?"

"A hungry one," she said, "or otherwise I would not steal, not me, not any of us."

The old man turned and looked down onto the lawn. Marie assumed he was looking at the other two men, or at the clouds that enclosed them, but no. While they were talking, Arthur and La Tia and Mother must have opened the slaves' quarters and now the house was surrounded by black men and women and children. The clouds no longer surrounded the two white men. Unarmed, they were standing inside the circle.

Arthur Stuart stepped forward and held out his hand. As if he expected a white slaveowner to shake with a black man. "My name is Arthur Stuart," he said.

The old man hooted. "You trying to tell us you're the King?"

Arthur shrugged. "I was telling you my name. I'm also telling you that none of the guns in that house is gonna work, and the man waiting just inside the door with a big old piece of boardwood to bat me or Marie in the head, he might as well put it down, because it won't hurt nobody any more than getting hit with a piece of paper or a dry sponge."

Marie heard somebody inside the house utter a curse, and a thick heavy piece of wood was flung out the door onto the lawn.

"Please let us come inside," she said. "My mother and my friends and I. Let us sit down and talk about how to do this without hurting anyone and without leaving you with nothing."

"I know the best way," said the old man. "Just go away and leave us be."

"We have to go somewhere," said Marie. "We have to eat something. We have to sleep the night."

"But why us?" he said.

"Why not you?" she answered. "God will bless you ten times for what you share with us today."

"If I'm going to die as soon as you say, let me leave a good place to my sons and daughters."

"Without slaves," said Marie, "this will finally be a good place."

Later, with the family not locked up, and everyone safely fed and sleeping, Marie had a chance to talk with Arthur Stuart. "Thank you for giving me the fog when I needed it, instead of waiting till I was in the house."

"Can't expect plans to work out when other people don't know their part," he said with a grin. "You done great, though."

She smiled back at him. She had done a good job. But she had never before known what it felt like to be told so. Not till this trip. Not till Alvin and Arthur Stuart. Oh, they had such powers, such knacks. But the one that impressed her the most was the power to fill her heart the way their kind words did.

A group of reds took Alvin back across the Mizzippy in a canoe-a much better journey this time. They took Alvin downriver a ways, to a place just upstream of the port town of Red Stick. The river took a deep bight there, so Alvin had only a short walk through pretty dry country to get to the town. Meanwhile the reds got away without being seen by any white man. Up north in the United States, reds were a common enough sight, seeing how they were the majority of people in the states of Irrakwa and Cherriky. But they mostly dressed like white folks. And here in the deep south, where the Crown Colonies had more sway, reds didn't show up much, specially not the ones from across river, who still dressed in the old way. It frightened the white folks to see them, those rare times they showed their faces. Savages, that's how they looked, and people reached for their guns and began ringing church bells in alarm.

But a lone white man, dressed like what he was, a journeyman blacksmith, and carrying a heavy poke slung on his shoulder, nobody paid no mind to him.

Besides, there was bigger news afoot. The governor's expedition had just arrived, and suddenly Red Stick was swollen with hundreds of bored militiamen, some of whom had lost their enthusiasm for slogging through back country and fighting runaway slaves. In fact, their enthusiasm waned in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol in their blood, and Colonel Adan wasn't such a disciplinarian that he didn't see the wisdom of keeping these men just a little likkered up. So they were in the saloons, with Spanish soldiers attempting to enforce a two-drink limit so they weren't too drunk to march. Nobody was looking to see the leader of the very group they came to destroy walking all by himself through the streets of town.

It wasn't much trouble for Alvin to size things up. He was pleased that none of the men from Steve Austin's company were there. Those were hard men who knew how to kill and didn't mind doing it. These men, by contrast, were quick to brag and boast about what they were gonna do, and what they had done, but the actual doing wasn't all that attractive to them.

Alvin toyed with the idea of walking right in to Colonel Adan's stateroom on one of the steamboats and telling him, you show up day after tomorrow right here and you can see us cross the river and leave you up to your necks in mud. But there was a good chance Adan would simply have Alvin hanged or shot instead of locking him up, and while Alvin could probably get himself out of it, what was the point?

Fighting the Unmaker in gator form had taken a lot of the combativeness out of Alvin. The part of him that looked forward to a good rassle was pretty much used up for the nonce, and so he'd find a quieter way of doing the same job.

So he went into a saloon and leaned against the bar right by the Spanish officer who was supervising. "So you know where them runaways actually is?" he asked.

"They don't tell me," said the officer, his English thickly accented.

"Well, the thing is, I think I know," said Alvin. "At least I got a pretty good rumor. But I don't want to go tell it to Colonel Adan myself, on account of he's bound to think I look like a soldier and try to jine me up."

The officer looked at him coldly. "What do we care for this rumor?"

"Don't that all depend on who's doing the gossiping? I mean, any of these drunks in here, they can tell you the runaways is on the moon for all it matters, 'cause they don't know squat. Me, though, I got my rumor from a couple of reds who was smuggling furs across the river upstream, and they said they seen a bunch of free blacks not far inland."

The officer still looked scornful. "Smuggling furs? And they did not kill you?"

"Well, maybe they would have, except there was only two of them, and I'm not a little fellow, and besides, they wanted me to tell you what they seen."

"And why would they care?"

"Because if them runaways is heading for the river, it might be they got it in their heads to cross it, like they crossed Lake Pontchartrain. They got some wizards with them, I hear. Queen La Tia, I hear. So maybe they can squelch that fog and get across. And them reds don't fancy a bunch of free blacks and scum-of-the-earth Frenchmen trying to set up on their side of the river."

"So you are, what... a messenger?"

Alvin shrugged. "I had my say. Who you tell now is none of my howdy do."

The officer reached out and seized Alvin by the arm. The man had a strong grip. Of course, Alvin could have thrown him off without hardly even thinking about it, but he didn't want a fight right here.

"I think you need to come outside and tell me a little more," said the officer.

"And while you're out there, you can bet these men will all get two more cups and then they'll be pissing and puking the whole way upriver."

"Come with me."

Alvin went along peaceful enough. The officer had two other soldiers in that saloon, and they came outside, too. At once the noise level inside increased-those forbidden drinks getting ordered, no doubt. The price of rum and whiskey was bound to soar in Red Stick, on account of the scarcity they'd have by nightfall.

Outside the saloon, the officer had the soldiers hold Alvin. "I think you better come tell your story to Colonel Adan yourself."

"I told you before, that's what I don't want to do."

"If you do not lie, then he must know this."

"I ain't lying, and I can't think why them reds would lie, but I'll tell you where they said. You go around this first big bight in the river, and then take the second big curve, and where it comes east again, that's the place."

"Telling me is a waste of time," said the officer.

"But you're the only one that's gonna get told," said Alvin. Whereupon he pulled his arms free and elbowed both soldiers in the chin, knocking their heads back against the wooden wall of the saloon. One dropped like a rock, the other staggered away, and Alvin reached out and took the officer's side-arm away from him.

The officer stepped back and drew his sword.

"No no," said Alvin. "If you kill me, then what will you tell the colonel?"

In answer, the officer slashed with his sword.

Alvin sidestepped, then took the sword out of the officer's hand and broke the blade across his knee. It pained him to do it with a blade as fine as that-Spanish steel was still a thing to be proud of-and he didn't like smacking those soldiers, either. But he had to get away as a regular fellow might, and not with any obvious makery, or the colonel might realize he was getting set up or maybe just think he was being sent on a wild goose chase.

The officer cried out as if it had been his arm, not his sword, that was broke in two. Alvin jogged away while the officer bawled, "Siga lo! Siga lo!" But his men were in no shape to follow, and in a couple of minutes Alvin was out of sight behind buildings and heading for woodland as fast as he could go.

Arthur Stuart woke up from someone shaking him. "Who's-"

"Shh, don't wake the others yet."

It was Alvin. Arthur Stuart sat up. "Boy am I glad to-"

"What part of shhhh didn't you get?"

"There's nobody nearby," said Arthur. But he talked softer, all the same.

"You think," said Alvin. "But Dead Mary, she's only just over there."

"She wasn't when I went to sleep," said Arthur Stuart.

But by now they were both up and walking away into the fog surrounding the camp.

"I just come from Colonel Adan's army," said Alvin. "We got us an appointment at the river tomorrow afternoon."

"We crossing over?"

"Tenskwa-Tawa is granting us right to pass through, and they'll help us get food and shelter without having to take over any more plantations."

"Good," said Arthur Stuart. "I'm sick of it already, folks being so scared of us."

"Guess you're not a natural bully," said Alvin. "And after I tried so hard to teach you."

"Well, it's worked out pretty good so far. Dead Mary's a natural liar, and I'm good at fogging folks and bending musket barrels."

"And La Tia has made some charms," said Alvin.

"They seemed to help. Not like having you march with us."

"Well, I'm here to march with you now. I don't want another stop. I want to get there first. And that means we need to wake everybody now and get moving."

"In the dark?"

"We'll see if it's still dark by the time you get them going."

It took less than an hour to get under way, but that was mostly 'cause Alvin wouldn't let anybody fix any kind of meal. Nursing mothers could nurse, of course, and they could eat whatever bread and cheese and fruit they might have as they walked, but nothing that required cooking or washing or waiting.

Oh, there was plenty of grumbling and some out-and-out surliness, but the past couple of days' marching, with La Tia's charms giving them some good help, had left them feeling hale and ready even with only half a night's sleep.

And now, with Alvin leading the way, the charms worked way better. It really was the greensong now, not just a dim echo of it. Since Arthur Stuart didn't have to mind the fog now, he could join in with it, let it sweep over him.

Before dawn everybody was running along-the adults jogging, the children running full tilt, but everyone keeping up and nobody tired. In the dark they'd run without a soul tripping over a root or straying from the group. Because in the greensong, you always know exactly where you are and where everything else is because it's all part of you and you're part of it.

They ran all morning. They ran all afternoon. They did not stop to eat or drink. They splashed through streams, barely pausing to lift the children who weren't tall enough to ford them. Six thousand people now, with all the slaves at each plantation who had shucked off their bondage to join them. Moving through the woods without need for trail or trace.

The last red of the sunset was just fading from the sky when they came to a low bluff overlooking an eastward curve of the Mizzippy and saw it, more than a mile wide, streaked with red from the sunset.

"We cross in the morning?" asked Arthur Stuart.

"We cross as soon as every last soul is up here on this bluff," said Alvin.

They had spread out a bit during the long day's run, so it was full dark and then some when the colonels reported that everyone was accounted for.

Once again Alvin had Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel and their children at the front, but this time La Tia would be leading them across instead of waiting till last. "Won't be no bridge this time," said Alvin to the council. "We're gonna dam up the river and it's going to look mighty strange, piled up on your right side. Nobody ought to look into it-we got no time for that."

Then Alvin walked to the point of the bluff nearest the water, Arthur Stuart beside him, and raised up a torch.

On the far side of the river, the fog cleared and another torch could be seen, just a wink of light.

"Who's on the other side?" asked Arthur Stuart.

"Tenskwa-Tawa," said Alvin. "He's gonna help me dam the Mizzippy."

"Well," said Arthur Stuart, "I say, dam the Mizzippy all to hell!"

Alvin laughed and then cut open his hand with his own fingernail and flung the blood out over the water.

It looked as if the water leaped right back up into his hand, but it wasn't water, no sir, it was the crystal again, and as Alvin held one end of it, it grew, stretching out like a thin sheet of glass right through the river and across it. Halfway there it was met by crystal from the other side and by then the water on the left side of the dam was flowing away, sinking down, gone.

On the upstream side of the dam, though, the water had risen, and Arthur expected it would start to flow over the top any second. But it didn't. Because, he realized, upstream of the bluff it had spilled over the banks and was flooding the land on the white man's side of the river.

Now Arthur Stuart knew why this spot had been chosen. The bluffs on the other side were higher and extended farther upstream. There'd be no flood on the red side of the river.

"I got a job for you," said Alvin.

"I'm game, if it's something I can handle."

"Colonel Adan is coming up the river with a couple of his boats. He's also sent another bunch of soldiers around by land. Well, those boys are gonna be scrambling to climb trees and find high ground for the next while, but what I worry about is the men on them boats."

"Won't they be left high and dry with the river dammed like this?" said Arthur Stuart.

"They will. But they'll be mighty tempted to get out of them boats and come upstream on foot. And when we let go of this dam, they'll all be drowned."

"Like Pharaoh's chariots."

"I don't want any more dead men on account of this trek," said Alvin. "There's just no call for it, if we give proper warning."

"I'll keep 'em in the boats," said Arthur Stuart.

"I was just asking you to give them advice."

"I'll give them such strong advice everybody takes it."

"Well, on your way to showing off for a bunch of men armed with muskets and artillery," said Alvin, "you might want to dry off that bottom mud so nobody gets stuck crossing over."

And indeed it was sloppy going for the first few people to try going down the bank into the empty river bottom. But Arthur Stuart had learned enough these past days that it wasn't hard for him to evaporate the water in the top layer of mud, making a hard-surfaced dirt road about fifty feet wide- broad enough for a lot of people to cross at once. This would go a lot faster than crossing Pontchartrain.

When La Tia saw what Arthur had done, she let out a whoop of delight and called out, "Everybody move quick! Quick as frogs!" And she began to jog over the new road.

Arthur took only a moment to look at the dam itself. Being such pure crystal, however, it didn't look like any kind of dam. It just looked as if the water simply stopped. Even in the dark, he could see shapes moving in the water. At first he thought it was fish, but then he realized that it was too dark to see anything like that in the water. No, what he was seeing was in the crystal. The same kind of visions that had been so disturbing and hypnotic as people crossed over the bridge at Pontchartrain.

"Don't look at the dam!" shouted Alvin. "Nobody look at the dam!"

Which made everybody look, of course. Look once, and then look away, because there was La Tia and Moose and Squirrel and Dead Mary and Rien, urging them on, hurrying them, hundreds and hundreds of them crossing the river bottom on Arthur's road.

Arthur took off at a jog downriver, not running too fast because he had to dry a path before him or he'd sink. All it took was rounding one bend in the river, and there were the two big riverboats, looking pretty forlorn as they rested right on the bottom.

Already dozens of men were out of the boats, slogging along in thick mud.

"Get back in the boats!" Arthur Stuart shouted.

The men heard him, and some of them stopped and looked around to try to find which bank the voice was coming from.

"Vuelvan-se en los navios!" he shouted again, jogging nearer.

Arthur Stuart wasn't careless. He was just starting to scan the boat for weaponry when he heard a shout of "Atiren!" and saw the flashes of a half dozen muskets on board the first boat. Wasn't he out of range?

Well, he was and he wasn't. The musket balls went far enough, but they had slowed considerably, and the one that hit him didn't go into him all that terribly far. But the spot did happen to be right in the belly, just above his navel, and it hurt worse than the worst stomach ache of his life.

He doubled over and fell to the ground. Careless, foolish ... he cursed himself even as he cried from the pain of it.

But pain or not, he had a mission to perform. Trouble was, with his stomach muscles torn like that, he couldn't work up the strength to shout. Well, he had known persuasion wasn't going to do it, and he already had a plan. When they'd been running with the greensong toward the river, Arthur Stuart had heard and felt and finally seen the heartfires of hundreds and hundreds of gators that lived in the river and its tributaries in this region.

It wasn't hard to call to them. Come to the boats, he told them. Plenty to eat in the boats.

And they came. Whatever they might have thought in their tiny gator brains about the river suddenly disappearing like it did, they understood a supper call.

Trouble was, they had no idea what a "boat" was. They just knew they were getting called and had a vague notion of where the call was coming from and pretty soon they were all headed right for Arthur Stuart. And since he was giving off the smell of blood and looking for all the world like a wounded animal- not unnatural, considering he was wounded-he couldn't blame the gators for thinking he was the meal they'd been promised.

This is about as dumb a way to die as I ever heard of, thought Arthur Stuart. I called the gators down on my own self. Good thing I died before I ever fathered children, because this much stupidity should not survive into the next generation.

And then the gators suddenly turned, all of them at once, and headed downstream toward the boats. They walked right past Arthur Stuart, ignoring him like he was a stump. And while they padded by on their vicious-looking gator feet, he felt something going on inside his stomach. He opened his shirt and looked down at his wound, just in time to see the lead ball nose out like a gopher and plop onto the dirt at his feet.

And as he watched, the blood stopped flowing out of his wound and the skin closed up and it didn't hurt anymore and he thought, Good thing Alvin's still watching out for me, because he gives me one dumb little assignment and I find a way to get myself killed twice over.

The gators were rushing toward the boat, but in the darkness it was plain some of the men hadn't realized what was headed their way. "Gators!" he shouted. "Get back in the boats!"

His alarm made them look again, and some of the men nearest to him got a look at what was coming. Now, a man can outrun a gator on dry land, but not in thick mud, so Arthur Stuart figured his contribution would be to dry the river bottom around the boats. But it was awfully far away from him and he couldn't be too precise. Still, it seemed to help, and he was relieved that all the men got back to the boats in time. The men onboard the boats reached down and helped haul them up, and the last few had gator jaws gaping wide right under them as they rose into the air, but not so much as a foot was lost, and only a few empty boots.

The gators remained in place, snapping and climbing over each other, trying to get up on deck. Arthur Stuart didn't think it was fair that the gators should get killed just because he told them there was food to be had. Besides, he had something against the muskets on board those boats. So he sauntered closer to the boats and used his doodlebug to find the guns and bend their barrels as fast as he could. They were bound to try the cannons next, but they were so thick-barreled that he found it was easier to melt the fronts just enough to narrow the bore, keeping the gunners from ramming the shot down.

So the men were fighting off the gators using their muskets as clubs. Which struck Arthur Stuart as more of an even match.

With that, he headed back upriver toward the dam, following his own trail of dry ground.

By the time he got back, most of the people were already across. Running twenty or thirty abreast, with the greensong still lingering in their ears, they all ran or jogged across, and kept moving on the other side to clear the way for the ones following after. Arthur went around the flow of people and up onto the bank and in no time he was standing beside Alvin.

"Thanks for taking that ball out of my gut," he said.

"Next time try something more subtle than standing out in the open and yelling," said Alvin. "I'm not trying to boss you around, I just think that's good advice."

"And thanks for getting the gators to turn away from me."

"I figgered you didn't really want them coming to you," said Alvin. "And that was nice of you to keep the men from shooting the gators. Not that there's any particular improvement in the world because of having gators in it, but I've never thought it was fair to get animals killed just because they believed a lie I told them."

"It wasn't a lie," said Arthur Stuart. "Plenty of meat on that boat."

"Only a couple of gators have got over the side since you started running back," said Alvin, "and the soldiers managed to throw them back. But I reckon they'll be glad enough when the water starts to flow again."

"Which is when?" said Arthur Stuart.

"Well, I don't see any heartfires up here on the bank aside from yours and mine," said Alvin. "And Dead Mary, seeing as how she just can't seem to stay away from wherever you are."

"Wherever I am!" said Arthur Stuart. But when he turned, he saw Dead Mary was indeed clambering back up onto the bank. "Everybody's gone," she said.

"Well, I'll just sit tight here till they all get up on the other bank," said Alvin. "Including, I must suggest, the two of you."

"But I can't leave you here alone!" said Arthur Stuart.

"And I can't worry about you when it's time to take down this dam," said Alvin. "Now for once in your life, will you just do it my way and git? It's wearing me down holding this river back and you're making it take longer the longer you take trying to argue with me."

"I guess I might as well obey the fellow just saved my life," said Arthur Stuart.

"Double-saved it," said Alvin, "so you owe me another obedience later."

Arthur Stuart took Dead Mary by the hand and they skittered clown the bank and ran across in front of the dam. They moved fast enough that they weren't far behind the last of the people, and all the way as they ran Arthur Stuart looked for the heartfires of any that might have strayed. But the captains and majors and colonels had all done their job, and not one soul had been left behind.

Papa Moose extended a hand to help Dead Mary up, and La Tia laughed in delight as Arthur Stuart flat-out ran right up the steep embankment without looking for the more gentle slope that most folks had used.

There at the head of the bluff stood Tenskwa-Tawa. It was Arthur Stuart's first sight of him, and his first thought was, he doesn't look like all that much. And his second thought was, he looks like a mighty angel standing there holding back the river with a sheet of crystal partly made from the blood of his own hand.

Tenskwa-Tawa waved the torch he held in his other hand. Then, when he saw that Alvin, far away on the other side, had thrown down his torch and started to run, Tenskwa-Tawa dropped the torch and reached out with that hand as if drawing something toward him.

On the far bank, Arthur Stuart could not see with his eyes, but he could follow Alvin's heartfire and observe with his doodlebug as Alvin ran down the embankment, holding his end of the dam in his hand.

He pulled the dam away from the far bank, and the water burst through behind him. Alvin ran as Arthur Stuart had never seen him run before, but the water was faster, leaping out through the newly opened gap and swirling around the edge of the dam that was now curving behind Alvin as he ran.

"Throw it to me!" cried Tenskwa-Tawa.

Whether Alvin heard with his ears or understood some other way, he obeyed, pitching his end of the dam like it was a stone or a javelin. No way would it have gone as far as it needed to, but Arthur Stuart could see how Tenskwa-Tawa drew it with that one extended hand, even though it was still half a mile away. He drew it toward him faster than Alvin could run, fast enough to outpace the water that rushed to fill the riverbed. Until finally both ends of the dam were in Tenskwa-Tawa's hands, and Alvin was running through a narrow passage between the two walls of the dam as the pent-up river continued to hurl itself through the widening gap.

Arthur Stuart let himself take one look downriver. Again with his doodlebug rather than with his eyes, he saw the first fingers of water flow around the boats, lifting them, starting them moving downstream. But the water came faster and faster, and the boats began to spin in the eddying flood as they hurtled away, completely out of control.

Alvin reached the bank and, as Arthur had done, ran directly up, straight to where Tenskwa-Tawa was standing, and even then he didn't stop, just hurled himself right into the waiting embrace of the Red Prophet, flinging them both to the ground. The ends of the crystal dam flew out of Tenskwa-Tawa's grasp and almost at once the crystal broke up and collapsed and the shards dissolved and became part of the river again. And Alvin and Tenskwa-Tawa lay there in the grass, hugging each other and laughing in delight at what they had done together, taming the Mizzippy and bringing these people to freedom.

La Tia was the only person bold enough at that moment to walk up to men who had just made such a miracle and say, "What you doing acting like little boys? We give merci beau-coup to God, us."

Alvin rolled onto his back and looked up at her. "It's picking which God that gets tricky," he said.

"Maybe you Christians right about God," said La Tia, "maybe me right, maybe him right, maybe nobody know nothing, but God, he take the merci beaucoup all the same."

She had seen Tenskwa-Tawa before, standing there holding the dam as everyone climbed the riverbank, but apparently she hadn't had a good look at him. Because now, as he sprang to his feet-far more energetically than his years should have allowed-a look of recognition came to her. "You," she said.

Tenskwa-Tawa nodded. "Me," he said.

"I see you in the ball," she said.

"What ball?" asked Alvin.

"The ball you make, the ball she carry." La Tia pointed toward Dead Mary, who did indeed have a burden slung over her shoulders. "I see him all the time in that thing. He talking to me."

Tenskwa-Tawa nodded. "And I thank you for helping," he said. "I didn't know you were with this company."

"I didn't know you the Red Prophet."

"So you two met?" asked Alvin.

"He been hotting up under the earth, far away," said La Tia. "He ask my help, wake up the earth there. Help the hot stuff find a way up. I think I figure out how."

"Then I'm as glad to see you here in the flesh as a man can be," said Tenskwa-Tawa.

"Many a man be glad to see my flesh," said La Tia, "but it don't do them no good."

Tenskwa-Tawa smiled, which for him was like a gale of laughter.

And Arthur Stuart thought, not for the first time, that these really powerful people were like a little club, they all knew each other and people like him were always having to stand just outside.