Alvin Jorneyman ttoam-4 Page 10

  Get used to it, Calvin, he told himself. Plenty of people have wanted Alvin dead, too, but he got through it all. We Makers must have some kind of protection, it's as simple as that. All of nature is looking out for us, to keep us safe. Fitzroy won't kill me because I can't be killed.

  I hope.

  Chapter 8 – Leavetaking

  For some reason Alvin's classroom of grownup women just wasn't going well today. They were distracted, it seemed like, and Goody Sump was downright hostile. It finally came to a head when Alvin started working with their herb boxes. He was trying to help them find their way into the greensong, the first faintest melody, by getting their sage or sorrel or thyme, whatever herb they chose, to grow one specially long branch. This was something Alvin reckoned to be fairly easy, but once you mastered it, you could pretty much get into harmony with any plant. However, only a couple of the women had had much success, and Goody Sump was not one of them, Maybe that was how come she was so testy– her laurel wasn't even thriving, let alone showing lopsided growth on one branch.

  “The plants don't make the same music they did back when the Reds were tending the woods,” Alvin said. He was going to go on and explain how they could do, in a small way, what the Reds did large, but he didn't get a chance, because that was the moment Goody Sump chose to erupt.

  She leapt from her chair, strode over to the herb table, and brought her fist right down on top of her own laurel, capsizing the pot and spattering potting soil and laurel leaves all over the table and her own dress. “If you think them Reds was so much better why don't you just go live with them and carry off their daughters to secret randy views!”

  Alvin was so stunned by her unprovoked rage, so perplexed by her inscrutable words, that he just looked at her gapemouthed as she pulled what was left of her laurel out of what was left of the soil, pulled off a handful of leaves, and threw them in his face, then turned and stalked out of the room.

  As soon as she was gone, Alvin tried to make a joke out of it. “I reckon there's some folks as don't take natural to agriculture.” But hardly anybody laughed.

  “You got to overlook her behavior, Al,” said Sylvy Godshadow. “A mother's got to believe her own daughter, even if everybody else knows she's spinning moonbeams.”

  Since Goody Sump had five daughters, and Alvin had heard nothing significant about any of them lately, this information wasn't much help. “Is Goody Sump having some trouble at home?” he asked.

  The women all looked around at each other, but not a one would meet his eyes.

  “Well, it looks to me like everybody here knows somewhat as hasn't yet found its way to my ears,” said Alvin. “Anybody mind explaining?”

  “We're not gossips,” said Sylvy Godshadow. “I'm surprised you'd think to accuse us.” With that, she stood up and started for the door.

  “But I didn't call nobody a gossip,” said Alvin.

  “Alvin, I think before you criticize others, you'd comb the lice out of your own hair,” said Nana Pease. And she was up and off, too.

  “Well, what are the rest of you waiting for?” said Alvin. “If you all wanted a day off of class, you only had to ask. It's a sure thing I'm done for the day.”

  Before he could even get started sweeping up the spilt soil, the other ladies had all flounced out.

  Alvin tried to console himself by muttering things he'd heard his own father mutter now and then over the years– things like “Women” and “Can't do nothing to please 'em” and “Might as well shoot yourself first thing in the morning.” But none of that helped, because this wasn't just some normal display of temper. These were levelheaded ladies, every one of them, and here they were up in arms overplain nothing, which wasn't natural.

  It wasn't till afternoon that Alvin realized something serious was wrong. A couple of months ago, Alvin had asked Clevy Sump, Goody Sump's husband, to teach them all how to make a simple one-valve suction pump. It was part of Alvin's idea to teach folks that making is making, and everybody ought to know everything they can possibly learn. Alvin was teaching them hidden powers of Making, but they ought to be learning how to make with their hands as well. Secretly Alvin also hoped that when they saw how tricky and careful it was to make fine machinery like Clevy Sump did, they'd realize that what Alvin Was teaching wasn't much harder if it was harder at all. And it was working well enough.

  Except that today, after the noon bread and cheese, he went on out to the mill to find the men gathered around the wreckage of the pumps they'd been making. Every one of them was broke in pieces. And since the fittings were all metal, it must have took some serious work to break it all up. “Who'd do a thing like this?” Alvin asked. “There's a lot of hate goes into something like this.” And thinking of hate, it made Alvin wonder if maybe Calvin hadn't come back secretly after all.

  “There's no mystery who done it,” said Winter Godshadow. “I reckon we ain't got us a pump-making teacher no more.”

  “Yep,” said Taleswapper. “This looks like a specially thorough way of telling us, 'Class dismissed.'”

  Some of the men chuckled. But Alvin could see that he wasn't the only one angry at the destruction. After all, these pumps were nearly completed, and all these men had put serious work into making them. They counted on them at their own houses. For many of them, it meant the end of drawing water, and Winter Godshadow in particular had got him a plan to pipe the water right into the kitchen, so his wife wouldn't even have to go outdoors to fetch it. Now their work was undone, and some of them weren't taking kindly to it.

  “Let me talk to Clevy Sump about this,” said Alvin. “I can't hardly believe it was him, but if it was, whatever's the problem I bet it can be set to rights. I don't want none of you getting angry at him before he's had his say.”

  “We ain't angry at Clevy,” said Nils Torson, a burly Swede. His heavy-lidded gaze made it clear who he was angry at.

  “Me?” said Alvin. “You think I done this?” Then, as if he could hear Miss Larner's voice in his ear, he corrected himself. “Did this?”

  Murmurs from several of the men assented to the proposition.

  “Are you crazy? Why would I go to all this trouble? I'm not an Unmaker, boys, you know that, but if I was, don't you think I could tear up these pumps a lot more thoroughly without taking half so much trouble?”

  Taleswapper cleared his throat. “Perhaps you and I ought to talk alone about this, Alvin.”

  “They're accusing me of wrecking all their hard work and it ain't so!” said Alvin.

  “Ain't nobody accusin' nobody of nothin',” said Winter Godshadow. “God follows all. God sees all deeds.”

  Usually when Winter got into his God-talking moods, the others would sort of back off and pretend to be busy paring their nails or something. But not this time– this time they were nodding and murmuring their agreement.

  “Like I said, Alvin, let's you and me have a word. In fact, I think we ought to go on up to the house and talk to your father and mother.”

  “Talk to me right here,” said Alvin. “I'm not some little boy to be taken out behind the woodshed and given a licking in private. If I stand accused of something that everybody knows about except me–”

  “We ain't accusing,” said Nils. “We're pondering.”

  “Pondering,” echoed a couple of the others.

  “Tell me here and now what you're pondering,” said Alvin. “Because whatever I'm accused of, if it's true I want to make it right, and if it's false I want to set it straight.”

  They looked at each other back and forth, until finally Alvin turned to Taleswapper. “You tell me.”

  “I only repeat tales that I believe to be true,” said Taleswapper. “And this one I believe to be a flat-out lie told by a dreamy-hearted girl.”

  “Girl? What girl?” and then, putting together Goody Sump's behavior and what Clevy Sump had done to the pumps, and remembering the dreamy expression in one girl's eyes when she sat there in the children's class paying no intelligent attention to
a thing that Alvin said, he jumped to a certain conclusion and whispered her name. “Amy.”

  To Alvin's consternation, some of the men took the fact that he came up with her name as proof that Amy was telling the truth about whatever it was she had said. “See?” they murmured. “See?”

  “I'm done with this,” said Nils. “I'm done. I'm a farmer. Corn and hogs, that's my knack if I have me any.” When he left, several other men went with him.

  Alvin turned to the others. “I don't know what I'm accused of, but I can promise you this, I've done nothing wrong. In the meantime, it's plain there's no use in holding class today, so let's all go home. I reckon there's a way to salvage every one of these pumps, so your work isn't lost. We'll get back to it tomorrow.”

  As they left, some of the men touched Alvin's shoulder or punched his arm to show their support. But some of the support was of a kind he didn't much like. “Can't hardly blame you, pretty little calf-eyed thing like that.” “Women is always reading more into things than a man means.”

  Finally Alvin was alone with Taleswapper.

  “Don't look at me,” said Taleswapper. “Let's go on up to the house and see if your father's heard the stories yet.”

  When they got there, it was like a family council was already in session. Measure, Armor-of-God, and Father and Mother were all gathered around the kitchen table. Arthur Stuart was kneading dough– small as he was, he was good with bread and liked doing it, so Mother had finally given in and admitted that a woman could still be mistress of her own house even if somebody else made the bread.

  “Glad you're here, Al,” said Measure. “You'd think a piece of silliness like this would just get laughed out of town. I mean, these folks should know you.”

  “Why should they?” asked Mother. “He's been gone most of the past seven years. When he left he was a scrub-size boy who'd just spent a year running around the countryside with a Red warrior. When he come back he was full of power and majesty and scared the pellets out of all the bunny-hearts around here. What do they know of his character?”

  “Would somebody please tell me what this is about?” Alvin said.

  “You mean they haven't?” asked Father. “They were powerful quick to tell your mother and Measure and Armor-of-God.”

  Taleswapper chuckled. “Of course they didn't tell Alvin. Those who believe the tale assume he already knows. And those who don't believe it are plain ashamed that anyone could say such silly slander.”

  Measure sighed. “Amy Sump told her friend Ramona, and Ramona told her mama, and her mama went straight to Goody Sump, and she went straight to her husband, and he like to went crazy because he can't conceive that every male creature larger than a mouse isn't hottin' up after his nubian daughter.”

  “Nubile,” Alvin corrected him.

  “Yeah yeah,” said Measure. “I know, you're the one who reads the books, and now's sure the time to correct my grammar.”

  “Nubians are Black Africans,” said Alvin. “And Amy ain't no Black near as I can figure.”

  “This might be a good time to shut up and listen,” said Measure.

  “Yes sir,” said Alvin.

  “If only you had left when that torch girl sent you that warning,” said Mother. “It's a plain fool who stays inside a burning house because he wants to see the color of the flames.”

  “What's Amy saying about me?” asked Alvin.

  “Pure nonsense,” said Father. “About you running off in the Red way, a hundred miles in a night through the woods, taking her to a secret lake where you swum nekkid and other such indecencies.”

  “With Amy?” asked Alvin, incredulous.

  “Meaning that you'd do it with someone else?” asked Measure.

  “I'd do such a thing with nobody,” said Alvin. “Ain't decent, and besides, there ain't enough unbroken living forest these days to get a hundred miles in a night. I can't make half so good a speed through fields and farms. The greensong gets noisy and busted up and I get too tired trying to hear it and why is anybody believing such silliness?”

  “Because they think you can do anything,” said Measure.

  “And because a good number of these men have noticed Amy filling out of late,” said Armor-of-God, “and they know that if they had the power, and if Amy was as moony toward them as she plainly is toward you, they'd have her naked in a lake in two seconds flat.”

  “You're too cynical about human nature,” said Taleswapper. “Most of these fellows are the wishing kind. But they know Alvin is a doer, not just a wisher.”

  “I hardly noticed her except to think she was sure slow to learn, considering how tight she seemed to pay attention,” said Alvin.

  “To you she was paying attention. Not to what you said or taught,” said Measure.

  “Well it ain't so. I didn't do anything to her or with her, and…”

  “And even if you did it would be plain disaster if you married her,” said Mother.

  “Married her!” cried Alvin.

  “Well of course, if it was true, you'd have to marry her,” said Father.

  “But it ain't true.”

  “You got any witnesses of that?” asked Measure.

  “Witnesses of what? How can I have witnesses that it didn't happen? Everybody's my witness– everybody didn't see any such thing.”

  “But she says it happened,” said Measure. “And you're the only other one who knows whether she's lying or not. So either she's a plain liar and you're innocently accused, or she's a brokenhearted lied-to seduced girl and you're the cad who got the use of her and now won't do the decent thing, and nobody can prove either way.”

  “So you don't even believe me?”

  “Of course we believe you,” said Father. “Do you think we're insane? But our believing you ain't any kind of evidence. Measure's been reading law, and he explained it to us.”

  “Law?” asked Alvin.

  “Well, afore you come home from Hatrack River, anyway. And, now and then since. I reckon somebody in the family ought to know something about the law.”

  “But you mean you think this might come to court?”

  “Might,” said Measure. “That's what the Sumps were saying. Get them a lawyer from Carthage City instead of one of the frontier lawyers as has a shingle out here in Vigor Church. Lots of publicity.”

  “But they can't convict me of anything!”

  “Breach of promise. Indecent liberties with a child. All depends on how many jurors think that where there's smoke, there's fire.”

  “Indecent liberties with a…”

  “That one's a hanging offense, all right,” said Measure. “But I hear that's the charge that Clevy wants to bring.”

  “Doesn't matter if they convict you or not,” said Taleswapper.

  “Matters to me,” said Mother.

  “Either way, the tale will spread. Alvin the so-called Maker, taking advantage of young girls. You can't let this go to trial,” said Taleswapper.

  Alvin saw at once how such rumors, such publicity as a trial would bring, it would bring down his work, make it impossible to attract others to come and learn Making at Vigor Church.

  Not that he was doing much good teaching Making anyway.

  “Miss Larner,” murmured Alvin.

  “Yep,” said Taleswapper. “She warned you. Leave now freely, or leave later because you have to.”

  “Why should he he driven from his own home just because a horny lying little…” Mother's voice trailed off.

  Alvin sat in the ensuing silence, recognizing his foolishness. “I spose I'm a plain fool for not heeding Miss Larner.” And then, stiffening his back, he closed his eyes, and said, “There's another way. So I don't have to leave at all.”

  “What's that?” asked Measure.

  “I could marry her.”

  “No!” cried Mother and Father at once.

  “Why not just sign a confession?” asked Armor-of-God.

  “You can't marry her,” said Measure.

  “I
t's what she wants,” said Alvin. “You can bet she'd say yes, and her father and mother would have to agree to it.”

  “Agree to it– and then despise you ever after,” said Father.

  “Doesn't matter about his reputation or what people think of him or anything, compared to this,” said Measure. “Waking up every morning and seeing Amy Sump in bed next to you, and knowing the only reason she's there is because she slandered you– tell me what kind of home you'll make, the two of you, for your babies?”

  Alvin thought about that for a moment and nodded. “I guess marriage ain't much of a solution. More like starting a whole new set of problems.”

  “Ah, good,” said Father. “I was afraid we'd raised us a fool.”

  “So I sneak off like a thief, and everybody reckons Amy was telling the truth and I ran off.”

  “Not likely,” said Measure. “We'll let it be known that you left because your work is too important to be distracted by this nonsense. You'll be back when Amy starts telling the truth, and in the meantime, you'll be studying up on… whatever. Learning something.”

  “Learning how to build the Crystal City,” murmured Taleswapper.

  They all looked at him.

  “You don't know how, do you, Alvin?” asked Taleswapper. “While you're busy trying to make Makers out of these people, you don't even know yourself what the Crystal City really is, or how to make it.”

  Alvin nodded. “That's right.”

  “So… it isn't even a lie,” said Taleswapper. “You do have much to learn, and you're overdue to learn it. Why, you're even grateful to Amy for showing you that you've been hanging around here far too long. Measure's been learning right good. He's far enough ahead of the others that he can go on teaching in your absence. And him being a married man, no schoolgirl's going to get some foolish notion about him.”

  “I don't know,” said Measure. “I'm pretty cute.”

  “You have my bags packed yet, Taleswapper?” asked Alvin.