THE CRYSTAL CITY Read online

  He might feel differently if he actually believed those ludicrous reports about a bridge made out of clear water that disappeared when his soldiers were out on it, causing a score of deaths and a lot of splashing and spluttering. Perhaps he was so used to pathetic excuses from his men for their failures that it never occurred to him that this one might be true.

  What will Alvin do, Calvin wondered. Probably not fight. He puts far too high a value on human life, poor fellow. It's not as if half these oafs won't get themselves killed in some meaningless fight or just by falling into the river one drunken night.

  Well, whatever he does, I won't be there to help.

  Though Calvin was not against helping if it didn't put him out of his way. That's why he had searched out Jim Bowie this morning and arranged with him to lead Calvin to Steve Austin. They met in a saloon two streets back from the water, which meant it was relatively quiet, with no jostling. There were a few other men there, though none that Calvin cared much about. Either he'd get to know them later or he wouldn't. Right now all that mattered was Austin and his Mexican adventure.

  Austin was going on about how he owed it to help the governor return the slaves to their place before going on his expedition. "It won't take long," said Austin. "How far can a bunch of runaways get? We'll probably find them crying on the north shore of Pontchartrain. Hang a few, whip a lot, and drag 'em on home. Then it's on to Mexico."

  Calvin only shook his head.

  Austin looked from him to Bowie. "I need fighters," he said, "not advisers."

  "I'd give him a listen, Steve," said Bowie.

  "Colonel Adan's little slave-catching venture is doomed," said Calvin. "Don't be with them when they go down in flames."

  "Doomed? By what army?"

  In answer, Calvin simply softened the metal in their mugs until they collapsed, covering the table with ale and cold soft metal. With not a little of it flowing onto their laps.

  All the men sprang up from the table and began brushing ale off their laps. Calvin avoided smiling, even though they all looked like they'd peed in their trousers. He waited while Austin realized that the metal pools on the table were the former mugs.

  "What did you do?"

  "Not much," said Calvin. "For a maker, anyway."

  Austin squinted at him. "You telling me you're a maker?"

  Another man muttered, "Ain't no makers."

  "And your ale is still in your cup," said Calvin cheerfully. "I ain't much of a maker. But my brother Alvin, he's a first-rater."

  "And he's with them," said Jim Bowie. "Tried to get him to join up with us, but he wouldn't do it."

  "When Colonel Adan's army finds those runaways," said Calvin, "if he finds them, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if all their weapons turn into pools of metal on the ground."

  "Or plumb disappear," said Bowie. "I seen him do it. Hard and heavy steel, and it was gone, like that." He snapped his fingers.

  Austin moved to a dry table and called for more ale. Then paused a moment to inquire, "I trust we'll be allowed to finish these drinks?"

  Calvin grinned.

  Soon they were all seated at the new table-except for a couple of Austin's men who found urgent business to attend to in some place where somebody wasn't melting metal cups just by thinking about it.

  "Mr. Austin, do you think I could be useful on your expedition to Mexico?" asked Calvin.

  "I do," said Austin. "Boy, howdy."

  "And I've got me a hankering to see what that tribe is like. My brother, see, he thinks he knows all about reds. But his reds is all peaceful like. I want to meet some of them Mexica, the ones who tear the beating heart out of their sacrifices."

  "Will it satisfy you if you see some of them dead? 'Cause we ain't going there to meet them, we're going there to kill them."

  "All of them?" said Calvin. "Oh my."

  "Well, no," said Austin. "But I reckon the common folk'll be glad enough to be shut of these human-sacrificing heathens."

  "I'll tell you what," said Calvin. "I'll go with you to the end of your expedition, and help you all I can. Provided that you leave for Mexico by tomorrow morning."

  Austin leaned back and laughed. "So you think you can come here and start dictating when we'll leave."

  "Not dictating a thing," said Calvin. "Just telling you that any expedition to Mexico that sets out tomorrow, with all its men, I'll join. And any that doesn't, I won't. You didn't make your plans with me in mind, and you're free to go on and carry them out without me."

  "Why are you so all-fired eager to keep us from helping catch them runaways?"

  "Well, first, my brother's with them, like I said. Since your men are probably the most dangerous in Barcy right now, I'm making my brother a little bit safer by keeping you all out of it."

  "That's what I figured," said Austin. "So what's to say that as soon as Colonel Adan is gone upriver, you won't just disappear?"

  "Second reason is more important," said Calvin. "If you go upriver with Colonel Adan, your men will get just as messed up as anybody else. My guess is that once Alvin's through with them, you'll never get them to invade their grandma's privy, let alone Mexico."

  "I don't know if your brother's all that dangerous."

  Calvin got up, leaned over to their first table, and brought back a congealed swatch of metal that had once been a mug. "Can you just keep this in mind for a little while, so I don't have to melt any more of them?"

  "All right," said Austin, "of course he's dangerous, and I'm obliged to you for warning us."

  "And the third reason is, I don't like sitting around waiting. If the expedition starts tomorrow, I'll be with it. If it doesn't, I'll get bored and go off and find something entertaining to do."

  Austin nodded. "Well, I'll think about it."

  "Good," said Calvin.

  "But you still didn't answer my question about how do we know you'll actually be there tomorrow."

  "I gave you my word," said Calvin. "You can't make me go if I don't want to, but I tell you that I want to, and so I will. You get no better guarantee than that. You don't have to trust me. You can do what you want."

  "How do I know I won't have nothing but trouble from you along the way, trying to run everything? The way you're bossing me around now?"

  Calvin rose from his chair. "I can see, gentlemen, that some of you are more interested in being the big boss than in overcoming whatever powers these Mexica get from all the blood they spill. I apologize for wasting your time. I hear that the Mexica castrate the big boss before they cut out his heart. It's an honor you're welcome to."

  He started for the door.

  Austin didn't call him back. No one ran after him.

  Calvin didn't hesitate. He just kept on walking. Out into the street. And still no one ran after him. Well, doggone it.

  No, there was somebody. Jim Bowie-Calvin recognized his heartfire. And he was stopping and throwing a-

  Calvin ducked down and to the left.

  A big heavy knife quivered from the wooden wall right where Calvin's head used to be.

  Calvin leapt up, furious. In a moment, Jim Bowie was there, grinning. Calvin ripped out a long string of French profanities-eloquent enough that a couple of people nearby, who spoke French, looked at him with candid admiration.

  "What's got your dander up, Mr. Maker?" said Jim Bowie. "Of course I aimed right at your head. Your brother would have made my knife vanish in midair."

  "I have more respect for cutlery," said Calvin. Though truth to tell, he could no more make a knife disappear in mid flight than he could stop the world from spinning. He could work with mugs because they mostly sat on the table, very very still.

  "The way I see it," said Bowie, "you ain't half the maker your brother is, but you want us to think that whatever he can do, you can do. And if that makes you mad to hear me say it, as it seems to be doing-"

  "I'm not mad," said Calvin.

  "Glad to hear it," said Bowie. "I'm laying it out the way I laid it out to Steve Aus
tin. I wanted your brother because he would have guaranteed our success. He wouldn't do it, and instead he got himself five thousand runaways to feed and no place to take them. Fine with me. But you, you want to come with us, and I think it's because you want a chance to show off you're just as good as your brother, only you're not, and when that fact becomes plain and evident, I think a lot of good boys from this expedition are gonna be dead because they counted on you."

  Calvin wanted to blast him into pieces on the spot. But he had his own rules, even if they weren't Alvin's. You don't kill a man just for saying something you don't want to hear, even if it is a pack of lies.

  So Calvin only nodded and walked on toward the dock. "Well," said Calvin, "I reckon that's a wise choice. You run on back to Steve Austin and tell him I said good luck."

  Bowie, however, did not turn and go back. A good sign. "Look, Mr. Calvin, I'm here to ask you to come back. We just got to know-what can you do? Turning a bunch of pewter mugs into mush is thrilling, of course, but we need to know what you can do. You saw my knife coining early enough to dodge it, but you couldn't destroy it in flight, which suggests that Mexica bullets aren't gonna disappear in midair either. So before we take you along with your brag and your bossiness-and I mean that in the nicest possible way, those being traits I'm proud of in myself-before we take you along, we got to know: What exactly can you do that'll be of practical help in our fighting?"

  "That fog yesterday," said Calvin. "That was mine."

  "Easy enough to claim you caused the weather. Me, I've been running winter ever since my old pap left me the job in his will."

  In reply, Calvin cooled the air right around them. "I think we got us a fog starting up right here, right now."

  And sure enough, the moisture in the air began to condense until Bowie couldn't see anything else in all the world but Calvin's face.

  "All right," said Bowie. "That's a useful knack."

  "My knack isn't fog-making," said Calvin. "Or weather, or any other one thing."

  A fish flopped up out of the water onto the dock. And another. And a couple more. And pretty soon there were scores of fish flopping around on the wooden planks right among the passersby. Naturally, some of the fishermen on the dock started picking them up-some to throw the fish back, others to try to keep them to sell. An argument immediately sprang up. "Those fish must be sick, you can't sell them!" To which the reply came, "He don't feel sick to me, a fish this strong!" Whereupon the fish flapped out of the man's arms and back into the water.

  "If you ever need fish," said Calvin.

  "Oh, yeah, sure," said Bowie. "But can you do it if there ain't no river?"

  For a moment Calvin wanted to slap him. Couldn't he recognize a miracle when he saw one? He would have made a perfect Israelite, complaining at Moses because all they had was manna and no meat.

  Then Bowie grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "Can't you tell when you're being joshed, man? Of course you can come. Nobody has a dodge-the-knife-from-behind knack and the fog-making knack and the knack of making fish jump out of the water right up onto the dock."

  "So I pass your test?" said Calvin, letting a little pissed-offedness seep into his voice.

  "Sure enough," said Bowie.

  "But do you pass mine?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "I got to pee," he said softly.

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

  "Thank you," he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "I'm too big to be leaning on you," said Alvin.

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

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

  Papa Moose strode up to him-strode, his legs showing no sign of his old limp. "I'm sorry I plagued you the moment you woke up," said Papa Moose.

  "I'm glad to see you're doing better your own self," said Alvin. "And walking well."

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

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

  "For the children," she said defensively.

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

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

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

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

  "But if we ask, some will," said Alvin.

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

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

  "Thank you for your patience," Alvin answered.

  A stout black woman called out, "Starving to death don't look like freedom to me!"

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

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

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

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

  "They don't like me," said Dead Mary.

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