Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV Read online

  It was in that disguise that he fell in love with her, too. It was all a lie, a lie I told him, a lie I told myself.

  So now she would not search for his bright heartfire, though she knew she could find it in an instant, no matter how far away he was. She had other work in her life. She had other things to achieve or to undo.

  Here was the best part of her new life: Everyone who knew anything about slavery knew that it was wrong. The ignorant—children growing up in slave country, or people who had never kept slaves or seen them kept or even known a Black man or woman—they might fancy that there was nothing wrong with it. But those who knew, they all understood that it was evil.

  Many of them, of course, simply told themselves lies or made excuses or flat-out embraced the evil with both arms—anything to keep their way of life, to keep their wealth and leisure, their prestige, their honor. But more were made miserable by the wealth that came from the labor and suffering of the blacks that had been stolen from their native land and brought against their will to this dark continent of America. It was these whose hearts Peggy reached for, especially the strong ones, the ones who might have the courage to make a difference.

  And her labors were not in vain. When she left a place, people were talking—no, to be honest they were quarreling—over things that before had never been openly questioned. To be sure, there was suffering. Some of those whose courage she had helped awaken were tarred and feathered, or beaten, or their houses and barns burnt. But the excesses of the slavemasters served only to expose to others the necessity of taking action, of winning their freedom from a system that was destroying them all.

  She was on this errand today. A hired carriage had come to fetch her to a town called Baker’s Fork, and she was well on the way, already hot and tired and dusty, as summer travelers always were, when all of a sudden she felt curious to see what was up a certain road.

  Now, Peggy wasn’t one to be curious in any ordinary way. Having had, since childhood, the knack of knowing people’s inmost secrets, she had learned young to shy away from simple curiosity. Well she knew that there were some things folks were better off not knowing. As a child she would have given much not to know what the children her age thought of her, the fear they had of her, the loathing because of her strangeness, because of the hushed way their parents talked of her. Oh, she would have been glad not to know the secrets of the men and women around her. Curiosity was its own punishment, when you were sure of finding the answer to your question.

  So the very fact that she felt curious about, of all things, a rutted track in the low hills of northern Appalachee—that was the most curious thing of all. And so, instead of trying to follow the track, she looked inside her own heartfire to see what lay down that road. But every path she saw in which she called to the carriage driver and bade him turn around and follow the track, every one of those paths led to a blank, a place where what might happen there could not be known.

  It was a strange thing for her, not to know at all what the outcome might be. Uncertainty she was used to, for there were many paths that the flow of time could follow. But not to have a glimmer, that was new indeed. New and—she had to admit—attractive.

  She tried to warn herself off, to tell herself that if she couldn’t see, it must be the Unmaker blocking her, there must be some terrible fate down that road.

  But it didn’t feel like the Unmaker. It felt right to follow the track. It felt necessary, though she tingled a bit with the danger of it. Is this how other people feel all the time? she wondered. Knowing nothing, the future all a blank, able to rely only on feelings like this? Is this tingling what George Washington felt just before he surrendered his army to the rebels of Appalachee and then turned himself over to the king he had betrayed? Surely not, for old George was certain enough of the outcome. Maybe it’s what Patrick Henry felt when he cried out, Give me liberty or give me death, having no notion which of the two, if either, he might win. To act without knowing . . .

  “Turn around!” she called.

  The driver didn’t hear her over the clattering of the horses’ hooves, the rattling and creaking of the carriage.

  She thumped on the roof of the carriage with her umbrella. “Turn around!”

  The driver pulled the horses to a stop. He slid open the tiny door that allowed words to pass between driver and passengers. “What, ma’am?”

  “Turn around.”

  “I ain’t took no wrong turn, ma’am.”

  “I know that. I want to follow that track we just passed.”

  “That just leads on up to Chapman Valley.”

  “Excellent. Then take me to Chapman Valley.”

  “But it’s the school board in Baker’s Fork what hired me to bring you.”

  “We’re going to stop the night anyway. Why not Chapman Valley?”

  “They got no inn.”

  “Nevertheless, either turn the carriage around or wait here while I walk up that track.”

  The door slid shut—perhaps more abruptly than necessary—and the carriage took a wide turn out into the meadow. It had been dry these past few days, so the turn went smoothly, and soon they were going up the track that had made her so curious.

  The valley, when she saw it, was pretty, though there was nothing remarkable about its prettiness. Except for the rough woods at the crests of the surrounding hills, the whole valley was tamed, the trees all in the place where they were planted, the houses all built up to fit the ever-larger families that lived there. Perhaps the walls were more crisply painted, and perhaps a whiter white than other places—or perhaps that was just what happened to Peggy’s perceptions, because she was looking especially sharp to see what had piqued her curiosity. Perhaps the orchard trees were older than usual more gnarled, as if this place had been settled long ago, the earliest of the Appalachee settlements. But what of that? Everything in America was newish; there was bound to be someone in this town who still remembered its founding. Nothing west of the first range of mountains was any older than the lifespan of the oldest citizen.

  As always, she was aware of the heartfires of the people dwelling here, like sparks of light that she could see even in the brightest part of noon, through all walls, behind all hills, in all attics or basements where they might be. They were the ordinary folk of any town, perhaps a bit more content than others, but not immune to the suffering of life, the petty resentments, the griefs and envies. Why had she come here?

  They came to a house with no one home. She rapped on the roof of the carriage again. The horses were whoaed to a stop, and the little door opened. “Wait here,” she said.

  She had no idea why this house, the empty one, drew her curiosity. Perhaps it was the way it had obviously grown up around a tiny log cabin, growing first prosperous, then grand, and finally nothing more than large, as aesthetics gave way to the need for more room, more room. How, in such a large and well-tended place, could there be no one home?

  Then she realized that she heard singing coming from the house. And laughter from the yard. Singing and laughter, and yet not a heartfire to be seen. There had never been such a strange thing in ail her life. Was this a haint house? Did the restless dead dwell here, unable to let go of life? But who ever heard of a haint that laughed? Or sang such a cheery song?

  And there, running around the house, was a boy not more than six, being chased by three older girls. Not one with a heartfire. But from the dirt on the boy’s face and the rage in the eyes of the red-faced girls, these could not be the spirits of the dead.

  “Hallo, there!” cried Peggy, waving.

  The boy, startled, looked at her. That pause was his undoing, for the girls caught up to him and fell to pummeling him with much enthusiasm; his answer was to holler with equal vigor, cursing them roundly. Peggy didn’t know them, but had little doubt that the boy, in the fashion of all boys, had done some miserable mischief which outraged the girls—his sisters? She also had little doubt that the girls, despite the inevitable protests of innoce
nce, had no doubt provoked him before, but in subtle, verbal ways so that he could never point to a bruise and get his mother on his side. Such was the endless war between male and female children. Stranger or not, however, Peggy could not allow the violence of the girls to get out of hand, and it seemed they were not disposed to go lightly in their determined battering of the bellowing lad. They were pursuing the beating, not as a holiday, but as if it were their bread-and-butter labor, with an overseer who would examine their handiwork later and say, “I’d say the boy was well beaten. You get your day’s pay, all right!”

  “Let up now,” she said, striding across the goat-cropped yard.

  They ignored her until she was on them and had two of the girls by the collars. Even then, they kept swinging with their fists, not a few of the blows landing on Peggy herself, while the third girl took no pause. Peggy had no choice but to give the two girls she had hold of a stern push, sending them sprawling in the grass, while she dragged the third girl off the boy.

  As she had feared, the boy hadn’t done well under the girls’ blows. His nose was bleeding, and he got up only slowly; when the girl Peggy was holding lunged at him, he scurried on all fours to evade her.

  “Shame on you,” said Peggy. “Whatever he did, it wasn’t worth this!”

  “He killed my squirrel!” cried the girl she held.

  “But how can you have had a squirrel?” asked Peggy. “It would be cruel of you to pen one up.”

  “She was never penned,” said the girl. “She was my friend. I fed her and these others saw it—she came to me and I kept her alive through the hard winter. He knew it! He was jealous that the squirrel came to me, and so he killed it.”

  “It was a squirrel!” the boy shouted—hoarsely and rather weakly, but it was clear he meant it to be a shout. “How should I know it was yours?”

  “Then you shouldn’t have killed any,” said another of the girls. “Not till you were sure.”

  “Whatever he did to the squirrels,” said Peggy, “even if he was malicious, it was wrong of you and unchristian to knock him down and hurt him so.”

  The boy looked at her now. “Are you the judge?” he asked.

  “Judge? I think not!” said Peggy with a laugh.

  “But you can’t be the Maker, that one’s a boy. I think you’re a judge.” The boy looked even more certain. “Aunt Becca said the judge was coming, and then the Maker, so you can’t be the Maker because the judge ain’t come yet, but you could be the judge because the judge comes first.”

  Peggy knew that other folks often took the words of children to be nonsense, if they didn’t understand them immediately. But Peggy knew that the words of children were always related to their view of the world, and made their own sense if you only knew how to hear them. Someone had told them—Aunt Becca, it was—that a judge and a Maker were coming. There was only one Maker that Peggy knew of. Was Alvin coming here? What was this place, that the children knew of Makers, and had no heartfires?

  “I thought your house was standing empty,” said Peggy, “but I see that it is not.”

  For indeed there now stood a woman in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, watching them placidly as she slowly stirred a bowl with a wooden spoon.

  “Mama!” cried the girl that Peggy still held. “She has me and won’t let go!”

  “It’s true!” cried Peggy at once. “And I still won’t let go, till I’m sure she won’t murder the boy here!”

  “He killed my squirrel, Mama!” cried the girl.

  The woman said nothing, just stirred.

  “Perhaps, children,” said Peggy, “we should go talk to this lady in the doorway, instead of shouting like river rats.”

  “Mother doesn’t like you,” said one of the girls. “I can tell.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Peggy. “Because I like her.”

  “Do not,” said the girl. “You don’t know her, and if you did you stilt wouldn’t like her because nobody does.”

  “What a terrible thing to say about your mother,” said Peggy.

  “I don’t have to like her,” said the girl. “I love her.”

  “Then take me to this woman that you love but don’t like,” said Peggy, “and let me reach my own conclusions about her.”

  As they approached the door, Peggy began to think that the girls might be right. The woman certainly didn’t look welcoming. But for that matter, she didn’t look hostile, either. Her face was empty of emotion. She just stirred the bowl.

  “My name is Peggy Larner.” The woman ignored her outstretched hand. “I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have intervened, but as you can see the boy was taking some serious injury.”

  “Just my nose is bloody, is all,” said the boy. But his limp suggested other less visible pains.

  “Come inside,” said the woman.

  Peggy had no idea whether the woman was speaking just to the children, or was including her in the invitation. If it could be called an invitation, so blandly she spoke it, not looking up from the bowl she stirred. The woman turned away, disappearing inside the house. The children followed. So, finally, did Peggy.

  No one stopped her or seemed to think her action strange. It was this that first made her wonder if perhaps she had fallen asleep in the carriage and this was some strange dream, in which unaccountable unnatural things happen which nevertheless excite no comment in the land of dreams, where there is no custom to be violated. Where I am now is not real. Outside waits the carriage and the team of four horses, not to mention the driver, as real and mundane a fellow as ever belched in the coachman’s seat. But in here, I have stepped into a place beyond nature. There are no heartfires here.

  The children disappeared, stomping somewhere through the wood-floored house, and at least one of them went up or down a flight of stairs; it had to be a child, there was so much vigor in the step. But there were no sounds that told Peggy where to go, or what purpose was being served by her coming here. Was there no order here? Nothing that her presence disrupted? Would no one but the children ever notice her at all?

  She wanted to go back outside, return to the carriage, but now, as she turned around, she couldn’t remember what door she had come through, or even which way was north. The windows were curtained, and whatever door she had come through, she couldn’t see it now.

  It was an odd place, for there was cloth everywhere, folded neatly and stacked on all the furniture, on the floors, on the stairs, as if someone had just bought enough to make a thousand dresses with and the tailors and seamstresses were yet to arrive. Then she realized that the piles were of one continuous cloth, flowing off the top of one stack into the bottom of the next. How could there be a cloth so long? Why would anyone make it, instead of cutting it and sending it out to get something made from it?

  Why indeed. How foolish of her not to realize it at once. She knew this place. She hadn’t visited it herself, but she had seen it through Alvin’s heartfire, years ago.

  He was still in Ta-Kumsaw’s thrall in those days. The Red warrior took Alvin with him and brought him into his legend, so that those who now spoke of Alvin Smith the Finder-killer, or Alvin Smith and the golden plow, had once spoken of the same boy, little knowing it, when they spoke of the evil “Boy Renegado,” the white boy who went with Ta-Kumsaw in all his travels in the last year before his defeat at Fort Detroit. It was in that guise that Alvin came here, and walked down this hall, yes, turning right here, yes, tracking the folded cloth into the oldest part of the house, the original cabin, into the slanting light that seems to have no source, as if it merely seeped in through the chinks between the logs. And here, if I open this door, I will find the woman with the loom. This is the place of weaving.

  Aunt Becca. Of course she knew the name. Becca, the weaver who held the threads of all the lives in the White man’s lands in North America.

  The woman at the loom looked up. “I didn’t want you here,” she said softly.

  “Nor did I plan to come,” said Peggy. “The truth i
s, I had forgotten you. You slipped my mind.”

  “I’m supposed to slip your mind. I slip all minds.”

  “Except one or two?”

  “My husband remembers me.”

  “Ta-Kumsaw? He isn’t dead, then?”

  Becca snorted. “My husband’s name is Isaac.”

  That was Ta-Kumsaw’s White name. “Don’t quibble with me,” said Peggy. “Something called me here. If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

  “My untalented sister. The one who breaks threads whenever she touches the loom.”

  Aunt Becca, the children had called the weaver. “Is your sister the mother of the children I met?”

  “The murderous little boy who kills squirrels for sport? His brutal sisters? I think of them as the four horses of the apocalypse. The boy is war. The sisters are still sorting themselves out among the other forces of destruction.”

  “You speak metaphorically, I hope,” said Peggy.

  “I hope not,” said Becca. “Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

  “Why would your sister have brought me here? She didn’t seem to know me at the door.”

  “You’re the judge,” said Becca. “I found a purple thread of justice in the loom, and it was you. I didn’t want you here, but I knew that you’d come, because I knew my sister would have you here.”

  “Why? I’m no judge. I’m guilty myself.”

  “You see? Your judgment includes everyone. Even those who are invisible to you.”

  “Invisible?” But she knew before asking what it was that Becca meant.