ALVIN JOURNEYMAN Read online

  Alvin pried up the sealing wax and unfolded the letter. He knew her handwriting from the many hours he had tried to imitate it, studying with her back in Hatrack River. His hand was never as smooth, could never flow the way hers did. Nor was he as eloquent. Words weren’t his gift, or at least not the formal, elegant words Miss Larner-Peggy-used in writing.

  Dear Alvin,

  You’ve overstayed in Vigor Church. Calvin’s a great danger to you, and you must go find him and reconcile with him; if you wait for him to come back to you, he will bring the end of your life with him.

  I can almost hear you answer me: I ain’t afraid to see my life end. (I know you still say ain’t, just to spite me.) Go or stay, that’s up to you. But I can tell you this. Either you will go now, of your own free will, or you will go soon anyway, but not freely. You’re a journeyman smith—you will have your journey.

  Perhaps in your travels we shall encounter each other. It would please me to see you again.

  Sincerely,

  Peggy

  Alvin had no idea what to make of this letter. First she bosses him around like a schoolboy. Then she talks teasingly about how he still says ain’t. Then she as much as asks him to come to her, but in such a cold way as to chill him to the bone—“It would please me to see you again” indeed! Who did she think she was, the Queen? And she signed the letter “sincerely” as if she was a stranger, and not the woman that he loved, and that once said she loved him. What was she playing at, this woman who could see so many futures? What was she trying to get him to do? It was plain there was more going on than she was saying in her letter. She thought she was so wise, since she knew more about the future than other folks, but the fact was that she could make mistakes like anybody else and he didn’t want her telling him what to do, he wanted her to tell him what she knew and let him make up his own mind.

  One thing was certain. He wasn’t going to drop everything and take off in search of Calvin. No doubt she knew exactly where he was and she hadn’t bothered to tell him. What was that supposed to accomplish? Why should he go off searching for Calvin when she could send him a letter and tell him, not where Calvin was right now, but where Calvin would be by the time Alvin caught up with him? Only a fool takes off on foot trying to follow the flight of a wild goose.

  I know I’ve got to leave here sometime. But I’m not going to leave in order to chase down Calvin. And I’m not going to leave because the woman I almost married sends me a bossy letter that doesn’t even hint that she still loves me, if she ever really did. If Peggy was so sure that he’d go soon anyway, because he had to, well, then he might as well just wait around and see what it was that would make him go.

  Chapter 5 -- Twist

  America was too small a country for Calvin. He knew that now. It was all too new. The powers of a land took time to ripen. The Reds, they knew the land, but they were gone. And the Whites and Blacks who lived here now, they had only shallow powers, knacks and hexes, spells and dreams. Nothing like the ancient music that Alvin had talked about. The greensong of the living forest. Besides, the Reds were gone, so whatever it was they knew, it must have been weak. Failure was proof enough of that.

  Even before Calvin knew in his mind where he was headed, his feet knew. East. Sometimes a bit north, sometimes a bit south, but always east. At first he thought he was just going to Dekane, but when he got there he just worked for a day or two to get a bit of coin and some bread in his belly, and then he was off over the mountains, following the new railroad into Irrakwa, where he could sneer a little at men and women who were Red in body but White in dress and speech and soul. More work, more coin, more practice at using his Making here and there. Pranks, mostly, because he didn’t dare use his knack out In the open where folks would take notice and spread word of him. Just little favors for houses where they treated him good, like driving all the mice and roaches off their property. And a little bit of getting even with those who turned him away. Sending a rat to die in a well. Causing a leak in the roof over a flour barrel. That one was hard, making the wood swell and then shrink. But he could work with the water. The water lent itself to his use better than any other element.

  Turned out that Irrakwa wasn’t where his feet were taking him, either. He worked his way across Irrakwa to New Holland, where the farmers all spoke Dutch, and then down the Hudson to New Amsterdam.

  He thought when he came to the great city on the tip of Manhattan Island that this might be the place he was looking for. Biggest city in the U.S.A. And it wasn’t hardly Dutch anymore. Everybody spoke English for business, and on top of that Calvin counted a dozen languages before he stopped caring how many. Not to mention strange accents of English from places like York and Glasgow and Monmouth. Surely all the lores of the world were gathered here. Surely he could find teachers.

  So he stayed for days, for a week. He tried the college farther up the island, but they wanted him to study intellectual things instead of the lore of power, and soon enough Calvin figured out that none of them high-toned professors knew anything useful anyhow.They treated him like he was crazy. One old coot with a white goat-beard spent half an hour trying to convince Calvin to let the man study him, like as if he was some strange specimen of bug. Calvin only stayed for the whole half hour so he’d have time to loosen all the bindings of all the books on the man’s shelves. Let him wonderabout Calvin’s kind of madness as the pages of every book he picked up fell out and scattered on the floor.

  If the professors weren’t worth nothing, the street wasn’t much better. Oh, he heard about loremasters and wizards and such. Gypsies bragged on some cursemonger. Irishmen knew of a priest who had special ways. Frenchmen and Spaniards heard of witches or child-saints or whatever. One Portugee told of a free Black woman who could make your enemy’s crotch turn as smooth and blank as an armpit—which, according to the story, was how she got her freedom, after doing that to her master’s firstborn son and threatening to do it next to him. But every one of them kept retreating out of sight. He’d find out who knew the loremaster, and then go to that person and find out that he only knew somebody else who knew the powerful one, and so on and so on, like constables searching through the night for a fugitive who kept slipping away into alleys.

  In the meantime, though, Calvin learned to live in a city and he liked it. He liked the way that you could disappear right out in the open. Nobody knew you. Nobody expected anything from you. You were what you wore. When he arrived he dressed like a rube from the country, and so people expected him to be stupid and awkward and, what the hell, he was. But in a few days he realized how his clothes gave him away and he bought some city garb from a used-garment house. That was when people started being willing to talk to him. And he learned to change his speech a little, too. Talk faster, get rid of some of the drawl. Shake off the country twang. He knew he gave himself a way with every word he said, but he was getting better. People didn’t ask him to repeat himself as much. And by the end of the week, he was no more out of place than any of the other immigrants. That was as good as it got—it wasn’t as if anybody was actually from New Amsterdam. Except maybe for some old Dutch landlords hiding in their mansions up-island.

  Rumors of wisdom, but no wisdom to be had in this town. Well, what did he expect? Anybody who really knew the powers of the old world would hardly have to board some miserable boat and sail west at risk of life and limb in order to come live in some sinkhole of a slum in New Amsterdam. No, the people of Europe who understood power were still in Europe—because they were running things there, and didn’t have no reason to leave.

  And who was the most powerful one of all? Why, the man whose victories had caused all these people of the dozen languages to flock to American shores. The man who drove the aristocrats out of France, and then conquered Spain and the Holy Roman Empire and Italy and Austria and then for some reason stopped at the Russian border and the English Channel, declared peace and held on, iron-fisted but, as they said, tenderhearted, so that pretty soon nobody
in Italy or Austria or the low countries or anywhere, really, was wishing for their old rulers to come back. That was the man who understood power. That was the man who was fit to teach Calvin what he needed to know.

  Only trouble was, why would a man so powerful ever agree to speak to a poor farmboy from Wobbish?, And how was that poor farmboy ever going to find passage across the ocean? If only Alvin had bothered to teach him how to turn iron into gold. Now that would be useful, Imagine a whole steam locomotive turned io solid gold. Fire up the engine and the whole damn thing would melt down—but it would melt down into pools of gold. Just put in a dipper and draw it out and there was passage to France, and not in no steerage, neither. First-class passage, and a fine hotel in Paris. Fine clothes, too, so that when he walked into the American embassy the flunkies would bow and scrape and take him straight to the ambassador and the ambassador would take him straight to the imperial palace where he would be presented to Napoleon himself and Napoleon would say, Why should I meet with you, an ordinary citizen of a second-rate country in the wild lands of the west? And Calvin would take three dipperfuls of gold out of his pockets and set them heavily in Napoleon’s hands and say, How much of this do you want? I know how to make more. And Napoleon would say, I have all the taxes of Europe to buy me gold. What do I need with your pathetic handfuls? And Calvin would say, Now you have a bit more gold than you had before. Look at your buttons, sir. And Napoleon would look at the brass buttons on his coat and they would be gold, too, and he would say, What do you want from me, sir? That’s right, he’d call Calvin “sir,” and Calvin would say, All I want is for you to teach me the ways of power.

  Only if Calvin knew how to turn iron or brass into gold, he sure as hell wouldn’t need no help from Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of Earth or whatever fool title the man had given himself in his latest promotion. It was one of those circular dilemmas that he always kept running into. If he had enough power to attract Napoleon’s attention, he wouldn’t need Napoleon. And, because he needed Napoleon, there was no chance that any of his underlings would let Calvin come anywhere near him.

  Calvin wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t no rube, whatever the city people thought. He knew that powerful men didn’t let just anybody come in and chat.

  But I do have some powers, thought Calvin. I do have some powers, and I can wangle a way, once I get across the pond. That’s what the sophisticated people called the Atlantic Ocean—the pond. Once I get across the pond. Might have to learn French, but they say Napoleon speaks English, too, from his days as a general, in Canada. One way or another, I’ll get to see him and he’ll take me on as his apprentice. Not apprenticed like to take over his empire after him, but instead to do the same thing in America. Bring the Crown Colonies and New England and the United States all under one flag. And Canada, too. And Florida. And then maybe he’d turn his eyes across the Mizzipy and see how good a job old Tenskwa-Tawa would do at holding back a Maker who wanted to cross and conquer Red country.

  All dreams. All stupid foolish dreams of a boy sleeping in a cheap boardinghouse and doing lousy odd jobs to earn a few cents a day. Calvin knew that, but he also knew that if he couldn’t turn a knack like his into money and power he didn’t deserve nothing better than those lousy beds and wormy meals and backbreaking jobs.

  One thing, though. Folks on the street were getting used to the idea that Calvin was searching for something, and finally the old woman he bought apples from—the one who’d given him an apple his first day there when he was out of money, since she was a country girl herself, she said; the one who from that day to this found no more worms or flies in her fruit—she said to him, “Well I hope you’ve talked to the Bloody Man, he knows stuff.”

  “Bloody Man?”

  “You know, the one as tells horrible stories or when he can’t find nobody new to tell it to, his hands are dripping with blood, Everybody knows the Bloody Man. He come here because the curse on him is, he has to find new people every day to tell his story to, and where you going to find a good supply of new people all the time?”

  Of course Calvin knew by now exactly who she was talking about. “Harrison is here?”

  “You know him?”

  “Know of him. He called hisself—himself—governer of Wobbish for a while. Slaughtered Tenskwa-Tawa’s people at Tippy-Canoe.”

  “That’s the one. Dreadful story. Thank heaven I only had to hear it the once. But there’s some kind of power in the fact that his hands get all bloody. I mean, that’s strange, ain’t it? All them other folks you hear about, you never actually see them do nothing, if you know what I mean. But you can see the blood. That’s power, I reckon.”

  “Reckon so.” Again he corrected himself. “I think so.”

  “Might as well say, ‘I imagine so,’ if you’re trying to get all highfalutin.”

  “Just don’t want to sound country, that’s all.”

  “Then you’d better learn French. All the high-tone folks do. Here we are in a Dutch city,where everybody speaks English, and they go into their toney restaurants and order their food in French! What did the French ever have to do with New Amsterdam? You want to eat in French, you go to Canada, that’s what I say!”

  He listened to her diatribe until he could finally get free—which meant when she finally got a customer—and then he set out to find Harrison. White Murderer Harrison. Calvin knew all about the curse on him, from the stories told by his own father and neighbors, and he’d sometimes imagined Harrison walking country roads from town to town, folks throwing him out before he could come in and start telling his awful tale. It never occurred to him that Harrison would come to the city, but it made sense, once you thought about it. Bloody Man.

  He found him in an alleyway behind a restaurant where he got fed every night by a manager who didn’t want him accosting his customers. “It’s a stiff punishment,” said the manager. “I had a landlord in Kilkenny who believed in that kind of justice. Punishments that went on forever. Permanent shame. I think it’s wrong. I don’t care much what the man did. Let him without sin among you, and all that. So he eats back of my restaurant. Long as he doesn’t hurt trade.”

  “Aren’t you the generous one,” said Calvin.

  “You got a mouth on you, boy. In fact I am generous, and open-minded, too, and just because I know it and take credit for it doesn’t make it any less true. So you can take your little winking sort of wit and leave my establishment if you’re going to eat my food and then sit in judgment on me.”

  “I haven’t eaten your food.”

  “But you will,” said the man, “because, as I said, I am generous, and you look hungry. Now get back to the kitchen and you can tell the cook to give you something for yourself and something for Bloody Man out in the alley. If you come with his food, he’ll talk to you, right enough. He’ll probably tell you his story, for that matter.”

  “I know his story.”

  “Everybody might know a story, but it’s never the same story they know. Now get away from my door, you look like a street rat.”

  Calvin looked down at his clothes and realized, yes, he had bought clothing to blend in, but what he blended in with was the street not the city. He’d have to do something about that before he went to Paris. Have to become, if not a gentleman, then at least a tradesman. Not a street rat.

  He didn’t like people who called themselves generous, but the fact was the food in the kitchen was good. The cook didn’t give him no scraps or scrapings. He got food that was decent and there was plenty. How did this manager stay in business, being so generous to the poor? No doubt he was cheating his boss. He could afford to be generous, since he didn’t have to pay for it himself. Most virtues were like that. People could take pride in how virtuous they were, but the fact was that as soon as virtue got expensive or inconvenient, it was amazing how fast it gave way to practical concerns.

  The man’s generosity got him this much: no roaches or mice in his kitchen.

  Out in the alleyway, Bloody Man was sipp
ing from a wine bottle. He saw Calvin and his eyes went hungry. Calvin laughed. “I hear you’ve got a story to tell.”

  “They still sending boys like you to find me, as a prank?”

  “No prank. I know your story, mostly. Just wanted to meet you my own self, I guess.”

  Harrison offered him the wine bottle. “Best thing about this place,” he said. “Besides that they don’t run me off in the first place. When somebody opens a bottle of wine and doesn’t finish it at the table, the manager refuses to pour from that bottle to anyone else. So it comes out into the alley.”

  “The big surprise,” said Calvin, “is that there ain’t ten dozen other hungry drunks here.”

  Harrison laughed. “They used to. But they got sick of hearing me tell my story and now I have the alley to myself. That’s how I like it.”

  But Calvin could hear it in his voice that it was a lie. He didn’t like it that way. He was hungry for company.

  “Might as well start telling me the story. Between bites, if you want,” said Calvin.

  Harrison started eating. Calvin could see a remnant of table manners. Once he had been a civilized man.

  Between bites, Harrison told the tale. All of it: How he had some Reds from south of the Hio come and kidnap two White boys in order to blame it on Tenskwa-Tawa, the so-called Red Prophet. Only the boys were rescued somehow and fell in with the Prophet’s brother, Ta-Kumsaw. But that didn’t matter because Harrison still used the kidnapping to rile up the White folks in the northern part of Wobbish, the ones as lived nearest to the Prophet’s village at Tippy-Canoe. So Harrison was able to raise an army to go wipe out Prophetstown. And then at the last minute, who shows up but one of the kidnapped boys. Well, Harrison sees nothing for it but to have the boy killed, and everything seems to be working. The Reds just stand there, letting the musketfire and the grapeshot mow them down until nine out of ten of them was dead, the whole meadow a sheet of blood flowing down into the Tippy-Canoe, only it was too much for those White men—they called themselves men—because they all stopped shooting before the job was done, and then up comes that boy who was supposed to be dead and he wasn’t even injured, and he tells the truth to everybody and then the Red Prophet puts a curse on all of them there and the worst curse on Harrison, including that he has to tell a new person every day and...