The Crystal City Part 10

"Balzac?" said Calvin. "Back in France, writing subversive novels that make Napoleon look like an a.s.s."

"And Napoleon permits it?"

"We don't know yet. Balzac hasn't actually published any of it."

"Is it any good?"

"You'd have to decide that for yourself," said Calvin.

"I don't read French," said Alvin.

"Too bad," said Calvin. "That's where all the interesting writing is going on right now."

Go ahead, thought Alvin. a.s.sert your superiority. You are are my superior when it comes to speaking French, and I don't mind. Good manners would suggest you not rub my nose in it. But then, you think I always rub my skill at makery in my superior when it comes to speaking French, and I don't mind. Good manners would suggest you not rub my nose in it. But then, you think I always rub my skill at makery in your your face, so ... fair is fair. face, so ... fair is fair.

"Hungry?" asked Alvin.

"I ate on the boat," said Calvin. "In fact there wasn't much else to do but eat. Nothing but fog on the river."

"Didn't it stay to the western sh.o.r.e?"

Calvin laughed. "Every now and then I'd play around with it a little. Whip up a little extra fog using the river water. Surround the boat in fog. I suppose we looked strange to anybody on sh.o.r.e. A little cloud floating down the river with the sound of a steam engine coming from it."

Alvin felt the familiar contempt rise in him. Calvin persisted in using his knack for foolishness and showing off.

Not that Alvin didn't know a little bit about the impulse. But at least he tried to control it. At least Alvin was ashamed when he caught himself showing off. Calvin reveled in it. He seemed oblivious to Alvin's scorn. Or maybe it was Alvin's scorn that he wanted to provoke. Maybe he wanted a quarrel.

And maybe he'd get one. But not over this, and not right now. "Sounds fun," he said.

Calvin looked at him with amus.e.m.e.nt. "I guess you've never whipped up a little fog?"

"From time to time," said Alvin. "And cleared some away, when I found the need."

"Some n.o.ble cause, I'm sure," said Calvin. "So, what dire problem are you working on saving, and what part do you think I'll play in it?"

Alvin explained things as best he could-the yellow fever, how Alvin had been healing as many people as he could. The rumors about the orphanage. Jim Bowie's little mob. La Tia and the desire of the oppressed people of Barcy to get out before the bloodshed began.

"So, what'll it be? Take all these boats?"

"We don't have a lot of sailors among the French and the slaves and the free blacks and the orphans," said Alvin.

"We could persuade the crews to stay with them."

"La Tia has some idea of my parting the river. Like Moses and the Red Sea. Only I guess it would be more like Joshua and the crossing of the Jordan. How the water piled up on the righthand side as the Israelites crossed over to the western sh.o.r.e."

"And you don't want to do that."

"Makes no sense," said Alvin. "First, that's a lot of water, and it would have to go somehow. No doubt it would end up flooding the whole city, which wouldn't exactly make things better. And when we got to the other side, what's there? Fog and swamp. And some mighty suspicious reds who won't be glad to see us. And let's not forget, several thousand people to feed."

Calvin nodded. "I ain't too surprised, Al. I mean, everybody else has a plan, but you can see how they're all fools and their plans are no d.a.m.n good."

Alvin knew that if he called Calvin on trying to pick a fight, the boy would look at him with big innocent eyes and say, Whatever do you mean, Al? They are are all fools and their plans all fools and their plans are are no d.a.m.n good. no d.a.m.n good.

"They ain't fools," said Alvin. "Especially considering I didn't have no plan at all. Until I was on the way here, and I remembered something I saw Tenskwa-Tawa do."

"Oh, yeah, Lolla-Wossiky, that old one-eyed likkered-up red."

To speak of the great Prophet that way made Alvin's blood boil, but he said nothing.

"Of course I suppose he doesn't drink much now," now," said Calvin. "And didn't you fix his eye? Course, we don't know what all he's doing on the other side of the fog. Maybe they're brewing good old corn mash and getting drunk every Thursday." He laughed at his own humor. said Calvin. "And didn't you fix his eye? Course, we don't know what all he's doing on the other side of the fog. Maybe they're brewing good old corn mash and getting drunk every Thursday." He laughed at his own humor.

Alvin didn't.

"Oh, you old stick-in-the-mud," said Calvin. "Everything's serious with you."

Just the people that I love, thought Alvin. But he didn't say anything more about that. "What I saw Tenskwa-Tawa do," said Alvin, "was mix his blood with water and turn it into something solid."

Calvin nodded. "I don't know about red knacks."

"They don't have knacks," said Alvin. "They sort of draw their powers from nature."

"Now, that's plain dumb," said Calvin. "We're all human, aren't we? Reds can marry whites, can't they? So what would their children have, half a knack? What would half a knack look like? And they could half draw their power from nature?"

"Here I thought you didn't know about red knacks," said Alvin, "and you turn around and insist that their knacks are just like ours."

"Well, if you're going to be quarrelsome," said Calvin, "I'm gonna be sorry I came."

That would make two of us, Alvin refrained from saying.

"So you think you can do this thing old Lolla-Wossiky did," said Calvin. "And then what? You make the river solid? Like a bridge, and the rest of the water flows under it?"

"All the other problems are still there," said Alvin. "No, I was thinking something about Lake Pontchartrain."

"Where's that?"

"Just north of the city. A huge briny lake, but it's shallow. Good for catching shrimp and crawfish, and there's a ferry across it, but it doesn't get used much, because there's nothing worth going to on the other side. Most folks either take a boat upriver or a ship downriver. But at least on the other side of Pontchartrain there's farms and food and shelter and no angry reds wondering what we're doing coming across into their land."

"But there's a whole pa.s.sel of angry farmers wondering why you're bringing three thousand people, including free blacks and runaway slaves, right through their cotton plantations," said Calvin.

Now this this was an argument worth having, thought Alvin. Not just fight-picking, but something that actually mattered. was an argument worth having, thought Alvin. Not just fight-picking, but something that actually mattered.

"Well," said Alvin, "I reckon if we had thirty runaways folks might get angry with us. But we come across with three thousand, and I reckon they might decide against fighting us and just feed us and hurry us on our way."

"They might," said Calvin. "Or they might send for the King's soldiers to come and teach you proper discipline."

"And the King's soldiers might find us in a fog somewhere," said Alvin.

"Aha," said Calvin. "I knew that fog would turn up as your your idea." idea."

"I thought you wanted me to include your ideas in this plan," said Alvin, grinning because it was either that or punch the boy's nose.

"As long as you remember they're mine," said Calvin.

"Cal," said Alvin, "ideas aren't like land or poems or babies or something. If you tell me an idea, and I like it, then it's my idea too, and still still yours, yours, and and it also belongs to everybody else on G.o.d's green earth who thinks it's a good one." it also belongs to everybody else on G.o.d's green earth who thinks it's a good one."

"But I thought of it first," said Calvin.

"Well, Cal, if we're getting sticky about it, when it comes to fog, I reckon G.o.d thought of it long before you and me was born."

"And I guess you're gonna make me whip up all this fog while you get to do the glamorous stuff with the water."

"I don't know," said Alvin. "I've never covered a city in fog. And you've never mixed blood and water and turned it into gla.s.s. So if we both just do the thing we already know how..."

Calvin laughed and shook his head. "So you've got my part all figured out."

"Tell you what," said Alvin. "I'll do the fog and and the water, and you can get back on the boat and go live your own life as you've been doing for the past six years." the water, and you can get back on the boat and go live your own life as you've been doing for the past six years."

"So you don't need me," said Calvin. "I guess Peggy was wrong again."

"There's parts of you I need, all right," said Alvin. "The part that wants to use his knack to help get a bunch of innocent or at least mostly innocent people out of Barcy before the killing starts, I need that. that. But the part of you that wants to pick fights with me and distract me from what I've got to do, that part can go stick its head up a horse's b.u.t.t." But the part of you that wants to pick fights with me and distract me from what I've got to do, that part can go stick its head up a horse's b.u.t.t."

Calvin just laughed. "I bet the horse would like that even less than me."

"You're right," said Alvin. "I was forgetting that horses got rights, too."

"Ease up, old Al," said Calvin. "Don't you know when a body's teasing you?"

"I reckon I do," said Alvin. "You think you're a quick dog teasing a slow bull. But what you don't seem to realize is, sometimes the dog ain't that quick and the bull ain't that slow."

"Threatening me?" said Calvin.

"Reminding you that I don't got all the patience in the world."

"Don't even have patience enough for me? me? Your beloved little brother?" Your beloved little brother?"

"A man could have eight barrels full of patience for you, Cal, and you'd just have to keep goading him till you saw what happened when it turned out he needed nine."

"Sometimes I rile people, I admit it," said Calvin. "But so do you."

"I reckon I do," said Alvin, thinking of Jim Bowie.

"So you'll make a bridge over this Paunchy Train?"

"I thought you spoke French."

"Paunchy Train is supposed to be French?" French?" Calvin laughed. "Oh ... oh, now I get it. Pont Chartrain." Calvin laughed. "Oh ... oh, now I get it. Pont Chartrain."

He said it with an exaggerated French accent so his mouth looked all pursed up like he'd just et a persimmon.

Alvin couldn't help himself. He put on his dumb American act. "Pone Shot Train? I just can't ever hold my mouth right to speak them hard French words."

It was like the best of the old times, tossing words back and forth. "That was the best French accent I ever heard from a journeyman blacksmith."

"Aw shucks, Cal," said Alvin. "I reckon you done made me want to haul my poke over to Paree."

"Iffen you wash yourself proper, I'll take you to meet Bonaparte himself," said Calvin.

"No thanks," said Alvin. "I met him once and I'm done with him."

All at once the playfulness fled from Calvin's face and Alvin could see his heartfire flare with anger. "Oh, excuse me, I forgot you already did everything long before little Calvin come along."

"Oh, don't be a..."

"Don't be a what? What were you going to call me, big brother?"

"I met him when I was a kid, and I didn't like him. You met him, and apparently you did. What of it? He was here in America. It was before he overthrew the monarchy. What am I supposed to do, pretend that I didn't meet him, just so you don't get provoked? Are you the only one ent.i.tled to have met famous people?"

"Oh, just shut up," said Calvin, and he stalked off in another direction.

Since Calvin was perfectly capable of finding Alvin's heartfire whenever he wanted, Alvin didn't fret about it. He just headed home, wishing that Margaret had decided that he needed a different helper. Like, say, Verily Cooper-there was a good man, and he didn't pick foolish fights. Or Measure. Alvin could have used any any of his brothers better than Calvin. of his brothers better than Calvin.

But the truth was, Alvin had no idea whether he could sustain a good fog and and do the thing with the water, not at the same time-not reliably. Promising as Arthur Stuart was, he was still flailing about with makery, and Alvin would be lucky if he could teach Arthur to raise steam from a teapot, let alone a full-fledged fog. So he needed Calvin. A good thick fog wouldn't be just to hide them on the other side. It would cover the whole city tonight. It would keep people from finding them till they were all across the lake and safely gone. do the thing with the water, not at the same time-not reliably. Promising as Arthur Stuart was, he was still flailing about with makery, and Alvin would be lucky if he could teach Arthur to raise steam from a teapot, let alone a full-fledged fog. So he needed Calvin. A good thick fog wouldn't be just to hide them on the other side. It would cover the whole city tonight. It would keep people from finding them till they were all across the lake and safely gone.

Margaret was right to send him, and Alvin would just have to swallow hard and not let Calvin make him mad.

Arthur Stuart's big accomplishment of the day was coming up with fifteen cloth bags that the older children could use to carry food for the journey. Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel were supervising the loading of the bags, arguing back and forth about what they'd need. Papa Moose was determined that they should carry spare clothing, while Mama Squirrel wanted nothing but food.

"They'll get hungry before they get nekkid," she said.

"But no matter how much we carry with us, we'll run out of food soon, and if we're going to have to forage or buy food anyway, we might as well carry spare clothing so the children don't have to travel in rags."

"If we can afford to buy food we can afford to buy clothes, and we'll need the food first."

"We can pick food food off trees and glean it out of fields." off trees and glean it out of fields."

"Well, if you're talking about stealing, Papa Moose, we can take clothes off clotheslines."

"If we're lucky enough to find clothes that fit."

"There's not a child in this house who fits the same clothes for six months in a row."

And on and on it went. Meanwhile, to Arthur Stuart's amus.e.m.e.nt, they were unloading each other's bags almost as fast as they were loading their own. The children seemed to be used to seeing this sort of thing and most of the bags were in another room, where the children were carefully loading them with food they were carrying out of the kitchen. Apparently they were voting with Mama Squirrel.

"Don't like none of our clothes nohow," said one of the children to Arthur Stuart. "Druther travel nekkid."