God had sent an angel to Philadelphia Thrower when he was a young minister in a new church in the frontier settlement of Vigor Church. It was there that Alvin Miller, Junior, was reaching an age to become truly dangerous. The commandment was given to Thrower: Destroy this child. Kill him and let Lucifer deal with him. The angel did not give his own name. But he named Alvin Miller, Junior, and Thrower was entrusted with the responsibility of cleansing the nation, the world, of this most abominable pollution.

  In the end, he had stayed his hand, and disappointed—no, enraged—the angel, who took the form of a flaming salamander that ran around the meetinghouse on the walls. Thrower had been terrified, not knowing what God would do to him for having been such a coward, for having shown pity where it was not owed.

  But the grace of Christ touched Thrower, and he began his ministry. He did not try to confront Alvin Miller anymore—the angel said that the boy was too powerful, and it wasn’t Thrower’s fault. Lately, Thrower had moved in the orbit of the lands round about Crystal City, preaching against the abomination of the place, an artifact of Satan constructed of water and blood in a perverse mockery of the blood of the Savior in the Eucharist.

  “Whatever you see in the walls of Crystal City,” he told the people who came to hear him, “the visions are not from God. They are of Lucifer’s sending, in order to tempt you to enter onto paths of self-destruction. How can God protect you from the devil, if you seek visions at the hands of the greatest enemy of Jesus Christ in history?”

  His mission had taken Thrower to Ireland when Alvin went there. He warned the Bishop of Dublin about the menace abroad in the island. But the bishop did not take Thrower seriously until after Alvin had demonstrated his irresistible power, dropping the floor out from under the poor man. You should have heeded me and slain him without ever speaking to him, he wanted to say. But he understood the bishop’s reluctance to sentence a man to death in absentia, untried, on the word of only one witness. “If you’re so sure that’s the will of God,” said the bishop, “then raise your own hand and strike him down. I will see that you are not prosecuted for the killing. Do it, and show me how to be truly ruthless.”

  But Thrower knew he did not have the power to raise a hand against Alvin Miller, Junior. So Thrower spent several months building up a small cavalry force and training them with saber work from the saddle. “You will not dismount, you will not converse. Every being you encounter in that hideous camp of iniquity, man, woman or child, you will slay, preferably by removal of everything above the neck.”

  Thrower had nearly hesitated at issuing the order, but he could see that to do anything less would defeat his righteous purpose. If his posse tried instead to herd Alvin’s followers into one area for holding, it would give the children and the young women a chance to work on the hearts and natural compassion of Thrower’s men, who might then allow some of the witches and witchlings to run away, or others to get the materials they needed to exercise their violent “knacks.”

  No, William Henry Harrison had the right idea at Tippy-Canoe. Trap your enemies—men, women, and children—and then slaughter them from every side. No parlay, no compromise, just a rain of death. And even though the massacre was stopped prematurely, the effect was total—the Red Prophet withdrew all his surviving people, along with many other tribes, west of the Mizzippy. White men could not go there, but everybody knew it was just desert and grass on that side of the river, and millions of bison. Who on Earth wanted to go?

  And if we ever decide we do want to go, will God let Christians be stopped by devilish magic?

  So far, the answer to that was apparently yes, so Thrower didn’t dwell on that idea for long.

  Thrower led his men slowly across Ireland from Dublin to the west coast. He wanted news of their approach to precede them. More than once he wished he had just sent a letter alerting Alvin that his days were numbered, and then ridden the train. Hang the horses. He knew a cavalry charge would be intimidating, but he also began to doubt that his men, despite their training, would be as ruthless as he needed them to be. And Thrower himself, though reasonably strong, wasn’t entirely certain he could take off a man’s head in a single blow from horseback.

  A local farmer accepted a loaf of bread as payment for walking ahead of them, leading them to the Knacky Camp, as some locals called it. “No worse than having gypsies around,” he said, “and better, because these folks don’t steal.”

  Thrower restrained himself and made no reply. It didn’t speak well of gypsies that these devils were rated better.

  The man wasn’t a fast walker, but Thrower and the horses were content to climb the last hill quite slowly. With a sense of gathering triumph, Thrower allowed himself to imagine the looks of consternation and then fear, when they realized what was about to come riding down on top of them.

  And there before him stretched the camp, right down to the Quay at the water’s edge. Apparently nobody had seen them top the ridge, because no alarm was being sounded and no one was scurrying around in a panic.

  “Nobody here, Rev,” said the youngest of his posse.

  Thrower turned to the farmer. “Give back the bread, sir. You led us to the wrong place.”

  “They were here yesterday,” said the farmer, holding the bag with the bread in it behind his back. “I led you fairly to the place of their encampment.”

  Thrower held out his hand to his first leftenant. The man immediately understood, pulled out his telescope, and handed it to Thrower.

  “They were at least three hundred and probably more,” said the farmer.

  “They didn’t just disappear,” said the leftenant. “Were they moles? Did they go underground? Or bats, who only fly out of their cave in the dark?”

  But Thrower held up a hand to end the conversation. “I see a flotilla of ships moving out of the sheltered water. The prison hulks they stole, I imagine.”

  The leftenant reached for the telescope and took his turn looking through it. “How can those be the prison hulks? Everybody knows they’re covered in barnacles and the wood’s weathered and starting to rot all over.”

  “Water isn’t kind to wooden boats,” observed Thrower.

  “Wherever the witches got them, those are three fine-looking ships.”

  “And a bunch of barely seaworthy washtubs following like baby ducks,” said Thrower.

  The farmer dared to speak again. “They said around these parts that if Alvin Smith wanted them to float, they would damned well float.”

  “They are damned indeed,” said Thrower. “Now we’ll see if the Atlantic lets them cross.”

  “How will we see that?” asked the leftenant. “My telescope isn’t as powerful as that.”

  “I forget your name, son,” said Thrower.

  “Everybody does, including me.”

  “If you went by your birth name, maybe we’d all remember,” said Thrower. Several of the men chuckled.

  The leftenant touched his hand to the brim of his hat. “Reverent Thrower, sir, you have me caught out. I call myself Sahara Desert, but my dear mother named me Alexander, and then eke-named me Sandy, which is what I hear the Sahara is like. And my mam’s last name was Grass, God rest her soul.”

  “I assure you, God is indeed resting her soul, in peace and joy,” said Thrower. “Sandy Grass. Yes, in choosing a false name, for some godly purpose I am sure, Sahara Desert was not far from Sandy Grass. Not even a complete lie, that name.”

  “I think so, sir. Especially cause Sandy Grass has two warrants and a sentence of death hanging over him.”

  Thrower almost laughed, but stopped himself. “How did you acquire those?”

  “Not by asking, that’s for sure. I believe that after some disturbances in Killarney, that name got bandied about until the English thought it might be worth having a chat with him. Clearly the name Alexander Grass, eke-name Sandy, is a fairly common one in Ireland, but you know the English don’t much care about making sure they hang the right Irishman.”

  “Troublous times,” said Thrower, convinced that Leftenant Desert was in fact the very rebel the English soldiers were looking for. In Dublin there was such poverty that for a reward—for a meal—many a person would put the finger on a wanted man. But everywhere else in the country, the English found that the Irish were the least neighborly people on Earth. None of them knew the names of any of their neighbors, or anything about their business, their families, their livelihood.

  “Leftenant Sahara Desert, I’m going to dismiss all these other men. Not yet!” Thrower barked at the others already moving to disperse. He turned back to the leftenant. “I wonder if you’re knowledgeable about the sea.”

  “I’ve been in boats, sir,” said Sandy Grass.

  “On open water?” asked Thrower.

  “Aye, sir,” said Grass.

  “Have you raised and lowered the sail on a one-masted boat?”

  “I’ve watched it done. I even know why you raise and lower it. I take it you have your eye on that sloop by the Quay?”

  “I can’t think why Alvin would have let it behind. As a trap for us? To mock us?”

  “It’s smaller and less masted than some he took,” said Grass.

  Thrower turned to the others. “Men, you may return to your homes. Remember that these horses you ride belong to the bishop. Take care of them, keep them fed on grass that your family can’t eat anyway.”

  “Can we plow with them, too?” asked one.

  “Use them in your labors. Just don’t beat them. They’re proud animals, and humiliation leaves them broken, spavined, hoof-cleft. The bishop and his men will know that the horse has been misused.”

  “Won’t they claim the horses back?” asked another man.

  “They’re the bishop’s horses. Generously, he allows you to use them on your farms until he wants them again.”

  The men looked to each other, several nodding their assent.

  “I’m grateful for his generosity and liberality,” said one. The others all echoed those sentiments, until another piped up.

  “So we don’t have to cut off any heads today?”

  The easy way the fellow spoke it filled Thrower with a sudden rage, he wasn’t sure why. Was it because he’d assumed the men were like him, only willing to kill for a just cause, but in fact they were happy to shed blood for any reason at all? Or was it because the success of their attack had never really been possible, and everyone had known it but him? Either thought made Thrower feel like a fool, which was its own injustice. He drew in his breath a bit sharply.

  “I hope you never have that solemn duty,” said Thrower, calming himself with his well-practiced preacher’s intonation. “But Jesus honors you for being willing to do such an unpleasant thing in his name and in his service.”

  The posse left, then, their horses at a walk, some going north, most south and east. Only Grass remained. “No one asked for money or food to take with them,” Thrower said.

  “They didn’t fight the battle, so they didn’t expect to be paid,” said Grass. “And they know exactly how much food is in our saddlebags. I’m sure they all have a little tucked away. Ireland is not so vast that they’ll starve to death before coming home.”

  “No, only after they come back will they find that Famine has set up his throne in their house.”

  “Something will come and save them,” said Grass.

  “Said the people drowning in Noah’s flood.”

  “Is that what this potato blight is? Our flood?” Grass had another thought. “Are those boats that just sailed away, are they the ark provided for us, and we came too late?”

  “The Lord promised no more floods. He didn’t say he had no plan to destroy the human race again.”

  Grass absorbed that. “Shall we go see what they left behind?”

  Their horses led them to a particularly large tent, and they dismounted to explore. It was in a modest, out-of-the-way tent that they found Alvin’s dwelling place. There was a wheel of cheese sitting on a table—not a large one, but enough for a man to eat half and be right full.

  There was a note painted on the outside of the wheel.

  philadel have supper on us

  sorry had to go, would

  of took you with

  “You think he meant it?” said Grass. “That he would’ve took us with?”

  “Not if we came in beheading everybody in our way,” said Thrower.

  “Mmm, I don’t know,” said Grass. “What I heard of his power, I think that might have made him more determined to take you with.”

  “I will never put myself in his power,” said Thrower.

  “From what I hear, you’re in his power right now, if he feels like it.”

  “Leftenant Sahara Desert, if we’re to cross the Atlantic in each other’s company, I don’t want another word from you on what you heard about Alvin Miller, Junior.”

  They left the camp and went to look at the sloop, going around to the Quay and tying up the horses at a hitching bar in front of a closed-up tavern. A window opened and the tavernkeeper stuck his head out. “Closed this morning, gents,” he said. “But we have rooms aplenty and supper is cooking away in the kitchen. Come back then!” The shutter closed.

  “I guess that with all their customers out at sea,” said Grass, “there was no reason to keep the tavern open on the same schedule.”

  “If they had known you were coming, Sandy…”

  “I never touch alcohol, sir. My ma says, God means man to be wise, so it’s an affront to God to make ourselves stupid with drink.”

  “If a man can’t have the Holy Ghost as his guide, Brother Grass, then the advice of a good and loving ma might do almost as well.”

  “So far it’s been effective enough,” said Grass.

  Reverend Thrower stood on the Quay, not interested in stepping onto the slightly-bobbing boat. Grass, however, swung right down onto the deck, and then below. He moved like a habituated sailor. A deserter from the Navy, thought Thrower. Didn’t want to let anybody know about a former sailor named Sandy Grass. Well, God is with me still, providing me with a sailor when I most needed one.

  “Is it solid enough to take us to sea?”

  Grass didn’t answer for a few minutes, until he came back up to the deck. “By the light from the hatch I could see one area of the hull, and I’ll be jiggered if it isn’t a single solid hull-shaped piece of lumber.”

  “What do you mean? Like a hollowed-out canoe?” Thrower had seen a couple of dugouts on the Hio, the Wobbish, and the Hatrack. Reds didn’t seem to realize that they were ungainly craft, impossible for one man to manage. They just paddled them wherever they wanted, without a care.

  “Like the tree grew in this shape, they cut it down, and set it in the water like it is today,” said Grass. “I’d say Alvin’s got him a nice set of knacks, if a miller, smith, and stonemason can also do that kind of perfect work below decks on an old sloop.”

  Thrower didn’t want Grass admiring Alvin, but how could he stop the man, considering that Thrower himself was in awe of what Alvin could do.

  From the remnants in the tents and cabins, plus everything they could buy from the tavernkeeper, Thrower figured they had supplies enough to cross the Atlantic. Maybe.

  Then Grass said, “I hope you have some more of those coins, because in all our provisioning, what we don’t have is drinking water.”

  Thrower blushed with embarrassment. “I suppose we would have noticed that mistake when we were somewhere near an iceberg and we could chip off a few blocks of ice to melt and drink. How do we buy the water?”

  “Small kegs, filled up from the tavern’s spring.”

  Thrower nodded. “Let’s go see what he has in the way of casks.”

  “And ropes to tie everything down,” said Grass. “A couple of big waves, and all our stores and water will be in the Atlantic, bobbing along behind us.”

  “A lot of things can go wrong,” said Thrower.

  “Rule of seafaring: If it can go wrong, it will, so be ready.”

  “I chose the right traveling companion,” said Thrower.

  “No sir,” said Grass. “Once we board this ship, I’m the only one of us who has any idea what he’s doing. That makes me captain, and you a most obedient and humble seaman.”

  Thrower looked at Grass and smiled. “That is not mutiny, it is wisdom, because there’s something you don’t know.”

  “You have dysentery?” asked Grass, wincing.

  “I vomited about every six hours on my way across the ocean to America the first time. In a big ship, with a regular bed and good food provided.”

  “We won’t have fine victuals, but we do have enough buckets that we can designate one as your particular companion.”

  “When I ask you to kill me,” said Thrower, “I assure you that I will mean it, but don’t you do it, because God still has work for me in this world.”

  “When I have to throw you overboard, Mr. Thrower, I hope the Lord sends a big fish to swallow you and puke you up on shore.”

  “Already arranged it,” said Thrower. “Don’t you worry.”

  19

  LOVEY CAME TO Alvin again when he was sleeping. Since he didn’t respond to her voice, she began poking him.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Elisha Kent Kane told me that in America they grow their cheese on bushes.”

  “Did he think that was good or bad?”

  “He said the cheese in wheels and under wax is better, but the English don’t let them bring Dutch cheeses into the United States.”

  “Does he have any cheese-bush seeds?” asked Alvin.

  “He said they grow from starts.”

  “So you already asked about the seeds?”

  “I know how to farm, cept when there’s blights.”

  “Well, you find a cheese bush in America, we can take a few starts from it and I’ll try to get it planted and strongly going, unless you find it in winter.”