Alvin had no response to that. He could imagine strolling along the waterfront, searching for a pilot willing to steer a bunch of witches up to Philadelphia. There would be no pilots.

  Until four steamboats chugged their way out into the middle of the Delaware Bay. It was a bit of a mess, as the pilots of the riverboats assessed which of their vessels could tow each of Alvin’s. After they did all their figuring, they concluded that between them they could pull them all—if these landlubbers could manage to tie boats together.

  This was when John Binder proved the worth of his knack, because he and Alvin both knew that a rope gathered and assured by John Binder would not break from pulling it or from bending it, or even cutting at it with any blade except John Binder’s own, held in his own hand. Nor were the ropes stiff—you could make a knot, as small and tight as you needed, and the knot wouldn’t slip unless you wanted it to.

  John Binder’s work was done at the wide mouth of the Delaware. The steamboats dragged their trailers upriver against the current. Alvin stayed on the deck of the lead steamboat, looking back and adjusting the currents so that none of the flotilla of Irish boats capsized or grounded. The river looked like one smooth current to the sea, but going upstream they learned that it was a hundred currents, all competing with each other, and the boats were in greater danger in the river than they had been in out on the open Atlantic.

  But the greater danger happened when the lead steamboat pulled up parallel with the low docks they were going to have to use. The steamboats themselves used the higher docks, as did the large ocean-going sailing ships. But the old, lower docks were still there, and those were the only ones capable of disembarking Alvin’s people from the little boats.

  But the lead steamboat didn’t even slow down. It pulled Alvin’s flotilla upstream and out of reach of the docks.

  It took Alvin only a moment to realize that this was an extortion attempt. We were paid to bring you upriver, the steamboat pilots would say, all the way to Philadelphia. We did that. Now if you want us to manage the docking and unloading of all these miserable little boats, that’s going to cost you just as much again.

  John Binder stood there on the deck with Alvin, and they looked at each other. John rolled his eyes. Alvin said, “John, I know your knack is binding things together. Have you worked much on disconnecting things without having to lay hands on them?”

  “Never spent much time on it. But when I need things to come apart, they usually do. You want me to undo all my knots and turn our Irish boats loose on the current?”

  “No, I think that might well drown all our people. Here’s my problem. If the steamboats turn around, they’ll be towing the little boats with the downstream current. As the steamboats slow down at the docks, the current will carry our little boats right past the docks.”

  “Sounds about right,” said Binder.

  “How can we handle this, without giving in to their extortion?” asked Alvin. “How will they get our boats back downstream to Philadelphia?”

  “Near as I can figure, they’ll slow down their paddlewheels enough to let the current carry the trailing boats back down to the docks, but with the steamboat pouring on just enough power to keep them in place while we get the boats up to the docks, tie them up, and disembark.”

  “I see,” said Alvin, picturing it in his mind. “And if we pay them enough, they’ll slow down their steamboats and get us lined up just right. Almost effortless for them.”

  “Sounds right.”

  “Why haven’t they come to make the demand yet?” asked Alvin.

  “I think they expect us to go running up to the pilot house and demand what’s going on,” said Binder.

  Alvin nodded.

  “So what do you want me to disconnect?” asked Binder.

  “The steam engines make those pistons go, and then they make the paddlewheels turn, right?”

  “You want that connection to be broken,” said Binder.

  “I want it to slip and jam and otherwise misbehave. So the wheel stops turning and the current starts pushing the steamboat downriver. But nothing should be broken. Just … faulty connections, which you can fix without touching anything.”

  “Because you don’t want them to be able to prove sorcerers were interfering with their boats,” said Binder.

  “So let’s make all their steam engines lose a reliable connection with their paddlewheels.”

  “When?” asked Binder.

  “Now,” said Alvin. “All of them, all at once.”

  It took Binder a couple of minutes to locate everything he needed to do, and then use his doodlebug to make gears slip and pistons jam. On all the steamboats at once. The last one hadn’t reached the low docks yet, but the other three were all upstream of them when they stopped moving forward and started slipping backward.

  The steamboats were getting carried downstream a little faster than the boats they had been towing. They were going to get tangled up in those boats pretty quick.

  Alvin put his hand on Binder’s shoulder and said, “Let’s go ask the pilot what’s going on.”

  The pilot was already out of the pilot house, and they ran into him on the starboard upper deck. Alvin sounded pretty peeved when he said, “I thought you ran a tight ship, sir.”

  Binder poured on the outrage. “Don’t you know you’re moving downstream faster than the boats tied up behind you? They can’t get out of the way!”

  “Untie the lines and cast them off!” shouted the pilot.

  “How are we going to do that?” asked Binder. “Show me how to do it.”

  The pilot ran to where the lines were tied. There was no undoing a knot John Binder had worked on—plus, the ropes were wet.

  “Do something!” the pilot shouted at Alvin.

  “Isn’t this the part where you tell me I have to pay double before you’ll let my boats get tied up to the lower docks?” asked Alvin.

  “You think I’m doing this on purpose?” yelled the pilot.

  “I think you steamed right past the Philadelphia harbor on purpose,” said Alvin.

  “Only I guess you forgot to tell your steam engine about your extortion scheme, so the engine didn’t know how to act.”

  “I know you two did it, somehow!”

  “Don’t hear you denying the extortion plot,” said Binder.

  “We weren’t going to ask for much!” said the pilot.

  Alvin grinned. “We’ll see what we can do. And if we get your engine running and your wheels turning, we won’t ask for much.”

  “I know you ensorceled them,” said the fuming pilot.

  “You know more than I do,” said Binder. “Can you unensorcel them?”

  “Of course not,” said the pilot.

  “I better get a look at the engine on this boat first,” said Binder.

  The pilot led them down to the engine room. Binder immediately saw a few connectors on the deck, where they’d landed when Binder popped them off the pistons.

  In order for the pistons to be still while Binder reattached them manually, the engine had to be disengaged completely. Then it took Binder a long time, what with having no tools, to get the pistons connected and a few other things repaired. “Of course it got all gummed up,” said Binder. “You aren’t washing the gears every day.”

  “Nobody washes the gears,” said the pilot. “You lubricate them.”

  At the time their steam engine was working again, all the other steamboats also kind of self-repaired—Binder was almost as skilled as Alvin about using his knacks without being caught at it.

  By then, of course, most of the Irish boats were running aground or taking on water. There was a lot of screaming and yelling. But as the wheel started turning fast enough to resume upstream motion, the tangle of boats sorted themselves out until they were all dancing at the end of their lines.

  This time when the steamboat had the towed boats parallel with the lower docks, the crews had them moored to the dock in a moment. Then it was Binder’s turn to let loose the knots he didn’t like.

  When all the boats were separated from the steamboats, they loaded up several carts and everyone got cheerful as they hauled the carts to the warehouse Father Luke had bargained for. They made sure everything was in the right trunks. “Tomorrow we get these all aboard the railroad train taking us west,” said Alvin.

  On shore, Father Luke told Alvin that the last boat was unloaded, so he was going to go pay the steamboat captains.

  “Just a couple of things, Father Lukasz,” said Alvin. “When they try to tack on more charges for anything at all, tell them that you are deducting a portion from each steamboat’s fee because John Binder and I had to fix their engines, which we did.”

  Father Luke grinned at Alvin. “They were trying to cheat you, right?”

  “Yes,” said John Binder.

  “They have a reputation for that kind of chicanery,” said Luke.

  “Then why did you hire their boats?” asked Alvin, exasperated.

  “Their bad reputations had left them desperate for customers, so all four steamboats were available for a reasonable fee.” Luke grinned at Alvin. “And I figured you’d soon have the situation well in hand.”

  When the pilots all demanded that the local police force Father Luke to pay the full fee, Alvin intervened. “Why don’t these good policemen lead us down to the station where we can hammer it all out?”

  By the time the police had conveyed Alvin and Binder to the station, the pilots had slipped off to disappear in the city. They may not have been paid everything they hoped for, but they got most of their original fee, which was, as Binder said, “more than they deserved.”

  Still, Alvin and John got to the police station, and the police didn’t take long to make it clear that they would never have listened to those shady riverboat pilots. However, what concerned the police was a sudden influx of Irishmen—and their wives and children and grandparents, in some cases—and nobody wanted them there.

  “On account of they’re Irish?” asked Alvin.

  “On account of they’re witches,” answered one of the cops.

  “No such thing as witches,” said Alvin, and he and Binder headed for the door.

  23

  “DON’T TAKE ANOTHER step toward that door, sir,” said the desk policeman. At the sound of his voice, a couple of other constables stepped out of the back. They said the Irrakwa had invented a reliable breech-loading pistol with five chambers for bullets. Just what these fellows needed. What they had were ancient flintlock one-shots where the ball would sometimes roll out of the barrel and bounce on the ground if you tipped it down and it got jolted.

  “Gentlemen,” said Alvin. “Those pistols couldn’t shoot a cockroach iffen you stuffed the cockroach down the barrel.”

  “Better than the bullets you got,” said the man who seemed senior. “Are you with that Irish group?”

  “Not Irish myself. Born in Hatrack River, near the Hio. But now I live in Crystal City.”

  Alvin saw the men putting their pistols back in their copious pockets.

  “That’s not a very secure way to carry those cannons,” said Alvin. “They could go off and shoot your leg. Or something.”

  “You have a name?” asked the senior constable.

  Alvin stuck out his hand. “Alvin Miller, Junior, at your service. But I’m a journeyman smith, so I suppose I should call myself Smith instead of my dad’s trade.”

  Now all the guns were put away.

  “I heard you had something to do with these ships of Irishmen as landed just this forenoon.”

  “I sailed with them. All the way from Ireland to Philadelphia, so I’m afraid I look a bit bedraggled.”

  The men were all looking at him quizzically. Except one man who was outright hostile-looking. Alvin walked up to the hostile man and said, “Looks like you got an opinion that’s busting to get out of you.”

  “Got lots of opinions.” The man tried to pull his hand away, but with Alvin’s strong hand gripping his wrist, that wasn’t going to happen.

  “I’ll wager you got a poor opinion of Irish folk.”

  “Catholics,” said one of the other constables.

  “Legal in the United States. New England don’t have a say in United States law, right?”

  “Nor the King down in Camelot,” said the desk constable.

  “I like living in a free country,” said Alvin. “So I get concerned when I see a sign that the constabulary here at the port of Philadelphia includes someone who doesn’t like people with knacks.”

  The hostile man stopped trying to pull his hand back. “Having a right strong grip don’t count as a knack,” he said.

  “Right you are,” said Alvin. “What worries me is, you might try to find some New Englanders who happen to be sojourning here in Philadelphia, and tell them about a whole bunch of witches who just came ashore, and then you might lead that mob right to where we’re all lodging for the night. There’s women and children and I wouldn’t like anything waking them up and scaring them. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  The hostile constable nodded.

  “But I think you’re all the more determined to duck out of here and cause a riot, because I held your hand. Could’ve thrown you to the ground, I’m a pretty good wrestler.”

  The senior constable said, “I hope you’re not threatening violence against an officer of the law.”

  “Violence? Out west, two men can’t hardly be said to know each other if they hadn’t had a few rounds of stick-pulling or just riverman wrestling.”

  “You must know that that ear-biting, eye-gouging style of wrestling is illegal here in the City of Brotherly Love.”

  “Nobody loses eyes or ears if they don’t try taking the other fellow’s.”

  “Your rules?” asked the senior constable.

  “Back in Crystal City, yes sir,” said Alvin. “But I haven’t blinded anybody or taken no ears nor noses in, must be, say, fifteen years. Mike Fink taught me how to make a fellow think I’m taking some precious body part, but cause no permanent damage. The world’s already got plenty of folks as can’t see or hear straight.”

  “Don’t think I can’t hear straight enough, witch, how you hide curses inside every word that slips from your mouth,” said the hostile constable.

  Alvin looked at the senior constable. “I’m not likely to sleep well tonight, knowing he’s walking around with authority and resentment.”

  The senior constable walked over and put an arm across the witch-hater’s shoulder. “Vaughan,” he said. “You know I can’t let you do any patrolling tonight.”

  “Taking orders from the devil’s children now?” asked Vaughan.

  “Only person taking orders from anybody tonight is you, taking them from me. You’ll work your whole shift till midnight, and then you’ll stay here in a locked office till dawn.”

  Vaughan was outraged. “Are you arresting me?”

  “Maybe it’s protective custody,” said Alvin. “See, I feel responsible for all these knack-users I helped escape from witch-killers in Ireland. Now that I’m here in the land of tolerance and freedom, I think if somebody should attack my people—a mob of angry New Englanders, or knack-hating Philadelphians, for instance—I’d be worried about folks getting beaten and maybe killed dead, and I can’t allow that.”

  “Wouldn’t kill anybody.”

  “Oh, you didn’t understand me, Vaughan,” said Alvin. “I wasn’t worrying about my people getting beaten or killed. You don’t have any idea what a lot of angry, frightened people with knacks might do to somebody threatening them or their children.”

  “I told you they were dangerous,” said Vaughan to his boss.

  “Sounds to me like they’d only be dangerous to people as tried to harm them, and despite the Quaker heritage of this city, a man has a right to stand up against the threat of violence.”

  Vaughan only looked angrier than ever. So Alvin did what was within easy reach for him. He got all the balls to drop out of the barrels of their pistols at once. He made sure the ones in pockets found a hole and hit the floor only a moment or two later. None of them now had a loaded gun.

  “See?” asked Vaughan, his voice trembling. “How can we keep the peace when this witch can—”

  “Wizard,” said the desk constable. “The men are called wizards. Or incubuses. Incubi.”

  “You’re getting your wicked spirits all mixed up,” said the senior constable.

  Vaughan got down on his knees, picking up pistol balls.

  “Stop that, Vaughan,” said the constable. “You know we got casks of those in back. These don’t have to be picked up now.”

  When Vaughan reluctantly got back to his feet, every button on his uniform stayed behind him on the floor. His pants fell down.

  “I recommend suspenders,” said Alvin. “Or a better tailor.”

  Humiliation worked where intimidation hadn’t. Vaughan fled the room, holding up his pants, of course.

  Alvin shook hands with the senior constable again. “You know I don’t want to harm him,” he said.

  “I don’t know what you could have done to him, but I bet it’s a lot worse than dropping his pants and unloading his pistol.”

  “I really try not to do things more harmful than that.”

  “How soon are you going to be getting your Irish boatloads out of the city?”

  “Already got them in some inns and roadhouses near the railroad station.”

  “Which one? Philadelphia’s got four.”

  “But we’re heading west, so…”

  “Not Manhattan, not Baltimore, not up the Hudson.”

  “All the way to the Foggy River.”

  “The Mizzippy.”

  “So,” said Alvin, “unless Vaughan can get his mob to chase the train all the way west to the river, I think from tomorrow on, we won’t be butting heads.”