Measure rolled his eyes and took it. “Was this pistol in such good condition before you examined it so closely?”

  “I clarified and enhanced it. Made sure everything was clean and lubricated. The normal thing that fellows do with their weapons.”

  John Binder handed his revolver to Alvin. “You’re the one who will need this. Nobody’s looking to kill me.”

  Alvin shook his head as he examined the weapon. “I’m not a killer,” he said.

  “Neither is any of us,” said John Binder.

  “Shooting with a pistol at people who are trying to shoot you,” said Measure, “isn’t the same thing as using your knack to hurt people.”

  Alvin didn’t seem convinced.

  “Think of it this way,” said John Binder. “You won’t use this to save yourself. You’ll use it to protect the rest of us.”

  Alvin rolled his eyes.

  “He rolled his eyes,” said Measure. “That means he liked your reasoning.”

  “It means I rolled my eyes,” said Alvin. “Measure doesn’t know me as perfectly as he thinks.”

  “I know you better than you know yourself,” said Measure.

  Marty gave a little hoot of laughter. “I did not know that your big brother could sass you, Alvin.”

  “I’m too tolerant by half,” said Alvin, “but I like his company too much to turn him into a toad.”

  Marty looked shocked. “Can you do that? Turn a man into some other creature?”

  “I’ve never tried it,” said Alvin, “and I never will. Bodies are too different. And look at the size difference. Measure would make one huge toad.”

  “Nice to know I’m untoadable,” said Measure.

  At about one in the afternoon, John Binder went alone to get lunch. “I’m thinking just some bread and cheese and cold meat. And a bottle or two of—”

  “Water,” said Alvin. “Clean water. We need to have our wits about us.”

  “Guess it’s better than licking slime off a slug,” said Marty Laws.

  “You’re welcome to do that,” said Alvin, “if you can find a slug.”

  Lunch, which was not a small meal, even if the ingredients were simple, left them a little sleepy. Alvin, who doubted he could sleep, set the tone by lying down and closing his eyes.

  “If you’re going to pretend to sleep,” said Measure, “take your boots off.”

  “I like them on,” said Alvin.

  “You’re getting your blanket dirty,” said Measure.

  “It started dirty,” said Alvin. “Nobody brought us the best out of their linen closet.”

  After a few minutes, Marty was snoring lightly. But Alvin knew the others were awake.

  “John,” said Alvin. “I’ve been trying to puzzle out the words to ‘A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.’”

  “There’s a lot of words,” said John Binder. “But they make up a single story.”

  “Would you sing it for me again?” asked Alvin. “I like the song, and I want to have another try at memorizing the words.”

  John Binder sang softly, but at some point Marty woke up and all three men listened to John with full attention, even if their eyes were closed.

  “These deeds shall thy memorial be. Fear not, thou didst them unto me.” The song ended.

  “Would you mind singing it again?” said Alvin, trying not to let his emotion control his voice.

  “Anybody want to sing with me?” asked John Binder.

  “No,” said Alvin. “Yours is the right voice for that song, at this time.”

  Marty Laws had been quite willing to join in, but he smiled a little and lay back to listen to John Binder. Their voices were so different, it really would be a different song.

  Nobody was sleeping, when the song ended again. Measure slid his cot under the window and sat on it to read by the sunlight through the window.

  “What are you reading?” asked Marty Laws.

  “Josephus,” said Measure. “A Jew who joined up with the Romans against his own people. But he’s the only writer besides the evangelists to even admit that Jesus existed.”

  “Everybody knows he existed, and still exists,” said Marty.

  “Spare us a theological argument, please,” said Alvin.

  “No argument from me,” said Measure. “I’m reading.”

  Alvin was adding to the end of his letter to Margaret. He enjoyed misspelling a certain portion of the words in all his letters, because she got just a little annoyed, but also enjoyed the creativity of some of his spellings.

  A few men were shouting out in the yard. Couldn’t make out any words.

  A key was put in the lock. The door opened. It was a couple of court officials bringing a bottle of wine and some plain glasses. The prisoners thanked them.

  “Judge Ligon sent it from his personal stock,” said one of the men.

  “Please tell him how grateful we are,” said Measure.

  The men left, relocking the door.

  “I’m not much of a wine drinker,” said Alvin.

  “Then don’t drink any,” said Measure. “I, for one, wouldn’t mind a taste of spirits to settle my nerves.”

  That opinion turned out to be universal, including Alvin. He sipped at his glass and found that it was a pretty decent wine, as wine went.

  It was about five in the evening, a little after, when they heard some guns discharging outside on the grounds. Marty rushed to the window and said, “At least a hundred of them, all armed.”

  “What are they shooting at?” asked John Binder.

  “This building. Or, to be accurate, us inside it,” said Alvin.

  “And they’re missing the whole building?”

  “The lead balls turn into liquid before they hit anything,” said Alvin.

  “So you’re dealing with it,” said Measure.

  “It’s only a few guns at a time,” said Alvin. “A hundred men, firing at once? And most of them have two or three guns, fully loaded.”

  There was a clatter of boots pounding up the stairs.

  “Bet they have a key,” said John Binder.

  Alvin would have tried to fuse the lock shut, but he was too busy dealing with the shots from outside.

  The moment the door started to open, Measure pointed his single-shot down into the men gathered there and fired. He didn’t know if he hit anybody because at that moment, a bullet from the stairway hit him in the face.

  “I’m a dead man,” said Measure, surprisingly calm. Then he collapsed on the floor.

  Alvin tried to concentrate on the damage to Measure’s body and brain, but as he did, Marty tried to open the window to jump out, and a hail of bullets dropped him, still inside the jail.

  “Marty’s alive,” said Alvin to John Binder. “Get him out of the line of fire.”

  John Binder dragged Marty’s limp and bleeding body under one of the cots against the back wall.

  Alvin fired all six bullets from the revolver into the crowd at the top of the stairs. They backed off—Alvin had certainly done some damage, though he had no time to assess it. He slammed the door and this time fused the lock shut.

  Bullets now were coming through the walls on both sides, and Alvin couldn’t even interfere with them anymore. He was too distracted by the death of his brother, the shooting of Marty Laws, the knowledge that yes, indeed, he could be killed by a hail of bullets from a trained militia.

  If he could draw the fire to himself, maybe they would spare John and Marty. The window was still open, and Alvin leapt to it, started climbing out, stopping several of the bullets coming at him. But a score of bullets made it into his body.

  He started falling out of the window. “O Lord my God!” cried Alvin, and fell.

  He was not killed or much injured by the fall. But the bullets were having their way, despite his best efforts to mitigate the damage, to hold onto his blood. He drew himself to a sitting position against the wall of the jail and then so many bullets took him that he could no longer do anything to save himself, because he was dying, and then he was dead.

  When the firing stopped, John Binder assumed the worst. But there was no time to grieve. Alvin had given him charge of Marty Laws, so John Binder kicked open the door, then gathered Marty into his arms and hurried down the stairs, past the bodies of several men who might or might not be dead from Alvin’s revolver.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he found what he was hoping for, a door down into a cellar. No, a dungeon—it was fitted out with some manacles at the walls. He carried Marty down and the two of them huddled in shadow, as John tried to stop Marty’s bleeding and dress his wounds. From the location of the bullets, John concluded that Alvin had somehow managed to stop much of the bleeding—or Marty would have been already dead.

  Outside the jail, a couple of men made as if to mutilate Alvin’s body with swords, knives, or hatchets. But others angrily stopped them. “He won’t care,” one of the hatchet men said.

  And one of the others said, quite fiercely, “This man was a Maker. Show some respect.”

  The men with savage hearts soon went away, sulking. The others gathered up Alvin’s body, and somebody brought around a wagon. When Alvin was in the wagon bed, other men brought down Measure’s body and laid the brothers side by side.

  Only a few men, among those who were not handling the disposal of the bodies, saw something whipping around the jail building, flying so fast that its shape could not be identified. But if it was a bird, it was a white bird, except that there was flame in it, too. And a couple of the men thought that it wasn’t flying at all, it was running, clinging to the vertical walls the way roaches or lizards do.

  But the men who saw it did not speak of it, not even to each other, until decades later, when a couple of them were finally willing to admit that they had been at Carthage Jail that day.

  “I don’t know what it was,” said one. “Some monster. Moving so fast, clinging to the wall, so fast.”

  And the other one said, “I don’t care what it was. I just knew that it hated me. And it was triumphant.”

  38

  AFTER BRINGING DOWN the Crystal tower, Calvin had spent the rest of the day checking with all the companies to make sure that the captains knew whether all the wagons in their group were ready to go.

  “Don’t know where they’ll go,” said one, late in the afternoon, “what with not being boats and they can’t fly.”

  “But are the wagons ready to roll,” said Calvin, pretending, rather badly, to be patient.

  “If they aren’t, it’s a little late to do anything about it,” said the captain.

  “Take me to the wagons with problems.”

  They ended up visiting all the wagons in that company, and Calvin tweaked boards and axles, hubs and wheels, making sure that all the moving parts moved and the solid parts were so fused together that nothing could make them come apart short of an axe. He inspected the horses, but since none of them had broken bones or problems with their hooves, there wasn’t much Calvin could do for them. He wasn’t half the healer Alvin was. He could find and remove stones and nails from hooves. He could trim the hooves without having to use any tool but his mind. And if a leg had been broken, he could have set it good as new. But otherwise, the horses had to look out for themselves.

  Besides, even if he could heal horses from injury and illness, Calvin wasn’t going with them.

  Why would I even want to go with them, he asked himself. Permanent exile among the Reds in the trackless deserts of the mountain country. A salt lake—so you grow beans that are already salted before they go into the pot? Farming was not Calvin’s dream for his life, and he couldn’t imagine there’d be any work for a man like Calvin any time soon.

  Not that Calvin knew what his life’s work was going to be.

  “Thank you, sir,” said the captain. Calvin said his goodbye and started walking up the road toward Margaret’s, because he didn’t have patience enough to hear the man say, as he inevitably would, “Why, you did that up proper just like Alvin would’ve done.”

  I did it up proper the way Calvin would have done it, because I am Calvin, I’m here in Crystal City, and I did it myself without any help from Alvin or anybody else.

  Margaret’s place was up ahead on the left when he heard a wail from inside that near tore his heart out. Calvin ran, and not waiting to knock, burst into the house and found Margaret fallen on the parlor floor, two other women standing by wringing their hands, and the parlor maid bringing in a ewer of water and a glass for Margaret to drink from.

  Calvin knelt beside her. “He’s gone, isn’t he,” Calvin asked.

  Margaret, unable to stop sobbing, managed a nod.

  “Do you need anything,” Calvin asked.

  Margaret whispered fiercely, “My husband back.”

  Calvin rose to his feet. “Can you ladies help Miz Larner to her bed chamber.”

  “I don’t know if we’re strong enough to—”

  “She’ll walk. Just be with her to steady her. And to help her get into bed.”

  Margaret allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

  One of the visiting ladies asked Calvin, “Does she do this a lot?”

  “Do what?”

  ”Suddenly faint and burst into the most insane weeping—”

  “I thought you would have guessed. Margaret always has her eye out for Alvin’s heartfire. She knows where he is, she knows that he’s safe.”

  “But then why would she—”

  “Until today. A few minutes ago. When Alvin’s heartfire went dark and then disappeared.”

  The matron hurried away to join the others in Margaret’s bedchamber.

  Was it Calvin’s job now to spread the word that Alvin would never come back to his city? Or, with the tower gone, was it still Alvin’s Crystal City?

  With Margaret’s needs being met, Calvin went out into the dooryard and then up onto the macadam road. He needed to do something, but the only meaningful job for him he had already done.

  Calvin spotted a fast-moving deer. No, it was a boy and a—a big dog? Coming right toward him, but not on the road.

  The boy was a beanpole, and far from being a lad, it was Arthur Stuart. What Calvin had thought to be a big dog was Mike Fink, who was tall enough when he wasn’t standing beside Arthur Stuart.

  I need to have Alvin check my vision, when I can’t tell these two from a boy and a dog.

  Not asking Alvin anything now.

  Tears came to his eyes.

  But he also felt a strange exultation deep in what Calvin hoped was a soul. I’m the Maker now.

  No I’m not. Never.

  Arthur Stuart had them moving right fast, right out in the open. Calvin had always thought Alvin’s Greensong required trees, but here with only cornfields and weeds and bushes, Arthur Stuart was maintaining the Greensong.

  Alvin and Mike Fink came up to Calvin, and Arthur Stuart was already talking. “We left them in the jail, upstairs, in decent shape. There was talk in Carthage about the trial being hurried up.”

  “Won’t be a trial,” said Mike Fink.

  “We don’t know that,” said Arthur Stuart. “People sometimes get struck by an inexplicable wave of human decency.”

  “I gave a couple of pistols to Marty Laws and John Binder,” said Mike Fink. “Didn’t want them to face their enemies unarmed.”

  “You did well,” said Calvin, since Mike Fink seemed to expect some kind of comment.

  “Well, I got to go talk to Margaret,” said Arthur Stuart, starting to move along the road.

  “Don’t do it,” said Calvin. “She might be glad to know you’re back, both of you, but she’s in no shape for conversation.”

  “What happened?” asked Mike Fink instantly.

  “About fifteen minutes ago,” said Calvin, “she gave a cry and fell to the floor weeping.”

  Not even a second, and then both Mike and Arthur burst into tears themselves.

  “If I had been there,” said Mike.

  “Then your heartfire would be gone, too,” said Calvin.

  Arthur had got his tears under control. “Should I hurry back to bring his body home?” he asked.

  “Who you asking?” said Calvin. “Mike? Me? How would either of us know what you should do?”

  Mike said, “Lessun they kilt Measure and Binder and Laws, too, they’ll see to bringing Alvin home.”

  “This is going to destroy Measure,” said Calvin.

  Arthur Stuart shook his head. “If Alvin’s dead, Measure’s dead, too.”

  “You don’t know that—” said Calvin.

  “I know it,” said Arthur. “Measure is with him. Measure is gone.”

  Calvin wondered if Arthur Stuart really knew something, or just thought it was logical for Measure to be at Alvin’s side.

  “I noticed the tower’s gone,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “I took it down this morning.”

  “Pity,” said Arthur Stuart. “I could have used a good long look at the walls.”

  “Alvin told me to take it down, and Margaret stood beside me watching as the tower collapsed.”

  “I’m not criticizing, Calvin,” said Arthur Stuart. “I know Alvin didn’t want to leave the Crystal tower behind when we cross over the river.”

  “I think,” said Calvin, “that Margaret will want to see you now.”

  “I think so too,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “It occurs to me,” said Calvin, “that most of us didn’t die in Carthage this afternoon. Most of us are still here, looking for something to do.”

  “I know what to do,” said Mike Fink. “I’ll find out who kilt him and I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all, bury them, then dig them up so I can kill them again.”

  “Please don’t,” said Calvin.

  “None of your business,” said Mike Fink.

  “If you go into Carthage a-killing folks, they’ll put together an army and come here before we can get over the river. How much mercy do you think they’ll have on us witches?” asked Calvin.

  Mike Fink looked at Arthur Stuart.

  Arthur nodded. “Calvin’s thought it through exactly right, Mike. We have to show everybody that we’re not going to turn this into a war.”

  “I reckon they’re hoping that all the folks with knacks will go home and hide their knacks like they always did before. That’s what they wanted, was to erase everything Alvin accomplished.”