“If we’re peaceful,” said Calvin, “if we leave our houses and streets and the water tower, the fields and drainage channels, and the bulk of our stores of corn, they might be content to let us pass into the mysterious Red lands without any harassment or marauding.”

  “The Reds won’t want me in their lands,” said Mike Fink.

  “Mike,” said Arthur, “folks take one good look at the size of you and nobody wants you in their lands.”

  Mike Fink laughed and slapped Arthur on the back. Arthur didn’t flinch.

  Arthur is stronger than he looks, thought Calvin.

  And then the next thought: Arthur is more than he looks to be in every way. In a country where Blacks and mixups are usually slaves, Arthur looks Black and there’s slavers who want to take him back into the slavery he was born to. Yet he doesn’t look like a fugitive or an ex-slave. He has something of the bearing of Alvin himself—not surprising, given all the time they spent together.

  Alvin left Arthur in charge of the migration into the Red lands. And for the first time, Calvin realized that leading the migration would certainly lead to Arthur Stuart becoming Alvin’s successor as the leader of the knackles.

  But I’m the only living Maker. How can anyone else claim to inherit Alvin’s mantle?

  Arthur Stuart walked swiftly down toward Margaret’s house.

  “Do you think…” began Mike Fink. “I mean, I don’t think she’ll want me intruding at a time like—”

  Calvin gestured for him to follow Arthur Stuart.

  Mike Fink jogged down the slope. Calvin imagined that in the neighboring houses they had to be wondering if it was an earthquake.

  Calvin almost followed.

  I already saw her, in the first moments of her grief. Let them have their own moments with her. If Margaret wants me, she knows where I am.

  Calvin wandered toward the business district of Crystal City, the shops and offices. Not that he had any office there. There was nothing in Crystal City that showed any mark of Calvin’s having lived here.

  There was a coffee shop. No, a tea room. Right downtown. Calvin wasn’t much for either tea or coffee, but this seemed like a good fall day for a hot drink.

  He was halfway through his second cup of coffee when Eliza showed up in the doorway with a meek little man behind her. What in the world was Eliza doing with a man like that? Calvin beckoned to her and she led her little accessory through the room to his table.

  “Sit, please,” said Calvin.

  “I’ve missed you,” said Eliza.

  By now Calvin routinely disregarded any of the sweet things she said. He knew that she was following a script in her mind. How to keep the boy happy. Well, the script worked. Insincere as he knew she was, it warmed his heart.

  It also warned him to be on alert.

  “My friend here,” said Eliza, “is—”

  Calvin held up a hand. “No, wait. I want to meet you, but I have to tell you what happened in Carthage this afternoon.”

  “In Carthage?” asked Eliza, suspicious.

  “Alvin was killed,” said Calvin.

  “He can’t be killed,” said Eliza.

  “Or so we thought,” said Calvin. “I thought you should know. Before we went any farther with … whatever this is.”

  “It’s an offer to help sir, unless the plan is over,” said the man. “With Alvin gone.”

  “We’re going to try to fulfill all of Alvin’s plans, as far as we understand them,” said Calvin.

  “So you speak with authority today,” said Eliza.

  “I speak as I always have,” said Calvin.

  She caressed his cheek. “I’ve missed you, Calvin. I think I’ll need to listen to you with different ears now.”

  “Those ears are very becoming to you,” said Calvin.

  “You’re studying gallantry, is that it?”

  “You make a man want to be gallant,” said Calvin.

  “Oh, you garter snakes, always wanting to writhe around in a ball,” said the man.

  “What would you know about snakes, being from Ireland?” asked Calvin.

  “This is Lot McEddy,” said Eliza. “He can freeze things.”

  “Ah,” said Calvin. “Have you ever seen garters in a mating ball?”

  “I have,” said McEddy. “They were the first snakes I saw in my life. Quite an impressive sight. I was told they weren’t poisonous.”

  “They’re not,” said Calvin. “But they look very much like coral snakes, which are very poisonous, of a testy disposition, and corals form mating balls just like garters.”

  “So I shouldn’t assume I’m looking at a garter snake,” said McEddy.

  “It’s always wise to treat every snake as if it had venom enough to kill you and your unborn children,” said Calvin.

  “What a wonderful herpetology lesson,” said Eliza.

  Calvin looked at her with mock wonder.

  “I’ve read books, you know,” she said. “And I once had a friend who was a snake scientist.”

  “And lizards,” added Calvin.

  “‘Herpetologist.’ It sounds like a religion,” said Eliza. “I’m a baptized Herpetoligist.”

  Calvin gave Eliza a smile, and then turned to the Irishman. “You freeze water,” said Calvin to McEddy. “Fresh or salt?”

  “Fresh water is a good deal easier. If the Mizzippy counts as fresh.”

  “It counts as not briny,” said Calvin. “How thick can you make your ice?”

  “Right to the bottom of the stream. Only I’ve never tried anything as deep as the Mizzippy, so … I don’t know.”

  “Why are we sitting here watching you drink a cup of cold coffee?” asked Eliza. “Don’t you know where the Mizzippy is? Let’s go and find out the answers to your questions by observation.”

  “Now?” asked McEddy.

  “It is almost dark,” said Calvin to Eliza.

  “There’s a moon,” said Eliza. “I saw it myself. Up there. Shining.”

  “I believe you,” said Calvin. “Let’s go.”

  Calvin had to slow down his walk because McEddy was a man of careful steps. But in due time they stood on the wharf where the showboat was still tied up.

  “Let’s give it a go,” said Calvin.

  “What should I … do?”

  “Freeze the water about a foot thick from here to the far side of the Mizzippy.”

  “With all this fog, how will we know if I get to the other side?” asked McEddy.

  “We’ll send Eliza out on the ice to test it,” said Calvin.

  “We will not,” said Eliza.

  “Alvin said. He said that you could maybe help me,” said McEddy.

  “Maybe,” said Calvin. “I can see what you do, and try to join in and make it stronger. But at first I might make it more difficult, before I understand what exactly you do.”

  “Enough with lowering expectations,” said Eliza. “Build us some ice. A different kind of crystal.” Eliza smiled cheerfully.

  “A crystal highway,” said Calvin.

  McEddy sat down on the dock and closed his eyes. Under the dock the water stopped moving. There was a thin layer of ice on top now, and it grew wider and thicker. In about ten minutes, the ice was thick from the shore to about ten yards out into the river. Calvin thought now that he understood what McEddy was doing.

  He was mistaken, as he proceeded to melt McEddy’s ice in the attempt to extend it.

  “Close,” said McEddy. “But you’re doing this when you mean to do that.” And the ice re-formed.

  Together now, Calvin and McEddy threw their ice bridge across the river, well beyond the fog in midriver.

  And then they were at the limit of their influence over the ice.

  “How long does it last?” asked Calvin.

  “It’s not magic, it’s really ice,” said McEddy. “So, in freezing weather, it can last days. In July, it can melt in half an hour.”

  “It’s November, so…”

  “So the wagons get halfway across,” said Eliza.

  “There’s another freezer, one of the Southerners,” said Calvin.

  “Who?” asked McEddy.

  “I have no idea. Just like I didn’t know about you till Eliza brought you.”

  “Alvin didn’t tell you?” asked McEddy.

  “I’m not sure he knew he was going to die before he could reveal the location of the golden plow,” said Calvin.

  “Is there a golden plow, then?” asked McEddy.

  “There was.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Not directly. But I watched as several other men saw it and examined it. In the end they signed affidavits,” said Calvin. “They’re men of good and sober reputation.”

  “No alcohol involved?”

  “Well, I was full of beer,” said Calvin.

  “You were still a child,” said Eliza.

  “My version makes me more manly,” said Calvin.

  “Why don’t you two just get married?” said McEddy.

  The two of them laughed. “Shall we go in search of the other freezer?” asked Calvin.

  “I bumped into Mr. McEddy here,” said Eliza, “and he asked what I was doing, and I said, looking for a way to freeze the Mizzippy.”

  “I had to offer to help the lady in distress,” said McEddy.

  “That would have been my highest priority, too,” said Calvin.

  “In Ireland they would have killed me for making that ice,” said McEddy.

  “Lots of ways to die in Ireland.” Which made Calvin think of Alvin. Lots of ways to die even if you’re unkillable.

  “Nobody needs more than once,” said McEddy.

  “Gotta point that out to Mike Fink,” said Calvin.

  “I think I’ve seen Mike Fink. Big fellow. Is he your pet?” asked Eliza.

  “My friend,” said Calvin.

  * * *

  “Why haven’t you assembled the wagons?” asked Margaret as soon as she got to the dock, where Calvin stood with McEddy and Eliza.

  “Oh, Margaret, have I done it wrong?” asked Calvin with exaggerated regret. It’s how he always acted when Margaret expressed doubt about something he had done. Pure sarcasm, a quick surrender before she even knew she had attacked him.

  Margaret held her tongue.

  “I thought that before we got the horses out pulling wagons, we should make sure we can extend the ice bridge all the way across,” said Calvin.

  “We don’t need a bunch of wagons stuck out on the ice, I suppose,” said Eliza. As if she thought she were a part of anything. Margaret did not even look at her.

  “Are you helping them?” Margaret asked Calvin.

  “I do what I can.”

  McEddy spoke up. “Madame Larner, he’s a great help. And so is Grampus.”

  He was referring to the old Black man standing at the back corner of the dock. Margaret walked to him and offered her hand. He seemed reluctant to shake it.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Margaret softly.

  “I don’t know what to do with Lady Larner’s hand.”

  Margaret took his hand between both of hers.

  “But you an’t wearing no glove,” said Grampus.

  “I believe it’s rude if I shake your bare hand with my glove,” said Margaret. “Please be at ease. We need your help, and I’m grateful you’ve come forward.”

  “I used to turn a bayou all froze,” said Grampus. “The children loved sliding around on it. And when I melted it, all the fish in it was frozen but they cooked up fresh.”

  “It sounds like you made good use of your knack,” said Margaret.

  Grampus took his hand back, looking puzzled. “Black folks got no knacks,” he said. “We got spells and such.” He reached into his capacious pocket and pulled out what looked like a wad of mud. In fact, it was a wad of mud.

  “It’s my mud charm from the bayou,” he said. “Why make a new one iffen I can just bring this?”

  “Are those sticks in it?” asked Margaret.

  “Not just any sticks,” said Grampus. “Tiny dowsing rods. All working together.” Grampus reached the mud charm down into the Mizzippy water. “Sorry I have to do mine all at once,” Grampus said to McEddy and Calvin. “I don’t know how to hook onto somebody else’s ice, you got to hook onto mine.”

  In forty-five minutes, Calvin pronounced the bridge complete, and McEddy agreed.

  “Can I cross it first?” asked Grampus.

  “Why not?” said Calvin. “Alone, or you want someone to lean on.”

  “Miss Peggy right for this,” said Grampus.

  “Miz Margaret Larner is always right,” said Calvin.

  “No need to correct him,” said Margaret. “I like thinking back on the years when I was known as Little Peggy to anybody who knew me.”

  With Grampus leaning on her, just a little, Margaret moved out onto the ice.

  Calvin wanted so badly to follow. But he knew he wouldn’t make it far if he tried. So he waited on the dock for them to start coming back, figuring it would be a long wait, at Grampus’s pace.

  When they were back on the dock, Calvin asked, “Did you see him? The Prophet?”

  “I did,” said Margaret. “He seemed very pleasant and welcoming.”

  “You told him the wagons were coming?” asked Calvin.

  “I knew my assignments,” said Margaret. “I told him first thing in the morning they’d start arriving. He said he knew right where he was going to help them set up their first camp.”

  Calvin waited.

  “You want his answer,” said Margaret. “Well, he said no. He said it wasn’t his decision to block you from crossing the river.”

  “Whose idea was it?”

  “Apparently the River has a mind of its own. It won’t let you cross.”

  “The river won’t let me,” said Calvin. To him it sounded like the Prophet was dodging responsibility for his own decisions.

  “This is making you unhappy,” said Margaret. “I’m only telling you what he said. If you want a different truth, ask someone else who was at the meeting.”

  “Who else was at the meeting?” asked Calvin. “Besides Grampus.”

  “I didn’t learn all their names. But to a man or woman, they heartily welcomed us for Alvin’s sake. They were grieved to hear of his death, but I think they already knew.”

  39

  WHEN JOHN BINDER drove the wagon up to Margaret Larner’s door, it had three bodies in it, two dead and one dying. John picked up Marty Laws and carried him down to Margaret’s porch. By the time he got there, Margaret was already at the door.

  “Bring him inside,” said Margaret.

  “He’s in a bad way,” said John Binder.

  “Lay him on the settee,” she said. “Don’t worry about the blood.”

  “All dried by now. Don’t think there’ll be any staining.”

  “Has he been conscious?” asked Margaret.

  “Back at the jail, yes. But on this ride? I believe one of the men who helped me with loading this wagon has a knack, though he’d never tell that to anybody. I think he put Marty to sleep, deep enough that the jolting of the wagon never woke him.”

  “I hope it doesn’t turn into the sleep of death,” said Margaret.

  “There are two bodies in the wagon, ma’am, and I don’t know where to take them.”

  Margaret nodded. “You did well to bring them here, John. I’ve got a few men working in my garden. They can carry the bodies inside. What you need to do for me, John, is find Alvin’s brother Calvin and ask him to come here. He has much of Alvin’s knackery, and it may be he can help Marty.”

  John Binder doubted it, but he strode out into the dooryard and then up onto the road. He was loath to walk away from the wagon, with the horse not looked after and the bodies not being watched over. He suspected that there would be those—not citizens of the city, but outsiders—who would want to do some kind of defilement to the Maker and his brother.

  A two-horse buggy came jouncing up the road—somebody needed to smooth it, thought John—and came to a stop beside the wagon with the shrouded bodies. Verily Cooper stepped down from the buggy, then reached up to help his wife, Purity, to join him. They walked to John’s wagon and looked at the two bodies. Measure’s body did not show any wounds, though John Binder knew if they uncovered his face they would see how it had been destroyed by a single shot at point-blank range. Alvin’s body, though, was obviously riddled with bullet wounds. Clothing blood-soaked. His heart must have kept pumping right to the end.

  What would this mean to Verily Cooper?

  “I should have been there,” said Verily.

  “So that we could have three dead bodies in this wagon?” asked John Binder.

  “You don’t know that,” said Verily.

  “The two founders of Crystal City, Alvin Smith and Verily Cooper,” said John. “Your name is known. What brings you out on the road today?”

  “Margaret assigned us an errand,” said Purity.

  “And advised us not to discuss it,” said Verily.

  “John Binder was at Alvin’s side,” said Purity.

  Verily conceded her point. “When we’ve all crossed over the river into the Red lands, there’ll be lots of knack-wielding folk left in the United States and the Crown Colonies. We’re assigned to go to the President and ask him to allow us free access to the river at Crystal City, so that we can help them get away into the west.”

  “The President of what?” asked John Binder.

  “The United States,” said Verily. “I know, why would he see a humble English barrel-maker like me? But I’ll be speaking for many. Including Alvin, now he can’t speak for himself.”

  “If Margaret sent you, it’s because she’s seen into the man’s heartfire and she sees that a good outcome is at least possible,” said John Binder.

  “Or she’s seen that some other good thing will happen because of our errand,” said Verily. “Or some awful thing will be avoided.”

  “Verily, you have as good a right as anyone to see Margaret Larner before you go. But I wonder if, having received your instructions, you might go on your way without interrupting her? Preparing your husband for burial—”