Did Arthur Stuart think that Calvin had not felt the sly digs when he talked about how loyal Measure had been? Everyone knew that Calvin had not been a faithful brother. He was being loyal now—when Alvin was dead. But Calvin had imagined that his knacks would make him a leader. He had not realized that it was never Alvin’s knacks that gave him primacy and power. It was his heart. His love for these people. His eagerness to teach them, to sustain them in their knacks, to keep them safe from illness, injury, hunger, and their bloodthirsty enemies.

  Calvin had never shown even a scrap of such concern for others, because he had never felt any. His concern had always been to jockey for the front position, to “win” a race that no one else was running in—certainly not Alvin. I’m alive, Alvin is dead, but I did not “win” anything. I was never involved in Alvin’s true cause. So, dead, Alvin could never be surpassed by such as me.

  The life Arthur Stuart had just promised him, he could do that. And he could protect the graves of the Maker and his brother. And he could also look after Alvin’s and Margaret’s children, and Margaret herself. If anyone or anything threatened harm to them, Calvin could surely stop the threat and destroy the threatener.

  That’s me, thought Calvin. Destroy the menace that comes against us. I’m not a builder of harmony, but I hope that I’m the enemy of wickedness.

  The burial ceremony was simple and brief. Arthur Stuart had already given the funeral oration. So it was in silence that they watched Vigor, along with Measure’s children, lay nosegays of wildflowers on their fathers’ coffins. Then the wooden boxes were lowered into the ground, and men with spades pitched the dirt back down into the hole, beside and then over the coffins. Then, at Margaret’s invitation, as they left they all trod upon the loose earth over the graves until it was packed down, solid.

  Then they went back to their wagons and carts, along with Measure’s children and widow, leaving Margaret and Calvin there alone.

  “I’m not the man you would have chosen for your companion here and now,” said Calvin.

  “You are exactly the man I would choose,” said Margaret. “There was a time when I feared that if Alvin were ever killed, it would be because you betrayed him. But that did not happen. You did everything that Alvin asked of you, and everything I asked. The Prophet won’t let you across, I fear, because I think he can’t. I think the river made its own rules. But I hope you listened to Arthur Stuart as he outlined a future of nobility and generosity for you.”

  “All I can promise is that I’ll try to do all of that,” said Calvin. “As best I can.”

  “Your best will be good enough,” said Margaret.

  “I know you buried stones today,” said Calvin, “but I do not ask you where their bodies will really be laid to rest, because I don’t want to know.”

  “I think these graves will be a good enough memorial. I’ll get a stonecutter to make headstones. Or one headstone. A wide one, with both their names. Does that sound right?”

  Calvin laughed. “Since when does Margaret Larner ask an ignorant, foolish apprentice for advice?”

  “When he is the brother of my beloved,” said Margaret. “In whom I have high hopes.”

  “Put your hopes in Arthur Stuart,” said Calvin. “He’s the one the people chose to follow into the West.”

  “Where I won’t see him again,” said Margaret. “But you I’ll see every day. So pardon me if I have chosen you to be the vessel of my hopes.”

  Calvin bowed, and not sarcastically, for once. “I will serve as best I can.”

  “As best you can.”

  “I don’t make vows that might not be within my power to keep.”

  40

  DOWN AT THE WATER’S edge, McEddy, Grampus, and Calvin were standing together, arm-over-shoulder, working on the ice road. It was now nearly twenty feet wide, and it wasn’t glassy, it had frost on it, thick enough to give the metal-rimmed wheels some bite.

  Arthur’s job was to walk among the wagons, making sure that there were no parties in conflict or distress. There might be some legitimate causes for argument, but in this passage across the river into the forbidden Red lands, Arthur Stuart didn’t want any conflicts to disturb the journey. What if, because of a quarrel, somebody tried to turn a wagon or handcart around on the ice and come back, past the outbound line of wagons and people? It could be a disaster, if anyone was in such high dudgeon as to forget all responsibility to the rest of the exiles from Crystal City.

  He never had to use Alvin’s voice directly, in speaking to the people—though he would have, if that’s what it took to help calm a conflict. What he found was harmony among the people. Fear, too, of course, and regret for all that they had built and were now leaving behind them. How could they not feel that? But this longing helped bind them together instead of driving them apart. It made them tender-hearted instead of irritable. Arthur Stuart wondered just how much John Binder had to do with that peace, that binding friendship. It could not last forever, but Arthur Stuart sure hoped it could last through this day. He hoped it would outlast the ice.

  The sun was above the eastern horizon when Calvin, McEddy, and Grampus walked up from the river’s edge to where Arthur waited with the wagons assigned to the start of the crossing.

  “It’s solid all the way across,” said McEddy.

  “The frost was my idea,” said Grampus.

  “A good one,” said Calvin.

  “Will the ice hold, with all this traffic on it?” asked Arthur Stuart.

  “Can’t know till we try,” said McEddy. “But we’ll keep watch on it.”

  “Can you watch the whole bridge from either end?” asked Arthur Stuart.

  Calvin nodded. So did the others.

  “It seems to me that it would be wise for Grampus and McEddy to cross ahead of the first company, and then stand watch—or sit!—while the city crosses, ready to heal any problem in the ice. And Calvin, can you do the same from this side? And if there’s any reason for us to stop, any reason why the wagons stop rolling, you can warn us, so we stop sending new wagons out on the ice?”

  Calvin nodded soberly. “A good plan, to make sure all are safe.” The other two nodded.

  “Well then,” said Arthur, “you’ve built well. You’ve made well. And now, Mr. Grampus and Mr. McEddy, would you step onto the river road and lead the way?”

  “We will,” said Grampus. “But first, Mr. Stuart, I have to ask you a question.”

  Arthur Stuart waited expectantly.

  “You look like me,” said Grampus, “but I know you’re half White.”

  “I hope I got nothing from my father except a slight lightening of my skin,” said Arthur.

  “No, no, I’m not accusing you of nothing. But I never seen you make no charm, and yet it seem to me you got you more than one knack.”

  “I do have some knacks,” said Arthur Stuart. “But I had no mother to teach me the ways of Blacks holding power in the world.”

  “I know a charm or two,” said Grampus. “I can teach you.”

  “I’ll gladly learn from you, Mr. Grampus,” said Arthur. “When we’re well across the river.”

  “And I can teach you how to think so’s you can make up your own charms at need. There’s logic to it. Just not White man’s logic or, I must say, no Red man’s logic neither.”

  It seemed as if Grampus wanted to say more. But maybe he realized he had too much to say to be able to fit it into the time before the wagons had to get started.

  The freezers all walked down to the bridge together, but Calvin stood aside on the dock as the other two stepped carefully onto the ice. It would be bad news if the bridgemakers slipped and fell on the ice, with the first steps of the passage.

  But their steps were firm, their strides longer and longer, though they had no desire to run, lest children feel encouraged to run after them, and risk slipping into the river. Calvin explained their plan to Arthur Stuart, when he came down with the wagons of the first company and beckoned each one out onto the ice.

  Arthur didn’t have to remind them that every walking child had to hold fast to the loops of cotton cord attached along the side of every wagon, at a height a child could reach. Children too small to walk or too young to be trusted to hold on for themselves were bundled into narrow sledges that were tied to a couple of loops each, so they were pulled smoothly along with the wagons, while women kept an eye on them, so no child could fall out and onto the ice without being noticed.

  “It’s all about safety,” said Calvin. “You don’t want any accidents on this crossing.”

  Arthur Stuart agreed. “I had nightmares of this crossing turning into one long emergency of repairing broken ice or rescuing drowning children or women or animals.”

  “The animals still worry me,” said Calvin.

  “John Binder is conversing with the flocks and herds, such as they are—we’re not bringing a serious number of either, but … breeding stock,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “I didn’t know that John’s gifts extended to animals as well as people,” said Calvin.

  “Neither did John,” said Arthur Stuart, “until he tried it.”

  “What Grampus talked to you about,” said Calvin. “Your knacks.”

  By now Margaret was stepping onto the dock, that being the best vantage point. “Pardon me, gentlemen,” she said, “but these have been my people and my city for long and long. I won’t be crossing this river in my lifetime, I believe, but my heart goes with them.”

  Arthur Stuart did not really understand why Margaret wouldn’t cross over. But whatever her reasons, he was sure they were good ones.

  “I don’t believe you were finished with the conversation that I interrupted,” said Margaret.

  Arthur Stuart laughed. “Calvin was just about to ask me a question I can’t possibly answer.”

  “You knew my question?” asked Calvin. There was more than a little doubt in his voice.

  “You wanted to know what knacks I have,” said Arthur Stuart. “Because I do have a few White men’s knacks, things I’ve learned over the years, things Alvin taught me, or helped me to improve on. But I couldn’t enumerate them. They’re just things I’ve learned to do, and when I need them, I do them.”

  “Like running with that Greensong that I could never hear,” said Calvin.

  “Oh, Calvin, you and I both know you hear it. You just don’t trust it.”

  Arthur could see Calvin seethe. And in Calvin’s heartfire he saw that he wanted to say, Don’t speak to me about what I can and cannot hear or see or do.

  But it was Margaret who spoke up and answered Calvin’s unspoken resentment. “I happen to know more than Arthur Stuart does about the knacks he has. Because it wasn’t just from Alvin that he learned. I even taught him to make a few charms that I had learned from free Black women in Philadelphia and other places, before Alvin and I threw in with each other as a full-time career.”

  “You taught me…” Then Arthur smiled. “Those were Black charms. I thought it was more like making hexes.”

  “It’s just like making hexes,” said Margaret. “Those are the magic of Black people, just as the Greensong is the magic of Reds. Alvin could do them all, as soon as he learned. Nobody made better, truer hexes. Alvin never tried to be a Red man or a Black man, but he wanted to learn all he could from anybody, because … well, because that’s what a Maker does.” She made a point of not looking at Calvin when she explained this to Arthur Stuart, because she knew that Calvin would resent a direct sermon from her, but would listen carefully to all she said.

  Meanwhile, Arthur Stuart’s mind was racing. “I learned Greensong from him,” he said, “even though I’m White and Black, with no Red in me.”

  “Love is the teacher,” said Margaret softly. “Who loved you more than Alvin, and who loved Alvin more than you did?”

  “You, Miz Larner,” said Arthur Stuart instantly.

  “No, Arthur Stuart. You and I both gave our whole heart to him. There’s no more than that to give.”

  That was when Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel came down to the water’s edge. Each of them was pulling a handcart, and following them was a wagon driven by another man from the bayou country, who knew Grampus well. There was a slight delay because their dozens of children were a little hard to rein in.

  “Margaret,” called out Mama Squirrel, “is there some spell you can cast on these children to make them cross safely and without making me insane?”

  “There is,” said Margaret, “and you already cast that spell.”

  The two women looked solidly at each other, and then Mama Squirrel smiled. “Oh, you are a seer, Miz Larner. You are an oracle. Come with us. Cross over with us. Bring your son and the baby you’re carrying inside you. Bring them and become a part of our family. We need you so!”

  Arthur Stuart saw how Margaret hesitated, lured by the promise of a family life that had been stolen from her and Alvin while he lived.

  But she held to her original decision. “I long to say yes,” said Margaret. “But I also know that you need me no more than a one-legged, one-armed man needs a ladder!”

  “No, but he needs a second arm and a second leg! You’ve got both of yours,” said Mama Squirrel.

  “Oh, don’t plague her, old woman,” said Papa Moose from the handcart ahead of her. “She knows the way across the river as well as anybody, if she wants to come.”

  Then, Papa Moose, holding firmly to the two arms of the handcart, stepped out onto the ice and instantly all the little squirrels stopped their madcap antics and lined up in a double file directly behind him. When all the children were on the ice, including those pulled in sledges by older children, Mama Squirrel gave a jaunty wave, then picked up the arms of her handcart and followed the lines of exceptionally well-behaved children.

  Their wagon followed her onto the ice. It was heavily laden, for even though no one child would eat more than they needed, there were a lot of children, and the wagon was full of supplies for the journey, with scarcely any seed or tools for work once they reached the valley. Moose and Squirrel knew that others would help them, as had always happened since they set out to follow Alvin north to the Crystal City. That was something that had always been true of Crystal City. No one was poor because everyone’s hand was open to the hungry, the widow, the orphan, the homeless, of which Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel had a whole passel, not only from their orphanage in the South, but also orphans and lost children they had picked up along the way, giving a helping hand to all, and a home to those who had no other home.

  After the interruption, the people on the dock all watched in silence for a time.

  Then Margaret said, touching Arthur Stuart on the arm, “You know, I can sense from Tenskwa-Tawa’s heartfire that he’s troubled because his brother Ta-Kumsaw is giving orders to the people from the city as if he had authority over them, which as their host in the Red lands I imagine he does. But Tenskwa-Tawa is wondering when the leader of Alvin’s people will cross over, so that they can get everything organized and move our people west, away from the river, so there’s room for all the rest who are coming.”

  “That’s a lot of wondering for you to receive so clear,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “You know that you sensed exactly the same thing from him.”

  Margaret saw Calvin startle a bit and look from Margaret to Arthur Stuart, not in awe, but with curiosity. Arthur Stuart had never told anybody just how much he saw of other people’s heartfires. But how could he think that Margaret wouldn’t know? Or that Alvin hadn’t at least guessed that despite Arthur’s fibs, he saw a good deal farther and deeper into people’s heartfires than did Alvin himself.

  “I think,” said Arthur Stuart, “that I should hurry across that bridge and ease the Prophet’s mind.”

  Calvin finally spoke up. “I hope you don’t startle any of the women and children into panicking and falling into the water.”

  “Well,” said Arthur, “there’s time to tread on the road, and time to run on secret paths beside it.”

  Margaret laughed. “Don’t tell me there’s Greensong out on the water, too.”

  “Not green, no, the plants and animals under the water don’t care what’s happening on the surface. But Alvin could walk where he needed to, not by freezing the water, but by making it into crystal wherever his feet stepped.”

  Calvin could not hold his tongue. “It takes blood to make the crystal.”

  “Well, yes,” said Arthur Stuart, “if you want it to last forever. But where he stepped only needed to be crystal while his foot was on it. You should try it, Calvin. I believe it may be well within your knackery.” Unlike Margaret, Arthur Stuart had no qualms about reminding Calvin of all he had missed by rejecting Alvin’s tutelage for so many years.

  But Arthur did not linger to deal with Calvin’s resentment. Calvin was a grown man—he should be able to calm himself down, when the provocation was removed.

  Instead, Arthur Stuart strode briskly to the edge of the dock and leapt out over the ice that lingered there. When he landed, the ice shattered, because where it wasn’t part of the road, the freezers had allowed it to grow thin. But there was no splashing of the water under the ice. Where Arthur’s foot landed, the water was solid crystal, and as he ran headlong into the west, some fifteen feet off to the side of the ice bridge, he made no splash at all, and soon was running as fast as ever he had in the Greensong, and the people on the ice saw him doing something miraculous they had never seen Alvin do, and they waved and called out to him. And then, in a step, he was gone, moving far too fast for any conversation.

  “I hope none of the children think they can run where Arthur ran,” said Calvin.

  “They won’t,” said Margaret. “Nobody thinks they can do what Arthur Stuart can do. Ever since the meeting this morning, he’s Alvin to them now.”

  Calvin laughed wryly, resentfully. “Who knew Arthur could do all these things he does? How is he a Maker also?”