“I believe Alvin once said that he wished that all the people of Crystal City could be Makers,” said Margaret. “Dear Measure learned more than most people realized. He met Alvin more than halfway. If Measure had lived, he would have been Alvin’s heir, and I think the people would not have been disappointed.”

  “As they would have been disappointed in me,” said Calvin.

  “I don’t know,” said Margaret. “I think that if they had needed you, you would have been what they needed.”

  Calvin laughed again, this time with real mirth. “You are a wonder, Little Peggy Guester,” he said. “You said that with such reassurance that I had to think for a moment to realize that what you said had no meaning at all.”

  “Well, it had a meaning, and it was true, but laugh if you want. Like Measure, like Arthur, there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

  “More, yes,” said Calvin. “But also less.”

  “You would know that better than I,” said Margaret.

  “Oh, why can’t you say ‘better than me’ like a natural American.”

  “Because I’m a schoolteacher at heart, and I know all the rules, even the useless ones.”

  “You’re not staying behind just to watch out for me.”

  “Not that you don’t need some watching over, since you have a tendency to make very poor choices at times,” said Margaret.

  “I don’t think loving Eliza was a mistake.”

  “Neither do I,” said Margaret. “She has been surprisingly good for you. But sleeping with her, that was silly and unnecessary.”

  “My body felt otherwise, and my mind agreed,” said Calvin.

  “I know,” said Margaret.

  “You knew all along,” said Calvin.

  Margaret looked at the wagons now moving out onto the ice. The captains of each company were doing their jobs and everybody helped if anything got fouled up.

  “Calvin,” said Margaret. “Do you think you can do anything about that patch where the wheels are getting mired in mud.”

  “Do what?” asked Calvin.

  “Make the ground a bit firmer there. Perhaps pack it down hard. Or dry it somewhat. Something.”

  Calvin realized that yes, he could do something about it, and he was angry with himself for not having seen the need and done it. But within a minute or two, as the wagon was manhandled out of the sticking place, what was behind that wheel was solid, smooth, unrutted ground. Nobody else got stuck there.

  “I asked my kitchen girl to make a lunch for us both,” said Margaret. “Actually, enough for McEddy and Grampus, too, because I didn’t know the plan would put them on the opposite side. But I think you’re hungry enough to eat all that I don’t eat.”

  “You knew I was sleeping with Eliza all along, but you never showed any anger.”

  “I never felt any anger toward you, Calvin. I don’t talk about it, but my own father succumbed to such allurements one time, with a woman who knowingly participated in his adultery, and yet she became my friend and tutor when I went to her.”

  “Did you think she might have given birth to a sister or brother of yours?”

  “No, Calvin. I had seen enough of her in my father’s heartfire to know that she was a lady of grace and wisdom. I was able to become a lady and a schoolteacher because of her. Mistress Modesty, she was called, and I loved her. My father loved her. My mother never knew, because I never told her, and Father broke off the liaison of his own accord. I grew up knowing about every adultery in Hatrack River and anywhere else I went. Everybody’s secret sins. Calvin, that was too much of a burden for a child, to know how little faith there was in the world.”

  “So you forgave me.”

  “You did nothing to me that needed forgiveness. Nor did you steal Eliza’s virtue from her—she had been giving it away with both hands since she was a slip of a girl, fourteen or fifteen years old, or so she seemed in her own heartfire. Calvin, I know more than I ever wanted to know.”

  “Did you know that Alvin was going to die in Carthage?”

  “When I laid my hands on his mother’s belly and saw his heartfire inside her, I saw him sitting dead beside a whitewashed clapboard building, many bullet wounds in his body. But then I was involved with his birth, and when he was born with his face covered, I saw no more in his heartfire than his suffocation. Only after I removed the birth caul from his face and allowed him to draw breath did I see any future for him, and that image of his death never appeared again. So many other deaths—oh, the Unmaker was out to destroy him, indeed! And I saw that by keeping his birth caul, I had access to powers he would not learn how to use himself till he was older, and so my task was to use his power to protect him.”

  “From Hatrack River, you protected him in Vigor Church.”

  “Until I used the last of his caul. Meanwhile, he mastered many of his knacks by working to keep you alive as hard as I worked to save him.”

  “Was the Unmaker trying to destroy me, too?”

  “No,” said Margaret, “or not that I saw, anyway. He saved you from your own childish recklessness. The more he saved you, the more you thought nothing could harm you. But you grew up and after a while, you were able to save your own life, when you needed to.”

  “If he had let me be there, I could have—”

  “You could have died right along with him. Do you think it’s an accident that Measure was killed, and the other two were not? If you had been the brother with him, you would have died, too.”

  “Did you see that in my heartfire?”

  “I saw in Alvin’s heartfire that your death was something he was determined not to allow, not while he was alive.”

  “He loved me,” said Calvin.

  “There were times when I couldn’t really fathom why,” said Margaret. “And then I did see, and I did understand. He saw in you the boy he might have been, without my protection, without your parents’ love.”

  “My parents loved me,” said Calvin.

  “But you weren’t sure of that, were you?” asked Margaret. “Because you saw how they were in awe of Alvin, and they never showed such feelings toward you.”

  “I have to stay away from you,” said Calvin. “You’re a witch, and you know too much.”

  “I am not a witch. I’m your sister, and at first for my husband’s sake, and now for your own sake, I love you as my true brother. You have enough of the heartfire vision to know that I am not lying to you.”

  Calvin nodded, and tears streamed down his face. “I know why the river rejected me.”

  “You’re not here because you’re rejected. You’re here because you’re needed. Do you think that everybody with a dangerous, hidden knack has been found and led across the river?”

  “No ma’am,” said Calvin.

  “Verily Cooper is on his way to Philadelphia to try to persuade the President to allow those isolated knackles to make their way to the river and cross into the West. Who will lead them there? Who will even find them?”

  Calvin nodded. But then he went and sat on the edge of the dock, dangling his legs over until they nearly touched the water that had been exposed when Arthur Stuart broke the ice. He did not even react when Eliza walked onto the ice with the knacky people from the showboat and, seeing him, called out and waved. But he heard her. He just didn’t want to care.

  She had made her choice: She had no claim on Calvin now, nor on Margaret, and certainly not on Arthur Stuart. But she had shown talent for leadership, and liked it, so she might be a great help to the people of Crystal City in their new home, and in crossing the plains and mountains to reach it. Or she might be a thorn in Arthur’s side that would challenge him constantly to deal with her in a way that wouldn’t exile her from the new city.

  Margaret did not stay to watch everyone pass. She was heavy enough with Alvin’s last babies that she could not stay without a chair to sit on, and even that would not be enough, not for long. So as the wagons continued to pass, and the sun made its downward way in the sky, Margaret walked back up to her house.

  Mike Fink was there, keeping watch at the door. She had found that he was a good man, not cruel at heart despite the many cruel things he had done in his life. She liked him. She trusted him. He would have died for Alvin, but Alvin wanted him to live, and it occurred to her that having Mike Fink watching over her and her children was not a bad thing. She would not be an unprotected widow. They would not be vulnerable orphans. And they would grow up under the protection of a man who had known their father and loved him.

  She went inside the house, and murmured, “Come with me” as she passed Mike. Soon they were down in the cellar, standing where they both knew Alvin and Measure were buried. “You haven’t had the floor done yet,” said Mike.

  “I didn’t want any of the workmen from Crystal City down here. There are too many knacks, and one might include seeing what’s buried under this dirt floor.”

  “But workmen without knacks?”

  “Masons,” said Margaret. “Men who can make a solid brick floor, two layers deep, and then a layer of wood on top.”

  “And who will use this dark and quiet room?” asked Mike Fink.

  “You may,” said Margaret, “any time you want to come down here. Not necessarily to remember Alvin—I know you won’t forget him, but sometimes a person needs time to himself, to think his thoughts and dream his dreams.”

  “That’s right kind of you,” said Mike Fink. “For what it’s worth, I haven’t killed a man since I met Alvin. Well, since very soon after I met Alvin.”

  “Did he ask you not to?” asked Margaret.

  “Well, I knew he disapproved of it, especially because he didn’t kill me when I came this close to killing him. And he didn’t take anything from me—not my nose, not an ear, not an eye, nor any other part belonging to a man. I had never fought anyone who did not want to break me somehow. Who merely wanted to stop me from killing him. Or that’s how I remember it, anyway.”

  Margaret smiled and leaned her head against his upper arm, his shoulder being out of her reach. “You and I are the only two people east of the river who know what lies in this floor.”

  “What if people from west of the river someday ask to be able to take his body west and bury it in the new Crystal City?”

  “If I know Arthur Stuart, there will be no city called Crystal, because that belonged only to Alvin. And if I know Arthur Stuart, he will never ask to take Alvin away from me, nor Measure away from Alvin.”

  “Will you ever marry again?” asked Mike Fink.

  “That’s two questions, my dear friend. Yes, I’m still of child-bearing age, and my children will need a good father, and other siblings besides each other. So even though I will never find any man to compare to Alvin, I will find a man whose heartfire shows he’ll be kind to me and my children, that he’ll be able to provide for us, and that he will truly love me. I will marry that man.”

  Mike Fink nodded.

  “You will never be that man,” said Margaret kindly. “You will watch over Alvin’s children as long as you can, and you will love them for Alvin’s sake. Like Measure, you are a good brother to Alvin, and so it will be as Uncle Mike that Alvin’s children will know you.”

  “Uncle Fink,” said Mike. “There are already enough Mikes in the world.”

  “Uncle Fink it shall be,” said Margaret.

  “Are you going to raise them to talk in that high falutin way?”

  “Absolutely,” said Margaret.

  “Then the other children at school will want to beat them up, and they’ll do it, too.”

  “Not with Uncle Fink walking with them to and from school,” said Margaret.

  “Damn right,” said Mike Fink. Then he knelt by the graves and wept, and Margaret left him there to mourn. Alvin, you left so many broken hearts behind you. But mine is not broken. My heart is whole, because you made me whole for so many years. I still carry your heartfire inside mine, as Arthur Stuart also does. Nobody understands that connection that transcends death, but it’s real. You are alive in my heart, and in Arthur Stuart’s heart. Your power is no longer in the world, but your love remains.

  * * *

  Ta-Kumsaw greeted Arthur Stuart with a handshake when he sprang up onto the riverbank, still running very fast. At the top of the bank, Arthur Stuart took the offered hand, and thanked Ta-Kumsaw for helping the people.

  “Alvin’s people,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “He saved my life when I was a dead man, and my debt can never be fully repaid. But this will help.”

  “Have you shown John Binder where the people of Crystal City can camp for tonight?”

  “He’s already assembling and arranging the first arrivers.”

  “How did you know he should be in charge? Because I know he would never declare it.”

  Ta-Kumsaw rolled his eyes, not what Arthur Stuart expected a stoic Red warrior to do. “I have a brother who sees who people really are, and he told me that John Binder was holding this great tribe of yours together.”

  “Then I thank you both.”

  “Oh, my brother is right beside him. You don’t think he’d leave it all up to a White man, do you?”

  Arthur Stuart laughed, and since he laughed with Alvin’s voice, with Alvin’s laugh, Ta-Kumsaw embraced him. “I see that Alvin also had a brother, besides those that God gave to his parents.”

  Arthur Stuart did not deny it.

  “Did he teach you to run on the water, or did you find that road for yourself?”

  “Both, in a way,” said Arthur Stuart. “This was the first time I actually did it. But it went well, I think.”

  “I believe Alvin left his people in good hands. And in your case, he did not leave things up to a White man.”

  “Half White,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “In you,” said Ta-Kumsaw, “there is no ‘half’ this and ‘half’ that. You are whole, you are one, you are a man.”

  “Then I may continue doing such Red magic as Alvin taught me?”

  “If the living world accepts you, then a Red man can do no less,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  Arthur smiled. “It’s a long way to the Great Salt Lake,” he said.

  “And don’t get any foolish ideas about taking the salt out of it,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “I don’t have any plan to undo the land where we’ll live.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll plow under the grass and plant your own grasses, and trees that bear the fruits you like. And you’ll find the makings of gunpowder, and make it. You’ll find iron and coal because in that land, there is plenty of both. Copper, too, a mountain’s worth. It’s a place where White civilization can be built.”

  “I believe,” said Arthur Stuart, “that just because a thing can be done, does not mean that it must be done.”

  “That eases my heart,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “We are both leaders of a great people now, and our people will grow to fill all these lands, and they will learn reading and writing, and they will come to you to buy paper and pen and ink. They will learn deeper agriculture, as I did in my time among the White people, and they will come to you for plows and hoes, and you will trade with them, or, God forbid, give them money for it, and teach them to be rich when others are poor.”

  “I hope my own people don’t learn that themselves.”

  “My people will traffic with yours, and there will be envy and resentment. My people will come as they come to everyone, expecting to be fed wherever they go.”

  “My people will feed them as long as they have any food themselves.”

  “You make bold promises about the future. But I know my people’s weaknesses, too. Young men will decide to take what they are not given. They will do it by stealth, and then openly, and then by threat of force. And your people will take their hunting rifles and shoot my young men dead when they misbehave like this, and thus we will have war in the future.”

  “Because you can’t control your people,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “And because when they are angry at being robbed, you cannot control your people, either.”

  “I will teach them,” said Arthur, “to be patient with your young men, and give them freely whatever they take, and never try to prevent them by force.”

  “You can teach them all you like, but where are the White men who will listen to such teachings?”

  Arthur Stuart said, “And you will teach them about White men and their need to own things and have no one take them away. You will teach them to take only what is freely offered, and never what is needful for White colonists to keep and use.”

  Ta-Kumsaw laughed. “We will both teach our people to behave so unnaturally that your Whites will not act White, and my Reds will not act Red.”

  “But they will still be Red and White, and we will have peace.”

  “When you die all these promises will soon fade,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “Die?” asked Arthur Stuart. “If you haven’t died, why should I?”

  “Let us always remember that our true enemies lie east of the river, not west of it. Your people are feared and hated because of their knacks, and mine are feared and hated because the Whites of the East know that they are living on our land, so they believe we must hate them as they would hate anybody who dispossessed them.”

  “But you do hate them,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “I fear them,” said Ta-Kumsaw, “because I learned something when I lived among the Whites.”

  Arthur Stuart waited.

  “Here is what I learned. A man might fear someone who has harmed him, because he may harm him again. But a man will hate someone that he has wronged, because he knows that he does not deserve to be forgiven.”

  “That is very wise,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “That is why we have given your powerful people a good land where they can thrive as they want to thrive, and live as they want to live. You have not wronged us, we have not wronged you, so there never needs to be hate between us.”

  “That is a good balance,” said Arthur Stuart. “I vow that I will teach my people to abide by this law.”

  “Yes,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “It was you that I was waiting for here by the river.”

  “You were waiting for Alvin Maker,” said Arthur Stuart.