IGMS Issue 2 Page 5

  Not that Alvin doubted where he was. He could key right in on Arthur's heartfire most of the time, and he doubted the boy could hide from him if Alvin was actually seeking him out. Right now he knew that the boy was down below in the slave quarters, a place where no one would ask him his business or wonder where his master was. What he was about was another matter.

  Almost as soon as Alvin opened up his poke to take out the cornbread and cheese and cider he'd brought in from town, he could see Arthur start moving up the ladderway to the deck. Not for the first time, Alvin wondered just how much the boy really understood of makering.

  Arthur Stuart wasn't a liar by nature, but he could keep a secret, more or less, and wasn't it just possible that he hadn't quite got around to telling Alvin all that he'd learned how to do? Was there a chance the boy picked that moment to come up because he knew Alvin was back from town, and knew he was setting hisself down to eat?

  Sure enough, Alvin hadn't got but one bite into his first slice of bread and cheese when Arthur Stuart plunked himself down beside him on the bench. Alvin could've eaten in the dining room, but there it would have given offense for him to let his "servant" set beside him. Out on the deck, it was nobody's business. Might make him look low class, in the eyes of some slaveowners, but Alvin didn't much mind what slaveowners thought of him.

  "What was it like?" asked Arthur Stuart.

  "Bread tastes like bread."

  "I didn't mean the bread, for pity's sake!"

  "Cheese is pretty good, despite being made from milk that come from the most measly, mangy, scrawny, fly-bit, sway-backed, half-blind, bony-hipped, ill-tempered, cud-pukin', sawdust-fed bunch of cattle as ever teetered on the edge of the grave."

  "So they don't specialize in fine dairy, is what you're saying."

  "I'm saying that if Thebes is spose to be the greatest city on the American Nile, they might oughta start by draining the swamp. I mean, the reason the Hio and the Mizzippy come together here is because it's low ground, and being low ground it gets flooded a lot. It didn't take no scholar to figure that out."

  "Never heard of a scholar who knowed low ground from high, anyhow."

  "Now, Arthur Stuart, it's not a requirement that scholars be dumb as mud about ... well, mud."

  "Oh, I know. Somewhere there's bound to be a scholar who's got book-learnin' and common sense, both. He just hasn't come to America."

  "Which I spose is proof of the common sense part, bein' as this is the sort of country where they build a great city in the middle of a bog."

  They chuckled together and then filled up their mouths too much for talking.

  When the food was gone -- and Arthur had et more than half of it, and looked like he was wishing for more -- Alvin asked him, pretending to be all casual about it, "So what was so interesting down with the servants in the hold?"

  "The slaves, you mean?"

  "I'm trying to talk like the kind of person as would own one," said Alvin very softly. "And you ought to try to talk like the kind of person as was owned. Or don't come along on trips south."

  "I was trying to find out what language those score-and-a-quarter chained-up runaways was talking."

  "And?"

  "Ain't French, cause there's a cajun what says not. Ain't Spanish, cause there's a fellow grew up in Cuba what says not. Nary a soul knew their talk."

  "Well, at least we know what they're not."

  "I know more than that," said Arthur Stuart.

  "I'm listening."

  "The Cuba fellow, he takes me aside and he says, Tell you what, boy, I think I hear me their kind talk afore, and I says, what's their language, and he says, I think they be no kind runaway."

  "Why's he think that?" said Alvin. But inside, he's noticing the way Arthur Stuart picks up exactly the words the fellow said, and the accent, and he remembers how it used to be when Arthur Stuart could do any voice he heard, a perfect mimic. And not just human voices, neither, but bird calls and animal cries, and a baby crying, and the wind in the trees or the scrape of a shoe on dirt. But that was before Alvin changed him, deep inside, changed the very smell of him so that the Finders couldn't match him up to his sachet no more. He had to change him in the smallest, most hidden parts of him. Cost him part of his knack, it did, and that was a harsh thing to do to a child. But it also saved his freedom. Alvin couldn't regret doing it. But he could regret the cost.

  "He says, I hear me their kind talk aforeday, long day ago, when I belong a massuh go Mexico."

  Alvin nodded wisely, though he had no idea what this might mean.

  "And I says to him, How come black folk be learning Mexica talk? And he says, They be black folk all over Mexico, from aforeday."

  "That would make sense," said Alvin. "The Mexica only threw the Spanish out fifty years ago. I reckon they was inspired by Tom Jefferson getting Cherriky free from the King. Spanish must've brought plenty of slaves to Mexico up to then."

  "Well, sure," said Arthur Stuart. "So I was wondering, if the Mexica kill so many sacrifices, why didn't they use up these African slaves first? And he says, Black man dirty, Mexica no can cook him up for Mexica god. And then he just laughed and laughed."

  "I guess there's advantages to having folks think you're impure by nature."

  "Heard a lot of preachers in America say that God thinks all men is filthy at heart."

  "Arthur Stuart, I know that's a falsehood, because in your life you never been to hear a lot of preachers say a blame thing."

  "Well, I heard of preachers saying such things. Which explains why our God don't hold with human sacrifice. Ain't none of us worthy, white or black."

  "Except I don't think that's the opinion God has of his children," said Alvin, "and neither do you."

  "I think what I think," said Arthur Stuart. "Ain't always the same thing as you."

  "I'm just happy you've taken up thinkin' at all," said Alvin.

  "As a hobby," said Arthur Stuart. "I ain't thinkin' of takin' it up as a trade or nothin'."

  Alvin gave a chuckle, and Arthur Stuart settled back to enjoy it.

  Alvin got to thinking out loud. "So. We got us twenty-five slaves who used to belong to the Mexica. Only now they're going down the Mizzippy on the very same boat as a man recruiting soldiers for an expedition against Mexico. That's a downright miraculous coincidence."

  "Guides?" said Arthur Stuart.

  "I reckon that's likely. Maybe they're wearing chains for the same reason you're pretending to be a slave. So people will think they're one thing, when actually they're another."

  "Or maybe somebody's so dumb he thinks that chained-up slaves will be good guides through uncharted land."

  "So you're saying maybe they won't be reliable."

  "I'm saying maybe they think starving to death all lost in the desert ain't a bad way to die, if they can take some white slaveowners with them."

  Alvin nodded. The boy did understand that slaves might prefer death, after all. "Well, I don't speak Mexica, and neither do you."

  "Yet," said Arthur Stuart.

  "Don't see how you'll learn it," said Alvin. "They don't let nobody near 'em."

  "Yet," said Arthur Stuart.

  "I hope you ain't got some damn fool plan going on in your head that you're not going to tell me about."

  "Don't mind telling you. I already got me a turn feeding them and picking up their slop bucket. The pre-dawn turn, which nobody belowdecks is hankering to do."

  "They're guarded day and night. How you going to start talking to them anyway?"

  "Come on now, Alvin, you know there must be at least one of them speaks English, or how would they be able to guide anybody anywhere?"

  "Or one of them speaks Spanish, and one of the slaveowners speaks it too, you ever think of that?"

  "That's why I got the Cuba fellow to teach me Spanish."

  That was brag. "I was only gone into town for six hours, Arthur Stuart."

  "Well, he didn't teach me all of it."

  That set Alvin to wonde
ring once again if Arthur Stuart had more of his knack left than he ever let on. Learn a language in six hours? Of course, there was no guarantee that the Cuban slave knew all that much Spanish, any more than he knew all the much English. But what if Arthur Stuart had him a knack for languages? What if he'd never been a mimic at all, but instead a natural speaker-of-all-tongues? There was tales of such -- of men and women who could hear a language and speak it like a native right from the start.

  Did Arthur Stuart have such a knack? Now that the boy was becoming a man, was he getting a real grasp of it? For a moment Alvin caught himself being envious. And then he had to laugh at himself -- imagine a fellow with his knack, envying somebody else. I can make rock flow like water, I can make water as strong as steel and as clear as glass, I can turn iron into living gold, and I'm jealous because I can't also learn languages the way a cat learns to land on its feet? The sin of ingratitude, just one of many that's going to get me sent to hell.

  "What're you laughing at?" asked Arthur Stuart.

  "Just appreciating that you're not a mere boy any more. I trust that if you need any help from me -- like somebody catches you talking to them Mexica slaves and starts whipping you -- you'll contrive some way to let me know that you need some help?"

  "Sure. And if that knife-wielding killer who's sleeping in your bed gets troublesome, I expect you'll find some way to let me know what you want written on your tombstone?" Arthur Stuart grinned at him.

  "Knife-wielding killer?" Alvin asked.

  "That's the talk belowdecks. But I reckon you'll just ask him yourself, and he'll tell you all about it. That's how you usually do things, isn't it?"

  Alvin nodded. "I spose I do start out asking pretty direct what I want to know."

  "And so far you mostly haven't got yourself killed," said Arthur Stuart.

  "My average is pretty good so far," said Alvin modestly.

  "Haven't always found out what you wanted to know, though," said Arthur Stuart.

  "But I always find out something useful," said Alvin. "Like, how easy it is to get some folks riled."

  "If I didn't know you had another, I'd say that was your knack."

  "Rilin' folks."

  "They do get mad at you pretty much when you say hello, sometimes," said Arthur Stuart.

  "Whereas nobody ever gets mad at you."

  "I'm a likeable fellow," said Arthur Stuart.

  "Not always," said Alvin. "You got a bit of brag in you that can be annoying sometimes."

  "Not to my friends," said Arthur, grinning.

  "No," Alvin conceded. "But it drives your family insane."

  By the time Alvin got to his room, the "knife-wielding killer" had woke up from his nap and was somewhere else. Alvin toyed with sleeping in the very same bed, which had been his first, after all. But that was likely to start a fight, and Alvin just plain didn't care all that much. He was glad to have a bed at all, come to think of it, and with four bunks in the room to share between two men, there was no call to be provoking anybody over who got to which one first.

  Drifting off to sleep, Alvin reached out as he always did, seeking Peggy, making sure from her heartfire that she was all right. And then the baby, growing fine inside her, had a heartbeat now. Not going to end like the first pregnancy, with a baby born too soon so it couldn't get its breath. Not going to watch it gasp its little life away in a couple of desperate minutes, turning blue and dying in his arms while he frantically searched inside it for some way to fix it so's it could live. What good is it to be a seventh son of a seventh son if the one person you can't heal is your own firstborn baby?

  Alvin and Peggy clung together for the first days after that, but then over the weeks to follow she began to grow apart from him, to avoid him, until he finally realized that she was keeping him from being with her to make another baby. He talked with her then, about how you couldn't hide from it, lots of folks lost babies, and half-growed children too, the thing to do was try again, have another, and another, to comfort you when you thought about the little body in the grave.

  "I grew up with two graves before my eyes," she said, "and knowing how my parents looked at me and saw my dead sisters with the same name as me."

  "Well you was a torch, so you knew more than children ought to know about what goes on inside folks. Our baby most likely won't be a torch. All she'll know is how much we love her and how much we wanted her."

  He wasn't sure he so much persuaded her to want another baby as she decided to try again just to make him happy. And during this pregnancy, just like last time, she kept gallivanting up and down the country, working for abolition even as she tried to find some way to bring about freedom short of war. While Alvin stayed in Vigor Church or Hatrack River, teaching them as wanted to learn the rudiments of makery.

  Until she had an errand for him, like now. Sending him downriver on a steamboat to Nueva Barcelona, when in his secret heart he just wished she'd stay home with him and let him take care of her.

  Course, being a torch she knew perfectly well that was what he wished for, it was no secret at all. So she must need to be apart from him more than he needed to be with her, and he could live with that.

  Couldn't stop him from looking for her on the skirts of sleep, and dozing off with her heartfire and the baby's, so bright in his mind.

  He woke in the dark, knowing something was wrong. It was a heartfire right up close to him; then he heard the soft breath of a stealthy man. With his doodlebug he got inside the man and felt what he was doing -- reaching across Alvin toward the poke that was tucked in the crook of his arm.

  Robbery? On board a riverboat was a blame foolish time for it, if that was what the man had in mind. Unless he was a good enough swimmer to get to shore carrying a heavy golden plowshare.

  The man carried a knife in a sheath at his belt, but his hand wasn't on it, so he wasn't looking for trouble.

  So Alvin spoke up soft as could be. "If you're looking for food, the door's on the other side of the room."

  Oh, the man's heart gave a jolt at that! And his first instinct was for his hand to fly to that knife -- he was quick at it, too, Alvin could see that it didn't much matter whether his hand was on the knife or not, he was always ready with that blade.

  But in a moment the fellow got a hold of hisself, and Alvin could pretty much guess at his reasoning. It was a dark night, and as far as this fellow knew, Alvin couldn't see any better than him.

  "You was snoring," said the man. "I was looking to jostle you to get you to roll over."

  Alvin knew that was a flat lie. When Peggy had mentioned a snoring problem to him years ago, he studied out what made people snore and fixed his palate so it didn't make that noise any more. He had a rule about not using his knack to benefit himself, but he figured curing his snore was a gift to other people. He always slept through it.

  Still, he'd let the lie ride. "Why, thank you," said Alvin. "I sleep pretty light, though, so all it takes is you sayin' 'roll over' and I'll do it. Or so my wife tells me."

  And then, bold as brass, the fellow as much as confesses what he was doing. "You know, stranger, whatever you got in that sack, you hug it so close to you that somebody might get curious about what's so valuable."

  "I've learned that folks get just as curious when I don't hug it close, and they feel a mite freer about groping in the dark to get a closer look."

  The man chuckled. "So I reckon you ain't planning to tell me much about it."

  "I always answer a well-mannered question," said Alvin.

  "But since it ain't good manners to ask about what's in your sack," said the man, "I reckon you don't answer such questions at all."

  "I'm glad to meet a man who knows good manners."

  "Good manners and a knife that don't break off at the stem, that's what keeps me at peace with the world."

  "Good manners has always been enough for me," said Alvin. "Though I admit I would have liked that knife better back when it was still a file."

  With a bound
the man was at the door, his knife drawn. "Who are you, and what do you know about me?"

  "I don't know nothing about you, sir," said Alvin. "But I'm a blacksmith, and I know a file that's been made over into a knife. More like a sword, if you ask me."

  "I haven't drawn my knife aboard this boat."

  "I'm glad to hear it. But when I walked in on you asleep, it was still daylight enough to see the size and shape of the sheath you keep it in. Nobody makes a knife that thick at the haft, but it was right proportioned for a file."

  "You can't tell something like that just from looking," said the man. "You heard something. Somebody's been talking."

  "People are always talking, but not about you," said Alvin. "I know my trade, as I reckon you know yours. My name's Alvin."

  "Alvin Smith, eh?"

  "I count myself lucky to have a name. I'd lay good odds that you've got one too."

  The man chuckled and put his knife away. "Jim Bowie."

  "Don't sound like a trade name to me."

  "It's a scotch word. Means light-haired."

  "Your hair is dark."

  "But I reckon the first Bowie was a blond Viking who liked what he saw while he was busy raping and pillaging in Scotland, and so he stayed."

  "One of his children must have got that Viking spirit again and found his way across another sea."

  "I'm a Viking through and through," said Bowie. "You guessed right about this knife. I was witness at a duel at a smithy just outside Natchez a few years ago. Things got out of hand when they both missed -- I reckon folks came to see blood and didn't want to be disappointed. One fellow managed to put a bullet through my leg, so I thought I was well out of it, until I saw Major Norris Wright setting on a boy half his size and half his age, and that riled me up. Riled me so bad that I clean forgot I was wounded and bleeding like a slaughtered pig. I went berserk and snatched up a blacksmith's file and stuck it clean through his heart."

  "You got to be a strong man to do that."

  "Oh, it's more than that. I didn't slip it between no ribs. I jammed it right through a rib. We Vikings get the strength of giants when we go berzerk."