didn't all go; nor, strictly speaking, was Alvin free. Right now, surrounded by a crowd and with a dozen deputies on guard, he was safe enough. But as he gripped the sack with the plow inside, he could almost feel the covetings of other men directed toward that plow, that warm and trembling gold.
He wasn't thinking of that, however. He was looking over at Margaret Larner, whose arm was around young Ramona's waist. Someone was speaking to Alvin-it was Verily Cooper, he realized, congratulating him or something, but Verily would understand. Alvin put a hand on Verily's shoulder, to let him know that he was a good friend even though Alvin was about to walk away from him. And Alvin headed on over to Miss Larner and Ramona.
At the last moment he got shy, and though he had his eyes on Margaret all the way through the crowd, it was Ramona he spoke to when he got there. "Miss Ramona, it was brave of you to come forward, and honest too." He shook her hand.
Ramona beamed, but she was also alittle upset and nervous. "That whole thing with Amy was my fault I think. She was telling me those tales about you, and I was doubting her, which only made her insist more and more. And she stuck to it so much that for a while I believed maybe it was true and that's when I told my folks and that's what started all the rumors going, but then when she went with Thatch under the freak show tent and she comes out pregnant but babbling about how it was you got her that way, well, I had my chance then to set things straight, didn't I? And then I didn't get to testify!"
"But you told my friends," said Alvin, "so the people who matter most to me know the truth, and in the meantime you didn't have to hurt your friend Amy." In the back of his mind, though, Alvin couldn't shake the bitter certainty that there would always be some who believed her charges, just as he was sure that she would never recant. She would go on telling those lies about him, and some folks at least would go on believing them, and so he would be known for a cad or worse no matter how clean he lived his life. But that was spilled milk.
Ramona was shaking her head. "I don't reckon she'll be my friend no more."
"But you're her friend whether she likes it or not. So much of a friend that you'd even hurt her rather than let her hurt someone else. That's something, in my book."
At that moment, Mike Fink and Armor-of-God came up to him. "Sing us that song you thought up in jail, Alvin!"
At once several others clamored for the song - it was that kind of festive occasion.
"If Alvin won't sing it, Arthur Stuart knows it!" somebody said, and then there was Arthur tugging at his arm and Alvin joined in singing with him. Most of the jury was still there to hear the last verse:
I trusted justice not to fail. The jury did me proud. Tomorrow I will hit the trail, And sing my hiking song so loud, It's like to start a gale!
Everybody laughed and clapped. Even Miss Larner smiled, and as Alvin looked at her he knew that this was the moment, now or never. "I got another verse that I never sung to anybody before, but I want to sing it now," he said. They all hushed up again to hear:
Now swiftly from this place I'll fly, And underneath my boots, A thousand lands will pass me by, Until we choose to put down roots, My lady love and I.
He looked at Margaret with all the meaning he could put in his face, and everybody hooted and clapped. "I love you, Margaret Larner," he said. "I asked you before, but I'll say it again now. We're about to journey together for a ways, and I can't think of a good reason why it can't be our honeymoon journey. Let me be your husband, Margaret. Everything good that's in me belongs to you, if you'll have me."
She looked flustered. "You're embarrassing me, Alvin," she murmured.
Alvin leaned close and spoke into her ear. "I know we got separate work to do, once we leave the weavers house. I know we got long journeys apart."
She held his face between her hands. "You don't know what you might meet