The Crystal City Page 0,100

to me!" cried Tenskwa-Tawa.

Whether Alvin heard with his ears or understood some other way, he obeyed, pitching his end of the dam like it was a stone or a javelin. No way would it have gone as far as it needed to, but Arthur Stuart could see how Tenskwa-Tawa drew it with that one extended hand, even though it was still half a mile away. He drew it toward him faster than Alvin could run, fast enough to outpace the water that rushed to fill the riverbed. Until finally both ends of the dam were in Tenskwa-Tawa's hands, and Alvin was running through a narrow passage between the two walls of the dam as the pent-up river continued to hurl itself through the widening gap.

Arthur Stuart let himself take one look downriver. Again with his doodlebug rather than with his eyes, he saw the first fingers of water flow around the boats, lifting them, starting them moving downstream. But the water came faster and faster, and the boats began to spin in the eddying flood as they hurtled away, completely out of control.

Alvin reached the bank and, as Arthur had done, ran directly up, straight to where Tenskwa-Tawa was standing, and even then he didn't stop, just hurled himself right into the waiting embrace of the Red Prophet, flinging them both to the ground. The ends of the crystal dam flew out of Tenskwa-Tawa's grasp and almost at once the crystal broke up and collapsed and the shards dissolved and became part of the river again. And Alvin and Tenskwa-Tawa lay there in the grass, hugging each other and laughing in delight at what they had done together, taming the Mizzippy and bringing these people to freedom.

La Tia was the only person bold enough at that moment to walk up to men who had just made such a miracle and say, "What you doing acting like little boys? We give merci beau-coup to God, us."

Alvin rolled onto his back and looked up at her. "It's picking which God that gets tricky," he said.

"Maybe you Christians right about God," said La Tia, "maybe me right, maybe him right, maybe nobody know nothing, but God, he take the merci beaucoup all the same."

She had seen Tenskwa-Tawa before, standing there holding the dam as everyone climbed the riverbank, but apparently she hadn't had a good look at him. Because now, as he sprang to his feet-far more energetically than his years should have allowed-a look of recognition came to her. "You," she said.

Tenskwa-Tawa nodded. "Me," he said.

"I see you in the ball," she said.

"What ball?" asked Alvin.

"The ball you make, the ball she carry." La Tia pointed toward Dead Mary, who did indeed have a burden slung over her shoulders. "I see him all the time in that thing. He talking to me."

Tenskwa-Tawa nodded. "And I thank you for helping," he said. "I didn't know you were with this company."

"I didn't know you the Red Prophet."

"So you two met?" asked Alvin.

"He been hotting up under the earth, far away," said La Tia. "He ask my help, wake up the earth there. Help the hot stuff find a way up. I think I figure out how."

"Then I'm as glad to see you here in the flesh as a man can be," said Tenskwa-Tawa.

"Many a man be glad to see my flesh," said La Tia, "but it don't do them no good."

Tenskwa-Tawa smiled, which for him was like a gale of laughter.

And Arthur Stuart thought, not for the first time, that these really powerful people were like a little club, they all knew each other and people like him were always having to stand just outside.

Chapter 12

Springfield

Verily Cooper's knack wasn't just fitting barrel staves together to make a tight keg. He could see how most things were supposed to fit, and where the irregularities were that made it so they didn't. Most things-and most people. He could see who was friends and who was enemies, where pride or envy made a rift that few could see. The difference was that when two barrel staves didn't fit, he could get inside them and almost without thinking-and certainly without effort- change them till they did fit.

It wasn't quite so easy with people. You had to talk them round, or figure out a way to change what they wanted or what they believed about the world. Still, it was a good knack for a lawyer to have. He could size people up pretty readily, not as individuals,