The Crystal City Page 0,125

word of Spanish or Nahuatl. And he knows nothing about the red man's way of running faster than a man can run. Come with me if you want to live. I can get you back to True Cross, and from there you can get safely home. Look at him! He doesn't care about you!"

"All I care about," said Calvin, "is the lives of these men." Now he started talking to the men directly. "You trusted in me and I will give you what I promised-Mexico. All the gold and wealth of Mexico. All the people as your subjects, all the land as your estate. And when you hear of us ruling in splendor, while you sit in your miserable cabin on a bayou in Barcy, then make sure you thank this boy for saving you."

Jim Bowie strode toward Arthur Stuart. "I know this boy," he said. "I'm going with him."

Calvin didn't like that. Bowie had enormous prestige with the other men.

"So it turns out Steve Austin couldn't rely on you after all," said Calvin.

"He's asleep," said Bowie, "and as for you, you're the one got us into this place. Who all is coming?"

"Yes," said Calvin, "who are the cowards who refuse the chance to rule an empire?"

"Now," said Arthur Stuart. "No second chances. Come now, if you're coming with me."

About a dozen men got up and came over to join, not Arthur Stuart, but Jim Bowie.

"What about the ones they poisoned?" asked one man.

"Their bad luck," said Bowie.

But Arthur Stuart looked at the men near the door, the ones who drank first and were drugged. And as he gazed at them, one by one, they woke up.

Calvin was mortified. This stupid knackless boy had somehow learned how to counter the poison in their blood. And now he had to show off and rub Calvin's face in it. Didn't he know that Calvin could have learned how to do anything if he had wanted to? But why should Calvin bother learning how to wake up men who were stupid enough to get themselves drugged?

In the end, though, not one of the drugged ones decided to go; in fact, one of them was able to persuade his brother not to leave with Arthur Stuart and Jim Bowie. So when the boy left, he had ten men with him. The others all stayed in the church. With Calvin.

"Now all we've got to do," said Calvin, "is find out where they took our weapons."

"How you gonna do that?"

"By watching where that boy goes. Do you think Bowie's going to let him lead them out of the valley without taking him first to his lucky knife?"

Several of the men laughed.

And sure enough, as Calvin kept track of Bowie's heartfire, he saw when they got to a nearby building and Arthur Stuart opened the door and Bowie picked up his knife and the other men armed themselves.

"It's only one street over, just outside the walls of this church," said Calvin.

"Then let's go," said Steve Austin. "But let's get organized first."

"Let's get armed first," said Calvin.

"Doesn't do any good to have guns if we don't have a plan!" said Austin.

Ten minutes later they were still talking when the Mexica soldiers poured in through the open door.

"Fools!" shouted Calvin. "I told you to go!"

Two of the Mexica aimed their muskets at Calvin and fired.

Their guns blew up in their faces.

But the others were bringing their weapons to bear too fast for Calvin to plug them all.

So he did the only sensible thing. He stepped backward through the wall.

He'd done it before, back when Napoleon had him imprisoned in Paris. Softening the stone enough to slide through it, like pushing his hand through clay, and then letting it harden again behind him. He heard the bullets hit the wall just as it was hardening, so they sank into the stone with a soft thunk and the wall hardened behind the bullets without so much as a dent.

And there stood Calvin on the outside of the church.

Where was Arthur Stuart? Calvin found the boy's heartfire, though it took some hard searching, and he was at the limit of Calvin's range. Well, the boy said he knew how to get out of the city, and that's what Calvin needed, now that these fools had wasted the opportunity Calvin gave them. They didn't deserve to live.

He took off at a run. He had to pass near where the Mexica were dragging the white men out of the front of the church, but