The Crystal City Page 0,140

a warmer welcome from old friends." He grinned at Arthur Stuart. "This lad saved my life in Mexico. Even though he surely would rather not have done it. I'll never forget that."

Arthur Stuart nodded. He knew which part Bowie would never forget.

"Well," said Bowie. "The good cheer and bonhomie in this room is just too much for me. I'll have to find a place where I find less cheer and more alcohol, if you catch my drift. I hear it may take going into Warsaw County to get that particular thirst satisfied. But I'll be back to build me a cabin on some plot of land. Good day to you all."

Bowie got up and left the cabin.

"An obnoxious fellow," said Calvin loudly-Bowie could certainly hear him, even outside the door. "I don't know how I managed the journey from Barcy to here without quarreling with him. Maybe it was his big knife that kept the peace." Calvin had a remarkable ability to laugh at his own jokes with such gusto that one could miss the fact that he was the only one laughing.

Calvin turned to Arthur Stuart. "Of course, I could have got here sooner if somebody had bothered to take me along the way you did with Jim and his crew. He says you were able to make them run like they were flying, as if the ground rose up to meet their feet and trees got right out of their way.

But I suppose I'm not worthy of such transportation."

"I offered to let you come along," said Arthur Stuart-and then immediately regretted it. Arguing with Calvin's lies just made him more enthusiastic.

"If you'd told me about this-greensong, was it?-I'd have come with you in a second. But to come along just because the Red Prophet was making threats-well, I reckon he wanted to conquer Mexico as bad as we did, and he got there first. Now he's got the empire, and I'm just an ordinary fellow-well, as ordinary as a maker can ever be. You, Alvin, you pretend to be ordinary, don't you? But you always manage to let people see a bit of what you can do. I understand! You want to be thought modest, but at the same time, nobody thinks a man's modest unless they know what great things he's being modest about, eh?" He laughed and laughed at that one.

The baby was fussy tonight, and since Margaret had already fed him and Alvin had changed his diaper, there was nothing for it but to carry him around and sing to him. Alvin had long since learned that it was his voice that Vigor wanted- something about the deep male tones vibrating in Alvin's chest, right next to the baby's head. So he let Margaret go back to sleep and walked outside in the air of a warm September evening.

He expected to be the only person abroad in the night, except for the night watchmen with their lanterns, and they'd be more on the outskirts of town, one along the river and the other along the edge of the bluff. But to Alvin's surprise, someone else soon fell into step beside him. His brother, Measure.

"Evening, Al," said Measure.

"Evening yourself," said Alvin. "Baby was fussy."

"I was the fussy one in my house. 1 sent myself out so I wouldn't cause any trouble."

"Calvin's staying with you, then?"

"I never could figure out why Ma and Pa felt the need to have the one more child. Not like there was a shortage."

"They didn't know what he'd be," said Alvin. "There's never too many children in the house, Measure. But you're not responsible for what they want, only for what you teach them."

"Alvin, I'm afraid," said Measure.

"Big man like you," said Alvin. "That's just silly."

"What we're doing here, it's wonderful. But how folks hate us and fear us and talk against us, that's pretty fierce. The law's against us-oh, I know, that charter is mighty fine, but it'll never stand up, not with us resisting the fugitive slave law. And with Calvin here-I don't know how, but he's going to cause trouble."

"It's the Unmaker," said Alvin. "It always is. No matter how fast you build things up, he's there, trying to tear it down even faster."

"Then he's bound to win, isn't he?"

"That's the funny thing," said Alvin. "All my life, I've seen that all I can build is just a little bit, and he tears down so much. And yet... things keep getting built, don't they? Good things. And I finally realized, here in this town, watching all these people-the reason the Unmaker is gonna lose, in the long run, isn't because somebody like me or you does some big heroic deed and knocks him for a loop. It'll be because of all these people, hundreds of them, thousands of them, each building something in his own way-a family, a marriage, a house, a farm, a sturdy machine, a tabernacle, a classroom full of students just a little wiser than they were. Something. And after a while, you come to realize that all those somethings, they add up to everything, and all the Unmaker's nothings, you put them all together and they're still nothing. You see what I mean?"

"You must be smarter than Plato," said Measure, "because I can understand him."

"Oh, you understood me," said Alvin. "The question is, when we go down this dangerous road, with so many hands against us, will you be there with me, Measure? Will you stand beside me?"

"I will, to the end," said Measure. "And not just because you saved my life that time, you know."

"Oh, that wasn't much. You were trying to save mine, as I recall, so it was a fair trade on the spot."

"That's how I see it," said Measure.

"So why will you stand beside me? Because you love me so much?" He said it jokingly, but he thought that it was true.

"No," said Measure. "I love all my brothers, you know. Even Calvin."

"Why, then?"

"Because the things you make, I want them to be made. You see? I love the work. I want it to be."

"And you're willing to pay for it, right along with me?"

"You'll see," said Measure.

They stood facing the rows of crystal blocks, ready to become the gleaming tabernacle of the Crystal City. The baby was asleep. But Alvin tilted him up anyway, just enough that his little sleeping face was pointed toward the blocks. "Look at this place," he said to Vigor-and to Measure, too. "I didn't choose this place. I didn't choose my life, or the powers I have, or even most of the things that have happened to me. But for all the things that have been forced on me, I'm still a free man. And you know why? Because I choose them anyway. What was forced on me, I choose just the same." He turned and faced Measure. "Like you, Measure. I choose to be a maker, because I love the making."