The Crystal City Page 0,66

Steve Austin's boys would probably end up dead.

But not Calvin. He might go along with the plans of fools as long as they looked useful, or at least entertaining. But he would never turn his life over to someone else's plan. His own plans were the only plans he ever followed.

Not like Alvin, letting his wife tell him what to do. Speaking of fools.

Chapter 9

Expeditions

It took some doing, but they found the nicest dresses in the whole company that would fit them, and decked out Dead Mary and her mother, Rien, so they could pass for slaveowners. Slightly shabby, perhaps, but it wasn't completely impossible that they would have a mammy slave like La Tia seemed to be and a sturdy young man like Arthur Stuart.

It's not like strangers would be rare in this country, either. Ten years ago the only white folks here was trappers or fugitives. But when most of the reds who didn't want to live white crossed over the Mizzippy, it opened up this land to settlement. Around here, if your house had been standing for five years, you were an old-timer. So nobody'd be too surprised to see two ladies of a family they didn't know-or so they hoped.

Alvin refused to go to the door of the plantation house with them. "What good does it do for you to see how I'd do it?

I'm a white man, and not a word I say would be useful to you after. I'll be watching in case anything goes wrong, but you've got to do it yourselves."

La Tia and Arthur Stuart waited just off the porch as Dead Mary and Rien stepped up to clap hands and call someone to the door. Soon it was opened by an elderly black man.

"Good evening," he said gravely.

"Good evening," said Dead Mary. She was doing the talking because her French accent was not so pronounced as Rien's. And because she could do a better job of faking high-class conversation. "Sir, my mother and I would like to speak to the master of the house, if we may."

"Master of the house away," said the old man. "Mistress of the house poorly. But the young master, he here."

"Could you fetch him for us, then?"

"Would you like to come and rest inside, where it's shady?" asked the old man.

"No thank you," said Mary. She had no intention of getting out of sight of Arthur Stuart or La Tia.

Soon the old man returned, and brought with him a young man who could not have been much over fourteen years old. Behind him hovered a white man of middle age. Not the master of the house, and not a slave, so who was he?

Mary addressed the young man. "My name is Marie Moore," she said. They had agreed an English last name would be better for her, suggesting that her father had simply married a Frenchwoman. "My mother is shy about speaking English."

It was the middle-aged man who leapt to answer. "Parleyvous francais, madame?"

"Mr. Tutor," said the boy, "they come to see me."

"Came, young master," said Mr. Tutor.

"This is not my lesson right this very moment, if you please." So the boy was faking being high class just as much as Mary. He turned back to her with an irked look on his face, but quickly changed it to an expression of dignity. "What do you wish? If you wish to have water or a bite to eat, the kitchen's around back."

This was not a good sign, that he was treating them like beggars, when he should take them for slave-owning gentry like himself.

Fortunately, Mr. Tutor saw the gaffe at once. "Young master, you can't ask ladies to go around back as if they were servants or beggars!" To Mary and Rien he said, "Please excuse his lapse. He has never met a visitor at the door before, and so-"

"They're not ladies," said the boy. "Look at their dresses. I've seen better dresses on slaves."

"Master Roy, you are being impolite, I fear."

"Mr. Tutor, you forget your place," said Roy. He turned back to Mary. "I don't know what you want, but we got nothing to contribute to any cause, and if I were you I'd be careful, cause the story is that a whole passel of folks crossed over Pontchartrain last night. Rumor's been spreading all over and they say they're a lot of runaway slaves. We've got ours locked down today just in case they get some bad ideas, but you'll never keep those