The Crystal City Page 0,74

know me all these years, and you think I'm Calvin?"

Alvin grinned. "I ain't confused on that point. But you ain't never gonna be able to tell me. It ain't my fault, I didn't know!"

"So you're gonna teach me everything?"

"Everything I think of."

"Who taught you?"

"My own stupid mistakes."

"So if stupid mistakes have done so much for you, how come you won't let me study from the same teacher?"

Alvin had no answer to that, just a laugh.

And then it was time for Alvin to go.

"You have to sleep," said Dead Mary to him. "Don't go till morning."

"Night time's the best for me," said Alvin. "And I'll sleep as I go."

Dead Mary looked confused.

"It's a thing he learned from the reds," said Arthur Stuart. "He runs in his sleep. We got some of that last night, crossing the lake. Didn't you hear it?"

"Hear it? What does running in your sleep sound like?" She laughed, thinking Arthur Stuart was joking.

But in a moment she had forgotten Arthur again. She was back to watching Alvin, and it occurred to Arthur that watching Alvin was pretty much what she did, whenever she wasn't actually compelled to do something else. She didn't look at him in that emotional way Ruth Cottoner had. It was something else. Perfect raptness. Complete intensity. As if she wanted to own him with her eyes.

Ruth Cottoner, that was love, all right, love made of gratitude and relief and fear and trust in this man who had saved her. But Dead Mary, she loved him, too, but it was something else. It was purposeful. She hadn't yet got what she wanted. But she meant to get it.

I can't know that, thought Arthur Stuart. I'm not Peggy, I'm no torch to see inside folks' heartfires.

And anyway, Peggy wouldn't send Alvin into a place where some other woman was going to fall in love with him.

Then again, for all Arthur Stuart knew, women were always falling in love with Alvin and he had always been too young and dumb to notice. He remembered a few times, sure. Never amounted to much. It's not like Alvin ever flirted back.

But this time Alvin didn't seem to see how she looked at him. Because maybe she was more subtle. After all, Arthur hadn't seen it himself until just now, just tonight. So maybe Alvin didn't notice how her gaze was always attached to him, how she listened to every word, how she worshiped him. But notice it or not, it had its effect on him. He kept turning to her. He'd be speaking to somebody else, but he kept glancing at her, as if checking to make sure she'd heard him. As if he expected her to get some joke that only the two of them knew.

Only there was no joke between them, there was nothing, there hadn't been time for anything, Arthur Stuart had been there, hadn't he? Almost always, except that very first time they met, when she led him to that cabin in the swamp to heal her mother.

This Dead Mary, all she ever sees in every man she meets is whether he's sick or not, and if he's gonna die of it. But in Alvin, what does she see? The man who can make her nightmares not come true.

No, she sees power. To change the world, change the future.

Or maybe it's just them strong blacksmith's arms and shoulders.

And what do I care, anyway? It's not like Alvin's going to fall for her. He doesn't even look at other women than Peggy-if he ever did I'd know it. So what difference does it make to me?

It's not like Alvin's the only man around here who can do things. I may not be able to heal folks, but I held up the other end of Alvin's bridge, and that ain't nothing. I kept Ruth Cottoner's musket from firing. I made the fog.

What am I thinking? She must be five years older than me. And white, and French. Though I can speak French now pretty good. And I'm half white, and what difference should it make, anyway, once we get out of slave country?

No. I'm a child in her eyes, and a half-black one at that, and most of all, I'm Alvin's prentice maker, and he's the real thing, so why should she ever look at me?

Good thing Alvin's going, though. Good thing he's got errands to run. Wouldn't want to have a lot of distraction, when they had so much to do.

Alvin didn't make a big