“But that was more than a year ago.”
“A boy like Matt Thatcher don't got much imagination, Verily. If he found himself a spot that worked once, he'll be back there. For what it's worth, though, he never did name any of the girls he supposedly got last year, so we all figured he just found the spot and wished he could get himself some girl to go with him there. I just figure that this year he finally succeeded.”
Verily leaned back on his stool, sipping his mug of warm cider. “The thing that puzzles me is, Webster must have found Amy Sump when he visited in Vigor Church long before I got there. Before the county fair, too. She must not have been pregnant when he found her.”
Alvin smiled and nodded. “I can just imagine him telling Amy's parents, 'Well it's a good thing she's not with child. Though if she were, I dare say Alvin's wandering days would be over.' And she listens and goes and gets herself pregnant with the most willing but stupid boy in the county.”
Verily laughed. “You imitate his voice quite well, sir!”
“Oh, I'm nothing at imitations. I wish you could have heard Arthur Stuart back in the old days. Before…”
“Before?”
“Before I changed him so the Finders couldn't identify him.”
“So you didn't just subvert their cachet. You changed the boy himself.”
“I made him just a little bit less Arthur and a little bit more Alvin. I'm not glad of it. I miss the way he could make hisself sound like anybody. Even a redbird. He used to sing right back to the redbird.”
“Can't you change him back? Now that he has the official court decision, he can never be hauled into court again.”
“Change him back? I don't know. It was hard enough changing him the first time. And I don't think I remember well enough how he used to be.”
“The cachet has the way he used to be, doesn't it?”
“But I don't have the cachet.”
“Interesting problem. Arthur doesn't seem to mind the change, though, does he?”
“Arthur's a sweet boy, but what he doesn't mind now he might well come to mind later, when he's old enough to know what I done to him.” Alvin was drumming on his empty dish now. Clearly his mind kept going back to the trial. “I got to tell you, it's only going to get worse tomorrow, Verily.”
“How so?”
“I didn't understand it till now, till what Amy said about me sneaking out of jail and all. But now I know what the plan is. Vilate Franker came in here covered with hexes, maneuvered me close enough to her that the same hex worked on me, too– an overlook-me, and a right good one. Then in comes Billy Hunter, one of the deputies, and when he looks in the cell, he doesn't see anybody at all. He, runs off and gets the sheriff, and when he comes back, Vilate's gone but here I am, and I tell them I been nowhere, but Billy Hunter knows what he saw– or didn't see– and they're going to bring him into court, and Vilate too. Vilate too.”
“So they'll have a witness to corroborate that you have indeed left your cell during your incarceration here.”
“And Vilate's likely to say anything. She's a notorious gossip. Goody Trader plain hates her, and so does Horace Guester. She also thinks of herself as quite a beauty, though those particular hexes don't work on me no more. Anyway Arthur Stuart saw her…”
“I was here when Arthur told you about her. About the salamander.”
“That ain't no regular salamander, Verily. That's the Unmaker. I've met it before. Used to come on me more directlike. A shimmering in the air, and there it was. Trying to take me over, rule me. But I wouldn't have it, I'd make something– a bug basket– and he'd go away. Nowadays I'd be more likely to make up some silly rhyme or song and commit it to memory to drive him back. But here's the thing– the Unmaker has a way of being different things to different people. There was a minister in Vigor Church, Reverend Philadelphia Thrower; he saw the Unmaker as an angel, only it was a kind of terrible angel, and one time– well, it doesn't matter. Armor-of-God saw it, not me. With Vilate the Unmaker's got that salamander doing some kind of hexery that makes Vilate see… somebody. Somebody who talks to her and tells her things. Only that somebody is really speaking the words of the Unmaker. You know what Arthur Stuart saw. Old Peg Guester, the woman who was the only mother he knew. The Unmaker appears as somebody you can trust, somebody who fulfills your most heartfelt dream, but in the process he perverts everything so that without quite realizing it, you start destroying everything and everybody around you. This whole thing, you don't have to look toward Webster to find the conspiracy. The Unmaker is all the connection they need. Putting together Amy Sump and Vilate Franker and Makepeace Smith and Daniel Webster and… not one of them thinks he's doing something all that awful. Amy probably thinks she really loves me. Maybe so does Vilate. Makepeace has probably talked himself into believing the plow really belongs to him. Daniel Webster probably believes I really am a scoundrel. But…”
“But the Unmaker makes everything work together to undo you.”
Alvin nodded.
“Alvin, that makes no sense,” said Verily. “If the Unmaker's really out to Unmake everything, then how can he put together such an elaborate plan? That's a kind of Making, too, isn't it?”
Alvin lay back on the cot and whistled for a moment. “That's right,” he said.
“The Unmaker sometimes Makes things, then?”
“No,” said Alvin. “No, the Unmaker can't Make nothing. Can't. He just takes what's already there in twists and bends and breaks it. So I was wrong. The Unmaker's working on all these people, but if it's all fitting together into a plan, then somebody's planning it. Some person.”
Verily chuckled. “I think we already have the answer,” he said. “Your speculation about Daniel Webster. He discovers Amy Sump as he searches in Vigor Church for any kind of dirt about you. She wasn't part of any plan, just a girl who started pretending that her daydreams were true. But then he puts into her head the idea of getting pregnant and the idea of testifying against you to clip your wings and force you to come home. She works out the rest herself, her own plan– the Unmaker doesn't have to teach her anything. Then Daniel Webster comes here to Hatrack and of course he meets the town gossip as he searches for dirt about you here. Vilate Franker barely knows you, but she does know everybody else's story, and they converse many times. He happens to let slip how Amy Sump's story will just sound like the imaginings of a dreamy but randy young girl unless they can get some kind of evidence that you actually do leave your cell. And then Vilate comes up with her own plan and the Unmaker just sits back and encourages her.”
“So the plan is all coming from Daniel Webster, only he doesn't even know it,” said Alvin. “He wishes for something, and then it just happens to come true.”
“Don't give him too much credit for integrity,” said Verily. “I suspect this is a method he's been using for a long time, wishing for some key piece of evidence, and then trusting in his client or one of his client's friends to come up with the testimony that he needs. He never quite soils his hands, but the effect is the same. Yet nothing can ever be proven–”
The outer door opened, and Po Doggly came in with Peggy Larner. “Sorry to interrupt your supper and confabulation, gendemen,” said the sheriff, “but something's come up. You got you a visitor with special circumstances, he's come a long way but he can only come in and see you after dark and I'm the only guard as can let him in, on account of he already sat me down and told me a tale.”
Alvin turned to Verily. “That means it's someone from home. Someone besides Armor-of-God. Someone who's under the curse.”
“He shouldn't be under it,” said Peggy. “If it weren't for his grand gesture of including himself in a curse he didn't personally deserve.”
“Measure,” said Alvin. To Verily he explained, “My older brother.”
“He's coming,” said the sheriff. “Arthur Stuart's leading him in with his hat low and his eyes down so he won't see anybody who doesn't already know the story. Doesn't want to spend all ni
ght telling folks about the massacre at Tippy-Canoe. So the doors will be open here, but I'll still be outside, watching. Not that I think you'd try to escape, Alvin.”
“You mean you don't think I've been making twice-a-week trips to Vigor Church?”
“For that girl? I don't think so.” With that, Doggly walked out, leaving the outer door open.
Peggy came on in and joined Alvin and Verily inside Alvin's cell. Verily stood up to offer her his stool, but with a gesture she declined to sit.
“Howdy, Peggy,” said Alvin.
“I'm fine, Alvin. And you?”
“You know I never did any of those things she said,” he told her.
“Alvin,” she said, “I know that you did find her attractive. She saw that you paid her a little special attention. She began to dream and wish.”
“So you're saying it's my fault after all?”
“It's her fault that dreams turned into lies. It's your fault that she had hopeless dreams like that in the first place.”
“Well why don't I just shoot myself before I ever look at a woman with desire? It always seems to turn out pretty lousy when I do.”
She looked as if he slapped her. As usual, Verily felt a keen sense of being left out of half of what went on in Alvin's life. Why should it bother him so much? He wasn't here, and they were under no obligation to explain. Still, it was embarrassing. He got up. “Please, I'll step outside so you can have this conversation alone.”
“No need,” said Peggy. “I'm sure Arthur is almost here with Measure by now.”
“She doesn't want to talk to me,” said Alvin to Verily. “She'll try to get me acquitted because she wants to see the Crystal City get built, only she can't offer me a lick of help in trying to figure out how to build it, seeing as how I don't know and she seems to know everything. But just cause she wants me acquitted doesn't mean she actually likes me or thinks I'm worth spending time with.”
“I don't like being in the middle of this,” said Verily.
“You're not,” said Peggy. “There's no 'this' to be in the middle of.”
“There never was no 'this,' either, was there?” asked Alvin.
Verily was quite sure he had never heard a man sound so miserable.
Peggy took a moment to answer. “I'm not– there was and is a– it hasn't a thing to do with you, Alvin.”
“What doesn't have a thing to do with me? My still being crazy in love with you after a whole year with only one letter from you, and that one as cold as you please, like I was some kind of scoundrel you still had to do business with or something? Is that the thing that doesn't have anything to do with me? I asked you to marry me once. I understand that things have been pretty bleak since then, your mother getting killed and all, that was terrible, and I didn't press you, but I did write to you, I did think about you all the time, and–”
“And I thought of you, Alvin.”
“Yes, well, you're a torch, so you know I'm thinking about you, or you do if you care to look, but what do I know when there's no sign from you? What do I know except what you tell me? Except what I see in your face? I know I looked in your face that night in the smithy, I looked in your eyes and I thought I saw love there, I thought I saw you saying yes to me. Did I make that up? Is that the 'this' that there isn't one of?”
Verily was thoroughly miserable, being forced to be a witness of this scene. He had tried to make his escape before; now it was clear they didn't want him to go. If only he knew how to disappear. How to sink through the floor.
It was Arthur who saved him. Arthur, with Measure in tow; and, just as the sheriff had said, Measure had his hat so low and his head bent so far down that he really did need Arthur Stuart to lead him by the hand. “We're here,” said Arthur. “You can look up now.”
Measure looked up. “Al,” he said.
“Measure!” Alvin cried. It took about one stride each, with those two long-legged men, for them to be in each other's embrace. “I've missed you like my own soul,” said Alvin.
“I've missed you too, you ugly scrawny jailbird,” said Measure. And in that moment, Verily felt such a pang of jealousy that he thought his heart would break. He was ashamed of the feeling as soon as he was aware of it, but there it was: He was jealous of that closeness between brothers. Jealous because he knew that he would never be that close to Alvin Smith. He would always be shut out, and it hurt so deeply that for a moment, he thought he couldn't breathe.
And then he did breathe, and blocked that feeling away in another part of himself where he didn't have to stare it in the face.
In a few minutes the greetings were over, and they were down to business. “We found out Amy was gone and it didn't take no genius to figure out where she went. Oh, at first the rumor was she got pregnant at the county fair and was sent off to have the baby somewhere, but we all remembered the tales she told about Alvin and Father and I went to her pa and got it out of him right quick, that she was off to testify in Hatrack. He didn't like it much, but they're paying them and he needs the money and his daughter swears it's true but you could tell looking at him that he don't believe her lies either. And in fact as we were leaving he says, When I find out who it was got my daughter pregnant I'm going to kill him. And Pa says, No you ain't. And Mr. Sump he says, I am so because I'm a merciful man, and killing him's kinder than making him marry Amy.”
They all laughed at that, but in the end they knew it wasn't exactly funny.
“Anyhow, Eleanor says, Amy's best friend is that mouse of a girl Ramona and I'm going to get the truth out of her.”
Alvin turned to Verily. “Eleanor's our sister, Armor-of-God's wife.”
Another reminder, that he wasn't inside this circle. But also a reminder that Alvin thought of him and wanted to include him.
“So Eleanor gets Ramona and sets her down inside that hex you made for her in the shop, Alvin, the one that makes liars get so nervous, only I don't know as how it was really needed. Eleanor says to her, Who's the father of Amy's baby, and Ramona says, How should I know? only it's a plain lie, and finally when Eleanor won't let up, Ramona says, Last time I told the truth it only caused Alvin Maker to have to run away cause of Amy's lies, but she swore it was true, she swore it and so I believed her but now she's saying it was Alvin got her pregnant and I know that's not true cause she got into the freak show tent with–”
Alvin held up his hand. “Matt Thatcher?”
“Of course,” said Measure. “Why we didn't just castrate him along with the pigs I don't know.”
“She saw them or is it hearsay?” asked Verily.
“Saw them and stood guard where they went under the tent and heard Amy cry out once and heard Matt panting and then it was done and she asked Amy what it was like and Amy looked positively stricken and says to her, It's awful and it hurts. Ramona's got no doubt Amy was a virgin up till then, so all the other stories is lies.”
“She's not competent to testify about Amy's virginity,” said Verily, “but she'd still be a help. It would take care of the pregnancy and make it plain that Amy is something of a liar. Reasonable doubt. How long will it take to get her down here?”
“She's here,” said Peggy. “I got her to the roadhouse and Horace Guester's feeding her.”
“I want to talk to her tonight,” said Verily. “This is good. This is something. And until now, we had nothing.”
“They have nothing,” said Peggy. “And yet…”
“And yet they'd convict me if they voted right now, wouldn't they?” Alvin asked.
Peggy nodded. “I thought they knew you better.”
“This is all so extraneous to Makepeace's assertions,” said Verily. “None of this would have been permitted in an English court.”
“Next time somebody tries to get me arrested for larceny and a crazy girl claims to be pregnant by me, I'll arrange to have it tried in London,” said Alvin, grinning.
“Good idea,” said Verily. “Besides, we have a much higher grade of crazy girls in England.�
��
“I'm going to testify,” said Peggy.
“I don't think so,” said Alvin.
“You aren't a witness of anything,” said Verily.
“You saw how the rules go in this court,” said Peggy. “You can work me in.”
“It won't help,” said Verily. “They'll chalk it up to your being in love with Alvin.”
Alvin sighed and lay back on his cot.
“No they won't,” said Peggy. “They know me.”
“They know Alvin, too,” said Verily.
“Don't mean to contradict you, sir,” said Arthur Stuart, “but everybody knows Miss Larner here is a torch, and everybody knows that before she tells a lie, you can boil an egg in a pan of snow.”
“If I testify, he won't be convicted,” said Peggy.
“No,” said Alvin. “They'll drag you through the mud. Webster doesn't care about convicting me, you know that. He only wants to destroy me and everybody near me, because that's what the people who hired him want.”
“We don't even know who they are,” said Verily.
“I don't know their names, but I know who they are and what they want. To you it looks as though Amy's testimony is a sidetrack, but it's Amy's testimony they wanted. And if they could get testimony about me and Peggy in the smithy on the night the plow was made–”
“I'm not afraid of their calumnies,” said Peggy.
“It ain't calumnies I'm talking about, it's the plain truth,” said Alvin. “I was naked, we was alone in the smithy. Can't help what conclusions folks draw from that, and so I won't have you getting on the stand and all that story coming out in the papers in Carthage and Dekane and heaven knows where else. We'll do it another way.”
“Ramona will be a help,” said Verily.
“Not Ramona either,” said Alvin. “It does no good to have one friend betray another for my sake.”
The others were flabbergasted.
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