Alvin wasn’t sure if he could remember Tenskwa-Tawa ever smiling before. “You’re happy here?”
“Happy?” Tenskwa-Tawa’s face went placid again. “I feel as though I stand with one foot on this earth and the other foot in the place where my people wait for me.”
“Not all died that day at Tippy-Canoe,” said Alvin. “You still have people here.”
“They also stand with one foot in one place, one foot in the other.” He glanced toward a canyon that led up into a gap between the impossibly high mountains. “They live in a high mountain valley. The snow is late this year, and they’re glad of that, unless it means poor water for next year, and a poor crop. That’s our life now, Alvin Maker. We used to live in a place where water leapt out of the ground wherever you struck it with a stick.”
“But the air is clear. You can see forever.”
Tenskwa-Tawa put his fingers to Alvin’s lips. “No man sees forever. But some men see farther. Last winter I rode a tower of water into the sky over the holy lake Timpa-Nogos. I saw many things. I saw you come here. I heard the news you told me and the question you asked me.”
“And did you hear your answer?”
“First you must make my vision come true,” said Tenskwa-Tawa.
So Alvin told him about Harrison being elected president by bragging about his bloody hands, and how they wondered if Tenskwa-Tawa might release the people of Vigor Church from their curse, so they could leave their homes, those as wanted to, and become part of the Crystal City when Alvin started to build it. “Was that what you heard me ask you?”
“Yes,” said Tenskwa-Tawa.
“And what was your answer?”
“I didn’t see my answer,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “So I have had all these months to think of what it was. In all these months, my people who died on that grassy slope have walked before my eyes in my sleep. I have seen their blood again and again flow down the grass and turn the Tippy-Canoe Creek red. I have seen the faces of the children and babies. I knew them all by name, and I still remember all the names and all the faces. Each one I see in the dream, I ask them, Do you forgive these White murderers? Do you understand their rage and will you let me take your blood from their hands?”
Tenskwa-Tawa paused. Alvin waited, too. One did not rush a shaman as he told of his dreams.
“Every night I have had this dream until finally last night the last of them came before me and I asked my question.”
Again, a silence. Again, Alvin waited patiently. Not patiently the way a White man waits, showing his patience by looking around or moving his fingers or doing something else to mark the passage of time. Alvin waited with a Red man’s patience, as if this moment were to be savored in itself, as if the suspense of waiting was in itself an experience to be marked and remembered.
“If even one of them had said, I do not forgive them, do not lift the curse, then I would not lift the curse,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “If even one baby had said, I do not forgive them for taking away my days of running like a deer through the meadows, I would not lift the curse. If even one mother had said, I do not forgive them for the baby that was in my womb when I died, who never saw the light of day with its beautiful eyes, I would not lift the curse. If even one father had said, The anger still runs hot in my heart, and if you lift the curse I will still have some hatred left unavenged, then I would not lift the curse.”
Tears flowed down Alvin’s face, for he knew the answer now, and he could not imagine himself ever being so good that even in death he could forgive those who had done such a terrible thing to him and his family.
“I also asked the living,” said Tenskwa-Tawa. “Those who lost father and mother, brother and sister, uncle and aunt, child and friend, teacher and helper, hunting companion, and wife, and husband. If even one of these living ones had said, I cannot forgive them yet, Tenskwa-Tawa, I would not lift the curse.”
Then he fell silent one last time. This time the silence lasted and lasted. The sun had been at noon when Alvin arrived; it was touching the tops of the mountains to the west when at last Tenskwa-Tawa moved again, nodding his head. Like Alvin, he, too, had wept, and then had waited long enough for the tears to dry, and then had wept again, all without changing the expression on his face, all without moving a muscle of his body as the two of them sat facing each other in the tall dry autumn grass, in the cold dry autumn wind. Now he opened his mouth and spoke again. “I have lifted the curse,” he said.
Alvin embraced his old teacher. It was not what a Red man would have done, but Alvin had acted Red all afternoon, and so Tenskwa-Tawa accepted the gesture and even returned it. Touched by the Red Prophet’s hands, his cheek against the old man’s hair, the old man’s face against his shoulder, Alvin remembered that once he had thought of asking Tenskwa-Tawa to strengthen the curse on Harrison, to stop him from misusing his bloody hands. It made him ashamed. If the dead could forgive, should not the living? Harrison would find his own way through life, and his own path to death. Judgment would have to come, if it came at all, from someone wiser than Alvin.
When they arose from the grass, Tenskwa-Tawa looked north toward the larger lake. “Look, a man is coming.”
Alvin saw where he was looking. Not far off, a man was jogging lightly along a path through the head-high grass. Not running in the Red man’s way, but like a White man, and not a young one. His hatless bald head glinted momentarily in the sunset.
“That ain’t Taleswapper, is it?” asked Alvin.
“The Sho-sho-nay invited him to come and trade stories with them,” said Tenskwa-Tawa.
Instead of asking more questions, Alvin waited with Tenskwa-Tawa until Taleswapper came up the long steep path. He was out of breath when he arrived, as might have been expected. But as Alvin sent his doodlebug through Taleswapper’s body, he was surprised at the old man’s excellent health. They greeted each other warmly, and Alvin told him the news. Taleswapper smiled at Tenskwa-Tawa. “Your people are better than you thought they were,” he said.
“Or more forgetful,” said Tenskwa-Tawa ruefully.
“I’m glad I happened to be here, to hear this news,” said Taleswapper. “If you’re going back through the weaver’s house, I’d like to go with you.”
When Alvin and Taleswapper returned to Becca’s cabin within the heart of the weaver’s house, it had been dark for two hours. Ta-Kumsaw had gone outside and invited Peggy’s and Alvin’s friends to come in and eat with his family. Becca’s sister and her daughters and her son joined them; they ate a stew of bison meat, Red man’s food cooked the White man’s way, a compromise like so much else in this house. Ta-Kumsaw had introduced himself by the name of Isaac Weaver, and Peggy was careful to call him by no other name.
Alvin and Taleswapper found them all lying on their bedrolls on the floor of the parlor, except for Peggy, who was sitting on a chair, listening as Verily Cooper told them tales of his life in England, and all the subterfuges he had gone through in order to conceal his knack from everyone. She turned to face the door before her husband and their old friend came through it; the others also turned, so all eyes were on them. They knew at once from the joy on Alvin’s face what Tenskwa-Tawa’s answer had been.
“I want to ride out tonight and tell them,” said Armor-of-God. “I want them to know the good news right now.”
“Too dark,” said Ta-Kumsaw, who came in from the kitchen where he had been helping his sister-in-law wash the dishes from supper.
“There’s no more rules, now, the curse is lifted free and clear,” said Alvin. “But he asks that we do something all the same. That everyone who used to be under the curse gather their family together once a year, on the anniversary of the massacre at Tippy-Canoe, and on that day eat no food, but instead tell the story as it used to be told to all strangers who came through Vigor Church. Once a year, our children and our children’s children, forever. He asks that we do that, but there’ll be no punishment if we don’t. No punishment except that our children will forget, and when the
y forget, there’s always the chance that it might happen again.”
“I’ll tell them that too,” said Armor. “They’ll all take a vow to do that, you can be sure, Alvin.” He turned to Ta-Kumsaw. “You can tell your brother that for me when next you see him, that they’ll all take that vow.”
Ta-Kumsaw grunted. “So much for calling myself Isaac in order to conceal from you who I really am.”
“We’ve met before,” said Armor, “and even if we hadn’t, I know a great leader when I see one, and I knew who it was Alvin came to see.”
“You talk too much, Armor-of-God, like all White men,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “But at least what you say isn’t always stupid.”
Armor nodded and smiled to acknowledge the compliment.
Alvin and Peggy were given a bedroom and a fine bed, which Peggy suspected was Ta-Kumsaw’s and Becca’s own. The others slept on the floor in the parlor—slept as best they could, which wasn’t well, what with all the excitement and the way Mike Fink snored so loud and the way Armor had to get up to pee about three times an hour it seemed like, till Peggy heard the activity, woke Alvin up, and Alvin did something with his doodlebug inside Armor’s body so he didn’t feel like his bladder was about to bust all the time. When morning came the men in the parlor slept a little late, and woke to the smell of a country breakfast, with biscuits and gravy and slabs of salted ham fried with potatoes.
Then it was time for parting. Armor-of-God was like an eager horse himself, stamping and snorting till they finally told him to go on. He mounted and rode out of Chapman Valley, waving his hat and whooping like those damn fools on election night the week before.
Alvin’s and Peggy’s parting was harder. She and Taleswapper would take Whitley Physicker’s carriage and drive it to the next town of any size, where she’d hire another carriage and Taleswapper would drive this one north to Hatrack River to return it to the good doctor. From there Peggy intended to go to Philadelphia for a while. “I hope that I might turn some hearts against Harrison’s plans, if I’m there where Congress meets. He’s only going to be president, not king, not emperor—he has to win the consent of Congress to do anything, and perhaps there’s still hope.” But Alvin knew from her voice that she had little hope, that she knew already along what dark roads Harrison would lead the country.
Alvin felt nearly as bleak about his own prospects. “Tenskwa-Tawa couldn’t tell me a thing about how to make the Crystal City, except to say a thing I already knew: The Maker is a part of what he Makes.”
“So . . . you will search,” said Peggy, “and I will search.”
What neither of them said, because both of them knew that they both knew, was that there was a child growing already in Margaret’s womb; a girl. Each of them could calculate nine months as well as the other.
“Where will you be next August?” asked Alvin.
“Wherever I am, I’ll make quite sure you know about it.”
“And wherever you are, I’ll make quite sure I’m there.”
“I think the name should be Becca,” said Peggy.
“I was thinking to call her after you. Call her Little Peggy.”
Peggy smiled. “Becca Margaret, then?”
Alvin smiled back, and kissed her. “People talk about fools counting chickens before they hatch. That’s nothing. We name them.”
He helped her up into the carriage, beside Taleswapper, who already had the reins in hand. Arthur Stuart led Alvin’s horse to him, and as he mounted, the boy said, “We made up a song about us last night, while you two was upstairs!”
“A song?” said Alvin. “Let’s hear it then.”
“We made it up like as if it was you singing it,” said Arthur Stuart. “Come on, you all got to sing! And at the end I made up a chorus all by myself, I made up the last part alone without no help from nobody.”
Alvin reached down and hauled the boy up behind him. Arthur Stuart’s arms went around his middle. “Come on,” the boy shouted. “Let’s all sing.”
As they began the song, Alvin reached down and took hold of the harness of the carriage’s lead horse, starting the parade up the road leading out of Chapman Valley.
A young man startin’ on his own
Must leave his home so fair.
Better not go wand’rin’ all alone
Or you might get eaten by a bear!
I’m wise enough to heed that song,
But who’ll make up my pair?
If I choose my boon companion wrong
Then I might get eaten by a bear!
I’ll take a certain mixup lad—
He’s small, but does his share—
And I’ll watch him close, cause I’d be sad
If the boy got eaten by a bear!
I’ll take along this barrister
With lofty learned air,
And I’ll make of him a forester
So he won’t get eaten by a bear!
Behold this noble river rat
With brag so fine and rare!
He’s as dangerous as a mountain cat—
He will not get eaten by a bear!
Now off we go, where’er we please.
We’re heroes, so we dare
To defy mosquitoes, wasps, and fleas,
And we won’t get eaten by a bear!
They reached the main road and Peggy turned right, heading north, while the men took their horses south. She waved from the driver’s seat, but did not look back. Alvin stopped to watch her, just for a moment, just for a lingering moment, as Arthur Stuart behind him shouted, “Now I get to sing the last part that I made up all by myself! I get to!”
“So sing it,” said Alvin.
So Arthur Stuart sang.
Grizzly bear, grizzly bear,
Run and hide, you sizzly bear!
We’ll take away your coat of hair
And roast you in your underwear!
Alvin laughed till tears streamed down his face.
19
Philadelphia
When Calvin’s and Honoré’s ship arrived in New Amsterdam, the newspapers were full of chat about the inauguration, which was only a week away in Philadelphia. Calvin remembered Harrison’s name at once—how many times had he listened to the tale of the massacre at Tippy-Canoe? He remembered meeting the bloody-handed bum on the streets of New Amsterdam, and told the tale to Honoré.
“So you created him.”
“I helped him make the best of his limited possibilities,” said Calvin.
“No, no,” said Honoré. “You are too modest. This man created himself as a monster who killed people for political gain. Then this Red prophet destroyed him with a curse. Then, from the hopeless ruin of his life, you turned his path upward again. Calvin, you finally impress me. You have achieved, in life, that infinite power which is usually reserved to the novelist.”
“The power to use up enormous amounts of paper and ink to no avail?”
“The power to make people’s lives take the most illogical turns. Parents, for instance, have no such power. They can help their children along, or, more likely, shatter their lives as someone’s mother once did with her casual adultery even as she abandoned her child to the tender mercies of the boarding school. But such parents have no power then to heal the child they have injured. Having brought the child low, they cannot raise the child up. But I can bring a man low, then raise him up, then bring him low again, all with a stroke of the pen.”
“And so can I,” said Calvin thoughtfully.
“Well, to a degree,” said Honoré. “To be honest, however, you did not bring him low, and now, having raised him up, I doubt you can bring him low again. The man has been elected president, even if his domain consists primarily of trees and tree-dwelling beasts.”
“There’s several million people in the United States,” said Calvin.
“It was to them that I referred,” said Honoré.
The challenge was too much for Calvin to resist. Could he bring down the president of the United States? H
ow would he do it? This time there could be no scornful words that would provoke him into self-destruction, as Calvin’s words had helped the man resurrect himself from shameful oblivion. But then, Calvin had learned to do much more subtle things than mere talk in the many months since then. It would be a challenge. It was almost a dare.
“Let’s go to Philadelphia,” said Calvin. “For the inauguration.”
Honoré was perfectly happy to board the train and go along. He was amused by the size and newness of the tiny towns that Americans referred to as “cities,” and Calvin constantly had to watch out for him as he practiced his feeble English with the kind of rough American who was likely to pick up the little Frenchman and toss him into a river. Honoré, armed only with an ornate cane he had purchased from a fellow-voyager, had fearlessly walked through the most wretched immigrant districts of New Amsterdam and now of Philadelphia. “These men aren’t characters in novels,” said Calvin, more than once. “If they break your neck, it’ll really be broken!”
“Then you’ll have to fix me, my talented knackish friend.” He said the word knackish in English, though truth to tell no one would have understood the word but Calvin himself.
“There’s no such word as knackish in the English language,” Calvin said.
“There is now,” said Honoré, “because I put it there.”
As Calvin awaited the inauguration, he considered many possible plans. Nothing with mere words would do the job. Harrison’s election had been so openly based on lies that it was hard to imagine how anything could now be revealed about Harrison that would shock or disappoint anyone. When the people elected a president like this one, who ran a campaign like the one he ran, it was hard to imagine what kind of scandal might bring him down.
Besides, Calvin’s knack was now way beyond words. He wanted to get inside Harrison’s body and do some mischief. He remembered Napoleon and how he suffered from the gout; he toyed with the idea of giving Harrison some debilitating condition. Regretfully he concluded that this was beyond his power, to fine-tune such a thing so that it would cause pain without killing. No doubt Calvin would have to wait around to watch, to make sure that whatever he did wasn’t cured. And besides, pain wouldn’t bring Harrison low any more than gout had stopped Napoleon from fulfilling all his ambitions.
Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV Page 41
