Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV (42 page)

“No, it was—he just showed up there.”

“In broad daylight. And no one recognized him?”

“Nobody saw him but me. That’s a fact. That’s—it’s a thing he can do.”

“Yes, we’re beginning to realize that when it comes to spending time with you, Alvin Smith can and will do the most amazing, miraculous things,” said Verily.

Webster objected, Verily apologized, and they went on. But Verily suspected that he was on a good track here. The way Amy made her story so believable was by adding detail. When it came to the events that didn’t happen, the details were all dreamy and beautiful—but she wasn’t just making them up, it was clear she had really had such dreams, or at least daydreams. She was speaking from memory.

But there must be another memory in her mind—the memory of her time with the man who was the true father of the child she carried. And Verily’s hunch was that her mention of the county fair, which didn’t fit in at all with the pattern she had established for her nighttime assignations with Alvin, was tied in with that real encounter. If he could get her drawing on memory with this one . . .

“So only you could see him. I imagine that you went off with him? May I ask you where?”

“Under the flap of the freak show tent. Behind the fat lady.”

“Behind the fat lady,” said Verily. “A private place. But . . . why there? Why didn’t Alvin whisk you away into the forest?
To some secluded meadow by a crystal stream? I can’t imagine it was very comfortable for you—in the straw, perhaps, or on the hard ground, in the dark . . ..”

“That’s just the way Alvin wanted it,” she said. “I don’t know why.”

“And how long did you spend there behind the fat lady?”

“About five minutes.”

Verily raised an eyebrow. “Why so hasty?” Then, before Webster could object, he plunged into his next question. “So Alvin escaped from the Hatrack County jail in broad daylight, journeyed all the way to Vigor Church on the far side of the state of Wobbish from here, in order to spend five minutes with you behind the fat lady?”

Webster spoke up again. “How can this young girl be expected to know the defendant’s motivations for whatever bizarre acts he performs?”

“Was that an objection?” asked the judge.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Verily. “I’m through with her for now.” And this time he let a little contempt into his voice. Let the jury see that he no longer had any regard for this girl. He hadn’t destroyed her testimony, but he had laid the groundwork for doubt.

It was three in the afternoon. The judge adjourned them for the day.

Alvin and Verily had supper in his cell that night, conferring over what was likely to happen the next day, and what had to happen in order to acquit him. “They actually haven’t proved anything about Makepeace,” said Verily. “All they’re doing is proving you’re a liar in general, and then hoping the jury will think this removes all reasonable doubt about you and the plow. The worst thing is that every step of the way, Webster and Laws have played me like a harp. They set me up, I introduced an idea they were hoping I’d bring up in my cross-examination, and presto! There’s the groundwork for the next irrelevant, character-damaging witness.”

“So they know the legal tricks in American courts better than you do,” said Alvin. “You know the law. You know how things fit together.”

“Don’t you see, Alvin? Webster doesn’t care whether you’re convicted or not—what he loves is the stories the newspapers are writing about this trial. Besmirching your reputation. You’ll never recover from that.”

“I don’t know about never,” said Alvin.

“Stories like this don’t disappear. Even if we manage to find the man who impregnated her—”

“Oh, I know who it was,” said Alvin.

“What? How could you—”

“Matt Thatcher. He’s a couple of years younger than me, but all us boys knew him in Vigor. He was always a rapscallion of the first stripe, and when I was back there this past year he was always full of brag about how no girl could resist him. Every now and then some fellow’d have to beat him up cause of something he said about the fellow’s sister. But after last year’s county fair, he was talking about how he drove his tent spike into five different girls in the freak show tent behind the fat lady.”

“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, gentlemen,” 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 night 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.”