Prentice Alvin ttoam-3

by Orson Scott Card

  In due time Makepeace came down from the house and looked at the plow. But Alvin didn't see him, being asleep. Makepeace woke him up enough to get him to walk back up to the house.

  “Poor boy,” said Gertie. “I bet he never even went to sleep last night. I bet he went on down and worked on that fool plow all night.”

  “Plow looks fair.”

  “Plow looks perfect, I'll bet, knowing Alvin.”

  Makepeace grimaced. “What do you know about ironwork?”

  “I know Alvin and I know you.”

  “Strange boy. Ain't it the truth though? He does his best work when he stays up all night.” Makepeace even had some affection in his voice, saying that. But Alvin was asleep in his bed by then and didn't hear.

  “Sets such store by that mixup child,” said Gertie. “No wonder he couldn't sleep.”

  “Sleeping now,” said Makepeace.

  “Imagine sending Arthur Stuart into slavery at his age.”

  “Law's the law,” said Makepeace. “Can't say I like it, but a fellow has to live by the law or what then?”

  "You and the law," said Gertie. "I'm glad we don't live on the other side of the Hio, Makepeace, or I swear you'd be wanting slaves instead of prentices– if you know the difference. "

  That was as pure a declaration of war as they ever gave each other, and they were all set for one of their rip-snorting knockabout break-dish fights, only Alvin was snoring up in the loft and Gertie and Makepeace just glared at each other and let this one go. Since all their quarrels came out the same, with all the same cruel things said and all the same hurts and harms done, it was like they just got fired and said, Pretend I just said all the things you hate worst in all the world to hear, and I'll pretend you said the things I hate worst back to me, and then let be.

  Alvin didn't sleep all that long, nor all too well, neither. Fear and anger and eagerness all played through his body till he could hardly hold still, let alone keep his brain drifting with the currents of his dreams. He woke up dreaming of a black plow turned to gold. He woke up dreaming of Arthur Stuart being whipped. He woke up again thinking of aiming a gun at one of them Finders and puffing the trigger. He woke up again thinking of aiming at a Finder and not pulling the trigger, and then watching them go away dragging Arthur after them, him screaming all the time, Alvin, where are you! Alvin, don't let them take me.

  “Wake up or hush up!” shouted Gertie. “You're scaring the children.”

  Alvin opened his eyes and leaned over the edge of the loft. “Your children ain't even here.”

  “Then you're scaring me. I don't know what you was dreaming, boy, but I hope that dream never comes even to my worst enemy– which happens to be my husband this morning, if you want to know the truth.”

  Her mentioning Makepeace made Alvin alert, yes sir. He pulled on his trousers, wondering when and how he got up to this loft and who pulled his pants and boots off. In just that little amount of time, Gertie somehow got food on the table– cornbread and cheese and a dollop of molasses. “I don't have time to eat, Ma'am,” said Alvin. “I'm sorry, but I got to–”

  “You got time.”

  “No Ma'am, I'm sorry–”

  “Take the bread, then, you plain fool. You plan to work all day with an empty belly? After only a morning's sleep? Why, it ain't even noon yet.”

  So he was chewing on bread when he come down the hill to the forge. There was Dr. Physicker's carriage again, and the Finders' horses. For a second Alvin thought they come here cause Arthur Stuart got away somehow, and the Finders lost him, and– No. They had Arthur Stuart with them.

  “Good morning, Alvin,” said Makepeace. He turned to the other men. “I must be about the softest master I ever heard of, letting my prentice boy sleep till near noon.”

  Alvin didn't even notice how Makepeace was criticizing him and calling him a prentice boy when his journeyman piece stood there finished on the workbench. He just squatted down in front of Arthur Stuart and looked him in the eyes.

  “Stand back now,” said the white-haired Finder.

  Alvin didn't hardly notice him. He wasn't really seeing Arthur Stuart, not with his eyes, anyhow. He was searching his body for some sign of harm. None. Not yet anyway. Just the fear in the boy.

  “You haven't told us yet,” said Pauley Wiseman. “Will you make them or not?”

  Makepeace coughed. “Gentlemen, I once made a pair of manacles, back in New England. For a man convicted of treason, being shipped back to England in irons. I hope I never make a manacle for a seven-year-old boy who done no harm to a living soul, a boy who played around my forge and–”

  “Makepeace,” said Pauley Wiseman. “I told them that if you made the manacles, they wouldn't have to use this.”

  Wiseman held up the heavy iron-and-wood collar that he'd left leaning against his leg.

  “It's the law,” said the white-haired Finder. “We bring runaway slaves back home in that collar, to show the others what happens. But him being just a boy, and seeing how it was his mama what run away and not him, we agreed to manacles. But it don't make no difference to me. We get paid either way.”

  “You and your damned Fugitive Slave Treaty!” cried Makepeace. “You use that law to make slavers out of us, too.”

  “I'll make them,” said Alvin.

  Makepeace looked at him in horror. “You!”

  “Better than that collar,” said Alvin. What he didn't say was, I don't intend for Arthur Stuart to wear those manacles a minute longer than tonight. He looked at Arthur Stuart. “I'll make you some manacles as don't hurt much, Arthur Stuart.”

  “Wisely done,” said Pauley Wiseman.

  “Good to see somebody with sense here,” said the white-haired Finder.

  Alvin looked at him and tried to hold all his hatred in. He couldn't quite do it. So his spittle ended up spattering the dust at the Finder's feet.

  The black-haired Finder looked ready to throw a punch at him for that, and Alvin wouldn't've minded a bit to grapple with him and maybe rub his face in the dirt a minute or two. But Pauley Wiseman jumped right between them and he had sense enough to do his talking to the black-haired Fuider, and not to Alvin. “You got to be a blame fool, setting to rassle with a blacksmith. Look at his arms.”

  “I could take him,” said the Finder.

  “You folks got to understand,” said the white-haired Finder. “It's our knack. We can no more help being Finders than–”

  “There's some knacks,” said Makepeace, “where it'd be better to die at birth than grow up and use it.” He turned to Alvin. “I don't want you using my forge for this.”

  “Don't make a nuisance of yourself, Makepeace,” said Pauley Wiseman.

  “Please,” said Dr. Physicker. “You're doing the boy more harm than good.”

  Makepeace backed off, but none too graciously.

  “Give me your hands, Arthur Stuart,” Alvin said.

  Alvin made a show of measuring Arthur's wrists with a string. Truth was, he could see the measure of him in his mind, every inch of him, and he'd shape the iron to fit smooth and perfect, with rounded edges and no more weight than needed. Arthur wouldn't feel no pain from these manacles. Not with his body, anyhow.

  They all stood and watched Alvin work. It was the smoothest, purest job they'd ever see. Alvin used his knack this time, but not so it'd show. He hammered and bent the strap iron, cutting it exactly right. The two halves of each manacle fit snug, so they wouldn't shift and pinch the skin. And all the time he was thinking how Arthur used to pump the bellows for him, or just stand there and talk to him while he worked. Never again. Even after they saved him tonight, they'd have to take him to Canada or hide him somehow– as if you could hide from a Finder.

  "Good work," said the white-haired Finder. "I never saw me a better blacksmith.

  Makepeace piped up from the dark corner of the forge. “You should be proud of yourself, Alvin. Why, let's make those manacles your journeyman piece, all right?”

  Alvin turn
ed and faced him. “My journeyman piece is that plow setting on the workbench, Makepeace.”

  It was the first time Alvin ever called his master by his first name. It was as clear as Alvin could let him know that the days of Makepeace talking to him like that were over now.

  Makepeace didn't want to understand him. “Watch how you talk to me, boy! Your journeyman piece is what I say it is, and–”

  “Come on, boy, let's get them on you.” The white-haired Finder wasn't interested in Makepeace's talk, it seemed.

  “Not yet,” said Alvin.

  “They're ready,” said the Finder.

  “Too hot,” said Alvin.

  “Well dip them in that bucket then and cool them off.”

  "If I do that, they'll change shape just a little, and then they'll cut the boy's arms so they bleed. "

  The black-haired Finder rolled his eyes. What did he care about a little blood from a mixup boy?

  But the white-haired Finder knew that nobody'd stand for it if he didn't wait. "No hurry, " he said. "Can't take too long."

  They sat around waiting without a word. Then Pauley started in talking about nothing, and so did the Finders, and even Dr. Physicker, just jawing away like as if the Finders were any old visitors. Maybe they thought they were making the Finders feel more kindly so they wouldn't take it out on the boy once they had him across the river. Alvin had to figure that so he wouldn't hate them.

  Besides, an idea was growing in his mind. It wasn't enough to get Arthur Stuart away tonight– what if Alvin could make it so even the Finders couldn't find him again?

  “What's in that cachet you Finders use?” he asked.

  “Don't you wish you knew,” said the black-haired Finder.

  “It's no secret,” said the white-haired Finder. “Every slaveowner makes up a box like this for each slave, soon as he's bought or born. Scrapings from his skin, hair from his head, a drop of blood, things like that. Parts of his own flesh.”

  “You get his scent from that?”

  “Oh, it ain't a scent. We ain't bloodhounds, Mr. Smith.”

  Alvin knew that calling him Mr. Smith was pure flattery. He smiled a little, pretending that it pleased him.

  “Well then how does it help?”

  “Well, it's our knack,” said the white-haired Finder. “Who knows how it works? We just look at it, and we– it's like we see the shape of the person we're looking for.”

  “It ain't like that,” said the black-haired Finder.

  “Well that's how it is for me.”

  “I just know where he is. Like I can see his soul. If I'm close enough, anyway. Glowing like a fire, the soul of the slave I'm searching for.” The black-haired Finder grinned. “I can see from a long way off.”

  “Can you show me?” asked Alvin.

  “Nothing to see,” said the white-haired Ruder.

  “I'll show you, boy,” said the black-haired Finder. “I'll turn my back and y'all move that boy around in the forge. I'll point to him over my shoulder, perfect all the time.”

  “Come on now,” said the white-haired Finder.

  “We got nothing to do anyway till the iron cools. Give me the cachet.”'

  The black-haired Finder did what be bragged– pointed at Arthur Stuart the whole am. But Alvin hardly saw that. He was busy watching from the inside of that Finder, trying to understand what he was doing, what he was seeing, and what it had to do with the cachet. He couldn't see how seven-year-old dried-up bits of Arthur Stumt's newborn body could show them where he was now.

  Then he remembered that for a moment right at first the Finder hadn't pointed at all. His finger had wandered a little, and only after just that pause had he started pointing right at Arthur Stuart. Like as if he'd been trying to sort out which of the people behind him in the smithy was Arthur. The cachet wasn't for Finding– it was for recognizing. The Finders saw everybody, but they couldn't tell who was who without a cachet.

  So what they were seeing wasn't Arthur's mind, or Arthur's soul. They were just seeing a body, like every other body unless they could sort it out. And what they were sorting was plain enough to Alvin– hadn't he healed enough people in his life to know that people were pretty much the same, except for some bits at the center of each living piece of their flesh? Those bits were different for every single person, yet the same in every part of that person's flesh, like it was God's way of naming them right in their flesh. Or maybe it was the mark of the beast, like in the book of Revelation. Didn't matter. Alvin knew that the only thing in that cachet that was the same as Arthur Stuart's body was that signature that lived in every part of his body, even the dead and cast-off {AKPPLApieces in the cachet.

  I can change those bits, thought Alvin. Surely I can change them, change them in every part of his body. Like turning iron into gold. Like turning water into wine. And then their cachet wouldn't work at all. Wouldn't help them at all. They could search for Arthur Stuart all they liked, but as long as they didn't actually see his face and recognize him the regular way, they'd never find him.

  Best of all, they wouldn't even realize what happened. They'd still have the cachet, same as ever, and they'd know it hadn't been changed a bit because Alvin wouldn't change it. But they could search the whole world over and never find a body just like those specks in their cachet, and they'd never guess why.

  I'll do it, thought Alvin. Somehow I'll figure a way to change him. Even though there must be millions of those signatures all through his body, I'll find a way to change every one. Tonight I'll do it, and tomorrow he'll be safe forever.

  The iron was cool. Alvin knelt before Arthur Stuart and gently put the manacles in place. They fit his flesh so perfectly he might have cast them in a mold taken from Arthur's own body. When they were locked into place, with a length of light chain strung between them, Alvin looked Arthur Stuart in the eye. “Don't be afraid,” he said.

  Arthur Stuart didn't say a thing.

  “I won't forget you,” said Alvin.

  “Sure,” said the black-haired Finder. “But just in case you get ideas about remembering him while he's on his way home to his rightful master, I ought to tell you square– we never both of us sleep at the same time. And part of being a Finder is, we know if anybody's coming. You can't sneak up on us. Least of all you, smith boy, I could see you ten miles away.”

  Alvin just looked at him. Eventually the Finder sneered and turned away. They put Arthur Stuart onto the horse in front of the white-haired Finder. But Alvin figured that as soon as they got across the Hio, they'd have Arthur walking. Not out of meanness, maybe– but it wouldn't do no good for Finders to show themselves being kindly to a runaway. Besides, they had to set an example for the other slaves, didn't they? Let them see a boy seven years old walking along, feet bleeding, head bowed, and they'd think twice about trying to run off with their children. They'd know that Finders have no mercy.

  Pauley and Dr. Physicker rode away with them. They were seeing the Finders to the Hio River and watching them cross the river, to make sure they did no hurt to Arthur Stuart while he was in free territory. It was the best they could do.

  Makepeace didn't have much to.say, but what he said, he said plain. “A real man would never put manacles on his own friend,” said Makepeace. “I'll go up to the house and sign your journeyman papers. I don't want you in my smithy or my house another night.”

  He left Alvin alone by the forge.

  He'd been gone no more than five minutes when Horace Guester got to the smithy.

  “Let's go,” he said.

  “No,” said Alvin. “Not yet. They can see us coming. They'll tell the sheriff if they're being followed.”

  “We got no choice. Can't lose their trail.”

  You know something about what I am and what I can do," said Alvin. "I've got them even now. They won't get more than a mile from the Hio shore before they fall asleep."

  “You can do that?”

  “I know what goes on inside people when they're sleepy. I can make that
staff start happening inside them the minute they're in Appalachee.”

  “While you're at it, why don't you kill them?”

  “I can't.”

  “They aren't men! It wouldn't be murder, killing them!”

  “They are men,” said Alvin. “Besides, if I kill them, then it's a violation of the Fugitive Slave Treaty.”

  “Are you a lawyer now?”

  “Miss Larner explained it to me. I mean she explained it to Arthur Stuart while I was there. He wanted to know. Back last fall. He said, 'Why don't my pa just kill them if some Finders come for me?', And Miss Larner, she told him how there'd just be more Finders coming, only this time they'd hang you and take Arthur Stuart anyway.”

  Horace's face had turned red. Alvin didn't understand why for a minute, not till Horace Guester explained. "He shouldn't call me his pa. I never wanted him in my house." He swallowed. "But he's right. I'd kill them Finders if I thought it'd do good.

  “No killing,” said Alvin. “I think I can fix it so they'll never find Arthur again.”

  “I know. I'm going to ride him to Canada. Get to the lake and sail across.”

  “No sir,” said Alvin. “I think I can fix it so they'll never find him anywhere. We just got to hide him till they go away.”

  “Where?”

  “Springhouse, if Miss Larner'll let us.”

  “Why there?”

  “I got it hexed up every which way from Tuesday. I thought I was doing it for the teacher lady. But now I reckon I was really doing it for Arthur Stuart.”

  Horace grinned. “You're really something, Alvin. You know that?”

  “Maybe. Sure wish I knew what.”

  “I'll go ask Miss Larner if we can make use of her house.”

  “If I know Miss Larner, she'll say yes before you finish asking.”