“We don't talk about it like that,” said Measure.
“He cuts,” said Miller. “Just like any stonecutter.”
“He's a big boy, but he's still just a boy,” said Taleswapper.
“Let's just say,” said Measure, “that when he cuts the stone it's a mite softer than when I cut it.”
“I'd appreciate it,” said Miller, “if you'd stay down here and help with the rounding and notching. We need a nice tight sledge and some smooth true rollers.” What he didn't say, but Taleswapper heard just as plain as day, was, Stay down here and don't ask too many questions about Al Junior.
So Taleswapper worked with David and Measure and Calm all morning and well into the afternoon, all the time hearing a steady chinking sound of iron on stone. Alvin Junior's stonecutting set the rhythm for all their work, though no one commented on it.
Taleswapper wasn't the sort of man who could work in silence, though. Since the others weren't too conversational at first, he told stories the whole time. And since they were grown men instead of children, he told stories that weren't all adventure and heroics and tragic death.
Most of the afternoon, in fact, he devoted to the sap of John Adams: How his house was burnt down by a Boston mob after he won the acquittal of ten women accused of witchcraft. How Alex Hamilton invited him to Manhattan Island, where the two of them set up a law practice together. How in ten years they managed to maneuver the Dutch government to allow unlimited immigration of non-Dutch-speaking people, until English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish were a majority in New Amsterdam and New Orange, and a large minority in New Holland. How they got English declared a second official language in 1780, just in time for the Dutch colonies to become three of the seven original states under the American Compact.
“I'll bet the Dutchmen hated those boys, by the time they were through,” said David.
“They were better politicians than that,” said Taleswapper. “Why, both of them learned to speak Dutch better than most Dutchmen, and had their children grow up speaking Dutch in Dutch schools. They were so dadgum Dutch, boys, that when Alex Hamilton ran for governor of New Amsterdam and John Adams ran for president of the United States, they both did better in the Dutch parts of New Netherland than they did among the Scotch and Irish.”
“Reckon if I run for mayor, I could get those Swedes and Dutchmen downriver to vote for me?” said David.
“I wouldn't even vote for you,” said Calm.
“I would,” said Measure. “And I hope someday you do run for mayor.”
“He can't run for mayor,” said Calm. “This ain't even a proper town.”
“It will be,” said Taleswapper. “I've seen it before. Once you get this mill working, it won't be long before three hundred people dwell between your mill and Vigor Church.”
“You think so?”
“Right now people come in to Armor's store maybe three or four times a year,” said Taleswapper. “But when they can get flour, they'll come in much more often. They'll prefer your mill to any other around here for some time, too, since you've got a smooth road and good bridges.”
“If the mill makes money,” Measure said, “Pa's sure to send for a Buhr Stone from France. We had one back in West Hampshire, before the flood broke up the mill. And a Buhr Stone means fine white flour.”
“And white flour means good business,” said David. “We older ones, we remember.” He smiled wistfully. “We were almost rich there, once.”
"So," said Taleswapper. "With all that traffic here, it won't be just a store and a church and a mill. There's good white clay down on the Wobbish. Some potter's bound to go into business, making redware and stoneware for the whole territory. "
“Sure wish they'd hurry with that,” said Calm. “My wife is sick unto death, she says, of having to serve food on tin plates.”
“That's how towns grow,” said Taleswapper. “A good store, a church, then a mill, then a pottery. Bricks, too, for that matter. And when there's a town–”
“David can be mayor,” said Measure.
“Not me,” said David. “All that politics business is too much. It's Armor wants that, not me.”
“Armor wants to be king,” said Calm.
“That's not kind,” said David.
“But it's true,” said Calm. “He'd try to be God, if he thought the job was open.”
Measure explained to Taleswapper. “Calm and Armor don't get along.”
“It ain't much of a husband that calls his wife a witch,” said Calm bitterly.
“Why would he call her that?” asked Taleswapper.
“It's sure he doesn't call her that now,” said Measure. “She promised him to give them up. All her knacks in the kitchen. It's a shame to make a woman run a household with just her own two hands.”
“That's enough,” David said. Taleswapper caught just a corner of his warning look.
Obviously they didn't trust Taleswapper enough to let him in on the truth. So Taleswapper let them know that the secret was already in his possession. “It seems to me that she uses more than Armor guesses,” said Taleswapper. “There's a clever hex out of baskets on the front porch. And she used a calming on him before my eyes, the day I arrived in town.”
Work stopped then, for just a moment. Nobody looked at him, but for a second they did nothing. Just took in the fact that Taleswapper knew Eleanor's secret and hadn't told about it to outsiders. Or to Armor-of-God Weaver. Still, it was one thing for him to know, and something else for them to confirm it. So they said nothing, just resumed notching and binding the sledge.
Taleswapper broke the silence by returning to the main topic. “It's just a matter of time before these western lands have enough people in them to call themselves states, and petition to join the American Compact. When that happens, there'll be need for honest men to hold office.”
“You won't find no Hamilton or Adams or Jefferson out here in the wild country,” said David.
“Maybe not,” said Taleswapper. “But if you local boys don't set up your own government, you can bet there'll be plenty of city men willing to do it for you. That's how Aaron Burr got to be governor of Suskwahenny, before Daniel Boone shot him dead in ninety-nine.”
“You make it sound like murder,” said Measure. “It was a fair duel.”
“To my way of thinking,” said Taleswapper, “a duel is just two murderers who agree to take turns trying to kill each other.”
“Not when one of them is an old country boy in buckskin and the other is a lying cheating city man,” said Measure.
“I don't want no Aaron Burr trying to be governor over the Wobbish country,” said David. “And that's what kind of man Bill Harrison is, down there in Carthage City. I'd vote for Armor before I'd vote for him.”
“And I'd vote for you before I'd vote for Armor,” said Taleswapper.
David grunted. He continued weaving rope around the notches of the sledge logs, binding them together. Taleswapper was doing the same thing on the other side. When he got to the knotting place, Taleswapper started to tie the two ends of the rope together.
“Wait on that,” said Measure. “I'll go fetch Al Junior.” Measure took off at a jog up the slope to the quarry.
Taleswapper dropped the ends of the rope. “Alvin Junior ties the knots? I would have thought grown men like you could tie them tighter.”
David grinned. “He's got a knack.”
“Don't any of you have knacks?” asked Taleswapper.
“A few.”
“David's got a knack with the ladies,” said Calm.
“Calm's got dancing feet at a hoedown. Ain't nobody fiddles like him, neither,” said David. “It ain't on tune all the time, but he keeps that bow busy.”
“Measure's a true shot,” said Calm. “He's got an eye for things too far off for most folks to see.”
“We got our knacks,” said David. “The twins have a way of knowing when trouble's brewing, and getting there just about in time.”
“And Pa, he fits
things together. We have him do all the wood joints when we're building furniture.”
“The womenfolk got women's knacks.”
“But,” said Calm, “there ain't nobody like Al Junior.”
David nodded gravely. “Thing is, Taleswapper, he don't seem to know about it. I mean, he's always kind of surprised when things turn out good. He's right proud when we give him a job to do. I never seen him lord it over nobody because he's got more of a knack than they do.”
“He's a good boy,” said Calm.
“Kind of clumsy,” said David.
“Not clumsy,” said Calm. “Most times it isn't his fault.”
“Let's just say that accidents happen more common around him.”
“I wouldn't say jinx or nothing,” said Calm.
“No, I wouldn't say jinx.”
Taleswapper noted that in fact they both had said it. But he didn't comment on their indiscretion. After all, it was the third voice that made bad luck true. His silence was the best cure for their carelessness. And the other two caught on quickly enough. They, too, held their silence.
After a while, Measure came down the hill with Alvin Junior. Taleswapper dared not be the third voice, since he had taken part in the conversation before. And it would be even worse if Alvin himself spoke next, since he was the one who had been linked with a jinx. So Taleswapper kept his eye on Measure, and raised his eyebrows, to show Measure that he was expected to speak.
Measure answered the question that he thought Taleswapper was asking. “Oh, Pa's staying up by the rock. To watch.”
Taleswapper could hear David and Calm breathe a sigh of relief. The third voice didn't have jinx in his mind, so Alvin Junior was safe.
Now Taleswapper was free to wonder why Miller felt he had to keep watch at the quarry. “What could happen to a rock? I've never heard of Reds stealing rocks.”
Measure winked. “Powerful strange things happen sometimes, specially with millstones.”
Alvin was joking with David and Calm now, as he tied the knots. He worked hard to get them as tight as he could, but Taleswapper saw that it wasn't in the knot itself that his knack was revealed. As Al Junior pulled the ropes tight, they seemed to twist and bite into the wood in all the notches, drawing the whole sledge tighter together. It was subtle, and if Taleswapper hadn't been watching for it, he wouldn't have seen. But it was real. What Al Junior bound was bound tight.
“That's tight enough to be a raft,” said Al Junior, standing back to admire.
“Well, it's floating on solid earth this time,” said Measure. “Pa says he won't even piss into water no more.”
Since the sun was low in the west, they set to laying the fire. Work had kept them warm today, but tonight they'd need the fire to back off the animals and keep the autumn cold at bay.
Miller didn't come down, even at supper, and when Calm got up to carry food up the hill to his father, Taleswapper offered to come along.
“I don't know,” said Calm. “You don't need to.”
“I want to.”
“Pa– he don't like lots of people gathered at the rock face, time like this.” Calm looked a little sheepish. “He's a miller, and it's his stone getting cut there.”
“I'm not a lot of people,” said Taleswapper. Calm didn't say anything more. Taleswapper followed him up among the rocks.
On the way, they passed the sites of two early stonecuttings. The scraps of cut stone had been used to make a smooth ramp from the cliff face to ground level. The cuts were almost perfectly round. Taleswapper had seen plenty of stone cut before, and he'd never seen one cut this way– perfectly round, right in the cliff. Most times it was a whole slab they cut, then rounded it on the ground. There were several good reasons for doing it that way, but the best of all was that there was no way to cut the back of the stone unless you took a whole slab. Calm didn't slow down for him, so Taleswapper didn't have a chance to look closely, but as near as he could tell there was no possible way that the stonecutter in this quarry could have cut the back of the stone.
It looked just the same at the new site, too. Miller was raking chipped rock into a level ramp in front of the millstone. Taleswapper stood back and, in the last specks of daylight, studied the cliff. In a single day, working alone, Al Junior had smoothed the front of the millstone and chipped away the whole circumference. The stone was practically polished, still attached to the cliff face. Not only that, but the center hole had been cut to take the main shaft of the mill machinery. It was fully cut. And there was no way in the world that anybody could get a chisel in position to cut away the back.
“That's some knack the boy has,” said Taleswapper.
Miller grunted assent.
“Hear you plan to spend the night up here,” said Taleswapper.
“Heard right.”
“Mind company?” asked Taleswapper.
Calm rolled his eyes.
But after a little bit, Miller shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Calm looked at Taleswapper with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, as if to say, Miracles never cease.
When Calm had set down Miller's supper, he left. Miller set aside the rake. “You et yet?”
“I'll gather wood for tonight's fire,” said Taleswapper. “While there's still light. You eat.”
“Watch out for snakes,” said Miller. “They're mostly shut in for the winter now, but you never know.”
Taleswapper watched out for snakes, but he never saw any. And soon they had a good fire, laid with a heavy log that would burn all night.
They lay there in the firelight, wrapped in their blankets. It occurred to Taleswapper that Miller might have found softer ground a few yards away from the quarry. But apparently it was more important to keep the millstone in plain sight.
Taleswapper began talking. Quietly, but steadily, he talked about how hard it must be for fathers, to watch their sons grow, so full of hope for the boys, but never knowing when death would come and take the child away. It was the right thing to talk about, because soon it was Alvin Miller doing the talking. He told the story of how his oldest boy Vigor died in the Hatrack River, only a few minutes after Alvin Junior was born. And from there, he turned to the dozens of ways that Al Junior had almost died. “Always water,” Miller said at the end. “Nobody believes me, but it's so. Always water.”
“The question is,” said Taleswapper, “is the water evil, trying to destroy a good boy? Or is it good, trying to destroy an evil power?”
It was a question that might have made some men angry, but Taleswapper had given up trying to guess when Miller's temper would flare. This time it didn't. “I've wondered that myself,” said Miller. “I've watched him close, Taleswapper. Of course, he has a knack for making people love him. Even his sisters. He's tormented them unmerciful since he was old enough to spit in their food. Yet there's not a one of them who doesn't find a way to make him something special, and not just at Christmas. They'll sew his socks shut or smear soot on the privy bench or needle up his nightshirt, but they'd also die for him.”
“I've found,” said Taleswapper, “that some people have a knack for winning love without ever earning it.”
“I feared that, too,” said Miller. “But the boy doesn't know he has that knack. He doesn't trick people into doing what he wants. He lets me punish him when he does wrong. And he could stop me, if he wanted.”
“How?”
“Because he knows that sometimes when I see him, I see my boy Vigor, my firstborn, and then I can't do him any harm, even harm that's for his own good.”
Maybe that reason was partly true, Taleswapper thought. But it certainly wasn't the whole truth.
A bit later, after Taleswapper stirred the fire to make sure the log caught well, Miller told the story that Taleswapper had come for.
“I've got a story,” he said, “that might belong in your book.”
“Give it a try,” said Taleswapper.
“Didn't happen to me, though.”
“Has to be someth
ing you saw yourself,” said Taleswapper. “I hear the craziest stories that somebody heard happened to a friend of a friend.”
“Oh, I saw this happen. It's been going on for years now, and I've had some discussions with the fellow. It's one of the Swedes downriver, speaks English good as I do. We helped him put up his cabin and his barn when he first come here, the year after us. And I watched him a little bit even then. See, he has a boy, a blond Swede boy, you know how they get.”
“Hair almost white?”
“Like frost in the first morning sun, white like that, and shiny. A beautiful boy.”
“I can see him in my mind,” said Taleswapper.
“And that boy, his papa loved him. Better than his life. You know that Bible story, about that papa who gave his boy a coat of many colors?”
“I've heard tell of it.”
“He loved his boy like that. But I saw them two walking alongside the river, and the father all of a sudden lurched kind of, just bumped his boy, and sent the lad tumbling down into the Wobbish. Now, it happened that the boy caught onto a log and his father and I helped pull him in, but it was a scary thing to see that the father might have killed his own best-loved child. It wouldn't've been a-purpose, mind you, but that wouldn't make the boy any less dead, or the father any less blameful.”
“I can see the father might never get over such a thing.”
“Well, of course not. Yet not long after that, I seen him a few more times. Chopping wood, and he swung that axe wild, and if the boy hadn't slipped and fell right at that very second, that axe would've bit into the boy's head, and I never seen nobody live after something like that.”
“Nor I.”
"And I tried to imagine what must be happening. What that father must be thinking. So I went to him one day, and I said, 'Nels, you ought to be more careful round that boy. You're likely to take that boy's head off someday, if you keep swinging that axe so free.'
"And Nels, he says to me, 'Mr. Miller, that wasn't no accident.' Well, you could've blowed me down with a baby's burp. What does he mean, no accident? And he says to me, 'You don't know how bad it is. I think maybe a witch cursed me, or the devil takes me, but I'm just working there, thinking how much I love the boy, and suddenly I have this wish to kill him. It came on me first when he was just a baby, and I stood at the top of the stairs, holding him, and it was like a voice inside my head, it said, "Throw him down," and I wanted to do it, even though I also knew it would be the most terrible thing in the world. I was hungry to throw him off, like a boy gets when he wants to smash a bug with a stone. I wanted to see his head break open on the floor.
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