Keeper of Dreams (87 page)

And then he almost cussed out loud at how stupid he had been.

He didn’t have to soften the whole ring. What were they going to do, slide it off like a sleeve? All he had to do was soften it at the hinge, where the metal was thinnest and weakest.

He gave it a try and it was getting all nice and soft when he realized something.

The hinges weren’t connected. The one side wasn’t joined to the other. The pin was gone.

He took one fetter after another into his mind and discovered they were all the same. Every single hinge pin was missing. Every single slave was already free.

He got up from the shadows and walked out to stand among the slaves.

They weren’t asleep. They made tiny hand gestures to tell Arthur to go away, to get out of sight.

So he went back into the shadows.

As if at a signal, they all opened their fetters and set the chains gently on the deck. It made a bit of racket, of course, but the guard didn’t stir. Nor did anyone else in the silent boat.

Then the Black men arose and swung themselves over the side away from shore.

They’re going to drown. Nobody taught slaves to swim, or let them learn it on their own. They were choosing death.

Except that, come to think of it, Arthur didn’t hear a single splash.

He stood up when all the slaves were gone from the deck and walked to another part of the rail. Sure enough, they were overboard all right—all gathered on the raft. And now they were carefully loading Abe Lincoln’s cargo into the dinghy. It wasn’t much of a dinghy, but it wasn’t much of a cargo, either, and it didn’t take long.

What difference did it make, not to steal Abe’s stuff? They were all thieves, anyway, since they were stealing themselves by running away. Or that was the theory, anyway. As if a man, by being free, thereby stole something from someone else.

They laid themselves down on the raft, all twenty-five, making a veritable pile of humanity, and with those at the edges using their hands as paddles, they began to pull away out into the current. Heading out into the fog, toward the Red man’s shore.

Someone laid a hand on his shoulder and he near jumped out of his skin.

It was Alvin, of course.

“Let’s not be seen here,” Alvin said softly. “Let’s go below.”

So Arthur Stuart led the way down into the slave quarters, and soon they were in whispered conversation in the kitchen, which was dark but for a single lantern that Alvin kept trimmed low.

“I figured you’d have some blame fool plan like that,” said Alvin.

“And I thought you was going to let them go on as slaves like you didn’t care, but I should’ve knowed better,” said Arthur Stuart.

“I thought so, too,” said Alvin. “But I don’t know if it was having Jim Bowie guess too much, or him trying to kill me with that knife—and no, Arthur Stuart, he did
not
stop in time, if there’d been a blade in that knife it would have cut right through my throat. Could have been the fear of death made me think that I didn’t want to face God knowing I could have freed twenty-five men, but chose to leave them slaves. Then again, it might have been Mr. Clay’s sermon tonight. Converted me as neat as you please.”

“Converted Mr. Lincoln,” said Arthur Stuart.

“Might be,” said Alvin. “Though he doesn’t look like the sort who ever sought to own another man.”

“I know why you had to do it,” said Arthur Stuart.

“Why is that?”

“Because you knew that if you didn’t, I would.”

Alvin shrugged. “Well, I knew you’d made up your mind to try.”

“I could have done it.”

“Very slowly.”

“It was working, once I realized I only had to go after the hinge.”

“I reckon so,” said Alvin. “But the real reason I chose tonight was that the raft was here. A gift to us, don’t you think? Would have been a shame not to use it.”

“So what happens when they get to the Red man’s shore?”

“Tenskwa-Tawa will see to them. I gave them a token to show to the first Red they meet. When they see it, they’ll get escorted straight to the Prophet, wherever he might be. And when
he
sees it, he’ll give them safe passage. Or maybe let them dwell there.”

“Or maybe he’ll need them, to help him fight the Mexica. If they’re moving north.”

“Maybe.”

“What was the token?” asked Arthur Stuart.

“A couple of these,” said Alvin. He held up a tiny shimmering cube that looked like the clearest ice that had ever been, or maybe glass, but no glass had ever shimmered.

Arthur Stuart took it in his hand and realized what it was. “This is water. A box of water.”

“More like a
block
of water. I decided to make it today out on the river, when I came so close to having my blood spill into the water. That’s partly how they’re made. A bit of my own self has to go into the water to make it strong as steel. You know the law. ‘The maker is the one . . .’ ”

“The maker is the one who is part of what he makes,” said Arthur Stuart.

“Get to sleep,” said Alvin. “We can’t let nobody know we was up tonight. I can’t keep them all asleep forever.”

“Can I keep this?” said Arthur Stuart. “I think I see something in it.”

“You can see everything in it, if you look long enough,” said Alvin. “But no, you can’t keep it. If you think what I got in my poke is valuable,
think what folks would do to have a solid block of water that showed them true visions of things far and near, past and present.”

Arthur reached out and offered the cube to Alvin.

But instead of taking it, Alvin only smiled, and the cube went liquid all at once and dribbled through Arthur Stuart’s fingers. Arthur looked at the puddle on the table, feeling as forlorn as he ever had.

“It’s just water,” said Alvin.

“And a little bit of blood.”

“Naw,” said Alvin. “I took that back.”

“Good night,” said Arthur Stuart. “And . . . thank you for setting them free.”

“Once you set your heart on it, Arthur, what else could I do? I looked at them and thought, somebody loved them once as much as your mama loved you. She died to set you free. I didn’t have to do that. Just inconvenience myself a little. Put myself at risk, but not by much.”

“But you saw what I did, didn’t you? I made it soft without getting it hot.”

“You done good, Arthur Stuart. There’s no denying it. You’re a maker now.”

“Not much of one.”

“Whenever you got two makers, one’s going to be more of a maker than the other. But lessen that one starts gettin’ uppity, it’s good to remember that there’s always a third one who’s better than both of them.”

“Who’s better than you?” asked Arthur Stuart.

“You,” said Alvin. “Because I’ll take an ounce of compassion over a pound of tricks any day. Now go to sleep.”

Only then did Arthur let himself feel how very, very tired he was. Whatever had kept him awake before, it was gone now. He barely made it to his cot before he fell asleep.

Oh, there was a hullabaloo in the morning. Suspicions flew every which way. Some folks thought it was the boys from the raft, because why else would the slaves have left their cargo behind? Until somebody pointed out that with the cargo still on the raft, there wouldn’t have been room for all the runaways.

Then suspicion fell on the guard who had slept, but most folks knew
that was wrong, because if he had done it then why didn’t he run off, instead of lying there asleep on the deck till a crewman noticed the slaves was gone and raised the alarm.

Only now, when they were gone, did the ownership of the slaves become clear. Alvin had figured Mr. Austin to have a hand in it, but the man most livid at their loss was Captain Howard hisself. That was a surprise. But it explained why the men bound for Mexico had chosen this boat to make their journey downriver.

To Alvin’s surprise, though, Austin and Howard both kept glancing at him and young Arthur Stuart as if they suspected the truth. Well, he shouldn’t have been surprised, he realized. If Bowie told them what had happened to his knife out on the water, they’d naturally wonder if a man with such power over iron might have been the one to slip the hinge pins out of all the fetters.

Slowly the crowd dispersed. But not Captain Howard, not Austin. And when Alvin and Arthur made as if to go, Howard headed straight for them. “I want to talk to you,” he said, and he didn’t sound friendly.

“What about?” said Alvin.

“That boy of yours,” said Howard. “I saw how he was doing their slops on the morning watch. I saw him talking to them. That made me suspicious, all right, since not one of them spoke English.”

“Pero todos hablaban español,” said Arthur Stuart.

Austin apparently understood him, and looked chagrined. “They
all
of them spoke Spanish? Lying skunks.”

Oh, right, as if slaves owed you some kind of honesty.

“That’s as good as a confession,” said Captain Howard. “He just admitted he speaks their language and learned things from them that even their master didn’t know.”

Arthur was going to protest, but Alvin put a hand on his shoulder. He did
not
, however, stop his mouth. “My boy here,” said Alvin, “only just learned to speak Spanish, so naturally he seized on an opportunity to practice. Unless you got some evidence that those fetters was opened by use of a slop bucket, then I think you can safely leave this boy out of it.”

“No, I expect he
wasn’t
the one who popped them hingepins,” said Captain Howard. “I expect he was somebody’s spy to tell them Blacks about the plan.”

“I didn’t tell nobody no plan,” said Arthur Stuart hotly.

Alvin clamped his grip tighter. No slave would talk to a white man like that, least of all a boat captain.

Then from behind Austin and Howard came another voice. “It’s all right, boy,” said Bowie. “You can tell them. No need to keep it secret anymore.”

And with a sinking feeling, Alvin wondered what kind of pyrotechnics he’d have to go through to distract everybody long enough for him and Arthur Stuart to get away.

But Bowie didn’t say at all what Alvin expected. “I got the boy to tell me what he learned from them. They were cooking up some evil Mexica ritual. Something about tearing out somebody’s heart one night when they were pretending to be our guides. A treacherous bunch, and so I decided we’d be better of without them.”

“
You
decided!” Captain Howard growled. “What right did
you
have to decide.”

“Safety,” said Bowie. “You put me in charge of the scouts, and that’s what these were supposed to be. But it was a blame fool idea from the start. Why do you think them Mexica left those boys alive instead of taking their beating heart out of their chests? It was a trap. All along, it was a trap. Well, we didn’t fall into it.”

“Do you know how much they cost?” demanded Captain Howard.

“They didn’t cost
you
anything,” said Austin.

That reminder took a bit of the dudgeon out of Captain Howard. “It’s the principle of the thing. Just setting them free.”

“But I didn’t,” said Bowie. “I sent them across river. What do you think will happen to them there—
if
they make it through the fog?”

There was a bit more grumbling, but some laughter, too, and the matter was closed.

Back in his room, Alvin waited for Bowie to return.

“Why?” he demanded.

“I told you I could keep a secret,” said Bowie. “I watched you and the boy do it, and I have to say, it was worth it to see how you broke their irons without ever laying a hand on them. To think I’d ever see a knack like that. Oh, you’re a maker all right.”

“Then come with me,” said Alvin. “Leave these men behind. Don’t
you know the doom that lies over their heads? The Mexica aren’t fools. These are dead men you’re traveling with.”

“Might be so,” said Bowie, “but they need what I can do, and you don’t.”

“I do so,” said Alvin. “Because I don’t know many men in this world can hide their heartfire from me. It’s your knack, isn’t it? To disappear from all men’s sight, when you want to. Because I never saw you watching us.”

“And yet I woke you up just reaching for your poke the other night,” said Bowie with a grin.

“Reaching for it?” said Alvin. “Or putting it back?”

Bowie shrugged.

“I thank you for protecting us and taking the blame on yourself.”

Bowie chuckled. “Not much blame there. Truth is, Austin was getting sick of all the trouble of taking care of them Blacks. It was only Howard who was so dead set on having them, and he ain’t even going with us, once he drops us off on the Mexica coast.”

“I could teach you. The way Arthur Stuart’s been learning.”

“I don’t think so,” said Bowie. “It’s like you said. We’re different kind of men.”

“Not so different but what you can’t change iffen you’ve a mind to.”

Bowie only shook his head.

“Well, then, I’ll thank you the only way that’s useful to you,” said Alvin.