Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

Old Bart smiled patronizingly at Arthur Stuart. "I'd like to see you try."

"No you wouldn't," said Arthur.

Mary tried to defuse the situation. She rose from her chair and approached Ruth Cottoner. "Please give me your hand," she said.

"Don't touch me!" cried Ruth. "I won't give my hand to an invader and a looter!"

"I know something about disease," said Mary. "I know more than your doctor."

"In Barcy," said Arthur Stuart, "everybody came to her to know if they was gonna get better when they was sick."

"I'll do no harm," said Mary. "And I'll tell you the truth of what I see. Your son will know if I'm lying."

Slowly the woman raised her hand and put it in Mary's.

Mary felt the woman's body as if it became part of her own, and at once knew where the cancer was. Centered in her womb, but spread out, too, eating away at her inside. "It's bad," she said. "It started in your womb, but it's everywhere now. The pain must be terrible."

Ruth closed her eyes.

"Mama," said Roy.

Mary turned to Arthur Stuart. "Can you ...?"

"Not me," said Arthur Stuart. "It's too much for me."

"But Alvin, don't you think he-"

"You can ask him," said Arthur Stuart. "It might be too much for him, too, you know. He ain't no miracle worker."

"You have some kind of healer with you?" said Ruth bitterly. "I've had healers come before, the charlatans."

"He ain't mostly a healer," said Arthur Stuart. "He only does it kind of, you know, when he runs into somebody who needs it."

Mary let go of the woman's hand and walked to the window. Already the people were walking onto the land in their groups of ten households and fifty households. Blacks from the plantation were guiding them to various buildings and sheds, and there were noises of pots and pans, of chopping and chattering coming from the kitchen.

Among the swarming people, it was easy to pick out Alvin. He was as strong as a hero out of legend-Achilles, Hercules-and as wise and good as Prometheus. Mary knew he could heal this woman. And who could then accuse them of stealing, if he paid her back with years and years of life?

Verily Cooper's thighs always got sore when he rode. Sore on the outside, and sore in the muscles as well. There were people who throve on riding, hour after hour. Verily wasn't one of them. And he shouldn't have to be. Lawyers prospered, didn't they? Lawyers rode in carriages. On trains.

Riding a horse you had to think all the time, and work, too. The horse didn't do it all, not by any means. You always had to be alert, or the horse would sense that no one was in control and you'd find yourself following a route to whatever the horse happened to smell that seemed interesting.

And then there was the chafing. The only way to keep the saddle from chafing the insides of your thighs was to stand in the stirrups a little, hold yourself steady. But that was tiring on the muscles of your legs. Maybe with time he'd develop more strength and endurance, but most days he didn't take such long rides on horseback. So it was raise yourself in the stirrups until your thighs ached, and then sit and let your thighs chafe.

Either way your legs burned.

Why should I do this for Alvin? Or for Margaret Larner? What do I actually owe them? Haven't I given them most of the service since I've become their friend? What do I get out of this, exactly?

He was ashamed of himself for thinking such disloyal thoughts, but he couldn't help what entered his head, could he? For a while he'd been a friend and traveling companion to Alvin, but those days were gone. He'd tried to learn makery with the others in Vigor Church, too, but even though his own knack was to see how things fit and change them enough to make them fit exactly right-which, as Alvin said, was one of the key parts of making-he still couldn't do the things that Alvin could.

He could set a broken bone-which wasn't a bad knack to have-but he couldn't heal an open wound. He could make a barrel fit so tight it would never leak, but he couldn't open a steel lock by melting the metal. And when Alvin left his own makery school to go a-wandering, Verily couldn't see much reason to stay and continue the exercises.

Yet Alvin asked him to, and so he did. He and Measure, Alvin's older brother-two fools, that's what they were. Working to teach others what they hadn't learned themselves.

And not making much money at lawyering.

I'm a good lawyer, Verily told himself. I'm as good at law as I am at coopery. Maybe better. But I'll never plead before the Supreme Court or the King's Bench or any other lofty venue. I'll never have a case that makes me famous-except defending Alvin, and then it was Alvin who got all the notoriety, not that Verily minded that.

And here his attention had wandered again, and the horse was not on the main trail. Where am I this time? Will I have to backtrack?

Just ahead the road he was on crossed a little stream. Only instead of a ford, as most such roads would have, there was a stout bridge-a covered one, too-only ten feet long, but well above the water, and showing no signs of weakening even though as Verily knew, all the covered bridges on this road had been built by Alvin's father and older brothers, so no other travelers would lose a beloved son and brother because some insignificant river like the Hatrack happened to be in flood on the very day they had to cross.

So the horse had taken a turn somewhere and now they were headed, not direct west to Carthage and on into Noisy River from there, but northwest to Vigor Church. It would be a little longer getting to Abe Lincoln that way, but now that Verily thought of it, this was the better way. It would give him a place for respite and resupply. He might hear news. And maybe the love of his life would be there, ready to introduce herself and take him away from all these complicated things.

Alvin's got him a wife and a baby on the way, and what do I have? Sore legs. And no clients.

What I need is to find a lawyer in Noisy River who needs a good courtroom lawyer in his practice. I think I know how to partner with another lawyer. I'll never be a partner to Alvin Maker. He's his own best partner, except perhaps for his wife, and as far apart as they always are, it's hard to call that much of a partnership either.

I'll take a look at Springfield, Noisy River, and see if it looks like home.

And I won't go through Vigor Church. The love of my life is not there. For good or ill, it's my love of Alvin Maker that shapes my life, and I was sent to serve him in Springfield. I'll take no circuitous side trip.

He turned his horse and did not go far before he found the fork in the road where the horse had taken the wrong turning. No, be honest, he told himself. Where you took the wrong turning, hoping to flee like Jonah from your duty.

Arthur Stuart watched Alvin close, hoping to learn how to heal this kind of disease. He hadn't caught the details of how Alvin fixed up Papa Moose's foot, but he grasped the main lines of it. This woman's cancer, it was going to be harder. Once Dead Mary had pointed out what was going on in her body, then Arthur had been able to find it, but it was hard to see the boundaries of the cancer, to know where the good flesh left off and the bad began. And there were lots of little spots of it scattered here and there inside her-but there were some he wasn't sure about, whether they were cancer or not.

So when Alvin came into the house and greeted him and La Tia and Rien and Dead Mary, Arthur Stuart could hardly wait to take him to Mistress Cottoner.

Alvin bowed over her hand, and gravely shook the hand of the boy as well, though Roy was sullen about it.

Then Alvin asked if he might sit beside her and take her hands, "because this goes easier if I'm touching you, though I can do it without if you prefer."