Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

In Alvin's poke the plow trembled.

When Verily Cooper met up with Abe Lincoln in Cheaper's store at noon, there was someone else waiting for him. The precise little clerk from the courthouse.

"Out of your territory, aren't you?" asked Verily.

"I'm on duty, as a matter of fact," said the clerk.

"Then your list of duties is longer than I thought," said Verily.

The clerk walked up to him and handed him a folded and sealed paper. "That's for you."

Verily glanced at it. "No it's not," he said.

"Are you or are you not the attorney for one Alvin Smith also known as Alvin Miller, Jr., of Vigor Church, state of Wobbish?"

"I am," said Verily Cooper.

"Then in that capacity papers to be served on Mr. Smith can be served on you."

"But," said Verily, touching the man on the shoulder to suggest that he should not rush out of the store as he seemed to be in quite a hurry to do. "But, we are not in the state of Hio, where I am licensed to practice law, or the state of Wobbish, where I am licensed to practice law. In those states, I am indeed Mr. Smith's attorney. But in the state of Noisy River, I am an ordinary citizen, engaged in private business with Mr. Abraham Lincoln, and nobody's attorney at all. That's the law, sir, and these papers have not been legally served."

He handed them back to the clerk.

The clerk glared at him. "I think that's pure horse piss, sir."

"Are you a lawyer?" asked Verily Cooper.

"Apparently you aren't either, in this state," said the clerk.

"If you're not a lawyer, sir, then you should not be offering a legal opinion."

"When did I do that?"

"When you said that what I said was pure horse piss. It would take a lawyer to offer an opinion on the degree of purity of any particular sample of horse piss. Or are we to assume you are practicing law without having been accepted at the bar in the state of Noisy River?"

"Did you come here just to make my life a living hell?" asked the clerk.

"It's you or me," said Verily. "But let me tell you something that it was my pleasure once to say to the Lord Protector and all his legal officers in England."

"What's that?"

"Good-bye."

Verily clapped his hat on his head and strode out the door into the street.

The clerk stomped out immediately after him, and kept on stomping, which raised something of a dust cloud behind him, the day being quite dry and hot.

Then Abe Lincoln sauntered out, followed by his faithful companion, Coz. "What do you think, Coz? I think we got to agree that was sharp lawyering. But then again, any time a lawyer says he ain't a lawyer, isn't that some kind of improvement to the general condition of humanity?"

Coz grinned and then spat into the dirt, which made a little ball of mud that actually rolled a few inches before it settled down and disappeared. "But we like Mr. Cooper," said Coz. "He's a good lawyer."

"He's a good man," said Abe. "And he's a good lawyer. But is it possible for him to be both at the same time?"

"You keep this up," said Verily, "and I won't teach you any more about lawyering."

"I think Abe is already a fine lawyer," said Coz.

"What do you mean?" said Verily.

"Well, look at you," said Coz. "You're just walking around, right? And nobody's paying you, right?"

"Right," said Verily.

"That's what Abe does most of the time."

"You know I'm a hardworking man, Coz," said Abe. "I split half the fence rails in Springfield, working odd jobs to pay off my store debt. And dug ditches and hauled manure and any other work that I could get."

"Aw, come on, Abe," said Coz. "Can't you let another man have his joke?"

"Just wouldn't want Mr. Cooper to think I was a lazy man."

Since Verily had spent the last few days trying to keep up with the long-legged, fast-walking Mr. Lincoln, he really hadn't got the impression of laziness from him.

Today, though, they were not walking. At Lincoln's request, Verily had hired two horses for him and Coz to ride, though in truth Verily could not think why Coz's company was worth the rent of a second horse. But Lincoln wanted it, and so Verily paid for it out of a dwindling wallet. They checked the saddles and harnesses, and then Verily checked Coz's and Lincoln's again, because from the look of it, they had no idea what to look for when checking a horse's saddle and harness. "You two don't ride much, do you," said Verily.

"We're poor men," said Abe.

"I'm poorer," said Coz.

"Because you spend every dime you make on riotous living."

"A man in love is inclined to buy gifts for his lady."

"And drinks."

"She was thirsty."

"And then she was unconscious," said Abe. "And then you paid for a room in the tavern for her to sleep it off, hoping no doubt that her gratitude in the morning would be greater than her headache, only in the morning..."

"My love life ain't none of Mr. Cooper's business."

"Your love life is imaginary, except for the amount of money you lose at it," said Abe.

And so it went all the way from Springfield to the Mizzippy.

They left the cornfields behind them after a couple of hours and forded Noisy River itself, and then passed along an ever-narrowing track through prairie land dotted with trees, where nobody was farming except here and there. A reminder that this was the frontier after all. And also that farmers tended to prefer not to locate near the foggy Mizzippy.

They reached a tree-covered bluff overlooking the great river just before dark. There wasn't much to see. A lot of trees below them, and beyond the trees, a glimpse of the river reflected scattered moonlight. And then the fog that obscured all vision of the land on the other side.

"Here's where we spend the night," said Lincoln.

"And eat supper, I hope," said Coz.

"Supper?" said Verily.

Abe looked at him sharply. "I said we'd need provisions."

"You didn't say we'd need food," said Verily.

"Well I'm blamed if provisions don't mean food!" said Abe, sounding a little cross.

"If you meant food," said Verily, "you should have said food."

"If you think I'm going to hunt for rabbit this time of night on an empty stomach, you're looney," said Coz.

"Myself," said Abe, "I'm thinking of maybe turning cannibal."

Verily grinned. "Now I know why you brought Coz along."

Coz put his hands on his hips and glared at them both by turns. "Now see here, there ain't nobody going to eat nobody, least of all me. I may look stout, but I assure you it's all fat, every bit of it, not a scrap of muscle on me, so if you tried to fry me up like bacon you'd end up gagging on account of there being no lean in it."

Verily sighed. "It's hard to play a joke on men who refuse to notice the jest."

"We were joking back," said Coz. "We knowed you had food all along."

"Oh, no, I don't have food," said Verily. "The joke was the part about eating you."

They both uttered disgusted noises and then Verily laughed. "All right, then, I suppose I might have something left over from my journey here in my saddlebags."

He was getting the waybread and corned beef out of the saddlebag when Abe said, "You know, I'm a mite uncomfortable that the campfire that was going down by the river when we got here has since been put right out."

"Maybe they got done eating," said Coz.

"I didn't see a campfire," said Verily.

"Maybe they don't want a fire 'cause it's a hot night," said Coz.

"Or maybe they took note of some travelers on horseback coming out of the wood at the crown of this bluff and decided that we looked like easy folk to rob."

A powerful voice came from the brush off behind the horses. "Fine time to think of that, sir." And out from the bushes stepped a big man, who looked like he'd been in a lot of fights but hadn't lost any of them. And he had pistols and knives all over him, it seemed, with a cocked musket in his hands.