Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV Read Online Free PDF Page A

skittering down a bank he had so eagerly climbed only moments before. But when, panting, he emerged into the meadow, the old man wasn’t there, though bits of blood still clung to the grass and pooled where his head had lain. Not dead, then. He got up and walked, so he can’t be dead.
    What a fool I was, thought Calvin. Of course I didn’t kill him. I’m a Maker. Makers don’t destroy things, they build them. Isn’t that what Alvin always tells me? So if I’m a Maker, nothing I do can possibly be destructive.
    For a moment he almost headed down the hill toward the millhouse. Let Taleswapper accuse him in front of everybody. Calvin would simply deny it, and let them work out how to deal with the problem. Of course they’d all believe Taleswapper. But Calvin only needed to say, “That’s his knack, to make people believe his lies. Why else would you trust in this stranger instead of Alvin Miller’s youngest boy, when you all know I don’t go around beating people up?” It was a delicious scene to contemplate, with Father and Mother and Alvin all frozen into inaction.
    But a better scene was this: Calvin free in the city. Calvin out of his brother’s shadow.
    Best of all, they couldn’t even get up a group of men to follow him. For here in the town of Vigor Church, the adults were all bound by Tenskwa-Tawa’s curse, so that any stranger they met, they had to tell him the story of how they slaughtered the innocent Reds at Tippy-Canoe. If they didn’t tell the story, their hands and arms would become covered with dripping blood, mute testimony of their crime. Because of that they didn’t venture out into the world where they might run into strangers. Alvin himself might come looking for him, but noone else except those who had been too young to take part in the massacre would be able to join with him. Oh, yes, their brother-in-law Armor, he wasn’t under the curse. And maybe Measure wasn’t really under the curse, because he took it on himself, even though he wasn’t part of the battle. So maybe he could leave. But that still wouldn’t be much of a search party.
    And why would they bother to search for him anyway? Alvin thought Calvin was a nothing. Not worth teaching. So how could he be worth following?
    My freedom was always just a few steps away, thought Calvin. All it took was my realizing that Alvin was
never
going to accept me as his true friend and brother. Taleswapper showed me that. I should thank him.
    Hey, I already gave him all the thanks he deserved.
    Calvin chuckled. Then he turned and headed back into the forest. He tried to move as silently as Alvin always did, moving through the forest—a trick Al had learned from the wild Reds back before they either gave up and got civilized or moved across the Mizzipy into the empty country of the west. But despite all his efforts, Calvin always ended up making noise and breaking branches.
    For all I know, Calvin told himself, Alvin makes just as much noise, and simply uses his knack to make us
think
he’s quiet. Because if everybody
thinks
you’re silent, you
are
silent, right? Makes no difference at all.
    Wouldn’t it be just like that hypocrite Alvin to have us all thinking he’s in such harmony with the greenwood when he’s really just as clumsy as everyone else! At least I’m not ashamed to make an honest noise.
    With that reassuring thought, Calvin plunged on into the underbrush, breaking off branches and disturbing fallen leaves with every step.

  3  
Watchers
     
     
     
    While Calvin was a-setting out on his journey to wherever, trying not to think about Alvin with every step, there was someone else already on a journey, also wishing she could stop thinking about Alvin. That’s about where the semblance ends, though. Because this was Peggy Larner, who knew Alvin better and loved Alvin more than any living soul. She was riding in a coach along a country road in Appalachee, and she was at least as unhappy as Calvin ever was. Difference