Free The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume VI by Orson Scott Card Page B

them?”
    “A man don’t shrink from a fight.”
    “This man does,” said Alvin. “And you would too, if you had a brain.”
    “The Mexica won’t stand up to men as knows how to shoot. On top of that, we’re bound to have thousands of reds from other tribes join with us to overthrow the Mexica. They’re tired of having their men sacrificed.”
    “But you’d restore slavery. They didn’t like that either.”
    “No, we wouldn’t enslave the reds .”
    “There’s lots of black former slaves in Mexico.”
    “But they’re slaves by nature.”
    Alvin turned away and picked a half-dozen melons to put in his poke.
    Bowie poked him hard in the arm. “Don’t you turn your back on me.”
    Alvin said nothing, just offered a couple of dimes to the melon seller, who shook his head.
    “Come on now, this is for kids in an orphanage,” said Alvin.
    “I know who it’s for,” said the farmer, “and the price of melons today is ten cents each.”
    “What, it took so much more work to raise these? They plated with gold inside?”
    “Take it or leave it.”
    Alvin pulled some more money from his pocket. “I hope you’re proud of profiting from the neediness of helpless children.”
    “Nobody helpless in that house,” murmured the farmer.
    Alvin turned away to find Bowie standing in his way.
    “I said don’t turn your back on me,” Bowie murmured.
    “I’m facing you now,” said Alvin. “And if you don’t take your hand off your knife, you’ll lose something dear to you—and it ain’t made of steel, no matter how you brag to the ladies.”
    “You don’t want me as your enemy,” said Bowie.
    “That’s true,” said Alvin. “I want you as a complete stranger.”
    “Too late for that,” said Bowie. “It’s friend or foe.”
    Alvin walked away with his poke full of melons, but as he went, he hotted up the man’s knife blade. Also the buttons on the front of his pants. In a few moments, the threads around the buttons burned away and Bowie’s pants came open. And when he reached for his knife, the sheath burst into flame. Behind him Alvin could hear the other shoppers laughing and hooting.
    That was probably a mistake, he thought. But then, it was a mistake for Bowie to show his face near Alvin again. Why did men like that refuse to accept defeat and keep challenging someone they knew had the better of them?
     
    Arthur Stuart woke up in the middle of the night with his bowels in a state. It felt sloshy, so it wasn’t something that could be relieved by the soundless passing of gas and then pretending to be asleep if Alvin noticed. So, resigned to his fate, he got up and carried his boots downstairs and put them on by the back door and then slogged on out into the sultry night to the privy.
    It was about a miserable half-hour in there, but each time he thought he was done, he’d start to get up and his bowels would slosh again and he’d be back down on the seat, groaning his way through another session. Each time of course, thinking he was through, he’d wipe himself, so by the end he felt like his backside was as raw as pounded flank steak. At least the cows are lucky enough to be dead before they get turned into raw meat, he thought.
    Finally he was able to get up without hearing more sloshing or feeling more pressure, though that was no guarantee he wouldn’t reach the top of the three flights of stairs and have to go clomping back down. He worried, of course, that maybe this had something to do with yellow fever, that Alvin might not have made him healthy enough, that it was coming back.
    Though when he thought about it, he reckoned it probably had more to do with the street vendor who sold him a rolled pie this afternoon that might not have been cooked as much as it ought.
    He flung open the privy door and stepped outside.
    Someone tugged at his nightshirt. He yelped and jumped away.
    “Don’t be afraid!” said Dead Mary. “I’m not a ghost! I know Africans are afraid of