Free IGMS Issue 2 by IGMS Page A

you climbed to the top you ran out of air.
    And all that was now Red land, where Whites would never go again. That's what this fog was all about.
    Except for Alvin. He knew that if he wanted to, he could dispel that fog and cross over. Not only that, but he wouldn't be killed, neither. Tenskwa Tawa had said so, and there'd be no Red man who'd go against the Prophet's law.
    A part of him wanted to put to shore, wait for the riverboat to move on, and then get him a canoe and paddle across the river and look for his old friend and teacher. It would be good to talk to him about all that was going on in the world. About the rumors of war coming, between the United States and the Crown Colonies -- or maybe between the free states and slave states within the U.S.A. About rumors of war with Spain to get control of the mouth of the Mizzippy, or war between the Crown Colonies and England.
    And now this rumor of war with the Mexica. What would Tenskwa Tawa make of that? Maybe he had troubles of his own -- maybe he was working even now to make an alliance of Reds to head south and defend their lands against men who dragged their captives to the tops of their ziggurats and tore their hearts out to satisfy their god.
    Anyway, that's the kind of thing going through Alvin's mind as he leaned on the rail on the right side of the boat -- the stabberd side, that was, though why boatmen should have different words for right and left made no sense to him. He was just standing there looking out into the fog and seeing no more than any other man, when he noticed something, not with his eyes, but with that inward vision that saw heartfires.
    There was a couple of men out on the water, right out in the middle where they wouldn't be able to tell up from down. Spinning round and round, they were, and scared. It took only a moment to get the sense of it. Two men on a raft, only they didn't have drags under the raft and had it loaded front-heavy. Not boatmen, then. Had to be a homemade raft, and when their tiller broke they didn't know how to get the raft to keep its head straight downriver. At the mercy of the current, that's what, and no way of knowing what was happening five feet away.
    Though it wasn't as if the
Yazoo Queen
was quiet. Still, fog had a way of damping down sounds. And even if they heard the riverboat, would they know what the sound was? To terrified men, it might sound like some kind of monster moving along the river.
    Well, what could Alvin do about it? How could he claim to see what no one else could make out? And the flow of the river was too strong and complicated for him to get control of it, to steer the raft closer.
    Time for some lying. Alvin turned around and shouted. "Did you hear that? Did you see them? Raft out of control on the river! Men on a raft, they were calling for help, spinning around out there!"
    In no time the pilot and captain both were leaning over the rail of the pilot's deck. "I don't see a thing!" shouted the pilot.
    "Not
now
," said Alvin. "But I saw 'em plain just a second ago, they're not far."
    Captain Howard could see the drift of things and he didn't like it. "I'm not taking the
Yazoo Queen
any deeper into this fog than she already is! No sir! They'll fetch up on the bank farther downriver, it's no business of ours!"
    "Law of the river!" shouted Alvin. "Men in distress!"
    That gave the pilot pause. It
was
the law. You had to give aid.
    "I don't see no men in distress!" shouted Captain Howard.
    "So don't turn the big boat," said Alvin. "Let me take that little rowboat and I'll go fetch 'em."
    Captain didn't like that either, but the pilot was a decent man and pretty soon Alvin was in the water with his hands on the oars.
    But before he could fair get away, there was Arthur Stuart, leaping over the gap and sprawling into the little boat. "That was about as clumsy a move as I ever saw," said Alvin.
    "I ain't gonna miss this," said Arthur Stuart.
    There was another man at the rail, hailing him. "Don't be in