IGMS Issue 2 by IGMS Read Free Book Online Page A

get it?"
    "Now there's a thought," said Alvin.
    "A pretty smart thought, I think," said Arthur Stuart.
    "It's doing you good, traveling with me," said Alvin. "Finally getting some sense into your head."
    "I thought of it first," said Arthur Stuart.
    In answer, Alvin took a letter out of his pocket and showed it to the boy.
    "It's from Miz Peggy," said Arthur. He read for a moment. "Oh, now, don't tell me you knew this fellow was going to be on the boat."
    "I most certainly did not have any idea," said Alvin. "I figured my inquiries would begin in Nueva Barcelona. But now I've got a good idea
whom
to watch when we get there."
    "She talks about a man named Burr," said Arthur Stuart.
    "But he'd have men under him," said Alvin. "Men to go out recruiting for him, iffen he hopes to raise an army."
    "And he just happened to walk right up to you."
    "He just happened to listen to you sassing me," said Alvin, "and figured I wasn't much of a master, so maybe I'd be a natural follower."
    Arthur Stuart folded up the letter and handed it back to Alvin. "So if the King
is
putting together an invasion of Mexico, what of it?"
    "Iffen he's fighting the Mexica," said Alvin, "he can't be fighting the free states, now, can he?"
    "So maybe the slave states won't be so eager to pick a fight," said Arthur Stuart.
    "But someday the war with Mexico will end," said Alvin. "Iffen there is a war, that is. And when it ends, either the King lost, in which case he'll be mad and ashamed and spoilin' for trouble, or he won, in which case he'll have a treasury full of Mexica gold, able to buy him a whole navy iffen he wants."
    "Miz Peggy wouldn't be too happy to hear you sayin' 'iffen' so much."
    "War's a bad thing, when you take after them as haven't done you no harm, and don't mean to."
    "But wouldn't it be good to stop all that human sacrifice?"
    "I think the Reds as are prayin' for relief from the Mexica don't exactly have slavers in mind as their new masters."
    "But slavery's better than death, ain't it?"
    "Your mother didn't think so," said Alvin. "And now let's have done with such talk. It just makes me sad."
    "To think of human sacrifice? Or slavery?"
    "No. To hear you talk as if one was better than the other." And with that dark mood on him, Alvin walked to the room that so far he had all to himself, set the golden plow upon the bunk, and curled up around it to think and doze and dream a little and see if he could understand what it all meant, to have this Austin fellow acting so bold about his project, and to have Arthur Stuart be so blind, when so many people had sacrificed so much to keep him free.

    It wasn't till they got to Thebes that another passenger was assigned to Alvin's cabin. He'd gone ashore to see the town -- which was being touted as the greatest city on the American Nile -- and when he came back, there was a man asleep on the very bunk where Alvin had been sleeping.
    Which was irksome, but understandable. It was the best bed, being the lower bunk on the side that got sunshine in the cool of the morning instead of the heat of the afternoon. And it's not as if Alvin had left any possessions in the cabin to mark the bed as his own. He carried his poke with him when he left the boat, and all his worldly goods was in it. Lessen you counted the baby that his wife carried inside her -- which, come to think of it, she carried around with her about as constantly as Alvin carried that golden plow.
    So Alvin didn't wake the fellow up. He just turned and left, looking for Arthur Stuart or a quiet place to eat the supper he'd brought on board. Arthur had insisted he wanted to stay aboard, and that was fine with Alvin, but he was blamed if he was going to hunt him down before eating. It wasn't no secret that the whistle had blowed the signal for everyone to come aboard. So Arthur Stuart should have been watching for Alvin, and he wasn't.
    Not that Alvin doubted where he was. He could key right in on Arthur's heartfire most of the time, and he