The Crystal City Part 32

They all drank from the spring that now welled up from the end of the furrow. The water was sweet and clean. "We could keg this up and sell it for wine," said Abe, "and n.o.body'd say we cheated them."

"But we won't," said Verily.

Abe gave him an I'm-not-an-idiot look. "So you reckon this plow of yours has picked this spot for your city."

"Might be," said Alvin. "If we can figure out who owns the land and figure out a way to buy it."

"Well, you're in luck," said Abe. "It's why I brought you here. This is part of what the Noisy River government calls River County. It's the wild land along the Mizzippy between Moline and Cairo. There's an old law from territory days that offers to make a county out of any part of River County that can prove it has two thousand settlers and at least one town of three hundred people."

"A county?" asked Verily.

"A county," said Abe.

"But a county has the right to elect its own judges," said Verily.

"And its own sheriff," said Abe.

"So when somebody comes into Furrowspring County with a warrant from some court in Hio," said Verily, "the Furrowspring County court can vacate the warrant."

"That's how I figured it," said Abe.

"You were really listening when I explained about the law."

"And I remember my old dad trying to farm boggy land along the Hio, and somebody come along and told him all about River County, and how the land was there for the taking if just two thousand folks would join up and go, and Dad said he had a hard enough time farming a swamp, the last thing he needed was fog on top of it."

"If we have our own county," said Alvin, "then we can build a city here, and populate it with black people and French people and anybody else we want to invite, and n.o.body can stop us."

"Well," said Abe, "it's not that simple."

"You mean there's some law against folks moving in here?"

"There is against runaway slaves," said Abe, "but I think we got that solved, since the same judge can vacate a lot of other orders, and the same sheriff can run any slave-catchers out of town or at least make it real hard to find any former slaves. Hut what I was getting at was, anybody anybody can move in. Not just folks that you invite." can move in. Not just folks that you invite."

"Well, we invite everybody," said Alvin.

Abe laughed. "Well, shoot, word gets out about this golden plow that cut right through stone and brought water out of the rock like Moses, and your six thousand won't be but a drop in the bucket for all the thousands of gold hunters and miracle seekers who'll be tramping all up and down this country. And I reckon they'll they'll be the ones electing the sheriff and the judge and maybe somebody'll get that reward after all." be the ones electing the sheriff and the judge and maybe somebody'll get that reward after all."

"I see," said Alvin. "It ain't all that easy after all."

"If I kill you all," said Mike, "won't be n.o.body to tell about this place."

"Except you," said Alvin.

"Well, I didn't say it was a perfect plan."

"What we need," said Verily, "is a charter from the state. Granting us the boundaries that we want for our county, and then we got to make sure we control all the land so it only gets sold to people we choose. People who are with us and won't cause trouble."

"People who are willing to help build this place as a city of makers," said Alvin.

"I know how to write such a charter," said Verily. "But I don't know that I'll be able to find my way around the state government."

"Well don't look at me," said Abe. "I'm no politician."

"But you're from around here," said Verily. "You don't talk like a highfalutin Englishman. And you have a way of making people like you."

"So do you," said Abe.

"You know everybody hates him," said Coz.

"Well, yes," said Abe, "but only because they know Englishmen are smarter than other folks and they resent it."

"Will you help me get that charter for Furrowspring County?" said Verily.

"I notice you took it upon yourself to name the place," said Abe.

"Do you have a better one?" said Verily.

"I was partial to Lincoln County," said Abe.

"How about Lincoln-Fink County?" suggested Mike.

"Now that's pure vanity," said Abe. "Naming the county after yourself."

"What were you you doing?" doing?"

"Naming it for the county in England, of course," said Abe.

"Furrowspring it is, then," said Alvin. "The voting is unanimous." He turned to Abe. "But in the meantime, settlers can come freely into River County lands, right? And farm and build wherever they want?"

"That's the law," said Abe. "Don't need permission. As long as you don't step on somebody else's farm, and I don't see any around here."

"You know," said Alvin, "I was wondering why there wasn't at least one or two farmsteads, belonging to the kind of folks who think six houses make a city too big to enjoy living in."

"Maybe because this is land meant for something better than a stumpy little farm," said Verily.

"And who's doing the meaning?" asked Alvin.

"Maybe the stone itself was ambitious," said Verily. "Or maybe it was the water, begging to be let out from under the rock."

"Or the sun that wanted this patch to have no trees to make shade," said Alvin. "Or the wind, needing a little meadow to blow across. Gentlemen, I don't think any of the elements have a plan." plan."

"The plow did," said Verily.

Alvin had to concede the point.

They put the plow handles on the back of one of Verily's steeds and instead of anyone riding they led the three horses back to Springfield together. They moved with the greensong, all of them, and got there in only an hour of steady running, and the horses weren't lathered or winded, and the men weren't hungry or tired, and as for thirsty, they had all drunk from that clear spring, and they were loath to taste any other water, because they knew it would taste like tin or mud or nothing at all, instead of sweet, the way they knew now water ought to be.

15

Popocatepetl

IT WAS SUCH a lovely ride from the coast to Mexico City. Everything went just as Steve Austin had predicted-which was not at all how Calvin expected it to go. Their s.h.i.+p put into the free port of True Cross, where whites could come and trade without fear of being taken for sacrifice. They took three days finding interpreters and buying supplies and pack mules, and then they went to the inland gate of the city.

"You are not safe to go outside," said the door warden.

"We're going," said Steve Austin. "Out of the way."

"I will not let you go. White people die out there, give bad name to port of True Cross."

Austin raised a pistol to shoot the man in the head.

"No, no," said Calvin impatiently. "What did you bring me for, anyway, if you're just going to go shooting people. What if we need to get back here and thanks to you they shoot us on sight?"

"When we come back we'll be the rulers of Mexico."

"Fine," said Calvin. "But let me do this."

Austin put his pistol away. Calvin studied the gates for a few moments, trying to decide whether it was worth the effort to make this a truly spectacular event or merely a practical one. He decided that something showy, like making the gates burst into flame and burn down to ash, would be wasted here. It was the reds outside this city that they'd need to impress.

So he dissolved the linchpins in the hinges and then, with a gentle nudge, made sure the gates fell outward instead of inward.

The door warden-with no more door to ward-shrugged and turned away. And out they rode, a hundred heavily armed white men, to take on the Mexica.

Almost at once they were confronted by Mexica soldiers. These were not the club-wielding warriors that Cortez had faced three centuries before. They were mounted and carried new-model muskets that had probably been bought from the United States, where Philadelphia-the city of brotherly love-had quite a munitions business going. Immediately they surrounded Austin's army, which bristled with weapons at the ready.

"Patience," said Calvin to Austin. It wasn't hard to make fire, but it was tricky to make a ring of it, and he singed quite a few of the Mexica horses when the flames didn't go quite where he'd planned. But that only made the demonstration more effective. The Mexica backed off, the horses shying and neighing, but then dismounted and prepared to fire through the flames.

Calvin was ready. He knew how Alvin handled this sort of thing, bending the end of the gunbarrels so the enemy wouldn't bother firing. But Calvin wanted them to fire. So he pinched off each gunbarrel inside, not tightly, but enough to keep the ball from coming out. It was quite a scramble to find all the muskets and close them off before the tiring started, but it helped that the Mexica commander kept shouting for them to surrender, while the panicky horses kept the Mexica in an uproar long enough for Calvin to finish the job.

"Don't shoot," said Calvin.

"But they're about to lay a volley into us," said Austin.

"They only think they are," said Calvin.

The Mexica captain gave the command, and the soldiers pulled the triggers of their muskets.

Whereupon every single one of them exploded, killing or blinding almost all of them, and blowing the heads right off more than a few.

The Mexica captain was left standing there with his ceremonial obsidian-edged sword and only a few of his men still alive enough to writhe on the ground moaning or screaming in agony.

"Shoot him!" cried Austin.

"No!" cried Calvin. "Let him go! You want somebody to tell the story of this, don't you?"

Austin didn't like being contradicted, but it was plain that Calvin was right. What good was it to put on a show like this, if there wasn't somebody left to go tell the rest of the Mexica about these white men who came with irresistible power. So if it bothered Austin that Calvin had countermanded his order, well wasn't that too bad. If he didn't want that to happen, he shouldn't give stupid orders. And besides, it wasn't a bad thing for Austin to remember who actually had the power here. Austin might plan to be the emperor of Mexico, but if he achieved it, it would be because he had Calvin Maker with him.

Calvin had thought he'd have to do several more demonstrations, but it all went better than he'd hoped. The first city they came to, the alcalde came out to them and insisted that the people of this place were not Mexica and begged the mighty priest they had with them not to harm them.

Austin gave a speech about how they had come to restore good government to these lands and free them from the rule of the bloodthirsty, murderous, savage Mexica. Whereupon the people cheered and the alcalde insisted on sending five hundred men along with them to Mexico City. Since these were not real soldiers, but only ordinary men, many of them old, and armed only with ceremonial clubs and swords, Austin agreed to let them come. But he insisted that they provide their own food and promise to obey his orders.

So when they came to the next city, they weren't just a hundred white men, they had a brightly costumed troupe of reds with them, singing and chanting. Again the alcalde came out and begged them to pa.s.s on through, giving them food and water and another five hundred men to accompany them. Calvin was getting a little frustrated, so this time he crumbled part of the stone wall of the city so there'd be more to the story. The alcalde fell to his knees and offered them anything they wanted, but Austin only glared at Calvin and told him that there would be no more city walls when he ruled in Mexico City, because all the land would be at peace.

"What did you do that for when they'd already surrendered?" said Austin afterward.

"They've got to see see that we come with power," said Calvin. that we come with power," said Calvin.

"Well, what you showed them was that we come to tear stuff down."

"I'll find something better to do next time," said Calvin. "Nondestructive."

"Thank you kindly," said Austin, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

So it went all the way up to the high Mexican plateau and through villages and cities, and by the time they got within sight of the great volcanic mountains that ringed Mexico City, they had at least fifteen thousand reds with them, a mighty army indeed, marching ahead of them and behind them and singing and chanting and dancing at every opportunity.

It was a glorious entrance they made into the valley of Mexico. But Calvin was getting more and more uneasy. "Where are the Mexica soldiers?" he asked Austin.

"All run away, if they've got any brains," said Austin.

Jim Bowie was riding close by, and he seconded Calvin. "This is all too easy," he said. "I don't like it."

"We raised up the conquered people against the oppressor. The Mexica soldiers aren't going to waste their lives resisting the irresistible."

"There's a trap waiting for us here," said Bowie.

So while Austin beamed and waved now and then, as if he was in a parade, Calvin and Bowie and a handful of others kept their eyes open, looking for some lurking army in hiding. Calvin sent his doodlebug ranging ahead as far as he could, but all he found were civilians, and most of them were in plain sight, standing outside to watch this army pa.s.s along the wide avenue that led to the lake in the middle of the valley.

Not until they actually reached the long causeway that led to the ceremonial city in the middle of the lake did they finally see any kind of Mexica opposition. And while there was plenty of pomp and color, lots of flags and feathers, there weren't many that looked like soldiers. In fact, there weren't many of anything-maybe three hundred men in the whole group that came down the causeway to meet them.

"Do they think this is going to be a picnic?" asked Bowie.

"How many men do you think it takes to surrender to us?" said Austin. "Calvin Maker, you are worth your weight in gold. We didn't have to fire a shot, and here we are, victorious!" Austin kicked his horse and moved forward through the throng, the other white men following. Soon they were lined up near the front of the vast army, within earshot of the dignitaries coming from the city.

"We demand that you surrender!" shouted Austin. "If you surrender your lives will be spared!"