“I see some scars and marks on you, Mr. Fink,” said Alvin, “but I reckon from the fact you're standing here before us that those are marks of fights you won.”
“Won fair and square, and hard fought,” said Fink. “But I killed no man as didn't require me to, on account of trying to stick a knife in me and there being no other way to stop them.”
“What brings you here, Mr. Fink?” asked Alvin.
“I owe you,” said Fink.
“Not that I know of,” said Alvin.
“I owe you and I mean to repay.”
Still his words were ambiguous, and Arthur Stuart noticed how Papa Horace and Armor-of-God braced themselves to take on the powerful body of the riverman, if need arose.
It was Peggy Larner who made it clear. “Mr. Fink has come to give us information about a plot against Alvin's life. And to offer himself as a bodyguard, to make sure no harm comes to you.”
“I'm glad to know you wanted to give me warning,” said Alvin. “Come on in and sit down. You can share the floor with me, or sit on my cot– it's stronger than it looks.”
“Don't have much to tell. I think Miss Larner already told you what I learned before, about a plot to kill you as they took you back for trial in Kenituck. Well, the men I know– if you can rightly call them men– haven't been fired from the plan. In fact what I heard this very afternoon was to pay no nevermind to how the extradition was squished–”
“Quashed,” offered Verily Cooper helpfully.
“Mashed,” said Fink. “Whatever. They got to pay no heed to it, because they'll still be needed. The plan is for you not to leave the town of Hatrack River alive.”
“And what about Arthur Stuart?” asked Alvin.
“Not a word about no mixup, boy,” said Fink. “The way I see it, they don't give a damn about the boy, he's just an excuse for them to get you kilt.”
“Please watch…” Alvin began, mildly enough, but Mike Fink didn't need to hear him finish saying “your language with the lady.”
“Beg your pardon, Miss Larner,” he said.
“Don't that beat all,” said Alvin admiringly. “He's already beginning to sound like one of your students.” But was there a bite in his tone?
There was certainly a bite in Peggy's answer. “I'd rather hear him swear than hear you say 'don't' for 'doesn't.'”
Alvin leaned close to Mike Fink to explain, though he never took his eyes from Peggy's face. “You see, Miss Larner knows all the words, and she knows just where they ought to be.”
Arthur Stuart could see the fury in her face, but she held her tongue. It was some kind of fight going on between the two of them; but what was it about? Miss Larner had always corrected their grammar, ever since she tutored Alvin and Arthur together when she was the schoolteacher in Hatrack River.
What puzzled Arthur Stuart all the more was the way the older men– not Verily, but Horace and Armor-of-God and even Mike Fink– sort of glanced around at each other and half-smiled like they all understood exactly what was going on between Alvin and Peggy, understood it better than those two did their own selves.
Mike Fink spoke up again. “Getting back to matters of life and death instead of grammar…”
At which point Horace murmured under his breath, “And lovers' spats.”
“I'm sorry to say I can't learn no more of their plans than that,” said Fink. “It's not like we're dear friends or nothing– more like they'd be as happy to stab me in the back as pee on my boots, depending on whether their knife or their… whatever… was in their hands.” He glanced again at Peggy Larner and blushed. Blushed! That grizzled face, scarred and bent by battle, that missing ear, but still the blood rushed into his face like a schoolboy rebuked by his schoolmarm.
But before the blush could even fade, Alvin had his hand on Fink's arm and pulled him down to sit beside him on the floor, and Alvin threw an easy arm over his shoulder. “You and me, Mike, we just can't remember how to talk fine in front of some folks and plain in front of others. But I'll help you if you'll help me.”
And there, in one easy moment, Alvin had put Mike Fink back to rights. There was just a kind of plain sincerity in Alvin's way of speaking that even when you knew he was trying to make you feel better, you didn't mind. You knew he cared about you, cared enough to try to make you feel better, and so you did feel better.
Thinking of Alvin making folks feel better made Arthur Stuart remember something that Alvin did to make him feel better. “Why don't you sing that song, Alvin?”
Now it was Alvin's turn to blush in embarrassment. “You know I ain't no singer, Arthur. Just because I sung it to you…”
“He made up a song,” said Arthur Stuart. “About being locked up in here. We sung it together yesterday.”
Mike Fink nodded. “Seems like a Maker got to keep making something.”
“I got nothing to do but think and sing,” said Alvin. “You sing it, Arthur Stuart, not me. You've got a good singing voice.”
“I'll sing it if you want,” said Arthur. “But it's your song. You made it up, words and tune.”
“You sing it,” said Alvin. “I don't even know if I'd remember all the words.”
Arthur Stuart dutifully stood up and started to sing, in his piping voice:
I meant to be a journeyman, To wander on the earth. As quick as any fellow can, I left the country of my birth, It's fair to say I ran.
Arthur Stuart looked over at Alvin. “You got to sing the chorus with me, anyway.”
So together they sang the rollicking refrain:
At daybreak I'll be risin', For never will my feet be still, I'm bound for the horizon– oh! I'm bound for the horizon.
Then Arthur went back to the verse, but now Alvin joined him in a kind of tenor harmony, their voices blending sweetly to each other.
Till I was dragged from bed, And locked inside a little cell. My journeys then were in my head, On all the roads of hell.
With the next verse, though, when Arthur began it, Alvin didn't join in, he just looked confused.
Alone with my imagining, I dreamt the darkest dream–
“Wait a minute, Arthur Stuart,” said Alvin. “That verse isn't really part of this song.”
“Well, it fits, and you sung it to this tune your own self.”
“But it's a nonsense dream, it don't mean a thing.”
“I like it,” said Arthur. “Can't I sing it?”
Alvin waved him to go ahead, but he still looked embarrassed.
Alone with my imagining, I dreamt the darkest dream, Of tiny men, a spider's sting, And in a land of smoke and steam, An evil golden ring.
“What does that mean?” asked Armor-of-God.
“I don't know,” said Alvin. “I wonder if sometimes I don't accidentally end up with somebody else's dream. Maybe that was a dream that belonged to somebody of ancient days, or maybe somebody who ain't even been born yet. Just a spare dream and I chanced to snag on it during my sleep.”
Verily Cooper said, “When I was a boy, I wondered if the strange people in my dreams might not be just as real as me, and I was in their dreams sometimes too.”
“Then let's just hope they don't wake up at a inconvenient moment,” said Mike Fink dryly.
Arthur Stuart went on with the last verse.
The accusations all were lies, And few believed the tale, So I was patient, calm and wise. But legs grow weak inside a jail, And something in you dies.
“This song may be the saddest one I ever heard,” said Horace Guester. “Don't you ever have a cheerful thought in here?”
“The chorus is pretty sprightly,” said Arthur Stuart.
“I had cheerful thoughts today,” said Alvin, “thinking of four Slave Finders losing their license to carry off free men and put them into bondage in the south. And now I'm cheerful again, knowing that the strongest man I ever fought is now going to be my bodyguard. Though the sheriff may not take kindly to it, Mr. Fink, since he thinks I'm safe enough as long as I'm in the care of him and his boys.”