Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV by Orson Scott Card Page A

I’ll have bloody hands till the day I die.”
    Calvin shrugged. “Harrison, you’re a liar and a murderer, but you love power more than life. Unfortunately you’re piss-poor at getting it and keeping it. Ta-Kumsaw and Alvin and Tenskwa-Tawa played you for a sucker. I’m telling you how to undo what they done to you. How to set yourself free. I don’t give a rat’s front teeth whether you do what I said or not.” He got up to go.
    Harrison half-rose and clutched at Calvin’s pantlegs. “Someone told me that Alvin, he’s a Maker. That he has real power.”
    “No he doesn’t,” said Calvin. “Not for you to worry about. Because, you see, my friend, he can only use his power for
good
, never to harm nobody.”
    “Not even me?”
    “Maybe he’ll make an exception for you.” Calvin grinned wickedly. “I know
I
would.”
    Harrison withdrew his hands from Calvin’s clothing. “Don’t look at me like that, you little weasel.”
    “Like what?” asked Calvin.
    “Like I’m scum. Don’t
you
judge
me
”
    “Can you tell me a single good reason why not?”
    “Because whatever else I did, boy, I never betrayed my own brother.”
    Now it was Calvin’s turn to look into the face of contempt. He spat on the ground near Harrison’s knees. “Eat pus and die,” he said.
    “Was that a curse?” asked Harrison jeeringly as Calvin walked away. “Or merely a friendly warning?”
    Calvin didn’t answer him. He was already thinking of other things. How to raise the money to get passage east, for one thing. First class. He was going to go first class. Maybe what he needed to do was see if his knack extended to causing money to fall out of some shopkeeper’s moneybag as he carried his earnings to the bank. If he did it right, no one would see. He wouldn’t get caught. And even if someone saw the money fall out and him pick it up, they could only accuse him of finding dropped money, since he never laid a hand on the bag. That would work. It would be easy enough. So easy that it was stupid that Alvin had never done it before. The family could have used the money. There were some hard years. But Alvin was too selfish ever to think of anybody but himself, or anything but his stupid plan of trying to teach Making to people with no knack for it.
    First-class passage to England, and from there across the channel to France. New clothes. It wouldn’t take much to get that kind of money. A lot of money changed hands in New Amsterdam, and there was nothing to stop some of it from falling onto the street at Calvin’s feet. God had given him the power, and that meant that it must be the will of God for him to do it.
    Wouldn’t it be a hoot if Harrison actually took Calvin’s advice?

  6  
True Love
     
     
     
    Amy Sump didn’t care what her friends or anybody said. What she felt for Alvin Maker was love. Real love. True, deep, abiding love that would withstand the test of time.
    If only he would pay any attention to her openly, so others could see it. Instead all he ever did was give her those glances that made her heart flutter so within her. She worried sometimes that maybe it was just his Makerness, his knack or whatever it was. Worried that he was somehow reaching inside her chest and making her heart turn over and her whole body quiver. But no, that wasn’t the sort of thing that Makers did. In fact maybe he didn’t even
know
about her love for him. Maybe his glances were really searching looks, hoping to see in her face some sign of her love. That was why she no longer tried to hide her maidenly blushes when her heart beat so fast and her face felt all hot and tingly. Let him see how his gaze transforms me into a quivering mass of devoted worshipfulness.
    How Amy longed to go to the teaching sessions where Alvin worked with a dozen or so grownups at once, telling them howa Maker had to see the world. How she would love to hear his voice for hours on end. Then she would discover the true knack within her, and