"Now," said Alvin. "Where am I, and where's Tenskwa-Tawa?"

"Profeta Roja," said one of the men. "Ten-si-ki-wa Ta-wa." The way he pronounced it sounded more like the way reds said the Prophet's name. Well, speaking other languages wasn't Alvin's knack, that was already settled and he wasn't going to be embarrassed about calling his friend by the wrong name all these years.

"Ten-sa-ka-wa Ta-wa," he muttered.

One of the men tried to correct him, but Alvin gave up right away. Tenskwa-Tawa had been answering to that name for years and if he minded, he'd've mentioned it by now.

"We stay," said the guide. "Wait-for."

So Tenskwa-Tawa was coming. Well, Alvin could wait as well as the next man-especially now he was dressed and had the plow back. It also reassured him to find out that the plow could take care of itself, somewhat. A plow that flies from your hand when you reach to take it would be hard to put over a fire and melt down. Though that wasn't to say some powerful hexery might not do the trick. Still, it wasn't a thing a thief could easily do. Alvin might fret a little less about the plow, knowing.

Alvin spent what was left of the morning trying to learn the names of some of these men, but it turned into a game of laughing at his bad pronunciation. For all he knew they weren't telling him names at all, but making him say ugly cuss words in their language.

There was food at noon, but this, too, was strange and unfamiliar. A thin flat bread like a flapjack, only thinner, smeared with a spicy paste that might have contained mashed beans but then might not. It was good, though. Burned a little, and drinking water didn't help, but they had some pawpaw fruit sliced up in a basket and a bite of that took away the sting. And after a while he got used to the burning and kind of liked it.

After the meal, Alvin went walking to try to orient himself. He found that the whole troop followed him along like children in a small town, following a stranger. He wasn't sure whether they were protecting him or keeping watch to make sure he didn't run away or were simply curious what he'd do next.

He found that they were on a wide, flat island near the right bank of the Mizzippy. The fog, which was on their side of the river, ended at the shoreline, sharp as butter cut with a knife. And canoes were drawn up on the shore of the river channel that separated the island from the main shore. So these men weren't prisoners here. Alvin was relieved at that. He imagined, though, that choosing this big island as their dwelling place might have been some kind of compromise that Tenskwa-Tawa reached between those reds who didn't want to make any exceptions to the law that only reds could live west of the river, and those that believed runaway slaves were in a different category from white men with guns and axes.

Tenskwa-Tawa arrived that afternoon with a great deal of to-do. All of a sudden a whole passel of reds started hooting and hollering like they was going to war-Alvin had heard that sound before, when he was taken captive by warriors, before the Mizzippy was set as a dividing line. It was a terrible sound, and for a moment he wondered whether the reds on this shore had been using their years of peace to prepare for bloody war. But then he realized that the hooting and ululating was the red equivalent of yee-haw, hosanna, huzzah, hallelujah, and hip-hip-hooray.

Tenskwa-Tawa emerged from the woods on the far shore of the channel, and the reds surrounded him and led him down to a large canoe. They carried him so he wouldn't even get his feet wet and set him in the canoe, then leapt in and paddled furiously so he shot across the water like a skipped stone. Then he was lifted up again and carried to shore and set down right in front of Alvin.

So there was Alvin, with twenty-five black men forming a semi-circle behind him, and Tenskwa-Tawa, with about as many red men forming a semi-circle behind him.

"Is this what it looks like," said Alvin, "when the King of England meets the King of France?"

"No," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "Not enough guns, not enough clothes."

Which was true. Though compared to the black men, the reds looked like they was pretty bundled up, since there were whole stretches of their bodies here and there covered with deerskin or cloth. If I dressed like that, thought Alvin, I'd be roasted with sunburn and ready to serve.

"I'm glad you came," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "I also wanted to talk to you."

"About these fellows?" asked Alvin.

"Them? They're no bother. As long as they sleep on this island, they move freely on the shore. That's where their farms are. We'll be sorry to see them go, when you take them."

"I didn't have no plans to take them," said Alvin.

"But they're determined to become soldiers to fight for you and kill all your enemies. That's why they have to sleep on this island. Because they refuse to give up war."

Alvin was baffled. "I got no enemies."

Tenskwa-Tawa barked out a laugh.

"I mean, none that warriors can fight."

"It's so strange," said Tenskwa-Tawa, "hearing black men speak a red language like they were born to it. The language they speak is not all that different from Navaho, which I had to learn because that tribe was less inclined to give up war than most. It seemed they hadn't quite finished exterminating the Hopi and didn't want to give up killing till the job was done."

"So it hasn't been easy, getting all the reds to take the oath against war."

"No," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "Nor to get the young men to join the oath when they come of age. There's still a lot of playing at war among the young, and if you try to stop it, they just sneak off and do it. I think we've been breeding our boys for war for too many generations for it to disappear from our hearts overnight. Right now the peace holds, because there are enough adults who remember all the killing-and how badly we were defeated, time after time. But there are always those who want to go across the river and fight to take our lands back and drive all the white devils into the sea."

"There are plenty of white folks as dream of getting through the fog and taking possession of these lands, too," said Alvin.

"Including your brother," said Tenskwa-Tawa.

Alvin tried to think which of his brothers had ever said any such fool thing. "They're all farmers or millers or whatnot in Vigor Church," said Alvin. "Except Calvin."

"That's the one," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "It's what I wanted to talk to you about."

He turned to the reds who were with him and spoke a few words, then spoke in a different language to the blacks. Alvin was stunned but delighted when the two groups immediately intermingled and started up two games of cards and some dice-throwing.

"Don't tell me them cards is printed on your side of the river," said Alvin.

"Those black fellows you sent me had them," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "They play betting games, but their money is pebbles. Whoever wins the most struts for an hour, but the next time they play, they all start even again."

"Sounds civilized."

"On the contrary," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "It sounds like childish savages."

His grin had a bit of old pain in it, but Alvin understood. "Well, we white devils would simply regard it as a golden opportunity, and we'd play them with tokens representing all their property and then cheat till we had it all."

"Whereupon we red devils would kill most of you and torture the rest to death because of the power that we could draw from the pain." He held up a hand. "This is what I wanted to talk to you about. Until your brother sailed for Mexico it was not your business, but now it is."

"So he really has joined up with them fools," said Alvin.

"The Mexica have been a problem for us. There's a wide desert between our lands and theirs, but it's not as clear a wall as this river. There are plenty of tribes that live in those dry lands, and plenty of trade and travel back and forth, and stories about how the Mexica rose up against the Spanish and drove them out, except the five thousand they kept for sacrifice, one a day, his heart ripped out of his living body."