They sat around waiting without a word. Then Pauley started in talking about nothing, and so did the Finders, and even Dr. Physicker, just jawing away like as if the Finders were any old visitors. Maybe they thought they were making the Finders feel more kindly so they wouldn't take it out on the boy once they had him across the river. Alvin had to figure that so he wouldn't hate them.

Besides, an idea was growing in his mind. It wasn't enough to get Arthur Stuart away tonight– what if Alvin could make it so even the Finders couldn't find him again?

“What's in that cachet you Finders use?” he asked.

“Don't you wish you knew,” said the black-haired Finder.

“It's no secret,” said the white-haired Finder. “Every slaveowner makes up a box like this for each slave, soon as he's bought or born. Scrapings from his skin, hair from his head, a drop of blood, things like that. Parts of his own flesh.”

“You get his scent from that?”

“Oh, it ain't a scent. We ain't bloodhounds, Mr. Smith.”

Alvin knew that calling him Mr. Smith was pure flattery. He smiled a little, pretending that it pleased him.

“Well then how does it help?”

“Well, it's our knack,” said the white-haired Finder. “Who knows how it works? We just look at it, and we– it's like we see the shape of the person we're looking for.”

“It ain't like that,” said the black-haired Finder.

“Well that's how it is for me.”

“I just know where he is. Like I can see his soul. If I'm close enough, anyway. Glowing like a fire, the soul of the slave I'm searching for.” The black-haired Finder grinned. “I can see from a long way off.”

“Can you show me?” asked Alvin.

“Nothing to see,” said the white-haired Ruder.

“I'll show you, boy,” said the black-haired Finder. “I'll turn my back and y'all move that boy around in the forge. I'll point to him over my shoulder, perfect all the time.”

“Come on now,” said the white-haired Finder.

“We got nothing to do anyway till the iron cools. Give me the cachet.”'

The black-haired Finder did what be bragged– pointed at Arthur Stuart the whole am. But Alvin hardly saw that. He was busy watching from the inside of that Finder, trying to understand what he was doing, what he was seeing, and what it had to do with the cachet. He couldn't see how seven-year-old dried-up bits of Arthur Stumt's newborn body could show them where he was now.

Then he remembered that for a moment right at first the Finder hadn't pointed at all. His finger had wandered a little, and only after just that pause had he started pointing right at Arthur Stuart. Like as if he'd been trying to sort out which of the people behind him in the smithy was Arthur. The cachet wasn't for Finding– it was for recognizing. The Finders saw everybody, but they couldn't tell who was who without a cachet.

So what they were seeing wasn't Arthur's mind, or Arthur's soul. They were just seeing a body, like every other body unless they could sort it out. And what they were sorting was plain enough to Alvin– hadn't he healed enough people in his life to know that people were pretty much the same, except for some bits at the center of each living piece of their flesh? Those bits were different for every single person, yet the same in every part of that person's flesh, like it was God's way of naming them right in their flesh. Or maybe it was the mark of the beast, like in the book of Revelation. Didn't matter. Alvin knew that the only thing in that cachet that was the same as Arthur Stuart's body was that signature that lived in every part of his body, even the dead and cast-off {AKPPLApieces in the cachet.

I can change those bits, thought Alvin. Surely I can change them, change them in every part of his body. Like turning iron into gold. Like turning water into wine. And then their cachet wouldn't work at all. Wouldn't help them at all. They could search for Arthur Stuart all they liked, but as long as they didn't actually see his face and recognize him the regular way, they'd never find him.

Best of all, they wouldn't even realize what happened. They'd still have the cachet, same as ever, and they'd know it hadn't been changed a bit because Alvin wouldn't change it. But they could search the whole world over and never find a body just like those specks in their cachet, and they'd never guess why.

I'll do it, thought Alvin. Somehow I'll figure a way to change him. Even though there must be millions of those signatures all through his body, I'll find a way to change every one. Tonight I'll do it, and tomorrow he'll be safe forever.

The iron was cool. Alvin knelt before Arthur Stuart and gently put the manacles in place. They fit his flesh so perfectly he might have cast them in a mold taken from Arthur's own body. When they were locked into place, with a length of light chain strung between them, Alvin looked Arthur Stuart in the eye. “Don't be afraid,” he said.

Arthur Stuart didn't say a thing.

“I won't forget you,” said Alvin.

“Sure,” said the black-haired Finder. “But just in case you get ideas about remembering him while he's on his way home to his rightful master, I ought to tell you square– we never both of us sleep at the same time. And part of being a Finder is, we know if anybody's coming. You can't sneak up on us. Least of all you, smith boy, I could see you ten miles away.”

Alvin just looked at him. Eventually the Finder sneered and turned away. They put Arthur Stuart onto the horse in front of the white-haired Finder. But Alvin figured that as soon as they got across the Hio, they'd have Arthur walking. Not out of meanness, maybe– but it wouldn't do no good for Finders to show themselves being kindly to a runaway. Besides, they had to set an example for the other slaves, didn't they? Let them see a boy seven years old walking along, feet bleeding, head bowed, and they'd think twice about trying to run off with their children. They'd know that Finders have no mercy.

Pauley and Dr. Physicker rode away with them. They were seeing the Finders to the Hio River and watching them cross the river, to make sure they did no hurt to Arthur Stuart while he was in free territory. It was the best they could do.

Makepeace didn't have much to.say, but what he said, he said plain. “A real man would never put manacles on his own friend,” said Makepeace. “I'll go up to the house and sign your journeyman papers. I don't want you in my smithy or my house another night.”

He left Alvin alone by the forge.

He'd been gone no more than five minutes when Horace Guester got to the smithy.

“Let's go,” he said.

“No,” said Alvin. “Not yet. They can see us coming. They'll tell the sheriff if they're being followed.”

“We got no choice. Can't lose their trail.”

You know something about what I am and what I can do," said Alvin. "I've got them even now. They won't get more than a mile from the Hio shore before they fall asleep."

“You can do that?”

“I know what goes on inside people when they're sleepy. I can make that staff start happening inside them the minute they're in Appalachee.”

“While you're at it, why don't you kill them?”

“I can't.”

“They aren't men! It wouldn't be murder, killing them!”

“They are men,” said Alvin. “Besides, if I kill them, then it's a violation of the Fugitive Slave Treaty.”

“Are you a lawyer now?”

“Miss Larner explained it to me. I mean she explained it to Arthur Stuart while I was there. He wanted to know. Back last fall. He said, 'Why don't my pa just kill them if some Finders come for me?', And Miss Larner, she told him how there'd just be more Finders coming, only this time they'd hang you and take Arthur Stuart anyway.”

Horace's face had turned red. Alvin didn't understand why for a minute, not till Horace Guester explained. "He shouldn't call me his pa. I never wanted him in my house." He swallowed. "But he's right. I'd kill them Finders if I thought it'd do good.