Eddie Harmon's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The anvil was Davis's now, and Eddie had a chisel but nothing worthy to test it on. A rough edge meant little on a soft practice block. The bridge crew wanted proof the tool could split hard stone clean. So Eddie went looking. He carried the iron hammer and the new chisel out past the forge, into the grass, where the ground rose toward the mountain. He found it under a golden tree. A stone stood waist-high in the grass, gray and banded, weathered but sound. Eddie ran his hand across it. He felt the grain the way years had taught him. This was bridge stone. Dense, even, no hidden fault. The kind masons dreamed about. He set the chisel against a band and lifted the hammer. "I wouldn't." Eddie turned. A small figure stood under the tree, hooded in gray, a long salt-and-pepper beard spilling down his chest. A golden sickle hung at his belt. Eddie had never seen him, but he had heard the field workers speak of a druid who walked the high ground. The man's eyes moved from Eddie's bare chest to the hammer. "That stone feeds the roots," the druid said. "Break it, and the tree starves." "I need stone I can trust," Eddie said. "This one's true. I have to know my edge holds." The druid stepped closer. He touched the bark, then the stone, listening the way Alvin listened to iron. "Living earth answers to me. Worked metal does not." He nodded at the hammer. "Your tool is deaf to my craft. Prove it if you must. But not on this." He raised a hand. The grass shifted. The ground bulged, and a second stone rose free of the soil, smaller, loose, banded like the first. "This one holds no roots. Take it." Eddie knelt by the loosened stone. Same grain. Same weight in the hand. He set the chisel and swung. The iron head rang. Steel bit into stone. He struck again, following the band. On the third blow the stone split. The face came away flat and clean, no crack running wild, no crumble. Eddie lifted the halves. The cut was straight enough to lay in a bridge. He had his proof. "It holds," Eddie said. The druid studied the clean face. "A true edge. The crew will see it." He turned toward the mountain. "You cut stone well. There is stone above that no one has cut." Then he walked into the grass and was gone. Eddie carried the split halves back down. He had the proof the crew wanted. But the anvil was still Davis's, and a rough chisel had passed one test on loose stone. A bridge stone was larger, harder, fixed in the ground. To true an edge for that, he needed the anvil back. And Davis decided who touched it. But when Davis saw the clean unbroken banded stone Eddie had hewn, he was moved. Such mastery must be fostered. “Alvin can use the anvil tonight to work your chisel. If he can finish it with your help, I will not stand in the way.