Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

  “Oh, Stig.”

  “These are Tales of the Westward Escapes, of Helgi and Finnbogi, and Thorstein the Swarthy, and Biarni Heriulfsson. Rogues and Projectors and Fugitives, they went without pretext, no Christ, no Grail, no expectation beyond each Day’s Turnings, to be haunted by Ghosts more material, less merciful, than any they’d left at their backs.

  “They found here, again, as in Greenland and Iceland, Firths and Fjords,— something Immense had harrow’d and then flooded all these Coasts.— ”

  “So that’s why the Swedes chose to sail between the Capes of Delaware,— they thought it was another Fjord! You fellows do like a nice Fjord, it seems. Instead, they found Pennsylvania!”

  “Some Surprize?”

  “Some Surprize.— Stig?”

  “Yah, Pa-tience?”

  “Do we really need the Ax right here, like this?”

  This Season, hanging just over the Horizon, spreading lightless Mantle and pale fingers across the sky, the great Ghost of the woods has been whispering to them,— tho’ Reason suggests the Wind,— “No . . . no more . . . no further.” Such are the Words the Surveyors have been able to bring to their waking Bank-side, from this great fluvial Whisper.

  “Reminds me of a Lass from Escombe . . . ,” remarks Dixon. Jointly and severally, they have continu’d to find regions of Panick fear all along the Line,— Dixon, in the great Cave whose Gothicity sends his partner into such Raptures, but wondering, in some Fretfulness, what might be living in it large enough, to need so much space,— whereas ’tis Mason who stands sweating and paralyz’d before the great Death-shade of the Forest between Savage Mountain and Little Yochio Geni,” . . . a wild waste,” he will write, “composed of laurel swamps, dark vales of Pine through which I believe the Sun’s rays never penetrated,” which evokes from Dixon, at his lengthiest, “Great uncommon lot of Trees about . . . ?” Together, they are apt to be come upon at any stretch of the Chain, no telling when, by the next unwelcome Visitor that waits them. Nor,— tho’ Night-fall is traditional,— will any Hour be exempt. This is none of the lesser Agents, the White Women or Black Dogs, but the Presence itself, unbounded, whose Visitations increase in number as the Party, for the last time, moves West.

  One Day, having fail’d to fall asleep, and, as they often did, continue to sleep, through the nightly death of the Sun,— up instead, faces vermilion’d, amid the clank and bustle of preparations for the evening Mess,— Mason and Dixon hear the Voice, stirring the tops of Trees in a black swift Smear down the Mountainside and into the Shade, more to plead than to pronounce,— “You are gone too far, from the Post Mark’d West.”

  It is there. Neither Surveyor may take any comfort in Suspicions of joint Insanity. “Thankee,” Mason mutters back to it, “as if we didn’t already know.”

  “Myself . . . ? Ah’d love to see the canny old Post again,” adds Dixon, helpfully. They know by now where they are, not only in Miles, Chains, and Feet, but respecting as well the Dragon of the Land, according to which anyplace beyond the Summit of the Alleghenies, wherever the water flows West, into the Continental Unknown, lies too far from the Countryside where, quietly, unthreaten’d, among the tall gray stalks of the girdl’d trees, beneath Roofs tarr’d against the Rain, the Wives knead and flour, and the Dough’s Rising is a Miniature of the great taken Breath of the Day, . . . and where voices in the Wind are assum’d into the singing of the Congregations, the Waggon’s rumbling upon the roads of pack’d and beaten earth, the lowing, the barking, the solitary rifle-shot, close to supper-time, from over in the next Valley. Here the Surveyors,— as many of the Party,— have come away, as if backward in Time, beyond the Range of the furthest spent Ball, of the last friendly Pennsylvania Rifle. The Implication of the ghostly Speech is clear to them both.— They will soon be proceeding, if indeed they are not already, with all Guarantees of Safety suspended,— as if Whatever spar’d them years ago, at Sea, were now presenting its Bill. Here, the next Interdiction, when it comes, will be not with the clamorous stench of Sea-Battle, but quieter than wind, final as Stone.

  Abdominal Fear and Thoracick Indignation at the same moment visit both Surveyors. To have come this far . . . and yet, by the Scale it has assum’d, the Denial is so clearly meant to be heeded. . . .

  Be they heedful or not, 1767 will be their last year upon the Line. Conditions hitherto shapeless are swiftly reduc’d to Certainty. Having waited upon Sir William Johnson to negotiate with deputies from the Six Nations, assembl’d at German Flat, upon Mohawk, as to the continuation of the Line beyond the Allegheny Crest, the Surveyors loiter week upon week in Philadelphia, Drinking at Clubs, dancing with City Belles at Shore-parties, along the sand Beaches, playing two-handed Whist, their judgment in ev’rything from Fish to Pipe-Fellows grown perilously unreliable, as the Air oppressively damp,— howbeit, they get a late start this Year, not reaching the Allegheny Front until July, a full year since they left off their Progress West. Sir William Johnson is to be paid £500 for his Trouble.

  Their last Spring out, passing by way of Octarara, they find the Redzingers and their neighbors all at a barn-raising nearby. A geometrick Maze of Beams, a-bang with men in black Hats. Luise waves to Peter up straddling a lower Girt, smiling over at one of the Yoder Boy’s Hardware-Joaks. Mason and Dixon drop ceremonial Plumb-lines here and there, and Capt. Zhang pronounces the location acceptably within the Parameters of his Luo-Pan. He has re-join’d the Party after a mysterious Absence over the Winter, during which the Cobra-Brain Pearl he’d shown them has deflected at last the will of the Jesuit. Thro’ its influence, there had appear’d in P. Zarpazo’s path an irresistible offer to travel to Florida and be one of the founders of a sort of Jesuit Pleasure-Garden, of Dimensions unlimited by neighboring Parcels, tho’ the Topick of Alligators has so far adroitly remain’d unaddress’d. . . .

  There are Parsnip Fritters, breaded fried Sausages, Rhubarb Dumplings, Souse and Horse-radish, Ham-and-Apple Schnitz und Knepp, Hickory-Nut Cake and Shoofly Pies. Armand, bravely spruc’d up, even drops by,— tho’ his heart, he will assure anyone who asks, is desolated,— with a strangely festive Pudding he has whisk’d together, loaded with Currants, candied Violets, dried apricots, peaches, and cherries chopp’d fine with almonds and rejuvenated in Raspberry Brandy. He is surrounded immediately by various small Children.

  Luise leads her Husband over, by the hand with the sacred Finger, and the men meet formally at last. Armand finds himself looking upward at this very large German, who continues to grip the equally oversiz’d Hammer with which he has been whacking at Beams and Plates all day,— meanwhile regarding Armand as a Boy might a Bug. Or perhaps—

  “How is the Duck?” Peter blurts. “She told me about it. Luise.”

  Armand almost blurts back, “The Duck is excellent,” but wagering it is a religious question, replies, “I see the Duck seldom of late. Perhaps, by now, she has taken in her charge so many other Souls as troubl’d as my own, that there remains less time for me,— perhaps, as she has continu’d upon her own way, I have even pass’d altogether from her Care.”

  “But, Time, surely, by now, no longer matters to her?” Peter now curious, “— no longer passes the same way, I mean.”

  The Frenchman shrugs. “Yet we few, fortunate Objects of her Visits, remain ever tight in Time’s Embrace,” sighing, as if for the Duck alone. . . .

  “She, then, . . . enters and leaves the Stream of Time as she likes?” Luise, tossing her eyes vigorously skyward, slides away to attend to an Oven-Load of loaves and biscuits. The lads, whose flow of saliva has begun to escape the best efforts of their lower lips to contain it, proceed to eat their way from one end of a long trestle table to the other, thro’ Hams and Fowl, Custards and Tarts, fried Noodles and Opossum Alamodes, all the while deep in discourse upon the deepest Topicks there are.

  The instruments arrive on the seventh of July at Cumberland, throng’d and a-blare
with skin-wearers and cloth-wearers ever mingling, Indian and White, French and Spanish. Ladies pack Pistols and Dirks, whilst coarser Sisters prove to be saintlier than expected. Poison’d by strong Drink, Pioneers go bouncing Cheese-and-Skittle-wise from one Pedestrian to another, Racoon-Tails askew, daring Hooves and Wheel-Rims, and the impatience of a Street-ful of Business-Folk who must mind their Watch-Time, often to the Minute, all day long. Riflemen sit out on the Porches of Taverns and jingle their Vent-Picks in time to the musick of African Slaves, who play upon Banjos and Drums here, far into the Night. The Place smells of Heart-wood, and Animals, and Smoke. Great Waggons with white Canopies, styl’d “Conestogas,” form up at the western edge of town, an uncommon Stir, passionate shouting, Herds filling the Street, as one by one each Machine is brought ’round, and its Team of Horses hitch’d on,— proceeding then to the end of a waiting line, where all stand, be it snow or summer, patient as cows at milking time.

  “Thing about out here,” cackles Thomas Cresap, when they go to pay him a visit, “is it’s perfect. It’s ’at damn U-topia’s what it is, and nobody’ll own to it. No King, no Governor, nought but the Sheriff, whose Delight is to leave you alone, for as long as you do not actively seek his attention, which he calls ‘fuckin’ with him.’ As long as you don’t ‘fuck’ with him, he don’t ‘fuck’ with you! Somethin’, hah? About as intrusive as Authority ought to git, in m’ own humble Opinion, o’ course. And there’s to be sure the usual rotten apple among Sheriffs, that, ’scuse me Gents, Got-damn’d Lancaster Sheriff . . . Old Smith? . . . We had pitch’d musket battles with him and his Army of Pennite Refuse. ’Course back there you probably only heard their side of it.”

  “Mr. Sam Smith entertain’d us with an account, at Pechway, two, perhaps three years ago.”

  “We sure entertain’d him, that night.”

  “Said it was fifty-five to fourteen . . . ?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Call’d you the Beast of Baltimore.”

  “That I was and the Maryland Monster as well, and I’m even more dangerous today than I was then, for there’s little I fear in this World, and nothing I won’t undertake, long as these damn’d Knees don’t betray me, that is. Ask any of these Louts how I do with a Pistol. Eh?” He produces a Highwayman’s model, with a short, rounded-off grip and a twelve-inch octagonal Barrel. “All flash, you say, meant but to strike Fear,— ”

  “I didn’t say that,” says Mason. “Nor I . . . ?” adds Dixon.

  “Here, you,— Michael’s one,— Get out there about to the first Fence and throw this,— here, this Jug up in the air for the old Bible Patriarch, ’at’s a good boy.”

  “But it’s full of— ”

  “Whatever your name is,— now we don’t want to bore our guests, do we, with the details of the Tax Laws and how they differ as between the two Provinces, so just git your wrong-side-the-creek arse out to that Fence—” The boy is running, already halfway there. Cresap gazes after him. “See that Attitude? Don’t know where he gets it. Just as happy to have a Sheriff about, if you want the truth. I thought I was an untamable kid, but that young Zack, there,— ”

  “Ready, Grampa!”

  Patch, Ball, Grease, Rod, Powder fine and coarse, all in a strange blur, the fastest loading job anyone there, including the Revd, who’s seen a number of them, can recollect. “Heads up!” hollers Cresap. The Jug sails slowly end-over-end in an Arc skyward, as Cresap, arm straight, aims, tracks and fires, whereupon, being struck, the Jug explodes in a great Ball of Flame whose Wave of Heat fans their astonish’d Faces.

  “Sam’l Smith tell you about that one? That Army o’ his started off with eighty-five men, but thirty ran away after the first couple of these Jugs exploded, so it was more of an even fight. I took a few precious Breaths to curse myself for ever settling so close to the limits of Maryland, yet, as I foolishly trusted, south of the Forty-Degree Parallel,— and wagering that the real Susquehanna would prove a more potent Boundary than any invisible Line drawn by Astronomers or Surveyors,— oh, that’s right you’re one of each ain’t you, so sorry,— and that surely no Sheriff of Lancaster would mount the naval Expedition he did. Gawwwd, Boats? There was sailboats and there was rafts, there was Battoes oar’d by match’d twenty-six-man African slave crews, there was even Sailing Ships out there upon broad Susquehanna that night in the dark of the Moon, thirty years ago now, but I’m no closer to forgetting it. For most of the settlers about, in the places they’d come from, troops of Horsemen upon the Roads late at night were far from rare,— but being invaded out of that midnight River, by a small Brigade,— betray’d by me own Bound’ry Line, as ye’d say, taken by total Surprize,— I suppose once in ev’ry lifetime it’s necessary. They descended upon my Land with all the pitilessness of an Army in full Sunlight, and proceeded to build a camp and dig in to obsess us. And ’twas my young Daniel who was Hero of the Battle.”

  The younger Cresap, now forty, who’s been eating enthusiastically though in Silence, pauses and shrugs. “Active sort of Lad,” his father says. “Ran about making one mistake after another. They catch him, set him out of their way,— when they’re not looking he finds their Powder, wraps what he can in his Handkerchief, throws it in the Fire.”

  Daniel grimaces, shaking his head. “Dove for cover, waited,— Nothing. The Handkerchief got a little charr’d. Then they were really angry,— what a sight they made, trying to retrieve that powder out of the Fire. Ev’rybody waiting for some great Blast. I didn’t know if I should be laughing, or pleading for my Life. ’Twas their Call, as it is ever.”

  “Our house burn’d down, one of us murder’d with his hands in the air,—” Father and Son are exchanging Looks, “the rest dispers’d into the Woods,— they took me back across Susquehanna to stand trial in that dismal,— let me put it this way. If America was a Person,— and it sat down,— Lancaster Town would be plunged into a Darkness unbreathable.

  “On the way over the River, I was able to put one of my bold Captors in the water, where they all set upon him with Oars and Rifle-stocks, thinking ’twas me, some of them in their eagerness losing their balance and falling in as well. I couldn’t get the Ropes off, and was trying to stay out of the River, in this water-borne Panick of Oxen. To be fair, ’twas vile Sam Smith sav’d my life, for most of them would as soon have tipp’d me in and let me sink. ’Twas only when we got to Columbia, across the River, that they plac’d me in chains, though I did knock the Blacksmith cold with ’em,— the Shame,— a Brother-immigrant, who more than any should have known better than to manacle another such, at the bidding of some jump’d-up Pea-wit working for the Penns. Sirs, that is my side of it. How does it match up with that of Smith, who must’ve known that sooner or later you’d see me?”

  “He seem’d not quite as hale as you,” Dixon recalls.

  “Can I forgive him his Life? I’ve done with all my crying about that. And howbeit, I was releas’d at last,— Justice not so much prevailing, as Injustice, having early exhausted itself, retiring,— and leaving it to Providence as to Sam’l Smith’s capacity for further Harm outside of Lancaster County, my Family and I removed Westward, settling in Antietam, at that time upon the Frontier,— where, by trading honestly enough in skins and furs, we soon found ourselves at the Verge of a Fortune. Alas, our shipload of Pelts, upon which we had borrow’d heavily, approaching the Channel, was surpriz’d by one of Monseer’s Privateers and like that, ta’en. Our creditors all show’d up in a single stern-faced crowd, so many that some were oblig’d to walk and stand in animal shit. I wav’d this very High-Toby Special about, appeal’d to their Shame, but we were all too perilously extended,— the seat by Potowmack, which at last I had begun to feel was mine, was thereupon seiz’d as pitilessly as our Fortune at Sea, and we must again reassemble, and take up our Lives and move West, eventually settling here, where Potowmack forks, and ways converge, from all over the Compass, and the Fort lies less than
a day away. Perhaps I am not meant to govern a great Manor, like the scalp-stealing Fiend Shelby. Perhaps I am ready for this sort of Village life. Third-time-Lucky sort of thing.”

  “Nor must we ever be moving again.” It is Megan, another of Michael’s batch. Hair all a-fire, spirited, no respect at all for Traditional Authority. She knows how to read, and she is reading him Tox’s Pennsylvaniad.

  “ ’Twas after Braddock fell, that times out here got very difficult indeed. Nemacolin and I put that road in, years earlier. Chopp’d damn near ev’ry tree. We were th’ original Mason and Dixon. We cut our Visto too narrow for poor Braddock, but who was expecting an Army? We went by Compass. I felt that cold magick in the Needle, Sirs. Something very powerful, from far beyond this Forest, ‘Whose Bark had never felt the Bit’s Assault,’ as Tox puts it so well. As for Nemacolin, I believe that he liv’d in a World where Magick is in daily operation, and the magnetick Compass surely is small Turnips.”

  “What will the Mohawks that are to join us think of our Instruments, then?” Dixon wonders.