“Might get lucky and hook up with a band of Axmen headed home?”
“They’ll be long gone. Absorb’d like Hail-Stones into the Earth.”
“Well I’m not languishing by the Banks of Potowmack, I’m for someplace with Lamps outdoors, and purses full of idle Specie. Anybody for Williamsburg?”
They arrange to keep the Sector at the House of Mr. Spears, where Brad-dock’s Road meets the Bank of the Yochio, and go in search of the Ferryman, Mr. Ice. “They expect a Ferryman to be silent,” announces he, his eyes a-glimmer. Taking his Coat and draping it over his head so as to hood his face, “Well. Welcome aboard. Smoking Lamp’s lit on this Craft.” On shore his brother-in-law is letting out the line, allowing them to be taken by the Stream, as his Nephew upon the further side waits to begin hauling them in. Exactly at the middle of the River, for a moment, no one can see either Father or Son. To appearance, the passengers stand upon a raft in a boundless body of water.
“Now here is what they did to me, and mine,”— and the last Ice proceeds to tell ev’ry detail of the Massacre that took his family, in the dread days of Braddock’s defeat. Time, whilst he speaks, is abolish’d. The mist from the River halts in its Ascent, the Frogs pause between Croaks, and the peepers in mid-peep. The great black cobbles of the River-bed stir and knock no longer. The Dead are being summon’d. The Ferryman’s Grief is immune to Time,— as if in Exchange for a sacrifice of earthly Freedom, to the Flow of this particular Stream.
“You think this is some kind of Penance? Hey, I enjoy this. Such looks on Passengers’ Faces, when they hear how the Flesh and Bones of those I lov’d were insulted! They are us’d to tales of Frederick’s rank’d Automata, executing perfect manœuvres upon the unending German Plain,— down here in the American Woods, that same War proceeded silently, in persistent Shade, one swift animal Death at a time . . . no Treaty can end it, and when all are dead, Ghosts will go on contending. ’Twas the perfect War. No mercy, no restraint, pure joy in killing. It cannot be let go so easily.”
The Youghiogheny, cov’d and willow’d and Sycamor’d, has no Fish in it that Mason has been able to learn of. “Yah, you’ll hear that,” says Ice,— “Yet ev’ryone up and down this River knows of the great School of Ghost-fish that inhabit it, pale green, seldom seen, two sets of Fins each side and a Tail like a Dragon’s. They travel unmolested where they will, secure in the belief that no Angler in his right mind would dare attempt to catch any of them. And that, Sir, could be where you come in.”
Dixon is trying to nudge Mason alert, but owing to the Darkness, not always connecting. Mason is already simpering like a Milk-maid. “Who, Sir? I am but a Country coarse-fisher, after the odd Chub or Roach, whatever the Mills haven’t kill’d or chas’d off, actually, is usually what I settle for, and goodness, why this Fish of yours sounds far too much for my light-rod skills, being so very, as ye might say, big,— ”
“Mason,” Dixon, not often a Mutterer, mutters.
“Up to five, some say six foot long,” Ice avows, “big as a man or Woman, pale as a floating Corpse, . . . yet these do live . . . tho’ few have dar’d, some of us out here have taken Ghosters,— I could show you more than one, stuft and mounted,— no question of eating them, of course . . . indeed, no question trying to hang one over the Hearth, given the Wives who object to looking at them for long.— Or at all.
“The Yochio as it comes down off the Mountains of Virginia descends very rapidly, very dangerously. You might not want, or even be able, to wade in it. Some think it’s the Fall, the very Speed of the Flow, that creates those Ghosters. No one knows. Their entire lives are engulf’d unceasingly in change. They never come to rest. They never know an Instant of Tranquillity. One wonders, what must their idea of Death be,” Ice’s feign’d Smile nearly unendurable, “how are they going to deal with eternal Rest? unless this World be already their Purgatory, and they no longer classifiable as living Fish.”
“And what of those who seek them?”
“Ghosters are accorded a respect comparable to that shewn the Dead. . . . If we get out upon this River tonight,” says Mr. Ice, “perhaps we’ll see a few. They like it just after the rain. In the sun-light, they show up against the black rocks of the River-Bed. In the Dark, they glow some,— for one another, they do. Us,— they pay no mind. In a way, that could prove an advantage . . . to an Angler bold enough.”
“Pray you,” Mason’s hands upon his Bosom.
Mr. Ice abruptly turning to Dixon, “Forgive me, Sir, if I stare. Yours is the first Red Coat to be seen in these parts since Braddock’s great Tragedy,— the only ones out here with Opportunity to wear one, being the Indians who from the Corpses of English soldiers, took them. Even to these Savages, even intoxicated, ’tis too much shame, ever to put a Red Coat on.”
“Yet I find it a means, when in the Forest, of not being innocently mistaken for an Elk . . . ?”
“Nor should any mistake me for a tearful fool,” advises Immanuel Ice, “merely upon observing how I must battle against a daily Sadness. The Graves of my Family are in back of the Cabin, up that Meadow, near the line of Cedars . . . I visit ev’ry Day,— yet, Grief too Solitary breeds madness. At my Work I meet a good many of the Publick, who travel in these parts, who will sometimes, like you, let me bend their Ears with my particular Woes. It keeps away the Madness. Hey? You think it’s over out here, Redcoat? It’s not over. The Fall of Quebec was not the end, nor Bouquet’s Success at Bushy Run, nor the relief of Fort Pitt,— for there is ever a drop in the cup left, another Shot to be fir’d, another life to be taken off cruelly, in unmediated Hate, ev’ry day in this Forest Life, somewhere. The last Dead in this have not yet been born. Young Horst will now pass among ye with a Raccoon Hat, the Contribution is sixpence. Thanks to Audiences like you, this place is proving to be an Elves’ Treasury.”
“But,— this is horrible,” protests Mason, “— Mr. Ice, how can you use your private Tragedy for the mere accumulation of sixpences?”
“How sinful is that?” Mr. Ice wishes to know. “Were any of you out here then? Not since Westphalia, such Evil. Without Restitution, what’s the Point? Here’s my opportunity to redeem some of that terrible time, to convert enemy Rifle-Balls to Gold. How can any Person of Sense object to that? Meanwhile, there all of you are, accosting Strangers in Taverns, spilling forth your Sorrows, Gratis. One day, if it be his Will, God will seize and shake you like wayward daughters, and you will thenceforward give nothing away for free.”
Between Laurel Hill and Cheat, the Account-book shows at least 111 Hands on the pay-list, not including the Surveyors, various McCleans, and those forever omitted from the official Books. Once over Laurel Hill, they are in the Country of the Old Forts,— all across these hilltops are the Ruins, ancient when the Indians first arrived. Broken Walls, fallen nearly to Plan Views of themselves, act as Flues that the Wind must find its way past, in a long Moan with a Rise at the end of it, as if posing a Question. The Fort at Redstone lies upon the site of one. The Creek below is crowded with Rocks with lines of Glyphs inscrib’d on them. Nobody can read them, but all believe they are Grave Markers.
“The old stories say the Forts were built and later abandon’d by a Nation of Giants, who possess’d a magick more powerful even than that of the English or the French.”
“Fortifications?” says Dixon. “Against what?”
The Indians laugh. “Each other, maybe.”
“Now and then you’ll find these Gigantick Bones,” says Hugh Crawfford.
“Human?” inquires Mason.
“Sure seem to be. Been there a long time.”
Ev’ryone out here knows of the Old Forts. When it becomes very Dark, and Thunder-Gusts come sailing in over the Ridge-line, fanciful Uncles tell Nieces and Nephews that the Giant People are back, loud as ever, seeking to reclaim their Country. Redeem it. Some bite at this, some do not. Within the broken Perimeters lie Mon
oliths that once stood on end,— recumbent, the Indians believe, “— they are dead or sleeping,— upright, they live,— likenesses neither of Gods, nor of men,— but of Guardians. . . .”
“Guardians,— of . . . ?”
“Helpers. They live. They have Powers.”
“In England, you see,” Mason feels impell’d to instruct the Indians, “They mark the positions of Sun, Moon, some say Planets, thro’ the Year. . . . They are tall, like Men, for the same reason our Sector is Tall,— in order to mark more closely these movements in the Sky.”
“Small Differences mean much to you. There is Power in these?”
“The finer the Scale we work at, the more Power may we dispose. The Lancaster County Rifle is precise at long range, because of microscopick refinements in the Finish, the Rifling, the ease with which it may be held and aim’d. They who control the Microscopick, control the World.”
“Listen to me, Defecates-with-Pigeons. Long before any of you came here, we dream’d of you. All the people, even Nations far to the South and the West, dreamt you before ever we saw you,— we believ’d that you came from some other World, or the Sky. You had Powers and we respected them. Yet you never dream’d of us, and when at last you saw us, wish’d only to destroy us. Then the killing started,— some of you, some of us,— but not nearly as many as we’d been expecting. You could not be the Giants of long ago, who would simply have wip’d us away, and for less. Instead, you sold us your Powers,— your Rifles,— as if encouraging us to shoot at you,— and so we did, tho’ not hitting as many of you, as you were expecting. Now you begin to believe that we have come from elsewhere, possessing Powers you do not. . . . Those of us who knew how, have fled into Refuge in your Dreams, at last. Tho’ we now pursue real lives no different at their Hearts from yours, we are also your Dreams.”
As they have come West, the Visto has grown sensibly wider, and the Hands have tended more and more to be in it as little as they may, in the Day-time, as to sleep up and down its Center-Line at Night.
The Axmen begin to depart unannounc’d,— as the Army might say, desert. Cheat is the Rubicon, Monongahela is the Styx. At last there are the Indians, and fifteen Axmen newly hired, and Tom Hynes (“Somebody has to cook . . . “). And after the first terrible Poker invisible up the Arse, after allowing themselves a moment to see if they wish to begin screaming and flinging themselves about, Mason and Dixon notice the Indians, politely enough, yet unarguably, watching them, to see how they will react.
Hendricks seems fascinated. “What do they believe waits them, on the other side of the River, that sends them away so fast?”
“They said Shawanese, Delawares, Mingoes,— someone said, a tribe whose Name they’ve never heard.”
“A Tribe with no name?” He translates quickly for his Companions, as if trying to finish before being careen’d by the gathering Sea of Mirth. “We know that Tribe,— we are afraid of them, too, the Tribe with no Name.” The Indians sit and smoke, continuing to laugh for what, to Europeans, might seem a length of time far out of proportion to the Jest. The Day passes, the night deepens, the Absence of the Axmen is felt at Ear-drums and Elbow-joints, as in the sleeplessness attending Watch and Watch, as the Days of their Westering, even the most obtuse of the Company can see, are rapidly decremented, as in a game of Darts, to Zero, waiting moment upon moment the last fatal Double.
69
One day, yet east of Cheat, a light Snow descending but scarce begun to stick, several of the Party observe a Girl chasing a Chicken across the Visto, when an odd thing happens,— smack at the very Center, directly upon the Line, the Chicken stops, turns about till its head points West and Tail East, and thenceforward remains perfectly still, seemingly fallen into a Trance. The Girl, after Guarantees from both Surveyors of the Chicken’s Safety, moves on to other chores, whilst the day wheels over and down into Dusk, and ev’ryone in the Crew comes by to have a look at the immobile Fowl, for as long as their Obligations may allow.
“ ’Tis well known,” various ancient Pennsylvanians and Marylanders assure the Surveyors, “that placing a Chicken ’pon a Straight Line’ll send it nodding faster than ever a head put under a wing.” The Girl, returning to fetch her Hen, agrees briskly. “Chicken on a Line? Thought ev’rybody knew that.”
Dixon’s idea of Thrift is offended. “Well that’s an attractive nuisance, isn’t it? what’s to keep them all from wandering in at any moment . . . ? ev’ry Clucker clear to Ohio and back to Cheapeake,— lining up, going into a Daze, presently throngin’ the Visto? We could have a Chickens’ Black Hole of Calcutta, here,— except that, being in America, they’d all have to be remov’d gently, one by one, wasting Days, lest any fowl-keeper whose stock has suffer’d even a Feather’s molestation call down, among these Lawyer-craz’d People, a Vengeful Pursuit after Reimbursement, upon a Biblical scale, that may beggar our Mission.”
Mason groans. “Shall wise Doctors one day write History’s assessment of the Good resulting from this Line, vis-à-vis the not-so-good? I wonder which List will be longer.”
“Hark! Hark! You wonder? That’s all?” One of the Enigmata of the Invisible World, is how a Voice unlocaliz’d may yet act powerfully as a moral Center. ’Tis the Duck speaking, naturally,— or, rather, artificially. “What about ‘care’? Don’t you care?”
“This Visto . . . is a result of what we have chosen, in our Lives, to work at,” Dixon bewilder’d that the Topick is even coming up, “— unlike some mechanickal water-fowl, we have to, what on our planet is styl’d, ‘work,’ . . . ?”
“Running Lines is what surveyors do,” explains Mason.
“Thankee, Mason,” says Dixon. “And one of the few things Star-gazing’s good for, is finding out where you are, exactly, upon the Surface of the Earth. Put huz two together with enough Axmen, you have a sort of Visto-Engine. Two Clients wish’d to have a Visto for one of their Boundaries. Here we are. What other reason should we be together for?”
“Thankee, Dixon,” says Mason.
Later that night, and, as he hopes, out of the Duck’s Hearing, Mason says, “I’ve been thinking about that Chicken today.”
“Aye, Ah knoah how lonely it gets out here, tho’ aren’t they said to be moody . . . ?”
“Only a moment, dear Colleague, pray you.— Suppose Right Lines cause Narcolepsy in all Fowl, including,—
“— the Duck,” Dixon exclaims. “Why aye! As in the Chinaman’s Refrain, there’s all thah’ Bad Energy, flowing there night and Day,— bad for us, anyhow. But for the Duck? Who knows? Mightn’t it, rather, be nourishing her? helping to increase her Powers,— even . . . uncommonly so?”
“Exactly. ’Twould explain her relentless Presence near it . . . humm . . . yes, the trick,— should we wish to play it,— would be to see to her perfect location upon the Line,— symmetrickally bisected.”
“Facing East, or West?”
“What matter? she can turn upon a farthing however fast she goes.”
“Pond-Larvae,” offers Armand, feeling like a Traitor, “— she still fancies them. . . .”
“A Decoy. We need a painted Wood representation of a Duck.”
“Tom Hynes is the very man, Sir, hand him a Pine Log and he’ll carve ye a Quacker ye can’t tell from real even close enough to scare it away.”
“It must look like an Automatick Duck, not a natural one.”
Tom does a better job on the Decoy, than he knows. Soon the Duck is spending hours, still’d, companionably close to the expressionless Object. One day, in an Access, she throws herself upon it, going to beak-bite its Neck, and of course the Truth comes out. “Wood.” For a moment it seems she will sigh, ascend, accelerate once more, back into her Realm of Velocity and Spleen. Instead, “Well, it’s a beginning,” she says. “It floats like a Duck,— it fools other Ducks, who are quite sophisticated in these matters, into believing it a Duck. It’s
a Basis. Complexity of Character might develop, in time. . . .” Quiet, good-looking, ever there to drop in on after a long Tour of Flying,— and where there’s one withal, why, there’s more of the same . . . Famine to Feast! Who needs bright Conversation?
“. . . and that’s why, around those foothills, some nights when the Wind is blowing backwards and the Moon’s just gone behind the Clouds, you can hear the Hum of her going by, due West, due East, and that forlorn come-back call, and then folks’ll say, “Tis the Frenchman’s Duck, out cruising the Line.’”
“Why doesn’t somebody set her free,” the children of settlers up and down the Line want to know. “Go in, get her, bring her out?”
“Not so easy. Anybody finds a chance to try it, she disappears. She’s like a Ghost who haunts a house, unable to depart.”
“A Ghost usually has unfinish’d Business. What, think you, detains the Duck?”
“A simple, immoderate Desire for the Orthogonal,” in the Opinion of Professor Voam, “which cannot allow her even the thought of life away from that much Straightness, the Leagues of perfect straightness, perfect alignment with Earth’s Spin,— flying back and forth, East and West, forever, the buffeting of the Magnetick currents, the ebb and flow of Nations over the Land-Surface, the Pulse and Breath of the solid Planet, the Dance with the Moon, the entire great Massive Progress ’round and ’round the Sun. . . .”
For a while after becoming a Resident of the Visto, the Duck accosts Travelers for Miles up and down the Line, ever seeking Armand. For a chance at Revenge, it is worth slowing into Visibility,— besides giving her an opportunity to chat. “Here,”— producing from some interior Recess a sheaf of Notices in print, clipp’d from various newspapers and Street-bills,— “here,— voilà, with the Flauteur, and the Tambourine-Player? in the Center, ’tis moi, moi. . . . Listen to what Voltaire wrote about me, to the Count and Countess d’Argental,—’ . . . sans la voix de la Le More et le Canard de Vaucanson, vous n’auriez rien que fit ressouvenir de la gloire de la France,’ all right? Le More, who’s that? some Soprano. Fine, I’m a big-hearted sort of Fille, the Glory of France certainly knows how to share a Stage. You think it was easy ev’ry night with those two Musicians? Listening again and again to that Ordure? You’d think now and then a little Besozzi, at least,— any Besozzi would’ve done. Relief? forget it, not in the Rooms we work’d. Took all my Stage Discipline not to start quacking along with those grand high C’s. One admires the man, genius Engineer, but his taste, musickally speaking, runs from None to Doubtful.
Mason & Dixon Page 74
