14
Jabez had taken Eliza with him to visit patients, whenever she felt well enough, and when she grew too weak to go out, he was grateful for the townsfolk who visited. He remembered with amusement his first meeting, in Cincinnati, with the lively Miss Canon and remembered with admiration her assistance the night of Mrs. Kreek’s delivery. She and his wife were so very different. Agnes Canon, statuesque, with aristocratic cheekbones, her chestnut hair flashing copper highlights, shouting health and well-being. Many times he arrived home to find they’d been sitting together, and he often tried to engage her in conversation, but she would pack up her workbag and hurry out, with a sideways look at him that may have been embarrassment.
As the end approached, he found excuses to be away from the house. The more he saw of death—violent, as in the southwest, tragic, as in the goldfields, gentle, as it came for Eliza—the more he sickened of the waste and the tragedy. Life itself was his religion, and to maintain and restore life was the reason he drove himself in his work. Being unable to stop its incursion into his own home left him helpless and angry. Having faced every other challenge, physical and mental, in the past forty years with enthusiasm, he could not face this.
So someone else was with Eliza when she died, and he was relieved and comforted to know that that someone was Miss Canon. He buried his wife in the cemetery on the hill, not far from the Jackson baby, not far from where they had all stood together at that small grave, and he grieved.
Book Two
15
July 1853
Agnes walked ten steps behind the cradler, a rhythmic motion: step and stoop from the waist, reach and gather the long yellow stalks of wheat, pull them close, shake them straight, flick the twine about the bundle, once, twice, twist and tuck the ends in the ancient binder’s knot, toss the sheaf to the side, step and stoop. Each sheaf improved, tidier than the last. Her movements became swifter and surer, her fingers recalling the motion, a skill she learned as a very young child and repeated summer after summer, one in a long line of children following the reapers in the heat and the dust. Only then she detested the chore. Now it is was pleasure, a contest, a challenge thrown down over July’s harvest picnic.
The Missouri farmland was still nearly virgin, the sweet heavy smell of rank vegetation, unbounded growth, an overwhelming richness of the prairie. Sam’s broad back ahead of her strong and straight, his muscled, competent arms swinging the cradle in a trance-making rhythm. The blade sang in a whisper through the ripe stalks, laying them neat and sure for her to gather and bundle, bind and toss, a lengthening swath through a field of gold like a moon path across a gently rolling lake. Over the waist-high wheat to her left, Billy cradled his path, and Jabez followed, stooping, gathering, bundling, binding, the two teams moving in choreographed cadence.
Jabez watched as she tossed her bundle. She circled the stalks with a twist of twine, then stole a look to the side. He saw her, shook his bundle and wrapped it deftly, his sheaf tidy and regular. She straightened her sheaf, twisted and tucked, a perfect knot. His sheaf flew through the air, he stooped and gathered again. She stooped and gathered, shook and straightened, wrapped, twisted, tucked, tossed. He tossed as she tossed. He turned to grin at her, teeth flashing white through that silky dark beard, and her unwise heart leapt.
He’d lost time to smiling and Agnes picked up the pace, winning the unspoken race, the twine already around the next sheaf. He stooped, gathered, straightened, all in one fluid move, his long fingers working surely, swiftly, as if the coarse twine were suture and the ripe golden stalks flesh. She stumbled over the rough stubble, but her sheaf was gathered and bound and tossed a half motion before his. He laughed, a deep, delighted laugh and without looking she knew he’d thrown back his head, his eyes dancing.
16
Missouri Democrat. August 29, 1853. The weather off Cape Horn is brutal. California-bound adventurers who choose to sail the Horn at the very bottom of the earth rather than cross the plains and desert or the Central American isthmus often find themselves on their knees in prayer in the midst of a storm of wind and rain and mountainous seas the color of slate. Murderous headwinds packed with snow and sleet and waves twice the height of the masts bear down on ships for days on end, sometimes blowing them back to the Atlantic with the viciousness of the devil himself, sometimes taking the ship and all its souls to the bottom of the sea. Few men who survive the crossing dare brave it again, and the memory of the power of the winds and the seas stays with them all their lives.
“Sanctimonious drivel,” Jabez growled, tossing down the newspaper. The journey he remembered was four months of pure, unadulterated hell: wormy food, stinking water, filth, vomit, lice, casual cruelties among passengers and crew. And overlying everything the constant smell of fear. Icy storms and mountainous seas were the least of it. Nothing romantic about it.
What amused him, though, was the juxtaposition of the account to a story about Missouri’s two cantankerous politicians. Senator Atchison and Congressman Benton were at each other’s throats this hot summer, railing about central railroads and Indian land, Nebraska and abolition and slavery in the territories. Here was a storm, Jabez thought, one that would make a squall off the Horn feel like a spring shower. He wondered if the author had seen the connection. If he hadn’t, his high-strung editor had. Frank Blair never missed an opportunity to make Atchison look bad and Benton look good.
Jabez removed his collar and stared over the town square, parched and deserted. He’d changed his shirt after the last patient but already the back had soaked through and clung to his shoulder blades. Heat danced in waves off the brick courthouse; the building shimmered like a live thing. The high temperatures seemed to exacerbate the rhetoric out of Washington and St. Louis. He glanced at the newsprint, smudged by sweat from his hands. Atchison said he’d see Nebraska “sink in hell”—though the paper printed it as “sink in h---”—before he’d let it go free soil. Atchison was cracked. He’d go to war to get his way. Maybe if he’d had to fight in Mexico and Texas instead of so enthusiastically sending other men to do it for him, he’d be singing a different tune.
He rubbed a big hand down his face to shut out images of that war. Broken bodies scattered over dusty wasteland, crawling with vermin and scavengers. Boys barely old enough to shave slashed by sabers, mewling like kittens, leaking out their lives in a foreign land. A chronic absence of medicine, clean linen, even water. Amputated limbs in great rotting piles. He couldn’t bear to think of it and yet the images haunted him.
Jabez dropped the paper to the floorboards, propped his boots on the rail and pulled out a cigar. He struck a match and puffed until the tip glowed, leaned back, raised his hand to the man cutting across the street toward him.
“Evening, Doc,” John Jackson said, lifting his hat and swiping at perspiration with a forearm. “Don’t get up.” Jabez waved him into the other chair and pulled out a second cigar. John shook his head. “Too damn hot. How you can light a match when it’s over a hundred out here is more than I can understand.”
Jabez grinned. “It’s all in the contrast. Pull the smoke into the lungs, and it appears cooler on the outside.” He stood, stepped into the house and returned with a decanter and two glasses. “How’s the family holding up in the heat?”
“Well enough. Suppose you’ve been called out to tend to folks?”
“Two cases of sunstroke today. Heat rash. Dehydration. Not much to be done about it.”
“My wife keeps talking about how cold it was last winter.” John took the glass of whiskey. “Can’t believe the change. I know we had heat and cold in Pennsylvania, but nothing like this.”
“That’s Missouri. Can’t do anything by halves.” Jabez sipped and smoked and thought he detected the beginnings of a breeze.
John pulled a booklet from his trousers pocket. “Ever seen this?”
Jabez set his glass on the rail and took the booklet. “A Manual of Freemasonry,�
�� he said. “I saw this floating around in the gold camps. Lots of Masons hunting gold.” He flipped open the cover to the motto on the flyleaf. “Ordo Ab Chao. Order out of chaos.” He looked at John and handed it back. “Well, that’s what this country needs. Can Masons pull that off?”
“We can try.” John pushed it back into his pocket. “You ever thought of joining?”
“My father-in-law was a Mason. He mentioned it once to me, but I never followed up.”
“Sam Canon and I joined a lodge back in Fayette County. We’re getting some of the other fellows together here, see if we can get a charter to start one up. Interested?”
“Maybe. What do you think a lodge can do?”
“Can’t hurt to set up some structure. There’s trouble coming.” John put his glass carefully on the rail, squaring it precisely with the edge. “Can’t help but think we’re going to need a reason for men to stick together in spite of their differences. Masonry tends to do that.”
Jabez nodded and rocked. The thought of those bloody, broken bodies flashed again. Any straw to grasp.… “What do I have to do?”
Jabez blinked in the dim light. He’d climbed to the second floor of the old courthouse building, a drafty wooden structure that Hank Sterrett had turned into a shop for women’s dress goods once the new brick courthouse was finished. The raw October wind heaved through chinks in the walnut weatherboarding, and he shook rainwater from his hat brim. The stairs opened into a tiny chamber in the southeast corner. A single candle flickered from a sconce, and Jabez’s first thought was that it was too close to the gimcrack partitions. A figure waited at the top of the stairs, back to the candle, face in shadow. All Jabez could see of him was a fringe of thinning hair, a gleam of shirt front and a patch of white at his waist. Without a word, the man stepped forward and led Jabez through a curtained door. The second room was lit by a spirit lamp and in the increased light, he could see that the man who clutched his elbow was Jacob Mosier, whom Jabez had treated for shingles in early September. The silent man gave no indication that he recognized the doctor, so Jabez bit off his greeting.
They stood in shadowy silence while a series of rappings, a shuffle of feet, an occasional cough, emanated from a back room. This is foolishness, Jabez thought. This must have been the type of thing Eliza had experienced at séances, another activity full of nonsense. Three more raps sounded, and Jabez coughed to disguise a laugh. Surely the spirits had established contact.
The knocks must have signaled action, as Mosier moved to open the door into the main room. Four men emerged, all in frockcoats with a swath of linen or leather at their waists. The room behind them reeked of sweat, stale tobacco and pomade. Jabez’s view into it was blocked, and the door was drawn to after the last man. Bill Price, a miller from out Forest City way, led the group. Frank Cayton followed him, along with two men Jabez didn’t know. None of the men acknowledged Jabez. Price stopped in front of him and folded his hands.
He cleared his throat and settled his glance over Jabez’s left shoulder. “Do you seriously declare,” he said without preamble, his voice solemn and deeper than Jabez remembered it, “upon your honor that you freely and voluntarily offer yourself a candidate for the mysteries of Masonry?”
Jabez nodded. “I do.”
“Do you seriously declare, upon your honor that you solicit the privileges of Masonry by a desire for knowledge and a sincere wish of being serviceable to your fellow creatures?”
“I do.” Jabez noted the definite similarity to the marriage ceremony.
Price turned and disappeared into the back room, closing the door noiselessly behind him.
Now Cayton stepped forward. “I’m Junior Deacon, Doctor Robinson,” he said. It was the first hint that any of them remembered his name. “I must ask you now to remove your clothing.”
Jabez’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked to Mosier. Mosier’s face remained impassive. “Just down to shirt and trousers, sir,” Cayton said in his squeaky voice. “Please remove boots and stockings as well. And empty your pockets of change. Also, Jacob will hold your watch.” Mosier held out his hand.
Jabez did as he was instructed and when he stood, barefoot and in shirtsleeves, one of the strangers slipped behind him and passed a kerchief over his eyes. Jabez started, a momentary sense of panic quickening his blood. His hands lifted to the hoodwink, but Cayton—he assumed it was Cayton—grasped them and pulled his arms to his side. “No need to be concerned, Doctor, this is all part of the purification process.”
Cayton proceeded to unbutton Jabez’s shirt, but left it tucked into the waistband, and another man slipped the shirt off his left shoulder and arm, leaving his chest half bared. Someone rolled his left trouser leg to his knee, pushed his right foot into a slipper. It was all horribly childish.
But then they slipped the rope around his neck. It settled over his head, and he smelled the pungent odor of sisal, felt the scratch of fibers against his collarbone. The tail of the rope dragged down his back and swayed against his calves.
“A noose?” he growled. The ceremony no longer seemed like child’s play, and in the complete darkness behind the mask, his control slipped.
“No, no,” the high voice of Frank Cayton came to him. “A cable-tow only. A lifeline, the silver cord.” Jabez’s mind drifted to scenes of men dangling, of a row of slaves lashed together by the neck. The rope lay hot against his skin. “. . . or ever the silver cord be loosed,” Frank said. “Ecclesiastes.” He grasped Jabez by the elbow and guided him into the back room.
Jabez struggled, not entirely successfully, to beat back the sense of floating through a shadowy world of phantasms. More knocks sounded, he was led forward, halted, spoken to. His left breast was touched by something cold and sharp, and he thought of the scaler in his dental kit. Questions were asked. Frank Cayton answered for him at first, and then John’s voice took over. Jabez’s sense of comfort increased under John’s guidance, and he responded as he was prompted though he had little comprehension of the meaning of the stilted phrases. Once he heard Sam Canon’s bass tones, but most of the examination was conducted by someone he thought might be J.W. Moodie. J.W. had a curious hitch in his voice, the result of scar tissue from badly extracted tonsils. Once his guides manipulated his feet into an odd posture and lowered him to his knees. He swore oaths on what he supposed must be a Bible, and the hoodwink was stripped away.
The glare of three tapers surrounding an alter pierced his eyes. He was conscious of a mass of men filling the room, and once again he felt vulnerable. What if this was all an elaborate prank? Were they making fun of him? Was this a sort of hazing, the kind fellows do in those silly secret societies in eastern universities? Choler rising, he glared around the room, but there were no smirks, no muffled snickers, only a quiet and deep solemnity. John watched him with the expression of a proud father, so Jabez tamped down his suspicions and did what he was next instructed to do.
And then it was over, and Jabez was allowed to don his clothing and reclaim his valuables, and when he returned, the big room was cleared of alter and candles, rugs and trappings, and bottles of whiskey and beer had appeared along with plates of oysters and cheeses and pastries. The pastries were courtesy of Ira Irvine, the baker, who leaned against a wall talking to Frank Cayton. John slapped his shoulder and congratulated him. Sam, too, shook his hand and then Mr. Moodie and Bill Price and Jacob Mosier. Jabez surveyed the room. It was no more fey than any smoky tavern on a stormy night. Men laughed and joked and drank as if there had been no white aprons, no star-studded collars, no compasses balanced on open Bibles. Doctor Norman was there, along with Foster the attorney and Mr. Collins the schoolmaster. Galen Crow, who’d fulfilled some part of the earlier ceremony in his Tennessee voice, stood shoulder to shoulder with Rufus Byrd. The one an Atchison supporter, the other a Benton man, they rarely met without breaking into political argument. Two of the Zooks, the banker Jace Biggers, an
d Peter McIntosh lifted their glasses to the newest brother. Even Reuben Bigelow and Francis Kunkel abided each other’s company for the sake of the brotherhood. Maybe there was something to this, Jabez thought as he accepted a glass from John and a cigar from Frank Cayton. In the outside world, most of these men harbored deep-seated grudges against one or another of their fellows, but in this room differences lay low or disappeared entirely. Maybe there was a straw to be grasped.
17
The first thing Jabez saw when he stepped through the Jacksons’ front door was a small balsam perched on a table covered with cotton batting, its fresh scent filling the room. His acquaintance with Christmas trees was limited, his acquaintance with Christmas celebrations even more so. Back in Maine, the Robinsons ignored Christmas, and the festivity struck him as delightfully pagan.
“Welcome, Robinson!” John’s voice lifted over the confusion of sound rising from a crowd of young ones clustered at the foot of the tree, racing up and down the stairs, or huddled under the makeshift table of trestles and planks that dominated the front parlor. “Make yourself at home, be right with you.”
Jabez hung his damp overcoat and hat on the pegs behind the door and found his hands grasped on one side by James, on the other by Rebecca.
“Come see our tree,” Rebecca squealed, eyes big and smile bigger.
Agnes Canon's War Page 9
