Woodsburner

by John Pipkin

  His legs grow tired, and he feels heavy breaths scraping the bottom of his lungs, dredging up a coppery paste. He contracted a sickness nine years earlier, and as a result his lungs are often feeble things, unwilling to tolerate the exertions he demands of them. They are the reluctant engines of his excursions, sometimes weighing on him like stowaways. He has to pamper them during the days of cold and damp, but not today. He imagines his chest is made of tempered steel. He forces himself to run faster than he feels capable of running, through thickening woods, past budding oaks and birches and white pines, past alders and maples—two more miles to town, by his estimate. In all likelihood, Edward will reach it first by boat, but there is still a chance that Henry will find help along the way, someone who might sound an alarm or carry word ahead of him by faster means.

  On his left, the woods begin to thin, then open onto a cleared field, and Henry sees a man behind a pair of oxen, plowing his dry fields. The man pauses and watches him stumble through the undergrowth. Henry waves his arms above his head as if he were drowning. Urgency does not permit him to consider his appearance.

  “Help! Fire!”

  That is what Henry yells, but the words come out thin and damp, with hardly a breath to ride on; they sound more like coughs than discernible bits of language. The farmer does not leave his oxen; he is not interested enough to come nearer, but curiosity keeps him from plowing on. He waits for Henry to trip out of the tangled brambles and half run, half hobble up to him, pausing every few steps to catch his breath.

  “There … is … a… fire …”

  The farmer looks at Henry's head as if it were a tree stump to be cleared from the land.

  “You are trespassing, sir,” the farmer says, casting his eyes possessively over the woods abutting his field. Henry follows the farmers eyes, knows that the man must be able to see the smoke behind him. With each passing moment, the fire claims another tree, and Henry cannot fathom why the man is so slow to offer aid.

  “Please.” Henry can hardly breathe. He sees brilliant flashes of color at the corners of his eyes and is afraid that he might faint. “It is moving … rapidly. I require your assistance … at once.”

  The farmer makes a show of squinting, as if he were trying to decipher a message scrawled above the horizon. He removes his straw hat, the wide brim frayed like a collection of loose match-sticks, scratches at his long gray muttonchops, then draws a line through the air with hat and hand.

  “The land from there to there belongs to me. My trees, my property.”

  Not quite understanding, still dizzied from his exertions, Henry points to the faint wisp of smoke beyond the invisible boundary.

  “The … woods … are … burning.”

  “I see no fire in my woods,” the man says sharply. “Whatever lies beyond is not mine.”

  Henry is dumbfounded by the absurd possibility that the man will leave him without promising aid. He feels he can run no farther; his lungs will not tolerate it. He waves his arms weakly and stomps the ground with tired feet, trying to circulate some life back into them. He can hear the regret in his own voice and wishes he did not sound so like a child.

  “I have set a fire, sir… and it is spreading. I must have your help.”

  The frayed hat returns to the farmer's head. He grabs the reins decisively and barks something to the oxen, which resume pulling the plow's heavy blade through the baked soil.

  “Your fire is none of my stuff,” the farmer says. “Please keep it, and yourself, off my property.”

  Henry's fear is realized then. He can think of nothing he might say to convince this man of the dire threat looming in the woods. What this man cannot claim as his own, he appears content to disregard. The farmer turns and, without so much as a glance at the darkening plume, resumes his work. Henry is astonished. He had not thought he would encounter indifference, had not considered that he might have difficulty finding help. When these woods are lost, Henry thinks, the loss will be felt by all, not just by the man who wields ownership of the land.

  Back through the woods, Henry must keep running, heavy legs swinging like upright scissors, cutting half successfully through knotted vegetation and dried effigies from the last season: calyx, flagroot, thoroughwort, cinquefoil, tower mustard, nightshade. A few months hence, he would normally expect to see a profusion of trumpetweed, honeysuckle, Virginian Rhexia, drooping Neottia, and the bright yellow button buds of tansy, but he doubts that the charred earth behind him will adorn itself with such a display this summer. Even now, the hopeful roots and seedlings of summer's fruit lie curled expectantly beneath the cold soil, unaware of their dismal future. Henry trips, falls, scrapes his knees through the coarse fabric of his pants, and is up again and running. He does not stop, though it strikes him as useless, this desperate flight. With each step, the fire claims another inch of woods. Henry can do nothing to halt its progress as he runs toward uncertain aid. And what is to keep him from walking away? The fire cannot touch him where he is now. Nothing prevents him from disavowing knowledge of the fire and its origin. He and Edward could have entered into such an agreement and then set out in different directions, feigning ignorance, keeping their agency to themselves, leaving their reputations unscathed.

  He cannot help but wonder how he came so suddenly to be in this predicament, after such a peaceful morning. If he were to stop running and stand still in this quiet part of the Concord Woods, there would seem to be no cause for concern. As long as he tells no one, the tragedy seems as yet not quite real. Then he thinks of Edward, paddling with the current, carrying the news to an unsuspecting audience. The fire exists only for the two of them, for now. How many people, Henry wonders, must recognize a thing for it to be real?

  They will say that only a fool would have struck a match on a day such as today. An accusation to which one might retort that only a fool would consent to give a match to a man who announced the intention to use it on a day such as today, and yet they had found just such a man. Strange fortune. Henry and Edward possessed no match when they started. At the day's beginning, they had no means to cause this tragedy. The insignificant events that occurred to make the fire possible were few compared with the multitude of conditions that might have prevented it. What if the shoemaker they happened upon near the river had not possessed a match? What if he had been unwilling to give them one? What if the matches had been damp? What if it had rained? What if Henry had simply told Edward that he did not have a taste for fish chowder? How rapidly the unplanned cause produces the unexpected effect. It takes only a moment to reverse all the moments that have come before.

  Just a day earlier, Henry felt certain that he had arrived at the solution to his lifelong indecision. Should he teach, or farm, or write, or take up a trade? Should he be an observer of men, a philosopher, a chronicler of the world in which so many live and that so many ignore? Should he build things? The young country needs homes and roads and bridges and machines of all sorts in order to advance and improve men's lives. Henry's untested skills are many and they vie for his attention, but, only yesterday, he believed that he had at last conquered their dissidence, and he thought the occasion a fit cause for taking a holiday on the river. The result is not what he envisioned, but his determination is unchanged. When he returns home from this misadventure, he thinks, he will solidify his new commitment in the journal that he began seven years earlier. He composes the new entry in his head as he runs. He will write this down to ensure that he does not drift from his true purpose:

  Having passed the greater part of my life mired in indecision, I have decided at last how I intend to pass the balance of my days. The Dial is finished, and so is that corner of my being. There will be no other magazine to publish my simple poems and wandering thoughts. The world before me is of too much consequence to be merely observed. I must spread roots in it and become a man of practical concerns. Henceforth I shall sign my name Henry David Thoreau—Civil Engineer. The world does not want for another self-assured scribbler, posse
ssed of a surfeit of words and little of necessity to say. What use has our world of another such man? What progress can be hoped from these labors? To have a tangible effect, to feel the weight of one's accomplishment in the palm of one's own hand—progress with heft!—this is the divine union of invention and reward. I have decided! I shall make pencils, still. I shall make their manufacture and perfection my work. The drill, the saw, the lathe—these shall be my tools. Plumbago and Bavarian clay, minerals from earth, galvanic batteries, baked pencil leads—these shall be my trade. Far better than the ungrounded ideas and airy pursuits that frustrate those men who would call themselves my contemporaries.

  It was Edward who had insisted on a fish chowder, and Henry might have refused, argued against it. But he did not, so he cannot disburden himself of the responsibility. He cannot wriggle free from the logic that has clamped shut upon some guilty lobe of his brain. Every second of every day, a man is the sum effect of every second that has touched him before; he routinely encounters influences that will produce changes and actions that he cannot begin to predict or understand. And yet to acknowledge the complexity of these causes and motives was not to disallow agency. In that, all men are equal, even the cloistered monk— equally innocent, equally guilty. A man is not wholly responsible for what he becomes, but he is absolutely accountable for who he is.

  Henry keeps running, though not so fast as before. His legs have become heavy posts, and his chest feels as though it is about to collapse under its own weight. His heart pounds against his sternum as if it might burst from his chest. Henry begins to worry that he will not make it to Concord, that he will expire right here, alone, and be overtaken by the flames. And then he sees that he is not alone in the woods after all. There is another wanderer ahead, a stout man with a crooked walking stick. Henry drops to one knee; not in supplication, he simply can no longer stand. The stout man approaches, and Henry again makes his breathless plea.

  His panting comes in a deafening rush, and he cannot hear himself speak. To his own ears the words sound like choking. But the other man understands; his reply indicates as much.

  “A fire, you say?”

  The stout man tries to keep an eye on his dog—a spotted hound of some indiscernible origin, the bastard offspring of immigrant dogs. The man looks around for verification of Henry's claim.

  “Where is this fire?”

  “A mile …” Henry can hardly sacrifice the breath needed for speech. “A mile or so … perhaps more.”

  The man whistles for his dog, contemplates the direction Henry indicates.

  “You are certain?”

  Henry nods emphatically, still kneeling, greedily gulping air, hoping he will not need to run farther. “Yes … yonder … it is a furious beast.”

  “Impossible. I was there this morning. There was no fire.”

  “Believe me.” Henry pleads between heavy breaths. “It is very large … and moving with great speed.”

  “It cannot be,” the man says, though he sounds unconvinced by his own reasoning. “There is, in the direction you indicate, a sizable plot of land belonging to me. And I lit no fire there this morning. Why would any man set fire to trees not his own?”

  Henry has neither time nor breath to argue that the converse would appear equally illogical. “We did not intend to do so … we only lit a small fire … but this wind … I am certain it has spread the flames … halfway to Fair Haven Hill by now …”

  “Fair Haven Hill? If that's true, it will go to Concord. What kind of fire have you started? Do you mean to burn down the town?”

  The stout man calls to his dog, and together the three turn back in the direction Henry has come, eight legs leaping over roots and vines. The stout man is surprisingly agile, and he lends Henry a supportive arm more than once. They smell it long before they see it. They hear a roar that reminds Henry of the deafening crack of spring ice on Walden Pond, and they feel the rush of heat carried on the wind. The man whose woods are becoming ash mutters as they run. Lord Almighty! Lord Almighty! When they reach the first tendrils of smoke exploring the untouched woods they come upon a terrified old man with an ax and an empty sack, hurrying in the opposite direction. His eyes are wide, his face streaked with soot, and his few gray hairs float about his head like cobwebs. He tells them he is a carpenter, come to collect dead wood, but the fire chased him away. He says the blaze is fierce and spreading quickly. He urges them to turn back, and then he runs away.

  The stout man watches the carpenter flee, looks at Henry, and says only, “Lord Al-might-y!”

  They continue on, but they do not need to travel as far as Henry has come; the fire graciously meets them halfway. The dog runs at a syncopated gait, as if the ground were hot, and barks ecstatically, not at the fire but at the legion of woodchucks and squirrels and rabbits racing toward them, a rippling carpet of brown and gray fear.

  When they finally arrive, they cannot believe that they could not see it before, cannot believe that there are not flames reaching to the heavens. The fire has spread out along the ground, and its path seems at least a half mile wide. The woods beyond are obscured by dark smoke, and they can hear the sounds of chirping birds fooled into thinking it is dusk. Henry and the stout man stomp along the leading edge of the flames thinking they can fight it back, slow its progress. It is only a grass fire among the trees, they lie to themselves, an ankle-high intruder. Henry's foot is large and leaves a substantial black imprint. The other man's feet are smaller, but he works with apoplectic determination, short legs pumping high, elbows flying. The dog is of no help at all. Henry remembers a centuries-old woodcut he once saw reproduced in a book: a line of grinning skeletons dancing knock-kneed amid orderly tongues of flame—Der Totentanz. Together they perform their own death dance, hopping madly over the burning earth, before admitting that it is a hopeless job for two men and a well-meaning dog.

  The stout man says that he and his dog will go for help since, after all, his property is a part of the land engulfed. Henry agrees to remain behind to keep an eye on the fire. He is momentarily relieved; spent from running nearly two miles, he can barely lift his legs, and his chest feels as though it were being squeezed in the steel jaws of a trap. The stout man suggests that Henry retreat to higher ground. Fair Haven Hill is near and will provide an excellent vantage point from which to observe the destruction and wait for aid. On his own, Henry can do nothing to deter the fire's advance, but both men agree that it is best not to leave the cunning flames unwatched.

  6

  Oddmund

  “Odd-mund!”

  Her voice, when it finally reaches him, has its usual effect, makes him feel as though he is already drifting toward her. His body responds without waiting for consent, shifting its center of balance forward, and he leans on his pitchfork to ride out the dizzying current. He tries to acknowledge her call, but the shout catches on his tongue. Emma Woburn hollers for him again, her voice high and clear in the crisp air, stripped of its Irish lilt by the distance it travels from the weather-beaten porch of the white house, and in the far corner field Odd feels his throat constrict. He knows why she is calling. He knows she sees the smoke rising from the woods. It is a heavy cloud now, impossible to miss, no longer something that might be mistaken for morning vapors. Odd sucks at his tiny dead tooth and twists his pitchfork in the brushfire. Emma will want him to look into the cause of the smoke, or worse.

  Odd wipes his brow with the back of his hand, checks the flecks of ash smeared like drops of ink across his knuckles. Sweat darkens his shirt unevenly, making him look as though he had spent the morning napping on his side in a patch of damp grass. Parts of his body are dead at the surface, stiff as untanned leather. His left forearm and the left flank of his chest no longer perspire, not even when he is hard at work under the summer sun. As he watches the menacing smoke thicken in the distance, the whorled skin from elbow to wrist begins to tingle, restraining what lies beneath. There is no denying it. Something has sparked a fire among the trees. Emm
a calls out again, and Odd wishes he could cup her voice in his palms, scoop it out of the air like so much water, and hold it to his ear behind locked fingers, a sound to be heard only by him.

  Odd lays the pitchfork on the ground, picks up a shovel, and throws a heaping of dirt onto the small fire within the circle of stones. He grimaces as the impact sends forth plumes of expiring cinders like swarming gnats; he watches how eagerly they fly overhead, weightless fragments of disorder floating impossibly far, darting erratically toward the trees just as the frightened mouse had done earlier. Surely his cinders could not have drifted all the way to the woods, he thinks; surely he is not the cause of the smoke hanging above the trees. But he knows people will look for someone to blame, and he can already hear the accusations. It was too dry, they will grumble, much too dry to burn brush safely, and only a fool would do so in such a wind. He should never have agreed to clear the far corner today, even if it meant suffering Mr. Woburn's unpredictable anger.

  Odd heaves more dirt onto his fire. Flyaway sprigs ignite, but there is little to sustain the fire now; he has doomed it to expire from hunger. Still, he dares not leave it unattended. He will make sure it is dead before he answers Emma's call. Perhaps he can pretend not to have noticed the smoke rising from the woods. For a moment he hopes that she has not seen it, that she will not ask him to go looking for an explanation. He rehearses what he will say to her, observations about the morning, the condition of the fields, and perhaps a compliment for her appearance. No. That will never do. He will make no comment on how she looks. He must be sure he takes no notice of what she is wearing. Any expectant pleasure is blunted now by the thought of the unmentionable thing on the clothesline. There will be no way for him to resist looking for hints of it beneath the contours of her dress. He shovels dirt onto the fire slowly, taking his time, trying to delay the inevitable. If Emma asks about the smoke above the woods, he will not make excuses. He set out a circle of stones, kept the fire small, fed it slowly, extinguished it as soon as the wind became too strong. He will simply do whatever she asks of him, and he will not let his eyes wander in search of the undergarment. Odd tamps a smoldering tangle with the back of the shovel. He cannot understand why the troubles life throws at him do not arrive one at a time instead of by the handful.