by Paul Boor
Adam stepped onto the ice and chose the first square, or “header cake.” He ceremoniously cracked the cake free with his breaker bar and sank it under the sheet of ice, thus starting the first channel to the icehouse. Raising his bar overhead, Van Horne’s right-hand man gave the command.
“Okey-dokey, boys. Let’s bring in some ice!”
Cakes were floated to shore; channels began to stretch across the lake. Shouts of “Get a move on!” rang out. In the icehouse, Nicolas adjusted his steam-driven conveyor and ice planer. Adam stoked the steam engine with oak, smoke billowed from the engine’s stack, and belts began to whirl.
Nicolas dispatched Abigail to Forestport to raise fifteen more workers, bringing the crew to its full complement of thirty—all the bunkhouse would hold, and the most Cookie could feed.
Adam put in an order for a case of whiskey. “Don’t worry, boss,” he said. “I’ll keep ’er under lock and key till the icehouse is full.”
At the icehouse entrance, Nicolas watched over his ice planer as it ground the surface of each cake smooth and blue. Nicolas had every tenth cake diverted to another of his inventions, the stationary ice saw, which cut smaller blocks of irregular sizes and shapes.
Watching the saw work made Nicolas chuckle over how the patent officers at the U.S. Patent Office in Albany had marveled at its design. The Albany bureaucrats were totally baffled by his need for a mechanized, stationary saw in his icehouse. Traditionally, cakes of ice were cut by hand at the time of home delivery by the most skilled of ice men, the “ice breaker,” who, with a single blow of his ice axe, divided the larger three-foot cakes into blocks of any size. Why, then, would this seemingly sane Van Horne fellow cut his cakes smaller in the icehouse, into a myriad of odd shapes, and with such uncanny accuracy? Was he filling an icehouse or building ice castles? Nicolas always smiled at the thought of Albany’s patent men. They simply couldn’t fathom true Yankee ingenuity, and, of course, they had no idea about the tunnels and catacombs Nicolas and Adam fashioned deep in the hold of his ships with these odd-sized, irregularly shaped blocks of ice.
The doc from Old Forge, a wheezy, portly old sawbones by the name of Shaughnessy, arrived at sunset. Cookie allowed that the doc’s late arrival was designed so he’d be fed supper. After putting his instrument to Little Jacky’s chest, Shaughnessy proclaimed, “Too early to know for sure,” . . . and sat right down at the dining table. The only advice he gave for his fee of two gold eagles was to instruct Cookie to “keep the boy warm and feed him plenty of strong, hot tea.”
“How much tea?” Cookie asked.
“As much as he can stand. And for heaven’s sake, don’t make the poor boy go out in the snow to pee.”
“You might check Old Jack, too,” Cookie suggested dryly. “He’s not been out of bed.”
After supper, Doc Shaughnessy spent a goodly amount of time examining the elder Casler. “His breathing’s a bit labored,” he told Nicolas, puzzling over Jack’s condition. “He’s grumbling about chest discomfort, too . . . but then, he’s got an old man’s heart. My guess is, he’ll be fine. ’Course the man’s pushing eighty, so no guarantees on that . . . Golly it’s late. Don’t mind if I stay over, do you?”
The doc checked Jacky the next morning, gravely assigning the youngster to “the will of our Lord” and to a fretful Cookie, who was brewing tea by the quart. Then he settled down to breakfast. The table was abuzz, waiting for the boss man to speak. Nicolas stood and raised his arms for quiet.
“Listen, gents. Adam measured twenty-two inches at the shoreline this morning, so I’m firing up the new plow. We’ve plenty of gasoline, and she’s ready to go.”
Three rounds of “Hip, hip, hurrah!” shook Cookie’s shanty.
That afternoon, to more cheers from the crew, little Jacky Casler climbed onto the shine sleigh with his pal Samuel and their new understudy, Knox. Every man watched as the boys zigzagged crazily across Upper Spy. By nightfall the jubilant crew had cut thirty acres of ice with the new Van Horne ice plow, twice what they’d managed in the first two days.
On the next morning—the fourth day of the harvest—the breakfast table was unearthly quiet. Whispers drifted down the line; platters of flapjacks sat untouched. Nicolas stepped in and stood at the end of the table, a grim look on his face.
“I guess most of you’ve heard the bad news. Old Jack left us last evening. We found him next to his bunk at midnight, bless the old boy’s soul. I guess Doc Shaughnessy didn’t know how bad the old boy’s heart really was and, well . . . that dunking set him back. So let’s have a moment of silence here, get some food in you, and we’ll get out on the ice. That’s the way Old Jack would’ve wanted it.”
A murmur of approval circled round the table. Chairs scraped as everyone stood. For a long moment, there was only the whisper of a wintry breeze at the frosted windows.
The crew wrapped the old man’s body in quilts and set it next to the bunkhouse. By the time the men were cracking and floating the first blocks of ice, Old Jack was hard as marble.
For the next three days, Van Horne’s gas-powered ice plow belched thick, black smoke. Its three-foot rotary blade whirred. The icehouse conveyer and planer devoured great quantities of oak and charcoal, and rumbled well past dusk. Giant floats of ice, dozens of cakes in breadth, were cut and solemnly pulled by two teams of horses to the icehouse to be divided.
With a single week’s labor at the end of March, the crew had filled the Van Horne icehouse, every room stacked to the top, three stories high. Open water, black and still, stretched halfway across the lake. They fed and groomed the horses, oiled and put up the ice tools. Then the weather broke, the mercury rose, and spring rain poured down in sheets.
Nicolas and Adam stood on the shore without bothering to put on slickers. In dripping woolens, they tried to light cigars. Nicolas stared blankly at the undulating surface of Upper Spy, a soggy, unlit cigar in his hand.
“Nearly fifty-five thousand tons,” he said with a resigned smile.
“Damned shame about Old Jack though.”
“Did they pack plenty of ice around him in the wagon?”
“Yep. Betcha he’s at Chubb’s place already.”
“Guess we’ll have a funeral to attend.”
“Look at it this way, boss. Come next winter, there’s three boys be stepping out on the ice to take Old Jack’s place.”
“Including Knox.”
“Yep. That’s the way things work.”
That evening the men polished off a stringer of lake trout, stuffed themselves on Cookie’s cheese potatoes and blueberry pie, and cracked open the case of whiskey. Merriment rang out.
It was well past midnight before Nicolas and Abigail slogged down the path to the Van Horne camp. Before retiring, they warmed themselves in the kitchen and listened to the steady drumming of rain on the tin roof. Drunken shouts echoed across the lake.
Abigail asked, “Did you notice how antsy the men got when Old Jack went down to the village?”
“He was thawing out, Abby.”
“But the men talk. The whole town talks, Father.”
“You know I’d never allow Thomas to misplace Old Jack’s body. Never.”
“I know it and you know it, but in the village . . .”
43
A Correspondence Is Established
2 April 1889
Galveston Island
My dear Nick,
First, a confession, dear friend. Since your departure, it has been my greatest fear that your memories of the South would wane & I would never again hear from my new friend. But no! Your eagerly awaited letter arrived today.
I have read your lovely letter at least a hundred times & I see how your feelings go. I confess that I, too, think often of our brief time together. As you suggest, a correspondence of some regularity will allow us to explore these avenues of thought.
Please forgive me, Nick, for not bidding you farewell at the station. I am not one for sad departures & my work in the laboratory c
onstantly beckons. Rest assured that I think of you, kind sir, perhaps more than you imagine.
I am pleased to report that our experiments go well. Uncle & I are confident that an anti-toxoid will be devised. As to whether we can perfect my methods to produce an effective treatment before summer, I have serious doubts. My trials with the human cells take time & we must be certain before we move on to develop the anti-toxoid in horses. It is work that cannot be hurried, no matter how great our dread of the next epidemic.
One disturbing bit of news. You undoubtedly recall how our local supplier of cadavers met an untimely death before your departure. No investigation of the horrid incident has been undertaken (I suspect Mr. Sealy intervened in that regard) but now Uncle Francis & our faculty are at wits’ end to find a supplier. I know, Nick, that I advised you to steer clear of that perilous business, but now I ask you to do the opposite & consider delivering again to Uncle this resource our school so desperately needs. Exercise special care in doing so. Let me know the possibilities & your plan.
Experiments are calling & so I must end this now with the hope that you will respond with greatest speed. Until the joyous arrival of your next correspondence, with my warmest regards, I remain,
your admirer,
Renée Keiller
PS: Of course I received the lovely feathers & the fan, you silly boy. My warmest heartfelt thanks, sir. I keep both at my bedside so that I may see them when I first open my eyes each day. That is proof of something, is it not?
*****
14 April 1889
Forestport, New York
Dear Renée,
I’ve just returned from the final ice harvest with my hopes keen for word from you. How positively thrilling that I find among my correspondence a letter posted from Galveston. I make a brief response herewith; a more thoughtful missive shall follow closely.
I am taken with the simplicity & candor of your letter. It is with the same candor that I tell you of my thoughts. This vile body trade I have carved for myself continues full force & yes I shall have future supplies for your college. Of this I am certain. But this business wears on me. Complications have developed. I am greatly puzzled by how a few of these bodies have come to me. Facts I’ve discovered in Buffalo lead me to think something heinous is afoot & I wish you were here to afford me your valued opinion.
With regard to the business of ice, I am toying with the idea of constructing a Van Horne icehouse in Galveston. No better deal might be struck, I suspect, than to supply my pure & precious commodity to your tropical climate. What do you make of this proposal? Please take pen in hand and tell me your opinion. I ardently await the postal delivery that will bring me more of your admirable thoughts.
With my utmost good wishes,
yrs most sincerely,
Nick
44
A Funeral in the Village
The morning of Old Jack’s funeral dawned sunny and crisp. The ground was frozen, the snow still piled high, but by late morning, when Nicolas and Abigail walked down Main Street to pay their respects, the snowbanks had begun to drip.
Nicolas chose a freshly starched shirt and collar, tied on a dark cravat, and donned a jacket of lighter wool. He planned the usual excuses about his wife’s not being “up to snuff.” It was the truth, after all. Ruth was at her window, morose and silent in spite of the beautiful spring day. Nicolas hadn’t bothered to tell her about Old Jack. She’d hear of it, he was sure. Rumormongering and dwelling on the latest village passing were the favorite avocations of the Valdis coterie of melancholic ladies.
When Nicolas and Abigail entered the front parlour of Chubb’s Funeral Home, the languid, gloomy strains of a popular tune drifted from the adjacent parlour, where the undertaker sat still as a statue at his Steinway. Adam fidgeted on a side bench with his wife, Gert, and his eldest son, who’d worked the woods with Old Jack last fall. Every soul in the village knew Old Jack. The settees, sofas, and benches of the place were filled.
Nicolas approached the coffin with Abby in tow. He paused to give a nod and a wave to the boys, Little Jacky, Samuel, and Knox, who sat in the corner, all well scrubbed and suited out in their Sunday best. The new boy Knox wore an ill-fitting borrowed suit. He stared glumly at the body of Old Jack in its open coffin and didn’t acknowledge Nicolas’s wave.
The music faded. Chubb put an end to the piece just as Nicolas and Abigail presented themselves to the line of Old Jack’s relatives. Jack’s brother—a geezer who was an exact image of Old Jack—stepped forward and offered his hand.
“Van Horne. Good to see you—” The brother’s voice cracked. Visibly silenced by grief, he managed a faint smile. Nicolas and Abigail offered condolences.
“Sure are worse ways to go,” Jack’s brother said, shaking his head. “He’d a wanted it this way.”
“There was no better man on a scraper or an ice plow.”
The older gent stepped back, allowing others to take Nicolas’s and Abigail’s hands and smile at the Van Hornes’ conciliatory remarks. When they arrived at the coffin, a younger woman with a narrow, pinched face and small, metallic eyes stepped forward and scowled.
“You’re Van Horne, aren’t you?” she asked, a flush of emotion rising up her neck. “The ice man?” She didn’t offer her hand, leaving Nicolas’s arm dangling in the air between them.
Nicolas nodded.
“You’ve got some nerve,” she said, her voice rising shrilly in the sudden silence that overtook Thomas Chubb’s establishment. “Come to view a body you’re fixing to steal, are you?”
“I . . . I . . . ,” Nicolas stammered.
“You’ll not succeed in your grave robbin’ with my grandpa, I’ll tell you, sir. I’ve purchased Mr. Chubb’s finest casket. He seals ’em with lead, makes ’em impervious to the likes of you.”
Disconcerted, Nicolas stepped back and rose to his full height. “I should like to know,” he asked of the other young lady standing by Old Jack’s casket, “who it is that advises this misguided lady.”
Thomas Chubb, master of funereal proceedings, wisely chose the moment to come down hard on his ivory keys with an “Ave Maria” that would’ve made Schubert weep. The other women pulled on the belligerent’s arms, murmuring to her.
“No, I’ll not hush!” the woman grumbled, trying to shake free. “I heard all about him and his dirty little business.”
Nicolas hurried Abigail to the coffin to give the body a once-over. This was not the Old Jack he’d known on the ice of Upper Spy Lake. The body was laid out in a dark grey worsted suit like nothing the old boy had ever owned. Jack’s once-rosy and hale countenance was crudely powdered and rouged over, his knobby hands were folded in an immovable pose, his hair was parted perfectly down the middle, and his bush of a beard had been brushed and curled like a dandy’s.
Nicolas gave Jack’s cold, hard hands a squeeze, then turned and led Abigail to the settee where Adam sat with his family.
Adam shuffled over. “Some secret, huh, boss?”
“Miserable woman.” Nicolas prepared to settle on the settee, ignoring the eyes trained on him.
“Get a look at poor Knox,” Adam said. “He’s takin’ Jack’s death mighty hard.”
“I wonder,” Abigail asked, “where he got the good clothes.”
“Jack’s granddaughter took him in,” Adam whispered. “The crazy one who was just screaming at your father. She dressed the boy up, Boonville style.”
Nicolas gave a nod. “The kid looks well fed.”
As soon as Nicolas settled, Abigail reached over Adam and tugged at his sleeve. “Father! Father!” Lost in thought, Nicolas at first ignored her, but she persisted like a little girl. “Father! Something just came to me,” she said under her breath. “I saw that thing before, that weird thing.”
“What thing, Abby?”
“The mark. That weird mark you showed me on the crazy dead Canuck.”
“On his shoulder?”
“That spidery thing. I thought it looked famil
iar, but it was different when I saw it on a living person. I only had a quick glance.”
“You saw it before? Where, Abby?”
“Remember when we stripped the boys in Cookie’s shanty after they went through the ice? I saw that thing on Knox.”
“Knox . . . the mark . . . ,” Nicolas muttered, the truth of it sinking in, the truth that he’d found a boy who’d managed to stay alive, a boy with the mark he’d seen only on the dead.
“Yes, Father. On his shoulder. It’s a sort of a brand, isn’t it?”
45
Knox
The day after Old Jack’s funeral, Nicolas sent Abby to the granddaughter’s in Boonville to talk to Knox.
“He clammed up,” Abigail reported, seated at her father’s kitchen table. “Wouldn’t tell me a thing.”
“Did you get him alone, Abby?”
“Never. Old Jack’s granddaughter is awfully protective of the boy.”
“I’d best talk to him.”
“I doubt you’ll get in the house, Father. Once she recognized I was a Van Horne, that little witch was shutting the door on me. I smooth-talked her, explained how I’d worked the ice with Old Jack and just wanted a moment with the kid. She let me in for a few minutes but never let me out of her sight.”
“We need to know more about Knox, Abby. Where he’s been. Who his uncle is. I’ll try talking to the boy myself, somehow.”
“Only thing Knox gave away—he’s sure not from Franklin County. He couldn’t name me one town up that way.”
“Did he admit he was an orphan?”
“No, but I’ll bet dimes to silver dollars the man who brought him isn’t any uncle. Knox couldn’t tell me his name either.”
