The Expeditions (5 page)

The dining room at the Johnston Hotel was narrow and low, the table laid with chipped earthenware and surrounded by mismatched chairs. A vase of desiccated irises stood at the table’s center. The wallpaper showed a faded scene of Cornwallis’s surrender to Washington at Yorktown. Elisha sat across from Mr. Brush as the sullen proprietor brought out dishes of roast whitefish and venison and fried pumpkin, potatoes and stewed greens. Professor Tiffin was nowhere to be seen.

A flushed, heavyset man with a spade beard sat at the table’s end. He wore a blue velvet waistcoat and satin cravat, a pearl brooch crowded by diamonds. A gold watch chain lay across his belly. He was a businessman from Boston, he told the proprietor, come to inspect the region’s mineral prospects. The man did not acknowledge Mr. Brush or Elisha.

“I find that the richest deposits are in fact the simplest to locate,” the man said. “I have a particular talent for such matters—I have been called a
diviner nonpareil
by my satisfied associates. Do you see this chain? I personally selected the claim in Georgia from which this gold was taken.” The man forked two venison steaks and a mound of greens onto his plate. “It is a magnetic phenomenon, you understand. I quite literally
feel
the presence of minerals beneath my feet. I may someday write a pamphlet on the subject.”

Elisha watched Mr. Brush drain a glass of whiskey then pour another. He seemed to be struggling to hold his tongue.

“Copper, gold, iron, and silver just waiting to be carted away—and yet today I observed a dozen red nigger savages sunning themselves on the riverbank, with nary a care.” The businessman tittered. “Small wonder their state is so wretched! I wonder if they are employable even as mine hands. We may have to import good Cornish stock to this territory.”

Brush rose as the proprietor placed a wedge of cherry pie on his plate. He said, “Gentlemen,” then stepped from the room.

Elisha waited a moment, then excused himself and followed Mr. Brush to the parlor. He found him sitting in a wing chair beside the fireplace, staring out the window, a newspaper open on his lap. When the man noticed Elisha he took up the paper with a snap.

“Pardon my abrupt departure. It stank of fool in that room.”

“Sir, I—”

“You can quit with the sirring. There’s no need to be a lickfinger.”

Elisha nodded. “I wanted to discuss with you about the woman from yesterday, Madame Morel. I believe she should accompany us as a guide.”

“She is a half-breed, and married. I trust you have no designs on her virtue.”

For an instant Elisha heard his father’s voice, its crisp note of warning and disapproval; then he saw a smirk curling the edges of Brush’s lips.

“Of course not! I just don’t relish the prospect of slogging through a cedar swamp without a guide. We’ll lose plenty of time. We might never even find the image stones.”

“You are listening to Professor Copper Knob too closely. His precious pebbles are not the expedition’s first purpose.” Brush jerked his head toward the dining room. “Fools like him are more pressing concerns—speculators tramping through the territory before the government even knows what the land holds. That fat chuff wouldn’t know gold from a trickle of piss down his trouser leg.”

“But surely Susette Morel’s presence would aid us in dealing with Chippewas.”

“Aid us.”

Something in the man’s tone caused Elisha to remain silent. Mr. Brush folded the newspaper and reclined in the wing chair.

“Let me educate you about dealing with Natives, young fellow. I ran survey all through the state of Indiana as a younger man. This was 1818—you were not yet even a notion. Indiana is flat terrain, a few rivers and lakes, some forest but no thick swamp—easy work, save for the Miamis. They’d sold their land that summer but word hadn’t quite reached the outer tribes. They were powerful suspicious of white men with chains and telescopes and compasses tramping over their land. They saw all the measuring and calculating as a sort of witchery, you see.

“We had with us a guide named Little Frog. He was no bigger than a turd, cheerful for a savage, with a reputation for hard work. He had claimed to be a half-breed when we hired him. But he’d lied. He was full-blood Potawatomi. Our fifth week out we were running chain along the Kankakee when we saw cookfire smoke that Little Frog figured to be a Miami raiding party. He became as fidgety as a woman, hemming and hawing about turning back. We posted night sentries, part to calm the man’s nerves and part to shoot him if he ran off. The next morning the poor fool could not bear his pack. I thought he might melt from fear. That afternoon we decided to cross the Kankakee, and when we reached the river’s middle ten Miami appeared in dugouts, their faces painted like Satan himself. There were but four of us. They’d have shot us down if we even raised a shout. They dragged Little Frog into one of their canoes, then they disappeared upriver.”

Mr. Brush was quiet for a moment. “We found Little Frog three days later, some six leagues upriver. His stomach was sliced open and he was lashed to a tree with his own innards. His scalp lock was cut away. His face and chest were nigger black, like they’d rubbed him with gunpowder. The crows had plucked out his eyes and the poor fellow’s face was no longer even human, just a mask with holes ripped through it. We buried him there beside the Kankakee.”

Silence lengthened between them; then the businessman entered the parlor, sucking his teeth. He strode to the window and drew a deep, theatrical breath. As if to himself he said, “Copper and gold and iron and silver. Whip me if I’m wrong!”

“Now. About this woman. We will hire her on, on the logic that a half-breed guide is better than none at all.” Mr. Brush stared at the businessman’s back. “And if we delay any longer, the fat chuffs of the world will be out before us.”

“I’ll find her. I’ll have her ready to begin tomorrow morning.”

Elisha rose to depart, and Mr. Brush called after him, “Since how long have you carried that limp?”

The boy froze. “I don’t hardly limp.”

“A crippled assistant, a nancy-boy partner, and a half-savage Catholic woman for a guide.” Brush closed his eyes. “I suppose this is one of His trials.”

“Though not an arduous one.”

The man chuckled wearily. “We shall see.”

Four

The man had fallen asleep before the train departed Albany, and some miles later his head had lolled sideways and come to rest against Reverend Stone’s shoulder. He was foreign-looking, his brow holding traces of German or Dutch, and his suitcoat was mud-spattered but tailored, his shoes cut from thin cordovan leather. An itinerant salesman, ostentatiously displaying his good fortune. Or putting a brave face on failure. The man’s breath smelled strongly of peppermint. Reverend Stone wondered idly what he might be selling.

The train had stopped often between Springfield and Albany, traveling a few slow miles before the steam whistle hooted and the locomotive shrieked to a halt. Then the doors were thrown open, a rush of cool air bathing the car as men departed with haversacks and trunks while other men shouldered aboard. At each stop Reverend Stone placed his valise on his seat then stepped down to the platform, brushing soot from his sleeves as he studied the quiet towns: Westbridge, Carroll, Fall Valley, Humberton. He’d seen the names on maps but never imagined the places themselves; the sight of their meetinghouses and banks and barbershops and town greens brought trills of childish delight. He yawned, affecting a distracted air.

In Garton he’d boarded the train to find his valise missing and a heavyset stranger slouched in his seat, squinting at a broadsheet. Reverend Stone cleared his throat. When the man didn’t glance up he said, “Pardon me, I believe that seat was in use.”

The stranger raised his eyes with a grave expression. “How do you reckon that?”

“My valise was on it. I left it on the seat when I stepped out for air.”

The man held Reverend Stone’s gaze until a prickle of annoyance rose in the minister. He surveyed the half-empty car: a few bored faces were turned toward the scene. A young peddler had appeared in the aisle, offering his tray of newspapers and cigars and peanuts. Reverend Stone shook his head but the boy didn’t move.

“Every fool knows you don’t leave your valise just setting out. Especially not at a depot.”

“I left it to keep my seat while I took a breath of air. As I told you.”

“I saw naught but a bare bench. I would have noticed a valise just setting out.”

“But you
must
have seen it. A sheepskin bag, brown.”

The man slapped the broadsheet to his lap. “There wasn’t no valise nowhere! I didn’t take it myself, if that’s what you mean to say!”

“Of course not, pardon me.” Reverend Stone hurried to the door and stepped down to the platform. Across the road, a hatless man carrying a sheepskin bag was climbing the stairs of the Pierce Bank. The minister jogged across the road to the bank, mounted the steps two at a time. He paused, gasping, then opened the door and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder.

An idiot woman dressed in trousers whirled around and shrieked, “Remove your
smutty
hands from me!” then smashed the bag against Reverend Stone’s shoulder. It was a ratty sackcloth satchel, nothing at all like the minister’s valise. He said, “Pardon me, I’ve made a mistake, I believed—”

Just then the train whistle sounded. Reverend Stone backed through the door, apologizing, then turned and sprinted toward the depot. The conductor called
Ho!
and the engine chuffed. The locomotive jolted forward. Reverend Stone shouted as he ran toward the gentlemen’s car. The conductor waved, grinning, the door propped open with his boot. The engine churned faster. At the platform’s edge Reverend Stone seized the handrail and slung himself through the doorway, flush against the conductor, and the man whooped.

“Decent pace for a fellow your age!”

He slid into a vacant seat and stared furiously out the window. Someone had snatched the valise from his seat, tucked it beneath their jacket as they strolled away. At that moment some chiseler was fingering his cravat and handkerchiefs, rattling his tins of toothache medication. Reading Elisha’s letter. Sweat trickled down the minister’s cheeks. It all seemed very obvious.

He closed his eyes to still his restless thoughts, but they ran stubbornly to the few occasions of the valise’s use. From his father’s home in Chicopee to the seminary in Cambridge forty years ago. From Cambridge to Newell five years later, his heart buoyed by optimism. From Newell to Saratoga Springs on his wedding tour, Ellen in the coach beside him, her lips pursed with nervous excitement, her fist pressed against his thigh. Joyous times. Beginnings and endings. Reverend Stone wondered which of the two the current occasion might be.

Now he slipped a hand into his trouser pocket and withdrew a half-empty tin of medication and fold of bank notes, moving stiffly so as not to disturb the fellow resting against his shoulder. He counted thirty-three dollars: perhaps enough to take him past Detroit, if he was miserly. The minister mentally figured the cost of a new valise and shirt collar and change of trousers, quickly realizing that he’d have to go without. Three days from home, he thought, and already I have lost everything I own. He supposed it was plain to everyone that he was a country greenhorn.

The man beside him muttered sleepily, then jerked upright. He said, “Apologies.”

Reverend Stone tucked the bills into his pocket. “None required.”

“My jay.” The man rubbed his face, blinking. “I’m fairly well put out. I could probably sleep through to San Francisco if we went that far. Do you know where we are now?”

“Somewhere past Albany.”

“Then I’d have been woked anyway by the conductor. The line ends in Buffalo.”

The man offered his hand and introduced himself as Jonah Crawley, his voice holding a drawl that might have been a foreign accent or simple drowsiness. He said, “I don’t suppose you have a bit of niggerhead.”

“Even if I had, I wouldn’t now. My valise was stolen at Garton.”

The man’s weary face betrayed only mild interest. “That so?”

Reverend Stone nodded. An urge for conversation had grown in him. “It was my own fault, partly—I left the valise on my seat while I stepped out for air. I should have kept hold of it. I’m not accustomed to this sort of travel, you see. I have come all the way from Newell, Massachusetts, bound for Detroit. I am traveling to meet my son.”

Jonah Crawley yawned. His teeth were stained a rich, marbled yellow. “That so?”

“He’s not aware that I am coming—I’ve not seen him in three years now. I suppose he will be quite surprised to see me.”

“I expect you have a pretty nice speech prepared.”

The minister nodded. In truth he had not considered what he might say when he found his son. He would tell the boy about his mother. And then…what? Stern questions about the boy’s disappearance, his whereabouts the last years? Or breezy chitchat about Newell, news from the congregation and Corletta and Elisha’s childhood friends. The possibilities were awkward, incongruous. In his mind’s eye Elisha was thirteen years old, his hair tousled and fingernails crusted with creek mud, his arms outgrown his shirt cuffs. Reverend Stone could not imagine him as a young man of sixteen.

“I’m sorry to hear about your cold luck,” the man said. “Folks of the itinerant variety don’t seem to have much regard for the welfare of others.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

Jonah Crawley blinked, as if surprised by the question. “Well, I suppose some of them are running away from trouble. Sometimes that trouble was deserved. They’re moving toward what they hope is a better place. Usually it ain’t.”

“I don’t believe itinerants are more callous than most. Lack of regard seems a common enough trait.”

The man grinned. “You must be a constable. That’s a fairly unchari-table judgment of folks.”

“Not at all! I only mean that men are occasionally careless—they forget to be governed by their conscience.”

“I prefer to ignore my conscience,” the man joked. “It gives me the feeling of being a decent person.”

“And that is important to you? Feeling like a decent person?”

Crawley stared hard at the minister. “Of course it is.”

The man turned away, rubbing stiffness from his neck as Reverend Stone watched him sidelong. He tried to recall the last time he’d had a conversation with a stranger. A gruff but inquisitive tin peddler who’d knocked at the parsonage door eight months ago, a year perhaps. The man had finally admitted his belief in the doctrine of immaculate conception with a solemn, regretful air. Reverend Stone had bought a pair of ornate bull’s-eye lanterns, out of pity for the fellow.

“Milton allowed Satan to be touched by conscience. ‘Now conscience wakes despair that slumbered, wakes the bitter memory of what he was.’ Yes? Of course Satan ignored his conscience’s guidance. Decent folks are guided by reason and governed by conscience—they cannot help but strive for goodness. Some even argue that conscience is what civilizes us, separates us from Negroes and savage Indians. It’s not an unsound argument.”

“You should consider fashioning your ideas into a sermon. I’m told circuit riding can be lucrative.” Jonah Crawley slouched in his seat and closed his eyes.

Reverend Stone turned to the window, unexpectedly wounded by the man’s dismissal. Outside, twilight had seeped over a prairie stubbled with stumps. Where were they? Somewhere in New York, between Albany and Buffalo. Cutover country. The minister imagined a horde of men grunting at crosscut saws, their beards stippled with sawdust. Flattening the landscape, removing any place to hide. He fumbled in his pocket for the tin of medication then placed three tablets under his tongue and closed his eyes.

He was a coward, wasn’t he? Abandoning his home, running westward with a farewell wave. That previous Sunday, when he’d announced his departure to the congregation, the meetinghouse had filled with brittle silence, as though no one believed he would truly depart. That, or they did not believe he would return.

The minister wondered, as his thoughts uncoiled and slowed, if he would ever find his son in this vast, empty territory. An image formed in his mind of Elisha’s face pinched with fear as he sat in prayer, his bright blue eyes dulled by hopelessness. The boy’s faith was feeble. He possessed a coward’s heart. He’s my son, Reverend Stone marveled, so much my son, so much myself.

He leaned toward the window until his forehead brushed the cool glass. He felt a sudden, desperate affection for the town he had left. Already Newell seemed vague and distant, like a beautiful dream half-remembered upon waking.

It was past midnight when the train arrived in Buffalo. The depot was a cavernous brick building lit sparsely by gas lamps, and possessed of a bleak, funereal air. Haggard hotel drummers moved among the disem-barking passengers, holding placards printed with bucolic names:
Cascade House, River View Inn, Verdant Falls Hotel.
Baggage handlers heaved trunks and suitcases and valises onto the platform, the men’s shouts echoing in the lofty building. A few faded handbills fluttered on an announcement board.

Reverend Stone stood empty-handed, surveying the scene. He approached a drummer smoking a sour-smelling cigar, holding a placard that read
Elysium House—Choicest Views of the Falls!
Reverend Stone’s throat twitched and he drew a breath to subdue the cough. He said, “How much do you ask for a night’s stay?”

“Depends on the room. All’s I have vacant now are rooms with views of the falls. Those cost one dollar extra.”

“It’s nighttime. I cannot see the falls.”

“Come morning you’ll see them. Unless of course it’s raining.”

A tug at his elbow; the minister turned to find Jonah Crawley standing beside a young woman in a dingy yellow cape. Crawley said, “I know all the finer hotels in Buffalo. Let me offer you a piece of advice.”

“Mr. Crawley! How wonderful to see you again.”

The man grinned. “My daughter, Adele. She was riding in the ladies’ car.”

The girl curtsied. She was pale and narrow-shouldered, her green eyes holding a clouded, distant cast, as though she was preoccupied with a grave decision. She might have been twelve or she might have been sixteen. The minister offered her a benevolent smile.

“These chuckleheads would have you believe their shacks border the falls for a dollar a night. Trust me, they don’t. I know a place that’s near enough to hear water kissing rock, and it won’t empty your pockets.”

“I would be obliged,” Reverend Stone said gratefully.

He followed the man around the depot to the avenue. Jonah Crawley rapped on a buggy frame to wake the sleeping hackman, then helped his daughter aboard. Reverend Stone seated himself across from the pair. The carriage jerked forward. Buffalo’s streets were deserted, the awnings drawn and shopfronts dark save for an occasional lit-up saloon. They passed a theater and surgeon’s college, an opera house with white stone columns and a lofty dome. A pair of steeples loomed behind the blocks of row houses but the minister could not gauge the denomination.

He turned from the window to find Jonah Crawley staring into Adele’s blank gaze, as though they were engaged in a wordless dialogue. Crawley patted the girl’s hand; then she glanced warily at Reverend Stone. Her expression embarrassed the man. Jonah Crawley said, “No need to offer me compensation, Reverend! I’m merely trying to aid a fellow traveler.”

The minister dug a finger in his pocket and produced a quarter dollar. “Thank you kindly. Please.”

Crawley tucked the coin in his waistcoat. “Some of these hotels are owned by Jews, some by Catholics. You need to be careful where you lay your head.”

“And the proprietor of the hotel tonight?”

“He’s a good wet Baptist.”

The carriage turned down an alleyway lit by saloon windows. Reverend Stone smiled mildly at Jonah Crawley but said nothing. A dull, unnameable urge gnawed at him. He would buy a tin of medication tomorrow morning. The thought lingered in his mind until he forced it away.

They rolled to a halt before a two-story hotel with a sagging porch and unpainted front door and missing shutters. The signboard was so weathered as to be unreadable. Crawley said, “Here we are now.”

Reverend Stone studied the building before opening the carriage door.

“You should try to temper your expectations,” Crawley said. “That’s the traveling life.”