Russell Banks - Cloudsplitter

I cannot be exact as to the date, for while the details of everything that happened in those days are as vivid and sharply outlined in my memory as in a stained-glass window, more so than what transpired here in my cabin this very morning, the abstractions of duration and chronology are somewhat vague to me and are often lost altogether from my mind. But one Saturday morning a few weeks before the raid, Father came to me at breakfast and, taking me aside, said to hitch the wagon and come up to Chambersburg with him. “I have arranged for a meeting there tomorrow morning with Mister Douglass,” he explained.

“Wonderful news,” I answered, genuinely excited at the prospect, although my habitual laconic manner probably did not show it. I was often thought in those days to be sarcastic or sour, when I was instead merely frightened by the intensity of my feeling and wished no more than to protect myself and others from it.

“Oh, just do as I say, Owen. He has come all the way from Rochester for this. He writes that he wants to hear the details of my plan, but I can only reveal them to him in person. And so he has come.”

Shortly, we were making our way in late summer sunshine through the rolling, blond, recently mown pastures and the peaceful farm villages of western Maryland into Pennsylvania, arriving by evening at our Quaker safe house, where we spent the night talking abolition and religion with the good, pacificistic, prayerful keepers of the house, friends and strong supporters of abolitionism generally and of Father in particular, people who believed that their friendship and support were being used by us to help establish a more formidable and effective Underground Railroad, a belief which Father took care not to disabuse them of or threaten.

Mostly, I listened, eventually stretching myself out on my blanket by the fire and finally falling asleep to the sound of Father’s voice droning on into the night, as he explicated the true meaning in the Book of Matthew of Christ’s ninth-hour cry on the cross, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? “You must remember, friends, that since the sixth hour there had been darkness all over the land,” he explained. “And the priests had reviled and mocked Him, saying, If thou be the son of God, then come down from the cross; and with the scribes and elders, they had all declared, Jesus saved others, but himself he cannot save. And then they said to Him, If you be the king of Israel, the true Son of God, then come down from the cross, and we will believe you. Whereupon Christ cried out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? and yielded up the ghost, so as to provide for all those who had mocked and reviled Him, even those who had crucified Him, both the question and the answer. For when He had yielded up the ghost, as all men must, the veil of the temple was rent, and the earth quaked and split, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that slept therein arose, and when the people saw that, all of them, even the Roman centurions who stood amongst the priests and scribes and elders, were struck with fear, and they said, Truly, this was the Son of God! Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani’. Out of the pitch darkness came that most human cry of Him who believes in God, of Him who knows that He is the most beloved of God, of Him who is yet subject utterly to God’s will. And thus, in asking His final question — which is not a self-serving plea such as we ourselves, like the priests and the scribes and the elders, might make, but a question that is asked by a child of its parent, by a son of his father, by one who does not doubt the existence of the other and does not question the power of the other — in asking that question, Why hast Thou forsaken me? Christ in His final act amongst men is truly exemplary. Which is exactly and most particularly how the Lord intended Him to be for us, as a gift, His greatest gift, a gift exceeding even life itself, a gift that defines for us the possibility of eternal life, and in the way that it is revealed to us, we are shown the sole means for obtaining it. Belief in the Lord, not special pleading, but belief, simple belief, as the child believes in the parent. .”

Thus, as so often, was my descent into sleep contaminated and controlled by my father’s words and my dreams shaped by them, so that, to the degree that one’s waking mind is sculpted by the artistry of one’s dreams, I was, the following day, when we rode out to the quarry where Father had arranged to meet with Mr. Douglass, locked into considerations, not of the question of the efficacy of martyrdom, but of its ultimate meaning, of its use as proof of belief. For I had come to see that it need have no practical purpose, that it required no particular objective or goal in this world, to be justified or desired. Its purpose was to strengthen belief, the martyr’s belief in God the Father, in the Hereafter, in eternal life, in resurrection — in something, anything, other than the meaning and purpose here and now of the mortal life of the martyr himself.

By mid-morning, after much careful reconnoitering, we had taken up our position like watchful ravens at the quarry where Mr. Douglass in his narrative says that he finally found us — upon a cut-stone platform walled in and set high amongst slabs of gray rock from which we could obtain a good view of anyone approaching us without being seen ourselves. Father was still a fugitive then, with a federal price on his head, and I imagine that I was, too, although, so far from Kansas and with no one any longer actively pursuing us, it was easy to forget. But it was also true that, this early in the game and this late, it would be reckless for the Old Man to be seen meeting with Frederick Douglass so close to the border of a slave state. And, of course, Father enjoyed the accoutrements of clandestinity for their own sake. Thus we hid ourselves up amongst the rocks from Mr. Douglass and made him find us.

And eventually, after considerable trouble, which we watched from above, he did. He came clambering over sharp-edged layers of granite with a companion, a balding, large-eyed Negro man of early middle years and athletic build. Mr. Douglass, as always, was dressed in a fine woolen suit and wore a black cravat and brimmed hat; his companion was in a workingman’s blouse and pants and boots, with a tattered old straw on his head; and the two were puffing and wet with sweat when they suddenly came around a granite pylon and encountered us — no doubt unexpectedly, for they had by then probably begun to believe that we had been delayed or that they had misunderstood Father’s directions to the quarry or perhaps had gone to the wrong place in it.

“Ah, Brown, here you are!” Mr. Douglass exclaimed, much relieved. He smiled, and the two men shook hands warmly and embraced.

Father began at once to speak of the purpose of the meeting, but Mr. Douglass interrupted him and elaborately introduced his friend Shields Green, who he said was very interested in meeting the famous Osawatomie Brown and possibly in “joining him down here in the fray,” as he put it. Then he greeted me with a smile and handshake and gave Father to understand that he and Mr. Green needed to catch their breath for a moment or two. He was sorry, he said, that he had not brought water or refreshment with him.

It was impossible not to honor Frederick Douglass. His handsome presence was commanding without ever seeming pompous or condescending, and he was gregarious and gracious without a taint of servility. He made you feel that you and he were equals on a very high plane. And he was the only man I ever saw silence Father good-naturedly.

He leaned against the rock wall of our aerie and fanned his dark, bearded face with his hat-brim, while Shields Green sat and rested upon a table-sized stone nearby and wiped down his neck and face with a large blue handkerchief. Finally, Mr. Douglass said to Father, “All right, Old John, let me hear it. There are some wild rumors circulating up North about you and your boys, and I need to know the truth of the matter. I’ll tell you, friend, some of your strongest supporters and allies are afraid that you’re about to commence some wild, foolhardy action down here, and I’d like to go home and tell them otherwise.”