Russell Banks - Cloudsplitter

We had brought all of Father’s surveying tools with us, and his old tanning knives, spuds, and chisels, a small bark mill and various other implements and basins retained from his tanning years, for, during his previous journey to the Adirondacks, the Old Man had observed plenty of hickory trees, both shagbarks and butternut, and he planned to set up a small tannery in North Elba and perhaps teach the trade to some of the Negro settlers. We had also packed into the wagon our broadaxes, hatchets, adzes, hammers, wedges, and froes — tools that we would need for clearing the overgrown land that Mr. Smith had deeded to Father. We carried a pair of grass scythes, a bull rake, hay forks, and reaping forks; we had a small hornhead anvil, various types of nails, jack hooks, and a fine oak tumbril sledge that Father himself had built one winter years ago back in Pennsylvania; we had braces and augers and a good pit saw, a bucksaw, and a half-dozen chisels and planes: we carried all the tools, or most of them anyway, that the Old Man, in spite of bankruptcy and lawsuits, had accumulated and held on to in his various homesteading ventures and numerous business operations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Massachusetts.

We also carried our mattresses, bedding, and clothing, and the furniture that Father and Mary had brought out from the house in Ohio to Springfield the year before — a pair of small chests, Father’s writing table, Great-Grandfather Brown’s mantel clock, Mary’s spinning wheel, and Ruth’s loom; and all the cooking implements and pots, the bowls, plates, mugs, and tableware; and, of course, Father’s big chest of books, which had traveled everywhere with us, from Ohio to Pennsylvania, back to Ohio and on to Springfield, and now to North Elba. To these things, in Westport, we had added kegs of salt, flour, dried beef, corn, crackers, seed, and feed for the animals, buckets for collecting and boiling down maple sap, a washtub, extra harness, and a plow.

As a result of the great weight of these goods, the wagon creaked and groaned on its axles. The spring mud had gone out early that year, fortunately, and the big, iron-sheathed wheels ground down the stone and gravel of the track, as the team of Morgans drew it slowly from the broad, greening valley of Lake Champlain to the upland, leafless forests and the freshly plowed fields and gardens of Elizabethtown.

The bays surprised me with their steadiness and strength, and my opinion of Mr. Epps rose somewhat, as he eased the animals along in a calm and confident way, turning to his side now and then to chat with Sarah or inquiring into Mary’s comfort or periodically informing us as to the names of the streams we passed and occasionally forded and the names of the snow-capped mountains that slowly hove into view in the distance. “We coming along the Boquet River here” Mr. Epps told us. “All the rivers up here flows north to Canada, Mister Brown. Them rivers and streams just like colored folks, you know, following the drinking-gourd star. When folks running from slavery see the rivers start to flow north, they know they almost free,” he said. “And that snowy mountain in the west called Giant of the Valley, and over there you can see the tip of Whiteface. Can’t see none of the truly high ones yet” he cheerfully informed us, although to my flatlander’s eye Giant of the Valley and Whiteface seemed like towering Alps.

When we entered the village of Elizabethtown — which was the seat of government for Essex County and where, facing the commons, an imposing, white-columned brick courthouse was located — I observed that, off to the northwest, the sky was filling with dark clouds, and although the sun still shone on us, I feared that it would soon rain.

We stopped on the commons for a rest and food and to water the animals at a long wooden trough at the side of the road there. While Mr. Epps and the boys tended to the livestock and Ruth prepared our lunch of corn bread and molasses, Father and I rigged a cover over the driver’s seat of the wagon, so that Mary, who was coughing and appeared to be suffering from the beginnings of ague, would be protected from the weather.

After we had eaten, Father strode off to the courthouse for a brief visit to the office of the registrar of deeds, where, from a cursory examination of the public rolls, he determined, just as he had been told the previous fall by the folks in Timbuctoo, that longtime landholders and squatters in North Elba, white men, were indeed claiming significant portions of the grants that Mr. Gerrit Smith had made to the Negroes. Announcing summarily to the registrar that he intended very soon to survey and to register the deeds for every one of Mr. Smith’s grants of land, the Old Man warned the fellow outright not to list any new lands on the Essex County tax rolls without a surveyor’s map and proper bill of sale and deed attached.

“Judging from all the fancy brick houses I’ve seen hereabouts, I believe that there are in this town more than a few lawyers who would be pleased to defend in a court of law the property rights of a free Negro, if they knew they were defending as well the property rights of Mister Gerrit Smith” he warned the registrar. “Mister Smith, as you of all people must know, is the single largest taxpayer in this county!’ he added.

Delighted, Father reported back to us that the man had received his announcement with an open-mouthed, astonished gape that had made him look extremely foolish, even simple. He imitated the fellow, and we all — except Mr. Epps, I noticed — laughed uproariously, for Father rarely made faces, and he looked quite comical when he did. Even Oliver laughed — although to himself he might have observed that the fellow mocked by Father was no less of a man doing his duty than had been the toll-taker. Inconsistency in small matters was not something that any of us held against the Old Man however. In fact, we almost welcomed it, for in the larger matters, where we, like most everyone else, turned weak and wobbly, he was like purified iron, of a piece and entirely consistent, through and through.

It was close to an hour after noon when we departed from Elizabethtown, heading northwest through a thick forest of pines and balsam trees, and almost at once we moved steeply uphill, with a roaring brook crashing past us over huge rocks from the heights to the village and farms spread out in the valley below. The sky had nearly filled with dark clouds now, and as we ascended, the temperature steadily fell, and soon there was a distinct chill in the air, causing me and the boys to button our waistcoats and jackets around us and Father to haul his greatcoat from the wagon. Ruth and Annie drew their shawls over their heads, and up on the wagon, Mary got out blankets, wrapped one around her and Sarah, passed another to Mr. Epps and a third to Ruth and Annie.

A stiff breeze had come up behind us, and the knowledge that we would soon be wet and cold silenced us. The horses plodded steadily on, slower now but still with a powerful rhythm, despite the unbroken uphill climb and the great weight of the load. Mr. Epps had grown somber. No one spoke as we climbed into the weather. Even the birds had gone silent.

The trail wound slowly ahead between great, tall trees, with the rocky stream still beside us. We had not passed a dwelling place or cleared patch of land for a long while, when suddenly we were over the top, and the trail was passing through a broad intervale between two high distant ridges. We passed alongside a beaver pond spiked with the dark standing trunks of drowned trees, when finally, a little ways further, the Old Man gave a signal, and we stopped.

Here we rested the animals for a while and stood in the shelter of the wagon, our backs to the wind and collars up, hands holding on to the brims of our hats and head coverings. We must have resembled one of the Lost Tribes, wrapped in blankets and old-fashioned woolen garments, clustered around our wagon and livestock on a wilderness trail in the mountains, unsure of whether to push on or go back.