Russell Banks - Cloudsplitter

The Old Man had learned from the folks in Timbuctoo that after having been rebuked and rebuffed by Father, the marshal and his deputies had gathered up Mr. Wilkinson from his hiding-place, and the four had ridden over to the Negro settlement, where the traitorous villain Wilkinson had identified Lyman Epps and Mr. Fleete as our cohorts. Then, despite Lyman’s and Mr. Fleete’s insistence that they knew nothing of the whereabouts of the couple wanted in Virginia for murder, the marshal had placed both men under arrest and had marched them off to Elizabethtown, where, said Father, they were probably, even as he himself spoke, being placed under lock and key, as if the two had been returned to the manacles of slavery.

“This shall not be allowed to stand!” Father bellowed.

Susan Epps was naturally alarmed as to her husband’s fate, and Ruth and Mary rushed to console her, as did I. Father, however, seemed blinded by his rage, and ignoring the fears of the women and children, he stomped up and down in the room, counting weapons and imagining violent confrontations along the trail between North Elba and the Elizabethtown jail, which both he and I knew the marshal and his party would not reach until morning or even later, if on their way they stopped overnight in Keene at Mr. Partridge’s house, as we ourselves had when first coming over here back in May.

“We can still catch the culprits, you and I,” he said to me. “Lyman and Mister Fleete are surely afoot, made to walk in chains like captured animals while the white men ride. They must have passed by here this very afternoon while you were all at work in the fields,” he suddenly realized. “Didn’t you see them?” he demanded. “Good Lord, didn’t a one of you children notice them on the road? Four white men astride horses and two black men treated like slaves before your very noses, and not a one of you saw it?”

I explained that we had all been hard at work bringing in the hay, that it was hot and we were way down at the lower end of the field by then, trying to beat the rain. It had not rained after all, but had merely threatened to do so all afternoon long and into the evening. Now we heard distant thunder rumbling in the west, and flashes of heat lightning crackled across the darkening sky.

“Bah!” he exclaimed, grabbing down our muskets and checking the powder and bullets. “What we need are swords” he muttered to himself. “Broadswords! So we can sweep down upon them like avenging angels!”

But as the evening wore on, the Old Man calmed somewhat and seemed to settle upon a slightly more rational strategy for obtaining the release of our friends, which relieved me. I had not liked much the idea of the two of us riding out alone in the dark and recklessly falling upon the marshal, his deputies, and Mr. Wilkinson, and probably Partridge, too, with nothing but two small-bore muskets and a pair of hand-axes between us. On reflection, Father now believed that he might obtain the legal and financial help of Mr. Gerrit Smith, whose influence in these parts was great, and to this end the Old Man commenced to write a set of letters and pleas. He also proposed to ride over to Elizabethtown tomorrow morning himself, armed, in case of emergency, and accompanied by me — there to speak with the local authorities and try to get our friends released on their own recognizance pending a trial, which he firmly believed would never take place anyhow.

“This whole thing is a dumbshow,” he now insisted. “A charade. It’s merely an attempt to intimidate the poor fellows,” he growled. He believed that Marshal Saunders was only interested in putting a feather in his cap for capturing the Cannons and thus was trying to frighten our friends into betraying the poor couple and had no intention of trying them in court. Father was sure that Lyman and Mr. Fleete had no more knowledge of the Cannons’ present whereabouts than we and were as ignorant as we of the Cannons’ true reasons for fleeing their master and the state of Virginia — if indeed it was true that they slew the man in the first place. And if they did, so be it. How could we blame them? Father almost wished they had slain their master. “Only in an evil and inhuman land, Owen, is it a crime to slay the man who enslaves you. Remember that,” he said.

When morning came and Father and I were preparing to leave for Elizabethtown, who should arrive at our doorstep but dear John and sweet Jason — my beloved brothers. It was a great reunion for us all. They arrived on horseback with the sun rising behind them, spotted first by Salmon, who gave the cry that brought us all streaming from the house to greet them.

They were gentle men, both alike in that way, and loving towards everyone in the family, especially towards our stepmother, Mary, and sister Ruth. With regard to Ruth they were probably no more devoted than I myself, but towards our stepmother they seemed as a pair to exhibit a greater affection and protectiveness than I could ever muster. This had always confused me somewhat, for their loss, when our mother died, had surely been as great as mine. Yet, apparently, it was not so, or at least for them the loss was not of a nature that restricted their ability to transfer deep affection and tenderness for our natural mother across to our stepmother. It sometimes seemed that the loss of our mother had actually enlarged my elder brothers’ capacity to love her replacement, for they were more careful of Mary’s feelings than were her natural sons even, Watson, Salmon, and Oliver. How strange it is, that brothers and sisters can share every important childhood experience and yet end up responding to those experiences in such dramatically different ways. What liberates and gives power to one child must often humiliate and weaken another, until it appears that our differences more than our sameness have come to bind us.

My elder brothers and I did not greatly resemble each other in physical ways, either, although it was clear to most people that we were blood kin. Even at that young age, in his late twenties, John was a large and thick-bodied fellow, strong and muscular and athletic-looking, but in the manner of a budding banker, perhaps, or a politician. He had a high and noble forehead, symmetrical features, long, soft, dark brown hair that he combed straight back over his collar, giving him the look of a scholar, which, in a manner of speaking, he was, for he had learned accounting and was at that time deeply engaged in the study of several of the newer sciences, such as phrenology and hypnotism. His voice was deep and authoritative, and he had a great, loose laugh, which I had imitated when I was a boy but now merely admired.

Jason was a shorter man than John, about the same height as Father, and more slender than I with my woodsman’s build, but although he gave the appearance of delicacy, he was in fact extremely hardy and tough, a gristly man who moved in a slow, measured way that suggested deep thought, for his brow was characteristically as furrowed as a field in May, and his lips he kept pursed, like a man auditioning his words in silence before speaking them. In another age, or if he had been born to high estate and privilege, Jason might have been a philosopher or poet, a man like Mr. Emerson of Concord, perhaps, whose life, whose every act, was determined by the shape and substance of his thought. Jason was a man of sweet reasoning, his gentleness driven not by sentiment so much as by the innocence of logic. Unlike John, he was a man whom no one would follow into battle; but then, unlike John, he had no desire to lead. By the same token, he was equally disinclined to follow any man, even Father. A poor soldier was Jason, he who would be neither private nor general.

Yet, fully as much as John and all our younger brothers, and as much as I at my best, Jason was loyal to Father and to the rest of the family. He was not in the slightest selfish; he was merely one who thought freely for himself. Contrary to how he has sometimes been portrayed in the various accounts of our family, Jason was a man of great courage, too, and until the end, he stood alongside us; and when, before we went into Virginia, he left our side, he did so out of deep conviction, not cowardice or self-interest. I always admired, rather than criticized, Jason for his willingness to resist Father’s imperative.