ONE MORNING in the middle of September, after weeks of unrelenting rain and a hurricane, the air now sun-filled and clear to perfection, the deputy inspector of customs went down to Whitehall to retrieve an envelope of manifests, and then headed up West Street to the Gansevoort Docks. Anyone who must report to work and stay for a required time is bound to love an errand that for half a morning leads him through the free city that in those hours he normally cannot know, and his pace will be slow and his step deliberate, for everything he sees is a gift.
West Street and the docks were crowded with the rush of passengers and freight for boats departing that morning for New Orleans, Savannah, Baltimore, and Boston, almost every one a steamer and almost all capable of sail. The forests of mast, spar, and rope were like a single line of rain-darkened trees on an Appalachian ridge. Sometimes white captions bloomed from ships that had backed out to set sail in midriver, and when the boilers of steamers were lit, clouds of coal smoke distressed the air like an artist’s charcoal.
West Street, though very wide, was packed with drays, horsecars, coaches, and immense wagons. People labored under bundles and carried crates on their shoulders. On the sidewalk that ran along a front of four- and five-story brick emporia and offices, well dressed women, bearded carters, foreign sailors, and men in top hats moved intently, booking tickets, buying things, having breakfast, visiting clerks, never ceasing, never stopping.
The North River—that is, the Hudson—was almost in flood, fuller than he had ever seen it, flowing south with the tide and now swelled with the outpourings of a dozen rivers and a thousand streams carrying off the rains of the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, the Berkshires, and the Adirondacks. By the time this immense volume of waters ploughed past Manhattan, it nearly lapped over the edges of the piers, it lifted the ships high at their docks, and it went by so rapidly and with such force as to suggest a mountain torrent. Some ships, unable to dock, stayed out in the river, anchor chains taut, anchors by no means certainly fixed. But this was the crest, and the sun seemed to guarantee that the river would rise no higher and flow no faster.
THE GANSEVOORT DOCKS were neither ordered nor neat, nor, in the daytime, ever quiet. The deputy inspector strode through aisles made by bales, crates, and stacks of lumber, and smelled the cacao and coffee of Africa and Central America, the tea of Ceylon, the cotton of Egypt, the cedars of British Columbia. Into stolid, orderly, Christian New York had come the crews of a legion of small ships—Fijians, Angolans, Portuguese, Samoans, Russians, Cockneys, Arabs, and Goans. Some were tattooed and in costumes that—even if no more outlandish than hoop skirts and corsets—had about them the breath of cannibalism. But none of this was new to him, as he was quite used to such things, having decades before left cold, white, and austere Albany to sail into the South Sea. Like other ex-sailors, he was not rattled by a man with a few bones in his nose.
After closing the door to the glassed-in office, and as the noise of the dock receded, he found himself in the midst of a dispute, which, when it would ebb, was a conversation.
“Pulling it up and loading it on a wagon … I don’t know. Can’t we just hold off?”
“She’s been anchored for two days. How long must she wait?”
“What about borrowing the dory upstream?”
“They need it more than we do.”
The deputy inspector of customs asked, “What ship is it?”
“The Antrim, a mile upriver. Bartleby should go. He’s young, he can row against even this current.”
“Tell him what Bartleby said,” bid the other man. The deputy inspector waited to hear.
“Though it was a simple statement, his words were offensive to me. I could mark them down as insubordination, but they were conditional, and I don’t know how to take them. He said. … I shall not repeat what he said, but he says he doesn’t want to.”
The deputy inspector nodded. “Sometimes a boy of that age gets it into his head that he just doesn’t want to do what you want him to do. I think it may be that, very early on, as if the lens of time were distorted, he can see way over the fence, as if he’s lived his life near to the end, in a kind of clairvoyance.” They stared at him, wondering what he had said. Then a steamer blew its whistle. “Don’t ask him again. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do what?”
“Row upstream to the Antrim, inspect the cargo, collect the duty, and glide back.”
“What makes you think you’ll live long enough, at your age, to row against this flow all the way to the Antrim?”
“A mile?”
“With the speed of the current, it would be the equivalent of ten, with a furious pace, unrelieved.”
“I know that.”
“You won’t get two hundred yards.”
They knew the deputy inspector had come by his job through some minor interference in the White House. They knew that he had written books. They knew that he had been a sailor, a whaler, and a farmer. They also knew that he was too old to push a mile against the North River when the North River was as desperately south-seeking and voluminous as it was then. It would be, they thought, his comeuppance for not accepting bribes, as they did, and for a maddening presumption of superiority, unconfirmed by position, that irritated them daily and beyond toleration.
“Just make sure,” one of them said, “that you don’t get swept out the Narrows. There are inns where you can stay on Staten Island, or Rio de Janeiro.” Whatever a guffaw might be, they followed with it.
EVEN COMPROMISED by the forest of pilings that held up the piers, the massive flow of water was so great that the dory, tied up on the lee, stretched its moorings like bowstrings. His hands were soft, and he hadn’t rowed hard in decades. The last time he had ploughed or hayed, or used a shovel, was long before. Where would he find his strength, or protection for his hands? What if his heart were not able?
His first task was to avoid being thrown against the pier a hundred yards south. As soon as the painter was let go, the dory rushed for destruction, and he had to row desperately not to be shot across the gap. Unless one rows every day, at the beginning of a row the oars must be swept slowly, to establish a rhythm that will keep the stroke smooth and efficient and allow the blades to dip into the stream without fighting or chopping it. It is as if the water is organized or has a soul, for when it senses respect in the proper rhythm, the timing, and the consideration of the stroke, it seems—contrary to physical law—to help the rower along.
He had learned this in whale boats in the South Sea, the Central Pacific, and in the Atlantic from Greenland to Cape Horn. He had seen the inexplicable liveliness of the water itself, which answers in response to recognition and is kind in return for the apprehension of its grace.
But between the piers, fighting the north-to-south current as he tried to exit west from the slot, his stroke was choppy and arrhythmic, slapping the water, badly balanced, slipping without power, exhausting him almost before he had started.
“Shall we throw you a rope?” he was asked.
In between breaths, he yelled, “No, ye shall not.”
He would row straight west, and then, hard on the port oar, point north again to the pier, where his colleagues stood taking their ease, and rise on a course that resembled a saw tooth, a line of sharks’ fins, or the depiction of waves in a musicale. And thus he propelled himself into open water.
While turning north he was swept south of the south pier, but then he found a clear course, north by slightly northwest, that would take him up to the Antrim, resting in midstream a mile away and impatient for inspection.
Though his stroke had yet to engage the aid of the river itself, it was smoother, and if it had not actually found the required rhythm at least it seemed to be seeking it. The sun had long before risen above the slate roofs and rigging-tangled masts along the west shore of Manhattan, and it shone hot in the blue, twirling as it ascended.
Releasing the oars, he shed his jacket so quickly that a shiny brass button was violently severe
d from the midcoat and flew like a honeybee over the gunwales before it dropped into the water and disappeared forever. The button, until that very moment a perfect little sun in color, shape, and reflection, now made its way into oblivion. But the other buttons on the coat of blue wool still gleamed in the light, and there was nothing else to do but row.
Row he did, his shirt darkening first in patches, then entirely, and then becoming as soaked as if he had been in a heavy rain. His breathing, though anything but easy, had settled down, as had his heart, and if not he would have died. His stroke was slowly conforming to the wishes of the water, the boat slowly making headway north, cutting against the current with increasing steadiness and balance.
As he moved into the equilibrium of old, that as a young man he had known so often and so effortlessly on warm and distant seas, he did not even notice the blistering of his hands, the breaking, and the blood, cherry red against the varnished yellow oars, flowing in straight lines down the shafts.
Now he was chasing whales once again, with everything ahead, with time as vast as the Pacific, horizonless, infinitely rich, and in his favor. Now he was more vulnerable, for the sake of his wife and children, than ever was any wife or child. Now his parents lived, and he had not watched them at their last. Now he was free to fight and communicate with the current and that which ran beneath, and thus to know and feel it, without doubt or the necessity of faith. Now his stroke was smooth, life in full flood, the city in motion, the sun rising, the river running.
ARRIVING AT THE ANTRIM, he shipped oars and briefly glided to the foot of the gangway, where a Malay sailor gaffed the boat and tied it fast. “I’ll be up,” the deputy inspector said, “as soon as I can put on my jacket.” Realizing that the Malay sailor could not understand, he pointed up and then to the jacket splayed across the stern seat of the boat.
When he was alone, he removed his shirt and held it in the wind and sun, a wind that, like the current, had not been in his favor. Soon he himself was dry, and even the shirt, which he held in his hands like a bullfighter’s cape, followed suit. At first in lighter patches, and then in whole areas of white, and then, after how many minutes he did not know, the shirt was dry in his hands and stiff with salt.
Though properly attired when he came on deck except for the missing button, he was the color of a hot rose. As his blood carried the heat of his body to the air, and his muscles ached as they had not in years, he felt accomplished and young.
And with the rush of blood he was alert to the world, his powers of perception working at the highest speed, which seemed to make everything go slowly. He felt his heart beating strongly and evenly, slowing gradually, having carried him forth and served him well, and not in danger of failing. Most pleasant was the heat that raced to his face, the scarlet that would remain for half an hour, signifying both what he had done and his capacity to do more.
“What have we got?” he asked the captain, an Englishman who, the deputy inspector thought, would mercifully offer him no bribes unless he did so only because he thought the custom of the country would require it. The deputy inspector wanted to show him that the custom of the country did not, that America was as upright, and more so, than England—even if the custom of the country, to the deputy inspector’s great regret, was changing very rapidly.
“Fifteen hundred bales of china from the factory at Hankow.”
“Are they uniform?”
“Absolutely, as you shall see.”
“Let’s open some.” They descended into the hold, which smelled like willow: the stays of the bales were willow that had been cut in the summer. “You’re bound for Albany.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll need a good pilot especially now that the hurricane has lifted the river so high.”
“We came through it off the Virginia capes. Worse than rounding the Horn. I’m astounded that we are here.”
The deputy inspector turned to the captain, who continued. “We lost five men, all to deliver bales of china to Albany. I do hope Albany is in need of crockery.”
The deputy inspector shook his head. “Most likely it will be barged through the Erie Canal to find its way west. We’ll open ten bales, please.” He walked down a long row, tapping five bales at random. As the sailors pulled them out he commanded them to go two deep and three deep at each one, alternatingly, to get five more. The sailors, who were English and Irish, understood without clarification, and moved as quickly and efficiently as if they were storekeepers who owned their inventory.
In kerosene light, the willows were cut, and the bales spilled their contents. The china came in sets for sale, each bale having the same number of sets, each set the same number of pieces.
“No serving ware, other cargo?”
“No.”
“I need to count, and then I’ll clean the manifest. I prefer to do that alone, if you don’t mind.”
After everyone had left, he walked slowly down the rows of bales, counting carefully, in the clean scent of willow, his face throbbing gently, his breathing deep. The count was satisfactory.
He left the hold and summoned the captain from his cabin. Better to accomplish the transaction in the open in full view of the crew and not even accept a drink while on board. This payment was by letter of credit. He would carry back no money, only banking documents. It went fast, the stamps were affixed, the papers put in their envelopes, and when he was done he wished the captain a good trip up the Hudson. “When you anchor at night, in the bays,” he said, “if the sky remains clear the moon will be full. They’ll be haying now, so the air should be sweet. I grew up on the Hudson. I love it as if it were woman or child.”
“Why don’t you come with us, then?” the captain asked politely.
“I’ll be back there,” the deputy inspector answered, “soon enough.”
THE CURRENT carried him down the Hudson as fast as a horse could canter, but effortlessly, over sparkling and transparent waters that had the feel of glass and the lightness of air. Slightly melon-green, they were pierced and netted by lines of gold light like fractures in a vein of rock. Having risen, the river was wider, and despite its rapid flow it was flat and tranquil.
With nothing to do but watch, as the air around him was resplendent with sun, and Manhattan seemed to roll from south to north, he felt the charge of the waters that had come down from the place of his birth. He felt their power, their purpose, and their tranquillity. This buoyancy was the after-effect of rain, the clarity an after-effect of storm. Everything seemed perfect in the light. But then he put his hand against his jacket at the solar plexus, where only blue threads attested to the button that once had been sewn on strong. The others were still shining. He kept his hand where it was, close to his heart, as if in salute or blessing, and as the boat raced swiftly downstream, he bowed his head.
Passchendaele
CAMERON PREFERRED to keep from the eastern border of his land, because it ran along a ridgeline on high meadows that dropped away into the alluring darkness of Sanderson’s pine-filled woods. The terrain was little different on one side of the ridge or the other. Soft clearings floated among the dark evergreens; long meadows on mountainsides stretched for benevolent mile after benevolent mile, covered with wildflowers in spring and deep snow in winter; and mountain streams cut through everything, tumbling down, roaring through small gorges, until they became the calm black water of larger rivers. And if not quite pacified, they were saddened, with the mountains behind them and no more white falls or breathlessly cold channels but just slow water that had run its course through air once blue.
The presence of a fence in such a place was hard to understand, as the land on either side was so much the same, except that one side was Cameron’s and the other Sanderson’s. But, for Cameron, Sanderson’s clearings, meadows, and woods were magically animate and electrified, because he was in love with Sanderson’s wife.
The near and distant forest across the wire was much like Mrs. Sanderson herself—beyond reach, oblivi
ous of what he thought or felt, and extraordinarily, painfully, beautiful. The chance that he would see her on the fence line was remote: he never had, and expected that he never would. There were too many open miles, and the scale of things in that country, the Stanford Range in British Columbia, did not encourage incidental meetings, though it would have harbored easily a hundred million well protected trysts. It was only that the meadows led to her, the clearings and woods surrounded her, she had ridden through them, and they were hers. Even though he was in his middle age and she not far behind, he loved her without control or dignity, the way he would have loved her had he been nineteen.
Several times a year, Cameron had to repair the fences on the eastern side, because much of the wire was not new, and would rust to powder if left in place. Some of the posts were set in wet ground and tended to rot, staggering like the wounded, tilting the fence and tangling its wires. Sometimes a steer broke through, possessed, perhaps, with madness or fear. And bears tore up the lines, like raiders attacking a railway, so purposefully that their work would have been easy to confuse with that of a man, had they not always left behind their unmistakable tracks.
The eastern side was the higher side. That portion of Cameron’s land rose in the direction of Mt. King George and Mt. Joffre, mountains on which were glaciers and perpetual snowfields. It was the difficult and slow side as well, because it was so inaccessible and high. He had to ride in on horseback and bring the wire along in a coil wrapped in rawhide. Any posts needed for replacement had to be cut on the spot, with an axe. If a hole had to be sunk, he had to do it with a folding shovel, since the gasoline-powered auger he carried in his truck was far too heavy to bring up onto the eastern ridge. All in all, the eastern side was difficult in many ways.