Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

  “Now then, Lad.— ’Tis Patrick Henry, Sir, they’ve all got the Itch,— ”

  “Why, these Presbyterians need no Oratory from the likes of me, not men who ev’ry day face Savages seeking to destroy them, who will set and hold a Line of Defense quite well before Schuylkill,— though ’twill be Deists and Illuminati, and Philosophers even stranger than that, pois’d upon the Mountaintops between, to observe and, who can say? direct the Engagement.—

  ‘In pale and Lanthorn’d reverie the Fair

  Of Philadelphia lounge, discussing Hair,—

  Whilst in the steep Shade of some Western Alp,

  A Presbyterian’s fighting for his Scalp.’ ”

  “These Lines tha keep quoting . . . ? I know I should recognize them . . . ? Is it Alexander Pope?”

  “Why, ’tis Mr. Tox.” A certain impatience of the Eye-brows.

  “A Poet whom,— that is,— ”

  “In the Constellation ‘Poesia,’ Sir, to frame it in more comfortable terms for you, even the Wasp of Twickenham must be assign’d the Letter Beta, for ’tis Timothy Tox who is its Lumina. I was quoting from the Pennsylvaniad, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, go on, then, Tim, tell him.”

  “Thoo are— ”

  “Not so loud. This is not my Home. I am upon the Scamper, I fear, tho’ none will speak of it. Like Mr. Wilkes, I have endanger’d my Freedom by Printing what displeaseth this King. Not ‘the’ King, you appreciate. . . .” He peers at Dixon as a Physician might, waiting for some sign. “Only a Broadside. No more than a couple of hundred Copies. Went . . . something like,

  ‘As legionaries once in Skirts patroll’d

  The streets of old Londinium, damp and cold,

  So Troops in kilts invade us now, unbeckon’d,

  Styling themselves “the Highland Forty-second.”

  Who is this King that fires upon his own,

  Who are these Ministers, with heads of Stone,

  Holy Experiment! O where be Thou,

  Where be thy hopes, thy fears, thy terrors now?’ ”

  Outside, great Percussions upon the Earth are heard, coming ever closer. Trees, push’d over, crash to the ground. Bears, Bobcats, and Wolves come fleeing before whatever is just behind. Pewter dances across the boards of the Tables. Ale trembles in ev’ry Can. Observing Timothy Tox’s Brightness of Eye and steadfastness of Lip, Dixon pretends Astonishment. “Have thoo summon’d it here, with thy Verses?”

  “Somewhat as ye may summon a Star with a Telescope. I pray no more than that.”

  “No Friend of the King, I collect . . . ?”

  “An American Golem. They thought the Black Boys who fought them at Fort Loudon were dangerous,— those were benevolent Elves in Comparison. Here as in Prague, the Golem takes a dim view of Oppression, and is ever available to exert itself to the Contrary.”

  Out the Window, great Mud Feet are seen to stir, tall as the Eaves. The Countrymen raise Tankards in their direction. “A sovereign Deterrent to Black Watch Plaid,” declares Mr. Tox.

  “This Forest suffers not the Bag-Pipe’s Scream,

  To stay away, the Brits it wiser deem.”

  51

  South Mountain is the last concentration of Apparitions,— as you might say, Shape-’Morphers, and Soul-Snatchers, besides plain “Ghosts.” Beyond lies Wilderness, where quite another Presence reigns, undifferentiate,— Thatwhichever precedeth Ghostliness. . . .

  Dixon takes to wearing a coonskin cap. Mason is alarm’d,— “That something has happen’d to your hair,” is what he says aloud, whilst thinking, that Dixon has become a Werewolf, or even worse,— some New World Creature without a name, at home among the illimitable possibilities of Evil in this Forest, . . . some Manifestation to daylight denied. . . . Meanwhile Dixon, sensing in his partner but a lower order of Snakes-and-Bears Jumpiness, in Fun begins appearing at the Tent-opening with the tail of the Hat pull’d round in front of his face, screaming in a Pitman’s Cant intelligible but to himself. Mason’s reactions are all he is hoping for, and more. The Quill goes into a panicky skate off the page,— Mason looks frantically about for a weapon. Dixon quickly reverses the bushy Tail.

  “Surprize!”

  “Not funny.”

  “Don’t like me Shappo? Well Ah hadn’t done Punch’s Voice yet . . . ?” At Mason’s blank look, “Tha mean, tha’ve never done this with thy Wig? The children love it.”

  “Fascinating. Apparently I was never allow’d the Opportunity,— my older son,— William,— having learn’d quite soon to remove mine from my head, and convert it into a toy Cudgel, with which, charmingly of course, he would pretend to smash his baby brother’s head in. The powder always made him sneeze, although’ this did not affect the sincerity of his Assault.”

  But the word always has slipp’d in, fatal to any attempt at Wit, or even lightness of tone, and may be Mason’s way of asking for sympathy, fully as supplicatory as a tremor in the voice, a fugitive tear. He has blunder’d on into a Remark about Hats, cock’d and not.

  “Sir?” Dixon giving Beef.

  “Surely, Sir, I meant no disrespect to the Quakers, among whom I number,— ”

  “ ’Tis the dismissive Use of Metonymy, Sir. We are particularly earnest upon the Topick of Hats, having invested in them more than insurance against the Rain.— Our history as a Sect having begun with a Hat that remain’d upon its Head,— and mercifully the Head upon its Body,— ”

  Later, Mason seeks revenge. Dixon having drifted into a hypnagogic passage in which, amid a profligacy of stars rushing by, he is traversing straight upward, Zenithward,— “Eeh! Eeh!” He is awake and screaming. Mason is ringing a small iron Bell rapidly in front of his Nose. “Indians? Americans? Where’s my Rifle? Whah’?”

  “ ’Tis Capella,” smirks Mason, “about to culminate, and tho’ I do prefer the Clock myself, as it is your, ye might say, Work-Station, reluctantly must I yield it to you, I suppose, and go clap me Eye to the old Snout once again.”

  “I wasn’t asleep . . . ?”

  “ ‘Fair Blapsia, I am thine’? Pray you Sir, a moment’s Mercy.”

  “Who said thah’ . . . ? Ah didn’t say thah’ . . . ?”

  Mason’s look is pois’d between Pity and Annoyance.

  “I’ve been awake. I remember when Farlow and Boggs came by . . . ? with their Voucher Situation . . . ? a lively whim-wham for fair.”

  “Boggs and Farlow didn’t,— Hum, that is to say,— ”

  “Ha! Happen ’twas thee asleep then . . . ? I puzzl’d that they spoke so quietly.”

  “I was awake, all the time, they were never here, you must have dream’d it.”

  “Oh, tha look’d awake, but Ah mind thy gift of sleeping with thine Eyes open wide.”

  “I can’t help that, my father did it too, it’s given me Nightmares for Years. I couldn’t bear to look at it,— how can you? Doesn’t it trouble you?”

  “Me? Why, no. Why should it? Some individual pretending to stare at me, whilst his Soul’s off God knows where, having Adventures imperfectly recall’d,— why should any of that trouble me, particularly the Question of what, in thy Absence, is doing the Staring for thee? What caretaker, what Verger of the Temple of the Self . . . ? Eeh!”

  “Yes. And, and the Stare you speak of,— do my Eyes, in a sense, roll upward into blind white Ovoids, and are your Dreams not invaded by that sinister unseeing Gaze, ever-charg’d with some imminent Act you must upon no account remain there to witness,— ”

  “Aye!” screams Dixon, “— aye, they’re blank as boil’d Eggs, and worse,— for Irisless and unpupil’d yet do they go on squinting at me, as if,— ”

  “Yes, yes?”

  “Eeh, never mind.”

  “No, pray you, I’m interested, very interested in
deed.” Wind shoves against the Tent. Rainwater somewhere drips into a kettle. The flames of the Tallow Dips are ever uncertain. From the Forest now proceed Sounds, real ones, that neither Surveyor has heard before, and that each is too embarrass’d to mention to the other. Dixon, having the finer tolerance for mysterious intrusion, breaks first. “All right, I know you hear it too. It’s rhythmic, and high-pitch’d, aye? I say it’s Indian Drums, and they’re talking about huz . . . ?”

  “And I say, ’tis a Dog,” Mason somber. “A particular Dog, with a syncopated Bark. . . . Oh yes, a Dog well known and much fear’d in this Region,— withal a Dog. . . .”

  “Eeh, wait then, wheer’s my Flask, if we’re having a Toast to the Animal . . . ?” Outside something is creeping by. “Hold!” Dixon seizing a Pistol and diving out the tent-flap, into the rain with a smoothness Mason has rarely observ’d. There is some jingling and shuffling. “It’s the young McClean!” cries Dixon.

  “Felicitude,” mutters Mason. “What next? Invite him in for a Drink, I suppose.”

  In pokes Dixon’s head, considerably wetter. “Nathe’s of your Mind,— thinks it’s a Dog. I still say it’s a Drum, though perhaps of unconventional Design,— say, how much of that Stuff in the Bottles is to hand?” They now are join’d by other crew members who have heard, and are unhappy with, the pulsing, uncertainly Distant Noise. Wearily Mason pulls on Oil-cloths, tugs his Service-Grade Beaver over his Nob, and emerges to mill about as perplex’d as the rest, hoping no one will look to him for Leadership. Soon the place is so full of Crew that they decide to move on into the Mess tent, where already Mr. Barnes and his Band have been conversing separately.

  “Gents, we are all agreed,” the Overseer greets them,” ’tis the,” whispering for the first time since they’ve known him, “Black Dog.”

  “Probably out seeking to relieve himself upon one or more of his personal Trees,” adds Matt Marine, “which will no longer be there, having been chopp’d down for our Visto. The B.D. will likely be very put out at this, for he does like his personal Trees, ye see.”

  “Shall he retaliate?” wonders Mason. “What Measures should we be taking?”

  “Eeh, Mason . . . ?”

  “May I suggest that this is all but a form of Joint Mirage,” offers the Revd, “something very like it having been reported in the Philosophical Transactions not long ago, as you may recall?”

  Dixon’s “Why, aye” and Mason’s “I do not” are spoken simultaneously. The Surveyors glare at each other. “Someone wrote in to the R.S. about this Black Dog?” inquires Mason.

  “Careful,” warns Mr. Barnes, “you’re not suppos’d to use any of Its names, really.”

  “Really? ‘The Black Dog’? Can’t say, ‘The Black—’ ”

  “Sh-shh! ’Tis one of the Things That Are Never Said.”

  “Oh?” Dixon curious. “And the others are . . . ?”

  “An extended List, Sir.”

  “And of course tha’d rather not recite it aloud . . . ? is it not yet enough, the Catholick axmen blessing their Bits each morning with holy water,— the Astrologites newly reluctant to work when the Moon is void of Course,— the Presbyterians ever brewing Potions, and scrying the entrails of Toads,— and now a List of Things That May Not Be Said?”

  “Ahrr,—” Mason a-squint, “finely set these Days? Am I not given to understand that no Geordie can ever quite bring himself to pronounce the name of— ”

  “Don’t say it,— ”

  “— of a certain farm animal? noted for its wallowing, and, and oinking,— ”

  “Be a Gent, Mason, I concede the point.”

  “And you promise not to say, ‘The Black D—’ ehhp,— that is,—”

  “Folk out here advise,” says Dixon, “that all else failing, the Names most likely to matter, spoken aloud, are those of the Holy Trinity,— accompanied by a Cross, drawn in the air at the same time.”

  “Same time as what? as the Dog is leaping for my Throat?”

  “Eeh,— disputes with Phantom Dogs are not in my Line, Mason. Dogs love me, I’m a Dog Person.”

  “Are you really.”

  “All my Life.”

  “So,— if I threw a Stick, and cried Fetch, you would actually run, and,—” Mason places a Finger crosswise between his teeth, and nods, inquiringly.

  “No, no, not that kind of Dog Person.— Though happen I did see something like, once at Darlington Fair . . . ?”

  “Hark ye,” calls Moses Barnes, “— Gentlemen. Has the Wind only shifted, or has this damn’d Howling come nearer?”

  All attend the Night outside the canvas walls. “Ain’t it more likely to be no Dog, but Indians pretending to be a Dog?” Mr. Farlow inquires calmly, thereby throwing the Company into a Panick. Countrymen set their fur hats mistakenly upon the Heads of others, or grab the wrong Rifle whilst it is yet in its Owner’s Hands. Powder is spill’d, strewn, left by the Fire. Ev’ryone is shouting at once.

  “Leadership,” Mason mumbling to himself. Turning to Dixon, “One of us,— ”

  “Me. As usual.” Pulling his Hat down over his Ears, he prepares to exit.

  “Mr. Dixon is going out to have a look,” Mason announces, quite chirpy. “If it is a Dog, he’ll know what to do.”

  “What if it’s Indians?”

  “I’ll bite them . . . ?” Dixon lifts the Flap, clears his Sensorium, and steps outside. There is a long Silence. Mason has drifted into a curious daydream about Philadelphia, where he has just been elected Dog-Catcher, on the basis of his adventures upon South Mountain, when Dixon comes back.

  “Wasn’t the Creature yese spoke of. It was the Glowing Indian.”

  “What, the Glowing Indian of South Mountain? Hasn’t been seen for years.”

  “Perhaps it was something else . . . ?” Dixon accepts a Pewter Mug of Maize-Whiskey. “What would tha call a very large Native American, with a net output of light, comparable to that of a Forge?”

  “Dunno . . . Glowing Indian?”

  “Just so,— Hatchet and Musket-Barrel and Knife-Blades, all a-glow, Steam billowing up when he stepp’d in the Creek . . . ?”

  Mason has no command of his Tongue. He keeps trying to say, “Too far, Dixon, you never know where the Crease of Credulity’s been set.” He is disappointed at not having seen it, whatever it is,— believing it a Spiritual Demonstration, that Dixon almost certainly has fail’d to appreciate. Dixon, for his part, the further West they chain, finds himself with a need for some new Jostling daily to his Sensorium, and tonight’s Glowing Indian, in this numbing torrent of American Stimuli, seems just the Ticket, tho’ he wouldn’t have minded some whim-wham with the Black Dog. “Wading down toward Antietam, last I saw. Seem’d a pleasant enough Lad. Not much to say. Too tall, of course. . . .”

  Over South Mountain, among the Springs that fall to Antietam Creek, on September 21st, they pause at 96 Miles, 3 Chains, near the House of Mr. Staphel Shockey, who tells them of a remarkable Cavern beneath the Earth, about six miles south of the Line. In the winter, English Church services are held in it. Mason’s Hat begins to move, as from some Agitation beneath it. Accordingly, the next day, Sunday, they pay a visit, in company with Mr. Shockey and his Children, whilst Mrs. Shockey remains at home with a thousand Chores that Sunday does not release her from.

  The entrance is an arch about 6 yards in length and four feet in height, when immediately there opens a room 45 yards in length, 40 in breadth and 7 or 8 in height. (Not one pillar to support nature’s arch) . . . On the Sidewalls are drawn by the Pencil of Time, with the tears of the Rocks: The imitation of Organ, Pillar, Columns and Monuments of a Temple; which, with the glimmering faint light; makes the whole an awful, solemn appearance: Striking its Visitants with a strong and melancholy reflection: that such is the abodes of the Dead: thy inevitable doom, O stranger; soon to be numbered as one o
f them.

  “— So it reads in the Field-Book.”

  “They handed that in?” Ethelmer in surprise.

  “Part of the official record,” Uncle Ives’s Eyebrows descending.

  “However, where Mason saw a Gothick Interior, Dixon saw ’pon ev’ry Surface, ancient Inscriptions, Glyphs unreadable,— Ogham, possibly.”

  Mr. Shockey has little to add. “The Indians, it seems like they stay’d away from here,— bad Spirits or something. So if it’s writing, it’d have to be older ’n them.”

  “Could’ve been Welsh Indians,” offers one of his Sons. “Mov’d on West long before our Time, said to be cross’d beyond the Illinois. You’ll be seeing Captain Shelby soon, he knows more.”

  Mason is looking about, precisely like someone planning to furnish a room. “Nor Summer’s Heat,” he will whisper later that Night, unable to quit the Fire “nor Winter’s Freeze, need bother us, snug in the Earth . . . those Ceilings! high as Heaven. . . .”

  Dixon is not quite so entertain’d. The Cave oppresses him. He has mentally measur’d it, as Surveyors do, and is trying to imagine what form of Life might be calling something as spacious as this Home. And what might become of the Anglican Population out here, should the Dweller show up unexpectedly one Sunday, during the Service.

  All the way back to the Visto, Mason is seiz’d by Monology. “Text,— he cries, and more than once, “it is Text,— and we are its readers, and its Pages are the Days turning. Unscrolling, as a Pilgrim’s Itinerary map in ancient Days. And this is the Chapter call’d ‘The Subterranean Cathedral, or, The Lesson Grasp’d.’ You must make sure I do not attempt to return. Didn’t you feel anything? You people, with your second sight and Eldritch Powers,— why I’ve seen betterr at Painswick Fairr.”