Fire on the Mountain

by Terry Bisson

  And you? I would dearly like to hear from you. Though you are less than a month departed, I admit I miss your letters more than I would have thought. My emotions, like my opinions, have been in continual alteration here, putting all in a new light. How is Bath? And how is England? And how is School? And how is my dearly missed—friend—Emily?

  Do please write.

  Yours &c. &c.

  Thos. (Hunter, M.D., ad imminen)

  “She would be back by now. Plus, there’s nothing in the town she wanted to see. Plus, the center was closed this morning when we left, anyway. She doesn’t even like museums; besides, you would have seen her there. She would have left a note. Ever Since Leon . . . died, she’s been super-considerate all the time; she babies me, really. Her own mother. Except when she’s mad. She’s been mad at me ever since I gave her those shoes. She has it in her head they don’t look right. You know how kids are. Or I don’t know, maybe you don’t. Shit, it’s starting to rain. There’s something else; one thing I didn’t tell you. Last night I told her that I was pregnant.”

  “Oh,” Grissom said.

  His eyes dropped from Yasmin’s broad face to her long figure. He would never have guessed. They were standing on the steps of the Shenandoah Inn. He had come right over when she called.

  “Well, maybe that upset her,” he said. “Maybe that’s why she didn’t go with us to Martinsburg.”

  “She wasn’t planning to go anyway,” Yasmin said. “She said she wasn’t interested in some little old lady.” She looked up and laughed, and this time Grissom laughed with her.

  “Maybe she went up the mountain,” he said. “She was asking me yesterday about the North Star Trail. Hey, I even gave her a map.”

  Yasmin looked across the river. “Where does this trail start?”

  “Right there. It’s nothing to worry about. These are little bitty mountains.”

  “I don’t see anything but bushes. She didn’t seem upset last night when I told her.”

  “How come you waited so long to tell her?”

  “What do you mean?” Yasmin said, agitated again. “That’s not fair. When I picked her up in Staunton, it was the first time I had seen her in four months.”

  “You waited a day and a night.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I don’t remember. She didn’t seem upset. Not about that, anyway. You know what we talked about? Those damn shoes. She doesn’t think they look right, and you know what, at this point I think she’s right. I wish I had never gotten them. There’s something you’re supposed to do to them, but I can’t remember what it is. You know what else, Grissom? It suddenly just occurred to me.”

  “What?”

  “She never asked me who the father was. Shit. Now look.”

  It was really starting to rain.

  How well I remember the night that Mama sat me down at the board table in the kitchen and told me that she and Deihl were leaving Charles Town. Leaving Virginia. It was late October, cool enough so that the coal-burning cookstove, which in the summer urges children out the kitchen door, was drawing me toward it. The fire felt good. I stood first on one foot, then on the other. Old Deihl stood in the corner with his horse-smelling hat in his hand. Mama was the slave and he was the master, but she did all the talking and handled the money; they were that way. It was time to move North, Mama told me; troubles were coming to the Shenandoah. Deprivations, degradations, depredations, she said, using those Bible words that have been the solace of the ignorant and the learned alike for centuries. She mentioned neither Brown nor Tubman; never looked up and never looked east, toward the window and the mountain; but this was not peculiar to her, it was common to all the black folk in town, free and slave alike. Brown was like a woman’s curse, accounted for by all but acknowledged by none, at least among ourselves. The plantation Africans were different, which is why lately I felt easier in their rough company, and often went to Green Gables to see the Fire on the Mountain. You could see it almost as well from town, but nobody looked. If Deihl could sell the stable, Mama said, we could be in ‘Balmer’ (as folks called it then, great-grandson, and still do today) in a week. Then on to Pennsylvania. There was plenty of money to be made up North (here old Deihl sucked his pipe like January wind in a chimney). It was too uncertain here in Virginia; there would be fighting and fires; there would be reprisals against black folks and their friends and families (Deihl again sucked his pipe); there would be famine and pestilence. Mama went on, describing poor little Charles Town and Harper’s Ferry as if they were Sodom and Gomorrah, but I was hardly listening by then. I had one eye on the door, for I had to get to Green Gables and find Cricket. I wasn’t concerned about moving North in a week, since I had already laid my plans: to meet with Cricket and join Brown and Tubman’s Army that very night!

  October 20, 1859

  Miss Emily Pern

  Queens Dispensary

  Bath, England

  My Dear Emily:

  I hope this reaches you in good health and Spirits. I passed my tutorial (hoorah!) and am preparing to go South after Thanks Giving, to take up practice. I am of course apprehensive. In fact, and I tell you only because this letter is entrusted to my friend Levasseur, who is on his way to England—I again recommend him to your affection and trust—in fact, I go on behalf of our Medical Assistance group to render aid to the rebel army there. The bold talk is done and the hour is gathering.

  Ironically, the first victim of my plan to go back South is my principle against duelling. I wrote you that my sister’s beau was seeking to challenge me; well, in order to preserve my image as a Virginia gentleman, essential for our success, I have agreed to meet him at dawn tomorrow on the Schuylkill. Duelling is of course illegal here, but any school with as many Southerners as Temple must have informal arrangements, and so there is a field where shots heard are not remarked. It is now midnight and I sit with two Longmann cap and ball pistols before me on the table where my texts have sat this past four years. What a blunt field of study is Death! I have loaded the guns with powder and wad but no shot, but we draw lots and his weapons, I suspect, will not be so solicitous of the Flesh. At any rate, it is not the violence of death I fear but its precipitous finality: that I might depart this world never having thanked those Parents who gave me life; or those friends who have given birth to my Spirit, such as yourself and my Jacobin, Lev. But Emily, let me be bold. You may have suspected that I harbor in my breast feelings, for you, that are somewhat more tender than I have expressed, thus far. Is it too much to hope that your inclinations, toward me, might also grow if encouraged? I would ask leave, when this evil work is done, to offer you a declaration, beyond this timid confession, that I hope will not surprise, or repel you. But enough said can be too much. So, for the present, I remain:

  Your humble and Ob’d’n’t servant, & admiring & affectionate friend. And, God willing, someday, perhaps more:

  Thos. Hunter, M.D.

  Tom

  For weeks, since False Fire, I had been plaguing Cricket to run away with me and join Brown’s men. At first he had laughed scornfully; then he chided me that such talk was foolish, then dangerous. Only gradually did I begin to suspect, then understand, that there was more to his hesitancy than his usual obstinacy (that it was cowardice I had never believed); and that he himself was in contact with the Army of the North Star. I later found out, as we all did, the hard way, that he was in fact one of those who helped people and supplies find their way up the mountain (for they were back on the Blue Ridge, as well as on the mountains to the south) and perhaps helped the wounded find their way down. All this and more Cricket kept a secret as he kept everything else, by carrying it loose and open in his hand, by acting loose-lipped and foolish; he was perhaps the only African in the Valley who spoke openly and even admiringly about Brown, as though to be looting arsenals and burning courthouses were as admirable and thrifty as thinning trees. All this, I see now, was to remove him
from suspicion as one of their confederates; it was Cricket’s variation of the ancient deception we all played, one way or another, on the whites. The old folks played it by acting as if Brown were only more white folks’ foolishness and contrary to all sense and understanding. Mama did it by acting as if freedom was the curse. I did it. Since Lee’s defeat the fire was back on the mountain, but sporadically, shifting. Cricket’s job was to bring the new recruits to the foot of the Blue Ridge, along the last section of the underground railway: the new section of track that had been laid by Brown and Tubman so that it no longer led North, to escape, but up the ridge and then South, to liberation. All this was told me later, or I figured it out, although who recruited Cricket and how, I was never told and I never asked. Even today, even after all these years, and the winning of independence and the building of socialism, I would not want to know, so dear to our Nova Africa is that deep silence of the slave: it is our liberty bell. But I knew none of this then. All I knew was that Brown and Tubman had outwitted Lee, and like a million other Africans who had been ‘waiting to see,’ I wanted to join them. Oh, Brown was our lion and Tubman our fox, great-grandson! If you won’t go with me, I’ll go by myself, I threatened Cricket; and with this he finally listened (we were putting bottle glass on his baby brother’s grave) and stood up and cuffed me more tenderly than usual (as I see it now, through eyes washed clean by time and tears)—then looked me up and down, figuring, I guess, that there was only one way to shut me up. “Bring a piece of bread, a candle, a clasp knife and Deihl’s pistol to Solomon’s Pond tomorrow night,” he told me. But Deihl doesn’t have a pistol, I complained. He swatted me again and asked me if Deihl was a white man. I said, of course. Every white man has a pistol, fool, Cricket said. It’s only a question of finding it. Sure enough, I found it later that night, the very same night that Mama told me we were moving North. It was an ancient Bavarian cap and ball with an octagon barrel, wrapped in a calico rag in a chest at the foot of the bed in the old man’s upstairs room where he hardly ever stayed. It was as heavy as a coal stove, but stealing it was the easiest part. The hardest part was the note. Even though I knew she couldn’t read it, I wrote Mama that I was gone to either Death or Glory, to fight and die for Freedom’s flag. Then I wondered, who would read it to her, since few black folks who could read could be trusted (except of course myself). Also, Cricket had told me to follow his instructions exactly and leave no clues. So I tore the note up. Then, knowing I would never return, and Cricket would never know, I wrote it again and left it in Mama’s oven, where Deihl would never look. By now it was time and my heart was pounding as I wrapped up a chunk of cheese and stole out of the house, out of the town, and down to the slough west of Charles Town and south of Harper’s Ferry that was called Solomon’s Pond. But the joke was on me: it was only a test. Cricket rebuked me for bringing the cheese (even as he ate it), saying that I must follow directions precisely. He told me to put the gun back where I’d found it and meet him exactly one week later at midnight at the abandoned firehouse at the edge of Charles Town, bringing absolutely nothing. Not even the gun? He laughed and said Brown had no need for antiques. He asked if I had written Mama a note. No, I lied. Cricket seemed pleased; he said good, don’t bother, since we wouldn’t be joining the rebels anyway but helping them from here in town. I was furious and disappointed, but before I could protest he was gone. I ran home and tore up the note and crept into bed long before sunrise.

  October 22, 1859

  Miss Emily Pern

  Queens Dispensary

  Bath, England

  Dear Emily:

  Well, yesterday I fought my first and hopefully final, Duel. I aimed to miss, but my opponent didn’t; but he is a poor shot, which was gratifying, as we used his weapons from the toss instead of mine, which are falsely loaded with powder but no shot. We shook hands and though the incident is not forgotten, the episode is ended. Meanwhile he is off to join Lee’s Army! Perhaps he will miss Brown. I felt the shot go by, which is like someone tearing up a letter close by your ear. A letter from Death you will have to read sooner or later. Speaking of letters, have you heard yet from our friend Levasseur, now in London I think, who has sworn to write me of England and of you? Tell him to write me if you do. In short, I live, and hope to hear from you.

  Your faithful &c.

  Thomas

  Harriet stepped up her pace, hoping to reach the top of the mountain before it got too wet. She wished she had brought a raincoat or something to eat. The first part of the walk had been neat, through the laurel-covered ledges, but now it was just a trudge. She couldn’t find the right pace between fast and slow. The shoes looked better, though. They had acquired a sort of blue glow. Last night she’d had what her father and granny called a ‘conjure dream’: a dream where nobody in the dream knew it was a dream but you. She was running down a dirt road; the grown-ups were in front of her, walking fast, talking among themselves and ignoring the kids, as grownups do. The kids were behind her, going slow, pitching rocks, swatting weeds with sticks. She was in the middle, alone, not sure whether she wanted to catch up with the grown-ups or fall back with the kids.

  Then there was another kid with her in the middle, a boy she didn’t know. Even in the dream she knew it was her new brother. Mama, she cried out, she wanted to show her mother, but her mother was walking across the field away from the road in her high blue Africa shoes, walking fast.

  Now it was really starting to rain. What happened to living shoes if you got them wet?

  Maybe they turned into blue fish.

  There was a hole in the rock, a dry ledge with a dirt floor, like a little house, and Harriet climbed into it.

  If Cricket hadn’t been so much bigger than me, I swear I would have hit him. I was frustrated and angry all week that I had been fooled. I didn’t want to stay in town. I wanted to join Brown and Tubman and be a soldier; I was almost thirteen. But he wouldn’t even talk about it. I know now all the arguments he could have made, but Cricket wasn’t the arguing kind. He just told me to shut up and do what I was told. On the appointed night of our next meeting, I went to bed early, then lay awake until I could hear Mama’s snore, and then Deihl’s, like an old gospel duet, only she was the bass and he was the tenor. He sometimes went to her bed but not exactly as master and slave; there was a rough equality of affection between them because he had bought her promising to set her free. They had become man and wife in their way, but I was not included in the family. My own father had escaped right after Mama was bought (from Green Gables, where she was raised) and before I was born; and though I often wondered about him, she let me know that I was never to ask. When I thought of him, it was not of a man but of a wild goose heading north against the sky. The moon was setting at midnight when I crept out the back door, and I was surprised to find Cricket waiting for me by the woodpile, not at the assigned place. I was beginning to see that surprise was central to his method. Motioning to me, he started toward the barn. Suddenly I was afraid. I thought he was going to steal the horses. Slitting throats I could handle: war, arson, revolution—even murder—were fine with me. But stealing horses was going too far. I froze in my tracks, terrified, a living illustration of Marx’s insight that our livelihood conditions our consciousness. Hissing like a snake, Cricket said come on! More afraid of him, I followed; but I needn’t have worried. After patting the horses on the rump to calm them, Cricket took the hurricane lamp from the wall, explaining later on the road that the one he had planned to bring from Green Gables had broken that day in a kitchen accident. My job was to keep my mouth shut and follow him like a shadow and do what he told me. Period. We stopped at a little church on Westallís Road, where Cricket pulled a gun wrapped in a rag out from under the side steps, and stuck it in his belt. This was no antique, but a sleek little LeFebre four-shot revolver. Then he pulled out two black cloths and tied one onto his face and one onto mine, like highwaymen. Then we were back on the road. We made for the fence row once when we heard horses: a team of si
x paddy rollers rode by, making enough noise for an army. Times being what they were, they were not wanting to take anybody by surprise. After an hour of walking, we got to Buford Hollow Church. Cricket cooed like a dove from the shadows, and we both stood hidden in the deep womanly darkness of a willow tree, shoulder to shoulder like babies in the womb. He cooed again. There was a coo back, and from behind the outhouse came a dark shape as black as the night that enfolded us, carrying a shotgun. “Liberty,” Cricket whispered, and only when the other croaked back, “Death,” did I realize it was a woman, not a man—an older woman about Mama’s age, forty-five. She looked hungry and worried. Cricket handed her the bread, and took her gun and handed it to me. She was reluctant to give it up. It was a beautifully tooled English shotgun, some slave-owning family’s heirloom. Even in the darkness the silver locks gleamed. Cricket told the woman to turn around and tied a mask across her face like ours. Then, while she waited, he filled his palm with small gravel and poured it down the barrel of the gun, then tamped it with a piece of biscuit using a willow wand as ramrod, and handed it back to me. “Insurance,” he told me later; and we were off. No talk, no names. My heart was pounding, but I said nothing, only played the shadow. I covered the silver lock of the gun with my hand because I felt it gleamed like a beacon. After another hour on the road, we reached a forest, and Cricket plunged into the pitch-black woods, the woman following Cricket; and me, her. We came out in an open space which, even in the darkness, I could sense was a quarry. We walked to the middle on a jumble of great rocks. There we sat until Cricket saw or heard some sign that I missed, and lighted the hurricane lamp, setting it at his feet turned very low. We sat longer until a light flashed in the woods; then at Cricket’s gesture I handed him the shotgun and he handed it to the woman, and we were gone without a word, taking the now-extinguished lamp and leaving her alone in the darkness. Now it was I who was sorry to give up the gun. On the road back we took off the masks. We got home right before dawn, and I replaced the lamp in the barn and slipped into my bed above the kitchen. Two hours later I was up doing my kitchen chores; then it was to the barn, where I did my stable chores; then to the house to help serve dinner. I wasn’t tired; I was in heaven. I kept playing it over and over in my mind: the darkness, the cool machinery of the heavy guns, the whispers and the cooing signals. The mysteriousness of war. We were the shadows the fire on the mountain cast. Shoulder to shoulder with Cricket in the dark, I had found what I was looking for. Thus ended my first trip. Alas, there was to be only one more.