Chesapeake

by James A. Michener

  When the leave plane neared McGuire Air Force Base in 1968, Chris began to sweat, and on the speedy drive down to the Delmarva Peninsula his excitement grew. His wife reported, “I haven’t seen the land yet, but Mr. Turlock says it’s exactly what you wanted.”

  Chris stopped in Patamoke only long enough to embrace his mother, then sped over the bridge to the south shore. He drove west down one of the fingers reaching out toward the bay, then along a narrow road and finally down a long lane. “These must be our loblollies,” he said as the stately trees closed in, and then before him stood the old Cline house, and the rotting slave quarters, and the solid pier stretching out into the Little Choptank, and all things were twice as appealing as he had imagined. But the best part lay off to the west, where the little estuary joined the bay, for there stood the marsh from which Herman Cline’s rented slaves had chopped out fast land. It waited as it had in the time of Captain John Smith, unspoiled, trembling in the wind, crowded with living things and restless from the motion of the invading water. It seemed endless, many times larger than he had hoped for, and he could visualize himself leading his children into its heart and disclosing to them its secrets. He tried to speak, but his mind was filled with the drumbeat of the discredited poem:

  Look how the grace of the sea doth go

  About and about through the intricate channels that flow

  Here and there,

  Everywhere,

  Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the

  low-lying lanes,

  And the marsh is meshed with a million veins ...

  In this twelve-month period four men—two old, two young—came back to the Choptank, impelled by sharply different motives. Pusey Paxmore had crept home to die at the end of a shattered life. Owen Steed had prudently fled Oklahoma with sufficient funds to repurchase his family plantation. And Chris Pflaum had retired from the Army as a bemedaled major, with a research job at the Chesapeake Center for the Study of Estuaries and a waiting home deep in the Choptank marshes.

  Hiram Cater was difficult to categorize; the warden had granted him a compassionate leave so that he might attend the funeral of his parents. Jeb and Julia had been born in the same year, had struggled through decades of poverty enforced by their society, and had survived to see two of their children in federal penitentiaries. Often in their last years, as they sat in their antiseptic new brick cubicle, they castigated themselves for failures they could not explain, not realizing that it was Patamoke that had failed, not they. In 1977 they died within three days of each other, and their son Hiram was allowed home to bury them. At the grave he stood silent, and as soon as the brief ceremony ended he returned to prison, knowing that he could never again live in Patamoke.

  Major Pflaum was different from the other three, for he returned with honor and a burgeoning desire to accomplish something; during his military service he had been assigned to many duty stations on four different continents and he knew that few places on earth compared in physical beauty and spiritual ease with the Chesapeake.

  But as he started his research at the estuarine center he found himself engaged in a furious running debate with his father, Hugo Pflaum, who had spent fifty-one years defending the rivers and the bay. He resented it when his son proclaimed, “Nobody around here seems to give a damn about the future of this region.”

  “In your omniscience,” Hugo growled, “have you bothered to look at what we’ve accomplished? The laws that prevent men like Uncle Ruthven from palisading marshes and covering them with concrete? Our regulations protecting wetlands so that ducks will find something to eat? And the way we’ve confiscated those murderous long guns?”

  “Uncle Amos’s, too?”

  “We’ll get it, one of these days.”

  “But the land, Pop. It’s going to hell.”

  “You talk like an idiot,” Hugo said. “Our Eastern Shore’s one of the best places left on earth.”

  “Pop! Will you get in a car with me and take a look?”

  “I sure will.” The old warden bristled, and he joined his son in a pickup for a survey of the roads leading out of Patamoke.

  “Now all I want,” Chris said, “is for you to look at the grassy shoulders ... and the ditches.” And when Hugo did, he understood what his son was complaining about, for the roads were littered with empty beer cans and soda bottles. It seemed as if the law required each resident of Maryland to drink three cans of something every day and toss the proof along the highway.

  Glumly the old man conceded, “This is pretty bad, Chris.”

  His son slammed on the brakes and said, “I got a proposition for you, Pop. Let’s walk a quarter of a mile, out and back. Just count the cans and bottles.” As they moved slowly down the road they counted eighty-seven. Crossing over and walking back to the pickup, they found another seventy-two. “So on an average quarter mile of rural road we have a hundred fifty-nine—more than six hundred a mile. Schlitz, Miller, Budweiser, Michelob. The heraldry of modern America.”

  “I think you stacked the deck on me,” Hugo objected. “This is a lovers’ lane and you know how young people like to mess up everything.” But when they found a lovely back road it, too, had its quota of empties, the aluminum cans and the bottles good for a thousand years.

  Grudgingly Hugo said, “It really is pretty bad, Chris,” and when his son launched a campaign in the Bugle to clean up the roadsides, he contributed a sharp article arguing that men and women who had done such a good job of saving ducks and geese ought also to stop desecrating their landscape. His letter drew scorn, but Chris’s pressure goaded the authorities to appoint a commission to study the matter. Within a few weeks it reported:

  Two proposals have been made, that the government add five cents to the cost of every bottle or can to pay for clean-up service, or that disposable containers be outlawed. We reject the former because handling the deposit and the empties would place too great a burden on the merchant, and we reject the latter because Norman Turlock has spent a great deal of money building his canning factory for beer and soft drinks and to change the rules on him now would be unfair.

  This problem, which is not nearly so grave as certain agitators would want us to believe, can best be handled by having parents teach their children that cans and bottles should not be thrown in public places. With a little attention, this minor irritation can be solved without governmental action.

  Young persons, and some older too, expressed their displeasure at the Pflaum interference by initiating an interesting ritual: they accumulated empty beer cans in the backs of their cars and tossed them in large numbers into the Pflaum ditches. Some mornings on his way to work Chris would find two dozen beer cans at the end of his lane, but he realized that within a few weeks the animosity would be dissipated. What did disturb him was that wherever he looked in this marvelous bay region, the desecration was the same. It was this casual plundering of the landscape that infuriated him, this supine acceptance of despoliation. The government was powerless to protect the environment, because its citizens had become accustomed to drinking beverages from throw-away bottles and cans; Norman Turlock, having invested money in a process that deformed the landscape, was to be protected to infinity, and any system of picking up the refuse or preventing its deposit in the first place was forbidden because it would inconvenience someone.

  “Hell!” he said one day as he drove along a road south of the Choptank. “One fine morning we’ll awaken to find the land smothered in beer cans.” But when he tried to reopen the question in the columns of the Bugle, he was told by the editor, “No one’s interested in that nonsense any more.”

  It was Hugo who tried to temper his bitterness. “Chris, you got to keep things in perspective. The beer cans are a disgrace, but there’s a whole paradise here that’s unsullied.” And he cranked up the boat he used to patrol the oyster beds. “I want you to see for yourself how much we have left.” Mile after mile of the lesser rivers displayed banks carefully tended and expans
ive lawns free of contamination, but even so, Hugo said, “You can’t appreciate how well we’ve protected the Eastern Shore till you see the western.” So they roared out into the Chesapeake, crossing over to the rivers south of Annapolis, and there young Chris had a chance to see how lack of zoning and policing had encouraged this shoreline to become a marine slum. It was appalling, one little house after another crowded up against its neighbor, one wharf after another falling into disrepair. The shoreline was eroding and no attention was paid it; most developments had been haphazard and decrepit from the day of building.

  “That’s really something to worry about,” the older Pflaum said as they began their return trip. “That’s a lot more serious than beer cans.”

  When they reached the broad mouth of the Choptank, Hugo steered toward that loveliest of the eastern rivers, the Tred Avon: a broad, quiet estuary, a group of exquisite tributaries and innumerable coves, each with its own superb view. The boat slowed as the Pflaums studied the shoreline, one well-preserved home after another, not ostentatious but most attractive, hiding among tall trees.

  “You’ve heard what Turlock the Pirate tells his customers from up North? ‘If you don’t live on the Tred Avon, you’re camping out. And if you live south of the Choptank, you’ll never be invited to the good parties.’ ”

  Chris, who preferred the wilderness of the Little Choptank, wanted to defend his choice, but Hugo raised both hands. “Please, your mother and I are trying to hide your shame from the neighbors.”

  The pre-race meeting of skipjack crews was held at the Patamoke Club, and the mood was established by Captain Boggs, a towering black from Deal Island, known to his men as the Black Bastard: “The Nelly Benson observes on’y one rule. ‘Stand back, you sons-of-bitches.’ ”

  Another Deal Islander said, “This here is a race of workin’ boats. Each skipjack to carry two dredges, a push-boat aft on davits, two anchors and full gear.”

  One of the Patamoke men suggested a triangular course, but the Deal Islanders protested, “We’re racin’ in your water. We state the rules. If the southerly wind holds, a run up the river, turn and beat back.”

  That was it, a clean-cut rugged race of up-and-back with no furbelows or fancy diagrams. When this was agreed, the drinking began and some of the crews did not get to bed till dawn. Owen Steed, who by now was totally immersed in the race, got his men home reasonably early and felt that the Eden had a good chance, unless Captain Boggs got an early edge, in which case he would be tough to beat.

  Prizes for the race were not exorbitant: $75 to every boat that lined up for the start, and an additional $50 to each one that finished. The Bugle awarded a silver cup plus first prize of $100, second of $50 and third of $25, but most of the crews put together purses for wagers against boats of their class. The Deal Island men were especially eager to gamble, and Captain Boggs’ Nelly Benson would go to the line with some $400 placed against various other boats.

  The commodore for the race was a surprise, and a pleasant one. By acclamation, the watermen wanted Pusey Paxmore to serve as starter; in the old days he had been a man aloof, working at the White House and rather withdrawn from river life, but now that he had served time in jail he was more like them, and they insisted that since his family had built the oldest boats in the competition, the Eden and two others, his presence was obligatory. He had wanted to decline, but the Steeds would not permit it.

  Since the race occurred in October, just before the start of the oystering season, the twenty-three skipjacks were in prime condition: all had been hauled out to have their bottoms painted, and all had been cleaned up on deck, their dredges neatly stacked, their lines coiled. Mr. Steed had purchased a complete new dress for the Eden: for halyards dacron rigging because of its inflexible strength; for docking lines and anchor cable nylon because it did yield. He had gone to Henry Brown down at the tip of Deal Island for new sails and he had specified canvas rather than dacron because the stitching in the latter chafed too easily. In its eighty-six years the Eden had rarely looked better.

  The race was to start at the edge of the mud flats west of Devon Island, run up to Patamoke Light, turn it and tack back to a line between Devon and the mainland. A skipjack race started in a peculiar way: the boats jockeyed till they were in a straight line, then dropped anchors and lowered sails, waiting for the gun that would spring them loose.

  It was a tense moment, for the honor of every settlement on the shore was at stake—the rough watermen of Deal Island against the dudes of the Choptank. Each boat had a crew of six experts, plus seven or eight casual hands to man the lines. The Eden had five extra Turlocks and two Caters, each with his own job to do. Little Sam Cater, aged nine, would perch as far aft as possible and stare at the water, prepared to utter his warning cry, “Mud! Mud!”

  “You can fire, Pusey,” one of the judges said, and what ensued made devotees of regular racing shudder. On each of the anchored skipjacks four men began hauling in the anchor while a team of two pulled heavily on the halyards that raised the huge mainsail. Since the crews worked at uneven speeds, some boats got under way quicker than others, which meant that they were free to cut across the path of the slow starters, impeding them further. But sometimes the early boats miscalculated, and the slow starters generated enough speed to ram their opponents and delay them. When this happened, crews from both boats cursed and threw things and tried to cut rigging.

  One of the judges, a gentleman from a Long Island yacht club, said as the big boats slammed into one another, “This isn’t racing. This is marine suicide.” And when Pusey Paxmore said, with some relief, “We got them off to a good start,” the visitor replied, “Start? Good God, they’re all disqualified.”

  The first leg was a long run eastward with the wind directly aft, and Captain Boggs depended upon this to give him an early advantage; indeed, it looked as if he might outdistance the field, but the Eden and the old H.M. Willing from Tilghman lagged only a short distance behind. The latter was a memorable boat; it had been sunk twice, refitted three times: “Cain’t be more than seven percent of the original timbers left. All rebuilt, but she’s still the H.M. Willing, because it ain’t the timbers that determines a boat, it’s the spirit.”

  “We’re in good shape,” Captain Cater assured his crew, “because in ten minutes we swing onto a starboard run, and then we fly.”

  He was right. Halfway to Patamoke the skipjacks had to veer to the southeast, which meant that the strong wind would blow from the starboard quarter, the exact advantage the Eden needed. How she leaped forward! Her great boom swung out to port; her bow cut deep; she heeled well over and rode on the chine.

  “Stand back, you Black Bastard!” Captain Absalom shouted as his boat passed the Nelly Benson and headed for the turn at Patamoke Light.

  A real yachtsman who had twice raced to Bermuda watched the turn in frozen amazement; when the Eden negotiated it this gentleman said to people near him, “Why that man broke six rules! Doesn’t anybody say anything?” A waterman who heard the question replied, “They better not.”

  When the turn was completed, it was traditional for the cook to break out a spread and for the first mate to open the portable refrigerators for beer. From here on, the race became a little looser, for emptied beer cans refilled with water began flying through the air, and men with long poles tried drunkenly to impede their competitors.

  The food aboard the Eden was excellent: ham hocks and lima beans, krees, as the watermen pronounced the biting watercress, biscuits and honey with large slabs of yellow cheese. But as each plate was wiped clean, its owner began staring toward the cook’s shack, and in due time Amos Turlock appeared with a wide grin, to announce, “Gentlemen, we got pie-melon pie!” and the crew cheered. When he brought the first pies on deck he said, “We got lemon on the sour side, vanilla on the sweet, and Sam gets first choice.” He carried two pies, brown-crusted and rich, aft to where the boy watched for mud, and the lad said, “I takes lemon,” and a large chunk was cut.


  A pie-melon was a kind of gourd raised along the edges of cornfields, and when properly peeled and stewed, it produced one of the world’s great pies, succulent, tasty, chewy when burned a bit and unusually receptive to other flavors; the proportion was usually three lemon to two vanilla, and today that tradition held, but as the men ate, little Sam shouted, “Mud! Mud!” and this meant that the centerboard had touched bottom. This did not imperil the skipjack, but if the drag continued, its racing speed would be impeded, so two men jumped to the pendant of the centerboard and raised it until the lad cried, “No mud! No mud!” and this meant that the Eden was making maximum speed, and that its centerboard rode as deep as practical to ensure adequate protection against lateral drift.

  It was now apparent that the race would be decided on the two final tacks, and although the Nelly Benson had picked up a slight lead on the port tack, the boats must soon switch to starboard, and there the advantage would move to the Eden, “We’re in strong position!” Captain Absalom cried encouragingly, but as he prepared to jibe, Captain Boggs ordered seven of his crewmen aft to launch a barrage of water-filled beer cans at the wheel of the Eden, and Captain Cater had to step back to avoid being maimed. In that moment the Eden lost headway; the sails flapped; and whatever advantage the Patamoke boat might have gained was dissipated.