Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “Sometimes a little mystery is very attractive,” said Phileda, herself sparking a humorous glance from her brother.

  Mister Walton did his best to distract attention from his sudden blush by searching for a fork. Sundry, who was making good use of the fare set before him, said nothing, but it was clear from his expression that he did not find mystery all that handsome.

  “And have you been studying Indian life here, Professor?” asked Mister Walton, hoping to relocate the focus of conversation.

  “Professor Chadbourne was the first scholar to investigate these mid-dens,” explained Jared. “Or, rather, the middens on the opposite shore.”

  Mister Walton turned slightly to look across the Damariscotta. A fairly strong breeze, traveling upriver, nicely complimented the sunny day, brushing past his face and tugging lightly at his hat. On either shore the white heaps glowed in the sun, snowlike in contrast to the summer greens and variegated wildflowers that stretched in all directions.

  The shell heaps were nothing more than their title purported—great piles of white refuse, accumulated over centuries through the industry and appetite of the river’s indigenous people. The remains, of clams, mussels, and quahogs—but mostly of oysters—rose in mounds as high as sixteen feet along the shore. It staggered the imagination when one considered the span of time necessary to amass such a quantity of discarded shells.

  Mister Walton visualized in his mind a plate of oysters that would constitute a meal, then wondered how many such plates were represented below him. “How long have oysters been eaten on this bank?” he said aloud.

  “There are some who believe, sir,” said Jared McCannon, “that the very deepest shells to be found were cracked open before the birth of Christ.”

  “And you believe . . . ?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, Toby,” said Professor Chadbourne, “if those first oysters were taken from the river bottom while the Israelites were yet under the rule of Egypt.”

  “You can see them, can’t you?” said Phileda to Mister Walton.

  They were walking together along the foot of the banks, and he had paused to gaze up at the compressed levels of shell and soil, his head craned back, his hands clasped behind him.

  “The people before us,” she said. “They are still here, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I can see them. The smoke rising from the bank, the glow of their fires against the growing heaps behind them and reflecting from the water as night draws on. And the people themselves, speaking in their ancient tongue; reflecting upon their day, telling tales, singing, laughing.”

  Quite naturally, she put her arm in his as they recommenced their stroll. “You are a poet,” she said pleasantly.

  His laugh was gratifying to hear. They moved closer to the water, which reflected a darker version of the sky’s piercing blue, the current jumbling its own image of the opposite shore. Swallows swept along the surface of the river, darting through the shade of the western bank in search of insects, vaulting and somersaulting through the summer air with unconscious artfulness.

  Other birds sang in the meadow above, and they could hear Professor Chadbourne giving Sundry a tour of the oyster banks, with occasional footnotes provided by Jared McCannon.

  Another human voice from across the river mingled unexpectedly with these more immediate sounds and carried with it enough distress to draw their eyes to the hill on the western bank. Several figures there were running in several different directions, pursuing a large animal. There was something droll in the way they chased about the field, and Mister Walton could not but smile to watch them.

  “Is that a horse?” asked Phileda, shading her eyes with her hand.

  “No, it’s not,” said her brother, who suddenly stood beside her. “It’s a moose!”

  “No!” said Phileda. She adjusted her spectacles.

  “It is a moose,” said Sundry, who had joined them.

  “There is something familiar about those people,” said Mister Walton. One of the figures fell over a stone wall and slid on his stomach down the slope on the other side. A second man below him looked away from this event, but was soon aware of it when the involuntary traveler swept him from his feet. Together they proceeded down the slope in a tangle of arms and legs till their descent was halted by a stand of bushes. A third man appeared and attempted to extricate his fellows from the offending shrub.

  Mister Walton’s companions were quite astonished. “My goodness!” he said. “They do remind me of some fellows I met recently.”

  “Why should they be pursuing a moose?” wondered Phileda.

  “It’s carrying something on its antlers,” said Sundry. “Can you see it? It’s something red.”

  “There’s a woman, too,” said Jared. “Look!”

  The figure of a woman appeared by the stone wall, and they could not tell if her high-pitched voice was berating the moose or the men struggling with the bush below.

  “I’ve seen enough,” said Jared. “My curiosity has got the better of me. Who’s for taking the boat across?” he asked, and, “Exactly,” he said, when the show of hands was unanimous. “Quick! There is room for us all, if everybody sits tight!”

  51 Formation

  THESE VERSES CAME TO CORDELIA (HERSELF DROWSY IN THE BACK OF THE buckboard), and she did not quite know whose they were. But she was weary from her travels, from happiness and excitement, so she allowed herself to drift, and not even the wagon’s occasional lurches could discomfort her.

  The conversation did not lag, despite her disappearance from it, and she half-listened to her mother’s childhood memory of family outings, to Priscilla’s desire to see a white-tailed deer and Ethan’s tale of his encounter with a fox. Her father and John Benning spoke occasionally from their horses; Mr. Scott not at all—he rode at the head of the party, and she could not see him from her seat among the supplies and tents.

  She could see John Benning, however, past the rainbow cast against her half-closed eyes by the bright light of day. He rode well, as she imagined he would, his posture straight and easy with the animal’s gait. More than once (though she could only see him in silhouette with her eyes closed) she was sure that he looked at her, surer still that he would not have been alarmed to know that she saw him watching.

  Mr. Scott, on the other hand, had not given her a second glance (to her knowledge) since she met him. Cordelia noted this lack of interest, and suspected that Mr. Scott was the sort to look over the queen’s head in order to talk to her chamberlain. She decided to be annoyed by him.

  It was not long before the forests crept into view, stands of trees and dark lines in the distance like waiting armies. It was a young forest, with thickets of low-lying vegetation—junipers and scrub bushes. Alders stood in messy clumps where the land was wet, and pines and firs and hackmatacks grew alongside their predecessors’ remains.

  The way rolled with hills, and granite bones broke the surface of the earth in large and rugged outcroppings. Great slopes and low mountains hunkered beyond the forests, and Mount Katahdin ran like the moon upon their right hand, peering into valleys, and looming larger as they moved north and west.

  The trees gathered about the winding path, darkening the atmosphere with a shade of hushed expectancy. Noises came from the deeper sectors of the forest—bird calls or squirrels scolding—voices that sounded large and strange from the unseen places beyond the first line of trees. The way itself was damp with recent rain and mushrooms ranked in fairy circles amongst the dark trunks.

  They traveled without hurry, stopping only to let the animals drink from a stream, or to choose the best way around a deep water or a fallen tree.

  They broke from the forest where a vast field rolled away from them like the folds of a blanket. The scent of water and a patch of blue spoke of a lake beyond, but what caught their attention was the extraordinary green of the field.

  “It’s like a park!” exclaimed Cordelia.

  Dresden Scott brough
t his horse’s head around and rode back to the wagon. “It is a park, in a sense,” he said, speaking directly to her for the first time. “When Europeans came here, they were amazed to find large tracts of fields and meadows, just like this. They looked for some natural reason for these treeless acres, but as it turned out the Indians were responsible.”

  “I never thought of Indians as great clearers of land,” said James.

  “Most of us don’t,” replied Mr. Scott. “We think of them as woodland people, pitching their homes where nature has left a clearing. But they had an agronomy all their own, and kept their fields clear through controlled burning. Of course it was important to have cleared land for crops, but the deep grasses also coaxed game from the woods and simplified the hunt.”

  “Are you saying,” asked Cordelia, “that Indians are, to this day, burning this land every spring?”

  “The man who bought these acres hired the Indians nearby to do just that.” Mr. Scott led them down the slope of the field, drawing up where they might look down upon a long and fingery lake. Mercia suggested they have their meal here, and Cordelia jumped down from the wagon and half-ran to the brow of the slope.

  The grassy banks were littered with wildflowers, and a breeze brought the scents of grass and pine and water like balms to the appreciative travelers. The lake reflected the forest that clung to its far side. A large section of gray ledge hung above one corner of the shore. Walking out to the brow of the nearest slope, Cordelia saw something familiar in that granite formation—certainly something dramatic—and she declared that it was in need of a name.

  “It has a name, Miss Underwood,” said Dresden Scott. “The old people around here call it Minmaneth Rock.”

  Her eyes wide, Priscilla leaned forward from her seat as if not sure she had heard correctly. Mercia touched her niece’s hand lightly and John Benning tapped an admonitory forefinger twice against his lips. Cordelia stood looking away from Mr. Scott, and the surprise upon her face did not betray her. James coolly regarded the guide. “Minmaneth,” he said. “Is that an Indian name?”

  “It does have an Indian sound to it,” said Mr. Scott, without commitment. He dismounted and began to look through his saddle bags.

  John Benning walked to the brow of the hill, beside Cordelia, and trained his eyes upon the dark and distant overhang of rock. “Those glaciers were very distinctive sorts of carvers, weren’t they,” he said dryly.

  “What a pretty lake,” said Cordelia.

  “It’s all so beautiful!” declared Priscilla, hopping down from the buckboard. “Do you suppose, Mr. Scott, that Cordelia might hire the same people to clear her land?”

  “Ma’am,” said Dresden Scott. “This is her land.”

  “Goodness sakes!” said Mercia quietly, though she had half-suspected it.

  “Very nice, Mr. Scott,” said James sincerely.

  “It’s so beautiful!” shouted Priscilla again. “Cordelia!” she said, hurrying to her cousin’s side. “Cordelia! Did you hear? This is your land!”

  “I know,” said Cordelia. She was holding the brooch that her uncle Basil had given her; looking not at the lake and the forest and the granite ledge below, but staring at the lake and forest and gray ledge carved upon the piece of agate in her hand. “Uncle Basil,” she said, and Priscilla could not read the expression on her face.

  52 No Longer Nameless

  THE ROWBOAT TUNKED AGAINST THE SHORE AND SUNDRY HOPPED ONTO the bank with the bowline in hand. The bank was steep above them, but an ancient stream bed conveyed them gradually to the meadows beyond.

  Sundry led the way to where the stream bed broadened into a wet declivity. Mister Walton had no sooner reached Sundry’s side when a well-dressed though hatless man with a large beard hurried by, not ten feet away. A moose, wearing a suit of red flannel underwear on one antler, followed this fellow at a trot. A second man hove into view, waving his arms and shouting a series of unconnected vowels, and a third man could be seen, some distance away, calling out: “Divert him! Divert him!”

  In the center of this activity stood the woman they had seen from their vantage on the eastern shore; she watched this activity—men and moose—her feet apart, her hands on her hips, and did not give the impression of one who is gladdened by what she sees.

  The participants in this strange chase stopped then, huffing and blowing with their exertions. It was clear that they had run themselves out. The moose had other difficulties; the red flannels had partially dislodged from their perch and fallen over the animal’s face. The moose let out a snort that startled everyone and the garment shuddered like a window shade in the wind.

  Several moments passed before the moose made a second uncultured sort of noise—a kind of honking bellow—and with a toss of his head, he flung the underwear into the breeze, which carried the garment to the feet of Mister Walton. The moose pivoted with unexpected grace, bowled over the bearded man, and disappeared among the nearest row of trees.

  “Good heavens!” declared Mister Walton. “I do know these fellows!”

  If an angel had appeared before him, Thump could not have been more thunderstruck. He was, to put it mildly, out of sorts—having nearly been run over by a large mammal—and he blinked up at a cottony cloud, thinking that it looked like a great round-faced man smiling down at him. And then that great round face was suddenly occulted by the familiar round and smiling face of Mister Walton.

  “Mr. Thump,” said the bespectacled man. “Are you injured?”

  “It is very kind of you to inquire,” replied Thump, who was not at all sure he wasn’t dreaming. He looked for Ephram and Eagleton, but saw, instead, that Mister Walton held the very object of their chase!

  Of course! he thought. In the hour of our direst need, our chairman has come forth to lead us!

  “You have it!” he declared. Thump saw that other people were gathered about him.

  “Shall we call for help?” asked Phileda.

  “Mister Walton!” came a happy shout, and Eagleton rushed into Thump’s field of vision to shake hands with the great man.

  “Can you move?” asked Sundry of Thump. He took the supine man by a hand and a shoulder and helped him up.

  “My word!” Eagleton declared. “The suit itself!”

  Mrs. Maloney appeared next, her hands out to accept the hard-won prize.

  “I am not mistaken!” declared Ephram. “It is the chairman!”

  Mister Walton gladly transferred the undergarment to Mrs. Maloney, who huffed once in the direction of Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump and hurried off for home. (Mr. Maloney did go into town the next day to purchase a second suit.)

  Eagleton shook Mister Walton’s hand and congratulated him on accomplishing what they could not. “Brilliant,” he was saying. “Brilliant.”

  Ephram took up the hand shaking when his friend left off. “The prize and our chairman, all in a single day! A singular day! Remarkable!”

  Without explanation or introduction, Eagleton shook the professor’s hand, then carried on to Sundry and Jared. Ephram followed Eagleton’s lead.

  “You can’t imagine how far we chased that moose!” averred Eagleton. “Miles,” said Ephram. “We have chased that moose for miles.”

  “Oh, yes,” agreed Eagleton. “Certainly miles.”

  “How many miles, do you suppose?” wondered Sundry.

  “Two, three . . .” suggested Eagleton. “The animal did not move in a straightforward fashion. His path was circuitous.”

  “Three,” said Thump, settling the matter. “Oh, yes. Three miles if a single step. Back and forth, back and forth. We covered this ground several times. I am sure that it was three miles.”

  “A league, in fact,” said Jared McCannon. “A league is generally measured at three miles.”

  “A league, yes,” said Thump, not knowing that a golden phrase was about to fall from his lips. “We were on the path of that moose for a league!”

  “Do you think so?” asked Ephram.

  “
Oh, yes,” said Eagleton. “Thump is right. We followed that moose’s path a league, certainly.”

  “It was a moose path league,” said Mister Walton with a chuckle.

  “Pardon me?” said Thump, quite taken by the phrase.

  “A country mile and a moose path league.”

  “Yes,” said Thump, as if to himself. “A moose path league . . .”

  “Well,” said Phileda McCannon. “Why don’t you gentlemen come with us across the river? We can make two trips with the boat and you can help us finish what is left of our picnic.”

  “Well,” said Ephram, “I’m not sure we should . . .”

  “Nonsense!” said Phileda. “I insist.”

  And as they were already moving in the direction of the shore, this argument won out. They picked their way down the field and, following the stream bed, disappeared behind the steep bluff of the western bank. Thump was the last of them, the straggler, walking abstractedly with his head down and his hands clasped behind his back. He mumbled to himself, his voice lost among the louder, happier sounds of conversation and discovery.

  Then they were gone, their voices drifting, trailing away, covered by the breeze as it skimmed across the grass.

  A bird called from a nearby bush, and something rustled nearby.

  The breeze softened and momentarily died.

  And from the direction of the river, clear and triumphant, came Thump’s voice, filling the void of sound.

  “That’s it!”

  53 A Slip of the Thumb

  THE SOUNDS OF CAMP BEING PITCHED FOUND THEIR WAY OVER THE HILL TO James Underwood’s unattending ears. As a former naval officer he found it natural to toss out an order or two and leave the duties of making camp to others.

  And so, John Benning directed the raising of the tents, while Mr. Scott managed the animals and Mercia built a fire from wood that Ethan gathered. James rummaged through his haversack till he found a pair of binoculars, and walked over the brow of the hill toward the lake.