Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  He reads: Special from Presque-Isle, Pennsylvania. The French settlers along the lake shore, in North East Township, Erie County, a few miles east of here, were surprised and amazed on May Twelfth over the appearance of an unknown fish of mammoth size. Two brothers named Dusseau, both fishermen, were returning from the fishing grounds, when they discovered a phosphorescent mass upon the beach. It was late in the evening, but they succeeded in making their boat fast to the shore, and, upon examination, discovered a lake monster writhing in agony.

  Northup remarks: Amazing what finds its way into print these days.

  Chambers keeps reading: The brothers say that it was like a large sturgeon in shape, but that it had long arms, which it threw wildly in the air. While they were watching it, the great fish apparently died, and the Dusseau boys, badly frightened, hurried away for aid. When they returned with ropes the fish had disappeared. In its dying efforts it had succeeded in tumbling into the lake and had been carried away by the waves. The marks left by its wild thrashings on the muddy shore indicate that the serpent was between twenty and thirty feet in length. Several scales as large as silver dollars which were cast off were picked up.

  Chambers places this on the table atop the first. I have more, he says.

  Northup sighs, shakes his head. He says: Not wild thrashings in the mud. Writing. And not scales, Chambers. Eggs.

  II.

  His father, born Stukely Northup but renamed Stutley by a regimental clerk's error and an officious paymaster's refusal to admit it (You want your pay? Then you're Stutley! Stutley!), had named his son after the error to confound the new government's record-keepers. The war had done more than rename him; it had left him feeling hollowed out, uncertain of most things, and with a frail left arm. Discharged in January 1777 at Trenton, New Jersey, he'd made his way back through the bitter winter to a Rhode Island, a wife and young child, that he hardly recognized, not because they had changed but because they had not.

  On May Fourteen, 1780, a fine spring Sunday in Little Rest, R.I. (formerly King's Towne), he was hailed in the street by a young woman strangely togged out, all in black, mannish and vaguely Quaker, and cloaked in a long black gown, like a preacher's, tied at the throat with a flowing white cravat. She was riding a white horse and sporting a preposterous hat of white beaver with a flat crown and broad brim, tied down with a purple kerchief. Friend, she called to him, dost love thy neighbor?

  Thinking of all the men he had so recently shot at, not in anger but out of righteous principle, he answered: No.

  Dost love God? she asked.

  That was a harder question. The strange woman urged her horse closer with a nudge of her knees and a clucking of her tongue. She asked again, bending down towards him, gazing into his face, her own framed by waves of mahogany curls held in check by her kerchief, her eyes alight: Dost love God?

  No, he admitted.

  Come, she said, follow me, and I shall teach thee how.

  She straightened up, patted her horse's flank. It ambled away, its hooves clop-clop-clopping on the hardened mud, and she did not look back.

  Jemima Wilkinson had been born in Rhode Island, of Quaker parents, in 1758; had contracted typhus during the British blockade of Providence in 1776; had died there; and two days later she had risen again, from ecstasies and visions of heaven, with a new name: the Publick Universall Friend. Stutley (formerly Stukely) had never had much traffic with Quakers, but he saw in her something that he himself lacked and needed; she was possessed of a stout commonsense and a visionary charism, of compassion and a biting wit; and as for having died and risen again, well, he did not believe her, exactly, in so many words—he might say that he accepted her testimony. He abandoned his errands and duties (whatever they may have been) and turned his path towards hers.

  III.

  Four Mile Creek originates in Greenfield Township and enters the lake after a course of about eight miles. The most striking feature of these lakeshore streams is the deep channels they cut in their passage from the high ground inland to the level of Lake Erie, and which are often the only route down from the lake's treacherous shale bluffs to its narrow stony strand. These ravines, or gulfs as they're called there, are most profound along Four and Six Mile Creeks, where they have worn a course from 100 to 150 feet deep, providing picturesque scenery for those who enjoy such diversions, and also, for many others, freedom from spying eyes.

  Someone has cut crude steps into the steepest parts of the path down the gulf's slope. Now two men—one tall and gaunt, head-to-foot in rusty black, clean-shaven, grizzled hair matted to his scalp with sweat but spiking out where he's rubbed at it; the other rounded in well-fed curves, his brown checked suit impeccable (or it was, before they started down this infernal track), his thick brown hair sleek with Macassar, his brown beard fashionably full—stumble and veer like a slapstick duo (ho there! hold on! give us a hand! et cetera) until, reaching bottom, they huff and puff for a minute and catch their breath.

  Then Northup says: Lend a hand now, will you?

  As they haul the brush and tree limbs from off a rowboat pulled up onto the stony margin, Chambers asks: Is this your boat?

  Northup says, I spend a deal of time on the water, like many a dairy farmer.

  Chambers coughs.

  Northup says, There's a canoe nearby, too. Proposing to conduct a boat census, are you? Want to stay on the right side of the law.

  As do we all, Chambers says.

  And it came to pass, Northup says, in those days, that there went out a decree from John Ezeziel, that all the boats should be counted.

  Chambers says: As a duly appointed officer of the law, a magistrate in fact, it is my duty, my bounden duty, and a duty that I intend to uphold, sworn as I am, in the law, to pursue any and all…

  But this peroration peters out, like a mountain stream flowing out across a desert waste. He keeps his silence while Northup busies himself with oars and buckets and other paraphernalia. Eventually, he asks: Whatever became of that hired man of yours, the Negro?

  Amos, you mean?

  Chambers shrugs. He says, I don't recall the name, if I ever knew it.

  Northup shakes his head. Called away by family duties, he says. Promised to send his cousin in the spring. Pretty soon, I expect, come to think of it. Off we go now, heft her up, watch your step.

  They half carry, half drag the boat into the water. It rocks and scrapes as they clamber in, Chambers taking care to keep his glossy boots out of the mud. Now, the issue arises, which is to be the more honored in our time: age or dignity? Age wins out (also ownership), and Chambers bends his back to the oars while Northup, kneeling in the bow, fends the boat off submerged rocks with his heavy walking stick.

  The watercourse is treacherous along this stretch, but the boat was hidden only a little way upstream from the lake, and soon the water is flowing deeper and faster. Chambers ships the oars and the boat runs freely along the gulf and then out from between the beetling scarps rounded like the shoulders of some giant asleep on the lakeshore. The boat slows in the lake's stiller waters and he takes up the oars again. It's hard work, and after a while of stretching and pulling, stretching and pulling, he pauses to steady his heaving breath. Northup is still kneeling in the bow, gazing off into the blank and hazy distance.

  Chambers half turns and speaks over his shoulder to him: Rumor has it—

  Northup snaps: Rumor's a fickle bitch.

  Chambers turns back, waits a bit, then tries again:

  Rumor has it that strange happenings are afoot around the lake. Fishermen have seen monstrous great snakes, and their boats have been attacked, and their catch often bear extraordinary teeth marks. Bathers have been harried and bitten by unseen molesters in the water. Not to mention the numberless reports of floating lights, and voices and other noises in the night, and mysterious comings and goings of invisible ships, and unexplainable prodigies of the water. Stationary waterspouts, as just one example. And worse, much worse. The Dusseau affair is the leas
t of it. You simply cannot imagine what crosses the desk of an ordinary Justice of the Peace every day! Why, only this morning a body washed ashore.

  Northup turns and sits heavily on the bench athwart the gunwales.

  He says: A body? First I heard of it. Whose body?

  Chambers says: Your hired man. Amos.

  IV.

  Stutley (Junior, as it were)'s childhood in the New Jerusalem, between the shores of Keuka and Seneca Lakes in central New York, doted on as one of the few children in a community of separatist celibates, all of them half-drunk on godliness, was at least as happy as any other childhood and happier than many. The Universall Friend forbade violence of any kind, even so trivial a violence as striking a willful child. She believed, instead, in reason and patience. Stutley, grown a young man, left to study at Brown College, back in Rhode Island, where he could live with relatives; but when at last he had finished there, all diploma'd, he learned one more wisdom: his hometown, riven by land speculation and unable to long outlast its founder, had been liquidated in that universal solvent, suits-at-law.

  Therefore he'd ventured westward, out into what was still only sparsely settled wilderness, on the promise that there was need for schoolmasters there. Not that anyone called it wilderness. It was opportunity!, that most American of words, and like most of America, newer than new, it was not quite what it seemed.

  Not that it was a lie, exactly, either. There ought to have been a need for schools, Heaven knows they sorely needed them for the adults as for the children, but schools there were none. Not a one. Certainly in Rhode Island and Connecticut there were more would-be schoolmasters than there were schools to house 'em. So then, young man, westward ho! and they'll beat a path to your door.

  Paths there were, in plenty, trails and tracks, but hardly any roads, no schools, and certainly no students at all. Thus all his opportunity left him, as his ready cash already had, on the marshy margin of French Creek at Greenfield Post Office, better known as Little Hope, the last stop for the flat-bottom boats (or batteaux as they are called locally) that ply the western branch of that stream. Another crate landed, crack!, at his feet, heaved off the batteau by a boatman who was going to be angrier yet when he learned that the gratuity due him was not to be. Stutley sighed and tugged the crate out of the mud. Well then, he supposed, there he was, and there he would stay.

  V.

  I begged him! I begged him to stay, I did.

  This outburst startles Chambers, who is head-down at the oars again. He leans back, so that the blades lift clear of the water, dripping, and with a clatter lets them fall to the bottom boards. He turns on his bench, hefting his legs over it, to face Northup on the bow bench, and plants his feet on the bottom. He pats his pockets for his tobacco pouch—but he's left it at home, knowing that smoking would be unwelcome at Northup's place. The American shore is a blue blur low on the horizon.

  Reluctant to speak after the fury his attempt at a few sympathetic words provoked earlier, Chambers leaves Northrup to his fit of weeping and takes in the cloud- and lakescape. He was one of Northup's early and few students—the little schoolroom didn't last long—and owes to his relentless drilling what smattering of Greek and Latin he still retains; he can't imagine Northup begging anyone for anything. Or weeping, for that matter. The little boat bobs and rocks now as the wind-raised chop slaps against its side, the tops of the wavelets flaked with dazzling sunlight.

  Have to be an inquest, I reckon, Northup says, calmer.

  Chambers nods.

  When?

  Tuesday instant.

  Tuesdays I take my milk to Augustus Burnham's factory, in Arkwright.

  It takes a little time to gather a jury together.

  Northup rubs his face with both hands, lets them fall back onto his knees, open, palms up. He shakes his head again, as if in disbelief. He stares at his fingers, curled like the roots of a storm-felled tree.

  Well, he says at last. Better get to what we come here for.

  He bends from his seat, hefts his walking stick, and pushes it through the gap of a crude wood clamp fixed to the bow, letting it slip through his hands until most of the stick's length is underwater. He twists the clamp tight.

  He turns to Chambers and says, I warned—

  Chambers says: Perhaps we could just get on with it.

  Northup turns back and picks up a mallet. He strikes the submerged stick; Chambers can feel the thrum of its vibration through his seat. Another blow. Another. He is making a steady rhythm like a man walking, ten strokes in all. Northup waits for a moment, then repeats the pattern. And once more. He tosses the mallet down and turns to face Chambers.

  Right then, he says. Might take a while.

  Chambers puts his hands in his pockets. The wind off the water is cold. The ice finally cleared up only a week ago.

  Unexpectedly, Northup smiles. Never told you about the Dark Day, did I?

  Chambers shakes his head.

  Northup tells him:

  This is a story that my father told me. Five days after he met the Universall Friend, a crowd, listening, in the middle of the deserted street, in the middle of the day. Everywhere the darkness. Candles flickering in the windows of shops and houses. A preacher, voice already hoarse. He holds a book open, aloft. Shouts: Matthew, chapter twenty-four, and the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven! He's not reading aloud, it's too dark. An eloquent sweep of his free hand calls attention to the black and heavy sky. Revelation, chapter six, and lo, the sun became black as a sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood and the stars of heaven fell onto the earth, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to withstand it! He holds up his free hand, for silence like, and his other hand shakes the book fiercely. Not I! calls someone in the crowd. Nor I! and Amen! amen! from all around. Then there's a woman's voice calling out: I shall, I shall stand, we all shall stand that day.

  The crowd parts, but there're also angry murmurs: because it's Jemima Wilkinson. The preacher admonishes: The wrath of God is upon us all, fear God, for the day of his judgment is here! She says: I worship God the father, not God the petulant child who breaks his playthings in a fit of rage when his will is thwarted. He: Look, the heavens are darkened and the sun snuffed out. She: It is but smoke, can thou not smell it, as from some great fire to the north? She dips a handkerchief into a barrel of water there. Look, it is soot afloat the water, that has settled out of the air, it appears to me that this darkness is occasioned by the smoke and ashes arising from large fires, the state of the wind being such as to prevent the quick dispersion of these heavy vapors. She's shouted down: Unbeliever! Heathen! Blasphemer! and worse.

  Behind her, the preacher lifts his thick book over his head like to strike her. But she looks into his eyes, silently, until he lowers it. She takes it and hugs it to her breast. The crowd's silent now. She says: The word of God, indeed, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, all things were made by the word of God, and this light shineth in the darkness. She points up at the blackened heavens: What do you think the name of this word is, do you know, can you say? She returns the book (which isn't in fact a Bible but a volume of Coke's Institutes) to the preacher. She says: I tell you now, the name of the word is love.

  Chambers says: Look!

  He's pointing at the water where a Δ-shaped wake is aimed at their boat like an arrow in flight.

  VI.

  And Captain DREVAR wrote to the Editor of the Graphic (144):—

  "My relatives wrote saying that they would have seen a hundred sea-serpents and never reported it, and a lady also wrote that she pitied any one that was related to any one who had seen the sea-serpent."

  I hope that within a few years, this fear of meeting with a sea-serpent will be no more heard of.

  —Antoon Cornelius Oudemans

  Shh! Hephyibee hissed. They'll hear!

  Dust motes as they drifted through the air c
rossed the slits of light that slanted through the vertical chinks in the siding of the empty smokehouse—it was parching summer, Fifth Month of his twelfth year—and, falling through, illuminated then winked out, shafts and sparks in the dimness. Hephyibee moved so that one bright stripe fell across her bare belly, where she'd hiked up her dress and pushed down her pantalets.

  Down, slave! she commanded.

  Stutley obediently bent over, his toes gripping the packed-earth floor.

  She said, You have seen your mistress improper.

  She whisked an old cobweb-chaser, its long bristles limp and broken, against his bare back. He flinched and whimpered, as she'd instructed at the beginning of the game.

  Show me your shame, she demanded.

  He stood up and dropped his trousers for her.

  Ha ha ha, she said—not a real laugh, but as if reading aloud laughter as it would be spelled out in a book. She raised the broom again.

  Samuel was standing next to the door, out of the slanted light, watching, blinking, silent. Samuel Turner, youngest boy in a freeman's family that had joined the settlement from Philadelphia. His dark skin made him little more than an outline against the bright stripes. He'd consented to take off only his shirt. Stutley watched him watching them, Samuel's mouth open a little, the lower lip moving as he breathed. A fugitive glisten. Stutley saw in his eyes something that must be only a version of himself.

  Samuel pushed the door open—blinding glare—and ran away. The door thudded shut. A moment later, the door slammed open and shut again. Hephyibee.

  As Stutley stood there, his trousers at his ankles, the smooth dirt cool against his soles, waiting for something, he didn't know what but something huge and perilous and inexorable—like a theophany from heaven, Hail! Blessed One!—he felt nailed down, not by fear that what he was doing (what was he doing? he didn't know, not for sure, but he did know it would direct the course of his life) was in any way sinful, for surely it was not, but a certainty that no one, no one, could see its beauty as he did: pure, fervid, glittering, a beauty so overpowering that he was trembling. It was like a long hallway, longer than any real hallway he'd ever seen, stretched out in front of him, lined its whole length with doors, and all he had to do, all he could do, was open one.