On Kingdom Mountain

by Howard Frank Mosher

  The trees began to turn color. First the swamp maples along the river, then some of the sugar maples on the mountainside. One morning a light frost covered the home pastures. You could trace the course of the river through the woods by the winding cloud of mist above it. A partridge, drunk on drops from Miss Jane’s twenty-apple tree, flew into the west window of her kitchen and broke its neck. Jane fried it for supper.

  In the sheep meadows along the burn, New England fall asters were in bloom. “’Asters by the brookside make asters in the brook,’” Miss Jane cited. “It’s a riddle, Henry. Can you guess it?”

  “Please, Miss Jane,” he said, thinking of the hole in Pilgrim’s back, “let us have no more riddles on Kingdom Mountain. I fear that I am riddled out for the rest of my life.”

  Goldenrod choked the disused fields along the Canada Pike.

  To Jane, fall was never a melancholy time but rather a season of beginnings. The beginning of a new school term, of the harvest, of the splendid fall fishing for blue-backs in their spawning pool. Miss Jane would miss deer hunting this fall. But she hoped and trusted that becoming Mrs. Henry Satterfield and touring the world would more than make up for it.

  41

  ON THE FIRST DAY of the Harvest Festival, just as the cattle judging had concluded, Henry came zooming in low over the racetrack with Miss Jane, in black tights, walking on the lower wing of the plane. They swooped high above the fairgrounds, cut a large figure eight, and landed on the track in front of the grandstand to a great roar from the crowd. Henry was resplendent in his white jacket and trousers, white ruffled shirt, red velvet vest, and gleaming white shoes. Jane, in her new tights, with her abundant light hair piled high on her head, looked as vain as a peacock. “Why, it’s Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson!” Eben Kinneson Esquire said as they taxied up to the judges’ stand in front of the grandstand.

  For fifty dollars per day Henry agreed to perform twice daily, with barrel rolls, sideslips, loop-the-loops, and more figure eights. He and Miss Jane had a wonderful run of clear fall weather for flying, and each time they went up, the village’s brass band played “Come, Josephine, in My Flying Machine.” As word of their exhibition spread through the county, the crowds swelled. The grandstand was packed, with the more daring young boys scrambling up onto its tin roof. A few even ascended the water tower on Beech Hill.

  Yet like the fisherman’s wife in the old tale, the town fathers would not be satisfied. “We hear, Mr. Satterfield, that some veteran pilots are willing to fly upside down,” George Quinn said on the second day of the festival.

  “Flying upside down is an extremely hazardous maneuver,” Henry said. “There are veteran pilots, Mr. Quinn, and there have been pilots who have flown upside down. To the best of my knowledge, there are few veteran pilots who regularly fly upside down.”

  But when the town fathers offered to increase Henry’s fee to one hundred dollars if, for the finale on Sunday afternoon, the day of the fall equinox, he would fly in over the racetrack upside down, he agreed to consider their offer.

  That evening at the home place, sitting on the porch after supper, watching the sun go down over the multicolored mountains and admiring what Miss Jane believed to be the finest prospect on the face of the earth, she asked Henry what he thought George Quinn and the fathers wanted, that they could never be content with Henry’s performances but must always ask for more.

  “Why, Miss Jane, they want the same thing that the crowds I have performed for from New York City to Rome, Italy, have secretly wished for.”

  “Which is?”

  “To see me have a spill. Me especially.”

  “I can’t believe it. That would be a terrible sight to witness. And why you especially?”

  “Just think who I am, ma’am.”

  “Who are you? A respected pilot and exhibition man from Texas. That’s all.”

  “An exhibition man from Texas, yes. But begging your pardon, Miss Jane, that is not quite all. No. An exhibition man who is also a man of color and a stranger. What, pray, would the crowd like better than to see the likes of me fall from a great height and be dashed to pieces?”

  “Henry! I won’t endorse such a notion. As you very well know, I’ve had my own dustups with the village of Kingdom Common. As a schoolgirl, I was sometimes known as ‘Miss Jane Trouble.’ But the spectators at our little fall festival are no bloodthirsty mob. As for your Creole ancestry on your mother’s side, no one here in Vermont, of all places, would think it any kind of handicap at all.”

  “Oh, Miss Jane, my ancestry is always a handicap. Always. It is why, in order to fly against the kaiser, I had to leave this land for Canada and join the RCAF. If you are truly considering becoming Mrs. Henry Satterfield, you must understand that. It is a fact of life.”

  “I assure you that your color is no factor here in the Kingdom. Nor is it at all a factor in our engagement. As you know, I’m half Indian myself.”

  “That’s different. The fact that you were born and bred here, and no stranger, counts heavily in your favor.”

  “For many decades, Henry, Kingdom Mountain was the last station on the Underground Railroad. For all its many faults, the Kingdom is still a community of civilized people.”

  “Begging your pardon once again, Miss Jane. In all my travels, I have never yet encountered such a place.”

  “As?”

  “A community of civilized people.”

  “Then, sir, we must agree to disagree.”

  Henry nodded, tipped his white hat, and made his small bow. “We must,” he said. “As for flying upside down tomorrow, I think I will decline. I have done it once or twice, but at the time I had, let us say, less to live for.”

  “I am glad to hear you say so.” Miss Jane turned her dime-store ring so it caught the last rays of the sun, and they smiled at each other fondly, as if they were already a long-married couple. But that night Henry was a long time falling asleep. He did not doubt his own feelings for Miss Jane, or hers for him, yet he remembered the promise she had made to her father, never to leave the mountain. Whether she could be truly happy away from it, even for part of the year, was doubtful. Suddenly the old captain started up again in his head. You, boy. Henry. I put in your hands and in your safekeeping the clue to your birthright, your legacy. Now you propose to bestow it upon this woman wedded to a hill. Shame on you. Shame on you for betraying your old granddaddy and your destiny. I set you up, boy, grand and proud as a riverboat whore. Do you think you can spurn your legacy and your granddaddy so? Do you think you can dwell with these devilish Yankees? Even for part of the year? You’ll find out, my boy. You’ll find out different.

  “When?” Henry said aloud.

  Soon, the evil granddaddy said, chuckling to himself. Very, very soon. In the meantime I want you to take the old fathers up on their offer. I don’t want it said any grandboy of mine was afeared to fly upside down or inside out or whatever which way. Then you’ll receive your marching orders from old Captain Cantrell. After you put on your show for those devils.

  “Go to hell,” Henry told him.

  Too late, I’m there already, cackled the granddaddy, who always managed to get in the last word, even at his own expense. Henry, holding Miss Jane close, firmly put the captain out of his mind. But late the next morning, on the last day of the festival, when the foliage on the hillsides around the village was at its most vibrant and Kingdom Mountain seemed on fire, he thought of the captain’s dire prophecy. As he flew in low over the fairgrounds, with Jane walking on the lower wing, then soared up and up, into the clear blue firmament, to begin their loop-the-loop, Henry noticed the crude red heart painted on the side of the water tower. Inside, in red letters three feet high, were two names. MISS JANE TROUBLE + DARKY SATTERFIELD = THE FLYING LOVEBIRDS.

  42

  IT WAS ALL JANE could do not to pitch off the wing like flaming Icarus. She was mortified. Mortified for herself, for Henry, and for the village she had called civilized. Nor were the words on the tower all of it
. When they touched down and came to a halt in front of the judges’ stand, the town band struck up “Dixie.” The grandstand was about half full of fairgoers eating picnic lunches. Some cheered and some laughed, and there were even a few catcalls. But Henry Satterfield, ever the gentleman, gave no indication that anything was amiss as he climbed out of the plane and approached the town fathers.

  “We apologize for this,” George Quinn said, waving the band quiet. He made a vague motion toward the water tower. “That is a most unfortunate jest. We mean no disrespect. There is, of course, in every town, a certain element . . .”

  Henry Satterfield glanced up at the tower on Beech Hill, as though noticing the message for the first time. “Best to just ignore it, no doubt.”

  Miss Jane, however, regarded the town fathers with a baleful, dangerous fury.

  “I was only wondering,” Henry said, “about the affront to the lady?”

  “We tender our apologies to you and to my cousin,” Eben Kinneson Esquire said quickly. “But you are a gentleman, Mr. Satterfield. And we assume that as a gentleman, you will still be willing to consider flying upside down this afternoon just before the grand cavalcade of prizewinners. The show, you know, must go on.”

  Henry made a small bow of acquiescence. “The show must go on, then. I will fly upside down for the one hundred dollars.”

  But Jane, her eyes flashing, said, “I won’t be so treated, gentlemen. I won’t be so treated by any of you. Mr. Satterfield, I am surprised, after this usage, that you are willing to go ahead with your show. I will have no further part in it. I will meet you back at the home place this evening, and you and I will discuss matters further.”

  There, the captain’s voice said in Henry’s head very clearly and with finality. There is your answer, boy.

  Henry looked as though he wished to say something more. But before he could, the Duchess turned on her heel and marched off the track, leaving the aviator standing alone by his machine.

  There is your answer, the captain repeated. How many times did I tell you when you was a shaver?

  “Tell me what?”

  That it weren’t over yet. Now get in your machine. It’s time we finished what I begun.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I am talking about why I dispatched you up here in the first place. I am talking, Henry, about your destiny.

  No one knew where Henry Satterfield went next. He was sighted in so many parts of the Kingdom that some swore he must have managed, like the devil, to occupy more than one place at once. He was glimpsed flying out toward Miss Jane’s, again at the Ford agency in Memphremagog, and again at the egg farm on the road to Kingdom Landing. Some said it was the dog-cart man who painted the emblem on the top wing of the Burgess-Wright, but if so, no one knew where or when it was done. No one was absolutely certain how Henry did spend the afternoon other than, it was generally agreed, apart from Miss Jane.

  It was Jane’s old friend and fishing partner, Judge Ira Allen, furious about the slur on the water tower, who escorted her about the grounds that afternoon and later handed her gallantly up into the grandstand to sit beside him and see the cavalcade of prizewinners. In fact, Miss Jane was determined that it would never be said, after the affront of the message on the water tower and the humiliation of a public spat with her betrothed, that she did not have the courage to face the villagers. Courage was one commodity that the Duchess possessed in abundance, and no one could deny it.

  First came the high-stepping band, followed by the Reverend with his big pulpit Bible under his arm, then Eben Kinneson Esquire and the town fathers in their high black silk hats, then the Academy directors, and the Masons. Bringing up the rear were the proud winners with their bright blue championship ribbons pinned to their coats.

  The band struck up a spirited marching number, and there was a little strut in their walk as they approached the cheering grandstand, swinging their gleaming instruments first to the right and then to the left. Even Miss Jane seemed caught up in the excitement for a few moments and did not at first see the plane approaching. She heard the Burgess-Wright at the same time the members of the cavalcade did. As the thunder of the engine drowned out the music, the parade came to a ragged halt. The startled processioners looked up to see the airship swooping toward them, with two large metal barrels lashed to the upper wing.

  As the plane dived in low over the racetrack, it rolled over so that it was briefly flying upside down, just as Henry had promised. Emblazoned on its upper wing, the red and blue colors scarcely dry, was a large Confederate flag. Then one of the drums seemed to spring a leak. Or, more precisely, a dozen leaks. Out of the barrel gushed ten or twelve jets of a dark and viscous substance, blackening the marchers from head to toe. Henry Satterfield was spraying the parade with used motor oil from the Ford agency.

  As the dignitaries and prizewinners tried to flee, they slipped in the grease and pitched headlong in the oily dirt. Down went the band members in their gaudy uniforms, down went the town fathers and Eben Kinneson Esquire, down went the Reverend with his holy book, all sprawled in the sludge on the track like so many greased hogs. In the meantime, back came Henry Satterfield’s Flying Circus. This time, as it passed upside down over the people, displaying the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy, the airship seemed to burst into ten thousand pieces. Out of the second drum flew a blizzard of chicken feathers, yellow and red and black and white. It was a plague of feathers from the local egg farm, and whatever they touched, they stuck to. The Reverend’s great Bible, the brass instruments of the band, and the blackened faces of the town fathers and other dignitaries. The civilized people of Kingdom Common had become a minstrel show.

  Miss Jane was surprised but certainly not alarmed, when Judge Allen dropped her off an hour later in her dooryard, to discover that she had gotten back home before Henry. With the days noticeably briefer, it was too late to leave for Atlantic City that night, and she supposed that he had flown up to Memphremagog to return the barrels to the Ford agency or run some other errand before their trip the next day. As the judge rattled back over the covered bridge and headed down the new right of way toward the Common, she shivered slightly. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains. A fire in the Glenwood would feel good tonight. In her garden the scattered brown stalks of corn she’d left standing for the raccoons rustled in the sharp fall breeze. She would not be amazed if, on the summit of the mountain, it snowed tonight.

  She went into the kitchen, past the faded riddle on the slate. Now that she knew what it meant, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t deciphered it sooner. It was so plain to her. Consequences, she thought. There seemed to be no end to them. As she had told Henry, every human action, past, present, and future, had consequences. If she had not invited Henry to come home with her six months ago . . . Shaking her head, she kindled a small fire and made batter for flapjacks, Henry’s favorite supper. Before coming to the mountain he’d never tasted real maple syrup. Now he used it on everything you could possibly think of—pancakes, Miss Jane’s homemade ice cream, her homemade bread, which, ladled over with maple syrup, he called “poor man’s cake.” She looked out the window, down across the water meadow to the river. Dusk was falling. It was already dark under the applewood table. Her father had liked to say that when it was dark under the table, it was time to light the lamps.

  Only when full darkness had settled over the mountain did Miss Jane allow herself to consider that Henry might not be coming back, and it was half an hour later when, taking a deep breath, then another, she stepped into On Kingdom Mountain to break the news to her dear people.

  She lighted the kerosene lamp on the table beside the horsehair love seat where she had propped up Ramses’ bride and Pilgrim. She looked around the parlor at her people, and then, for the first time since the night of the great deluge, when she and Henry had collapsed laughing into each other’s arms and later gone swimming in the river, she began to laugh. Her laughter did not last long, perhaps a second
or two. But when she saw that the door of the Currier and Ives floor safe was open and the safe was empty, she could not help laughing at her own perfect lack not only of second sight but of the slightest amount of foresight. She realized she should have known from the start, from the moment she found the coin in the fish, that the stranger destined to come to Kingdom Mountain was, in the end, like all strangers, also destined to leave, probably with something that belonged to her. Her gold, her heart, whatever. Yet a part of her, she could not deny, felt a certain relief, for she was already homesick for the mountain she would now never leave. The nature of found money was that you would surely lose it again. Maybe that was the nature of love as well. Like strife, such might be the way of the world. As for Henry, she told her dear people, she was glad to think of him soaring off into the sky, headed south with the geese, in possession of the gold that had been his heart’s desire, free as the birds she carved.

  Only later, alone once more in her bedchamber, did she give way to her grief, made still more unbearable, if possible, by her realization, correct or otherwise, that she, and she alone, was responsible for all that had happened to her in the half year since her fiftieth birthday.

  ON KINGDOM MOUNTAIN

  43

  TO THE ALL-KNOWING Commoners, it was evident that Henry Satterfield had marked Miss Jane from the start. All the blame fell on the outsider from Away. The Duchess, for her part, seemed to have retreated to her mountain in a state of despair. What advancing age and loneliness and the threat of the Connector and hardscrabble living and feuding with her cousin Eben and the town fathers and King James and his Jehovah had not been able to do, namely, break her spirit, had been accomplished by betrayal in love.

  As for the Connector, work on it had temporarily stopped after the flood. But Eben Kinneson Esquire remained confident that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the high road and that construction could begin again in the spring. Even Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson of Kingdom Mountain, he told the town fathers, could not simply declare her private independence from Vermont and the United States on the strength of an ancient family document of questionable provenance and authenticity. The fathers, enraged at being tarred and feathered in full view of the townspeople, billed Miss Jane for fifty thousand dollars in unpaid back taxes on her mountain, claiming that the provision supposedly arranged by Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton had never been incorporated into the final treaty and that the mountain had always been part of the township.