Thoreau in Phantom Bog

by Oak, B. B.

  By the end of our first hour together Mrs. Ruggles, her parrot, and I were all much more relaxed with each other. I had already sketched Mrs. Ruggles from both a profile and a three-quarters view and was drawing her full face when the sound of a stagecoach stopping in front of the Sun caused her to fidget in her chair.

  “Horses need watering, and travelers do too,” she said. “I go down and see if Mr. Ruggles needs help. Lady passengers could be wanting tea.”

  “Pray give me but a moment or two more,” I said, for I was almost finished with the drawing and did not wish to leave it undone.

  She agreed, but the peaceful mood had been broken, and her expression was no longer serene. So I did not really mind when Mr. Ruggles interrupted the session shortly thereafter.

  “We got us a real important guest coming here tomorrow, Edda,” he said. “Rooms need to be readied for him.”

  Mrs. Ruggles shot up from her seat, ready to oblige. “Who is he?”

  “Don’t know his name or nothing about him.”

  “Then how do you know he’s so important, Sam?”

  “From the appearance of the valet he sent ahead to prepare us for his arrival, that’s how,” Mr. Ruggles said. “Dressed to the nines, he is. Very tall and black and fine-looking but for all the scars on his face.”

  “Oh, I want to see him!”

  “You’ll have to wait till he comes back, Edda. He asked me where he could find the town doctor, and I directed him to Dr. Walker’s office.”

  I stood up slowly on trembling legs, my heart thudding. I could barely breathe, yet I managed to say good-bye to Sam and Edda Ruggles and make my way home, where I knew the man just described awaited with dreaded news.

  ADAM

  Saturday, May 20

  When I stopped by the farm to look in on Gran this afternoon I informed her I would be spending my nights at the Walker house for a short while.

  “There is a good reason for it,” I said, “but I cannot tell you what it is just yet. The fewer people who know the better.”

  “I already know anyways,” Gran said.

  “How did you find out?”

  “How do you think? From Julia.”

  I’d assumed Julia had not told anyone but me about finding Tansy on Tuttle Farm. “Who else knows?”

  “No one. Not even Harriet,” Gran assured me. “But you ain’t gonna be able to keep it a secret for much longer, my boy. Folks ain’t blind, you know.”

  I nodded. “The sooner she leaves here, the better. I will be much relieved to see the last of her.”

  Gran looked much taken aback. “Does Julia know how you feel?”

  “Oh, I have made it clear to her that I didn’t want this to happen.”

  “But it has! And now you must do the right thing and go with her.”

  “There’s no need for me to do that, Gran. She’ll be taken care of by others once she leaves Plumford.”

  “Oh, Adam, I cannot believe what I am hearin’ from you! How can you bear to part with Julia when she is carryin’ yer child?”

  I stared at Gran. She stared back at me. Harriet was out in the garden, and the only sound in the farmhouse was the ticking of the tall clock at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Julia is with child?” I finally said.

  “Ain’t she who we been talkin’ about?”

  “I was talking about a fugitive slave Julia has taken in.”

  “Oh,” Gran said. She closed her eyes. “I must sleep now.”

  “Don’t leave me hanging, Gran. Did Julia tell you she was pregnant?”

  Gran kept her eyes and mouth shut tight. Not about to badger a sick old woman who might have only been relating a fantasy of her own making, I assured Gran all would be well, kissed her cheek, and departed. Needless to say, I was eager to get back to town and talk to Julia.

  She was not at home, and I recalled that she had an appointment to sketch Edda Ruggles at the Sun. I went to my office and did my best to concentrate on squaring my patient accounts, never an easy matter of dollars and cents. Notes and coins are in short supply in the country, and I am often paid in cords of wood, or farm produce, or services such as horse shoeing or gig repair. Since my wants are simple, my needs have been sufficiently met up to now, but it would be a struggle to make ends meet if I had a family to support. But I would have Tuttle Farm one day, and a good number of country doctors supplement their incomes with farming. It would suit me fine to do so too. Indeed, I would relish it.

  Of course, there was always the possibility of earning a far more lucrative living with my scalpel. Six months ago Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes had offered me a staff position at Massachusetts General Hospital, which would give me use of its splendid operating theater. At the time Plumford had been in the throes of a Consumption epidemic, and I could not abandon my suffering patients, so I’d turned him down. But now that the scourge has passed and there is general good health in the community, I am tempted to accept his offer. Yet even in Boston, Julia and I could not live openly as man and wife, for far too many people there know our personal histories. Julia would be shunned by society as an adulteress, and our children would be considered bastards. No, the only solution, as I’d confided to Henry, is to remove west and start life anew.

  The absolute futility of contemplating the future, however, was proven to me in the next moment when there came a knock on my office door, and I opened it to a Negro of extraordinary height. He was dressed as a cultured European gentleman, in fine dark wool, starched linen, and black silk, but the raised scars upon his countenance, running from his high cheekbones to his jaw, the edges of his full mouth to his ears, and across his broad forehead from temple to temple, made clear that he had come from another culture entirely.

  “Mr. Mawuli!” I said, for he could be none other than the man Julia had described to me as Jacques Pelletier’s ostensible valet and personal healer.

  He bowed and removed his high-crowned beaver hat. His shaved head gleamed like polished black ebony. “You need not address me as mister. I prefer just Mawuli.” His deep voice carried a melodic but heavy accent that had never before reached my ears. “I inquired at the tavern where to find you, Dr. Walker. I did not wish to ask for Madame Pelletier, knowing that would have aroused far too much curiosity.”

  “What do you want?” I demanded.

  “If you know who I am you must know who sent me.”

  “Julia’s husband.” It pained me to say it.

  “Yes, I have come at his bidding.”

  “He remains in France?” I asked, for hope springs eternal.

  Mawuli shook his head. “He is presently in Boston, but he will arrive in Plumford tomorrow.”

  “Julia will not wish to receive him. Go back to Boston and tell him not to come here.”

  Mawuli gave me a long, steady look. His eyes contained a limitless depth of darkness. “I do not take orders from you. Only from Monsieur Pelletier. And he has ordered me to speak directly to his wife.”

  I realized I was being churlish to no purpose. “You may wait for her in my office. She should be returning home shortly.”

  He stepped inside, his head near reaching the ceiling, and immediately went over to the anatomical skeleton I have hanging in one corner of the room. He tenderly cupped the skull with his palm, then picked up a bony hand and gently shook it.

  “I knew this man,” he told me. “His name was Elinam, and many years ago we were chained together on the long march to a slave ship headed for Martinique.”

  Although Mawuli’s tone and expression were somber, I was sure he was hoaxing me. “Amazing that you can recognize your friend in such a reduced state,” I said wryly.

  “The bones of the dead speak to those who know how to listen.” Mawuli regarded the skeleton a moment and pointed to where the left arm had been broken and the bone partially healed, and then to an indentation on the right parietal bone of the skull. “I witnessed those very injuries inflicted upon Elinam.”

  “Quite a coinciden
ce that he should turn up here,” I said. My tone was still sardonic, but I was impressed that Mawuli could have spotted those hairline fractures so quickly.

  “There are no coincidences nor accidents, Dr. Walker,” he replied. “Nothing happens by chance, for there is a purpose to everything. And that purpose is determined by the Spirits, not us.”

  “I prefer to think we shape our own destinies,” I said.

  Mawuli shook his head. “What opportunity had Elinam to shape his? He was a young man when I knew him, and I was already an old one. Yet here I am in the flesh, well into my seventies, and all that is left of Elinam is this.”

  He gave the skeleton a light push, and it swung on the string from which it was hanging. His attention was then drawn to my medicine cabinet, and he had the audacity to try opening the door.

  “I keep it locked,” I said. “Drugs such as laudanum and calomel can be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  “It is the same with Vodun medicine,” Mawuli said. “Extremely dangerous in the wrong hands.” He continued to look about. “Your office does not appear to be very well stocked, Doctor. Where are the crocodile heads? The monkey paws? The cobra skins?”

  “Now I am sure you are jesting with me, Mawuli.”

  “Are you? Well, it so happens I kept such supplies on hand when I practiced the healing arts in Africa, and I assure you my patients took me most seriously.”

  “That I am willing to believe,” I said. “Patients are eager to accept any cure a trusted doctor proffers, no matter how outlandish it is. The elder Dr. Walker used to keep a big jar of leeches here in the office. He would apply them to his patients to suck out bad blood.”

  “How savage,” Mawuli said dryly.

  “I reckon it’s how you look at things,” I allowed.

  Mawuli stroked his cheek. “And do you look upon me as a savage because of the scars on my face, Dr. Walker?”

  “They do fascinate me,” I readily admitted. “I am aware, as a surgeon, of the intense pain that must have been incurred in the process of inflicting such brutal cuts, given the concentration of nerves in facial tissue. Then some sort of irritating substance was rubbed into the open cuts to cause the healing tissue to harden and stand out, was it not?”

  “I rubbed ash into the wounds to inflame them,” Mawuli said, “after slashing my face with a sharpened stone.”

  “You performed the operation upon yourself?”

  “Of course. If the wounds had not been self-inflicted, how could they attest to my courage? It was how a boy of my tribe proved he had become a man.”

  “Did all the men in your tribe have such scars?”

  “No. Only the most respected ones.”

  Before I could ask him more questions, Julia flung open the office door. She looked at me with a stricken expression and then turned to Mawuli.

  “It’s good to see you again, my friend,” she told him in a shaky voice. “But I fear you have not come all the way from France alone.”

  Mawuli nodded. “Monsieur Pelletier is in Boston and will be arriving here by private coach tomorrow.”

  “Surely he cannot expect a reconciliation. I am astounded that he has traveled all the way from France to meet with me.”

  “He has come to these shores on other business too, Madame.”

  “Good. Then his voyage here will not be wasted. What sort of business?”

  “He would not tell me.”

  “Well, it matters not to me,” Julia said and hooked her arm in mine. “My life is with Adam.”

  Mawuli said nothing to that. He turned and picked up his hat from my desk. “I have delivered the message that brought me here, and now I bid you and Dr. Walker adieu. You must want to talk in private now.”

  “Pray stay, Mawuli,” Julia said. “Your counsel would be welcomed.”

  “How can I possibly counsel you? My loyalty lies with my employer, does it not?”

  Julia tilted back her head and regarded Mawuli’s countenance closely. “I can never tell when you are being serious or cynical.”

  “One can be both,” Mawuli said.

  “Still, I cannot conceive how you can be loyal to a man like Pelletier.”

  “I think you would understand better if you knew how we came together.”

  “But you always refused to tell me,” Julia said. “Nor did you ever tell me that he was a slave trader.”

  “It was not up to me to divulge Monsieur’s past to you, Madame. And when you finally did learn the truth about him, you left so quickly I had little opportunity to tell you my own story.”

  “Tell us now,” Julia urged.

  “No, now I must go make sure Monsieur’s rooms are prepared properly. I am still in his employ, after all. And unlike you, Madame, I will most likely remain at his side till death do us part.” The shadow of a smile touched Mawuli’s lips, and with a bow, he was gone.

  Left alone with Julia, I took her into my arms and held her tightly. When we at last drew apart she looked up at me with a bleak expression on her wan face.

  “Everything will be all right,” I assured her. “What harm can Pelletier do us?”

  “We will find out soon enough, I fear.”

  “There’s no need to fear him, Julia. You’re with me now, and the two of us can face anything together.” I lifted her chin and smiled. “Or are there three of us now?”

  She managed a smile too. “You have discerned my secret. Leave it to a doctor.”

  “Or a blabbing grandmother,” I said. “The old dear cannot keep a secret.”

  “Hah! She kept the secret of your parentage long enough, Adam. If she had told us we weren’t related, I would never have sailed off and met Pelletier, much less married him.”

  “Let’s forget all about that.”

  “How can we? He’s coming tomorrow!”

  “And tomorrow we’ll deal with him, Julia. But right now let’s just be thankful for this new blessing in our lives.”

  “A mixed blessing,” Julia said. “This is hardly the best time for me to be pregnant.”

  “We’ll make it the best time,” I said. “We’re young and healthy and strong-minded, and we can overcome any obstacle that gets in the way of our happiness.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “We should be celebrating, not worrying about the future.”

  “How do you suggest we celebrate?”

  She gave me a look I fully understood. “Throw the latch on the door, Adam.”

  I did as she requested, swept her off her feet, and carried her to the cot in the office. We then confirmed to each other, in the most intimate fashion, that we are truly and forever husband and wife, no matter what circumstance, the law, or society dictates. And we would welcome a child with gratitude and open hearts.

  A short time later, when Julia went to the attic to visit with Tansy, I went off to the Sun to question Mawuli. My plan was to stop Pelletier from coming to Plumford tomorrow. No good could result from it, only unnecessary distress for Julia. I was sure I could convince Pelletier that Julia belonged with me rather than him. No matter what the damn law said, he had married her under false pretenses, and therefore the marriage itself was false. That’s the way I saw it. That’s the way Julia saw it. And I was confident I could get Pelletier to see reason too. But in order to do so, I needed to learn from Mawuli where in Boston he was staying.

  I located Mawuli easily enough. He was sitting on the Sun porch with none other than Henry. They were sharing a pitcher of lemonade and looked for all the world like old friends.

  “Come join us, Adam,” Henry said. “I would like you to meet a most interesting individual.”

  “We have already met,” I said.

  “Is that so?” Henry turned to Mawuli. “When I mentioned Dr. Walker to you, why did you not tell me that you knew him?”

  “Because I am the soul of discretion,” he replied.

  “And I appreciate your discretion, Mawuli,” I said. “But you may speak freely in front of Henry Thoreau. He is a g
ood friend of mine and Julia’s, and we have taken him into our confidence.” I pulled up a chair and lowered my voice. “Mawuli is Jacques Pelletier’s envoy,” I informed Henry. “Pelletier himself will be arriving tomorrow unless I discourage him from doing so.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” Mawuli said.

  “By explaining to him how futile coming here would be. I shall take the cars to Boston as soon as you tell me where I can find him.”

  Mawuli shook his great dome of a head. “Your plan will not work for two reasons, Doctor. You cannot persuade a man like Monsieur Pelletier. And I will not tell you where in Boston he is.” When I started to protest, he rose from his chair. “Rather than argue with you, I will leave.”

  “Pray wait,” Henry said. “If Dr. Walker accepts that it will be useless to press you further on this matter, will you stay and talk to us awhile?”

  “It would be my pleasure to do so,” Mawuli replied most graciously. He looked to me, and I nodded my assent. It would do me no good to drive him off, after all.

  Mawuli resumed his seat, and it took Henry but a few inquiries to get him to tell us more about himself. I here set down, as best I can, Mawuli’s story:

  If you are to understand me you must know, despite the clothes I wear and the manners I have learned to suit your society, I am a creature of the jungle. I have spent most of my life in the rainforest of Africa. In my head and heart and bones and blood are the heat and damp and dark of days and nights lived amongst creatures thrashing between birth and death far from any outside civilization.

  I am of the Ewe tribe and came into the world as the son of a healer, one we called an inyanga, who practiced Vodun, what you call voodoo. It was my good fortune to live in a part of Togo far from the sea, out of reach of the raiders who seized people to sell to the white men of Europe, who took them away by ship. For the first fifty blessed years of my life I never laid eyes on a white man.

  For as long as I can remember I wanted to follow my father’s path. But he would not begin to teach me his arts until I knew the ways of the jungle. When I was old enough to survive on my own he sent me off to live deep in the rainforest, where I spent half a year watching and listening to every living creature. I returned to the village, and my father sent me away again. This time, he said, I was to not only observe but to become every living creature in the jungle. I sat with gorillas in the bamboo, slept high in the fig trees with the sloths, walked with the elephants, swam with the river otters, stalked with the leopards, and followed the enormous claw prints of the mokele-mbembe, a being with a body bigger than an elephant’s but with a small head on a neck long as a tree trunk. No white man and few of my own kind have ever seen this river creature, and some say it does not exist, but I saw it and smelled it.