“I was thinking o’ Ma and Pa lyin’ over there at Mulberry Hill, thinking how they would have liked this Christmas. And, thinkin’ o’ them made me think o’ poor Sergeant Floyd, in his grave out there on a bluff above the river, with nothin’ but the wolves howlin’ for a Christmas song.”
“Eh, well. At least ye can’t blame yourself for that. I like what Jonathan said. You got glory, and no man o’ yours died for it on your account. I had that same satisfaction after Vincennes, and I’ll say this, Billy: You and I been uncommon lucky. Not many soldiers get to come out with their honor good and no ghosts on their conscience.” They stood there thinking about that, and then George said, “I’m so proud o’ you, Billy, I could …” He blinked and shook his head instead of trying to find words emphatic enough.
After a while William said, “D’ye remember the days when you’d come home from th’ West and tell me all the stories?”
They grunted then to clear their throats, and stood there together looking westward into the night beyond the window panes, while Fanny and Edmund stood behind them counting the bullet holes in a grizzly bear’s hide, and the clock began striking midnight.
AND, SO:
That’s how they did what they did, all my sons. My sons and John’s, I should say.
A family story never ends, as ye know, but a body’s got to stop tellin’ it at such-such a place. My story goes on, sure, and I could tell you how my children’s children and my children’s grandchildren and my grandchildren’s grandchildren came to fill up this country from sea to shining sea. I could tell you who they are, and what they’ve done and where they live, and how the blood of the Rogerses and the Clarks has come to run in people’s veins in every corner of this country. I could tell you all that, but any old woman who was young when this country was young can tell you the same about her blood, so I shan’t go on with that. I could brag about all my offshoots, about who became governors and who became heroes, who became judges, and who went to Congress, and who founded towns, about who became authors and who became actors. I could tell you of some who got rich but in soul were no-account, and I could tell you of some known as ne’er-do-wells who were grand as lords in their hearts. And, I could tell ye of some who were just ordinary folk; there’s some o’ those in every family line.
But any old woman can tell you the same, so I shan’t. No, I simply chose to tell only of those that I myself carried and nursed, for they are the ones whom I made what they were.
John and I did, I should say.
Well, they’ve all come back to us now, leaving their mortal bones in the soil of this continent that they had walked, run, climbed, crawled, waded, swum, paddled, and rode across, always out in front. And there lie those bones: Johnny’s, back in old Caroline County in Virginia, where he was born. Dickie’s, buried probably in the silt of a river bottom in Indiana. Jonathan’s and Edmund’s and George’s, side by side on a slope on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, and William’s, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, where he’d said he wanted to lie.
And here I end my family’s story. I pray ye, think on it, for there’s no family ever did more to shape this land. And when you see a Clarksville or a Clarksburgh, or a Clark County or a Clark River or park or National Forest anywhere across this land, as y will, all across, from sea to shining sea, you’ll know what Clarks they’re speakin’ of: my sons.
Mine and John’s, I should say.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Alexander Thom lives in the southern Indiana hill country, near Bloomington, in an antique log cabin.
Jim Thom has been a U.S. Marine, a newspaper and magazine editor, a freelance writer, and a member of the Indiana University Journalism School faculty. He now devotes all his time to writing.
Jim Thom researches his American historical novels meticulously, traveling, tracking down primary sources, and even walking in the footsteps of his characters. To convey the experiences of the frontier soldiers in Long Knife, he mastered the use of 18th century tools and weapons, and waded the icy flood waters of the Wabash. He walked, climbed, and camped along much of the New River gorge in preparation for writing Follow the River. And he traveled the entire route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition while writing From Sea to Shining Sea.
New in paperback!
Frances Slocum, kidnapped from her frontier home when she was five by the Lenape, was raised by them to become an honored leader and healer of her adopted people.
When she has a chance, as an adult, to return to her white family, there is no doubt in her mind that her heart is a red one.
THE RED HEART
by
James Alexander Thom
This powerful story about a real woman out of history adds another strong chapter to the large contribution James Alexander Thom is making to American literature.
Published by Ballantine Books.
Available in bookstores everywhere.
They came to North America three hundred years before Columbus, mingling their blood, their legends, and their dreams with the New World’s Native peoples.
THE CHILDREN
OF FIRST MAN
by
James Alexander Thom
Sweeping from the blood-soaked castles of medieval Wales to the landmark expedition of Lewis and Clark, from virgin wilderness to native villages, based on the legendary story of the Madoc people.
Published by Ballantine Books.
Available in bookstores everywhere.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1984 by James Alexander Thom
Map and genealogy copyright © 1984 by Anita Karl and James Kemp
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83–91168
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-76312-9
v3.0
From Sea to Shining Sea Page 114