Читать книгу Nobody's Hero - Frank Laumer - Страница 9

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Ransom Clark was twenty-three years old; he was born in March 1812, the second son of five sons and five daughters of Benjamin and Catherine Clark of Greigsville, New York. He had swarthy skin, hazel eyes, black hair, taller than most at five feet nine. He dreamed of home, not that he had ever had one. He had gone to Rochester, New York, from Livingston County in the summer of 1833, on the 9th of August had enlisted in the 2nd Regiment of Artillery for three years under 2nd Lt. Abner Riviere Hetzel.

In Hetzel’s presence he was examined by a doctor to determine that he was sober, neither a habitual drunkard nor subject to convulsions. The doctor then verified that his sight, hearing, and intelligence were adequate. Next he was told to strip in order to ensure that, as regulations specified, he had no tumors, ulcerated legs, or ruptures, nor chronic cutaneous affliction, and that he had “perfect use of all his limbs.” The doctor looked at his hips and under his arms for the D that would have branded him for life as a deserter. Young and strong, he passed the physical without any trouble and then, as Hetzel scratched the information on the enlistment form, he gave his age, twenty-one, born in the town of York, Livingston County, New York. Hetzel added his height, complexion, the color of his eyes and hair. Clearly Clark had the required command of English. He could read, write, had even picked up more than a few words in French. Hetzel read to him the Articles for the government of the armies of the United States. Finally, he was taken before a justice of the peace and took the oath of affirmation, repeating after him; “I, Ransom Clark, . . . do solemnly swear . . . that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, . . . and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully . . . against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever; . . and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, . . . and the orders of the officers appointed over me.”

Clark had heard tell that there had been a twelve-dollar bounty given every man who enlisted, but Hetzel told him that it was no longer offered. On the other hand, a private’s pay had recently been raised to seven dollars per month, eighty-four a year. A common laborer might make a hundred dollars, but in addition to his pay, a soldier was provided with food, clothing, and shelter as well as medical care. He could travel, learn, put some money aside. And he was a soldier now, a man.

Benjamin Clark, Ransom’s father, had a house, barns, two hundred and fifty acres where he kept cows, raised hay, peas, corn, beans, potatoes, and hell. He was considered well to do. He was a hard man, hard as the rocks in his fields. His own attorney, Henry Chamberlin, stated that he was more coarse and brutal to his own family, his wife Catherine and their ten children, than any man he had ever known.

The nearest neighbor was half a mile away but Benjamin thought him too close. He knew only those he had to know and disliked most of them. Strangers, even neighbors, were sometimes stoned and dogged away. He had come to the area twenty years before but resented as intruders the Irish who were settling in the area and scorned the few remaining Seneca Indians as savages. He kept liquor by him constantly and, though rarely sober, was still considered to be a sharp, hard bargainer by men who had known him for twenty years and more.

Benjamin had trouble getting workmen and couldn’t keep them when he did, often losing his hay crop for lack of help. The haying season was a long five or six weeks from late June through early August, the hardest labor on a farm. He would scour the neighborhood for haying help but only the desperate would work for him. He paid little and grudged that. Haying was hard steady work through fourteen- to sixteen-hour days, but most young men accepted it as a physical challenge and competition, swinging the long-handled scythes from dawn to noon, stopping only to whet their blades on grindstones brought into the field. They took their noon meal where they stood and worked till last light, raking, spreading, and turning the cut grass to cure into hay. A threat of rain added desperation to the work, every hand rushing to get the hay under cover or rolled into cocks to keep it from rotting.

Men had learned that old Benjamin worked them harder than other farmers, paid them less, and never provided the tot of rum or brandy during brief rests that others did. By law and custom he could claim the labor of his children until maturity and he worked his sons, Ransom, Henry, even crippled William, harder than hired hands would tolerate. He grudged them food and shelter, paid them nothing. He had been heard to remark, when speaking of Ransom, “I never liked the boy.” Even Chamberlin had more than once taken a damning from him even while representing him in court with one controversy or lawsuit after another. When he wasn’t being sued he was suing others, including even the boys, Henry and William. When he was too drunk to leave his bed he demanded that the smaller children bring him whisky in a cup, neighbors half a mile away sometimes hearing him rip out. He was not alone in this indulgence. By 1830 liquor consumption in the United States had reached the equivalent of ten gallons per year for every man, woman, and child. This in turn was giving rise to the temperance movement.

In May 1830, Ransom had had all the hard labor and harder treatment he wanted. He hated to leave his mother and his younger sisters and brothers to take the constant abuse old Benjamin handed out. He had begged his mother to get out, take the children, but she had nowhere to go, no way to support them all. “Come with me,” he had said. “Leave the old bastard! I can get work, Ma. We can make it. Ain’t no call for you and the little ones to take it no more.” She had hugged him, her stocky little body clinging, then pushed him away. “You go, Ransom. We’ll hang on a little more. It ain’t so bad, he won’t really hurt us.” She looked at the floor. “He ain’t a bad man, son. Just he can’t leave off the drink. Life ain’t been easy for him, all the children. . . . ” Her voice trailed off.

She had met and married Benjamin more than twenty years ago. He was tall, strong, a man with a head for business, but hard even then. Through the years, through ten births, she had cooked, fed, endured. She jerked her head up. “But you, you got all your life yet to go, you got to live.” She took his arms in a fierce grip, squeezed. “You’re a good boy Ransom, a good man. You go on. Me and the little ones’ll make it. He’s partial to William. He stands up for us, like you and Henry. You don’t worry now, son. You go, you live.”

Two younger sisters, Lydia and Betsey, had already escaped through marriage and immediately been disinherited. And sure enough, on the 12th of May Benjamin advertised in the Livingston Register, “My son, Ransom Clark, left me on the 10th inst., without my consent or approbation. Said boy is 18 yrs old, rather large for his age, and of a dark complexion. All persons are hereby forbid harboring, employing, or trusting him on my account.”

Benjamin had never given Ransom much more than homespun trousers and shirt, cast-off shoes, a knife in a slim leather sleeve, had taught him only to work and to curse. He had found work in the area, hiring out in Greigsville, Wadsworth, Leicester, a few miles north in York and five miles east in the county seat, the village of Geneseo. Brutal work, but not half as brutal as working for old Benjamin. Farmers would give him board, room in their barns. And he foraged. He would take an ear of corn here or there while working, shuck it, eat it raw. As he moved from farm to farm, job to job, he learned to recognize the thorny vines and bushes, the frail flower of the wild rose. In season its blossoms developed a reddish-orange berrylike fruit with a taste like apple. He found blackberries, raspberries, salmon, dew, cloud, and thimbleberries, juicy little fruits, each drawn together like a cap over a central head at the end of a stem. He was tempted sometimes to try the wild mushrooms but remembered a childhood friend who tried one after seeing a squirrel eat the same type, only to develop cramps and vomiting fifteen hours later, just before he died. Turned out it was the deadly Amanita. Ransom learned to identify the salad plants and herbs that grew wild in the woods, to enjoy the clean, bitter tang of dandelion, not only the yellow flowers but leaves and hollow stems as well.

For a while, working sunup to sundown left no hours when he could safely visit Ma and the children. Sometimes, on a Saturday, he’d hang around the tavern in Greigsville, wait for old Benjamin, then get out to the farm for a few minutes. He’d take a dollar or two for Ma when he could, trinkets, candy for Jacob, Sally, Katherine, and Carolyn.

Farmers, seeing how he worked, began to hire him whenever he showed up, liking his size, his strength, his sober ways. Ransom Clark, they found, was all business. He rarely smiled, except with children. He said little. He worked. He knew farming, he knew plants, animals, could get an ox to draw when even the owner couldn’t make him move. Fields that hadn’t raised a weed began to bring forth hay, potatoes, corn.

With the deep-furrow horse-drawn moldboard plow he would turn and cross-turn a field to start the hills three or four feet apart for corn, drop and cover the seeds. He’d plant all day, backbreaking work, the next day haul water in two big wooden buckets for the seedlings, doling it out like he was nursing a baby. And they grew. Tall and strong, like Ransom.

Farmers, finding that he was sleeping in the fields, began letting him use their hay lofts, sometimes eat at table with them and their families. He had never known that a home could be like this. “Please” and “thank you” were not terms he was accustomed to. He tried to remember the manners Ma had taught him: keep your elbows off the table; eat with a spoon or a fork, not your fingers; don’t spit on the floor; and never drink liquor.

From the time he left home until spring he found employment with one farmer and another. Every farmer’s corn needed cultivation. Spring planting was done. He began the hoeing; first the weeding, then the half-hilling, then the full hilling. In fall he cut the ripened ears off the stalks, stored them in the farmer’s barn. Husking and shelling were fall and winter work and a time for frolics, a time to share and celebrate the end of the harvest. Ransom had no friends, nor enemies for that matter. He took no part in frolics. If he had an entertainment it was throwing his knife.

He had become friendly with a few Seneca Indians that passed through, had seen them more than once bring down a rabbit with a quick but casual throw of a knife. Offering a few ears of corn, a handful of potatoes, through signs he asked them how to do it. And he practiced. On breaks, in the evenings before he slept. A thousand throws were mostly fumbled, smacking into a tree, falling. He would ask a Seneca to throw at a tree, watch him closely, the grip, the throw. Slowly, his began to stick, quivering in the wood. He had the feel, the motion. Now all he needed was practice. The day he made one hundred throws and ninety-eight stuck, he knew he had it. He felt an immense pride. In spite of Benjamin, he was more than a beast of burden—he could learn.

Ten months passed. He was becoming a name among the farmers in the Genesee Valley. He planted, plowed, reaped. What he didn’t know about local farming when he left Benjamin he learned. He had a way with tools, could make or repair anything around the place. He worked, and that was all he did. Except for helping Ma and the children with all the dollars he didn’t need for food, a few clothes, and he didn’t need many. He had no goals except to struggle on. If there was a purpose to living he had no idea what it might be, nor did he spend much time in wonder. All he had learned was how to work, to survive. He did not look around or ahead. As far as he knew there was nothing to look for. And then he met Judge Noah French.

He was working on Aaron Hatfield’s farm, following a horse and plow, when he looked up one day, saw a man facing him at the end of a row. The man stood stolidly, like he had a right to be there, coat open, thumbs hooked in his belt. He looked rumpled, but official. “Mornin’ Ransom. Name’s Wadsworth, Deputy Wadsworth. Judge French asked me to stop, see could you come by. Today’d be all right.”

Neither spoke further, neither felt the need. Judge French wanted to see Clark, Clark would go. Both men knew it, didn’t need to talk about it, explain it. No need to shake hands, no need to talk about the weather. Clark knew Wadsworth from his official visits to the Clark place when there was trouble, which was often. He wasn’t a bully, didn’t make more of his job than it called for, but he did it.

The deputy stared at the younger man, taller, swarthy even if he hadn’t been burnt by exposure all day, every day. Strange boy, big, inches taller than Wadsworth, staring back with unblinking eyes, neither cowed nor challenging. He just stood, hands on the plow, immobile, powerful, like an ox, but his hazel eyes glowed like banked fires. Wadsworth was just as glad the boy didn’t want to put up a fight like some did. Might be a problem, even with a pistol, he thought. Ransom only nodded, made a faint twitch with one rein, turned, continued plowing.

The courthouse at the north end of Main Street in Geneseo had closed, the judge gone home an hour before Ransom put up Hatfield’s horse and plow. He walked the two miles through the gloaming from Hatfield’s past one plowed field after another, the few trees still standing girdled to die and create more field, to the Genesee River, across the bridge and into the village of one hundred buildings, five hundred people. From the courthouse he turned down Main, passing the unfinished Livingston County Bank, the Colt house, Kelsey house, the home of Jacob Hall, the harness maker, the old clapboard house of the Bishop family. Through the windows along the street came the soft glow of candles, here and there the sharper light of a lantern as families gathered in. Four blocks down he passed the village green, turned left on South Street. The grounds surrounding the homestead of the Wadsworths, begun in 1804 by pioneer James Wadsworth, took up the entire block. Across the street, along the north side, was the home of the local merchant William Bond, beyond it at number 17, the oldest house in the village, built in 1808 by Colonel Joseph Lawrence, Geneseo’s first blacksmith. Between Elm and Prospect stood the sturdy, well-kept cobblestone house of Judge Noah French. Ransom had seen him a few times, never met him, though old Benjamin had been before him time and again and couldn’t curse him enough. But the old man cursed everyone, especially his sons.

Ransom went to the rear of the house, stepped up on the porch, knocked. By the time he had taken a deep breath the brown porcelain knob turned, the door opened in. A girl stood with one hand on the knob, the other on the jamb. She was clean and pretty, and had long, dark hair; she wore an apron over a long, patterned dress. Ransom told her his name. She nodded, unsurprised, looked at his soiled but tidy clothes, down at his boots. “Washed ’em,” he said, stamping his feet lightly to dislodge the dust of the road. She looked up, smiled, motioned him in. It was the kitchen. He surveyed it in one glance, looked back at the girl for direction. The room was fine, warm, clean, a cheerful fire on the raised brick hearth, a pot of something good-smelling bubbling in an iron pot on the rod. Fresh washed vegetables were piled on a wooden counter by a granite chopping block. Lanterns glowed. He swallowed, the sound audible. “This way,” she said. Her voice was clear, steady, gentle.

She led him down a long quiet hall, carpet on the floor, pictures on the walls, small brass wall lanterns glowing. He remembered once entering the nave of the Presbyterian church, had never thought of a private home having such peace. The girl walked with her head up, hair drawn loosely back, tied with a dark blue ribbon. Her waist was small, hips barely swelling. A woman. She stopped, turned, tapped on a partially open door to the right, looked down at the floor, her breasts in profile full as melon halves. “Father?”

“Come in, come in.” The girl, smiling again, turned to Ransom, pushed the door with her left hand, motioned him in with her right. He started to smile, started to take a step toward the beckoning room, then paused, suddenly thought of turning back, down the hall, out the kitchen, back to Hatfield’s hay loft. The clean home, the peace, the lovely girl, a man, a judge who spoke kindly. What did it mean? What sort of house was this, what sort of people? Kindness, quiet, order, were not tolerated in Benjamin Clark’s house. Ransom knew that he himself felt these things, his mother, sisters and brothers felt them, but for eighteen years most of what he had experienced, most of what he had learned, was survival. This home, these people, might have come from another world. What was he to them? Why was he here?

“Lucy? Mr. Clark? Please come in.” The sober, strong voice again. The girl stepped forward, moved into the room, her feet invisible beneath her skirts. Too late to run. He could only follow. She went to a chair by a fire where a man sat, right leg propped on a stool, two boards strapped against it from knee to ankle. She bent, kissed the man’s cheek.

“Thank you, my dear. Mr. Clark, I’m Noah French. Please excuse me for not rising.” He gestured. “A broken leg. Foolish accident with one of my horses.” He reached out his hand. His grip was firm without being a challenge. He held a moment, didn’t shake, released. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” He motioned. “Please have a seat there, by the fire. Lucy, would you be kind enough to bring us coffee?”

Ransom sat straight in his chair, looked squarely at the judge, aware of his large, leather-upholstered chair, the wall of bookshelves behind him, other shelves on the side walls, a low table between them with a vase of hyacinths, a small, crackling wood fire behind a shining brass fender beside them. Judge French had dark, graying hair, parted on the left, falling loosely across his forehead. His nose was straight, neat, flanked by high, lean cheekbones. He would be tall if he stood. Within the black trousers and white cotton shirt his body looked solid, spare but not thin. His left hand rested on the arm of his chair, his right gripped the knee of his injured leg. “Inconvenient, sir. Not part of my plan.” He smiled ruefully. “I need help, Mr. Clark. I hope you’re the man to help me. If you will.”

Once, on a Saturday, Ransom had heard that a group of gypsies had come to Geneseo with a “show,” wild animals, even an elephant. He had had five years of common school, could read and write. But his brief formal education had given him no basis for understanding where such animals as a lion, a gorilla, or a giant snake lived, what sort of place produced such creatures. He watched a magician pull rabbits out of a hat and was confounded. He saw a man tossing two red balls in the air, from hand to hand, then three, four, five, even six balls.

He had assumed that as far as a person might travel in the world, with the exception of mountains instead of the local hills, or giant bodies of water, oceans, the rest of the world was much like Livingston County, other people like the people he knew. The show had caused him more thought than his five years of school had. And the thought that came to him now, facing Judge French, was the juggler. In his mind this house, the girl, the quiet, the order, and above all the judge’s words, tumbled in his mind like the red balls. He had never thought that his future held anything more than following an ox down a furrow. He understood that the judge was offering him a job.

The door opened, the girl’s feet whispered across the floor. She bent, set a tray on the small table. “Thank you, my dear.” She nodded, touched the man’s shoulder, smiled at Ransom, left the room. He looked down. There were two cups, a plate under each, two silver spoons, a bowl of sugar, a tiny pitcher of heavy cream, two cloths. The Judge leaned forward, grunting at the discomfort to his leg, motioned to the cream and sugar. “Here’s the way it is, Mr. Clark. May not seem like it but judging other men is harder work than you might think. Been at it a long time. Got to do something to clear my mind when I’m not on the bench.” He looked toward the fire, nodded to himself. “My heart, too. Can’t listen to people’s problems day after day, year after year, decide who’s right, who’s wrong, and not get beaten down sometimes. Got to get my mind on other things, things that are not based on human troubles.” He paused, staring into the fire. “Like horses.” He turned his head, looked directly at Ransom. “I raise horses, Mr. Clark.” He took a sip of coffee, touched his lips with one of the cloths, leaned back in his chair holding the cup in his lap with both hands.

“Geneseo is a small town, Mr. Clark. Hard to live in a small town and not know something about most everyone in the vicinity. Particularly if you have been entrusted by the people of the community to judge the problems that sometimes come up. Of course I’ve had occasion to deal with your father Benjamin and several of your brothers.” He paused, glanced toward the fire, back. “I’m glad to acknowledge that you have never had call to be in my courtroom. No, I know of you from farmers, farriers, the blacksmith shop, the general store, and you are held in some regard, I’m pleased to say. Hatfield for one says you plow a straight furrow, that you’re a man to be trusted to do your best, and that your best, with animals, equipment, tools, is very good indeed. In short, from what I’ve heard, you are the sort of young man I would like to help me with my horses. If you would consider coming with me regularly, I offer you two dollars a week and found.”

Ransom gave an imperceptible nod. He was right. This man and his daughter, were from another world. He could not remember that Benjamin had ever given him to understand by word or deed that he was worthy of consideration, certainly not of affection. His father’s half-starved hounds fared better than his children. No deed, no word of Ransom’s had ever brought a smile or a nod from old Benjamin. Until he had left home, worked for other men, Ransom had never had reason to think that his existence meant any more to the world than the life of a dog. Now he hardly knew what to make of this startling appraisal, the offer of pay. For eighteen years he had lived with a man whose opinion he had rarely thought to question, had not thought his father’s brutal ways unusual. He had believed that no man would value him except for how long he could work, how much he could lift. Yet ignorant as he was of the world outside Livingston County, he knew that opportunity rarely knocked twice, nor waited over long after knocking before moving on. Whatever world the judge and his daughter lived in, it was a far better world than the one he knew.

“Yes, sir. When do I start?”