Woodsburner (37 page)

Henry has always felt welcome among the trees, not as a visitor who comes for sport but, rather, as one returning home after long absence. But he wonders if some portion of the woods will understand that it was his careless hand that struck the match. Is recollection a faculty of man alone, or do all things in the world bear the imprint of what has come before? The mark of his deed, he thinks, might forever reside in the deep-ringed memories of the woods, entombed in the striated record underfoot. And after the fire
—his fire—
has finished its rampage, will the blackened survivors of this once green expanse ever again welcome his homecoming? Henry spots charred clumps of grapevine hanging dead like tangled fishnets from scorched maples and alders. He sees ospreys and teals, winged titmice and shelldrakes careening through the smoke in mad flight, their iridescent feathers dulled with ash. They who sit in parlors, dreaming of acreage and wilderness unmapped, cannot imagine the terrible loss.

Is there a way, he wonders, that he can make reparation or atonement, a way that he might prove himself solicitous on nature's behalf? Perhaps he might raise a tent amid the ruins and sit in wake beneath the shriveled branches. He could return, he thinks, and make the poverty of this ravaged place his own, join the dumbfounded animals in their homelessness. Or, better still, he will build a small cabin with his own hands, a simple structure assembled from dead limbs, to stand like a forgotten guardhouse in a plundered city. The cabin will have no adornments, not so much as a doormat, so that he need not waste in housekeeping
time better spent documenting nature's slow recovery. His door will be open to the mice and squirrels and woodchucks whose dwellings have vanished; his roof will offer its perch to birds searching for stolen boughs. He will make these creatures his neighbors by encaging himself in their midst.

As penance, he will sleep on a bed of ashes, cover himself with boards instead of blankets, and wake to soot-filled mornings, a parent nursing a sick child through long nights of slow healing. He will watch the grasses return, blade by blade, and he will rejoice when the first sapling forces its way through the charred forest floor to seek alms from the sun. And he will remain the patient guardian of this vulnerable world, a steward content to spend his days in penitent isolation.

Henry reclines on the crest of Fair Haven Hill and imagines this new life. After months of loud confusion, thought contesting thought, he feels some small relief in knowing what he must do. In the midst of chaos, he is suddenly calm. The patch of sky directly overhead is a pale, translucent blue, the color of glass buttons he once saw used for a doll's dress. When he closes his eyes, the fire returns. He sees its dark ghost, and he envisions its aftermath. Fire purges all, leaving only the things in themselves, stripped of former attributes. With eyes shut, he senses a presence, a spirit from the woods, bringing forgiveness and seeking his protection. It touches him, then seizes his forearm; the grip is strong, and it yanks him forward from his back onto his knees.

“You are saved, sir!” proclaims a voice that is, unfortunately, very real.

Henry opens his eyes, sees the pale blue sky roll past, and then the face of a man, bespectacled with tiny rectangles of glass that flash orange in the reflected light. Henry winces from the slingshot of pain in his neck. He sinks back from his knees and sits on the ground.

“Your terror is at an end,” the man says. “I have come to your rescue.”

Henry's surprise fades into annoyance. He raises a hand to block the glare of the fire and to better view this assailant who has interrupted his epiphany. The man stands with one hand at his hip, the other atop a shovel upright against his leg like a staff. The man thrusts his chin forward, as if he were trying to appear as large as his thoughts. It is all too common a sight in the city, Henry thinks, except for the shovel. He assumes that the man has lately arrived from Boston, though why he is now standing above him is less clear.

“Do I strike you as one in need of a savior?” Henry asks.

The man seems confused. He points in the direction from which he has come and says, “You are exposed to the flames, and very nearly surrounded.”

“And now, sir, so are you.”

Henry watches the man rub the soft line of his jaw, watches the toll of understanding exacted.

“Oh …”

The man drops to his haunches but does not sit. He squats with his weight on his toes; the tips of his boots crush the strong-perfumed calamint and press it into the earth.

“How long have you been on this hill?” the man asks.

“I cannot say,” Henry replies, rubbing the back of his neck. “I exhausted myself trying to contain the blaze.”

“Alone?”

“The fire was in its infancy.” Henry shows him the blackened soles of his boots.

“The town is coming,” the man says. “A hundred men or more. And they are equipped.”

Henry tries to hide his disdain for this man who has intruded upon his solitude. He hopes he will return to the others and leave him to finish his thoughts.

“I suppose there is nothing for us to do but await their arrival,” the man says. “You needn't worry. I should think them no more than a quarter hour distant.”

Henry watches the man survey the burning expanse with a hand at his brow, like a general reviewing his troops. The man smiles and nods, as if to express his satisfaction at having brought himself so close to the line of battle.

“I confess I had not expected the fire to be quite so impressive as this,” the man says. He pats his coat, pulls out a small book and a pencil, and begins writing.

“You might obtain a better perspective over yonder,” Henry suggests, pointing to an outcropping of rock fifty yards away.

The man does not hear him, or perhaps ignores him altogether. He continues writing, then says, waving his pencil, “I must beg your indulgence. I am a writer and, as such, a willing slave to the Muse. When inspiration arrives, I must obey.”

“I fear I have burned my muse,” Henry says under his breath. But again the other man does not look up from his earnest scribbling. Henry rotates his head slowly, rolls it against his chest, feels the tendons click and pop at intervals of discomfort. He sends an exploring finger to the back of his neck and identifies the troublesome spot, a point of focused pain like a railway switch.

Henry has given up hope that the intruder will leave him. He watches him gnaw the pencil's blunt end and offers advice. “You wouldn't do that if you saw what we put into their manufacture.”

The man looks at the name stamped on the pencil and regards Henry with sudden appreciation. “You are John Thoreau and Company?”

“His son. Henry David.”

“What strange fortune! Your father makes excellent pencils indeed. My best customers write with nothing else. I am Eliot Calvert, of Calvert's Bookstore, in Boston.”

Henry nods and rubs the knot of pain at the back of his neck.

“I could wish the circumstances of our meeting different,” Eliot says, pointing to the fire. “Although it is another of fortune's curious turns, I am only in Concord today because I plan to open a second bookshop. Otherwise, I might have missed this spectacular conflagration entirely.”

Henry is surprised to feel suddenly possessive of the fire. Moments ago he had wanted to share its beauty with another, but now he feels jealous of this man's admiration for the flames. He does not want to discuss the fire further, knowing where such a conversation will inevitably lead.

Eliot writes in his little book and then muses aloud, “I should hope there will still be a town remaining in which to open my shop, when all of this is done.”

Henry wonders if Eliot has any idea that he is speaking to the person who started the fire, which—if indeed it reaches Concord— may have no small effect on his business. But then Henry asks himself what claim this man has to bring his business to Concord, and he grows more annoyed with him still.

“I have little to do with bookshops,” Henry says, trying to contain his irritation.

Eliot rolls his pencil between his fingers. “That is a peculiar statement for a man who makes pencils.”

“Why should I give money for a book containing thoughts that occur as freely to its author as they do to all men?” Henry had not meant to speak quite so vehemently, but then he sees that his words have little impact upon Eliot Calvert, who looks at him blankly, as if he were a bit of fauna waiting to be classified. He wonders if the man has willfully ignored his point.

“You do not read, then?” Eliot asks.

“There are libraries,” Henry says.

“Certainly there are books you might care to possess.”

“Why would I want a book once I am finished with the reading of it?”

“I am at a loss, Mr. Thoreau. This is not an argument I have ever needed to make.” Eliot chews his lip, thinking. “Books—they make a fine ornament for one's shelves.”

“I have no shelves,” Henry replies.

“You might lend them.”

“My friends can afford their own books.”

“There must be books that you cannot find in your library.”

“I find what matters to me.” By way of illustration, Henry pulls a book from his breast pocket. Its battered leather binding is held together with a strap that fits into a tiny silver buckle.

Eliot accepts the book Henry offers, turns it in his hands, and wipes away a sooty thumbprint on the spine.

“Catullus? If I am not mistaken, this is a valuable book, Mr. Thoreau. What library allowed you to remove it?”

Henry reaches for the small volume and squirrels it away in his coat again. From deep within the woods there issues another loud rumble, like logs rolling downhill.

“I have a way with librarians,” Henry explains. “I consider it my one true talent.”

Eliot watches Henry pat the pocket hiding the valuable book.

“When I am done with this book, I shall return it,” Henry says, “and I need no longer concern myself with its care.”

Eliot nods appreciatively. He puts away his memorandum, slips the gnawed pencil back into his pocket. He sits and straightens his legs before him and watches the rising pillars of smoke just long enough, Henry assumes, to show the solemnity of his contemplation.

“I see you are a simple man, Mr. Thoreau.”

Henry shrugs.

“I myself am not so complicated a man as I may appear,” Eliot says.

Henry thinks of the leather-covered memorandum the bookseller has just returned to his pocket. He observes the man's fine clothes, dusted with ash, takes note of the expensive-looking boots and the watch chain at his waistcoat pocket, and he imagines the gold timepiece nestled within. He watches Eliot frown as he inspects the lenses of his spectacles, rubs them on his sleeve, and checks them again. Owning such fine things, Henry thinks, must encumber this man's days with tedious cares; he no doubt consumes precious hours with polishing his boots, winding his watch, arranging the books on his shelves. Henry's agitation gives way to pity. He has seen this sort of man before, and he is suddenly seized by the urge to warn him of impending disappointment, but he realizes he can offer no solution. What direction can he provide, when lately he has done little more than distract himself—from his own true ambitions—with the making of pencils? Henry resists the impulse to lecture Eliot and instead tries to think of gentle advice.

“There are many ways a man might content himself,” he says.

“True,” Eliot says, brushing ash from his sleeves and lapels. “Opposing these advancing flames, for example, shoulder to shoulder with the good people of Concord and”—he gestures toward Henry—“with the maker of America's finest pencils. What greater expression of manhood can there be?”

Henry finds that he cannot bear to meet this man's gaze. And after you have finished with this adventure, he thinks, you will go back to Boston. You will return to the safety of a big house and the comforts of fine possessions and your business and the thousands of meaningless little tasks that consume your hours, and you will regale your friends with embellished tales of how you fought the great fire in Concord. The memory of this one day will supply
vitality for the thousands of lifeless days to follow. You are mired in a life of desperation, Mr. Eliot Calvert, and do not even know enough to remain quiet about it.

“Simplicity”—Eliot nods solemnly in response to Henry's silence—“it is all a man need pursue.”

Eliot pulls at the cuffs of his trousers and takes hold of his heels. Henry watches as the bookseller removes his boots, and he becomes conscious of his own feet, hot and damp and swollen. Henry pulls off his boots as well and soot pours forth like sand. His dark stockings are covered in gray ash, and he sees that there are more holes than there were when he dressed this morning. He places his feet side by side, misshapen lumps in ragged green wool. Even in his stockings, it is easy to see that one foot is missing its big toe, the result of a childhood accident. If his young hand had dropped the hatchet an inch to the left, Henry thinks, he might have lost half his foot. Even had he survived such a grievous injury, his life would have followed an altered path; he most certainly would not have had means to foster his love for nature. How could he have explored forests or clambered up mountains, how could he have tramped through snow and mud and fallen leaves with little more than a stump in his boot for balance? But then at least, he thinks, the Concord woods would not be burning.

While Eliot writes again in his little book, Henry picks up a stick, scratches a broad rectangle in the dirt, and draws a lopsided triangle inside it, estimating the area of the woods that have already burned. In the crude drawing, he and Eliot are just beyond the triangle's base. He marks their position with an
X
. Henry is trying to sketch the swath of the devastation when Eliot snaps his book shut and emphatically places his hand in the middle of Henry's drawing.

“I have come to the awareness,” Eliot announces, “that if a
man would reclaim his life he must remove all that is extraneous to the living of it.” Eliot looks down when he has finished this pronouncement, and he sees that he has accidentally erased part of Henry's map.