The Seekers (17 page)

Now it seemed no solution at all. He’d trudged the docks literally for weeks, unable to find anyone who needed an extra man come spring. Part of the problem was the fact that a partner would also have to transport Elizabeth and their baggage. Space was precious on most of the riverboats.

Abraham sat motionless in the chair, listening to the whine of the February wind. Snow ticked at the windows. His eyes seemed to be focused on Chief. The bulldog lay under the foot of the bed, sleeping. But Abraham really wasn’t looking at the animal. He saw instead the comfortable house on Beacon Street—

Aware of Elizabeth standing near him, he glanced up and pointed to his sodden coat. “I did buy a recent paper. Just came in with a pack train from Harrisburg. In December, John Adams was elected to the presidency. But the second highest total of votes cast by the electors went to Jefferson, so he’s vice president. I doubt Papa’s happy about that. It shows the Democratic-Republicans are gaining strength and influ—”

He broke off, startled. Elizabeth was staring at him in a most peculiar way. There was a glow in her eyes such as he hadn’t seen for months.

She was
smiling!

He shot to his feet, seized her chilly hands. He could only infer the smile was the result of some new abnormality in her physical health or her mental state. “Elizabeth, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, darling. In fact, for the first time since we set foot in this wretched town, I’m happy.”

The smile grew. At first, he couldn’t believe what he suspected. But that smile gave him encouragement. Happiness surged through him like a tonic, washing away his exhaustion, his frustration—

Yet he still didn’t dare to believe it. Not until she spoke. “I’ve been making a count of the days and weeks. I think enough time’s passed so that I can say with fair certainty we’re going to have a child.”

“Oh my God, that’s
wonderful!
”

He whooped, wrapped her in a hug, then leaped back. He’d practically crushed her—

She laughed, really laughed. Faint spots of color showed in her cheeks.

“Yes,” she said softly, “I think so too.”

Abraham whooped again, did a little dance step on the cold floor. Chief’s head came up. The wet, ugly eyes opened. They were already closing by the time Elizabeth added, “I just wanted to be sure before I raised any false hopes.”

Abraham started pacing. “I know there are doctors in Pittsburgh: We must get you to one immediately. No matter how much he charges—”

He stopped, faced her. “And I think we should stay right here until the baby’s delivered.”

“Not see our own land till the autumn? I won’t hear of it! I want the child born where we’re going to make our home.”

“But traveling just this far was taxing enough. And you haven’t been yourself since the first of the year—”

“Because I’m going to have a baby! It—it frightens me more than a little.”

“That’s why you’ve been so—?”

He didn’t finish.

“So cool? Yes. I suspected I might be pregnant right after New Year’s, but as I told you, I vowed I wouldn’t speak until I was positive.” Her radiant expression dimmed as she surveyed the cobwebbed corners of the mean, dingy room. “I simply won’t stay here once the weather breaks. It’s a prison. And a filthy one at that.”

She put her hands on his shoulders, smiling again. “Besides, everyone we’ve talked to says river travel is much smoother than going overland in a wagon.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“We must double our efforts to find passage.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. He had seen that prologue to an angry outburst many times before.

“I mean it, Abraham. I will not stay in this dreadful room, this vile town, any longer than is absolutely necessary. I’m strong enough to make the river trip—”

“I’m not sure—”

“I
am!
We
must
go!”

He doubted her claim about her strength. But he didn’t doubt her determination. He knew further argument would be useless. So he gathered her into his arms while the snow of February 1797 whined the lodging house windows, and he said, “All right, Elizabeth. We will.”

The luck of the Kents seemed to change with the coming of sunshine and a late February thaw. The notice board near the docks, where new arrivals posted their partnership propositions, sent Abraham running to a wagon camp at the edge of town. There he located the Clappers, a family from the Genessee River valley in upper New York state.

The Clapper clan consisted of Daniel, the father, a barrel of a man with a gray-streaked red beard and huge, hair-matted arms; his wife, a leathery little woman named Edna; and their two youngsters. Daniel Junior was sixteen; tiny, doll-like Danetta, nine.

Yes, Daniel Clapper said, Abraham had read the notice correctly. He meant to sell his wagon—but not his horses or all the merchandise the wagon had carried—and invest in a one-way ark.

“What’s your destination, Mr. Clapper? The notice didn’t say.”

“Destination?” Clapper combed out his beard with thick fingers. “Wherever it strikes my fancy to squat, I reckon. I’m a storekeeper, y’see—”

He led Abraham to the wagon, showed him an assortment of goods from bolts of cloth to kegs of nails.

“Had a right good location up New Hampshire way for eleven years. All of a sudden one day, I just got sick of it. We packed up our goods, toted ’em cross country and opened a new store near the falls of the Genesee. Kept that seven years—till the movin’ fever come on me again. We been bogged down north of here for a whole month, waitin’ for the snow to melt. I can’t get out o’ Pittsburgh fast enough—just
look
at all these damn people—!”

His wave encompassed fifteen to twenty cook fires glowing in the twilight among immigrant wagons of every description.

“I’m fixin’ to go towards the Ohio land, where there’s a tad more room,” Clapper continued. “Got all I need to open me a store the day I arrive. Put up my tent, lay a board ’twixt two kegs and I’m in business. I’ll sell what I brung with me till I can pick up more from the packets comin’ downriver. I’ll use my horses to peddle in the back country, an’ there I am—set up as pert as you please!”

Abraham tried to put the conversation back on course. “According to the sheet you posted, you need three men for your ark. One more besides you and your son—”

“I need some cash, too.” From his coat pocket Clapper pulled two paper-covered pamphlets, opened the first, shut it again. “Wrong one. That’s the river map with the islands an’ hazards marked—I can’t afford me one of them high-priced pilots—”

Tucking the pamphlet away, he handed Abraham the other one. “This here
Compleat Guide to the Western Territories
says arks run four dollar a foot. I need one about sixty feet, I guess, to haul the wife and Daniel and Danetta and my horses and goods.”

“That’s about two hundred and forty dollars.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d be willing to put in half.”

“She wouldn’t all go to waste, y’know.” Clapper pointed at the pamphlet. “Says in there someplace that you can recover about a quarter o’ what you spend for a boat if you tear her up and sell the lumber at the other end.”

“Fine with me. Do we have a deal?”

“Hold on, Mr. Kent! We ain’t covered all the details.”

“What details?”

“Well, f’rinstance—are you travelin’ all by yourself? I never seed so blasted many bachelors in one place in my life!”

“I’m married. I have my wife to take along—a small amount of luggage—a bulldog—”

Clapper scowled. “Does he bite?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Good. Miz Rachel hates mean dogs. That it?”

Abraham smiled. “Yes and no.”

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“My wife’s expecting a child in the fall.”

“Why, congratulations to you!” Clapper grabbed Abraham’s hand and pumped it, squeezing so hard the younger man winced.

Pale, Abraham said, “Any more details?”

Clapper pondered. “Nope. It don’t take me long to make up my mind about a feller’s cut, Mr. Kent. If you’re agreeable, it’s partners.”

“Partners,” Abraham said, declining to shake the hand Clapper once again extended. Anxious to tell Elizabeth about their good fortune, he started away, then stopped short. He pivoted back to the huge tree of a man who was busy pulling a few chips of wood from his chest-length beard. “Mr. Clapper, there is one very important detail we didn’t settle.”

“What, Mr. Kent?”

“You still don’t know where my wife and I want to go.”

Clapper thought again, then shrugged. “Don’t much care. You can tell me if you want to.”

“I’ve a deed to a plot of land on the Great Miami River, above Cincinnati.”

“Used to call it Losantville ’bout ten years ago—I read that in one o’ them guide books. I got a whole box of guide books about the new country—”

He jerked a thumb at his wagon. Over the end-board, a redheaded young man and a little rose-cheeked girl were watching.

“Where you’re goin’ sounds all right to me, Mr. Kent. Maybe I’ll head on west, maybe I won’t. Miz Edna won’t much care. She sighs a lot when we move, but she rollers wherever I’ve a notion to go.”

“You mean it really doesn’t matter to you where you end up?”

“No, sir. I always like a place for a spell while I’m there. But then the itch sets in—can’t explain it any better’n that. It’s the goin’, not the stoppin’, I enjoy the most. Suppose that sounds crazy, huh?”

It did, but Abraham was too polite to admit it. “I understand perfectly.”

“Will you have a talk with Miz Edna sometime? She sure as hell don’t.”

“How about this evening? I’d like to bring my wife over to get acquainted—”

“Bring her to supper! Miz Edna don’t mind fixin’ for one more.”

“Shouldn’t you ask her?”

“Never ask a woman anything, Mr. Kent. She might tell you what she wants. Then wouldn’t you be in a fix? Listen, you get a move on! The sooner we lay our plans, the sooner we’ll be shed o’ these damn mobs of people!”

Abraham vanished in the blue wood smoke of the cook fires Daniel Clapper continued to eye with disgust.

April came, bringing longer days, warmer air, the first warbling birds, the first shoots of green on the coal-veined hills around Pittsburgh. To Abraham and Elizabeth, it seemed that the new season marked an end to their own long night of frustration and hardship as well.

To those with enough money, obtaining one of the huge flatboats known as arks was no problem. Any of several yards along the two rivers could hammer one together in the space of about two weeks. Morning after morning, Abraham and Daniel Clapper watched theirs being constructed: a rectangular scow sixty-two feet long, twenty-two feet wide.

The ark hull was built of timbers ten inches square, carefully caulked to minimize leakage. The entire deck was enclosed with four-inch planks that rose flush with the vessel’s four sides.

A door in the larboard side near the stern was large enough to admit Clapper’s horses to their appointed space. Forward of this, canvas hanging from the slightly pitched plank roof created temporary walls. One large area was set aside at the bow for communal dining and socializing. The partners agreed to pay extra to have a mud-brick hearth and chimney installed. The ark was quite literally a floating house and stable in one.

A ladder from below gave access to the roof through a trapdoor. From the roof’s stern, a great steering-oar nearly as long as the ark itself trailed into the water. She was a clumsy-looking craft, Abraham thought. He already felt confined just glancing into the canvas-partitioned sleeping cubicle he and Elizabeth would share. The ark had no windows, only small loopholes through which muskets could be poked in the event of an Indian attack from shore. But that danger was minimal, everyone said, at least above the falls.

The real hazards, according to Clapper’s pamphlets, were sunken obstructions. Limbs and occasionally entire trees were swept away from the banks into the current. A few of the largest planters—trees whose upper ends protruded above the surface—and sleepers—trees with their upper ends submerged—were marked on Clapper’s map, along with islands and sandbars. The map also noted a few well-known sawyers, submerged logs whose upper ends rose and fell in cycles as long as twenty minutes to half an hour. These were the most dangerous obstructions of all. Unfortunately, the map located only a fraction of them.

But that didn’t intimidate the Clappers or the Kents. They watched families with just as little river experience confidently board their arks and set off around the bend of the Ohio in high spirits. One or two vessels a day departed from the Pittsburgh landings.

Finally, one brilliant morning in late April, so did theirs.

Abraham and Daniel Clapper leaned on the end of the great sweep. Daniel Junior cursed down below, struggling to calm the panicky horses. Edna Clapper, Danetta and Elizabeth were at the hearth, forward, preparing breakfast.

It was a smooth and auspicious beginning.

The Ohio was more beautiful than Abraham remembered it. Their journey, while requiring long, tiring hours at the sweep, was almost like a holiday in some respects. Every sundown, they anchored in midstream, as did all boats traveling up and down the river. The Kents—Elizabeth growing noticeably around the middle—shared the physical warmth of the hearth at the bow, as well as the less tangible but very real human warmth generated by the Clappers. Indeed, the younger couple already felt themselves almost part of the family.

Elizabeth was unstinting when it came to helping Mrs. Clapper with the cooking. And she did her share of the washing that hung on a line strung across the roof. All of them took pleasure in innocuous chatter about the sights of the day, or in the lusty singing of a few hymns—Daniel Clapper enjoyed hymns—after the spring sun went down. Chief grew fatter on the scraps Rachel Clapper fed him.

At night, lying close together in their cubicle while Daniel Clapper snored noisily beyond the canvas partition, Abraham usually asked Elizabeth for reassurances that she was feeling well. Her spirits seemed remarkably improved but her color didn’t.

She gave him the reassurances—truthful or not, he was unable to tell. He still felt occasional stabs of guilt over not being more sensitive to his father’s warnings about the hardships they’d face in the west. He now saw clearly that he’d permitted his passion for Elizabeth, as well as their shared defiance of Philip, to lure him into the false certainty that love would sustain them in the face of all difficulties. Elizabeth’s extreme fatigue every evening, and her parchment-white cheeks, were constant reminders that it just wasn’t so.