Dartmouth College Dartmouth Digital Commons Open Dartmouth: Published works by Dartmouth faculty Faculty Work 2000 The Old American Ernest Hebert Dartmouth College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa Part of the Fiction Commons Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation Hebert, Ernest, "The Old American" (2000). Open Dartmouth: Published works by Dartmouth faculty. 3951. https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa/3951 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Work at Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Dartmouth: Published works by Dartmouth faculty by an authorized administrator of Dartmouth Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Oldd ·merican Other Novels by Ernest Hebert The Dogs of March A Little More than Kin Whisper My Name The Passion of Estelle Jordan Live Free or Die Mad Boys The Kinship A Front Matter (i-xii).qxd 7/29/02 1:39 PM Page iii Hardscrabble Books—Fiction of New England Laurie Alberts, Lost Daughters Laurie Alberts, The Price of Land in Shelby Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Story of a Bad Boy Robert J. Begiebing, The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton; Or, A Memoir of Startling and Amusing Episodes from Itinerant Life Anne Bernays, Professor Romeo Chris Bohjalian, Water Witches Dona Brown, ed., A Tourist’s New England:Travel Fiction, 1820–1920 Joseph Bruchac, The Waters Between: A Novel of the Dawn Land Joseph A. Citro, Guardian Angels Joseph A. Citro, Lake Monsters Joseph A. Citro, Shadow Child Joseph A. Citro, The Gore Sean Connolly, A Great Place to Die J. E. Fender, The Private Revolution of Geoffrey Frost Dorothy Canfield Fisher (Mark J. Madigan, ed.), Seasoned Timber Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Understood Betsy Joseph Freda, Suburban Guerrillas Castle Freeman, Jr., Judgment Hill Frank X. Gaspar, Leaving Pico Robert Harnum, Exile in the Kingdom Ernest Hebert, The Dogs of March Ernest Hebert, Live Free or Die Ernest Hebert, The Old American Sarah Orne Jewett (Sarah Way Sherman, ed.), The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories A Front Matter (i-xii).qxd 7/29/02 1:39 PM Page iv Lisa MacFarlane, ed., This World Is Not Conclusion: Faith in Nineteenth-Century New England Fiction G. F. Michelsen, Hard Bottom Anne Whitney Pierce, Rain Line Kit Reed, J. Eden Rowland E. Robinson (David Budbill, ed.), Danvis Tales: Selected Stories Roxana Robinson, Summer Light Rebecca Rule, The Best Revenge: Short Stories Catharine Maria Sedgwick (Maria Karafilis, ed.), The Linwoods: or, “Sixty Years Since” in America R. D. Skillings, How Many Die R. D. Skillings, Where the Time Goes Lynn Stegner, Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: A Triptych Theodore Weesner, Novemberfest W. D. Wetherell, The Wisest Man in America Edith Wharton (Barbara A. White, ed.), Wharton’s New England: Seven Stories and Ethan Frome Thomas Williams, The Hair of Harold Roux Suzi Wizowaty, The Round Barn The Old ·mericand A Novel by Ernest Hebert University Press of New England / Hanover & London A Front Matter (i-xii).qxd 7/29/02 1:39 PM Page vi dartmouth college Published by University Press of New England One Court St., Lebanon, nh © by Ernest Hebert All rights reserved First University Press of New England paperback edition 2002 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hebert, Ernest, – The old American : a novel / by Ernest Hebert p. cm. — (Hardscrabble books) ––– (cl: alk. paper); ––– (pa: alk. paper) . New England—History—Colonial period, ca. –—Fiction. Blake, Nathan, –—Fiction. Indian captivities—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series. '.—dc – This book is dedicated to the old Americans in my life, my father, Elphege Hebert, and my father-in-law, Leo Lavoie. So many people read parts of the nine drafts of this novel that I don’t dare list them for fear of leaving somebody out.My thanks to all, but especially to Nicola Smith and Tom Powers, who were the Wrst to see the promise in an early draft. I also want to thank the librarians at the Baker Library at Dartmouth College and The Historical Soci- ety of Cheshire County in Keene. A Front Matter (i-xii).qxd 7/29/02 1:39 PM Page ix Contents Grief The Gauntlet The Great River Conissadawaga Slave Pure Succession A House like the English Build A Far Place Reading Group Guide ix The Oldd ·merican dGri ef “I wish to learn here on earth, not in heaven, why my husband visits Mount Hope Bay every year.” —elizabeth blake, on her deathbed, July 19, 1804, Keene, New Hampshire april 1746 he old American wears a red turban with white feathers sticking out of the last turn at the peak, a strategy de- Tsigned to conceal a bald head. His habitual pose and features resemble that famous proWle to the north that both English and native refer to as the Great Stone Face.Many years ago he named himself Caucus-Meteor, for he’d lost his childhood name. He uses no war paint,but his ear lobes are split and stretched an inch long and from each hangs a French coin. Except for the turban and highly decorated fringed moccasins reaching almost to the knee, he’s dressed like a French soldier with brown pants and a blue waistcoat, which hides burn scars on his arms. He carries no musket, sword, or hatchet. A short knife with a bone han- dle dangles from a neck cord, but it’s more a tool than a weapon, for the old American has no use for the excitement of blood- letting; he’s too feeble to Wght well, and the French hired him as an interpreter, not as a warrior, so he’s not expected to engage in combat; even so, for the purposes of continuing instruction 1 2 The Old American in those matters that concern a king, he always immerses him- self in battle. Because Caucus-Meteor knew he couldn’t keep up with the troop, he had left the camp an hour early under moonlight to time his arrival with the outbreak of hostilities. He likes to wan- der among the carnage, the exercise making him feel like a living ghost, which he reckons is another of those emotions unique to a king. And, too, there’s something else in him, a wish; as his old mirror, adversary, and sometimes intimate, Bleached Bones, was fond of saying: “Call sudden death the best of luck.” In an at- tempt to see into his future, Caucus-Meteor tries the conjuring trick of the ancients.But it doesn’t work.He’s too hale for release from the responsibilities of mortality. He’s surprised that he’s arrived before the Wghters. Some- thing must have delayed them. He knows that this village is one of the newer settlements on the borderlands of New Hampshire, but he does not know its name and he wishes he did. To destroy a place without bothering to learn its name strikes him as disre- spectful. It will be dawn soon, and he should stay in the woods until his comrades launch their attack, but he’ll walk boldly into the town, for he enjoys the shiver along the spine when one is close to one’s enemies without their knowledge. He sees perhaps half a hundred homesteads, log huts, and timber-frame houses under construction. Most of these struc- tures are strung along a muddy path. Beyond is a stockade with wooden pickets and turrets for sharpshooters at the four corners. But Caucus-Meteor has little interest in military matters. He’s drawn to a light, a warm glow from a single pane of glass in a log cabin. He peers through the wavy distortion. The sources of light are a whale oil lamp and a blaze in a stone Wreplace. Caucus-Meteor sees a man sitting on the edge of the bed put- ting on leather shoes held together with gut laces, a woman pok- ing the Wre with an iron. A two-year-old lies in a cradle only a few feet from the old American. He could break the pane and snatch the child, but he only watches its blue eyes suddenly GRIEF 3 widening, blinking, mouth opening, crying out, Wsts doubled. Caucus-Meteor guesses that it’s a girl. The mother comes to tend to her oVspring. Caucus-Meteor makes no attempt to con- ceal himself. Since his wife died, he never lets practical matters, such as possible threats to his life, stand in the way of satisfying his curiosity, and for the moment he’s engaged by this English family behind the glass.The mother sweeps up the child, carries her to the hearth, and sits her down on a low stool. The woman spoons white bacon fat in a pot and hangs it from one of the irons over the hearth. Through the cracks around the glass, the old American catches the aroma. The husband has Wnished putting on his shoes,and now takes notice of his wife at her cooking pot. The two begin to talk. Caucus-Meteor presses his ear against the glass. He enjoys lis- tening to English. It’s an unmusical language, weak in ability to convey feeling but full of expressions for things and actions. He catches only a few words through the glass, but he surmises from the woman’s tone and the pained expression on her face that she brims with sorrow. “You peer so deeply,Elizabeth, even into the bottom of a pot,” the man says. “I have half a notion that God made the world and all the creatures in it merely for the pleasure of His viewing.” The woman’s eyes are wild, disturbed.