Woodsburner (6 page)

They stand in a field that runs right up to the edge of the Concord Woods. In the middle of this field, the stone foundations of an old farmhouse squat knee-high in the overgrown grass, and scattered among the forgotten rows of dried corn stalks are the remnants of shingles and rotted timbers and the bald spokes of a wagon wheel. Among the crumbled foundations, a few charred beams outline the decayed skeleton of the house that burned over a year ago. No one ever returned to the land, and Caleb has told the men and women gathered before him that today they will reclaim it in God's name. Caleb's followers huddle together against the sharp April chill; it is hard for them to believe that tomorrow will be the first day of May. A man wearing the soiled canvas overalls of a carpenter paces off dimensions in the dry yellow husks and points to the ghosts of future steps, doors, and windows. He carries
the tools of his trade—hammer, saw, measuring tape—swinging from loops sewn at his waist. His lip bulges with a plug of tobacco, and every few steps he spits into his hand and rubs it on his sleeve, out of respect for the soon-to-be-consecrated ground.

Caleb explains to them that they are far enough from Boston to elude the taint of corruption, but not so far as to invite the temptations of the wilderness. He is disgusted with the city: the fetid open sewers of the Back Bay, the greedy merchants, and the decadent homes at Pemberton Square and Beacon Hill. Caleb spent most of the night preparing his sermon, readying himself to preach to his followers and fill them with the trembling passion that is more dependable than faith alone. He feels the excitement of a soldier about to charge into battle, and he will not allow his moment to be stolen by the light coming through the trees.

Caleb takes a deep breath, raises his arms, and shouts, “Scripture tells us,
‘Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.’
Our fathers and their fathers before them came to build that city, the city on the hill. And yet what has become of it? What have we allowed to happen? Boston is no longer a beacon of righteousness. Our great city has fallen into the hands of corrupt men sated to distraction by the bountiful rewards that heaven bestowed upon their forefathers.”

Caleb watches his followers nod in assent, but he sees them steal sideways glances at the flickering light. He will not be able to hold their interest much longer. They are faithful, but he knows that they have been waiting for a sign.

The field where Caleb and his followers intend to build their church abuts the last remaining bit of woods in Concord, a few hundred acres of untouched forest stretching from the edge of town to Walden Pond and the river. Most of the trees in Concord have been chopped down to make room for the growing town. Where there had once spread a dense crown of pines and oaks and
sugar maples, now the rich soil of New England lies exposed to sun and sky, furrowed by plow, bought, owned, and sold by men. And this, Caleb believes, is as it should be. He has not brought his hatchet today, and his hands feel empty and useless as he eyes the surrounding trees. When men allow God's gifts to go unexploited, they show contempt for the Almighty's plan. Far better to cut down all the forests in America than for man to think that he might create his own Eden here among the trees. He is disgusted by utopians like George Ripley and Bronson Alcott, who think they can re-create the world in their own image. Caleb points to the empty branches in the woods and waits until he has the congregation's attention. He decides to improvise.

“You are right to gaze at the barren trees yonder. Why are they not festooned with greenery? What do they tell us?
Depravity!
Everywhere we see signs of man's depravity. The seasons, in which some men erroneously find cause for celebration, are evidence of man's wickedness. Why do we not have eternal summer? Because our first parents chose sin. They chose knowledge over obedience, and every generation since has made the same choice. The changing seasons are evidence that we are a fallen people, evidence that in this world we will find neither perfection nor salvation.”

Caleb knows that there are men who think otherwise: the mystics and the spiritualists, the Swedenborgians and the Fourierists, and the so-called transcendentalists—pagans all of them. These men claim to look no further than nature for their comfort and reward. They seek the infinite in every bud and leaf, find revelations in birdsong and thunder, and pretend to read the mind of God by watching the wind blow. They fail to realize that it was nature, bountiful nature, that led men astray in the first place, so much so that God has entirely given up on them, allowing them to do as they please without recrimination or punishment. The Methodists and the Unitarians and the Trinitarians are all too tolerant
of the pantheists, who disguise their idolatry as poetry and hide in leafy shadows at Brook Farm and Fruitlands and Hopedale, living like animals among the trees.

“And thus,” Caleb continues, “it is only just that we come here to lay the cornerstone of our new church at the doorstep of Mr. Emerson.”

Caleb's followers are aware that they are not among the elect. They cling to the hope that they may as yet be chosen, but they do not know that it is Caleb Ephraim Dowdy alone who will do the choosing. He has revealed nothing of his plan to them, and he does not tell them his true purpose in founding this new church. These simple people cannot comprehend the dark mystery that has taken him a lifetime to realize: that the path to revelation lay through damnation.

Caleb opens his Bible and holds down the annotated pages with his thumbs. The breeze ruffles the edges of the thin paper. He worked late into the night, rewriting the Latin benediction into a blasphemous tangle. None of his followers will understand a word of what he is about to say, but it is not them he means to offend. This patch of earth will be more than the bedrock of their new congregation. It is here that Caleb will put the Almighty to the test, here that he will at last tempt God to give evidence that He is not some pitiful illusion.

Caleb looks up from his text and feels a cold hand seize his heart. There, at the edge of the field, he sees two old women; he guesses that they are sisters by the similarity of their mannish features and their close-cropped silvered hair. He thinks he might have seen them once before, but only from a distance. They speak to each other behind cupped palms while mimicking the gestures the carpenter made earlier, outlining imaginary steeples and doors. And after each gesture they point to a different part of their bodies—an elbow, a thigh, a forearm—as if they were casting a
spell. He starts to tremble as they approach. Absently, he reaches for the hatchet he has not brought today. He thinks of Revelation, the Gospels, Genesis, but he recalls nothing about the Devil assuming the form of two old women.

His followers take no notice of the women, so enraptured are they by the light in the woods. It grows brighter, as if moving closer. The women hobble toward Caleb with agonizing slowness, and he fully expects their ancient faces to be his last vision in this world before their curses send him spiraling into a realm of indescribable suffering. He braces himself for judgment and whispers,
“Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself for thou that judgest doest the same things.”

The old women stand before him, withered faces, twisted bodies; their demeanor gives belated credence to the fears of an earlier generation in Salem. They mumble to each other in a strange language; then the taller of the two speaks in fractured English.

“Prominte!”
Her eyes are black, her blind companion's milky white. “We are begging your pardon.”

“This is to be
kostel?”
the shorter woman with milky eyes asks impatiently. She turns to her dark-eyed friend, seeking out her shadow, whispers a question, and then says again,
“Kostel!
Yes,
kostel—
ah, church, yes? You build church?”

“How do you know this?” Caleb sputters. He notices that the others have begun to drift toward the light, leaving him alone. Thus does the hand of the Almighty rescue the faithful, he thinks. The Lord is shepherding them from the chasm about to open beneath his feet, guiding them away from the thunderbolt about to fall from the sky.

“We are hearing of this,” says the blind woman.

“We are wondering,” the dark-eyed woman adds. “You are making with bones, maybe?”

“Yes. Yes,” says the other woman. “You will build for us church of bones?”

Caleb's hands tremble as if they will fly from their wrists, and the empty field seems to move away in all directions. He becomes conscious of his skeleton, brittle beneath his skin and muscles, a flimsy frame for an unworthy soul.

The dark-eyed woman swings her skinny forearm from the elbow and points emphatically to her wrist.
“Kost
. Bone. Bones.
Rozumite?
Understanding you? Yes?”

“Like trees, to build with bones.” The blind woman crosses her forearms in a pantomime of stacking firewood, and she holds Caleb with her milky-white stare. “In old country. In
Kutná Hora
. We have beautiful chapel made from the bones. The altar with beautiful ornamentings from bones. All bones. Not animal. People bones. White, beautiful bones.”

“Sedlec Kostnice,”
the other woman added as an explanation. “It is what you call
Beinhaus
, yes? Full with bones.”

“You will build here a new church like this, with people bones?”

Caleb closes his eyes and holds his breath. He waits for the cataclysm. He waits to be smashed, swallowed, pulverized. He waits for his bones to be ripped from his flesh and stacked before him. He waits to feel the grip of God's vengeful hand, waits for his heart to burst under the pressure. He waits for proof, confirmation in the form of condemnation. But nothing happens. Caleb opens his eyes and exhales. The women are still there, and now they do not seem like witches or devils any more than did any of the old women he regularly met on the steps of his former church. He starts to say something but is interrupted by the astonished cries of recognition from the members of the congregation. They point to the woods, and their astonishment mingles with disappointment. The light is not a benediction, not a miracle of the Holy Ghost at all, but something even more unthinkable. The woods are on fire.

Caleb hears the old women mutter sadly behind him.

“Strasny. Strasny.”

He looks at the smoke curling above the treetops, hoping that he might still find some sign, something to acknowledge his trespass, but what he sees forming in the rising smoke is nothing so encouraging as that. What he sees staring down at him is the same terrified visage that has been plaguing his waking dreams for years.

David Henry (now Henry David) runs as fast as his lungs allow. He stumbles over roots extruded like fat gray knuckles, swats the low branches scratching his face. They wasted no time discussing it. Edward took the boat, paddling downriver toward the center of town, and Henry set off on foot, running through the untouched woods, the fire crawling behind him, taking its time, taunting him. Whoever arrives first will rouse the citizens of Concord. The unthinkable loss of the woods will surely spur their fellow Concordians to action, Henry believes. At the very least, he feels confident that the venerable name of Edward's father will wield authority enough to summon volunteers. Aided by the current, Edward's route will likely be faster, but they hope that Henry will encounter someone along the way who might help hold back the flames until Edward can return with more men.

After running a quarter of a mile, Henry is already gasping for breath, but he does not stop. Desperation pursues him, driving him over uneven terrain thickly cluttered with moldering leaves and twigs and fallen branches, the composts of seasons past. And as Henry runs, chest heaving and arms flailing, the effort reminds him of another moment of instruction, not a childhood punishment, this, but a penalty incurred by his own misjudgment. His third year at Harvard—a place where he stood out in his old green jacket while all others wore the required black that he could not
afford—lonely for the company of his family, he left Cambridge and set out for Concord on foot. The way was long, and before he was halfway home his feet were swollen and blistered so badly that he removed his shoes and continued the remaining miles in tattered stockings. He arrived with feet torn and bloodied. He limped for weeks afterward. Yet this did not diminish his affinity for walking, did not at all lessen his ardor for life in the wilderness. If there was a lesson to be learned from his blistered feet, it was only that punishment could exist independently of guilt, in which case it was simply misfortune. But the lesson of misfortune is a portion of knowledge like any other, likewise awakened by experience and etched upon the tabula rasa, which is not quite so blank as many have thought.