Raintree County (155 page)

And naked with uncut hair, he would follow her, riding a winged horse, until he reached the ledge of the great pediment where the painted marble frieze showed fauns pouring a purple wine into gold cups and nymphs with scarlet cheeks flying from young gods beside a river choked with rushes. Putting one hand around her bending waist, he would touch his face to hers. And for a marmoreal instant, assuming the attitude of a lost engraving in an old book of Raintree County, together they would achieve the ecstasy of form, an unendurable bliss.

And in that instant the faces of the people, the pale blue vault of sky, the rectangular horizons, the distant temples, the viny hills, the clustering roofs became an image of arrested time.

By a single bound, riding the white horse of Eros, he had achieved the summit of the Platonic forms, the shrine of Justice on the Court House Square.

Soon enough, he would have to restore the lady with the grocery scales to her accustomed niche.

In front of his house he stopped, having overtaken his family. He could hear the Perfessor coming along in darkness under the trees.

—I'll see Professor Stiles to the Station, he said to his wife. You'd best go to bed, Pet.

The Perfessor came up, carrying the
Atlas.
He took his suitcase from the porch. He said a gracious farewell to Esther, patted Will's shoulder, winked at Wesley, and paid a pretty compliment to Eva, although his voice was nearly gone.

—A return of an old throat ailment, he whispered, contracted during the War.

Mr. Shawnessy and the Perfessor walked together to the Station. The street was littered with fragments of the memorial day—cigar butts, firecrackers, picnic sacks, patriotic programs. The Perfessor whimpered as he carried his suitcase.

—Here, let me take it to the Station for you, Mr. Shawnessy said.

—Gladly! the Perfessor croaked. I must have talked a hundred thousand words today. Remind me never to visit you again in Waycross, John. Heaven defend me from the quietude of country towns!

They turned at the intersection and walked on toward the Station, the Perfessor stooped and hobbling, but still clutching the
Atlas.
When they reached the Station, they found the agent asleep inside, propped up in a chair. A single lantern burned on the table. The telegraph key clicked sleepily from time to time.

Sitting down on the outside bench, the Perfessor slumped forward, chin on breastbone, but instantly sat up when the agent came out of the Station swinging a lantern.

—She's about due, the agent said.

The Perfessor opened the
Atlas
and studied the statuary group that an unknown artist had placed in the most conspicuous place in Raintree County.

—Ah, he said sadly, Life! Life! John, I'll give you a hundred dollars for this book, and you can make your peace with the Lady Custodian in whatever way you please.

—Sorry, Professor, Mr. Shawnessy said, but, after all, she gave it to me on faith. The Senator gets the first bid.

The Perfessor turned, still clutching the book.

—Men have been known to kill for artistic masterpieces, he said hoarsely.

His eyes brightened strangely. His face looked so evil and convulsed that Mr. Shawnessy made an involuntary motion of raising his arm between himself and his friend.

But in the next moment, the Perfessor, acting as usual, shook with amusement. The sweet, forlorn look came back into his eyes, and he laid the
Atlas
on Mr. Shawnessy's lap.

—There you are, he said. Keep it yourself, boy. It's your own Raintree County and no one else's. Forever the little straight roads shall run to lost horizons; and in the niche reserved for Justice, the image of young love and soul-discovery forever shall be poised. It shall be there for you alone, in your unique copy of the universe.

A low thunder of wheels was swelling from the east. A red eye glared in the dark, grew astonishingly big and close. The agent swung his lantern athwart the rails, and the train rolled heavily to a stop in Waycross Station. Instantly, a figure, resembling the Reverend Lloyd G. Jarvey, appeared from the darkness and climbed into one of the rear coaches.

—O, o! croaked the Perfessor, who hadn't missed the movement. The Lord God Jehovah and I are getting out together.

He and Mr. Shawnessy shook hands, and the Perfessor swung onto the coach behind the coalcar. The glare from the furnace showed a long, thin body in a soiled white suit, a face old and cunning, black eyes shining through pince-nez glasses. Already the engine was beginning to puff. The smoke and the furnace glare stung Mr. Shawnessy's eyes so that they smarted.

—Good-by, Professor! he cried out, waving his hand.

The Perfessor opened his mouth.

—For our mirrors! he was shouting.

He tried to say something else, but his failing voice was lost in the roar of the train. He leaned far out, pointed to his voice-box, and then with characteristic quickness of decision elevated his malacca cane and traced huge letters in the air. Mr. Shawnessy was not able to decipher the first part because a gush of smoke crossed the writing, but the Perfessor's last blackboard flourish was entirely legible and familiar:

Mr. Shawnessy could no longer see his old friend's face. He could see only the long arm and the malacca cane, which lingered a moment in the air indicative of stars. But the legend lay across his memory, the initials of his own name.

Suddenly, he realized that the Perfessor with his usual cleverness must have written them backwards, and what was in reverse for him had come right for Mr. Shawnessy.

The train which bore the mortal shell of Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles was already lost in the night except for the smokestack flare. There was a lonesome wail at the crossing a mile west of town. The train was entirely gone then except for the steady chugging of the engine. It was entirely gone then.

It was entirely gone, and the night had closed in upon Waycross. The agent had left the Station already, and Mr. Shawnessy started back up the street toward the intersection. The starlight was now so intense and his eyes so well accustomed to the night that he could easily read his watch. It was twelve o'clock.

There was no light burning now in Waycross. He felt a wonderful and soft serenity. All things around him now were sunken into sleep.

The long day and its images shook in his mind like a chain of luminous and tinkling fragments. As he approached the intersection, faces and faces on the Great Road of the Republic pressed through his memory, fading and fading into summer night. What was this immense, tranquil substance, that which was there, enormous and eternal thereness? And where were all the warm, relinquished shapes of a day spent with the Americans?

He mused upon the strange dream called Raintree County. In some oriental garden, the seed of it was sown, but it had had its nurture in a womb of fair and fecund ideas on the rim of an inland ocean, and it had ridden west in winged vessels, and it had rebuilt itself through more than four levels from its earliest antiquities. Now, impending in the still night was the world of mystery, the world that hovered forever beyond the borders of the County. What was Raintree County except a Columbian exploration, a few acres of discovery in a jungle of darkness, a few lightyears of investigated space in nebular vastness! That which lay beyond its borders was simply—everything potential.

And who was John Wickliff Shawnessy, whose wavering initials had just been signed in smoke in Waycross Station? How deep and broad was the substance of himself, built into this engendering night? Surely there was a being who didn't bear his name but was none the less a composite of all that he had ever been or ever could be. How did one find access to this eternal Self-Affirmer, this restless Shakespeare of Creation, hovering in a world Behind the Scenes? What was he doing there, down there? Polishing the lines of the eternal tragi-comedy of life, setting up props, trying on masks, restlessly taking on and off the costumes, assembling the company for endless rehearsals, reviews, redactions? What was he doing there, down there? Weaving a legend of a younger brother, a residual and mortal brother, this innocent and fortunate brother who walked the streets of time?

At the intersection of the two roads, he looked west. West, just touching with clean rim the empurpled earth, a huge halfball of yellow poured down the National Road a river of golden light. Five hours behind her radiant brother, tranquil, with stately descent, the moon had sunk to her setting.

The wall between himself and the world dissolved. He seemed suddenly lost from himself, plucked out of time and space, being both time and space himself, an inclusive being in which all other beings had their being. A vast unrest was in the earth. The Valley of Humanity was turbulent with changing forms. The immense dream trembled on a point of night and nothingness and threatened explosion.

He held tight to the
Atlas
and walked on. Strong yearning possessed him to build again—and better than before—the valorous dream. If it should all expire, he would be able to rebuild it. He would walk on in his old black schoolmaster's suit, shaking from Family Bibles, McGuffey Readers, Histories of America, Latin and Greek Texts, Free Enquirers, Declarations of Independence and Constitutions, the seeds of words, planting the virgin earth of America with springing forms.

So each man had to build his world again!

So he would plant again and yet again the legend of Raintree County, the story of a man's days on the breast of the land. So he would plant great farms where the angular reapers walk all day,
whole prairies of grass and wheat rising in waves on the headlands. So he would plant the blond corn in the valleys of Raintree County. Yes, he would plant once more the little towns, Waycrosses and Danwebsters, and the National Roads to far horizons, passing to blue days and westward adventures, and progress, the cry of a whistle, arcs of the highflung bridges, and rails and the thundering trains. (Hail and farewell at the crossing!) He would plant cities, clusters of blazing jewels on the dark flesh of the night, and faces shining under the glare of the great fires—San Francisco, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, Washington, Washington, and parts between, cities and dwellers in cities, a dragon seed, a harvest of fury. (Shall there be one man hungry, and I go fed!) He would plant gilded years and gilded dreams, the young men wandering lost in metropolitan jungles, and the place where the great trains come to rest. He would plant science, explorers of matter, finders of new species, the august ascent of man from form to form, and honest doubts and dark misgivings. (Are you there, old truepenny, reverse of the coin!) He would plant the young messiahs down from the hills, divinely arrogant heroes, makers of bread and beatitudes, the gentle gods dying on angry crosses, and new crusades, and fearless emancipations. He would plant the anniversaries of mankind, celebrations of great beginnings.

He would plant the Republic of Mankind.

Yes, he would plant the great fair dream, again and ever; he would record it on paper so that it might be found from time to time among old manuscripts in a forgotten drawer of the Cosmos.

Did you think that I had lost the way? Did you think that I was drowned in darkness and the swamp? But I was here always, bearing a stem of the summer grass.

Make way, make way for the Hero of Raintree County! His victory is not in consummations but in quests!

Bearing the huge book of Raintree County, he walked along the now entirely deserted street of Waycross, approached his own home, and entered the gate. The town lay somewhere in infinite night, hushed and potential with all mystery and meaning.

Where was the town of Waycross at night when the sleepers all were sleeping?

But where were the trains that only lightly disturbed the ears of
dreamers, and where was the whereness of a dreamer, dreaming dreams in an upstairs bedroom of a little town beside a road in America long ago? For in a little time, he knew that he would be that dreamer, lost in darkness, lost and yet not lost, away and yet at home, forever awake and yet forever dreaming. He would be that dreamer, and he would have perhaps again his ancient and eternal dream. . . .

Of a quest for the sacred Tree of Life. Of a happy valley and a face of stone—and of the coming of a hero. Of mounds beside the river. Of threaded bones of lovers in the earth. Of shards of battles long ago. Of names upon the land, the fragments of forgotten language. Of beauty risen from the river and seen through rushes at the river's edge. Of the people from whom the hero sprang, the eternal, innocent children of mankind. Of their towns and cities and the weaving millions. Of the earth on which they lived—its blue horizons east and west, exultant springs, soft autumns, brilliant winters. And of all its summers when the days were long.

So dreaming, he held the golden bough still in his hand. So dreaming, he neared the shrine where the tree was and the stones and the letters upon them. And the branch quivered alive in his hands, unrolled its bark, became a map covered with lines and letters, a poem of mute but lovely meanings, a page torn from the first book printed by man, the legend of a life upon the earth and of a river running through the land, a signature of father and preserver, of some young hero and endlessly courageous dreamer