The Road to Reckoning

Five days in, over the Delaware by ferry, and we had gained a hundred miles and made Berwick before noon. The place was busy with engineers and carpenters, the town having lost its bridge two years before due to an ice flood and keen to have it rebuilt. This progress of the bridge across the Susquehanna had brought great trade, although the men worked for half of what they would have done last year and someone with a big hat and cigar knew that and profited.

A poor businessman will pay his worker as much as he can afford. A rich one, in times disadvantageous, as little as he has to. That is the world. Still is. Your vote will not change it. You know that now. I work my land for somebody else and get on with it beside you. Maybe I am writing this to be a boy again. Maybe you are reading it for the same. A time before writs and accounts. I say a bill is not a bill until they come tapping at your window.

This place, Berwick, at least had hotels, the cheapest being eighty coronet cents and the greatest two dollars. We stayed at the cheapest, which gave us a hammock, but breakfasted farther up the street where we could get ham and eggs for one shilling, our New York term for the Spanish real, but we settled wiser on fried eggs and bread for nine red cents, thinking less of Gould’s saloon, where our hammocks were, who would charge you an extra three cents for toast. Even I knew that was costly. Jude Brown ate at the hostler and probably did the better for it.

We had made good sales so far. My father sold the Patersons for ten coin dollars, fifteen if it was sold with its kit, which included a spare cylinder and combination tool. That breakfast we had paper orders for one hundred and twenty dollars and even I knew that was not bad. It was with high hearts that we left Berwick, and even Jude Brown could sense our lack of troubles for he fair skipped along. But the towns got smaller, the road meaner, and it is along that a bit that I would meet Henry Stands. We still had the twelve Patersons, the wooden one occasionally my plaything, and I pointed it and shot at ghosts of Indians along the road.

It was the last time I played until I met my own children.

FOUR

We now approached the endless green of the Allegheny mountains, the low end of the Appalachians, which got no closer as you went toward, and we came into the skirts of Milton, still following the Susquehanna. This was a tannery place and also a great lumber town and the air was thick with the smell of sawed wood and the dust of it in your nose. They had a proper sawmill fed by the river and also their own steam-powered mill, which we did not see but did hear aplenty.

It was at that time a bustling settlement where anyone could make a house and call it a hotel. There were tents outside the town and these were the abodes of those waiting for better fortune.

With so much wood there were stores nailed up every day. It had a bank, which was still open, and a main street called Front street although I did not see a Back street to accompany it. Lumber and shingles seemed to be in everybody’s hand. This was good to see. Everywhere else the hammers and the pickaxes had gone down. For ten years America had gone through a juncture of construction that had shamed the pyramids. The canals, the roads, and the bridges. Work in one place one day, walk a ways up the road and sign on as a teamster somewhere else. Now the only things building new were prisons. And we were worldwide proud of those.

This is where I will demonstrate how my father worked for Colt and his oddment of a gun, for up until this place we had gone without incident and I am sure that you would find little interest in the ordinary successes and failures of the traveling merchant.

In those days general stores would often have a table or two and double for butchers and feed stores also. Cards and gin probably more their bread and butter than bread and butter.

Let me tell you how my father did his business.

He would never introduce himself as a salesman. We would come in together and I would scuttle myself away to some corner to pick and prod at some barrel or other and my father would be a customer.

He would ask for something small. A finger of butter if they had it or a button for his waistcoat, and he would count out the tin in his palm like it was the last pennies in both their worlds.

Transaction done my father would say, ‘Let me show you something interesting, Mister Baker,’ for he would be mindful to check the name above the door and use it as often as he felt necessary. He did not talk down to people when he was selling. Many salesmen take the road that they should be superior to their customer, that they are doing them a favor by speaking to them, and that the customer will buy from them because the salesman is letting them become as intelligent as they are by purchasing the goods they extol. This is particularly true if it is a luxurious or superfluous item that must be shown to be aspirational, especially if the customer is not wearing shoes.

You may have seen these salesmen in colorful coats and silk hats shouting at bumpkins about their cure-alls. They may wear a lined cape and carry a silver-topped cane. Mister Colt exemplified some of these manners but my father did not. I maintain that you do not trust a man whose shirt and pants are colorful and expensive. This man is out to impress first and does not wish to be measured by his words and actions but by appearance alone. Nature has the same rules. The most colorful and banded creatures are usually the most venomous. My father did not even wear a hat when we went west as he had done for those bustled city ladies with their reading-eye deficiencies. I did wear a hat but I was selling nothing and it was useful to hide my shyness under.

‘Let me show you something interesting, Mister Baker,’ and he would take out the wooden Colt from behind his back but hold it like a hammer rather than a gun so as to not alarm mister Baker.

‘It is a new gun,’ he would say. ‘It is the pistol of the future, to be taken up by the army and navy. I have a note from President Jackson himself approving of the weapon.’ At this juncture mister Baker would find the pistol in his hands, holding it for my father while he pulled out the copy of the note that indeed Colt had acquired from Old Hickory, no longer president but impressive all the same. It did not mean that the military approved of the gun, just that Colt had the sand to go to the capital and ask. As I told you: snake oil.

Mister Baker held the gun in his hand like a dead fish. ‘It is made of wood, sir.’ This was said in sympathy, as if my father was not aware of it and had been duped.

‘It is a model. Now what do you suppose is so different about it?’

‘It has no trigger.’

‘It has a safety trigger. Cock the hammer, Mister Baker.’

He did so. A look of wonder as the cylinder wheeled into place with a click like a key in a lock and the trigger dropped in front of his finger. It would take a move of the digit to pass in front of the trigger, thus preventing unintentional fire. Now this rotating gun may seem an ordinary thing but not then. Collier’s revolving flintlock and Allen’s pepperbox were cranked by hand. This music-box action was as pleasing to the eye as to the ear.

‘That is quite a trick!’

‘What guns do you use yourself, Mister Baker?’

‘I have my rifle, which I use with shot when I need.’

‘It is a double?’

‘It is.’

‘And why would you use a double?’

Mister Baker being reeled in now by his own hand. ‘For two shots, naturally.’

‘Well, this gun will put five pistols in your hand and is rifled to boot.’

‘A rifled pistol?’

‘Accuracy and reliability is Samuel Colt’s aim.’

Mister Baker passed back the gun. ‘I have no want for a hand pistol.’

‘I agree. We all know that the Allen gun with its multiple barrels is a top-heavy arm and is good for shooting a man across a table but is more likely to blow off your own hand. That is why it is only in small caliber and can barely stop a dog. The Colt patent however, if you notice’—the gun now back in mister Baker’s hand—‘separates the chambers at such a distance that a loose spark from the percussion could never cause such a mishap and thus can come in a larger bore. It is not five shots to put a man down. It is one shot for five men or, as our army would have it—as the chambers do not have to be rotated with the other hand—ten shots for ten Comanche. A pistol in each fist.’

‘That is all to the good. But I cannot afford a new gun.’

‘No-one can, Mister Baker, that is true. Not when a gun is a lifetime’s purchase. Samuel Colt is determined that good handguns should not be the luxury only of those who can afford craftsmanship. As you know, when you buy a gun it is made by one man. You must pay the price for that one man’s dedication and ability, which can be a hefty sum. The Colt, however, is a machine-made arm. Its pieces are assembled by a team of men and, further, this means if it should fault through improper use, it can be repaired economically. No need to buy a new gun.’

‘I cannot afford a new gun.’ He cocked and fired the action. ‘How much is it?’

This is also the mark of a good salesman. The price is the last thing on his mind. It is the value he sells, and now mister Baker knew the value of the weapon without seeing the price tag, which he may have judged unfairly.

‘Mister Baker, I am heading west to put these guns into the hands of homesteaders. Colt wishes to bring defense into normal folks’ lives. I am selling orders for these guns for you to make your own profit and I ask no money. Wholesale to yourself, and if you are kind enough to give my boy a twist of candy, I can let you have them for ten dollars each. Sell them at whatever you see right.’

‘Ten dollars? A gun for ten dollars? Well, my!’

‘For a twist of candy. And you can sell them for whatever you see right. I can let you have one right now for yourself for eight, take your order for the rest, and I will be on my way.’

‘Well, that is an attraction!’

My father took out his order book and licked his pencil.

There was a low laugh from the end of the store.

Mister Baker’s store was L-shaped. He had tables at the back so as no ladies would feel intimidated. This was where men drank and gambled cards or bone-sticks. It was dark. I had not noticed it was there.

‘Haw, haw, Chet!’ A chair went back. ‘I can sell you a wooden knife too if you wants it, Chet Baker!’ He came out of the dark. I stepped sideways toward my father.

My father turned to the sound of the boots.

‘It is a model, sir. I promise the real. It is steel.’

The man was brought into the light now as if the darkness had pushed him out of it. He was brown all the way down. From his wool hat to his boots he was dirty and baked. His face bearded and black; only the whites of his eyes, which were wide, defined it. I could smell his drink then. It was not yet one o’clock. He had two closed flapped holsters angled on his black belt.

‘You say ten dollars for one of them guns, mister?’

‘That is wholesale, sir. And a special price for mister Baker.’ My father did not know how to speak to these people. ‘Twenty dollars for a belt model and that will get you a box and spare cylinder and loading-tool, sir.’

The man grinned. ‘Don’t call me sir, you little shit.’

Mister Baker knew how to speak to them.

‘Now, Thomas.’ I blinked that this creature had my name. ‘Get back and I will be right over once I am done. I am trading here. Do not fool with my day or it will be the last you drink here.’

Thomas leaned on his hip, thumbed his belt. The flap on the holster nearest my father was not buttoned.

‘I would like to see one of them guns. I heard everything you said, salesman. I am an interested party.’

There was a childish giggle back in the dark. Another man who had not come up.

Thomas rubbed his nose at the laugh and showed only the top of his dusty hat as he lowered his face so we would not see it smiling. He flashed it up again.

‘Now see, I have me one of them pepperbox pistols that you disparaged so much, salesman. I have it in the back of me. You say it is small and would not stop a dog. What say we try it up against one of these horseshit pistols of yours? See what dog does what.’

I looked at my father but dared not move closer lest this Thomas mistook me in the gloom for a man of intent.

My father did not look to me but held a palm out for me to stay. I wanted to go home. Would run if I had to.

‘I do not have them with me. They are in my hotel.’

‘Well, surely we should test it? Would you not agree? If I am to buy something, I think that that is fair. And my friend Chet there should see it too before he parts with his tin. Is that not right, Chet?’

Mister Chet Baker shook his head. ‘Thomas Heywood, you are making me regret letting you in here. I will buy what I want to buy without your say!’

Thomas stepped forward. ‘You got any gun on you, salesman?’

My father did not hold with guns. He turned to mister Baker. ‘I will come back in the morning, Mister Baker. We can sign up then.’ He picked up the wooden gun, put it slowly back to his belt, and held out his hand to me and said my name, which drew the other Thomas’ eye to me for the first time. I saw that my father’s hand trembled and ran to it.

Thomas threw down. ‘Don’t you turn your back on me, you son of a bitch!’

A single-shot percussion, too small for its holster. A belt gun with a short barrel. The under-hammer type where you just pulled the trigger and it fired. No man who had dollars to buy a gun had one. I doubted he had that pepperbox also. But I did not think that gun so little then. It was a cannon pointed to my father’s back.

There was the giggle again from the black rear. It sounded like it came from a short, fat throat. I still had faith that mister Baker was in charge of this room. He had said that he had a double-shot rifle and I hoped it was as much of his workplace as his apron.

My father gripped my hand and did something that I did not understand then.

I have made my peace with it.

He switched from holding my hand and squeezed both my shoulders and put me in front of his waist, in front of the gun.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘My boy?’

The gun stared at me with its innocent Cyclops eye and swallowed me whole, a chasm before me. My father behind.

‘Please,’ he said again.

I cannot remember how he said it but in my mind it sounded like the ‘Amen’ that people say too loud in church for show to their neighbors rather than in devotion.

Thomas Heywood roared, buckled over with a callous glee. When he came back up his fist was empty, the flap of his holster closed.

‘Run, you son of a bitch!’ He rolled back with laughter, the dust blowing off him like a cloud. I saw that his coat was made out of a blanket and sewn with wide stitches like sharks’ teeth.

My father pulled me away and out the door with that laugh at our backs.

We did not run. We left briskly. Everyone else on the street was just slow.

FIVE

That night we stayed in a room on Front street above a potter’s called Bastian. This was two dollars for a brass bed but no meal. I figured my father was of the opinion that the man named Thomas Heywood would not spend two dollars for a room so would not likely be one of our neighbors. We had moved our belongings from the hotel along with the sack of guns. I carried the three boxed models like books under my chin. I did not complain about the weight.

In the room my father moved the kerosene lamp from the window and put it on the floor and drew the curtain. We ate salt-beef sandwiches and sauerkraut from a newspaper on the bed with the lamp throwing grotesque shadows of us on the ceiling like a Chinese silhouette show. We did not talk.

I had wanted my father to come into the room, lock the door, and laugh and slap his thigh about how lucky we had been and how foolish the whole scene was to civilized folks like us, but he did not. He had hid the lamp and chewed quietly in case the mice heard him. I could hear his watch tick.

In bed that night a piano along the street tickled me awake and I found myself alone under the blankets.

The lamp was down and flickering, the whole room dancing around the walls.

I was just about to lift up when there was a rattle like someone at our door lock and I froze. Then I was fully awake and knew the sound of the knob on our door turning was inside the room. The stranger twisting the lock was the clockwork and snaps of a gun.

I sat up but my father did not notice as he had the chair faced to the wall and his head down. I saw the box of one of the belt models open on the floor. On the green baize lid was a waxed paper image of the factory with smoke billowing from the chimneys. The inserts where the pistol and its accoutrements lay were skeletal empty. Mister Colt had provided us with caps and balls to demonstrate. Powder too. The boxes held cartridge paper, dowel, and block, and these were on the side table. When they were in their box, in their proper neat holes, they looked like a carpenter’s or an artist’s tools. They fooled you that they could create.

I went to speak but the hammer’s double click shushed me. That sound cuts you down to be quiet. It silences giants, and only dumb animals roar at it.

It has committal.

My father whispered from his corner.

‘Forgive me, Jane. My sweetest friend. What I … Oh, Jane, it was … Preserve me. My sweetest friend.’ He took a breath and the piano down the street stopped and people clapped and laughed. He quoted to the wall with that breath.

‘“Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”’

I threw back the bedclothes and he turned to me.

‘Thomas?’ he said. ‘I thought you were asleep.’ He uncocked the gun. Pistols do this reluctantly.

I ran from the bed and around the chair. The gun was in his lap and his arms wrapped around me. I felt the pistol’s coldness against my belly through my shirt. He patted me closer and my cheek touched his, which was damp.

‘Oh, my boy … my boy.’ He chuckled and it was the nicest music.

You may have had a father or you may have had a man who lived in your house. If he beat you or left you I will suffer you that and if you carry it with you then you can have some pity. But I saw my father’s shame and he passed it on to me. If he had hit me I could abide, I could overcome. The Lord does these things so we do not do it ourselves. This is how man changes his generations, the way birds move on from barren lands, and we abide.

I told you when I started that my life began when I was twelve. It was there in that room. I did not exist before that night and I am still that boy.

He held me away. ‘I was only loading the gun so I could learn. So I could show Mister Baker in the morning.’ Then, as if to avow to himself rather than settle me, ‘I am sure that man will not be there then. We will do our business and be gone with Jude Brown.’

‘We could go home,’ I said.

‘We could. But there is no need, Tom. We will be on the road tomorrow. Everything will be well. Here, let me show you how fast I can load this thing. It is a marvel, I swear.’

I wiped my eyes and he rubbed his, lamenting his tiredness and concentration. I noticed he had only loaded one chamber.

I watched him play the gun like that piano outside. The gun in its simplicity and pleasing mechanics coaxed confidence from his hands; it forgave the amateur. And there was the V cut into the hammer as a back sight, the blade at the end of the octagonal barrel, and if you lined them up, aimed your eye down that V, down that steel-barreled extension of your arm, you would shoot the thing in front of you. But the gun does not know how to pull the trigger.

I did not ask him why he could not have practiced with the wooden gun. It separated and loaded just the same and even had wooden caps and balls. I never thought of it, or why the loaded gun did not go back to its green baize bed.

SIX

We packed and fetched the Brewster and Jude Brown first thing. Jude Brown was reluctant to leave either the food or the company of horses although as a gelding they should have smelled like dogs to him. We rode to Baker’s in silence. My father did not tip his head to anyone, which was not his custom and a bad habit for a salesman. His little gold glasses kept slipping down his nose with his sweat and he was forever confusing Jude Brown by lifting the reins to set them glasses right.

Baker’s reached, my father jumped down. I had no will to follow but still he said, ‘Wait here.’

He took two naked belt guns, whose barrels were about five inches, made for as they sounded, and he intimated such by tucking one in his belt.

‘I will not be long.’ He slapped the reins into my hand.

I watched the door close and looked at the back of Jude Brown’s head so as not to meet the eye of anyone on the street. There was a black boy in cotton-duck overalls on the porch sweeping but with no intention on cleaning. He was moving the dust around with the strength of a marionette and studied me and Jude Brown. I played the reins through my fingers and looked up at the mountains covered in cloud, the endless trees on them in the early morning still blue-green like the sea. It was not yet ten. I would not think that a man like Thomas Heywood had got out of his filthy bed by now.

I could not help but look at the door once or twice and each time the black boy grinned a gapped mouth. I chiseled my face like a man with fury in him. I did not truck with boys. I had a wagon and a horse. I had a sack full of guns. I dipped my hat to a milkmaid who instead of smiling or blushing looked at me scornfully. I pulled the brim down as if this was originally my intention.

I do not know how long I sat but it seemed as if the whole world passed by, their clothes getting smarter with every minute as the work they traveled to shifted from strong back to desk and pen, for the earlier you have to get up the harder you have to work. My father was taking his time. I thought on the two guns he had taken in and then I could think of nothing else except Thomas Heywood’s white, wide eyes.

The door and its bell exploded like a gunshot and I jumped, which made Jude Brown toss his head and curse me with a snort when nothing happened. My father was there and shaking mister Baker’s hand. He climbed up onto the seat and took the reins, adjusting them tighter where I had been running them through my hands.

He snapped Jude Brown off and the black boy smiled good-bye and waved us away with a wide, pendulous swing as if hailing a raft from the shore to warn of white water ahead.

We left Milton at the west end and there were more tents outside here than coming in and skinny dogs barked at us, danced at Jude Brown, bit at our wheels then wagged their tails back to their masters proud that they had seen us off.

A great weight lifted off me that I did not know was there. Later we were talking again and pointing out jaybirds. My father had taken an order for six pistols and sold one for mister Baker’s own use. At dinner he put back the pistol from his belt to the wagon. He could not unload it, as is the way with guns (they only empty one way), but he said that would not be to any detriment.

‘It will be provident if we see us a rabbit.’ He smiled but it had no weight to it and my smile back was even lighter.

We had a new plan for our journey. We would head south, follow the mountains, to make the Cumberland road. This was the national road, as you may recall, a redbrick toll road that would carry us safely through the mountains and west into Illinois. It closed in ’38, I believe, when the money ran out or the road ran out, whichever is truer. Over six hundred miles long, and the trail to get down there would add three or four days onto our month, Cumberland being near two hundred miles. But the thought of a good and busy road with civilized turnpikes was comforting. It was the sensible thing to do. Getting there, however, in the shadow of the mountains would be rough country.