William and his cousin Frederick took off at dawn with Dr. Durant’s large sleigh on a cold morning.
“As the days grow longer the storms grow stronger,” Frederick quoted. Two powerful horses were dragging them north to Blue Mountain in a galling wind and snowstorm. They were bundled in wool coats and had a blanket thrown over their legs. William wore the fur vest, hats and mittens that Louise had made him. Jerome Wood who was given the task of driving, knew enough now to cover himself head to toe as well. It was hard to see for more than a few yards ahead; the going was slow. It had been a blustery winter and spring was slow to arrive. The region was experiencing more snow than it had for as long as the locals could recall. It made hunting for deer and turkey difficult, as they were deep in the woods and tracking was arduous.
Many were worried the deer would suffer terribly, the fawns would die from lack of fat reserves and the does would be lost to starvation. The harvest would be slim come summer. William made sure his caretakers at Pine Knot were supplying the deer in and around Long Point with some feed stored in the icehouse for just this reason, a trick he had learned in Europe. This act of humanity was reserved for the wealthy however, as others just tried to cope with the vegetables they had stored in their cellars last fall. Meat was not the only scarcity. Usually men could chop a hole in the ice and gain access to the fish. But the constant snowstorms were making it difficult, on top of which the ice on the lakes and streams in the Northern Woods was over three feet thick in parts.
The men didn’t talk much as they made their way to Blue Mountain. When they finally arrived at Holland House the owners welcomed them with warm milk and tea.
“Good lord that was a miserable trip,” William lamented as he shook the snow and icicles off of his long coat.
They took a seat by the fire and drank their tea.
“Isn’t that Verplanck Colvin with Alvah Dunning?” Frederick stared at two snow-covered men entering the dining room. He waved down the barmaid.
“Madam, is that the famous surveyor Verplanck Colvin?”
“Yes sir, he’s a regular here. He and Alvah just come back from a trip up Mount Seward.”
William was in awe. Who in their right minds would be out surveying the elevation of mountains in the Northern Woods in the middle of snowstorms?
“Can I get you gentleman anything else?”
“Yes, do you have something a bit stronger than milk and tea? Cognac perhaps?” William waited for a reply but the woman was visibly puzzled by his request. “You do have cognac here don’t you?”
“Cognac sir? I’m not sure,” she said. “Let me ask the owner.” She hurried off.
“Should we ask the gentlemen to join us?” William said.
“I will,” Frederick replied. He got up and walked over to the two men standing by the fire and asked them to join their table. While they made acquaintances the owner came over.
“I hear you men would like brandy?”
“That would be wonderful. What do you have?” William asked.
“Nothing the likes of what you might be used to sir, but it works well for taking the chill off,” he said, putting down five glasses and a bottle of clear liquid.
“Stilled this myself,” he boasted.
The men gulped it down. The liquid tore at their throats and tasted lightly of apples. It did the trick though; William felt it warming his stomach lining with its tingly sensation. The owner was right, it wasn’t what he was used to, but he didn’t care at that point.
The caretaker’s wife served them venison stewed with potatoes and onions. It was a meal fit for kings when you’ve spent the past day in the wind and cold.
“So tell me Verplanck, how long have you been at this surveying?” William asked once he was finished eating and sipping on a glass of below-par sherry.
Verplanck, still eating, wiped his mouth. The man was a voracious eater.
“I’ve been surveying these mountains for six years now.”
“Six years? Why does it take that long to figure out the height of a mountain?”
Verplanck laughed ruefully. “Because I’m using my own money, when I have any. The state has barely paid my wage these past few years. The unappreciative idiots in Albany have no idea what I’m contributing in terms of knowledge of the vast resources this region has to offer.”
“I would think the men in Albany are all too aware of what the region has to offer,” William remarked.
“Oh, yes, they see the lumber and iron ore deposits. That’s not what I’m talking about. These forest streams feed the St. Lawrence and Hudson rivers. The snows that blanket the mountains will avalanche without the trees to hold the soil in place. Come spring thaw everything will come barreling down the hills taking the sides of the mountain with it, clogging up the waterways and polluting the streams. One only has to look at what has happened in the primeval forests of Europe to realize the catastrophe that awaits us. Especially if people like your father, who own most of the acreage around here, have their way.”
This apocalyptic forecast took William aback. While William had joked about his father’s plans with Ella, he didn’t think of him so powerful that he could destroy this wilderness. Yet, after three years in America, William still felt he had only a cursory knowledge of his father’s business dealings.
He kept so much from him, giving William orders about who to dine with and when, telling him when he needed to travel from New York City to Saratoga to transfer documents from one company lawyer to the next. His talk of a steamboat line over Christmas was the latest announcement.
What William did know was that the Adirondack Railroad Co. land holdings were his father’s pride and joy. He wanted nothing more than to open this vast wilderness up so that people could enjoy it.
“Truly you jest,” William said in defense of his father.
“Take a look around. You’re heading to Raquette Lake tomorrow? You’ll see that the Marion has been dammed for navigation. And the loggers are denuding the forests around Eagle and Uptown Lakes. Township 40 is the central hub for transporting logs either north to the St. Lawrence or south to the Hudson. There’s a reason your father seeks the 20,000 acres the state doesn’t want to give up.”
“Industry is what makes this country strong,” William retorted.
Verplanck shook his head sadly. “I’ve seen the views from the highest peaks here and would disagree with you,” he said.
Frederick changed the subject abruptly. “Alvah, tell us what you’re doing here with Verplanck?”
Alvah lifted his head up from his glass. “I’ve been keeping Colvin here from dying in the cold and gettin’ himself killed by a catamount.”
“A mountain lion!” William’s eyes lit up. “Tell us man! Did you encounter one recently? I’ve yet to see one of these great cats.”
“That’s because they’re mostly gone from here. The bounty on their heads is worth more than a wolf,” Verplanck said.
“We came upon one a couple of days ago near the summit of Seward,” Alvah said. “He was eating the carcass of a deer.”
“Had to shoot him unfortunately,” Verplanck said.
“Were you able to bring him down? Do you have his coat?” William asked.
Alvah shook his head slowly. “Too far up the mountain, we could never carry him off. And we had no time to skin it in the storms that were coming down on us, not when we still had work to do. Pity, could’ve gotten close to forty for him.”
The morning air was icy cold, the sky a brilliant blue as William and Jerome loaded the sleigh. Each inhale formed ice in their nostrils, each exhale gave off steam.
“I’ll have Jerome come back for you in a day or two Frederick,” William said. “In the meantime, good luck with your negotiations.”
“Thank you, William. And I hope once I have the title to the land for Prospect House you’ll lend a hand on the design and construction,” Frederick said, lifting one of William’s bags into the sled.
“I’ll see you in the spring, if it ever decides to come,” William said.
“I don’t know, today is starting to feel a bit like it, even with the cold air,” Frederick said, looking into the sky.
“We need to get going if we want to make Pine Knot before sunset,” Jerome said.
“Yes, let’s head out,” William said and climbed into the sleigh.
Although the wind usually did a good job of sweeping the snow from the lakes, the recent storm left a white carpet on top of the ice.
They passed a number of lumbermen on horse-drawn sledges loaded with logs heading east toward the rivers that flowed into the Hudson. Once the loggers reached their destination, they would bank the logs along the riverside until the spring thaw when they would herd the harvest downstream to the nearest mill.
William saw Verplanck was right, the dam at the mouth of the Marion was almost complete. He knew it was his father’s doing, presumably part of the steamboat business. He made a mental note to find out more when he next went to visit the family lawyer John Barbour in Saratoga.
The sun was beaming down by the time they were traveling on the Marion River. The air started to warm up considerably, a typical February day in the North Woods. They reached Raquette as the sun was setting behind the mountains — casting long, dark shadows on the lake. The snow, which had been melting under the glare of the sun all day, froze, forming a thin crust on top which made it hard for the horses to trudge through. The sleigh slogged along, crushing the snow with a sound like thousands of eggshells breaking in its wake.
William put his head up to catch the last rays of sun before it disappeared behind the range. He was anticipating the welcoming reception from Louise. He had told her and Wood he would be back by mid-February and that they should plan for his arrival.
“Sir,” Jerome woke William from his daydreaming. “Look, up ahead.”
Two dots in the snow were chasing a deer. They were making their way easily on snowshoes on the lake. The deer however, was slowed down by the hardening snow. Each step was followed by a crash through the crust and an attempt to breach the deep snow; a drain on its energy reserves. It was hardly able to keep ahead of the two boys.
It was Ike, and an urchin of a boy that must have been his younger brother. Jerome halted the sleigh and William shouted to them to stop. The boys gawked at William. Red-faced and panting, they were surprised by the large sleigh, and annoyed that they were being hailed to stop.
“What the devil are you two boys doing out here tracking that deer like a pack of staghounds?” William demanded.
“We’s crustin’ deer, Mr. Doo’rant,” Ike answered. His younger brother shook his head in agreement and watched in despair as the deer started heading for the woods.
William glared down at the boys and then at the deer. “What kind of sport is this? That deer has no chance in this snow.”
Ike shook his head. “We ain’t doing it for sport sir. We’re doing it to feed our family.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Doo’rant, sir. We haven’t had meat in a month. It’s been too much snow and stormin’ for us to find any game,” the younger brother said.
“And our mother’s been sick,” Ike added solemnly.
“Get in,” William said. The boys untied the straps to their snowshoes and got in the sleigh. They were gaunt.
“We’ll catch up with it,” William directed Jerome to follow the hapless animal.
Within minutes the sleigh was upon the deer. William gave Ike the go ahead to shoot the pitiable creature. At that point it was the most humane thing to do. A wolf would have made a quick meal out of it once it reached the woods and collapsed from exhaustion.
“I’ll take you back home tomorrow morning,” William said. It was getting too late to travel, and he needed to unload his gear at Pine Knot. “Do your parents know where you are?”
The boys shook their heads no. “They aren’t worried though. Pa won’t leave the house with my Mama being sick and all. He told us to go out and find some meat cause he can’t trap or hunt. He knows we won’t come home ‘til we found some,” Ike said.
William frowned. He wondered what Louise was doing then, if she would be able to meet him at Pine Knot as planned.
The boys helped unload the supplies: ice saws, picks and tongs to harvest and carry out chunks of ice from the lake before it melted — all to be stored in the icehouse on a bed of sawdust William had laid out last fall. They had dragged along a small sledge for the ice-cutting job and Jerome was leaving behind a horse.
They also unloaded nails, carpentry tools, large saws for taking down trees, measuring tools, and food: deviled ham, cheeses, boiled quail eggs, smoked meat, fowl, wine and whiskey.
They took the deer to the icehouse and locked it until the morning when it could be butchered. Jerome opened one of the cabins and lit a fire in the stove. The smoke trailed out of a crude pipe that went through a small hole in the ceiling. William decided one of the first things he would start on would be the frame for the fireplace. It would be the center of attention in the guesthouse, the chalet. He had one of his craftsmen — a Finn he met last fall — collecting granite, and it was to be delivered by horse and sled before the ice gave out on the lakes.
The spruce and cedar logs he had selected personally while walking the woods around Long Point had been cut and stacked along the shoreline, bark intact, waiting for the thaw.
The two industrious brothers had gutted, skinned, and carved up the deer before the other men had risen. Jerome and William took the boys back to their home, relying on their navigational skills to lead the sleigh to their dwelling in the woods.
They headed south from Raquette until they reached Eighth Lake where the Lawrence family had a home in a small clearing.
“Thank you Mr. Doo’rant. My Pa will be much obliged to ya,” Ike said as he climbed out of the sleigh.
“Wait Ike, I know your father needs you to hunt and trap for him while your mother is sick,” William stopped Ike from scurrying off. “I’d like to talk to him about the use of your services as well. For payment I can bring your family food supplies every week with the sled.”
Ike knew this was a good offer. He and his family would be fed, and he would be able to carry game back in a sleigh instead of dragging it through the snow and chancing an encounter with a wolf or worse, a bear coming out of hibernation, starving. “Come on in sir.”
William dismounted from the sleigh, took a crate of items out of the back, and walked up to the structure where the Lawrence family lived. It was strange. A wooden shack attached to a domed building, sided with bark. Jerome gave him a questioning look. “Wait here, and don’t question me. I know what I’m doing,” William said to him and then followed the boys to the entrance.
William ducked his head at the doorway as he followed Ike into his abode. The roof of the entrance was flat, and the sides were made of logs. There were shelves along the walls that held trapping gear. But once they stepped out of it they entered the domed structure, twenty feet long, with four poles along the ceiling spanning the width of the room used as supports for the cascading walls, each pole tied with strips of bark to the vertical posts coming out of the ground in the center of the house. Some type of pliable wood created the domed roofline above.
The interior space was symmetrical: the width of the interior was equal to the height and length. Each side of the domed longhouse was identical: beds on each side elevated on log platforms lined the walls and above the beds, shelves that stored the family belongings, including clothes, snowshoes and furs. In the center was a hearth with a small black pot hanging over the fire and other cooking implements. There was a canoe made out of bark hanging from the rafters.
A flap of bark over the smoke hole in the ceiling kept the snow out. The smoke from the fire pit had accumulated over the course of the winter and left a haze. The air smelled slightly acrid.
Intermingled with body odor was the tangy-crisp smell of balsam, a few boughs of it hung from the rafter beams and were burning in the fire to ward off the stink that lingered in the air. Louise’s grandmother was on the ground by Ike’s mother’s bed, holding a cup to her mouth and trying to get her to drink from it. She was singing a light melody he had heard Louise sing before, a Mohawk song. Nailed on the wall above her bed was a crucifix. The crude plank floor was covered in deer and bear skin. The bed coverings were furs from bear, wolves and other woodland mammals. Mink perhaps? Or that strange weasel they called a marten? William recognized beaver pelts — a legacy from ancestors, since beavers were extinct in the region.
From the depths of the long building William made out small dark heads, the children’s hollow-looking eyes casting scared stares his way, wondering who this strange, tall man was.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” William said.
Isaac’s dark eyes were full of sorrow. William felt a stab of sympathy for the man and his plight. He was responsible for feeding five children yet couldn’t bear to leave the side of the woman he loved, who, from what William could tell, was clearly dying. She was pale and delirious, her face had patches of red. It was probably an infection of some sort. William had seen the symptoms of septic shock before. It was always fatal.
“I’d like to help,” William told Isaac. He handed him the crate. It was filled with eggs, butter, sugar, flour and pork salt. William knew the family could use the staples. The venison wasn’t enough.
Isaac shook his head no.
“You don’t understand, I’d like to bring Ike and Louise back to my camp to work for me over the next few months. I’ll pay by making sure you’re stocked with food for the children. I’ll deliver the food with Louise and Ike every week.” William hadn’t even thought to ask whether Louise would want this arrangement, leaving her mother on her deathbed. He assumed she would rather be with him, an assumption confirmed when he met her eyes.
Isaac considered the offer. There was Sarah, Louise’s younger sister by three years, all of fourteen, to help around the cabin, and Emaline, although she was a mere ten. Louise was his rock though. But it would also mean two less mouths to feed. And William knew Isaac well enough to trust him.
“If my children want to go with you , then yes.”
“I will go if it will help the family,” Louise said.
Ike nodded as well.
“Sit down, let’s eat and drink together. Ike — go tell the driver to come in,” Isaac placed his hands on the floor, a request for William to sit next to him.
William and Jerome were given warm moccasins and asked to remove their boots. Louise took boiling water from the pit and poured it over bright red Staghorn sumac berries to steep for a tea. Her grandmother called out instructions while she was preparing the tea. William recognized a mixture of French and their native Mohawk language.
“Yes Mémé,” Louise said. She took a small tin from one of the shelves and scooped a teaspoon of maple sugar into each mug. The children licked their lips. They had been treated to the sugar sparingly since their mother took ill. Any leftover supplies from last spring were used to flavor the bitter tinctures their grandmother made for her.
William felt uncomfortable taking advantage of the family’s hospitality. He signaled to Jerome it was time to leave. But just as they were about to get up, Isaac sat down on the floor by the fire pit, lit a pipe of tobacco and began telling his family’s story. They had no choice but stay, thinking it would be rude to leave in the middle of his tale.
“The Mohawks are one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, we call ourselves the Haudenosaunee – the people of the Longhouse.” He waved his arms toward the ceiling to indicate this was still the case. “I was raised in Kahnawake near Montreal. My parents had four children. I was the only son. Louise’s mother, Clara, is French. My family adopted her when she was twelve, abandoned by her father who was a widowed trapper. I married her three years later.”
“My father taught me how to trap and hunt. But then the Canadian government told him he couldn’t anymore. They drew a line around our village.” Isaac used the end of his pipe to draw a circle in the fur. “They told my father he had to stay in the line and farm with my mother and sisters.” He stabbed the center of the makeshift circle.
“He died a heartbroken man. My sisters and their husbands left to go west where there was more game. My mother remembered coming to the Adirondacks every summer to see her New York relatives. She told me to bring her back here. She said there would be plenty of game. After traveling many days we found a clearing in the woods. The lumbermen had been here. This is a perfect place for deer as they like to eat the young saplings that sprout up when the sun can reach the forest floor.”
“It was a good place to build the longhouse. The wood,” Isaac gestured toward the ceiling and the curved, young ash and spruce branches that held the roof in place, “is best when it’s young and pliable.”
He built his longhouse and took up trapping. When that was not enough, he worked as a guide. Clara kept the house, tended the garden and taught her children how to read and write in English, while their Mémé taught the Lawrence children the Mohawk language and traditions.
When Isaac was done telling his story, Louise and Ike wasted no time gathering their belongings, guns and traps, and the few items of clothing they had to bring. They took off for Pine Knot with William and Jerome.
“I need you to relay this to my father.” William handed Jerome a card the next day. “It clearly states my intentions so don’t worry about being reprimanded. I’ll need you to bring back the smaller sleigh. My father has several at the mill in North Creek. Pick one that suits the terrain here, a cutter should work well. We’ll need it for several reasons that I hadn’t foreseen. My letter explains it all. And tell him our meat supplies are low. I have left him with a list of food items we will need until the thaw. And I want them delivered as soon as possible. Come back with the cutter, I’ll meet you at Holland House in a week.”
“But what if he asks how long you’ll be staying?” Jerome said.
“Tell him I’m not sure.”
Jerome’s brow lit up with surprise but he didn’t say anything.
Clara Lawrence didn’t survive the month of February. William drove Ike and Louise home one day to find that Isaac had already buried her. He felt helpless standing in the longhouse when Sarah told Louise and she wailed in her sister’s arms. Ike was in shock. He left to find his mother’s grave and didn’t come back.
Finally, William, realizing how out of place he was amongst the mourners, left to scope out a few small lakes he had seen on his travels. He made a camp in the woods with a tent and waited until morning to retrieve Louise and Ike and head back to Pine Knot.
When the spring melt did come weeks later, the workmen followed because William sent word out that he would offer twice the pay they would get driving logs downstream. These lumbermen, William came to understand, were like many he encountered in the United States: first or second-generation immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia and Italy, a jumble of cultures. It was not uncommon to meet a man with a surname unrelated to the origin of his Christian one. When he was introduced to Patrick DeLuca, William had trouble discerning which country the man regarded as his homeland. Pierre Smith could be French Canadian or just another bloke from Vermont fleeing a string of bad crops to seek his fortune with his axe in the woods. And they brought other tools of their trade: axes, spuds, hand saws, adzes and lathes. Besides felling a tree they knew how to join and finish logs, carve wood and stretch bark. They made their sleeping arrangements in makeshift lean-tos and shanties and worked hard every day alongside William, helping to shape his vision of Pine Knot.
After the death of her mother, Louise instinctively assumed the role of matriarch at Pine Knot. Her quiet directions were always obeyed. She knew what the men needed, what they wanted from her. And her maternal skills were well received. She healed their wounds using the herbs her grandmother gave her, made meals out of wild game and fish, mended their shoes and clothes.
Louise was also William’s companion. They stayed in the hunting cabin as they had done together the previous autumn. Growing up in a longhouse didn’t allow for privacy and Louise was well versed in the desires of man and wife. It was natural for her to spend nights in the bed of the man she loved, who took care of her and her family. The only time she would not sleep with William was right before and while bleeding. Then, she slept by herself in the other room as her grandmother had instructed her.
Every night after the food had been put away and the men had settled into their routines by the campfire, William, Louise and Ike would walk the mile path along the shore to the hunting cabin.
When they got to the cabin in the evening, Louise would sing Ike to sleep and afterwards enter the bedroom she shared with William where he would wait for her, listening in a chair to her soft lilting voice, barely able to stay awake himself after a long day of building, constructing and commanding his workmen.
Sometimes she would give him a tonic made of the macerated inner bark of the mountain ash, mixed with water, whiskey and sugar. It was a favorite of all the men at the camp. He never asked, she always knew when he needed it. The strong drink surged through his veins and roused his senses. When she was ready for bed she would lift the lid of the Swiss music box and undress in front of William to the tinkling sound. Louise was not hindered by useless garments. She wore a long skirt with deer hide breeches underneath it — there was no need for a bustle, there was no one to show it off to in the woods — a chemise and blouse. When it was very cold she wore a tunic over her blouse made of deerskin or fur. And she always had on a small wooden charm of a turtle. Sarah had made it for her. It was a symbol of their clan.
After she undressed she would help William take off his clothes: shoes, trousers, shirt, and then lead him to their bed. She would massage his shoulders, his back, his head. They would lie down together, their warm bodies creating enough heat to keep the cold night at bay. Sometimes they would make love, other times they were too tired. It didn’t matter to Louise, she had everything she needed from him. His complete devotion to her and her family.