“Homo homini lupus.”
“I beg your pardon?” Adam Cabot tilted his head.
“Man is a wolf to man,” Charlotte said. “My father used to say it at every opportunity.”
They rode in silence for a minute, bouncing gently on the spring seats of the wagon. The road, by now just parallel tracks through the forest, was smooth for a little while, a blessing after the miles of jolts. From the steamboat landing at Sainte Genevieve there was a plank road as far as Farmington, but for the last thirty miles the wagon roads had gotten steadily narrower and rougher.
Their subject, as always, was the trouble in Kansas, the trouble in the capital, the trouble in the nation.
“After he came back from Mexico, that is,” she continued. She glanced at the young man sitting beside her. “Once he was home and started teaching again, he would get the strangest expression. He would look toward you but through you, as if there was someone behind you he was addressing. And that’s when he would say it.”
Cabot’s face, usually so open, became careful and composed. “He’ll get no argument from me,” he finally said. “But wartime is a different matter. Perhaps the horrors of war blind a man to the higher possibilities of mankind.”
Charlotte gazed out at the thick screen of blackjack oaks and hickories they were passing through. She had to admit the scenery was beautiful. The hills were not as high as the Adirondacks of her childhood, but the landscape was equally rugged, and in the warm light of September, Charlotte found to her surprise that she was enjoying the trip. She and Cabot had met the first group of settlers in St. Louis, fifty-four of them, and they had embarked en masse for the trip south. It felt good to be in the countryside. Cabot, innately idealistic, had taken to the plan for the great experiment despite his own recent reverses, although they could never seem to keep the conversation from drifting back to Kansas. At Sainte Genevieve they chartered wagons for the trip inland, and Adam’s good humor and educated language made everyone look to him for leadership. His black hair had just begun to grow out again, and sometimes he rubbed his head with a serious expression before bursting into fits of laughter at the ridiculousness of his appearance. The Eastern cut of his clothes marked him as a butt of everyone’s jokes, but he didn’t seem to mind.
She could use all the idealism he had to spare. The parting from her father still made her sad. She had not handled the departure well—first the rush into marriage, then her decision to join her husband in Daybreak before she had been sent for. She could see in her father’s eyes that he had doubted her common sense.
The wagon road came to a clearing. Set back from the road was a cluster of stick-and-earth huts, strange-looking affairs, five feet tall, with thin strings of smoke rising from the centers of their roofs. Charlotte could see women and children moving among the huts, dark-haired, dark-skinned, and ragged. Two of the children walked toward the passing wagons and held out their arms mutely, palms upraised, fingers loosely curled.
Cabot turned to the wagon driver behind them, a local man they had hired. “What’s this?”
“That’s the Creek Nation,” the wagoner said. “Missouri branch. Army left them here to die during the Removal, and they never got around to it.”
The wagoner cast a glance over the group, all of whom had now stopped to watch the wagons pass. “Seems like there’s more of them since last time I came through here.”
The children kept their arms extended as they drove by.
“Do you think—” Charlotte asked.
“I’ll check,” said Cabot. He handed her the reins and jumped down from the wagon, swinging himself onto the one behind as it neared. He conferred head to head with the wagoner for a moment, then just as nimbly hopped down and trotted back.
“He says no,” Cabot said, lifting himself onto the seat. “They’ll follow us all the way to the colony. He says the men are probably out somewhere finding food.”
“Those children don’t look fed to me.”
“We’ll go a mile or two, then I’ll ride back,” he said. “They’ll never try to keep up with a man on horseback.”
“There’s a half ham in the back of this wagon. Take it.”
The road descended sharply from the ridgetop, the forest changing from oak to cedar, and as they dropped into the river valley the trail grew worse, nothing more than a cleared cascade of rocks. They inched over shelves of rock one wheel at a time. A broken wheel now would cost them half a day. Charlotte checked over her shoulder at their precious load—Cabot’s cast-iron Washington press and twelve trays of type. They had immobilized it in the wagon bed as best they could with sacks of flour and sugar, but Charlotte still dreaded the idea of the wagon tipping in some creek bed, thousands of tiny letters spilling into oblivion.
After the wedding, she and Turner had spent a week at Arrow Rock, truly alone for the first time. Turner worked on plans for his triumphant return lecture tour to the cities of the West—Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis. Charlotte had thrown herself into the role of correspondent and organizer. And in the nights she was surprised by the ardor with which she embraced the joys of marriage. The first night was awkward and strange, but the second night came easier, and by the third night she was reaching for him even before he reached for her. She knew that this new life was what she had spurned all those cadets for; by day to support and disburden her man, her original thinker, and by night to join with him, to delight in his strength and vigor. But then he had returned to the lecture circuit, and then came the offer of land for a settlement.
Of course it had all happened too fast, she knew that. But after her years of suspension, she had been poised and ready to move. The speed didn’t frighten her.
But these last acts—Turner taking on the colony, just accepting the land without seeing it, without pausing to consider, without consulting her, and she in turn making the abrupt decision to join him, although he had said he would need a few months to build cabins and clear ground—these moves had been fast in a different way. They felt whimsical, ill-considered.
“Mrs. Turner?” Still strange to hear the new name. Adam Cabot brought her up short. She jumped in her seat and looked around. They were about halfway down the long rocky slope and had reached a glade. The trail edged along a bluff, giving a view of the river bottom below. She gazed out. The river shone in the late afternoon light like a ribbon of mercury; on the other side was a thick grove of cottonwoods and sycamores, with a valley beyond it, broad and long, open meadows and crop fields, and at the far end two houses, one white, one brown. The houses were tiny against a high, thickly forested hill behind them, and the forest sent fingers of trees down its slopes into the bottomland, reclaiming the ground that human hands had cleared.
“The driver behind us says that’s the colony site,” Cabot said. “We descend here, and then there’s a ford. Our land is just beyond.”
“And—?” Charlotte looked behind her, thinking of the children on the ridge. The line of wagons snaked back as far as she could see.
“I’ll get us across the ford, then ride back,” Cabot said. “I’ve got the ham.”
“Thank you.” She paused. “Adam—?”
“Yes?”
“He doesn’t know I’m coming.”
Cabot gave her a questioning look, and she could see surprise mingled with curiosity in his features. But ever the gentleman, he didn’t press her further. “Then he will be doubly pleased by our arrival.” He urged the mules forward. In a short time they had reached the ford, the wagons crossing one at a time to avoid interfering with each other.
Charlotte looked upriver as they crossed. So this was the St. Francis he had written her about. It seemed a good river, medium-sized, a bit of a current, more clear than muddy. The crossing had a solid bottom and was not too deep; the mules’ bellies got wet but that was all. The trees were thick and as tall as church steeples. Behind the trees she could see more hills, higher than the one they had just come down.
The mules struggled up the bank then settled into an easy walk as the track wound through the cottonwoods and sycamores on the other side. Cabot handed her the reins, hopped down and took the ham, borrowed a horse from a later wagon, and was gone.
As he trotted his horse through the forest with the ham resting on his saddle, Cabot pondered this latest bit of news. Why had Charlotte not told her husband of her coming? She was not the type of woman to travel three hundred miles for the childish pleasure of a moment’s surprise. Perhaps pure devotion? She knew he did not want her out here, but couldn’t bear his refusal. That would be in character with the Charlotte he’d gotten to know over the past weeks—firm to the point of hardheadedness, yet with a core of loving-kindness just below that solid surface.
Not his business, he supposed, but worrisome nevertheless. There were no private matters for this man Turner any more—he had more than fifty people to lead in this venture, with perhaps hundreds more to come. He didn’t think it proper to speculate about what passed between Charlotte and her husband, but he couldn’t help the thoughts that ranged through his mind. Could it be that she suspected something irregular in the man’s removal to this far country? Nonsense, he told himself, with a reminder to avoid evil speculation in the future. But then nothing was regular about their embarkation on this journey.
The lessons of history led him to doubt the ideas in Travels to Daybreak, but he was curious to meet James Turner. Charlotte’s descriptions of him made him seem a combination of Solon and Socrates, but Cabot marked that down to the rosy views of a woman in love. Not that he had any practical experience in such matters, he thought with a pang. Shy since childhood, he had never shone at the play parties and dances, and although he had had a few flirtations and walks along the Charles, he had never loved nor felt himself to be loved in that glowing way. He had yet to meet his ideal woman—someone idealistic yet practical, someone who would be a partner and confidante, not merely a dependent. A Titania for his Oberon, a match of both head and heart.
All right, so he was envious of this man he had yet to meet, who had managed to find a bright and witty—and handsome—woman to marry. So he wanted to meet him for that reason if nothing else, to learn his secret. No crime in that.
He reached the Indian village and climbed down from his horse. At first no one could be seen, but then a boy emerged from one of the huts. He looked suspiciously at Cabot for a moment before approaching.
“Here,” Cabot said. He swung the ham from its resting place on his saddle.
The boy ran inside without a word.
For several awkward minutes, Cabot waited in the clearing, the ham resting on his saddle horn. Finally the boy came out again with a bundle wrapped in cloth, and they exchanged items. Cabot unfolded the bundle. Inside were corn-cakes of some sort, boiled rather than baked, with an odd blue sheen. Cabot broke off a piece.
“Good!” he said. They were cold and gritty.
The boy held the ham over his head. “Thank you,” he muttered as he turned toward the houses.
“Thank you,” Cabot replied. He waved in the direction of the huts, sure that he was being watched. He mounted his horse, reflecting on the odd ways in which the demands of dignity revealed themselves, and rode away.
Charlotte was glad for the time alone. She wondered how Turner would take her unexpected arrival. The driver in front of her was whistling “Clementine” again. He had been whistling it for what seemed like weeks. Didn’t he know any other tunes? Perhaps she should teach him.
And then the wagon path opened up into a broad clearing and on the far side of the clearing she could see him. He was still far away but she recognized him instantly, although he had grown a beard in their months apart. He and another man, an elderly-looking gentleman, were paired on a crosscut saw, felling a tree. He had laid his hat and coat aside, and the sunlight caught the tousles of his light brown hair. In an instant all worries fell away.
The wagon road ran along the river’s edge, through the heavy shade of the high trees, with dogwoods and pawpaws in the understory. Through the foliage she could see the river to her left, the barest of ripples on its surface. To her right the forest thinned out. There were about ten acres where trees had been girdled and were standing dead, waiting to be cut. Then cleared ground, some of it planted, some open and grassy. At the far end of the valley, the white house was set halfway up the slope, with weathered clapboard siding; and about a hundred yards closer to her, a cabin, newly built, the logs rough-hewn and not fully chinked; and in front of the cabin, Turner and the older man, who now had seen the wagons approaching and straightened from their sawing. Turner took his coat from a nearby bush, put it on, and waved his hat.
By now most of the wagons had entered the clearing. Charlotte looked behind her; there were thirty of them, one right after the other, laden with goods and people. As they caught sight of Turner, the people in the front wagons sent up a cheer, which spread down the line; even those just emerging from the forest knew that they had arrived. Charlotte joined in. Turner, still waving his hat, climbed a stump for a better view; Charlotte stood up in her wagon, reins in her hand, and waved back.
She could see his surprise when he recognized her. He paused in mid-wave and nearly lost his balance. But he recovered quickly and soon was striding to greet them.
Turner took the reins from her, tied the mules to a tree, and helped her down from the wagon. Charlotte could feel that he was thinner now; his grip was strong, and his skin had grown dark. Their eyes met as he gave her a brief embrace.
“My dear!” he said. “My dear.” Then he gestured to the arriving wagons. “I must—”
“Of course,” Charlotte said. He dashed to greet the others and to tie up their mules.
They gathered in front of the cabin for a brief prayer of thanksgiving; Charlotte counted only five other women and a scattering of children. They gave three cheers to the older man, who turned out to be Mr. Webb, the donor of the land. Webb was a solid, red-faced man with a large round nose, deeply cleft down the middle. Charlotte guessed him to be sixty or more. He was redolent with sweat from working the crosscut saw, and strings of white hair trailed out from under his hat, but he carried himself with a dignified air, like some Cincinnatus of the hills, and Charlotte could see why Turner had trusted him so soon and so completely. Then it was time to work—to unload the wagons, set up tents, divide the labors. “Women and children can sleep in this cabin tonight,” Turner said.
A man in the crowd pointed to the white house at the end of the valley. “What about that place?”
A glance passed between Turner and Webb. “That house is not part of our colony,” Turner replied. “It’s the original homestead and belongs to Mr. Webb and his son, Harp.”
All eyes turned to the house for a moment, as if Harp might step out of the door to be acknowledged. But Harp either remained inside or was elsewhere.
“We have much to do before nightfall,” Turner said. “Let us begin.”
He jumped down from the stump and led the way to the wagons, organizing the men into groups to set up a shelter and picket lines for the mules and horses, laying out piles of goods onto squares of canvas, and carrying other items inside the cabin.
Cabot trotted up on his horse. Charlotte could see him eyeing the situation cautiously, unsure of where he fit in, and she walked over to him as he dismounted.
“Here,” she said, taking his arm. “Come this way.” She led him to Turner. “This is the man I wrote you about,” she told her husband. “Adam Cabot.”
The men shook hands. “You did indeed,” Turner said. “The man who cheated death. Mr. Cabot, you are welcome here, even though you are not among our adherents. Perhaps you will convert to our principles one day.”
“Perhaps,” Cabot said, “and even if not, I am glad to work with you now. It heartens me to see men working toward a worthy goal.”
“Men and women, you mean,” said Charlotte.
Cabot blushed. “You are right.” He spoke to Turner again. “Your wife is an education in herself, sir. She has nearly converted me to your cause through conversation alone.”
Turner smiled, the broad, embracing grin that Charlotte remembered and loved, which began as an ordinary smile then wrapped his face, warming the air for a yard around. “An education in herself!” he repeated. “An entire university, more like. I can see some grand conversation around the fireplace for the three of us.”
Cabot smiled in return. “I—” He made a hesitant gesture. “Beyond my personal belongings, I brought nothing with me for your settlement, except—” They walked to Charlotte’s wagon. “Except this, and I don’t know what good it will do you.”
He flipped the canvas cover to reveal the printing press, swaddled among the sacks and bundles.
“Stars in heaven!” Turner cried. “If I could count the hours I spent yanking on the handle of one of these. And typecases too. You know how to set type?”
“Not well,” Cabot said. “I tried to teach myself but it was slow going.”
Turner rubbed his chin, musing. “I learned as a boy. Tedious labor, and that’s the mildest thing I’ll say about it. But now I am grateful I learned, and I’m grateful to you for bringing this press. What do you think, my dear?” he said to Charlotte. “The Daybreak Star? Or perhaps The Defender?”
Charlotte waved her hand at him. “Tend to your work and name the newspaper later.” She left to join the other women, who had gathered around a growing pile of foodstuffs being unloaded in front of the door. She felt momentarily out of sorts as the work swirled around her, but she shook it off and tried to make herself useful.
“These men will want to eat as soon as they finish their work,” she said to the women. “Let’s see what we can do.” They went inside to set up a kitchen.
The interior was not as rough as the exterior had suggested. There were two rooms and a cast-iron stove, and someone had even smoothed down the walls a bit. Charotte looked out the back door and saw George Webb walking by.
“Mr. Webb,” she called out. “Where do you get your water?”
Webb gestured toward the hill behind them. “Good spring at the base of the bluff,” he said. “Path’ll lead you right to it. Then there’s a mud spring over yonder, closer. Plenty of water, but it’s sulfur. And of course the river is closer yet.”
Two young girls were standing near. “What’s your name?” Charlotte said to the older one.
“Lucy,” she replied. “This is Mary.”
“Lucy, I want you and Mary to find whatever pails you can, take them up that path to the spring, and fill them with water. We will need plenty of water today.”
The girls trotted off. “Mama, that lady says ‘pails,’“ Lucy said with a giggle.
Before long they were frying salt pork in skillets on the stove and saving the grease to cook hoe cakes. Lucy and Mary’s mother, a muscular, laughing woman from Maryland named Frances Wickman, proved to be the better cook, and Charlotte stepped back to give her room.
She found a broom and began to push dirt toward the front door. The task would have to be repeated later in the evening, but there was no point in standing around like a dressmaker’s dummy. Then she heard footsteps behind her and felt Turner’s hands on her shoulders. She leaned back into his chest.
“My hands are greasy,” she said.
“That’s all right.”
His arms encircled her and she felt his beard against her face. This would take some getting used to; she had preferred him clean shaven. The other women noticed his arrival but kept their heads to their work, discreet.
“You’re safely here,” he said.
“And so are you.”
“I’m sorry the cabin is not as far along as I had hoped. Everything takes twice as long as I thought.”
“It’s fine.”
“Did you see your picture? It’s on the wall behind the door back here.”
He led her to the back room, pulling the door shut, and sure enough there was her tintype in a frame, hung from a nail in the wall. And now they were alone. With the door closed, he pulled her to him and kissed her.
“Thank you for your letters,” she said after a while.
“They were the best part of my day. All day, I would compose my next letter in my mind. I couldn’t wait until evening to get back here and write.”
“They came in great bunches sometimes.”
He smiled. “That’s how they were sent sometimes. People don’t come along this road every day.”
“Any more encounters with that bandit? You could have been killed, you know.” She shivered for a moment at the thought of him dead on some riverbank, never to be found.
“No. I know. To this day I don’t know why we weren’t. Because I wrote the letter for him, perhaps. Or perhaps he already had all he could carry.” He squeezed her hands. “How are your mother and father?”
“Well enough. My father thinks I’ve gone mad.”
“For once, I may agree with him. I would have sent for you when things were more ready out here.”
“This is your great experiment,” she told him. “This is where I should be. My father will forward any letters.”
“But the hardship—”
“Living without you was a hardship. Living here will merely be a struggle.”
That evening, the men gathered in the yard of the cabin, many with their copies of Travels to Daybreak for reference.
“Let us plan,” Turner said. He drew a map in the dirt of the yard. “Here is the river, and here the road along it. There is no room for houses on the river side of the road, so—” He marked an arc in the dirt. “I propose we set our houses in a row, something like this, and smooth out a new road between them. It will return to the main road right here, where we stand.”
He gazed north across the fields into the forest. “Every family will have a house of its own. Single men will share, four to a cabin. That’s eleven cabins. As the community grows, we will add houses along the length of the road first and then build side streets.”
The group followed his gaze. To the west, the hill that hemmed in the valley rose like a dark shoulder, its shadow creeping longer with each minute. The sycamores by the river glittered silver in the fading light, and in the dimness they could almost see the houses, the streets, the city, rising from the switchgrass and stumps. They could feel the power of Turner’s dream, and as the evening light dimmed it became their own dream, a collective dream, the dream of a city in the wilderness.
“Once everyone is housed,” Turner went on, “we will build a large meeting house, a Temple of Community, for school on the weekdays and church on Sunday. And every week from this day on out, we will meet as a community to plan our course. What day of the week is it?”
“Thursday,” someone answered. “September the twenty-first.”
“Very well,” said Turner. “Every Thursday will be our meeting night. And every September twenty-first will be a community holiday, the anniversary of our founding.”
They divided into crews, with two-thirds of the men assigned to building cabins and one-third to clearing ground. None of the men were farmers; they were clerks, students, factory workers, shopkeeper’s sons. George Webb agreed to tutor the farming group in the ways of clearing, plowing, and planting.
Inside the house, Charlotte and the other women took turns scrubbing dishes in a wooden tub. They moved quietly so as to hear the conversation outside.
“Too late to plant anything,” murmured Mrs. Wickman. “We’ll have to live on our stores this winter.”
“What should we be doing first?” Charlotte said.
Mrs. Wickman gave her a sideways glance, and the other women drew near to hear her whispered reply.
“The way I see it,” she said, “There’s better than fifty men out there, and only five of us women. Those single men won’t know a blessed thing about home life. More wives will be coming soon, but for now it’ll be all we can do to keep them fed.”
“You have two girls,” said another woman. “I have one. We’ll set up a kettle by the river, and they can take over the washing.”
“Agreed.”
Charlotte spoke up. “Fetching the water will be a burden. We should get one of the men to build us a race from the spring. It’s all downhill.”
“Good,” said Mrs. Wickman. “One of the pork barrels will be empty by morning. We can place it at the corner of the house here for rainwater, and add more barrels as they empty.”
“Which one is yours?” Charlotte whispered to her as they watched the men debate.
Mrs. Wickman pointed to a lank, bespectacled man with a flat-brimmed hat. “That’s him,” she said. “John Wesley Wickman. Clerk on the docks most of his life, but oh, he does love to read, read, read, and think, think, think. Don’t know why he ever married me!” She chuckled softly.
With the dishes finished, they filed out the back door and came around front to listen to the rest of the talk. The debate had moved to the question of membership.
“One more thing,” Turner said. “Conditions for entry. You are the pioneers here. You’ve already earned your place. But later on, not everyone will come with the same high purpose.”
“Loafers and parasites,” someone said.
“Let’s just say, enthusiasts without skills or resources,” replied Turner. “Despite our ideals, we must also act in the best interests of the colony. Therefore I propose that additional colonists not be admitted unless they come with at least two hundred dollars in money or goods.”
“Admittance will be by community vote, and is provisional for six months. At six months, another vote.”
“And no Irish,” said a man in the front of the crowd.
The comment brought an angry buzz. Turner let it run a while before all faces eventually turned to him.
“Each of us comes from stock that was once new to this country,” he said. “We cannot turn a man away for that. We must decide one case at a time.”
“Besides,” said another man, “when was the last time you saw an Irishman with two hundred dollars to his name?”
The group’s laughter was interrupted by a rifle shot that cracked through the twilight. Men flinched and looked in all directions, checking for injury. There was movement from the white house down the valley.
Unnoticed by all, Harp Webb had come onto the porch, and from his porch had shot a mourning dove. It fluttered to the ground from the branches of a large white oak tree that stood beside the road a hundred yards from where the group had gathered. Harp laid his rifle on the railing and walked down the hill to fetch it.
“Some country this is. Shooting rifles off your front porch,” said a man quietly.
Charlotte watched as Harp retrieved the bird, paying them no mind. He was a thin man with a full beard; bright yellow hair strung out in long trails from beneath his hat. He walked with deliberation, and at first she thought he was going to ignore them entirely; but as he turned toward his house, he gave the group a careless wave. Charlotte took a peek at George Webb, but other than some additional reddening of his potato nose, his face gave no clue to what he was thinking.
The incident spoiled the mood of the group for a time. Everyone gathered their things and made plans for the night in quiet murmurs. But once the wives and children settled on the floor of the cabin’s front room, the incident with Harp was behind them and the room filled with talk and laughter. As night came on, Charlotte retreated to the back room. She started to unpack her trunk, but fatigue caught up with her; she took a nightdress off the top of the stack of clothing and got into bed. She hadn’t realized how tired she was. The mattress was just a straw tick sitting on a rope frame, but after the long trip it felt like feathers.
Soon Turner came in and quietly closed the door behind him. He undressed in the dark, taking his nightshirt from a hook on the door, and climbed into bed.
For a little while they just held each other.
“You surprised me,” he said at last. “But I’m glad to see you.”
“I should hope so!” She pulled him to her and kissed him. She could feel his smile beneath her lips.
He was lean, much leaner than when he had left. Her hands caressed his sides, counting every rib.
“You’ll fatten me up,” he said, reading her mind.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Can you believe it? We’re starting the community.” His voice was excited. “I would never have imagined it. But here I am. Can you believe it?”
Charlotte let him talk. For now, she was just happy to stroke his chest and hear his voice again. She had been able to hear his voice in the letters he wrote, but only with effort. Now she could just close her eyes and hear him, the happy, clear voice she knew, carrying on about work crews and incorporating the town and starting the newspaper as soon as possible, about spreading the gospel of cooperation. She let the sound flow over her.
In time, the words slowed. Her caresses moved lower, finding the tail of his nightshirt, then moved underneath. He stirred and turned toward her.
Later on, he murmured in the dark, “Why did you come? You know I said I’d send for you.”
“I couldn’t wait. I just felt I had to be here.”
“It’s going to be hard. This is hard country.”
“I’m not afraid. I want to be here.” She could hear his breathing even out. His voice had grown soft and drowsy. Then all was quiet.
“I want our child to know its father,” she said to his sleeping form.