Mason & Dixon (43 page)

"Tell me, with all Honesty, Sir, regarding this Watch,— does it not seek to project an Appearance, not only appetizing, but also,— eeh!.. .Ah can't say it...?"

"Vegetables don't tick," the Professor gently reminds Dixon.

"Why aye, those that be only Vegetables don't. We speak now of a higher form of life,— a Vegetable with a Pulse-beat!"

"Beyond me. Try asking R.C., he enjoys puzzles."

Beyond R.C.,— a local land-surveyor employ'd upon the Tangent Enigma,— as well,— tho' he's not about to say so. From the Instant he sees the Watch, the Mens Rea is upon him. He covets it.—
 
He dreams of it,— never calling it "the Watch" but "the Chronometer,"— in his mind conflating it with the marvelous Timepiece of Mr. Harrison, thus flexibly has the Story reach'd America of the Rivalry between the Harrisons and Maskelyne, to secure the Longitude,— and as much prize money as may be had from Longitude's Board.

"If a man had a Chronometer such as this," R.C. asks Dixon, "mightn't it be worth something to those Gentlemen?"

"A tight-fisted Bunch, according to Mason,— tha must open their Grip upon it with a Prying-Bar...?"

"Must be why they call it 'Prize' money," says R.C., "• - I'll bet you find it temptin', tho', don't ye?"

"I'm not sure whose this is," Dixon replies carefully. "I'm keeping it for someone."

"A Gratuitous Bailment,— of course." R.C. trying his best not to look mean. As a Transit-Fellow, Dixon recognizes R.C.'s Complaint but too well,— the many years pass'd among combatants unremitting, unable by one's Honor to take sides however much over the Brim Emotions might run, assaulted soon or late by all Parties, falling at last into a moral Stu-porousness as to the claims of Law,— in fact, perilously close oneself to being mistaken for a Lawyer, a bonny gone-on.

"Mmm-mm! Did ye see that, boys? Good enough to eat." Axmanly Wit at the Watch's expense, causes R.C. to glower and approach, often to fractions of an inch away.

"What're you in my Phiz for now, R.C.?"

"You don't want to be offending the wrong Folks," R.C. advises. No one knows what this means, but his point,— that he is too insane for ev'ryone else's good,— is made.

One midnight there is an uproar. Dogs bark. Axmen request Silence. The Surveyors are out of their Tents, up the Track somewhere taking Zenith observations. There is a crowd in front of Dixon's Tent. R.C. is caught in the light of Nathe McClean's Tallow-Dip, just as the last bit of Gold Chain, suck'd between his Lips like a Chinese Noodle, disappears.

"R.C., may be you're gittin' too mean to think straight any more?"

"I thought I heard someone coming."

"That was us. Shouldn't you've set it down someplace, 'stead of swal-lerin' it?"

"There wasn't Time.”

"Now ye've more than ye know what to do with," quips Moses Barnes, to the Glee of his Companions.

"Don't you know what it is you swallow'd, R.C.?" Arch McClean slowly reciprocating his Head in wonder. "That's sixty Years of Longitude down there, all the Work 'at's come and gone, upon that one Problem, since Sir Cloudsley Shovell lost his Fleet and his Life 'pon the cruel Rocks of Scilly."

"What were my Choices?" R.C. nearly breathless. The thing was either bewitch'd, by Country Women in the middle of the night,— Fire, monthly Blood, Names of Power,— or perfected, as might any Watch be, over years, small bit by bit, to its present mechanickal State, by Men, in work-Shops, and in the Daytime. That was the sexual Choice the Moment presented,— between those two sorts of Magic. "I had less than one of the Creature's Ticks to decide. So I took it, and I gobbl'd it right down." His pink fists swing truculently, and he has begun to pout. "Any of you have a Problem with this?"

"As the Arm of Discipline here, I certainly do," declares Mr. Barnes, the Overseer of the Axmen, "for in an expedition into the Country, as upon a ship at sea, nothing destroys morale like Theft. Which, legally speaking, is what this is."

"Yet anyone may put an ear to his Stomach. The Watch is sensibly there, nor's he making a Secret of it.... We might more accurately say, an Act of Sequestration, its owner being denied the use of—

"Aye, yet absent a Conversion to personal Use,—

"0 Philadelphia!" thunders Mr. Barnes, "have thy Barristers poison'd Discourse e'en unto the Rude who dwell in this Desert? What ever shall we do?" The Utterance being Mr. Barnes's cryptic way of requesting it, stone Silence falls over the Company. "Has anyone consider'd where we are?" All know that he means, "where just at the Tangent Point, strange lights appear at Night, figures not quite human emerge from and disappear into it, and in the Daytime, Farm animals who stray too close, vanish and do not re-emerge,— and why should anyone find it strange, that one Man has swallow'd the Watch of another?" Some style this place "the Delaware Triangle," but Surveyors know it as "The Wedge."

To be born and rear'd in the Wedge is to occupy a singular location in an emerging moral Geometry. Indeed, the oddness of Demarcation here, the inscriptions made upon the body of the Earth, primitive as Designs prick'd by an Iroquois, with a Thorn and a supply of Soot, upon his human body,— a compulsion, withal, supported by the most advanc'd scientifick instruments of their Day,— present to Lawyers enough Litigation upon matters of Property within the Wedge, to becoach-and-six a small Pack of them, one generation upon another, yea unto the year 1900, and beyond.

By early Youth, R.C. had become the kind of mean, ornery cuss his neighbors associated with years of Maturity. "Here comes old R.C., and don't he look sour'd today." 'Twas his Profession did it to him. As a young Surveyor, from the rude shocks attending his first boundary-dispute, he understood that he must exercise his Art among the most litigious people on Earth,— Pennsylvanians of all faiths, but most intensely the Presbyterians, hauling each other before Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Church Courts, Village Quidnuncs, anyone who'd listen, even pretend to, at an unbelievable clip, seeking recompense for ill treatment grand and petty. If he wish'd to pursue this line of Work, he would have to recognize the country-wide jostle of Polygons as a form of madness, by which, if he kept to a Fiduciary Edge of Right Procedure, he might profit, whilst retaining his Sanity. He infuriated the more bookish surveyors with his Approach, which includ'd avoiding Paper-work, walking the Terrain, and making noninstrumental guesses. "Looks about eighty-eight-thirty to me. Here,— " Eyes shut, Arms straight out to his sides, then swept together till the fingertips touch'd, Eyes open,— "That's it."

"How so?"

"By Eye," he twinkl'd sourly. "Most of these out here 'round the Wedge, ye can do by Eye," pronouncing it "Bah-ahy." By the time he turn'd his hand to the Problem of the Tangent Line, it seem'd but an accustom'd Madness, in a different form,— the geometrick Whimsicality of Kings, this time, and Kings-to-be.

In the months, and then the years, after he swallows the Watch, as the days of ceaseless pulsation pass one by one, R.C. learns that a small volume within him is, and shall be, immortal. His wife moves to another Bed, and soon into another room altogether, after persuading him first to build it onto the House. "Snoring's one thing, R.C., I can always do something about that," brandishing her Elbow, "— but that Ticking...”

"Kept me awake, too, at first, Phoebe,— but now, it rocks me to sleep."

"Best Wishes, R.C."

"Oh, suit yourself." R.C. can act as sentimental as the next young Husband, but his public Rôles require him to be distant and disagreeable. Besides, since he swallow'd the Watch, she's been noticeably less merry with him, as if cautious in its presence.

"Do you imagine it cares what we're doing out here, in the world outside? Say, Phoeb, do be a Peach and come—

"But R.C., it might be— "

"What?" his voice beginning to pitch higher. "Listening?"

"Taking it all down, somehow."

"You're the girl I married, damme 'f you're not." He knows she never quite sees what this means, and being none too sure himself, he never offers to explain it.

' Tis a national Treasure," declares Mr. Shippen,— "and whoever may first remove it from its present location, shall enter most briskly upon the Stage of World Business, there, will-he nill-he, to play his part.—
 
All at the price of your own Life, R.C., of course, Chirurgickal Extraction and all, but,— that's Business, as they say in Philadelphia."

"I'll chuck it up, why don't I do that?" putting his finger down his Throat.

"Oh, may we watch?" cry the Children.

"Never say 'Watch' to your Father," advises Mrs. R.C.

"Ahhrrhh!" the Finger comes out bleeding. "Something bit me!"

"Likely trying to protect its Territory," his eldest Son assures him.

"How could it bite me? 'tis in my Stomach. 'Tis a Watch."

"Alter its shape, maybe? Who knows what's happening to it in there?"

"Where all is a-drip, disgusting and mushy with chew'd-up food,—

"And acid and bile and it smells ever of Vomit,—

"Eeeooo!"

"Enjoy yourselves, children, even at the expense of your poor suf-f'ring old Father if you're that desperate for merriment, no matter, go, mock, too soon will equal Inconvenience befall ye, ev'ry one, 'tis Life."

"We'll not go swallowing Watches, thankee."

"Not if you want to sneak up on an Indian someday, you won't.”

"Hadn't plann'd on it, Pa."

"Figures he'll cash in on Longitude, instead he eats the Chronometer, some zany Dreamer I married." Of course Dixon has to tell Emerson. For weeks after the Express has curvetted away, he mopes about, as gloomy as anyone's ever seen him. "I was suppos'd to look after it...?"

"You wish'd release from your Promise," Mason reminds him. "Think of R.C. as Force Majeure."

The Letter, in reply, proves to be from Mrs. Emerson. "When he receiv'd your News, Mr. Emerson was quite transform'd, and whooping with high amusement, attempted whilst in his Workroom to dance a sort of Jig, by error stepping upon a wheel'd Apparatus that was there, the result being that he has taken to his Bed, where, inches from my Quill, he nevertheless wishes me to say, 'Felicitations, Fool, for it hath work'd to Perfection.'

"I trust that in a subsequent Letter, my Husband will explain what this means."

There is a Post-Script in Emerson's self-school'd hand, exclamatory, ending upon a long Quill-crunching Stop. "Time is the Space that may not be seen.—

(Ton which the Revd cannot refrain from commenting, "He means, that out of Mercy, we are blind as to Time,— for we could not bear to contemplate what lies at its heart.")

 
33

"Hope to have your Company at the Bridge...," writes Benjamin Chew, to the Surveyors. He means Mary Janvier's, at Christiana Bridge,— where the Line Commissioners find merry Pretext to gather, gossip, swap quids and quos, play Whist, drink Madeira, sing Catches, sleep late, or else stay up till the north-bound Mail-coach wheels in at seven A.M., and the Passengers all come piling out for Breakfast at The Indian Queen. Never know whom you'll run into. An hour's pause in the journey, wherein early Risers may practise, each day, upon a diff 'rent set of Travelers. Flirting? Cards? Coffee and Chatter? the Hope is for a productive, when not amusing, Hour.

At this pleasant waterside Resort, gulls sit as if permanently upon Posts, Ducks enjoy respite from the Attentions of Fowlers, the mild haze thins and thickens, Sandwiches and Ale arrive in a relax'd and contingent way, official business is taken care of quickly, to make available more time for Drink, Smoak, and Jollification. Yet whilst the Maryland-ers, attun'd to Leisure, take the time as it comes, the Gentlemen from Philadelphia, their Watches either striking together with eerie Precision ev'ry Quarter-hour or, when silent, forever being consulted and re-pocketed, must examine for Productivity each of their waking Moments, as closely as some do their Consciences, unable quite to leave behind them the Species of Time peculiar to that City, best express'd in the Almanackal Sayings of Dr. Franklin.

In the Summer, toward Evening, Thunder-Gusts come slashing down off the Allegheny Front, all the way riding close above the trees flaring either side in wet and bright Waves upon each arrival of the Lightning, over Juniata then Susquehanna, tapping at the Windows of Harris's Ferry, skidding across the shake roofs of Lancaster and soaking the Town,— and on to Chesapeake and a thousand Tributaries each in its humid, stippl'd Turmoil, and the Inn, and the Gentlemen indoors at their Merriment, whilst Ducks of all sorts, lounging in the Weather as if 'twere sun-shine, fly into a Frenzy at each blast of Lightning and Thunder, then, immediately forgetting, settle back into their pluvial Comforts.

Tho' all are welcome here, Janvier's, like certain counterparts in Philadelphia, has ever provided a venue for the exercise of Proprietar-ian politics, by a curious assortment of City Anglicans and Presbyterians, with renegade Germans or Quakers appearing from time to time. Especially upon nights before and after Voting, the Rooms contain a great Ridotto of hopeful Cupidity. Strangers are view'd suspiciously. Mr. Franklin's confusion is toasted more than once. Rumors circulate that the Anti-Proprietarians have a Jesuit Device for seeing and hearing thro' Walls.

The Bar seems to vanish in the Distance. Hewn from some gigantick Tropical Tree, of a vivid deep brown wood all thro', further carv'd and wax'd to an arm-pleasing Smoothness, comfortable as a Bed,— no one has yet counted how many it can accommodate, tho' some have sworn to over an hundred. Environ'd by immoderately colored Colonial wallpaper, tropickal Blooms with Vermilion Petals and long, writhing Stamens and Pistils of Indigo, against a Field of Duck-Green, not to mention reliable Magenta, the Pulse of the Province ever reciprocates, a quid for a quo, a round for a Round, and ever another chance to win back the bundle one has wager'd away. And somewhere sure, the raising of Voices in debate politickal.

"Observe no further than the walls of London,— 'A harsh winter,— a cold spring,— a dry summer,— and no King.' Not Boston, Sir, but London. Your precious Teutonical dispensation,— Damme!— means even