Otherworldly Maine (25 page)

You think you're gonna teach him a lesson, trapping him like that? Let me tell you something. Nobody ever taught a gorbey nothing. Other way around. You think you're gonna take him home, put him in a cage, cheer up your little boy? Hah. Whatever you do to a gorbey'll be done to you. Now that's the honest truth.

Be right back.

Idiot.

So, Jack, you just remember, you, it's me letting you go. That Cajun boy, that
Robert
Thibodeaux, he's the one captured you, him. Made you stay in a box. You gonna do the same back to him, you? For my Lina? Once I know we got a deal, then I'll open this lid and you can fly off to wherever you fly to,
la
. We got a deal?

Merde
. Got away, you! Without a deal. Too quick. Too tricky. Hey, Jack! You owe me, you! You hear me?
Merde
.

Ah,
monsieur!
You startled me, coming up out of the fog like that. Didn't see you, big as you are. Foggy enough for you?

Don't believe we've met. Name's Benoit Cyr.

Papineau. I heard of you. You're hungry,
c'est vrai?
That's what I figured. Well, you like potato doughnuts? Plenty of good food in that house,
la
. Couple of hunters in there with me, waiting out the fog. They won't mind. Come on in, you. Watch your head.

Boys, we got company. Allow me to introduce M. Papineau. Like I said before, he's pretty well known around here as a man with an appetite. This here's Tim Strand and Rob Thibodeaux. Rob's Cajun, though he don't know it, never been up this way before, him.

Help yourself, M. Papineau. Refrigerator, cupboards, pantry. Lina won't mind.

You boys come on outside,
la
, I'll show you about the Maine fog. Can't tell from in here. No, you come with me.
Pardonnez-nous, monsieur
.

Now listen to me. Quiet, just listen. I know Papineau. I never met him, but I know him. Everybody around here knows him. You got Papineau in Louisiana? Wouldn't know that, would you? He goes from place to place, especially when the fog's in like this, and he begs for food, and he can't ever be filled up, him. He's big, you see how big he is, bigger'n a normal man by a long shot, had to duck and turn sideways coming through the door,
la
, you see that? Paul Bunyan's maybe bigger, but Papineau's meaner. You don't satisfy him, he can do bad things. Put a curse on. Go ahead, laugh. But give him whatever food you got. We can stop by the store in Limestone,
la
.

You got to what? Now? Best be careful where you piss, Rob Thibodeaux. This kind of fog, it'll come right back on you. And don't get yourself lost.

So, Tim. He's a handsome one,
non?
Your friend Rob? Betcha he turns the heads of the ladies. Betcha he'd turn my Lina's head, she could meet him, never mind she's so picky, her. Woman without a man is unnatural.

Oui. Bon
. You give Papineau what you got and I give him what I got, maybe he goes on his way. Even if your handsome friend Rob wants to be stupid.

Hate to think of his wife and kids down there in Shreveport,
la
. But things happen, sometimes you can't help it, you gotta take what comes your way. Too bad you're not Cajun, you. You better go get him before he gets himself lost. I need to think some more about Papineau.

First the gorbey, then Papineau. Sometimes you gotta get beaned over the head before you see what's right there.

How's your supper, M. Papineau? See you found the moose steaks in the freezer. I was gonna point those out, me. See you found the Oreos. Can opener's in that drawer by the sink,
la
.

So, tell me something. You just happen on us in the fog, or did somebody send you? Whiskey Jack. That's what I figured. You're my payback, you. My return favor.

Wait, just thought of something else, be right back, don't go away. Hah.

Found 'em, right where I knew they'd be. My Lina's got a weakness, her. She thinks it's a secret, I don't know about her stash, I don't know she sits all alone by herself out here or with that woman friend of hers from Bangor and eats chocolate-covered cherries. That's not good, you know what I mean? Woman needs a man, no matter what she says.

Here you go,
man ami
. Never opened. All yours.

Listen, I gotta talk to you about something, man to man. I'm afraid we got ourselves a little problem here. That boy Tim, that Polish boy, he's okay, he'll give you what food he's got, corn chips, juice in a box. But that Cajun kid Rob Thibodeaux, he's holding out on you, him. Power Bars and dried fruit in his pack. Trust me, I seen 'em. Just wanted you to know it's him.

There's something else. I'm sick, me. Real sick. Been failing for a while now, can't hide it much longer. My daughter Lina's down in Bangor,
la
. Visiting a friend, a woman friend, but she's gone too long. Gotta have Lina now, can't lose her to the outside. My wife, she just up and decided after thirty years up here it was too cold, too isolated for her, too empty. Like she didn't know that from the get-go. Man's gotta have somebody to come home to,
non?
Somebody to take care of him. Especially when he can't take care of himself.

And when I'm gone, me, Lina'll need a man.

We understand each other? We got ourselves a deal? Six, seven more boxes of chocolate-covered cherries where that one come from.

Tres bien
. Here they come.

Well, boys, fog's burning off now. We can continue to the camp. M. Papineau, we must leave you now, with I hope enough sustenance to keep you going for a while.
Je regrette
we couldn't give you more, couldn't fill you up.
De rien
.

Robert?
That's the French way, same spelling. You ready? Tim's already in the car. We want to get there before dusk, and we got to stop at Limestone,
la
.

Ah.

What's the matter with you, son? You can't move? You can't move out of this house, my Lina's house, which, when you think about it, is a lot like a box? Papineau got your tongue? Whiskey Jack got you stuck?

Well, you just stay right where you are, you. Not so cold you'll freeze. Little fog, that's all, mornings for the rest of the month. I'll send word to my Lina, she'll come back from Bangor and take care of you.

You'll like Lina, and maybe she'll like you. You'll like it up here, with your own people, you

M. Papineau, look in the closet in that back bedroom. Whole stack of chocolates.
Merci
.

Dedication of the 20th Maine Monuments at Gettysburg

October 3, 1889

Joshua Chamberlain read from the last page of his speech.

“We know not of the future,” he concluded, “and cannot plan for it much. But we can hold our spirits and our bodies so pure and high, we may cherish such thoughts and such ideals, and dream such dreams of lofty purpose, that we can determine and know what manner of men we will be whenever and wherever the hour strikes, that calls to noble action.”

The audience politely clapped and came up to shake his hand. The crowd milled about for a while until, as if on cue, it slowly melted away, leaving Chamberlain to stand silently alone.

The audience had not understood what it was he had been trying to say. Yes, today they might have listened to what had been done here and applauded at the appropriate times, but tomorrow those deeds would quickly fade from memory.

He had tried to frame the words that would make them understand what had happened here, but for all his supposed classically trained skill at rhetoric and oration, he had failed. Here, on the site of his greatest success, he had failed.

“Mr. Chamberlain, sir?” the young man from the Dedication Committee prompted, hesitant to disturb him. “Shouldn't we be getting down off the hill ourselves? I believe there's a luncheon prepared, and there's still tonight's festivities—”

“He would have a found a way.” Chamberlain said, as if the young man should know of whom he spoke without being told. “But he is gone. He is the one who died, and I am the one who lived.”

The young man, clearly not understanding, tried again, “The luncheon—” “It was many, many years after the war until Hay told me what that had happened.”

“Sir—”

“'We do not know the future.' But he knew. He knew before he ever left, knew standing on the back of that train. He told them in words plainer than any I've ever been able to fashion that he was not coming back.”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “Parainesis
of the living
, epainesis
of the dead.”

I stood on the back of the train and looked out over the faces of my Springfield friends and neighbors one last time before I left. They wanted to hear the farewell from a President-elect. I could only give them a good-bye of plain ol' Abe.

My friends, I said to them, here I have lived a quarter of a century, have passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return.

I walked back into the train car they'd given us. Mrs. Lincoln and the children were waiting for me. I noticed crepe curtains on the window. Mother, I said to Mrs. Lincoln as I fingered them, black is a strange color for curtains on a train.

But Father, she said, looking at me sharply. The curtains are red.

John Hay's Diary

June 28, 1863

Lincoln quite morose tonight from the news that Robert E. Lee has pushed past Hooker, heading north into Maryland, perhaps even Pennsylvania. All we can do now is pray our Army will somehow stop him this time.

At least Lincoln has replaced that blowhard Hooker. George Meade's in command now, but will he be enough? I cannot help but fear Meade will only turn out to be another Burnside, another Hooker, another McClellan.

Lincoln shares my fear, I think, but even before the news he was troubled. I saw him this morning at his desk, even earlier than usual. His hair was mussed, his feet still in slippers, his hands absent-mindedly whittling a stick. When I walked in, he looked up and I knew at once that look in his eyes.

What dark dream was it this time?

I told Johnny about my new dream. He humored me, but I reckon he didn't believe me none, any more than he's believed me about any of the other dreams. He suggested in that college-boy way of his to recollect I'm President, not Pope. Reckon so, reckon so. The Almighty might be sending these dreams to the wrong feller. The dreams, though—they're real enough.

This new one was a mite different than the others. No death, no destruction, no railroad car at Springfield. Just the inside of a schoolroom. Some sort of boy's college. Tidy little buildings of red brick. Respectable, not rough-hewn like me.

A framed portrait of President James Buchanan hung on the wall. That's how I knowed it was a dream of the past. Nobody these days would hang a picture of Old Buck up on a wall, not even Mrs. Buchanan.

From what I could tell from the way the fellers in the dream talked, this school was up in New England somewhere. Pine trees out the window. Maine, maybe.

Anyway, this professor feller was teaching rhetoric and oratory, going on at length about the ancient Greeks. The books he was reading from were all written in little squiggles. Greek it was. Never studied it myself—not much call for it on the prairie—but I've brushed up agin it often enough that I can recognize it when I see it.

A harmless dream on the surface, yet it worries at me like a dog with a bone.

John Hay's Diary

July 1, 1863

News of a big scrap up in Pennsylvania. Lee collided with the Army of the Potomac in a sleepy little hamlet called Gettysburg. Entire city here in a panic.

Curious the way Lincoln reacted to the news this time, though. I remember how he fell to pieces after Chancellorsville. “What will the country say?” he cried out then. Today, though, Lincoln read the telegram without saying a word. He just went into his office alone and latched the door behind him.

A few minutes later he emerged. His hangdog look was gone. Instead, his face was as cool as block ice in a Vermont blizzard. Calm. Serene. The same face he sometimes wears after wresting a hard bargain from an opponent. There are times I think his harshest opponent is himself.

Lincoln's confident mood lasted the rest of the day. I just wish it were contagious. Heaven knows, I have a valise packed, just in case—and one for Lincoln as well (although I imagine he would put up a fuss if he knew).

John Hay's Diary

July 3, 1863—p.m.

Meade did it. I scarcely dared hope, but he did it. For the first time in this war our Army of the Potomac beat Robert E. Lee. Perhaps this war might actually end.

And yet, when the War Department handed Lincoln the telegram, I thought Lincoln would “whoop and holler” as he puts it, but instead he hardly even glanced at it, as if he already knew its contents.

I just do not understand him at times.

The one thing Lincoln did seem to react to was the news that General Sickles, one of our many politicians playing army, had been gravely wounded. Lincoln said, “I reckon I ought to go see him.” No shrewd political calculation in his voice at all, just honest kindness for a man who has not always done Mr. Lincoln right.

I don't know why I told Sickles what I did when I visited him a couple days after the Gettysburg battle. Even started walking away from him, but then paused and turned back around. Don't know why, really. Maybe it was his pain. Maybe it was my own pain. Reckon I'll never know. But it came over me all of a sudden to tell him. Seemed important somehow.

So I told him. Told him I went to my room that day the battle had started and I got down on my knees before my Maker. I had tried my best to do my duty, but found myself unequal to the task. The burden was more than I could bear. I prayed, I begged. Give us victory now.