Ghost Dance

  Ghost Dance

  By Clayton Donegal

  Copyright Donivan-Cross 2015

  NorhternWriter.com Publishing

  Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  For Debra

  Clayton Donegal’s Journal

  Chapter 1 – The Travelers

  April 1844

  We met on the banks of the Ohio River on a spring day when the ice had gone. A fine gray mist lay on the water like velvet across a seamstress’s bench waiting for the tailor’s hand. A paddle wheeler rested easily in the reeds of the Kentucky shore while its crew loaded cargo and passengers for the journey downriver. The water was wide and muddy. Night birds called out as morning broke upon the crossroads where we had gathered in the wilderness to await the steamboat.

  It was there I first saw George Albert Spencer, tall and straight backed, his Romanesque face pointed westward as he worked at his easel, intent as a hawk its prey while he dabbed at the colors of the sky with bold strokes of cumulus grandeur. Raven hair curled the corners of his jaw in the way a lion’s mane frames its beastly head, proud and beautiful, but serene like a lamb as he filled the canvas with light and life. A scarf hung about his collar half unfurled, dragging in the mud, his expensive clothes askew and rumpled as a tramp’s. An itinerant musician, a bare headed African boy, satchel at his feet, sat upon a log at the water’s edge near the artist piping songs of simple melody on a flute.

  I was engaged in recording the moment with pencil and pad as I am a writer by trade, transcribing the scene of idle splendor in words, a script portrait of man and beast, slave and master, as they boarded the vessel in the early morning fog. Intrigued by the odd pair, I tucked away my notebook pulling closed the leather strap that bound my journal and strode, leisurely, toward the scene.

  The grass rose up tall around my boots, their leather wet with the dross of morning dew. I was no god like the young lion who labored at the canvas, but was rather a man of mortal means, possessed of a slight built and average height. To my credit, a girl had once said my hair was like winter hay and eyes molten brown, a description I should wince at, but which vanity compels me to repeat for its poetic, if overly romantic, figures of speech, of which I am fond.

  By my own estimation, I would boast my best qualities to be an intellect questing and sharp, with a ready good humor not easily suppressed by hardship. I was dressed in a broad brimmed hat still stiff and smelling of sawdust from the shelf I’d plucked it from in Cincinnati. My coat was large, a bit long at the sleeves but would be warm in winter. The cuffs of my trousers were tucked into the tops of my boots, stiff and new like the hat, and rising up to my knees, sparkling with polish and the wet grass.

  I stood to one side appraising the lion’s work, chin in hand as I studied the piece. Its style was crisp and spare, but lacking in no detail, a still life that seemed alive in its internment of mood and motion. The flautist’s song seemed to accompany it, moving deftly from reel to madrigal, soft upon the heavy morning air.

  Presently the lion spoke, “So what d’ya think friend, is it good?” He asked in a voice as sharp as the profile of his beak-like nose. The bare sketch of an accent untraceable, but vaguely European, colored its sound. The artist’s cerulean eyes were fixed upon the painting as he filled in the tree line of the far shore on his canvas.

  “Damned fine, if you’ll excuse the expression,” I apologized, having let drop the vernacular of the region.

  The artist laughed silently. “You’re a cultured man. Not from these parts. Boston?”

  “Close. Framingham by way of Concord,” I answered in slight awe of his powers of deduction.

  The artist put aside his brush, a satisfied smile stretching the width of his face. “Philadelphia myself.” He turned and proffered an oil stained hand. “George Albert Spencer.”

  “Clayton Donegal. You’re an artist I take it?”

  He gave the query some thought, gazing meditatively upon his work with a critic’s eye, both cynical and admiring. “By compulsion, not choice, indolence, not vocation. An idler, as my father would say” He crooked a finger, impossibly long and sinuously formed, in my direction. “I studied at the Sorbonne but they found me too ‘American’.” He laughed again; silent as before, the expression so contained I felt a pang of sadness for the wealth of emotion buried within its measured reserve. “But I like what I do. I’m on the path – if you take my meaning.” He arched a questing eyebrow at me. “You’re a scribbler yourself. I’d wager Mr. Milton is in your bag – Paradise Lost?”

  I laughed out loud. “Yes! How did you know?”

  “I’d carry him myself, but I anticipate the company of cultured souls such as yourself from whom I may borrow its use when necessary, leaving me more room to carry paint and brush.” He smiled, the expression softer, less confined.

  “You’ve seen Europe then?” I asked anxiously.

  He swatted at a buzzing insect, the boggy shore already giving rise to a cloud of such creatures despite the morning chill. I noticed the black youth had ceased his concert and sat, watching us intently.

  “I did, but experienced nothing. The place is tame, settled, all mausoleums and museums – as quiet as a Sunday tea at my Aunt Liddie’s since they buried old Napoleon.” He looked upon me with good humor, his patrician countenance open and handsome. “So I came home. The world is here. Westward the course of empire takes its way,” he cast in a voice melodramatic laced with good humor as well as erudition.

  “The first four Acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last," I rejoined.

  “George Berkeley. To be is to be perceived. Do you believe the fifth act is upon us?”

  “I don’t know?” I said wonderingly. “I’ve never considered it.”

  “The unconsidered life is not worth living.”

  “Socrates!”

  Just then a steam whistle shrilled twice, its scream shattering the morning fog.

  “I fear we could do this all day but our vessel is boarding. Will you be joining us?” He asked, quickly disassembling his easel.

  “I am sir,” I called out as I ran through the tall wet grass to retrieve my bags.

  The musician stuffed the wooden flute into a sack that hung at his side as he hoisted a battered, gourd backed stringed instrument I took to be a banjo onto his shoulder. A long narrow neck with four wooden tuning pegs extended from the oddly shaped, jangling contraption. The boy stood, arms akimbo a stalk of grass between his teeth and a shapeless felt hat he’d fetched from the sack perched atop his head. Standing upright, the youth came to no more than five feet in height, though he appeared to be sixteen years of age at least. Having folded the easel, Spencer tossed it easily to the lad then carefully gathered up his paints.

  “And that one over there,” he said indicating the boy, “is Mozart. Or at least that’s what I call him. I bought him upriver in Owensboro for a hundred dollars. He has a lame leg and is of no use for work indoors or out, but he can play a flute like an angel its harp, so he earns his keep. Isn’t that so Mozart?”

  “Yes suh, I do,” the boy replied with a salutation of feigned reverence.

  I paused in my preparations for the trip. “You’re a Philadelphian…but you own a slave?” I admit my voice was grave with doubt, my birthplace of Framingham being a cradle of anti-slavery sentiment.

  Spencer laughed, out loud for the first time, though its timbre was soft and decayed quickly in the murky calm as the sun burned away the dew. “I saved him from a villain armed with leg shackles and chains and will free him as soon as we’re away from this Godforsaken place.”

  “Oh,” I answered, embarrassed at having doubted him.

  We started for
the boat, the three of us, Spencer and I side by side, Mozart three paces behind. I noticed that Spencer stood a mere two inches taller than myself but was half again as broad at the shoulders. He looked to me and queried, “We’re bound for St. Louis – yourself?”

  “The same! I’ve thoughts of traveling west to Oregon, or California, though I haven’t thought it through that far. Journalism is my profession. I’m a collector of stories and I hope to write about the country I see.”

  “We are like minded. They say the Rockies are begging to be painted, ripe with wild animals and Indians festooned in feathers and beads. I’m not sure about Mozart here, but he’s free to come along if he likes. What do you say lad?” He called out to the boy.

  “I goes where you goes suh, if’n the new massa don’ mind,” he answered casting a curious glance my way.

  “It’s none of my affair,” I announced.

  The boy’s eyes were large and clear with a probing intelligence. I found it a bit unsettling, for they seemed to peer into your very soul as if he could guess your innermost thoughts.

  “Good then, we’ll make a traveling company the three of us,” Spencer beamed, looking pleased with himself. “Between us we’ve music, art and words. I think we should prove ourselves popular wherever we go!” The last statement made him grin like a fool, an odd expression upon his normally recumbent face.

  The first mate began to haul up the gangplank as we broke into a run. Mozart hobbled along on his gimpy leg as quickly as Spencer and I on our perfectly formed limbs. The mate paused, unhappily, as we clambered up the plank, grumbling beneath his breath of Yankee dandies and lazy darkies.

  The steamship was crowded from stem to stern with journeyers bound for the cities that lay to the south and west, its ultimate destination the confluence of the Mississippi River from whence many would change to steamers bound north for St. Louis or south to New Orleans. Wealthy planters stood upon the upper deck smoking cigars and drinking brandy, while on the lower, immigrants rubbed elbows with slaves. The latter, dressed in their colorful rags, sang gospels and danced while the immigrants, only recently removed from the stratums of European society, or the hardscrabble farms of the eastern United States, looked on in sullen silence, fearful of what lie before them in the wild country to come.

  As the paddle wheeler pulled away from the shore, Spencer stood at the railing holding his painting to the illumination of the rising sun, the line of trees of the northern shore a silhouette against the recreation of his mind’s imagination. He turned to Mozart and raised his brow. The boy shrugged and Spencer sighed, dropping the canvas into the waters of the river.

  “Why did you do that?” I cried, reaching out in vain as the painting slipped past my fingers. It splashed into the water assuming the attitude of a small raft as it drifted away into the channel.

  “It wasn’t good,” Spencer said simply. Smiling he added. “But its experience, or practice as the dullards back in Paris would say. Practice, practice they would preach,” he said adopting a silly accent. “Keep on until it becomes second nature, until the pencil or the brush is like a part of your hand and you hardly know it’s there. Dullards,” he pronounced again.

  “But it was good!” I protested in astonishment. “You might have sold it downriver in one of the cities.” Much to my annoyance, Mozart grinned wickedly at me then pulled the flute with his sack and began to play again.

  Spencer slapped me on the back. “It’s too much work to haul it all that ways. If we need money, I’ll paint another. Cash is easy to come by my friend. It’s the living that’s hard.” His eyes glazed over as he stared out at the waters. “Do you believe in Immaterialism? To be is to be perceived. Do you, or I, or anything exist except in the mind of God?”

  “I don’t know? I’ve never given it much thought,” I answered feeling near as uncomfortable at his question as when Mozart had cast his devilish eyes upon me a moment earlier.

  “Hmm… You will, you will,” Spencer promised.

  “Are we truly living in the fifth act then – as Berkeley said?” I asked, determined not to be outdone by my new friend’s knowledge of philosophy and literature.

  Again, the tall artist sighed. “I fear the dénouement may be upon us! That is why I’m determined to see the far country before it’s filled up with people and politicians.” Turning to face me, the faraway look began to fade from his countenance. “Preachers and schoolmarms, farmers and fools. The world is full of them and the place we go to is empty. I like that.” Casting a mischievous grin at the black boy he added, “Don’t you agree Mozart?” The boy said nothing, but began to play a piece by Handel

  “How does he know that?” I asked in befuddlement. “I mean, he’s only a slave!”

  Spencer grinned. “Mozart was raised up in the household of a music lover. He can’t read a note, but has a natural ear for melody. Having heard a piece once, he can recite it instantly on any instrument, of which I’m told he has the mastery of at least a dozen. Isn’t that true Moze?”

  The small African nodded his wooly head. “Piano, clarinet, bugle, flute, guitar, banjo, harmonica, mandolin, flugelhorn, lyre and autoharp, though I likes the violin best,” he said articulating each word.

  Spencer seemed pleased as if showing off a prize pet. “Interesting eh?”

  “Exceptionally,” I agreed. Looking to the taller man I asked, “May I call you George, that is your name?”

  “No,” he answered abruptly his face turning to stone. After registering the hoped for effect upon me, he chuckled. “My friends, what few can tolerate my company, call me Spencer or Spence. It started in Paris. It’s the European way I’m told. Christian names are too familiar; passé is the term they used. The painted ladies of the night would call out ‘Bon jour Spencer, bon jour!’ as I walked along the Palais de Chaillot.”

  A crude bear of a man holding a stone jug bumped up against Spencer jostling him. “I say! Be careful there!” he exclaimed. The drunkard muttered something incoherent and Spencer pushed him away causing the man to place his free hand menacingly upon the hilt of a knife the size of a small saber slung at his waist. The artist smiled obligingly. “There now, no harm meant I’m sure.” The man staggered away and Spencer whispered to me, “Let us find a more suitable place away from these fools before they murder us.”

  The three of us picked up our luggage and pushed through the crowd until we found an open space at the rear of the deck. The smoke of the ship’s steam chimney would periodically descend, choking us with fumes, but it seemed a small price to pay for the exclusivity the spot offered. Once we were seated, Mozart pulled the gourd backed instrument from his shoulder and began to plink out a Folk melody. Spencer picked up the conversation where it had left off.

  “And where were you educated my friend?” He asked.

  “Harvard,” I answered feeling almost embarrassed at admitting as much after hearing Spencer speak of his schooling at the fabled Sorbonne.

  “A nice place I’m told. My old papa wanted me to attend Yale and become an attorney like himself, but I opted for private study under the tutelage of John Trumbull the painter before leaving for the continent. It did not please him. What of your own pater? Does he approve of your rambling?

  “He’s dead,” I revealed.

  “Oh…I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to touch on a sore subject.” Taking a bag from his coat he pulled out two strips of jerky, offering one to me which I readily accepted.

  “It’s just, well, a bit sad. He owned a small newspaper in Concord,” I answered. “Unbeknownst to me, he’d mortgaged the business so I could finish my education. Mother had died in 38 and my only brother, Albert, went off to sea when I was small, so it was just pa and me. When the bank failed, his note was called in with no warning. He lost everything and I had to quit the university. He died the same winter.”

  “Terrible,” Spencer concurred. “Such things do not affect my own family. The Spencers are above all that. If one bank fails, we just buy another.” He gr
inned slightly. Seeing his joke did not have the hoped for effect, he shifted tactics. “My own mother died when I was a lad as well. I have a sister, Elizabeth. She married a state senator from New York. His family owns half of Albany I think. We own much of the north end of Philadelphia. Anyway, I had no taste for it. Thankfully, father was free with his money and allowed me to do as I pleased, always thinking, of course, that I should come to my senses in time and join in the family creed of naked acquisition. But once I’d finished with Paris and the Continent, I could no more stomach the putrid brew of capitalism than before, so I headed west, landing myself squarely upon the shore of Kentucky where you found Mozart and me this morning.”

  I stared out at the Ohio shore where farmers were already breaking soil for spring planting with teams of oxen. “I took a job at a newspaper in Boston after I left school, but it was all politics and society notices.” I took a swig from the water flask that hung at my belt to wash down the jerky, “It was dry as dust. I could not contemplate a career in something so deadly. I have no illusions as to what waits ahead, but it’s the possibility that intrigues me, the chance there might be something better, a place that no white man has seen. I want the chance to record it for future generations so that they might know what it was like.”

  “So you want to write!” Spencer declared.

  “Yes, I do,” I said waiting for the withering monolog I was sure was forthcoming from one equipped with so facile a mind.

  Instead, Spencer seemed to unravel, his lank muscular body folding itself into the railing of the steamer. “I think you and I shall make a fine pair. We’ve neither of us family – to speak of – and we’re convinced that the place we’re coming from is as useless as teats on a bull. So that leaves only the unknown, the place that one needs to be if he is truly alive.” He grinned maliciously. “We may both end up scalped by red Indians, but its worth the try isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I do believe it is,” I agreed.