New York

  Yesterday, Weston and Frank had spent the day inspecting the final sections of the canal. Those had been happy hours. An engineer had shown them round. Frank had been doing what he liked best, and Weston had been proud to see that the engineer was impressed with the boy’s questions.

  But today there was something else he wanted to share with his son.

  He had introduced the subject already, once or twice, during their journey. As they started up the Hudson, he had looked back, past the stately cliffs of the Palisades to where, in the distance, New York harbor was a haze of golden light, and remarked: “It’s a fine sight, isn’t it, Frank?” But it had been hard to tell what the boy was thinking. As they came to West Point, and stared at the splendor of the Hudson Valley as it wound its way northward—a sight that always brought a thrill of romance to his own heart—Weston had again called the scene to his son’s attention. “Mighty fine, Pa,” Frank had said, but only, his father suspected, because he reckoned it was expected of him. As they’d taken the long road westward, passed lakes and mountains, seen magnificent panoramas and gorgeous sunsets, Weston had gently pointed them out, and let the boy take them in.

  For as well as the continent’s scope and wealth, it was America’s spiritual lineaments he wanted to show his son. The vast splendor of the land, the magnificence of its freedom, the glory of nature and its testimony to the sublime. The Old World had nothing better than this—equally picturesque perhaps, but never so grand. Here in the beauty of the Hudson Valley, it stretched to the plains and deserts and soaring mountains of the west: nature, untrameled, under the hand of God. America, as seen by its native sons, for countless centuries before his own ancestors came. He wanted to share it with his son, and see its mighty wonder thrill the boy’s heart.

  That’s why he had brought him here today. If the stupendous sight they were about to see didn’t stir the boy, then he didn’t know what would.

  “Lake Ontario is higher than Lake Erie,” he said quietly to Frank, as they came toward the end of the path, “so as the water flows through the channel that leads between them, it comes to a place where it has to drop. It’s a pretty big drop, as you’ll see.”

  Frank had enjoyed preparing for the journey. Back in the city, he’d been interested, when his father had demonstrated the purpose of the canal on the map. Frank liked maps. In his library, his father also had a big framed print of the commissioners’ plan for New York City. It showed a long, perfect grid of streets. The city had already advanced several miles from its old limits under the British, but the plan was that one day the grid should run all the way up to Harlem. Frank loved the simple, harsh geometry of the plan, and the fact that it was about the future, not the past.

  He’d enjoyed inspecting the canal yesterday, too. The Big Ditch, people called it, for a joke. But there was nothing to joke about really, because the canal was truly amazing. Frank knew every fact about it. The canal plowed its mighty furrow westward for a hundred and sixty miles up the Mohawk River Valley, and then another two hundred miles across to the channel near the town of Buffalo. In the course of its long journey, the level of the canal had to rise six hundred feet, by means of fifty locks, each with a twelve-foot drop. Irish laborers had dug the trench; imported German masons had built its walls.

  Yesterday, he had been allowed to operate the sluices and help move the massive gates of one of the locks, and the engineer had told him how many gallons of water were displaced, and at what rate, and he’d measured the time it took with a stopwatch. And this had made him very happy.

  Tomorrow at the official opening, Governor DeWitt Clinton was going to welcome them aboard a barge that would take them through all fifty locks and down the Hudson to New York. The governor was the nephew of the old Patriot Governor Clinton from the time of the War of Independence. He was taking two big buckets of water from Lake Erie, so he could pour them into New York harbor at the end of the journey.

  Frank and his father were at the end of the path now. As they came out of the trees, Frank blinked in the bright light, and the roar of the waters hit him. People were scattered in groups on the broad ledge; some of them had climbed up onto some rocks for an even more dizzying view of the falls. He noticed a group of Indians, sitting twenty yards away on the right.

  “Well, Frank, there it is,” said his father. “Niagara Falls.”

  They gazed at the falls in silence. The stupendous curve of the great curtain of water was the biggest thing Frank had ever seen. The spray boomed up in billowing clouds from the river far below.

  “Sublime,” said his father quietly. “The hand of the divine, Frank. The voice of God.”

  Frank wanted to say something, but he did not know what. He waited a little. Then he thought he had an inspiration.

  “How many gallons of water go over it in a minute?”

  His father didn’t answer at first. “I don’t know, son,” he said finally. His voice sounded disappointed. Frank lowered his head. Then he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “Just listen to it, Frank,” he said.

  Frank listened. He’d been listening for a little while when he noticed the Indian girl. She was about his own age, he reckoned, and she was staring toward them. Perhaps she was looking at him. He wasn’t sure.

  Frank wasn’t much interested in girls, but there was something about the Indian girl that made him glance at her again. She was small, but neatly made. He guessed she was pretty. And she was still staring in his direction, as if something interested her.

  “Pa,” said Frank, “that Indian girl is staring at us.”

  His father shrugged. “We could go down to the river, if you like,” his father said, “and look up at the falls from below. There’s a path. Takes a while, of course, but they say it’s worth it.”

  “All right,” said Frank.

  Then Frank saw that the Indian girl was coming toward them. She moved with such a light step, she seemed almost to float over the ground. His father saw too and stopped to look at her.

  Frank knew a bit about Indians. When the War of 1812 had come, a great leader called Tecumseh had persuaded a lot of them to fight for the British. Here in Mohawk Country, many of the local Indians had joined him, which had been a big mistake. Tecumseh had been killed, and they’d lost out badly. But there were still plenty of Mohawks around these parts. He supposed that’s what she must be.

  The other people on the ledge were watching the Indian girl and smiling. Nobody seemed to mind her coming up to them like that. She was such a pretty little thing.

  Frank had thought the girl was looking at him, but as she came close, he realized with a shade of disappointment that her eyes were focused, not upon him, but his father. She went right up to him and pointed at his waist.

  “It’s my wampum belt she’s interested in,” his father said.

  The girl seemed to want to touch it. Weston nodded, to let her know she could. She put her fingers on the wampum. Then she walked round his father, who obligingly lifted aside his coat so that she could see all of the belt. When she had done, she stood in front of his father, looking up at him.

  She was wearing moccasins, but Frank could see that she had neat little feet. He also noticed that, although her skin was brown, her eyes were blue. His father noticed too.

  “Look at her eyes, Frank. That means she’s got some white blood in her somewhere. You see that occasionally.” He addressed the girl. “Mohawk?”

  She signed that she was not. “Lenape,” she said quietly.

  “You know who the Lenape are, Frank?” said his father. “That’s what they call the Indians that used to live around Manhattan. You hardly see any now. What was left of them scattered, joined larger tribes, went west. There’s quite a few in Ohio, I believe. But one group stayed together and settled at the far end of Lake Erie. The Turtle clan, they’re called. There’s not a lot of them, and they don’t give trouble. Keep to themselves, mostly.”

  “So her people were around when our family first came to Manha
ttan?”

  “Probably.” He gazed down at her. “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

  Frank didn’t answer, but then the girl turned and stared into his eyes, and he felt awkward, and looked away.

  “She’s all right, I guess,” he said.

  “You want my wampum belt, don’t you?” his father said to the girl. He used a calm, friendly voice, the same as when he was talking to the dog at home. “Well, you can’t have it.”

  “Can she understand you, Pa?” asked Frank.

  “No idea,” said his father. Then something caught his eye. “Hmm,” he said. “What’s that?” And he signed to the girl that he wanted to look at an object hanging round her neck. Frank could see that the girl didn’t want him to, but since his father had let her look at his belt, she couldn’t very well refuse.

  Without making any sudden movement, his father reached forward.

  It was so neatly made. Two tiny rings of wood glued together formed a little double-sided frame, with a cross of twine binding them together for extra security. A thin leather thong passing through the frame made a loop, so that the girl could hang it round her neck. The precious object in the little frame gleamed softly in the light as his father held it up and examined it.

  “Well, I’m damned,” he said. “Do you know what this is, Frank?”

  “Looks like a new dollar.”

  “It is and it isn’t. We’ve been minting US dollars one way or another for forty years now, but this is older. It’s a Dutch dollar. A lion dollar, they used to call them.”

  “I never heard of that.”

  “People still used them when I was a boy, but they were so old and worn by then, we called them dog dollars. This one’s never been in circulation, I’d swear. It must be a hundred and fifty years old—maybe more—but you can see it’s still like new.” He shook his head in wonderment, and handed it to Frank.

  Frank looked at the coin. He could see there was a splendid lion depicted on the front and a knight of some sort on the back. He gave it back to his father.

  His father looked at the girl, considering. “I wonder if she’d sell it to me,” he said. He made a sign to the girl that he wanted to buy it. She looked alarmed, and shook her head. “Hmm,” said his father. He thought for a moment. Then he pointed to the wampum belt. “Trade?”

  Frank saw the girl hesitate, but only for a moment. Then she shook her head again, and put out her hand for the coin. She looked unhappy.

  But his father wasn’t a man to give up easily. He smiled at her and offered again, keeping the coin well out of her reach.

  Again she shook her head and held out her hand.

  His father looked over to where the Indians were sitting. They were watching impassively.

  “That’ll be her family, I should think,” he said. “Maybe they’ll tell her to sell it to me.” He wound the leather thong round the coin, making a little package of it. “I reckon I’ll speak to them,” he said.

  By now the girl was visibly distressed. She thrust out her hand again, urgently.

  “Give it back to her, Pa,” said Frank suddenly. “Leave her alone.”

  His father turned to him with a frown, surprised. “What’s the matter, son?”

  “It’s hers, Pa. You should give it back to her.”

  His father paused a moment. “I thought maybe you might have liked it.”

  “No.”

  His father wasn’t too pleased, but he handed the coin back to the girl with a shrug. She took it and, clasping it tightly, ran back across the grass to her family.

  His father stared out irritably at the water.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess that’s Niagara Falls.”

  After they had started back along the path, his father said: “Don’t get emotional when you’re trading, Frank.”

  “I won’t, Pa.”

  “That girl. She may have got white blood, somewhere back, but she’s still a savage, you know.”

  That evening, they ate with the governor in a big hall, and all the people who were coming on the boat tomorrow toasted the new canal and said how grand it would be. Frank was pretty excited at the thought of the trip ahead, and all the locks they would be going through.

  Then after the meal, while the men were sitting at the table, drinking and smoking their cigars, Frank asked his father if he could go outside for a while.

  “Course you can, son—only don’t go too far. Then when you come back, we’ll go to the lodgings and turn in. Get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow.”

  Buffalo was quite small. People referred to it as a village, but Frank reckoned it was a small town really, and you could see the place was expanding. There was no one about, so it was quiet. It was clear overhead, but it wasn’t cold.

  He crossed over the canal and came to a short stretch of riverfront where there was an open area, with some rocks and a stand of pine trees, and he sat on one of the rocks and gazed at the water. He could feel a light breeze pressing softly on his cheek, and soon he reckoned that it was getting a little stronger because he could hear it, now, up in the trees.

  And as he sat there, the image of the girl came into his mind, and he thought about her for a while. He was glad for what he had done, and he wondered where she was now, and if maybe she was thinking about him too. And he hoped she might be. So although he was getting a little cold, he stayed there some time, and thought of her some more, and listened to the voice of the wind, sighing in the trees.

  After that, he went back.

  Past Five Points

  1849

  MARY O’DONNELL LEFT the store early. She was moving quickly. Instead of following her usual route past Fraunces Tavern, she ducked into Whitehall, glancing over her shoulder as she did so, just to make sure the devil wasn’t there. Not a sign of him, thank God. She’d told him she wouldn’t be leaving for another hour. If he came looking for her, he’d find her long gone. He wouldn’t be pleased about that. Not pleased at all.

  She didn’t care. Just so long as he didn’t know where she was.

  The area had changed a lot in recent years. Two big fires—the first in 1835, when she was little more than a baby, the second four years ago—had gutted many of the handsome old blocks below Wall Street. The fine old houses, Dutch and Georgian, had gone. The southern tip of Manhattan was commercial rather than residential now. The store where she’d been working wasn’t so bad, but she wanted to make a break, escape from where she was and start a new life. Away from the devil and all his works. And now, thanks to her guardian angel, she might have a chance.

  Normally Mary’s route took her up the East River, past the docks and the merchants’ counting houses on South Street as far as Fulton. Then west for a block. Then northward, picking up the Bowery. She’d hurry past Five Points, then cross Canal by the Bull’s Head Tavern with its bear-baiting pit. From there it was only four blocks more to Delancey Street, where she and her father lived.

  But today, walking quickly up Whitehall, she turned with a sigh of relief into the great long thoroughfare of Broadway. The sidewalk was crowded. No sign of the devil.

  Soon she was at Trinity Church. Some years ago, it had been rebuilt in High Gothic style. Its pointed arches and sturdy spire added a note of old-fashioned solemnity to the scene, as if to remind the passer-by that the Protestant money men of Wall Street, who frequented it, preserved a faith just as good as any piety from medieval times. Opposite its doors, however, Wall Street was more pagan than ever. Why, even the Federal Hall, where Washington had taken his presidential oath, was now replaced with a perfect Greek temple, whose stout columns contained the Custom House.

  She gazed ahead. Back in the days of Washington, the houses on Broadway started to peter out into fields and farmsteads a half-mile or so above Wall Street. But now Manhattan was completely built up, from river to river, for another three miles. And each year, the great grid of New York extended further—as if some giant, with a mighty hand, was planting rows of houses every
season. In front of her, Broadway’s busy thoroughfare stretched in a wide, straight line for another two miles until it made a half-turn to the north-west, and continued on its way in a great diagonal, up the line of the old Bloomingdale road. Her destination was a good half-mile above that turn.

  She came to the old Common. It was still a large triangle of open ground, but some while ago a huge new City Hall had been built there. Like some gaudy French or Italian palace faced with marble, it stared proudly southward down the broad avenue. If one looked across the back of City Hall, however, one noticed a curious thing. The north facade was not faced with marble like the front, but with plain brownstone. At the time it was built, most of the city, and all the best quarters, had lain to the south. There had been no need to spend money on the northern facade therefore, which would only be seen by poor folk. And behind the gaudy palace, in the big, central sink of the city, there were poor folk in abundance.

  In Five Points.

  Once upon a time, there had been a big old pond there, and the village of freed slaves, with swampy land beyond. The pond and the swamp had still been there in Washington’s day, as the city started to extend northward around it. But then the city authorities had drained them, and lain a canal to draw away the water. And after that, they had built over the canal with streets of brick houses.

  Five Points. It was a swamp now, all right. A moral swamp: an infected warren of streets and alleys, tenements and whorehouses. In the middle of it all, the old hulk of a former brewery, like a cathedral of vice, opened its doors to welcome all that was unholy. If you wanted to watch cocks fight, or dogs kill rats, or have your pocket picked, or find a whore and catch the pox, you went to Five Points, where someone would be sure to oblige you. If you wanted to see gangs of Protestant Bowery Boys fight gangs of Catholics, you could often see that too. Travelers said it was the most absolute slum in the world.

  And who lived there? That was easy to tell. Immigrants.

  There were plenty of them. George Washington had known a city of thirty or forty thousand souls. By the time the Erie Canal was completed, one could add another hundred thousand, a population which far surpassed any other city in America, even Philadelphia. During Mary’s childhood, the increase had accelerated even faster. She’d heard the population was well past half a million now.