THE FABRIC OF A VISION
THE mountaineer’s keen eye noted a change in the river along which his
pathway led. There had been rain back in the hills, and now what the
mountaineers call a “tide” was coming down, discoloring the stream.
Passing more than one abandoned raft, its logs submerged in the sand,
at length he stopped, having spied a pair of great logs of the yellow
poplar, such as the raftsmen use as floaters for the hardwood logs they
make up into their rafts. Himself an experienced river man, he saw now
the means of hastening his progress.
With aid of a hardwood lever, he managed to get both his logs afloat
in the deep pool at whose edge they lay. Waist deep he waded, binding
his logs together with a length of grapevine, which he tore from a
nearby tree. He found here and there some bits of boards, flotsam and
jetsam of the stream, and on these, spread crosswise, he laid bits of
brush, making a little mound midships of his craft. When presently he
had found a twelve-foot pole for guiding oar, he had done his work in
building himself a boat. He stepped aboard it with the confidence
of the river man. He knew the stream would carry him three, four or
five miles an hour, sometimes six miles, in its more rapid reaches. He
advanced, bend after bend, through a beautiful panorama of flame-decked
river banks now gilded by the failing sun. He heard sometimes the bells
of wandering cattle, now and again the lowing of a cow, the neighing of
a horse; and saw by the river banks many a home of a mountaineer who
had settled here none might say when. But the eyes of David Joslin were
not for these things.
It was sunset when the hurrying flood of the river brought him to the
mouth of that other tributary in whose valley he himself had dwelt
all these years. Here was the confluence of the two main forks of the
Kentucky. He knew every house of the little village at the forks, every
feature of the hills, which rose about the village on either side.
He swung straight past, on the bosom of the rising and augmented river,
his craft swimming steadily enough under his accustomed guidance. He
scarce saw the little houses, their smoke rising for the evening meal.
It was something more which came to his gaze as he traveled here.
He saw, or thought he saw—it might have been but the ragged heads of
thunder clouds beyond the rim of the hills—the roofs and stacks of
buildings—not one, but many buildings. They sat there on the hill
that rose above the town—yes, he was sure of it. There were many of
them—there was a city of them! Yonder on the hill there stood again
visualized the thing which he had dreamed! It was but a vision, caught
for an instant as the yellow flood of the river swept him on, but it
was enough for David Joslin. A strange confidence came to him. He felt
all the zeal of the old covenanters, the assurance that God was with
him, and that his “calling” now was clear.
But the Kentucky River, coming into full tide, mocked at a man who
thought of anything else but things at hand. Joslin knew what was on
ahead a few miles—the great Narrows of the Kentucky, fatal to many a
raft and many a raftsman. Here, at the foot of a long reach of still
water, lay a great rock dam, where the hillsides came close together.
The river, narrowed and compressed, was flung furiously out over the
rock ledge, to drop a certain distance, and then to curl up and back
in a high white wave extending entirely across the stream—what the
raftsmen always called the “king breaker” of the Narrows.
There was a sort of pathway along the sides of the Narrows, by which
one could come below the big swell, but Joslin, whether moody and
distrait, whether in indifference, or whether resolved to take his
chances and test his fate, made no attempt to land his frail craft. He
headed straight for the great stretch of slack water, which lay above
the rolling crest of the Narrows.
Always he had been chosen steersman for his raft in the river work he
knew, and he knew this spot well enough—the fatalities which attended
it—but he did not hesitate, and with his long sweep straightened his
craft for what he knew would be the great plunge. He took it fair,
crouching forward, his knees bent, his eyes ahead, just as he had
steered more than one raft through in earlier times, and caught the
full blow of the great wave, as he plunged from the darkness into the
white of the stream, now under the blanket of the twilight in the deep
defile.
He was flung entirely free of his two logs, as they were rent asunder
by the force of the swell. He went down into the white—how deep he
could not tell—perhaps halfway down to the bottom of the great pool
which lay below the Narrows. He emerged, dazed, but his arm found no
supporting logs—the two had been flung far apart, and by this time
were rolling down the middle course of the white water. With what
strength remained to him, he struck out for the right-hand shore, and
had strength enough to fling up a hand and ease himself of the current
along the rock ledge.
For a time he swung, breathing hard, then drew himself up and out,
and lay flat upon the rocks. It was almost night, and it was cold. He
was chilled and weak. He had traveled long and far without rest, and
without sufficient food. But the rugged rearing he had had stood him
once more in stead. He managed once more, by means of his priceless
flint and steel, to build him a little fire, though how he lived
through the night he scarce could say.
He knew that it was thirty miles down to the first settlement below,
and that there were few houses between. He must walk. Half barefooted,
penniless, hungered, wearied and weak, he staggered on as though a man
in a trance. At least he was able to make his painful way all those
weary miles. It was again evening, and late, when at length he saw the
red lights of the little mill town of Windsor, where more than once
before then he had pulled up with others of the wild raftsmen, among
whom he had spent his youth.
He was at the edge of the great Outside. This was Ultima Thule for
the hardwood rafts. And all of Thule, all of the great, unknown,
mysterious world lay on beyond. It was a wild figure that this gaunt
and haggard young man presented as, hesitant, he stood gazing out at
the habitations in which, near at hand to which, beyond which, must lie
the answers to the questions of his soul. He saw not the town where the
rafts landed. In his mind still lived the vision of yon other city on
the hill.