Ultima Thule

Abstract

ULTIMA THULE/Davis McCombs Mammoth is a grand, gloomy and peculiar place, not soon to give up its last, darkest secret. —Stephen Bishop Stephen Bishop was the slave of Dr. John Croghan, owner of Kentucky's Mammoth Cavefrom 1839 to 1849. Bishop served as a guide at the cavefrom 1838 until 1857. His daring explorations , which led to the discovery of miles of cave passageways , were covered in newspapers and books. His fame drew visitors from all over the world. By smoking their names onto the walls of the cave, he learned to read and write. Stephen Bishop died in 1857 at the age ofthirty-seven. Oddly, the cause ofhis death was not recorded and remains unknown. Candlezvriting Childhood was a mapless country, a rough terrain of sinks and outcrops. Not once did I suspect the earth was hollow, lost as I was among the fields and shanties. I remember the wind and how the sounds it carried were my name, meant me, Stephen . . . called out over the cornfield where I hid. There was no sound when candlesmoke met limestone—just this: seven characters I learned to write with a taper on a stick. What have they to do with that boy in the weeds? Am I the letters or the hand that made them? A word I answer to and turn from, or the flame that holds the shadows, for a time at least, at bay? 50 · The Missouri Review Star Chamber Once, the Doctor spoke to me at length of stars and prognostications, how, when we observe the waxing of the Moon, everything cognate to her nature—marrow in bones and in trees, flesh of the river mussel—increases also. He told of tides and how the ocean is affixed as with a chain to moonlight. I think it must be different in the Cave, where no light penetrates. There, I have lost hours, whole cycles of the sun. At Star Chamber, I control the spheres— a lantern hung just-so will produce the night sky as if seen from a gorge; wobble it, and a comet, smoky, pestilent, streaks across the Ether. Visitations There came to us, Tuesday last, a man of most peculiar visage. The Doctor, to whom we turned for insight, muttered of abominations, dismissed our questions. And yet I did not hesitate to show the Gentleman as far in the Cave as his leisure and his pocket would allow. For, there, to the faltering glow of a greaselamp or candle, throng shadows far more monstrous than he. These I do not fear. It is the women on the tours that give me pause, delicate, ghost-white, how, at night, Tm told, they wake to find themselves in unfamiliar beds, and lost, bewildered, call my name. Davis McCombs The Missouri Review · '51 Bottomless Pit Before I crossed it on a cedar pole, legs dangling into blackness, here the tours would end: a loose and shingly precipice. From my pack I would produce a scrap of oiled paper, set fire to it, and send it twisting and sputtering into the abyss. I never saw it land, a flicker of light on the fluted cistern. Soon I had found the rivers beyond, their strange inhabitants that emerged into the circle of my light as if from another world, then vanished at the least agitation of the water. Touched, they said,fish with no eyes! until I sloshed a pailful into light, reveled in their silence. Echo River Soon we had fashioned a rude boat, and with lanterns affixed to the prow, were ferrying tours across the smoky waters: Styx, Lethe, Echo River, the host of wonders I had found. By slapping the water with the flat of my paddle, there comes a sound like the ringing of bells, a mournful, hollow melody—waves lapping and beating under the low stone arches. The voice, too, will reproduce in myriad; often I have led a tour in song, shouts raised or pistols fired on the dark, deep water. Children of a clanging, squeaking world, we cannot bear the silence. 52 · The Missouri Review Davis McCombs Shadow World I am speaking of the shade of walls and woods, the half...