“And do you know what Mr. Ellis is going to do when he sees us coming with this tusk?” the Senator asked, his huge arm draped over Webster’s shoulder. “Do you know, Webster?”
Webster did not know. He shrugged pathetically.
The Senator said, “Mr. Ellis is going to grin. Isn’t that right, Ruthie? Won’t that be something? Don’t you think Mr. Ellis will love this?”
Ruth did not answer.
“Don’t you think so, Ruthie? Don’t you?”
3
Lobsters, by instinctive force,
Act selfishly, without design.
Their feelings commonly are coarse,
Their honor always superfine.
—The Doctor and the Poet J. H. Stevenson 1718-1785
MR. LANFORD ELLIS lived in Ellis House, which dated back to 1883. The house was the finest structure on Fort Niles Island, and it was finer than anything on Courne Haven, too. It was built of black, tomb-grade granite in the manner of a grand bank or train station, in only slightly smaller proportions. There were columns, arches, deep-set windows, and a glinting tile lobby the size of a vast, echoing Roman bath house. Ellis House, on the highest point of Fort Niles, was as far away from the harbor as possible. It stood at the end of Ellis Road. Rather, Ellis House stopped Ellis Road abruptly in its tracks, as if the house were a big cop with a whistle and an outstretched, authoritative arm.
As for Ellis Road, it dated back to 1880. It was an old work road that had connected the three quarries of the Ellis Granite Company on Fort Niles Island. At one time, Ellis Road had been a busy thorough-fare, but by the time Webster Pommeroy, Senator Simon Addams, and Ruth Thomas made their way along the road toward Ellis House, on that June morning in 1976, it had long since fallen into disuse.
Alongside Ellis Road ran the dead length of the Ellis Rail, a two-mile track, dating from 1882, that had been laid down to carry the tons of granite blocks from the quarries to the sloops waiting in the harbor. Those heavy sloops steamed away to New York and Philadelphia and Washington for years and years. They moved in slow formation down to cities that always needed paving blocks from Courne Haven Island and more monument-grade granite from Fort Niles Island. For decades, the sloops carried off the granite interior of the two islands, returning, weeks later, packed with the coal needed to power the excavation of still more granite, to scour out more deeply the guts of the islands.
Beside the ancient Ellis Rail lay an orange-rusted scattering of Ellis Granite Company quarry tools and machine parts—peen hammers and wedges and shims and other tools—that nobody, not even Senator Simon, could identify anymore. The great Ellis Granite Company lathe was rotting in the woods nearby, bigger than a locomotive engine car, never to be moved again. The lathe sat miserably in the murk and vines as if it had been consigned there as punishment. Its 140 tons of clockwork gears were weathered together in an angry lockjaw grip. Rusted pythonic lengths of cable lurked in the grass all around.
They walked. Webster Pommeroy and Senator Simon Addams and Ruth Thomas walked up Ellis Road, next to the Ellis Rail, toward Ellis House, bearing the elephant tusk. They were not smiling, not laughing. Ellis House was not a place any of them frequented.
“I don’t know why we’re bothering,” Ruth said. “He’s not even going to be here. He’s still in New Hampshire. He won’t be here until next Saturday.”
“He came to the island early this year,” the Senator said.
“What are you talking about?”
“This year, Mr. Ellis arrived on April eighteenth.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not kidding you.”
“He’s been here? He’s been here the whole time? Since I got back from school?”
“That’s right.”
“Nobody told me.”
“Did you ask anybody? You shouldn’t be so surprised. Everything is different now at Ellis House from the way it used to be.”
“Well. I guess I should know that.”
“Yes, Ruthie. I suppose you should.”
The Senator fanned mosquitoes off his head and neck as he walked, using a fan he’d made from fern fronds.
“Is your mother coming to the island this summer, Ruth?”
“No.”
“Did you see your mother this year?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, is that right? You didn’t visit Concord this year?”
“Not really.”
“Does your mother like living in Concord?”
“Apparently. She’s been living there long enough.”
“I’ll bet her house is nice. Is it nice?”
“I’ve told you about a million times that it’s nice.”
“Do you know that I haven’t seen your mother in a decade?”