Centennial Read online

  “So you think I should stay here and work on my Oregon project?”

  “I haven’t said what I think, Vernor. But I know for a fact ...” Here he rose and moved restlessly about his office, thrusting his arms out in bursts of energy. “I know that a lot of these foundations would just love to place a project in Georgia. Get them off the hook of appearing too provincial.”

  “Then I’ll tell the editors—”

  “You won’t tell them anything. Go. Listen. See what they have to sell. And if by chance it should fit into your grand design ... How much do we pay you a quarter?”

  “Four thousand dollars.”

  “Let’s do it this way. If what they have to offer is completely wide of the mark—bears no relation to American settlement—turn ’em down. Stay here the fall and winter quarters, then go out to Oregon in the spring.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But if it does fit in with your intellectual plans, say, something on the Dakotas. And”—he accented the word heavily—“if they’ll pay you four thousand or more, I’ll grant you fall quarter without pay, and you can take your sabbatical with pay spring quarter and head for Oregon.”

  “That’s generous,” I said.

  “I’m thinking only of myself. Point is, it wouldn’t hurt with the foundations if I could say that our man Vernor had done that big writing job for US. Gives you a touch of professionalism. That and your two books. And believe me, it’s that professionalism that makes you eligible for the big grants.” He stalked about the room, hungrily, then turned and said, “So you go ahead. Listen. And if it sounds good, call me from New York.”

  At eight-thirty next morning I was walking down Avenue of the Americas, among those towering buildings of glass, marveling at how New York had changed since I knew it in 1957 when Alfred Knopf was publishing my first book on Virginia. I felt as if I had been away from America for a generation.

  US had offices north of the new CBS building; its glass tower was the most impressive on the avenue. I rode up to the forty-seventh floor and entered a walnut-paneled waiting room. “I’m early,” I told the girl.

  “So am I,” she said. “Coffee?” She was as bright as the magazine for which she worked, and she put me at my ease. “If Ringold-san told you nine, nine it will be.”

  At one minute after nine she ushered me into his office, where she introduced me to four attractive young editors. James Ringold was under forty and wore his hair combed straight forward, like Julius Caesar. Harry Leeds, his executive assistant, was something past thirty and wore an expensive double-knit in clashing colors. Bill Wright was obviously just a beginner. And Carol Endermann ... well, I couldn’t begin to guess how old she was. She could have been one of my good-looking, leggy graduate students from a tobacco farm in the Carolinas, or just as easily, a self-directed thirty-three-year-old assistant professor at the University of Georgia. I felt I was in the hands of four dedicated people who knew what they were doing, and was sure I would enjoy watching them operate.

  “Let me get one thing straight, Vernor,” Ringold said. “You published Virginia Genesis in 1957 with Knopf. How did it sell?”

  “Miserably.”

  “But they brought it out in paperback two years ago.”

  “Yes. It’s widely used in universities.”

  “Good. I hope you got back your investment on it.”

  “With paperbacks, yes.”

  “That book I know. Very favorably. Now tell me about your next one.”

  “Great Lakes Ordeal. Mostly iron and steel development. A lot on immigration, of course.”

  “Knopf do it, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Miserably?”

  “Yes, but it’s paying its way ... in paperback.”

  “Delighted to hear it,” Ringold said. “Harry, tell him how we got onto his name.”

  “With pleasure,” young Leeds said. “Sometime ago we needed expertise of the highest caliber. On a project of some moment. We sent out calls to about thirty certified intellectuals for recommendations—and guess what?” He pointed at me. ‘Abou Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!”

  “In the profession,” Bill Wright said, “you have one bell of a reputation.”

  “Hence the phone call,” Leeds said.

  “Your books may not sell, Vernor,” Wright continued, “but the brains of this nation know a good man when they read his research.”

  Ringold was slightly irritated by young Wright’s interruption and now resumed charge. “What we have in mind, Professor Vernor, is for you to make a research report for us in great depth, but also at great speed. If you devote your entire time from the end of May till Christmas, we feel sure that with your background you can do it. But our schedule is so tight, if you submit it one day late, it won’t be worth a damn to us—not one damn.”

  “Does that kind of schedule frighten you?” Leeds asked.

  “I work on the quarter system,” I said. Either they understood what this meant in way of planning and precise execution, or they didn’t. They did.

  “Good,” Ringold said. He rose, walked about his desk and said, standing, “So now we’re down to the nitty-gritty. Carol?”

  “What we have in mind, Professor Vernor”—and I noticed that she used the exact phraseology of her boss—“is to publish in late 1974 a double issue of US devoted entirely to an in-depth analysis of one American community. We want you to go to that community, study it from the inside, give us intimate research on whatever aspects of it interest you deeply.”

  “The ones that awaken a gut response,” young Wright volunteered. ,

  “We’re already prepared to do a quick once-over job,” Miss Endermann said, “but what we’re after is much deeper ... nothing less than the soul of America ... as seen in microcosm.”

  I gripped the arms of my chair and breathed slowly. This seemed the kind of commission a man like me dreams of. It was what I had tried to do in Virginia after graduating from the university at Charlottesville and what I had followed up with at the Great Lakes when teaching at the University of Minnesota. I at least knew what the problem was.

  “Have you identified the community?” I asked. Much would depend upon whether I had competence in the selected area.

  “We have,” Ringold said. “Tell him, Harry.”

  “Because the arteries of America have always been so crucial,” Leeds said, “we determined from the start to focus on a river ... the ebb and flow of traffic ... the journeymen up and down ... the influence of time sweeping past ...” As he spoke he closed his eyes, and it was apparent that he had chosen the river, and no doubt the specific settlement on it. He opened his eyes and said, “So, Professor Vernor, I’m afraid we’ve stuck you with a river.”

  “I worked with rivers in Virginia,” I said.

  “I know. That’s what attracted me to you.”

  I was eager to land this job, because it was the kind of work I ought to do before going to Oregon, but I did not want to appear too eager. I sat staring at the floor, trying to collect my thoughts. De Voto had already done a masterful job on the Missouri River, but he had left some topics undeveloped. I might be able to write a strong report on St. Joseph, or one of the Mandan villages, or even something farther west, say Great Falls. “I’d not want to compete with De Voto,” I said tentatively, “but there’s a chance I could do something original on the Missouri.”

  “It wasn’t the Missouri we had in mind,” Leeds said.

  Well, I thought, that’s that. Of course, there was still the Arkansas. I could select some settlement like La Junta ... include Bent’s Fort and the massacre at Sand Island. But I insisted upon being honest with these editors, so I told them, “If your river is the Arkansas, you’d do better choosing someone more fluent in Spanish. To deal with the Mexican land grants, and subjects like that.”

  “We weren’t interested in the Arkansas,” Leeds said.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “The Platte.”

&nb
sp; “The Platte!” I gasped.

  “None other,” Leeds said.

  “That’s the sorriest river in America. You’ve heard all the jokes about the Platte. ‘Too thick to drink, too thin to plow.’ That’s a nothing river.”

  “That’s why we chose it,” Leeds said.

  Miss Endermann broke in. “We specifically wanted to avoid notorious places like St. Joseph, one of my favorite cities on earth, because it would be too easy to do. A great deal of American history was drab, just as you said now—a nothing river, ‘a mile wide and an inch deep.’ ”

  “We reasoned, and properly so I’m convinced,” Ringold said, “that if we can make the Platte comprehensible to Americans, we can inspire them with the meaning of this continent. And goddamnit, that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll leave the drums and bugles and flying eagles to others. We are going to dive into the heart of that lousy river ...” He stopped in embarrassment. Obviously, the editors of US had made a major commitment to the Platte, and I respected their enthusiasm.

  “I understand your approach,” I said. “Now you have to understand that I can’t be expected to be a world authority on the Platte. I know about its settlement, its Indians, its irrigation—the general things. But I must not pose as an expert.”

  “We know that,” Miss Endermann said eagerly. “We want you for what you have been, not for what you are. You can immerse yourself in this subject within a week.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “I’ve already reconnoitered the North Platte twice in connection with the Oregon Trail. I know most of the sites along the North Platte, know them well.”

  Harry Leeds broke in: “What we had in mind was the South Platte.”

  “Good God!” I couldn’t help myself. The South Platte was the most miserable river in the west, a trickle in summer when its water was needed, a raging torrent in spring. It was muddy, often more island than river, and prior to the introduction of irrigation, it had never served a single useful purpose in its halting career. I couldn’t think of even one town situated on the South Platte. Yes, there was Julesburg—most evil town along the railroad—burnt by Indians in 1866 or thereabouts.

  Then I remembered. “There is Denver,” I said lamely, “but if you didn’t want a major river, I’m sure you don’t want a major city. It isn’t Denver, is it?”

  Miss Endermann answered my rhetorical question: “Have you ever heard of Centennial, Colorado?”

  For some moments I racked my brain, and from somewhere a tag-end piece of information such as scholars earmark for possible future use surfaced. “Centennial. Am I wrong in thinking that it had another name? Didn’t they change it in 1876 ... to honor Colorado’s entrance into the Union? What was the old name? Rather well known in early chronicles, seems to me. Was it Zendt’s Farm?”

  “It was,” Miss Endermann said.

  “You know, I can’t recall a single fact about Zendt’s Farm. Gentlemen, I am not well versed in your chosen subject. Sorry.”

  I assumed that this was the end of the interview, but I assumed wrong. “It’s for that reason we want you,” Ringold said. “Listening to your non-faked reactions to a town you never heard of and a river you despise convinces me that you’re precisely the man we want. The job’s yours if you want it, and we’re damned lucky to find you.”

  With that he ushered us from his office, instructing Harry Leeds to go over details with me and bring the crowd to Toots Shor’s for lunch at twelve sharp. “We’ll discuss money then,” he said, “but so far as I’m concerned, you’re hired, unless your fee is unspeakable.”

  Four of us went to Harry Leeds’ office, where gigantic photographic blowups of George Catlin’s paintings of Indians adorned the walls. “My tipi,” he said.

  We discussed how I would work. I would drive to Centennial as soon as my classes ended, establish contacts with the Denver Public Library, which was some fifty miles away, introduce myself to the faculties at Greeley, Fort Collins and Boulder, and prepare research reports on what had actually happened at Centennial during its history, which had started only in 1844 with the arrival of Zendt and one of the mountain men.

  “I might want to go further back,” I suggested

  “The Spanish never settled that far north,” Wright said, “and the French never settled that far south. Lewis and Clark ignored the Platte altogether. We can start safely with Zendt in 1844.”

  I was not to bother about literary style. I was writing neither a doctoral thesis nor a novel. I was simply submitting arbitrarily selected insights as to the character and background of Centennial and its settlers, and I could depend upon the home office to polish whatever segments they might want to publish.

  “And regardless of what fee you and Ringold agree upon,” Wright assured me, “we want you to purchase whatever maps, agricultural studies, reports you need—you name it.”

  “We would want you to send them back at the end of the study,” Leeds said.

  “How much do you expect me to write?” I asked, still not clear as to the creative relationships.

  “By Christmas, a fairly complete reaction to the site.”

  “Usually I spend that much time on a chapter,” I said. “There’s a hell of a lot of first-class work been done on the west by some very good men, and I’m not going to presume ...”

  “Vernor,” young Wright explained patiently, “we are not hiring you to do a research study on the sugar-beet industry of the South Platte. We are hiring you as a sensitive, intelligent man, and all we want from you are some letters which share with us your understanding of what transpired at Centennial, Colorado, between the years 1844 and 1974. Just write us some letters, as if we were your friends ... your interested friends.”

  The other two agreed that that was exactly what they wanted, and we went off to lunch fairly satisfied that the project would work, but at Toots Shor’s, a restaurant I had not visited before, I was to receive a series of shocks which altered the whole project.

  As we entered the restaurant the proprietor, a large man, ambled over to Harry Leeds and shouted, “Hello, you miserable son-of-a-bitch, haven’t they fired you yet?”

  Leeds took this in stride, and Shor turned to me, grabbing me by the collar. “Don’t let this crumbum talk you into doing his dirty work. He’s known as the literary pimp of Sixth Avenue.” With that he showed us to our table, where James Ringold was waiting.

  “He’s dead drunk, already,” Shor warned me. “How this stumblebum keeps that magazine goin’, I’ll never know.” With that he departed, and Ringold asked Leeds, “All settled?”

  “All settled,” Leeds said. “We couldn’t be happier, right?” He addressed this question to Wright and Endermann, and they nodded.

  Then it’s simply a matter of money. Use your car and we’ll pay twelve cents a mile. We’ll pay your hotel bills, but we do not expect you to take a suite at the Brown Palace. Don’t be alarmed if board and keep run a hundred and seventy dollars a week. You can travel as required but you cannot rent airplanes, road graders or dog sleds. Under no circumstances are you ever to be out a penny of your own money, except for whorehouses. We do, however, expect itemized expense sheets, and we pay out money only when they are verified.” I was accustomed to asking Dean Rivers if I might have, thirty dollars for a new atlas. This hit me so fast that I simply could not digest the details, but I noticed that young Wright was taking note of everything. “He’ll send you a copy,” Ringold assured me.

  “Now as to fee,” he said, “you’re a top professor in Georgia. You’re worth a lot of money, and I’m sure they don’t pay you according to your worth. I’m not going to haggle. We’re asking two quarters of your time, half a year’s salary. We’ll give you eighteen thousand dollars.”

  I could have fainted. After I had sipped a little consommé I said something which led to my next shock. I said, “Mr. Ringold, that’s generous pay and you know it. But if you’re gambling so much on this special issue, what if I get sick? Can’t provide the manuscript?
”

  He looked at me in amazement. “Haven’t you told him?” he asked Leeds.

  “Never occurred to me,” Leeds said, and the other two shrugged their shoulders as if it had slipped their minds too.

  “Vernor,” Ringold said expansively, “we have the article already written—every word of it. Illustrations and maps are well started. We could go to press next week. All we want from you is assurance that we’re on the right track.”

  This information staggered me. I was being hired to write not a polished article which would appear under my name, but merely a house report to back up something already completed, a report which might never be published and might not even be used. When the article appeared, a sleazy job at best, there would be this byline: “Prepared with the assistance of Professor Lewis Vernor, Department of History, Georgia Baptist.” I was being bought, for a good price ... but I was being bought.