Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase (43 page)

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Authors: David Nevin

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical

BOOK: Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase
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“Mr. Secretary, I—”
“I am not seeking your response, your excuses, sir. I am telling you what to report to your superiors. Good day, sir.”
Yrujo stood, biting his lip, and for a moment Madison thought he would cry. Then he bowed. “Good day, sir.”
So, Madison thought, I’ve made another enemy. So be it. Spain has acted the poltroon and we shan’t forget it.
Johnny Graham had just returned from an errand to the Hill. He was feeling good, which he did most of the time. He’d collided with Simon Pink in the chairman’s office, and the little clerk had been so outrageous Johnny had burst out laughing.
“Simon,” he’d said, “go blow your nose. You’re snotty beyond belief today.”
That
got the little devil’s attention. Johnny was still
chuckling as he led the department horse to the watering trough and snapped on the grazing line. He’d just turned the critter loose when he saw the most vividly caparisoned fellow you’d ever want to meet come striding across the lawn looking as if he was pretty sure he was in command of the whole damned world. Grinning, Johnny admired his uniform, festooned with bars and stars and rosettes, effusion of lace and ruffles at the throat, high dragoon boots, lacking only a saber, and at least as bright as what the doorman at Stelle’s Hotel wore.
At the street he saw Mr. Pichon arguing with a new guard who didn’t recognize him and was demanding he move his carriage. He was about to go to the chargé’s assistance when, apparently having convinced the guard, Mr. Pichon came hurrying toward them. But just then the fellow in the uniform, pointing at Johnny with a small, polished stick, barked in heavily accented English, “You, there, direct me to the secretary’s office!”
Well, that tone was enough to get Johnny’s hackles about straight up, and he said in his most deliberate western accent, “Well, now, he don’t see just any old Tom, Dick, or Harry comes walking in off the street.”
Still, as Mr. Pichon cried breathlessly that he had sent Mr. Madison a note, Johnny got a better look at the stranger and almost regretted his own tone. This was a man of consequence. He was of medium size with rigid military bearing, a carefully barbered beard, and strikingly pale blue eyes that gave him a bleached look despite his deep tan. Perhaps the self-importance of the uniform and the coldness of the eyes combined in some evil way, but Johnny felt a momentary shiver that quite surprised him. Was he intimidated? No, sir, he was not! A surge of anger tightened his face as he led them inside. Still, that shiver, that flash of concern, stayed with him. There was a force in this French officer … .
He stepped into Mr. Madison’s office. “Sir, there’s a fancy fellow out here to see you—you don’t mind, I’ll stay in the room. This one, you might want me to throw him out on his
ear.” The truth was he didn’t want the little secretary left at the mercy of this somehow threatening figure.
But before Mr. Madison could answer, the door opened and the soldier pushed past Mr. Pichon, clicked his heels, and cried in a parade ground voice, “Major General Felix Montane of the French Expeditionary Force to Santo Domingo!”
Johnny, closing the door, had a sudden insight that if you met this man in combat you’d need to be handy to finish alive. He glanced at Mr. Madison: How would he, the least warlike of men, react? The secretary was small, kindly, courteous, and quiet, above all a man of books and ideas, the sort who just needed protection, to put it plain.
Mr. Madison bowed perfunctorily. Without inviting them to sit, he said to Pichon, “My, Louis, you could have loaned him a suit of clothes.” General Montane’s eyes widened, his mouth sprang open, but before he could speak Mr. Madison said, “General, things may be different in France, but in the American democracy, uniforms are totally inappropriate at diplomatic conversations. Mr. Pichon probably told you as much—”
Johnny saw Pichon’s involuntary nod, at which the general turned on him with such force that poor Louis stumbled backward.
Immediately Mr. Madison went on, “Well, well, very poor taste I must say, but let’s get on with it. I’m quite busy; it would be next week before I could spare time for you again. Sit down, General, and tell me what I can do for you.”
Well, goodness gracious, that pretty well said whether Mr. Madison was readily intimidated.
Johnny watched the French officer seat himself stiffly, plucking his breeches into proper folds before saying in accented but accurate English, “I, sir, am second in command to General Leclerc himself. You know of General Leclerc?”
“Of course. The first consul’s favorite.”
Montane flushed. “A standing he earned, sir, through the exigencies of war!”
“And of marriage. But what do you seek, General?”
“What I seek, sir, is your guarantee that you will require the United States to support France in Santo Domingo as an ally and a friend should. We have urgent need of supplies. Mr. Pichon has the list”—again that curious glowering glance at Pichon—“flour, salt meat, powder and lead, cloth, medicines—”
“American merchants can supply all that quite readily.” Mr. Madison glanced at Pichon and added, “Why don’t you send him to Philadelphia or Baltimore—better selection there.” He started to stand as if to terminate the talk.
“One moment, sir,” Montane snapped. “Your merchants demand gold.”
“Of course,” Mr. Madison said, looking surprised. “Since French credit is rarely honored.”
The general snorted. “That is your problem, not mine. You owe us support. Order your merchants to comply or pay them yourself. Who cares how it’s done?” He threw up a hand, radiating anger. “Finances are no concern of mine. No man who risks his life daily on the battlefield stoops to counting coin. It is a matter of military honor, sir.”
“Analogous, I suppose,” Mr. Madison said, “to the honor with which you dealt with Toussaint?”
The general leaped up at that. Johnny stood, fists doubled, but the Frenchman said, “I will not lower myself to answer that, nor will I waste more time. I am simply telling you that we expect you to discipline your merchants.”
“Well, General,” Mr. Madison said, “we don’t do things that way. So sit down and calm yourself.”
After a moment, Montane did so, arranging his breeches once again. “In France, merchants toe a very careful line. They pay attention to government—indeed, they leap to obey.”
“Yes, but you see, we are a democracy.”
The general shrugged. “Getting around that should be no problem. It’s a weak and foolish form, one that wise men already are abandoning.”
“Really, General?” Johnny was proud of Mr. Madison, who managed to sound politely bored.
Montane flushed. “Yes, really! It is a spent force, sir, a failure, a refuge of weaklings and fools. The world knows what a disaster it made in France and now the same is happening here.”
There was a long silence. Johnny saw Mr. Madison glance at Pichon and raise his eyebrows. Pichon flushed.
Then, voice newly cold, the secretary said, “Let me tell you, General, that when the time comes you will find us not nearly so spent as you imagine.”
“In that case, sir, you should have no trouble in meeting our needs. Supplies
must
flow to our forces. If you can’t order compliance, then pay from your own coffers. You will be repaid, in gold at some point in the future, in good will immediately. And that should be more important to you than gold.”
Another long pause, a crackle of tension, all four men on their feet. Mr. Madison stark and cold. “Please explain yourself, General. Why should the good will of France matter more than that of any nation?”
“Because from the island we go on to Louisiana.”
The words hung in the still room. “Sir,” Mr. Madison said, “do you threaten me?”
Montane smiled, as if he felt the force of his position was only now being recognized. “No, no—just a statement of facts. We will come to Louisiana, come up the river, take control as Spain with its army of gutter sweepings could never manage. Of course we will encounter your citizens, and our manner of dealing with them will depend on whether you prove yourself friend or enemy. It really is up to you. But I should warn you, in General Leclerc’s name, if you choose to be our enemy we will take your so-called American West and make it our own. Change those foolish names, Kentucky and Tennessee and the like, to proper French names—”
Mr. Madison raised a hand to stop him. “I have a message for your General Leclerc. Please deliver it exactly as I give it to you. It is, sir, that the United States will never
permit a hostile nation to stand astride the Mississippi River.”
General Montane stared. At last he said in a strangled voice, “You have a great deal of nerve, Mr. Secretary.”
“Not really. I merely speak the facts. See that you convey them. And now, good day, General.”
Johnny opened the door and stood aside to let the visitors pass. He started to speak but the desolation on Mr. Madison’s face stopped him. As if he were alone, the secretary murmured, “ … getting very dangerous …” He turned to stare from the window. Johnny went out and closed the door.
WASHINGTON, SUMMER 1802
The air was getting bad in Washington. Samuel Clark could tell it early—black folks, free or slave, knew what white folks were thinking. They paid attention. Every hint, every glance, every little shift in tone told a story of growing tension. No one talked about it much, but everyone knew it. Black taverns were full of whispers; Millie heard it every day from women in the market; Samuel heard just the same from other coachmen, free and bound. The white folks were nervous, uneasy, suspicious, and that meant danger for black folks.
Wasn’t much doubt as to the source. Black men, slaves till not long ago, were holding off the French in Santo Domingo, those glittering machetes catching the sun as they took off the heads of French boys far from home. It unsettled white folks here. They’d been so relieved when the word spread that the French had sent an army to deal with those
uppity niggers on their foul little island, and all they wanted to hear was success.
The French would soon enough kill that nasty little spark of freedom, that madness that said black men could stand against white men and win. Damned dangerous business, way it gave local niggers new ideas. The papers were full of it and some of the black devils could read, more’s the pity; and they spread the word that the French weren’t finding it as easy as expected. The slaves down there were putting up a fight. Of course the French would win, but it was taking too long and they weren’t prepared. That’s how come they didn’t have much in the way of supplies. Figured they wouldn’t need that much, the blacks would fold up and hold out their hands for the manacles and get back to work in the fields, but that wasn’t happening. No one doubted the French would win, but what outraged ’em was the idea that the blacks were putting up a fight at all. They were making the French come out into the rain forest and take them one by one, and they weren’t being taken easily.
Everywhere Samuel went on the box of Miss Danny’s coach he saw white men eyeing him spaculatively. Slavers took to carrying second and third pistols and a surprising number of them had a fellow with a double-barrel nearby—well, slavers didn’t pay extra for guards without a good reason.
The news came in the slightest whisper. “You heard about Tom Jenkins?” Samuel had the carriage in a line outside the president’s house, where Miss Danny was attending a tea. It was already hot and he rigged a canvas over the horse’s heads to protect them and sat in the shade under the boot of the coach ahead. That driver joined him there.
“What about Tom?” he asked from the corner of his mouth. He had formed a light friendship with Jenkins in just such lines as this, not too close; it didn’t pay to get close to anyone in this town. Anyway, free man talking to a slave man, you had to look out what you said. The other driver—also a free black, though Samuel couldn’t remember his name—was slight with owlish eyes and an eager manner. He
wanted something and that made Samuel uncomfortable, and usually he avoided him. But now he listened to the low whisper. The fellow’s lips scarcely moved.
“Massa flogged him. Say they caught him reading a paper, tells about slaves carving up those French bastards. Damn! Tom ought to know better than that! Now they say he can’t hardly walk and Massa talking of selling him.”
Samuel turned a harsh stare on the other. Without a word he stood to adjust the canvas over the horse’s head, and when he had it set, he took the shade at the rear of his own coach. Didn’t need to sit around with talk like that! But he was sick at heart. He liked Tom, who was honest and decent and had an easy laugh, and the image of him screaming and finally fainting as the lash fell like a hammer pounding nails, well, that hurt plenty. Yes, it did.
This town ain’t good for us, he thought. He must get Millie thinking on it, start bringing her around. She didn’t want to hear, but it was staring them in the face. Somehow she still saw Miss Danny as the child of long ago; but fact was, Miss Danny was a growed woman looking out for herself and it was time he and Millie looked out for themselves. He had a hidden bag of gold that he’d strained for over the years and it was building up pretty good. Enough to see them all the way to Maine. Of course that scared Millie, but with money you can make your way in this country. He’d have enough to see them a year or even two without work. It would be fatal to go with less because he had no idea how blacks would be received in this northern tier of Massachusetts. It wasn’t slave country, but that didn’t mean white folks would welcome blacks. You take what happened to Tom Jenkins and the fear that the slave revolt seemed to inspire in the white folks and Miss Danny likely as not to marry Mr. Henri. My goodness, it was time to look out for themselves!
He waited till that night to tell Millie about Tom, after she’d served Miss Danny a lonely dinner and then had taken a pot of hot chocolate to the bedroom. She came back with tears in her eyes. “She up there with a candle reading another book on seafaring and shipping and I don’t know
what-all when what she needs is a man in that big, lonely bed.”
Proving Samuel’s point exactly! They had to move on. He didn’t quite say it—told her about Tom Jenkins instead and she began to cry. Said she knew Samantha Jenkins from market days—she was cook when Tom was coachman—and she’d never heard Samantha say nothing good about their master.
Well, Millie understood too. She saw the new guards around the marketplace, the suspicious looks, the way whites were ordering blacks about. “Here, you black bitch, why you talking to that wench? You move right along now, give you a rap up side of the head you don’t watch out.” Millie had been asking after Mary Kelly’s sick baby, but she let it go. White folks were scared; that’s all there was to it.
Still, he went out after he’d eaten, ignoring Millie’s protests. Taking Miss Danny down to her office after the tea he’d spied the merchant brig
Sallie Mae
at a new dock and learned it had landed the day before. Now he must see if Tinker had had any word of Joshua. He slowed till he was walking in a lazy shuffle as he approached the alley leading down to Miss Molly’s, but all seemed quiet. The alley itself looked all right, but he hugged the wall going down to where the candle flickered in the red lantern over Miss Molly’s door.
He slipped in the door smooth and easy; and when his eyes adjusted to the light and the smoke, he saw Tinker across the room standing before some poor bastard on his knees with blood running out his nose. Looked like Tinker was going to kick his chest in, but then he didn’t. Someone who patronized Tinker’s woman when he was at sea, Samuel supposed. He swallowed and walked steadily to the big man’s table. The woman gave him a hard look, but he ignored her and asked Tinker if the voyage had been good.
“Better than good!” Tinker said, and slapped the table so hard the glasses jumped. Samuel saw he was drunk but with that edge of physical alertness that can make drunks dangerous. “And you know why? Because black brothers down on that island, they ain’t laying down. They’re fighting! Hard,
too, my friend. They killing Frenchmen right and left.” His voice was loud and Samuel felt a shiver of apprehension. The room had quieted; he realized others were listening to the sailor in from the sea, freshly come from the place of slave revolution.
Tinker’s eyes glittered and he tossed back his tumbler of rum and the woman leaned forward to refill it. Her gown sagged and Samuel could see her big, brown nipples. He looked away.
“Any man says black folk can’t fight, he should go to Santo Domingo and get his eyes opened.” Tinker gave a big laugh. “He’d find you put a machete in a black man’s hand, he sure as hell knows what to do with it. French troops go out every morning and every evening they come in with bodies and every morning the bugle plays and they put some more of ’em in the ground. God Almighty—it’s something to see!”
He peered owlishly at Samuel. “That feller could pass for your brother, he gave me something for you. You ought to see him now. Got him a sword he took off some French lieutenant, two pistols, he’s some kind of general or other, got a couple of hundred men answering to him. Says he’s running the French ragged.”
Joshua a general! Samuel didn’t doubt it. There was a power in his brother that Samuel lacked and just as glad he did, the same power that had driven Joshua to Santo Domingo in the first place. He remembered Junie’s terror when he and Millie had seen her on their last voyage south. Wept the whole time they were there, which was just an hour, all Miss Danny’s brother would allow. Junie was convinced she would never see Joshua again, and you could see the love for him pouring right out of her eyes. Like to broke Samuel’s heart, and Millie’s tears were like her sister’s. Junie was scared for herself and the children too, but he could see that the real fear was that her man wouldn’t come back. He’d die in some way and some place of which she would never know nothing, and she’d have naught but silence.
“You brought me a letter then?” he asked Tinker.
“Naw. Better’n that. A present. He said to give it to you. Said to tell you if he didn’t get out, to remember he was fighting and this would prove it.” He sighed, gazing at Samuel. “Damn!” he said, “I wish you’d come in last night; you’d have had it. But see, I put it up in a dice game against a huge wad. It felt like a sure shot, felt like I couldn’t miss, but the dice did me wrong.”
“So you lost it.”
“That’s right Sorry.” He gave Samuel a look that asked if he wanted to make something of it.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Samuel said. “But what was it?”
“An ear.”
“Ear?”
“White ear. Taken off a Frenchman. Now, generally, to get a man’s ear you pretty well got to kill him first.”
Samuel was dismayed. An ear, a human ear? That didn’t sound like Joshua. But Tinker read his expression and said, “I see you don’t really understand what’s going on. Way I hear it, back up in the deep woods they’re knocking down Frenchmen, cutting off their balls to feed to the hogs and their whacker to stick in their mouths like a seegar, give the French boys something to think about when they find their friends treated so. What I mean, this ain’t no place for the fainthearted.”
Well, maybe Joshua did have that capacity. Maybe that was part of the power that sent him out to fight, not for himself, but for what mattered.
“Do you mean we’re winning?” he asked, in an awed whisper, scarcely aware he had placed himself with the rebels.
“Naw,” Tinker said. “Blacks, they’ll lose in the end. French got all the power, guns, cannon. They’ll win, but point is they ain’t finding it easy—”
The door opened with a bang. A half-dozen constables, big, burly white men carrying heavy cudgels, the leader with a whip coiled in his hand. Silence swept the room. The white men didn’t speak, just stood there, and presently there was a rustling all over the room as patrons stood and slid away
from the tables toward a back door. The white men began a slow march around the room, still not a word spoken, and Samuel got up and joined the movement; and when he reached the door and stepped into another alley still no word had been spoken.
Millie was asleep when he came in and he didn’t wake her. An ear, a white ear. Samuel was repelled and yet excited. His little brother a general, two hundred men following him, taking orders, standing toe to toe with white men. Little brother, grown up, become a man—yet that ear betokened a taste for violence unsuspected in his brother till now, that he knew far surpassed anything in his own nature. Were he in Santo Domingo he would be fighting too, but that ear told him his little brother had grown far beyond him. And suddenly it came to him that he would not see Joshua again. His brother would die in that rain forest. His certainty was stunning; tears filled his eyes as he lay in bed aware of his wife’s gentle snores.
The next day the talk was all over the black community. Tinker had been found in an alley about six blocks from Miss Molly’s. He’d been beaten to death.
This ain’t a town for us, Samuel told himself. This ain’t for us. We got to get out, got to go north. And he had enough gold saved to do it, too … .
Madison was early. He sat alone in the cabinet room, well down the table, fingers drumming on the arm of a chair covered in red leather with brass studs. The president and the others were coming; now he relished the time to think. The steward, a tall black man with an engaging smile, came in with tea on a tray and a platter of crullers, then left him alone.
The French officer the day before had infuriated him. “Bastard!” he muttered in the silent room. But immediately he was abashed. He hadn’t revealed anger then and knew he couldn’t afford it now. Self-indulgence is dangerous.
He poured tea and bit into a cruller, mulling as he chewed. It was ever more clear that Santo Domingo was central. Yet there was that crazy strain too, outer edge of control. Crazy …
Of course French credit was worthless. They were broke, exhausted from conquering their neighbors. For thirteen years since their own revolution they’d been in near constant turmoil or war. Tax collection had almost collapsed. The court glittered still, but the army was being paid with loot from occupied countries. Indeed, with so many men under arms, who was left at home to pay taxes? So why this rash move on Louisiana at huge new expense, why send his favorite general? For grain flowing from the Mississippi Valley, yes, but beyond that a bigger picture was emerging, clever but fatally unreal, conceived in ignorant dreams.

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