From Sea to Shining Sea (78 page)

Pacane now came to profess that he was not hostile to the Long Knife and wished for peace. “If that is true,” George said, looking straight into his sleepy-looking eyes, “you should tell it to your warriors.” He then named several of Pacane’s chieftains who had been recognized on raiding parties in Kentucky. Pacane’s eyes shifted, but he made no explanation or apology. George continued: “I am glad you came to see me. You can tell the tribes on the Wabash, who said that I dared not come into their country, that I am here. If they are men, let them come and fight men, and not be killing our women and children!” He gave Pacane a belt of red beads, saying, “I send these bloody strings that they may accept my challenge.”

Pacane nodded his handsome head politely, took the war belt, and strode straight for the open gate of the fort, his escort around him. George noted that the log gates were about to collapse. In the seven years since he had captured this stronghold from Hamilton, it had been standing here rotting. He gazed at the open gateway and remembered the day when his troops had carried him through it on their shoulders.

Then he looked at Colonel Todd and Colonel Barrett and the junior officers. They were well fed, well armed, tanned, healthy.

They’re ten times as numerous and ten times as robust as my old boys were, he thought. So why in hell should it be that they’ve got a tenth of their spirit?

“Well, gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s get back to camp and put those boys to drill. When and if those boats get here, and all our stalling is done, we’d best be well fit to fight.”

Pacane came back in a few days. He brought a red belt, but also some strings of white wampum and a peace pipe. He presented
a sarcastic letter from Little Turtle, written in the hand of some white man, likely a British agent or officer. It said the confederacy was glad to hear the Long Knife announce his presence, and added that the Indians would be pleased to talk with him before he marched. To George’s mind it was nothing more than a feeble ploy to delay the confrontation until the arrival of the Shawnees from Ohio. And so he gave it no reply.

By the time the boats from Kentucky arrived, two weeks had passed. The new provisions on the boats amounted to nothing but five days’ worth of flour. The beef had become so spoiled it had had to be thrown overboard. George’s quiet fury was like a blue flame.

“Well, gents, y’ve had your way,” he told the officers. “We’ve fiddled a half a month away, and now we’ve just got food enough to feed us a week, which should be just enough if we march quick and attack and return—as we should have done in the first case. Now we have no leeway. Either we go
right now
, or we give it up, and leave the savages free to massacre your families. And listen:

“If you fail me now, by Heaven, their blood will be on your hands, NOT MINE!” He glowered around the table at them. Most of them looked sheepish.

“May I speak, sir?” It was Levi Todd. He stood and leaned toward them with his knuckles on the table. Colonel Todd had been a back-stabber in the closing days of the war, and George had no idea what his unexpected speech was going to contain. If Levi Todd talked doubt now, the whole expedition might as well be abandoned. George tried to plumb his eyes, but they revealed nothing except anger.

“Gentlemen,” Todd began, “this expedition has been lame from the start. Our boys been knowing the Invasion Law, and their rights by it. I daresay I made sure mine did. So now, seems like what we got us here is not an army o’ soldiers, but an
army
o’ lawyers. An
army
of lawyers! And boys, you know how bad
one
is!” Several of the officers laughed. Todd’s family was full of lawyers. Todd went on: “Now, do we need reminding, that it was our own selves that begged Gen’l Clark to lead us against the Wabash Indians? Aye! It was! And why did we? Because we know he’s the best soldier in Kentucky and always was! In God’s name! No wonder he took pause about taking us on! Who in hell would want to lead twelve hundred lawyers? Well, we’ve put Gen’l Clark in such tight sleeves he just can’t hardly move an arm. Well, I’ve seen the light. As for me, by God, I’ll vow that my boys and I are going to follow the best soldier in Kentucky,
and”—he banged his fist on the table—“we’re going to do whatever he requires!”

George looked down the table at Todd and swallowed. He glanced at William, who seemed scarcely able to contain his emotions.

“Nicely spoken,” George said, his voice warm and calm. “That kind o’ sentiment overcomes everything. Now, gents, get your boys fixed to march. We’ll forget the bad feelings we’ve had, and head up the Wabash at daybreak, all of one heart, and God willing, we’ll be marching back to a safe Kentucky inside of a week!”

A
ND SO THEY HAD STARTED OUT, UP THE WEST BANK OF THE
Wabash, while the people of Vincennes waved and cheered from across the river.

They had forded to the east bank and gone in good order for two days, with scouts out ahead, and the weather had been mild; the cottonwoods and sycamores along the Wabash had begun to turn yellow; the Jefferson and Fayette troops had sung heartily in the fresh air of early October. William had ridden beside George through the sun-dappled bottomlands, swearing over and over to himself that in the battle he would not flinch or cower, but stay at George’s shoulder so that his brother could see him and be proud of him.

And now it was the morning of the third day, and they were opposite the mouth of the Vermillion River, one day’s forced march from Little Turtle’s camp, which meant they might meet the first lines of resistance within hours. They had breakfasted on mush and jerky and folded their camp and loaded the horses, and were forming for the march. William was honing his saber, a ritual he had observed every morning at breakfast. “Keep grinding that thing down,” George joked, “and ye won’t have enough steel left for a knitting needle.” William grinned, picked up a fibrous stalk of horseweed, and swished the blade through as if it were butter, saying:

“It’s sharp enough to shave with.”

“Ha, ha! Aye, if y’had anything to sh—”

He rose, suddenly looking down along the column. Someone was yelling:

“Who’s for home? Hey! Who’s for home?” And in an instant, other voices, many voices, were chorusing, “Who’s for home?”

“What’s this now?” George muttered, and he grabbed the reins of his big dappled gray from the soldier who held them, swung into the saddle, and thundered off toward the uproar.
William in a flash had his sword sheathed and was mounted and off after him. Captain Morrison, head of a troop of cavalry, galloped up and fell in alongside George. “It’s the Lincoln men,” he cried. “Th’ bloody cowards are turnin’ back!”

George and William galloped among the trees, following a wake of dust and loud voices. Off to the left, on a low bluff, stood Colonel Todd’s Fayette troop, already in ranks, watching the scene in silence.

In a moment George overtook the tail of the column. The soldiers heard him coming and cringed aside as he galloped past, his jaw set in a fury, his young brother at his heels. As he rode toward the head of the file he could hear them shouting, “What use goin’ on, nothin’ to eat?” “We’re for home, Gen’l! Ya-haw!”

At the head of the column rode an officer waving his hat in the air, a Lieutenant Robards. He turned as he heard the hoofbeats coming behind him, and a grin dissolved from his face when he saw that it was General Clark.

George halted and wheeled his horse in front of Robards, grabbing the reins from him and shouting: “Stop right there!” His voice was curdled with rage and contempt. “The enemy’s back that way, ye bedamned poltroon!”

Robards’ chin was trembling, but he retorted:

“What’s the use o’ going on, Gen’l? With nothing to eat?”

“Where’s Colonel Barrett?” George demanded. The troops were drawing up behind Robards, and fanning out to make a semicircle and watch this confrontation. “I said, where’s Barrett? Answer me, pup, or I’ll use your guts for garters!”

“I—I don’t know, sir.”

“Don’t know where your colonel is? B’god! Go find him! I want him up here in two minutes answering to me!” He flung the reins into Robards’ face and the young man rode away, flushing, eyes full of tears. George and William sat their horses in the path of the Lincoln troops. George’s eyes were flashing and his nostrils were distended, white-edged, his clenched jaw muscles working, his hands shaking. The troops were gathering around like an armed mob now to look insolently at the general and his ashen-faced young brother. William could see that George was having one of his legendary struggles with his own volcanic temper. At last George began looking into faces, and their eyes fell before his.

“You, Larkins! You’re an old soldier of mine; you’re no coward. What’s this, turnin’ your tail on Indians?”

The man dropped his eyes. “We all voted, sir.”

“Voted? Who? Where’s your colonel?”

“We don’t have to go, Gen’l!” someone yelled from far back out of sight. Now the others began yelling.

“What use goin’ on?”

“Nothin’ to eat!”

“We don’t have to go! Don’t have to! Nothin’ to eat!”

George bellowed over them:

“Nothing to eat? Hey, you all sound like you’ve memorized that song! Listen to me! There’s enough and you know it! We’ll take more at the Indian towns! And there’s hundreds o’ horses, if we get that hungry! Where are your officers, I want to know! I want to see Barrett!”

Now most of the five hundred Lincoln County militiamen were in a gawking, jabbering circle around George and William. George turned his horse around, looking for Barrett or his subalterns. He could not see a one of them, although some of the Fayette officers had ridden down. He could see Captain Moses Boone, and Captain Gaines, and Lieutenant Anthony Crockett, and Lieutenant Craig, all of Fayette County, but not one of the Lincoln officers. Robards seemed to have vanished. Now, with none of the officers to direct his fury at, George took off his hat and stood in his stirrups, and his eyes now looked wet, and his voice quavered a little as he cried out:

“Don’t shame yourselves! D’you know what mutiny is? It’s an unspeakable shame, that’s what it is!” Some of them were listening and looking ill at ease, others were laughing at him. William watched George, and his heart twisted with pity as he heard him plead: “Listen, you men! Only promise to go on with me, and if I don’t give you victory and a mountain o’ food in two days, I’ll forget and forgive this mutiny, and go back with you! Don’t make me ashamed of Kentucky men! Don’t make Kentucky ashamed of Lincoln County!” He was almost weeping now, and William was so knotted with chagrin, so frustrated for him, he was almost crying himself, and wanted to whip out his sword and slice the rude mockery off the hundreds of faces around him.

“Come on, boys, let’s go home!” someone shouted.

“We know the Invasion Law, Gen’l,” someone shouted. “We voted! Ye can’t do nothin’ to us!”

“Home, people! The general can’t starve us on th’ trail! Yih-ha!” They began drifting on around him, heading down the river bank toward Vincennes.

George, through eyes now blurred with tears of outrage, feeling all his power and honor slipping out of him, bellowed once more: “I want to see Barrett!” Meantime, the Fayette and Jefferson officers had ridden down alongside the flanks of the retreating
mob, and began cursing them as cowards and traitors. A soldier, cocking his rifle, snarled at Captain Boone: “You ain’t my officer, Mister! Don’t y’ yell at me!” The dust and babble of the retreating mob rose in the glade, the shuffling of feet, clinking of cook-pans and canteens. They milled past the officers, sullen, insolent, some shame-faced, but most affecting high cheer, and George, slumped in his saddle, watched them flow by, and William felt as if he were standing in a stream of sewage. To see his brother’s dejection made his heart ache with pity. And it was more than the personal agony; even in his youthful inexperience, William could sense that some awful historical turn was happening here, as in stories he had read somewhere, of kingdoms toppled, of lordly reputations lost.

“Billy, come on,” he heard George saying. They spurred their horses and plunged out of the mob, scattering soldiers out of their path. When they burst out, Fayette officers were coming toward them, their faces contorted. “Gaines!” George yelled. “Crockett! Where do you stand in this?”

“We’re with you, sir! Damn sure!”

“Have you seen Barrett?”

“Not since an hour. Him and Robards, both lookin’ guilty as suck-egg dawgs,” Gaines answered.

“Ye think they did have a vote, likely?”

“Surely must have, sir, they’re in such accord.”

George was blinking hard and trying to keep his mouth firm, He had never in his life felt so hurt, so betrayed. Except when Teresa deLeyba had quit the country without leaving him so much as a word. Suddenly he reached over and grabbed Gaines’s arm in a powerful, desperate grip, nearly pulling him off his horse. “On your word of honor,” he demanded. “Did
your
regiment vote?”

The sudden hurt and hauteur in Gaines’s face vouched for his words: “God and my honor, sir, we didn’t!”

“Good. Thank you.” George released him. “Go tell Colonel Todd to call assembly. I’ll be there in five minutes. No, ten.” Then he started riding away, down toward the riverbank, toward a shady copse of sycamores and willows, putting the sight and sound of the stragglers behind him. William followed. George turned and said, “I don’t need you just now, Brother. No offense. I just need to think.”

“Aye.” William reined in and watched him ride into the shade. He sat his horse, gave it rein to graze, and tried to quell the dreadful, confused remorse and anger he felt. He listened to the horse’s teeth ripping grass, heard locust calls spinning
through the sunlight, heard the
cheer, we! cheer, we!
of a bluebird and saw the flash of its indigo wings dart through a sunbeam. Somewhere nearby a warbler was saying
whit chew whit chew whit chew whit
! While down the shore, fainter and fainter, men’s voices were laughing and shouting. And up on the rise, a bugle sounded Assembly.

William waited, and suddenly began to have a strange dread about George. Once William had known a young man in Caroline County, a jilted swain who had gone out of sight and killed himself. He, too, had told his friends he needed to think. William jerked his horse’s head up and rode toward the sycamores, his heart in his throat.