Michener, James A. (55 page)

'Walked.'

'All the way back from Natchez?'

'Yep, and my partner, he's still walkin'. On his way to Pittsburgh.'

'Is it difficult?'

The Kaintuck launched into a vivid description of the Natchez Trace: 'Murderers, cutthroats every foot of the way, robbers, horse thieves.' He stopped abruptly and broke into a raucous laugh. 'I'm talkin' about thirty years ago. Today? Much better.'

'How many days to Natchez?'

The Kaintuck ignored this question: 'If you knowed your history, which you bein' a Scotchman you probably don't . . .'

'How do you know I'm a Scot?'

'Because I heerd you. And if'n you knowed American history, you'd know that the great Meriwether Lewis, him as went to Oregon, he was murdered comin' home on the Trace.'

'Do travelers still use it?'

'They do.'

'Is the road still open?'

it ain't a road. I been tryin' to tell you that, but you won't listen. It's what its name says, a clear-cut trace through the wilderness.'

'But it's still open?'

'If'n it could ever be called open. Four hundred and eighty miles through swamp and forest. Never a store, never a town, a few shacks run by half-breed Indians who cut your throat when you're sleepin'.'

'Could I walk it? With a seven-year-old boy?'

'My mother walked it with two babies,' the Kaintuck said, 'down and up. But maybe you ain't the man she was.'

Other travelers who had journeyed up the Trace gave such confirming reports that Macnab had pretty well decided to follow that land route, when a chance conversation with a loquacious Pittsburgh boatman just back from Natchez raised an ugly question that cast a shadow upon the entire Texas adventure.

The conversation started favorably: 'It's grand, driftin' down the rivers, walkin' home along the Trace.'

'How many miles can you make a day?' Finlay asked during a leisurely meal at the tavern.

'Driftin' downstream, sixty miles in twenty-four hours, not allowin' time lost when hung up on sandbars, which is a lot. Walkin' back, sixteen miles a day, week after week.' Then he added something which Finlay found attractive: 'Some men can make twenty, steady, but I often like to lie under the trees . . . in daylight, so I can watch the birds and the squirrels.'

'They told me murderers prowl the Trace.'

That ended twenty years ago. But let's be honest. I do hide my money carefully—four different spots so I can give up a small part if I meet up with a holdup man.' With a deft move of his right hand he produced an imaginary purse from his left breast. 'And I do feel safer if 1 travel with others through the lonely parts.'

'I wish I could have you as my partner,' Finlay said.

'I won't be walkin' the Trace no more. But if you're set on headin' for Texas, that's the cheap way to go, and you bein' a Scotchman . . .'

'We call it Scotsman.'

'Of course, when you get there, you'll be givin' up a lot more than your money.'

'What do you mean?'

The boatman looked soberly at Macnab and said: 'You're a Presbyterian? I suppose you know that before you can get land in Texas you have to swear to the Mexican officials that you're a true Catholic'

'What?'

'And your son will have to be baptized in the Catholic faith.'

'I never heard . ..'

'My brothers and me, we was thinkin' of Texas, but we're Methodists, and when we heard about that religion business ... no, no.'

'You give me dismal news,' said Macnab. 'I'm not sure I should risk going to Texas.'

Things were in this delicate condition when a suave and stately gentleman alighted from the Pittsburgh boat, announcing that he was Cabot Wellington from Boston, looking for a Texas traveler named Finlay Macnab. He was what was known in the trade as 'the finisher,' the relentless man who came in only after the advance men had softened up the prospect.

As soon as he saw Macnab he cried enthusiastically: 'Dear friend! I bring you your passport to riches,' and he betrayed no disappointment when Finlay drew back, refused to accept any papers, and asked bluntly: 'WTiat's this about converting to popery?'

Grandly, and with a condescending smile, Wellington said: 'Many ask about that rumor, and there's no better way to explain than to consult with a settler who already owns an estate in Texas,' and he whistled for a raw-boned, prearranged fellow of forty, who sidled up and allowed that he owned one of the best estancias in Texas.

'What's an estancia?'

'Fancy Mexican word for farm . . . real big farm. I was born, bred a Baptist. Virginia man. So when I gets to Texas, I ain't hankerin' to turn my coat, not me. Trick's simple. Don't let no Mexican priest convert you, because if they do, it's for keeps. But they's five or six Irish priests. Yep, imported direct from Ireland, through New Orleans. They never seen Mexico City or none of that.'

'What are they doing in Texas?' Finlay asked, for he had grown suddenly afraid, knowing that there were not in this world any Catholic priests more devout and stern than the Irish. He wanted no Irish priest converting him, because that really would be forever.

'Stands to reason, the Mexican government, they cain't persuade any real Mexican priests to travel all the way to Texas. Those hanker after the fleshpots of the big city. So the oney priests they can get to work in land s'far away are Irishmen who cain't make no livin' in Ireland, and who cain't speak a word of Spanish neither, if'n you ask me.'

'Aren't they real fanatics?'

'No! No! There's this big, jolly, whiskey-guzzlin' priest called Clooney, goes about on a mule, settlement to settlement, convertin' Protestants by the hundreds, free and easy, with him knowin' it ain't serious just as well as we know it ain't.'

'Did he convert you?'

'Yep. Father Clooney's the name, and a fairer man never lived. You let him sprinkle a little holy water over you, hand in your scrip, which Mr. Wellington here will give you, and you get your league-and-a-labor.'

'Is that right?' Macnab asked.

it is indeed,' Wellington said, and the Texas man added: The scrip solves ever'thin', and the day after you get your land you can revert to bein' a Baptist again. I did.'

'I'm Presbyterian.'

'My mother was a Presbyterian,' Wellington cried with real enthusiasm, and the deal was settled. Finlay Macnab and his son were entitled to twenty thousand acres of the choicest land in Texas, purchased at the ridiculous price of five cents an acre.

Otto was delighted when he learned that a firm decision had been reached. A dream long cherished was about to become reality: 'And we'll go by steamboat!' But he grew apprehensive when Finlay reviewed the perils of such a river trip: 'You know, Otto, the steamers often blow up. Pirates attack from Cave-in-

Rock.' But when Otto said: 'Maybe we better walk down/ his father said: 'Robbers infest that route. Meriwether Lewis got murdered,' and the boy summarized their situation: 'Getting to Texas isn't easy.'

But now Finlay devised a stratagem which would be useful regardless of which route they adopted. They assembled with many furtive moves a pair of homespun trousers for the boy, just a little too large; same for Finlay; long lengths of cloth identical with that used in the trousers; hats for both; cloth identical with the hats; a pair of long, heavy needles, very costly; and most important of all, their total savings were converted from paper and small coins into gold.

When all these items had been smuggled into Bell's Tavern, Finlay placed his son at the door to prevent intrusion, and began sewing. In the lining of the hats, in the waists of the pants and down the seams of the legs, he sewed his new material, imbedding as he went, here and there, the gold coins he had acquired. When he finished, the Macnabs were going to be walking mints, as he demonstrated when Otto's pants and hat were finished: 'Try them on.'

Otto did not like the hat, for he had rarely worn one, and he could scarcely sit down because the coins made the pants far too stiff, but Finlay made him take the pants off, threw them on the floor, and jumped on them repeatedly: 'Now try them!' And the pants were manageable.

The Macnabs now doctored Finlay's garments until they, too, were gold-laden, and then they joined in solemn compact: 'When we reach the Trace we will never mention, not even to each other, where our gold pieces are till we get safe to Texas. Tell nobody . . . nobody.' But Otto had to break the promise immediately, for he said. 'One piece hurts my bottom,' and this, of course, had to be corrected.

They were an attractive pair of emigrants as they crossed the ferry into Kentucky and started the three-hundred-mile hike to Nashville. Finlay was thirty-seven, medium height, blue-eyed, trim of carriage and sharp of mind. He'd had a solid education at St. Andrews and a wealth of practical experience in the United States; he also had that engaging quality which would attract the eye of any unmarried woman looking for a good husband, and his easy manner acquired from working with Irishmen in the old country and with river folk in this made him an amusing addition to any group. Having outgrown those earlier acts of impulsive immaturity that had forced him to flee both Ireland and Balti-

more, he now gave the appearance of a man who could work hard and earn his family a decent living, for he was very protective of his son. He was, in brief, the kind of man a nation hopes to get when it throws open its doors to immigrants, and he was typical of many who were beginning to swarm toward Texas.

His seven-year-old son was even more good-looking, with his blond hair peeping from beneath his new cap, his quick step and his thin face that looked almost sallow, for the sun seemed not to affect it. He wore heavy shoes, new homespun pants that came an inch below his knee, a thick woolen shirt and a manly kerchief about his neck. When strangers were with the pair for any length of time they were apt to remark: The father has a quick mind. But the lad, he's quiet, always seems to be thinking about something else.'

This was an accurate description of Otto. The confusion caused by his abrupt separation from his mother, the long walk to Cincinnati when he was first seeing the world, the loneliness at night, the fight with the bear, the constant departure of the steamboats he loved, leaving him always on the wharf, the catches of conversation about murders and explosions and sudden hangings—these un-childlike experiences, assaulting him so constantly, had aged him far beyond his years. Save only for the experiences of puberty, he was really a steely-eyed young man better prepared in some ways for the Natchez Trace than his more ebullient father.

But they were both hardened to the road by the time they completed their first two hundred and eighty miles and approached the bustling city of Nashville. There Finlay made a characteristically bold decision: 'What we'll do, Otto, is buy us as many cattle as we can handle, and we'll drove them to Natchez, put them on the boat to New Orleans, and sell them at a huge profit when we get to Texas.' Once this grandiose plan was voiced, no counsel from the experienced travelers in Nashville could dissuade him, and when stockmen pointed out that it was four hundred and eighty miles to Natchez, a right far piece for a man to drove cattle, he snapped: 'Shucks, my grandparents herded cattle clean across Scotland.' When he had left, with his thirty head of good stock, one of the sellers said: 'He'll find that Tennessee ain't Scotland.'

They would need a dog to help them, and Finlay knew they could never find one of those flawless dogs of Scotland and Ireland that could herd sheep and cattle better than a man, but they could find themselves some mongrel who would nip at the heels of strays. Since one dog would be about as good as another, Finlay left the selection to his son, and the boy identified a collie-sized female

with the kind of face any boy would love. Her name was Betsy and she was owned by a family with three sons, each of whom had pets galore. When Otto asked, in his quiet voice, his blue eyes shining, what she would cost, the mother cried, almost with relief: 'Take her!' but two of the boys bellowed that she was their dog, whereupon their mother said: 'All right. Five cents.' And for this amount the deal was concluded.

Betsy had a reddish coat, a pointed nose and a set of the swiftest legs in Tennessee, but she also had a devious, calculating mind and was prone to stop and study whenever a command was given, judging whether Finlay really meant what he was saying. If she detected even the slightest hesitation, she ignored him and went her way, but if he shouted 'Damnit, Betsy!' she leaped into action. She was, in certain important ways, brighter than either of the Macnabs and she intended to train them, rather than the other way around.

The one weakness in her plan was that she quickly grew to love Otto, for he would play with her, test her running, wrestle with her, and keep her close to him when they slept on the ground at night. He also fed her, meagerly at times, but no matter how hungry she became between the food stands run by the half-breed Indians or between the deer shot by Finlay, she always sensed that she was getting her fair share of the food; if her stomach was growling with emptiness, so was Otto's.

With their cattle they could make only eight or nine miles a day, but at least they did not have to worry about pasture for their herd, for the Trace provided ample grass. Slowly, slowly they edged their way toward Texas.

Some eighty miles into the Trace they came upon the first of the notable stands, those extremely rude taverns which sometimes had food and sometimes did not, depending on whether the surrounding Indians had brought in their crops. This one was the infamous Grinder's that the Kaintuck in Cincinnati had warned about, a rough cabinlike affair containing two rooms, in one of which travelers could sleep on the floor, and a spacious porch covered by a sloping roof, where overflow travelers also slept on bare boards.

This time the stand had food, and when the broth and meat and potatoes had passed around, the men began to talk of Meriwether Lewis' tragic death twenty years earlier in 1809. 'Mark my words,' a Tennessee man said when the owners of the stand were out of the room, 'someone in this house shot him in the back, and I have a mind who done it. y He looked ominously at the door.