1812: The Rivers of War (9 page)

“Any chance they’ll surrender?”

“I doubt it very much, sir. Not yet, anyway. There’s still plenty of fight in ’em.” The ensign gave the sky a glance, gauging the sun. “They’ll for sure try to hold out until sunset, and then make their escape across the river.”

Jackson glared again, although not with the sheer volcanic fury that he’d unleashed on the aide.

“Tarnation, I’ve given Coffee clear and firm instructions—”

The ensign was bold enough to interrupt. Jackson was rather impressed.

“And he’s carried them out, sir.” Houston gestured toward the two Indians, who were now standing only a few feet away. “This is my old friend James Rogers—he’s the one on the left with the war club. And Lieutenant Ross. John Ross, that is. I just met him for the first time today, but I’d heard of him.”

Jackson gave the two Cherokees a quick examination, most
of which was spent studying the war club Rogers held. Clearly enough, it had been put to good use.

He grunted his satisfaction, then cocked an eyebrow at the ensign. “And the point is? I’m assuming you didn’t interrupt your commanding officer in the midst of a battle simply to introduce your friends.”

Houston flushed. The ruddy complexion under his mass of chestnut hair turned pink. He looked like one of the brightly painted Christmas ornaments that German immigrants were starting to turn into a popular custom. It was all the general could do not to burst into laughter. Despite the severity of his rebuke, he approved of this young ensign. Approved of him mightily and heartily, in fact.

“Lieutenant Ross here serves as one of General Coffee’s aides, sir,” Houston explained. “He was the one Coffee sent to warn The Ridge not to cross the river again. Which he did—he and James spoke to The Ridge himself.” Houston squared his shoulder and stood very straight. “That’s because it was The Ridge and the Cherokees who grabbed some canoes and created the diversion that gave us our initial advantage.”

The last statement was spoken in a slightly combative tone. Not belligerent, precisely. And not precisely aimed at Jackson. But Houston sounded like a man who felt he’d made his point, and had been proven right.

Yet again Jackson stifled a smile. For all that he routinely referred to Indians as savages, he understood them quite well. He wasn’t all that different himself, in many ways. Like any Cherokee or Creek or Choctaw chief, he magnified his own influence by gathering young leaders around him and making them his protégés. Political authority, among white men on the frontier as much as the Indians, was mostly an informal matter.

But it wasn’t enough for his protégés to be smart and capable. Not enough, even, to be physically courageous, as well. They also had to have the strength of character to stand up to Jackson himself, if need be. Without that, they were useless to him.

Andrew Jackson had been a bully as far back as he could remember. As a boy, he’d bullied other boys; as a man, other men. He’d bully anyone he could, and he’d do it in a heartbeat.

He was phenomenally good at it, too. That wasn’t and never had been because he was an especially large man. Although,
even there, Jackson’s whipcord body was one that could do far better in a fight than many people would have suspected just looking at him.

Yes, Jackson was a bully, and he made no apologies for the fact. Indeed, he worked at it, the way a smart man works to improve his skills. It enabled him to get things accomplished he could not have accomplished otherwise.

But he also knew—he’d seen it all his life—that a stupid bully collected nothing around him but yes-men, fawners, toadies, and lickspittles. Who, as a rule, were good for absolutely nothing else. And what did that accomplish?

So. Ensign Houston was looking better all the time. Jackson was starting to develop great hopes for him.

But that was for later. Today, there was still a battle to be won.

He looked up at the sky. There were still several hours of daylight left, even this early in the year with the solstice just passed. Enough time, he thought, to drive the matter through before night fell.

Whatever else, Jackson wanted the Creeks defeated—no, more than that: broken and pulverized—before the sun set.

It wasn’t so much that he feared fighting them in the dark, though that certainly wasn’t something he looked forward to. But Jackson knew from long experience that the red men were in many ways a more practical breed than whites. They had their superstitions, to be sure, but they had their reason, as well. Indians preferred ambush and surprise attacks to open battle, and they simply weren’t given to pointless last stands. Not, at least, if there was a viable alternative.

Which there would be, if hundreds of them were still at large come nightfall. There was no way in creation that John Coffee, even if he had thrice the force he had covering the riverbank, could prevent Creeks from escaping the trap under cover of darkness.

“All right,” he said. “Is there any place in the peninsula where they seemed to be centered?”

Houston’s eyes ranged the forested peninsula. “I don’t think so, sir, but it’s hard to tell. Everything’s pretty confused right now, what with the Thirty-ninth and the militiamen milling around on this side of the peninsula and the Cherokees starting down by the river. We met them on the high ground—”

He grinned coldly for a moment. “I even managed to discourage the militiamen from shooting at The Ridge and his men, if you can believe such a wonder.”

His hand slid to the butt of his pistol, which was stuck in his waistband. The ensign had apparently made a priority of recovering it, after that initial dramatic charge across the barricade.

Again, Jackson had to stifle a smile. He was pretty sure that Houston’s “discouragement” had included threatening at least one militiaman with the nonregulation weapon. Possibly several of them. Under that genial, boyish exterior, Jackson suspected that Houston could throw an impressive temper tantrum himself.

“Indeed,” the general said mildly, looking down at Houston’s large hand covering the pistol butt. “I have found myself that militiamen generally need discouragement, from time to time. And even more in the way of encouragement. They’re a flighty bunch.”

Houston took the hand away from the pistol. The gesture was almost surreptitious. There’d be some complaints coming from the officers, Jackson knew, about the coarse young regular officer who’d had the unmitigated gall to bully—
outright bullying, sir!
—stalwart citizens of Tennessee who were temporarily serving under the colors.

Jackson wasn’t concerned about it. He could bully militia officers in his sleep. With a handful of exceptions, he wouldn’t trade the young ensign standing before him for all the militia officers in the United States. If they complained, he’d set them straight.

Hurrying past the awkwardness, Houston continued. “If I might make so bold, sir, I’d recommend that we take the time to reorganize, and then start driving the Creeks in that direction.” He pointed toward a portion of the forest that seemed indistinguishable from any other. “I’ve been told there’s a ravine down that way that’d wind up making the bottom of the trap.”

Jackson ignored the presumptuousness of an ensign telling him that they had to “reorganize”—as if that wouldn’t be blindingly obvious to the most incompetent general in history. The rest of the advice seemed sound enough.

“See to it then, Ensign. Pass the word to Colonel Williams yourself. I’ll handle the militiamen.”

There were still skirmishes taking place here and there, but the immediate vicinity was relatively calm.

The Red Stick village had been all but destroyed. As he searched for Colonel Williams among the soldiers who were milling about, John Ross and James Rogers following close behind, Houston came upon a militiaman standing over an old Creek man. The Creek must have been addled as well as elderly, because—right there in the middle of a battle—he was squatting on the ground, pounding corn with a mortar.

The militiaman raised his musket and shot the old man in the head.

The bullet passed right through the skull, blowing blood and brains and pieces of bone all over the ground. Then, kneeling next to the corpse, the militiaman pulled out his knife and cut away the old man’s breechclout. Following that, he started to make an incision in the corpse’s leg, beginning just above the heel.

Houston froze. His companions also stopped, and stood silently.

The killing had been bad enough, since the old idiot was obviously no danger to anyone. Now—Sam had heard tales, but never really believed them—the militiaman was going to skin a long strap from the body, most likely to use it for a set of reins. Boasting rights, among his buddies when he got home.

The paralysis broke before the militiaman’s cut got past the buttock. Houston limped over, feeling light-headed. Horror was replaced by fury.

“
What in the blazes are you doing?”

The militiaman was so engrossed in his work that he apparently missed the meaning of Houston’s tone.

“Finally killed me an injun,” he said gleefully, not even looking up. “First chance I got today. Them cussed regulars—”

The rest was lost in a squawk of surprise when Houston grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and, in a single one-armed heave, hauled him to his feet. The man gaped up at him.

Sam batted the knife out of his hand, then backhanded him hard enough to split his lip.

The soldier shook his head, half dazed. That had been a powerful blow, even though it hadn’t been delivered by a closed fist.

“Hey!” he squawked. His hand flew up to his bleeding mouth.

“Tell you what,” Sam said thinly. “I just realized that while I’ve killed me some injuns today, I ain’t killed me a single stinking militiaman.”

He drew his pistol. The man stared at it, his face suddenly going pale.

“Hey!” he protested again, the word garbled by the hand that was still covering his mouth.

For a moment, Houston glared down at him. He was sorely tempted to drive the butt of the pistol right into the man’s face. As strong as he was, and as angry as he was, he’d smash the man’s hand, as well as his mouth. Probably break his jaw in the bargain, even with the hand absorbing the impact.

But…

No. He reined in his temper. Enough was enough. The old Creek was dead anyway, and he couldn’t let the situation spin out of control.

He looked around. Three other militiamen stood nearby, staring at him. Two of them had brought their rifles halfway up.

He grinned humorlessly and cocked the pistol, though he didn’t—quite—point it at them. “Go ahead,” he said. “This worthless bastard’s too mangy-looking to make me a good set of reins. But any one of you will do. Any one at all.”

The three men all swallowed. Their eyes flitted back and forth between Houston and his two Cherokee companions.

John Ross didn’t really know what to do. He looked to James to get some guidance, but realized immediately that would be no help. Like Houston, James was grinning now, too. He’d sidled over a few paces, clearly ready to hurl himself at the militiamen once Houston fired the pistol. They were close enough that he could probably get in among them with his war club before they could shoot him.

There’d be one less by then, anyway. John had no doubt at all
that Houston was prepared to fire—and not much doubt that, at this range, he’d hit his target squarely. There was something almost frighteningly competent about the big young American.

Ross knew as well that, for James, the only issue involved here was what amounted to an incipient clan feud—and The Raven, white man or not, was part of his clan. That made it all very simple for him.

The murdered old man had been nothing to Rogers. Just an enemy—and killing noncombatants was as common among Indians as it was among whites. So was mutilating their corpses. In one of the atrocities committed by the followers of Tecumseh last year, which had triggered off the current war, they’d not only murdered seven white settlers on the Ohio but had disemboweled a pregnant woman and impaled her unborn baby on a stake.

Here and now, if Houston hadn’t intervened, Rogers would have passed by without comment. He might have given the matter a second glance. Then, again, he might not have.

But Houston
had
intervened, and that made it a clan matter. So James was ready to kill as soon as the fight erupted.

For a moment, John wished that his own thoughts and sentiments were as clear and straightforward. But only for a moment. James Rogers’s traditional way of thinking would lead the Cherokee to disaster, just as surely as Tecumseh’s new way of thinking had led his followers to their doom. John could see that disaster coming, the way a man can see a thunderstorm developing in the distance.

He was pretty sure The Ridge could see it coming also.

He had no idea what to do about it, not yet. If there was anything that could be done at all. What he
did
know was that if there was any solution, it would come from people who could think a little crookedly. People like himself, who’d always felt somewhat twisted in the world.

And, maybe, people like this peculiar young ensign, who was prepared to start killing men of his own race over what amounted to a moral abstraction.

John decided that was good enough, for the moment. Who was to say how new clans emerged? It was all lost somewhere back in time, in a thousand different stories and legends. Maybe a new one was being born here. Or something similar enough.

He drew his own pistol and cocked it. Quite proud, for an instant,
that his hands weren’t shaking at all. Granted, he’d probably miss his target. He’d missed just about everything else he’d tried to shoot that day. But he’d give it his level best, for sure.

Hearing the sound of Ross’s pistol being cocked, too, the militiamen suddenly broke. Houston could tell—knew it for a certainty—even though there was no visible sign beyond the fact that one of them stepped a half pace back. It was just, somehow, obvious.

Good enough
.

The general wouldn’t thank him any if Houston started a side war between the Cherokees and regulars against the Tennessee militia, who constituted not only the majority of Jackson’s army but, push come to shove, his political constituency as well. Certainly not over an issue like a murdered old Creek.