Long Knife (20 page)

At midday, having been through fifty miles of that wilderness, the army came out upon a level, nearly treeless plain, covered with waist-high grass rippling in the breeze as far as the eye could see. Grazing bison dotted the distance. The expanse of unbroken blue sky overhead made everyone look up and breathe deeply, as if they had crawled out of some dank tunnel into brave daylight, and they smiled to see the clear ground stretching away forever like a soft rug for their feet. After a few cheerful minutes for eating, resting, and stretching in the sunlight, they strode forward onto this great, clean prairie, the sun and wind drying the old humidity out of their clothes, so rejuvenated by the openness that their pace quickened to a lope which ate up the miles.

But George’s pleasure at the freedom of such marching was marred by the realization that his line of riflemen could now be observed by anyone within miles. The grass was not high enough for concealment. There was nothing to do but keep the point men and flanking scouts out as far as possible, keep up the pace and hope for good luck.

The hundred and seventy men now sped rather like an arrow over the yellow-green plain toward the northwest; the point man
and flankers fanned out in the shape of an arrowhead, the main column being the shaft and the rear flankers angling back like the fletch of the arrow. Each man stepped into the footprints of the man ahead so that anyone coming upon their trail could not have guessed how many they were.

They flopped along the line of march again at sundown, chewed their dwindling rations and washed them down with water or brandy from their canteens, relieved themselves, joked and laughed softly, and being dog-tired, stretched out in the dry, springy, fragrant grass, watched hawks circling in the high rosy sky, and prepared to go to sleep. But to their consternation, their young commander came back along the file, cheerfully urging them to their feet. “We can see where we’re going out here,” he told them as he moved along. “And we can travel at night with no danger of being seen. Up; now! Hey, Marr! You, Mayfield! Wake up, you beauties, and on your shanks! Get those sea legs in motion, Mister Pagan! I know this nice little walk can’t be half as bad as beatin’ around the Horn!”

They groaned, but rose, and soon the human arrow was again moving westward at a strenuous pace through the twilight, the stars winking on over their shoulders, fatigue blazing in the fibers of their legs. Still more hours of nothing but long breathing and light footsteps. They passed the point of pain now; they were numb and felt as if they could bear this dull discomfort forever if that danged Clark was so bent on making up for time they had lost in the thickets.

The sky was enormous. There seemed to be more stars, twinkling more cleanly from horizon to horizon, than they had ever seen. Passing nothing that gave them any sense of their progress, they had the strange sensation that the trail was simply slipping backward under them and they were stationary, the same stars standing in the same places overhead, the same silhouetted hats and shoulders bobbing up and down before them, the same aromas of old sweat and leather and gunpowder eddying backward like a wake, the same cushioned footfalls endlessly repeating after their own. Only at midnight did George bring the day’s trek to a halt. The force was led aside a few yards from its trail, the companies formed into four squares, and sentries were named; the rest were dismissed, sank to the ground too tired even to eat, and were dreaming as soon as their heads touched the grass.

George stood in the starlight and looked at this little group of dark forms scattered about on the ocean of smooth pale plain.
Six hours of squirming through the forests this morning, he thought; six more racing along in the blazing sun, and now six more marching through the night. Eighteen hours on foot at this pace, and not one solitary straggler! He tipped up his flask and took a long pull of brandy, his eyes on the stars, the cool wind drying the sweat on his neck. He lowered the flask, continued to look up at the sky, thought of the eclipse that had so frightened the men a week ago on the Falls—a week it’s been! he thought—and yet they had come on with him, overcoming the many fears they must be having, and still, even as he drove them on and on into this strange unfriendly country, they kept up, and kept up in good spirits. He listened to their sleep-breathing now, sighed, and looked at the high constellations and the stardust of the Milky Way. I thank Thee for bringing me men like these …

He was awakened to the sound of his flask dropping to the ground, and realized he had fallen asleep on his feet in the middle of a prayer. Shaking his head and smiling, he stretched out on the grass, put his hat over his face, and, with a sensation like lying on a raft in a whirlpool, spun slowly off to oblivion.

T
HEY HAD BEEN ON THE TRAIL FOR TWO HOURS THE NEXT MORNING
when the sun rose behind them, lighting the high cumulus clouds piled above the horizon ahead. It was a glorious morning. Small birds flickered among the grasses and wildflowers, hunting, and as the sun climbed and burned off the dew that drenched the marchers’ leggings, countless butterflies tumbled and drifted everywhere. Each step George took sent gray-green grasshoppers with black-banded legs scattering ahead through the grass, like the drops one splashes ahead when wading in shallow water.

The sun climbed higher and bore down on their heads and shoulders, the hot, dense ground-smell rose to their noses, and long brittle screeches of locusts drilled on the ear from everywhere. It soon became apparent, as they crossed miles without seeing any streams, that here was another price they must pay for this smooth passage: thirst. These woodsmen were accustomed to well-watered country, where clear brooklets babbled down every ravine, and springs trickled from mossy limestone. But now the hard march through the ovenlike air was drying them up and there seemed to be not so much as a mud wallow where they might find a little moisture.

“Sanders!”

“Sir?” The guide turned and waited for George to come abreast of him, then fell in step with him.

“D’you know of any water hereabouts?” he asked quietly.

“None for certain this time of year, sir.”

“Oh? None for how far?”

“Well, Colonel, we’ll be reachin’ Missipp Valley tributaries sometime tomorrow, I reckon.”

George marched with his eyes squinting against the shimmering prairie for a few paces, then glanced at Sanders, at the high, pockmarked cheekbones, the yellow complexion almost the color of his buckskins, the leached blue eyes. “Seems like if you knew how dry it is out here, you’d’ve told us before we left the river country, so we could fill up some. Didn’t you think of that at all?”

“Nope,” said the laconic guide. “First place, I never seen people guzzle water like these o’ your’n. Second, I didn’t know you’d be a-sweatin’ ’em quite so.”

“Hm.” George sent him on ahead to the point. He looked back. Along they came, the long line of yellow and gray and brown, the black hats, glinting rifles, dogged expressions, sunken cheeks, chapped white lips drawn across their bristly faces. Bowman, just behind him, winked. George faced front again and strode on.

Well, he thought, they haven’t asked about water yet. No sense telling them that bad news till they ask.

No one asked. Apparently it was quite plain to them that this was dry country, and that was just the way it was.

The thirst made parched corn and pone and jerky seem less appetizing, which in a way was just as well, as most were down to their last few crumbs. They had provisioned themselves for four days on the trail; but the overland journey by now had stretched to five days and they still were not in the Mississippi Valley country. They were tiring quicker without food or water, going at a slower pace, needing to rest longer. They watched the sky for signs of rain, but saw only an intense nacreous haze. Night brought cooler air but no rain.

On the sixth day they found a trapped pool in a dried-up westerly creek with barely enough murky water to half-fill their canteens. But it was enough to put them back in high spirits for a while. A few sips of water even gave them the temporary illusion that they had something in their shrunken bellies.

It was then that the guide’s behavior began to arouse George’s suspicion.

Sanders hesitated ahead, then made quite an obvious change in his course. He did this two more times within the hour; George grew annoyed and the men were beginning to mutter. George ran forward to the guide and grabbed him by the shoulder to spin him around. “Just what are you up to, Sanders?”

The guide’s eyes were shifting and fearful. “Uhm, sorry, Colonel, I … I expected we’d meet up with the hunters’ road to Kaskasky right about here, but I don’t seem to recognize …”

“You
what?”

Sanders stammered and glanced around at the horizons, sweat beading his lip. The troops had caught up and were drifting into a semicircle to listen. Their eyes were narrowed and they did not appear very happy. Sanders cleared his throat. “I think a way over there …” He raised his arm toward the north. When he saw the colonel’s flashing eyes and grim mouth, he had to drop his gaze. George barked into his ear.

“What d’you mean,
think
, you scurvy fool? Don’t you
know?
By God, man, if you’ve got us off the trail …”

The troops were muttering now, reacting as much to their commander’s anger as to their own confusion. Among their murmurings could be heard the words “traitor” and “Tory.”

“Hang th’ scut,” somebody suggested in a murderous flat tone.

“Yah,” chuckled another. “If he can find us a tree.”

George looked at the nervous guide, at his wavering, hunted-beast eyes, and felt the worst torrent of rage he had ever experienced in his life. He grasped the hilt of his sword with a shaking hand, ground his teeth, and nearly burst with fury. His head was roaring and every muscle was straining to draw steel and run Sanders through on the spot.
Control
, he warned himself. If this poxy scoundrel has led us into an entrapment it’ll be up to me to extract us from it. Control.
Control!
He took several deep breaths and let them come quaking out, and the muscles of his arms and back relaxed a bit.

“Now, Sanders,” he began, barely above a whisper. “Here I am wandering with my army, out in the open, in a country where any tribe of Indians could raise three or four times our number. These precious men have followed me more than a week by water and land, ready to do anything they’re asked. But if they’re asked to perish out here short o’ their goal because you, a so-called
guide
, have got us lost, they may choose to cut you down, Sanders, an ounce at a time, and I personally shall start it by snipping off your manhood.”

“Damn, I’m not
lost
, Mister Clark. I’m only
confused!
If you’d give me a little time …”

George glanced around at the terrain, which here had begun to undulate, with copses of oaks in the low places. “From the time I employed you, Sanders, you told me you knew the way well. This doesn’t look like the kind of country a man would forget soon, if he really was acquainted with it. Frankly, Sanders, I don’t find it in me to trust you any more.”

“You can trust him, Colonel,” offered John Duff, who had crowded forward.

“You! I trust you just as little, Duff.”

“Please, sir,” implored Sanders. “Just let me go out on yonder meadow there and look around. I’ll get my bearings … There’s a trail I can find …”

“Oh, aye?” growled Sergeant Crump from the edge of the menacing circle. “Let you go off alone? an’ maybe bring back a few hunnerd Kaskasky soldiers, eh? You take Cunnel Clark fer a simpleton, do you?”

“No, Crump,” George said. “We’ll let him go find that trail. But Si Butler and yourself will go with him and watch ’im close. If he hasn’t found the way in two hours, bring ’im back here and he’ll be put to death with no further ado. Take your ease, boys,” he told the troops. “Check your powder and enjoy a rest. One way or another we’ll be on the move again in a couple of hours.” He stalked about, cooling his temper, which had absolutely drained him, and watched Crump and Butler escort the miserable and disarmed Sanders down a long, grassy draw. Their forms shimmered in the heat as they went away.

George could not entertain the thought of turning back. He walked back and forth in the dry, ovenlike heat, slapping his hat against his thigh, imagining and discarding all sorts of consequences. The men lounged on the meadow, many of them stripped to moccasins and breechclouts against the heat, speculated on Sanders’s loyalty, eyed Duff and the other hunters wordlessly, boasted of what they would do at Kaskaskia, carried on detailed reminiscences about splendiferous meals they had sometime enjoyed, rubbed their feet, wondered aloud about Frenchwomen, checked their rifles, or dozed, or examined the myriad cuts and bruises they had sustained coming through the swamp and thickets. Others simply watched their young commander in sympathy or wonderment as he waited.

Soon they saw him straighten up and, looking down the draw, beheld Si Butler summoning with sweeps of his arm.

Sanders had found the trail. He had indeed been not lost but only bewildered. George forgave him with comradely slaps on the back, and Sanders was almost in tears with relief and happiness. Soon the troop was running along a well-worn trail, cautious but in high spirits, and began descending into a wide and fertile valley.

By that evening, the fourth of July, they lay in the warm grass a few miles above the town of Kaskaskia, a cluster of handsome and well-built houses standing within the acute angle where the Kaskaskia River flowed southward into the Mississippi. They lay almost invisible in the meadow grass, mostly naked to catch any breeze of evening on their filthy, sweaty bodies, looking over the lazy valley and the broad, curving Mississippi, to the Indian villages north of the town, the gardens and fields and roads, the huge Old World windmill, the dim low bluffs on the distant shore of the Mississippi, and the blood-red sun setting over the Spanish territory beyond the gigantic stream; they waited here on the edge of a different world, light-headed with hunger and dreams of glory, bodies stinking and stomachs gnawing, for the darkness which would cover their attack on this strange, British-controlled little pocket of French civilization between two wildernesses.