Long Knife (26 page)

“And watch over you,” George answered. He squeezed the priest’s hand hard, struck Simon Butler on the shoulder, waved them away, then watched the party ride down to the wharf to be ferried across the Kaskaskia in the morning sunlight. He hated to see the priest go; it would be a little harder to administer to these people without his ready insights and sage counsel.

As he rode back toward the village and the fort, his thoughts grew heavy with other problems. The enlistments of his militiamen would expire soon, and there would be nothing in the
world he could do about that but try to persuade as many as possible to reenlist, perhaps by offering them the glory of going to conquer Detroit. Some of them, he expected, would stay with him to achieve that, but many were already yearning for their families, who were as much as a thousand miles away, back in the Kentucky and Virginia settlements. And there was also the very baffling problem of continuing to pay his troops and provision his campaign here; the twelve hundred pounds of Virginia currency had been long since exhausted, and the problem of obtaining clothes, tools, munitions, and sundries for his men loomed huge and vague in the forefront of his mind. Already he had had to sign his own name to certain requisitions, with no notion of when or how the state of Virginia would reimburse him. He daily watched for dispatches from Williamsburg that might answer some of these questions for him; in the meantime he could only draw on his own resourcefulness and shape an answer to each dilemma as it arose. At this moment, the quickest relief seemed to lie in the hands of the wealthy American merchant Oliver Pollock in New Orleans, whom Patrick Henry had called a great patriot and a confidant of the Spanish Governor Galvez.

Arriving now at the gate of the fort, George halted his mount and gazed over the valley. All those uncertainties notwithstanding, it was a marvelous place to be, as rich, it seemed, as even the Ohio country. On the great floodplain north of the village, Indian corn grew nearly ten feet high without benefit of cultivation; there were vast fields of tobacco greening on the higher ground, and the plains beyond the Kaskaskia were dotted with hundreds of fat black cattle. Around the village there were orchards and vineyards of every sort. He smiled wryly at the dilemma he had posed for himself: All this provision and all the goods in town could have been his for the taking, had he come only as an ordinary victor, but by making the valley dwellers his allies he had placed himself in the position of having to buy from them everything he needed.

But if we had come as enemies, he reminded himself, we would never have held them even for this long, I’m sure.

Some of the troops were being drilled on the fort’s small parade ground. Though they were fed now, and clean, all but a few were extremely ragged, many without shoes or shirts. That posed no particular problem in this hot weather, except the difficulty of maintaining a semblance of military dignity, but something would have to be done about it before winter.

It was growing less important to disguise the small size of his regiment now that the Americans were so affectionately regarded by the villagers, but George still insisted that only a squad or two at a time should be mustered in the public view. There were always
coureurs de bois
and river traders arriving and departing who might carry reports to Detroit, so he was determined to keep the size of his force a mystery. In every correspondence he made certain that the French scriveners and secretaries would hear him refer to his large army back at the Falls of the Ohio, and was confident that everybody hereabouts still believed in its existence.

As a private took George’s horse and led it away toward the stables, Leonard Helm came out of the headquarters, looking comical and uncomfortable in his new Continental uniform, from which his huge hairy face and hands protruded incongruously; he looked like some great forest beast dressed up in costume. George laughed. “Leonard, I swear I might have to put you back in your deerskins. You look to me like a circus bear.”

“Damned if I don’t feel like one, too,” he replied. “Looky here, George. The merchant Cerré has wrote you a letter from Ste. Genevieve.”

George took the letter, which was written in French in a very fine hand. Going inside, he gave it to the translator, who read:

  According to public rumor, my enemies there, jealous of the efforts I make to obtain a comfortable mediocrity, have profited by my absence, to blacken me and destroy me in the opinion of persons to whom I have not the honor of being known. I fear that in the first moment the false reports of my enemies may cause injury to my fortune, the only object of their hatred …. I venture to solicit you, sir, to have the goodness to grant me a passport to return home in order that I may be able to clear myself of the accusations that have been made to you against me, and attend to affairs that call me there. It is the favor that the most submissive subject hopes from you; and he has the honor of being with the most profound respect, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant,

CERRÉ

George remembered something Father Gibault had said about Cerré, not gossip, or any direct statement of Cerré’s situation—as the priest never involved himself in “temporal affairs”—but just a few hints to the effect that the villagers who owed him money might like to have him banned from the villages as a British sympathizer. It was amazing to George how much understanding of Kaskaskia and the area he had absorbed just by being around the priest, even though he could remember hardly any specific secrets actually being stated to him.

“Well, we should give this Cerré a chance to face his accusers, I think, Leonard. We’ve let him hang around the other side of the Mississippi worrying about his reputation long enough.”

A man of such wealth might be better as an ally to our impoverished company than as an enemy, he thought.

“I think,” Helm remarked, “that any man brave enough to come flying home into the face of gossip desarves a chance t’ do it.”

Mr. Pollock, New Orleans

Kaskaskia, July 18, 1778

Dear Sir

I was ordered by the Executive Power of the Commonwealth of Virginia, to Attack the British Illinois and in case I succeeded to continue with a strong Garrison. I have succeeded agreeable to my wishes & am Necessitated to draw Bills on the State and have reason to believe they will be accepted by you the answering of which will be acknowledged, by his Excel
^y
the Governor of Virginia. I am happy to find the Inhabitants of this Country Unanimous in their Sentiments in favor of the American Cause. As for news Inquire of Mons
^r
Crusat who promises to forward this Letter to you.

I am Dear Sir Your Humble Servant

G. R. CLARK

George folded the letter and put it in a packet of vouchers which would be carried down the Mississippi to Oliver Pollock in New Orleans by Francisco Crusat, an officer at St. Louis. A good correspondence with St. Louis, particularly with Lieutenant Governor de Leyba, had commenced soon after the capture of Kaskaskia, and the Spaniards there, with their constant traffic
up and down the Mississippi, promised to provide much of the Virginians’ contact with the American partisans in New Orleans. Having no money, George had begun issuing bills of credit on Virginia in exchange for provisions; these so far had been accepted gladly by the French and Spanish merchants and traders, who could anticipate that they would be paid at their face value in silver by Pollock, the agent for Congress and for Virginia at New Orleans. Since the beginning of the Revolution, Pollock had been doing a zealous business, securing assistance from the Spanish authorities for the American cause. Much of the military goods that had gone upriver throughout the war, even as far as Fort Pitt on the Ohio, had been obtained through his efforts, often at his own sacrifice.

Leonard Helm bustled happily into the room, in his shirt-sleeves; he had given up trying to wear a uniform except on formal occasions. He came in now with a bundle of papers which he put down on George’s desk. “Nothin’ urgent,” he said, flinging himself back into a chair. “Just more of this danged paperwork. Hey, George, I done learnt meself how t’talk Frenchy already!”

“Already?” George asked with a slow smile, wiping his quill clean on a rag. He needed some levity to take his mind off the endless grim details of administration, and he knew that Helm was bursting to provide some. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, it’s real easy, once y’ git th’ hang of it. All y’ do is, now, y’talk way up in your nose …” He began a sonorous, twangy tone and continued: “… an’ jes’ ’bout ever’ other word y’ hang an ‘ay’ or an ‘oh’ on it, an’ y’ turn yer voice up like a question ever’ half-a-dozen words, ah’ that’s how y’ do it, George.”

“Is that the truth now?” George laughed. “So let me hear you speak some of this Frenchy of yours, then.”

“Messy bo-koo, mohn coh-lo-nel! I am-ay at thees moh-
mohn
speakin’-ay t’
you-oh
een Frenchy-ay! Coh-lo-nel George-ay Rohjairs
Clark
, you air wohn boh-day-shus coh-lo-
nel
of wohn boh-day-shus ar
-mee!
There. D’you understand that all right?”

“I did, for a fact,” George grinned. “But do the French?”

“Sure, I reckon they do; they look at me like they did. But then, I can’t understand their answers. I ain’t learnt meself t’
hear
Frenchy yet, jes’ t’ talk it.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Agreed, Len, you’re one bodacious linguist.
Vous parlez français assez bien, pour un Kentuckian.”

“Say! Y’ ain’t doin too bad at it yerself, George! I dang nigh understood you thar fer a minute.”

“Thank you. But now, listen, Leonard, I’ve been thinking about something that concerns you, and I hope you’ll answer me yes. If the priest
has
managed to convert the people at Post St. Vincent, that place is going to need an American officer over its French commandant. For a while, anyhow. Can I assign you to that duty, Len? Will you sign over for another eight months or so?”

Helm contemplated his knees for a minute and frowned, chewing inside his lip. Then he looked up. “Y’ need me, George?”

“I do.”

“Then so be it.”

“Thank you, Len. I really do thank you. You’ll be a long ways off from the main body of us. You’ll have all manner of problems solely on your shoulders, as I do here. Y’ll have to keep the French happy, and the traders. And you’ll probably have to treat with the Wabash Indian nations, and that as if from a position of strength, which we don’t really have. I’m convinced that you have to be bold with ’em. I think if you give ’em presents and ask them to councils, they deem you weak. We don’t have presents to give ’em anyhow.” He laced his fingers and looked at notes on his desk, then frowned and sighed. “I’ve already heard overtures from the—let me see here—the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Michigamies, Potawatomies, and the Puans. They want to talk to us Big Knives.”

Helm emitted a low whistle. “The word travels fast out here, don’t it?”

“Aye. The French traders have been spreading the word about how strong we are. I’m letting the nations wait a bit. When they ask us direct to come and council, we’ll go. Only then. You know, Len, I think we can do more real service out here even than I expected, if we approach it right. But my God, I think we’ve got more real work ahead of us than we’ve ever faced.” He blew out a long breath. “I’d serve five years a slave to get some reinforcements. We’re spread so thin now it’s going to turn my hair white. And no idea whether Governor Henry is doing anything for us. I’ve written about our situation, but it’ll be weeks before that gets to ’im. And more weeks before he can send succor if he hasn’t already, which I doubt he has. Do what you can, Len, to influence your men to reenlist. I pray you, do that.”

“Anything y’ say.”

“Damnation!”
George slammed his palm on the desk. “With anything upwards of five hundred men like these, we could go straight up now and take Detroit, and all our worries’d be done with. Len, I want Detroit so bad I can
taste
it!”

“God dang you, I can’t make out what kind of a crazy y’air,” exclaimed Helm. “One minute you got us hangin’ on t’ th’ bank o’ th’ Missipp by our fingernails, an’ th’ next minute you’re set to go after Hamilton in his own lair! You …” He paused at the sound of excited voices outside the house. The lieutenant of the guard stepped into the doorway and saluted.

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he said, “but Mister Cerré is here beggin’ an audience with Colonel Clark, sir.”

“Good!” George stood up. “Bring ‘im in. I’m eager to see this man.”

The merchant Gabriel Cerré entered the headquarters with an air of injured dignity. He was obviously a man accustomed to a place high in society, and did not easily wear the suppliant or defensive manner which his present circumstances now had forced him to assume. He was large, sleek, and pink-jowled, with a network of flaming capillaries running from his cheekbones into his nose. His coat of wine-colored velvet was rumpled and his white stockings were stained with the bilge water of the freight bateau in which he had been brought over from the Spanish side of the river. But he was freshly shaved, redolent of some sort of cologne, and his silvering, kinky dark hair was pulled back neatly and bound in a perfect queue. George confronted him with folded arms and expressionless visage, not taking his proffered hand. Cerré looked like one who would have heaped vituperation upon anyone else who had greeted him with such apparent indifference, but he was not in the least haughty before this Virginian who now seemed to be in charge of his fate.

“Mon colonel
, please. The understanding I have is that certain people in this village accuse me of being very much in the British interest. But no. I trade at Detroit only because the British control the trade here. I am without politics, a world citizen, but with a deep love for France. No politics, sir. No politics at all.”

“I’ve been told that some of your goods are used to pay the Indians for their depredations upon my people. That would be a bloody crime in my eyes, m’sieur.”