Long Knife (39 page)

Yet even as he recognized this as the high, warm, sunny home place of his life, he came gradually to realize that not all yearnings ended here; the rest of himself was awakening to the rest of her. If her bosom was his home, the rest of her body, extended beyond the embrace, moving now so slightly in the warmth under her blanket, was like an unexplored territory, beckoning him as unknown places always had done. He moved his right hand, slipping it into the warmth of her back, feeling the soft hollow of her waist, the nubby vertebrae, and the exquisite soft swelling of her nates, and his loins began to stir with excitement.

But at the touch of his hand in that guarded region, Teresa stiffened and he withdrew it.

Somewhere deep in the house, Maria’s cough started disturbing the stillness, and Teresa paused, tense, listening, lightly pushing at George’s shoulder. The coughing stopped, then began again in a few seconds. “Listen,” Teresa whispered. “She’ll be getting up, looking in on the girls. She might find you here! You have to go, before she comes out of her room!”

His awareness of the predicament returned full upon him now, but the necessity of leaving the warmth of Teresa was tragic. As he raised himself from the heat of her bosom the night air coming between them was like a knife edge cutting away a part of him. He knew he had to flee, but he had to make some bond between them before he vanished. He stood, stooping over her, tense, willing himself toward the door, took her
hand and placed it to his lips. “My Teresa,” he whispered. “I shall ask your brother for your hand! As soon …” They heard a door open in the corridor, and both started in alarm. “… as I see him!”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes! But Maria …”

They could see a line of lamplight under the door. There was no exiting by that way now; the path between her room and his room had been cut by the vigilant Maria and her lamp.

He remembered then that Teresa’s window overlooked the terrace, and, heart racing, darted toward the window. His bare foot struck something cold and hard, jarring it; the object fell with a metallic clang, a rolling, wobbling sound, and his heart jumped into his throat. He had kicked over her chamberpot in his haste, and Maria’s voice came loudly through the door, calling Teresa’s name, querying in Spanish, edged with alarm. The door handle clicked.

Teresa leaped from the bed and waved George toward the window, responding in Spanish: “It’s nothing! I’ve only upset my necessary!”

And as the door opened and rays of lamplight angled into the room, George shinnied over the windowsill like a fleeing wildcat and dropped into the moonlit night.

J
AMES
J
ANUARY, A GRIZZLED
K
ENTUCKY SCOUT ASSIGNED TO
George Roger Clark’s bodyguard detail, was just enjoying a great predawn yawn at his post on a garden bench half a dozen yards from a corner of the Spanish governor’s mansion when he heard a clatter and voices issuing from an upstairs window. Jerking up his rifle and looking toward the window, he saw a sight that made his mouth drop open.

A man naked except for white knee-breeches suddenly emerged into the moonlight, hung from the windowsill for a moment by his fingertips, then dropped silently to the ground. In the instant it took the sentry to recognize his commandant, the figure ran around the corner of the house, looked up at the window of his own room, backed off twenty feet into the garden, ran at the house, sprang, caught the sill of his own second-story window, swarmed up the wall like a spider, and vanished inside.

A glow of lamplight had appeared in the other window, and the voices of two women came out, speaking in Spanish, one fussing, the other half-laughing, half-sobbing. Then there was silence again and the light faded from the window. James January
found himself staring at a moon-washed stone house just as he had been doing since midnight. He blinked his eyes, shook his head, and lowered his rifle. He was not at all sure he had seen what he thought he had seen. It seemed more and more unlikely every second he thought about it. Perhaps he had dozed off and had a dream; that was a common affliction among sentries.

He decided, at any rate, that he was not going to report it to Colonel Clark.

G
EORGE WAS KEPT AWAKE UNTIL DAWN BY A SMARTING SCRAPED
knee, a bruised foot, a lover’s ache in his groin, and a succession of worries and joyous recollections. After a short, fitful sleep, he rose to go down to breakfast and test the mood of the household. Teresa was not up yet, but de Leyba’s cheerful countenance told him nothing was amiss.

“Teresa and I have agreed,” George said, “to plight our troth, my dear friend. With your permission.”

De Leyba rose to his feet at this astonishing announcement, tears of happiness gleaming in his eyes. Then he hesitated and looked puzzled. “But … when have you discussed this?” he asked.

“Ah, why, er …” George stammered, “let us just say it was a comprehension mutually arrived at.”

That was sufficient for de Leyba, and the rest of the day was spent in sunshine and celebration.

T
HOUGH THE GRAY SKY LOOKED PREGNANT WITH SNOW
, G
ENERAL
Henry Hamilton’s regiment struck camp on the Detroit common and prepared to embark on the six-hundred-mile expedition against the American rebels at Vincennes and the Illinois. The
soldiers stood shivering in ranks as the Articles of War were read to them, then took a renewed oath of allegiance to His Britannic Majesty. The venerable and imposing Father Pierre Pothier, Jesuit missionary for the vicinity, then conferred his blessing on the Catholics present. There was a large contingent of French-Canadian militiamen along with the King’s Eighth Regiment, and a force of about sixty Indians, which General Hamilton had made arrangements to increase tenfold along the way. He was certain of having a striking force of seven to eight hundred soldiers and warriors upon his arrival at Vincennes. Waiting in the fleet of boats and large pirogues at the water’s edge were ninety-seven thousand pounds of provisions and arms, gifts for the recruitment of Indians, and one large field cannon, the only one that could be spared from the fort. Hamilton then put the remaining garrison under the command of Captain Richard Lernoult, the troops embarked, and the convoy moved down the Detroit River toward Lake Erie.

An early snowstorm covered their first encampment, near the mouth of the river, and when it had subsided, the boats were reloaded for the thirty-six-mile passage across the end of the lake to the mouth of the Maumee. It was noon before the cold, flint-gray surf of the lake calmed enough to permit launching, and there was debate as to whether they should set out for the hazardous crossing. Hamilton squinted into the howling wind, considered that if he delayed any longer, the lake might freeze over, thus stopping him for good, and decided to make the push. Night fell while they were on the lake, rowing desperately and quartering against the bashing seas, an extremely dark night, and each boat raised a light to guide the ones behind. Shortly before midnight the wind shifted and increased, whipping the blinded convoy with icy rain and sleet, and the waves grew higher. Men prayed, bailed, and watched the pale, seething whitecaps march relentlessly toward them. General Hamilton knew that a rocky shore lay on their lee and for hours listened in mortal dread for the roar of the surf. Shaking with cold, a cloak drawn across his face, he consigned his soul to heaven but told the boatmen to keep rowing. It was almost morning when they rowed to land near the mouth of the Maumee, pulled the boats onto an oozy shore and waited for day. It was blowing too hard to permit them to pitch a tent or even make a fire, but they were warmed enough by the miracle of their escape.

They rowed up the Maumee to the foot of the Maumee rapids on the eleventh, and found there the British sloop
Archangel
,
which had brought fourteen more tons of provisions for the journey.

Progress up the Maumee proved unexpectedly slow and fatiguing because of low water. The troops were continually having to drag the heavy boats through the cold shallows, often being forced to unload them entirely and carry the goods up the banks on their backs so that the vessels could be sledded over the mire and rocks, then reloaded. Hours were spent repairing stove boats, and the men at times felt like burdened slaves instead of soldiers.

After thirteen laborious days the expedition reached Post Miami far up the Maumee, where several previously summoned Indian tribes waited. Hamilton spent several days in war councils with these tribes, bestowing on them several tons of presents to induce them to join him. Several of the chiefs refused to go against the man they called the Long Knife, so Hamilton decided to make up for their numbers by sending messengers southeastward for the Shawnees, who he knew were still fully hostile toward the Americans. He also sent messengers ahead down the Wabash with presents inviting those tribes to join him, or at least to scout the activities of the Americans. In the meantime, the soldiers labored over the nine-mile portage to the upper reaches of the Wabash, working like ants to carry the heavy boats and goods to this second point of embarkation.

On reaching that place, expecting a leisurely float downstream to Vincennes with nothing more strenuous than a few recruiting councils along the way, General Hamilton was appalled to find the Wabash tributary even drier than the Maumee, and the excruciatingly slow business of loading, unloading, dragging and repairing resumed. When he had nearly decided to give up, the convoy came to a stretch of river where the water had been kept up by the great beaver dam. Reaching the dam, he offered jocular thanks and apologies to the beaver colony, ordered a work party with axes to cut through the dam, and the unloaded boats were taken through, then reloaded once more below.

The next obstacle was a vast swamp called les Volets, which had been reduced to little more than a tangled mud flat. Cursing the countryside, he finally sent a party of engineers and sappers down to build a dam below the swamp. After a long wait the water backed up into the swamp, eventually rising enough to float the vessels down to the new dam.

A similar dry stretch was met a few miles farther downstream
at Rivière à l’Anglais, where another dam had to be built to raise the water.

By now, freezing had set in, further lowering the river. Floating ice cut the men as they worked in the water to haul the boats over shoals and rocks, and damaged the hulls of the bateaux, which had to be repeatedly unloaded, hauled, and caulked. Even the Indians, who were not by custom inclined to labor, were put to work at times to carry goods and lighten the boats. On some days, only a mile’s progress would be made between dawn and dark. More days were spent in stopovers at the Indian villages, where there would be conferences and gift-giving to recruit more Indians. Often these conferences were in vain because the tribes had made treaties with Colonel Clark during the summer. The size of the expedition had, nonetheless, swollen to about seven hundred, the number varying from week to week as Indian bands joined and others wearied of the whole affair and turned back.

Thus the whole month of November went by in misery and toil, and Hamilton often fell asleep in his tent cursing Indians, cursing the drought, cursing the very terrain, and wondering whether after all this he would even reach Vincennes before a solid midwinter freeze of the Wabash. One thing is certain, he thought. If I make Vincennes in December, I shall winter us there. Never could an army cross the remaining two hundred and forty miles to Kaskaskia in midwinter. That would be impossible even for British regulars.

So that was settled. He would, if by miracle he reached Vincennes, wait there until the spring thaw to move against the rebels on the Mississippi.

At last, early in December, rains came and the Wabash began rising to a navigable depth. Hamilton stood on the bank, water trickling out of the three corners of his hat, and watched cheerfully the millions of raindrops making their circles on the rising brown water.

His satisfaction over the rising of the waters was short-lived; the flotilla was scarcely underway when bitter cold swept up the valley and the river froze from shore to shore in one night.

Well, by damn, the thought. We’ve not quite spent ourselves yet against this wretched climate, but we shall if we have to.

And so for the next few days, men stood in the prow of the leading boat, smashing at the ice with axes and pikes to make a channel, while General Hamilton stood grimly under an awning in the stern, watching the miles go by one foot at a time.

At last a few days’ journey from Vincennes, the cold spell broke, the ice turned mushy and deteriorated, and for the first time in seventy days General Hamilton’s fleet was borne toward its destination on smooth, deep, swift water.

Now, Colonel George Rogers Clark, or Long Knife, as your name may be, he thought, your ill-advised little adventure into the British domain is about to meet its inevitable outcome, which any intelligent man could have foretold.

F
OUR
F
RENCH BUSHLOPERS, ONE A LIEUTENANT IN THE MILITIA,
were making their way up the south shore of the Wabash just after dawn, trotting silently on the sodden brown turf, rifles at their sides. They wore winter suits of fur-lined skins, decorated with fur and beads, and fur caps, and carried bedrolls looped over their shoulders. They had been sent out by Captain Leonard Helm, the American commander at Vincennes, to investigate a rumor that a British force was in the valley. They were three days out of Vincennes and had not seen a soul, white man or Indian, in the wintry wilderness. Suddenly they sensed a great deal of movement around them, and stopped to find themselves surrounded by some twenty Indian braves in war paint, who had risen like ghosts from the brush along the path and stood with muskets trained on them. The men stood still, looking around and seeing that there was no gap through which to flee, then surrendered their weapons to a tall chieftain who came to where they stood. The Indians would answer no questions. They bound the Frenchmen’s wrists tightly behind their backs with thongs, then fell into a file and continued in the direction the scouts had been following.