Long Knife (41 page)

He also authorized one enterprising Ottawa chieftain to go across to the Illinois country above Kaskaskia with a large body of warriors and some French guides, conceal himself there, and lie in ambush for an opportunity to capture Colonel Clark, who was known to travel with regularity on the road between Kaskaskia and Cahokia and to go often across the river to the Spanish settlement at St. Louis.

“If you bring him to me,” Hamilton told the Ottawa, “you will have rewards beyond imagination. I will load you with gifts to make you rich, and all red men will speak your name forever. But you must bring him to me alive,” he added. With such rewards as those in prospect, he knew, the chieftain might—indeed, probably would—try to bring in any scalp or carcass and claim it was Clark’s. “Alive,” he repeated.

O
N
D
ECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH
, F
RANCISCO
V
IGO RODE EASTWARD
on horseback along the Kaskaskia-Vincennes trail, sleet lashing the back of his coat. The sky was the color of iron. He had been on the muddy road for six days.

Five miles west of the Wabash, the band of Indians who had scalped Captain Helm’s messenger crouched in the thicket and watched him come.

Vigo was very happy. His heart had been glowing ever since he had learned of the betrothal of his two favorite young people, Colonel Clark and Teresa de Leyba. They made the most beautiful pair of young lovers he had ever seen, and he could bring tears to his eyes just by imagining them together. He wondered sometimes how they would reconcile their two different religions,
but Vigo personally believed that both their gods were the same and would show them a way.

And now he was on his way to see another favorite comrade, the rowdy and hilarious Captain Leonard Helm. He loved to visit with Helm whenever he was in Vincennes, and often would bring him gifts. This time he also had good news for Helm, a letter saying that Colonel Clark would soon be sending him a shipment of provisions and ammunition. Vigo sang softly to himself as he rode along, and did not see the Indians until his horse shied and several warriors in paint jumped into his path with their muskets aimed at him.

Surprised to find Indians acting this way in the region where the tribes had signed peace treaties with Colonel Clark, Vigo brought his horse under control. He did not reach for his pistols, but raised his hand in a greeting.

One of the young braves made a dash toward Vigo from the back. But he was stopped suddenly by a shout from the chieftain, who told him this man was not a Big Knife.

And by that fine a stroke of fortune, Francisco Vigo kept his scalp.

The Indians for some reason had not searched him—perhaps because he obviously was not an American—but they might at any time, and they were staying too close around him to allow him to dispose of George’s letter.

They seemed to be taking him directly toward Vincennes, a fact which bewildered Vigo considerably. His captors, leading his horse by the reins, took him to the bank of the Wabash, where another band waited with canoes. Here there was a small armed camp with several wigwams; obviously it was a post set up primarily for ferrying people across the river, and he wondered why apparently hostile Indians had established such a network of permanent camps and stations hereabouts. It was not until the canoe was halfway across the river and Vigo saw through the slanting sleet that Fort Sackville flew a British flag that the answer became evident to him. Vincennes in control of the British! he thought. How could this be?

Obviously, then, he was being taken to the British headquarters there, which meant there was a distinct possibility that he could yet be hanged as a spy, if his captors should find Colonel Clark’s letter on his person.

Vigo sat amidships in the canoe on his own saddlebags and searched his mind for a way to dispose of the letter without being seen. The paddler in front of him could not see him, of
course, but the one in the stern could. If he took the letter out and dropped it over the side, he would give himself away.

He had a thought then. There was not much time. Reaching under him into the saddlebag, he drew out a half a loaf of bread. The Indian in the stern watched him warily. Vigo tore off a chunk of the bread and, smiling, offered it to him. The Indian nodded and reached for it, trailing his paddle with one hand. He began tearing hungrily at the good bread with his teeth and chewing it, nodding with pleasure. Vigo offered a piece forward to the other paddler, but he shook his head. Then the trader tore off bits and began eating them himself. Seemingly enjoying an innocent repast, he bent forward over the loaf as if to shield it from the sleet. Surreptitiously groping inside his coat, he drew the letter out and slipped it under the loaf in his left hand. Then, tearing a piece of the letter off with each morsel of bread, he managed to devour it by the time the canoe touched the eastern shore.

It had tasted awful and made tough chewing, but, in a manner of speaking, Vigo had never relished a meal more.

G
ENERAL
H
AMILTON SAT IN HIS OFFICE, ACROSS THE HEARTH FROM
his captive, the genial American Leonard Helm. Sleet hissed against the window, but the fire radiated heat and cheer, and Hamilton was enjoying one of the toddies Helm made so well.

Hamilton had admired Helm from the moment of their first confrontation at the gate, and had since treated him well. They had become companions, to the extent that inveterate enemies could, and spent many hours in droll conversation. Helm’s coarse but wise humor somehow struck a strange chord in Hamilton’s cynical mind, and the Englishman had come to prefer his company over that of any of his own officers, whose talk was always obeisant and predictable. One never knew what Helm would say. He was a jolly adversary, and forever sniped at the British character or told outrageous adventure tales emphasizing the superior courage and integrity of the Americans. Hamilton retorted always with observations on the recklessness, the oafishness, and the poverty of the Americans. “Why, just look at yourself, Captain,” he would laugh, “for a perfect example of what I mean!” And Helm would accommodate him then with a raucous belch, or break wind loudly, or feign to beg a shilling for the purchase of a new American flag, which, he said, he would be raising over Fort Sackville any day if the British made the mistake of sleeping late.

Hamilton had a deep curiosity about the audacious Virginian, George Rogers Clark, who had materialized so suddenly in British territory to complicate his life, but chose to pretend indifference to the subject, for Helm’s benefit. He would never actually ask Helm anything about Clark; on the other hand, Helm would never volunteer any information about him. But Helm enjoyed Hamilton’s offhand efforts to fish him for observations about Clark. “Oh, he’s a fairly good lad, as all Virginians air,” was the most Helm would say about him, but his sly smirk as he said it was a constant taunt to Hamilton, who wondered what Helm was leaving unsaid.

All Hamilton knew was that Clark’s name had the force of magic among most of the Indians. The Englishman had spent much of his stay here in Vincennes trying with all his considerable skill to buy back the allegiance of the tribes, and was infuriated every time some chief would refuse his presents with a condescending apology to the effect that he was now a brother of Long Knife. Tobacco’s Son, chief of the nearby Piankeshaws, had spurned Hamilton with forthright rudeness, going so far as to declare himself a kinsman of Captain Helm and volunteering to be locked up in captivity with him to prove his devotion. Hamilton had not accommodated him. Some bands that had not even treated with the Long Knife would explain patiently to Hamilton that, although they were willing to go with him against Americans in the Kentucky or Pittsburgh or anywhere else, they would not strike where Clark was. That always awed Hamilton profoundly, because it was not the nature of warriors to profess fear of anyone. Hamilton made the error of telling Helm one day about such a refusal, but had since vowed he would never again; he didn’t think he could again put up with that insufferable smirk on Helm’s face.

The American, in turn, had discovered to his surprise and delight a certain prudishness in the British commandant. Hamilton would become extremely uneasy at any kind of bawdry. Like some other prigs Helm had met, Hamilton seemed repelled by lewdness because of a basic fascination with it, and Helm thus would use every opportunity to discomfit him with tidbits of erotic lore, particularly those he could attribute to Englishwomen. Helm had become acquainted with certain practices and devices enjoyed by the Creole women in Kaskaskia and Vincennes, in particular a stimulating artifact made from the soft-lashed eyelid of a goat, and would describe it and its use in detail to a horrified Hamilton, having transplanted the tale to the
prewar colonies where, he claimed, the instrument was employed by most Tory wives. Helm once even inquired, with a conspiratorial man-to-man wink, whether Madame Hamilton had ever used one. That discussion had nearly terminated the relationship of the two officers. Hamilton had leaped to his feet, livid, and drawn his sword. “Enough, you filthy-tongued old freak!” he had shouted. “I’ve had all the leering obscenity I’ll hear from you! What insolence, to talk that way to a superior officer and a gentleman! By God, Helm, I don’t know whether to chain you to the guardhouse wall or run you through on the spot!”

“Possum shit, General!” Helm had roared back. “No man who buys the scalps of men has anything to say about obscenity!”

Reeling, then going into a paroxysm of rage, Hamilton had ordered Helm out of his sight, and they had not spoken for two days. Gradually, however, growing bored by the sycophancy of his junior officers, Hamilton had restored his welcome to Helm, and the topic of scalping had not yet been brought up again. Helm would from time to time, however, observe Hamilton’s annoyance on some point or other by musing, “What’s th’ matter, Mister Hamilton, am I gittin’ yer
goat?”

They had called a truce for this day, however; it was Christmas Eve and both men were enjoying their toddies by the fire, and Hamilton had been waxing nostalgic about the Yule season in his homeland where, he insisted, the art of celebrating Noel had attained its highest form. “The food, the warmth, Captain, you can’t imagine it, out here in this cruel wilderness!”

“Aye, it is cruel out here indeed, cold and heartless, General,” mused Helm. “You know, Christmas is a special sad time for my friend George.”

“You mean Clark?” Hamilton inquired. He couldn’t believe that Helm was about to reveal voluntarily something about his commander. He sipped his toddy and gazed into the fire, feigning disinterest.

“Colonel Clark, aye,” Helm continued. “It was on Christmas Day of ’76 that a band o’ Shawnees killed or captured his favorite cousin, Joseph Rogers. They were in your pay, quite likely

Hamilton drew his lips thin but said nothing. He was determined to hold his temper and not let this cozy moment be spoiled by Helm’s insinuations.

“Did you ever hear of a prisoner by the name of Joseph Rogers,
General?” Helm continued. “Nay? Well,” he sighed, “it’s a pity. George ain’t no melancholy soul by any stretch, but at Christmas time, after a couple of my toddies, he don’t fail to bring that up with considerable remorse.” Helm chuckled. “Mebbe,” he added, “‘cause he feels responsible, an’ it’s the only mistake he’s ever been knowed to make.”

“Come now,” Hamilton growled. “We all make mistakes. I make mistakes even, myself …”

“Well, you’re an Englishman.”

“I’ll disregard that. I flatter myself that I seem to make fewer than most men I know, but I have made a few. Trusting Frenchmen, for one …”

“Now that
is
perty dumb, all right,” Helm nodded.

“But, you know, Captain, if I were to believe half of the myths I’ve heard about Mister Clark, why I should have to be jealous of him indeed!”

“Oh, but you really air,” grinned Helm. “Why, a blind man c’d see that …”

“Pish! Why, I never even heard of the man until last summer!” Hamilton’s voice was taking on an edge of annoyance.

“Well, give ’im time, Gen’ral. He’s just a lad.”

“What do you mean, ’just a lad’?”

“Why, he’s, I believe, just twenty-five or so.” Helm watched in pleasure as Hamilton’s brow darkened at that humiliating news, then he added: “But he’s a fairly good lad, as all Virginians air. Ha, ha!”

The orderly rapped on the door at this moment and came in. “Sir, the Indians have brought in a suspicious fellow they caught just across the river.”

“Then pay them, and put him in the guardhouse. I’ll see to him after the holiday.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but he appears to be a gentleman of substance.”

“He does, eh? Very well, let’s have a look at him.”

Vigo and Helm were equally astonished to meet each other in this office of the British commandant; their eyes widened and they were about to burst into greetings, but both at once realized that a sign of recognition might show Vigo to be a partisan of the Americans and thus jeopardize him. So they checked themselves and merely nodded at each other politely, and Vigo went toward Hamilton with an outstretched hand and his best merchant’s smile on his face.

“I am Francisco Vigo of St. Louis, Excellency, a Spanish subject and a poor fur trader in these parts.”

“General Henry Hamilton, sir. I’ve never known of a
poor
fur trader, I must say. This is Captain Helm, my most privileged prisoner of war.”

“A prisoner!” Vigo exclaimed, taking Helm’s hand and squeezing it harder than he appeared to. “Why, sir, what an intriguing situation to find oneself in! I do hope you’re being treated well.”

“Tol’ably. He takes my chains off when I promise to mix ’im a toddy. Like one?”

“Indeed, thank you. It’s bitter out there.”

“Where from, Mr. Vigo?” Hamilton asked.

“By way of Kaskaskia, actually, sir. I have a branch there.”

“Kaskaskia, eh?” Hamilton’s eyelids lowered suspiciously. “And you say you’re a trader, eh?”

“He is, Gen’l,” interjected Helm from the sideboard. “I’ve heard of Mister Vigo. Trades here sometimes, too. Reputed to be a very honest merchant. You’re here on business, I presume?”