Long Knife (42 page)

“Indeed I am, Captain. Thank you. Gentlemen, to your health.”

“God save the king,” said Hamilton.

“Before it’s too late,” added Helm.

“Mr. Vigo,” said Hamilton, swallowing. “I’ve heard some annoying reports that the Spanish inhabitants have been, shall we say, consorting rather blatantly with the American rebels. Would you know anything about that?”

“I know nothing about what you’ve heard, Excellency. I … as I said, I’m but a merchant, with no politics to speak of.”

“So you say. Well, Mr. Vigo. I can’t imagine why you’re conducting trade in the depth of this season. Do you Catholics actually do business on the birthday of your Savior?”

“Careful of him,” Helm said to Vigo. “He can be a real snot.”

“Damn your eyes, Captain,” Hamilton snapped. “Be still!”

“Actually,” said Vigo, wide-eyed at such crossness between captor and captive, “I had expected to conclude all my duties here before the Holy Day, but the roads were abominable.”

“Well, sir, I should like you to lay here a while at Vincennes. I have a great deal of work to do before the New Year, but I should certainly like to talk with you when I’m at leisure.”

“Perhaps next time, Excellency,” said Vigo. “I really cannot stay here long. A day or …”

“Mr. Vigo, I must insist!”

Helm looked at Hamilton through hooded eyes. Obviously, he thought, he wants to prevent word of his presence here from getting back to George.

Vigo was stroking his goatee now, looking less than happy. “Do you mean, sir, that you would detain me?”

“Until I’m satisfied, Mr. Vigo.”

“Satisfied in what way, sir?”

“That you understand the consequences of consorting with enemies of His Majesty.”

“When you drink toddies with me, Mister Hamilton,” interrupted Helm, “you’re consorting yourself with an enemy of His Majesty.”

“There’s as much truth as cheek in that, Captain. Maybe I ought to leave you in the guardhouse.”

“Frankly, Gen’l, I’d be more comfy there than here listenin’ t’you browbeating yer Spanish guest.”

“To hell with you, you bloody bumpkin. All right, Mr. Vigo. You will stay, then.”

“I should remind you, sir, that I am a Spanish subject.”

“The orderly will prepare quarters for you, Mr. Vigo. Good day.”

“Well, Mr. Vigo,” said Helm with a hidden wink. “What an intriguing situation to find oneself in!”

G
OVERNOR
H
AMILTON HAD DECIDED THAT HE COULD NOT LET THE
rumored fraternization of the Mississippi Spanish and the rebels go unremarked, so he sat at his desk one day in January and wrote:

To His Excellency the Governor of Louisiana
Don Bernardo Galvez

Sir:

M
^r
Le Comte having desired permission to pass to New Orleans, I embrace the opportunity of kissing your Excellency’s hands, and at the same time of acquainting you with the circumstance which procures me that honor.

The Rebel Americans having got footing in the Illinois country, and of course having opened a communication to
the Colonies by taking post there and at this place, I thought it my duty to dispossess them as soon as convenient.

For this purpose I set out with a small force from the Detroit, so late as the seventh of last October, and arrived here on the 17th of December, having a few Chiefs and Warriors of thirteen different Nations of Indians along with me.

Having taken possession of the Fort, and received the submission of the inhabitants who laid down their arms and swore allegiance to His Britannic Majesty, I contented myself, for this winter, with sending out parties to different quarters.

Your Excellency cannot be unacquainted with what was common practice in the time of your predecessor in the Government of New Orleans, I mean the sending of supplies of gunpowder and other stores to the Rebels, then in arms against the Sovereign—Tho’ this may have been transacted in an underhand manner by merchants, unknown to the Governor, I must suppose that under your Excellency’s orders, such commerce will for the future be positively prohibited—

The several Nations of savages who accompanied me to this country may (if this traffic be continued) forget what instructions I have given them from time to time with relation to the subjects of His Catholic Majesty, but the native inhabitants of the banks of the Ohio River, must be particularly jealous of strangers coming up thro their country to supply the Rebels with whom they are at war. At the same time that I mention this to your Excellency, for the sake of individuals who might suffer from their ignorance of the English being in possession of this post, and of the communication by water to the Mississippi, I think it incumbent on me to represent further to your Excellency that the Rebels at Kaskasquias being in dayly apprehension of the arrival of a body of men from our upper posts accompanyed with the savages from that quarter, have declared that they will take refuge on the Spanish Territory as soon as they are apprized of their coming—

As it is my intention early in the Spring to take a progress towards the Illinois, I shall represent to the officers commanding at several small forts and posts for His Catholic Majesty, the impropriety of affording an asylum to Rebels, in arms against their lawful Sovereign—If after so candid a declaration the Rebels should find shelter in any fort or post on the Mississippi, it will become my duty to dislodge them,
in which case their protectors must blame their own conduct, if they should suffer any inconvenience in consequence.

Perhaps I may be favor’d with a letter from your Excellency before the arrival of the reinforcements I expect the next Spring, at the same time that the officers acting under your Excellency’s orders may receive notice how they are to act, whether as friends or enemies to the British Empire—

I have the honor to be, Sir

Your Excellency’s most devoted and most obedient humble servant

HENRY HAMILTON
Lieutenant Governor of Detroit
St. Vincennes, 13 January 1779

T
HE FORTY
I
NDIANS WHOM
G
ENERAL
H
AMILTON HAD SENT TO KIDNAP
Colonel Clark had been lying in wait for several weeks, in a hidden camp alongside a creek three miles above Kaskaskia with that patience known only to single-minded warriors who see an opportunity to gain great glory. They had stayed there in constant jeopardy of being discovered, though the weather was so miserable that few people were abroad in the Mississippi valley.

Then, one bleak, snowy day in mid-January, it appeared that their opportunity had fallen into their laps. A small detachment of the braves, posted in hiding alongside the Kaskaskia-Cahokia road, heard voices and a jingling of harness coming toward them on the road. They shrank further into the brush and watched a small party of white men come up the muddy road from Kaskaskia. It contained seven armed horsemen who were
obviously Big Knives, and two carriages full of French gentlemen. The carriages came on laboriously, their wheels clogged with mire or slithering in the deep snow. The horsemen rode slowly to allow the carriages to keep up.

Suddenly one of the carriages swamped, entering the ford of the creek, its right wheels sliding into an axle-deep rut, and nearly turned over. The weight of the passengers, which had shifted to the downward side, drove the wheels deeper until the body of the vehicle lay on the snowy mire. The group halted; the horsemen were ordered back to assist. Soon half the members of the entourage were up to their hips in the water and muck, cursing, flailing, laughing, hauling, and shouting advice, trying to help the floundering carriage-horse free the conveyance from the quagmire. One large young man sat on his horse nearby, waiting, talking with one of the riflemen. They were within one hundred yards of where the Indians lay in the snow. One of the French guides with the Indian band pointed out excitedly that the big man on the horse was the person they had come to capture. Are you sure? he was asked. Yes. That is the Long Knife, he swore.

Now the Indians were for the moment uncertain what to do. Their quarry sat in plain sight a few hundred feet from them, but his party looked too strong to attack without the rest of the band, which was encamped a half mile up the creek and unaware of his presence. The Indians could have stormed the group and killed them in the mud, perhaps, but the Long Knife had to be brought in alive, and he appeared too alert to be taken by surprise without a fight. And his life was said to be charmed. He was reputed to be as elusive as the water snake, and would have to be surrounded by many braves before he could be caught alive. Adding to the Indians’ perplexity was the fact that the brush in which they lay was surrounded by a treeless field; they could not leave it to go and summon their brothers without being seen by the Long Knife. So they could only lie in hiding until the situation might change.

George Rogers Clark sat on his horse and watched the proceedings around the carriage with some amusement, now and then scanning the countryside. He thought of getting down and adding his strength to the effort, but had learned long since that an officer, especially an officer in command, upsets his people if he stoops to such things.

George was happy. He was en route to Cahokia and St. Louis after a long absence. Duties at Kaskaskia had kept him working
almost around the clock throughout the winter, and he had been laid low for several weeks by some unnameable illness which had sapped all his strength and kept him in fevers for days at a time. He was recovered totally from it now, but it had set him many days behind in his work, and he had had to labor over pay and commissary records and judicial cases even during Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Now he was within two or three days of seeing his Teresa again, Teresa and her whole lovely family. He had missed her sorely. In retrospect it seemed that only his desire to see her again had pulled him through his sickness. It was this anticipation, it seemed, that offered any hope to him in his situation. The only thing he knew for a certainty these days was that he loved Teresa de Leyba.

He sat astride his stallion and considered, as he had to do every hour, his dubious circumstances. In nearly a year, since setting out down the Ohio from Pittsburgh, he had not had so much as a scratch of the pen from Patrick Henry. Despite the help de Leyba and Vigo were giving him with credit, he was finding it more and more difficult to acquire provisions in the valley. Farmers and provisioners, having little faith in the Americans’ credit, had raised their prices steadily, until everything cost at least ten times as much as it had upon their arrival.

Worrisome from the standpoint of his army’s safety was a flurry of unsubstantiated rumors about General Hamilton marching out of Detroit last autumn with a large force of troops and Indians. Where Hamilton was supposed to have been going was a mystery. The American General Lachlan McIntosh, who had succeeded General Hand at Pittsburgh, was rumored to have set out with an army to take Detroit in the fall, but there had been no word about the outcome of that expedition. In his private thoughts, George believed that Hamilton’s sortie with the Indians had been an effort to head off and harass McIntosh. By now, George thought, either Detroit had fallen to McIntosh, or McIntosh has been turned back by Hamilton, or by winter, and Hamilton is probably back in his Detroit headquarters while the rumors remain at large.

Another possibility, a more dread one, was that Hamilton was on his way here to the Illinois country. If he is, George thought, we’re in dire trouble. The Americans’ manpower was even lower than it had been. Many of the volunteers had gone back to Kentucky and Virginia at the end of their enlistments, and with his remaining companies distributed among the Illinois towns, George doubted that he could provide eighty healthy
Americans in defense of his base at Kaskaskia. Simon Butler, whom he had sent to Kentucky last summer to request volunteers from there, seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth and as likely as not was dead in the forest somewhere.

If Hamilton is indeed on his way here with a large force, George thought, we may well have to fall back across the Mississippi and take asylum with the Spaniards until Virginia sends us some kind of help.

But surely, he thought, if he is in this territory, he is wintering somewhere. At Post Miami, perhaps. Or Ouiatanon on the upper Wabash. He cannot move a land force and all its matériel in this weather, and the rivers are too choked with ice for an expedition by water. And if he left Detroit for here in October, as rumor says, he would have fallen on us weeks ago. Nay, he’s either sitting snug in Detroit where he belongs, or he’s stranded somewhere on the Wabash. If it’s the latter, Helm’s scouts will find him, and we’ll know soon enough. Relax yourself, he thought. You shouldn’t expect news at this time of the year. No one’s abroad. Except us, he thought, looking back at the carriage, which finally had been extricated. The gentlemen were clambering back in. George rode back onto the road and the party formed up again.

“Come on gents,” he said. “It’s nine miles to Prairie du Rocher, and the ladies are waiting!” A ball in the little village had been planned, to entertain them on the first night of their northward journey. The road rose onto slightly higher and drier ground here, and was comparatively clear; the horsemen and carriages clattered off now at high speed.

And the Indians, having lost their valuable prey through an inability to act, rose and waded back through the snow to their main party, to face the wrath of their fierce chieftain. The Ottawa derated his scouts for almost half an hour, promising that their names would be in disgrace in their nation from that day on. Then he stalked about in the snow for a while and tried to imagine some way to retrieve his lost opportunity. There must be a way, he thought, to lure the Long Knife back down this road …

T
HE VILLAGE OF
P
RAIRIE DU
R
OCHER HAD ONLY A FEW DOZEN INHABITANTS
, but they were lively souls, and this evening they were animated by the honor of playing host to Colonel Clark. The ball began at dark, after the travelers had had an opportunity to change from their wet and muddy clothes, and the music was
good, the ladies coquettish, the gentlemen hearty. George danced cheerfully; his knowledge that he would be seeing Teresa within the next two or three days made the extravagant attentions of the ladies seem amusingly vain. George drank, laughed, danced, and talked, trying all the while to crowd the thoughts of his army’s plight out of his mind and leave his reveries of Teresa in.