Rivers West (4 page)

My thoughts returned to my tools. Perhaps I should get a horse or a mule…or a horse
and
a mule.

The tools had grown very heavy, and the distance was far. Yet, if I could reach a river, I could put together my own boat and float down to Pittsburgh or its vicinity. I had only a general idea of where Pittsburgh was.

I considered my finances and decided we'd walk.

Then I saw the girl.

Chapter 4

S
HE WAS YOUNG, she was lovely, and she was riding a spirited chestnut gelding that she handled with superlative ease. Beside her rode two men.

One was middle aged and stalwart of build, a man with sandy hair now going gray, a broad face, a hard jaw line, and the look about him of a Scotsman.

The second man was young and good-looking, though not in the most robust way. Both men were armed; both rode good horses.

They came right up to the inn door, and the girl looked at me, right straight at me. “Young man, may I speak to the host, please?”

Something in her supercilious manner annoyed me. “You may if you like,” I said quietly. “He's right inside.”

Her face flushed ever so slightly—I was not sure whether from embarrassment or anger.

“Would you call him for me, please?”

“Of course.” Put that way, how could I refuse?

Stepping inside the inn, I called out, “Mr. Tate? A lady to see you.”

He came to the door, and his broad face immediately broke into a smile. “Miss Majoribanks! A pleasure! Would you step down, please? We'll have a bit of something put on for you.”

He held up a hand for her, and she stepped down, lightly, gracefully, gathering her skirt as she moved to the door.

“Have you heard from your brother, Miss Majoribanks?”

She stopped. “No, Mr. Tate, I have not. That is why I am here.”

She passed inside, and he followed. Her two companions dismounted, the older one throwing first me a quick glance that seemed to measure me completely and then the same for Jambe-de-Bois. On Jambe, his eyes lingered.

The younger companion got down also. “If you ask me,” he said to the older man, “this is a fool's errand. If Charles were alive, he would have returned, and if he is not alive, what good can we do?”

“He is her brother,” the older man replied stiffly. “She will do what she can, as her father would have done.”

“I still say it is foolish.”

“Perhaps, but she will do as she pleases, you know that. And if I were you I'd not try to dissuade her.”

He shrugged. “I tried, for all the good it did me. She will not listen.”

They tied their horses and hers to the hitching rail and went inside. I knew not what to do. I had never seen a girl who made me want to look again as this one had.

Their words I barely heard. I simply knew I had to look upon this girl once more.

Perhaps she lived not far away, for she was known to Simon Tate. Perhaps she stopped here often. It was a sparsely settled area, with many fields, meadows, and running streams.

On an impulse, I entered the common room and sat at a table near the window. Tate glanced at me, a little surprised. The lady and her friends sat with their backs to me. I ordered a glass of cider merely for an excuse to look at the girl again.

She was talking.

“Mr. Tate, the last we heard from Charles was from St. Louis. He was planning to go up the Missouri—that's a river out there—with a group of government men, scientists or surveyors or something. That was months ago.”

“You must understand,” Tate suggested, “that mails are slow, and the expedition may still be safe.”

“I do understand. The letter was written many weeks before I got it.” She looked directly at him. “Mr. Tate, I believe that letter was purposely delayed.”

“Purposely?” He was obviously puzzled. “But why? Who would have reason to delay a letter from a young man to his sister?”

“Because that young man had suddenly come upon information someone did not wish him to have. I know my brother's seal. His ring is new. The seal had been broken and resealed. In other words, the letter had been read by someone else and forwarded to me only when they decided the contents were innocent enough.”

“Please, Miss Majoribanks, aren't you imagining this? I mean, your brother is an ambitious student. He is a naturalist of particular skill…a known man in his field. But he has a way of becoming deeply involved in his work, of losing himself in it. I believe you should have patience.”

“I know my brother is in serious trouble, Mr. Tate. He may have been murdered or held prisoner. I mean to go west and find out for myself.”

“Please, please!” Tate protested. “This is all romance. You have no certain knowledge—”

“But I have! When my brother and I were very young we used to play all kinds of games—war games, capture games, often fighting plots against the Republic…you know how children are. We invented a country,
our
country. We called it—and I don't know where my brother got the name—we called it ‘Iggisfeld.'”

“I understand, but—”

“You do
not
understand. Please listen. There was a girl next door whom we both detested. She learned of our game, eavesdropping, I suspect, and she teased us about it. Her name was Pucinara…I mean, it really was. So to us ‘Pucinara' became a name, our name, for the enemy.”

“Yes, of course, but I scarcely see—”

“Please, Mr. Tate, read this.” She handed him a sheet of paper.

Simon Tate took the paper, and, fortunately for me, he read aloud.

After a brief account of his health, travels, and general condition, Charles Majoribanks listed a dozen or so plants by their common or botanical names and followed with several butterflies and spiders observed. Then he added,
“You will be interested to know that I have come upon a particularly dangerous infection, a form of the Pucinara, which, if left unchecked, will be a grave danger to the Iggisfeld. I must follow this up, and if not prevented, will forward my conclusions to you. You will know those scholars best able to deal with this material.”

Simon Tate paused when he had finished reading, then reread the message again to himself.

“So I've come to you, Mr. Tate. You are an innkeeper and a cattle dealer, but you are also a man with wide knowledge of affairs. What should we do about this.”

Tate looked at the message again, then looked at her. “What do you believe it means?”

“Mr. Tate, the plants and other wild life listed were all known to my brother before he left home. There would be no purpose in his sending me such a list except to lend obscurity to what follows, which is the real message.

“My brother has come upon some plot, some people he believes are dangerous to the country. This is his way of communicating that information to me. Obviously, he suspected his letter would be opened and read, and he wished it to sound harmless while yet telling us what he wished us to know.”

Tate stared thoughtfully at the letter.

“Mr. Tate, the Louisiana Territory once belonged to France. It also belonged to Spain. There are those in both countries who might regret that it has fallen into our hands.

“There is unrest in Mexico, Mr. Tate, and I know enough of what is happening in New Orleans to know that every loose-footed adventurer in that part of the world is gathering there or in St. Louis or Pittsburgh or Lexington…expecting something to happen.”

“You seem well informed.”

She was intelligent, and she was assured. I was surprised to see how assured. Yet as she continued to talk, I could see why she had reason to be.

“Mr. Tate, you knew my father?”

“Of course. I respected him very much, a very astute businessman and trader. He made few mistakes.”

“He made
no
mistakes. And he made none because he had information, the very best information and much more information than anyone else. He took care to see that his news was not only the latest but the best.”

“How do you mean?”

“Mr. Tate, did you ever hear of the Fuggers?”

“Yes…I believe so. Weren't they a very old people, merchants of some sort?”

“They were. Merchants, moneylenders, men who financed trade and even financed Charles V, an emperor and one of the most powerful men of his time.

“The Fuggers began as simple weavers, Mr. Tate. They were peasants, weaving in their cottages. Then, in the fourteenth century, one of them became a merchant. Within a few years they achieved great wealth, partly because one of them created fustian, a weaving of cotton and linen, but mostly because they gathered information.

“They were a large family and soon scattered over Europe, but they exchanged their information. Their agents sent them information, their ship captains did likewise. It was the major reason for their wealth and power—they always knew a good deal more than those with whom they dealt.

“If there was a crop failure in Russia, they knew it. If a ship with valuable cargo sank off the coast of Greece, they were the first to hear of it. They knew what was in surplus and what was likely to be scarce, and they bought or sold accordingly.”

“But what has this to do with us?”

“Simply that my father took a leaf from their book. He financed traders among the Indians; he had friends among the soldiers, among the flatboat men, among itinerant preachers. He received letters from all over the country, letters that told him who was going where and what was happening.

“There was no mystery about it. He wrote letters, he requested answers, he even paid for information. At the time of my father's death, he had over one hundred correspondents in this country and in Europe.”

“I see.”

“You
begin
to see, Mr. Tate. This correspondence grew too large for my father to handle, so my brother and I helped. We opened the letters, read them, listed the information in ledgers, and passed the most important letters on to my father.

“Since my father's death I've continued this correspondence. Despite the fact that we no longer live in New York and Boston, the letters have come, and I have maintained contact with all these sources and have helped to operate my father's business.”

“I was not aware of that.”

“We have excellent managers. They never knew the source of my father's information, nor have I told anyone but you, now. I have continued to advise them to buy and sell, and we have continued to profit.”

I don't think she knew I was present.

“And you have information that something is wrong in the South, in the West?”

“Let me say I had grounds for suspicion. And then this letter from my brother. When I received it, I acted at once. I got out the ledgers and read all the information we had on the Louisiana Territory, read the reports of Lewis and Clark and the letters from James Mackay. My father had an agent in Santa Fe for many years, Mr. Tate, and I read his reports.

“Then I read letters from New Orleans, from Madrid, from Paris and La Rochelle. I made notes. Some items I recalled. Now I am sure. What my brother has discovered, Mr. Tate, is a plot to seize the Louisiana Territory and to make an independent kingdom of it.”

“That's nonsense.”

She shrugged. “Exactly the reaction from our senator, Mr. Tate. I approached him on the matter. He either does not believe anything I say or has reasons for not wishing to believe.”

“Miss Majoribanks, you must remember, you are a very
young
lady. You are in fact—?”

“Nineteen, Mr. Tate, and for all those years I sat at my father's knee. For most of those years I had access to his office. I learned how to read from those letters of his.”

“That may be, but—”

“Mr. Tate, I know you have connections of your own. I know some of your political affiliations. I have told you all this not only to give you my reasons for going west, but because I hope you will see the necessity for prompt action.

“The man who is to direct the subversive movements in the Louisiana Territory may already be en route. I know much of this man. He is a devil incarnate, who will stop at nothing.”

Tate smiled, shrugging. “Your worry about our country does you credit, but it is highly unlikely that what you fear is true. They would need an army, supplies, munitions.”

“They will have them.”

“Miss Majoribanks, if half you suggest be true, it would be utter folly for you to go west. Your brother is a man of judgment. He will handle his own situation, and you can do nothing there but make it more difficult for him. Also, despite your information, I think your fears are exaggerated. No man would have the audacity or the skill to attempt such a thing.”

“Baron Torville would.”

Chapter 5

T
ORVILLE!” I ALMOST dropped my glass, and I am a man not easily startled.

She turned to look at me, aware of my presence for the first time. “You have been eavesdropping on a conversation that is no concern of yours!” she said with anger.

“I beg your pardon,” I replied sincerely. “I am drinking my cider. It was impossible not to overhear your conversation.”

Simon Tate but glanced at me. Both the men who accompanied her looked over at me, the younger with obvious disapproval, the older with a careful measuring look.

The conversation continued, but in lower tones. I heard nothing more that made sense, yet I needed little more. Haughty the young lady might be, but she was obviously well informed, and I had great respect for her sources of information. My family knew about the Fuggers. The earliest Talon had dealings with them, may even have written some of those letters of which she spoke. In fact, he had himself used somewhat the same methods to keep abreast of changing situations in India, China, and the Malays.

In the days of his privateering, this Talon had been active in those waters, and in fact, his own wife had come from India.