Long Knife

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  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

  23

  KASKASKIA, ILLINOIS COUNTRY

  January 15, 1779

  THE FORTY INDIANS WHOM GENERAL HAMILTON 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 …

  THE VILLAGE OF PRAIRIE DU ROCHER 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.

  He was being toasted at midnight, as the fiddlers rested, when a mud-spattered messenger from Kaskaskia burst wild-eyed through the door, ran to him, saluted hastily, and blurted out before the startled assemblage:

  “Colonel, sir, General Hamilton is outside Kaskaskia with an army of eight hundred!”

  Panic and confusion put the room in a turmoil. “What is this?” George demanded, grabbing the courier by the front of his cloak.

  “Aye, sir,” the man stammered. “He’s a-plannin’ t’ attack t’night, sir, and may already have done! I only got here by stayin’ off th’ road, sir!”

  The guests had grown still now, and stood white-faced, crowding close to hear. “How come you by this?” George demanded. “Have they been seen?”

  “Aye, sir. Rather, a party of their Indians was.”

  Every eye in the place was on George now, as if his next words were to determine their fate.

  There seemed to be nothing to do but try to get back to the fort at Kaskaskia and direct its defense, if it were not too late for that already. Gasps and forlorn murmurings filled the room when he announced the intention and told his officers to get the horses saddled. “Get blankets for us all,” he said. “In case the fort’s already surrounded, we’ll wrap in ’em and fall in with the Indians, and maybe get close to the fort that way. Then get let in at a signal.” The officers rushed out to get the horses ready.

  “You mustn’t go back there, Colonel!” guests began imploring. “The town’s no doubt taken already, the fort already under attack!”

  “Let us row you over to the Spanish shore, Mister Clark,” insisted the host. “Then you can study the situation in safety and decide tomorrow what to do.”

  “Listen, all of you,” he said, raising his hand for quiet. “I appreciate your care, but I can’t disgrace myself by fleeing with my life, when there’s still a chance of doing service, as I reckon I can. I hope you won’t let this news spoil your diversion. Get those fiddlers back to work, and we’ll take a few more turns till the horses are ready!”

  The people gaped and hesitated for a moment, protesting and clamoring, until George went to a fiddler, took him by the arms and stood him up. “Play, damn you,” he muttered. Within minutes the ball was back in progress, though considerably less joyous. Several young men of the village, obviously inspired by the determination of the Americans, volunteered to saddle up and go with him. “Thank you, but no. Stay, in case you have to defend your own. But I would like one fast rider to take a message to Cahokia.”

  “Here, mon colonel!”

  George penned a brief note to Captain Bowman, ordering him to bring reinforcements to Kaskaskia as quickly as he could get them on the road and to send apologies across the river to the de Leyba house. The messenger vanished into the night.

  Then, his own men and horses being ready, George said his goodbyes to the host and guests, cloaked himself, and led his horsemen off at a breakneck gallop through spitting snow and darkness back down the twelve-mile road toward Kaskaskia and whatever might await them there.

  Teresa, he thought as the powerful mount lunged and panted between his legs. Will I ever see you again?

  KNOWING THAT AN ARMY WOULD BE GUARDING ANY ROADS NEAR its objective, George led his horsemen off the road and southwestward toward the riverbank when they were within a few miles of Kaskaskia, thus unknowingly avoiding the Indian party which now lay in ambush for him at the fording place where they had seen him that afternoon. They rode across open, snow-covered country in the ghostly semi-darkness, forded a stream that was up to their horses’ bellies, passed the old abandoned windmill, and plunged on through the snowdrifts. A mile above the town George brought the riders to a halt and listened for sounds that might tell whether the town was under fire yet. There was nothing.

  He rode on, stopping every few yards to listen and watch for signs of enemy pickets, but met no interference. Soon his party was at the edge of the village. There was a hubbub of excited talking and shouting and sobbing to be heard in the streets, and when he rode in among the houses he was recognized and greeted by scores of tearful men and women who implored him to save their town.

  Entering the fort he found his garrison already getting into a state of defense, and there were several of the young Frenchmen who had come in with arms to assist. Riflemen were on the parapets, outlined dimly against the snowy night sky, and ammunition was being hauled to all the firing stations.

  George assembled his captains and lieutenants in his headquarters and asked for their observations. Most of them felt that the British force was waiting for the weather to clear up before attacking.

  “From the looks of it, they might also be hangin’ back to give us time t’ abandon the place,” said Captain Bailey. “I reckon it’d please ’em if we did.”

  “Likely enough,” said George, “but if so, they aren’t going to have that pleasure. If we have to lose this place, we’ll sell it dear. Now what about the Frenchmen? Have they declared their intents?”

  “Just them few as you saw in th’ compound, George. The rest of ’em are havin’ meetings all over the place. Reckon they’ll let us know come morning.”

  “Aye. I think this is going to be the trial of their fidelity. I’m not sure I want ’em all anyway. If they take up arms to defend the town, we’ll be obliged probably to go out with ’em and give the enemy battle on th’ commons.”

  “We’d surely lose the whole that way, against an army of eight hundred,” said Bailey.

  “If I could have my choice,” George said, “I’d prefer to have those without families in here to reinforce the garrison, and the rest lay neutral. Bowman ought to come in by the river by tonight, and then I don’t doubt but with enough provision we could hold out a few weeks till Mr. Hamilton’s Indians should tire of the entertainment, as they always do if they don’t have immediate success. I won’t pretend our situation isn’t bad, but we’ve held forts in Kentucky against greater odds. What say you, boys?”

  “Why, I say, bring ’em on,” laughed Bailey. “My people come out here t’ fight Englishmen and Indians, an’ they ain’t had th’ chance t’ shed a drop of blood yit.”

  “Aye!”

  “My company’s itchin’ fer a little diversion!”

  “Mine, too!”

  “Good.” George grinned, reassured by their spirit. “Come daylight, then, we’ll hear what the townfolk intend. We’ll have to burn down the houses close around the fort if we’re going to be under siege. Now, gents, see to your guards, and get a bit of sleep if you can before day comes. Jim, would you fetch me the priest, please? I need to talk with him.”

  Father Gibault came within ten minutes, his eyes bulging even more than usual, and embraced his friend. He had two pistols stuck in the sash of his cassock. He knocked a load of snow off the brim of his hat, accepted a glass of brandy and sat down.

  “Well, Father, you’ve been among your flock. What d’you make of their resolve?”

  Gibault looked down at his brandy. “If the enemy were not so numerous, George … if it were a more equal contest, I think they’d take your side, my son, but …”

  George gritted his teeth. “They lack in character, Father.”

  “They won’t be against you, you know, my boy. They’l
l have their ways of helping.”

  “A man stands fast or he doesn’t,” George said.

  “You have to understand. This is not their war. They simply find themselves in the midst …”

  “France is allied with America, Father.”

  Gibault sighed.

  “Anyway,” George went on, “what I brought you here to say, my friend, is that you stand in more personal danger yourself than any man of us here, including myself. I mean because of what you did for us at Vincennes. Hamilton will want your hide, Father, and so I should feel more easy if you were over on the Spanish side of the river. Would you be so kind as to take some papers and money across for me tomorrow?”

  The priest’s eyes filled. He blinked, drained off his brandy, and sighed. “It would be wise, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would.”

  “Very well. I’ll go and have my servant pack. He and I can row; you won’t have to spare any of your defenders for that.” He rose. “I’ll come for the papers at daybreak. God protect you, my son.”

  “And protect you too, my friend. When this adventure is over, Miss de Leyba and I will have need of a priest, I expect, and none other would be good enough.”

  AT DAYLIGHT THE TOWNSMEN WERE ASSEMBLED AT THE FORT AND George went before them. They were haggard and agitated, apparently having counciled all night about their plight.

  “I want to know what you think of doing,” George said. “Whether you want to defend the town or not. If you do, then I’ll bring my troops down from the fort and lead you. If the enemy is waiting out the weather, we might even discover their camp and get some advantage of ’em. What will it be, gentlemen?”