Long Knife

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  George, with the grave and splendid chief now standing beside him on the parapet, watched Helm’s three gunboats row up the swollen Wabash in a gray downpour. “He is my brother,” the Piankeshaw said wistfully. “I told General Hamilton that I am a Big Knife. I told General Hamilton that while Helm is prisoner I too am prisoner. And you,” he said, turning to meet his eyes with great emotion shaking his voice, “you are my brother. I request to come to your house at the end of the day and speak to you of a matter important to my people.”

  “I’ll be happy to see you then.”

  The chief arrived that night accompanied by a young squaw, whom he directed to remain in the shadows near the door while he spoke.

  Tobacco’s Son stood tall and stolid as if in a ceremony, and George stood facing him in the candlelight, a little uneasy.

  “It is true what they have said,” the chief began. “Clark is the greatest of the Big Knives. The people of other tribes said Hamilton was a god, but Tobacco’s Son shut his ears. And now the Long Knife has come to prove Tobacco’s Son right. The Big Knives are greater than the British, and Clark is the greatest of the Big Knives.” He paused, his eyes searching George’s face with pride and admiration. “The Piankeshaw people,” he said, “desire to have the powerful blood of the Long Knife Colonel Clark running in the veins of their children.” He raised his right hand and summoned the squaw, who advanced silently into the candlelight with small, graceful steps, the toes of her moccasins turned slightly inward at each step. Her eyes were glinting obsidian, her eyelashes straight and long like those of a deer. The skin over her high cheekbones was smooth, russet, and, under the square, strong line of her jaw, her neck was tawny and gleamed with unguent. She looked directly at George’s face, neither smiling nor not smiling, her eyelids half shut. Tobacco’s Son stepped behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and pulled away the blanket.

  The drunken laughter of the celebrating victors in nearby barracks came faintly into the hushed room. Rain rushed on the roof.

  The sudden sight of the maiden’s nakedness had nearly made George fall backward. Now he stood, speechless for the moment, trying to sort out the storm of thoughts and emotions that rampaged through him. He was astonished by the instantaneous flood of desire that rose up in him, galvanizing every animal part of him, blood and humors; but that part of his soul which was still Episcopal Virginian gentry was for the moment outraged by the chief’s presumption. Yet there was, too, a powerful satisfying notion that he was indeed a victor, a man of superior blood, and that such a reward should be his.

  But through the confusion of urges and instincts there came, like a faint, haunting handful of delicate plucked chords, the thought of Teresa. It cleared his head.

  “Cover her,” he told the chief, turning toward the hearth to shut out the tormenting beauty of her nudity. Now for his sake, George thought, I have to say the right thing. He is the best sort of ally and must not be offended.

  “My friend,” he said, placing a hand on the chief’s shoulder. “The Piankeshaw are a great people and I am flattered that they want my blood in their veins. The woman is of great beauty and any man would want to lie with her. But I tell you this—and the woman will understand it well—that I have pledged my troth already to another woman, also of great beauty …” he thrilled as he said these words that he had kept to himself for so long, “and among my people, the pledge of a man to a woman is as sacred as the pledge of one chief to another.”

  The chief’s face, which had begun to look stricken with disappointment, softened, then broke into a smile. “Ah! This I did not know, that the Long Knife already has his woman.” He turned to the squaw, now wrapped in her blanket and looking much cast down, and spoke to her briefly in their tongue. And suddenly a smile of happy comprehension broke through on her comely face, and she looked at George now with an expression compounded of admiration and girlish delight, and she stood there as if impatient to be dismissed. I suspect, he thought, that she’s dying to tell this tale. He smiled back at her. What a stroke of luck, he thought. Now I’ll doubtless be as much favored among the squaws as the warriors, which can do our cause no harm.

  As Tobacco’s Son was dismissing the young woman, another good idea emerged in George’s mind.

  “Wait,” he said, after considering it for just a moment. “The Piankeshaw are said to be great healers.”

  “They are that,” said Tobacco’s Son.

  “You know that the greatest of my chieftains,” said George, “I mean Captain Bowman, was burned by fire from the British cannon powder. Being a Big Knife, he does not complain, but I know he suffers. This princess you’ve brought to me might nurse him and give him great comfort. Bowman,” he added, “is one of a family of great chiefs among the Big Knives. There is no stronger blood than that in his veins.”

  Tobacco’s Son spoke again to the woman, and she left.

  Joseph, my lad, George thought, I only wish I could give you more.

  IN MIDMORNING OF THE NEXT DAY, GEORGE WAS BROUGHT FROM his quarters by a sudden uproar of gunshots and cheerful yelling from the river side of the fort, and mounted the wall to see on the broad yellow-brown flood below the oaken prow of the long-lost Willing, making her tedious headway against the current, all oars lifting and falling. So laborious was her progress, foot by foot, that he at once understood why she had arrived these three or four days late. Taking the sentry’s spyglass, George rested it on the top of a palisade and trained on the vessel. There in the prow stood his cousin, Lieutenant John Rogers, in turn scrutinizing the fort with his own telescope. He’s seen our colors over the fort by now, George thought.

  “Too late for the fight, m’lad, but by Heaven am I glad to see you all the same!” George greeted him as the vessel was moored at the landing below the palisade. The troops aboard the vessel were mortified that they had arrived too late to contribute to the victory, but quickly turned to rejoicing when they learned that not one of their comrades had fallen in the battle. “We need people,” George said. “We’ve got almost as many prisoners as troops. I’ve decided there’s nothing for it but to release the French Canadian militia on probation and let them go back to Detroit. From the change I’ve observed in their temper these last two days, I believe they’ll actually do us more good there than harm. In truth, I’ve never seen so smug and merry a passel of captives. As for Hamilton and his partisans, I see no other way to get them back to Williamsburg but to take them in the Willing as far as the Falls, then march ’em the last eight hundred miles. But b’gad, cousin, d’you know these lads o’ mine are all but screaming for a chance to go on to Detroit? What?”

  Lieutenant Rogers had turned back to the galley. “Mister Myers!” he called, with a wave of his arm. George looked, and saw his old courier swinging off the gunwale onto the dock, a bag slung over his shoulder and his long Deckard rifle at his side.

  “Bill Myers!” George yelled as the smiling, rangy runner approached.

  “We picked ’im up off the riverbank,” Rogers said. “He’s got a packet for you from Patrick Henry. Thought you might be pleased t’see him.”

  The letters from Governor Henry seemed to have come from another world, and another age as well. They had been written in December, not long after the governor had learned the outcome of the summer 1778 campaign and the capture of Kaskaskia and the Illinois country. To remember that time, George had to make his mind span the more recent winter march, whose hardships loomed so enormous in recent memory that the summer campaign was like a dim and balmy dream.

  Wmsburgh Decr 15, 1778

  Sir:

  Myers your Express has been kept here a long Time. I laid your Letters before the Assembly who are well pleased with your conduct & have thanked you. The Messenger waited for the passing the Act I send herewith.

  I thank you also for your Services to the Commonwealth & hope you’ll still have Success. Mr Todd is appointed to the County Lieutenancy. A Commandant as described in the Act is a civil Officer, & consideri
ng he is to hold his office during pleasure, it has been judged incompatible with any military office. You would have had it, had there been found any propriety in annexing it to military Command. Mr. Todd being a man of Merit, I have no Doubt he will be acceptable to you & all your Corps. Let me hear from you as often as possible.

  I beg you will present my Compliments to Yr Mr Gibault and Dr. Laffont & thank them for me for their good Services to the State.

  I send you a Copy of the French Alliance & some other papers, by seeing which the people will be pleased, & attached to our Cause.

  I refer you to the Instructions I send herewith, & wishing you Safety & Success am

  Sir yr mo. hbl Servant

  p. HENRY

  With the numerous letters in the packet were one from Governor Henry to Don Fernando de Leyba, whose seal George broke before noticing it was not addressed to himself; he put it aside. There was also, addressed to George, a letter from Benjamin Harrison, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates:

  Wmsburgh Novr 24, 1778

  Sir:

  I have it on command from the House of Delegates to forward to you the enclosed Resolutions. I do assure you Sir it gives me the highest satisfaction to be the instrument of conveying this public testimony of the just sense your Country entertains of the very important Services you have render’d it.

  You’ll please take the proper method of communicating the Resolutions to the intrepid officers and soldiers who have so nobly assisted you in the glorious enterprise.

  I have the Honor to be your most obedient and very Humble Servant

  BENJn HARRISON

  peaker H. D.

  George assembled his troops in the parade ground that evening at muster and read to them, in the last gray light of winter evening, the resolution which referred to last summer’s successes and yet had by chance come so timely on the heels of this their most hazardous victory:

  Whereas authentic information has been received that Lieutenant Colonel George Rogers Clark, with a body of Virginia Militia, has reduced the British posts in the western part of this Commonwealth on the River Mississippi, and its branches, whereby great advantage may accrue to the common cause of America, as well as to this Commonwealth in particular:

  Resolved that the thanks of the House are justly due to the said Colonel Clark and the brave officers and men under his command, for their extraordinary resolution and perseverance, in so hazardous an enterprise and for the important services thereby rendered their country.

  The troops sent up a hearty cheer for themselves, for each other, and for their colonel. It seemed to awe them somewhat that they were receiving recognition from the high and mighty in Williamsburg, a place some of them had only heard of and could not quite imagine, and it seemed to them that although this recognition was due them for their strenuous efforts, they had their young commandant to thank for it more than themselves.

  “Boys,” he said, after the cheering had died down, “what they say in this resolution, I myself say with a thousand times more feeling. I reckon you know my affections well enough. I’ll ask you to recollect something. Remember that night in June last year on Corn Island, there by the bonfire, when I told you what our mission was to be?”

  He watched the expressions in their faces as they turned their thoughts back to that other and lesser existence. He had reminded them, and now they looked back, and most of them realized that they were changed men, that they had indeed proved themselves superior men. As if reading their thoughts, he said now:

  “You may know that General Hamilton had a plan to set out from this place in the spring, retake the Illinois, and then destroy every American post this side of the mountains. Now, boys, Mister Hamilton will indeed go east through our settlements this spring; but thanks to all of you, he goes there in chains, not at the head of an army!” He let that sink in. The men were quiet, but they were thoughtful, and were beginning to understand what, in the larger picture, they had achieved in the course of seeking their individual vengeance.

  “Maybe you understand, now,” he continued. “There’s not an army in the East, of any size, that’s had a success as will compare with what four or five score Americans have done here in this last month. Think o’ that tonight before you go to sleep, boys, and thank God we had the opportunity to serve so well.”

  They were already thinking of it. They stood on the parade ground, gaunt, ragged, most still not half recovered from the rigors of the march, but in their faces glowed a rare, calm, sure light. Here, George thought, having to strangle back a huge up-welling of emotion, here is a brotherhood that kings and priests would envy.

  But there was more news for them. Governor Henry had promised five companies of reinforcements, which Captain John Montgomery was to raise and lead to Kaskaskia. Montgomery was also to bring ten thousand pounds in currency for the pay of the troops. Both of these announcements were cheered roundly. Myers also had picked up the news that Daniel Boone had escaped from his Shawnee captors, fleeing one hundred sixty miles in four days, and was back safe in Boonesboro. That was a heartening report on one of their favorites.

  George then added that he himself had been promoted to full colonel by the governor’s dispatches, which brought three cheers, and announced that blank commissions had been sent, which permitted him at his discretion to promote several of the officers. “My first action on these,” he said, “is the promotion of our stalwart Captain Joseph Bowman to major’s rank. I gather you support me in that?” The three cheers were deafening, and were accompanied by the flight of half a hundred hats into the air above the parade.

  “And now, gents,” he continued after the hubbub, “your officers and myself will go into a session right away to discuss the fate of Detroit, and you’ll soon know about that. As for now, do as I said: think about what you’ve done, and be proud. As for me, I know as well as anybody that you’re a company of heroes, to a man, and I salute you!”

  ON MARCH FIFTH, LEONARD HELM RETURNED FROM HIS FORAY UP the Wabash, having surrounded the convoy party of forty British soldiers and partisans and taken them by complete surprise, without firing a shot; their booty included seven boats and forty thousand pounds’ worth of stores, provisions, and Indian goods, as well as the person of Philip DeJean, Grand Judge of Detroit, who had in his possession a packet of letters from Detroit to Hamilton, revealing the present weakness and disrepair of Fort Detroit. The British loot was divided among Colonel Clark’s soldiers, who had not been permitted to take a bit of plunder from the French of Kaskaskia, and now every soldier was, by his customary standards, almost rich.

  Two days later one of the large captured riverboats was loaded with General Hamilton and his officers, Judge DeJean, LaMothe and Maisonville, and eighteen of the British soldiers, all under the guard of the newly promoted Captains Rogers and Williams, with twenty-five Americans, and the vessel was prepared for departure under raw, rainy skies. The Wabash was still high and swift. Provisions of pork and flour, and fourteen gallons of spirits, were loaded aboard for the trip to the Falls of the Ohio, and George and Captain Helm went down to see them off. Hamilton stood straight and dignified even in his leg irons, his red coat a bright contrast to the weathered oak of the boat, the soiled deerskins of his captors, and the gray and brown of the flooded, wintry countryside. Helm extended his hand. “Wal, Gov’nor, thankee for your hospitality. I have t’ say, you’re a gentleman for all your wrongheadedness, and I’m glad I met you. Now’t you’ve et some humble pie and never can buy another scalp, I’ve hopes for your deliverance.”

  “And you, Mister Helm. I shan’t forget you. Nor your splendid toddies, nor your gadfly wit. Mister Clark, what can I say to you? You’ve brought the world down around my head, and I could despise you. I can only wish you’d grown up a loyalist instead of a rebel. I have to pray for your failures, of course. But as I told myself when I first laid eyes on you, there’s no shame in losing to a man like you.”

  “You lost to a few good men on a right cause
, Mister Hamilton. Let me warn you now that the thousand miles ahead may be the most hazardous of your life, the settlers’ sentiments being what they are. I’ve ordered your guard to care for you as best they can. I’d suggest you stay humble and be brave. Godspeed, Governor. I hope you’ll think seriously on the meaning of all this. Shove off, cousin!” he bawled suddenly to Captain Rogers. “And God be with you!”

  THE MESSENGER GAVE HIS MUD-SPATTERED HORSE TO THE GROOM, took off his muskrat cap and cloak, and was led to the pantry of the governor’s mansion for refreshment and to await a reply or interview.

  “Teresa,” de Leyba called up the stairs. She was already on the landing, coming down. “Letters here from your sweetheart! One for you, one for me!” So! Then he is all right, she thought. Thank God! She smiled and took the sealed paper, her heart tripping. It would be hard to say who became more excited by word from the Virginian, she or her brother. Fernando had become very alarmed since February because Indian war parties, emboldened by the absence of the Americans, had made incursions onto the Spanish side of the river, killing a few innocent travelers and some slaves on work parties. De Leyba had only sixteen regular Spanish soldiers under his command, including a drummer, and knew that de Cartabona could raise scarcely forty militiamen in a crisis, as most able-bodied men were at large in the countryside trading and hunting, or boating goods down to New Orleans.

  Now they opened their letters, too eager even to retire to their rooms.

  Post St. Vincents, March 1, ’79

  Don Fernando de Leyba Esq.

  Lieu’t Governor, St. Louis

  Per Mr. Murry

  Dr Sir:

  After a Fatiguing Journy of Nineteen days under going Every Difficulty that Could possibly have happened by High Waters and the want of Provisions, I arrived at this Town on the 23rd of Feby at 7 o clock in the Evening and Attack the fort Amediately

  I never saw a Much pritier fire than Keep up on Both