Long Knife

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  “I didn’t know I had.”

  “It is about Jorge, I suppose.”

  “Yes, brother.”

  “And what about him? Will you share your thoughts?”

  “Will this hideous warfare never stop, Nando? While it goes on I see him but a day or two in a year! He is forever leaving, to tie up some leaking corner of his ungrateful commonwealth!”

  Dios! he thought. How well said!

  “But,” she continued, “he is my husband.”

  “Teresa. I must forbid you to say that until it is so in the eyes of the Church!”

  “Please don’t get excited. It is so in the eyes of Our Savior. How does your wound feel?”

  He gripped her hand again, tiredly. “It’s a small matter. Pray only that there shall be no infection.”

  “Do not even speak of it. You were foolish to stand up in the open. But I am proud that you were brave.” She sighed. “Bravery and foolishness! Of these, men are made.”

  I should not let her speak with such disrespect, he thought. But she is so right! “Listen,” he said after a while in a pained whisper, “do you know why I did expose myself?”

  “Why?”

  “I imagined him watching the battle. Don Jorge. And I wanted to be worthy of his respect. Ha! Does that amaze you? No doubt you must think me a fool among men!”

  “No. I understand you. Remember, I too exposed my life for him.”

  De Leyba sat, thoughtful. “Yes. And finally I understand that.”

  They watched the moths tumbling through the torchlight. They were wrapped now in the richness of their feelings.

  “Now,” de Leyba whispered after a while, “I am most grateful to him for this. For this understanding. Do you know how difficult it is for a Spanish man and a Spanish woman to comprehend each other?”

  “If not impossible.”

  “For example I have never said to you how I love you, my sister.”

  “Nor have I told you how I love you.”

  They held hands and their eyes grew dim. The crickets filled the night with their piercing sound. There was no more gunfire to be heard.

  “You know, do you not,” he said in a strangled voice, “that when Maria decided to die, she also decided to blame him for it.”

  “Yes, I think I knew that.”

  “It was the financial ruin. She thought it was a matter of shame.”

  “And she thought my love for him was a matter of shame equally.”

  He smiled sadly. “Anyone who did not know us, Teresa, might say he had wounded us both very badly.”

  “Sí Or anyone who did not know him.”

  “Look at the moths,” he said after a while. “They throw themselves into the flame until they singe their wings. And then they do it again. Can you guess whom they remind me of?”

  “Yes, Fernando. Of you and me.”

  He nodded and was quiet for a while, watching them. Then he said, “Do you know, dear sister, this may prove to have been the best day I have ever lived?”

  32

  CAHOKIA, ILLINOIS COUNTRY

  May 29, 1780

  JOHN MONTGOMERY FELT THAT HE HAD RENDERED ENOUGH SERVICE, for the time being, to Virginia. He had come with Colonel Clark against Kaskaskia almost two years before; he had conducted the prisoner Rocheblave back to Virginia for him; he had exhausted himself trying to recruit a force for Clark’s expedition against Detroit in 1779; he had struggled to command the Kaskaskia garrison amid the faithless and corrupt Creoles and had now in the spring of 1780 participated in the defense of the Illinois country against the British and Indians. Lieutenant Colonel Montgomery was a prominent citizen of western Virginia, and was more than ready to return to his family there. He had thus respectfully and regretfully submitted a request to be relieved of duty. One evening a few days after the battles of Cahokia and St. Louis, George summoned Montgomery up to Cahokia. They sat down on opposite sides of a table covered with maps. The young commandant looked haggard and thin; Montgomery knew he had been kept sleepless with the chills and fever of malaria, as had half the people in the valley, and by his anxiety to get down to the Ohio and intercept Captain Bird’s offensive there.

  “John, you’ve served hard and well, and you deserve a leave. But I need you, man, for one more little task, and I’ve no one else can do it.” George watched Montgomery’s face grow wary. “Will you say yes now, John, or will you require me to persuade you over a cup o’ rum?”

  Montgomery drew a hard dry hand down his stubbled sharp chin with a rasping sound, squinted, prodded among his molars with his tongue tip, stood up, flung his felt hat across the room, turned in a circle with both fists clenched at his sides; then his shoulders dropped, he sat back down at the table, laid both palms on the maps, and stared at George.

  “I’ll take the rum,” he said. “But o’ course, I canno’ refuse you—I mean, if it’s anything less’n six more months.”

  “I should estimate three months at the outside, if you’re swift, as you must be.”

  “All right, George. Provided it don’t involve Frenchies an’ Creoles.”

  “It does precisely that, John. Sorry.”

  “Damn yer eyes! You could a said so ’fore I agreed!”

  George smiled and tilted his head, and set the cup of liquor on the table before Montgomery.

  “As you well know, John, ever since I first treated with the savages at this very place in ’78, I’ve been warning ’em to keep the peace with us or suffer the consequences.”

  “Aye.”

  “I’m obliged to stand by that. The scoundrels hired out to the British once again and fell on this place. When we stopped ’em here, they crossed to St. Louis and there they were stopped again. Whereupon they infested the countryside, slaughtered a score of innocent Spaniards, and carried off maybe seventy others. Now they’ve retreated up the Illinois River, leaving their trail littered with the murdered and scalped bodies o’ them as couldn’t make the march. You see our duty is plain, John. If we let this go unpunished, the boasts of the Big Knives will be meaningless to ‘em, and we’re doomed from this day on.” He paused, frowning down at a sketch of Illinois river courses, then looked up and exclaimed:

  “John, by my life, I’m jealous of our reputation! I’ve strutted and bluffed and cracked heads, and waded to my neck in ice water to maintain it!”

  Montgomery’s scalp tingled at the crackling tone of voice and the hard blue eyes. He took his cup from his lips and sat up straighter.

  George continued: “Since I cannot be on two frontiers at the same time, I must ask you to chase these murderers up the Illinois and punish ’em, while I try to head off Bird in Kentucky. So, I must direct you to pursue ‘em, plumb up to Lake Michigan and the Rock River if you must, strike their towns, and distress ‘em however you may. They’ll be weak, probably having just disbanded by the time you get there. Do it, John. They must learn we’ll retaliate whenever they join the British emissaries!”

  Montgomery looked up from the map, where he had been following George’s finger up the great, bent Illinois River, almost to the Indian place called Milwaukee on the shore of the big lake. “You keep saying I’m to go all the way up yonder an’ give ‘em a drubbin’. Now, I’m no mean fightin’ man, but I hope you don’t mean to send me up there alone t’do all that.”

  George grinned. “I wish I could give a regiment o’ Virginians t’ help you. But as you know, I don’t even have one o’ my own. You take this company of ours, and for th’ rest, French and Spaniards.”

  Montgomery groaned and hid behind his forearm in mock horror. George laughed.

  “Nay, listen, John. They’re rabid to avenge the massacre around St. Louis. Governor de Leyba offers near two hundred Spaniards, fighting mad. Cahokia can give you enough to bring your roll up to three-fifty or four hundred. I’ll need only eight or ten for my escort back down to Fort Jefferson; the rest are yours.”

  Montgomery digested that. “Then Frenchies and Spaniards it is.” He leaned for
ward over the map, then cocked his head and squinted at George. “And pray tell, who’s a-goin’ to go with you against Bird’s army?”

  “I’ll pick up what Fort Jefferson can spare, on my way. The rest I’ll raise in the settlements, if they haven’t gathered already. Maybe four, maybe six hundred. I don’t know what sort o’ men they’ll be—certainly not like our old regiment, from what I’ve seen o’ the newcomers. But they’ll be after savin’ their own scalps, and that is a spur.”

  On the fourth of June, George set out in a swift boat for the mouth of the Ohio with a small escort of scouts and riflemen. Once out on the stream of the Mississippi, he could gaze astern and see diminishing slowly the hazy blue bluffs and tiny distant buildings of St. Louis, once again feeling that intangible web of his attachment to Teresa stretching, slowly stretching, to the measure of oars and the murmur of the great river.

  And when the town had dwindled too far to see, he kept gazing at the low, blue line of the bluff. When it receded from sight behind a bend, he released a bittersweet sigh and turned to face forward.

  “Lay on, boys. Let’s see if we can make Fort Jefferson by tomorrow evening.”

  They looked at each other, blinked in disbelief, and did lay on.

  TWO DAYS LATER, FERNANDO DE LEYBA WAS HELPED ASTRIDE HIS horse and rode down past the fortifications and through the shell-battered town of St. Louis to the wharf, and there watched his armed Spanish volunteers load themselves and their munitions on board the fleet of boats for their mission of revenge up the Illinois River. They looked grim, determined. He was proud of them and wished he could go with them. But it was all he could do to sit his horse and keep his head up. The pain in his throat felt enormous and corrupt, and he was dizzy with fever. An armed boat with French, Spanish, and Virginian flags in the bow bumped the wharf nearby, and Colonel Montgomery of the Americans debarked, came before de Leyba, and saluted.

  “Compliments to your Excellency and your family from Colonel Clark, and from myself.”

  “Don Jorge is well?”

  “At Fort Jefferson by now, no doubt.” He turned and perused the embarkation, then back to de Leyba. “I wish you could go with us, Gov’nor. George tells me y’r quite an officer.”

  De Leyba’s eyes misted. He smiled and braced himself with both hands on the pommel of his saddle. “From him, that is something! I too am sorry, Colonel Montgomery. But mis …” He indicated the yellowing bandage around his neck which, though Teresa had changed it for this occasion, already enveloped him in a smell of putrefaction.

  “I sh’ll have your people back here in eight or ten weeks, God willing,” said Montgomery, looking at the grimacing gray face with its swollen red eyelids and sheen of sweat. Montgomery tried to hide his pity.

  Short of a miracle, he thought, this poor dandy is seeing ‘em for the last time.

  CAPTAIN HENRY BIRD, ENCAMPED NEAR THE SHAWNEE TOWN OF Chillicothe on June third, sat in his bell tent and wrote to his commandant, Major Arent de Peyster, who was Henry Hamilton’s successor at Detroit:

  Colonel Clark is said to be at Fort Jefferson & will not be able to join the Rebels assembling at the Falls before the 15th of this month. He has certainly 200 soldiers with him. I could wish to proceed immediately to the Falls.

  It is possible, before Colonel Clark’s arrival, they may raise 800 men, probable they may raise 600, certain they can raise 400. It is possible we may beat 800, probable we can beat 600, certain we can beat 400. Colonel Clark’s arrival will add considerably to their numbers, and to their confidence; therefore the Rebels should be attacked before his arrival. Now it is possible he may return by the 14th, probable by the 22nd, certain by the first of July. Tho’ possible for us to get to the Falls by the 10th of this month, certain by the 14th.

  The Indians have their full spirits, the ammunition, and everything plenty, and in the state we could wish it. After taking the Falls, the country on our return will be submissive and in a manner subdued; but if we attacked the nearer forts, in Fayette county, first as we advanced, we would have a continual desertion of Indians, our ammunition expended, and our difficulties would increase as we advanced, and Colonel Clark would be at the Falls, with his people collected to fight us.

  I have another reason for attacking the Falls: Should we succeed, we can ambuscade Mr. Clark as he returns.

  If this plan is not followed, it will be owing to the Indians, who may adopt others.

  I am Dear Sir Yr most humble and Obt Servant,

  H. BIRD

  For the truth is, thought the handsome, graceful-looking captain, putting down his quill and gazing out the tent door into the crowded, dusty, sunlit glade, though we purport to be in command, seven hundred Shawnees really can hardly be controlled.

  ***

  AT FORT JEFFERSON ON THE MORNING OF JUNE TENTH, SOLDIERS and workmen loading munitions and rolling cannon in the parade ground paused in their work and watched in astonishment as three tall, muscular, bare-chested Indians in leggings, feathers, breechclouts, and war paint, emerged from the doorway of Colonel Clark’s quarters with Captain John Slaughter and strode across the sunny enclosure toward the fort’s gate.

  Their surprise turned to incredulity as the three savages passed near them with their long rifles cradled in their arms; the Indian at the head of the trio had a strange, ruddy coloration, and on his chest, where a small, round, circular silver medallion hung by a thong, golden chest hair caught the sunlight.

  “By the eternal!” exclaimed one of the soldiers, a veteran of the original Illinois regiment, pointing, “That’n’s Cunnel Clark or I don’t know my own name!”

  “Damn me if it ain’t,” breathed another, “an’ them two’s Major Harlan an’ Captain Consola!”

  The three “braves” went out through the gate with the American captain and stood for a moment with him, looking eastward over the stump-dotted clearing and fields of waist-high, green young corn, toward an infinity of dark-green treetops.

  “Let’s pray,” smiled the red-haired one, “that we won’t be so easily recognized by the Indians ‘twixt here and the Falls.”

  “Then better pray, George, you don’t get that close to any of ‘em,” said Captain Slaughter. “You’re the only Indian I ever seen with redder hair than skin. You sure this ain’t a folly? I’d feel a heap safer if you’d an armed company around you.”

  “I know that, but there’s not time, and we’d be too easily discovered. Besides, I rather relish traveling light for a change. Now, see that you have that convoy on the way up the Ohio by tomorrow. God and our shanks willing, we’ll have a defense organized and waiting by the time you sail up.” He gave the captain a handshake and a hard squeeze on the shoulder, then turned to the two other disguised officers who, with their straight black hair and craggy, weathered features, might have had little trouble passing for Indians. “Now, my chieftains, d’you feel fit for a three-hundred-mile run through yon pristine forest?”

  “We’d best start now afore I have time to think on’t,” grinned Major Harlan.

  George turned back to the fort and saluted the men who had stopped working and stood along the parapets and the road down to the boats at the water’s edge looking at him. “See y’at the Falls, boys!” he yelled, then turned and led his companions at a long-legged lope down through the clearing and into the shadowy green wilderness, the huzzahs and farewells of the garrison soon being blotted up by the dank green curtain of foliage that closed behind them.

  They sped single file among the gigantic hardwoods, heavy rifles now at their right sides, now at their left. They ran with the Indian stride, moccasin toes pointed slightly inward, both to avoid entanglement in roots and to leave no obvious whitemen’s spoor. Within an hour they were breathing like horses, deep, slumping breaths in rhythm with their softly thudding feet, ignoring the pain, their sweat-stung eyes darting constantly among the columnar tree trunks ahead, with that woodsman’s determination always to see an Indian first.

  The forest floor was
moist and springy, free of almost all undergrowth except shade-dwelling fern, mayapple, and the minute wildflowers of the deep woods. The sun was evident in this green gloom only as an occasional spark of light on the eye when the runners would pass through some thin sunbeam that penetrated the lofty canopy of leaves. Musty black carcasses of giant oaks and maples lay decaying among the ferns, flecked with shelf fungi and lime-green mosses. Orioles, tanagers, cardinals, buntings darted away from their approach, shooting through the woods like flakes of red and indigo. So swiftly and quietly the runners came on that they surprised several deer where they stood; George once had to leap to clear the back of a fawn which had spraddled in terror in his path, too petrified to flee.

  Squirrels swarmed up trees; opossums peered up myopically, then blundered away among the ferns; once a black bear and its cub, surprised, scampered behind a hollow-beech honey tree and peered curiously out at the passing runners. George smiled with joy at these sights, and his mind slipped back to those carefree days, seven and eight years before, when he had roamed the inner frontiers where no white man had ever trodden before, then as now surprising animals who didn’t know what to make of him.

  Miles, leagues unwound backward under their padding feet. The little footrace medallion jounced upon his chest with every step, and he thought now of Teresa, with the other medallion on a chain around her neck, lying in the musky valley between those apple-firm little breasts. He had learned long ago that the burning agony of long-distance running could be blanked out if the runner allowed his mind to go elsewhere. In the runner’s wakeful trance, then, he led Harlan and Consola relentlessly eastward until, on the slope of a gully, Harlan fell to the ground and lay face down in the humus, sucking breath with a rasping sound, his legs twitching. A probing vertical finger of sunlight told the time as noon, and the three rested near a trickling mossy spring to eat strips of jerky and starchy crumbs of parched corn, which they chased down with a nutritious brew made by mixing a powder of corn flour and maple sugar with the crystal spring water. Now that they had stopped, they were beset by the nettlesome bites of huge black-and-tan deerflies, the nasal drone and toxic nips of mosquitoes. They anointed their sweating shoulders and backs with more bear grease to fend off these annoyances, looked each other over for wood ticks, then rose on twitching limbs to resume their progress. Shunning the bank of the Ohio, which they were sure would be heavily patrolled by Indians, they were heading eastward over untracked ground toward the Tennessee River—which they would have to contrive a means to cross—then some twenty miles farther on, they would have to cross the great Cumberland River. The mouths of both of these rivers would be watched, George was sure, and he intended to cross them far upstream from their junctures with the Ohio.