No question but the times were a-changing, almost faster than the mind could assimilate. In Taos all things moved at a languorous and well-structured pace. In many ways Taos was little changed from the way it had been a hundred years ago. The society was steeped in time-honored tradition. Life was to be savored. In the United States life was to be spent—in a hurry, and in the pursuit of prosperity. Only recently were Americans learning to indulge in leisure.
New York City was a case in point. No one who saw the metropolis in all its vitality and magnitude could fail to be inspired by a sense of raw power and magnificent destiny. A forest of masts and spars rose from the hulls of hundreds of ships packed like sardines in the East River. The merchants and warehouses at the southern end of Manhattan Island handled half the imports and a third of the exports for the entire nation. Though London was still considered the financial capital of the world, Wall Street was coming on fast and could already boast the greatest concentration of wealth in America. Forty-six years ago, at the turn of the century, New York's population had not exceeded 125,000, now almost 400,000 souls resided there, with hundreds more arriving every week, most of these refugees from the political unrest in Europe, or, as in the case of the Irish, fleeing the grim prospect of famine.
Once Boston and Philadelphia had rivaled New York City as commercial centers, but no longer. The latter enjoyed too many natural advantages. Its harbor was broad and sheltered. It enjoyed ready access to a busting, industrialized New England. To the north the Hudson River linked the city with the Erie Canal, which in turn connected New York with the fast-growing regions beyond the formidable barrier of the Appalachians. The decade of uncertainty, deflation and, in some cases, ruination, which had marked the worldwide depression following the Panic of 1837 had been but a temporary setback.
New York City was symbolic of American power and progress. The city was brash, barbaric, hustling, arrogant, ostentatious, confident, unrefined. Delgado had visited the Astor Place Opera, and at the Chatham he had been entertained by a "grand national drama" entitled The March to Freedom, which featured General Taylor and the Goddess of Liberty vanquishing Mexican tyranny. He had dined at the Milles-Colonnes, sampled ice cream—the newest rage—at Contoit's, been accosted by a lady of dubious virtue as he strolled the enchanting woods of the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, seen the magnificent town homes of the gentry in Park Place and Washington Square.
He had seen the darker side of the city, too—the squalid ghettos near Five Points, the ragpickers, hot corn girls, and apple peddlers who exemplified the thousands of unseen poor. Many better-off New Yorkers ignored these suffering masses or contemptuously considered them the degraded overflow of European society. But many more, feeling it their duty to extend a helping hand to those less fortunate, contributed time and money to a host of benevolent charities like The Society for the Relief of Poor Widows and the New York Orphan Asylum. Delgado had concluded that while sometimes Americans could be small-minded, they were more often than not big-hearted.
After experiencing New York, he could not help but wonder what fate held in store for Taos. The Americans believed they were destined to own the continent, and Delgado did not believe the strife-torn Republic of Mexico could stand against the irresistible Yankee tide. Though Angus McKinn had never said so, Delgado suspected his father of sending him off to England to place him well out of harm's way, knowing that a clash was inevitable. This had suited Delgado, he was no warrior, and he could muster no allegiance, no patriotic enthusiasm, for any flag. Now a war was being fought, and territory would change hands. Taos would soon be a part of the United States. The Stars and Stripes would fly above the old Cabildo in the provincial capital of Santa Fe.
By virtue of conquest, whether he liked it nor not, Delgado McKinn was destined to become an American. On that score he was ambivalent. Americans and their ways were fascinating, but remained strange to him. He wondered if he would fit in, or forever feel like an outcast.
3
The Sultana was putting in to shore on the Missouri side, where a small village in a quick-cut clearing was coming to sudden life with the arrival of the "floating palace." In such a frontier settlement, drowsy in the summer sunshine, the day was a slow and dreary thing, yesterday's mirror image and a blueprint for tomorrow. But even as Delgado watched, the levee came alive with people as the cry "Steamboat a'comin'!" rang out. From every rough-hewn log and raw clapboard structure the denizens poured to gaze in awe at the wondrous sight of the side-wheeler, so long and trim and resplendent.
The whistle blasts that had awakened Delgado served to alert crew and passengers of imminent landfall. Now, as the Sultana veered nearer the western shore, the big bell above the pilothouse rang out, two mellow notes. From the hurricane deck, almost directly above Delgado, the watchman called out, "Labboard lead! Starboard lead!"
The leadsmen rushed to their places near the bow, on the main deck. When the pilot rang the bell once, the starboard leadsman tossed out his knotted and weighted line to measure the river's depth and called out, "Mark three!" At two bells the man on the other side performed the same ritual "Quarter less three!" And soon, "Half twain! . . . Quarter twain! . . . Mark twain!" The pilot hailed the engine room, and the Sultana slowed perceptibly. Steam whistled as it escaped through the gauge cocks.
Having visited the pilothouse earlier, Delgado could picture in his mind's eye what was occurring there at this moment. The pilot would be putting the wheel down hard to swing the boat into her marks. The cries of the leadsmen indicated that the water was becoming "shoal." "Eight and a half!" "Eight!" "Seven and a half!" Delgado felt a tingle at the base of his spine and glanced about him surreptitiously to see if any of the other passengers presently occupying the deck realized that now the steamboat's hull was less than two feel from the bottom. "Seven feet!" Would they run aground? Surely not. A boat like the Sultana would merit the services of the best "lightning pilot" money could hire. At this speed, if they did run aground, the impact would be violent, and Delgado imagined himself hurled through a shattered railing into the murky brown water below. But he did not move, or betray in any way his apprehension. Suddenly, the engines stopped—he could no longer feel their pulse through the decking beneath his feet. The agile Sultana swung its stern sharply toward the shore as the pilot rolled the big wheel faster than the human eye could follow.
"Eight feet!" called the starboard leadsman, and Delgado breathed again.
Nice as you please, the side-wheeler came alongside a ramshackle wharf of gray, weathered timber. The mate, a big, burly, and profane man, took charge of the deck hands responsible for running out the gangplank. "Start the plank forward! Look lively now! Damn your eyes, are you asleep, boy? Heave! Heave! You move slower than a damned hearse! Aft again! Aft, I say! Are you deaf as well as daft?"
Delgado watched four men with rifles tilted on their shoulders come up the gangplank. They halted before stepping foot on the packet and looked up at the captain who stood in his most imposing fashion by the big bell on the texas deck.
"Ahoy, Cap'n!" called the foremost of the quartet. "We be bound for St. Looy to join Doniphan's Volunteers. Will you take us free of charge? Our pockets are full of dust and not much else."
"Come aboard, boys," answered the Sultana's captain with a sweeping and magnanimous gesture. "I would not accept so much as a redback dollar from brave men who are marching off to strike a blow for liberty."
The volunteers grinned and tipped their hats and came aboard, seeking some small space on the already overcrowded main deck, where those who could not afford the first-class comfort of the staterooms were packed in amongst the freight: sacks of rice, barrels of molasses, casks of rum, crates of imported goods, and a variety of livestock.
The four rifle-toting young men intrigued Delgado. Where were they bound? Surely St. Louis was not their final destination. Who was Doniphan? No doubt it had something to do with the war.
A man appeared at the railing beside him. It was Sterling,
a newspaper rolled under one arm and a twinkle in his eye.
"Good morning, McKinn. No ill effects from last night's excesses, I trust?"
"I've never felt better," lied Delgado. The sharp, stabbing pain in his head had subsided into a dull, persistent ache behind the eyes. "Tell me, Sterling, about Doniphan's Volunteers."
"You mean the First Missouri Mounted Rifles. They are to join Colonel Stephen Kearny and his dragoons at Fort Leavenworth. Kearny is being dispatched to Santa Fe to protect U.S. citizens and property there. In other words, to occupy New Mexico and—who knows?—California, too, in all likelihood. Alexander Doniphan is an acquaintance of mine, a young lawyer, who was one of the first to answer Governor Edwards's call for volunteers. He enlisted as a private, but, as is the custom in our volunteer forces, the men elected him their commander. Whereupon the State of Missouri has honored him with the rank of colonel."
"I see. Santa Fe, you said?"
"Yes. They are calling Kearny's command the Army of the West. Have you not been keeping up with news of the war?"
Delgado flinched. "I have made it a point not to."
"May I speak bluntly?"
"By all means."
"You struck me at first as something of a ne'er-do-well. Someone who would not bother himself with the intricacies of current affairs, who would instead interest himself solely in the sporting life. Not unlike our young friend, Horan. But, upon further reflection, I've changed my mind about you, McKinn. This war with Mexico is of grave concern to you, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Delgado, deciding on the spur of the moment that he could confide in Sterling. "Taos is my home. My father is a trader. His name is Angus McKinn. He is Scottish-born, a Highlander, but thirty years ago he established himself in Taos and became a Mexican citizen in '24. The new Republic of Mexico required all foreign-born residents to convert to Catholicism and swear allegiance to the republic and its constitution. My father was quite happy to do both."
"Even forsake his religion? I assume he was a Protestant."
"Even that. He had fallen in love with my mother, the daughter of a Spanish grandee. In order to marry her, he had to convert. She could not have become his bride otherwise. At any rate, after the Texas expedition to seize Santa Fe, my father decided to send me off to England. He wanted the best possible education for me, and that meant Oxford."
"We have a few good institutions in this country," said Sterling. "Yale, for instance, and Brown, to name but two."
Delgado smiled. "My father had an ulterior motive. To place me as far away as possible from the war he knew was coming."
"I see. That explains England. But your return is a little premature, my friend. War broke out only two months ago. Mexican soldiers crossed the Rio Grande and killed some of our brave soldiers. American blood shed on American soil, as President Polk described it to Congress. Of course," added Sterling with a wry smile, "Northern Whigs take issue with the 'American soil' part of that equation. As you must know, there is still some debate regarding which country holds legitimate title to the territory that lies between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River."
"War or no," said Delgado flatly, "I must get home."
Sterling leaned forward. "I may be presuming a friendship where none exists," he said, "but I ask you this solely out of concern for your welfare, which I value if only because your skill at whist provided me with the opportunity to best that pompous Brent Horan. Where does your allegiance lie, sir?"
"With my father," was Delgado's prompt answer. "To no one and nothing else."
"And your father's allegiance?"
"He is a businessman."
"He swore an oath to the flag and constitution of the Republic of Mexico, did he not?"
"That he did," conceded Delgado. "But he will always put my mother and me, and his business affairs, before all else. I am not implying that he is without honor, of course."
"Of course not."
Delgado drew a deep breath. "He has a long-standing commercial relationship with a man named Jacob Bledsoe in St. Louis. Perhaps you have heard of him?"
"Indeed I have. I am well acquainted with Bledsoe. He is one of the leaders of the community, a highly respected gentleman."
"At my father's request I have come to St. Louis to visit Mr. Bledsoe. Perhaps he will have some ideas regarding how I am to get home, now that it appears that there is a war in my way."
A sudden commotion drew their attention. A stateroom door burst open and several men, locked in fierce combat, tumbled out across the threshold. A young lady shrieked. The knot of men careened off the railing, and Delgado was amazed that the railing did not give way and pitch all of the combatants into the river or onto the ramshackle wharf.
"Look!" exclaimed Sterling. "It's Horan."
So it was. Horan emerged from the melee, hat missing, cravat askew, an expression of savage elation on his features. He brandished a pamphlet over his head.
"We caught him!" he cried to one and all. "Caught the scoundrel red-handed. A damned abolitionist, come to stir up our Negroes into insurrection. I say we teach the blackguard a lesson he won't soon forget."
"Tar and feather him!" came one bellicose suggestion.
"No," said Horan, his eyes blazing with a lurid fever. "Get a rope. We will hang him, here and now, and be done with it."
4
Sterling stepped forward. "Let me see that pamphlet, Horan," he said sternly. It was more an order than a request.
Smirking, Horan surrendered the damning evidence. "Have in mind defending this rascal, Mister Sterling?"
Delgado had no doubts now—deep animosity ran like a river of black bile between these two men. What had transpired to set these two strong wills at odds?
Sterling studied the pamphlet. "The American Antislavery Society." He fastened a cold, piercing gaze upon the stout, disheveled man now held firmly in the grasp of two others. "Your name, sir?"
"Rankin. Jeremiah Rankin." He was afraid, but though his voice trembled, he managed to conjure up a little defiance. Under the circumstances, mused Delgado, that was quite commendable.
"You are either a very courageous man, or a very foolish one, sir," said Sterling. "Were your intentions to distribute this material among the slaves?"
"I have already done so, sir, in New Orleans, Natchez, and Vicksburg."
A man emerged from Rankin's stateroom with a carpetbag. When opened, it could be seen that the valise was half full of pamphlets identical to the one in Sterling's possession.
"And these?" asked Sterling. "Bound for St. Louis, no doubt."
Rankin did not answer.
"What do we do with them?" asked the man holding the carpetbag.
"Burn them," growled Horan. "Consign them to the flames of the furnace. Perhaps our abolitionist should meet the same fate. Give him a taste of the Hell to which a just God will send him for daring to instigate our servants to revolt—to murder, rape, and pillage."
Delgado thought at first that Horan had to be joking. But there was nothing to his tone or expression to suggest that he was not in deadly earnest.
"Sterling," said Delgado. "May I see that pamphlet?"
"Certainly."
"Read it aloud, sir," insisted Horan, "so that these people may have no doubt as to the man's guilt."
Delgado glanced at the crowd of gentlemen and ladies who had congregated on the deck. He opened the slim pamphlet to a random passage and read aloud.
"We view as contrary to the Law of God, on which hang the Unalienable Rights of Mankind, as well as every Principle of revolution, to hold in deepest debasement, in a more abject slavery than is perhaps to be found in Any part of the World, so many souls that are capable of the image of God."
He paused to scan the circle of intent faces. No one seemed to be breathing. Clearly, the pamphlet and what it contained fascinated even while it repulsed them. Delgado felt like a snake handler. Turning a page, he read on:
"What is meant by IMMEDIATE ABOLITION? It means every Negro hus
band shall have his own wife, united in wedlock, protected by law. It means Negro parents shall have control and government of their own children, and that these children shall not be taken away from their parents. It means providing schools and instruction for the Negro. It means right over wrong, love over hatred, and religion over heathenism."
"Immediatism," said Sterling with a hard look at Rankin. "Gradual emancipation is out of fashion these days, isn't it?"
"This all seems rather harmless," said Delgado.
Horan snatched the pamphlet from his grasp. Fuming, the Southerner turned to the last page of the document.
"Voluntary submission to slavery is sinful," he read triumphantly. "It is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means—moral, intellectual and physical—that promises success in attaining your freedom. You must cease toiling for tyrants. If you then just commence the work of death, they and not you are responsible for the consequences. There is not much hope of redemption without the shedding of blood."
A murmur of shocked outrage rippled through those gathered near.
Horan raised a clenched fist. "Tyrants? Physical means? The work of death?" Infuriated, he slapped Rankin across the face with the pamphlet. "Defend that, Sterling. If you dare."
"But," said Delgado, "you've seen to it that your slaves are illiterate. Since they cannot read, those words are harmless."
"A few of the ungrateful wretches flaunt our codes and have learned to read," said Horan. "They will spread this vile poison to others, sowing the seeds of discontent. They think they want their freedom? They will suffer and starve as freedmen. Our Negroes are well cared for. They are clothed, fed, and housed. They are nursed to health when they fall prey to sickness. They want for nothing. Compare their condition to the plight of the poor in Northern cities, who labor sixteen hours a day in mill and factory, are paid starvation wages, and struggle to survive in plague-infested slums!"
Horan stabbed an accusing finger at Rankin. "This man is not concerned with the well-being of the Negro. The abolitionist is the tool of the Northern industrialist, who fears the political power of the South, and seeks to destroy our society by removing the cornerstone of its foundation. The South cannot survive without the institution of slave labor, sir. You should understand that, Sterling. You were, after all, born a Southerner."
American Blood Page 2