The new rudder lasted only twenty-four hours, and Lisa—almost pulling his thick hair out by the roots—ordered repairs made on both boats. Even with the work, they made twenty-seven miles due to the blessing of a hard southeastern wind. With cries of delight, they were able to run up the sails, and the engages rested, laughed, and crowded the deck.
Luck seemed to change for the expedition. On the first of July, they made a total of thirty-four miles, again the result of a blessing by favorable wind. A good day, the men cheered, but not good enough to hold a candle to the race they had run the year before against Wilson Price Hunt and his Astorians.
Once they had made a total of seventy-eight miles in twenty-four hours. The canny Lisa had managed to catch Hunt and his keelboats after giving them the Nodaway River as a head start. On the 2nd of June, 1811, Wilson Price Hunt was shocked to look downriver and see Lisa’s boats—a keelboat record never equaled on the river.
Again, disaster was narrowly avoided in the early morning of the fourth of July. A heavy rain collapsed part of the bank under which the expedition was camped, and Lisa—along with several others—almost drowned in his bedroll before they could escape the rising waters.
It rained all day, and they camped that night at the foot of Blackbird Hill: a high bluff topped with the earthen mound that entombed the old Omaha chief who had once ruled the river by blood and poison.
The next day they ended up taking two false channels through a small group of islands. Lisa’s keen sense didn’t betray him. The channels were good—but each was blocked at the top with snags and embarrass, which proved impenetrable.
To everyone’s disappointment, they backtracked and used the old tried and true route, which passed between the islands, and they still made good time, having ascended for more than fifteen miles before the weather forced a halt to all travel.
On the sixth of July, they traveled a total of thirty miles along the crooked river. Part of the time they sailed, and the rest they rowed. Passing the Omaha village, two men were sent to see if the Indians there might be interested in trade. The hardies returned shortly, claiming the swamps and mosquitos were not worth the effort.
During the seventh, they logged eighteen miles after starting at daybreak, and they passed the Floyd River, the Sun River, and the Big Sioux. They totaled the same mileage on the eighth, but were rewarded for their efforts by boiling clouds of mosquitos that were not deterred in the slightest when the men smoked themselves in the fires at night. Miserable, they huddled under their blankets swatting, cursing, and praying for a strong wind to blow the varmints away.
The following morning they followed a channel Lisa had used before to round a long narrow island. After a full morning of cordelling and poling they reached the tip of the island to find that an embarrass had formed since the trader’s last trip upriver. Shaking his head and smiling wistfully, Lisa ordered them to backtrack, losing the morning’s travel as well.
Even with the false start, they passed the mouth of Iowa Creek and made twenty-four miles. Camped that evening, Lisa ordered the hunters to light signal fires in the hopes that the Indians would spot them and come in for trade.
That night, Fenway McKeever strolled over to where Tylor lay propped against a log. John hid under a thoroughly smoked blanket that covered any part of his body where a mosquito might land. With a baleful glare, he sucked his pipe and blew smoke at the cloud of bloodsuckers. They hovered and sung in a wavering, high-pitched siren’s orchestra over his head.
“Evenin’,” McKeever nodded as he saluted with a cup of coffee. He grinned as Tylor went tense. Time to begin bringing the man into the fold.
“Evenin’ yourself,” Tylor returned warily. “What can I do for you, Fenway?”
“I be a wee bit lonely.” McKeever dropped to his haunches and swatted at the little army of mosquitos. They had followed him across the camp and now were beginning to blend in with Tylor’s.
“Reckon it happens.” Tylor cast him an irritated glance.
“Uh-huh, and I be fed up to the craw wi’ talkin’ French, too. Times are when a mon would like t’ hear his home tongue fer just a wee bit. O’ course, I nay heard a good back country brogue fer a while now. Makes me long for the old country.”
Tylor nodded nervously.
“Might hear more o’ it dependin’ on how matters go upriver.” McKeever drained his coffee and pulled his pipe from a pocket. As he shaved tobacco from his carrot, he thoughtfully tamped it into the bowl and struck a spark from his flint and steel. Touching that glowing ember to a twist of grass, he lit the bowl and blew a cloud of smoke to counter the mosquitos.
“Depends.” Tylor shrugged. “I don’t think the British can do anything to upset Manuel Lisa in the long run. He has too much Indian savvy.”
McKeever gave Tylor a careful scrutiny and paused while he thought. “That embargo, now, laddie. The British have shut off American access to English-made trade goods. An’ the English made the best, not counting Italian beads. Nothin’ is gettin’ through from Montreal to Michilimackinac and the American traders up north. Let alone upriver from New Orleans. How can Lisa compete wi’oot English goods?”
“He can do it by knowing the people up there. Knowing how they think. What they need. There’s more to Indian trade than goods. You’ve been around long enough to know that.” Tylor looked suddenly unsure as he shot McKeever a suspicious glance.
“Tis nay good economics though,” McKeever insisted, prodding. “Robert Dickson and his agents ha’ more goods fer cheaper—and better t’ boot!”
Tylor scratched a mosquito bite that was in the little bald place behind his ear. “Can’t forget, though, Fenway, that the Arikara, the Mandan, and the Sioux are old hands at trading. They’ve heard every line in the book by now. Promises and goods one year don’t mean a thing to ’em. Like anybody else they want a dependable source of foofaraw. That’s Lisa’s strength on the river. He’s never promised what he didn’t fess up.”
“Ach, mon!” McKeever cocked his head. “And the British dinna do the same? Ye canna tell me they’re stupider than stones when it comes to trade. They bin at it fer a hundred years.”
“They’ve been at it back east and in the far north,” Tylor shook his head and ran his fingers through his beard to rid of it mosquitos. “Indians on the plains see the world in an entirely different way than the British or the Americans back east think they do. These aren’t Cherokee, Iroquois, or Creek. Take this crazy notion of Jefferson’s. He figures he’ll teach the Indians to be white by the time the frontier gets to them. That they will have built up an economy that allows them to slip right into the American system.”
“It’ll nay work, laddie.” McKeever spat, giving Tylor a sour expression.
“No.” Tylor squinted speculatively. “But not for the reasons you think. Jefferson believes economic inclusion is a fine idea in light of . . . Well, you see, he reads a lot of philosophy. Makes sense to him—so long as he’s sitting at Monticello and talking to Chief John Ross or another Cherokee. The Sioux are an entirely different people. They won’t see any advantage in changing from who and what they are. Why should they? The world works fine for them as it currently is.”
“Savages, mon.” McKeever muttered, shaking his head. “What need they wi’ landed ways?”
Tylor stared icily—and drew his blanket tighter, as if for security. “But the biggest reason Jefferson’s plan won’t work? It’s because Indian beliefs and ways aside, the frontier is rushing westward with a vengeance. Not even Clark or Lisa understand that. Jefferson thinks he has a hundred years. We’ll be lucky if it’s twenty.”
McKeever squinted his disbelief. “Clear oot here, mon? Yer daft.”
“Wish I were. To bring it back to the subject, Lisa knows what to tell the tribes. If it looks like England and the United States are going to go to war, the eastern Indians will fight. These out here won’t. Lisa will hold the river.”
“There be a lot o’ men who’d nay be bett
in’ that way,” he said absently. “And Robert Dickson to consider in the bunch. He be a counterpart to Lisa, and he be married to Sioux women. If Tecumseh’s people fight against the Americans, they might draw more Indians to their side. Who knows where that would end?”
Tylor laughed bitterly. “Every war the British have ever fought on this continent, they’ve done the same. Sucker the Indians. Make them fight. Sure enough, they drop enough trinkets into the laps of the young men, and off they go. They raise hell. Kill American farmers, and women, and kids, and get the length and breadth of the frontier in an uproar and—”
“And the British take o’er, laddie!”
“Hell!” Tylor grunted. “Next thing, the Americans forget they’re supposed to be fighting the British, and they kick the hell out of the Indians. You’d think the tribes would learn sometime. Never trust a white man, American or British!”
Tylor spit sourly into the night. “Nor can you forget Napoleon and the war in Europe. America is a distant distraction. The British have their hands more than full on the continent. McKeever, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cynical attitude, laddie.” In a lower voice he added, “Perhaps the British offer more in the long run.”
“Can’t convince me of that. I’ve lived in England. The crown might be on the moon for all it understands of Indian ways. And believe me, each tribe is completely different.” Tylor scowled and smashed a mosquito that landed on his knee.
McKeever looked hotly at Tylor. “The British don’t come an’ talk peace, make a treaty with ’em, and take their land away. The British do’na make no drastic changes in the way the red folks live. Were I an Indian, laddie, I’d approve of bein’ me own agent. The Americans want the whole caboodle, and t’ hell with Indian lands and ways.”
“Really? And the tribes in Canada aren’t being pushed back onto reserves? You don’t understand the history, how Queen Elizabeth adopted the same tactics she was using against the Irish and turned them on the Indian peoples. A policy that has become part and parcel of both the American and English systems in North America.”
McKeever experienced that crafty moment of insight. Hard to argue with Tylor. The man had a full grasp of the land and its peoples. But how did McKeever gain control of the man?
“So, for the sake of argument, let’s say we agree the British can somehow wiggle the river trade away from Lisa. Won’t work in the long run, Fenway.” Tylor wrapped the blanket tighter around his body, glaring back. “Remember what I said earlier? The Americans are coming west. No other way around it. So England and America fight each other? So the British take control of territory throughout the northwest? They can’t hold it. Not in the long run.”
“Ye’re talkin’ aboot the biggest strongest power in the world, mon!” McKeever began to anger, then checked himself.
“And Napoleon isn’t conquering all of Europe?” Tylor laughed. “Fenway, the Americans are wandering west like . . . like the Goths and Vandals and Lombards wandered south into Roman country. It’s the same thing. England can’t stop it. The British traders—including that damn high an’ mighty Robert Dickson everybody talks about—aren’t about to make a dent in it. The Indians, Tecumseh and the Prophet be damned, can’t stop it. England? Hell, the crown doesn’t give a rat’s ass about back country like this with Napoleon gobbling up big chunks of Europe.”
“They will, John Tylor.” McKeever added, watching his prey. “They always do. ’Tis the nature of the king an’ his bloody backs.”
“Reckon I’ll miss it.” Tylor grunted, irritated. “I’m goin’ to be so far from it all that I don’t need to worry my little fat head about it.”
“Is that right, laddie? Don’t be too sure. These sorts o’ things come upon a mon when he least expects it.”
“Wild horses couldn’t drag me into that that kind of intrigue,” Tylor said, looking away. “I’m headed for the Shinin’ Mountains to trap beaver, and I don’t give a bloody damn what the English do.”
McKeever watched Tylor with a slight squint in his eye. Now he knew what Joshua Gregg saw in Tylor. The man could be a definite asset. He had just confirmed many of McKeever’s own thoughts on the matter.
“Aye! ’Tis a rare thing to hear a mon from Virgina speak in words that do’na bubble praise fer the Republic. Like I told ye before, I niver worried that much aboot politics. But now t’would seem that it will affect the trade. An’ if a British trader offered ye a handsome salary t’ trap and trade fer him while all this war business was going on?”
Tylor pinned McKeever with a stony glare. “Reckon that would depend on the circumstance now, wouldn’t it?”
“Circumstance always talks loudest. I bring that up, laddie, b’cause we may encounter a lot o’ changes in the next year or two. I was curious as to how ye’d react. A lot of men, there be, thot would flatly refuse to trade wi’ the British. They be American—work for Americans—and to hell wi’ anyone else. The future, however, is for those wi’ the sense to better themselves.”
McKeever’s deadly green eyes, like daggers of ice, bore into Tylor. “Me, I been too many different things. Born Scottish—that’s really what I be till I die. I came to Canada, and I was considered English. And that be fine, too. A war was fought, and in someplace I niver heard of, a treaty was signed that made me American. That be fine, too. When a mon be that many nationalities in his life, the lines get a wee bit blurred.”
“I’ve only been American. Still, a man does what he thinks is right—even when you end up makin’ a hell of a mistake. That’s where the circumstances come in, Fenway.”
“Ye follow yer own morality, John Tylor?”
“Of course.” Tylor was watching him warily. “The philosophers would tell you that ultimately a man can’t follow anyone else’s. One thing I can say, McKeever: I made mistakes. I may have rued the outcome of the things I did—and wished to the bottom of Hell that I never would have done others. Still, when it was all said and done, I never did anything I thought was immoral, or bad, or vicious.”
And ye’d say treason wasn’t immoral or bad?
“That makes for an interesting life, I’d bet.” Ready to pounce, McKeever asked, “Where does yer ultimate loyalty lie, John Tylor?”
Tylor sucked his pipe, answereing just as cagily. “Not sure I know. I guess a man tries to get through life without causing another man any grief or hurt unnecessarily. I’m not sure that there’s any more to morality than that.”
“And the grander causes of right an’ wrong? What about the duty you owe your God and country? What of loyalty to a cause? That kinship that comes of a society of like-minded men? And ambition? What ye owe yerself to better yer place among men?”
“Reckon I’ve smelled that brand of rancid tripe before,” Tylor said sourly, and averted his eyes.
Aha! Look at Tylor squirm! “But there must be merit to the idea. Where’s yer sense of sacred honor? That a mon be a patriot, that he owe his life to God and country. That his word be his bond? What ye call ‘rancid tripe’ be the heart of what makes a mon a mon.” McKeever grinned wickedly. “ ’Tis said that a mon lacking honor is nothing but a base coward, and wi’oot moral compass. Little better than a beast.”
Tylor’s gaze hardened, his jaw muscles tensing. McKeever could see the battle reflected between outrage and fear. A complicated man, this Tylor, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
In a controlled voice, Tylor said, “Whether I have honor or not, won’t matter in the end. I don’t think you gave enough weight to what I said about the Americans migrating west. They not a gonna stop for nothing—not for British, Indians, Spanish, or anyone else.”
McKeever hesitated, letting Tylor cool. Time to repair the rift. He pulled a flask out of his possibles. “Here, try this.”
Tylor nodded, took the flask, and sipped before he nodded in appreciation. “That’s a very good whiskey, Fenway. Offering a bribe, are you?”
“I be no British spy, Tylor. I think yer
mind is starting t’ see me so.”
“What are you, Fenway?” Tylor asked softly. “You don’t come off as a trader. You don’t fill the bill as a hunter or an adventurer, either.”
“Ye be very perceptive. I realized that after our first conversation. I was wrong aboot ye, Johnny. Ye’re a sharp character. Ye knows how men and nations function in the world.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Tylor reminded. “What are you doing out here? Who are you working for?”
“I work fer Manuel Lisa. Jist like ye. I’m headed upriver to help him trap and trade with the Upper Missouri tribes. And why are ye on this voyage? But then, I think we both know, don’t we?”
Tylor paled. “I haven’t a clue as to what you’re talking about.”
“O’ course, ye do, Johnny. But fear not. I’ll nay be telling Lisa or the others.”
Tylor, though obviously shaken, kept his voice cool. “I’m here doing the same thing that you are, Fenway. I’m working for Manuel Lisa and I want to see the country.”
“Sure, laddie. If that’s the way ye wants to play it, I’ll be game.” Fenway laughed, slapped a hand on his knee. “Very well, laddie, we ken each other. Jist remember . . . in spite o’ meself, I be willing to be yer friend. That could be worth an awful lot depending on how things . . . Well . . . a mon jist niver knows what fate has in store fer him.”
McKeever, to make his point, whipped out his knife, arm shooting out like a bolt. The blade flashed in the evening. It thunked hollowly into a tree—neatly pinning a small brown bird that searched the bark for bugs. Feathers drifted slowly to earth.
McKeever smiled, stood, and stretched. “Keep that flask o’ whiskey, laddie. I think of all the men on this expedition, ye be the only one who can really appreciate a good single malt.” With that, McKeever stepped over and pulled his knife free, letting the severed body fall.
Flight of the Hawk: The River Page 16