“You’d do better not to wear that uniform hereabouts,” Sam advised, low-voiced. “There’s some around as don’t care for it.”
“It’s our country’s uniform,” Miles replied quietly. “I wear it with pride.”
Sam’s face changed. “Comes to that,” he said, “I’ve worn it myself. Only there’s some, the Cherokees and their friends, who don’t care much for it.”
“From what I’ve heard,” Miles replied, “it is less the Army that makes the trouble, and more some of your Georgia politicians.”
Sam glanced toward the men at the bar. “That’s right enough. And those are some of their friends. What they’re doing is a rotten shame.”
Sam left for the kitchen and Miles Tolan carefully avoided looking at the men at the bar. They were drinking, and as they drank they grew progressively more noisy, and such men were inclined to become quarrelsome.
Moreover, Hallett’s man had come into the room and from the glances cast his way, Miles was sure he had been telling them the events of the morning. From words overheard Miles learned the man’s name was Adam Couch.
When the food arrived Miles realized for the first time how really hungry he was. The long ride in the mountain air had been invigorating, but strenuous, too, and the ham had proved all that McCrae had implied. He ate hungrily, aware that the loud voices from the crowd at the bar had dropped to a conspiratorial mumble. From what he could hear the women at the next table were growing increasingly apprehensive. McCrae was stubborn, and refused to be hurried.
Suddenly a pockmarked man with a tough swagger detached himself from the group and strode to the table where the women sat. Leaning over, he put his big palms flat on the table. “You got the on’y woman here, fella,” he said, grinning at McCrae, “I think we ought to give you some comp’ny.”
“The lady you refer to is my sister.”
“Is she now?” Grinning insolently, the man pulled up a chair and sat down. He was, Miles observed, just drunk enough to be both mean and dangerous.
McCrae got to his feet. “Shall we go? It is quite late.”
The man in the chair grinned up at him. “You can go anytime you like,” he said, “but she stays.”
One of the men from the bar was strolling casually across the room, his intent to get behind McCrae. Another man moved to the table where Miles Tolan sat.
Miles continued to eat, alert to every shift of position. The man behind McCrae could seize him if he offered any opposition, and the third man was obviously supposed to keep Miles from interfering, but Miles had already planned to shove a chair into that man before he could move, and a pistol would cover the others. Such affairs were far from new to him, and though he savored the coming action he was worried for the sake of the women. His dislike for the men at the bar was surpassed only by his dislike for Adam Couch.
“We will go,” McCrae said quietly. “I advise you not to interfere.”
“You’ll have the law on us, I suppose?” The man at the table grinned insolently. “There ain’t no law for Injuns, so we can do what we want. You’ve no comeback, not none a-tall.” Outside there was the sound of hooves and harness.
Miles put down his cup and thought of an alternative that was equally pleasing and less physical. From his waistband he took a pistol and placed it on the table, and as he did so the man watching him spoke quickly. “The sojer’s got a pistol, Stanky.”
Stanky’s head turned sharply around, glancing from the pistol on the table to Miles Tolan quietly sipping his coffee. His cup was rather obviously held in his left hand. He had said nothing. Only the cold steel of the pistol lay there, more eloquent than words.
“Your carriage has just drawn up, Mr. McCrae,” Miles said then, “and you have some distance to go, I believe.”
McCrae’s poise did him credit. “Of course…Will you join us?”
“No.” Miles Tolan looked over at Stanky as he spoke. “I am sure these gentlemen would like to arrange some entertainment for me here, and I would dislike to miss it.”
“We would enjoy having you for our guest,” McCrae insisted politely, “and our accommodations, begging Sam’s pardon, are somewhat more satisfactory than his. It would be a privilege to have you, sir.”
Miles Tolan got to his feet and picked up the pistol. “In that case, I shall accept. I am sure these gentlemen will understand and postpone whatever plans they had until a later time.”
Stanky’s face was set in ugly lines. His drunkenness seemed to have disappeared. “I think,” he said coolly, “I think I’ll make you use that pistol.”
CHAPTER 3
“I would not advise it.”
The voice came from the doorway, and Miles was irritated with himself for hearing no sound from the opening door. “I would not advise it, Stanky. Mr. Tolan was always a most excellent shot…one of the best I have ever seen.”
Miles Tolan did not turn his eyes from the man he was watching, but said quietly, “It has been a long time, Will.”
Stanky backed off hurriedly. “We didn’t mean nothing, Mr. Rounce. We was just havin’ some fun.”
“Get out.”
Will Rounce did not lift his voice, but there was something in its tone that could not be missed. “Get out…and if you ever speak to Miss McCrae again, or trouble her in any way at all, I’ll kill you.”
Thrusting the pistol back into his waistband, Miles turned to meet Will’s outstretched hand. “Miles! Man, but it is good to see you!”
Rounce turned. “Laura, I want you to meet Miles Tolan. We were boys together.”
Her acknowledgment was brief. “Will! Why did you not tell us you were coming? We had no idea!”
“It was a surprise, Laura. I was on my way to visit and hoped to surprise you, and now it is you who surprised me.”
Miles Tolan knew Rounce was lying. He had no idea why he was lying, but this advantage he always possessed over Will. He had always known even though old Elias, for all his shrewdness and judgment of people, seemed never to be aware of it. Miles, with better judgment than he had normally shown, knew, but had never let on that he knew.
Will had been a handsome boy, and he had grown into an even more handsome man. He possessed a noble head, finely carved features, and was even bigger than Miles, at least an inch taller and probably thirty pounds heavier. He had a shock of golden hair above a fine brow, and blue-white eyes, piercing and shrewd. He looked like a younger and much more handsome Andrew Jackson.
Standing to one side, Miles watched Will talking to Laura and her brother. Laura’s eyes glowed with excitement, and if she were not already Will’s woman, Miles reflected, she well could be, for she was obviously infatuated.
As always, Will dominated the room. All eyes were on him, and all hung on his words. With a curious sense of relief, Miles Tolan realized that he did not. Was it because he remembered Will from old? Or was it something else—something new and different? In any event, he felt that there was something shallow and false about the entire scene. For seventeen years Miles Tolan had dealt with the harshest kind of reality, and in those years he had known many men, but he was realizing that he had never liked Will. They had been thrown together by circumstances and others believed them inseparable friends, but such had never been the case. Under the apparent friendship they had always been rivals, but that rivalry had, on Miles’ part, always been tempered by the debt he owed to Will’s grandfather.
“Come!” Will caught Miles’ arm. “We will go on to Brignole.”
Outside, once he had helped Laura into her carriage, Will swung astride a fine-looking sorrel and cast an admiring glance at Tolan’s black, which the stable boy led out.
“Still a taste for horses, I see.” He met Miles’ eyes with a smile. “It’s good to see you,” he said sincerely. “We should never have lost track of each other. Believe me, I’ve needed a man I could trust, and often wondered what had become of you.”
The McCraes’ carriage clattered off and Will gestured widely. “This is
a growing country, Miles. Look what’s happened in Texas, and then look at what is happening here. Within the next few months the last of the Cherokees will be out of Georgia. Believe me, Miles, I am very close to the men behind this, and when that land is redivided I expect the best of it. You should give up your commission and join me.”
“I’d have to think about that.” Miles remembered that Will Rounce had always been full of plans, large plans. There was no denying his intelligence, and Miles knew the training they had both been given was such as to place them in an advantageous position in any bargaining that would be done. Too many times in the past men had underrated Will Rounce. To outward appearances he was a stalwart and handsome man who looked the soul of honor; only long familiarity allowed one to realize the devious cunning that lay beneath the surface.
Yet the offer was tempting. Will was a man who might go far, particularly as he was devoid of the scruples that might hold others back or make a more honorable man somewhat cautious.
“You’ll report to Lorin, I suppose. We’re very close, he and I, and you’ll do very well if you listen to me and work with me.” He was silent for a few minutes. “For the time it would be better for you to stay in the Army. I can use a man like you.”
Miles Tolan shifted his seat impatiently. It irked him that Rounce should so readily assume that he was not doing well, and that he would so readily fall in with whatever schemes Rounce had in mind. He was about to say as much, but restrained himself. Nothing was to be gained by starting trouble.
Rounce lowered his voice. “There’s gold here, Miles. Have you heard of that? Gold…and better than that, there is fertile soil. Once the Indians are out of here we’ll have a chance to get rich fast. Much of the land is already cleared and planted to crop.
“Reap the crops and sell, cut the marketable timber and sell, take the cream off the gold mines and sell…then move west. This is a big country, Miles, and all of it open to development.”
“If you go west you’ll be coming up against the Cherokees again. They may be tired of moving.”
Will Rounce chuckled. “They’re Indians, Miles. They had this country to themselves for thousands of years and did nothing with it except hunt, fish, and plant corn. We’re building a country, Miles, a big country. Nobody can stand in the way of that.”
Miles switched the conversation. “This place to which we’re going tonight…what’s it like?”
“Brignole? It’s the country home of the McCraes, and a lovely place, a very lovely place. I would hate to see it fall into the wrong hands.”
“There was some reference to the McCraes being Indian. That’s nonsense, of course.”
“It was not….You must realize, these are by no means the wild Indians of which you’ve heard. They have gone the white man’s way, or tried to. They’ve something like their own legislature, their own newspaper, and even their own courts.
“Some of these Indians are planters and businessmen, Miles, and not a few of them are very well-off. Some, like the McCraes, are truly wealthy.”
“But if they are moved west, what happens to that wealth?”
Will Rounce smiled into the dark. “That, my friend, is something to which we must give our attention. It would be a pity, a great pity, to have all that fall into the wrong hands.”
—
Brignole stood upon a tree-clad knoll well back from the high road, and was a long manor house of two stories with wings running back from either end. Across the front was a broad veranda and six columns. The house was painted white, and made a lovely sight surrounded by the huge old trees and fine expanse of lawn and garden that surrounded it. A drive surfaced with gravel swung in an easy half-circle from the high road to the door and back again to the road. The house possessed all the quiet dignity and elegance Miles had come to associate with the Virginia homes where he had often been a guest.
The slaves who met the carriage were tastefully dressed in dark livery and conducted themselves with pride and deference.
Inside, the house was tastefully and beautifully done in a style much less cluttered than was usual, and the room which he was shown had wide windows that opened upon a hillside. It was dark, but he could appreciate what the view must be. When he had bathed and changed into fresh linen and a carefully brushed uniform, he descended the stairs and found his way to the library.
A man of slightly more than medium height got up from his chair to greet him. He had black eyes and a faintly olive skin topped by pure white hair. “Lieutenant Tolan? I am John McCrae. Welcome to our home, sir. Please consider it your own.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And may I present John Ross?”
Miles Tolan turned with quick interest. John Ross, a chief of the Cherokees, was a man of medium height, rather squarely built with a shock of graying hair and keen blue eyes. He was, as Miles had heard long before, only one-eighth Cherokee, yet having grown up among them he considered himself one of them. Both his father, Daniel Ross, and his maternal grandfather, John McDonald, had come among the Cherokees as traders.
“How do you do, Lieutenant? Yours is a familiar name.”
“Mine, sir?”
“A friend of mine served with you during the Black Hawk War. He had much to say of your gallantry…and your marksmanship.”
“He was exaggerating, sir, I’m sure.” Miles hesitated. “Are you among the Cherokees who are migrating, sir?”
Ross chuckled. “I doubt it, Captain. I doubt it very much. Tell me: You rode down through the mountains, did you not? What did you think of them?”
“What is there to say? They are beautiful, sir, beautiful beyond belief.”
“Then you can understand why we do not wish to leave. This is our home….We have grown up here, lived here, and we wish to die here.”
“That was what Tsali told me.”
Ross glanced at him sharply. “You have met Tsali?”
Miles accepted a glass of sherry and sketched briefly the circumstances. “It is a pity,” he said at last, “that violence could happen, but I have no doubt it was a rare occurrence.”
“We wish it were….Unfortunately, Georgia passed a law denying the right of any Cherokee to institute a suit against a white citizen, or to appear as a witness against him. The rougher element have taken this as giving them the right to rape, plunder, and murder.”
Laura McCrae came into the room, and John Ross turned to her at once. “My dear,” he said, “I’ve never seen you look more lovely than tonight.”
She smiled at him, then her eyes swept the room, searching for Will Rounce, no doubt. Miles felt a little twinge of irritation, and was amused at himself for the feeling. Yet there was no question that Laura McCrae was a girl of singular beauty. Her black hair was parted on the side and combed back, several carefully composed ringlets dangling in front of her ears. The long hair was built into loops on the crown of her head, and her eyes, he noticed, were gray…gray and very beautiful.
The gown she wore was one that left her lovely shoulders bare, and the tight bodice tapered down to a small waist and a loose gown that flowed to the tips of her toes. With surprise, Miles realized it was the first gown he had seen in America that followed the new Paris fashion where the ankles were no longer visible. The material was of tulle over satin, and of a soft green that emphasized the color of her skin.
Miles felt uncomfortable, and hated himself for the feeling. It was not as if he were a stranger to good society, for he had traveled some in those seventeen years since he had last seen Will Rounce, but he was not accustomed to being ignored by pretty women, or any women at all, and he was vain enough to be irritated by it.
He turned to the bookshelves, drawn by curiosity as well as a genuine love for books. He could never leave them alone, and until he had scanned the books in a house he was never completely at ease.
Whatever else John McCrae might be—and from all the evidence he was a very successful planter—he was also a man who knew and appreciated good book
s. For these were not only well chosen, but all showed evidence of use. Out of curiosity he looked to see what poetry there was, but found only the Greeks. Of the contemporary poets such as Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Moore, he found no sign.
Could the girl who dove from the rock have been Laura McCrae?
The thought came unexpectedly. It was odd, Miles decided, that the idea had not occurred to him before. She had come from that direction, the timing was about right….He turned to look at her….No…there was something, some scarcely definable difference.
She turned at that minute and their eyes met. Excusing herself from her father and Ross, she crossed the room to him.
“That was a strange expression, Lieutenant. Do you usually look at girls that way?”
“No…probably not about you.” He looked down at the book in his hands, a copy of the odes of Horace. “Do you read poetry, Miss McCrae?”
She glanced down. “Horace? No, that is Father’s.”
“I mean…do you read the contemporary poets? Thomas Moore, for instance? In particular, have you read Lalla Rookh?”
She was startled; he recognized that at once. When she lifted her eyes to his they were innocent and her expression was bland. “No…I can’t say that I have read anything of his. Of course, I’ve heard of him. Why do you ask?”
“It is a beautiful poem. It is natural to think of beauty when one speaks to you.”
“You are gallant, Lieutenant.” She looked directly into his eyes. “I appreciate the compliment, of course, but that was not at all why you asked. You had a reason, Lieutenant, and I am curious.”
“And if you talk to Miles any longer, I shall be quite jealous.”
Will Rounce had come up to them, and he was smiling. At the same time Miles noticed that there was irritation present, too, and he liked the feeling that Will could be irritated. He was always so sure of himself, so perfectly possessed.
“We were talking about poetry,” Miles commented. He recalled very clearly how disdainful Rounce had been toward anything related to the arts.
Volume 1: Unfinished Manuscripts, Mysterious Stories, and Lost Notes from One of the World's Most Popular Novelists Page 8