Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  “We were not entirely governed by motives of friendship either, if I remember rightly,” Redwood said, smiling down the table at Watson. “And it might even be thought by some that we had territorial ambitions of our own.”

  Campbell had developed a habit, in these anxious days, of glancing aside with a sharp compression of the lips, as at some sudden pain. He did it now. “This habit of sarcasm is growing upon you, Redwood,” he said testily. “You cannot compare the policy of national states with the petty intrigues of these savages.”

  “Ah, no, of course not.” Redwood poured himself more wine. He drank a good deal, though without looking much the worse for it.

  “Now England is the occupying power, not Spain,” Campbell said, “and it needs little for them to transfer their hostility to us. Aye, by God, very little—a few more days kicking their heels in the woods there might be enough to do it.”

  “But you will have told them the ships are on the way,” Erasmus said.

  “Sir, they are not like us. If I say to you that there are ships on the way, loaded with the things you want, but they are delayed by weather, and if I give you my hand on it, you will take my word, because we are men of honour. But these people never trust assurances completely. There is some confounded division in their skulls, sir, I know not how to describe it, they are capable of believing a thing and not believing it both at the same time.”

  Erasmus nodded, tightening his lips. There could hardly have been anything he found more reprehensible.

  He could understand consecutive beliefs that might be contradictory, each filling the mind in its season; but not this appalling confusion. Every promise, every glance, would be tainted by it. It was like believing a man innocent and guilty of the same offence. Madness..

  . The memory of an entry in his cousin’s journal came suddenly to him. A dying negro. Death in his eyes and the invincible desire to live. Paris had presided over life and death. Looking up he found the Governor’s twinkling gaze upon him. “That is the savage mind, I suppose,” he said.

  “Aye,” Campbell said, “and even when the vessels come in, I cannot be assured that they will be sufficiently stocked to feed the Indians and satisfy their appetite for trade goods until the Treaty of Limits is signed. Nine hundred pounds, sir, that is all the Government has seen fit to grant me for the conduct of this business, which is vital for the future prospects of the Colony. It almost defies belief. I can only think that His Majesty has not been properly informed of what may happen if we fail here. I have made an outlay of seven hundred and six pounds and two shillings on provisioning the ships. It needs not much calculation to see that our margins are perilously slight. I tell you this, sir, in the hope that you may be able to bring some influence to bear on your return to England.”

  “I will do what I can,” Erasmus said.

  Campbell still thought in terms of a public official, which did not differ much from those of a shopkeeper. It was natural enough—he had to account for every penny. But it was a pitiful waste of labour to solicit a few hundred pounds more from a miserly Exchequer when there were vast profits waiting to be picked up here in the Colony. However, this was not the time to say so. At present, he knew, it was the value to Campbell of his influence in England that held out the best prospect of obtaining the troops and cannon he wanted. “If the matter were represented as a legitimate concern of the Sugar Interest, we might do much,” he said. “And it could be so represented—there is no reason that I can see why sugar should not be grown in Florida. In the meantime, however, while the vessels are delayed, the Indians must be brought to trust our intentions.”

  “They do not trust one another’s intentions, let alone ours,” Campbell said.

  “That is to our advantage.” Watson’s head turned slowly as he glanced up and down the table.

  The wine had brought a flush to the parchment of his cheeks, but his features were as grave and composed as ever. “They will find it easier to trust us than to trust one another,” he said. “I have seen it happen again and again. We may be few but we speak with one voice, whereas among them it is as Terence said, Quot homines tot sententiae, as many opinions as there are men. As for the ships, we differ there, Campbell, the main thing is that they should arrive and be seen to have arrived. Lying there at anchor with their holds full of rum and tobacco and trinkets they will work very powerfully in our favour. I would be opposed to making gifts of any kind until the treaty is safely signed and in our pocket.”

  He got to his feet, still nodding solemnly.

  He was a tall man and he made an imposing figure as he stood there in his dark suit and full wig, with his deep-set eyes and long, cadaverous face. “I don’t speak of the corn,” he said.

  “The red men are hungry, their stocks are low, it is fitting we should give them food. We must on no account appear to them ungenerous. It is a quality they despise above all others.”

  “I bow to your judgement in the matter of the presents,” Campbell said. ‘They are better given out after than before.”

  Watson smiled slightly. “This giving and withholding is a difficult balance to achieve,” he said. “It calls for judgement. Well, I shall bid you goodnight, gentlemen. It is growing late and there is much to do tomorrow.”

  43.

  Fort Picolata, the site chosen for the conference, was some twenty miles distant, on the east bank of the Still John River. It was a stone tower within wooden palisades, built by the Spanish during the war as an outpost against the Indians.

  Watson and Campbell, accompanied by Erasmus and escorted by a detachment of troops, rode over in the morning. The headmen of the Creeks left their horses on the west bank and crossed the water by canoe with a hundred warriors. An open pine-log pavilion had been put up inside the palisade and the white men awaited their Indian visitors sitting within this. Branches of pine had been laid over the roof and sides to give protection from the sun and there was a long table in the centre to act as a speaker’s podium.

  Vari-coloured beads on long strings of leather lay coiled on the table like snakes. On either side poles wrapped round with blankets were laid for the chiefs to sit on.

  They did not immediately take up position here, however. The whole company of Indians assembled before the pavilion at a distance of some hundred and fifty yards and formed silent ranks behind their chiefs.

  To Erasmus, sitting unobtrusively to one side in the shade of the pavilion, this forming of rank was strangely like a movement—and a stillness—of the sea; the white plumes of the headdresses swayed and came to rest like foam on the eddy of a dark red tide. Within the enclave of the pavilion colour was deepened. The colonel’s high-necked tunic was ruby-coloured, Watson’s wig stood out silver against the dark cloth of his suit and the cheap trade beads on the table glowed like gems of price.

  At some signal not perceived by Erasmus the Indians began to move forward at an easy pace.

  He saw now that the chiefs leading the two centre files, distinguished by headdresses that fell below the shoulder and beaded armbands, were carrying feathered objects which he took at this distance for dead birds.

  They came on for some twenty paces, then rattles sounded among them and a wild, ragged singing, and the whole company broke into a shuffling, lunging dance, raising and lowering their heads and turning their bodies inwards towards the two chiefs carrying the feathered bundles.

  In this manner, singing and dancing, they advanced until they were within twenty yards of the pavilion, when they halted and stood silent, their only movement the deep rise and fall of their chests. For perhaps a minute they stood thus, then the two chiefs came forward with a fast dancing step and Erasmus saw now that the objects in their hands were long-stemmed pipes tied with feathers.

  Without hesitation, still dancing, they entered the pavilion and advanced to the white men. Erasmus watched while they stroked the faces and hands of the Governor and Superintendent, neither of whom moved a muscle, with the feathers of the pipes. Then o
ne came to him. He felt the soft brush of the feathers and smelled the ignited tobacco in the bowl of the pipe.

  He met for a moment the gleaming, strangely impersonal eyes of the Indian below the beaded headband. Two braves came forward from the ranks, loaded with dressed buckskins, some of which they laid on the floor and some on the table. The remaining headmen advanced and sat in their places. A pipe was held out by the bowl and the white men smoked solemnly in turn, followed by the seated chiefs.

  There was a further interval of deep silence, then the Superintendent rose to his feet and began to speak in slow, deliberate tones, pausing frequently to allow his interpreter time to translate.

  He declared himself happy that the chiefs and warriors had accepted the invitation for this meeting and kept their word for the hour. He believed they would be well pleased with what they were going to hear from the Governor and from himself. He introduced Erasmus as an emissary from the King of England.

  He requested his Indian brothers earnestly to listen and pay attention to the words that would be said to them.

  At the conclusion of these remarks he took one of the strings of beads from the table and dropped it with deliberate movements on the earth floor, where it fell with a muffled crash. This ceremony, and the words which had preceded it, were greeted by the Indians with complete silence and impassivity.

  The Governor now came forward to the table.

  Glancing keenly at the expressionless faces of the chiefs on either side of him, he began speaking in his usual brisk, direct and somehow confiding fashion: “Friends and brothers, the Great King, my master and your father, after driving the French and Spanish from this land, was graciously pleased to appoint me to govern the white people in this part of his newly conquered dominions.

  “I know and love the red people. I have lived long with them and I am acquainted with their customs and manners. The Great King knows that I will do everything in my power to keep up peace and harmony between his white subjects and his red children.

  ‘allyou are apprehensive and have been told that the white people are desirous of getting possession of your hunting grounds. Your fears are ill-founded for my sentiments with regards to the hunting ground of an Indian nation are well known. Such of you as have been in the Cherokee nation must know and all of you must have heard that in the Treaty signed at Charleston after their defeat I spoke against taking their ancestral lands and I prevented it. If I did that for a people with whom I had been at war, who had been prevailed upon by the French to strike their English brothers, you may be sure I will do nothing to the harm of your people who have always been our friends…”

  Erasmus listened to this with feelings of distinct approval. He had heard a lot of speeches in his time, and this was a good one, though it was difficult to read anything in the set faces of the Indians.

  Campbell spoke with a kind of gritty dignity that was native to him and made his appeal to matters that lay within the knowledge of his audience. And the accent of sincerity in his words was unmistakable; his voice had grated with feeling when he spoke of his defence of the beaten and demoralized Cherokee. Once again it came to Erasmus that Campbell would be an excellent man to head his Florida Land Company.

  The Indians who sat beyond the pavilion were motionless, their eyes fixed on the speaker. The sun was high now; these preliminary ceremonies had taken up the morning. Sunlight lay on the white feathers and the beaded ornaments and the smoothly muscled bodies. Campbell paused to take up a string of beads and drop it from shoulder height to the floor.

  “Your profession is hunting,” he said. “You therefore must have a large tract of country, but it is your interest to have your English brothers near you. They only can supply you in exchange for your skins with clothes to cover you and your wives and children, with guns, powder and ball for your hunting andwitha number of other things which you cannot make for yourselves though you cannot exist without them. To induce the white people to live in your neighbourhood you will no doubt think it reasonable to assign them a certain district of country to feed cattle and raise provisions, for without lands they cannot maintain themselves, much less supply you.”

  He ended on this with another ceremonial dropping of beads. The Superintendent spoke again briefly, emphasizing that a boundary had to be ascertained, leaving them to determine the limits but recommending them to behave in such a manner as would show their gratitude to the Great King, by whose permission they enjoyed the advantages of trade.

  A profound silence followed these words. None of the headmen seated in the pavilion said anything at all.

  But for the fiery expression of the eyes, their faces might have been cast in stone. After perhaps ten minutes —though it seemed much longer to Erasmus—a young man in the front rank of those outside the pavilion stood up and advanced to the table. In vehement, broken-sounding sentences, strangely at odds with the hesitant English of the interpreter, he began to complain of the high prices the dealers were asking for trade goods. The Superintendent, he said, had promised to lower the rates at a meeting with his people at Pensacola six months before. He was Sempoiaffe, he was a leading man of his nation, but he was not the mouth of his nation and was not seeking to answer the Governor’s talk, he left that to the chiefs, but he wanted to say that this thing had been promised and had not been done. Also, it was his opinion that if all the country was going to be settled by white people his people would find nothing but rats and rabbits to kill. Would the white people give them trade goods in exchange for rats and rabbits?

  Throughout this the chiefs had remained silent but short grunts of approval had come from the men seated in the open. The speaker dropped a string of beads to the floor and looked full at the white men before returning to his place. His eyes flashed and Erasmus saw the deep intake of his breath and realized that he was moved, though whether by anger or some other emotion he could not tell.

  In reply, Watson said that he had not promised to lower the trade as it was not in his power to do so and that he had said the same thing at Pensacola. He appealed to Tallechea and Captain Aleck and the other chiefs who had been present at that meeting whether they had not heard him say so, and Erasmus saw that some of the seated inside the pavilion nodded in agreement.

  No other speaker now presented himself and after a further period of unbroken silence and immobility on the part of the Indians, the Superintendent declared the meeting adjourned till the following day.

  Not much was said by either Watson or Campbell as they returned to Still Augustine. The three men did not meet again till dinner and only then did it become fully apparent to Erasmus just how badly this opening session of the conference had gone.

  “But it seemed to me that you were listened to with respectful attention,” he said. “None of them spoke in rejection of a boundary line.”

  “Sir,” Watson said, “they are devious, they set their meanings out by a system of signals.

  None of the principal men spoke at all, which is a bad sign to begin with. He who spoke is a leading warrior among the Kasihta Creeks, but not of headman rank. What he said about trade prices was a mere piece of bravado and fabrication.

  Everybody knows I made no such promise.”

  “He knew it too then?”’

  “He knew it perfectly well,”

  Campbell said. “He wanted to put us on the defensive. I have seen it before often enough—they argue from emotion more then you might suppose. What he said about rats and rabbits was just as much beside the point. That fellow’s town is on the east side of the Chattahoochee River, up in Georgia. He was talking about Georgia, not Florida.”

  “It is all one land to them,” Watson said.

  “They have not yet learned to think in terms of state boundaries.”

  “What is likely to happen tomorrow then?”’

  “We shall see,” Watson said, with deepened gravity. “Tomorrow the chiefs will speak and then we shall see. But I am afraid it will not be easy. The signs are bad. W
e must hope that with God’s help they will be brought to see reason.”

  After dinner Redwood asked Erasmus for the favour of some words in private. The major had come from his quarters on foot; it was a fine evening and Erasmus offered to walk some way back with him.

  At this hour the streets were almost deserted. Sand and dust had drifted thickly, muffling their steps. The houses were shuttered and silent for the most part. The concrete of sand and ground shell with which they were built had crumbled with time, giving their outlines a softened, abraded appearance in the faint moonlight.

  “I have been making enquiries among the Indians here, as I promised you,” Redwood said as they walked along together. “I am afraid I have not been able to find anyone with knowledge of a settlement in the south of the peninsula. In a way, the times are against you. Some might have known of it who left with the Spanish. As you know, the region is depopulated at present.

  There are practically no Europeans and the Indians that remain are a sedentary sort of people, who scrape a living here, God knows how.”

  “Well, it cannot be helped.” Erasmus had not allowed himself to hope for much from the major’s enquiries, but he was none the less disappointed.

  “I am grateful for your efforts on my behalf,” he said.

  ‘There is no point even in trying to engage a guide from among them,” Redwood said. “However, I have not failed altogether.”

  They were passing a tall, deep-balconied house, which showed some light behind the shutters. As they went by a sound of voices and laughter came from somewhere on the upper floor.

  “These are about the only places which show any sign of life,” Redwood said. “The whores didn’t all follow the Spanish to Cuba.” He stopped on this, as if suddenly struck by an idea.