Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  “We are about halfway now to my quarters,” he said. “It might be rather long for you to walk back the whole way. What do you say to breaking a bottle inside here? I don’t suggest we try the girls.

  I could head you in the direction of something much better if you were ever interested in that line. These have been worked pretty hard by the Spanish and some of our men use them, though there is a brothel nearer the barracks.

  No, but the Mother Superior here, Mama Rosalita, knows me. I have been here on occasion to deal with affrays and pay for damage. She will give us a room out of the way and serve us a bottle and we can talk in peace. What do you say?”’

  “I say yes.” He had no particular desire for more to drink but Redwood had not told him everything yet, he had paused at a crucial point, perhaps by design. It came to Erasmus that there was some loneliness about the major for all his conviviality.

  They passed through the overgrown garden, knocked, were admitted by the massive Senora Rosalita. It was at once clear from her manner that Redwood was a highly regarded visitor. They were shown without delay to a room at the back of the house and served by the senora herself with a sweetish, dark red wine.

  ‘That’s better.” Redwood unbuttoned his tunic and stretched his long legs before him. “I don’t know how it is,” he said, following some train of thought of his own, ‘b that preachy fellow Watson sets my teeth on edge, for all I might drink at dinner. Anyway, as I was saying, I did not find anyone in Still Augustine, but I have been given the name of an Indian who lives at Matanzas, about fifteen miles away. He is a Lower Creek, the same breed as those you saw today, but he lives solitary. His name is Nipke, though he seems also to be known as the Young Soldier. I am told he knows the southern regions well, having taken part in raids against the Timucua Indians during the war. We paid them a bounty for the scalps of any Indians friendly to the Spanish, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Any that were not with us were regarded as being against us.

  It was part of the policy of terror adopted by our forces to unsettle the region. You couldn’t always tell who the scalps had belonged to, but the bounty was paid all the same. The point is that this Nipke has worked for the English before and so he knows the clink of guineas, which makes him easier to talk to. He may not know of your fugitives, but he knows the terrain and will be skilled at following tracks and moving quietly.”

  “He sounds just the man.”

  “If you are interested, we might ride over to Matanzas tomorrow and see if we can find him. I could spare an hour or two in the morning. Things are at an awkward pass here but there is no danger while the treaty is under discussion. It is the only way, if you want to come to terms with this Nipke. If we send for him, he may come next week or next month or he may not come at all.”

  Erasmus hesitated. “I should like it of all things,” he said. “I am anxious to get the matter settled. But I am due to attend the conference tomorrow.”

  “As to that, I fancy Watson and the Governor will not mind your absence, quite the reverse in fact, they will be able to put it to good account.”

  “How do you mean?”’

  “Things have not gone well today, I gather, and they seem likely to go even worse tomorrow. It will be found necessary to sow dismay among the Indians, for that is the surest way of disuniting them—that and the jealousies among them and their fears of being left out when it comes to the presents. The ships have been sighted, by the way, did you know?”’

  “No.”

  “They are expected to cross the bar some time tomorrow morning. That will strengthen our hand considerably.

  Watson will simply tell the Creeks that the envoy of their Great White Father has not seen fit to be present.”

  “Yes, I see.” Erasmus was silent for some moments. “It is like dealing with opponents in business,” he said. “You seek to unsettle them and divide their counsels. Quite lawful, of course.”

  “Oh, quite.” Redwood drank some wine. His eyes were partially concealed under lowered lashes—long lashes for a man, Erasmus noticed now, and giving a certain delicacy to the fair-skinned, careless, rather sensual face. “That was the idea behind our paying bounties for the scalps,” the major said. “It unsettled the Timucua and divided their counsels very considerably.”

  “I cannot say that I see much similarity.”

  Erasmus spoke rather coldly. He had not liked this joking repetition of his own words. There was a sort of arbitrary quality about Redwood’s style of speech which he was beginning to find irksome. He felt that he understood now that grimace of irritation, resembling pain, that would sometimes come to Campbell’s face.

  All the same, Redwood was doing him a favour, and it was obvious now that he was the worse for drink. His colour was high and his voice had thickened slightly.

  “However it may be,” Erasmus said in more friendly tones, “I thank you for your offer of tomorrow and I would be glad of your company.”

  ‘Good, that is settled then. Tell me, what did you think of the business today?”’

  “Much of the time was taken up with ceremony. It was interesting for me, of course, who have not seen these Indian customs before. They were all decked out in their best beads and feathers.” He laughed a little saying this.

  “So were you I suppose?”’

  “What do you mean?”’ Erasmus said, staring.

  “Campbell in his dress uniform, Watson in his best broadcloth and his silver wig and you, as always, irreproachably turned out. Just a question of fashion, really. Theirs suits the climate better.”

  Obscurely displeased at this comparison, Erasmus made no immediate reply. Redwood waited a moment, then said, “You were talking of the Calumet ceremony, the peace pipes. I have seen it often.

  They have come singing and dancing to their ruin with those pipes in their hands all over America.”

  “It is hardly ruin, Redwood—you are exaggerating. They will be left in possession of large tracts of land, as I understand the matter from Colonel Campbell.”

  “For how long? We daren’t do otherwise at present, or they will rise against us and sweep us into the sea. Campbell is a reasonable man in his way.

  He knows the Creeks and has a feeling for them. But he is set on getting a favourable treaty comhis career hangs on it, and that makes him wonderfully single-minded. That Indian who spoke today, who complained of trade prices, he wasn’t so wide of the mark.”

  “Not wide of the mark? He accused Watson of breaking promises he had never made. He wasn’t even talking of Florida, but of Georgia.”

  “That is the point. He has seen thousands of land-hungry white settlers pouring into the Georgia back-country from Virginia and the Carolinas. Many of them have crossed the treaty line and fenced the land on the other side. Nothing has been done to stop it and nothing will be done. And why? You know the answer as well as I do, Kemp. I suggest you know it much better. You have been having a look round, haven’t you? This is prime land, there are fortunes to be made out of it—but it is worth a lot more with no Indians on it.”

  Redwood sat back, smiling with the slightly bitter carelessness characteristic of him. There were brief sounds from above them, voices, steps on the stairs; then silence. “And it is hardly necessary for us to use force of arms,” he continued. “They are prevailed upon to cede their lands by treaty. Trade is the thing that has undone them, this great blessing of trade.

  Watson tells them they should be grateful for the advantages of trade. Campbell tells them they should give up land to their English brothers for the sake of the trade goods they will get by it. They have hunted over these lands for centuries without ever knowing that what they needed for happiness were muskets and looking-glasses and beads and bits of printed cotton. Now they are persuaded that they cannot live without these things. Strange, is it not?”’

  Erasmus smiled, but without much warmth. He found himself caring less and less for the other’s company. What
he had taken for a good-natured, rather thoughtless expansiveness, seemed quite other to him now: Redwood obtruded his views more than a man should, without first making sure they were welcome. And what he was saying was perverse, subversive even. Trade brought benefits to both sides—so much was common knowledge. Erasmus had always disliked people who took a view contrary to what was broadly agreed by men of sense. “If the Indians want blankets and guns, that is their business,” he said. “They should try to get them on the best terms. Our business is to supply their wants on terms as favourable to ourselves as we can secure. This is bound to be mutually beneficial in the long run. It is only common sense. You take a very negative view of things, if I may say so, Redwood.”

  There had been a curtness of reproof in this which Redwood obviously noticed, as his smile faded and his brows drew together slightly. “In the long run, you say? But we have only got the short run, Kemp—you and me and the Creeks. If you had fought alongside Indians as I have, and seen what they will do for friendship’s sake, you might take a more complicated view. Campbell knows it too, none better, but he is a wonderfully single-minded fellow, that’s the difference. You are a single-minded fellow too, aren’t you? Let’s see now. Months taken from your business, a chartered schooner awaiting your pleasure in the harbour, fifty troops to maintain, a hazardous journey before you into wild country. And all for an old loss that is unlikely to be recovered now. Yes, I would call that single-minded. I do my duty, at least I hope so, and I put my King and country first, but I have always found it plaguey difficult to be single-minded.” He paused for a moment then in a very passable imitation of the Governor’s soft voice and brisk manner he said, “They have a confounded division in their skulls, sir, I know not what to call it.”

  He did not look at Erasmus to see the effect of his mimicry; some quality of warmth had passed from their relation, never to be recovered. And it was as well he did not, or he would have seen on the other’s face a degree of displeasure he might have felt bound to answer—he was not a man to overlook such things.

  “I know not what to call it either,” he said, as if to himself. ‘But it is the reason I shall end my days as a half-pay major.”

  Only his sense of obligation and his knowledge that the major was slightly drunk held Erasmus back from angry words. Redwood’s presumption had come too close to the doubts that would sometimes attack him in the midst of all his plans, as he was riding round the countryside or sitting with the others at meals or walking alone in the garden of the Residence, a sense of wonder edged with panic at the strangeness of his presence here, at the time and money he was spending.

  What could be gained from it now? Then he would remember his high purpose, his mission of justice… Of course, Redwood was after all an ignorant fellow, with a very partial view; his remarks about trade had shown that. All men of sense knew the benefit of trade. The major was simple-minded, that was it—not single, simple. The conceit pleased Erasmus and restored his calm. “Just enough left for a toast,” he said, smiling full at the other man though with narrowed eyes. “Here is to the benefits of trade—and to single-mindedness!”

  The major raised his glass. “What was the other thing?”’ he said. “Ah yes, justice. Here’s to justice—long-term, of course, I mean!”

  44.

  As Redwood had predicted, Erasmus’s absence from the conference was accepted with a certain polite alacrity. He confided his reasons to Campbell in the hope that the Governor, seeing the seriousness of his intentions, would give him some more explicit assurance of the troops and cannon. But Campbell was preoccupied and did no more than nod and mutter.

  Nipke, the Young Soldier, turned out to be older than expected, stocky and taciturn, with a heavily lined face the colour of wet, reddish clay. He had a pine-log cabin beside a creek and a cowpen and a field of maize and two wives.

  Redwood had brought an interpreter with them, but there was scarcely need for one: Nipke knew enough English to understand what was wanted. He listened intently to their questions, though his face remained immobile. He had seen no black men on his forays to the south. There was said to be black men on Key Biscayne, but he had never seen any and did not believe it. There were escaped slaves living among the Upper Creeks, he had seen this himself, they had taken wives among the Indian women, but these men had come from the English colonies in the north.

  He remained silent for a considerable time when asked if he would go ahead of the expedition as a scout.

  Erasmus was afraid he would refuse: he was settled here, with fish in the creek and game in the woods and his wives to grow the corn and feed the chickens. But he was quite willing to go comthe hesitation had been merely a ploy to obtain better wages. They agreed finally on five shillings a day for him as leader and three for the others he would recruit to make up the scouting party—four more men would be needed. The money would be payable from that day onwards but not in advance; Redwood had warned him against this, as Nipke would almost certainly buy rum with the money and get into trouble of some kind or be found drunk and insensible just when he was needed. In sign of good intention, however, Erasmus gave the Indian a leather cartridge belt which he had brought with him.

  The ride there and back and the protracted silences and solemn talk and the consumption of milk and maize cakes had taken up most of the day and it was mid-afternoon when they got back to Still Augustine. Redwood had duties in the garrison and Erasmus made his way back to the Residence alone. He found an air of gloom there: the conference had broken up early, he was told, owing to the intransigence of the Indians.

  “They were not prepared to yield a single inch, sir, not one iota,” Watson said, with solemn indignation. “The chiefs came to the rostrum one after the other, all of them in turn, Tallechea, Captain Aleck, Wioffke, Latchige, Chayhage, and all gave voice to the same sentiments.”

  “And what were they?”’

  “They want to keep us to the tidewaters,”

  Campbell said tersely. He was still in uniform, booted and spurred, with his cavalry sword at his side.

  “I am not clear what that means,” Erasmus said.

  ‘Well, they are talking about the salt tide, of course. The saltwaters flow as far as Picolata and they are seeking to restrict English settlement to a line north of that as far as the mouth of the Still John River.”

  “A meagre acreage indeed,” Watson said, “and by no means offering scope for settlement on the scale we have in mind. By no means. It is quite unacceptable. And the tone of their speeches was threatening. Veiled threats, of course, but that is their way. They would be sorry, but they could not answer for the consequences if any cattle or white people strayed over the line. Yes, that was the sort of insolence they offered us, sir, the representatives of His Majesty in this new Colony of the Crown. It was all I could do to keep my countenance.”

  “I had no difficulty keeping mine, sir, by God,” Campbell said with considerable asperity. Certain strains had begun to show between soldier and civilian. ‘A wrong word now and you are like to lose more than your countenance, Watson, you are like to lose your scalp, sir. Our intelligence gives their numbers at not less than five thousand. They know the ground, they have had years of fighting the Spanish over it; we oppose them with a few hundred men fresh from Europe, whose only training is to form a square in open ground and fire volleys.”

  “What grant of land are we demanding from them?”’

  Erasmus asked.

  “We must have the sweet waters too. We are asking for all the land east of the river from mouth to source. Also some portions on the west bank.”

  “That is a difference indeed. I cannot see why they should agree to such a thing.”

  “Well, we are now purposing to take a different tack with them.” Campbell gave Erasmus a tight, cautious smile. “Have you ever sat at dinner with Indian chieftains?”’ he said.

  “No, I can’t say I have.”

  “You will be doing so this evening, sir.”


  “What, you have invited them to dinner here?”’

  Watson chuckled suddenly, a rather startling and incongruous sound, seeming to rise from cavernous depths. “Not all of them,” he said. “Nothing would be gained by that. We have asked two— Tallechea and Captain Aleck. They are the two most powerful men. These savages are so constituted, sir, the honour of an invitation to the governor’s house means a great deal, a very great deal, sir, both for those that are included and those that are left out.

  They will see that their threats of today have not had the effects intended, quite the reverse, in fact, quite the reverse, and it will puzzle them. I also have a little inducement of my own devising…” He refused to say more than this, however, contenting himself with further chuckling sounds. “God willing,” he said, restored to gravity, “we shall succeed by these means in creating discord and dissension among them.”

  They parted on this, Erasmus to rest and refresh himself after his ride. When he descended again it was to find the two chiefs already at table, seated opposite the Governor and Superintendent, with the half-breed interpreter, whose name was Forrest, a little further down. Redwood entered at the same time as himself and they were introduced together.

  Erasmus found himself looking into two faces that seemed closely similar in their foreignness, mahogany-coloured, with a regard at once fiery and sombre under prominent brows. His hand, when he extended it, was gripped firmly, not shaken, and his forearm too was grasped for a moment. The Indians smelled of woodsmoke and some kind of sweet oil they had rubbed into the skin—their faces glistened slightly with it. They were not now in ceremonial headdresses but plain headbands and they wore waistcoats over cotton shifts and breeches of fringed buckskin.

  Campbell had been to great trouble with the food, making sure the Indians were served with things they were used to and liked: roast wild turkey, maize cakes, pumpkin, sour oranges filled with honey.