by Chet Hagan
“Have you just come off the Trace?”
“That I have. I’ve been preaching the word of God to those wayward denizens of the Natchez Trace from before the days it was called the Natchez … when it was still known as the Chickasaw Trail. For what lasting good, I don’t know. Two nights ago, three of those blackguards jumped me. Took every cent I owned.” He laughed. “Two whole dollars!”
He held up a well-worn Bible. “But they didn’t get my sword!”
“It’s lucky you weren’t killed,” Anderson commented.
“The Lord, sir, was my Protector. I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Brother John … Brother John Farnsler.” Once more he laughed. “Well, if the truth be known, the name is Homer Farnsler, but Brother John has a better ring to it.”
Anderson and Dewey completed the introductions.
“We’re about to return to Nashville…” Anderson looked to Dewey for confirmation; Charles nodded. “We’d be pleased to have you ride with us, Brother John. In light of your financial straits, perhaps I can stand you to a meal at Mr. Parker’s.”
“I accept your kind offer”—the preacher grinned—“content in the knowledge that, once more, the good Lord has provided for His servant.”
III
“YES, from my earliest days, Mr. Dewey, I’ve appreciated a good racehorse.” He smiled. “And a good wager. My fondest hope is to build a track at Poplar Grove someday soon.” A slight groan. “If I can ever find the time.”
The speaker was a young man named Andrew Jackson.
Charles had been surprised when Jackson strode into the dining room of the Nashville Inn for the dinner arranged by Patton Anderson. From Anderson’s tales of Jackson’s exploits—service in the Revolutionary War, attorney general of the Western District of North Carolina, proposer of the name of “Tennessee” for the new state, Indian fighter with the state militia, soon to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives—Dewey had expected an older man. But Jackson appeared to be about Charles’s age, maybe even a year or two younger.
He was tall—six feet or so—and slender with intense blue eyes and dark red hair. His pleasant face was pockmarked. There was a white scar on his forehead suggesting a wound from … what? There was a special presence about the man.
“I recall that quite a few officers in my company rode blooded horses from Virginia when we were fighting Cornwallis in the Waxhaws,” Jackson was saying. “Those good horses gave them an advantage—they really did. Of course, that was some time before Yorktown. Patton tells me you were at Yorktown.”
Charles was embarrassed. “I was in the French navy then, which was blockading the town. I can’t honestly say I fought there, in the sense of seeing dangerous action.”
“Well, it was rough in the Carolinas in those days, let me tell you.” The good dinner, with several glasses of wine, had put Jackson in an expansive mood.
“Excuse me, sir, how old were you then?” Charles asked.
“Thirteen … fourteen.” A hand went to the scar on his head. “I got this from the sword of an English dragoon officer who demanded that I clean his boots. I refused, and he did this.”
Charles wondered how a man could tell that story without seeming to brag. But Jackson carried it off.
“But … I’d rather talk about horses, wouldn’t you?”
Dewey nodded.
“I remember vividly the races at Charleston after the war. Charleston was a gay town then—I believe it still offers the best racing in America—and the courts and schools and businesses were all closed during the race meeting. I was fifteen and had just had the good fortune to inherit three or four hundred pounds sterling from an Irish uncle. A considerable fortune, as you can appreciate. But my selections at the track were faulty. Damned if I didn’t lose it all!”
His laughter filled the dining room.
“I had an unhappy landlord in Charleston at that time,” Jackson went on, “who wanted to know when I was going to pay my rent. Well, the money was gone. So I went to a tavern where I knew there was a high-stakes rattle-and-snap game. I put up my horse against two hundred dollars and rolled the dice. I won, too! And the landlord got paid.”
There was more laughter.
“Mr. Dewey plans to establish a breeding farm here,” Anderson interjected, “with blooded horses. Just today he made arrangements to purchase the old Duncan trading-post property on the Richland.”
“Nice piece of land,” Jackson commented. “May I ask what you paid for it?”
“Five dollars an acre,” Charles answered.
Jackson cocked his head, looking hard at Anderson.
“That includes your commission, I imagine?”
“Including my commission,” Patton said, grinning.
“In that case, a fair price.” Jackson jerked a thumb toward Anderson. “You’ve got to watch this fellow, you know.” He smiled broadly. “Last year at the Gallatin races, our friend here got … well, overextended a bit in his wagering—”
“That’s an accurate description,” Patton agreed lightheartedly.
“And his creditors got a bit obstreperous. They wanted to take it out of his hide, I imagine.”
“They did! They did!” Anderson was already laughing so hard that tears were running down his cheeks.
“Well, Patton came running toward me, as the last friend he had in the world, with three or four of those fellows on his heels. It was dusk, you see, and while they recognized me, they had no way to know whether I was armed or not. I wasn’t. But I had a tin tobacco box in my pocket, and I took it out and clicked the lid. In truth, it sounded for all the world like a pistol being cocked. The unhappy creditors scattered like sheep!”
Now there was general laughter at the table, turning the heads of all the other diners.
“Were the wagers every paid?” Dewey wanted to know.
“What? And ruin yet another tale of Andy Jackson coming to the aid of the oppressed?” Patton started to roar all over again.
Jackson sobered. “Mr. Dewey, I was bound to make common cause with Patton in that incident. He’s my friend.”
The conversation turned to the horses Charles planned to bring to Tennessee. He described the stallions he was going to move from Virginia in the spring, with full pedigree particulars.
Jackson seemed impressed. “You’re making a wise move, Mr. Dewey. The opportunities for a horseman of your stripe will be boundless here in Tennessee. I look forward to competing against you.”
IV
LATER, in his room, Charles started a letter to Andrew MacCallum, telling him of the land he had bought and of the dinner with Andy Jackson.
“I don’t believe I would want to be counted among his enemies,” he wrote. “He’s obviously an important man here in Tennessee. Also a very knowledgeable horseman. Jackson is talking of soon building a track in Nashville; one already exists in nearby Gallatin. So there will be plenty of opportunities for racing next year.
“Patton Anderson, my correspondent, turns out to be something of a scoundrel, although a likable one. Inadvertently, he has given me the name for the new estate. He said the land I acquired was a good bargain, and so I shall call the farm Bon Marché—good bargain.
“How does that strike you?”
BOOK TWO
This would be an impossible world in which to live if some of us were infallible.
—Andrew MacCallum, 1808
20
“YA SONOFABITCH! The goddamned bet were twenty dollars!”
“Yer a pig-faced, lyin’ bastard! It warn’t but ten!”
Lunging drunkenly at each other, the two buckskin-clad young men grappled, tumbling heavily into the dust of the street, kicking and punching and gouging and biting.
Their fight was largely ignored by perhaps a dozen other men whose attention was on another battle: two fighting cocks slashing at each other with razor-sharp metal spurs, doing horrible damage. The birds were evenly matched in weight and frenzy, and the gamblers gathe
red around the cockpit at the Nashville Inn rent the late-afternoon air with obscene shouts.
Dewey watched them for a minute or two, shook his head in disgust, and entered the inn to have dinner with his children.
Nashville wasn’t much.
Charles found it dishearteningly crude.
The hard-drinking nature of the frontiersmen who peopled the village was evident in the fact that there were three taverns plus a convenient distillery among the fewer than fifty buildings that made up the community. One of the taverns was operated by Captain Timothée de Monbreun, a French adventurer and Indian trader from Quebec who had been the first white man to settle on the Nashville site. His place of business was built of stone, suggesting the permanency of the liquor trade.
The town was an odd mixture of what Nashville had been and what it might become. Most of the buildings were of simple log construction. But the courthouse was of stone, the jail was surrounded by an attractive, if incongruous, white picket fence, and Mr. Parker’s Nashville Inn offered amenities not expected on the frontier.
Then, too, there were signs of increasing commerce: J. B. Craighead’s merchandise store was a two-story brick affair; one James Jackson also ran a store in a new two-story frame building, offering items from as far away as Philadelphia and St. Louis.
There was even a doctor, a man named Hennings, in residence.
In contrast to those minimal suggestions of civilization, Nashville also boasted a set of stocks in the public square, where law-breakers—most often just roistering drunks—were frequently on display. There was a whipping post, too. And that cockpit by Mr. Parker’s inn.
The proximity of cockfighting to the inn was reason enough for Charles to move immediately to make the log buildings on the Richland Creek habitable. He didn’t want his children exposed to the cockfights, and to the rough men who conducted them, for any longer than was necessary.
At Jackson’s store he ordered glass to replace the missing windows at the former trading post. He bought beds and chairs and other furnishings as well—thinking then of the pile of fine furniture he had abandoned on the Wilderness Road. And he dispatched the six male slaves to his new property to clean and repair the buildings.
Within a week, although all of the furniture wasn’t in place, the Dewey family left the comfortable accommodations of the Nashville Inn to begin a new life at Bon Marché.
II
ANDREW MacCallum’s letter, addressed to Dewey in care of Patton Anderson, brought some solace to Charles, and some bad news, too.
“You should feel no guilt, my friend,” Andrew wrote, “about dear Martha’s death. I suggest to you that it was God’s will and that you take heart in that. I suggest, too, that you not read too much into your dreaming, your subconscious contemplations, about seeing another woman by your side on the frontier. Do not allow the fact of Martha’s death to twist your reasoning. It has happened. It’s a tragedy, but it has happened. You need only remember her loving nature, the joys she brought to you as your wife, and then move on—looking ahead to what your young life still offers you. Be not melancholy, my friend. But revel in the enjoyment you find in the children Martha gave you. They are your future, not recriminations about what might have been.”
Andrew’s words brought some peace to Dewey. But not his other news: “Fortunata is not yet sold at this writing. Lee has made two offers for the property through agents, both below the announced price. I suspect he believes that if the estate remains unsold for a time, you will lose your resolve not to sell it to him. Be assured, however, that Lee will not get it—under any circumstances! Hard money is scarce, though, and a proper sale may be long in coming…”
Charles tried to put that out of his mind; he did so successfully for many hours at a time as he and the slaves readied Bon Marché for the winter. A third log building was erected as a sleeping quarters for the slaves. Charles purchased two sturdy mules to help pull stumps from the ground as work began on clearing the first of the pastures designed to keep horses.
It was hard work, but spirits were high.
III
“MISTAH Charles,” Angelica said quietly, “Ah needs t’ talk t’ ya.”
It was a bitter cold day in early December, and Charles was sitting alone on a pile of rocks that had been cleared from the number one pasture, surveying the work accomplished.
“Yes?”
The slave woman’s eyes were downcast. “Ah’m gonna have a baby, Mistah Charles.”
Dewey seemed unperturbed. Outwardly. “Mine?” he asked.
Sudden hurt showed in Angelica’s face. She waited for a moment before she answered calmly, “Yas, suh.”
“I see.”
The nerves in Dewey’s stomach were knotting, but he tried not to show his anxiety. “Yes, I see,” he repeated, sucking in a long breath. “You’re sure?”
“Yas, Mistah Charles.”
His words came slowly. “Angelica, I’m certain you can appreciate that this news comes at a most inopportune time. I mean, just when I’m beginning to play a role in this community—”
She stared at him.
“Of course, I intend to have you receive the best of care, and for the baby to be supported—” He swallowed hard. “But I cannot acknowledge this child. It would be … well, most awkward. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yas, suh.”
“What do you suppose would be the best way to handle this?”
Angelica had no words.
“I don’t want you to have a bastard child. You’re too dear to me to allow that.”
Silence.
He had made his decision. “You must marry, of course.”
The black woman’s eyes opened wide.
“Yes, yes, that’s the answer,” Dewey went on. “You’ll marry. I know that you’re partial to Horace—”
“Oh, no, Mistah Charles!”
“I thought you admired Horace?”
“Oh, he a nice man, Mistah Charles, but he only got one han’!” She shuddered.
“That’s hardly a reason to reject him,” Dewey insisted coldly. “He’s a hard worker, and he’s kind. He’d look after you and your child.”
Angelica was bold now. “It yer baby, Mistah Charles.”
The knot in his stomach tightened. This wasn’t going well at all. “Yes, I understand that, but I’ve already explained to you, Angelica, that my position in this new community—”
With defiance: “Ah’ll have mah baby alone!”
“No, I can’t permit that.” He made his voice hard. “You’ll marry Horace and that will settle it!”
“Yas, suh.” She was still a slave. She recognized that fact.
Charles nodded. “I’ll arrange it with Horace.”
“Yas, suh.” Tears began.
“Angelica, don’t carry on so. You’ll have a fine baby and a fine husband, and all of you will be taken care of.”
She began to walk away.
“I’ll see if I can find that itinerant preachers. Brother John, and we’ll take care of this as soon as possible.”
Angelica left him.
Dewey felt nauseated.
He knew that what he was doing was hurting Angelica deeply: a woman who had been kind to him, who had probably saved his sanity during the difficult wilderness journey. But she was a black woman!
Horace would do as he asked; the one-handed slave, he reasoned, would do anything he asked. The nausea grew. Those two gentle black people, Angelica and Horace, loved him. And, he was—
Charles shook his head to clear it. He needed a clear head now. Brother John would be a good choice to perform the wedding ceremony, because he probably wouldn’t be around too much to serve as a reminder to Charles of what he had done. Was he really a minister? Did it matter?
His decision was firmly made. His plans for Bon Marché and for himself were too important to toss aside because of a half-breed baby.
He was, after all, the master of Bon Marché!
IV
>
THE slim young man with the aquiline nose and the thin lips wore a white satin ruffled suit. It was in the highest style, but badly wrinkled, suggesting that it had been packed away in a saddlebag for many days.
“Your Royal Highness,” Charles said, bowing formally, not sure that he had used the proper form of address. “Enchanté de faire votre connaissance.”
“Please, please,” the Duke of Orleans said, “speak English. I’m quite proud of my English.” He smiled broadly. “You must be the Monsieur Dewey whom Captain Maxwell told me about. Of the French navy, eh?”
“A very minor cog. It was a long time ago.”
“Hmm. And what are you doing in this wilderness?”
“Breeding horses, Your Excellency—racehorses.”
The duke’s eyebrows rose expressively. “Ah! C’est trop cher!”
“Expensive? Yes, at times. But I’ve been most fortunate.”
“You don’t miss France, then?”
“I have few fond memories of France,” Charles said quickly. “Oh, I’m sorry if I’ve offended—”
The French nobleman laughed. “Don’t apologize to me for that. I don’t look fondly upon the France of today, either.”
Dewey was aware that Louis Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, had, as a Bourbon prince, been imprisoned by the French Revolutionary Directory and then exiled to the United States. He was taking advantage of that exile by touring the new nation with his two younger brothers, the Duc de Montpensier and the Duc de Beaujolais, also exiles.
It was mid-May of 1797, and the entire white population of Nashville had been invited by Captain Jesse Maxwell, at whose new hostelry the Frenchmen were staying, to a reception in honor of the royal trio.
Charles had thought about not accepting the invitation; he wasn’t much interested in Bourbon princes. But it had been a long, hard winter at Bon Marché. And two days earlier a letter from MacCallum had put him in a celebrating mood.
“Good news finally!” his friend had written. “A Cornell Monkton of Richmond has met your price for Fortunata. I delayed giving him an answer until Lawyer Exner could prove to me that Mr. Monkton was not acting as an agent for Funston. Once I was convinced that he was not, the legal papers were drawn up. I expect him to sign them within the week.”