Sycamore Promises

by Paul Colt

  SYCAMORE PROMISES

  OTHER FIVE STAR TITLES BY PAUL COLT

  * * *

  Historical Fiction

  Boots and Saddles: A Call to Glory (2013)

  A Question of Bounty: The Shadow of Doubt (2014)

  Bounty of Vengeance: Ty’s Story (2016)

  Bounty of Greed: The Lincoln County War (2017)

  Great Western Detective League

  Wanted: Sam Bass (2015)

  The Bogus Bondsman (2017)

  SYCAMORE PROMISES

  PAUL COLT

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by Paul Colt

  Poem: “Sycamore Promises.” Copyright 2018 by Paul Colt

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Colt, Paul, author.

  Title: Sycamore promises / Paul Colt.

  Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017029702 (print) | LCCN 2017031525 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432838140 (ebook) | ISBN 1432838148 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432838133 (ebook) | ISBN 143283813X (ebook) | ISBN 9781432838218 (hardcover) | ISBN 1432838210 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Frontier and pioneer life—Fiction. | Landowners—Fiction. | GSAFD: Western stories.

  LCC PS3603.O4673 (ebook) | LCC PS3603.O4673 S97 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029702

  First Edition. First Printing: January 2018

  Find us on Facebook–https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website–http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at FiveStar@cengage.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 22 21 20 19 18

  The Five Star Team

  Producing a book takes teamwork. The author’s name goes on the cover; but the book wouldn’t happen without the rest of the team. So, this book is for the team at Five Star, especially:

  Tiffany Schofield. If western literature has an “energizer” advocate, beating the drum these days, it’s Tiffany. She’s the driving force behind Five Star and a person willing to take a chance on a newbie. My thanks.

  And Hazel Rumney. Hazel is more than an editor, she’s my partner. She brings professional expertise and experience to the process of making a book. When we finish a book, I know it’s right, when Hazel says it is. Thanks for another one.

  AUTHOR’S GUIDE

  * * *

  This is a work of historical fiction. More particularly, it is historical dramatization where the author animates characters and events while remaining faithful to the historical record. There are challenges in undertaking a work of sweeping scope, spanning more than a decade. Most obvious is remaining true to characters, period, and events.

  These historical events are played out by a large cast of characters that goes beyond simple protagonist, victim, and villain. This challenges author and reader alike. Change the facts and dilute the history; or crowd the reader's attention with a complex cast of characters. There is no easy answer to the trade-off, hence this guide.

  In this work, the author opted to preserve the historical record with one creative license. The important characters are there. As in life, they take the stage, play their part, and depart. You will recognize them by their spare descriptions. Take them for their part in the story as you might in a newspaper account and let them go. Some are more consequential than others. They play larger roles you will recognize by a more vivid description and recurring appearances. You will get to know them as the story unfolds. I have taken the liberty of animating these characters with dialog that advances the story while endeavoring to keep their roles in character.

  The fictional characters, settlers Micah and Clare Mason, former slaves Caleb and Miriam, along with landholder Titus Thorne and a few others, give the story continuity and humanity. They are the characters the reader will want to know in the conventional sense.

  In the end, I hope the reader finds a deeper understanding of a complex historical period fraught with challenges that yet echo in our own time.

  Paul Colt

  SYCAMORE PROMISES

  Lo the mighty sycamore, her branches brush the sky

  She buds forth summer promise, shelter is her shade

  She scatters golden coverlet, o'er season's earthen end

  Bare she stands the winter long, sentinel in the snow

  So the mighty sycamore, her promise bears you home

  PROLOGUE

  * * *

  Washington City

  1852

  There has to be a way. Senator Stephen Douglas stood at his office window, hands clasped behind his back, gazing across the Potomac into a crisp, November sky. His thoughts rode a wispy mare’s tail cloud west toward his home in Chicago. A diminutive firebrand, Douglas made up for his lack of stature by intellectual brilliance, adroit political skill, spellbinding oratory, and a ruthless intensity of purpose that rendered him a giant among lesser men over whom he found power and influence.

  He saw the way forward as clearly as the destiny that drove the nation’s westward settlement. They’d accomplished much in that regard. By purchase and the spoils of war, American territorial possessions now spanned the continent from Atlantic to Pacific. A vast, rich land stretched forth before the nation, waiting to yield promises of unimagined wealth and greatness. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Douglas knew this. Expansion would realize the promise of commerce. Commerce followed the National Road across the Appalachians. Commerce would similarly follow the nation’s young rail system. The rail gateway west would become the heart of prosperity’s promise. That gateway must be Chicago.

  Chicago had a natural claim on the prize with its Great Lakes port, agricultural center, and proximity to commercial shipping interests along the Mississippi. It should be a simple matter of economics, but it wasn’t. The question that vexed him was how a divided nation might muster the will to realize the dream of her full potential.

  Slavery divided the nation north and south as it had since the very foundation of the republic. Douglas personally opposed slavery, believing it to be economically impractical and doomed to eventual extinction. Nonetheless he believed states had the right to govern the practice. The issue dominated every question of territorial expansion, owing to a delicate balance of power maintained in the Senate by a like number of slave and free states. This balance became law thirty years before by enactment of the Missouri Compromise. By provisions of the law, territories south and west of Missouri’s southern border would be admitted to the Union as slave states. Territories north and west of this boundary would be admitted as free states. Therein lay the problem. Sighting any rail route to the Pacific would necessarily favor the formation of st
ates slave or free and thereby incur the fevered opposition of the other side. The vexing question then: how to unravel such a Gordian knot?

  Douglas concluded the problem too strident and controversial to be solved by a single stroke. Reasonable steps would be required to advance the cause, beginning with justifying the need for a Pacific rail route to the American people. He could put forward that argument in favor of commerce and, more importantly, national defense. A railway to the Pacific was needed to defend the rich gold and silver deposits in California and newly acquired western territories. Without rapid, reliable transport west, these territories were indefensible should any hostile foreign power decide to seize them. That message could be clearly presented in the national interest. Route selection would be the controversial question. It must necessarily be settled by geographical considerations of difficulty and cost. Surveys would be needed to determine both. That would take time—time that could be used to defuse the tinderbox issue imposed by the Missouri Compromise. But how? Legislation would be required. The Missouri Compromise must be repealed while preserving balance in the Senate. There had to be a way that favored Chicago. Perhaps . . . He nodded.

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Hudson, Ohio

  January, 1853

  A cheery fire popped and crackled, spreading a halo of warmth beyond the hearth. Outside winter wind howled at the eaves of the three-room cabin that once served as the Mason family homestead. Micah Mason, eldest son of Hiram and Eugenie Mason, had moved into the old homestead with his new bride the previous spring. Micah worked the family farm along with his father and three brothers that summer and through the fall. Sandy haired and boyishly handsome, he exuded a thoughtful confidence. Hard work rendered him well made without the advantage of imposing stature. Little else set his homespun appearance apart save thoughtful blue eyes that spoke a wisdom beyond his years. He thumbed a week-old edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, absorbed in an editorial advocating the national imperative of a rail route to the Pacific.

  Across the parlor, his newlywed wife, Clare, sat mending the knee of a worn pair of britches. She squinted at fine stitches in firelight, giving a sober expression that denied her ready smile. Large, brown eyes dominated delicate features, dark, curly hair, and a tawny, satin complexion. She wore her womanhood with a gentle grace that captured Micah’s heart the day they first met in that one-room schoolhouse.

  Micah folded the paper. “I believe they will build it.”

  “Build what, dear?”

  “A railway to the Pacific.”

  “Oh, my, that seems a near impossible task.”

  “I expect it will be terribly difficult. The land is vast. Mountains and rivers must be negotiated. Hostile Indians will surely resist.”

  “Those are all formidable obstacles. Still, you believe they will succeed?”

  “I do. We must. The Louisiana lands we’ve purchased and those obtained from Mexico after the war must be brought into the Union. Manifest Destiny they call it. Senator Douglas of Illinois speaks of it as a national imperative. We have gold and silver deposits in the West we cannot defend should the need arise.”

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  “A Pacific railroad will open new territory to settlement. It will make produce accessible to new markets, east and west, all along the route.”

  “I should think that land will become valuable one day.”

  “It will, Clare. It will.”

  “Does the article say where the railroad is to be built?”

  “No. The senator is recommending legislation that would survey northern, southern, and central routes to determine the most practical and efficient. That makes good sense, though choosing any one of them is certain to provoke dispute over the slavery issue.”

  “That barbaric practice again. When will it end?”

  “Who is to say? Feelings are strident on both sides.”

  “As a Christian, I can’t abide the notion of enslaving another human being.”

  “We see it that way. Southerners have grown up with a different view.”

  “Then how can you believe they will ever choose a route for a Pacific railroad?”

  “There’s too much at stake not to. It won’t be easy. No one knows how, but a route will be chosen. A Pacific railroad will be built. Fortunes will be made when it is. Our own Baltimore and Ohio is building west to reach the commercial centers in Chicago and St. Louis. That routing seems as likely a course as any.”

  Micah got up from his rocker and crossed the dirt floor to sit beside his wife on the thread-worn settee.

  “There’s a future to be made in the west, Clare.”

  “You mean leave Ohio?”

  “People do it every day.”

  “Our families are here.”

  “Our family has just begun. Don’t you want our children to have better opportunities than the ones we’ve had here?”

  “I do, but the idea of leaving is frightening.”

  “There is a practical problem with staying. The farm is too small. Father and the boys can more than manage without me. We need to provide for our own children. Land here costs money, money we haven’t got. Land in the West is plentiful and there for the taking if a man is only to improve it by the sweat of his brow. Don’t you see that for opportunity?”

  “I suppose I do, it’s only . . . ”

  “It would be an adventure.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “West; I don’t know more than that now. We must study it. Think about it.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Then I shall think on it.”

  “Good. Now, come to bed before the warmth of this fire dies out.”

  The White House

  March 20, 1853

  Early spring warmth lay glorious upon Virginia. A lightly scented, gentle breeze ruffled the curtains in the president’s office. Franklin Pierce sat at his desk, his attention drawn to the south lawn emblazoned with blossoms basking in a sun-splashed mantle of fresh greenery. Scarcely more than two weeks in office and events that would define his presidency were already beginning to unfold. Slightly taller than average, the forty-nine-year-old president presented a sober countenance. Dark-blue frock coat, dove-gray vest and cravat suited the austerity of his office.

  A knock at the door drew him back to the moment.

  “Secretary Davis is here, sir.”

  “Send him in.”

  Secretary of War Jefferson Davis appeared at the office door. “You sent for me, Mr. President?”

  “I did, Jefferson, come in. Have a seat.”

  Davis crossed the polished wooden floor on purposeful strides. Lean and angular with ruffled, dark hair, he bore a softer, more comely likeness to his soon-to-be adversary Abraham Lincoln. He folded himself into a guest chair drawn up before the president’s desk.

  “How are you adjusting to the war department, Jefferson?”

  “I’ve barely gotten my chair warm, sir. I might ask the same of all this.” He gestured to the trappings of presidential office.

  “Two weeks and counting for me. I can scarcely find the privy.”

  “We’re even then. What can I do for you, Mr. President?”

  Pierce reached for his desk copy of The Military Appropriations Act of 1853. “It’s about your budget appropriation, more specifically the Pacific railroad provisions. Have you had a chance to study them?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. The survey appropriations seem rather straightforward. It’s the motivation behind them that gives me pause.”

  “Yes, I expect we share similar concerns in that regard.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that, sir. I wasn’t sure.”

  “I’m not a southerner, Jefferson, but I am a Democrat. I am sympathetic to southern interests, particularly where state’s rights are concerned.”

  “Then you understand the problem of choosing a rail route to the
Pacific.”

  “I do.”

  “As long as the Missouri Compromise stands, a Pacific railroad cannot be built without jeopardizing the balance of power in the Senate.”

  “I understand. So does Senator Douglas. This railroad is largely his vision.”

  “So I’m told, and there of course is the rub. This issue is too vital to southern interests to entrust it to a northerner.”

  “Senator Douglas may be a northerner, but he, too, is a Democrat and no wild-eyed abolitionist. I think you’ll find the senator and me like minded on the issue. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Senator Douglas is in a position to influence the way forward to an acceptable resolution.”

  Davis studied the president. “I see his position in the Senate. We know he has a reputation for getting things done. The proof of all you say will be in the pudding. I suspect my fellow southerners will wait to have a taste before passing judgment on the acceptability of his resolution.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about your colleagues in the southern caucus, Jefferson. We’ve been friends long enough; I hope you will trust my judgment where Senator Douglas is concerned. But, as you say, the southern delegation will have to be convinced as events unfold. All that aside, you still have a survey to conduct. Have you given that as much thought as the longer-term ramifications of a Pacific railroad?”

  “I’ve discussed it with my engineers and surveyors. They recommend five survey parties.”

  “Five? Doesn’t that seem rather excessive?”

  “Not five routes, sir. Three parties will survey routes west across the northern plains, across the central plains to the Rockies, and a southern route through our newly acquired possessions. The other two will survey passages east from California that might link to the three primary choices.”