by Win Blevins
“I want to go to the Green Tree Tavern and have lunch,” Abby announced. “I’ll treat.” Evidently she’d put together a plan of operation from her talks with Captain Koch.
The people seemed to be mostly French-speaking, whether Canadian boatmen, shop clerks, traders and their employees, or Negroes. “How do you tell if a Negro is slave or free?” asked Sam.
“No idea,” said Grumble.
He was eyeing everything curiously, probably sizing up his prospects, thought Sam, scouting out marks and suckers.
From the faces on the streets and the signs on the shops and offices, a quarter or third of the population was American. “Captain Koch said there’s every sort of American here, not only Kentucky boatmen but mechanics, traders, doctors, lawyers, merchants, and more coming every day. Even gamblers.”
“Oh dear,” said Grumble.
She brought them to a stop in front of the Green Tree. It didn’t look like the sort of tavern where Grumble and Sam usually stayed at all—a big, handsome frame building with a swinging sign in front. She perked up and made a grand entrance, which several gentlemen noticed. With her silk dress of the faintest, most shimmery blue, plus a tasteful hat and dainty parasol, both in lustrous ivory, she made an impression. Sam felt awkward trailing in behind her in the buckskin shirt and homespun trousers.
The lunch was good enough. Sam hardly noticed. He did notice the people, almost all French of an educated class, and he wondered whether he had manners enough to be there. Later he remembered only one tall, elegant-looking man who stopped by their table on his way out.
“Excuse me for being so bold, but I notice you are speaking English. Are you American, then?” He was beaming at Abby like Sam and Grumble weren’t there.
She offered her left hand, and he bent over it, might have kissed it, for all Sam could see. “Abigail McKenna,” she said smoothly. “My family is from Natchez.”
“Pierre Chouteau,” said the man, inclining his head in a small bow. Sam thought he glanced at her ring finger.
“I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Enchanté, Mam’selle. But Natchez is an ancient and admirable French settlement,” he went on, “the very first capital of Mississippi Territory. You must speak French as well.”
“Un petit peu,” Abby answered. “A little,” she said to Sam.
“With an attractive accent,” said Chouteau.
“I’m afraid my French went the way of the family fortune,” she said.
Sam looked questioningly at Grumble, who gave the tiniest shake of a head.
“And your companions are Americans?”
Abby introduced Grumble first, then Sam. Sam remembered his manners and stood up to shake hands. After all, Chouteau was the name of one of the fancy houses on Rue Royale, and of the town’s founder.
“You are new to the city,” said Chouteau to Abby.
“Yes, I’m staying at Plantation House. I’m thinking of making St. Louis my home, and starting a business. Is St. Louis a good prospect, M. Chouteau?”
“Yes, certainly. Because we are Americans now, we are growing swiftly. I am a man of business, Miss McKenna. If I can be of any assistance, do not hesitate to call on me.” He bowed deeply to her, stood erect, held her eyes for too long a moment, and paraded out.
“A very proper gentleman,” said Grumble.
“Smart, too, I’d guess,” said Abby. “They say the Chouteaus are the hub that turns the wheel.”
“He’s attracted to you,” said Grumble.
“Let’s see,” she said, “whether he chances by the Plantation House dining room this evening.”
Sam and Grumble wandered the waterfront looking for a tavern as quarters. “We must avoid pretension,” said Grumble.
“We need to find something cheap,” returned Sam.
The Blue Stallion seemed a good enough place, cheap food, drink, and lots of men sleeping on the floor. Sam and Grumble spent extra coins for a room with an actual lock, to protect Grumble’s trunk and Sam’s rifle and shotgun. Grumble paid the difference. They had to share a single, narrow bed.
Sam spent supper wondering whether Abby was flirting with M. Pierre Chouteau. Grumble was running his three-card monte trick nearby, but Sam didn’t feel like getting involved tonight, not even for a few dimes. He was staring into his mug and sorting out his future, or the future he didn’t have. He was in St. Louis, where he’d wanted to be. He was running out of money. He didn’t want a regular job, and didn’t want to make his living by his wits, as Grumble suggested. Maybe he would hire on as a flatboat man, but he didn’t feel keen about that, and the town was full of hands much more experienced than he was. He was just beginning to feel sorry for himself when a man sat down without invitation.
A man of indeterminate age, anywhere between middle-aged, thirty, and old like Grumble, maybe fifty. A long, expressionless face that had spent a lot of time in the wind and sun. Frontiersman but not boatman—not the red shirt and boatman’s cap but shirt of hide, shooting pouch over the shoulder, rifle in hand, eyes an enigmatic gray. “Mind if we set?” said the older.
Sam hadn’t noticed the other man until that moment. A younger frontiersman, round face, wild hair, and a look that was distracted, maybe far away in another place or time.
Sam shook his head. He minded, but in a place like this you couldn’t take a table for yourself.
“You look lost.”
“Sam Morgan, Pennsylvania.” He stuck out a hand.
That steered the conversation away from the mental state Sam was in, lost or found. His companions were James Evans and a young fellow named Spoon, Tennessee and Kentucky.
“What are you doing in St. Louis?” Sam asked routinely.
“We came downriver after two seasons of hunting beaver.”
Fur men. Sam’s interest lit. “Where you been?”
“Sioux country,” said James. “Hired out to Berthold, Pratte, and Chouteau, working from Fort Kiowa.”
Those French families again, thought Sam, and Chouteau everywhere.
“This child ain’t going back there.” This was Spoon. “I’m not. Got to stop talking that foolish way.” Sam tried to catch his eyes, but the man looked away quickly, like a skittish deer.
“Wal, hoss, this child cottons to it. And he knows poor bull from fat cow.”
“Talk educated, James. You are. At least I have an excuse.”
“My friend is weary of Indian country, but I’m going again. With Chouteau’s outfit, day after tomorrow.
“All right, I’ll try to think to talk educated, though this beaver has gotten mighty snug in the blankets with mountain talk.” He chuckled at himself. “We’ve been working the lower Missouri,” said James. “Sometimes those of us with Chouteau been hunting and trading as far up as Kiowa, even clear up to the Mandan villages. General Ashley aims to go all the way to the Shining Mountains, or near enough to see them.” He hesitated, and finally said with a hint of approval, “That’s Indian country.”
“I fear for your soul, James.” The older man just kept gazing at Sam with a half smile.
“My friend has got religion scared back into him,” said James, and his gray eyes twinkled.
“You mock, just you mock,” said Spoon. “But you won’t come back, not from Indian country. And if you do, you won’t be no white man no longer.”
James didn’t act interested in whatever Spoon thought.
“Tell me about the country,” Sam prompted.
“Far as I’ve been, a vast, vast prairie, sky in every direction. No mountains, no trees except for right along the rivers and cricks. Grass, godawmighty worlds of grass in every direction, far as the sky is wide. And feeding on the grass, buffalo.”
He shifted in his chair, as though to bring himself back into the present, into the tavern. “Your mind can’t picture the buffalo unless you’ve seen them. Herds wander in thick as forests. Sometimes it looks like you could walk from the Missouri River to the Shining Mountains on their backs and never set
foot on the earth. Best eatin’ in the world.”
He looked Sam full in the face and held his eyes. “I want to see the Shining Mountains again, and wander all over them.”
“Mountain fever,” said Spoon.
“That’s it!” said James with a laugh. He pointed to his head. “This child’s still got the mountain fever.”
“More like it’s got you.”
James gave Spoon a look that said, ‘You’re no fun at all.’
Sam decided to say something sympathetic-sounding. “I’ve been flatboating. There’s long, boring times in that.”
“Same upriver,” said James.
“The very same,” said Spoon. “Nothing to do all winter long.”
“We tell stories,” said James.
“Get drunk and rut with women,” said Spoon.
“A hoss has to, Spoon, or get his”—here he made a face at Spoon—“member frostbit.”
“Not funny. I done plenty of rutting, whiskey too. I pray I don’t burn in hell for it.”
“I went to hell to get it,” said James playfully, “and this child came back confused.”
“He’s about to tell a story. It’s really another man’s. He tells it like it happened to him. And it’s blasphemy, making fun of what should be serious.”
“A little fun doesn’t mean we’re not serious, Spoon.”
“You ain’t.” Spoon sounded peevish.
“I went to hell and came back. That’s the story. Like I said, in the winter there’s not much to do but tell stories. The stories get, wal, they are some.”
“Tell it,” Sam said.
“Spoon, why don’t you get us more beer, three of them, and wipe that stomach-achey look off your face.”
Spoon headed for the makeshift bar.
“I was on the Cannonball River and got some Rees on my tail, so I cached. Sudden-like I remembered, I’d one time hid a jug there, and right quick I found it. ‘Hurraw fur the mountains,’ I cried. Down went the awerdenty—that means likker—and on I rode.”
“Soon the country began to looked scorched and even burned. My mule wanted to turn back, but I kicked her forward.
“Before long the mule won’t go at all, but stands a-tremblin’ in place. As I gets off, a kind-lookin’, smallish old gentleman, with a black coat and britches an’ a bright, cute face an’ gold spectacles, walks up an’ presses my hand softly—
“‘Mr. Evans. How do you do, my dear friend? I have long expected you. You cannot imagine the pleasure it gives me to greet you in my home.’
“With this he offers a cigar. When I lipped it, the old gentleman reached out and touched his finger to the end—it smoked like fire had been set to it.
“‘Wagh! The devil!’ screams I, drawin’ back.
“‘The same,’ chimed in he, biting off the little end of his’n—‘the same, sir.’
“‘Hell! This ain’t the holler tree for this coon—I’ll be makin’ medicine.’ So I offers my cigar to the sky an’ to the earth, like Injun.
Spoon came back with three mugs just then. “This is blasphemy, this Injun religion,” he said. “Or heresy.”
“Oh, go bark up a tree, Spoon. You don’t know what way the stick floats.
“Let’s see, I don’t recollect all of the story from here on. The old gentleman gives me a tour of the place, and brags genteel-like on the clever furnishings. But it is all smell of brimstone, screeching hellcats, howling dogs, and mortals being tortured. This child even sees Cadet Chouteau, the fur dealer, coals a-burning his flesh forever, which give me a smile.
“Right then, two big, yellow snakes come slithering forward, hissing and flashing their fangs. To show the devil something, I jumps on one of them snakes and rides it, hooting and hollering. A lot of devils joins in, at first like it’s fun, and then like they’re gonna get me.
“I jumped off and broke fur timber. Lookin’ back, the whole cavyard of hell was comin’ at me, an’ devils on devils, nothing but devils. About thirty-five of the infernal dogs an’ slimy snakes come a top of me—mashin’ and a-tearin’ me, and bit big pieces out of me, an’ bit an’ bit again, an’ scratched an’ gouged.
“When I was most give out, I heered the Pawnee skulp yell, and in charged some of the best boys in the mountains. They slayed the devils right an’ left an’ set them runnin’ like goats. I was so weak fightin’ I fainted away.
“When I come to, we was on the Cannonball, just whar I found my liquor, an’ my companyeros was slappin’ thar wet hats in my face to bring me to.
“‘Evans, what on airth have ye bin doin’ hyar? You was a-kickin’ an’ tearin’ up the grass and yellin’ like yer ha’r was taken.’
“‘The devils from hell was after me,’ says I mighty gruff.
“They tried to git me outen the notion, but I swar, I saw a heap more of the all-fired place than I want to agin. An’ if that ain’t fact, I don’t know fat cow from poor bull.”
Sam kept himself from laughing out loud, thinking of his manners.
“That,” said Spoon, “makes fun of real religion. People will go to hell from carrying on that way.”
“There are some differences between us, Spoon,” James observed equably.
“I wish I could go with you,” Sam said to James.
“Another fool,” crabbed Spoon.
“Chouteau signed on the men for this boat a couple of weeks back,” James said. “Besides, it’s a hard life for a young man. I was about your age when I first went up the river.”
“When was that?”
“I was a Lewis and Clark man.”
Sam felt a shiver along his spine. He couldn’t get any words out of his mouth.
James laughed. “It didn’t seem like such an all-fired deal until that Biddle book came out. Then we were heroes for a little while.”
Still heroes to Sam.
“What’s Captain Clark like?”
“It’s General Clark, or Governor, depending. I’m sure he’s fine. We’re not companyeros like we used to be. Superintendent of Indian Affairs is a big job.” It was said without resentment.
“What was the most exciting part?” Sam asked.
“Seeing the Pacific Ocean, I think. We could hardly believe that.” He mused. “Hardly believe it.” He yawned. “It’s late, though, and I have an early morning. Start loading the keelboat at dawn.”
“I thank God I’m not going,” said Spoon.
James said to Sam, “Why don’t you come see us off day after tomorrow? The levee. We won’t cast off before midmorning.”
Sam said he would.
Spoon leaned into Sam’s face, his eyes wild and his breath bad. “If you go to them mountains,” he said, “you’ll turn into a heathen.”
That morning Grumble had an announcement. A message had come from Abby to their digs early, delivered by the hotel’s uniformed “boy.”
Grumble waved the note in front of Sam’s face, though he knew Sam couldn’t read. “It’s a surprise for you, and you’re going to love it. We meet her at the Plantation House restaurant a little before ten.” He folded the note and tucked it away.
Presumably, the surprise wasn’t supposed to be M. Chouteau, who was seated at the table with Abby. Grumble stopped Sam at the entrance, and they watched the pair for a moment. “In estrus,” said Grumble.
“What’s estrus?” asked Sam.
“What in a dog you would call heat.”
Sam blushed.
“We could say the same of M. Chouteau, except that the word isn’t applied to males.”
They made their way between tables. M. Chouteau stood when he saw them. “Splendid!” he said. “Would you like a coffee?”
“Cadet,” Abby put in, “we might be late.” She was looking at a small watch pinned to her bodice, an item Sam hadn’t seen before. He was wondering what “kahday” meant.
Chouteau led the way out of the hotel, and they walked wherever they were going. The city hadn’t had rain recently, and the streets were dry and firm. Ch
outeau was expansive, pointing out every sight, which they’d mostly seen, flinging his arms this way and that. His air of power made him seem a tall man, and he was handsomely turned out. Abby was full of giggles and exclamations like, “Cadet, that’s fascinating,” “Cadet, that’s funny,” and “Cadet, you’re silly.”
When Chouteau stepped aside to speak with a gentleman, Sam asked Abby softly, “What’s kah-day mean?”
“It’s a family name for M. Chouteau, because his father is also Pierre. Like calling a young man ‘Junior.’”
“Stick to Monsieur Chouteau,” put in Grumble.
“The French are odd,” said Sam tartly.
Where they ended up was the Clark compound, the council house. Sam hardly dared hope. Chouteau rapped lightly on a door, and a tall, stout man, red hair shot through with gray, opened it. “Your excellency,” began Chouteau, “may I introduce Miss Abigail McKenna?” The red-headed man inclined his hand courteously. “Abby, Governor William Clark.”
She curtsied.
“Mr. Grumble of Baltimore. I’m sorry, I don’t know your Christian name.”
“I go by Grumble alone,” said Grumble, and shook the Governor’s hand. “Honored, your excellency.”
“Mr. Sam Morgan of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.”
Sam shook the hand but was unable to get himself to mumble, ‘Your excellency.’
“Delighted to meet you all,” said Clark. “M. Chouteau said you might like to see my Indian collection.”
“Very much,” Sam blurted out.
Clark chuckled and held the door open for them.
He escorted them around the large room, which had a big space set aside in the center, perhaps for meetings. Sam’s mind whirled with pieces of this and that. “Your excellency,” why do they call him that? I thought he was General Clark. Maybe he got to be a governor later. “Your excellency!” What are we, John Bulls?
He was awed at the treasures he was seeing. Bows and arrows of various sizes and shapes—Clark attached a tribe to each one, but Sam didn’t recognize most of the names. Arrowheads. Spearheads. Bows and arrows.
“This bow is of Osage orange,” said Clark. “The Osage and other Indians make exceptional bows from this wood. It’s very good for the purpose.”