From Sea to Shining Sea

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  A crowd had gathered on the shore, men, women, and children chattering in French, and a few hallooing Americans, rangy, ragged figures with rolled-up shirt sleeves, leather pants, and pistols and knives in their belts. “There’s some of the oldtimers,” Montgomery said. “Hey! Davy! Hey, Abe! Herman! Aha! And look up the street there, Dick Clark, here comes down the ol’ Long Knife ’isself! GEORGE! YA, HA! HERE WE BE AT LAST! WHAT THERE IS OF US!” A twinge of distress passed over Montgomery’s face, and he said, “You watch ’im. He’s goin’ to be disappointed, but he won’t show it.”

  George was on the little plank wharf when the first boat bumped up against it and Montgomery sprang off. Dickie watched as George and Montgomery hugged each other and whomped each other on the back. George was leaner now; his shirt hung looser on his wide shoulders, and all the muscles and sinews and veins in his brown forearms were defined as if his skin were thin as silk. But it was the change in the face that gave Dickie such a pang: Every bone was visible, his eyes were hollow and somehow wilder and more intense, his nose looked ever more like a hawk’s beak, and his jaw muscles were as distinct as if drawn on the skin by some anatomist. There were many fine wrinkles and pain-lines around his eyes and mouth; they were visible from ten feet away in the afternoon sunlight. “John, John,” he was saying. “I’m glad you’re here and sorry ye missed the big event last winter. There’s Dickie! Brother, stop gapin’ and get out o’ that boat and gi’ me a hug! God damn, but I’m glad t’ see family! Hey, ye look a bit underfed. Hasn’t Monty been a-feedin’ you right?”

  “You do too, George. God! Hallo! Oh, hallo, ye damn big ol’ Conqueror!” In Dickie’s arms, George was hard and spare as gristle, but still so strong it seemed he’d squeeze his guts out at both ends. “Ooof! We’ve heard all th’ story, brother. I’m so proud I could bust.”

  “Aye? Well, it’s nothin’ compared to what we’ll do with another Clark here.” He released him, and Dickie could see his gaze going over the boats, watching the emaciated, barefoot militiamen climbing out. “Are there more comin’, Monty, or what?”

  “This is all.”

  It was true what Montgomery had said; George wasn’t showing his disappointment, not much. But Dickie could see the eyes grow a little wilder, the pain lines deepen, even as George kept smiling and watching them haul themselves wearily out of the boats. “How come?” he said quietly. “Recruiting trouble like last time?”

  “Not so much that. I’d raised three times this many. But th’ usual powers—you know, the Short Eyes—just as we set out, they took the liberty o’ sending us long way round to chase Cherokees that was botherin’ their butts. Well, George, you know. Desertions. Sick. Wounded. I’ve a hundred thirty-five here, and they need shoes and food ’fore they’ll be much help.”

  George’s jaw muscles were working. “If I’d foreseen this, I’d ha’ gone on to Detroit from Vincennes, while we were already in motion. Maybe we were too spent to’ve done it, but we all wanted to. Now we’ve stopped and rested to wait for you, and my old boys been aging ’bout a year a day.”

  “I did my best, George.”

  “Y’ don’t need to tell me that. I know you did. Well.” Suddenly he was grinning, getting taller and warming up, it seemed, and he said, “Well, let’s muster ’em, and have a big hello. They’re part o’ the Illinois Regiment now, and that makes ’em choice. How’d Dickie do, chasin’ Cherokees?”

  “He’s a Clark, that’s sure. Not afraid o’ nothin’.”

  “Damn so. There’s nothing to be afraid of, is there, Brother?”

  “Not that I’ve seen,” Dickie lied. He had been plenty afraid in the Cherokee country. But of course the brother of Long Knife had not dared show his fear.

  As the men trudged up toward the fort, carrying their sacks and kettles and guns, George watched them carefully, and they watched him carefully, smiling half-afraid. They had heard much about the Long Knife and knew they were in for something. Montgomery was saying:

  “What’s this do to Detroit, d’ye think, George?”

  “Why, I don’t give up easy, you know. I’ve got a thing or two up my sleeve. I sent back to Kentuck for the county lieutenants to furnish me what men they could. And after them seein’ the Hair-Buyer go through all dressed in chains, I think they might comply. What you’ve brought added to my old boys, we’ve got a couple hundred, and some Frenchmen from here, they served me well, and they like bein’ heroes. And then if Kentuck sends a couple hundred more, why, I don’t think Detroit would be all that impossible.” They were walking up the street of Kaskaskia now, George with one arm over Montgomery’s shoulders and one over Dickie’s, and the civilians were running and gawking and cheering, and George said: “Y’ know I’ve always had a peculiar notion about possible and impossible. And after what we did last winter, it’s even more peculiar.”

  BUT WHEN THE KENTUCKY TROOPS DID COME, HE COULD no longer hide his disappointment. They were not two hundred, but only twenty. They came limping into Vincennes, where George’s forces were to rendezvous for the march against Detroit. They were barefooted, exhausted, sick, and half-starved.

  There had been two hundred of them at the start, but their officers had seen fit to take them on a detour up into the Shawnee country and raid the tribal town of Chillicothe. They had burned and looted the town, but the Shawnees, knowing of their coming, had melted away in front of them, giving them no one to fight. On the return march to Kentucky the warriors had followed the weary troops and sniped constantly at them, killing or wounding nearly a half of them, and when the demoralized force had recrossed the Ohio into Kentuck, most of them had disbanded. Only these twenty had come.

  Dickie watched George get up from the table after this forlorn news and go into another room. He knew George was removing himself from the sight of the officers so he could work out his rage in private.

  When he came back out, he was calm and quiet. He held a conference with the officers. He wanted to go on to Detroit, now, even with this ragged little force of only two hundred. But he knew how foolish that would be. They were not enough to make a respectable showing going through the Lakes Indian country, or to haul the cannon they would need to attack Detroit. Though George believed he could take the city with two hundred, he was not sure how many of them could make it there. Many had been so weakened by the winter campaigns that they were sick all the time now, with malaria, with agues, with sore bones, and with mysterious fevers. But the deciding factor was the weather. The summer had been a drouth, and the rivers were so low that boats would not travel. The Wabash, which had been a roaring flood all winter, now was a stagnant, sluggish trickle in the muddy riverbed. “The most perverse river on the face of God’s earth,” growled Abe Chapline. “It’s like she’s just decided she’s carried enough water for this year, and isn’t going to carry no more.”

  “It took Hamilton seventy-two days last fall to come from Detroit because the rivers were low,” George said, “and he had half a thousand Indians to help ’im. I’m afraid, boys, I’ll have to say this, and I know I’d sure be the last to say it: we’re going to have to forget Detroit for this year. We’ll just have to dig in and concentrate on holding what we’ve won.”

  The officers nodded. They were relieved, in a way, but they were disappointed, too. “Well,” said Bowman. “Maybe it’s just th’ Good Lord tellin’ us we’ve already done enough for now.”

  “Nay, Joe,” replied George. He glanced at Dickie. “As our Ma would used to say, ‘While there’s somethin’ needing done, you haven’t done enough.”’ Dickie smiled, remembering that. “I’d bind myself seven years a slave to have five hundred men right now,” George went on, through narrowed lips. “If we had ’em, by Heaven, we’d go, somehow, even if we had to put wheels on the boats and pull ’em there. But we don’t have enough able-bodied, and that’s all there is to it. I’m sorry, boys. Come next spring, maybe. Meantime, I’ve got a fort to build at the Falls, and one at the mouth of the Ohio. And while we’re here, we’ve
got to make the best use we can of these few people of ours, because we Long Knives’ve got one hellacious reputation to keep up, all over this hundred thousand square miles, and that’s going to spread us thin as rock soup.”

  ON JULY 4, LIEUTENANT HOAG WAS LIFTED FROM HIS BUNK by four other officers and placed upon the table in the middle of the gun room of the Jersey, on a large rectangle of sail canvas. This was wrapped and tied around him. The Poet, who was still able to stand, took his place at the head of the table, and five other officers stood or sat along the sides of the table, gasping and dripping sweat, and the Poet said words over the corpse. Johnny Clark could not get up to attend the funeral, but through the whooshings and buzzings in his head and the sounds of the gurgling in his lungs, he could hear some of it.

  “Our compatriot at last has gained his full independence … freed by Divine Mercy from his sufferings.…”

  A year now since the enlisted men had made their escape in the dead-boat. A year now since the Jersey’s jailers had decreed that all prisoners would be kept below decks. A year now since Johnny Clark had lain in the sun on the deck to breathe fresh, sunny air into his consumptive lungs. A year now since he had looked up and seen a sea gull white against the blue sky.

  The wonder of it was that the year had passed and any of them were still alive. Hoag had already been here when Johnny had first set foot on this floating dungeon, more than a year and a half ago. Thanksgiving Day of 1777, that had been, and now it was July Fourth of 1779. The wonder of it was that Lieutenant Hoag had lived so long. He had not seemed like the sort of man who particularly desired to live. All his humor had been mordant and bitter. But it had been humor.

  Hoag had laughed aloud for some reason in the middle of last night. The laughter had started him coughing, and he had coughed for a long time, and this morning they had found him still and dead.

  “… has known already the feeling of the tomb. But now his mortal soul may leave this tomb and ascend, as did our beloved Saviour from His …”

  Lieutenant Hoag was carried out sometime while Johnny Clark was delirious. Johnny had seen him there on the table and then he had been unconscious and when he had come back his old friend was no longer on the table, and some other prisoners were sitting around it looking at Johnny, and Captain Coffin was kneeling beside his bunk in the oven-heat, wiping his brow with a dirty wet rag, saying, “Y’ve been raving, old Johnny.”

  “Hoag’s gone.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “I want to go with ’im.”

  “No, not yet awhile, Johnny. What would I do here without you? You and I are the old sages in this place now, don’t you know? Now that Mister Hoag’s escaped, there’s not a soul in this room’s been here a half as long as either of us.”

  “If that’s an honor, I’d as soon not have it.”

  “Well, Johnny my boy, here’s more honor, and I should hope you’ll want to rally yourself long enough to enjoy it a bit. Them that came to carry Mister Hoag away told it: D’you know who’s presently in a dungeon in Williamsburg?”

  “King George, I pray.”

  “Ha, ha! Nay, but a rather important one of his minions. That general they called the Hair-Buyer. Governor Hamilton of Detroit.”

  “Ah. Well … that’s something.”

  “Yes. And d’you know who caught him and sent him there?”

  Johnny stirred. Suddenly he wanted to sit up to hear what he was sure he was going to hear.

  “Brother George did it? Got the Hair-Buyer himself?”

  “That’s what they said. And some grand Canadian judge as well, and a whole boatload of scalp-buyers.” The Poet was smiling because he could see Johnny smiling. He said, “Do you want to give one of your famous wolf calls? If you do, give me time to plug up my ears.”

  “Ha … huh … ha, ha. No. It’d kill me sure.”

  “Oh! A moment ago, you said you wanted to go.”

  “Well …” He coughed ferociously for a while. Then he said. “I’d like to celebrate a while first.”

  “That’s what I thought. So come then, Old Johnny, and sit at the table with me and those smiling gents, for we’d like to celebrate with you. It’s been a long while since you’ve been to the table.”

  “Don’t know … if I can … but …”

  “But your brother would be pleased if you sat up and celebrated in his honor, wouldn’t he? One day you can tell him you did so.”

  Johnny lay with his head back on the straw-covered planks of his bunk, and hot tears were running down his temples and into his ears. The Poet said: “Well? Coming?”

  “Aye,” Johnny groaned. “I’m just gatherin’ the strength … to get up. Hey, you know what, Cap’n?”

  “What, Old Johnny?”

  “Brother George is … going t’ put so many o’ those … lords in jail … they’ll run over, and … have to put the rest in here! Ha, ha!”

  DICKIE SAT ACROSS THE TABLE FROM GEORGE AND WATCHED him pour another glass for each of them. It was the best brandy Dickie had ever tasted. It was some that Captain Helm had liberated when he had captured the British boats. George was saying, “It’s satisfying to think that this was Henry Hamilton’s private stock, and it’s us sitting here drinking it instead o’ him. Isn’t that satisfying, Dick?”

  “It’s satisfying to me. And I reckon it must be a hundred times more so to you.”

  “I’m just glad I got some o’ this before ol’ Len had a chance to use it all. To the health of all Clarks, Dickie, wherever we be.” They raised the glasses.

  “To our health.” They sipped and let the flavor drain over their tongues.

  It was the first time George and Dickie had been able to sit down by themselves. Dickie was still a private, and George had been very busy with his officers. All plans for the winter had finally been worked out. The Virginians had been divided up among the posts at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, and George would take a small party and go down and build a fort at the Falls. Settlers had been pouring back down the Ohio into Kentuck ever since the news of the Western conquests. A fort was needed there for their safety.

  “I’m going to have to make you an officer, Dick, so I can sit and drink with’ee now and then.”

  “Well, ha, ha, I—”

  “I’m not joking. I need you. Look here, now, brother. I want to show you something o’ what we’ve got ahead of us.” He got up from the table and went into a corner, and picked up a cherry-wood chest, and set it on the table. Carved in the lid was “GEO. R. CLARK.” He opened it with a key and began lifting out rolls of paper, and what looked like bundles of scrap paper. He untied strings and unrolled the large sheets. The first was a large map, drawn in pencil. “This is the Northwest Territory,” he said. “It’s what we’ve come into control of. This up here is the Great Lakes. Here’s the Mississippi. Here’s the Ohio. Everything within there is ours now, but only if we can keep it. Do you know what we’ve got to hold it with?” Dickie shook his head. “Reputation,” George said. “We’ve got a reputation, and it’s one hellacious reputation, as y’ve heard me tell. But reputation, as someone said, maybe it was Shakespeare—I wish Jonathan was here, we could ask him who said it—said, ‘Reputation is a bubble.’ Listen and listen well, Dick: One blunder, one act o’ cowardice, one oversight, one piece o’ neglect that we might do in all this country, and pop! there goes our bubble. Listen: At Cahokia last summer, when I signed treaties with the tribes that live in this country, I warned ’em that if they broke their word, the Long Knives would feed them to the buzzards. Pretty cocky for a ragtag band o’ sick, broke men like we’ve got, eh? But I mean to keep our reputation good, by Heaven!” He banged his palm on the table. “I’ve bluffed and strutted and waded to my neck in ice water to get it, and I’m jealous of it!” Dickie looked at George wide-eyed. “God, God only knows what we’ll have to do yet to keep this country. But here are some of the things.” He put another large sheet of paper on top of the map. “Here’s my plan for the fort we’ll build at
the Falls of Ohio. Look. Earthwork ramparts. Log blockhouses. There’s a spring here inside, so there’s always fresh water, even in a siege.” He pulled another sheet from underneath and put it on top. “Here’s the fort we’ll build next spring at the mouth of the Ohio. Much like it, but bigger.” He put a finger on it. “This will stop all British traffic on the upper Mississippi. Then if we get any men and money from Virginia or Congress, we’ll go clear up and get Detroit, and then Britain’s done in these parts. Here’s something else that would serve us well. This idea I got after Cousin Johnny brought that gunboat through hell and high water. It’s a musketproof oar-ship, with cannon. A small fleet o’ these, and you’ve got forts you can place wherever they’re needed on the Ohio. Tom Jefferson’s our new governor, and he’s been behind me since the beginning, so I can count on his backing, maybe even better than I could on Henry. Is your head whirlin’ yet, Dick? I hope you didn’t aim to come out here and loaf. Ha, ha! Because that’s not all.” He put the map back on top. “All this space here, we’ve got to keep in an uproar. I intend for the British to expect me everyplace. Michillimackinac. Detroit. Natchez. Hamilton left Detroit in the charge of a Captain Lernoult, who’s as fraidy as a chicken, they say. I intend to keep him in hot water and running in a hundred directions. That way he can’t gather up and come at us. I’ve got a hundred French bushlopers who go everywhere and they’ll spread those rumors. They love to lie and gossip as much as they love to tiddle squaws, and that’s a lot.” He paused, cocked his head and asked:

  “Is this a little different from what you expected, brother? You look a little bit obflusticated.”

  “It sure is a lot more complicated. I didn’t think I’d have to do anything out here more intelligent than shoot from behind a tree.”

  “Hm, hm, hm! Well, surprise. And it’s even more complicated yet. Know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re poorer than fleas on a skeleton. You may not be old enough to’ve learned it yet, but anything is ten times as hard if y’ have to figure out how to pay for it without any money.”