1824: The Arkansas War tog-2 Page 12

  "Who do you want me to give the other glass to, Mr. Sam?"

  "Don't give me any sass. You're a slave, remember?"

  Almost grinning, Chester handed over the second glass. "Best not to beat me, though, Massa. Here in Arkansas, I can always run away."

  Out of the corner of his eye, as he started on the second glass of whiskey, Sam could see John Ross's jaws tighten a little. But, for the first time in hours, Sam found himself amused.

  "You! Up there in the Ouachitas!"

  "It ain't likely," Chester agreed. "I gotten soft, these years with you. Used to the finer things in life."

  So, Sam was able to end the evening relaxed as well as amused. There was always that, after all. Everything weaving in and out and around, like a ball of string too tangled to unravel any longer. Black men-Indians, too-learning how to fight and maneuver skillfully against white men, sure enough. But they couldn't do it without coming to resemble their foes. Even The Bowl and his people knew it, attached as they were to the traditional ways of the Cherokee.

  It was a cheery thought. Sam didn't have any use for simplicity. The most treacherous ground in Creation, that was. Simple meant smooth, and smooth meant slick, and slick meant many a fall.

  He even danced himself, at the end.

  Not well, no, even though he was a very good dancer. Not after that much whiskey. But he didn't fall down, either.

  The next morning, over breakfast, Patrick finally asked Sam the question.

  "So. How was the general?"

  Carefully, Sam laid down his spoon. Not because the spoon was fragile, or even expensive, but simply because he was doing everything rather carefully this morning. His head hurt.

  "Gracious. Very gracious."

  "No rancor there?"

  Sam managed a careful smile. "No, not any at all. That I could detect, anyway. There is that one advantage to Andy's:ah, what to call it? Vigorous way of looking at things, maybe."

  "Meaning Andy Jackson is more self-righteous than an eagle," said Tiana. "If women didn't exist, you'd have to invent us. Just to keep you from needing to invent a new language every ten years, the way you maim and mutilate the ones you got."

  "Well. Yeah. The point being that if he wanted to get really mad at me for messing up his presidential prospects, he'd have to admit that speech he gave after Algiers was a bad mistake. Which he's no more likely to admit-not to himself, not to anybody-than the sun is to start rising in the west."

  "But?" asked Patrick. "There's a 'but' somewhere in there, Sam. I can smell it."

  Sam nodded. Carefully. "But, the last day-friendly-like, but also stiff and proper-he said that he felt that vow he'd made to me after the Horseshoe had been kept. So that shield is gone, Patrick."

  Tiana took a deep breath. Patrick just shrugged. "It lasted ten years. That was enough. And he's right, anyway. He did keep it, as long as you could ask any honorable man to keep so vague and open-ended a promise."

  Sam studied him for a moment. Then, a bit exasperated: "Patrick, if he ever comes at you, he'll crush you."

  Andy Jackson might be more self-righteous than an eagle, but Patrick Driscol made any mule look wishy-washy. So Sam was expecting a stubborn denial. The answer he got surprised him.

  "Oh, yes, I imagine so," Patrick said evenly. "But he won't."

  The exasperation swelled. "Marie Laveau's been giving you lessons in fortune-telling, then? Patrick, you have no idea what Andy Jackson will do, if he takes a mind to it! He's just as riled over the runaway slave question as any slave-owner in the United States. And he's one of the biggest. Just had another one run away from the Hermitage a month before I arrived. Reported to have been heading here, naturally."

  "No, I can't predict what he will do. But I can predict how he would do it."

  Sam cocked his head, skeptically, then immediately regretted it. All the pain seemed to pour over to somewhere around his left ear, like water pouring off a ship's deck in a storm.

  "And:that:means?" he said, through gritted teeth.

  "It means he's very smart, Sam. He was a smart general, and he's a smart politician. I've done everything I could to make it plain as day to Andy Jackson that if he leads an army here, I'll bleed it and gut it. Half gut it, anyway. Yes, he'd probably win. But is it worth the cost? To his reputation, if nothing else?"

  For the first time that morning, Patrick smiled. "He wants to be the next president of the United States, Sam. Failing that, the next. And he doesn't want the office simply out of ambition, the way Clay does, either. He wants it because there are things Andy Jackson believes in with a passion. You follow me so far?"

  "An idiot can follow you so far." That came out more testily than it should have, being just the pain talking. Sam was actually getting intrigued. He'd half forgotten how shrewd a sergeant Driscol had been. Winfield Scott had once told him that Driscol was the best noncommissioned officer he'd ever met in his life-and when Sam passed the remark over to Robert Ross, the British major general had agreed.

  They were much alike, in so many ways, Patrick Driscol and Andy Jackson. Scots-Irish to the core. Both crude and rough on the outside, and neither with much in the way of a formal education. And both with such sharp and pronounced personal characteristics that an unobservant man could easily miss the keen brains that lay beneath those thick skulls.

  "Keep going," he said.

  "Think it through, Sam. Yes, I know the general's furious about the runaway slaves. But was it runaway slaves who stripped thousands of poor white men of their belongings, after the Panic? Or was it the Bank of the United States, and their favored lawyer at the time, Henry Clay? Is it runaway slaves, on their way to Arkansas, who demand the retention of debt imprisonment? Or is it the men who are backing Clay and Crawford? Did any runaway slave ever accuse the general and Mrs. Jackson of being adulterers and bigamists? Or was that Henry Clay's creatures?"

  Sam grimaced. Even Jackson's friends would admit-if not to his face-that there was indeed some murkiness surrounding his marriage. But who could possibly care? Rachel Jackson's first husband, Lewis Robards, had been a notorious brute and a man who copulated openly with his slave women. No one, not even Jackson's enemies, blamed Rachel for abandoning him. She and Jackson hadn't married until they'd received word from Virginia that Robards had divorced her. The fact that the divorce hadn't been finalized didn't reach them until later. For any honest man with no ax to grind, the whole issue was a legal technicality, and terms like "adultery" and "bigamy" were preposterous.

  No one had ever been able to prove that Clay was behind those never-ending accusations and insinuations that kept surfacing in the press. But no one much doubted it, either-and Jackson didn't doubt it at all. It was that, more than anything, that gave Jackson's hatred of Clay such a sharp and unyielding edge.

  And it was so typical of Clay. The Speaker of the House was almost the polar opposite of men like Jackson and Driscol. On the surface, as slick and smooth-and smart, no doubt about it-as any man in America. But underneath, a man whose brains were constantly corroded by naked ambition. Naked, because unlike Jackson's ambitions-which were every bit as great-there were few principles to serve ambition as a guide. So, the man couldn't distinguish clearly between small victories and big ones-and would, quite often, lose the latter because he could not resist the former.

  Which, now that Sam thought about it, was also the opposite of Jackson. Even as pugnacious as he was, Andy would-Sam had seen him do it, time after time-forgo the pleasure of winning a small fight in order to win a bigger one.

  "Ah," he said, finally understanding. "But:that's a Sam Hill gamble, Patrick."

  Driscol had finished his own porridge and pushed it aside. Then, splayed out his square hand on the table. The movements weren't awkward at all, but they were just that little bit complicated. For the first time since he'd arrived in New Antrim, Sam was reminded that Patrick had lost his left arm at the Chippewa. One tended to forget, around such a man.

  "Possibly. But I don't thin
k Sam Hill would take it. Because he'd figure I'd likely win. The thing is, Sam, I'm betting that Andy Jackson is smart enough to know that when the time comes, he can negotiate a settlement with me. Not one he'd be very happy with, no, but one he could live with."

  "Could he?"

  Patrick shrugged. "Oh, yes. I'm not stupid. Sheltering runaways and maroons isn't any more critical to me than catching them is to Jackson. It's a dispute, that's all. A sharp one, granted. But we could work out a settlement." He smiled, the way a troll might. "Not that either one of us would call it a 'great compromise.' "

  Sam chuckled. "But what if Clay wins the election? I have to tell you that he's most likely going to, Patrick. Even Andy will admit that nowadays, at least in private to his friends."

  "All the better, so far as I'm concerned. Jackson would then be able to let someone else play the general, and fumble it-and then he can ride in and save the day. Four years later. What's four years, Sam? In the great scheme of things."

  The boys came charging into the dining room. They got right to the verbs, as six-year-olds will. The nouns being self-evident to the world, since they were self-evident to them.

  "You promised, Pa! You promised!"

  Driscol pushed away from the table and rose. "So I did."

  "Promised what?" Sam asked.

  "That he'd take them up to the new fort today," Tiana answered. "They love forts. Do you know any little boys who don't?"

  Sam was tempted to answer: Don't know too many full-grown men who don't love 'em either. Especially if they're Scots-Irish.

  But he didn't, because as soon as the quip came to his mind he realized that Andy Jackson was one of them. The general built forts the way boys built tree houses-and, now that Sam thought about it, he realized that Andy always did prefer to fight on the defensive whenever he could.

  "I'll be damned," he said.

  He normally avoided blasphemy, just for the sake of appearances if nothing else. But Patrick was a freethinker, and the Lord Himself only knew what Tiana thought about such matters.

  So he did it again. "I will be damned."

  Patrick's rejoinder was inevitable, of course. "Most likely." But Sam paid that little attention. His headache was coming back with a vengeance.

  "I need a drink," he announced.

  Tiana didn't argue the point, since she never did. She just rose and went over to the cabinet.

  "Hair of the dog, is it?" Patrick said. "Someday that dog'll swallow you whole, Sam."

  But that was an old refrain, too, so Sam ignored it. The whiskey bottle was coming to the table, and he needed to think. Whiskey helped him think when he had a headache as bad as this one.

  There might be an angle here:As reluctant as he was to use it, Sam's father-in-law had his own connections to the press. Very good ones, as you'd expect. Perhaps more importantly, so did John Quincy Adams. Who also hated Clay, because Clay's creatures had slandered him over the Treaty of Ghent. And though the issue was not as personal as the issue over which Clay and his people hounded Jackson, Adams took his reputation as a diplomat seriously.

  For reasons he could never quite fathom, Sam was quite fond of Adams, and the two of them got along well. He hadn't seen him now in:two years? Time for a visit, perhaps.

  The first slug of whiskey cleared his brain marvelously. And the sight of Patrick and Tiana embracing before he departed with his children reminded Sam that he hadn't seen Maria Hester and his son in months, either.

  "I'll be going soon," he announced as Patrick headed for the door.

  "Figured you would. Don't forget to toss a few bones to John Ross and Ridge before you leave."

  The second slug was on its way down, now. Half of it, at least. Sam felt splendid. "You didn't leave any," he grumbled.

  "Sure I did. They're just hidden. Don't ask me where, because I have no idea. But you'll find them."

  And he did, before he left three days later. Little bones, and not many of them. But enough to mollify the Indian leaders for the time being, especially when they had their own problems.

  Chief Bowles wasn't there for any of the discussions. He was spending all his time with Patrick and General Charles Ball and the colonels of the three regiments-and the boys, of course-inspecting the lines and discussing how The Bowl's Cherokee irregulars could best be used in the coming war.

  None of them seemed to have any doubt at all that there would be a war. Especially The Bowl, who shared Patrick's opinion on the subject of Sassenach and the inevitability of their coming.

  1824: TheArkansasWar

  CHAPTER 10

  Lexington, Kentucky

  A UGUST 24, 1824

  "I think you've got the finest racehorses in the state, Henry," said Peter Porter. "And probably the best racetrack." Leaning on the rail fence, the former New York congressman took a few moments longer to admire the sight. It was a sunny afternoon. A bit too hot for comfort, but not intolerably so.

  Henry Clay laughed. "It may not be the best, but I can assure you it's the most profitable. For me, at any rate." A bit smugly: "Indeed, my horses are superior. They earn me quite the tidy sum in prize money. But come: Crittenden's people should be arriving shortly. In fact, they may already be here by now."

  Porter was hard-of-hearing, so Clay spoke more loudly than he normally would. That was one of the many gracious courtesies the Speaker of the House practiced routinely with his friends and associates, and one that was much appreciated.

  The two men turned back toward the main house at Ashland. Clay had named his estate just south of Lexington for the ash trees that were native to the region. That seemed a bit odd to Porter, given that Clay was actually partial to spruces. He'd been replacing the ash trees with spruces since the day he bought the estate seventeen years earlier. Just one of the man's many personal quirks. Clay spilled over with them, but since he usually turned them to advantage or amusement, none of his friends minded.

  The walk back was leisurely, taken in a companionable silence, as they followed the winding carriageway that led to the house through a grove of cypress, locust, and cedar trees. The distance to be traveled was over two hundred yards, so it took a bit of time.

  There was a short interruption once they reached the path that led to a cluster of buildings not far from the house itself. That consisted of a smokehouse, a dairy, a carriage house, and the slave quarters.

  "A moment, please," Clay said. "Something I must attend to." He strode down the path toward the smokehouse, leaving Porter behind.

  Porter used the quarter-of-an-hour wait to admire Clay's country home, which he could see quite well from where he stood. Brick, very well built-and very large. Two and a half stories in the center, with one-story wings to either side. Clay had told him the overall dimensions were one hundred and twenty six feet by fifty-seven. One of the grandest homes in the area, it was.

  When Clay returned, Porter cocked an inquiring eyebrow. A polite gesture, nothing intrusive.

  "A minor matter," Clay explained, taking his friend by the elbow and leading him toward the house. "Lucretia told me that she had suspicions concerning one of the overseers, from something she overheard one of the house girls saying to another. So I just had words with the man. If I discover he's taking advantage of the slaves, I shall discharge him immediately, and I told him so."

  Porter pursed his lips but said nothing. As a New Yorker born and raised in New England, the institution of slavery seemed peculiar to him. Exotic, really, more like something you'd expect to find in Araby than America. With the same aura of sexual excess, to boot. That slave-owners and their overseers had what amounted to their own harems, if they chose to exercise their power, was something understood by practically everyone, North as well as South. Though few people beyond irresponsible abolitionists chose to speak of it publicly.

  Even this little incident reeked, if you insisted on sniffing at it for too long. "Discharge" a man-as a penalty for an act which, if carried out against a white woman, would result in a priso
n sentence. Possibly even a hanging, depending on the circumstances.

  Still, it was none of Porter's business, so he said nothing. Whenever the Speaker of the House was in Washington, since his wife rarely accompanied him to the capital, Clay was an insatiable womanizer. The same, when he went on one of his many political tours. That was always a potential political liability, of course, and one that Clay's friends and associates had tried to caution him about-to little avail, unfortunately. But at least it seemed he kept his sexual exploits under control on his own estate.

  The one thing they did not need would be for rumors of black bastards to join the other innuendos concerning Clay's personal character. Jackson might or might not get involved in that-always hard to know, with that man-but Crawford certainly would. Henry Clay had been using bare-knuckle tactics in his campaign for the presidency, just as he had in all his previous campaigns, and at least some of his opponents would gladly respond in kind.

  Well, not "bare-knuckle." Never that. Clay's fists were always gloved, and in very fine gloves at that. But he never hesitated to use them, either.

  As for the larger issue, slavery was simply a given. Half the nation depended on the institution economically. So there was no possibility of uprooting it now, whether or not it should ever have been created in the first place. Both Clay and Thomas Jefferson would state, quite bluntly, that if they could roll back time, they'd prefer it if slavery had never come into existence. But since they weren't the Almighty, they couldn't-and their own livelihoods depended on the institution.

  There it sat, thus, and would continue to sit. For a practical politician and businessman like Porter, simply another factor to be considered in the ongoing political struggles in the Republic. An immovable one, however, like the seasons. Why waste time over it when nothing could be done anyway-and there were so many other more pressing issues that could be settled? One might as well demand legislation abolishing winter.

  "Any further news on the killing?" he asked.

  Clay smiled. "Indeed there is. The culprit has been identified, almost for sure. A certain tanner named John Brown, it seems, and several of his brothers."