From Sea to Shining Sea (15 page)

“Surely is. Don’t know if my poor heart can take it. But,” he added, “I doubt we could be spendin’ our time better.” A council lodge nearby collapsed and its flames rushed higher, sending up ash. “They’ll have to come in off the war path soon. They’ll have a hard time getting ready for winter after what we’ve done.” This campaign on the Muskingum had been a valuable lesson. Tedious and businesslike though it was, it proved that there is far more value in offensive war than in defensive. “And,” he added with a wink at Bowman, “unless our boys die o’ boredom, why, I do prefer a war without casualties.”

A few weeks of Lord Dunmore’s War, as it had come to be called, had created a conviction in George’s mind, a strange conviction for a soldier, one he seldom discussed with others: that bloodshed was useless and tragic, and that any strategy which accomplished an objective with the least bloodshed was the best strategy. It reminded him of something his mother had said once while bandaging him after he had cut himself with an ax: “Blood belongs
in
a body. To me, blood is an obscenity when
it gets out of its veins.” George had repeated those words often in his mind. He had thought a great deal about that bloodlust that had boiled in his heart that day at Pipe Creek, and had decided that bloodletting was not the glorious thing soldiers pretended it was. Pa is right, George thought. There was not much he could do to avoid being a soldier, the world being as it was, and there would always be fighting. But he’d be damned if he would ever have that sick weariness again that he had felt after his first battle. He would still have nightmares sometimes in which he rode howling through Indian hordes with a bloody broadsword and gore up to his elbows and a belt full of scalps, and then he would reach the bank of a creek and his mother and father would be standing there looking at him in dismay, and then they would turn their backs on him.

D
UNMORE’S
W
AR
ENDED
WITH
A
BATTLE
G
EORGE
ONLY
heard about. He was among fifteen hundred officers and men who were moving down the Ohio from Fort Pitt under the direct command of Lord Dunmore when runners from downriver brought news that Colonel Andrew Lewis and a thousand mountain men had fought Cornstalk’s warriors to a draw in a daylong battle at the mouth of the Ka-na-wha. It had occurred on October 10 and it had cost the lives of twenty-two officers and fifty-five privates, but Colonel Lewis had stood fast until the united tribes had broken off and withdrawn in the evening.

Now, with Lewis’s force and Governor Dunmore’s main army about to join together in the heart of their country, Cornstalk and the other chiefs sent runners to Dunmore, asking to talk peace.

Lord Dunmore’s army encamped on the Piqua Plains, a grand array of tents dominated by Dunmore’s spacious pavilion all aflutter with flags and banners, and the chiefs came to this camp to sue for peace.

Governor Dunmore was a haughty man, very aloof from all his troops and officers, even, it seemed, contemptuous of them. He insulted his colonial officers by excluding them from his negotiations with the Indian chiefs. He and his Indian agent, Dr. Connolly, took the great warrior chiefs—Cornstalk, Blue Jacket, Moluntha—into the pavilion and talked to them in secret. And when even Colonel Lewis, the hero of the conflict, was excluded from the negotiations, there was such an uproar of indignation that the whole army was on the verge of mutiny. George saw the hard-bitten veteran Lewis and rosy-cheeked Dunmore arguing violently with each other on the parade ground, and then, before
the astonished gaze of half the army, Lord Dunmore actually drew his sword and threatened Lewis with it. The troops were roaring with anger.

Somehow, Lewis controlled himself, and kept his men from rising in mutiny against the Royal Governor. But from that moment on, Dunmore was the object of hatred and suspicion and rumor. George sat by a cookfire in the evenings and listened to Bowman and others talk. “Th’ fancy fool’s no friend o’ Virginia, that’s plain. He’s a King’s man, all out, and he’s got to be watched.” Some of the officers claimed to know that Dunmore had precipitated the war deliberately for the purpose of calling the Virginians back inside their frontiers. George remembered his own suspicions, those dubious thoughts he had had last spring in Logan’s lodge. George sat gazing down at his red breeches and weskit, the officer’s uniform of Dunmore’s Royal Virginia Militia, and had the awful feeling that he was in the wrong uniform. He wished he had been with Lewis’s division instead of Dunmore’s.

The rumors grew uglier as the army sat in the field at Piqua Plains and watched the chiefs come and go. Some of Cresap’s scouts gossiped that Jake Greathouse had murdered Chief Logan’s family under secret orders from Dr. Connolly, to get Dunmore’s War started for him.

Bowman and Helm were members of a society called the Sons of Liberty, and they were keenly suspicious of the governor. “What’s he cookin’ up with those redmen in that tent?” Bowman would whisper, his eyes narrowed. “I warn ye, it’s for the advantage o’ King George, not us. I tell ye, boys, he’s a King’s man, and he’s slippin’ the King’s sceptre up our ass!”

There was no doubt anymore that Dunmore was a King’s man. He had proven that earlier in the year. When the Virginia Assembly in Williamsburg had passed a resolution declaring sympathy with Massachusetts after the Boston Tea Party, Dunmore had dissolved the Assembly. Even out here on a golden plain in the Ohio territory, the stress between the Crown and the colonies could be felt. “I’ll say this,” Bowman murmured one chilly night. “Every man jack of us is goin’ to have to take his stand ’fore long. As for me, I can’t wait to get out o’ these Goddamn red clothes. They itch on me like lice.”

T
AH
-
GAH
-
JU
-
TE
,
THE
MAN
WHOSE
VENDETTA
HAD
PUT
THE
frontier in flames, would not come to Lord Dunmore’s peace talks. The governor wanted him, and sent a special messenger to persuade him to come to the council.

The messenger returned without the Mingo chief. Tah-gah-ju-te had refused to come. But he had dictated a reply. George read it, his heart squeezing with sadness.

George clenched his jaw and swallowed. He thought of the first time he had seen Logan, that sunny, idyllic fall day two years before, when he had materialized so silently, bringing a friendship and wisdom and nobility that had inspired George as almost nothing had before. He thought of Logan’s fine clear eyes and benign features as he had seen them so often in the light of his hospitable fire. He remembered the rich sense of love and envelopment he had always felt in the midst of Logan’s people, almost as great as that in his own family. He thought of the soft voices and the laughter and the warmth of embraces, and looked back at the words Logan had sent:

The war was over. Lord Dunmore had secured what seemed a good treaty. The Ohio River was designated the boundary between the Indians and the whites. The Indians agreed not to go south of the river into Virginia. They agreed to return all white prisoners and stolen horses, and to let some of their chiefs, including Cornstalk himself, stand as hostages until they were returned. Even the officers who were suspicious of Dunmore admitted that he had bargained well.

Now the nights were cold and the leaves were blowing off the trees. George drank parting cups with men who would soon be dispersing back to every part of Virginia, and many like himself who, in defiance of Dunmore’s wishes, intended to go right back out to Kain-tuck, to make their own worlds and be their own kings. George drank with young Joe Bowman, pale-eyed and straw-haired, who had been so close to him that they could almost read each other’s thoughts; with Benjamin Logan, a solemn, deliberate soldier whose one apparent passion was for the land of Kain-tuck; Simon Butler, an auburn-haired wilderness scout of gigantic size, infinite endurance, and mysterious past; John Montgomery, a lean, dark lieutenant who followed orders to the letter but could think like a general himself when there were no orders; John Gabriel Jones, a bespectacled, thoughtful youth from down in the Holston Valley country; Daniel Boone, a cool-tempered, serene Quaker already widely known as a pathfinder and surveyor; Jim Harrod, a burly, impatient town-builder who had a half-finished town far up the distant Kain-tuck-ee River; and Leonard Helm, gray-whiskered, strong, and droll as a dancing bear, of whom it was said he must have found a whiskey-spring in the wilderness because he always had a flaskful to drink or share. George felt a bond with these men, an unexplainable notion that some of them, somehow, would be involved in his own destiny. These were all durable men, and bold. They all had boundless dreams and found honor in fighting, and were quick to adopt or quit causes. George remembered his fellow militiamen mutilating an Indian corpse at Pipe Creek, and the fate of Logan’s family, and was aware that these men could be as savage as the Devil himself. What’s going to happen when the land is filled up with this new kind of Virginians, George wondered. Who’s going to be able to govern them? How could there ever be a
civilized
country made up of men like these? What’s all this leading to? What does the Supreme Director of all Things have in mind for that country out there?

Leonard Helm said good-bye now with his old motto:

“Any time y’re thirsty, Clark, why, just holler!”

T
HERE
WAS
ONE
MORE
FRIEND
FOR
G
EORGE
TO
SEE
BEFORE
heading downriver to the far Kain-tuck country to resume his surveying. It would be an awkward visit, perhaps even a disaster. But no white comrade-in-arms had influenced his life as much in the past year as had Tah-gah-ju-te, both as friend and as foe. Not to go and see him, George thought, would be dishonorable.

And so he rode to Yellow Creek.

At first George thought Logan had not recognized him, his look was so sullen and hostile.

But then Logan said simply, “Clark,” and did not even extend his arm, and it was worse than not being recognized.

Logan’s eyes were pouched and bloodshot and he stank of rum. He stood swaying slightly. His mouth corners were drawn down, and the skin of his cheeks was flaccid. George had never seen so drastic a change in a man in so short a time—except, of course, those on battlefields who changed from live men to dead.

It had cut him painfully when Logan had declined to reach for his hand. It hurt as badly now as Logan stood barring the door to his lodge and did not invite him to enter. George clenched his teeth to steady his spirit and tried to think of the right thing to say. He thought of speaking of friendship, but knew that would not do with Logan now. He thought about offering condolences, but knew that that, coming from a white man, would be even worse. He thought about saying something in praise of Logan’s eloquent reply to Lord Dunmore, but he knew that Logan had said those words to get them out of his heart and would not want them back.

Finally, George said, “Do you remember the day when we first met, and I was making lines on the land, and we smoked and talked?”

Logan went back deep behind his red eyes, and seemed to be remembering, but he did not speak or even nod. George went on:

“You began to teach me then, of matters that I could not learn from anyone else. You told me that the whole land is too small for our two peoples to live on together. Then Greathouse made this come true. You know it was Greathouse, don’t ye? Not Cresap. But if it had not been Greathouse it would have been someone else, someone of your people or mine.

“I came to tell you this, Logan: Whatever happens between our peoples, in my memory ye’ll always be my greatest teacher. If we never meet again, I’ll keep learning from you, just by remembering and thinking on what you’ve said. Listen:

“I’ll never hate your people. And I’ll never give them a cause to hate me. Probably someday we will have to fear and respect each other, but never hate. D’ye hear me? That’s what you taught me.”

Logan stood, still swaying and scowling, looking at George, saying nothing. George wanted to reach out and offer his arm again, but knew Logan would not take it. So he dipped his head,
turned on his heel and leaped onto his horse, and started to ride out of the dismal camp. He had gone ten yards when Logan’s voice came: “Clark!”

He halted the horse and turned in the saddle.

Logan had not moved or changed his expression. “No one can teach you how to act when you are betrayed,” he said, raising a rum bottle. “But I choose this way.”

He turned and stumbled into his lodge and George rode away toward Kain-tuck.

I
T
WAS
A
CLEAR
,
FRESH
DAY
AFTER
A
LONG
SPELL
OF
RAINS
, and Jonathan Clark reluctantly left the sunny Richmond Street and entered the musty old St. John’s Church.