Snowbound and Eclipse (44 page)

But en route for St. Louis, I made one last stop at Fincastle to see my beloved Julia. Ah, what an occasion that was, for I had no sooner won my beloved than I must leave her.

I think back now on a moment I will not soon forget, at table with the Hancocks, the colonel at the head, ruddy and square-faced; Julia's fluttering mother at the other, and various family and guests in between, including their future son-in-law. Julia sat beside me, slim and girlish and done up in bottle green velvet for the occasion, so handsome I could scarce stop my hands from straying.

I waited until the servants had cleared off the platters and lit some fresh beeswax candles, and a pause enveloped us. I had in my brown waistcoat a small packet wrapped in tissue, and this I removed and placed before me on the white linen.

“Julia,” I said, “when I was late in Washington to get instructions from Mr. Jefferson, I made known to him our attachment and received his heartiest congratulations. The very next day, though he was sick abed, he sent me this. It is a presidential gift to you, upon our betrothal.”

I opened that mysterious packet, which had become the cynosure of many a Hancock gaze, and withdrew from it some jewelry, including a necklace, two bracelets, earrings, and a ring, all fashioned from pearls and topaz, a gift so astonishing that I marveled at it.

“Oh, oh!” she exclaimed.

I handed them to her, and she fingered them lovingly while the family craned to see. Then I stood, and slid the necklace about her, taking some liberty, I imagine, as I swept her hair aside, and clasped the necklace. Then I slid the bracelets over her wrists, and tried the ring, which didn't fit.

“I am quite without words,” Julia's mother breathed.

“A fine thing, a fine thing,” the colonel muttered. “Topaz, is it? Pearls from the Orient. Mr. Jefferson has outdone himself.”

That was quite a concession from so ardent a Federalist, and I smiled. I liked the gentleman despite the chasm between us, for I am and always will be an ardent Democratic-Republican, like my president.

I could see on Julia's face that she was transfixed, not only by the grand gift, but also by the occasion. Her bosom and wrists bore the gracious gift of a president upon them.

“Oh, Mr. Clark, my good sir, thank him for me, and thank you for these things. I shall write him myself to say it.”

It pleased me that Julia could write.

Colonel Hancock addressed me. “General, your plans have changed. When last you visited us, it was my understanding that you would be settling in Kentucky or the
Indiana Territory not so far that we might not see Julia, yet here you are with a new agenda.”

That was George Hancock's way of asking what had happened.

“Well, sir, Mr. Jefferson proposed first of all that I be made a lieutenant colonel of infantry as a reward for our voyage, but the War Department and Congress thought better of it, and Mr. Jefferson proposed these offices instead. I had some misgivings about the regular army anyway, but none at all about these new offices.”

“But St. Louis?” Mrs. Hancock exclaimed. “Such a vile place, I hear!”

I chuckled. “Not as fine as Virginia or Louisville, but Julia will be at ease.”

“But it's all French! And Catholic!”

I had found the French a rascally lot and didn't want to praise them, but neither did I wish to alarm my future in-laws about Julia's safety and happiness.

“They are much like the rest of us.”

“It's a turbulent city, filled with schemers and cutthroats,” Hancock said. “General Wilkinson let it happen! He was a part of the Burr conspiracy until he backed out. Everyone knows it! There isn't a tawdry scheme that General Wilkinson doesn't want a piece of so long as he sniffs a profit. Imagine a city seething with traitors, eager to saw off the territory and start a new nation, and there you'll be, general of militia, the sole armed commander representing Washington against all your fellow republicans and riffraff. I fear for your safety, sir.”

I smiled. It wasn't long ago that every Federalist in sight was denouncing Mr. Jefferson for buying that worthless desert called Louisiana. “I imagine I can look to my own defense, Colonel. I managed to do so for eight thousand miles.”

“It is a dangerous place, and I will worry about you both.”

Julia's attention had followed this exchange closely. She knew little of politics, which is the way I wanted it. I addressed her: “You shall be the queen of the city, my lovely Julia, celebrated at every ball and levee, at home in the parlors of our friends.”

Her eyes thanked me, and I saw Colonel Hancock subsiding. The man had heard all the stories bursting from St. Louis; that Aaron Burr had fled to Spanish Florida but was arrested in Alabama, and now was being brought to trial before Mr. Jefferson's cousin, Chief Justice John Marshall. And there was I, taking Julia into the maelstrom. No wonder George was concerned.

“Colonel,” I said, “I was not born red-haired for nothing. If anyone in St. Louis, whether its French citizens of dubious loyalty or dissident Yankees, mounts a threat to me, or my government, or my president, you will see what a Clark can do.”

That mollified him, and I knew there would be little further objection to taking Julia so far from home.

I started for the trace over the Alleghenies at once. On my parting Julia wet my coat with her tears.

“I will be back in a few months, my fair lady. Be patient, and plan the matrimonial day, and you will see me before the snow flies,” I said, hugging her one last time, disciplining my heart and body and hands though I never felt less disciplined in all my years. I wondered how I could wait for so long. Then I mounted up, while York held the reins, and that was the last I saw of her.

I had sent my reliable Private Frazier ahead with an important burden: he was to circulate freely in St. Louis, gather intelligence for me and for Mr. Jefferson, and report to me in private, if need be at my brother's home in Clarksville,
opposite Louisville. I stopped there, of course, to see my older brother General George Rogers Clark, who was gouty and taking too much whiskey to curb his pain. They were calling him things behind his back that I didn't like; assailing the character of a great hero of the revolution, a man reduced to poverty because the government wouldn't repay him for his drafts supporting the army.

We rode the river to Mulberry Hill, in the Indiana Territory, and all the while York grew more and more agitated. He had been annoying me ever since the expedition, sometimes turning sulky, sometimes defiant.

The request came as we approached Louisville, as I knew it would. He caught me in a private moment on the flatboat, at dusk, and put it directly to me:

“Mastuh, could you be letting me see my wife a little? Get me some papers saying I can be wid her?”

His wife was owned by some Kentucky friends of my brother, who used her on their tobacco plantation near Louisville.

“No, I need you.”

“I was thinking I sure do miss my woman.”

“York, I said no! You will come west with me.”

“I could maybe work for hire and be wid her.”

“No!” I roared, and his black face crumpled. It was common enough to lease a slave and collect the proceeds of the lease, but I wouldn't allow it. I would need him in St. Louis. I had a house to buy, an office to fill, an army to raise, Big White to care for and return up the river, all on an austere budget of fifteen hundred a year, and I couldn't afford to lose a manservant, not for a moment.

He stared at me in pain, but I could do nothing about it. Maybe someday I'd give him some papers and let him visit his woman for a while. Not now.

He mumbled his way aft, and stood beside the Mandans,
watching the darkly glimmering water slide by. Big White, Yellow Corn, and their son had come all this distance, absorbed the civilized wonders of the white men's world and even wore its clothing, and now were returning to their own savage society—if I could get them there.

I took up quarters in the old Government House, a sorry place but it would do until I could find a home for Julia and me. It was also a military barracks, which proved to be handy for a new brigadier of militia.

Even before paying a social call on the leading lights of St. Louis, I summoned Private Frazier, my shrewd old friend from the expedition, who had been working assiduously to find out what he could about the Burr plot. It turned out he had found plenty:

“Ah, Captain, it's a pleasure to see you, sir. I guess I should call you ‘general' now, eh? A general you are, and please forgive me.”

I laughed. “Whatever rank suits you, my friend,” I said, clasping his hand. “Now, tell me what you've found.”

What he had found was that the Louisiana militia had been riddled with minor officers ready to act on Burr's behalf, merely waiting for the word that never came but might still. Traitors to the republic, the whole lot, self-aggrandizing wretches.

“I got a list, Captain. Me, I just sat in a grog shop and palavered like a Burr man, and next I knew, I had me a wee little list.”

He handed me a list of militia officers, ranging from sergeants to lieutenants and one captain.

“Is that most of the militia?”

He laughed. “What militia? It's a paper army. These are border men, Captain, and not happy about being called to serve, not now, not ever, unless six thousand cutthroat redskins are descending on them. But yes, I reckon it's most of the sunshine officers. I mean them that won't show up if it rains.”

I nodded. It was an old refrain. My brother George Rogers Clark had welded an effective militia and staved off the British with it, but only with harsh measures combined with generous rewards. He had shot deserters.

“What about the French?”

“Don't rely on a one of 'em. Sure, there's some loyal French, they fancy the Yank republic, but they were here before we set eyes on Louisiana, and they just want to be left alone.”

“Burrists?”

“A few, them that think maybe they'll do better in the purse under Spain or even England.”

“English involved?”

“With the Indians. That's how they work, lining up the Indians, buying scalps.”

“The businessmen?”

“Now there's something.” Frazier peered into the rosy dawn light seeping through the window. “Actually, I think the ones in the fur business like the new government; they worry more about the British snatching all the beaver than they do about what flag they serve. They may be Frogs, but they like the liberties we give 'em.”

That made sense, too. Frazier had done a fine job. We conferred a while more there in the barracks, I clapped him on the shoulder and commended him, and he slid out unseen
into a peach-tinted St. Louis dawn, with moisture on every leaf. Intelligence was the first priority. I needed to know who was for the government, and who wasn't.

Those of us in the old Corps of Discovery had forged bonds of steel. I would trust any of them with my life, and they would trust me. I had cash in hand, and intended to trace them all and give them their back pay and federal land warrants. Congress had awarded each of them three hundred and twenty acres of virgin land. They had dispersed, and it would not be easy to track them down.

The turbulent territory seethed with troubles, and I wasted no time putting a bayonet to the problems. At once I paid a call on the territory's secretary, and acting governor in Meriwether's absence, Frederick Bates. I thought he might be just the right man, being a Virginian, a lawyer, a Democratic-Republican like Mr. Jefferson, and a holder of numerous public offices back East.

I found an odd puffy man at the helm, his pale brow furrowed, his expression pleading, his generous brown lips pursed, and his humor rancid. He was sallow, as if the outdoors was a foreign nation to him, and his eyes were bagged with furrows that told me he did not profit from his nocturnal rest. He exuded so much dignity that I itched to step on his toe.

“Mr. Jefferson commends you, and urges upon you the importance of curbing the Burr conspiracy,” I said affably as soon as we had poured ourselves a dark glass of amontillado from a decanter on his desk. “Is there still talk of a filibuster against New Orleans?”

“It's pandemonium, General,” he said. “This place! You can't imagine the skulking schemers and what they want! I will be so
glad
when the governor arrives, for these matters are beyond my jurisdiction and authority, but I wish to declare, my good general, that I have proceeded resolutely
anyway, in a most judicious manner, with due
prudence
and rectitude, to ameliorate these clamorous and Machiavellian uproars.”

That was a mouthful.

“Mr. Bates,” I said, settling back and propping my muddy boots upon his desk, which horrified him, “you just begin right at the beginning and tell me what you've done and what needs doing.”

Not much, it seemed. The man had a way of papering over inaction with rhetoric, but it wasn't so much what he said as how he said it that gave me the measure of him. He put stock in words, the longer the better, and had a way with them that might spell trouble for Meriwether. Bates's brother Tarleton was an old friend of the governor, Virginians all, and that spoke well for the future.

And yet I worried. I imagined Bates loyal enough to Tom Jefferson, but doubts nagged me. His conversion to Jefferson's principles had been recent, and looked just plain opportunistic. Well, I would not confide in him, not yet anyway, but would set about putting the new command in place until I could show some strength.

My next call was to Pierre Chouteau, prominent Creole merchant in St. Louis, supplier of many goods to the expedition, trusted friend, and the man who had gone to great effort and expense to bring the Osage chiefs to Washington to meet the president, and then got them safely back to Upper Louisiana. I counted him among my best allies, sterling in his faithfulness, reliable, and eager to serve the republic.