The Blood of Heaven (51 page)

I finished my whiskey, left coin for the meal, and rose to go, bidding Sam Swartwout good luck on his mission.

Ah, ah, he said, holding out a finger for me to wait. Grinning, he found the wishbone, took it in both hands, and broke it.

All Hallows’ Eve

When the runner came to fetch me to the offices of Stephen White, Red Kate, feeling the pull of her Irish ancestry, was doing the boy up so as to ward off any ghosts or demons straying about on the night before All Saints’. He let off short moans and wobbled on his feet, so I thought from discomfort at the costuming; a paper mask folded into the shape of a skull hid the face which had grown gray these past few days, but it didn’t hide his eyes, gazing dully from within.

She’d seen me scoffing and said, It’s your people, Scots, too who do it. But then again you’re of the kind of Scots that burned and hung folks for celebrating Hallowtide.

The day had seen Horton’s slaves trundled off to the indigo plantation, the month of October borne witness to the sorrier prospect of Wilkinson’s dallying at the border. At his arrival the Spanish had receded west of the Sabine River, broke, and rolled back like a bank of fog. Wilkinson advanced his forces to the east bank, and the Pukes remained, sending him missives, making a show, their commander no doubt leavening his letters to Wilkinson with so much silver-dust that the general was placated by the prospect of his rewards should he not act. This I heard, or read, and filled the gaps with my own speculations. Wilkinson would ignite nothing, but still he had called up damn near all the troops from New Orleans and the river forts to join him at the border. And if the initial aim of the enterprise was the capture of that city, the general had done right by us indeed.

But, as it went, there were things I wouldn’t hear or come to fully know until much later.

Swartwout had at last reached his destination and, beaming I’m sure, pressed upon the general the letter which he’d use to destroy the entire enterprise. In it—at least in the version Wilkinson sent out to the president, de-ciphered and in his own malignant hand, and by early November given print in all the country’s papers—Colonel Burr revealed New Orleans as the object of his grand designs; not the culmination, but the jewel in the crown. He claimed the assistance of a pair of British warships, which would come up the mouth of the Mississippi and guarantee the port. He claimed the American navy too stood at the ready to spring to his call. He claimed enough to put stars in the eyes of any man. And though he’d never mentioned the British to me, I know much of the letter was true, for the language, full of pomp and promise, matched the colonel’s, or at least the men who wrote in his name. Burr’s great mistake, so I’d find, was not so much in spelling out Wilkinson’s involvement, nor in giving him all the details of the plan, but in committing the sin of reducing Wilkinson to his lieutenant—Second to Burr only, the letter said. He should’ve known that such men are not accustomed to being subordinates; they smart at the thought and it riles their blood. But Burr was used to young men eager to be seconds, men like me or Sam Swartwout—who Wilkinson kept on at his camp for some weeks, wining him and prying him for information, until at last the general would turn him loose and in the hang-fire send the alarm and the de-ciphered letter to the president.

In ending his letter, Burr had written: The Gods invite us to glory and fortune. And that night, when it should have been elsewhere—on the prospects of the plan, on the hitching and groaning of my son—my mind was on fortune, on wealth and gain.

The runner was waiting at the door for his coin, my wife now folding herself a witch’s face out of yellow paper. On the floor beside her the boy sank down and sat cross-legged, sulking; he’d tugged the mask from his face. She’d bought a shrift of all-colors, the sheets played out across the writing desk, waiting to be made specters.

While we’re blaspheming, I said, make one for me. From that red there.

Red as the Devil’s ass, said my wife, smiling. It’ll have to be for the likes of you.

I falsed a laugh, and at that moment my son rocked back and forth a few times, tugged again at his mask, and vomited into his lap.

My wife had him before I could, hauling the child into her arms so that the vomit spilled from where it had pooled between his legs and dribbled down to his ankles as she hurried off with him to the bedroom and the pot.

From the doorway the runner spoke: Sir, I can go tell Mister White—

I held up a hand, listening to my wife cuss the food in this fucking place while the boy wretched. She returned, shaking her head.

The third time this week, she said. They cook this dainty mess and he can’t hold it.

You didn’t tell me, I said.

You’re usually not in so early, and I didn’t see to trouble you. Red Kate held up her hand as if I’d see the truth there, saying, There isn’t any fever. It’s just his stomach. Knew I shouldn’t have let him eat those cakes. If we had my propers I’d make him something to calm it.

Call up a nigger and have them get what you need, I said.

I tried that already, she said. They brought back all the wrong things.

The boy had stopped retching, his gags sputtered dry. We listened to him heaving breaths.

There, she said, he’s done of it.

God damn it, you’ll tell me when he’s sick.

Then I’ll make you a damned list of what he needs, she said. Hurry and you’ll get it on your way to meet with Mister White.

On a sheet of her colored paper she scratched out the necessaries, gave it to me, and whipped round and off to the bedroom. I paid the runner and headed downstairs and into the square, where mercifully no Irish were about, jabbering their demonologies—all sequestered, as they were, in the under-hill town. From between the cracks in the buildings you could see it down there, red and smoky. They’d be yipping wild tonight.

Dusk settled as I made the stalls of the tincture-seller, assembling her cure in little parcels. And as the bundle grew, my anger bled away. He’d been sick his whole life, the boy, and tonight was nothing different. Red Kate would care for him, and though she was stern with the boy when I was about, I knew also that she coddled him the instant I was out the door. She’d be cooing softly songs while he sang along with his single word, his name for her.

I thought I could hear them, the voices of my wife and child, even in Stephen White’s office, holding unlit the cigar he’d given me, seated in a cold leather chair before the window overlooking the street. I told him my son was ill and to get to the point, which he did.

Land, said Stephen White. Buy up land.

Christ, Stephen, I don’t want a plantation.

Let me finish, he said. I’ve come into some knowledge, formed a plan that will make us both rich beyond our dreams.

Then speak it, man.

A bill, in this past session, has moved through congress—a bill to put a ban on the importation of slaves. The Virginians believe we’re devaluing their commodities, which they so like to ship down here for us to do the hard work of selling. They say they’ll put an end to it within the year.

Then why wouldn’t I just put my stake in slaves? Their value will only grow because of this.

That’s one way, said Stephen White. His lips curled into a smile as he bent and adjusted the bell of the lamp upon his desk so that he could light his cigar from it. The other way—and I speak this in true confidence—is to bring more in. I don’t mean to put you or myself in the position of—

Growing tired of his wheedling, I stopped him, saying, Stephen, I’ve made my way in darker alleys than you’ll ever know. Tell me the plan.

Do you know the Attakapas country? It’s in the southwest of the Orleans Territory, runs along the Atchafalaya River and down to the coast, terminating in a place called Berwick’s Bay. I’ve been looking over maps since I heard the first rumblings. Even called up copies of the land grants thereabouts from the offices in New Orleans, at my own expense.

You must be convinced, I said.

I am. Buy land at the mouth of the river, in Berwick’s, but also on the coast itself. The Isle Dernière, it’s called. The Last Island. It stretches some fifteen miles, and would offer ships from the Caribbean a place to anchor and unload their cargo; then those souls would be transported by pirogue up to Berwick, given papers, and off they go to New Orleans and sale.

And who’ll bring the slaves?

If you give me your confidence, and some expenditure, I will go to New Orleans within the month, hit the sailors’ hostels, talk to Bahama-men, talk to the Barbary pirates for all I care, and I swear to you we’ll not be short of eager parties.

Any squatters on the land? I said.

Fishermen work Last Island; Berwick’s is empty, since the bay draws so little water. I tell you, Mister Kemper, if we accomplish the feat but once, you’ll have your money doubled. If we can continue judiciously to bring the niggers in, our coffers will spill over.

It’s a long wait, I said, until the bill’s a law and put into action. And besides, think of all the men to be paid—whatever pirates bring the niggers, these fishermen and the others about will all ask coin for their silence.

No different, said White, from what we pay whenever we bring slaves to market. Pay for the pens to hold them, pay the guards to keep them, pay doctors and cooks to fatten them, pay the fucking fiddler to play so they can dance in the yard. I’ve done the figures, sir, and with the increase in their worth with the coming law, we stand to make fair profits. And as for any of the rougher aspects such trade may require—no offense, but I don’t see any wharf-rats and sailors backing you down.

Stephen, I said, are you so ready to become a criminal?

White sat back and tried to look determined among his piled papers, ink, and gum. I saw the maps now, rolled and piled on the desk. He said, I’m here to make my place in the world. If we don’t do it, others will. And in a way it seems more honest. If we’re selling souls, then it’s better to do it sneaking—cover of darkness, as it were—than with creditors and eastern investment bankers on our backs, handbills and advertisements.

He paused, and I let the idea take root in my mind. I’d been in the slaving business not more than a month; but it would come to pass that it encompassed the rest of my life, and brought me the fortune no war or revolution ever could—though God knows I tried, taking on blood, fire, and the ride the way most men of business went on holidays. And did I foresee it then—all the days I’d spend smelling the piss and shit of the pens, how many dancing black bodies I would witness beating with bare feet the dirt floors of exercise yards, the endless voices of the auctioneers, the stream of agents I’d assume to help me in my awful work?

No, my sight those days was poor and the Lord was far from my heart. I still carried the little Bible at my breast, but not even in the way most men carry flasks, drinking occasionally to fortify themselves. Instead I wore it like a tumor, too close to a vital organ to be removed, but nonetheless despised. And it was that the Lord saw this, saw my wicked heart, and though He would allow me earthly rewards—for White’s plan would later prove a glorious success—He visited His wrath upon me in His way.

Haven’t you heard? I said. Orleans may not long be American. The law won’t apply with a new government.

The Burr matter? said White. Anything that’s spread so much in the papers can’t be true, or at least not as serious as they say.

That so?

I know where you stand, sir, but may I say that it’s precarious. Why not take my proposition as a bit of insurance. And besides, there’ll still be a market for slaves, duty-free and no-questions-asked. If we spread west to Mexico, think of how many niggers they’ll need.

I sat my cigar, still unlit, down upon the front of White’s desk. Insurance or not, I did like the plan. None of Reuben’s mercantile nonsense, but bodies and beating hearts and hands to work. The country needed bodies more than cloth or tools. And what it called for, I’d provide—and let it provide for me a fortune in kind.

All right, I said. Draft up the money you need and go to New Orleans.

Stephen White rose from his chair, reached across his sea of papers to shake my hand. You’ll not regret this, he said. Not a damned bit.

I’d been there not a quarter of an hour, but what transpired in that time would seal the fate of the following fifty years. The blighted trace of my overlong life, its music the sound of coin clinking in a purse, the same as ball-shot in a bag, the noise of souls swiftly stolen by Death’s footman and stuffed away into his woolen sack.

Dark had overwhelmed the few streetlamps of the town, and I made my way as in those blinded days, reaching out to touch the unfamiliar, cradling in one hand the parcel of makings to soothe my son, and with the other feeling in the cracks of plaster walls and lines of brick-work the demons to which this night belonged. They brushed by me, Satan’s messengers, whispered in my ear, You will be a rich, rich man. So I stumbled on, mistaking the odd clop of horses here and there to be their cloven hooves, until I came into the square and saw the hotel, which was well-lit.

Coming on, I could see through the bright windows that the floor-rooms were full of people, the doorway open and crammed. Their faces turned to me, awaiting. Nervous chatter as I made the door, and from out the crowd came the owner. He tried to take my hand.