Flight of the Hawk: The River

  “Oui. She is the most sainted woman in all the world. It is the good grace of God that she chose me to be her husband.”

  “So why come chase up the river? Why leave so good a woman at home? Two kids you say? Must be tough to only see them once every couple of years.”

  “I make them a better life on the river, mon ami. One day, they will live in a big house like that of a bourgeois. I will have a son who writes and a daughter who can play fine music on the piano. I am buying her one when we return from this trip. Were my Elizabeth and my beautiful children to disappear—my life would be nothing.” Latoulipe’s hands made a vanishing gesture.

  “River’s a dangerous place,” Tylor reminded, thinking of the tragedy they’d just averted.

  “True. It is also the place a man can make the best money to keep his loved ones safe. If I die?” He shrugged. “The bourgeois will see that they never want. He will see that they get the big house, the education, the music . . . Yes, I might die. But then, tell me, John Tylor, is not life a risk one must take?”

  “Sometimes I wonder.”

  “Turtles have a shell into which they can crawl. Men must either act like turtles or act like the bourgeois. My Elizabeth and the little ones are worth the risk. Someday I will see the look in their eyes when I take them to that new house. My family will never want again, John. Is there any greater reward?”

  In his mind, Tylor imagined a young, dark-haired girl as she threw her arms around a joyous, returning Latoulipe. He pictured the children laughing, shouting, hugging their father’s legs as he swooped down to pluck them up. He put himself into the picture, becoming Latoulipe, feeling the ecstacy, feeling the hope and love as she looked into his eyes.

  But her face changed; Hallie’s image formed before him, her blond hair hanging in ringlets, her blue eyes mirroring the love that had once been his.

  “What is wrong?” Latoulipe’s voice was soft. “You suddenly went stiff. Is it your hands?”

  “Yep, reckon so,” Tylor agreed roughly. “I’m gonna get some sleep, Baptiste. See you in the morning.” He flopped over on the wet grass and stared into the darkness as rain pelted on the canvas.

  Sure, life was a fight. That night he was fighting memories—losing all the same.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  * * *

  The following morning the wind blew fiercely from the northwest. They moved Polly out of the tree she’d landed in the day before and began removing the splintered remains of the old mast. Others combed the woods to gather hardwoods for ax handles, ramrods, and a couple of spare masts. The ash, oaks, and hickery woods desired for such articles were scarce upriver. The cottonwood, poplar, pines, and cedars found on the high plains were softer and not as readily available.

  Tylor, his hands bound in cloth, took his rifle and went hunting. Maybe he could find something to fill the larder. With the hunters stuck on the other side of the river, there was no telling when fresh game might be found. In spite of his skills, he saw only tracks; and as the wit had once said: tracks make thin soup.

  Darkness had begun to drop its cloak when Michael Immel, Caleb Greenwood, Laurison, and the others wandered into camp, their rifles over their shoulders.

  Amidst the cheers, Lisa ran out, a beaming smile on his face. “You are here! We had thought to send the mackinaw over this morning, but there was no sign of you.”

  “Camped upriver, Manuel,” Immel said in his drawl. “Figgered ye’d be a good five miles further up. Caleb scouted down last night and saw the fires over here. Figger’d then that ye’d ketched hell some way er ’nuther. Long ’bout noon we built us a raft and tried t’ float acrost. Lost six miles in the river a’fore we grounded on the right side.”

  “Is there any game?” Latoulipe almost cried.

  “Two deer on t’other side.” Immel looked at the boatman with sorry eyes. “Didn’t figger they’d float so well.”

  The expression of tragedy on Baptiste Latoulipe’s face would have done Euripides proud.

  For more than one hundred and fifty years, the boatmen had covered the American interior, paddling their canoes, poling the keelboats, portaging over the rapids. Through it all they had lived on hominy-corn gruel and whatever else they could scrounge. But Baptiste was different. Hominy gruel tortured his gut and caused him gas—to the delight of his teasing fellows who periodically would sneak a lighted brand behind to see if they could light it afire.

  To Latoulipe’s horror, on occasion they did.

  For a general’s tent it wasn’t much. The tall and lean man who reclined at the camp table in the rear wouldn’t have noticed that it was dingy and worn. Andrew Jackson’s uniform jacket hung open, the top buttons on his shirt undone as a consequence of the stifling heat. He puzzled over the parchments that lay before him. The general’s thin face and long, straight nose matched his hollow cheeks, in a face that was an appropriate setting for the two fierce eyes that glared at the papers strewn across the tabletop.

  “Beggin’ the gen’ral’s pardon, sir,” a young man called as he passed the guards.

  Andrew Jackson looked up from the clutter on the table and nodded. “What is it, Toby?”

  “I, uh . . . Got the mail, sir.” Toby was an awkward nineteen, his ill-fitting uniform an uncomfortable change from his beloved tailored buckskins. “Reckon t’ain’t no kind of sign fer the like’s of me to read, sir.” He shyly placed envelopes and packets on the table.

  Being illiterate, the boy made the perfect courier: he couldn’t snoop. Jackson sorted the parcels and carefully broke the seals.

  “Uh, sir?”

  Jackson’s hot eyes flicked to the youth, aware he was still standing there. “Yes, Toby?”

  “Uh, is we at war yit, sir?” Toby’s eyes didn’t hide the anticipation.

  Jackson smiled and opened the packet from Washington City.

  “Just a minute.” The thin mouth pursed as the darting eyes stopped, re-read a section, and flicked to Toby. “Yes, son, it appears we have been since the 19th of June.”

  The smile threatened to break the boy’s face in two. “Hot damn, Gen’ral! Hot diggity damn! We’s at war. We’ll fetch them damn lobster backs right fine, we will.”

  “Do run and get my aides, soldier.” Jackson leaned back in the rickety camp chair and watched the young man disappear. From outside the tent, a wild hoot broke the air. General Jackson smiled, shaking his head. The damned fools had no idea of the perils that lay ahead.

  He pulled the last letter from the pile, noted the seal, and broke open the letter from Mr. Manuel Lisa of Saint Louis. His eyes turned baleful as he read.

  Toby was laughing with Newt Baker, Tad Thompson, and Nick Harvest when the general bellowed his name. His heart tightened like a vice as he was led to the general’s tent.

  “Reporting, sir!” Toby snapped out his best salute.

  Jackson’s eyes might have been daggers of fire. “This letter, Toby”—he handed a sealed envelope to the boy—“will be delivered immediately, in person, to General William Clark in Saint Louis. Do you understand?”

  Toby reeled under the anger in the general’s face. In that moment, Toby’s tongue stuck in his throat, he couldn’t swallow. “Yes, sir,” he gasped soundlessly.

  “You’re already late!” Jackson barked, pointing out the door.

  “Yes, sir!” Toby yipped.

  He was halfway to his horse before he realized he hadn’t saluted the general. His fingers actually trembled as he saddled the animal, wondering if he was up for discipline when he got back.

  His gelding was eating up the muddy roads when his fear was replaced by awe as he realized something else: “Holy sweet Jeesus!” He whistled. “Danged if’n I ain’t Andy Jackson’s personal courier!” He whooped again and booted the gelding in the ribs.

  The wind hadn’t let up after the Polly spent the night in the tree. Nevertheless, Lisa’s company made sixteen miles the next day by dint of pole, cordelle, and oar. Thursday, the 18th of June, they
had crossed the Big Nemaha and the Wolf River. Then the gods had sent them a break: On the 20th of June they’d had good wind and slow waters, which allowed them to deploy the sail, and with all hands on board, breeze past the Nishnabotna and Little Nemaha rivers. The morning of the 23rd, the mast broke on the little boat causing some delay while a new one was trimmed, fitted, and stepped.

  On June the 25th, Polly pulled ahead of the little boat. The crew laughed a bit about it since a good-natured rivalry existed between the two crews. As if to rub it in, the cordellers threw their backs into the work as they labored around the oxbows, and in no time, left the little boat so far behind as to be out of sight.

  Late in the afternoon, Lisa ordered a stop to wait for the other boat. The trader didn’t mind having his crew outshine the other, but it was unsafe on the river to be too long out of each other’s sight.

  Most of the afternoon was whiled away waiting for the smaller boat to heave into sight. Lisa’s worry grew. When it became unbearable, he walked up to where Tylor and Baptiste Latoulipe were splicing line and squatted down next to them.

  The trader studied each face carefully. “I would send the hunters on horseback, but I fear they are too far upriver. The little boat . . . it should not be so far behind. We have been here now for more than three hours. They should not need so long to catch up with us. Has there been a problem? Perhaps with the new mast? Would you go down and see what is keeping them? Do not go more than four or five miles. Don’t want you lost out there as well.”

  “Bourgeois, do not worry. We will probably just get out of sight around the last bend, and, poof! They will show up.” Baptiste had an optimistic light in his eye.

  “I’d bet Baptiste is right,” Tylor agreed, nodding his head with assurance. “Not that I don’t mind the time out with a rifle, but you’d think . . . well, if they had real trouble they’d have sent someone ahead after us along the shore.”

  Lisa shot them a quick smile. “Do me a favor—find out.”

  Tylor pulled himself to his feet and went to find his rifle and possibles. He didn’t mind being alone with Baptiste. The boatman never pushed Tylor about his past. He sang his songs and accepted each day as it passed. His great joy in life was his family—of which he talked with a wistful smile—and good food and drink.

  The rifle in hand, Tylor checked the priming. Shouldering his possibles he met Latoulipe at the edge of camp, and together they took off downriver, following along the bank.

  They didn’t say much as they walked through the afternoon. The sun was bright in the deep blue sky, a joy after the days of rain they had just endured. The land smelled of green and growing vegetation, the wildflowers adding their bouquet. Overhead, cottonwood leaves rattled in the breeze coming out of the west. Insects chirred, and frogs croaked a weak chorus from the river, saving their real symphony for the night.

  Tylor took a deep breath. This was the life he had sought between the time of his arrest and his arrival in Saint Louis that April. The cold winters had been lonely in spite of the fact he had been surrounded by people. No one befriended a traitor.

  The sun continued to sink into the west as they trotted along. Periodically, one or the other would walk to the bank and look out over the river, searching for some sign of the little boat.

  “Seems strange.” Tylor gestured with his rifle. “Walking back over this. All that hard work on the cordelle, and here we are, heading the wrong way.”

  “Such a funny thing, Tylor. All my life I have cordelled up rivers. Do you know I have never cordelled down one.” Baptiste scratched his head in mock befuddlement.

  “I’d bet a tin of ale to a tub o’ lard, the work would be a sight easier.”

  “Oh, to be sure.” The boatman swatted a mosquito that landed on his forearm and flailed at the cloud of little bloodsuckers humming wickedly over his head.

  Tylor led the way along the game trail that paralleled the river. Though farther back in the trees, the walking was a great deal easier than the brush through which the cordellers had pushed.

  Half an hour later the sun was setting, and they had seen nothing. “We’d better start back to camp,” Baptiste decided.

  “Reckon so. Don’t have a whole lot o’ light left. Still, what if they are down there in trouble someplace. You heard the whisperings about the cordelle that was cut on the little boat?” Fenway McKeever immediately sprang to Tylor’s mind.

  “I have. Perhaps you are right. If we are a little late getting back, Lisa will grumble, but he would be happy if we could take him some news.”

  “You still spyin’ on me?” Tylor asked suddenly, deriving amusement from Latoulipe’s stricken expression.

  “What do I say? I . . .” Latoulipe thrust his hands out, imploring. He shook his head. After a pause he lowered his eyes and spoke softly. “The bourgeois, he asks me to keep an eye on you. He does not know for sure that you are not an enemy. It is . . . a hard time for all on the river. The British are making trouble. The Spanish are making trouble. Some of the partners would make trouble. Charles Gratiot is making trouble. And the Indians? So, can you tell me? Who is not making trouble?”

  Tylor laughed outright. “I’m not making trouble for anyone, and I’m the one they think is the spy!”

  Baptiste settled himself on a log and looked at Tylor. “Why are you out here? You are not a hunter or a riverman. You do not have the desires of a trader. What do you want in the wilderness? I do not ask this to report it to the bourgeois. I ask because you are my friend, and I would like to know.”

  Tylor’s impulse to avoid the question gave way to the concern in Baptiste’s soft brown eyes. “Well, I . . . Hell! I’m running, Baptiste. I did something very wrong a few years ago. Got arrested. There’s a death sentence waiting for me back in the United States. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do, so I’m headed for the wilderness to live whatever’s left of my life. Maybe someday when they’ve all forgotten . . .” He shrugged and let it hang.

  “You carry your secret very badly, mon ami.”

  Tylor shrugged—nervous over what he’d just done. No one. He’d told no one. Why Baptiste? “It is a hard secret to keep. I am a traitor.”

  “To your country?”

  Tylor shrugged. “Matter of definitions, I guess. Traitor. Illegal conspirator. It’s not like I worked to overthrow the government of the United States.”

  “You worked for the British?”

  “No. I worked for Aaron Burr when he was the vice president. The idea was to carve our own country out of parts of Texas and New Mexico. I was a scout sent to learn the lay of the land. Establish contacts with people who held a grudge against the Spanish.”

  “But if the vice president orders you . . . ?”

  Tylor chuckled. “It’s not like that in the United States government. At least, not yet. Congress has to agree to seizing someone else’s land. Especially when it’s claimed by a sovereign power like Spain.” He paused. “And I damned well knew what I was doing.”

  “Do not torture yourself for it.” Latoulipe cocked his head slightly and studied Tylor in the dying sunlight. “Would you do it again?”

  Tylor looked around at the shadowed trees and brush. Taking a deep breath he pulled his beard and looked up at the boatman. “No . . . Yes . . . I—I don’t know. There’s this urge inside me to see new things, adventure. Measure myself against the world. Without gumption there is no glory.”

  He smiled in amusement at Baptiste. “I see what you’re thinking, so put your mind at ease. The spy business is a strange one, Baptiste. When you cross the line—even just a little—they have a hook in you. Just like a fish, you can’t pull loose so you keep on going.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “But it does! You start with a little thing; the hook is set. You can’t tell anyone. You do another little thing. I thought at first I was acting in the government’s best interest. The vice president of the United States, Aaron Burr
, got me started. It was simple. Take a message to a man in Nagadoches. I did.”

  “And you didn’t know it was wrong?”

  “Of course not. Then it was more messages, and more messages. Make reports of the things I’d seen. Pretty soon I was bringing back information on American troops and intelligence on local and regional leaders in Louisiana and Texas. I was made the advance man so quickly that when I found out what the actual goal of all the plotting was . . . I was in too deep to get out.”

  He snorted irritably. “The worst thing was, by then, I didn’t want to. I wanted to make it work, see it through.” A pause before he wistfully said, “I wanted to be a grandee. Like a lord.”

  He searched for understanding in Baptiste’s eyes. “I’m not sure anything is as intoxicating as making a play for your own country. The dreams fill your head. What will you become? Foreign ambassador? Head of state? Whatever it will be, you will end up a great man. In the history books.”

  Baptiste just nodded. “You got away?”

  “I got away.” Tylor stared up at the darkening heavens. “Barely. In the United States, I’m under arrest for treason. I escaped before they could try me for it. That’s why I carry the secret so poorly, Baptiste. If they catch me, they hang me.”

  “Louisiana is still American territory,” Baptiste reminded.

  Tylor gestured toward the west with his rifle. “That’s the free land out there. No laws, no rules. A place where no matter what’s behind a man, he can disappear. It stretches from Canada to the United States to the Gulf of Mexico to Mexico itself.”

  “How many people on the voyage know this about you?”

  “Only you. Maybe Fenway McKeever. Manuel Lisa knows I am not what I seem. In all of Louisiana, only you, Baptiste, know the real reason I am out here.”

  A sudden fear shivered up and down his spine. What in the name of God had prompted him to tell Latoulipe? The man had obviously been keeping him under watch on Lisa’s orders. How much of this would go back to the trader?