Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (11 page)

 
          
 
"You may."

 
          
 
Eckhart pushed back his chair and stood.
"Not all of your fellow travelers can be counted on to share your, er .. .
'enlightened' sentiments. I would be careful of the manner in which I expressed
such opinions. Good day, sir."

 
          
 
"And a good day to you." Richard
scratched his ear as Eckhart retreated to a table offering a card game.

 
          
 
Richard snorted in mild irritation, then found
his place in Kant and settled back for a pleasant day, dissecting the problem
of autonomy of will and the supposition of freedom. Later, in the privacy of
his cabin, he would dream of Laura again.

 
          
 
Winter's hold was breaking. The first stars
were flickering to life in the darkening sky as Travis Hartman shouldered a keg
of gunpowder from the freight wagon's tailgate and carried it toward the low
doorway that gaped like a black maw in the warehouse wall. The place had been
built of squared blocks of gray limestone, the ashlars poorly dressed.
Hickory
and white ash had been laid crosswise for
beams, then planks and a foot of earth had been used to complete the roof. A
thick oaken door provided security in addition to the heavy iron hasp.

 
          
 
Muck clung to Travis's moccasins as he slopped
along the trail beaten in the melting snow. The first robins were already
flitting from branch to branch in the surrounding trees, greedily eyeing the
places where the snow had melted. Spring would come, even after a winter like
this one.

 
          
 
Travis ducked through the low doorway into the
darkness. A single candle illuminated the stacks of crates and kegs, for
everything had to be protected against rats and mice. The room smelled dank and
musty, the way a dirt-floored warehouse should.

 
          
 
Dave Green stood braced over a flour barrel,
which he was using as a table for his ledger. "Last one?"

 
          
 
"Yep."

 
          
 
"That's thirty kegs of powder. Ought to
be enough for two years."

 
          
 
Outside, one of the mules snorted and shook
its harness.

 
          
 
Travis blinked in the darkness, counting off
tens on his fingers. "I reckon."

 
          
 
Green rubbed his broad forehead as his gaze darted
from keg to keg. "We've got everything we need, Travis. Two hundred trade
rifles, stacks of four-point blankets, foo-fawraw by the barrel, flour, lead,
flints, mirrors, knives, copper kettles, vermilion and ocher for grease paints,
strike-a-lights, a half ton of tobacco, ten tins of whiskey, and all the
rest."

 
          
 
"But not enough men," Travis said
dryly.

 
          
 
Green made a face. "You been around
again?"

 
          
 
Travis kicked at the dirt. "T'ain't easy,
Dave. Can't jist come out and say, 'Hyar, boys. Who's fer the
Shining
Mountains
and two years on the Big Horn?' Do that and
you'll have army folks swarming about like skeeters on the
Platte
."

 
          
 
Green braced his arms over his ledger.
"Damn it! It's not enough that a man's got to trust himself to two
thousand miles of snags, sawyers, and savages, all set to sink him or scalp
him, but the damn gov'ment's against him, too!"

 
          
 
"I reckon it's Ashley, Chouteau, and
Astor, hoss. Just like you said." Travis found a twist of tobacco in his
possibles, slipped his knife from its sheath, and cut a chew from his twist.
Green was silent while Travis got the quid juicing and spat. Travis then added,
"I got fifteen men willing, no questions asked. That be all, Davey. I
reckon if'n we was ter leave tomorrow, I could shanty up another twenty or
so."

 
          
 
"We can't leave tomorrow. And damn it, we
can't have it out that we're heading upriver to trade. I need that God-cursed
license!"

 
          
 
"Wal, ye ain't gonna get it." Travis
scratched his ear.

 
          
 
"Hoss, ye'll just have ter wait yer turn and
hope the good Lord'11 provide."

 
          
 
"My turn has to be now, Travis. Colonel
Atkinson is upriver subduing the tribes with his army. Joshua Pilcher's
Missouri Fur Company is weakened—half their forts are abandoned. William Ashley
gave up on the river after the Arikara shot his brigade up in '23. He's way out
west someplace, Meanwhile, Pratte and Chouteau have something in the wind. I
think it's with Jacob Astor. It's like a crawling in my gut, Travis. American
Fur is going to partner up with Pratte and Chouteau. If I don't get upriver and
establish a trading post with the Crow, I'll be muscled right out of the
trade."

 
          
 
"Do or die, eh?"

 
          
 
"Reckon so. When we head upriver, Travis,
you've got to be my eyes, ears, and guard dog. I want you out roaming, scouting.
We're taking more than enough risks as it is. I must be the first boat up the
river."

 
          
 
"Like you said, the army is up there
somewhere. How ye gonna handle that?"

 
          
 
Green half-closed his eyes, as if seeing
upriver, into the future. "We'll know when they're close. Word travels
downriver faster than keelboats. When we hear, we'll put up behind an island,
maybe hole up in some creek. They'll drift right on past—and be no wiser for
it."

 
          
 
"And
Fort
Atkinson
?"

 
          
 
"I've got forged papers that say I'm carrying
goods for Pratte. They won't stand close scrutiny, but by the time they find
out different, we'll be long gone. Meanwhile, to avoid the whiskey embargo,
you, my friend, will offload the whiskey two days downriver and bypass the fort
to the west. We'll meet up two days' travel upriver."

 
          
 
"Risky bizness, Dave."

 
          
 
Green nodded. "That's why I sent for you,
Travis. I don't know anyone else I could trust to get me through. You know the
Indians, the land, the river. If I can't have a brigade, I want the next best
thing. That's you, Travis."

 
          
 
Travis chuckled. "You do take all, Davey.
Reckon it jist might end up fetch or spit, though. Yep, she's gonna swing
according ter whether we get enough men ter make a go of her."

 
          
 
Green nodded soberly as his gaze rested on the
stacked goods. He'd bet the results of his years in
Santa Fe
, all that blood and sweat and danger. The
scars on Travis's face pulled tight as he grinned. Dave Green was his kind of
man. All he had to do was sneak his boat up a dangerous river, past powerful
rivals, a hostile government, and build a fort in the wilderness where no one
had been able to maintain a fort before. All that—provided Green could hire
enough men to fill out the expedition without the authorities catching on.

 
          
 
February 1, 1825
Paducah
,
Kentucky

 
          
 
Dear Laura:

 
          
 
This is the first opportunity I've had to post
you a letter from any place where it might conceivably be delivered. I am
sending this letter, and the accompanying notes, to you care of the steamboat
Victory. I am well, but somewhat thinner. Since leaving
Pittsburgh
, barbaric as it was, meals have been
wretched—mostly salt pork and beans in the beginning. But as we have traveled
farther downriver, the menu has tended more and more toward venison and corn,
which farmers sell or trade to the boat during the frequent stops for wood to
refuel the boilers.

 
          
 
Perhaps Sally might create something edible
out of this crude fare, but for my part, cuisine within a monastery might
actually come as an improvement.

 
          
 
Let me tell you something about how we travel.
Steamboat speed, I have learned, comes at the price of quiet and solitude. In
the beginning, the clanking, rattling, squeaking, and rhythmic shish-shishing
of the paddle drove me half to distraction. Only after days has it faded into a
dull monotony of the subconscious. When the boat shakes, the walls wobble and
creak as if they will collapse around my ears. While I have become somewhat
accustomed to it, I shall never be fully relaxed in this loose stack of
kindling.

 
          
 
Laura, this you might find amusing. I've
become quite familiar with the grim aspects of farming and husbandry, not by
choice, mind you. Rather, I am forced—by virtue of the thin plank walls—to
listen to the mindless babble of ignorant farmers seeking new land, merchants
discussing prices and goods, and boatmen talking endlessly of water and vessels
and ice in the river.

 
          
 
When we parted, you asked me to report all of
my adventures. I must admit that, to date, I have nothing adventurous to
report. The frontier, quite to the contrary of the stories, is dull, squalid,
and about as stimulating as a lump of warm tar.

 
          
 
Your Obedient Servant, Richard Hamilton

 
          
 
"Port Massac!'' came the cry from the
pilothouse.

 
          
 
Richard marked his place in Kant and stepped
out on the gallery with the rest of the men. The sky had gone blustery again,
leaden clouds so low they seemed to skim the skeletal gray mat of trees. Chop
smacked the gravelly banks, and the dark, clear waters of the
Ohio
had turned slate-colored.

 
          
 
A smell of rain carried on the cold air.
Richard turned up his collar, the chill bracing to the skin. He was eager for
exercise. The deck shuddered as the Virgil backed water. Foam rolled up from
under the rocking hull to swirl away in sucking whirlpools. The crew shouted
and gestured up at the pilothouse as the bow nosed in toward the landing on the
north shore. Bells rang somewhere in the boat's guts.

 
          
 
Richard shook his head at the sight of
Fort
Massac
. The settlement lay in a clearing cut from
virgin forest. At the whistle's shrill blow, men had appeared from the log
structures higher up on the bank.
Fort
Massac
differed little from the other tiny
settlements Richard had seen, its only distinction being that it rested on the
last suitable landing above the mouth of the
Ohio
. Below this spot, the land was susceptible
to flooding.