Snowbound and Eclipse (48 page)

“Yes, General Clark and I have something like that in mind.”

“I fear you trust too much. General Wilkinson, sir, might be the commander of our armies, but he is a treacherous and unscrupled man, and up to his elbows in Colonel Burr's schemes, Your Excellency. The trouble is, there's no
proof.
He covers his tracks.” He leaned forward to add a note, sotto voce. “But I can tell you, a ring of his cohorts flourishes in St. Louis, meaning to weaken your regime until all of Louisiana can be tied to England or Spain.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Spies, sir. Men come and whisper in my ear, and I take heed. You and the president and the secretary of war have all been apprised by my correspondence, you know.”

“Who are they?”

“Why, sir, I hesitate to
name names.
”

“Who, Mr. Bates?”

“I will prepare a list of suspects, sir.”

I nodded.

It was an odd interview, with Bates acting, in turn, obsequious,
welcoming, delighted at my arrival, but at the same time resentful of my presence, secretive, distressed by the slightest change from his practice, and eager to charge me with how little I knew of territorial politics and strife. The message was clear: let him continue to govern and propose and issue permits, and I would put the official seal upon his policies, and take my leisure. He wanted me to be a figurehead, he the éminence grise employing my legitimate authority, and he must have supposed that my limited experience fitted me to be nothing more.

“What a beneficent moment this is, sir,” he said. “At last! We shall elevate the government to its proper majesty, and you may count me your trusted advisor and the
executor
of your design.”

“Very good,” I said. “I'll get settled and assume my responsibilities directly. I am grateful for your professions of allegiance.”

Oddly, he grimaced.

I sensed that I would run into the classic bureaucratic obstructionist, resisting me whenever he felt my policies didn't agree with him. Perhaps it was a family matter. His brother, Tarleton, had hoped to become the president's personal secretary, and when the president appointed me instead, I fear the seeds of bitterness may have been sown.

I would be patient with Mr. Bates, and magnanimous, and complimentary, and hope I might yet fashion a good relationship with my second in command.

I spent the next days hunting down a home. Rents were appalling in that burgeoning city. Most suitable houses went for five hundred a year. Will Clark agreed to let me board with him, the bachelor at their table, and toward that end I hunted an establishment adequate for us all.

I finally found one on South Main and Spruce Streets for two hundred fifty a year, four rooms, a summer kitchen, and
an attic for slaves, and hastened to engage the place from the landlord, who fawned over me as if I had the blood of kings in me. It was substantial for St. Louis, but nothing compared to the great, comfortable stone mansions erected by the Creole gentry, stuffed with fine furniture, the best imported wallpapers, and fireplaces in every room.

I sent a card to my friend Moses Austin, thus announcing my arrival, and joined with Reuben on a tour of St. Louis. It was, by any measure, a gray, filthy, and disgusting city, teeming with new arrivals, dangerous to life and health, raw and gross, except for those heights well above the reeking waterfront where the Creole merchants lived in spacious mansions, sipping the finest coffee brought up from New Orleans, attending each others' soirees and balls in imported silks and satins. But that is not where we headed.

I showed my brother the levee, swarming with rough rivermen and slaves unloading keelboats and flatboats, swart odorous men who spoke strange tongues. I showed Reuben the sprawl of Creole buildings, their squared timbers set vertically in the French manner, that served for dwellings; the mucky streets that bred mosquitoes in every puddle, the flats along the river suffocating in fetid air, redolent with sweat and other, ranker, odors.

“Here is where the furs arrive from high up the Mississippi, in that vast wild around Prairie du Chien,” I said. “Here is where the boats are outfitted, and the crews hired, and brave men push and pole and pull these keelboats up the Missouri, day after day, far beyond the world of white men, into a lonely land of savages, seas of grass, countless buffalo, and innumerable beaver.”

“I want to go up there,” he said.

I feared I had talked too much, too enticingly, of the voyage of discovery. “I need you here,” I said.

“No, Meriwether, you need your very own brother in
whatever fur company you invest in, to keep an eye on your investment and keep the crew in good health.”

I could not object to that. But I had hoped he would remain in St. Louis as my aide and confidential assistant … and private physician. But he was a free man, not bound by any promise or agreement, and I could only wish him his heart's desire. He had healed me of that unspeakable disease, but I wanted him close in case the ague or other indispositions might arise in this moist and unhealthy place.

We had talked much of investing in the fur business. I had acquired some experience with it, and knew who was competent and who wasn't. I imagined I could triple my investment in a year. I certainly wished to profit from it, and from the rising prices of land about St. Louis, where happy investors doubled their money in a year. I would see about that, too, if I could borrow enough to purchase some tracts. I wanted a share of everything: the mines, the land, but especially the fur trade, the one field I understood perfectly.

Reuben agreed to stay with me until the Clarks should arrive, and together we settled the house on Main Street, the Rue Principale, and moved in.

A youth found us there, unpacking crates, and handed me an envelope. Within it was an invitation from Pierre Chouteau to sup with him that very evening, and to let the boy know.

“Yes, tell him we'll be there, with great pleasure,” I said.

The boy nodded and hurried upslope. This evening would mark the beginning of many things, including the landholdings and fortunes of Meriwether Lewis.

We arrived in St. Louis yesterday, June 30, by keelboat, having made good time from Louisville because Meriwether had detached Ensign Pryor and a squad from the regular army and sent them to our assistance. I had, aboard, an entire household in one keelboat, and in the other, trade goods, a grist mill, blacksmithing equipment, and other items for the government Indian posts we intended to establish along the lower Missouri River.

Meriwether met us at the levee, having gotten word of our slow progress up the Mississippi. Even as the boatmen were securing our keelboats, he was pacing the muddy bank, bursting with energy, handsome in his royal blue coat and white silk stock, which he wore even on this steamiest day of the summer when it was so close it was hard to draw breath.

“Ah! How good to see you at last! How beauteous is the new Mrs. Clark! How ravishing is Miss Anderson,” he exclaimed gallantly, barely after we had set foot on the mud. Alice Anderson is my sister's daughter, a comely and marriageable young lady who will be a part of my household for a while. “Why, Miss Anderson, every bachelor in St. Louis will toast you, and rejoice at your presence, and I expect there will be duels and jousts among the bachelors. You will slay the whole unmarried class of males with that smile.”

My chestnut-haired niece colored up at all that, but only smiled at such effusive greetings. She was not accustomed to such gallantry in the Clark household.

We all greeted Meriwether warmly. Even York trumpeted
his pleasure, though I thought it was unseemly. Julia curtsied shyly in her white cotton frock. She wasn't much used to being in the company of governors; she wasn't even used to being in the company of generals, though I have been giving her lessons. I have so far persuaded her that a general is less formidable than a lieutenant, but when she met my brother George a few weeks ago, a respectful silence fell over her. George Rogers Clark is an old man, but with a certain august presence, and she has yet to celebrate seventeen years. I fear she might be ill at ease in a household that includes the governor.

“Come, let me show you your house,” Lewis said, clapping an arm around my shoulder. “I put some effort into finding just the right place. You'll like it.”

I nodded to York and the two black women, Julia's housemaids and cooks, to follow, and we proceeded through a torpid afternoon when sensible people should be under roof, to Main and Spruce Streets, not far from the riverfront. There indeed stood a comfortable, mortared stone house with a rain-stained verandah on its east and south façades.

“I hope you like it; I've reserved a bedroom for myself, but if that should not be convenient, I'll board elsewhere. The Chouteaus have already offered me a room. But you're my old tent mate and it seemed so natural just to continue being messmates,” he said. “Together, we'll bring good order here.”

I glanced at Julia, who was looking less than happy, and wiping her brow where sweat had already accumulated from our brief passage from the steaming levee. I had my doubts about such an arrangement but thought to say nothing for the time being.

Julia kept glancing at the governor who was suddenly intruding upon our happy lives, a stranger in our first home, and I could almost hear the objections forming in her mind.
The house proved to be a suitable one for my purposes; it had four rooms downstairs, two bedrooms, a parlor that opened on a dining room; a pair of rude attic rooms suitable for the slaves; a detached kitchen with good stone fireplaces; a carriage barn; but only a noisome, small outhouse that fouled the air of the rear yard, and would be inadequate for our purposes. I would need to do something about that, and would set York to work.

“How is this? Perfect, I'll wager,” the governor said. “See, everything's right. Room for the slaves up there.”

I studied the two attic rooms: the women would go on one side; York on the other. The rafters were exposed, there were small grimy windows at either gable, and a narrow precipitous stair wound down to the back of the first floor, They would have to sleep on the planks, but I had a few old buffalo robes for them. I understood slaves. If they were tired from lack of sleep they wouldn't work as hard, so it paid to offer some comforts.

The governor had taken the sunlit corner bedroom for himself; that left one for Julia and me, and none for my niece. However, we could convert the dining room, and eat at the commodious table in the detached kitchen. It was far from a perfect place for us as long as the governor was present.

“This will serve, Meriwether,” I said, not very certain that it would. But I did not wish to spoil the moment of our reunion.

Julia looked downcast. Ever since leaving Virginia, she had been discovering the hardships of the frontier, and I had bolstered her spirits daily with reports that St. Louis was the very cradle of civilization. She had not been assured by the rough-timbered buildings, boatmen's shacks, foul muck on the streets, or the hard men who watched us pass by with calculating stares. My promises weren't worth much just then.

“All right, York,” I said. “Sergeant—ah, Ensign Pryor is getting drays, and you'll move our household goods here. You'll move in upstairs, and so will the women. I want supper by six.”

“Yas, mastuh,” York said dismissively. Damn him! He was becoming less and less valuable to me, and I glared at him. Sweat had beaded on his sooty brow, and collected under his armpits, staining his loose blue shirt.

He herded the slaves back toward the waterfront. The women as well as the men would be toting and hauling for two or three days. But I wanted that kitchen functioning in time for supper.

Lewis was addressing the ladies: “You'll enjoy St. Louis. The Creoles throw a ball for every occasion. There's a fiddle in every household. Wait until you see the great homes, the finery that rivals anything in Paris, the pianofortes, the harps, the libraries, the Paris wallpapers, the fruit trees, the spacious grounds. Ah, you'll see the real St. Louis soon!”

I wiped beads of sweat off my brow and lips. “I think the ladies may wish to retire and freshen,” I said, responding to the pleading in Julia's eyes.

“Use my room; there's a commode,” the governor said.

Julia nodded, curtsied, and led my niece to that haven. The door to the governor's bedroom closed firmly.

“What a lovely beauty your niece is,” Lewis said. “A Grecian beauty! Alabaster flesh! She'll drive the bachelors mad. Ah, youth! I've lost it. I'm such a fusty old man that I won't even make my bid, but of course I'm busy with this territory. But I wager you won't be lacking suitors at our door.”

“I'd thought maybe my niece might be a good match for you, Meriwether.”

“Ah, Will, my heart's not in it. Letitia's gone! Married. And a good match, too. Maria gone, married. No, my friend,
I know my fate. I'm doomed to bachelorhood by a broken heart.”

“Meriwether, you old gallant, you could beckon to any damsel in St. Louis with your pinky and end up with a wife.”

He sighed unhappily. “No, no, they'd just turn me down, like Letitia. That's how it is with me, Will. I'll dance a few waltzes, dance a few quadrilles, and sigh a few sighs.”

That struck me as a sharp retreat from his gallantry of the past. I had the strangest sense that something was amiss. What was that undertone in his voice? Was this the Meriwether I remembered? Maybe it was. Which startled me.

“Alice wanted to sample St. Louis life,” I said, “but I don't know how long she'll stay. Perhaps you'll give her a reason.” He grinned at me crookedly, so I changed the subject. “Well, now, old friend. Is there news?”

“Yes, always, and I am having my difficulties, mostly Indian troubles, the Great Osage and Little Osage, and the problem of Big White. He's here, put up by the Chouteaus. How will we get him back? It will take an army! His presence is embarrassing the president. How is it that a big nation of white men has been stymied by a handful of dusky savages? That's one problem. But my main problem is Bates. How did you find him?”