Gone to Texas

by Jason Manning

  "Hang him and be done with it," someone said.

  "Hold on," said Cully, stepping into the center of the circle. "You canna hang a man for stealing a pig."

  "You'd hang him for stealing a horse, wouldn't you?" asked the owner of the dead sow. "What's the difference?"

  "No, I wouldna hang him for stealing a flaming horse, either. I wouldna take a man's life unless he was a murderer."

  "He murdered this feller's pig," said one of the wits in the crowd, and several men laughed.

  "This is no laughing matter," scolded Cully.

  "Klesko stole my axe."

  "Yeah, and he stole some of my chickens."

  "My dog turned up missing a fortnight ago. I'd bet Klesko stole him and ate him. I declare, he'll eat anything that ain't been dead too long."

  "A lot of things have turned up missing since he started hanging around here. He's a no-good thief."

  "This is a bloody nonsense," said Cully. "You canna hang a man like this, without a fair trial, not in this country. That's the kind of rough justice many of us sailed across the flamin' ocean to escape."

  "Why are you defending Klesko, Cully?"

  "Yeah. Klesko don't mean nothing to you."

  "No, by God, I hardly know the beggar from Adam. But he's an American, and he deserves a trial by a jury of his peers. He's guaranteed as much by the bloody Bill of Rights, isn't he?"

  Christopher admired Cully's determination to stand up for what he thought was right. Clearly he was the last person who would want Cully's Landing to get a reputation as a den of cutthroats and thieves. A reputation like that could destroy a town, and could easily be created by a relatively harmless man like Klesko. The Scotsman's argument seemed to work on some of the spectators, but the majority still cried out for Klesko's blood.

  It was then that Nathaniel intervened. He stepped forward, placing himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Cully.

  "There'll be no hanging today," he said.

  "Who are you?"

  "What gives you the right . . . ?"

  "This is Flintlock Jones," said Cully.

  The effect of the name on the crowd was instantaneous. Everyone fell silent, as though struck dumb by an act of God. Christopher was astonished. He scanned the faces by the light of the lanterns some of the men held aloft. They looked to him as he imagined the people of ancient Greece might have when they chanced to gaze upon Zeus or Apollo or some other deity down from Olympus. They looked at the rifle in Nathaniel's hands, too, knowing what wonders he had wrought with the weapon. Here was a living legend, standing up for Klesko, and none of them were willing to go against him.

  "Take him to the inn and lock him in the cellar," Cully told the men who were holding Klesko.

  "This is an outrage!" cried the owner of the dead sow. "What about my losses?"

  "Well," said Cully, with a smile. "You could stay here with us for a spell, Mr. Krueger, until the circuit judge comes around. I'm certain he'll make some kind of arrangement for restitution. Of course, it might be weeks before we see the gentleman again."

  "Weeks? I can't wait weeks. My boat is loaded. My son and I have got to get down the river."

  "Then perhaps you will be so kind as to tell me where I could send the money, if restitution is ordered."

  "If? Is there any question? Wasn't that my sow? Isn't it dead?"

  Unruffled, Cully said, "Fine. When restitution is made. Does that sound better to your ear?"

  Krueger snorted. "And I'm to trust you? This whole town is a nest of thieves, if you ask me."

  Christopher thought he could actually hear Cully's teeth grinding together as the Scotsman, by an astonishing act of will, kept his temper in check. "Perhaps it would be better if you got started on your journey right away, Mr. Krueger," he said, frosty with cordiality.

  Krueger glowered at the innkeeper, then looked to Nathaniel. His expression changed when he saw the old leatherstocking. He turned abruptly and stalked away.

  Klesko's three captors were hustling their prisoner to the inn, and the crowd began to disperse. Watching them go, Cully mournfully shook his head.

  "They're not bad people, Flintlock. But even good people, when they become a mob, seem to lose their common sense. They might have hanged Klesko in the heat of the moment. As a lark, you might say. And when they woke in the morning they would have felt flamin' bad aboot it."

  "You saved them from themselves, Cully."

  "I think you had a lot to do with it. Your name carries a lot of clout in these parts."

  "What will become of Klesko?" asked Christopher.

  "He's rough around the edges, and, yes, a bit light-fingered. A river rat. Can't seem to hold a job. Been in these parts for several months. Lives by himself in the woods. He's not a bad sort, really. Down on his luck, is all."

  "Will he get a fair trial?"

  "I doot it," said the Scotsman. "He's not well-liked here, as you might have noticed. I'm sure he's stolen a few things, though not half of what he's been accused of stealing. But he's an outsider, a loner. He won't hang, but I wager he'll spend a good bit of time languishing under lock and key once the circuit judge gets through with him."

  "Does he know the river?" asked Christopher.

  "Aye. He's an old keelboat man, I'm told."

  "We could take him with us, Grandpa. We could use another man, especially one who knows the river."

  "I'm not sure your mother would approve."

  "I'll take care of that. What do you think?"

  Nathaniel shrugged, turned to Cully. "Do you think he would agree to come with us?"

  Cully grinned. He thought Christopher's solution to the problem was an excellent one. "I'll see to it. Leave everything to me. After all, what are his options?"

  The next morning they got under way early, in the pearl gray light of dawn. Nathaniel took the helm, while O'Connor and Christopher used the long poles to guide the broadhorn into the deep channel. In a little while Rebecca and Prissy emerged from the cargo box and moved forward, planning to sit there in the cool of the morning and take in the scenery. Both of them were captured by the novelty of traveling on a river. There was no place to sit aft of the cargo box, for there the four horses were secured. Having spent the night on board, the horses were quick to accustom themselves to the pitch and roll of the boat. But when Prissy let out a shriek, the animals spooked, and if they hadn't been firmly tethered Nathaniel figured they would have gone right over the side.

  Lashing the rudder in place, the frontiersman moved forward. O'Connor and Christopher were already there, trying not to laugh. Most of their provisions were lashed down in the front of the broadhorn and covered by canvas tarpaulins stripped from the wagons they had sold to Cully. Prissy had settled her considerable bulk on what she assumed were some sacks of grain for the horses. But it was Klesko, not grain sacks, and he was struggling to crawl out from under the canvas—no easy task with his hands tied behind his back. Though gagged, he managed to growl like a bear rudely awakened from its winter hibernation. Eyes wide as saucers, Prissy cast about for something with which to defend herself. She discovered a tree axe, and advanced on Klesko, weapon raised. Christopher was the first to reach her. He wrestled the axe away from her before any damage was done.

  "Don't kill him, Prissy," he said, laughing. "We went to a lot of trouble to smuggle him aboard without the folks back at Cully's Landing knowing."

  "Who is he?" asked Rebecca.

  Christopher told her the whole story, explaining how in the night they had taken Klesko from Cully's cellar and secreted him aboard the broadhorn. The Scots innkeeper had been their willing accomplice.

  "And why didn't you inform me this morning?" asked Rebecca.

  Christopher wasn't laughing any longer. "Well, to tell you the truth, Mother, we weren't sure you would approve. I was going to tell you, after we'd gone a few miles."

  "A few miles too far to turn back."

  "Something like that," he said sheepishly.

  Nathaniel he
lped Klesko to his feet and used a hunting knife to cut the rope which bound the river man at ankles and wrist. They had deemed it the wiser course to leave him in that condition until they were well under way. Nathaniel stepped back, wary, not knowing what to expect from Klesko, now that he was untied. But Klesko just sat there, pulling the gag away from his mouth, and squinting at each of them in turn. His gaze finally came to rest on Nathaniel.

  "I've been shanghaied," he said.

  "Better than getting hanged, don't you think?"

  "Where are we going?"

  "We're bound for Texas."

  "They got any rivers in Texas?"

  "That's what I hear."

  Klesko simply nodded.

  "But you can go your own way once we reach New Orleans."

  "What if I don't want to go to New Orleans?"

  "Do you remember anything from last night?"

  Klesko scratched his jaw, digging under the tangled mat of his rust-colored beard. "Not much."

  "Had too much to drink, didn't you?"

  Klesko grunted. "A man cain't never have too much to drink."

  "Well, they were going to hang you. You stole another man's pig, and ate it. If you don't want to go to New Orleans, we'll just take you back to Cully's Landing, and your comeuppance."

  Klesko looked the frontiersman over, then studied O'Connor and Christopher, and Nathaniel began to think the riverman was going to try all three of them on for size. But Klesko didn't make a move.

  "Reckon you folks did me a good turn," he said. "So I'll go along. But only as far as Natchez."

  "Fair enough."

  Klesko turned his dark gaze on Rebecca. "Who's she?"

  "My mother," said Christopher.

  "And my daughter," added Nathaniel.

  Klesko grunted again. He stood up. Rebecca had to crane her neck to look up at him. She decided he had to stand at least six feet six. He was the biggest man she had ever seen.

  "River's no place for a woman," he muttered.

  Taking a pole from O'Connor, he went to work.

  Chapter 16

  They were all quite impressed by the Cumberland—it seemed to them a mighty and magnificent stream—all except Klesko, who laughed at them as they expressed admiration for the river. He told them it didn't hold a candle to the Mississippi, but they couldn't imagine how a river could be any wider or deeper or faster. So they were in for a rude awakening when, eight days later, they reached the Father of Waters.

  Christopher was truly amazed. The Mississippi was a mile wide where the Cumberland emptied into her. He assumed this to be an abnormality, but in the days to come he would discover that the river averaged a mile width at high water until one got much closer to the Gulf of Mexico, where, strangely enough, she became more narrow.

  He had read all about this river during his sojourn at West Point. He had learned that she was over four thousand miles long, the longest river in the world. It discharged three hundred times more water than the Thames River, of which the British were so proud. The area of its drainage basin was so immense that the countries of Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England could be fitted into that space with room to spare.

  The Mississippi was notorious for changing its course, cutting through necks of land almost at whim, to the point that geographers now claimed the entire thirteen hundred miles of the river explored by La Salle a hundred and fifty years ago was today dry land. More than once a town built on the east bank of the Mississippi awoke one morning to find itself on the west side, or a mile away from the river.

  It had been known by many names. Indians called it Sasseguola, Tamalisen, Chuagua, Meast Chassipi, depending on the tribe. From the Chippewa's Mescesipi came its current name. The Spaniards knew it as the Río Escondido—the Hidden River—or the River of the Holy Ghost. The French had labeled it the River of the Immaculate Conception on their maps. Then, too, folks called it Old Man River sometimes, or the Devil of Rivers, if they happened to meet with some mishap because of it.

  They were not alone on the river—there was tremendous commerce, much of it in keelboats and broadhorns. In the old days the keelboat men had carried cargo down to New Orleans—the goods produced by settlers from Ohio and Kentucky and Tennessee—and poled back up the river with manufactured products in high demand on the frontier: fabrics, furniture, sugar, and other luxuries. In those days, men like Klesko had ruled the river.

  In 1807, when Robert Fulton designed the first steamboat, life on the river was drastically changed. Four years later, the paddlewheeler New Orleans made her first trip down the Mississippi. In spite of the great earthquake of that year, which occurred during the maiden voyage, and which demolished the river town of New Madrid and completely altered the course of the river, the trip was a tremendous success. In 1814, the Enterprise became the first steam-powered vessel to make an upstream trip. Several other boats had tried it, and failed because they lacked sufficient power to overcome the mighty currents. Two years later, a radically new steamboat design was made reality with the launching of the Washington. This vessel sported two independent steam engines and had a very shallow draft. The reign of the keelboat was almost over. Nowadays, keelboats were still sometimes used to transport goods downriver. Men like Krueger would sell their pigs and tobacco in New Orleans, and then sell their boats, too, for scrap lumber, before catching the next steamboat bound upriver.

  Christopher got a good look at some of these "floating palaces." They were spectacular. Long and trim and gleaming with paint, two tall chimneys with crowns of metal plumes, fancy pilothouse atop the texas deck, a picture or gilded sun rays embellishing the vessel's name on the paddle boxes, all three decks—the texas, the boiler, and the hurricane—adorned with whitewashed ornamental railings and garnished with elegant wood filigree.

  Men like Krueger journeyed upriver with their pockets full of money, having sold their goods in New Orleans for top dollar, and the steamboat owners were dedicated to the proposition that such men should part with some, if not all, of that money. In their saloons one could dine on the finest china, with the light from crystal chandeliers gleaming off the best silver service money could buy. (Rumor had it that on some of the steamboats the china was never washed; used once, it was tossed over the side.) One could sample the finest liquors, or try one's luck at the gaming tables. Many were the poor souls who succumbed to such gilded temptations, only to arrive home without two coins to rub together, wiser if poorer, having spent the money needed for seed or flour or curtains on the windows or the wife's new dress.

  Christopher got the chance to tour one of the steamboats. While the broadhorn was tied up at the wharf of some sleepy nameless village on the Missouri side of the river, the cry "Steamboat a-comin'!" pierced the sultry summer somnolence of the place. From every home and business establishment emerged the locals, to rush down the river, coming from every quarter to crowd the wharf, from whence they could watch the show.

  And what a show it was! The steamboat's engineers tossed pitch pine into the boiler furnaces to produce dense black smoke, which rose in great pillars from the chimneys. Up on the texas deck the pilot's cub rang the ship's big brass bell for all he was worth, while the pilot tugged on a rope, and steam shrieked as it escaped the gauge cocks. Upon the captain's orders the wheels were thrown into reverse, and the river foamed as the vessel slid neatly into place alongside the dock. As the crowd of spectators cheered, deckhands ran out the gangplanks, down which cavorted a minstrel group, clad in red-and-white jackets and straw hats and playing a merry tune on banjo and accordian and French harp. When the number was over, the captain invited one and all to come aboard and see with their own eyes the splendor of his ship. Christopher and O'Connor and Rebecca seized the opportunity, while Nathaniel stayed aboard the broadhorn with Klesko and Prissy.

  Christopher marveled at the opulence of the saloons, with their velvet draperies and velvet-upholstered furnishings, Persian rugs underfoot, broc
aded walls adorned with mirrors in ornate gilded frames. The cabins were cocoons of elegance, with soft carpet wall to wall, goosedown pillows and mattresses on the narrow bunks, oil paintings on the walls, and porcelain knobs on the doors.

  "If this boat is bound for New Orleans, I think you should book passage on it," Christopher told his mother. "We can afford it."

  "We most certainly cannot."

  "But, Mother, all the money you got for the thoroughbreds, and your furniture . . . "

  "We will need every bit of it once we reach Texas."

  "They say that the five hundred miles of river between here and Natchez are the most dangerous of all."

  "Steamboats are dangerous, too. Klesko says their boilers are always exploding. A month doesn't go by that one of them doesn't blow up and send all its passengers to the bottom."

  "Klesko! He's an old keelboat man, with a keelboat man's prejudices."

  "Nonetheless, I refuse to do as you suggest. If the rest of my family is going to New Orleans on a broadhorn, than I will, too."

  Christopher didn't waste his breath arguing. He recognized his mother's tone of voice only too well. It meant the discussion was over, and her mind was made up.

  To attend to the steamboats, carrying the fuel the packets required, great coal barges and timber rafts plied the river. Christopher lost track of all the boats he saw, from pirogues to paddlewheel steamers. They numbered in the scores during his eleven hundred miles on the Mississippi. Still, the river always seemed serenely empty.

  Klesko proved to be worth his weight in gold. He knew the river, knew it like the back of his hand, knew it despite the fact that the river was continually changing, moving its main channel, throwing up new hazards, and disguising them so cleverly one might wonder whether the river had a diabolical mind of its own. But the river couldn't fool Klesko, try as it might. He would gaze at the water up ahead and read the river like a scholar reads a book.

  He was happy to share his knowledge with Christopher, who had a young man's eagerness to learn something new. Where someone unversed in the wiles of the river saw only a long slanting line on the sparkling surface, Christopher was taught to identify the line as the telltale mark betraying the presence of a bluff reef, a solid sandbar which could easily "kill" a boat. The head of the reef, where a crossing could be made safely, was identifiable by locating in the line the place where the water took on a ruffled look. Where the surface was boiling, Christopher learned that a dissolving reef lurked, and the river was in the process of altering its channel. Where the surface was very smooth and covered with radiating circles, a potentially dangerous shoal was fast developing.