Eagle's Cry

by David Nevin

  “Say no more. Five hundred? Seven-fifty? Send your note around tomorrow; I’ll send your man back with gold.”

  “You’re a prince, Sim.”

  “A suggestion, Aaron. Don’t be too quick to withdraw in favor of Jefferson. There might be advantage in waiting. Eventually, of course, you must, but—”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Burr heard himself say. The thought startled him.

  Startled McAlester too. The merchant’s mouth twisted. “That’s foolish talk.”

  At once all the dark mood, the day’s turmoil, the terrible pressure he’d felt came boiling up and he cried, “Take care, sir. I don’t appreciate being called foolish.”

  McAlester leaned toward him and Burr was suddenly conscious of the man’s size. “Don’t get high and mighty with me, Brother Burr. I can put you in bankruptcy anytime I choose.”

  “That’s right,” Burr said, back in control. “But you won’t. It would cost you much too much.”

  McAlester smiled. “We understand each other. Send your note around in the morning.”

  As Burr walked away, his mind pushing aside the real question, he felt the sting of that Medici remark. Yes, he supported certain artists and writers, men whose talent was still unrecognized. He maintained the house on Fulton Street and the country place at Richmond Hill, a hundred wonderful acres and a manor house on a bit to the north, just below the village of Greenwich. When the great Talleyrand toured America, being temporarily persona non grata in Paris, he’d spent his whole New York visit at Richmond Hill, lauding Burr’s table and cellar. Nothing wrong with a taste for fine wines, excellent tailoring, the latest books from London and Paris, and entertaining well. It cost him, but what did that matter? There was no shortage of McAlesters ready to help; and when one tired, three others stepped forward, thrilled to be useful to a great man. He chuckled: What McAlester didn’t know was that there were twenty men or thirty or more who could put him in bankruptcy. But none would dare; Burr’s influence made him much too important.

  Interesting how surprise had snapped an unexpected answer out of his mouth. He felt the blood in his face again. Damn them, why must everyone assault his moment of triumph with the earthy reminders that it wasn’t such a great triumph at that, required as he was to step back, throw away the prize, bow to the Virginian? No doubt that was what he would do in the end, but he wasn’t at that bridge. Why must he cross it now?

  And what did it really mean? He had, after all, received the same number of electoral votes as had Thomas Jefferson. Was it so clear—would it be so clear when Congress voted—that Jefferson would be the better president? Did it mean that it was Virginia’s destiny and not New York’s to produce presidents? As a matter of plain fact, Burr knew he would be a stronger president than the Virginian because he knew politics, he was a mover, an arranger, yes, a conniver, and there was nothing wrong with conniving; he knew when to pull the levers and when to leave them alone.

  What did Jefferson know? He’d sat out the election in that hilltop house of his, Monticello, not even an American name, standing above it all, while Burr had sweated in the trenches. Did the sainted one feel he had won it with his noble rhetoric and his high ideals? Well, Burr could tell him differently, by God! The election had been won right here in little old New York, where they knocked heads when necessary and Tammany poured enough beer on election night to float the USS Constitution!

  And what now? Vice president was all position and no power. The Virginian would be president, and he’d make it a lifetime role. He’d never step down. Sure, Washington had quit after a couple of terms, but that was because he’d hated the job. The Constitution was silent on the question. But Burr could argue equally well—he brushed aside the inconsistency—that Jefferson would botch things so badly that the Democrats would be discredited and the Federalists would come dancing back into office in four years to minuet music!

  So yes, doubtless he would withdraw, step down and back, be noble and self-sacrificing. But, by God, don’t just be taking it for granted; don’t be waving it in his face like a bloody insult even as he savored the joy of standing toe to toe for the presidency of the United States! And he slammed fist into palm.

  It was dark now and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking. Glancing about, he found he was near Fraunce’s Tavern, which reminded him. He drew a turnip watch from his waistcoat pocket; he was an hour late, but still, why not?

  In the tavern, Pierre, the headwaiter, greeted him with rapture. After election felicitations from a half-dozen men, Pierre walked him to a private dining room.

  He opened the door to find Arabella half-reclining on the long sofa. The table was set for two, and he saw she’d finished the first bottle of wine and had started the second. She held out her arms. “Aaron, you naughty boy, you’re late. Come give me a kiss, darling, and tell me your triumph!”

  A week later he dined at the Bull’s Head with his old friend, Jim Wilkinson. “I have a message for you, Aaron,” Jim said, “from people who count in the Congress. Federalists, you understand—they can be the key to your future.”

  He admired Wilkinson; by stealth and guile and a terrier’s willingness to snarl and scrap when aroused, he had made himself commanding general of the U.S. Army. He was a natural conniver, which often was the key to getting things done. They had been young officers in the Revolution, both drawn naturally to staff duties where skill in arranging is a quality much prized, and they had remained friends when Wilkinson went out to Kentucky and cut a wide swath as merchant, trader, speculator in that wide-open climate before the lure of duty—if that had been the lure; you never could tell with Jim—had drawn him back into the army.

  He had set aside his uniform in favor of street clothes now, but even so he drew the alcove curtain closer and turned his bulk farther to hide the letter he took from an inside pocket and slid cross the table.

  “From Harper of Maryland, and I happen to know he speaks for a good many. Hold back, say nothing, give your friends in Congress a clear field, and the results may please you.”

  This had been a difficult week. He’d found himself torn by hungers, fears, dreams that had been as surprising as they were disturbing. Yes, he’d wanted the tie—mainly to assure the second position, but for a certain vindication too, a sign that he stood equal among giants—but he hadn’t actually considered it much further.

  Then the lightning struck. Doubtless he would step back, and yet that easy assumption had roused a visceral fury that had stunned him. All week he’d wrestled—one moment seeing the good of the party, the common expectations, the need for a stable transition if the new open democracy were to flourish—and then, like the roll of drums in his heart, why he? Was he so clearly inferior? Jefferson and his superiority the automatic leader? Did having equal votes count for nothing?

  “Have you told anyone your plans?” Wilkinson whispered.

  “No.” Burr didn’t add that his turmoil had been so great he hadn’t dared speak.

  “Good. Good. Aaron, I tell you, you can soar out of this. It can be big. Big!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The Federalists see huge opportunity here. You can imagine how the idea of Jefferson—and you, of course—taking office just shatters them. Not one in ten believed it would happen. Right until the last minute when our side—”

  “Our side? Since when were you on anyone’s side?”

  Wilkinson winked. “The winning side is my side, Aaron, always has been. Know why I’m a Democrat now? ’Cause they’ll open the West and the Federalists won’t.”

  “You’ve become a western patriot?”

  “Shit! Don’t be ridiculous. There are fortunes to be made in the West, fortunes that easterners can’t even imagine. It’s a place of empire. The Mississippi controls the very heart and soul of the continent, you control that river, and—”

  He broke off, grinning sheepishly, his fat, round face creasing into joviality. “My, I wax enthusiastic, don’t I?
”

  “Does sound exciting.”

  “It is, it is. Unlimited future; everyone agrees.”

  “Which the Spanish at New Orleans control.” He eyed the fat general. Rumor had said for years that Wilkinson was in the pay of Spain, and Burr thought it well could be true. He knew Wilkinson would consider it quite innocent, treason in name only.

  Wilkinson smiled and waved off the Spanish with a flick of his puffy hand. “To business, dear Aaron. These Federalists are serious. They’re thinking of improving the opportunity the tie has given them, as they put it, rather quaintly, I thought. They think they can tie up the election in the Congress, they’ll vote for you, the Democratic states will hold for Jefferson, stalemate will stretch past the inaugural date, and they can appoint a protem president, caretaker figure, what have you—point is, they’ll still be in power, and that’s what counts.”

  “They want to use me, in other words.”

  “Of course. Doesn’t everyone? But look, you can use them. Play your cards right and they’ll swing to you in reality. Stick with them and you can push Mr. Jefferson aside yet.”

  Burr found it stunning, as if the devil had opened his head, pulled out thoughts he hadn’t even dared voice, and dropped them on the table like dead fish. To cover his confusion, he blurted, “Is that how you got rid of Mad Anthony?”

  Anthony Wayne—Mad Anthony, for his wild exploits in the Revolution—was commanding general when Wilkinson had reentered the army. Everyone knew that Wilkinson had waged a violent internal attack on Wayne, turning officers and political weight against him; only Wayne’s early death averted a showdown, whereupon Wilkinson slid into Wayne’s position slick as a greased pig.

  Burr had spoken half in jest, expecting a cynical witticism in response, but Wilkinson’s little eyes went hard as stone, his fists curled on the table. “Aaron,” he said, his voice a rasp, “mind your tongue. You’re an infant in these matters. I don’t like such talk, and I’ll destroy any man who makes it.”

  Burr had a sudden understanding, very startling, that his old friend was dangerous. And then the general relaxed.

  “Come, come, let’s not have such talk. I’m giving you a friend’s advice: Listen to what these Federalists say.”

  “And what’s in it for you?”

  Wilkinson chuckled. “In having a dear old friend as president? Oh, I’d find some advantage or other.”

  “There’s talk on the street that the administration in its waning days might call out the army to set aside the election. What do you think?”

  Wilkinson sat back, his expression lazy. “If it came to that, I suppose I’d have to assess my options.” He shrugged. “See what’s in it for me. But you, now … play the hand that’s being dealt you and that won’t happen. Comprende?”

  Burr smiled. Infant in such matters he might be, but not so innocent that he would answer that question.

  Burr rode the stage into Philadelphia on the evening of the day Sam Smith had expected him in the morning and met Sam the next morning, a mere twenty-four hours late. Which was all right; Colonel Burr was a presidential figure, after all. Still, when he saw Smith in the hotel lobby the next morning standing with Hichborn, whose first name he never remembered, the older man looked ready to erupt.

  Smith was a burly fellow from Baltimore who’d made pots of money in business and shipping before going to Congress. He was important in Baltimore and thought he was important nationally, a faith that Burr felt ranked somewhere between illusion and delusion. He also was an inveterate busybody, which was why Burr had written him in the first place.

  “Sam!” he cried, shaking the other’s hand and treating him to a big smile, probably the last to be seen this morning. He gave Hichborn a languid hand.

  “Good morning, Aaron. I thought yesterday was our day—”

  “Tied up in New York,” Burr said with an airy wave of his hand. Smith was lucky he was here at all.

  “Anyway, you’re here, so tell me what the devil—”

  “Hold it.” Burr raised a palm. The hotel was full of men. “I don’t care to have every mountebank in Philadelphia listen.” He led the way outside, found a bench warmed by a shaft of sun, sat at its center, and turned toward Sam as the bigger man sat. That left Hichborn the opposite end, facing Burr’s back, which was about where he belonged.

  “Now, Aaron,” Sam said, at his most portentous, “I want to know what the devil is going on.”

  “I suppose the Congress will choose a president.”

  “Goddamn it! Don’t toy with me, Colonel Burr. You put me right in the middle of things with that letter. I published it and everyone heaved a sigh of relief: Good, Burr will do as he should, and since then not a word from you!”

  “‘Do as he should.’ Now what does that mean?”

  “What the hell do you think it means? That you should make it clear you won’t contest, that if these Federalists in Congress should manage to elect you, you would refuse to serve. Nobody voted to elect you; they voted Tom, and you were along for the ride!”

  “First, Sam, you made a serious mistake in publishing a private letter.”

  “Private, my foot! Don’t tell me that wasn’t intended for more than my eyes!”

  “I sent it to you as a casual comment to an old friend. I regret you saw more in it. Now as to my making some more definitive statement, yes, I considered it. But I found a peculiar view that you apparently hold too. Everyone assumes I will back away. Why do they so assume? That I’m incapable? That I would be a worse president? Inferior to the Virginian? Frankly, sir, I find that insulting. Having reviewed the matter carefully, I believe it is my duty to my party and to my country to do nothing to influence the congressional decision.”

  “Why, you damned fool—”

  “Fool?”

  “Fool!” Smith said it with such force that Burr was momentarily silenced. “They’re trying to use you to steal the damned election. Think they want you? They don’t want you. They want to tie it up so they can keep it for themselves, name a president protem, steal it!”

  “They know they can’t get away with that.”

  Smith gave him a speculative look. “But you think they might swing to you as more palatable somehow. Fat chance with Hamilton denouncing you right and left. How hungry you must be, willing to betray your friends.”

  Trust Smith to seize such an interpretation! In fact, Burr had worked it out fully in his mind, and the news that Hamilton was attacking him only solidified his conviction. Hamilton was making himself an enemy. So be it. Burr could well live without Mr. Hamilton, and he could deal with him whenever he chose. But in this situation there certainly was no betrayal, and he said so emphatically. He stood as the very personification of honor, remaining aloof, above all interests, influencing nothing. He would answer no messages, from the Democrats or from the Federalists. That was the utterly honorable course, one he had thought out with great care.

  “So what do you think will happen?” Smith asked.

  “Congress must choose a president.”

  “And if they choose you?”

  “So be it.”

  “But, Colonel Burr,” Hichborn squalled from behind him, “Who would be vice president?”

  “Why, Mr. Jefferson, of course.”

  He was walking rapidly down Broadway, heels hammering on brick, stick clutched so hard his hand hurt, heading toward a supper he didn’t want with a woman he couldn’t stand. Sam Smith had abused him, called him a betrayer, said he was selfish, his very conscience in question, asked if ambition so ruled him. Sam had come dangerously close to the point of a challenge. They had parted without handshake or salutations, and Burr had returned in a white heat that hadn’t yet abated.

  Ambition did not rule him! He had thought this out carefully, had seen the insult in the blithe assumption that he would immolate himself on the Virginia pyre, the decent and honorable course becoming evident, what he owed himself, after all, and Theodosia, to stand above it all, aloof, sile
nt—honor beyond challenge that sought nothing for itself!

  Ambition, they said. He was ambitious as was every man, but it didn’t blind him. His breath was ragged. That was God’s truth, but still, there was that vaulting fire within that could shake him as a terrier shakes a rat. Even now, hammering down Broadway, he felt the surging force of desire at the very thought, Aaron Burr, third president of the United States! Oh, it was there, all right, and he was a big-enough man to make that admission to himself, but control him? Not at all. He was acting with honor, propriety, decency—

  A figure lurched out of an alley, an old man with a long beard; it was dark now, no one about, dim light of an oil lamp a block away. A footpad. Burr raised his stick.

  But in a rolling voice that might have come from a sepulcher, the figure cried, “You’re doing wrong, boy. Wrong, wrong! I’m the Reverend Whitney. I knew your father well, admired him and loved him—him snatched off in the very prime of his life, him and your maw too—and I say to you on this night, he must be rolling in his grave! Spinning at the sight of what his son has done!”

  “Get away from me, Goddamn you!” Burr cried. “Get away from me!” He hurried on at a near run, breathing in gasps, hearing the old devil shuffling behind him. Where in God’s name was that tavern where there were lights and he was expected and everyone welcomed him; but he saw he had wandered down into a dark area near the East River, no one about, and he hurried on, hearing the footsteps behind him.

  How dare the old man invoke his father? Burr came from a fine family, the best, the great preacher Jonathan Edwards his grandfather, the first Aaron Burr a minister of note who had started the college at Princeton where he and Madison had been classmates.

  And his father had betrayed him. As had his mother. How dare the old devil throw his father up to him after what his father had done. There were sudden tears in his eyes. He didn’t hate his father or mother; it was just that it hurt so. And it had been years before he’d even understood what yellow fever was, how the sick miasma festered in low-lying areas and swept out to fell men and women by the score. He’d been six when they went. He’d cried himself to sleep at night for years; but sometimes he’d cried with hate too. They’d gone off and left him, except he didn’t really hate, he loved—