Eagle's Cry

by David Nevin

  And that damned Robards (a word she used only in her mind and accurately enough at that, for she believed the good Lord had damned Lewis Robards for what he did out of pure malevolent spiteful hatred). Well, Lewis had gone back east to get him a divorce, which could only be had by an act of the Virginia legislature, he being a Kentucky man and Kentucky still part of Virginia then. One day the rumor swept Nashville that he was coming back to take her with him by force, and Andrew had bundled her up and carried her off to Natchez in Spanish territory. They rode a flatboat with Colonel Stark’s family down the Cumberland to the Ohio and the Ohio to the Mississippi, and the colonel testified all was as it should have been. Andrew went back to Tennessee, and when word came down that Robards had his divorce he rushed back to Natchez and they were married, everything proper.

  Two years later they learned the legislature hadn’t given Lewis a divorce; it only had given him permission to file for divorce. And he’d waited two years to act, sure they would assume they were clear to marry, and then had filed, charging his wife with adultery! The hateful word had swept West Tennessee like so many lightning strokes. Everywhere they turned people spoke to them or didn’t, rolled their eyes or looked away, offered sympathy soaked in self-satisfaction. Oh, you poor dears, thank God my marriage is sound … . She shuddered and the involuntary movement of her arm nearly spilled one of the cobblers.

  Of course they should have delayed marriage till they knew the divorce was final, Johnny Overton had argued to wait, but there was no slowing Andrew. It would have taken months, even years, to check it. Nowadays mail came on a regular route, what they were calling the Knoxville Post Road, but in those days a letter went by your asking a traveler to carry it, same on the return trip, and Andrew hadn’t been going to hang his whole future on a scrap of paper in some scamp’s saddlebag! Suppose Indians got him or he swam his horse and soaked the letters or he turned off to Kentucky—what then?

  The awful weight of scandal had crushed her. She had turned to Jesus with new desperation. She’d understood at last what Savior really meant. For months she hadn’t wanted to show her face, she’d knelt in the last pew, covered with veils, feeling the scarlet letter blazed on her chest in fire. Thank God for Andrew! He had rescued her.

  For his reaction was the opposite. He went everywhere, faced everyone, always ready. Sometimes she’d be with him and he’d see that smirk, the raised eyebrow, the greedy stare, the whispered comment, and he’d walk up to the man, his whole body stiff, and ask if the fellow had anything he wanted to say, the cold whip of his voice making it clear that the fellow held his life in his hands at just that moment; and men would back off like curs dodging a kick. And when women did it, Andrew would seek out their husbands or their fathers … .

  It had made him stronger, fiercer, more commanding; and he had provided a shelter in which she could live. Deep down, she knew that was why it bothered her so when he left. But there was another reason too. His ferocity seemed to grow stronger even as the need for it shrank. He’d long since surmounted the adultery charge and was widely recognized.

  My word, in the four years Tennessee had been a state, Andrew had had one honor after another. Tennessee’s first congressman; quit that and came home and was appointed to the Senate and gone again to her dismay; quit that and came home and accepted the circuit judgeship and he was off again … .

  He was a leader, just as he’d said, and it was time that he broaden, strengthen, deepen, and step back from violence. Someday that willingness to fight in which she sensed something that salved some burning need within him could get him killed. And she didn’t think she could live without him.

  They turned off a dirt lane and there was the church, balm to her heart. It was of logs, lovingly adzed square and notched. Andrew had pledged to build them a church of brick when he could; meanwhile they had added a wing that also faced the altar.

  Mary Bainbridge rushed toward her as Sam handed her down.

  “Oh, Rachel, the most awful news. Susan Peabody is worse than poorly—they say it’s the consumption.”

  “Poor dear,” Rachel said. There was no cure for consumption but rest for months, maybe years, and even then the battle usually was lost.

  “She has those darling little girls,” Millie said. “Can’t keep them to home of course. I could probably take them later, but I have three little ones sick now and another on the way.” She patted her extended belly and Rachel felt a stab of anguished envy. Sometimes she thought her own barren womb was God’s punishment for the Robards sin, not that it was really a sin, not really, but still … .

  “Of course,” she said. “I’d love to have them.”

  Millie hesitated. “You reckon Mr. Jackson—”

  “He loves children. He’ll be tickled.”

  Jack Coffee was a good man to ride with. He didn’t talk much, never unnecessarily, but you could count on him. So they rode along toward Nashville, fording shallow streams, bowing from the saddle to the occasional traveler, leaning on a stirrup to clasp a hand, Jackson’s practiced eye ranging over his neighbor’s fields, the state of their barns, the quality of their herds.

  The infuriating word that the Federalists intended to steal the government had come down from Senator Fleming in the new capital village on the Potomac, which Jackson had no desire to see. His two tours in Philadelphia had been more than enough: the narrow streets crowded and noisy, the air heavy with smoke, the weather nasty. Of course, the senator’s official message had gone to Governor Sevier in Knoxville, but good old Fleming hadn’t overlooked West Tennessee. Right now East Tennessee had more people than the west end of the state, which stopped right after Nashville, but that was a temporary status and Fleming knew it.

  He said Governor Monroe of Virginia, whom Jackson considered about as strong a Democrat as you’d find anywhere, and McKean of Pennsylvania would call out the militia and march on Washington if the Federalists tried to appoint one of their own after Jefferson and Burr won the election.

  It was the theft that mattered, tearing up the Constitution, shedding democracy like a snake shedding its skin—outrageous! As to the tie, so long as they chose one of the winning Democrats, it didn’t matter much which one. Burr was a gentleman and an undoubted friend of the West; during Jackson’s unhappy stay in the Senate, flopping around like a trout tossed on the bank, it was the urbane New Yorker who’d gently taken him in hand. Jefferson, on the other hand, was cool; when they’d met it was the Tennessean’s impression that the Virginia gentleman was looking down his nose at the rude frontiersman. He remembered a time he’d been so angry that words had failed him and he’d seen the Virginian’s face swept with disdain at which his own fury doubled. That was the day he’d decided to go home when the session ended and not come back, but by God, he hadn’t forgotten the look the tall Virginian had given him.

  Burr would make a hell of a good president, proven friend of the West that he was. The West needed friends too because the Spanish were pressing again, and the time was coming when if the national government didn’t do something about those rotten dons in New Orleans strangling American trade, frontiersmen would rise and march down and throw ’em into the sea, and Jackson might well lead that march his own self!

  Burr’s instincts were right, he was practical, he understood how the Spanish stranglehold on the river hurt the West. Sooner or later the rivers this side of the mountains flowed to the Mississippi, while those same mountains, fold upon fold, blocked trade to the East. That’s what that whiskey rebellion in western Pennsylvania was all about; only way you could haul corn over the mountains was to distill it down to liquor. Special tax on it just wasn’t fair. No wonder they marched; he’d been up there, he’d have grabbed a piece and gone with ’em. The Federalist fear and outrage showed the real eastern attitude.

  Between mountains to the east and Spanish to the south, this whole region, Tennessee and Kentucky, Ohio pushing for statehood, settlement moving ever farther west, the whole shooting match was locked in
place like a bull with a ring in his nose. But the West was going to boom; It was alive, vibrant, growing, hungry for more, new fortunes being made daily, at least in potential. One of these days settlement would fill everything this side of the Mississippi, and it couldn’t do all this with a ring in its nose that the Dons could twitch any old time they felt like it.

  Democrats understood that, and the West was their natural ground. Hell, it was easier to find a snipe on a snipe hunt than to find a Federalist in Tennessee. And why? Because Democrats stood for the rights of the common man against the bosses and that was the heart of things in the West. Man didn’t like getting pushed in a Boston factory, he packed up his family, put his goods in a wagon, and trekked west—more coming every day and Democrats to a man. They didn’t find property qualifications for voting when they got here, by God!

  Which made it the perfect place for Andrew Jackson; and you wait and see, he would leave his mark on the West. He burned with an inner sense of capacity, had for years, sometimes it was so strong he wanted to throw up his arms and shout. He knew he had the power deep in sinews and mind and soul; command came as naturally as breathing; men had wanted to follow him ever since he could remember. Not as senator or congressman, he’d tried that, not as governor in constant compromise with a legislature. The military was the answer, on a white horse, saber held high, leading the charge! Wait and see. One of these days …

  The only dark side to this bright glow in his mind—this sheer confidence that he could daunt the world—was Rachel’s pain when he left. She had never really recovered from that miserable Robards business, and maybe he hadn’t either, except that in him it had turned outward into force and in her inward into pain. And yet she was the center of his life; she was the stabilizer that held him together, when they were apart he needed her—right now, riding to Nashville to make sure that West Tennessee understood the stakes and would be ready if the situation made it necessary to march, he looked forward to getting home and seeing her relieved smile. But the power nevertheless burned within him, the power of capacity, and he felt himself but a tool in its hands.

  Toward town he saw more riders and the dirt streets crosshatched in the Great Bend of the Cumberland seemed to throb with repressed excitement. Immediately his own blood quickened, and he put his mare into a canter. A good hundred men were already on the square before the little log courthouse and more were coming. A half-dozen had climbed onto the roof of the jail, the whipping post and stocks in front now empty. Several strangers were on the courthouse steps, and he saw travel-stained horses tied to a rail.

  Phelps Austin hurried toward him. “Judge, fellow here from Knoxville, says he comes from the governor? He wanted to address the boys, but they voted to wait for you.”

  A tall, rather imperious-looking man in his middle years approached, stout, graying, his expression impatient and somehow superior. Jackson felt a stirring of dislike.

  “I’m Sam’l Horsby, Knoxville. Representing the governor.”

  “Judge Jackson.” The handshake was perfunctory.

  “Governor sent me to speak to folks hereabouts, and they seem to look to you. But you have no objection, I’m sure, to their hearing from the chief magistrate of the state.”

  That was close enough to impudence to get Jackson’s attention. He stood on a step above Horsby and told him to go ahead. When he saw no one was listening, he shouted, “Give him an ear, boys! He’s right proud of himself, coming from the governor and all.”

  Horsby’s head snapped around at that, but Jackson grinned and said, “Talk on, brother.”

  The man wasn’t a bad talker. He sketched in the crisis, Federalists talking about stealing the government, Virginia and Pennsylvania ready to march, other states fixing on following …

  Pete Olive cried, “We’re Goddamn ready to go!” There was a roar of approval.

  But Horsby’s face went red and he shouted, “Now, that’s commendable, and we’ll be calling on you if the time comes, but that’s just the point. Action now is precipitate.”

  Jackson saw that most of the crowd didn’t know the word. “So let’s go!” Pete bawled.

  Horsby flushed redder. “No! Governor Sevier will decide when we go and how we go, and then—and not before—he’ll call on you. They haven’t stolen nothing yet, don’t forget, and last thing we want to do is run off half-cocked.”

  Half-cocked! With Andrew Jackson at their head? He felt like booting Horsby in the ass.

  Now, the truth was that just the mention of John Sevier’s name got Jackson’s hackles to rising. Yes, the man was a great hero and all that; but, Lord ha’ mercy, he’d been trading on it for twenty years. Led the Tennessee mountain boys who whipped the British at King’s Mountain and saved the West. No small matter either. Jackson had had his own taste of the British as a boy in South Carolina and there was a scar on his head to prove it. As for Sevier, he hated Jackson, which showed you right there what a pig-headed old bastard he was, for he had no earthly call to hate, whereas Jackson had plenty of reason to hate him, the damned scoundrel … .

  Pete Olive was on the front row listening to this twaddlemerchant from Knoxville. Had a bottle in his hand and from his face Jackson judged he’d not missed any opportunities to drink. “Well, how about that?” Pete yelled. “Ol’ Sevier wants us to lay back, do he? Sounds like you boys in East Tennessee have gone just a leetle soft. Hell, man, you’re in West Tennessée now. Out here we talk with the bark still on; out here stealing the government from good democratic yeoman just ain’t done!”

  Over a roar of laughter, he shouted, “Let’s hear what the judge has to say.”

  Jackson stepped forward, arms raised to quiet them. “Well, boys, don’t matter much what the governor says—”

  “Now, see here—” It was Horsby.

  Jackson spun on him. “That’s enough out of you, sir! Hold your tongue while I speak.” Horsby stared but didn’t answer.

  Jackson’s voice went shrill when he was excited, but one thing for sure, no one had trouble hearing him. “Now, boys,” he shouted, “what matters is how you feel about them Federalists running our lives! These are the fellers who gave us the Alien and Sedition Acts, throwing folks in jail for their words or their ideas. Aliens, now, they’re the enemy? Is there a man here older than ten who didn’t come from Carolina or Virginia or someplace? We’re all aliens.

  “So who are these men back East trying to steal the election we won fair and square? Why, they’re the same folks who fought like dogs trying to deny Tennessee statehood. Remember?”

  There was a roar. He was warming them, and my Lord, out here in Tennessee, the Federalists were easy targets.

  “Same folks who denounced us when we had to fight Indians: Same folks talking about sticking with the original thirteen and cutting the rest of us loose! And those Dons down in New Orleans, Don Diego and Don Felipe and Don Fat-ass, strangling our trade, seizing our produce if we dare go down and ask, please, seen-yor, can we ship out a little wheat to starving Europe and hope to make a couple little pieces of gold—now, boys, you tell me, you hear anything from these Federalists about how they’ll stop such outrages? Go down the river, maybe, and clean the Dons out, drive ’em into the sea, let ’em swim to Cuba? Hear anything like that? These are the folks trying to steal our government.”

  When he got going in a red meat speech, he could fire the boys right up. They were laughing and yelling, and he saw several bottles moving hand to hand.

  “Tell you what else too. These are the same folks rolled out the red carpet for Mr. Gardoqui. You remember Mr. Gardoqui, don’t you, Seen-yor Gardoqui, Don Something-or-Other Gardoqui, come to offer a deal the Federalists in the East just couldn’t pass up, all the rich trade they could handle, stacks of gold in their countinghouses you couldn’t see over, and all they wanted was the right to close the Mississippi to our trade for twenty-five years—twenty-five years! Button it up and destroy the West, let it wither away to nothing, die on its feet, ripe for Spain to pick
it off and make it her own.

  “And what did they say back east? Remember? Why, they said, this is better’n a hot toddy in a snowstorm: And it went to the old Continental Congress, bless ’em, and seven states—seven states!—voted in favor; and thank God it took nine to carry anything in that august body or we’d have had to fight Spain ourselves years ago. And that’s the attitude of New England and the Federalists and the same men who want to use a simple tie between two good Democrats as an excuse for denying the prize to either and keeping it for themselves; and, boys, what I’m here to say is that I don’t intend to stand for this. They try it, and I want to know right now if you’re with me or agin me!”

  They were whooping and yelling and shouting, “Amen,” and “That’s right,” and “Let’s go stick a bayonet up their ass,” and “We ain’t going to leave it all on Virginia and Pennsylvania to clean up the mess. When do we march?”

  Then Horsby bounced forward, almost pushed Jackson out of the way. He was waving his arms and shouting. “You men, listen to me, listen! They haven’t stolen anything. Talked about it but haven’t done it. They do it and believe you me, Governor Sevier will be more than ready to take action, and he’ll call on you, too, but it’ll be done in an orderly way.”