by David Nevin
Lewis fluttered his hand. “Sixes and sevens, Tom. Nothing special.” He was trail whipped. He could use a bath, a fresh shave, a clean uniform. On the other hand, on the double meant on the double. He crossed fresh-scythed grass, passed the flag limp on a recently peeled pole, and entered headquarters, a long building of neatly squared logs.
“Captain Lewis, reporting as ordered.”
The clerk, a corporal, went in the general’s office, emerged shortly, and sat down. After five minutes he said, “You can go in now, sir.” There had been no signal; the general had kept him waiting on principle. Which was all right; though he didn’t like Wilkinson, he took this as the way of generals.
He stood at attention. Eventually the great man looked up.
“At ease, Lewis. Take a seat.”
The general seemed to have gained another twenty pounds. His cheeks were puffy and mottled with broken veins, his eyes currents in a fat bun. He wore a heavy ring on fat hands, and the special uniform with its showy epaulets, which he obviously found elegant and Lewis found ridiculous, strained across his belly.
He tossed a letter across the desk. “This came for you.” Lewis stared at him; the general was delivering mail?
“Open it!” Wilkinson said. His eyes glinted and Lewis saw he was angry. “Read it.”
Of course he recognized Thomas Jefferson’s hand in the address, but this all seemed damned mysterious. Then, stunned, the pages trembling in his hand, the full import of the letter dawned. The President of the United States was inviting him to Washington to serve as his private secretary. His jaw tightened. Private secretary: What the hell did that mean? Writing letters, filing papers, running errands to the Congress and the cabinet. Playing the same role to the president the corporal outside played to the general! God Almighty, next thing Mr. Jefferson would want him for a body servant!
For this he was being pulled off the trail? He studied the letter. It said he would retain the rank of captain and order of promotion in the army. As for letter writing, Mr. Jefferson wrote his own. He needed someone he could trust who had knowledge of the army and of the western country.
And then, of course, it struck him like an explosion. The western country! He planned the expedition to the Far West, he’d never given it up, he hadn’t forgotten that long-ago letter from a nineteen-year-old neighbor, only now the boy was grown, a proven soldier, a leader of men!
He looked up, trying to hide his excitement. Wilkinson was staring at him, his expression a curious mix, anger giving way to envy and then to caution. Lewis at the president’s elbow could put in a good word for him. Or a bad word.
“I know the contents,” Wilkinson said. “He explained it all in a cover letter. So will you take it?”
Lewis shrugged. “Not much choice, I suppose.”
“‘Not much choice,’” Wilkinson said, in ugly mimicry. “You’re mighty calm about it. President summons a line captain, nothing very special about that. Happens all the time. I take it you know him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’re not going to say how.”
“Boyhood, sir. My family’s farm is near his place.”
“Constant companions, I suppose?”
“No, sir, but I knew and respected him.”
“And I reckon he respected you.”
“Yes, sir. I guess.”
“So you were expecting this. No surprise.”
“Not at all, sir. I’m surprised in the extreme.”
Wilkinson was silent, conflicting emotions sweeping his face, sheer outrage that a mere line captain should vault effortlessly to the very center of things coupled with inherent cupidity—what could he do for me in that position?
“You’re a funny bastard,” the general said at last.
Lewis stiffened; no one called him a—
“Easy, young fellow,” Wilkinson said. “As used, that’s an affectionate appellation. Why the men use it on me all the time. They’re always saying, ‘He’s a good old bastard.’”
Lewis didn’t answer. The general was correct on the noun; they called him a bastard, all right. They hated him. He was arbitrary and often cruel in matters of discipline; he demanded subservience that, if you weren’t careful, made you a toady; he was a political general at home in the halls of Congress but at a loss in the field, a sneak who had steadily undermined one of the great generals, Mad Anthony Wayne … .
And by repeated rumor, a traitor long in the pay of the Spanish, who controlled New Orleans and kept the West in a state of constant turmoil. Lewis didn’t know if the rumor was true, but there was a hell of a lot of smoke for there to be no fire.
Wilkinson leaned back in his chair and talked at length of how strongly he supported Mr. Jefferson. The Democrats were no less than prayers answered. Lewis could assure the president that the army under Wilkinson would work day and night for him.
Lewis nodded dutifully; through a window behind the general he could see a prisoner in stocks. The figure was writhing, the pain in his back growing excruciating. A corporal came out of the guardhouse, shouted something at him, and went back inside.
“Well, congratulations then,” Wilkinson said. “See the remount captain; I’ll authorize two mounts and a pack horse. I want the president to know I sent you off in high style.”
“Thank you, sir. You’re very kind.”
He walked out floating. The magnificent dream coming true! He’d wanted this, yearned for it, dreamed of it, plotted it, and almost given it up, ever more sure that the dream had passed him by. Now it was his! Or almost, he was certain of it. Why else would the president invite a frontier captain to be his secretary? What the hell did Meriwether Lewis know about being a secretary? Government was full of experienced men. President wanted a secretary, he’d know where to find him. But no, he reaches out to the far frontier, man who has spent years on the trail and not a moment in capital drawing rooms, and there could be just one reason, just one!
It wasn’t much beyond dawn when he rode up the familiar winding path to the great domed house called Monticello. It was a month since he’d had the president’s letter; he’d sent an instant acceptance and then had hurried east. In Washington he’d found a message telling him to follow on and plan to see his own family while he was here.
As he swung out of the saddle, the door opened and Mr. Jefferson emerged with a wooden case under his arm. He was wearing loose cotton trousers and muddy boots and looked little changed, tall, angular, something gentle in his demeanor, sandy hair, more gray than Lewis remembered, clubbed loosely at the back. He came down the steps with a huge smile.
“Merry, my boy!” He grasped Lewis’s hand fiercely. “I was delighted with your letter. Welcome to my official family!”
“Thank you, sir. I—”
“Glad you got here today. Go right inside. Mr. Madison is having breakfast and you can join him. He’ll discuss the problems and issues we face. He’s riding back to Montpelier today; you can accompany him as far as your place. I sent your estimable mother a note saying you’d be along soon; I know she can’t wait to see you.”
It was dawning on Lewis that Mr. Jefferson didn’t intend to talk about the expedition. Wasn’t even going to mention the Pacific Northwest, Lewis wasn’t sure what he’d expected, perhaps not immediate talk of logistics and travel problems and ultimate objectives, but a remark, at least, that would establish the base of what they were about. On the long ride from Pittsburgh he’d been over and over what he’d need, the approaches he’d take, personnel, supplies, boats, and an idea he had for a forty footer so light two men could carry it, plans revised and rethought a dozen times, pockets full of notes he was ready to spread before the president He’d envisioned a month or two of study, analysis of plans, modifications as problems and issues arose, before he set out on the great adventure.
“Mr. Jefferson—I mean, Mr. President—”
“Run along inside. Mr. Madison will make you aware of the nuances. I’m off. Scientific rounds, you know.�
�� He tapped the case under his arm, which Lewis supposed contained instruments. “Dew levels, soil moisture content, soil temperature, all of it.” He shook his head. “Records go straight to the devil when I’m away, so I must be all the more diligent when here. My! Good to see you. I’m looking forward to your assistance.”
With that the president wheeled and hurried down a path toward the fields.
A young woman in housekeeper’s apron opened the door. “Welcome, Captain Lewis,” she said.
His surprise at her use of his name was swept away by the sudden realization that this was a beautiful woman. She was of mixed ancestry, clearly combining the best of black and white, and he supposed she was a slave though there was nothing subservient in her manner. But immediately, though she was cool and proper, a surge of desire struck him a near physical blow. His mouth fell open and he struggled for composure, off balance and embarrassed.
Just then a little boy with long, blond curls and sharp features bounded into the room. “Ma, Ma! I want a cookie and Tillie says I have to ask you.”
She leaned down to put a hand on the child’s head. “Beverley, you know you’re supposed to stay in the kitchen. But tell Tillie it’s all right.”
She turned to Lewis as she opened the door to the dining room. “Please come in and have breakfast.”
Suddenly he remembered her. Sally, Sally Hemings. He thought she’d been companion and nurse to one of Mr. J.’s daughters when he’d last seen her. He started to call her by name but so dignified was her carriage and so clearly was he struck by the sudden conviction that she had read his reaction only too well that he was abashed and merely murmured, “Thank you, Miz Hemings,” as he followed her into the dining room.
There he found Mr. Madison absently drinking tea and reading the Bible. He appeared to be deep in the Old Testament. He was a small man, something ineffably gray about him. Lewis had met him casually several times. It was said that he had married a striking woman, but how striking could she be if she had married this little man?
“Why, Captain Lewis,” Mr. Madison said, standing to of fer his hand. “What a pleasant surprise.” Perhaps he had overheard the talk with the president outside, for he launched without preamble into the tie that he described as precipitated by Burr. He assumed Lewis knew the rough outlines but did he understand that it had constituted the most serious threat to the democracy yet to arise? Burr, he said, was no friend of the administration, which was startling—as vice president, Burr was part of the administration. A viper at one’s bosom apparently.
Still unsettled by his unexpected reaction to the woman outside, Lewis struggled to focus on the little secretary as he served himself eggs, bacon, hotcakes, and poured hot tea.
“Now, Captain,” Mr. Madison was saying, “the immediate problem is that Mr. Adams in his waning days as president undertook to pack the courts and the officer corps of the army with Federalists. Hoping to prolong their philosophy even as the people rejected it, you see. We must undo this—restore some sort of balance.”
He paused to refill his cup. Lewis mopped egg yolk and took more bacon, his mind now focused as he wondered what all this had to do with him. Immense planning would have to go into the expedition. He would need a dozen men at least, probably more, and that would mean a sizeable appropriation, which he would have to defend before Congress with carefully developed facts and projections, but Mr. Madison seemed quite unaware of plans for an expedition.
If there were, in fact, such plans. A familiar chill was settling on Lewis’s spirits.
“We’ll deal with the judges,” Mr. Madison said, “but we look to you for the army. The president intends to reduce it by half—the crisis with France is well past—and he’ll want your guidance on cutting the officer corps.”
“He’ll drop the Federalists?” Lewis was feeling disoriented and a little stupid.
“No, no—indeed, that raises a critical point. We must be fair in what we do. The people turned to the Democrats because they were willing to try the new vision. Now they’re waiting to see what we do, and they don’t expect us to turn the government upside down. Some of our own people do expect that, frankly, sort of a wholesale housecleaning: Sweep out all Federalists on the grounds that Federalists are bad per se. That attitude is a bit of a problem, actually.”
He sighed, drained his cup, wiped his mouth with a cambric napkin, and pushed back from the table. “So it must be steady as she goes. But the last-minute packing must be corrected; and then in cutting the army, while we don’t want to treat Federalists as targets, we must be sure we’re not unfairly cutting good Democrats. You see the issue, of course. The Federalists present us as revolutionary radicals, and we must show the people that that is false.”
The secretary of state was still talking in this vein as they parted at the lane leading to the Lewis plantation. There had been not a word, not a hint, on the only thing that really mattered.
Ma made a splendid dinner of ham and yams and fresh pork and succotash and corn bread and the first gleanings of the garden. She served it at two in the afternoon, all the family gathered, and it was near four when they finished the deepdish apple pie floating in cream.
At last he rose, stretched, said as casually as he could manage, “I believe I’ll ride over and see Mary Beth Slaney.”
There was abrupt silence in the room.
“What?” he said.
“Well,” Ma said after a moment, “you see, Mary Beth, she got married a while ago. One of the Slocum boys. Their first baby came last month.”
“Oh,” he said. “I see. Well …”
They were all watching him as if some damned calamity had overtaken him. Hell, it didn’t make any difference to him. My God, she was just some girl he used to know—
“C’mon, Reuben,” he said to his brother, voice rougher than he’d intended, “let’s walk around, show me what you’re doing with the farm … .”
12
WASHINGTON, FALL 1801
“Well,” Jimmy said, smiling as he unfolded a letter, “It seems that I’ll have seven clerks to run the State Department.”
“Seven?” Dolley said. “That’s all?” She liked his easy manner, so different from his tension during the Burr trouble. They were taking tea on the third floor of their new house on F Street. They had just moved in, shifting at last from Montpelier after burying poor old Colonel Madison. The dear old man had lasted too long; at graveside she had watched grief and relief wage cruel contest in Jimmy.
Now she luxuriated in the afternoon sun slanting through the open window, the tide of cool, dry air, fall’s blessed relief sweeping away the miasma of summer. The village on the Potomac was coming to life, government figures reappearing, congressional session soon to begin. “Seven clerks to deal with the foreign affairs of a great nation?”
“Actually, we’ll probably drop one. The president is determined to cut expenses.”
“Jimmy! That’s all very well, but he’s doing it on your back. He won’t expect any less work to be done, you know.” Tom was a great man and a genius and all that, but in her view he had scarcely a practical bone in his body. He looked to Jimmy for good sense, and here he was adding to burdens already heaped to the ceiling! “Tell him you need your seven clerks and more!”
He laughed. “It’ll be all right, sweetheart. They’re exemplary clerks. Listen to this.” He had that sly, sweet smile that came when some irony struck him, his blue eyes glinting with pleasure. She loved him most at these moments when his wit came bubbling up, his real self blessedly free of restraint.
He waved the sheet. “From Duane of the Philadelphia Aurora . He says the top three clerks are complete picaroons.”
“‘Picaroons’? Pirates, he means? Thieves?”
“No, no. Adherents of Mr. Pickering.”
“Ah. The maddest of mad dog Federalists.”
“Dolley! Do you speak so of my predecessor?”
“Darling, Mr. Pickering leaves you nowhere to go but up.”
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br /> “I’m to have help though. Mr. Duane says the other four clerks are varied, one a Hamiltonian, another a nothingarian—I do like that, a nothingarian! I shall keep him for the sheer elegance of his description. Then, let’s see, another is a nincompoop, the last a modest man. If one must go, I suppose it should be the latter.”
She poured now cold tea and took the last cookie. “Seriously, Jimmy, will you have to root them all out?”
“I don’t know. God knows, the pressure is awful. Our people want them out; they’d draw and quarter ’em if they could get away with it. Say that Jacob Wagner, the chief clerk, is author of all old Pickering’s mischief. Everybody wants his scalp. It’s important, you know, chief clerk—more undersecretary than clerk, really. Runs the staff, sits in when I’m away, supposed to be my chief advisor. And by every account, he’s a hot-blooded Federalist.”
“So you’ll have to let him go.”
“So we’ll see.” He leaned over and took the cookie from her hand. “Give me the last bite; you’ve eaten them all!”
“We will be closing the bulk of our embassies, Mr. Wagner—Lisbon. Venice, Berlin, Saint Petersburg—they’ll have to get along with charges or consuls. Ambassadorial level only in London, Paris, and Madrid.”
“But why, Mr. Madison? Berlin, Saint Petersburg, they do important work.”
“We are ordered to reduce costs.”
“Such closings aren’t wise, sir. I wouldn’t recommend—
“I’m sure you wouldn’t. But the decision has been made.”
“Very well, sir.” Wagner sighed and settled back in the wooden chair facing Madison’s desk, which in fact was only a plain table. This square brick building flanking the President’s House that State shared with the War Department was newly opened, the smell of varnish and new wood still strong, the ground outside littered with lumber scraps, weeds the only greenery. The grounds were mean and the building meaner; at least it would demonstrate to diplomats of great nations the democratic spirit now required after Federalist pomp and ceremony.
