by Eric Flint
"We don't got a chariot, Mr. Sam," Chester pointed out reasonably. "Got four horses. And one of them's a nag."
"The one riding the horse next to me is the nag. Mary's just a little worn out and tired, is all."
"Shoulda left her with that tanner, back on the river."
The last jest finally caused Sam's grin to fade a little.
That tanner:
"What in God's name is Patrick up to?" he muttered.
Loudly enough for Chester to hear, unfortunately. His response caused Sam's grin to fade a little more.
"Stirring up trouble, what else?"
Patrick was there, along with Tiana, to greet Sam when he arrived at the hotel. Standing right on the porch of the Wolfe Tone, just like a proper laird surveying his domain.
And why not? His hotel was not only the biggest building in the city but the only one with a wraparound front porch. Almost the only one with any sort of porch at all, in fact. Sam loved the energy and vitality of New Antrim, but there was no getting around the fact that its architecture fell woefully short of the standards in any city in the United States.
Any big collection of barbarians in ancient Gaul, for that matter. He'd allow that it was probably superior to Hun encampments.
"We expected you weeks ago," were the first words out of Patrick's mouth, as soon as Sam dismounted.
"How I've missed that rasp of yours." Sam handed the reins to Chester. "Tiana, it's good to see you. "
Tiana just smiled. It was a more serene smile, these days, than the hoyden one Sam remembered from the girl she'd been. It made her beauty more striking than ever. As he always did, encountering Tiana again after a prolonged absence, he felt a twinge somewhere in his heart.
But that was just an old reflex, grown almost comfortable with the passage of time. And not much of one, in any event. Sam's marriage to Maria Hester had eliminated most thoughts of other women.
Not all, of course. But most.
There came the rush of little feet from within the darkness of the hotel interior. A moment later, two boys emerged. One was six and a half years old; his brother, a year younger.
"Sam's here! Sam's here!" they announced to the world in unison before leaping off the porch and into his arms.
Laughing, Sam held them up. "You're getting big. Both of you."
"Sam's here! Sam's here!"
"Hush," Tiana scolded. "You'll wake your sister."
To prove her point, an infant's wail emerged from one of the windows on the second floor.
"Oh, blast," said Tiana. She gathered her skirts and vanished back into the hotel.
Sam set the boys down. "Luckily for them-and the world-they look like Tiana, not you." He gave Patrick a sly smile. "Might make a suspicious man wonder:"
Patrick's returning smile was a thin sort of thing. But that was just the nature of the man. He was neither offended nor made anxious by the remark. Nor, from anything Sam knew, had he any reason to be.
"Stop playing the clown, would you?"
"Oh, fine. I can remember-I think-when you had a sense of humor, Patrick. The reason I'm weeks late is because there was another Chickasaw killing. I heard about it right after leaving the Hermitage. I needed to settle things down before it all spun out of control."
"Who killed who?"
"Who killed how many, is more the question. And in what order. It started as a clan killing. Then-I never did figure out the wheres and wherebys-somehow three settlers got involved. Two of them wound up dead, along with two Chickasaws. One from each clan, to make things perfect. There were only three survivors. One white man and one each from both of the contending clans."
Patrick's blocky head made a little quiver. From another man, that might have been called a headshake. "So you had three completely different stories. How did our young Solomon settle it? And would you like some whiskey?"
"Yes. The whiskey first. The settlement was far too complicated to explain sober. It displeased everybody, of course, but since I confused them even more, it all worked out well enough."
As they entered the hotel's big lobby, Sam asked, "Why is Tiana wearing a fancy dress?"
Patrick was heading toward the saloon doors in the far wall. Over his shoulder, he said: "What do you think happens when you're this late? John Ross and Major Ridge got tired of waiting for you in Fort of 98. So they came down to New Antrim. In fact, they're already here in the hotel."
Sam made a face. "Whiskey for sure, then. What is it this time?"
By now they were in the saloon. Patrick went behind the bar, hauled up a bottle, and started filling two small glasses. One, he filled to the top. The other, barely half. He handed the full one to Sam.
"The usual, most of it. Problems with the Osage. Problems with Cherokees who start quarrels with the Osage, as if there weren't quarrels enough. Problems with Comanches, too, now."
Sam scowled, as he picked up the glass. "Comanches? I'd hoped they'd avoid that. The Comanches are:" With his free hand, he gestured vaguely to the west.
"Not far enough west," Patrick stated. He took a small sip from his glass. "Not far enough, with Creek and Cherokee clans spreading up the rivers the way they've been. Not with Comanches, for sure."
He set the glass down with a little clink. "But the big problem is the runaway slave business."
Sam drained half the glass in one swallow. "Just what we needed. What happened this time? The usual?"
"No, worse. One of the chiefs decided I wasn't serious about the rules against unauthorized slave-catching. Not applied to Cherokees. So he sent three men here, looking for one of his runaway slaves."
Sam stared at him, the glass frozen on its way back to the bar top. "Patrick. You didn't. "
Driscol's square, harsh face looked like it was carved from stone. "Of course I did." He jerked his blocky jaw slightly, indicating a nearby window. "Hung two of them in the street, where I always hang the ones from the U.S. Hung all three, actually, but the third one was already dead. Stupid bastard tried to fight James, if you can believe a Cherokee being that dumb."
Tiana's half brother James was something of a legend among the Cherokee, true enough. But Sam's only wonder was that the other two hadn't tried to fight him, rather than be captured. Driscol was a legend, too.
Now more than ever.
"Are you trying to tear everything apart?"
"Be damned to that," Driscol rasped. "Nowhere in the Confederacy's constitution does it say that Arkansas has fewer rights than any other chiefdom. The laws regarding slavery are set in the chiefdoms, each to its own. Says so in Article VI, Clause Three. I'm the elected chief, and those are my rules. Everybody knows it. There's no slavery in Arkansas, and the only legal slave-catching is done by the legal authorities of the chiefdom."
He said the whole thing with a straight face, too.
"You're a troll," Sam muttered. He drained the rest of the glass. "And exactly how many escaped slaves have your 'legal authorities' returned to the Cherokees over the past two years?"
"One. Which, I will point out, is one more than I've ever turned over to slave-catchers from the United States."
Sam snorted. "Why that one? Was he too feebleminded to make his way into those 'secret' settlements you maintain in the Ouachitas? And don't bother claiming you don't, Patrick. I know it, you know it, and for sure and certain every Cherokee knows it. Every Creek, too. For that matter, every slave-owner in the States."
"The truth? He wanted to go back. Once he got here and discovered freedom meant harder work than what he had with the Cherokees. Either that or a stint in the army."
Sam stared at him. Trying, for a moment, to think of any argument he hadn't already used with Patrick.
He couldn't think of a single one. On this subject, Patrick Driscol was the personal embodiment of the term intransigent.
So he fell back on the old staple. "This can't go on forever, Patrick."
"True enough. Either they break or I break. Guess which is more likely to happen."
"Don't be stupid. Without me, they don't have anything. Not when the war comes."
That stopped Sam short. Like smashing into a wall a man didn't realize was there.
"Sweet Jesus," he whispered. " That's why the tanner's there."
"What are you talking about?"
Sam shoved the glass in front of him. "Pour me another. And stop playing the innocent. That tanner-John Brown's his name, as if you didn't know-that you and Henry set up down on the river. I wondered why you'd financed him, that far down from New Antrim. You want a war, blast your dark Irish soul-and he's your trigger. Your bait, too."
Driscol finished pouring the glass-just as full as the first-and then stoppered the bottle. "I will say all your drinking hasn't scrambled your brains yet. Yes, that's why we financed him to set up there. Mind you, it's good country for a tanner. A lot of livestock down there on the plain."
"He's the man who did the killing on the Ohio, Patrick. By now, enough people figured out who it was, and the word's spreading. You do know how much ruckus there's been over that incident?"
He waved his hand. "Never mind. Stupid question. Of course you know. Although you might not be aware-yet-that the anti-Relief party introduced a resolution in the Kentucky legislature condemning the act and demanding that the culprit be brought to justice. Clay's behind that, of course."
Chester came into the saloon, then. Seeing that he was carrying a saddlebag, Sam waved him over. "Oh, and let me show you this, too."
He rummaged in the bag for a moment and brought forth a folded-up newspaper. Then, half slammed it on the bar top and spread it open. "Lookee here." His finger pointed to an article on the front page. "Why, I do declare. That looks like a speech by our favorite U.S. senator, the Honorable John C. Calhoun. Invoking the fugitive slave laws and demanding that the administration catch the culprit. And hang him."
"Fat chance of that."
"No chance at all, with Monroe in office. But Calhoun'll take it to the Supreme Court if he can, just to prove a point."
Sam refolded the newspaper and stuffed it back into the saddlebag. "You cold-blooded bastard. You deliberately set Brown up on the river-right smack in the territory that those adventurers down in Louisiana are hollering and whooping about 'reclaiming for the rightful owners'-just to make sure they'd attack you."
"Actually, I tried to get him to enlist in the army. He and his two brothers. Offered him a commission, even. But-"
The thin smile came and went, in a flicker. "Brown's a most pious man. He told me he'd made a solemn vow as a youngster that he'd never join any army, on account of soldiers being such a blasphemous bunch. I couldn't argue the point, of course. They are a blasphemous bunch. So I made him the second offer-but not without explaining to him the risk."
"And?"
"And John Brown's a man after my own heart. He has a right to practice his trade, doesn't he? Yes, he does. And he'd be practicing it in territory legally ceded to the Confederacy in the Treaty, wouldn't he? Yes, he would. So what does he care if some slavers damned in the eyes of the Lord claim that since it's good bottomland they ought by rights to have it, and try to take it from him? At that point, he recited some verses from the Old Testament. By heart, mind you, he didn't need to refer to the Book. Bloodcurdling stuff. Every other verb was 'smote.' "
He lifted the bottle. "Another?"
Sam realized his glass was empty. "Yes-well, no. John and Ridge ought to be here any moment. Thanks to you, I'll need a clear head. Which is the last thing I wanted, after this many days on the road."
Patrick shrugged and set the bottle back down. "A clear head's probably useless, Sam. Face it, lad. Not every dispute can be negotiated. Sometimes heads have to be broken. Yes, I set up John Brown on the Mississippi like so much bait, dangled in front of those brainless ruffians down there in Alexandria. They'll be coming sooner or later, anyway, and I'd prefer to make it sooner. For no other reason than just to remind-"
He broke off, his eyes moving to the door. "Those two, among others."
Sam swiveled his head. John Ross and Major Ridge had entered the saloon. To his considerable surprise, though, they had a third Cherokee with them. Chief Bowles, of all people.
Ross had entered in time to hear Patrick's last sentence. "Remind us of what?" he asked, mildly.
"That the only thing that stands between you and another settler land grab are those negroes you keep wanting me to hand back over to you."
"Not me," said The Bowl immediately. He was smiling quite pleasantly. "You're talking about these Cherokees in white men's clothes." He jerked his thumb at his two companions. "No runaway slaves from my clan. That's because we don't have any slaves in the first place. Well, not hardly."
His English was fluent. That was perhaps not surprising, given that The Bowl's physical appearance showed plenty of evidence of his Scot father even if his manner of dress was completely Indian. But Sam had grown up on the frontier and understood its complexities, and he'd known The Bowl for years. Bloodlines and attitudes were just as likely to veer apart as come together, among the Cherokees or any of the southern tribes. Where a mixed-blood like John Ross might incline strongly toward adopting American ways and customs, another one like Chief Bowles-or Duwali, to use his Cherokee name-was just as strongly inclined to maintain Indian traditions.
Then, to make things more complicated still, slavery got poured into the mix. Traditionalists like Chief Bowles's people would capture black slaves, in the course of fighting with white settlers, and put them to work in captivity. But thereafter the old customs would prevail, just as they had for generations with captives from other Indian tribes. Within a few years, as a rule, a black slave had gained his or her freedom. Almost certainly, their children would. Often enough, by being adopted into the clan or marrying a Cherokee, or both. Quite unlike the status that black slaves had on plantations run by mixed-bloods who considered themselves "civilized" and had adopted white customs wholesale-which could be almost as bad as their status on white-owned plantations in Georgia or Alabama.
Major Ridge was scowling. John Ross just gave The Bowl a glance that was half amused and half exasperated.
Then he turned to Sam. "Brace yourself. It's going to be a long afternoon."
Indeed, it was. Sam didn't dare take another drink, as much as he desperately wanted to.
That night, Tiana threw a ball. She'd started doing that eight months earlier, after one of the English ladies who'd emigrated to Arkansas for reasons that defied comprehension had offered to teach everyone the latest dances. The affairs had become very popular with New Antrim's black population-at least that part of it that might be considered "upper crust."
But Sam knew that wasn't the reason she'd done it on this occasion. Like her husband, if in a more subtle manner, Tiana was also making a point.
Looking out over the crowd packed into the hotel's huge dining room, which doubled as a dance hall, Sam also realized that the point was only somewhat more subtle.
First, there were only five white people in the crowd.
Second, all five of them were wearing the uniforms of the Arkansas Chiefdom's army. Two officers and three enlisted men.
That hardly made them stand out, however, because-third-at least half of the men in the crowd were wearing uniforms.
"Out of Ireland, by way of Sparta," Sam grumbled.
" 'Fraid I don't catch that, Mr. Sam," said Chester.
"Never mind. Get me a whiskey. No, two. Please."
After Chester left for the packed bar over to the side, Sam spotted John Ross and Chief Bowles and went over to them.
John Ross understood it just as well, of course. The man was as smart as any on the continent.
Fortunately, he was also even tempered. When Sam came up he just smiled. "Patrick does love to rub salt into wounds, doesn't he?"
"There's no
give in the man, that's for sure. Where's the Ridge?"
Ross shrugged. "He knew what this was about, too. And he thinks dancing's silly. White men's dancing, anyway. So he's getting some sleep in his room."
"It is silly," chimed in The Bowl.
The worst of it was that they were all friends. Close ones, by now. Patrick also.
Eventually, John said: "And what can I say or do? Major Ridge is quietly furious, but he knows it just as well as I do. Arkansas is our shield."
"That's why you agreed to set it up," Sam pointed out.
"Yes, I know. The most obvious 'secret plan' in the history of the world, probably. And like many such, it's backfiring on us."
The Bowl uttered a Cherokee curse word. Several, actually.
"It's your own fault. All you rich Cherokees, insisting on keeping your slaves. Set them free, why don't you? That'll solve the problem right then and there."
There was no answer to that, of course. Other than the most obvious one of all: because they're what make us rich to begin with. The same reason Thomas Jefferson had beaten his breast over slavery-and never freed his slaves.
"It'll wreck you," The Bowl predicted.
Finally, John Ross's mild temper frayed a little. " 'Us,' don't you mean?"
The Bowl shook his head. "No, John. I mean you. "
And so another little mystery was solved. Sam had wondered why The Bowl had come all the way to New Antrim.
Now he knew, and, knowing, he silently cursed Patrick Driscol again. The man's unyielding determination to fight it all out was driving everything forward. Sensible or not-but there was a terrible logic to it. He'd splinter his allies and his enemies both, the way a rock on a beach divides the waves. Forcing everyone to meet him on his own field because he would not move at all.
His eyes met The Bowl's. The Cherokee chief nodded. "Way it is, Sam. No offense, but I'm not relying on any more white men." He tipped his head toward the dancers. "If there's a war, I'm with them. So are a lot of the other traditionalist chiefs. John here and the Ridge and all those other fancy folk can do whatever they want."
Chester returned, carrying two glasses. Sam took one of them and drained it immediately.
