Agnes Canon's War

by Deborah Lincoln

  “But you are acquainted. And related. And that is what brings me here.” Atchison turned to face Jabez. “It occurs to me, Doctor, that you may be just the person to appeal to your cousin and preserve the peace.” He leaned forward, drops of whiskey sloshing onto his waistcoat. “You indicated to me in April that you would work with us.” He held up his hand to stop Jabez’s interjection. “Ah, ah, a moment, sir. You told me you would work for peace, even for secession if that meant peace.”

  “And I will,” Jabez said quietly. “What is it you have in mind?”

  “A mission to this Charles Robinson. From me. And in utmost secrecy. I cannot, of course, be known to be dealing with the enemy.” Atchison leaned back, puffed on the cigar. “What I want you to do, Robinson, is go to Kansas Town, meet with your cousin and convince him to turn back. Let him know that we in Missouri will fight to keep Kansas for our people, fight to keep it proslave. Let him know that if he attempts to settle, we will burn him and his abolitionist settlers out, we will show no quarter.” He turned to Jabez again. “Tell him that, Robinson, and make him turn around. Send him back to Massachusetts with his tail between his legs. Do that and you will be hailed as a hero across the country!”

  Jabez was silent. He knew very well that no action of his would turn back the coming storm. But was this an opportunity, a small one, to play a part in keeping the peace, to avert the terrible and terrifying cataclysm that he knew in his gut would come if the abolitionists tried to settle Kansas.

  “You understand, Senator, that I have no claim to Doctor Robinson’s notice or consideration? He may refuse to see me. Certainly he has no reason to agree.”

  “Ah, but I sense you are a born negotiator. You will be able to present the choices to him clearly and succinctly. I am counting on you to do that. And you have the obsession to succeed. Your passion will carry the day. I have confidence in you.”

  Jabez stood and leaned against the porch rail, his back to his visitor. He was proof against the Senator’s flattery, but in one sense, Atchison was right: he did indeed have an obsession for peace. His memory flickered to a day stinking of gun powder and blood, horrifying with the screams of wounded men and horses, defiled by corpses strewn like wind-fallen apples, his own arms bloodied to the elbows with the results of that day’s work. The abomination of the battlefield hung just past his conscience, never quite dissipating, as if he viewed the world through a screen door. He would do anything in his power to deflect that horror from invading his world again. He knew his influence was feeble in the scheme of things, but every man must do what he can. He did, at least, have access to one or two of the men whose power to avert catastrophe exceeded his. He would try. And perhaps, just maybe, he could make an inroad.

  He tossed his cheroot onto the street where it winked and died. “All right, Senator,” he said without turning around. “I’ll take the commission. I’ll speak to Charles Robinson. Nothing guaranteed, of course. But I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s all I ask, Doctor. That’s all I ask.”

  

  Lightning flashed again. He and Jupiter emerged from the woodland, crossed a creek on a wooden bridge, drumming hooves echoing now-distant thunder, and headed across pastureland north of the village of Barry. Maybe he should have stopped in New Market, when the storm first blew up, and started out again in the morning. Or back in Platte City, where he might have billeted with an acquaintance from medical school who lived somewhere along the bluffs. But then he would not have reached Kansas City until late tomorrow afternoon and might have missed the emigrants. He’d been delayed in leaving Lick Creek by the impending delivery of Mrs. Obediah Jones, who’d been so inconsiderate as to remain in labor for all of twelve hours before producing her eighth son and releasing Jabez to pack his saddlebags and head south. So he found himself in the midst of a storm, miles from his destination, at an hour close to midnight when he should by rights be tucked up in a warm, dry bed. He grumbled his string of curses again and kicked Jupiter into a trot.

  Four in the morning rang from a distant Kansas City steeple as he came to the Missouri shore, the eastern sky tracing a line of dirty gray against the receding night. The rain had stopped, leaving behind mid-summer humidity. The air felt like damp cotton pressing against his nose and mouth, making breathing difficult. A miasmatic mist rose from the water, the river itself sluggish as if it too found the heavy air difficult to push against. He roused the old ferryman from the shack at the tip of Harlem Point, a swampy appendage that pushed into the river across from the Kansas City wharves. The ferryman, cranky at being pulled from bed before daylight, muttered abuses under his breath as he fussed with ropes and oars. Jabez ignored him, standing at the rail with one hand on Jupiter’s bridle, the other fishing in his waistcoat pocket for a cheroot. He lit up, took a satisfying drag, blew a stream of blue smoke into the damp, and turned to watch the few lights on the wharves ahead draw closer. After a moment, he realized the ferryman was grumbling not about getting up early, but of having been up all night, something about “them St. Joe boys what wanted me to put in downriver in the dark.”

  Jabez inhaled more warm smoke. “I see I’m not your first passenger today.”

  “No sir, you sure as hell ain’t. I got one side of the fight, then the other. Those boys what comes after midnight was backwoods boys from north of St. Joe they was. I can tell by the voice. They’s hill boys and spoiling for a fight with them Yanks what showed up last week.”

  “And you consider me to be the other side of this fight?”

  “Well you sure do sound like a Yank to me, friend. All them other Yanks talks through their noses just like you do. You ain’t no Missouri backwoods boy, now ain’t that right?”

  “That’s right, I’m not. But neither am I a Yank.” He blew smoke downstream. “You say the Missouri boys asked you to land them away from the wharves?”

  “They didn’t do no asking. They told me where to land. I told them it were dangerous to float down past my usual place, but they don’t pay no mind to that.” The old man pointed to the far bank, at a spot well east of Kansas City. “And they was armed—big knives, side pistols. No way was I gonna nay-say them.”

  “Did they say why they wanted to land in secret?”

  The ferryman yanked on an oar, steering the ferry around a sandbar only he could see. “No sir, they surely did not. But I heard them talking low like, one of them telling another the Yanks would know him if he was seen. Sounded like they’s planning something the Yanks couldn’t know about.”

  Jabez thought a moment. “How many were there?”

  “They’s six of them, almost more than I can handle on this here boat, them and their horses.” The ferryman gestured about him as if the animals were still there. “They left a mess as you can see.” He pointed to a pile of horse droppings.

  “And did you know any of them? Anyone you would recognize again?”

  “They’s all strangers to me. But the one, the leader appeared to be, I’m not forgetting him again soon.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Scar clean across his face.” The man slashed a finger over his left cheek. “And them eyes. They’s silver-like, flat. Like something dead. I don’t mind telling you, he give me the shivers. That boy’s a mean one, and I seen mean ones afore. You be wanting to steer clear of him.”

  Jabez scowled. Bigelow had brought his band of good old boys from Atchison’s Clinton County headquarters to take on the emigrants. Had Atchison set him up? If so, why? Or perhaps Atchison sent Bigelow’s gang as back-up in the event Jabez’s mission didn’t succeed. If Charles Robinson refused to alter his plans, Bigelow may have instructions to commence the hanging and burning Atchison had threatened. Or Bigelow may be acting on his own. He appeared capable of it—at the April meeting, it was evident he had no liking for Atchison.

  Jabez tossed his cigar into the river and leaned on his forearms against the railing,
looking down into inky water. Once he talked to Charles, he would need to locate Bigelow and find out what was going on. If the radical—and violent—fringes on both sides were neutralized, bloodshed might yet be avoided. Charles must control his radicals, and Jabez would have to figure out how to control this particular band of southern hot heads, at least until the emigrants moved out of Missouri.

  The ferry bumped against the wooden wharf at the foot of High Street. Jabez tossed a coin to the ferryman. “You didn’t see me this morning,” he said.

  “Sure thing, friend,” the ferryman said, tucking the silver into a grubby pants pocket. “I ain’t one to get in the middle of nothing.” He held the boat steady while Jabez led Jupiter onto the dock, then pushed off and was gone into the graying mist.

  Jabez mounted the bay and directed him up the steep street into the center of town. Kansas City had grown like an invasive weed in the past two years; officially a city, no longer a town. In the pearly light of dawn, delivery wagons and mule teams rumbled down the main street, its deep dust temporarily settled by the storm. A sleek black dog ambled along the boardwalk, sniffing and marking, ducking away from a broom wielded by an early-rising storekeeper. The clean, rich scent of the surrounding prairie, mixed with odors from the stockyards, the fresh smell of horse dung, and the welcoming scent of baking bread, hung in the air, made heavier by August's humidity and the promise of another oppressively hot day. Two more sleeping and eating places joined Maggie O’Day’s hotel, catering to the flood of emigrants headed for California, the Oregon Territory, and now Kansas. One of these, sided in rough green fir and named the American Hotel, was managed, according to Atchison, by a man named Jenkins, an employee of the emigrant company. Here Jabez expected to find his relative, so it was toward the American he directed Jupiter, hoping for a wash and breakfast.

  The lobby of the hotel smelled of fresh-sawn lumber and whitewash. Nothing stirred, including the night clerk, who slept tilted back in his chair, snoring, one booted foot on the edge of the desk. Jabez looked around for a bell to ring. Seeing none, he dropped his saddlebags to the floor with more force than was absolutely necessary, and grinned when the clerk snorted and jumped, chair legs crashing down. The man, sleepy-eyed and sniffing, looked about him in a daze.

  “Morning,” Jabez said cheerfully. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  The clerk mumbled something incoherent and pushed his hair out of his eyes with both hands. “Help you?” he said.

  “I need a room and breakfast, and then I need your help locating a friend,” Jabez said, drawing out a leather wallet from an inside pocket.

  “Yes sir,” the clerk said. He turned a log book around, handed Jabez a pen and reached for a key from the slots behind the desk. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Doctor Charles Robinson,” Jabez said, scrawling his name in the book. “Know him?”

  The clerk’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I know him. Guess everyone in Kansas City knows him by now.” He turned the book to read Jabez’s signature. “What do you want with him?”

  “I’ll let him know that directly, thanks. Is he a guest here?”

  “You a relative?” the clerk asked. “Jabez Robinson, Holt County. Didn’t know the doc was expecting relatives.”

  “He isn’t. I don’t believe you’ve said whether he’s here.”

  “No, I guess I ain’t. You know, you ain’t the only one asking for him tonight. He’s a busy man.”

  Bigelow and his men had been here. Jabez’s voice was casual. “Did someone else find him?”

  “I ain’t told no one where he is. I’ll be asking him first who he wants to see.” The clerk stood up and pulled out paper. “Leave him a note. I’ll see he gets it.”

  “Good enough.” Jabez jotted a few words to Charles, included his room number, and handed the note to the clerk. “I’d appreciate it if he gets it soon. Say, before anyone else sees him.” He dropped several coins on the desk, picked up his bags and headed up the stairs to his room.

  

  Two hours later, Jabez was digging into his third fried egg and second cup of coffee when a big hand came down on his shoulder. “Doctor Robinson,” said a warm, deep voice. “We meet again, sir.”

  Jabez stood, wiped his beard with a napkin, and turned, hand out. “We do indeed, Doctor Robinson.” He smiled. “And I hope it’s under pleasanter circumstances.” They shook. “How’s the shoulder?”

  “Good, good, I thank you.” Charles Robinson was of a height with Jabez. He was slender, thin, balding, with close-cropped beard and deep brown eyes. Though he was several years younger than Jabez, his somber, lined face gave the impression of later middle-age. Jabez’s practiced eye saw that he favored his left shoulder, the shoulder from which Jabez had dug a lead cartridge after the squatter battles in Sacramento four years ago.

  “And you? What brings you to Kansas City?” Charles took the other chair at the small breakfast table and accepted a cup of coffee.

  Jabez pushed aside his plate, poured himself more coffee. “I live now in northwest Missouri, up in Holt County. I’ve taken a decided interest in the settlement of Kansas, as have most folks who live along the border.” He sipped. “I understand you’re bringing in an immigrant group to settle up the Kaw River? You must still be looking for adventure.”

  Charles Robinson was a champion of causes. The trouble in Sacramento involved a squatters’ association which he organized and then led into discord and riot. Indicted for murder in California but never brought to trial, he impressed Jabez as a man with a fierce dedication to certain principles laced with a misleading gentleness, a lack of humor, and a withering sobriety that reminded Jabez of bleak Puritan clerics of times past.

  “No, sir, I am not.” Robinson sighed and rubbed a slim hand across his eyes. “I hope to settle my folks peaceably and bring industry and enlightened government to this new state.”

  “You are of course aware that there are many across the south who oppose northern immigrants,” Jabez said. “Men who will turn to violence to make Kansas a slave state.”

  “Of course I am,” Charles snapped. He leaned forward. “We aim for Kansas to be free labor, Doctor. We’re bringing newspapers and schools, churches, steam power. How can anyone object to that? We want to see the land between the Mississippi and California filled with men who work for themselves, with manufactories as well as farms. We’ll plant the North’s way of life across this continent.” His long fingers creased a fold in the cotton tablecloth. “There will be no free blacks in these territories, but we will have no slavocracy either.” His voice softened. His eyes, though, were intense, almost black, and they stared unseeing past Jabez’s shoulder. “I view the slave power as degenerate, sir, and will devote my time and my energies to fighting its spread.”

  Jabez mentally compared him to Atchison. If these two were to go head to head, and it appeared they might, they presented polar opposites. One bellicose, fiery, rhetorical, bombastic, the other disciplined, intense, sober, almost reticent. Jabez sighed.

  “There may yet be peaceable ways to go about winning your goal.” Jabez picked up a teaspoon, tapped it on the table top and looked at Charles thoughtfully. “You must recognize you’re dealing with a completely different culture here, maybe as different as the English are finding in India.” He leaned forward. “You can’t simply impose your moral views on a different society. For the slave interests, this isn’t a moral issue. It’s a matter of property rights. They object to being told what they can do with their property.” Charles nodded once, briefly. “With time and patience, the value of that property will lessen to the point where it’ll no longer be economical to maintain it. Can you not let the institution die out of its own?”

  Robinson’s expression was guarded, his eyes not quite hostile. “Will the slave power keep the peace? Will the slave power respect the rights of New Englanders to settle Kansas and Nebraska without interference?” H
e turned his palms up, as though appealing to Jabez’s good sense. “Can we live together side by side while we await your natural solution? I cannot believe so, sir. Is Atchison not threatening guns and hanging? I know he is, I have sources close to him. He thinks Kansas belongs to him and his constituents and no one else need apply. Well, sir, we are here to gainsay that.”

  “I must tell you, Charles,” Jabez said. “I was asked to meet with you by Atchison himself. He desired me to convey a warning.” He turned the teaspoon end over end in his fingers. “But I’m here not as his messenger, I’m here of my own volition. I’m here to plead with you.” He kept his voice low, reasonable, controlling the sense of foreboding that wanted to creep into his tone. “You and I have both seen war. We’ve seen violent death, we’ve seen homes destroyed and bodies mutilated.” He took a deep breath. “What we saw in California and during the war with Mexico is nothing compared with what could happen if this blows up into full-scale war. The loss of life would be appalling. One part of the country or another would be destroyed for decades. Can you justify that?”

  Again, Charles looked into the distance, a great sadness on his face. But when he looked back to Jabez, his features were resolute, determined. “Yes, I can. No one can justify allowing the slave power to extend itself beyond the south. Once released from its cage, there will be no putting it back.”

  “Will you meet with the Senator and negotiate before you proceed?”

  “No sir, I will not. We have every right to stake our claims on the Kansas prairies, and we will proceed as planned. Do not attempt to interfere.”

  “If it comes to that, will you shoot to kill?”

  “I’d be ashamed, Doctor, to fire at a man and not kill him.”

  “Then you will bring about disaster, violence, possibly the dissolution of the country, Doctor Robinson, and may you long wear that upon your conscience.” Jabez stood, dropped his napkin next to his plate and bowed. “I pray you do not succeed.” He pulled his coat from the chair, turned to walk away, turned back. “A warning, sir. There is a group of men in town, arrived last night and demanded to be put off the ferry south of town where they couldn’t be seen.” Charles raised bushy eyebrows in question. “They’re led by a man named Bigelow. A Missouri farm boy. You’d know him by his eyes, pale and flat. Disturbing.” He shrugged into his coat, settled the lapels. “I have a bad feeling about him. Watch your back.”