Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace

by Watkins, Andra

  Because ‘innocent until proven guilty’ never applied.

  Oh, everyone said innocence was another of Wilkinson’s many lies. My detractors outlined my alleged prevarications in a book-like document. They hauled it in front of the tribunal and referenced page after page after page.

  James Wilkinson, spy.

  James Wilkinson, traitor.

  James Wilkinson, murderer.

  James Wilkinson, thief.

  James Wilkinson, dereliction of duty.

  That last one. It got me. The rest was the trumped up twaddle of over-dramatic minds. But dereliction of duty?

  No.

  Never.

  Not according to my definition of the word.

  My sole duty in life was to advance the cause of James Wilkinson. First under George Washington, who gave me opportunity to find my place in the Army. Then under John Adams, who relegated a man with my skills to the boring task of uniform management. When I quit, Thomas Jefferson teased me back: I would command the entire United States Army and govern Upper Louisiana.

  I kept fighting for my own cause when Jefferson relieved me of my governorship and handed it to Meriwether Lewis, a man who was too busy celebrating his own success to assume office for a year after he was appointed. He prowled the East Coast. Drinking. Carousing. Bedding women while his territory grew more tempestuous by the day.

  If anyone was derelict in his duty, it was Lewis.

  I hoped the flames of hell licked his soul and incinerated all hope of its peace. He should’ve been in that courtroom instead of me.

  For taking my job. For relegating my family to the Natchez district, in spite of my wife Ann’s advanced tuberculosis. For filling her lungs with blood and choking her in the infernal heat.

  For robbing me of the only person I ever loved enough to risk everything. Ann was my reason. My progressions benefited her, just as my lies filled the coffers and obliterated the glamorous life she left behind when she stooped to marry me.

  As I stood on the threshold of the witness box, I removed one glove and placed my flesh on mottled leather. I muttered my oaths and promised to be truthful.

  While I stroked the good book and looked the bailiff square in the eye, I dreamed of another place. Far removed from my own court martial for misdeeds during the War of 1812.

  I wallowed in the best part of my life. When Ann smiled at me, and called me Jimmy.

  Faith shone behind her eyes, and my brain conjured answers. My mouth sharpened them. Somewhere, in the courtroom’s darkest corners, I heard Ann laugh, and I chuckled with her. I enjoyed watching my accusers teeter and fall.

  When the gavel fell, I savored the only possible outcome.

  Acquitted.

  Yet stripped of my uniform.

  One promise on the Bible saved me, but it didn’t restore me. The United States government declared itself finished with corrupt scoundrels.

  Even if they didn’t prove anything against me.

  The wages of sin.

  I marched down the aisle a final time, my body a mass of wool and hide, spangled with gold braid. It twinkled in the sunlight as I navigated stone steps to the street. My horse awaited me. At least the saddle and cougar skin blanket were mine. I launched my heft onto my perch and heeled the animal’s flank.

  “Home, Caesar. The long way.”

  I remembered that day years later, as I sat in my plantation study and surveyed the shambles I made of farming sandy soil along Louisiana’s Wolf River. If I squinted, I could see the Gulf. Just barely.

  I ruffled my little Theofannie’s hair, and she gave me a chubby-cheeked grin. Ironic that my favorite child spawned from my second wife. “Celestine! Summon the man with the boat!”

  An hour later, I swatted mosquitoes and bumped the sandbar at the Wolf’s mouth. I stood under a smattering of stars and gazed into the dark horizon.

  I was almost an old man, my lifetime littered with almosts. Somedays. Not quites.

  Time for me to claim what was mine.

  A piece of Mexico.

  It was all I ever wanted.

  I shoved away from shifting sand. My oars propelled my soul through a lifetime of dark nights.

  In Mexico, could I finally find the light?

  I AM NUMBER 13

  (coming Fall 2015)

  So much of America is the same. When I close my eyes, I can still see virgin timber. Clear-running streams. Tight-knit communities staking a claim in the wilderness, using only what they needed. I always considered being born in Maryland a blessing, because it was the front door to paradise.

  I am appalled at what Americans have done to my memories of America.

  I landed in this place. Parkersburg, West Virginia. An outpost on the Ohio River. I remember floating by here. Several times. On my way to the island to meet with Vice President Aaron Burr.

  You remember him, don’t you?

  No?

  I call him the American Napoleon. Perhaps that is who he wanted to be, with his grand plan to invade Mexico and separate the western half of the continent of North America from the burgeoning United States.

  Here’s a little known fact: it was never his plan; it was always mine.

  I planted that seed, while he was still Jefferson’s cuckolded Vice President. I knew the Spaniards were weak, understood their fortifications, traveled all the routes. It was I who knew what was possible, who was fed up with being underpaid by that bumbling buffoon Jefferson.

  During his administrations, I never had enough money to feed and clothe my men, let alone pay them. He gutted the army I fought so hard to build, and I always hated him for it. I craved the freedom to build a country that fit my principles, suited my needs. And when I criss-crossed the landscape of east Texas on my horse, I saw what that country could be.

  Who would’ve led it, you ask?

  Well, naturally.

  Me.

  I only used Burr to do the out-in-the-open conspiring. With every ciphered letter, every meeting, I fed his ego what he wanted to hear.

  This exercise will make you famous, Aaron.

  It will establish your legacy.

  You will be remembered for all time.

  If only he had succeeded………..I would’ve had my country. My throne. My ticket to immortality.

  I would’ve cast him aside as soon as we got to Mexico and used my connections with the Spanish to make myself the true emperor. Several of them told me they would support me, being tired of the slow, forgotten slog of support and information between the colonies, Havana and Madrid. One of them even agreed to assassinate Aaron Burr as soon as we’d won the day.

  My ascendancy was set.

  Until he failed.

  Do you know how much I still hate him today? That’s another thing about this place. It amplifies life’s failings, makes them louder. They take up too much space in my brain.

  The only way to escape is to trudge down this dingy sidewalk in this town crisscrossed by railroad ties and rusting steel and the sad remnants of what was once wealth and success. At the end of the street is a house. My house. It’s next to another building, and as I approach it, I can’t help but chuckle at the irony.

  I’ve been sent back as a preacher this time.

  THE THREE R’S OF 21ST CENTURY READING

  • Read the book - Authors love to sell books, but they really want buyers to read them. If you’ve come this far, thank you again for reading. Your investment of time matters to me.

  • Review the book - Amazon and Goodreads don’t tabulate book rankings based on sales alone. Reviews weigh heavily into the algorithms for book rankings. Your review matters. More reviews mean higher rankings, more impressions and ultimately, more readers. Please take five minutes and write a review of this book. If you write the review on Goodreads first, you can copy and paste it into Amazon.

  • Recommend the book - The people in your life value your opinion. If you enjoyed this book, recommend it to five people. Over lunch or coffee. At the water cooler.
On the sidelines. Let people see and hear your enthusiasm for this story. Some of them will thank you for showing them the way to a good book.

  This material is protected by copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part, either in print or electronically, without the express written consent of the author. Send all inquiries regarding usage to readme@andrawatkins.com.

  Table of Contents

  NOT WITHOUT MY FATHER:

  BOOKS BY ANDRA WATKINS

  NOTE ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE MEMOIR

  DEDICATION

  MAP OF THE NATCHEZ TRACE

  Road to Nowhere

  Hit the Road Jack

  King of the Road

  Walk This Way

  I Walk Alone

  One Vision (Fried Chicken)

  I’ve Been Everywhere

  Walk

  When the Saints Go Marching In

  Roam If You Want To

  Walk Right Back

  Walk Like a Man

  I Drove All Night

  Rednecks White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer

  You’ll Never Walk Alone

  Holiday Road

  Have Love Will Travel

  Fields of Gold

  Walking on Broken Glass

  Walk On By

  I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends

  Walk Like an Egyptian

  Green Onions

  Walkin’ After Midnight

  A Million Miles Away

  Every Day Is a Winding Road

  Walking on Sunshine

  I’m Walkin’

  Cross Road Blues

  One Step Up

  Follow You, Follow Me

  I Walk the Line

  The Golden Age

  Walking to You

  walk on the wild side

  Fast Car

  Walk and Don’t Look Back

  Go Walking Down There

  Personal Jesus

  Love Walks In

  Learning to Fly

  I Would Walk 500 Miles

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  SUPPORT THE TRACE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TO LIVE FOREVER:

  HARD TO DIE

  I AM NUMBER 13

  THE THREE R’S OF 21ST CENTURY READING