by Chet Hagan
“Is it ’cause Ah’m a nigger?”
The question was so direct that he had no ready reply for it. It shamed him.
“You’re a warm, desirable woman,” he assured her.
“Ain’t thet ’nuff?”
She was wise, he decided. And they held each other. Content.
III
ON September 3, the Dewey party began to fell trees to lash together into rafts. Charles had hoped to transport everything on the rafts—the supplies, the humans, the horses. But two days later, when the rafts were finished and floated, he had to change his plans again.
One of the larger rafts, built to carry animals, was pushed into the water and lashed to trees lining the shore to give it stability. A light draft horse, blindfolded to keep it from shying when it saw the unfamiliar craft, was carefully led on to the raft.
As soon as the hooves touched the raft it rocked in the water. The horse reared in fright, tossing one of the handlers into the river. The animal went down on its back on the roped-together logs, screaming and kicking insanely.
There was a sickening snap as the stricken horse’s neck broke.
While the slaves dragged the heavy body of the dead horse off into the woods, Charles sat on his haunches on the riverbank, despondent, cursing himself for having tried an experiment he should have known was sure to fail. He contemplated his next move. My next stupidity! he thought.
“All right,” he said after a few minutes, “we’ll load all of the supplies on the rafts, with one man on the tiller of each of them.” There were five of the log rafts. “The rest of us will be mounted. We’ll try to stay together—the rafts in the river, the horses following along on the shore.”
On September 6, he wrote in his journal: “We finally began the Cumberland River phase of our journey today. It seems to go smoothly enough, although at times the horses must be guided away from the river when the wild growth becomes impenetrable along the shore line. But we make good time. Estimate we covered better than ten miles today. Horace, who has to herd the extra horses, works especially hard to compensate for his missing hand. He’s a brave man—he deserves something better than his sad lot in life.”
Dewey learned soon enough that the Cumberland was a meandering river. What he had anticipated as a fairly straight course to Nashville was anything but. Nevertheless, they continued to move forward each day, and their steady progress made Charles believe they might reach their destination by the end of the month.
IV
“SEPTEMBER 15: Saw our first savages today…”
“Father, look!”
Franklin was pointing off to his right, standing excitedly in his stirrups.
Some eighty yards removed from the Dewey party, Charles saw three faces in the brush. Painted faces. Stern faces.
Charles stopped his horse; the others did, too.
“Everyone sit very quietly,” he instructed. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”
Slowly, his eyes fixed on the Indians, Dewey raised his musket over his head. He wanted them to see that he had a gun, but he wondered if it meant anything to them. Had they ever seen a gun before?
Once more Charles felt his lack of wilderness experience. For minutes—it seemed an interminable time—the white man and the Indians stared at each other. Dewey felt his right hand starting to quiver.
Just as slowly as he had raised the gun he lowered it to his shoulder, aiming it several feet above the Indians’ heads, squeezing the trigger. The shot tore several branches from the trees.
The Indians were gone. Not that Dewey had seen them running away. The impression he had was that they simply … evaporated.
He let out a deep breath. The hand holding the gun was still shaking. His heart was beating much faster than usual.
“Will they come back, Father?” Franklin asked.
“I don’t know, son.”
“Do you think there were more than three?”
“I don’t know.”
Corrine piped up: “I wasn’t scared, Daddy,” she said forcefully. “I knew you’d take care of us.”
Charles wanted to weep. Terrible questions coursed through his brain:
What if my shot had caused them to attack?
Were there three out there? Or thirty? Or three hundred?
Are they still there? Stalking us?
Corrine might not have been frightened, but Dewey was. Desperately frightened, because he had no answers to his questions.
He ordered the party forward again, at a faster pace, trying to put as much ground as possible between them and where they had last seen the Indians.
After a half-hour of what approximated a forced march, Charles stopped again, ordering the rafts brought to the riverbank.
Immediately, he distributed muskets to the Negro men, along with an adequate ammunition supply. He gave Angelica a pistol to carry. And to one-handed Horace, too.
He issued a stern order: “If we see savages again, we must shoot to kill. We must protect the children at all costs.”
The blacks nodded solemnly.
As they made camp for the night, Dewey wondered what Funston Lee and his ilk would think about his arming of the slaves. It was the first time in several weeks that he had thought of the people back in Virginia.
And what of Andrew? Had Fortunata been sold yet?
V
“SEPTEMBER 30: Exhaustion again,” Charles wrote, “although we make progress. Have set up camp for two days. All need a rest. Angelica.”
The first week in October brought heavy rains, flooding the Cumberland.
Dewey tried to push forward, but one of the rafts got sideways in the roaring waters, struck a large rock, and capsized. The slave manning the raft was pulled from the river, but the provisions were lost. One of the things claimed by the angry stream was their bag of salt. It was strange, but the lack of salt for the game they shot seemed a great hardship.
The flood halted them for two more days.
During the necessary idleness, Charles had an opportunity to marvel at the good spirits of the children. They were wet and dirty, probably bone-weary, but they didn’t show it. The twins, especially, were gay youngsters under the guidance of Angelica, beginning again the silly little song they had chanted for so many days at Fortunata:
“We’re going west, you hear.
For to be a pioneer.”
Sober-faced Franklin, the eldest, insisted that Charles teach him to use the musket while they waited out the flood. They went into the woods for the lessons. The recoil of the first shot knocked the youngster to the ground, but he was up immediately, demanding to fire the gun again.
“We may need another gun, Father,” the lad said, “if we see any more savages.”
Dewey tousled his hair, continuing the instruction until Franklin’s badly bruised shoulder brought it to an end.
Charles was proud of his determined son. Very proud.
By October 10, they were under way again, making good progress each day.
VI
ON October 15, Charles wrote, “Saw our first sign of Tennessee civilization today…”
They glimpsed a farm on the opposite side of the river. Dewey saw a man in one of the cultivated fields, and shouted over to him: “Hello, there!”
The farmer waved at him.
“Are we nearing Nashville?”
“Two days down river!” the man yelled back.
Everyone cheered.
On the night of the sixteenth, when the rafts were dragged ashore once more, Charles gave orders for everyone to bathe and prepare for their arrival in Nashville. Angelica went into one of the trunks lashed to the raft and brought out clean clothing for the children.
“What would I have done without you?” Charles asked the Negro woman as they sat before the fire that evening.
She smiled at him.
He returned the smile. No other words had to pass between them.
Three months and twenty days after leaving Goochland County, Virginia
, late in the afternoon of October 17, 1796, Charles Dewey first saw Nashville, Tennessee.
Strangely, he wasn’t exhilarated. His thoughts were on Martha as the rafts drifted up to the landing at Nashville and he slid wearily off his horse.
The rafts were unloaded quickly; what provisions remained were put on the backs of the horses.
Darkness was falling as they made their way afoot through the dusty streets of the frontier village to Mr. Parker’s Nashville Inn, a rather handsome two-story frame building with broad porches across the front.
The horses and the slaves were bedded down in the stables behind the inn, and Charles sought two rooms for his family. He and the older boys, Franklin and George, would occupy one room. The younger children—Corrine and the twins, Lee and Louise—would have the other with Angelica.
“Uh … sir,” the proprietor said hesitantly, “it’s a rule of the house … well, coloreds aren’t permitted in our beds.”
“She’s a nursemaid to my small children,” Dewey explained.
“Nevertheless, I can’t—”
Charles battled with his rising temper.
“My wife, Mr. Parker, died on the trip from Virginia.” He was speaking softly, but the words were being forced through his teeth. “The children saw her die. Angelica is as much a mother as they have now. She’s … going to stay … with … them!”
The innkeeper coughed nervously. “Yes, well, I suppose under those circumstances…”
Before retiring for the evening, Charles wrote a message to be delivered to Patton Anderson, his correspondent friend, informing him of his arrival.
As he put his tired body between the sheets of the first real bed he had known in nearly four months, he gave thanks to his guardian spirit.
It had sustained him again.
19
“YOU mean to tell me that you made that journey without a professional guide?”
Patton Anderson’s tone was one of disbelief. The Nashville gentleman with whom Charles Dewey had been corresponding sat with him now at breakfast in the Nashville Inn.
“Yes, we did,” Charles said, unable to hide the defiant pride in his reply. He was, however, unwilling to tell Anderson that he felt a fool for not realizing in the first place that he would need a guide.
“Astounding! That’s what it is—astounding! And you had no brushes with the Indians?”
“Just one. I fired a shot in their direction and they disappeared into the wilderness.”
Charles’s new friend laughed loudly. “With that kind of luck, Dewey, I suspect that I ought to stay close to you. Does that good fortune follow you to the racetrack?”
“I’ve always believed that luck had very little to do with my success at the races,” Charles answered soberly. “I’m very good with horses.”
Another hearty laugh. “My God—luck and self-assurance, too! You’re too good to be true, Mr. Dewey.”
Anderson was only half of what Charles imagined he would be. His enthusiastic demeanor had been reflected in his letters, but Dewey had not expected a man who was such a dandy in dress. His mind’s eye had seen Anderson as a rugged frontiersman; what he saw before him was a handsome, somewhat effete “gentleman”—not at all unlike many of the plantation owners he had known in Virginia. In a vague sense (Charles didn’t really understand why), Anderson reminded him of Funston Lee. Perhaps that was why he saw in Anderson something faintly illicit. The word “shady” came to his mind, but he hesitated to accept it until he knew the man better.
Charles was anxious to catch up on the news. “I’ve been out of touch for a long time, Mr. Anderson. Tell me what’s been happening.”
“Happening? Well, Mr. Dewey—May I call you Charles?” Using ‘mister’ all the time is going to get tiresome.”
“Of course. I’d prefer that.”
“Well, Charles, the talk around here these days is of the presidential election. It’s generally assumed that Adams will succeed Washington, although the preference here in the West is for Jefferson.”
“I’d certainly like Jefferson better.”
“Grand!” Anderson enthused. “It’s good to know that we have another democrat among us.”
Dewey grinned. “Democrat, eh? I’m not so sure that my political feelings are that much party oriented. Coming from Virginia, though, I’m familiar with Mr. Jefferson’s views and agree with most of them.”
“Good! Our own Andrew Jackson, as you’ll discover, has views similar to those of Jefferson. They may be out of the same mold—politically, if not in life style. Certainly, they both believe in the rights of the people. It’s expected that Jackson will be our first member of the House of Representatives come November.”
“I look forward to meeting him.”
“And you shall, very shortly. But, to continue with the news: While you were in the wilderness, Washington said his farewell to the country.” He laughed lightly. “He warned against the growth of party spirit. ‘Baneful,’ I think he called it.”
Dewey nodded.
“The other principal point he made,” Anderson went on, “was that we should have peaceful commercial relations with all nations but no permanent alliances with any of them. If you’ll pardon me, Charles, I think he was concerned about the French on that score. It seems that the French minister to our country publicly expressed his preference for Jefferson—which many considered undiplomatic.” He laughed again.
Charles shrugged. “You give me no offense. I’m not French, you see; I’m American.” A slight pause. “At least, I think I am.”
“Oh, how’s that?”
“Well, it has occurred to me that I ought to do something to legalize my citizenship. But I’m not sure what that something is.”
“It’s mighty simple here in Tennessee,” Anderson assured him. “Six months’ residence in any county constitutes citizenship. You, however, won’t even have to wait the six months. Once you’re a freeholder, as I believe you intend to be, Tennessee citizenship will come with only one day’s residence. Obviously, Tennessee citizenship is tantamount to U.S. citizenship.”
Dewey was pleased with that, and pleased, too, that the conversation had come around to the subject of land. “You mentioned in your last letter, Patton, a plot of land you thought might be to my liking.”
“Right. Some two hundred and fifty acres along the east bank of the Richland Creek. Hard by what we call the Natchez Trace—the main road, if you can call it that, leading northward from the river port of Natchez. That’s the Mississippi River, of course.”
“Hmmm. Any buildings on it?”
“Only a log building. But rather substantial, Charles. Two rooms, both of good size. Its last use was as a trading post.”
“And available?”
“Immediately so.”
II
“WELL, sir, that’s it!”
Patton Anderson swept an arm to encompass a small clearing in the woods dominated by a log building. Not a two-room cabin, as Anderson had suggested at breakfast, but two separate cabins connected by a roofed walkway.
Charles groaned inwardly. He tried hard not to compare what he was inspecting to what he had left behind at Fortunata. But it was difficult. He might dream of what he could make of it—he was long experienced at dreaming—but this was just a crude scene to him. He felt disappointment.
With Anderson, he had ridden in bright sunshine and with good spirit some ten miles from the center of Nashville to see the property his newfound friend was recommending.
“How many acres?” Dewey asked, although he already knew the answer. He had to say something to relieve his depression.
“Two hundred and fifty. Approximately. I suggest you have a survey done immediately.”
“Hmmm. And no cleared land?”
“No, but it offers plenty of opportunities to open up some substantial meadows for grazing. The land here is very rich. Very rich, indeed!”
Charles slid out of the saddle, walking toward the cabins. Anderson followe
d.
“There’s good water here,” Patton said. “From the Richland Creek and from numerous springs as well. There’s a spring serving the building.” He pointed.
When they went inside the larger of the two cabins, Charles saw that it was incredibly dirty. Debris of the former trading-post business was scattered all about. Rats scampered away as they entered. Cobwebs covered everything. There was no glass in the few windows, and where the rain had come in on the wooden floor, the boards were warped.
“Of course,” Anderson said, “it’ll need some cleaning up.”
Dewey laughed. “Indeed it will!” Somehow, his friend’s inane remark had broken his depression.
They inspected the second cabin. It was no better than the first.
Outside again, Charles took a drink from the spring near the door. The water was sweet, cold, refreshing.
“Other parcels?” he asked. “Is it likely that land adjacent to this might also be available?”
“More than likely. Not too much of the land hereabouts has been improved by the owners. They’re short of money, I guess.”
“And that brings us to a key point, doesn’t it? How much for these two hundred and fifty acres?”
“Twelve hundred and fifty,” Patton answered.
Open-mouthed, Dewey stared at him. “Oh, come now, Patton, twelve hundred and fifty pounds … for this?”
Anderson laughed at him. “Not pounds, Charles—dollars! American dollars. You’re not in Virginia any longer.”
“Hmmm. Five dollars an acre? That seems fair.”
“It’s a damned good bargain, Charles, a damned good bargain!”
As they talked, a lone figure rode out of the woods on a large, decrepit mule. A white man. Tall and skinny. Dressed in somber black. A specter, it seemed.
“Good afternoon, sirs,” he called out to them cheerfully.
“Good afternoon,” Anderson answered.
The man stopped his mule in front of the larger cabin and sat staring at it. “Mr. Duncan? He’s not in business any longer?
“Duncan’s been dead for two years,” Anderson told him. “Indians killed him.”
“Is that a fact? Well, it’s true that I haven’t been through here for nearly three years. Duncan was a good friend—may God rest his soul.”
