Bon Marche

by Chet Hagan

  There was a sharp click as the hammer stopped at half-cock. The noise of it seemed deafening, although it was actually a small sound.

  Dewey wanted to shout with delight. It was over! Providence had somehow intervened and stopped the fatal shot. “Honor” had been served.

  But, no! His delight turned to horror as Jackson lowered the gun, calmly examined it, and then returned it to the firing position.

  Once more he drew back the hammer.

  Once more he aimed.

  Once more his finger squeezed the trigger.

  Once more the explosion of a pistol shot panicked the birds from the poplars.

  Jackson didn’t miss.

  Dickinson’s falling body was caught by his friends. Blood soaked his shirt before he could be gently lowered to the ground, flowing freely from a hole in his belly, just below the ribs. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was mortally wounded.

  With as little concern for his adversary as he had shown when he recocked the pistol, Jackson strode to his horse.

  General Overton noticed blood running into Andy’s boot. “My God, you’ve been hit!”

  Jackson smiled. “Oh, I believe that he pinked me. But I don’t want those people to know.” He nodded toward the Dickinson party.

  The smile left his face, turning it hard. “I should have hit him,” he said coldly, “even if he had shot me through the brain.”

  V

  MATTIE had never seen her husband so angry. Or so unable to keep a rein on his emotions. Alternately shouting and weeping, he recounted for her what had happened in the Kentucky riverside grove.

  “All that goddamn nonsense about a field of honor! It wasn’t honor that I saw, but out-and-out murder!”

  His wife let him rave on. She knew it was useless to try to reason with him. In fact, she didn’t want to. She wanted him to cleanse himself of his ire.

  “And trickery!” Charles shouted. “He wore a big, loose coat so that he could twist his skinny body around under it, making the narrowest possible target. Dickinson, on the other hand, faced him squarely, as had been agreed.”

  Mattie looked at him compassionately. He was hurting so.

  “Can you believe it? His hammer stopped at half-cock. That was his shot. That should have ended it. But Andy—may he burn in hell!—took what amounted to a second shot!”

  Charles put his head in his hands, crying again, in anger as much as in the pain of the memory. Words came with difficulty.

  “And then … he … he had the effrontery to send that dying man a bottle of wine as a token of his esteem for a brave fellow! My God, how much evil is there in that so-called gentleman?”

  There was a long silence.

  Mattie spoke finally. “Was Andy seriously wounded?”

  “Dickinson’s shot nicked his breastbone, apparently. ‘Pinked’ him, as the heroic Andy put it.” Charles spoke with bitter sarcasm. “The doctor says he has several broken ribs and also lost a good deal of blood. But he’ll live—a fate he ill deserves! Damn him! Damn him!”

  “Charles! You don’t want him dead.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t!” She wasn’t sure, however. The reservoir of emotion that made Charles Dewey such an exciting lover could also make him hate with the same intensity.

  “And that’s not all, Mattie. When we got him home to Rachel—Lord, how that woman suffers with him!—she was not only concerned with Andy but with the Dickinsons as well. It was heartrending. She fell on her knees weeping. ‘Oh, God have pity on the poor wife,’ she said. ‘Pity the baby in her womb.’”

  His wife gasped. “Mrs. Dickinson’s pregnant?”

  “Yes! And if Rachel, whom Andy tells nothing, knew of it, then certainly Andy did, too, when he recocked that pistol and pulled the trigger for the second time!” He struggled to restrain his temper. “He meant to make an orphan of that unborn child!”

  “Oh, Charles…” Tears came to Mattie’s eyes.

  “I’m finished with Andrew Jackson,” Dewey said flatly. “This whole family is finished with Andrew Jackson!”

  His intense hazel eyes bored into her, fixing the prohibition as something irreversible. For a lifetime.

  Mattie didn’t know how long she’d be able to obey.

  27

  WRITING to Andrew MacCallum was a catharsis for Charles.

  Having forbidden the name of Andrew Jackson to be spoken at Bon Marché, he needed to relieve his venom somehow. He wrote swiftly, impelled by the hate he felt.

  Treachery seethes hereabouts under the guidance of Aaron Burr, abetted—God help us!—by my wife’s cousin. A week ago (Jan. 3), when the depth of the Burr plot to separate the West from the Union became known, that “gentleman” who had earlier accepted the courtesy and honors of the Nashville citizens, was burned in effigy in the courthouse square. Rightly so! Although I admit to you, Andrew, that mob anger is not something I relish.

  What is so galling, so reprehensible, is Andrew Jackson’s role in all this. It has become common knowledge here that Burr paid him thirty-five hundred dollars to build five riverboats at the Clover Bottom boatyard for Burr’s treasonous expedition. Indeed, it is the belief of many prominent men in this area—and not my contention alone—that Jackson saw himself as a military leader of this terrible plot.

  A sip of sherry before he continued.

  Naturally, now that Jefferson has warned ‘all faithful citizens’ to withdraw from Burr’s unlawful enterprise, Andy has been trumpeting his innocence, claiming that he himself warned the national administration of Burr’s treachery. He does not fool me, however! Are those two not broken from the same mold? Murdering duelists, both of them!

  There’s word now that Jackson is calling for two brigades of volunteers to be put under arms for the purpose of capturing Burr. With Andy as the commander, of course. What a sham!

  He stopped writing to re-read the paragraphs. A frown. Perhaps he was being too bitter.

  Maybe I ought to have opened this letter with the standard wish for a happy and prosperous 1807. Indeed, it may well be that now that Burr is unmasked.

  The children, Andrew, are becoming adults. So much so that I report to you that Franklin is formally courting a young lady.…

  II

  GRINNING sheepishly, Franklin paused in his grooming of a yearling colt. He glanced over to his younger brother who was forking straw into a stall.

  “George … uh … I could use some advice.”

  “About what?”

  A hesitation. “Women.”

  George laughed loudly. “Franklin! You?”

  “It does seem unlikely, doesn’t it?” He joined in his brother’s laughter. “But I’ve met this young lady—”

  “Who?”

  “Malcolm Bolling’s daughter, Amantha.”

  “Oh.” George knew the girl and thought her a dullard. Certainly she wasn’t much to look at, dumpy and plain, painfully shy.

  Recognizing the doubt demonstrated by George, Franklin became sober again. “You don’t approve.”

  “Of course I approve,” George tried to assure him. “Amantha is a … a pleasant girl.”

  “Pleasant? You make it sound like a disease.”

  “Not so! I like Amantha.”

  “She is a bit shy, it seems.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “And not your type, probably.”

  George laughed again. “My type, brother, is any woman alive and breathing. But you mentioned advice…”

  “Yes.” Franklin swallowed hard. “I don’t know how to make a beginning with her.”

  “What are her interests?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Horses, maybe?”

  “Yes, I guess. Her father has horses.”

  “All farmers have horses. I mean racehorses. Is she interested in racing?”

  “I have no idea.”

  George shook his head in dismay. “Franklin, you’re hopeless!”

  Frowning sullenly, his
brother went back to his grooming chores.

  George felt sorry for him. “Franklin, you’ve just got to screw up your courage and do something.”

  “What?”

  “A picnic, perhaps. Let it be known to her that you’d like to go on a picnic with her. Then take the carriage—the open two-seater—and drive out somewhere. Alone, of course.”

  Franklin nodded.

  “And when you get to the picnic site … well, you let nature take its course.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What does that—?” Another hearty laugh. “Let me spell it out for you. You spread a blanket in a shady glen somewhere, you start a conversation … oh, about what she dreams, for example … and as she’s telling you, you nonchalantly reach over and take her hand.”

  Franklin was listening intently.

  “Once you have her hand, you move closer to her, and you kiss her.”

  “Kiss her!” The prospect seemed to shock him.

  “Of course! If she won’t let you kiss her, it’s a sure sign that you ought to look for someone else.”

  “You mean she’d let me kiss her?”

  “If she likes you.”

  Franklin thought for a moment. “Then what?”

  His brother sighed. “Good Lord, Franklin, don’t be so damned naive. Then you … well, you try to go further. You touch her. And, that allowed, you fondle her.”

  “Fondle her! I couldn’t!”

  George groaned. “Forget it! Just resign yourself to being a bachelor.”

  Franklin was defensive. “Since you seem to think I’m such a hopeless clod, perhaps that’s what I’ll be—a bachelor.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Franklin, just take her on a picnic and see what happens.”

  III

  CHARLES Dewey was trying to complete his letter to MacCallum. He realized, when he reviewed what he had written, that he hadn’t spoken of what concerned him most.

  I worry, Andrew, what all these revelations about Jackson are doing to poor Mattie and, indeed, to our marriage. There are strains here at Bon Marché that concern me deeply. This is yet another demonstration of my need for your wisdom, dear friend. As unrealistic as this might seem to you at first reading, please consider this: I offer you the position of general manager of Bon Marché. You need only to set the price; I will pay it.

  He was just finishing when there was a knock on the door of the drawing room.

  “Come!”

  Horace, the butler, entered. “‘Scuse me, Mistah Charles, but kin Ah talk to ya?”

  “Certainly.”

  “‘Bout Marshall?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Oh, no, suh! It jest thet Marshall … well, he ten now.”

  Dewey smiled. “Time is so swift.”

  “Yas, suh. An’ Ah bin wonderin’, Mistah Charles, if mebbe Marshall could git wit’ th’ jockeys.”

  “At ten?”

  “He a strong boy, Mistah Charles, an’ Ah bin tryin’ t’ teach ‘im some things. But, wit’ this—” He held up the arm with the stump at the wrist.

  “Isn’t Marshall helping his mother here in the house?”

  “Yas, suh. But he a boy! He gotta learn to be a man.”

  “Hmmm.” Dewey shook his head. “I’m not sure, Horace, how Marshall’s assignment to the jockey ranks will be viewed by the other blacks. Since he’s your son, they might see it as favoritism.”

  “Yas, suh.” Horace was crestfallen.

  “I’d prefer, Horace, if Marshall stayed on the household staff.”

  “Yas, suh.”

  The black man started to leave the room. At the door, he turned back to his master. “Please, Mistah Charles!”

  Dewey sighed. “Very well, Horace, we’ll give it a try. Marshall is to report to Franklin.”

  The butler was perplexed. “But, suh—ya trains them jockeys.”

  “In this case,” Charles answered sharply, “Franklin will be in charge. Is that clear?”

  “Uh … yas, suh. Thank ya, suh.”

  Dewey rose from his desk, strode to the window, and stared out as Horace left the room. If I hear one damned word around the track about Marshall’s parentage!

  He pounded a fist into his palm.

  IV

  “MAYBE we’re moving too fast, Mattie.”

  “There’s no such thing, Charles,” his wife replied, slightly annoyed by his uncharacteristic caution.

  They were discussing the prospective purchase of three more parcels of land encompassing some nine hundred additional acres. And they were doing it in what Charles often called “the office”—in bed.

  “The speculators are beginning to move in,” Mattie went on, “and land values are going up. If anything is moving too fast, it’s the price of land. We have an opportunity to acquire this property for a reasonable price—seven dollars an acre. Next month, it may be eight or nine, if indeed someone hasn’t grabbed it by then.”

  Charles admired Mattie’s keen business sense, but sixty-three hundred dollars seemed too much to pay at that time. “Our cash reserves,” he said churlishly, “are too low.”

  She showed anger. “Am I the Bon Marché land agent or am I not?”

  “You are, of course.”

  “Then I want to do this.” She snuggled close to him, her voice going girlish. “Anyway, darling, I’ve already agreed to buy.”

  “Damn it, Mattie!” He stopped suddenly; he didn’t want another argument. “I’m sorry.” There was a pause. “It’s just that we have little cash.”

  “How many yearlings do we have, Charles?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “And how many foals with mares right now?”

  “Forty-one … no, forty-two.”

  She nodded. She already knew that. “And you’re planning to keep all of them to racing age?”

  He frowned, wondering where she was going with this discussion. “Most of them—yes. Racing is our primary business.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course it is!”

  “Suppose, Charles,” Mattie said carefully, “that we were to regard the horses as a crop? I mean, the way cotton is a crop, and wheat. We don’t keep all of the beef cattle we breed. We cut some of them for steers and sell them like a crop, don’t we?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “The future of Bon Marché will fully depend on crops—tobacco, cotton, wheat, oats, beef, fruit.… Why, we ought to plant fruit trees on three hundred of those new acres … and hay. Several hundred of the new acres can go into sweet hay as well. Darling, we could be the first plantation in this region to market the finest hay in New Orleans!”

  Her plans astounded him. “What you’re suggesting in expansion would require much more labor than we have.”

  “I’m aware of that. John Cotton tells me he can quickly supply us with half a hundred more blacks.”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “But—”

  “Cotton is associated with Andrew Jackson! I’ll not deal with him!”

  “But John controls the local market in slaves.”

  “No!”

  She pouted. “I guess I misjudged your ambition.”

  “What’s the meaning of that remark?”

  “On the night we met,” Mattie said softly, “you told me that you meant to have the finest plantation in Tennessee.”

  He smiled for the first time. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did. And if we acquire this additional land, we’ll have some thirty-five hundred acres.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “And if you regard the horses as a crop, as I’m suggesting, next year you’d have … let’s see … seventy-six young animals for sale. Why, think what an event that would be if we conducted an auction. Seventy-six of the finest young thoroughbreds in Tennessee! Buyers would come from the Carolinas and Kentucky and Virginia and Louisiana and Ohio…”

  He raised a hand to try to halt her rush of words.

  “And they’d al
l know of Bon Marché and its greatness!”

  Now he laughed. “You’re an expert in plumbing my ego, aren’t you?”

  “I like to think so.” She kissed him. There was no mistaking the meaning of the kiss.

  “Before we get to that,” he grinned, “may I be allowed one question?”

  “Just one.”

  “If I market all of my horses, what the hell do I do for racing animals?”

  “I’m confident, dear, that you’ll be able to solve that problem.”

  “You are, eh?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And are you also confident that you can have the master of Bon Marché—Lord, what a farce that title is!—make love to you any time you wish?”

  She slowly pulled her nightdress over her head. “I’d give odds on that.”

  V

  BY the time Andrew MacCallum replied to Dewey’s angry letter about Aaron Burr’s plot and Andrew Jackson’s possible role in it, Burr had been arrested and charged with treason. He was to be tried in Richmond, Virginia, before Chief Justice John Marshall.

  MacCallum wrote back to Charles:

  I respectfully suggest to you that subsequent events have revealed the Burr episode for what it truly is: downright comedic in its ineffectiveness. That he may have charmed any number of people enough to consider throwing in with him seems clear enough. But never, from everything I have learned, did Burr stand a single chance of being successful.

  He’s a sad, broken man now. He can never again be an effective force in this country, whether or not he is found guilty of treason. And there are learned men here at Princeton who seriously question whether a charge of treason can be made to stick against him.

  Charles gritted his teeth as he read on, angered by the thought that Burr might escape punishment for his misdeeds.

  As to you, Charles, what Burr has done and what Jackson may have done are not worth the unhappiness apparent in your letter to me. For God’s sake, my good friend, don’t ruin your marriage over such silliness!

  Dewey found himself offended by MacCallum’s word. “Silliness, is it?” he said aloud.

  You asked for my advice, and I give it to you: Keep clear of Andrew Jackson, if you wish, but don’t allow your opinion of him to endanger your relationship with Mattie or the rest of your family. You mention that the children are adults now. Allow them to be so, making their own decisions on whether or not they wish to be associated with Jackson in the future. I can’t see that that will harm you in any way.