Jessie

by Judy Alter

  Father felt compelled to write a lengthy speech in which he claimed that John had acted purely out of self-defense. I too repeated loudly the claim that John must have acted out of self-defense or in revenge for some personal insult—look, after all, how Castro had treated him earlier. "Fighting is not his aim," I wrote to one of his botanist friends, "and I am sure he knew nothing of the war." But even as I wrote, I crossed my fingers in the superstitious way of childhood, for I knew that John's aim was personal only insofar as the conquering of California would bring him glory.

  Throughout John's third expedition the strangeness of time lapses bothered me. Though I heard news of him much more quickly than I had before, I always had to interpret them in view of the distance between my husband and me, a distance not only of thousands of miles but months of travel. So when I heard of John in, say, July, I knew it would be December before he could reach home, and when I heard of him in October, still in California, I knew that he would be there until spring, because snow had already closed in the mountains. So by the fall of 1846 it was clear that I was in for another winter without my husband—if he had not crossed the Sierras before the snows, he would effectively be there until spring, and I wanted no repetition of his dangerous crossing of the previous expedition. But the waiting grew harder.

  Of that long second winter I prefer not to recall much—the weather was grim, Mother was some better but certainly not well, Father was on edge about California and Mexico, and I was impatient. Lily was the only bright spot in my life—Lily and an occasional letter from John, though I had come to realize that his letters were now deliberately misleading—for fear of spies. When even my husband was not telling me the truth, whatever the reason, the world looked none too bright.

  In my darkest moments I began to wonder about California senoritas. They were, so everyone said, of flashing eye and few inhibitions. Could John remain loyal to me—could he go without a woman's attention—for two long years? I remembered his frank admissions about Cecilia, admissions that spoke to me of his physical needs. How were they now being met? I wanted to believe the protestations of love in his letters, but sometimes as I lay achingly alone in my bed, I could not help but doubt.

  My King George's mark appeared and disappeared all winter, and Lily never failed to remark its presence.

  Spring, they say, brings new hope, and so it did with me. Surely John will be home soon, I thought, as I watched the cherry trees bloom and the trees green out gently.

  And then in May, spring brought not John but his good friend and trusted companion, Kit Carson. He was as much a surprise as his visit, for I had always envisioned a tall, lean man, hardened by frontier life, invincible and strong even in appearance. Instead Mathilde one morning admitted a man not much taller than John, sunburned to be sure, but otherwise no different looking from many a man on the streets of the city, save that his suit fit him poorly and he looked uncomfortable.

  "Mrs. Frémont?" There was a diffidence about his manner, as though he were uncertain around ladies.

  But there was no diffidence about me. "Mr. Carson! Come, you must tell me all about John." And with that I swept him into the dining room. The poor man could more easily have defeated an entire Indian tribe—as he was rumored to have done—than he could have withstood my enthusiasm.

  Amid apologies for Father's absence in St. Louis—"I know he will regret not being able to greet you"—coffee was served, and then I demanded everything he knew, though I confidently expected to hear that John was the triumphant governor of California and that only duty had kept him from me.

  Instead there came, haltingly and with regret, a tale of official power fights and ultimate disgrace for John. I sat silent, my knuckles white, my face grim, as I listened, and I could almost feel the King George's mark creeping onto the corner of my mouth.

  It seemed that when General Kearny reached California, he assumed command, though Commodore Stockton of the navy was already in command. John, having originally been ordered to report to Stockton, continued to do so, though trying to be courteous and conciliatory to Kearny. Both John and Stockton felt that Kearny had essentially arrived after the action, after the conquest was complete. Indeed Stockton appointed John governor of California on January 6, but Kearny rescinded the order less than a month later. Eventually orders were received putting Kearny in charge, but he, for some unknown reason, failed to share these orders with John. He made demands—of paperwork and men—without justifying them, and John refused, believing he was acting according to the orders he had been given.

  "Kearny has promised to bring John back in chains, Mrs. Frémont," Kit told me miserably. "He's even been heard to threaten him with execution."

  I gasped in horror, though the thought of execution was so remote to my mind that I could not even grasp it. But John, who was to return in triumph, coming home in chains! Silently I cursed Father for being in St. Louis when I needed him.

  "Mrs. Frémont? Are you... all right?"

  I shook my head and managed to murmur, "Give me a moment to collect myself, Mr. Carson. I've had a terrible shock, as you can imagine."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  After a moment my brain stopped whirling, and I knew that once again I had to take matters into my own hands, just as I had when John's expedition had been threatened over that silly howitzer. "We must go to the President," I said.

  Carson looked alarmed, then looked quickly down at his rumpled suit. "Me? Go to the President of the United States?"

  "Yes," I said firmly, "we will go together."

  And so we did, the very next morning. President Polk looked startled to find me in his waiting room, and his visible alarm increased when I explained that Mr. Carson felt impelled to tell him of the situation in California. He acquiesced, but not gracefully, an ostentatious glance at his watch telling us that our time was limited.

  I watched the President closely as Carson told him the story, again speaking haltingly and slowly. None of it surprised Mr. Polk. He knew all along! With great difficulty I controlled my anger, my fists clenched so tightly that the nails dug into the palms of my hands.

  The most Mr. Polk said was that he hoped the difficulties between the various parties could be resolved without court-martial. Court-martial, indeed!

  I fled to St. Louis as soon as Mr. Carson was gone, leaving Mother behind in Mathilde's care, with only the barest of explanations to the few close friends who would miss me. This was news that I could share with no one.

  "Jessie, Jessie, they cannot court-martial a man for following orders," Father said. "Calm yourself."

  But I could see that he was worried, and even Lily seemed to grow pale and listless under the tension with which we lived. Rumors swirled about us as summer progressed—John was under arrest, John was staying in California, Governor Kearny had conceded his mistakes, Governor Kearny had arrested Commodore Stockton. Each rumor set me afire with renewed fear, and sometimes I would wake in the night, crying out after a bad dream.

  Each time Father would be instantly at my bedside, stroking my hair, calming me, reassuring me. We were caught in a vicious cycle—I worried over John, Father worried over me as I grew more pale and thin, and Lily was desperately frightened by things she did not understand.

  Then, finally, there was news. "Jessie?" Father's voice was gentle as he approached the chair where I had positioned myself on the veranda to catch any breeze that might stir. "There's word, Jessie."

  I leaped to my feet. "What is it?"

  He shook his head. "It's not good. John will indeed be placed under arrest. This time it is certain. His troop is traveling with Kearny, and they're expected upriver at Kaw's Landing within the week."

  "Then I will go there," I said.

  "Jessie, a woman can't travel alone by steamboat. It's... no, I cannot permit it." He shook his head. "And I cannot go with you. I have too much here and... it's best I not get into the midst of it yet."

  I looked sharply at him.

  "No, no. I
will certainly defend John to the utmost, but it is in his interest right now that I not rush to meet him. You, too, must wait."

  But there was no stopping me, and finally Father acquiesced. Hardly aware of the journey and its discomfort, I found myself in the huddle of shacks that was Kaw's Landing. There I waited four days, alone in a dirty and uncomfortable room, until word spread that John's troop was in sight.

  Kearny's troops had arrived the day before, and I had stood silently to one side as they rode by, Kearny himself in the lead, looking angry and determined. I made no move, for I did not wish him to know of my presence. Word was that he had ordered John and his men to keep "a good distance" between them.

  Now, though, with John expected, I ran to the street and was in the front of a small line of spectators. I held my breath as they approached, John in the lead. Gone was any thought of triumphal homecoming. This was a man who had been beaten. He was tired, haggard, and though he was thoroughly tanned by the wind and sun, there was a paleness about him. Still he sat erect on his horse, and he issued a firm command to his men to stay in formation until they had passed through the cluster of buildings.

  When he was still several hundred yards way, I could wait no longer. "John!"

  For just a moment he looked as though he thought he was hearing voices, perhaps having a hallucination. And then he saw me. A quick command, and his men came to a halt. He was off his horse, arms spread wide, running toward me.

  As we met in a wild and furious embrace, a great cheer went up from his men.

  Chapter 9

  I asked John nothing as we stood by the rail on that long steamboat trip back down the Missouri. John's men knew our need for each other, and after their first hearty greetings, they left us a great circle of privacy. Clutching each other, we watched the muddy water swirl by—that river, with its dark and swift waters was nothing like the quiet blue Potomac—and said little for the first hours, though John would every once in a while turn to stare at me as though to fathom my thoughts. I knew enough not to smile brightly at him—a response he would have at once recognized as artificial—but I tried to hide my fears and show him, through touch and glance, how grateful I was to be with him again. And I tried not to let him know how his gauntness, his sagging posture, his appearance, worried me. He exuded a determined self-control and a kind of endurance, but I saw in his eyes that this demeanor hid a great sadness. What could have happened to the self-confident man I sent off on his third expedition?

  His hair had, as he'd written, turned gray. The outer, I decided, reflected the inner—John had aged. Still, I found his new gray looks distinguished, even attractive. More than once I raised a hand to run through his hair, only to drop it quickly as I remembered our lack of absolute privacy.

  Gradually, bits of the story began to come out, though I doubted I would ever hear it in its entirety, from beginning to end. The march home, most recent and most humiliating, was foremost in his thoughts.

  "All my work, Jessie, all the botanical specimens and the equipment... everything important about this trip was left behind. No doubt it's been trashed by now." His tone was bitter—justifiably so, I thought.

  "Why ever?" I asked, almost unable to grasp the enormity of this loss. The third report? How would it be written?

  He read my mind. "There will be no third report, Jessie. Kearny said it was a military expedition all along, and the equipment was camouflage."

  "He can't," I cried indignantly.

  John hugged me tighter to him and said resignedly, "He can, my darling, he can. At least I'm free of him for now."

  Most of John's volunteers, refusing to serve under Kearny, had been discharged without pay and abandoned in California. Only a pitifully few men had returned with him, and they had, as rumor had told it, been forced to stay well to the rear of Kearny's troops. Once Kearny had even ordered John's men to move their encampment—they were too close, he claimed.

  "Was he afraid of you?" I asked.

  John looked grim. "He had good reason. There was no sentiment for his life among my men, though I'd never have let them put their words into action."

  When I asked about Basil Lajeunesse—having missed him among the men who greeted me—I struck a nerve so raw that John shuddered and turned from me. At length he said simply, "Dead."

  "Dead?" I echoed.

  "Killed by the Klamath Indians in Oregon, over a year ago now. My God, the time that has passed."

  I asked no more about Lajeunesse, but I grieved for the burly man who had been my friend and John's protector.

  We watched as the sun sank over the western horizon, though night brought no coolness to the sticky August heat on the river. John showed no inclination to go to the makeshift quarters that had been prepared for me, and I would have bitten off my tongue before I told him how tired I was from standing all day.

  "Kearny called me to his tent at Leavenworth," he said. "Read me a formal statement saying I was to consider myself under arrest and proceed to Washington. At least he didn't feel forced to take me there under guard."

  "He wouldn't dare," I said. "Father would..."

  "Jessie," John interrupted me, "your father will defend me, I know that, and I am grateful. But the truth is that I am right, and truth will out. Kearny will be disgraced and I'll be proved right, I swear it."

  I clutched his arm all the tighter, convinced to the core by his words and thrilled by his conviction.

  We fell into silence again, until I broke it, saying, "Tell me about California."

  Wearily, he shook his head. "It's ours," he said. "The British didn't get it, and no matter what Kearny thinks or says, I had something to do with that. And the Californians, they are my friends. They said to me, 'Viva usted seguro, duerma usted seguro."'

  "Live safe, sleep safe?" I asked.

  "Yes. Something that is said only to friends. I brought California to this country in peace and friendship," he said, "and right now that's all that matters."

  There was much more I wanted to know, a whole two years' worth of his life to be caught up with, but it would be days, even weeks, before I knew the truth about Galiban and the Bear Flag Revolt, before I understood the Capitulation of Couenga, before all the spaces and gaps were filled in.

  That night, just before I drifted to sleep, John said, "Jessie? I forgot what may be the worst of it. I gave Thomas Larkin $3,000 to buy me a tract of land in the hills behind San Francisco. I thought you and I could live looking at the sea... a man is always at peace, Jessie, when he can watch the sea."

  I knew that was a belief bred into him during a childhood in Charleston. "I would like that," I said, feeling no need to add that I was at peace watching the great Mississippi River. A childhood in St. Louis had done that for me.

  "But Larkin somehow bought a wild piece of land up in the mountains, a hundred miles from the sea," he said. "Las Mariposas... The Butterflies... it's useless. Indians all around... a man couldn't live there or raise cattle without getting both himself and the cattle butchered."

  Indignantly I sat up. "What will you do?"

  "I'll get my money back," he said, "but I'll have to get the rest of this settled first."

  I went to sleep twisting that pleasant name over and over on my tongue... Las Mariposas... The Butterflies.

  * * *

  In St. Louis I expected Father to be at the docks to greet us, offering his support for John. He was nowhere to be seen, but to our amazement a good-sized crowd of well-wishers waited there. Someone blew a bugle, everyone shouted such slogans as "Three Cheers for Frémont" or "California!" and there came a chorus of "Speech, speech!"

  Perplexed, John looked at me, but I could only shrug. For once in my twenty-three years I was innocent of conniving. I had nothing to do with this reception.

  Finally, at the crowd's insistence, John spoke briefly, thanking them for their support. To the shouted questions of "What really happened?" and "Will you stand court-martial?" he merely nodded and said he could not discuss su
ch matters. Again he thanked the crowd and began to shoulder me through the mass of people.

  When at last we were settled at home—only to find that Father, in high dudgeon, had departed for Washington, leaving a message that we should come as quickly as we could—John asked, "Jessie? How did these people know?"

  "I knows," said Mathilde, still holding Lily in her arms as the child eyed John suspiciously. "The senator, he told me, that general—What's his name? Kearny? He made too much noise all over town about how you'd disobeyed him and he was going to court-martial you. The people know better... they know you made California free."

  John blushed, and I thought to myself that Kearny had made an enormous mistake. I was more optimistic than ever about John's future, court-martial be damned, as Father would have said.

  We stopped barely long enough to gather Lily and Mathilde and to pack the few bags necessary. Lily, still uncertain about the stranger in the midst of her comfortable world, clung to me as we boarded another steamboat for the trip south to New Orleans, but John made valiant efforts to entice her. In those poetic tones he could muster only when he thought his words were not for posterity, he told her about the bumblebee that had landed on his knee as he crossed the Continental Divide.

  "I know," she told him solemnly. "Mama read it to me from your lepote."

  He turned quickly to me, but I mouthed the word "report" and he understood.

  "I am glad she read that to you," he said solemnly. "I want my favorite girl to know what I have done."

  Both your girls, I added under my breath.

  After that Lily was more at ease with John, though she never quite seemed to adore him as she did her grandfather.

  We found that grandfather in his library furiously scribbling on foolscap when we entered the house on C Street. "I've been to see the President," he said. "They've already started a campaign of defamation. We've got to act fast." He was so frantic that I feared he might burst a blood vessel.