by James Haley
“Michael, you will forgive me if I feel somewhat abused.”
“I know, and I am sorry; it was not my doing.”
“What if I resigned my commission this past week?”
A shadow of shock flickered across Miller’s face. “Did you resign your commission?”
“No, but I might, and I might antedate it.”
“Hm! As your fellow officer I would be deeply shocked. As your friend, I would understand completely, and I would tell no one.”
“Dear Miller. Oh, God, what am I going to tell my wife?”
“I do not envy you the task.”
“Five days? That means I cannot tarry a moment. I must leave this afternoon.”
“Yes.”
“Will you stay and vouch to my wife that I am not inventing this entire business?”
“I will, yes.”
There was a knock and Polly entered with the tea tray. “I brought tea, and brandy, and rum, and everything else we had. I didn’t know what you might need next.”
“Quite right.” Bliven shook his head sadly. “Polly, run next door and fetch Mr. Ross. Tell him I need him at once.”
Bliven opened his orders and read them, and indeed they conveyed nothing more than what Miller had already told him. Having known of Bliven’s fondness for tea with honey and rum, Miller sampled it, but Bliven said nothing about the quinine water. “What about you, Michael? What is next for you?”
“Mediterranean Squadron; at least, that is the word.”
“Have you been there before?”
“No, never.”
“Try to visit Naples. I loved it there—except for that sword fight, of course.”
“Yes. Others have been pressing the sights of Gibraltar on me, where we are sure to put in. Who knows? Perhaps I may send home a Spanish wife!”
“Ha! Yes, my memory is that those Andalusian women surely have their charms.” Silence descended. “Shall you have your own command?”
“Yes, a fine new sloop, the Concord, twenty-two.”
“Excellent. I am happy to see you advanced.”
“Captain Putnam—Bliven—I have heard that you wrote some letters in my behalf.”
“One or two, perhaps.”
“Am I permitted to thank you?”
“Nonsense, you are rising on your own merit.” Silence fell once more. “I fear that we are in the calm before the storm.”
Miller shrugged and shook his head. “From all you have told me of your wife, she will absorb whatever shot comes at her.”
Clarity returned moments later and entered the open library door.
“My love,” said Bliven, “we have a most welcome visitor. May I present Captain Michael Miller, late of Philadelphia, of whom you have heard me speak quite often.”
The surprise on her face quickly changed to delight; she advanced and extended her hand. “Indeed, Captain Miller! I am so pleased to meet you, having heard so much about you. Bliv, dearest, I had no idea we—” She saw the stricken look in his eyes, the letter with the wax seal in his hands, and guessed everything before another beat of his heart. “Oh no.” Her voice was suddenly almost inaudible. “You have been recalled.”
“Yes, my love.”
She swooned very slightly under the impact. “When must you leave?”
“Instantly, I fear. I am so sorry; I had no idea, either.”
She nodded. “That is why Mr. Ross is outside—to help you pack?”
“Yes.”
“Then it really is just this sudden.”
“I fear so, my love.”
“Mrs. Putnam,” Miller broke in, “may I say that of my own knowledge, it is a matter of the greatest urgency, and a matter of national importance? Otherwise the Navy would never have acted in so graceless a manner.”
Clarity folded her hands before her. “For your own part, Captain Miller, I do not find you in the least part graceless. I find that you fulfill all of my husband’s description of you, and I need not tell you of his regard for you. But as for the Navy, no, I do not believe that they care a whoop in high water for people’s feelings. But I pray you, do not fret for me. I have much to occupy me until he comes home again. Dearest, will you come to my study to say good-bye when you are ready to leave?”
“Of course.”
Turning away, she added, “You will forgive me if I do not offer to help—” She walked quickly back across the parlor and hall, and her fast steps faded into the keeping room. There were the three knocks, always three, and Ross entered.
“Mr. Ross, will you go to the attic for my trunks. I don’t need to tell you what to do.”
Alone together again, Miller said, “Well, I thought she accepted that very well indeed.”
Bliven nodded slowly. “You do, do you? She was shaming me with her goodness. You get married, you will discover how that works. You say you have leave to go home?”
“Yes.”
“To Philadelphia?”
“Yes.”
“And I must go to Pittsburgh. May we at least travel together? That will take away some of the sting.”
“Please do not be offended at my presumption, but I hired two horses in New Haven; I rode one and brought the other along. We can ride them back down and take the coach from there. They change horses so often, we will make better time.”
“Mr. Ross has been my steward for so many years, I employ him as my valet when I am at home. He can take one of our horses and I will have it sent back.”
* * *
* * *
The Zenobia, when he and Ross found her, proved to be one of the new species of river packet, small enough at ninety-two feet in length to maneuver the bends of the streams, of shallow enough draft to ascend this far up the Ohio, and not mind any but the most extreme low water in drought. Her steam engine held great interest for Bliven. The boiler consumed a shocking amount of wood, and the steam created within its tubes powered a piston as thick as his leg, which connected to a single stern paddle wheel that he judged to be about ten feet high. This wheel churned them forward with such energy that he was sure that the captain never ran to full power lest he miss a turn and run upon a bank.
On their progress down the Ohio to the Mississippi, Bliven got his first look at Western cities that he had only heard about: Cincinnati, where he wondered if Reverend Beecher was still in hiding after the fiery debacle in Charlestown; St. Louis, which seemed to have become the mid-continental capital of commerce; and then south into a climate that seemed, even in November, perceptibly warmer. By degrees the current slowed, and the Mississippi widened until the bottom forest on either side was reduced to thin green lines above the water. He wore his best uniform to make the acquaintance of the captain, a raspy-voiced German with a sloping nose and wide blue eyes named Freisinger, who handled the boat with consummate skill.
The river ran due south as it passed the town of Baton Rouge, in Louisiana. There they tied up for the night, because, as Freisinger told him, the volume of traffic on the river the next two days to New Orleans made it imperative to have a clear view of the whole stream and what craft were coming and going. Below Baton Rouge, the course of the river changed from south to southeast, and gradually to east-southeast, although this ancient and lazy stream turned itself to every direction of the compass, and they churned three or even four miles for every one mile of direct distance they progressed.
By half past seven of the second morning Bliven was already dressed and up on the third deck, sipping coffee as he watched the Louisiana marshes and bottom forest slip by, dark green, languid, and mysterious. Houses became by degrees more numerous, the better ones in the Creole style, set upon brick piers so high that they formed a bottom story. Whatever animals and implements they sheltered were obscured by lattice screens. The white frame residences therefore sat proof above all but the worst floods, th
e rooms surrounded by wide covered verandas with scatterings of all manner of furniture, for lounging, for eating, for sleeping. Clearly, much of the living here took place outdoors.
Bliven heard the splash of the Zenobia’s great paddle wheel slow moments before the porter appeared with a silver pot and replenished his coffee. “Are you all packed, Captain, sir? We’ll be putting into New Orleans shortly.”
“Yes, thank you.” He was glad he had brought Alan Ross with him to manage such impediments to his attention. The porter, recognizing Ross’s station, filled his cup but did not address him. Bliven lingered on the porter’s words. What a marvelously large country the United States must be, for the name of the city to have so many differing pronunciations. At home people said “Orleans” with three syllables; farther south he had heard it in two syllables with an exaggerated long e. The porter must be local, for the whole name was contracted to two syllables, resembling “Nawlins.”
At home the early snows were falling; here everything seemed as green as freshest spring, whether from the mildness of the climate or because the trees themselves were of an evergreen species, he had no idea. All his life he had heard of the might of the Mississippi, and now he had traversed it, from its confluence with the Ohio all the way down. It did not disappoint, either in the force of its flow, as he realized that it drained off all the rain that fell on the greater portion of the continent, or in its importance to commerce. At length they discerned the levee that bordered New Orleans and saw a forest of steamboats and their tall black smokestacks moored there. Farther out in the stream the larger, oceangoing vessels lay at anchor, their bows pointed south into the stream, the stretch of their cables being the only indication that there was any current to pull at them.
Almost at the same instant they saw a large warship anchored against the right bank. “Mr. Ross, look,” Bliven nearly whispered. “It cannot be.”
Ross joined him at the rail, and they regarded a hundred and fifty yards away a sloop of war, her too-high freeboard common to her class, but there was no mistaking the stunted foremast and awkwardly short, unpainted bowsprit. “Well,” he answered, “I believe it is.”
“I’ll be back in a moment.” Bliven ran forward, rapped on the door of the wheelhouse, and entered.
“Good morning, Captain Putnam,” said Freisinger. “You will have to forgive me, I will be a trifle occupied for a few moments.”
“I am sorry, I won’t keep you, but I must know.” He pointed ahead to starboard. “What is that?”
“Why, we call that Algiers Point.”
“No, the ship, man! Do you know that ship?”
Freisinger glanced at it and returned his study to the wharf. “No, I can’t say as I do. She appears to be a warship—a sloop, I think—but her rigging is wrong; the foremast and bowsprit are wrong.”
But it was certain: the Rappahannock had come to New Orleans ahead of them. After they tied up, Bliven reviewed his orders, that he would be called for on this boat, from which he deduced that he should not leave it. He and Ross waited in their cabin; the porter brought them a pot of coffee and left it, and then a covered lunch. It seemed that everyone had disembarked but them, and it was after one o’clock in the afternoon when they heard footfalls approaching and a loud knock at the door.
Bliven pulled it open almost before the knocking stopped and was stunned at the sight before him. “Sam? Sam!”
“It’s about the hell time you showed up. I have boarded every damn riverboat for the past three days fearful that I’ve missed you.” He extended his hand, and when Bliven took it, Sam pulled him forward into a smothering embrace. “How the hell have you been, Bliv?” Sam Bandy had become as large as a bear, but without a pound of it seeming to be fat, and wore a full beard, woolly and as bright copper as a new penny, except streaked with white at the corners of his mouth. But the face was still boyish, his popped blue eyes bright and eager as ever they were.
“Sam, come in. Forgive me, I must sit down. My head is spinning.”
Sam followed him into the cabin and saw Ross. He extended his hand. “I am Samuel Bandy. Your captain and I are old friends.”
“Sam, this is my steward, Mr. Ross. Really, Sam, this is too much! First I get orders that make no sense, but I obey them; I leave my family at a moment’s notice, and come entirely across the country. I get here to discover my old ship, which was to have been scrapped or become a hulk years ago, and now here you are, and in a goddamned uniform, to beat everything else. I tell you, I can stand no more intrigue! I must know this instant what is happening!”
Sam sat beside him on the berth and laid a meaty hand on his back as he chuckled deeply. “Well, I guess we did play a pretty mean trick on you, didn’t we?”
“Trick? What trick? I had orders.” He could not help himself but to laugh with Sam and lean against him. “What in bloody screaming hell?” But instinctively he knew that now, with his oldest friend in the world, it would be all right.
“Well,” said Sam, “I can’t tell you everything yet, because we are about to be late for an important meeting. Grab your hat and your sword: we have to make haste. Mr. Ross, you should come also. We will send back for your things.”
Together they descended to the first deck and then down the alarmingly narrow gangplank to the levee. Sam walked quickly with great long strides, and Bliven and Ross had to fairly run to keep up. “May I ask at least where we are going?”
“Certainly.” Sam turned to answer but did not slow. “We are going to Hewlett’s Exchange. It is the principal place in the city where business is conducted. It is not far; Chartres Street is only one block off the river.” They crossed a wide plaza with a cathedral on its north side and headed down the street.
“The architecture here is remarkable,” said Bliven. “I have never seen its like.” The buildings were fronted with porches and balconies held up not with columns but with filigrees of wrought iron.
“You haven’t changed,” wagged Sam. “You are still distracted in an instant by the strange and the unusual. Well, get ready to feast your eyes.” He held the door open to a massive building, as tall as the others but of only two stories, its front obscured by Venetian screens. Inside was a vast hall; the ceiling was twenty feet high, the walls covered in maps and paintings of wind-blown women who clutched gossamer scarves over their still-visible bosoms. High above them the chandeliers were the largest and finest he had ever seen. There was a staging at the far end of the hall with a throng clustered around it as a well-dressed man of medium size, somewhat swarthy, spoke loudly, agitatedly, and with great force about injustices suffered, American values by contrast, and potential wealth. He spoke with a decidedly Western accent, but with a ring of the South about it as well. “That is Mr. William Wharton, from Texas. He and Mr. Archer and Mr. Austin have come to New Orleans to raise money for the war.” He placed his lips almost against Bliven’s ear. “Now listen: Ask no questions and act like you know everything that is going on. But, for God’s sake, say nothing about yourself or why you are here, except in following my lead. Do you understand?”
Bliven had never actually taken an order from Sam before, but this hardly seemed like a time to dispute his authority. “Yes, of course.”
Wharton stood down to loud applause, and another man mounted the stage and raised his hands for quiet. “And now, gentlemen,” he said, “it is my duty to introduce to you a man well-known to many of you for fifteen years past. We all know him to be a man of faultless propriety, a man of integrity. It is he who first brought civilization when Texas was still a wilderness, and surely no one deserves to be heard with closer attention on these subjects of such enormous moment. Therefore, please welcome General Stephen F. Austin.”
To generous and respectful applause there mounted the stage a man in his early forties, of medium size but distinctly underweight, with thinning, curly brown hair and enormous, expressive, liquid blue eyes.
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br /> “Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “I believe that I may say without fear of contradiction that no man has been more faithful in his duty to his adopted country of Mexico, or placed more continued faith in her good intentions, than I. This adherence to the duty that I swore nearly fifteen years ago has proven to be misplaced. I have been confined for a year and a half, much of that time incommunicado. Indeed, I committed no crime, for no court would consent to hear my case, and I remained confined because it was the pleasure of a man who at one time was welcomed to the presidential chair by all Texans, but who has proved to be the most bestial of autocrats.
“When he confounded the nation and set himself up as absolute dictator, no fewer than five several states of the Mexican confederation rose up against him. For this act in defense of democracy, four and one half of those states were crushed in the most infamous brutality. The surviving one half of one state, the last hope of freedom in this part of the continent, is Texas.
“And so, Texas finds herself at war. We, as your fellow Americans by kinship and by the values we uphold, have come back to our native land to ask your help in this struggle. We are willing to fight to the ultimate decision, but we are a nation of farmers. We need money for arms and matériel to liberate our Texas from the grip of a medieval despot, a man whose word has proven faithless, a man who understands only violence.
“I know that some of you may offer the rejoinder to me that, in swearing our allegiance to a foreign country, we rendered ourselves liable to whatever changes in government that they might choose to impose upon us. To you I answer, first, that we swore our loyalty to a constitution that was agreeable to the precepts of an enlightened civilization. Only within the past two years was that constitution abrogated, ripped up, and replaced with the personal rule of this bemedaled maniac. I say that no freeborn American, be he ever so humble, would submit to such a dictatorship.
