by James Haley
He was curious to look into the slave cabins but did not, knowing that Sam—when he heard about it—would feel under examination, that Bliven was investigating whether the stories of neglect and mistreatment told by abolitionists were really true. The condition of the field hands he could not address, but Dicey seemed no different from any other matron tending children and a farm—she was busy, efficient, cheerful.
He did not recognize all her chores, and that evening after dinner, with Sam not yet returned, he was reading by the fire when he spied her set aside a basket of mending to screw some kind of mechanism into the bottom of a candlestick. “Dicey, forgive me. What are you doing?”
“Oh, Lord, Cap’n Putnam, out here in these parts, ain’t nothing so precious as tallow. Candles are so dear, some people just can’t buy ’em. So our German neighbors give us these candlesticks. See, they twist up from the bottom, so as the candle burns down, the bottom comes up, and nothing is ever wasted.”
“Fascinating. I have never seen the like.” In his memory he could still hear his father dressing down Clarity for buying candles of beeswax at eight times the cost of tallow.
“I got hot water in the kettle. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“I would love a cup of tea.”
She rose and prepared it, pouring the hot water through a strainer. “What do you like in it?”
“Maybe just a spoon of sugar?”
When she gave it to him, Bliven slurped to cool it a bit more as he sipped it, and his eyes shot open. “Dicey! What is this tea? What on earth?”
She looked up from her mending. “You don’t like it?”
He held the cup down to his lap and stared at it. “Dicey, I have been to China, I have had the best teas in the world. This beats all of them to pieces. I must know, what is it? Where is it from? Where did you get it?”
Dicey grinned. “Well, it ain’t dark yet. You drink it on down, and I will show you where we get it.”
After he finished they went out back and she took up a small basket. She led him down a path from the side of the house, a different direction from the path where the corncobs were destined, and in a couple of hundred yards it narrowed into a stand of gray-green bushes, most of them from four to six feet tall. Dicey walked on and the shrubs closed around them, and then she stopped and twirled in a circle. “Well, Cap’n Putnam, here we are. These here thickety yaupon bushes is where we get our tea.”
Bliven fingered a branch and examined the leaves, two-thirds of an inch long and half as broad. “I have never heard of these.”
“You can’t buy them in no store, but when you poor and colored you learn about things.” She laughed suddenly. “And some things are pretty good. White folks would have a fit if they knew we drink better tea than they do.”
“How did you learn about them?”
“From some of the slaves hereabouts, they learnt it from the Indians. It’s so easy. Just pick the leaves, toast ’em, and grind ’em—nothin’ to it. Look here, you help me pick a bunch, and I’ll fix some up for you to take with you.”
“Oh! Oh, yes!”
“Now, be careful you don’t pick no berries. The berries will make you powerful sick. Just the leaves, now.”
“The mature leaves or just the new ones?”
“Don’t matter, so far as I know, but I wouldn’t strip whole branches; that might kill them.”
“All right, just a few from each branch.” Every time he gathered a double handful, he poured them into her basket. “Dicey, now that Sam has gone into town, may I ask you something?”
“Surely, I’ve been thinking you might.”
“You and Sam . . . I . . . well, you can imagine my surprise to learn that you are . . .” He let the sentence hang unfinished.
Dicey dusted the detritus of yaupon leaves off her hands onto her apron. “Cap’n Putnam, did you ever have a sailor on your ship wanted to ask you something but he was so scared to, you finally had to tell him that he could speak freely?”
“Yes, in fact I have.”
“Then, for the Lord’s sake, speak freely!”
“If I may ask, how did it happen? How did it begin?”
Dicey resumed plucking yaupon leaves, but thoughtfully. “It’s all right, I don’t mind you asking. When Miss Rebecca died, I never saw a man brought so low as Mr. Sam was. I was afraid he might harm himself. Yes, sir, I was sore afraid. And I was afraid of what might happen to me without him. It was maybe three weeks after she died, one night after supper. I was putting the dishes away, and he went to bed. Even though he was upstairs, I could hear him. I went up to the door of his room and he was crying like a child. So I took off my shoes and I went in and I laid myself down beside him. And I’ve never left him.”
“So you mean he’s never forced you—”
“Lord, no! This was my doin’.”
Bliven felt himself oddly on the defensive. “I’m just not certain that . . . I mean, do you think it’s right . . . for you to be together?”
Dicey looked at him blankly for some seconds, then heaved a sigh, rolling her head and eyes as though she were following the sun from dawn until nightfall. “Why? Because we’re not married? Because I’m colored? Because he was my master?” She shook her head slowly. “Mm-mm! Where on earth did you find such a high horse to sit on?”
Even as a Northerner, and thinking of himself now as an abolitionist, no Negro had ever lectured him so. “Now, Dicey, I don’t place myself in any kind of judgment over you. But isn’t it true that many of the preachers, both in the South and the North hold that God—”
“God? Pshaw! Where was God when I was torn away from my home when I was too little to have any sense? Then when I was torn away from my mama? Where was God when Miss Rebecca died? Where was God when that speculatin’ banker left Sam with near nothin’? Sam and I made our vows to each other, and God can like it or He can just leave us be! Let me make something clear to you, Cap’n Putnam. Sam can’t marry me—his Catholic wife seen to that—but even if he was free, he still couldn’t marry me because I’m colored. And he can’t free me, because slave catchers would take me unawares and sell me somewheres else. But I can tell you, as between him and me, he did free me; he just dassen’t try to make it legal.” Dicey opened her arms and gestured into the forest. “Look around you, Cap’n Putnam, this is as good as this life will ever get for me. And you know what? This ain’t bad. I have a man who loves me, a good, snug home, all the good food I can eat, children to raise and teach right from wrong. No, sir, this ain’t bad at all.”
Bliven nodded in thought. “What about that Catholic wife? She must have complicated things a little bit.”
Dicey smiled wickedly. “Well, I guess I did have to share him for a while. She didn’t last, though.” She laughed, deep in her chest, husky and victorious.
Bliven had been in the fighting Navy long enough to know when to strike his colors. He stood closer and took her hand. “Then, Dicey, if you and Sam are happy together, I will have no more to say about it. I will just be happy for you.”
“Thank you, sir.” She squeezed his hand. “Do you mean that truly, or are you just keeping the peace?” When he had no ready answer, she patted him on the chest. “Well, I expect you’ll try, anyway. That’s pretty good.”
* * *
* * *
Next midday Bliven held Sam’s horse as he dismounted in the yard, then asked, “Did you have a good visit? Find out what you needed?”
“Well, let’s say that I learned a hell of a lot.” They walked around the house and Sam poured himself a cup of buttermilk from the pitcher in the evaporator. “What Hiram told us in Velasco about the government being in chaos doesn’t begin to cover it. There is no government to speak of. The one thing that everybody agrees is that it has broken down; it was a mistake to try and make a government that would please everyone, so there is going to be a new co
nvention to declare independence.”
“Where is Houston?”
“Some weeks ago he rode into town after being out rounding up volunteers, and he was so disgusted he didn’t want anything to do with any of them. He told them to get things fixed, and he was going to the Redlands and make a treaty with the Cherokees to not take sides in the war when it comes. So, he is in Nacogdoches.”
“How far is that?”
“Six days, if we push.”
“Six days! Did you think he would be so far away?”
“No, I didn’t expect that. But morning will be soon enough to start.”
They rode north, the coastal prairies with their belts of trees gradually giving way to higher meadows, with large sections of a stout, short oak of a species Bliven had never seen before, and when they turned east, within three days they found themselves in a pine forest. It was thin at first, and interspersed with cedar brakes, but gradually it thickened and darkened above them.
Nacogdoches lay on the old Camino Real, so there was no danger of them getting lost, and the whole area was settled enough that they could count on being put up for the night and not have to sleep on their blankets in the woods.
“This is a substantial little town, Sam,” said Bliven as they entered it at last. “How many people live here, would you say?”
“Oh, three or four hundred. No census that I know of. This road here will run right into the Stone Fort; that’ll be the best place to ask where to find Houston, and we can change into our uniforms there.”
Houston’s camp, as they learned, lay near the Cherokee village north and west of town, and darkness overtook them so that they found the last mile by the light of campfires ahead. They dismounted when they were challenged by a sentry, and Sam said, “Two officers to see General Houston.”
“Very well, if you will follow me.” There were not more than fifty men in the camp, which was well organized and clean.
The sentry pulled aside the flap of a United States military regulation tent, revealing lantern light within. “Excuse me, General, two officers are here to see you.” He stood aside and held it open for them.
Sam and Bliven ducked through the opening and beheld a powerful-looking man in his early forties rising from a camp table. As he came around it, Bliven marked that he was perhaps six feet two inches tall, only slightly more than himself. He glanced down, curious whether a pair of boots added to that height, and saw he was wearing beaded Indian moccasins. He had auburn hair, thinning on top and pulled back into a queue, a strong brow and bridge of the nose, a pronounced cleft in his chin, and remarkable eyes of a brilliant, brilliant sky blue evident even in the lamplight. “Gentlemen,” he said. They saluted, which Houston returned. “Mr. Bandy, you are welcome.” His voice was deep and sonorous.
“General, may I present Captain Bliven Putnam, late of the United States Navy?”
He advanced far enough to shake hands. “Captain, welcome.”
“I believe I am still in the United States Navy, General, but in truth I cannot say that I am certain”—he produced the letter with which he had been entrusted—“but I am sure that I have been charged to pass this to your hand and none other, for it seems to be a matter of some importance.”
Houston took it with a low and deeply basso laugh. “I sympathize with your plight, Captain, for mine is not dissimilar. Pray, be seated, and indulge me, for I must read this before we proceed.” As he broke the seal on the letter he resumed his seat in a ladderback chair with a cane seat whose angles altered beneath his weight, and he moved the lantern closer. He indicated camp stools for his visitors to seat themselves upon and began squinting at the letter. “As much as I esteem General Jackson,” he muttered, “his hand becomes more of a curse to read the older he gets.” Even across the table Bliven could tell the writing was small and crabbed and angular, the ink thick and the lines closely spaced.
“Well,” Houston said at last. “Have you gentlemen been to San Felipe?”
“I was lately there,” said Sam. “That’s how I knew where to find you. While I was there, I thought it prudent to leave Captain Putnam at my place near Bolivar.”
“Quite right.”
The tent flap opened again. “I’m sorry, General, Mr. Bowie is here and says it is urgent that he—”
Before he finished, Bowie brushed behind him and into the tent. “Your pardon for the interruption, Houston. I have just come from the Cherokee camp.” He glanced at Sam and Bliven. “Oh, may I?”
“James Bowie, colonel of volunteers, this is Sam Bandy and Bliven Putnam of our incipient naval department.”
“Gentlemen,” said Bowie, taking their hands in a crushing grasp.
“I have heard of you,” said Bliven.
“I hope you don’t believe it all.”
So, this is Bowie at last, he thought. He wanted badly to say that he had hunted Laffite in 1817 for slave smuggling and if he had taken Bowie at the same time he would have hanged them both. Bowie had made his wealth in slaves and land fraud, and become infamous for his skill at knife fighting, stemming in part from an incident in Mississippi when he and an antagonist were locked in an icehouse from which only one of them would emerge alive, and that proved to be Bowie. Indeed, he had visited a blacksmith with a drawing for an improved weapon that could both stab like a dagger and slice, as well as being heavy enough to chop like a machete. The instrument was named for him and was ubiquitous across the whole van of the advancing frontier, but it was only now when Bliven saw one, presumably the original model, thrust through Bowie’s belt that he appreciated the ferocity of its look. Its size was frightening, the blade a full twelve inches long and an inch and a half broad. The only knife he had seen to equal it was the Arab jambia he had taken in the Barbary War; he had given it to his father, and it now reposed on his mantel in Litchfield. He had left off taking it to sea with him as a youthful affectation, but at this moment he regretted leaving it at home, for he and Bowie could have held court on their respective virtues. As it was, he nodded his head at the weapon. “The famous Bowie knife?” he asked.
“It is.”
“You do not use a scabbard?”
“Not when I treat with Indians. If any of them makes a threat to me, as Indians are wont to do, I want them to know what they’re getting into. Now, General,” Bowie said, returning to his subject, “the Bowl and the other chiefs have said they will agree to remain neutral in the coming fight with Mexico. They thank you for not asking them to join you, and they will take no action to help the Mexicans. But for this they require your word of honor that you will not again try to bring Creeks down here from the Indian Territory to settle among them. They say the land you will cede to them is only large enough to support themselves, and besides that, they don’t even like Creeks. They say they always cause trouble and they want nothing to do with them. They would like some answer before they sleep tonight.”
Houston stood, arms folded, looking downcast. “Very well. Tell my father—and now be certain you say it just this way—tell my father the Bowl that I am sorry my red brothers cannot live in harmony together. I believe that this must hurt the heart of the Great Spirit. But tell them that I understand, that the land we will give them is not as large as they deserve, nor as large as I would wish to give them, but it is as much as I believe the government will agree to let them have. And tell them I agree that I will have no more talks with the Creeks except to tell them they cannot come to this part of the country. Bowie, do you think that will satisfy them?”
“Yes, sir. We will draw up the treaty and you can all sign it as soon as you can arrange a big smoker to all meet.”
“Thank you, Bowie. Good night.”
“General.” Bowie saluted and left. Houston sat heavily, shaking his head.
Bliven noted his sadness. “General, if I may?” Houston looked up. “Two years ago I was in Florida. My ship was damag
ed off the Bahamas, and I put in at St. Augustine to effect repairs. It was at the time that Fort King was reactivated, and I had to take supplies and a garrison up there.”
“The beginning of the Seminole trouble,” said Houston.
“Exactly. I had to witness a council with those Indians, and if I may be so bold, I believe you just acted as wisely as the Seminole agent acted rashly and foolishly.”
“Who was that agent?”
“His name was Wiley Thompson, sir.”
“Then this news might hold some meaning for you. We learned not two weeks ago that the Seminole Indians have killed Mr. Thompson and gone on the warpath.”
Bliven drew a deep breath. “Oh, no, I had no idea. I am sorry to hear it, but I am not surprised. I found his lack of sympathy for the Seminoles, and the bluntness with which he told them they would have to quit their lands and remove to the west, to be quite dangerous, even reckless.”
“Captain”—Houston looked at him coldly—“I knew Wiley Thompson well. He was in Congress before I arrived there and remained there after I left to assume the office of governor of Tennessee. No man was more dedicated to the advance of civilization on this continent.”
“I apologize, General. I did not mean to give offense.”
Houston dropped his head. “On the subject of Indian removal, however, I am more inclined to agree with you. Are you aware that I lived with the Cherokees for six years?”
“I knew only that you went to the Indian Territory after you resigned as governor. I believe that was in the newspapers.”
