Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 Read online

  Willow closed her eyes, bowing her head into her hands, while the storm blew down around her.

  Richard dreamed

  He sat with his friends in Fenno's Tavern. Soft candlelight and sounds of revelry surrounded them as they leaned eagerly across the scarred table. Over foaming mugs of ale, they had been discussing morality, Professor Ames smiling benevolently as his students dissected the intricacies of proscribed behavior.

  But something wasn't quite right. Professor Ames kept looking at Richard, a sadness behind his smile. "You do understand, don't you, Richard?"

  I do, sir. I really do.

  A soft rapping intruded, and finally brought Richard back from his dreams. He blinked awake, stared around the dimly lit room, and sat up. The knock came again as he unwrapped die twisted blanket. Home, his father's house . ..

  "Yes?"

  The door opened wide enough to admit Jeffry's dark face. "Master Richard, dinner is served."

  "I... I'll be right there." His breath could be seen against the slit of light cast by the door.

  "Very well, sir."

  Richard rubbed his eyes. The door closed with a click. He groped about in the dark until he found the washstand. Jeffry, efficient as God Himself when it came to Phillip's business, had filled the white porcelain pitcher. Richard poured the washbowl full, gasping at the water's biting cold.

  Unwilling to face himself in the mirror, he stared at the whitewashed wall as he combed his hair.

  Philosopher, he thought. Some Socrates I am.

  On rubbery knees he went down the stairs, and bit his lip to nerve himself before opening the double doors. His appetite dissolved as he quietly entered the dining room.

  Phillip sat at the head of the big table. Oil lamps cast a warm yellow light over the high-ceilinged room. The portrait of Richard's mother stared beneficently down from one wall, her brown eyes doe-soft, the faintest of smiles on her innocent face.

  He considered the painting for a moment, briefly imagining Laura Templeton's face superimposed on the image, then chastised himself for blasphemy.

  The table had been set with white linens and lustrous silver. Lamplight gleamed on the fine china, and reflected from the salt-glazed mugs. A single high-backed chair had been placed at the far end of the table for Richard. The other chairs stood in a forelorn line against the white-plastered wall. Behind Phillip's seat the sideboard squatted on stubby, curved legs, basking in mahogany glory, displaying ceramic ware.

  Sally, the family cook, promptly appeared through the kitchen door, aproned for duty as she carried a porcelain tureen. She was in her late fifties, broad of hip, with her hair wrapped in white cloth. Her black face remained expressionless while she went about her duties. Though a free woman, she kept a room in the cellar as did Jeffry and Bit, the household tweeny.

  "Richard, you're late." Phillip's gruff voice echoed in the room.

  Late! Late! Late! It's always something, isn't it? Richard took his chair and unfolded the napkin, eyes on his plate.

  "For God's sake, Richard, look at me." Phillip shook his bulldog head and muttered, "Lord God, I've raised a rabbit." Then, louder, "It is unbecoming of a man to pout. You're acting like a child."

  "If you say so, sir."

  "You are not a prisoner here, Richard. I just want you to begin to manage your life as an adult. A whole world lies beyond the door—beyond Boston. You've got to live in it .. . deal with it. You can't spend your entire life isolated behind a redoubt of philosophy books. Reality has a nasty habit of creeping into a man's affairs. When that happens, you're going to have to know how to deal with it. . . and, I dare say, your philosophy hasn't given you those skills."

  Silence.

  "Do you hear me?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm not punishing you." Phillip ignored Jeffry, who began ladling soup while Sally returned to the kitchen for another dish.

  "Then why won't you let me go back to my studies?"

  Phillip filled his spoon. "I have other business for you now."

  Images of moldy ledger books formed in the depths of Richard's mind. He could picture himself bent over the pages, squinting in the candlelight as he entered endless columns of debits and credits with a dripping quill.

  Phillip waggled his spoon. "I've given thought to our earlier conversation. It has become startlingly clear to me that you have no understanding of the world. Therefore, travel is to be recommended."

  Richard straightened. Europe? Oxford, or the Sorbonne, or Salamanca perhaps! Europe literally burst at the seams with cultured people. If only he could get to Konigsberg! He imagined himself in the German states, walking in the steps of Immanuel Kant, or even studying with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel himself.

  With a slow smile, his father said, "I thought you'd understand the advantages. You see, Richard, your universe has been limited to this house, this city, and the university. A wide continent stretches out to the west of us. That untamed land is your future. There you should be able to see for yourself how this nonsensical philosophy of yours stands up against the travails of life."

  Wide continent? Untamed land? The frontier? "Oh, my God," Richard whispered. He stared at Phillip in disbelief. "Father, you can't mean ..."

  "Oh come now, son. It will be the best thing that could happen to you. Think of the excitement! To see new lands— virgin country! If only I were younger—and hadn't stopped that damned English ball. How I wish I could step into your shoes."

  He longs for it! Crazy old fool. "You may step into my shoes any time, Father. I'd never try and dissuade you from seeing the wilderness." And God willing, a bear will eat you and I can live happily ever after.

  Phillip sipped the last of his soup and patted his lips with his napkin. "Were I a philosopher, I would look forward to it. The frontier should be a proving ground for that philosophy of yours, hmm? I don't see enthusiasm in your eyes. Very well, I'll make you a bargain. If you still hold with your ideals after another couple of years, well and fine, you may return to that ridiculous university and study whatever you like."

  "I'm not going to the frontier."

  "I need a package delivered to a man in Saint Louis. You'll be carrying a substantial amount of money—and I have no one else to entrust it to. Let us call it a gamble, Richard. You are my son ... and you must have something of your mother and myself in you."

  Mother, yes. You . . . never.

  Sally had delivered the main course, steaming carved turkey on a platter. Jeffry held it efficiently at Phillip's side as he served himself.

  Phillip's sober gaze didn't waver. "I'm making the gamble that when push comes to shove, you'll not denigrate a serious responsibility. Isn't that one of your precious philosophical concepts? Responsibility? Morality? The fulfillment of obligations? Or did I miss something in my reading of Plato?"

  Richard glared hotly down the table.

  Phillip took a turkey leg from the platter Jeffry offered, adding, "On the other hand, if you succeed, you shall have learned something about yourself and, I hope, the world in which you live. Perhaps you'll come home acting like a man."

  "I am a man."

  "I'd phrase it thus: You've reached your majority, Richard." Phillip smiled wearily. "You can walk out of this house and do any damn thing you wish, whenever you wish. Patrick Bonnisen needs dockhands at this very moment."

  Richard helped himself silently to some breast meat.

  "Ah, I see. You would call yourself a man—and assume the privileges—but only as long as I hand you the money."

  "You are a monster, Father."

  "No, my son. Not a monster . .. only a failure as a father. Would that your mother had lived. Perhaps she could have foreseen this. I never had any intention of raising a weakling."

  "What do you know of strength?" Richard gestured with his fork. "I have strengths of conviction. A morality of right and wrong. A morality grounded in being a. free man!"

  "As free as the dollars in your father's purse, eh, Richard?" Phillip
sank his teeth into the juicy meat. "Today is Friday. You'll leave on Monday for Saint Louis. You are to carry my package and partnership papers. They are to be delivered to a Mr. James Blackman of Saint Louis. Mr. Blackman will sign and seal the documents, which you will then return to me along with a receipt. Blackman will buy up silver from the Santa Fe trade, and ship it to my agents in Philadelphia."

  "You don't really expect me to—"

  "I don't think I must belabor the value of thirty thousand dollars. Or does that sum mean anything to a philosopher?"

  Richard's teeth ground angrily. His father planned to invest thirty thousand dollars on some mad fur-trading expedition; yet he begrudged his only son a few hundred a year for his education?

  "How do you know that I won't just run off with it?" Richard asked suddenly.

  "Oh, I'm quite sure, Richard. You claim to be a moral man." Phillip looked positively predatory as he smiled. "Given your penchant for what you regard as moral, I offer you a challenge. Go ahead. Take it! I dare you." He paused. "Or have all those long hours you've spent lecturing me on morality been for naught?"

  Richard lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

  "You don't have the slightest idea, do you?" The old man's eyes gleamed. "You see, Richard, you would prove my point that your love of philosophy is so much rhetoric. True, I'd be out most of the year's profit—but you'd never close your eyes again without seeing my smirking, triumphant smile."

  Richard's fork clattered on his plate as he threw it down. He kicked his chair back so violently it tottered, before settling on all four legs again.

  "I'm not hungry." He turned, stalking from the room.

  Phillip dropped the last bone onto his plate and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. "What do you think?"

  Jeffry, face thoughtful, stared at the doorway through which Richard had bolted.

  "He will attempt to deliver the package to Saint Louis, sir."

  Phillip hung his head, exhaling wearily. "You think I'm wrong, don't you?"

  "It's a dangerous trip, sir."

  Phillip nodded, staring dismally at the scraps in his plate. "Sometimes risks must be taken. God gives us no guarantees, Jeffry. We both know that, don't we?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "But if anything happens to that boy ..."

  "He'll make it."

  Phillip raised his tired eyes to meet Jeffry's masked gaze. "What makes you so sure?"

  "He's your son, sir."

  Phillip chuckled. It sounded like hollow bones rattling in a desiccated barrel.

  THREE

  ... There is a saying much usurped of late, that wisdom is acquired, not by reading of books, but of men. Consequently whereunto, those persons, that for the most part can give no other proof of being wise, take great delight to show what they think they have read in men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. But there is another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if they would take the pains; that is, nosce teip-sum, read thyself.

  —Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

  Cold this numbing was unusual in Saint Louis. Travis Hartman had survived worse—but that had been up in the mountains, far to the west, at the birthing place of the rivers, where the peaks rose in ragged white majesty against skies of crystalline blue. The cold felt different up there in the Shining Mountains—a crispness that bit at the skin. This wet flatland cold in Saint Louis sucked at a man's heat like swarms of hungry flies.

  Hartman led his horse along the frozen street. Snow twirled out of the night sky in endless masses of fluffy flakes and crunched under his tripled moccasins. The footing was uneven, ruts had cut the now-frozen mud, and the snow hid treacherous ice. Even the brick-hard piles of horse manure could turn a foot and sprain an ankle.

  To either side, squat buildings hunched against the storm. Here and there yellow squares of windows shone with candle or lamplight that gave the swirling snow a golden glow. Odors of smoke, manure, and refuse mingled in the biting air. Despite the cold, dogs trotted past in packs, shivering, snow-backed, pausing only to sniff distrustfully at him and the horse before vanishing into the night. No one else seemed to have any desire to brave the cold and snow.

  Main Street, so the joke went, was the only navigable watercourse in town for larger craft, while streets like Walnut and Olive would serve for pirogues and bateaux. To accent the point, Hartman's foot slipped on snow-covered ice and he caught himself at the last instant, startling his horse.

  "Easy there, Shelt. Whoa, old hoss." A mittened pat on the neck reassured the sorrel gelding. "Weather like this, I otta be ridin' a mule!" He paused. " 'Course, no mule would be silly enough ter be out hyar, neither."

  He wore a heavy buffalo coat, snow-caked now, with a soft beaver-hide cap covering his long gray-white hair. A ragged woolen scarf was wrapped about his neck under the frozen beard. Once the scarf might have been red; years of grime had turned it a shiny gray. In one mittened hand he carried a heavy half-stocked Hawken rifle. His powder horn, possible sack, and bullet pouch hung over his shoulder. What looked like black leather pants had begun life as honey brown buckskin—the finest Crow workmanship, smoked to pungent perfection. Over the months, soot, grease, blood, mud, sweat, and all manner of things had stained the leather to its dark sheen.

  Hartman looked up into the dark snowfall. He'd had enough of cold and snow during the last two months, while Saint Louis had been his destination. Well, tired and hungry, he'd finally arrived.

  He didn't like cities much, although Saint Louis was better than most he'd set foot in. Too many strangers. People who didn't know him always stared. Sometimes the ones who knew the story stared, too. It bothered a man, seeing them start, then flinch at the sight of his face. Even Saint Louis was wearing thin; each time he came here, the city had changed. New buildings had been raised. More people, dressed like Easterners, flocked the streets. Some damn jackass in the legislature would have proposed a batch of new laws—and the other jackasses would have passed them. Hell, who knew, it might be that a man would get his arse arrested for spitting in the same streets he'd been spitting in for years. Cities always brought him trouble. Yet here he was plodding down the morass of Main Street.

  He puffed out a frosty breath and squinted through the falling flakes.

  Then he saw his destination. It stood proudly on the corner of Oak and Main, rising like a telltale castle of old. The Missouri Hotel, built of stone, four stories tall, with high gabled windows. Six years old now, it hadn't changed. The first state legislature had sat there in 1820. Made a man feel right important just to see it. And, of course, Travis had special memories of the place. Three years back he'd been thrown out the back door after trying to gut some Yankee son of a bitch who dared to refer to Manuel Lisa as a greasy cheating Spaniard.

  Now he walked up to the double doors under their sunburst fanlight and tied his snow-dusted horse off on the hitching post. He reached for the door, then remembered that he'd reentered civilization and batted the white crust of snow from his head and shoulders. The ice in his beard would just have to take care of itself.

  In reassuring tones, he said, "You mind yerself, Shelt. Won't be long. Injuns won't be trying ter sneak ye off."

  Hartman stomped the snow off his feet, climbed the steps, and opened the door to the small lobby. The warm air carried scents of tobacco, oil lamps, and fabric. A flowery carpet didn't hide the squeak in the wooden floor as he strode to face the primly dressed man who sat behind the wooden fortification of a desk. The fellow looked up, one eyebrow raising. Then came the familiar reaction: startled horror. From the expression on his smooth-shaved face, Travis could guess him for a newcomer to the city. A Yankee Doodle, certain sure.

  "Might... might I help you, sir?"

  "Reckon ye might." Travis pinned the man with his hard blue eyes. "I'm a-looking fer Dave Green. Got word he wanted ter see me. Name's Hartman. Travis Hartman."

  The clerk nodded slowly. "I'll inform him of your arrival,
sir. A moment please."

  Hartman waited while the Doodle slipped from his warren and paced hurriedly for the tavern. A soft chuckle escaped

  Hartman's thin lips. What does that little dandy think? I’m here to scalp him?

  As he waited, Travis inspected the lamps on their high shelves, the upholstered chairs, and the porcelain spittoons. He craned his neck to see the big ledger book resting on the counter, and mentally growled at the senseless black scratchings. Water had begun to drip from his beard, and he pulled back before he made a mess on the paper.

  "I'll be damned!" the bluff voice called. Dave Green, smile splitting his wide face, walked forward with a hand outstretched. Familiar blue eyes took in Hartman's soaked garb and mud-stained moccasins. "You just arrived?"

  Hartman pulled his mitten off and took Green's hand, engaging in the old game of testing his grip. "Been nigh on four years? Five?"

  "Five." Green said, the warmth of the smile growing. "Been missing you, old coon."

  Hartman fingered Green's heavy cloth coat and poked a callused finger at the ruffled white silk scarf. "What's all this foofawraw? They done made a Doodle out of ye?"

  Green chuckled. "Price of success."

  As Hartman took in Green's shiny black boots, the slim trousers and white shirt, the clerk slipped into his warren, still eyeing Hartman nervously.

  Green cocked his head, the angle making his broad face seem broader. "Had anything to eat?"

  "Not since noon."

  "Come on. I think the kitchen can produce something that will fill your hole."

  Following Green down the hallway, Hartman found himself in the dining room, the white-plastered walls supporting a wooden ceiling. Long tables and chairs of various shapes and styles—all of local manufacture—crowded the floor. Travis leaned his rifle in a corner before shucking his coat and scarf. He took a seat self-consciously, relieved that the lamps cast only dim light.