Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 Read online

  Two Half Moons endured a violent fit of shivers, bowing her head. "What does it mean for the people, girl? What is going to happen next? Something with these White men, I'll bet. It won't be good."

  "I don't know, Aunt." Willow pushed herself to her feet, snow cracking from her robe. Her cramped muscles ached, and the cold tightened around her body. "But for now, here, take my hand. As dark as it is, we'll have trouble enough getting you back down to the camp."

  Two Half Moons shivered hard, rattling like a cottonwood leaf in the wind. With movement, however, their bodies would warm.

  Heals Like A Willow began picking her way along the rimrock, glancing back only once for a final look at the rocked-up crevice. Snow clung in the recesses among her carefully placed rocks—a pale spider's web that had snared the last of her dreams.

  As dreams of Laura faded, Richard blinked his eyes open to pale morning light filtering through the cabin window. The rattling, shaking, and clanking of the Virgil brought him back to the river and the journey's incredible tedium.

  His blankets were pulled up around his chin and when he exhaled, his breath rose frost white in the dim light. Loath to leave the warmth of his bed, he snuggled into a ball and let his eyes trace the white-painted wooden walls of his little prison. He could hear footsteps on the Texas deck above his head.

  Curse you, Father, for doing this to me. Boston, ah Boston. If only he were home instead of racing downriver toward God alone knew what fate.

  In his memory, Richard relived that fateful Saturday night in Will Templeton's home—Laura would wait for him.

  Great God, here he was, traveling ever farther from her and the wondrous opportunity she represented.

  It's not forever. All you need to do is go to Saint Louis, then return. All will be as it was before. On his very soul, he'd never leave the city again!

  After that last bittersweet Boston weekend, Jeffry had roused Richard out of bed before the sun rose. He'd dressed by lamplight, pulling on his warmest things.

  Breakfast had consisted of Sally's bread pudding, pork, and eggs. Richard had been seated across the table from his father. Phillip watched him eat, then said, "I’ve had Jeffry pack a pistol in your grip. Given the nature of your—''

  "I won't need it, Father. You know how I feel about firearms."

  Phillip's face twitched, eyes narrowing. "We protested the Stamp Act. We threw their tea into the harbor in defiance of their tea tax. We told them that if they wanted to tax us, we damned well wanted representation. What good citizens wouldn't? When they shot us down in the streets of Boston, we remained loyal. We wouldn't have—"

  "I don't need to hear this again."

  "We wouldn't have risen against them had General Gage not ordered the confiscation of our rifles." Phillip pointed a meaty finger, emphasizing his point. "We didn't resort to warfare until they marched on Concord to seize our powder."

  "I know. I know."

  'Then you also know that no Massachusetts man worth his spit—let alone a man from Boston—will ever travel without his weapons. And where you're going ..."

  "I won't need it!"

  Phillip closed his eyes, shaking his head. "Here in Boston you might not, Richard. But you must face the fact that no matter how much you despise weapons, the day will come when you will need one. Either to protect your life and property, or as the counterbalance to tyranny."

  "Father, I am an enlightened man. There is nothing I can't cope with by employing logic and an appeal to human rationality." Richard wiped his mouth and steepled his fingers. "That was the challenge, wasn't it? My belief in my philosophy against your ruthless and brutal 'real' world?"

  Phillip wadded his napkin and threw it to one side. "As you wish. You may leave the pistol behind—and I will discard any notion of my thirty thousand dollars making it safely to Saint Louis."

  A long silence settled over the table, Richard simply playing with his food. Phillip watched him with resignation.

  Jeffry entered and announced, 'The carriage has arrived and awaits your convenience, sir."

  Richard pushed back from the table. "Excellent breakfast. Jeffry, please give Sally my compliments." To his father he added, "There's no point in my lingering. The sooner this is over, the better."

  Tight-jawed, Phillip jerked a short nod and got to his feet. "Jeffry, if you would be so good as to bring the grip from my office."

  Jeffry nodded and left.

  Richard paced to the hallway where his things waited: a satchel of books, and a trunk. When Jeffry handed him the grip containing the banknotes, Richard quickly opened it and extracted the heavy pistol. He hated to touch it, as if his flesh might be corrupted by the inherent violence contained in that polished wood and cold iron. Like a snake's flesh, it felt cool and slick. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, he laid it carefully on the hall chair. With a calculated swirl, he wrapped his coat about his shoulders, pulled on his hat and gloves, and opened the large front door.

  Misty orange light slanted across the city, shooting through the smoke pall over the snow-crusted rooftops. The biting winter chill brought a rush to his blood as his frosty breath rose on the still air. A bundled carriage driver waited by the step, slapping his arms and rocking from foot to foot. He reached up, touched his hat, and muttered, "G'day, suh."

  Phillip limped through the doorway and made his halting way down the stairs. Grim-faced, he handed Richard the grip. Jeffry followed, delivering the satchel and trunk to the coachman, who placed them in the boot.

  At the door of the coach, Phillip cocked his head. "Richard, you ... I mean

  "Offering advice, Father?"

  The gray gaze hardened as Phillip stiffened. "I wouldn't presume. You seem to have all the answers already." He half turned, then stopped, looking back sadly. "I just wonder is all. I wonder how you and I could have grown so far apart."

  "Keep wondering, Father. A Greek philosopher once stated that the unexamined life is not worth living."

  As anger reddened his father's face, Richard placed his foot on the step and climbed in to seat himself on the cold leather. He leaned out the far window to stare at the familiar Commons, the snow now crisscrossed with tracks. The carriage rocked as the driver climbed up.

  The leather crackled as Richard settled in and the rig jolted forward. He didn't look back, preferring to watch the Commons as it slid past and dream of the look in Laura's eyes as she listened to his every word.

  God, how I'll miss this.

  January 24, 1825

  On the Ohio River, four days from Pittsburgh

  Dear Laura:

  I hope you received the letters I posted from Pittsburgh. What a horrid little town! It has few amenities for either the civilized man or woman, though the poor residents do make a show of gentlemanliness and aristocratic pretension. I doubt, however, that the place will ever amount to much.

  I am on the river now, aboard a steamboat named the Virgil. The boat itself is quite a marvel in that it smokes, rattles, and shakes, but makes excellent speed. The shore seems to race past.

  How do I tell you about the river? Imagine, if you will, dark water winding through wooded, snow-mantled hills. I've spent hours staring into the depths, sensing the inevitable power of moving water. Were I not the rational fellow that I am, I'd swear I could feel it, like something alive. It has a purity, perhaps something baptismal.

  Water and land, it is an ancient duality, but one that is pressed upon a person out here in the wilderness. Where the river is pure and clear, the land is foreboding, dark and brooding. As we pass along the shoreline I can see small fields cleared from the somber trees. The fields lie fallow, and snow-covered. Tiny cabins— little more than rude huts—are situated off to the side, and traces of blue smoke rise from the chimneys.

  What sort of rude beings huddle next to those feeble flames? As terrible as the land is, the people who inhabit it are beneath contempt. Laura, I have entered the dark heart of the benighted wilderness. The only solace which is mine is
that you will be waiting anxiously for my return.

  I cannot tell you how much I dwell on that happy day when we shall be reunited. Each minute passes so slowly as to be an hour.

  I hope you don't think that I'm being presumptuous. Perhaps the wilderness has given me courage to write such things as I would never have had the temerity to do were I not so far removed from your presence.

  Obediently Yours, Richard Hamilton

  Father, you exiled me to Hell.

  The steamboat clanked loudly, intruding on the wistful memory. He opened his eyes to his tiny stateroom aboard the Virgil He could hear voices in the hall: men discussing the chill in the air as they walked forward.

  Richard stared dully at the whitewashed wall. He kept to his cabin except when cold drove him to the forward parlor and the stove. Succor came from thoughts of Laura and his precious books. He need only open to a page and drop into the convoluted prose of Hegel, or the intricacies of Descartes, and this tawdry world slipped away. The other men aboard congregated to enjoy card games, drinking, and planning explorations along the shore during wood stops.

  In Richard's productive imagination, he had metamorphosed into a sort of Moses in the wilderness, isolated within his own mind. Such thoughts dominated his letters to Laura and the journal he'd begun to keep the day after he left Boston. His scribblings had become so voluminous, he'd been forced to purchase a large ledger book in Pittsburgh.

  By the Lord, anything to break the monotony of being trapped aboard this floating cage with its benighted passengers.

  The Virgil made stops at each of the squalid little hamlets along the Ohio. Places like Economy, Cincinnati, Wheeling, Louisville, Portland, New Harmony, and Paducah. They consisted of a mixture of frame and log houses—the latter little more than hovels with sod roofs. People lived in dirt, even to the point of covering the decks of their fragile flat-boats with it—perhaps so the inevitable bone rick of a milch cow could feel as much at home as the filth-encrusted humans. Such ungainly craft now floated downriver in ones and twos. Richard had overheard that those intrepid voyagers hoped to make homes before spring planting.

  Dirt into more dirt.

  He'd seen them from the steamboat as they passed cleared patches in the trees: generally the homestead of a gnarled man and a hard-boned woman laboring to raise kids, corn, and pigs.

  And this is the great destiny my father believes in?

  Any semblance of civilization had stopped at Pittsburgh. That rowdy town at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny might have met the approval of a Saxon chief, but little more.

  Despite his disappointment in the people, the eternal voices of earth and water had captured his imagination. The majestic river amazed him. At first it had been cluttered with floes of ice. The Ohio exuded a sense of power and propriety, bounded by its tree-furred bluffs and somber, wooded banks. Staring out over the water instilled in him a feeling of tranquillity he'd never experienced before. As the river gained a hold on his soul, he began to fill the pages of his journal with poetic musings, an amorous tone apparent in his flowery words.

  Beyond the river lay the forest, perpetually somber, a place of labyrinthine shadows and secrets. Richard had grown acutely aware of its presence. Once, at a wood stop, he'd walked out into the leaf-matted silence and stared up at the patterns of mighty limbs that blocked the sky. He'd run his fingers down the rugged bark of oaks, hickories, and walnuts, sensing the age and power of the land.

  What was it that touched him? The prickle of danger? The warning that his soul was somehow in jeopardy? At the first threads of fear, he'd turned and bolted for the boat, relieved by the sound of human voices, the clank of metal, and the soothing reassurance of men and their works.

  Even now, safely huddled in his bed, he shivered at the memory. It was out there, just beyond the thin wall of his cabin: a terrible presence he could not understand. The rational mind told him he'd seen nothing but trees: wilderness. What had made him feel so small, so meaningless?

  Ever since, he'd watched the forest as it passed, uneasy at what might lurk in those dim shadows.

  Like a child hearing ghouls in the winter wind. You're a fool Richard.

  His growling stomach finally drove him to throw back the blankets and climb to his feet. Shivering, he dressed, tied a thick white scarf about his neck, and broke the crust of ice out of his wash bowl to wet his face and slick his hair. Fingers numb, he unlocked his door, plucked up the grip containing the money and his copy of Kant, then stepped into the cramped corridor. Narrow black doors, each designated with a white letter painted by a wobbly hand, lined the way. The boards creaked underfoot as he proceeded forward to the parlor. The boat shuddered, the deck swaying in a most unsettling manner.

  The boat is going to shake itself apart and I’m going to drown.

  After his arrival in Pittsburgh, the Virgil had been the first steamboat making passage to Saint Louis. She was a small sternwheeler, no more than one hundred and ten tons. Two black smokestacks rose from behind the capstan in the bow, and through the forward gallery. Richard could see them through the large windows as he entered the main cabin. His fellow passengers, some twenty in all, had already filled the room with a blue haze of tobacco smoke that mercifully covered the taint of unwashed humanity. They sat at the tables, some engaged in cards, others in companionable talk over steaming tin cups. Most glanced up, noted his arrival, and returned to their conversations and games.

  "Good morning, sir." The Virginia planter spoke with his usual politeness. He wore a gray beaver-felt hat, charcoal frock coat, and a silk scarf that contrasted with his blue eyes, pale face, and black hair.

  "Good morning to you, too, sir." Richard gave a slight bow and turned toward the pantry where what remained of breakfast—crumbled corn bread, a well-hacked joint of venison, and shreds of smoked side pork—rested in tins on the warming shelf over the stove.

  Richard seated himself by the window across from the Virginia planter and made the best of the fare. What would it be like to be married to Laura Templeton? She'd always be there, ready to listen to him, supportive of his studies of philosophy. He could imagine her bustling about the room, ensuring that the house was immaculate.

  And later, they'd ascend to the bedroom. He swallowed hard, a flutter in his chest. Unlike the rest of his fellows, he'd keep himself sacred unto her, and her alone. In his imagination, he could feel himself snuggling under the covers, her warm body next to his.

  What was it like, to have intercourse with a woman? Obviously better than those shameful occasions when he ejaculated in his dreams. Did the idea of intercourse worry her as much as it worried him? Or were women different when it came to such things?

  The steward had no more than removed the plate when the Virginia planter rose and stepped to Richard's table.

  "Cigar, sir?" The Virginian extended a prize specimen. "Charles Lamont Eckhart, at your service, sir."

  "Richard Hamilton." Damn! The image of Laura had slipped away. Richard opened his copy of Kant and looked up. "Thank you, sir, but I don't smoke cigars."

  The Virginian raised a dark eyebrow. "Now is as good a time as any to start, sir. I offer my private stock, produce of my own fields."

  "I'm sure they are wonderful, but I must regretfully decline your offer."

  The cigar was withdrawn to a deep coat pocket. "Boston, aren't you, sir?"

  Richard stifled a sigh as the Virginian seated himself across the table. "Yes, Boston."

  "Your speech gives you away." Eckhart used a thumb and forefinger to flick breadcrumbs from the scarred table-top. "What brings you to the frontier, Mr. Hamilton? I would assume from your books, writing, and demeanor that you are a scholar."

  "You are correct, sir. Philosophy."

  Eckhart rubbed his smooth chin, eyes thoughtful. "You are going to Saint Louis to teach?"

  "Business."

  "Santa Fe trade, I suppose." Eckhart pulled out his cigar, lit it, and exhaled a cloud of acrid blue smoke. "Yes,
a smart young man should do very well. . . provided, of course, that you have the ambition and character necessary for the frontier life."

  Richard chuckled. "I can already tell you, I don't. My duty, sir, is to go to Saint Louis, see to some arrangements, and return to Boston with the greatest dispatch. Thereafter, I shall retire to the university, and never again endure such bad food"—he gestured at the pantry—"ill company, or the human dregs such as you see floating along on flat-boats."

  "Dregs, sir? Our fair countrymen?"

  "I shudder to think of the society such men will create out here in the wilds. Anarchic ignorance does not breed greatness." Richard pointed at a flatboat coasting slowly along the south bank, the craft nothing more than a tent pitched on a log raft. Two men, dressed in what amounted to rags, used long poles to fend the craft from the bank. "Imagine, the noble red man has been made to give way before such as them. At least when Rome sent out her shining legions, they were followed by the administrators, engineers, and merchants. Now, in our modern world, at a time when the works of men like Rousseau should occupy the finest of minds, we've unleashed a horde of unwashed animals as the vanguard of our advance across the continent. How will history judge us, sir?''

  "You speak of Americans more like Mongols than countrymen. Many of us see these settlers as the first foot soldiers of civilization in a virgin continent. Just as my own—"

  "Civilization?" Richard raised an eyebrow. "I pray you, sir, were you to ask that farmer floating along out there to discuss Plato's parable of the cave, I fully expect that he would reply that a cave was good for the storage of whiskey, and little else."

  "And Aristotle would be an excellent name for a mule, I suppose."

  "Indeed, sir. Thus, the question is: What sort of state shall these rude bumpkins build out here?" Richard tapped his copy of Kant. "One based on rational and moral principles, or on the basest human passions? These frontiersmen are a bestiary of vermin. I fear any society they should create would reflect their animalistic propensities. Therefore, sir, I shall discharge my duty in Saint Louis, and be most hasty about my return to Boston with its enlightenment and a more genteel society."