“Teresa.”
Again.
“Teresa.”
She moved her limbs and the sound of her breathing changed.
She’s awake now, he thought. Careful. Oh, careful, man!
“Teresa.”
She gasped. She sat bolt upright, the bed creaking loudly. Her inhalation of breath warned him that she was about to scream. Quickly as a striking snake he clapped his hand over her mouth; her fingers clawed at his wrist and a high, strangled whimper sounded in her throat. Her whole body was shuddering violently; he had terrified her fully as badly as he had feared to.
“Teresa!” he whispered into her ear. “George! Hushhhh!”
His pulse was hammering so loudly in his head that he could hardly hear himself. He wanted to jump up and dash back to his room. But he held her mouth with his left hand and began stroking her hair with his right.
She began nodding then, stopped clawing at his wrist, and he knew she recognized him. But she was quaking like a leaf and might still cry out.
A new dread entered his mind. What if she takes this as a violation?
He had been thinking all along, in his desperate hopefulness, that she would want him here beside her and would welcome him once she was awake and calm. But what if her fear is followed by infuriation? It might well be. Even knowing it is I, she might yet give the alarm.
She was not struggling now, though she still trembled in great spasms. Slowly he relaxed the pressure of his hand on her face, ready to clamp down again in an instant.
Now I’m in a predicament, he thought.
There was only one thing he could think of to make her understand and accept his awful intrusion.
“Teresa,” he whispered in her ear, the scent of her hair in his nostrils, the warmth of her breath on his hand. “Teresa, I worship you!” A moment, then he took his hand from her face and continued to stroke her hair.
For a long, long time, the vague shape of her face remained turned on him; the air was full of their rapid breathing; her hair moved under his hand; the silence was electric; she trembled violently; an outcry, a cataclysmic outcry, seemed imminent.
Then she whispered:
“Te adoro!”
SHE HAD AWAKENED IN MORTAL TERROR. SHE HAD THOUGHT HER heart would stop. Her oldest nightmare, that of a dark, live intruder in the privacy of her room, had come true. A steel-hard hand had stifled her outcry. She had struggled in vain; her body, every vulnerable inch of it, had flinched in anticipation of the knife. She had prayed Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the wild rushing in her brain, certain that this was the very hour of her death. But then through the panic she had heard the intruder whisper the name of the man she had just gone to sleep thinking of, and had felt the hand gently caressing her hair, and then she had heard him whisper, “Teresa, I worship you,” and she had known then that it was not her oldest nightmare but her newest dream that was coming true.
But even that was little less frightening; she was here almost naked without the armor of her hooks and stays and buttons and layers and layers of linen; here was this madman who had invaded the sanctity of her room; here he was inviting almost certain discovery by Maria or Fernando who were awake at any hour because of Maria’s lungs; here was this man, kneeling by her bed and straining toward her, obviously undressed himself; but most frightening of all was the excitement, the desire, her delicious awareness of their proximity and dishabille. Nothing remotely like this had ever happened; no man had ever been this close to her, and she wavered between shame and this tingling desire for touch that was spreading over her.
That hand had continued to stroke her hair, sending chills of pleasure through her, stroking so gently. He had removed his hard hand from her mouth at last and now she breathed the man smell of him, and finally all the tenderness and longing that she had cultivated through the long, lonely weeks welled up in her until her breast was swollen with it, and she had whispered to him:
“Te adoro!”
***
HE TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND SIGHED. HIS LEGS BEGAN TREMBLING, twitching, from the awkward, tense kneeling. The house remained still. It was incredible that this enormous uproar of heartbeats and shrieking nerves had not roused the whole town; but it had been, of course, only a storm of rustlings and whispers, no more than a restless sleeper makes at any time in the night. The crisis of his intrusion was past. And she had whispered that she adored him!
His heart grew huge, and shivers raced around his temples. You, he told himself, have more blind good fortune than any man deserves!
He took her right hand now, and kissed the back of its fingers, turned it and kissed the fragrant pads of the palms. The fingertips touched his cheek.
Leaning then with his knees on the floor and his elbows on the bed, he cupped her face in his hands, tried to pierce the darkness to see what was in her eyes, memorized with his fingertips the tiny miraculous convolutions of those ears he had so often studied from a distance, those artfully sculptured ears which so often flamed with her embarrassments.
Though her panic surely by now was past, she continued to tremble in waves of intensity, causing such a tide of pity in him that tears burned his eyes and traced cool paths down both sides of his nose.
Teresa felt a teardrop fall on the skin of her bare arm—a teardrop, something she had so little expected ever from this hard man that at first she didn’t know what it was; then she understood and was so moved by it that without thinking she reached out to embrace him like a child. The flesh under her hands, though, was not a child’s flesh; it was smooth and rock-hard. Her thoughtless fingers wandered over the muscle-knots and the hollows of his back and shoulders; under the night-cooled skin his flesh was hot and hard as the powerful neck and shoulders of her riding horse. She felt gooseflesh rise on the skin of his upper arm and her fingers explored it with a curiosity of their own. Now her trembling had ceased and she was hot in the face and breast.
“My one,” she whispered. “My one!”
George was growing weak from the sensation of her fingers moving on his back, weak and desperate for warmth; drawing his arms close to his chest he slumped until his cheek lay on her rising, falling bosom and her rapid heartbeat thudded against his right ear. The warm musk of her body bathed him now and the fragrance, the faint floral and spice fragrance of her bedding and thin nightgown, enveloped him. Her hand was stroking his temple now and exploring his hairline. Her breath sighed in and out of her nostrils, her breast rose and fell and her heartbeat raced in his ear. It seemed that this was home; this was the place to which all his wanderings should have brought him to stay: here upon this bosom where he could hear and feel the very life of her beating and flowing and burning. Here seemed to be the center of the universe toward which his restlessness had been bringing him even though he had not known it. There was nothing more central to his soul than this; all about lay a cold room hushing with the gray atoms of night, a sleeping village, an infinity of black and hostile wilderness, an icy blank moon and shivering stars. But here was the hearth where he could warm himself and rest and turn his back upon the doubts and dangers that had preoccupied him for so many weeks. Now he doubted that he could ever gather the strength to rise and go from here.
Yet even as he recognized this as the high, warm, sunny home place of his life, he came gradually to realize that not all yearnings ended here; the rest of himself was awakening to the rest of her. If her bosom was his home, the rest of her body, extended beyond the embrace, moving now so slightly in the warmth under her blanket, was like an unexplored territory, beckoning him as unknown places always had done. He moved his right hand, slipping it into the warmth of her back, feeling the soft hollow of her waist, the nubby vertebrae, and the exquisite soft swelling of her nates, and his loins began to stir with excitement.
But at the touch of his hand in that guarded region, Teresa stiffene
d and he withdrew it.
Somewhere deep in the house, Maria’s cough started disturbing the stillness, and Teresa paused, tense, listening, lightly pushing at George’s shoulder. The coughing stopped, then began again in a few seconds. “Listen,” Teresa whispered. “She’ll be getting up, looking in on the girls. She might find you here! You have to go, before she comes out of her room!”
His awareness of the predicament returned full upon him now, but the necessity of leaving the warmth of Teresa was tragic. As he raised himself from the heat of her bosom the night air coming between them was like a knife edge cutting away a part of him. He knew he had to flee, but he had to make some bond between them before he vanished. He stood, stooping over her, tense, willing himself toward the door, took her hand and placed it to his lips. “My Teresa,” he whispered. “I shall ask your brother for your hand! As soon …” They heard a door open in the corridor, and both started in alarm. “… as I see him!”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes! But Maria …”
They could see a line of lamplight under the door. There was no exiting by that way now; the path between her room and his room had been cut by the vigilant Maria and her lamp.
He remembered then that Teresa’s window overlooked the terrace, and, heart racing, darted toward the window. His bare foot struck something cold and hard, jarring it; the object fell with a metallic clang, a rolling, wobbling sound, and his heart jumped into his throat. He had kicked over her chamberpot in his haste, and Maria’s voice came loudly through the door, calling Teresa’s name, querying in Spanish, edged with alarm. The door handle clicked.
Teresa leaped from the bed and waved George toward the window, responding in Spanish: “It’s nothing! I’ve only upset my necessary!”
And as the door opened and rays of lamplight angled into the room, George shinnied over the windowsill like a fleeing wildcat and dropped into the moonlit night.
JAMES JANUARY, A GRIZZLED KENTUCKY SCOUT ASSIGNED TO George Roger Clark’s bodyguard detail, was just enjoying a great predawn yawn at his post on a garden bench half a dozen yards from a corner of the Spanish governor’s mansion when he heard a clatter and voices issuing from an upstairs window. Jerking up his rifle and looking toward the window, he saw a sight that made his mouth drop open.
A man naked except for white knee-breeches suddenly emerged into the moonlight, hung from the windowsill for a moment by his fingertips, then dropped silently to the ground. In the instant it took the sentry to recognize his commandant, the figure ran around the corner of the house, looked up at the window of his own room, backed off twenty feet into the garden, ran at the house, sprang, caught the sill of his own second-story window, swarmed up the wall like a spider, and vanished inside.
A glow of lamplight had appeared in the other window, and the voices of two women came out, speaking in Spanish, one fussing, the other half-laughing, half-sobbing. Then there was silence again and the light faded from the window. James January found himself staring at a moon-washed stone house just as he had been doing since midnight. He blinked his eyes, shook his head, and lowered his rifle. He was not at all sure he had seen what he thought he had seen. It seemed more and more unlikely every second he thought about it. Perhaps he had dozed off and had a dream; that was a common affliction among sentries.
He decided, at any rate, that he was not going to report it to Colonel Clark.
GEORGE WAS KEPT AWAKE UNTIL DAWN BY A SMARTING SCRAPED knee, a bruised foot, a lover’s ache in his groin, and a succession of worries and joyous recollections. After a short, fitful sleep, he rose to go down to breakfast and test the mood of the household. Teresa was not up yet, but de Leyba’s cheerful countenance told him nothing was amiss.
“Teresa and I have agreed,” George said, “to plight our troth, my dear friend. With your permission.”
De Leyba rose to his feet at this astonishing announcement, tears of happiness gleaming in his eyes. Then he hesitated and looked puzzled. “But … when have you discussed this?” he asked.
“Ah, why, er …” George stammered, “let us just say it was a comprehension mutually arrived at.”
That was sufficient for de Leyba, and the rest of the day was spent in sunshine and celebration.
21
DETROIT
October 7, 1778
THOUGH THE GRAY SKY LOOKED PREGNANT WITH SNOW, GENERAL Henry Hamilton’s regiment struck camp on the Detroit common and prepared to embark on the six-hundred-mile expedition against the American rebels at Vincennes and the Illinois. The soldiers stood shivering in ranks as the Articles of War were read to them, then took a renewed oath of allegiance to His Britannic Majesty. The venerable and imposing Father Pierre Pothier, Jesuit missionary for the vicinity, then conferred his blessing on the Catholics present. There was a large contingent of French-Canadian militiamen along with the King’s Eighth Regiment, and a force of about sixty Indians, which General Hamilton had made arrangements to increase tenfold along the way. He was certain of having a striking force of seven to eight hundred soldiers and warriors upon his arrival at Vincennes. Waiting in the fleet of boats and large pirogues at the water’s edge were ninety-seven thousand pounds of provisions and arms, gifts for the recruitment of Indians, and one large field cannon, the only one that could be spared from the fort. Hamilton then put the remaining garrison under the command of Captain Richard Lernoult, the troops embarked, and the convoy moved down the Detroit River toward Lake Erie.
An early snowstorm covered their first encampment, near the mouth of the river, and when it had subsided, the boats were reloaded for the thirty-six-mile passage across the end of the lake to the mouth of the Maumee. It was noon before the cold, flint-gray surf of the lake calmed enough to permit launching, and there was debate as to whether they should set out for the hazardous crossing. Hamilton squinted into the howling wind, considered that if he delayed any longer, the lake might freeze over, thus stopping him for good, and decided to make the push. Night fell while they were on the lake, rowing desperately and quartering against the bashing seas, an extremely dark night, and each boat raised a light to guide the ones behind. Shortly before midnight the wind shifted and increased, whipping the blinded convoy with icy rain and sleet, and the waves grew higher. Men prayed, bailed, and watched the pale, seething whitecaps march relentlessly toward them. General Hamilton knew that a rocky shore lay on their lee and for hours listened in mortal dread for the roar of the surf. Shaking with cold, a cloak drawn across his face, he consigned his soul to heaven but told the boatmen to keep rowing. It was almost morning when they rowed to land near the mouth of the Maumee, pulled the boats onto an oozy shore and waited for day. It was blowing too hard to permit them to pitch a tent or even make a fire, but they were warmed enough by the miracle of their escape.
They rowed up the Maumee to the foot of the Maumee rapids on the eleventh, and found there the British sloop Archangel, which had brought fourteen more tons of provisions for the journey.
Progress up the Maumee proved unexpectedly slow and fatiguing because of low water. The troops were continually having to drag the heavy boats through the cold shallows, often being forced to unload them entirely and carry the goods up the banks on their backs so that the vessels could be sledded over the mire and rocks, then reloaded. Hours were spent repairing stove boats, and the men at times felt like burdened slaves instead of soldiers.
After thirteen laborious days the expedition reached Post Miami far up the Maumee, where several previously summoned Indian tribes waited. Hamilton spent several days in war councils with these tribes, bestowing on them several tons of presents to induce them to join him. Several of the chiefs refused to go against the man they called the Long Knife, so Hamilton decided to make up for their numbers by sending messengers southeastward for the Shawnees, who he knew were still fully hostile toward the Americans. He also sent messengers ahead down the Wabash with presents inviting those tribes to join him, or at least to scout the activities of the Americans. In the me
antime, the soldiers labored over the nine-mile portage to the upper reaches of the Wabash, working like ants to carry the heavy boats and goods to this second point of embarkation.
On reaching that place, expecting a leisurely float downstream to Vincennes with nothing more strenuous than a few recruiting councils along the way, General Hamilton was appalled to find the Wabash tributary even drier than the Maumee, and the excruciatingly slow business of loading, unloading, dragging and repairing resumed. When he had nearly decided to give up, the convoy came to a stretch of river where the water had been kept up by the great beaver dam. Reaching the dam, he offered jocular thanks and apologies to the beaver colony, ordered a work party with axes to cut through the dam, and the unloaded boats were taken through, then reloaded once more below.
The next obstacle was a vast swamp called les Volets, which had been reduced to little more than a tangled mud flat. Cursing the countryside, he finally sent a party of engineers and sappers down to build a dam below the swamp. After a long wait the water backed up into the swamp, eventually rising enough to float the vessels down to the new dam.
A similar dry stretch was met a few miles farther downstream at Rivière à l’Anglais, where another dam had to be built to raise the water.
By now, freezing had set in, further lowering the river. Floating ice cut the men as they worked in the water to haul the boats over shoals and rocks, and damaged the hulls of the bateaux, which had to be repeatedly unloaded, hauled, and caulked. Even the Indians, who were not by custom inclined to labor, were put to work at times to carry goods and lighten the boats. On some days, only a mile’s progress would be made between dawn and dark. More days were spent in stopovers at the Indian villages, where there would be conferences and gift-giving to recruit more Indians. Often these conferences were in vain because the tribes had made treaties with Colonel Clark during the summer. The size of the expedition had, nonetheless, swollen to about seven hundred, the number varying from week to week as Indian bands joined and others wearied of the whole affair and turned back.