Despite the sun’s heat hammering down on the boat, George suddenly shivered with a cold chill of pure, savage anticipation and looked down the broad fluid avenue of the river. He scanned the distant banks, where only the white branches of sycamores and the fuzzy-looking, pale flower catkins of cottonwoods broke the dense green foliage of the towering hardwood forest. A shrill cacophony of birdcalls and cicadas pervaded those leafy walls. Distant tanagers and jays flickered like orange or blue sparks against that backdrop of green; now and then a heron with slow, flopping wingbeats would rise from one place along the shadowy banks and skim a few yards to settle again. Far downstream a cloud of black smoke appeared to be swirling above the river, but it soon swept near and turned rainbow-iridescent in the sunlight, proving to be not smoke but a cloud of hundreds of thousands of passenger pigeons. They vanished over the trees with a velvety thunder of wings. On a putty-colored estuary at the mouth of some nameless creek a family of three black bears on a fishing expedition paused and looked up to watch the strange passing convoy with its rising and falling oars.
During the morning’s passage, there had been breaks in the forestation of the riverbank: small, stump-dotted clearings running down to the river’s edge, with rows of waxy-green young corn standing knee-high, perhaps a human figure standing in a field or in a cabin door, brushfire smoke climbing lazily out of a newly cleared field. Then as the miles were consumed and the river led steadily away from the Fort Pitt outpost, those few riverside farms had appeared empty, the fields overgrown with brush, here and there a scorched chimney standing amid the collapsed timbers of a burned cabin. George had watched the sullen interest of the men in his boats as they rowed past these mute scenes.
And now as the midafternoon sun burned its way down through the hot pearl-blue of the western sky there were no more clearings at all, only the unbroken wilderness. Likely there were Indians along this riverbank, invisible, peering out, watching this handful of armed boats go by.
George had ordered his captains to stay in midchannel. The width of the river itself was the best defense against any ambush; boats in the middle of this wide stream were barely within the range of the smooth-bore muskets of the Indians, who usually had a tendency to undercharge their weapons anyway because of their perennial shortage of gunpowder.
Joseph Bowman, sitting on a powder keg and leaning on the gunwale on one elbow, seemed to keep his gray eyes trained on the riverbank constantly, as if trying to penetrate the foliage. His pupils were so pale he sometimes gave the impression at a distance of being sightless. With those ghostly orbs he could deliver a most eerie and disconcerting stare, and had learned to use the feature as an instrument in leadership; with an unwinking stare he could usually rattle or intimidate any unruly subordinate and thus regain control over him without a word. Bowman wore a three-cornered felt hat which now shaded those eyes and his small sharp triangle of a nose. His lank yellow hair, not pigtailed, hung loose over his collar.
He turned his gaze inboard now, stretched with intense effort, sighed, then leaned close to George. “If you was a savage, in the business of purveying American scalps for a British lord named Henry Hamilton, and you seen this great armada floatin’ nice an’ sassy down this river, what might you think?”
“Well, I expect I might count how many people were in these boats, then I’d tot how much a hundred and seventy scalps would amount to in British mirrors and knives and trinkets, and then I’d set foot to Chillicothe or Piqua to enlist some help in acquiring those scalps.”
Bowman grinned, but shook his head. “I wouldn’t,” he said. “I’d more likely say t’ m’self, ’Now, lookie, Red Eyes, that ain’t no simple ordinary passel o’ Virginia gentry goin’ down to put in a corn crop in th’ Ohio bottoms, that there’s a war party.’ Then I reckon I’d go a-trottin’ off to Detroit and tell Big Chief Hamilton what I seen.”
George smiled and raised his eyebrows, then gazed off toward the shore. “What is it, Joseph? D’you feel you’re being watched?”
“I do that,” Bowman said. “Six times this mornin’ I’ve felt my back draw up.”
“Six exactly, hm? What a remarkable faculty! Maybe we needn’t post sentries, having you.”
Bowman’s tense look softened; he grinned and fell back to his scrutiny of the far shore. “I don’t reckon a party our size has much worry,” he muttered.
“No. Not till we draw near the Shawnee country. For now, Joseph, I’d recommend you enjoy the scenery. While you may.”
The boats swung into a great bend in the river now; the sun, which had been burning on George’s side throughout the afternoon, now beat upon his shoulders. He turned and gazed straight ahead. This I remember, he thought. Some twenty miles now we’ll wind to the west and then run south a hundred or so. We’ve made about thirty-five miles already. That isn’t anything to be ashamed of.
I’d reckon there’s enough daylight left to make it to the next big bend before making camp tonight, he thought. He turned and looked at the straining backs of the rowers.
“Hey, gents!” he roared. “I’d say we’re warmed up by now; what d’you say we hit a stride now, like we were goin’ to someplace nice!”
A few groans came in reply, then curses and a laugh or two, and Pagan began chanting in a quicker time. “Haaay-up! Haaay-up! Ho!” The rowers swung the oars at the harder pace; the boat thrust ahead toward the afternoon sun, and the other vessels sped up to maintain the file.
Good, George thought. Good boys. Good, good, good. He stood up in the bow again, faced downstream, and pulled his hat brim down to shade his eyes. And he grinned as the wavelets pattered rapidly, more rapidly against the hull.
***
THE AFTERNOON SUN HAD DESCENDED TO THE TREETOPS BY THE time the flotilla reached the place where the river curved southward. Inside the curve of the river now, George recognized a gravel beach where he and his father had camped in 1772, the year that John Clark had journeyed out with his son to see for himself the magnificent lands of this Ohio valley.
He stood up now, told the men to rest on their oars, and summoned his captains to bring their boats alongside.
“Damn, George,” Helm said as his boat came up, “seemed like you been tryin’ t’ run away from us all day! Been chasin’ you what? Fifty miles?”
“About that. Gents, about a league down on the left bank there’s an island where I want us to put in for the night. I think we’re due for some hot victuals and a swill o’ rum. What d’you say, boys?”
“Yowhoo!”
“You bin a-readin’ my daydreams, Cunnel!”
“Rum? Hi, you’re a kindly soul, Mister Clark!”
“Where’s Private Butler?” he asked.
“Ah’m right cheer, suh,” came a voice from Captain Harrod’s boat, and a young giant, auburn hair bleached by the sun, naked except for a breechclout, stood up. He was nearly six and a half feet of muscle and sinew, with a great, downsloping, peeling nose that nearly touched his lower lip. Butler was regarded as the best guide and hunter in the West, a peer of Daniel Boone, and was a legend among the Indians, who called him “He-Whose-Gun-Is-Always-Loaded.”
“Si, d’you reckon you could rustle up something big and sumptuous for the stewpot, if Mister Harrod was to take you ashore here with a small party?”
“Wouldn’t doubt it at all, suh.”
“Good. Put ’em on the east bank, Bill. No sense rousing any Indians if we don’t have to. Wait for ’em, and then whatever they bag, boat it down to the island. I want to keep a few miles between any shooting noise and our camp, just in case.”
“Shouldn’t need more’n one shot, suh, I reckon,” said Butler with the grin of an oaf.
“Haw! Listen at him!” came a mocking voice from somewhere, and laughter went up in the nearby boats.
Butler looked around and his grin grew still wider. “Ah promise,” he said, sitting down amid more laughter, and the boat pulled away toward shore. The convoy began sweeping down the middle of the river again
in single file, full of good-spirited chatter. The right bank was now darkening almost to black; the crowns of the huge trees on the left blank glowed vivid with the last rays of sunlight.
The boats were scarcely ten minutes down the river when the echo of a rifle shot came rolling down the valley. One shot only. The men listened and grinned, heard no more shots, and grinned more. George smiled and felt the mirth welling up higher and higher and he finally had to bite his lips to keep from whooping with laughter. God damn that Si Butler for a showoff, he thought.
The island was an egg-shaped four acres or so, bordered with tall reeds, with a half-acre thicket near its upstream end and the rest covered with lush grass. A great snarl of driftwood left high and dry by some past flood lay barkless and bleached on the north bank, a ready treasure of seasoned fuel. George led the boats to the shoreward side of the island and had them run aground among the reeds, reasoning that only two or three sentries thus would be required to watch the vessels and the eastern shore as well, which lay some thirty or forty yards away. The distant western shore, now silhouetted against the cloudless crimson-gold sunset sky, was the land of the customarily friendly or neutral Delaware tribes; nonetheless, he saw no reason to let his beached boats intrigue the eyes of any Indian bands that might be roaming that side of the river. The island was a scenic, agreeable, and secure site. As there were no tents to pitch, making camp was a simple matter of carrying wood to the center of the bivouac area, digging a latrine trench on the downward side of the island, and rigging a screen of brush and blankets to give the women and children some privacy.
The big cooking fire was no sooner set ablaze than Captain Harrod’s boat bore down on the island. The troops running down to the shore to greet it were at first dumbfounded, then hilarious, to see not one but two deer, a buck and a doe, being hoisted ashore. Simon Butler stood in the prow of the boat looking smug and benign.
“Hey, how’s this happen, Si?” someone called. “We only heard one shot.”
“Well, heck, boys,” he replied with an innocent smile, “y’ done heard me promise Mister Clark just one shot.”
There was an uproar of hooting and catcalls and incredulous laughter as the carcasses were brought up for butchering. The men from Harrod’s boat were importuned by the others for an explanation, but responded only with sly grins and shrugs.
A second cooking fire was built, and soon both carcasses were dressed and turning on spits, filling the cooling evening air with their savory aroma. About fifty naked men at a time were bathing cautiously in the swift, shallow dark water near the boats. George directed that a keg of rum be set up and broached near the fires. The last twilight drained out of the western sky and fireflies began winking over the grassy island and along the nearby riverbank. Whippoorwills and spring peepers filled the night air with their calls, and it seemed to George that the soft voices and laughter of these woodsmen were as harmonious, as much a part of the natural voices of this wild valley, as those of the night creatures. He was immensely calm, tired, and happy. His face felt hot and dry from its daylong exposure to the wind and sunlight, and his haunted stomach growled and his mouth watered for the roasting venison.
Nearby, little Davey Pagan was being gibed about his chanties and his rolling gait. A nasal-voiced woodsman named Jonas Manifee was building his reputation as a comic by miming Pagan’s sea-leg saunter and one-eyed squint, and pouring out his conception of Pagan’s nautical jargon. “Ahoy, me lubbers,” Manifee’s voice twanged, “batten down th’ mizzlemasts, an’ swab up th’ poop! Land ho, two points out baft o’ th’ starborn brow! This ’ere’s Davey Pagan yer forepoop swabman talkin’! Blow me down, blow me down!” And Pagan perched on a fallen log by the rum keg, shaking with his cackling laughter, beside himself with delight at all this attention. Before the food was ready he had been dubbed “the Forepoop Swabman,” and it appeared that he was destined to become a regimental mascot of a sort.
Stars were brilliant in a velvet black sky when the feast began. Ravenous, warmed by rum, full of Colonel Clark’s praise for the orderly swiftness of their first day’s progress, they ate, gazing and blinking into the great beds of coals, commenting among themselves on what had become the prevalent theory about Simon Butler’s one-shot bag of the two deer.
“Gosh damn, he must of just caught ’em in the fragrant delecto” twanged one loud voice in the periphery of the firelight. “That’s th’ onliest way ’e could of done it. Ain’t that why he’s ashamed t’ ’splain it? Nobody but a pure villain’d ’fess up to a dipperdation like that.”
Another voice overrode the laughter. “Always figgered that’s how I’ll meet my end.” It was Isaac Bowman, one of Joseph’s brothers.
“Ye goan die happy, hey, Isaac?”
“Wouldn’t go no other way. ’Ceptin’ … ‘ceptin’ maybe fightin’ Injuns fer ol’ Virginny. Heh …”
Several of the men glanced at George when they heard those unexpected, emotional words, and there was a stillness in which the words seemed to linger for consideration.
George arose slowly and stood in the fire’s glow gazing into the bank of ruddy faces. In the midst of this rich camaraderie, which made this band of strangers seem somehow tribal, that reminder of duty and the dangers ahead enhanced the sense of being alive, made it stand out against the shadowy sea of oblivion upon which a man’s living soul seems to float. George was profoundly moved by the notion, felt a pang from it. It was as if these faces in a ring of firelight made a sun of life in the black, hushed wilderness. He wondered how many of these roughnecks of his were sensing the same thing, or some like sentiment; a glance around at the reflective faces indicated that most were sharing it according to the natures of their individual souls. George raised his cup. They seemed to be expecting him to say something. Isaac Bowman’s last word was lingering in the stillness.
“Here’s to Virginia, gents,” George said.
“Hyeah, hyeah!” Cups were raised. It had been the right thing to say.
“And here’s to Simon Butler, our Nimrod!”
“Hyeah, hyeah!”
“And as for the scalp-buyers of King George, who have been like a blackberry seed in our back teeth too long: Boys, here’s to us, who’s going to spit ’em out!”
“Hey, hey, hey!” The cheers went up several times. The men did not suspect how precisely the remark hinted at their mission, but it was perfectly tuned to their feelings, and they could take it as a compliment as well.
“All right, gentlemen,” George said then. “Drink up, and bed down. I see some of you nodding, and we’ll be on the river before sunup.”
As he strolled off into the darkness toward his bedsite near the boats, he caught Simon Butler’s eye, and with a motion of his head summoned him to follow. They stopped near the river. George looked at the huge head, faintly limned by fireglow. He seldom had to look up at anybody.
“Yes, sun?”
“Now, Simon,” George said in a low and confidential voice.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to but I’ve searched my head and I can’t figure how you did it. I can keep it to myself.”
A chuckle deep as a bear’s grunt came from the hulking scout. “Well, fact was, Cunnel, me an’ a feller named Craze come up on them deer grazin’ t’gether. Figgered two’d feed these yayhoos better’n one, so I pointed th’ doe t’ him, and got a bead on th’ buck myself, an’ tole him, ’Count o’ three,’ and we both fired th’ self-same instant. That simple, suh. Hit was Cap’n Harrod’s idee t’ pull some legs when we turned up, so we all kep’ shet on it.”
George grinned with delight. He clapped Butler on the shoulder. “Go and sleep,” he said.
He drained one more cup of rum, spoke with the sentries at the boats, took a long last look over the encampment, which was nearly swallowed in darkness now that the fires were down, then lay on the grass with his head on his pouch and a blanket drawn up to his waist and watched the pulsating stars. A warm, tingling languor stole up thro
ugh his long legs. Now and then the lush stillness was broken by the sound of some sleeper’s cough.
Could make the Wheeling settlement late tomorrow, he thought, and pick up the rest of our provisions from Fort Henry there. Don’t reckon anyone’ll try to desert there. They’re pretty happy so far, seems to me, and right congenial about each other’s company.
If Smith has a couple hundred like these waiting downriver, we’ll have three hundred and fifty who’d be the match of twice their number of Regulars. That’s not many, but with surprise and the Lord’s just concern, Kaskaskia should be ours before two months are out.
He had been arriving at a decision during the long quiet hours in the prow of that boat. He was not going to establish his base camp at the mouth of the Kentucky as he had planned; instead he would meet Smith and his Holston Valley recruits there and continue on down to the Falls of the Ohio, where a place called Corn Island showed promise of making an ideal base site and could, even without cannon, control the navigation of the Ohio. It would also be a hundred miles closer to his tactical objective on the Mississippi, and to the mouth of the Ohio where he later must construct a fort.