Flight of the Hawk: The River Page 10

  “If only I didn’t have to stabilize the river.” Lisa shook his head in irritation, his cup cradled in his hands.

  Tylor pointed his pipestem. “Be very careful in trying to establish a contact there. Given the Spanish penchant to fear their shadows, under no circumstances should you yourself go to Santa Fe. You will never leave. Except in the unhappy event whereby you will be bundled up in chains and sent to Mexico City as a spy.”

  “But they have no reason. We’re not spies. We’re traders. Don’t their governors understand that we’ll pay taxes? Trade will help to make their colony rich.” Lewis looked baffled.

  Tylor shook his head. “The Spanish government is not interested in seeing commerce between Santa Fe and Americans. They have too much to lose and the common people too much to gain. Mexico is already festering under the long corrupt Spanish colonial system. Hear me, Mr. Lewis?”

  Reuben gestured his frustration. “It flies in the face of sense that men wouldn’t flock to line their pockets, that’s all.”

  Tylor sipped his brandy. “Think larger in scope. It’s not just threats to New Mexico. Europe is awash in turmoil, war, and political upheaval. After the American revolution, France overthrew its king to establish a republic. Now Napoleon is tearing Europe apart, and Spain is in the middle of it. You think that here in far-off Louisiana beyond the frontier, we’re a world away, but we’re bobbing on the rings of those very waves. And the Spanish dons know it. Mexico just watched Americans seize their own destiny. And just because the landed Spanish aristocracy may be corrupt, stubborn, and inefficient in the administration of their empire, don’t ever think that they’re fools.”

  Lisa and Lewis thought quietly for a while before Reuben looked up. “Perhaps there would be a way to smuggle?”

  “I would think so,” Tylor agreed. “Still, you would need to establish a contact of some sort—someone who would bring goods out to your caravans. You also have to realize that the economy of Santa Fe is small. Any contact you make must be powerful enough to avoid arrest, confiscation, or imprisonment. Governor-General Salcedo has been most clear about his feelings when it comes to fooling with the Provincias Internas. The arrival of Zebulon Pike and the Freeman and Custis expeditions didn’t help matters. They justified and solidified all of Salcedo’s fears.”

  “Then the Spanish are running scared?” Lisa’s eyebrow raised in challenge.

  “Absolutely,” Tylor told them. “Scared of revolution. Scared of Napoleon. Scared to death of men just like you, Mr. Lisa. They fear how American trade goods will affect the people. Their empire is crumbling, outdated in time by three hundred years. They are less capable of economic competition and political control than any other power in the Americas. Old and stagnant, they may be, but they want to rot that way.”

  Manuel Lisa gave Tylor a serious inquisitive look. “There is a great deal of money to be made if they will trade gold for goods.”

  Tylor sipped the brandy and shrugged. “The time is not right, Mr. Lisa. You can smuggle a little for now, but they will not allow you to engage in full-scale trade of the type you hope for. Give it a couple of years. For all we know now, Napoleon may conquer Spain and take Mexico. That, or the revolution will come. The Indian populations are in a state of ferment all over Mexico. Especially the Maya regions in the south.”

  Tylor used his pipestem to make his point. “What I can promise you is that something big looms on the horizon. Mexico will change, and when it does, you’ll have your opportunity.”

  Lisa smiled thinly. “At least there’s that.”

  “Sir, you have enough trouble here with the British on the Upper Missouri. In the meantime, send your enemies to the Spanish. Let Salcedo take care of them until the time is right. It will come, Mr. Lisa, just not yet.”

  “I will keep my fingers in, though,” Lisa told him, eyes gleaming. “I am not ready to give up on Sante Fe.”

  “I don’t think you should. Just don’t try anything too fancy. And the men they arrest will stay in prison—make no mistake about that.”

  Lisa leaned back and looked out through the tent flap at the evening sky; his expression betrayed the churning mind behind those piercing dark eyes. “Your analysis leaves me . . . well, worried, John Tylor. Champlain went to the Arapahos last fall in order to winter with them and meet the Spanish traders who go to those Indians every year. He should have at least made contact with some of their traders by now. I pray to God that he wasn’t foolish enough to go with them. To figure that he would take matters into his own hands . . .” He hesitated, biting his lip.

  Tylor studied his pipe as he collected his thoughts. “Of the Arapaho, I know not. I don’t think they range into Spanish territory as a rule. But you are right, Champlain may have gotten into trouble if he thought he could travel with Spanish traders all the way to Santa Fe.”

  Lisa nodded. “For the present, you are right. We must concentrate on the river. There is no telling what sort of mischief Robert Dickson and his British traders have stirred up among the river tribes.”

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Tylor mused. “Here we are, headed into wilderness, and once again, we’re bobbing on ripples that are waves in distant Europe.”

  “Let us pray,” Lisa told him, “that those ripples of yours don’t capsize and drown us.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  * * *

  Before dawn they were on the river, moving the boats against the Missouri’s endless current. The still air allowed easy poling. Tylor blinked back the sleep that clung to his eyelids. Early morning had never been his best time of day—and the night before there had been too much brandy. The air, however, was cool and barely stirred; he set his pole in the gravelly bottom and settled the knob into his shoulder. Only the resistance of the current needed to be overcome as he followed the dark form of the man in front of him.

  As the day wore on, the current became stronger, and bits of flotsam mingled with a ivory-brown foam and drifted past.

  “Flood upriver somewhere,” Lisa told them.

  No more than an hour later, the bossman at the bow hollered that an embarrass was headed their way. Tylor ran forward with his pole. An embarrass? More like an endless flock of them—great mats of drifting logs, trees, and branches, all interlocked and set afloat by the rising water levels.

  Lisa perched himself on the front of the cargo box, shouting orders to the patroon as they steered their way around the floating rafts of tangled driftwood. Some passed so closely they scraped eerily along Polly’s hull, a sound that set teeth on edge and made the hair at the nape of the neck rise.

  The strengthening current caused Lisa to order out the cordelle. John Tylor—heavy rope in his knotted and calloused hands—mushed his way over the deadfall lining the bank. Waded across the mouths of streams that converged with the river, and splashed through mosquito-filled shallows. Climbing the bank, he found himself pushing through thick brush.

  The songs of the boatmen made life a little easier, but it was still hard work. When he tired, his thoughts returned to Hallie; he pulled harder—drowning the memories with sweat.

  There was a cry from Polly, and they stopped. The cordelle had broken on the little boat. The patroon steered Polly to the shore and the boat was tied off. The cordelle crew climbed up on the cargo box to watch the confusion while the little boat drifted with the current, and her cordellers swarmed along the shore in pursuit.

  “From the current and the speed of the boat, we will have time for a delightful nap!” Latoulipe’s eyes glowed as he leaned back on the deck, enjoying the sun.

  Within seconds, Lisa’s voice rang out. “Latoulipe! LaChappelle! These pigs are hot and fouled. Wash them, eh?”

  “I’ll help,” Tylor offered.

  The sow didn’t appreciate being lowered over Polly’s side and into the river; squealing, kicking, and bucking in the arms of the men, she fought all the way. The boar was lowered next to her—somewhat more tranquil. Both animals were splashed and ru
bbed down.

  “Whoa!” Tylor yelled and pitched himself, splashing, to keep the boar from escaping onto dry land. LaChappelle moved to help pen the fat pig. This left a hole through which the sow immediately swam. Amazed, the engages watched as she struck out for the middle of the river.

  “Stop her!” Latoulipe cried, flailing over to grab at the sow. The boar spooked and lined out in the sow’s wake. Latoulipe lost his footing and floundered in the water.

  Tylor got a grip on the boar’s tail, only to be dragged underwater and hammered by the sharp-hoofed feet. He let go, rose, gasping, splashing, and coughing, ears so full of water he couldn’t hear the obscenities Lisa was shouting from above.

  “Valgame Dios!” Lisa cried, stomping around the deck. “Stop them! They are worth a fortune to us upriver. What will you eat in the coming years but their piglets? Hurry! Ah, manguers de lard—sans lard!”

  Tylor floundered just as he was taking a breath. Sucking water into his lungs, he began to thrash, coughing, taking in more water. As the knowledge seeped into Tylor’s head that he was drowning, LaChappelle’s brawny hand fastened in his hair. Tylor was lifted, hacking and spitting, into the mackinaw, which Detalier had thoughtfully broken out.

  Tylor turned to curse at the boatman, only to have a paddle stabbed into his hands as strong backs bent to the oars in chase.

  “Jean, you have no more brain than a rotted log!” Latoulipe howled over his shoulder.

  “Did you think a pig could swim like that?” LaChappelle demanded in reply. “You were the idiot on the river side!”

  As they rounded a bend Tylor saw the pigs had hit the open current where they struck off downstream. The men from the little boat shouted insults and encouragement as pigs and pursuing mackinaw coursed past.

  “Now what?” Tylor asked, as they pulled up next to the grunting, panting, boar.

  “Lift him in,” Latoulipe ordered.

  Tylor grabbed an ear and heaved. The boar squealed and twisted, ripping Tylor’s hold loose. He flailed madly as he pitched headfirst, overboard, onto the boar, his weight driving both underwater.

  LaChappelle’s bony hand fastened into Tylor’s still-smarting hair, then hoisted him up over the gunwale again. Tylor plopped wetly onto the seat and glared at Latoulipe. “You lift him in!”

  Latoulipe gulped, lifted his hands nervously, and shrugged. “So, perhaps lifting the pig, it was not such a good idea, eh?”

  LaChappelle had one of the boar’s ears, while Detalier grabbed onto the tail.

  They pulled.

  The boar squealed.

  The machinaw yawed, rocked, and tipped—the gunwale shipping water.

  Tylor scrambled for the off side to balance the boat.

  “How much does this pig weigh?” Latoulipe demanded.

  As more water spilled over the gunwale, Detalier cried, “Let him go! We will all sink!”

  The two boatmen relaxed, and the mackinaw settled down to parallel the two now exhausted pigs.

  “Two hundred pounds?” Tylor guessed as he used a finger to squish water from his ear. He couldn’t help but note how far they were from shore and how much water sloshed in the mackinaw’s bottom.

  Detalier, LaChappelle, and Latoulipe tried again, grabbing the boar and hoisting once more.

  The mackinaw heeled over.

  “No!” Tylor screamed, seeing water cascade over the gunwale. The mackinaw lurched as Tylor scrambled to compensate. He leaned out only to have the mackinaw drop from under him, breaking his tenuous hold. As he splashed overboard, he heard bubbles boiling around his ears. In panic he gasped a mouthful of water.

  LaChappelle’s knobby hand yanked him back aboard by the hair again. Tylor wretched violently as the boatmen dropped him into the bottom. He was in the midst of a coughing fit—only to have two hundred pounds of squealing bore dropped on top of him. The beast stampeded over his back and into the mackinaw’s stern.

  “I’m going to kill you all,” Tylor wheezed between bouts of coughing. “Assuming of course, I live through this.”

  “You would have me leave you to drown when you have such a wealth of hair to lift you by?” LaChappelle asked mildly as he reached over the side for the sow’s tail.

  Tylor belched water as he struggled to his hands and knees. The boat rocked wildly and Latoulipe whooped as the sow, water slucing from her hide, squealed and flopped over the side, knocking Tylor flat in the sloshing bottom of the boat.

  He scrambled to his feet—slipped on the water-covered floor—and clambered onto a seat. Dripping, he looked at the three laughing engages.

  The sow scrambled to join the boar, now under Detalier’s guard. Latoulipe nonchalantly handed Tylor’s paddle to him.

  Tylor dug in with the paddle and sighed. “So help me God, I never want to be on this river with the three of you again!”

  “Eh?” Detalier asked. “Now you are just sower?”

  “Do not boar him with a reminder of how silly he look, head down, ass up, and drowning,” LaChappelle chimed.

  Tylor let the puns go. The pigs didn’t look any too happy about it, either.

  That night in camp beneath the cottonwoods, Fenway McKeever frowned and chewed his thumb as he watched Tylor laughing and slapping Baptiste Latoulipe on the back. McKeever pursed his lips and pulled his tobacco from the pouch at his side. This Latoulipe could be trouble. The last thing he had figured, given what he knew of the man’s background, was that Tylor would make friends with an engage.

  Fenway pulled his knife in one fluid motion and carefully shaved a quid from his plug of tobacco. Hard and square in his mouth, he rolled it over his tongue. Muscles bulging, he began to chew it soft. When he had it juicing, he spit a stream of brown, knocking a grasshopper from a grass stem a couple of feet to his right.

  Tylor lived at McKeever’s whim. It pleased him to know that. Each time McKeever had a contract, he became god-like, determining the length of a man’s existence and the kind of death he would die. The power in that was intoxicating. An intoxication McKeever worked to sublimate, each day he let Tylor live.

  McKeever grunted to himself, his eyes narrowing as Tylor sat at the mess fire between Latoulipe and LaChappelle. The men laughed and waved arms, as they narrated the story of the great pig chase.

  McKeever absentmindedly fingered his knife; Tylor hadn’t proven himself to be anything close to the worthy adversary Gregg had led McKeever to expect. If anything, instead of a crafty agent, intelligencer, and master of intrigue, Tylor came across as more of a reclusive penitent.

  Fenway spit again, feeling the tingle of the tobacco in his veins. He’d come a long way from the crystal-blue waters of the Firth of Clyde and the small village of Ayr. Here, in this distant land an empire was opening before his eyes. Opportunity, going far beyond any dreams a bastard child could have had in Ayr, was his. After he had seized it, what would they say when they heard of Fenway McKeever?

  He laughed under his breath thinking of those dower fishermen. Despised him and his mother did they? She’d died when he was twelve. With nothing left to lose, Fenway had stowed away on a brig bound for Quebec.

  Two thousand dollars was the reward for John Tylor in the United States. Fenway could feel his anger rise. Gregg had offered him only a thousand for Tylor’s head—to be shipped to North Carolina in a salt keg. Damn that Gregg. He, McKeever, would do the work, kill the man, and ship the head back to Gregg who’d make a clean profit from his dirty work.

  “Aye,” Fenway whispered. “But, I be no fresh bumpkin fool, Joshua.”

  McKeever’s eyes narrowed to slits. Hard to blame Gregg for doing what he, himself, would have done had the situation been different. But two could play at that game. Indeed, McKeever had many connections. The very nature of his work left him with leverage in high places. It hadn’t taken long for him to learn who and what John Tylor really was: Aaron Burr’s man.

  “So we’ll wait, laddie,” Fenway promised as he watched Tylor slicing meat from a roasted deer haunch. H
e had expected a cunning, conniving, and dangerous individual. Could this ragged, skinny creature truly be the same man who petrified Joshua Gregg?

  McKeever’s lips twisted. On the other hand, the year in prison, the humiliation and shame could have broken the man, and Tylor was running scared. Having too much to hide left a fellow vulnerable. When a man was vulnerable, he could be manipulated.

  True, it was a gamble that Tylor would be worth more to him alive than the two thousand dollars Washington would pay for him. What meant two thousand dollars when hundreds of thousands might befall the man who could control the Missouri?

  “Laddie, might ye end up bein’ an asset?” Were Tylor’s fear of discovery so great that McKeever could use it to work Tylor to his own advantage? Was he worth it?

  The man had to have cunning and courage to have gotten in and out of Sante Fe. That quality was buried in there somewhere. Let the voyage continue. Let him regain enough of his self-respect to be a useful tool again. Or had Andrew Jackson broken the temper that had once made John Tylor so valuable? Now was the time to find out.

  Tylor finished his meal, got up, and walked to the Polly as was his custom. McKeever let the man get his pipe lit before he stood, spit, and walked easily over. He climbed the plank, took the ladder to the top of the cargo box, and dropped onto the hard wood next to the little man.

  I could break his neck like a rotten stick.

  “Nice evening,” Fenway said softly.

  “Yep.”

  Tylor immediately tensed, as if he sensed McKeever’s threat. At least his instincts hadn’t gone bad.

  “Now, think ye that we’ll make it upriver all right?” McKeever let a little wonder creep into his voice. He gazed absently over the water.

  “Manuel Lisa is the best on the river. If he can’t make it, no one can.” Tylor’s voice sounded stiff. McKeever noticed that he hadn’t taken another pull at his pipe. A defiant and irritated look lay behind Tylor’s eyes.