Flight of the Hawk: The River Read online

  Tiny feet pattered invisibly, and Tylor hunched himself into a ball. A rat moved through the filthy straw behind him. Tylor jumped. How long could he stay awake? Starved as they were, they came when he drifted off to sleep. That’s when they scampered onto his arms and legs and sank their sharp and fetid teeth into his flesh.

  Time dragged in the solid dark.

  The sharp pain brought him awake—slashing out with his hands—feeling a little furry body scrambling away from his desperate fingers. His breath kept catching in his throat. How long before he slept this time? How long before the sharp teeth reached out of the darkness for his filthy and reeking flesh?

  There, above him, in the eternal night, was the iron grate. He could call out to the guard. Confess.

  It would be over then. No more rats in inky blackness. No more bowls of half-raw oats and rancid pork. No more sleeping on the filthy straw. He would see the sun again. Even if it was only as he climbed the creaking steps to the gallows.

  They’d place the rope around his neck, drape the black hood.

  Death would release him from the stinging bites in the night.

  Jackson had sworn to hang him.

  Tylor cried out at the sting of another rat bite and jumped, striking at the weight of the creature on his leg. There, he caught it. Bite it. Bite to death as the rats had taught him!

  He struggled frantically with the violent, monsterous rat.

  “Sacre!” Latoulipe’s half-panicked voice brought him wide awake.

  Foolishly, he looked at the engage’s hand clenched in his. Cold sweat trickled its way down his cheeks.

  Latoulipe’s voice hammered at him: “You were dreaming, Tylor. I reached over to wake you, and you grabbed me. I thought my soul would leap from my body!”

  “Jesus!” Tylor whispered, releasing the man’s hand. “Thought you were a rat.”

  He shivered and unconsciously fingered the scars on his arms. Places where the bites had festered and drained. The infected bites had left him so fevered, they’d finally taken him out of the hole. Finally sent him—chained and manacled—to Washington and Joshua Gregg.

  “A rat, you say?” Latoulipe shrugged. “It depends on who you talk to . . . but I have been called worse. You be all right now?”

  “Y-Yes. All right now. All . . .”

  “C’est bon. The rest of us would like to get some sleep.”

  Tylor swallowed weakly and lay back in the blankets staring at stars. In the back of his memory, just behind the veil of darkness, he could still feel the rats. They were waiting . . .

  As the first spatters of rain fell, the silty clay of the bank became slick. Then the heavens opened in long stringers of rain, pelting the men and turning the banks into a mess of slippery, sliding footing for the cursing cordellers. One man would brace himself on a fallen tree, while another sought an old burrow into which he could set his foot. Others relied on the bushes, seeking to find purchase in the bending branches. Then the braced men would pull the boat hand-over-hand, while those at the end of the line hustled to the front to seek another brace and continue the process. Not once did the struggling engages miss a single raucous verse as they sang about a man whose daughter was pregnant with the Devil’s child.

  That night, after stuffing himself with bread and meat, Tylor watched the flames flicker on the faces of the men. Lisa was walking around the fire and met his eyes. The trader strode over and seated himself on the log next to Tylor.

  “I am pleased, Tylor. You are magnificent on the cordelle. You have pulled one before?” Lisa asked casually.

  “No, Mr. Lisa. This is the first time I’ve had the honor.” Tylor grinned, feeling his stomach turn sour.

  “It is backbreaking work, Mr. Tylor. Are you ready for four more months of the same?” Lisa’s voice sounded smooth, easy, like oil on roiled waters.

  “That I am, Mr. Lisa. I’m more than . . . Well, I told you in Saint Louis that I was ready and able.”

  “How do you come to be here?” Lisa waved him down when he shrugged. “Oh, come, Tylor. A man of your education does not sign on with a crew of engages for the fun of pulling a boat upriver. Were you a gentleman seeking thrills you would have come and paid for passage like Brackenridge did last year. You are . . . something else.”

  “What could I be, but the man you see sitting before you? Just that, and nothing more.”

  “As I suspected, you will tell me nothing. I do, however, want to know one thing.” The voice became a deadly, sibilant threat. “Do you plan on harming my expedition? Other than that, I do not care who you are or what you have left behind.”

  Tylor pulled the pipestem from his mouth and chuckled, “No, Mr. Lisa. Your boats are safe with me. I have no designs on your expedition or any of the tribes you trade with. I just . . .”

  Tylor hesitated. “I’ll give you the pure, unvarnished truth: I have no plans for anyone or anything. Harm your expedition? Just the opposite. My goal is to get as far from men and civilization as possible. Never going back, in fact.”

  “Do you not think you will miss the finer things of life, Tylor? A man of your . . . let us say, obvious background has become used to fine food, good wine, excellent conversation, comfortable surroundings, and other amenities. Life in the wilderness is crude in the best circumstances.”

  Tylor studied the trader through a sidelong glance. “My past is that obvious?”

  “It is hard to hide silver beneath a thin gilding of lead, Tylor.” Lisa slapped a mosquito, as if making a point. “The shine comes through, and the weight of the object gives away the hidden core. Your speech and your manners are hard to hide. It has pointed more than one suspicious finger in your direction.”

  “Morrison in Saint Louis.” Tylor pulled idly at his beard.

  “You have aroused considerable curiosity on my part, too.” Lisa’s lips curled. “I would not be who I am if you didn’t. There are many who would stoop to anything to see me fail on the river.”

  “Did you find anything of interest in the books?”

  Lisa shrugged, nonplussed, the black eyes darting to Tylor’s to gauge the reaction. “No. Other than the fact that I was astonished at the scope of your literary abilities. Buying books? Most unsual for an engage.”

  Lisa paused, and his voice lowered. “I was very careful; how did you know?”

  “Place one end of a hair under the front cover and the other under the back. If the book has been opened the hair comes loose. I learned it from a man who was an intelligencer for Washington during the Revolution. Works with a stack of documents, too.”

  Tylor studied the Spaniard. “I spotted Latoulipe first thing. He’s a very good man, but lousy when it comes to following a fellow.”

  “You were a spy once!” Lisa’s eyes brightened.

  “Such activities do not necessarily indicate a spy,” Tylor pointed out. “Those kind of tricks are valuable in business, too. I was once a . . . a very good businessman, Mr. Lisa. Perhaps I was just not good enough. Perhaps . . .”

  Tylor leaned back and pulled at his pipe—the tobacco as dead as his mood. “Well, never mind.”

  “Ambition has its price,” Lisa said slowly, “in success or failure. It is gambling with one’s happiness, fortune, and even life. But, without it, what is life but to remain a pawn for those who would risk it all? How much did you wager, John Tylor?”

  Tylor shifted his pipestem in his teeth, refusing to take the bait.

  Lisa stood and stretched, waving his thoughts away. “Sometimes a man’s silence carries an eloquence more powerful than words.”

  “See you in the morning,” Tylor told the trader.

  “Sleep well, Tylor.”

  Was there irony in the trader’s words? Tylor watched Lisa stroll easily through the quiet camp. He pulled his blanket out and took it to the fire to smoke thoroughly. Then he doused his head in the smoke and went back to lay down, hoping the stench of smoke would keep the mosquitos a
t bay.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  As the spring freshened, the bloated corpses of dead buffalo floated past. Great treesundercut and toppled when the current undercut the bank that had once nourished themtwisted and turned in the Missouri’s current; they rolled their hooklike branches as they bounced off the river’s bottom. Other trees—called sawyers—bobbed in the swift, muddy current. Anchored to the bottom by a snagged root or branch, they rose and sank, giving them the motion from whence they derived their name. The worst of the Missouri’s dangers was the embarrass: a tangle of floating driftwood that broke loose on the spring flood and floated down in a huge, interlocked mass of wicked limbs and debris.

  Shifting sandbars made navigation difficult. The fluctuating water level would leave boats floating at night, only to find them listing on shore the following morning.

  The banks along which the cordellers struggled were unstable, and more than once collapsed, tumbling the men into the water while the polers battled to maintain the boat’s position. The engages swam, or struggled through the mud, to the shore, cursing, laughing, and joking, as they scrambled to recover the heavy line before it drifted back down past the Polly.

  Once a log rammed the rudder, smashing it to bits. Upon the impact, the tiller batted Mayette ass-over-appetite into the river. The rudder took two days to repair.

  Then Polly’s mast had to be reset at Little Osage Island.

  During repairs, the engages enjoyed hunting, fishing, and even playful wrestling and racing on the muddy sand.

  Jean Baptiste LaChappelle found a huge catfish stranded in a muddy pool. It took him, Tylor, and Latoulipe fifteen minutes of splashing, yelling, and laughter to club the huge fish into submission. Then came the struggle to carry the slick-sided, flopping monster back to camp where they presented it to the cook.

  “This is the way to travel, my friend.” Latoulipe laughed through the spattered mud on his face as he dropped his full length on the sand next to Tylor. The odor of roasting catfish carried on the afternoon breeze.

  “It does beat hell out of the cordelle, don’t it?” Tylor stared out at the river, wondering at its ceasless energy. All that water—and it never hesitated, just kept rolling, surging, sucking, and swirling on its way to the distant Gulf of Mexico.

  Latoulipe’s eyes turned thoughtful. “The bourgeois, he tells me that you knew I followed you in Saint Louis? I don’t know what to . . . I just . . .”

  “Spying isn’t your strongest foot put forward.”

  “Do you think poorly of me?”

  Tylor straightened himself and cupped some sand in his hands. He sifted it through his fingers as he studied Latoulipe. “Hell, no. You were doing a job for Lisa.”

  They shared a long pause as the sun beat down on them.

  The boatman gestured with both hands. “It is the times. There are many plots. The British are making trouble through this man Dickson. The Spanish are always a threat. Many, even those who invest with him, would see the bourgeois destroyed. What is even a man’s life when the stakes are so high and the future so uncertain?”

  “It is the times.” A knot tightened at the base of Tylor’s throat. What are you after, Latoulipe? Picking up on what Lisa was prodding at last night?

  Latoulipe smiled. “I think the bourgeois is still curious about you—but he does not think you a threat anymore. Since we must work together, I am hoping that what happened in Saint Louis will not cause you to forever think poorly of me.”

  Tylor marveled at the subtle changes of expression in Latoulipe’s face. The man could be read like a book. Call him anything but steeped in intrigue.

  Tylor nodded to himself: Loyalty was the driving force in Latoulipe’s life. The knot began to recede.

  “Baptiste, so far as I am concerned, Saint Louis is indeed behind us. In more ways than one.”

  But the last thing he could do was relax. Even here, beyond the frontier.

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  On the night of the third of June, flames lanced skyward in yellow and red streamers from the huge bonfire. From where Tylor sat, he could see the interplay of emotion on the faces of the gathered Osage. Warriors, women, and children, they watched in awe, delight, and anticipation. Smiles filled their mahogany faces as Michael Immel’s little dog pranced to John Polly’s fiddle music.

  That morning they had received a seventeen-gun salute from Fort Osage. Lisa and Luttig had gone to dinner with the fort’s officers at Captain Eli Clemson’s invitation. The engages—under the direction of Reuben Lewis—threw a party and laid out presents for the Osage Indians, which in turn led to a feast and the current singing, dancing, fiddling, and cavorting of Immel’s little dog.

  Tylor found the amusements trivial at best. Feeling empty, he walked out into the brush and climbed a low knoll overlooking the river and canoe landing. The breeze blew cool on his hot cheek. The sounds of revelry from the camp seemed far away.

  His thoughts went back to that last night in Washington City. “Oh, Hallie,” he whispered, voice cracking, “what I would give to go back and undo the wretched things I have done.”

  For some transgressions, forgiveness was impossible.

  “Let me at least see my wife alone.” His words echoed in his memory, and took him back to that long-ago night. Gregg had obtained permission for him to see Hallie. Why hadn’t that tipped him?

  “Our responsibility is to stay with you until the congressional investigation tomorrow morning, sir,” the alert guard had protested. But in the end the young man had given in.

  Tylor had closed the doors to the library behind him, then had poured a glass of cognac. He remembered the shaking in his hands, the hammering of his heart. How he’d turned as the library door opened.

  She stood there—magnificent in a flowing white satin gown, low-cut to accent her creamy chest, full bust, and slim waist. Her silver-blond hair had been piled high. He’d felt his chest tighten as he’d turned toward her, reaching out as he rushed to embrace her, to draw her close and feel her arms around him.

  The hatred in her crystal blue eyes stopped him before her cold voice could. “Don’t touch me, John! I didn’t even want to see you.”

  “Hallie?” He heard the hurt in his voice. “Hallie, I—”

  “You have ruined me, John.” Her delicate chin had raised slightly as her eyes narrowed. “I am known as the wife of a traitor. You despicable wretch!” Her eyes glittered on the verge of tears.

  “Hallie? But I . . . You don’t understand. Why are you . . .”

  She stopped him with a lifted hand. “I only agreed to see you so that I could tell you to get out of my house and my life. If they don’t hang you, I never want to see you again!”

  “Hallie, what I did was for—”

  “Get out!” Her lips twitched as if she would spit at him. “Joshua has been kind enough to speak with the judge. By this time tomorrow, the divorce will be final. I will be a free woman. Get out now!”

  “Divorce?” he’d asked, stunned, the room seeming to spin.

  Then came the words that broke him: “Filthy traitor! Leave! Just take your despicable . . . God, I detest you!”

  He sank to his knees, arms out. “But I love you! I—I waited for you! Prayed just to see you one more time before they . . .”

  With a rustling of her skirts she wheeled around and was gone.

  Gutted, he knew he couldn’t face the committee the next morning. Couldn’t stand the thought of Gregg’s leering smile. Better death—a quick shot in the back by the guards. Better anything than living with the memory of his wife’s hatred.

  In Jackson’s cell, his love had kept him alive. The thought of seeing Hallie again . . .

  He’d gone through the window, sprinted across the dark yard, and vaulted the postern gate.

  Tylor smiled bitterly as he looked up at the stars, half faded now against the moon’s glow. So, here he was. A wanted fugitive with
a price on his head for treason. Divorced by the woman he still loved.

  Once he’d started—the running never ceased.

  Now, only pain remained.

  The sound of steps burst the dream. Tylor sighed and sank down in the tall grass, desperately not wanting to be disturbed. The intruders stopped no more than five paces from where Tylor hid.

  “This be good, we can see ’round, laddie.” McKeever’s voice. “This here packet must be delivered to Charles Gratiot in Saint Louis. He knows it’s comin’, now. If it be opened, he’ll kill ye, understand?”

  “I know,” the second voice said with a heavy Indian accent.

  “Aye, see that ye do. I be a wee bit nervous sendin’ this by yer likes to start wi’,” McKeever rumbled. “Go on wi’ ye, now, laddie. Here be a bit o’ gold to see ye through. Gratiot will give ye more if ye gits the package to him unopened.”

  Tylor heard a grunt of assent followed by the sound of retreating feet. In the darkness, and through the curtain of tall grass, he could barely see Fenway McKeever’s shadowy form.

  McKeever watched the Indian leave. The big Scot stood there for a moment, his head cocked as he looked around the knoll. Tylor could faintly make out the sudden worry on the man’s face. McKeever listened and looked around uneasily, as if he could feel Tylor’s presence.

  It seemed an eternity before McKeever shook his head and grunted. He turned his steps back toward the camp, muttering softly to himself.

  When his heartbeat finally slowed, Tylor sat up to stare after the shadowy figure. Just who was McKeever, and why did he send packages mysteriously in the night when he could have posted them with the army?

  I’ve been a spy for too long not to know the breed when I see one.

  One thing was sure: John Tylor wasn’t the only man on Lisa’s 1812 expedition with secrets.