The Blood of Heaven (26 page)

What would you have a man in my position do? Reuben asked the newly invested Governor Claiborne after a ball that had set itself apart from the others by the fight which had broken out over which dances—American, French, or Spanish—would take precedence.

Governor Claiborne had seemed exhausted, almost as much as Reuben was those days. He was accompanied by the bloated authority of General Wilkinson, who even then Reuben knew to be a bastard. They were of the same age, so far as Reuben could tell, and both shared Virginia as their birthplace but had been away for so long that it seemed a hazy memory of childhood. When Reuben pressed him with his question, the new governor leaned over his tankard and said, I would have you wait, sir. Wait on the grace of our government.

But it’s not my government yet, said Reuben.

It will be, the governor responded.

But when? Reuben demanded.

At that moment, a man ordered a round for all present, so long as they’d drink to the damnation of Thomas Jefferson. The glasses were already in hand, and Reuben said many were raised happily at the words, but many more were sent flying at the toaster and the place exploded into a row. He believed he was struck by a pewter cup in the back of the head, awakening on his knees to see the man who’d made the toast being held down and Claiborne raising his ceremonial saber up, and striking the man across the face with the broad side. General Wilkinson, who was there also, approved the action with a nod of several chins.

Reuben had gained his feet when Samuel and some members of the guard appeared, thinking the fight was still on and intent upon suppressing it. Instead Samuel brought his brother to their hotel, where he lay feverish and wasting for a week, his delirium only stirred by the chambermaids who came to wipe his brow and change the sopping sheets. And what followed in those days he wouldn’t put in a letter, but told me when they returned, giving it like one of Christ’s visions: the door opening one morning and in lumbering the figure of General Wilkinson, his regalia clattering like a tinker’s cart. The general took a chair and sat himself at Reuben’s bedside, overlooking him like a bosom friend.

I’ve heard your troubles, said the general.

And when Reuben cleared his throat to speak, Wilkinson raised a swollen hand and said, No words. It’s not a conspiracy if one man talks and the other only listens, eh? Now, there is a natural principle of decay inherent in man and all his works. The Spanish government of West Florida is in such a state, and you would like it if they came to their final corruption, would you not?

The general produced a cigar and lit it. Naturally you would, he said. Who wouldn’t? I’m afraid the officers of King Carlos serve to give heart-burnings and stomach-aches to many a man in their territory. But I’ll have you know that there are men now in our government who would see West Florida taken this very day. . . . Were you ever in the profession of arms? I suppose you were too young for our war.

My father was at Valley Forge, Reuben said.

Not under Colonel Burr? Wilkinson said.

No, said Reuben. Captain Marshall.

Ah, said the general. I can’t say I know the man, but there were many of us in those days. . . . Now, as I was saying, with the proper guarantees of internal support, we could depose the Spaniards easily.

Reuben asked him what he meant by
internal support
and Wilkinson hoisted his sword-belt about his belly, saying, A show of will by the inhabitants of the country. A popular effort which would perhaps drive the Spaniards to rash action near the border. If that were to happen, my job would be made quite easy. With an imminent threat to the border, I would be fully justified in sending in a force of men—and if the outcome of such an event was that we gained the province, then that’s the way the biscuit breaks, is it not?

He answered Wilkinson with a foggy-headed nod.

I’m at liberty to give no names as yet, but we are supported by a man in the highest offices of government, and within the season he will come down here with his own force, if conditions are favorable, and our armies shall meet and sweep the Spanish out from here through the Pacific. Again, no need for words. We’ve formed no junto or cabal. I will only await yours and the actions of your countrymen as a signal.

Reuben, stunned, lay in his bed for a time after the visitation of the general, drifting in and out of sleep but now filled with mounting energy. And it was late in the afternoon that Samuel and Clark appeared, bringing with them Governor Claiborne, who gave Reuben his wishes for a speedy recovery and, after much badgering by Clark, the following assurance:

If there were to be any trouble in West Florida, he said, we would not be disposed to look unfavorably upon it. There could, of course, be no physical support, and I must deny all knowledge and pleasure at any such incident—but know that the wings of the American eagle would take you to her bosom.

With that the governor was off to more pressing duties, leaving Reuben and Samuel now filled with the same sense of urgency. What words my brothers exchanged I don’t know, but I imagine them shattering the room with excitement. They would be in New Orleans another week, leaving once the Spanish commander finally quit his post and Reuben was able to walk.

The Spider

I was out most days at the cabin-site, which was becoming a regular homestead. We broke stone from the hillocks overlooking Thompson’s Creek and made mortar and a fireplace in a single day, just Ransom O’Neil and me. And it was that we were out one afternoon cutting clapboards for the roof when Ransom let out a scream, and I looked and saw the enormous spider at the tree-line, its dark fur and crouching aspect. Our rifles leaned against a pile of saw-off and I ran for them, only to hear the spider cry out, My God, Angel!

Hearing this creature say my name, I judged it was a demon sent to drag me down to Hell, and I grabbed at my gun and Ransom was soon behind, taking his up, and the spider was now shambling out of the low branches, still talking.

Don’t shoot, Angel! It’s Johnny! Johnny Crabbe!

I knocked Ransom’s barrel aside and he fired into the air, Crabbe falling flat to the ground mid-way between us and the cabin.

What the hell for? said Ransom, trying to grab my gun from me. It’s the God-damned monster!

No, I said, wrestling him for the piece, which I finally tugged free. That monster’s a friend of mine.

Crabbe raised a claw out from under his matted furs and waved.

Dear sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Ransom said.

I approached Crabbe and he rushed to me, hugging me in a grip of claw about the legs.

He said, I don’t know how long I’ve been running. O, Lord. Since they came upon us. It was awful.

I shook loose of his claws and squatted down to eye him. Crabbe, I said. You’ve been out here for more than a year?

Johnny Crabbe’s red face had grown pale from lack of sun, from months of skulking in the woods, and I saw now that his fur was a cloak of black cow’s skin.

I took it off a dead one a while back, he said. Had to use a rock to cut it. Crabbe shuffled loosely in his skin. I don’t believe it fits too well.

Where’s the Reverend? I said.

I don’t know. I ran off when you said, but I watched it all happen. They didn’t take the Reverend, though. I heard the soldiers cuss that.

Whatever joy I might have had at seeing Crabbe again was quickly devoured by the knowledge that the Reverend Morrel still walked the earth.

Are you mad? Ransom hollered.

Come on over, I called back, and see.

Ransom warily approached and Crabbe stuck out his head, saying, See, I’m no monster.

The hell you aren’t, said Ransom, stumbling back.

Watch your mouth, I said. I know this man.

You call that a man?

I call him Crabbe and that’s good enough, I said. You hungry, Johnny?

Yes, he said, and cold. Cold as shit.

Then let’s go home, I said. And we went, Ransom riding up ahead and Crabbe clinging to the saddle of my horse while I led it by the reins. I felt full of the spirit, like what I did was a Christly deed. Crabbe asked me if I still was preaching, and when I told him no he said that sure was sorrowful news.

At the house I left Ransom with Crabbe in the yard and went inside first to prepare my wife for the sight of him.

You’ve brought the spider home? she said.

He’s who everybody thought was a spider, I said.

Red Kate felt for a chair and fell into it. She gaped at me as though I were insane.

I knew him when we were with Morrel. I told you about him.

You told me about plenty of his creatures, but—

He’s been hiding in the country like a dog.

Like a spider, she said. Scaring the piss out of women.

He’s cold and hungry, I said. And if you see him and aren’t struck with pity, then I’ll send him away to starve and die.

My wife thought this over and our son came crawling to her chair, pulled himself up by the leg. I rubbed his head and he smiled, jabbering.

Let me put him away, she said.

And so I brought Johnny Crabbe into the house and Red Kate did receive him. She gave him a basin of steaming water with a dollop of soap-fat floating in it and told him to go outside and bathe, which he did. When Crabbe came back inside, scrubbed and without his stinking fur, Kate set him a plate on the floor and had to turn her face for the way he ate, mumbling thanks over mouthfuls. That night he slept before the fire and Red Kate kept my pistol on her pillow. Thereafter he stayed in the storehouse with Ransom, who soon grew used to him—and though he’d deny it and still called him a demon, he was glad for the help and company. He went so far as to rig Crabbe a special saddle with straps out of two that were disused so that he could ride with us out to work on the cabin. Other visitors still yelped when they saw him, or simply wouldn’t look, like Arthur Cobb, who’d cup his hand over his eyes to block Crabbe from his vision. For his part, Johnny Crabbe was happy to be fed and housed, given work, and treated somewhat human. And there were times when he’d ask me to preach a little, and I’d oblige him.

* * *

My brothers returned to Bayou Sara the day after the arrival of Reuben’s last letter, which I read with some fear that he was dying, though the fear was soon broken by the sight of the Cotton-Picker floating home. Crabbe knew Samuel was onboard and awaited him at the landing, and when Ferdinand saw the crouching figure he refused to get off the boat. So Reuben and Samuel had to bank and tie her, the elder brother keeping a distance even as Crabbe embraced Samuel.

Samuel wore the necklace of tiger’s teeth over his shirts, and after greeting Crabbe with a smile and kind words, his features hardened back. Even when my son reached for the teeth and Samuel bent and shook them for him, he seemed stony. My brother forwent eating and instead saddled his horse and rode out to see the widow Cobb. So we sat to dinner without him and Reuben told of what he hadn’t mentioned in his letters; the claims of Wilkinson and Claiborne’s side-mouth support. I listened, but I didn’t believe it would come to that. He said he was worn of drinking spirits, and so it was the rest of us who raised our glasses, toasting what we did not know. Crabbe, from the floor, held his cup high and said, Home’s the thing to toast. And we agreed.

I come back from the city of strangeness to this? Reuben said. But my brother wasn’t filled up with horror or disgust as others had been with Crabbe. He even filled his cup from the table, passing it down to the slurping thanks of the once-was spider.

Let’s go and give him a look at the cabin, said Ransom, proudly.

You’ve gone through with it? said Reuben.

It’s very nearly done, I said.

And damn fine, said Ransom.

I’m whipped to death, said Reuben, but I could use a ride after this meal.

Red Kate smiled and as we left I kissed her on the cheek, leaving a patch of cornmeal there, then put lips to my son’s forehead.

The way up the Thompson’s Creek road was shadowed that afternoon, and as we went we listened to Reuben talk in more detail of his sickbed intrigues, seeming renewed as he told of what he called our new possibilities. Ransom rode with Crabbe on the makeshift saddle-works, and it was him who first noticed the smell of smoke upon the air.

We were a half mile from my tract and we thought nothing of it, but as we rounded a bend and the trees began to shorten near the path I’d cleared which led through the undergrowth and timber to the house, we saw the cloud rising up above the trees. I don’t know what I said but I spurred hard and whipped the life from my horse as I tore ahead, forgoing the path in my madness to see, being cut by limbs and brambles as I rode towards a furious light until finally I burst out into the clearing where our tools and lumber lay piled, wedges embedded still in logs, and saw the cabin on fire. I made circles of the place and I was at the pilgrim camp again, a helpless witness of the great conflagration. The others were soon there and I heard their voices in pitiful narration. When I stopped circling, Reuben came up beside me, putting no hand to my shoulder nor saying a thing. There was a low roll of thunder, moving off into the distance, like a wave receding in the Gulf.