The Blood of Heaven (29 page)

In Pinckneyville

The Randolphs were going madly among the haggard men now scattered in various states of exhaustion in their yard, pouring coffee and offering hunks of cornbread, which mostly lay uneaten on the chests of those now dozing. All of our men were there—a miracle; Crabbe bore a powder-burn at his face, Ransom earned a ball in his back for having turned to shield Crabbe from a scout’s shot, and Basil Abrams had a fleck of lead in his arm, which was being picked out by another man. Samuel went along with Randolph as he made his rounds, gleefully asking after everyone’s condition. Grunts were given in response, Abrams snarling as the man plucked at him with tweezing tongs heated in the cook-fire, and I was similarly hailed as I brought Red Kate and the boy to Polly, who hustled them inside.

It was the sensible thing, Randolph was saying. Now we can reconnoiter for the grand coup.

The what? asked Arthur Cobb, not bothering to lift his hat from his face.

It’s the great move, said Samuel. When we take them once and for all.

Precisely, said Randolph. But there are preparations to be made.

And where’s this horde of volunteers you promised? I said, looking about the ramshackle houses of the town, most of which were empty and the rest shuttered.

It’s early still, said Randolph. I’ve organized a party tonight, and I expect the people will attend.

Will there be whiskey? Abrams said.

Certainly, said Randolph. Two hogs are already roasting out back.

Ah, said Ransom, sitting up. That sounds hellish good.

And, my friends, said Randolph, pulling Samuel and me aside. There’s the matter of policy. From what I’m hearing you haven’t captured the hearts of the Americans of West Florida.

Damn them all, I said. If they don’t want saving, I’ll take their hearts on a spit.

Randolph frowned. Don’t be so quick. The men there, even the ones who marched in militia against you, all have the kernel of independence in them.

Like corn in shit, I said.

Enough, said Samuel.

And I did shut my mouth, seeing then how my brother’s face was drawn, his eyes deep in his skull and awfully reddened.

Go on, Ed, my brother said.

Randolph shielded his mouth with a palm as though what he’d tell us was a secret. Independence, he said, is in their hearts. All it needs is to be awakened. And how do we stoke that fire? By declaration of our aims.

A damned pamphlet, I said.

No, said Randolph. A declaration of independence, written up and posted all across the land. Let them read that and not be moved to side with us.

And you’ll be the one to write it, I suppose, I said.

Samuel had his arms folded, giving his eyes to the dirt. And when he looked up, my brother said, That’s the thing. That’s the mothering thing.

You think some paper will make them rise up? I said to him.

I think it worked in seventy-six, he said.

Those were gentlemen talking to gentlemen—

They were talking to a whole uncaring world, said Randolph. And they made this country, and the man who wrote it is the president of the very place he made with a piece of paper.

That’s what you want, is it? I said.

I’ve got no motives other than helping my friends, said Randolph, and to extend the United States into their rightful place as masters of the continent.

And what if we don’t want the land to belong to the States? I said. What if we want our own country?

It’s inevitable, said Randolph.

And the land will be worth much more if it’s American, I said.

Brother, Samuel cautioned me.

No, said Randolph, that is true. Land will have its value added to considerably, once it’s fully open to speculation. But tell me, is there something wrong with that? With doing a good thing and gaining by it as well?

That’s right, brother, said Samuel. Not a damn thing wrong with that.

And I must say, Randolph continued, that the news from Reuben is also most promising.

I looked to Samuel and he said, Claiborne has agreed that, since we’re foreign nationals, we can’t be arrested or held by American forces. We won’t be hindered or molested.

Then we can do what we want, I said.

Indeed, said Randolph.

Samuel unfolded his arms and put his hands on Randolph’s shoulders. Thank you, Ed. For all of this.

Edward Randolph took his thanks; and I considered asking, All of what? A patch of dirt to lie in? A house to take shelter in? The smell of the roasting pigs came to me then on a wind, and the smell of the sweet char and wood-smoke was a hand pulling my mind to the earlier times, when there was nothing more to life than man’s original goal, which wasn’t gain or the hollow ideals or even to better know God, but to be joined with woman. I left Samuel and Randolph talking excitedly over the prospects of the night and went to see my wife.

She was thrashing at her hair with Polly Randolph’s ivory-handled brush; her head leaned almost to her shoulder, which was bare, for she’d unbuttoned her dress, revealing the blood-spoor of freckles there. My son was bundled on the bed, sleeping. When she saw me in the doorway, she stroked harder with the brush and cut her eyes away. Neither of us heard our son awake, nor heard him unfurl his blankets and crawl to where we sat at the foot of the bed, and neither did I feel his small hand fishing in the pocket of my coat; but my wife caught him with her elbow while she was furiously brushing, and we both turned to see him sitting there, staring at us with his mouth puckered and his eyes the color of gun-metal. Red Kate reached with her free hand and had him by the cheeks, and she squeezed until he spit out the ball of lead he’d taken from my pocket. She plucked the shot up and put it in my hand, closing hers over it tightly so that I felt the wetness of my son’s mouth, and she drove the ball into my palm, saying, When I met you, you were a street-corner sharp, and now you’re robbing for far bigger things. Do it. But do it by your heart. When you have a-hold of the country, don’t let go.

She turned loose my hand and our son was laid out across our laps, his head in mine and threatened by the pistol and the sheathed blades of my knives where they were still strung to the bandolier which now seemed so heavy. I took out my small patch knife and scored a cross into the ball she’d taken from his mouth, put it in the pocket with my Bible.

Red Kate stroked our son down his side as he slept. You’re a man of God, she said, and if you mean to fight, it’s God’s fight too.

And it was a strange thing to have my path laid out by the mouth of a woman. But she was right: a Holy Land was laid out before me that would make Preacher-father’s pitiful attempts pale. I didn’t have a hate for the Pukes the way the brothers did; I’d barely seen any besides Pintado. They were nothing more than what was between me and a country in the governance of Christ. Their lackeys would be driven out at the head of them; and any man who couldn’t stand the power of the Word would be cast out also. All of them were Amalekites, Hittites, Amorites, and Philistines, to be overcome on the way to the Promised Land.

Later I would tell this all to Samuel. And I believe that he did hearken after my purpose as well; but it was also that he loved Reuben and, like his brother, was dug deep with the claws of the American eagle and couldn’t see beyond the stretch of its wings. He stayed quiet while I told him, that afternoon as the Pinckneyville men and those of the surrounding area came to Randolph’s promised party, and sucked at the hollows of his cheeks deep in thought when I’d finished talking of the Holy Land and a government of Christ.

Let’s get first to Baton Rouge, he said. Then we can make it what we want.

I didn’t press him further—his skin gray as my son’s eyes—but let him pass on into the crowd now huddled around the casks of whiskey and beer, encircling the spit where the hogs turned and they sliced off hunks with their knives and ate the steaming meat off the blade. Crabbe tugged loose a foreleg and brought it to Ransom O’Neil, who leaned against the side of the vacant house at the edge of Randolph’s lot. The Bradford boys were having a sport of throwing hatchets at a fence-post in a contest officiated by their father. Abrams still grumbled over his wound, but now between gulps of whiskey.

Myself, I went to the nearest cask and took a cup to the spigot, filled it, and found when I turned that Arthur Cobb stood behind me.

You think we can make a run across the line tonight? he said.

I drank my whiskey and asked him why.

The bastard Kneeland, of course. I know Sam’ll want to.

Arthur, I said, you aren’t whipped after last night?

Not a bit. I want his ass.

Don’t you worry. He’s on the list.

And there would be a list drawn up that night, by Randolph and Samuel in shifts going back and forth from the party to the house; our enemies were laid out and numbered; and soon the list became but a piece of parchment clutched in the eager hands of my brother and our friend, both of them grown so excited that Samuel, renewed though he still bore the mark of sickness, swept to the ground with one arm all the plates and cups and gnawed, marrow-sucked bones from a table outside for Randolph to spread out the drafts of their declaration. An inkpot was set down, sloshing black and smudging a page, and a lamp to read and write by, as now we gathered around them to view the composition. Samuel held up the pages to the light and the paper looked like thin slips of tanned skin veined with crooked trails of blood. My brother read snippets to the crowd, drawing laughter from our boys with the proclamation that we’d harm none but the Spanish. There were whoops at the words
tyranny
and
despot,
and by the time he was calling West Florida and its people free and independent, the boys joined voices with the Pinckneyville men to cheer, and my voice was among them. The papers of the declaration were brandished and bandied, soaked with the splashes from upraised cups and glasses, until Randolph retreated inside to make more copies, leaving Samuel there to exhort them.

A Pinckneyville man called out to ask who were our enemies, and Samuel said, The Pukes. The dons of Spain who right now have men in stocks in Baton Rouge and sip wine while you squat on land and eat corn-shuck.

But you’re citizens of their country, said one.

Before my brother could answer, I spoke: We’re citizens of God’s country, which knows no borders.

Now Samuel was glaring at me, whispered something about preaching, and our boys were whooping, egging on the others. A grinning Crabbe appeared from out the crowd and handed me a tin pitcher full of beer, crying, Baptize us all!

You’d turn a battlefield into a revival, Samuel said.

I grinned at him as if to say, There is no difference.

Some Pinckneyville men did step back, but others stayed. Ten or twenty more, watching me as I took both handles of the cup and raised it up and spilled the contents of the cup in a foam-mottled golden outpour over them even as some were pulling the hats from their heads and others’ hair was slicked to their skulls. Crabbe shouted, Praise God! And all the people there assembled lifted up their voices in thunderous joy. I flung the cup into the air and jumped down from the bench, Samuel edging away from the crowd, who filled clinking glasses wrecked by overeager fists as the ground grew muddy and both the fine liquor and the swill swirled at our heels, darkening the red clay.

Through the sloshing praising tumult came the clopping of a horse’s hooves and the crowd parted for a man to ride through: Abram Horton, planter and business-enemy of Randolph’s. He was small and in a fine outfit, staring contemptuously down upon us all.

What is the meaning of this ribald? said Horton.

We’re baptized, Mister Horton, called one man.

The following cheers startled the man’s horse and he caught a few claps of beer and whiskey to the face, which he spit furiously.

Are you the Kempers? he said, fixed now on Samuel and me.

We are, I said.

Well, said Horton, I will not stand for this sort of . . . rascality in this town. And do you men even know who these fellows are?

Hell yes! the men called out.

You do? said Horton. You know they are murderers, thieves, fugitives? My own friend, Mister Alexander Stirling, was assaulted—

We didn’t touch the son of a bitch, said Samuel.

You live here? I said. In Mississippi?

I do, sir, said Horton.

And you’re friends to the good Mister Stirling?

Yes indeed. And to his brother-in-law Solomon Alston.

I spread my arms and looked to the men. His dear friend owns twenty thousand acres of land! And that’s the man that came to claim my brother’s two hundred acres! The same men whose friends burnt my own house to the damned ground!

The men were growling low when Randolph appeared, pushing his way through to Horton.

Abram, he said. What’s your business here?

To quell this bloody riot, said Horton.

This bloody riot is a celebration and it’s my land it’s on. So you’ll take yourself back home.