The Blood of Heaven (34 page)

I lived in a world of gentle madness and in the face of it all I worked. My pistol was in the ashen ground and my Bible untouched in its hidden corner of the house. Red Kate swept around it, cleaned all about it as though it were a piece of the furniture. Shameful, but I had no godliness in my heart and only wanted things to do with my hands. I helped my wife put in seed for spring, laid on a porch to the house, when Samuel was down toted casks filled from that rattling roarer of a still, and made my brief shows as Colonel Kemper. And when Reuben did arrive, fattened by New Orleans and surveying our holdings with a sorrowful look, I gave him a haggard hello, like to a man passing by on the road, and would have been content except that Samuel brought me to Randolph’s house, where we sat with coffee and cut it with Blight-Cock. He was alone, having sold Ferdinand to pay a debt.

You’re famous, Colonel, said Reuben.

I shook my head; no words would come.

You gave it hell, he said, meaning our rebellion. I don’t know if you understand the way you’ve inflamed the country.

Which one? I said, thumbing the bib of my overalls.

Reuben cut his eyes. The United States resound with your accomplishments.

What God-damned accomplishments? I said.

Reuben didn’t hear me. He was looking to Samuel, squinting at his face. Lord, brother, you’re looking poorly.

Samuel, soaking in his brother’s false pride, said, It’s a fever keeps coming back to me. But I’ve seen some of the write-ups.

Even in Philadelphia, coughed Randolph. As far as New England even—

They haven’t captured the spirit of the thing just yet, said Reuben. Though I’ve tried—

I hear they say it was you, I said, who led us.

That’s been common, said Reuben. And I’ve suffered for the mistake.

You’ve suffered? I said, reeling. He was as impressive a figure as ever, but his paunch now strained at his waistcoat and the sight of it galled me.

By association, said Reuben. Claiborne’s about exhausted himself over you two. He won’t have any more of me. Damns the ground I stand on. But Governor West of Mississippi still maintains you won’t be hassled.

We don’t need Claiborne, Samuel said.

Not with Colonel Burr, said Randolph.

And with the invocation of the great man’s name there came a hush over our talk, the three of them leaned in close and began whispering over the Mexican Association of New Orleans, which Reuben had evidently founded, and their discussion carried on to the opening of the tavern, where sodden Abrams was given the task of tending bar and the Blight flowed freer than ever while they huddled at a table and strew their dreams about.

When the three of them had dribbled off towards the tavern, I’d peeled off to my house. Red Kate had the boy gently lashed to a chair and was feeding him a supper of eggs a local had bartered off for drink. The house stank of sulfur. My wife greeted me with a bunching of blood-spray freckles and jabbed the wooden spoon into our son’s mouth.

They smell rotten, I said, going to sit beside her at the table.

You can’t smell, said Red Kate.

And it was such a thing as Preacher-father would say back when my tongue was ruined. I hated his words in her mouth and I caught whiffs of my own damnation in the brimstone air as the boy spewed out the scrags of egg across the table. My Copperhead caught him lightly across the cheek with the spoon and the next time she came with it he chewed, watching me. I sat at the table and saw Aaron Burr eating steak and baked pears in syrup and with the future of the world at his fingertips among the crystal service and polished silver. In my mind he was a cross-breed of my father and Morrel, only wiser, more determined. There would be not a stitch of white upon him, and the great man would shine like black glass.

I said to my wife, I believe I’ll go and have a drink.

Reuben’s back, she said, clacking together her front teeth to show the boy to chew.

It’s only a drink, I said.

Red Kate mimed chewing at the boy, who gave me a look and then spit out his food and mimed right back at her until she cracked him again with the spoon. His cheek was red and now my son took sullen, as he would, and looked to the far reaches of the room without ever fixing on a spot. She jabbed him more mouthfuls but they only gathered on his tongue, spilling out onto the table, whereupon Red Kate flung down her spoon and kicked her chair away, going off to the bedroom and leaving him in his chair, mournfully casting his gray eyes on nothing.

It’s fine not to eat, I said, getting up and undoing his bonds. Those eggs weren’t right besides.

I took my son and brought him to her. When I sat him on the bed he scrambled off and went to hide in the underpinnings. I could feel him at my feet as I sat beside my curled-up Kate. She’d months before taken me back to the bed, in fact had tried the very night we returned from Baton Rouge, though I was then too busted weary for the charity of her love. Lately it was a comfort to me, but in our rolls together I felt the way her bones had begun to strain her skin, and it was also that she no longer grabbed at me and had no true hunger for it. I had now what the Book said was best: the wife who submits. And I hated it for the clawing thought that when I went at her she took me on like a customer.

She rolled over and snatched at my hand and put it to her breast, never giving me her eye. The boy was scrabbling beneath the bed and she sighed at the sound of it.

I do love him, she said. But I wonder what the sin was that made him.

There’s no sin, I said. He’s young still.

She didn’t hear me. You’re going to the tavern?

For a bit, I said.

Well, said my wife, letting go my hand. Do thank Reuben for the house.

Colonel! Basil Abrams hollered when I came into the tavern. The drinkers raised their glasses and I gave them all nods as I went to the table where my brothers and Randolph huddled. I sat with them and Abrams brought my drink. They were all wild-eyed with talk and plans, Samuel hiding his weakness behind slaps of the table, and Reuben taking me by the shoulder often and shaking me. And I was glad to be drawn into their false world, where we were statesmen and generals and colonels; it was a better place than what was real. I drank deep of the Blight and listened.

So it came about in their talk that our patch of West Florida was now but a minor concern in a continental enterprise. The name of Burr was bandied, for even now, Reuben said, he was preparing to come down the Mississippi with the first frost-break, collecting himself an army on the way.

Jefferson’s taking a soft hand with him, said Reuben. He’ll be untethered in his aims.

Is this from General Wilkinson? said Randolph.

From Clark, said Reuben. Wilkinson is on the side. As I aim to be until they make themselves clear. Mister Gutierrez believes we can raise a force in Mexico, if given the time and money.

You’re dealing with Pukes now? I said.

Gutierrez is no Puke, brother, Rueben said. He’s a Mexican and born to his country same as us. And he wants the same thing we, Colonel Burr, the president, and all other good men want—to drive Europe from the hemisphere.

This is no hasty ride-and-shoot, said Samuel. It’ll take time.

Maybe years, said Randolph.

We’ll see, Reuben said. I’m not so deep in it that I can’t extract myself if things begin to look dire. All we need is time. Hell, I’ve even got my case with Smith in the dockets of the American court in New Orleans in the summer.

Well done, said Randolph. You’ll break him there.

For now, said Reuben, we wait for them to play out their hands and see if we’ll throw in behind them. I want to be sure that it’s an American enterprise.

I say either way we do, said Samuel. If the president’s with them—

Reuben frowned over his cup. The atheist is doing them even worse than he did West Florida. His support isn’t even tacit. That’s the hazard of it.

Then it’s up to Wilkinson to throw the army in, said Randolph.

If the fat man can be persuaded to act, then we’ve got something.

He didn’t help us at Baton Rouge, I said, breaking the dream for an instant.

Good sometimes comes out of folly, Reuben said. Your incursion means more than you know. By this spring I’ll be back in New Orleans, with Sam, if you’ll come—I think the town may do you good—and Burr shouldn’t be far behind. We’ll know more then.

Randolph said, Justice, though slow, is sure, and vengeance overtakes the swiftest villains.

Yes, indeed, said Reuben.

And Samuel stretched his hollow cheeks into a smile, saying to me, See, brother. I told you we weren’t finished.

I laughed at it then, but my brother would be proven right. And there was the part of me, the colonel and the devil-worms that went a-churning as the talk wore on, that did love the prospect of another chance, and that wickedness plowed over the bones of friends and the lives of my wife and son for a view of glory. What a bastard truth it was, that our war, started in such a measly corner of the country, would never be through so long as there were lands that hateful others held and there were men like us who, by the Grace of God, would try and take them.

Book Four

IN THE WILDERNESS

I

Israel Renewed

Summer 1805

The Great Man

They have compared us in the papers, you know, said Aaron Burr, smiling.

We sat at my table, sundown darkening the panes, candelabra brought from Randolph’s house making shadows of us all, and I was nailed to the floor by the man opposite me. When I’d tried to bring the colonel to Randolph’s, because it was far finer than my own, he insisted that we stay at mine. He’d been too long, he said, at the fetes and balls of New Orleans and would most appreciate a spell of normal life. Randolph was in Mobile on matters of business, and I was some afraid that I’d be receiving the colonel alone until he called for the ladies of the place to come and join us, saying that there was no conversation that couldn’t use the voice of women. My wife went to go and fetch Mrs. Randolph, who couldn’t resist changing from her day-clothes into a gown and bringing her china and candle sticks to dress up our mean table. When she appeared, Polly Randolph curtsied with her finery bundled in her hands. Red Kate, for her part, didn’t change out of her work skirts or curtsy to the colonel. I don’t believe she knew how; nor did this seem to trouble him.

Are you sure it wasn’t to one of my brothers? I said.

The colonel flicked his fine hands, which bore no jewels other than the wedding ring of his departed wife, and said, I’ve met them. I’m sure you know that. But the eastern papers have garbled you into a Trinity of sorts—three brothers in one person, as it were. And from what your brothers said to me in New Orleans, you are the one who acts.

That’s a kind thing, I said.

Truth, I hope. What do you say, ladies? Don’t be silent, now.

Polly Randolph shuddered at being addressed but Red Kate didn’t blink. He’s the one, she said.

Yes, said Burr. It’s not hard to tell. There are men who plan and men who act.

You seem to do both, I said.

I try, he said. My trip has been only a fact-finding venture; though I do like what I’ve found. This is a spirited country.

Colonel Burr had come into Pinckneyville that afternoon on horseback, hailed like Christ Himself; if there were palm fronds in the country the people would have scattered them on his approach, but the townsfolk could only take what was at hand and so plucked petals from the magnolias and flung them before him as he trotted through the town. For a time outside the house the planters went disgruntled, wishing for an audience and cussing that the great man would rather sit with such a low character as me. They departed before nightfall for their mansions on their fine horses, and I was poisoned with pride at their grumbling and the jingling of their liveries as they rode off.

There were slips of white still stuck to Burr’s boots and mashed in the button-folds and lapels of his coat. He didn’t brush them off, but let them stay there, fragrant and bright and marking his months of success in garnering support throughout the South and West. His voice was a strange thing, slipping often into mirroring my accent, but always with the jagged diction of a northerner.

Polly Randolph mustered enough to ask Burr where he would go now.

To Nashville, madam, where I stay with Colonel Jackson in his new home.

Colonel Jackson? she said.

A fine man. Prompt, frank, and ardent. Not unlike your brother Reuben.

And so I was caught up among all the colonels of the world. In his letters from New Orleans, Reuben claimed that he and Samuel were called that these days as well. For now I sat with the great man, who, when I offered him spirits, refused them and tippled only at a little wine and tea with our supper of catfish cooked in milk from the few head of cows I’d lately bought.

I do like your brothers, said Burr. They say your father was a man of God. And that you are as well.

That’s true, I said. But I’ve quit it.