19 A Whisper of Intrigue

Winchester left us to go to Lexington, where one of his agents lived, and a day later we were in Danville. I was among friends again. They inquired little in Kentucky about a man’s past. All were too new themselves for that, and the force of circumstances had made the best fighter the best citizen. I was valued, and once again I saw that I was among friends who thought of to-day and not yesterday.

We found that Mr. Carew had gone to meet us, but following another road by mistake, had passed us by. The mother, that invalid with the noble and gentle face, took Miss Carew in her arms, and I turned away from a scene which affected me powerfully. There was no reward now for which I would have traded the memory of the sacrifice in the wilderness, and of all the words that Mrs. Carew said to me, those that pleased me most were these: “I knew that you would bring her back to me, Mr. Lee; when you gave your promise I never doubted.”

Mr. Carew came on the afternoon of the same day, full of gratitude, pouring out his thanks to me, calling me his daughter’s saviour, and a hero of whom the West should be proud. It seemed to me that on the whole he was effusive, and by the rush of quantity wished to end the supply as soon as possible. I was aware that he must know now who I was, and wishing to relieve him, I withdrew into the free air. He urged me with but faint heart to stay and share the hospitality of his home, but his daughter said nothing.

While the atmosphere into which I stepped when I left the house of Mr. Carew was free, it was also surcharged, and I was soon to discover it. Kentucky had received already the permisison of the Union to become a State, and its political capital was this town of Danville, a sprightly village with some fine houses built of bricks brought in wagons across the Alleghanies, and inhabitants who had received the best culture that the East could afford side by side with the wilderness rovers. It was a strange mingling, and yet the diverse elements were fusing already.

The surcharging of the atmosphere was of the same tone and texture that I had noticed in crossing the Ohio, but there was a great increase here. They were not mutterings, they were open and violent curses that I heard: “Have we been deserted by the Union?” “Does the Government merely send us imbeciles to lead us to slaughter?”

Now I saw the beginnings of the Kentucky character as it is developing to-day, that openness and frankness of dealing, the tendency to give all or nothing, those fiery bursts of passion when enraged—the whole making a nature generous but uncalculating. I am of the opinion that this character was formed by the long years of Indian fighting on the soil of Kentucky, which certainly merited its name of the Dark and Bloody Ground,

Much to my surprise, I saw in Danville old Joe Grimes, an inveterate woodsman, a man who was seldom willing to come where the smoke of a half-dozen chimneys troubled his view.

“Why, Joe,” I exclaimed,“what do you in a town?”

“May I not come here if I want to, as well as you?” he replied defiantly.

“I know it,” I said, “but I tell you, Joe Grimes, that you did not come without a good reason.”

He looked at me suddenly, and I saw that it was not now his intent to evade my question any longer.

“I’m troubled, John,” he said. “I think there’s too much gov’ment in this country. I thought maybe I might help cure it. I want to go the whole hog or none. I’m going to make a spoon or spoil a horn, and I think, too, that you might help us, John Lee, considerin’ that you haven’t much to be thankful to the Gov’ment for.”

“Joe Grimes,” I said, giving him back his steady look,“I think it is impossible for you to be a villain, but I am not sure that you can’t be a fool.”

His face was tanned to the colour of leather. Nevertheless the red came flushing through.

“I won’t quarrel with you, John Lee,” he said, “because I’ve fought beside you too often.”

“I know it, and for that reason I dare to speak to you as I have done.”

“You can’t fight battles with popguns, and you can’t win wars with armies that don’t know how to fight. Besides, I don’t believe in govment nohow,” he repeated, as he left me and entered the little inn which received visitors in Danville—not an inn really, but a private house, whose owner consented to take travellers for money. It was one of the few places in Kentucky where a man paid for his food and lodging.

It was a varied company gathered there, and it surprised me by its size. The cause must be powerful, I thought, that drew so many into so small a place. There were hunters in buckskin hunting shirts and leggings and ’coonskin caps; two or three lawyers in black garb, among them the thin-faced Knowlton; and two men in fine small-clothes and powdered wigs. One of the latter was the heavy man Curry, his face now sullen and resolute.

A great fire was burning in the fireplace, which extended almost across the end of the room, and the apartment looked most cheerful, for it was bitter cold outside, and those who entered came with red ears and noses. Joe Grimes sat in the chimney-seat calmly smoking a pipe. Occasionally he tapped with a meditative forefinger the pods of red pepper that hung beside him.

Knowlton had been talking, but he ceased when I entered.

“Speak on, Master Knowlton,” said Grimes. “It’s John Lee; I guess you know him; a true man, if there’s one in the West; a man who has less cause even than we have to love the Gov’ment.”

The lawyer gave me a knowing leer—I hated him for it—and resumed the thread of his discourse. I took my seat without comment.

“The weakness of the Government has been exposed,” said Knowlton, his sharp eyes watching every one of his auditors, “and with the greatest force by this horrible defeat of St. Clair. Would any Kentuckian, would any man of sense, have led an army into such a snare? Didn’t the Kentuckians say that St. Clair was an imbecile, and doesn’t all the world know now that they were right?”

He paused for his words to sink deep, and all gave approving signs, none with more emphasis than Curry and his companion, who was a younger man and weak of brow and chin.

“What can the Government do for us?” resumed Knowlton. “Nothing. What have we to do with the East anyway? We are cut off from it by great mountains. Our outlet is down the current of the Mississippi, and there the French and Spanish lie. It is with them that our great dealings in the future must be.”

“Do you mean to say that we should cut the tie connecting us with the East, and treat with the Frenchman and the Spaniard? That was tried a year or two ago, and the people would not have it,” said the young man with the weak face.

“Softly, softly, Master Harvey,” replied Knowlton in gentle tones. “Don’t put in my mouth words that have not come from it. I have not advised, I have not even suggested, that we treat with the Spaniards and the French. I but stated the facts in regard to the weakness of the Government and its small value to us. Perhaps if those who were concerned in the Spanish intrigue had waited until the present they would find the times riper.”

“That is not a surmise; it is the truth,” said Curry, with an emphatic snap of his strong jaws.

“Undoubtedly, Master Curry,” said Knowlton in his smooth tones, and then putting his pipe in his mouth he began to smoke. I saw well that his words went far, and I knew to what end they tended. I judged that Curry was his strongest ally, and I still deemed it fit to keep silence. I saw through the open window the expanse of hill and meadow, beautiful even in its winter garb, and I thought it too fine a land and won too hardly to be lost. And I thought, too, as I looked at Knowlton and Curry, that when I sat in the lodge of Little Turtle, deadly foe to us though he was, I was in the presence of a nobler man than they.

Knowlton renewed the conversation presently, and kept it upon the same note. By artful device and insinuation, he dwelt upon the sufferings of Kentucky, her great services in winning the Northwest from the British, and the small reward that she had received; her desertion by the Government, he called it. Should this new State beyond the mountains tie herself to a lifeless Union, which would hang but a dead weight upon her?

This was plain talk, although no purpose was mentioned, but it was a land where a man might say what he chose, being held to account for his deeds, not his words, and I yet kept my peace, being willing to listen since they were willing for me to hear. The door opened presently, and a new figure entered.

It was Mr. Carew who joined the group around the fire, and the familiar manner in which they received him persuaded me that he was not a stranger to such conversation as had been going on. It was most disagreeable news to me, though not wholly a surprise, that such projects, vague though they might be, should flit through the head of Rose Carew’s father. Yet I had read his character in his face, ambitious and of the world, to the last degree.

A seat of honour near the fire was given to him and a glass of one of those noble mixed brews, for which this State is achieving fame, was brought. When he drank he looked inquiringly at me, but I said nothing and gave him back no answering glance. Nevertheless, he seemed satisfied.

“What news do you discuss, Master Knowlton?” he asked.

“There is but one topic now present in every man’s mind,” returned Knowlton, in the rhetorical strain that he had adopted; “it is the future of this fair land which we have so recently won with our blood”—I was willing to wager that no drop of his had ever been shed for such a purpose—“and we dread what the future will bring.”

“We have good cause for such dread,” rejoined Mr. Carew.

Here Curry broke in with abrupt utterances. He was a downright fellow given to impulsive speech, as any one could see, and he said that the men who had treated with Spain were not far wrong. Kentucky, in truth, had nothing to gain from the confederation of States; there she would be a subordinate member, serving merely as a bulwark against the Western tribes, giving all and receiving nothing; her place was in a Western empire, of which she should be the head and her first citizens the leaders.

The others were silent, willing that this headstrong man should do all such direct talking, but I saw the eyes of Knowlton and Mr. Carew light up, and I knew that both were dreaming of a great place in this Western empire. Old Joe Grimes was uneasy. Speech so plain had an unpleasant sound in his ears. It was the precious and inalienable privilege of our borderers to speak bitterly of our Government and our people, but they liked it little when the same words were used by others. Now I understood the feelings of Joe Grimes much better than he did himself: slow anger against Knowlton was rising in his mind.

I left the room presently, Mr. Carew following me. When we were outside he approached me in most friendly fashion, and hooked his arm in mine. Despite the fact that he was Rose Carew’s father I felt aversion, but I did not withdraw my arm.

“You heard what that hot-head Curry was saying, did you not, Mr. Lee?” he asked.

“Ay, I heard it,” I replied, “and I paid heed to it.”

“It was rash talk; and yet, when one considers, it might seem much less foolish to think such a thing than to say it.”

“It would be treason,” I said.

“I do not know,” he continued; “Kentucky has done much for the Union, but the Union has done nothing for her. I should think, Mr. Lee, that Curry’s idea would appeal especially to you. A great wrong has been inflicted on you by our Government.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“It must be so,” he replied after some hesitation. “And it would be a fine opportunity for you too. You are loved on the border for the deeds that you have done. Your words are of weight and influence with the people. In this new land, if it were cut off from the old, you could rise to high position should you wish it.”

“I do not wish it,” I said.

“That’s strange,” he replied. “Most young men have ambition, and few would refuse a prize that is ready to be placed in their hands.”

“It is treason.”

“Treason is a harsh word, but it is sometimes used carelessly. If a portion of a country is abandoned by the remainder, it is scarce treason in that portion to take care of itself as best it can.”

“I will not share any plan to sever Kentucky from the Union or to plot with the French or Spanish,” I said, resolved that such talk had gone far enough.

He dropped my arm and faced me with a look of amazement. Then he laughed lightly. I discovered now that he was an adept at intrigue.

“My dear Lee,” he cried, “I think he is a bold man who should propose such a plan, and yet one likes to speculate now and then concerning the notions of others. Even now I am seeking to put myself in the place of that hot-head Curry, and imagine the feelings prompting him to such foolish talk.”

“Yet one may have too strong an imagination, or he may let it go too far,” I said.

“Quite true,” he rejoined, “and I advise you, Mr. Lee, not to let yours trifle with you.”

Then, as if to apologize for the sharpness of his remark, he began quickly to talk of my services to his daughter, and again was so profuse in his thanks that I would have escaped from him had he not held me by the arm. I much preferred Miss Carew’s own manner of scarce alluding to her rescue, but I listened perforce to her father’s. I did not believe him to be wholly bad; merely somewhat blinded to other things when his own interests were concerned.

We passed a man, a stranger to me—it was but my second visit to Danville—a tall, thin man with a pale face and the look of a student, to whom Mr. Carew gave a contemptuous nod. As the stranger glanced twice at us, I was moved to ask Mr. Carew who he was.

“It’s only Underwood,” he replied.

“Only Underwood? Why do you say ‘only’?”

“Well, Underwood hasn’t a very good name in one respect. You know that personal bravery is a quality greatly needed in this region, and, to put it mildly, Underwood is possessed of a somewhat excessive caution. He is a sort of school-teacher and law student. I believe that he hopes to be a great lawyer.”

I looked back at the retreating form of Underwood, and I felt first aversion and then pity. The border despises a coward most of all men, but I had been through the Revolutionary War, and I knew that one might be a coward because of Nature’s decree.

“Perhaps it is not his fault,” I said. “It may be that he is so because God made him so.”

“True,” replied Mr. Carew, “but men do not have time to make such inquiries. They take people as they are.”

He left me presently, and I found in talk with others that the complaints against the Government were increasing. Many men had come to Danville, and discontent was the note of all, a note aggravated by reports of atrocities now coming from the border. The red terror was spreading, despite midwinter. Daring bands of savages had crossed the Ohio, and the tomahawk was busy.

Although it had been my intent not to linger, and Osseo was waiting for me, I concluded, in view of what I had heard, to stay yet a little longer in Danville.

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