6

Secrets

A mighty unusual fisherman it is,” said McKay, “who fills his hold on his first day at sea. But what are your intentions now?”

“To Velasco, with all speed,” said Sam. “Revolutions wait for no man.”

“Mr. Yeakel,” said Bliven, “make all sail, course due west.”

It took six days with moderately favorable winds. The mouth of the Brazos was easy to find, because with the curve of the Texas coast, the latitude of 28°52′ indicated its only possible location, even if there were no coastal schooners to follow. They came upon it early in the morning.

Bliven was the last to the quarterdeck, dressed in civilian traveling clothes of middling quality. He found Sam better dressed, also out of uniform, McKay at the wheel with Yeakel beside him, and Lieutenant White in his best undress blues, his black shoes and brass buttons equally polished, his billed cap with its gold band snugged down; its severely flat top seemed nearly seven feet above the ground. “Well, Mr. White, you look very fine this morning.”

He saluted. “Thank you, sir.”

Off to their starboard lay the Texas coast, low and sandy, topped with thick tufts of beach grass and brush.

“Excuse me, Captain,” said Caldwell as he approached. “I wanted to let you know we are crossing into six fathoms.”

“Very well, thank you. Mr. Bandy, that is the mouth of the Brazos up ahead?”

“Indeed it is. The town of Velasco is a couple of miles upriver, which serves our purpose. We will have been seen by only a minimum number of people. You and I can take the cutter across the bar to the town and find our way to General Houston. We should be all done with our business in maybe three weeks, and we can rendezvous back here with the ship.”

“Well, let us make it four weeks to be safe. It is easier for me to lie low than to keep the ship out of sight.”

“I believe you can drop your anchor at any time, Captain,” said McKay.

“Very well, let go the anchor.” McKay relayed the order, and far forward they heard the clatter and splash.

“I will go below and get my things while Mr. Yeakel gets the boat down,” said Sam.

“Yes, and have Mr. Ross bring up my portmanteau if you would. Mr. White?”

“Captain?”

“Mr. White, I need hardly say to you how much I dislike to leave my command, even in performance of a duty with which I am most specifically tasked.”

“I do understand, sir.”

“I have every confidence in you, and in Mr. Yeakel and Mr. McKay. You will continue the mission to disrupt Mexican commerce and engage any of their vessels that come against you.”

“Yes, sir. At least we have plenty of powder.”

“Ha! You certainly do. Once we are ashore, Mr. Bandy will inquire how the Texian forces can best use the armaments we have taken, but we will keep them aboard for now.” From the midships they heard the canvas being taken off the cutter and the lines made fast. “Keep a good log, and remember: one month from today, on this spot. We will be watching for you.”

The crewmen pulled at their sweeps toward the coast and they passed over the bar. As the surf line passed behind them the water changed from dark green to a muddy jade. “Just how shallow is this water, Sam?” With the uniforms packed away, there was no need for formality.

“Eight feet, maybe. Less after a flood silts it up.”

Two and a half miles up the stream they made out the wooden shingle roofs of a small but busy town and then, jutting from the right bank, a low wooden pier that proved to be of a pine board framework nailed to cedar poles pounded into the muck. The path was well-worn, but they encountered no one between there and the outer buildings of the town.

Carrying their portmanteaus, they approached an open-fronted livery stable whose proprietor, a large man in his fifties, hurried out to meet them. “Why, Mr. Sam! We were just discussing when you might be returning. Did you have a good trip?”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Philpott. What is the news? Have the Mexicans invaded yet?”

“Not that we have heard.” He set his hat, a sailor’s cap of the German style, on his head. “Good thing, too. Word is the government is all in a mess.”

“Mr. Hiram Philpott, this is my friend Mr. Putnam.”

“How d’ye do, sir?” They shook hands.

Sam pointed into the stable. “How is my Ranger?”

“Oh, he had a double appetite this morning, Mr. Sam. Something must have told him you were coming home.”

The dim of the livery stable was not unwelcome after looking into the morning sun. Sam led them straight to a stall housing a blooded stallion, as red as cherry wood, who shook his head and pranced in his place as Sam threw an arm over his withers and heavily patted his other side. “Well, that’s my good boy. Yes, sir.”

Bliven’s sigh was audible. “Oh, Sam, he is magnificent.”

“And smart as a whip. Mr. Philpott, Mr. Putnam will also be needing a horse for a few weeks, something nice and easy that won’t be any trouble. Let’s get them saddled up. Now, what do you mean the government is all in a mess?”

They led the horses into the corral, slipped on bridles, and lay blankets across their backs. “What we hear is everybody wants to run the show,” said Philpott. “The Council has impeached the governor, the governor has dismissed the Council, everyone is issuing orders to everybody, each countermanding the other. The Mexicans could march in right this day and sweep everybody up.”

“Well, we might have known.”

“Seems to me we have way too many chiefs and not near enough Indians.”

“Where are all the volunteers?”

“If you ask me,” said Philpott, “they’re all layin’ low until they figure out just who is entitled to give them orders. I guess the biggest number are at Goliad, some in San Antone, maybe a smaller garrison at the Concepción mission.”

“Where is Houston, do you know?”

“Oh, God Almighty, I think that man is the center of the storm. Seems like half the men in government would follow him anywhere because he used to be attached to Jackson, and the other half want nothing to do with him because he used to be attached to Jackson, or because he drinks, or because he left his white wife, or because he had an Indian wife, or whatnot of a reason.”

Bliven smiled wryly at the memory of Houston’s ruin in Tennessee. “Seems like I have heard all of this before, in years past.”

Sam grunted. “The point is he is the only one of the whole lot who has actually been in battle and led men in battle. These other dunderheads have no idea what they are doing. They would scatter at the first sight of a Mexican line. How about it, Philpott? Do you know where he is?”

“Nope. I think it’s a fair bet the one place he won’t be is in San Felipe. Someone on the Council would probably try to have him arrested.”

“How much do I owe you?”

“Boarding the Ranger, and two weeks’ rental on this one here—seven dollars. Would that be convenient? If you keep the horse longer than that, we can settle up when you return him.”

Sam fished the silver out of his coin purse. “Well, I guess we all have to make a living. Obliged to you, Hiram.”

The road north from Velasco was a well-defined trace—nothing as would be called a turnpike in the Northeast—but there was no losing one’s way. As evening overtook them, they called at a house near the road; they hailed a middle-aged couple in the yard, who happily gave them a meal and blankets to spend the night on the front gallery of their house. They stayed up late in conversation, draining Bliven of news from the United States, and anything he could tell them about his life in Litchfield. Morning brought ham and eggs and coffee, but the owners seemed wounded that Bliven offered them payment.

“He doesn’t know how we do things around here, does he, Mr. Sam?” the husband asked.

“No. He’s never been here in his life. See, Bliv, however much we Texans affect to need no one and nothing, the truth is none of us could get by without the hospitality of our neighbors. It is freely given and cheerfully accepted. When the night comes that they knock on my door, the same will be extended to them. Now, it’s true that some people have gone into full-time inn keeping, and they charge a rate just like you would expect back home, but we out here never expect payment for putting people up for the night.”

Bliven’s surprise was evident. “I ask your pardon, I meant no offense. How can you tell the difference?”

“Well, an inn might or might not have a sign by the road. We just know.”

That second day the coastal grass gave way more and more to belts of oak forest, with taller hardwoods along creeks and sloughs—cottonwoods and pecans.

“You know,” said Sam, “there is another side to that whole thing about paying for lodging. There has never been much money in circulation out here. People might live for months on barter without a coin changing hands. When you offer people money you can appear sort of high-handed.”

“I had no idea.”

Late in the morning they passed from one belt of oak into a meadow more elevated and rolling than the ones before. Midway through it a path extended to the left, and by it a signpost neatly but homely painted “halcyon.” “Why, this is it,” exclaimed Bliven.

“Yes.”

“Then this would explain the postal address I have been using all these years: Halcyon Plantation, Bolivar, Texas.”

“Yes. Bolivar is just a couple of miles further up the road.”

They turned from the road onto the path that led west from the sign, and Bliven pointed to a roof rising from the tall grass ahead. “That must be your house, but where are your fields?”

“Further on. My land backs up to the river. When General Austin was laying out the land grants, he thought ahead to make them long and narrow so that everyone would have frontage on the Brazos and be able to get their produce down to a market. The riverboat stops for everyone who has cotton or hides or corn waiting on the bank.”

“You have steamboats?” Something so modern seemed out of place on so raw a frontier.

“Sure. What do you think, we wear skins and hunt with clubs?”

“I am happy that you can get all the goods you need. What about Indians?”

Sam shrugged. “The Kronks were a problem in the early days, but after we organized some ranging companies, they were punished so hard for killing or stealing they pretty much leave us alone now. There’s some wilder tribes further up the river, but this is pretty well out of their hunting grounds. Then you get out past them, that’s Comanche country, but no white man has any business up there—at least, not yet.”

“I see. Now, Austin’s grant was as large as most countries in the world. What led you to this location? Anything in particular?”

“Apart from being on the river, I just tried to figure out where the future business would be. I got lucky, too, because Bolivar up ahead is where the road from Brazoria to San Felipe crosses the road from Columbia to Harrisburg. That, and the east part of this land here by the road is a little higher than most. When I first looked it over I went down by the river and I looked up and saw old grass and leaves caught in the tree branches, so I could figure how high the water gets when there is a flood, and I know the house is safe.”

Bliven thought it strange to converse so long while walking their horses through the front yard of a single house, but at length the grass was tamped down into a clearing. “And this is your house?”

“Yup.”

“Why, Sam, it is just charming.”

Sam laughed loudly. “I have wondered what you would say if you ever saw it. That is kind of you to say so, but there is no need to pretend. We both know it is nothing like what I knew back at Abbeville.”

“But, like a cat, you have landed on your feet. I had so hoped for you, Sam, that life would treat you right after handing you so much misfortune.”

Sam was taken off guard by such a kind sympathy. “Yes. Well, you have to take what life gives you or you get unhinged, like my first two boys. Look, now, we built the kind of house that everyone has hereabouts. It is sort of a local invention, and if there is such a thing as genius among the common people, this is its product. You see? You get your land and move onto it, and you build a single log pen to live in while you get settled. Then, when you are ready, you build a second one, just the same size, next to it but not too close. That gives you one room to live in and one to sleep in. Then you connect them with the single roof, and that gives you a nice, cool place to sit out in warm weather, or out of the rain. Then at some point you build the kitchen out back.

“Then, if you want, you can close in that open porch for a third room, and when you need to, you extend shed roofs off the back for two more rooms, and if you planned it right and made your ceiling high enough, you can put two more rooms up in the eaves, with stairs in the central hall, and add this gallery across the front. I know it looks humble, but it’s as much as most anyone needs.”

“My word, that is efficient, isn’t it?”

“Now, some few of our rich folks have built big mansions like they had back home, but really they’re just showing off. No one needs to live like that. Besides, as you remember, I was starting over.”

As they were halfway across the clearing, a Negro woman wearing a blue dress patterned in darker blue exited the house, wiping her hands on an apron. “Well, Mr. Sam, praise the Lord! He has brought you safe home.”

They dismounted, and Sam embraced her with a jarring familiarity. “Bliv, do you remember Dicey? She was just a little girl when you met her in Abbeville.”

“Oh, my heavens, yes! Dicey, it is so good to see you. Do you remember, you brought us lemonade when I was visiting with Mrs. Bandy?”

“Oh, yes, I remember that very well.” She advanced and extended her hand; he was surprised but he took it, uncertain in the scheme of things what her station might be in this household. “I remember I was so shy I liked to have died.”

A black man came around the side of the house, thirty and powerfully muscled, fully but inexpensively clad in the station of the slave, but the presence of shoes told that he was a well-kept slave. “Welcome home, Mr. Sam. Shall I take the Ranger into the barn and give him and his friend a rubdown and some supper?”

“Yes, Silas, that will be fine.” He and Bliven slid their portmanteaus down from the saddles and handed over the reins. Bliven followed Silas to the edge of the house and saw a large barn with a corral beyond. When he turned back he beheld Sam and Dicey kissing passionately. Then they stood facing him, arms around each other. “Come, my sweet. Let us help Captain Putnam into the house, I fear we have given him a shock. Where are the boys?”

“Can’t say exactly. Romping out back with Pompey and them. They’ll be around.”

They mounted two low steps to the gallery porch that extended the width of the house. Dicey passed inside but Bliven held back. “Now, Sam,” he whispered. He was not sure what to say. “Remember, I have been all over the world. I know from my own experience that different countries have different customs.”

“Ho, that was a good effort,” said Sam grandly. “It is all right, you are permitted to be shocked. But I’ll tell you the truth: that our accommodation is not at all unusual in these parts.” He opened the front door. “Look down here. See this? A brass lock set! It makes us the envy of our neighbors; most of them use latchstrings. The hinges are rawhide, though; it’s plentiful and doesn’t squeak.” They passed inside, and Sam continued, “See this floor? Sawn pine lumber. Most people use puncheons out here because wood doesn’t last in this climate, owing to the termites, but I brushed them on the bottom with some nautical pitch that I had saved, to see if that would stop them, and we haven’t fallen through yet.”

Suddenly, Bliven realized that Sam was attempting to draw him out of his consternation over Dicey and decided to cooperate. “So then this used to be the open passage between the two cabins, as you described?”

“Exactly.”

“And these stairs go up to the eave rooms?” There was a staircase that ascended the right wall of the hall, as steep almost as a ship’s ladder.

“Yes, and out back you see the kitchen, and that is Dicey’s domain. Oh, and come look at this!” He passed out a back door opposite where they had entered, onto a small porch. “See, we have a well, and this.” He pointed to a wooden frame of three shelves whose legs stood in a shallow zinc pan with an inch of water in the bottom. Around the shelves was stretched white cotton sheeting tacked into the top, the trailing edge of which rested in the water. “Here, try this.” Sam pulled aside the damp cloth, and from a beige crockery pitcher poured a cup of cool, fresh buttermilk. “We have a German neighbor, name of Lederle, across the road. It’s an invention of theirs: in all the summer heat, this thing keeps milk, butter—everything—just as cool as can be. He had some big word for it that I don’t remember.”

“‘Evaporation’?” asked Bliven.

“I believe that was it. Our first German came through here about five years ago, and a few more every year since. Cleverest people you ever saw, and they work like the very devil.”

“And they are good neighbors, apparently.”

“Well, like with the lodging for travelers, we do help each other out. His place backs up only to Oyster Creek, so I let him use my dock on the river whenever he wants.”

“He came by yesterday,” said Dicey, and she pointed to the bottom shelf of the cooler. “He brought that haunch of venison that we’re having for supper.”

“Well, God damn! Bliv, see what I mean? Let’s get out of her way. Come back inside and have a glass of wine.”

“I am with you.” Bliven’s eyes met Dicey’s for a short, deep look. “Dicey, I am very happy to see you again.”

“Me, too, Cap’n Putnam. You go along, now.”

The parlor lay to the right of the central hall, furnished with a settee and chairs of fine rosewood, as was a table with a marble top. At a sideboard Sam emptied a bottle of ruby-red wine into a decanter that he set, with two glasses, onto a silver gallery tray and carried it to the marble-topped table.

“Your house is very finely furnished,” said Bliven. “Were you able to bring these pieces with you from South Carolina, or did you acquire them here?”

Sam poured the wine. “One big wagonload we were able to save. Good furniture out here is almost impossibly dear.”

“Sam, I have a confession.”

“What is that?”

“I think I like your Texas.”

“Do you?”

“From everything I have seen of the people, they are frank and friendly. Consider that place we stayed in last night, this custom of yours to take in travelers and accept no money. If you are to have a revolution with the aim to join the United States, such people would be of benefit to the country, it seems to me.”

Sam nodded. “I am glad to hear this.”

“But you do realize the political obstacles to it, surely. The Northern states will fight like hell before allowing another slave state into the Union. That would give the South a majority in the federal senate. They will never countenance that.”

“Then let the war be for independence. We must separate from Mexico, and we can go it alone as a separate country. The United States will want us in time, maybe after we start selling our cotton to the English cheaper than theirs. We’re not stupid, you know.” A quiet descended for several moments. “You are being so very good not to ask me about Dicey. It is all right, Bliv. You’re holding a lot in, so speak up.”

He shrugged. “I am just surprised, is all.” Then he added, “When you told me that you were only somewhat married, and explained your separation, I assumed that was the extent of it. Now I realize that was, well, not the end of the story.”

Sam leaned back in the settee. “Sometimes fate throws you together with someone, and you discover sympathy, and affection. Other people may not understand or approve, but at some point you have to decide which is harder to bear, their disapproval or your own misery.”

They heard a commotion at the rear of the house, and when they went out Sam exclaimed, “Howdy, boys!”

“Papa!”

Bliven saw him clutched by apparent twin boys of about ten, whom he scooped up into his arms. In the face they looked like him, but of darker skin, and very curly brown hair. “Bliv, meet the new family, Robert and Stephen. Apparently they knew we were in a hurry to start a family, as they arrived at the same time.”

In a flash the boys went storming off to the barn to play with a couple of Negro children visible there. “Goodness, what energy they have. As for myself and my modest needs, I should probably visit your head, if you will tell me where to go.”

Sam and Dicey looked at each other, their eyes wide. “Lord, Cap’n Putnam,” said Dicey. “You don’t know? That’s why God give us bushes.”

Bliven stared back. “Bushes?”

“Didn’t Mr. Sam tell you? We are going to have us a democracy here in Texas. I don’t empty slop jars no more.”

“You will see a pail of corncobs by the path, if you need one,” said Sam.

“Corncobs?”

“Granted, it is a little more primitive than the lamb’s wool you keep in your captain’s privy, but Texas makes the whole man tough.” He laughed, loudly and suddenly. “Even his arse.”

Bliven nodded slightly in defeat. “Where is this path?”

“Around the side,” answered Sam. “Come on, I’ll show you. Be mindful of any snakes when you get down in the slough.”

“And watch for poison ivy,” added Dicey.

Bliven sighed. “Oh, Lord.”

“You know,” said Sam, placing an arm around Bliven’s shoulder as he escorted him to the corner of the house and pointed the way, “our German friends, the Lederles, and the others who have settled up-country, they build a little house, maybe four feet square, over a cesspit. They think they’re so civilized, but the fact is they are positively indecent. That just advertises your business: everybody knows what you’re doing in there.”

“But you know why I am going into the bushes. What is the difference, except maybe the lack of poison ivy?”

Sam and Dicey’s room lay to the left of the hall, the two boys slept in a shed room behind it, and Bliven was shown up the stairs to a bedroom above the parlor, having for light a single candle wedged into a brass holder. He could stand erect when under the ridge beam of the roof but had to duck to stretch out in a low bed with a mattress soft with ball moss.

Sam rode for Bolivar first thing in the morning, leaving Bliven to explore the plantation, which was on a scale that was hard for him to fathom. It did not surprise him that there were no fences as he would have seen at home. How does one go about fencing a property as easily measured in square miles as in acres? West of the house and gardens and the cabins where the slaves lived, he walked down a well-trod dirt path, gradually lower as he got nearer the Brazos, with vast plowed fields to both left and right. After two miles he began to wonder if he should have come armed in case he happened across Indians. Eventually he could see the gallery forest that he knew must define the course of the river and turned back. In New England no one would know what to do with this much land. The Germans who lived across the road must have their work cut out for them just to haul their produce down to Sam’s landing.

He was curious to look into the slave cabins but did not, knowing that Sam—when he heard about it—would feel under examination, that Bliven was investigating whether the stories of neglect and mistreatment told by abolitionists were really true. The condition of the field hands he could not address, but Dicey seemed no different from any other matron tending children and a farm—she was busy, efficient, cheerful.

He did not recognize all her chores, and that evening after dinner, with Sam not yet returned, he was reading by the fire when he spied her set aside a basket of mending to screw some kind of mechanism into the bottom of a candlestick. “Dicey, forgive me. What are you doing?”

“Oh, Lord, Cap’n Putnam, out here in these parts, ain’t nothing so precious as tallow. Candles are so dear, some people just can’t buy ’em. So our German neighbors give us these candlesticks. See, they twist up from the bottom, so as the candle burns down, the bottom comes up, and nothing is ever wasted.”

“Fascinating. I have never seen the like.” In his memory he could still hear his father dressing down Clarity for buying candles of beeswax at eight times the cost of tallow.

“I got hot water in the kettle. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I would love a cup of tea.”

She rose and prepared it, pouring the hot water through a strainer. “What do you like in it?”

“Maybe just a spoon of sugar?”

When she gave it to him, Bliven slurped to cool it a bit more as he sipped it, and his eyes shot open. “Dicey! What is this tea? What on earth?”

She looked up from her mending. “You don’t like it?”

He held the cup down to his lap and stared at it. “Dicey, I have been to China, I have had the best teas in the world. This beats all of them to pieces. I must know, what is it? Where is it from? Where did you get it?”

Dicey grinned. “Well, it ain’t dark yet. You drink it on down, and I will show you where we get it.”

After he finished they went out back and she took up a small basket. She led him down a path from the side of the house, a different direction from the path where the corncobs were destined, and in a couple of hundred yards it narrowed into a stand of gray-green bushes, most of them from four to six feet tall. Dicey walked on and the shrubs closed around them, and then she stopped and twirled in a circle. “Well, Cap’n Putnam, here we are. These here thickety yaupon bushes is where we get our tea.”

Bliven fingered a branch and examined the leaves, two-thirds of an inch long and half as broad. “I have never heard of these.”

“You can’t buy them in no store, but when you poor and colored you learn about things.” She laughed suddenly. “And some things are pretty good. White folks would have a fit if they knew we drink better tea than they do.”

“How did you learn about them?”

“From some of the slaves hereabouts, they learnt it from the Indians. It’s so easy. Just pick the leaves, toast ’em, and grind ’em—nothin’ to it. Look here, you help me pick a bunch, and I’ll fix some up for you to take with you.”

“Oh! Oh, yes!”

“Now, be careful you don’t pick no berries. The berries will make you powerful sick. Just the leaves, now.”

“The mature leaves or just the new ones?”

“Don’t matter, so far as I know, but I wouldn’t strip whole branches; that might kill them.”

“All right, just a few from each branch.” Every time he gathered a double handful, he poured them into her basket. “Dicey, now that Sam has gone into town, may I ask you something?”

“Surely, I’ve been thinking you might.”

“You and Sam . . . I . . . well, you can imagine my surprise to learn that you are . . .” He let the sentence hang unfinished.

Dicey dusted the detritus of yaupon leaves off her hands onto her apron. “Cap’n Putnam, did you ever have a sailor on your ship wanted to ask you something but he was so scared to, you finally had to tell him that he could speak freely?”

“Yes, in fact I have.”

“Then, for the Lord’s sake, speak freely!”

“If I may ask, how did it happen? How did it begin?”

Dicey resumed plucking yaupon leaves, but thoughtfully. “It’s all right, I don’t mind you asking. When Miss Rebecca died, I never saw a man brought so low as Mr. Sam was. I was afraid he might harm himself. Yes, sir, I was sore afraid. And I was afraid of what might happen to me without him. It was maybe three weeks after she died, one night after supper. I was putting the dishes away, and he went to bed. Even though he was upstairs, I could hear him. I went up to the door of his room and he was crying like a child. So I took off my shoes and I went in and I laid myself down beside him. And I’ve never left him.”

“So you mean he’s never forced you—”

“Lord, no! This was my doin’.”

Bliven felt himself oddly on the defensive. “I’m just not certain that . . . I mean, do you think it’s right . . . for you to be together?”

Dicey looked at him blankly for some seconds, then heaved a sigh, rolling her head and eyes as though she were following the sun from dawn until nightfall. “Why? Because we’re not married? Because I’m colored? Because he was my master?” She shook her head slowly. “Mm-mm! Where on earth did you find such a high horse to sit on?”

Even as a Northerner, and thinking of himself now as an abolitionist, no Negro had ever lectured him so. “Now, Dicey, I don’t place myself in any kind of judgment over you. But isn’t it true that many of the preachers, both in the South and the North hold that God—”

“God? Pshaw! Where was God when I was torn away from my home when I was too little to have any sense? Then when I was torn away from my mama? Where was God when Miss Rebecca died? Where was God when that speculatin’ banker left Sam with near nothin’? Sam and I made our vows to each other, and God can like it or He can just leave us be! Let me make something clear to you, Cap’n Putnam. Sam can’t marry me—his Catholic wife seen to that—but even if he was free, he still couldn’t marry me because I’m colored. And he can’t free me, because slave catchers would take me unawares and sell me somewheres else. But I can tell you, as between him and me, he did free me; he just dassen’t try to make it legal.” Dicey opened her arms and gestured into the forest. “Look around you, Cap’n Putnam, this is as good as this life will ever get for me. And you know what? This ain’t bad. I have a man who loves me, a good, snug home, all the good food I can eat, children to raise and teach right from wrong. No, sir, this ain’t bad at all.”

Bliven nodded in thought. “What about that Catholic wife? She must have complicated things a little bit.”

Dicey smiled wickedly. “Well, I guess I did have to share him for a while. She didn’t last, though.” She laughed, deep in her chest, husky and victorious.

Bliven had been in the fighting Navy long enough to know when to strike his colors. He stood closer and took her hand. “Then, Dicey, if you and Sam are happy together, I will have no more to say about it. I will just be happy for you.”

“Thank you, sir.” She squeezed his hand. “Do you mean that truly, or are you just keeping the peace?” When he had no ready answer, she patted him on the chest. “Well, I expect you’ll try, anyway. That’s pretty good.”

---

*   *   *

Next midday Bliven held Sam’s horse as he dismounted in the yard, then asked, “Did you have a good visit? Find out what you needed?”

“Well, let’s say that I learned a hell of a lot.” They walked around the house and Sam poured himself a cup of buttermilk from the pitcher in the evaporator. “What Hiram told us in Velasco about the government being in chaos doesn’t begin to cover it. There is no government to speak of. The one thing that everybody agrees is that it has broken down; it was a mistake to try and make a government that would please everyone, so there is going to be a new convention to declare independence.”

“Where is Houston?”

“Some weeks ago he rode into town after being out rounding up volunteers, and he was so disgusted he didn’t want anything to do with any of them. He told them to get things fixed, and he was going to the Redlands and make a treaty with the Cherokees to not take sides in the war when it comes. So, he is in Nacogdoches.”

“How far is that?”

“Six days, if we push.”

“Six days! Did you think he would be so far away?”

“No, I didn’t expect that. But morning will be soon enough to start.”

They rode north, the coastal prairies with their belts of trees gradually giving way to higher meadows, with large sections of a stout, short oak of a species Bliven had never seen before, and when they turned east, within three days they found themselves in a pine forest. It was thin at first, and interspersed with cedar brakes, but gradually it thickened and darkened above them.

Nacogdoches lay on the old Camino Real, so there was no danger of them getting lost, and the whole area was settled enough that they could count on being put up for the night and not have to sleep on their blankets in the woods.

“This is a substantial little town, Sam,” said Bliven as they entered it at last. “How many people live here, would you say?”

“Oh, three or four hundred. No census that I know of. This road here will run right into the Stone Fort; that’ll be the best place to ask where to find Houston, and we can change into our uniforms there.”

Houston’s camp, as they learned, lay near the Cherokee village north and west of town, and darkness overtook them so that they found the last mile by the light of campfires ahead. They dismounted when they were challenged by a sentry, and Sam said, “Two officers to see General Houston.”

“Very well, if you will follow me.” There were not more than fifty men in the camp, which was well organized and clean.

The sentry pulled aside the flap of a United States military regulation tent, revealing lantern light within. “Excuse me, General, two officers are here to see you.” He stood aside and held it open for them.

Sam and Bliven ducked through the opening and beheld a powerful-looking man in his early forties rising from a camp table. As he came around it, Bliven marked that he was perhaps six feet two inches tall, only slightly more than himself. He glanced down, curious whether a pair of boots added to that height, and saw he was wearing beaded Indian moccasins. He had auburn hair, thinning on top and pulled back into a queue, a strong brow and bridge of the nose, a pronounced cleft in his chin, and remarkable eyes of a brilliant, brilliant sky blue evident even in the lamplight. “Gentlemen,” he said. They saluted, which Houston returned. “Mr. Bandy, you are welcome.” His voice was deep and sonorous.

“General, may I present Captain Bliven Putnam, late of the United States Navy?”

He advanced far enough to shake hands. “Captain, welcome.”

“I believe I am still in the United States Navy, General, but in truth I cannot say that I am certain”—he produced the letter with which he had been entrusted—“but I am sure that I have been charged to pass this to your hand and none other, for it seems to be a matter of some importance.”

Houston took it with a low and deeply basso laugh. “I sympathize with your plight, Captain, for mine is not dissimilar. Pray, be seated, and indulge me, for I must read this before we proceed.” As he broke the seal on the letter he resumed his seat in a ladderback chair with a cane seat whose angles altered beneath his weight, and he moved the lantern closer. He indicated camp stools for his visitors to seat themselves upon and began squinting at the letter. “As much as I esteem General Jackson,” he muttered, “his hand becomes more of a curse to read the older he gets.” Even across the table Bliven could tell the writing was small and crabbed and angular, the ink thick and the lines closely spaced.

“Well,” Houston said at last. “Have you gentlemen been to San Felipe?”

“I was lately there,” said Sam. “That’s how I knew where to find you. While I was there, I thought it prudent to leave Captain Putnam at my place near Bolivar.”

“Quite right.”

The tent flap opened again. “I’m sorry, General, Mr. Bowie is here and says it is urgent that he—”

Before he finished, Bowie brushed behind him and into the tent. “Your pardon for the interruption, Houston. I have just come from the Cherokee camp.” He glanced at Sam and Bliven. “Oh, may I?”

“James Bowie, colonel of volunteers, this is Sam Bandy and Bliven Putnam of our incipient naval department.”

“Gentlemen,” said Bowie, taking their hands in a crushing grasp.

“I have heard of you,” said Bliven.

“I hope you don’t believe it all.”

So, this is Bowie at last, he thought. He wanted badly to say that he had hunted Laffite in 1817 for slave smuggling and if he had taken Bowie at the same time he would have hanged them both. Bowie had made his wealth in slaves and land fraud, and become infamous for his skill at knife fighting, stemming in part from an incident in Mississippi when he and an antagonist were locked in an icehouse from which only one of them would emerge alive, and that proved to be Bowie. Indeed, he had visited a blacksmith with a drawing for an improved weapon that could both stab like a dagger and slice, as well as being heavy enough to chop like a machete. The instrument was named for him and was ubiquitous across the whole van of the advancing frontier, but it was only now when Bliven saw one, presumably the original model, thrust through Bowie’s belt that he appreciated the ferocity of its look. Its size was frightening, the blade a full twelve inches long and an inch and a half broad. The only knife he had seen to equal it was the Arab jambia he had taken in the Barbary War; he had given it to his father, and it now reposed on his mantel in Litchfield. He had left off taking it to sea with him as a youthful affectation, but at this moment he regretted leaving it at home, for he and Bowie could have held court on their respective virtues. As it was, he nodded his head at the weapon. “The famous Bowie knife?” he asked.

“It is.”

“You do not use a scabbard?”

“Not when I treat with Indians. If any of them makes a threat to me, as Indians are wont to do, I want them to know what they’re getting into. Now, General,” Bowie said, returning to his subject, “the Bowl and the other chiefs have said they will agree to remain neutral in the coming fight with Mexico. They thank you for not asking them to join you, and they will take no action to help the Mexicans. But for this they require your word of honor that you will not again try to bring Creeks down here from the Indian Territory to settle among them. They say the land you will cede to them is only large enough to support themselves, and besides that, they don’t even like Creeks. They say they always cause trouble and they want nothing to do with them. They would like some answer before they sleep tonight.”

Houston stood, arms folded, looking downcast. “Very well. Tell my father—and now be certain you say it just this way—tell my father the Bowl that I am sorry my red brothers cannot live in harmony together. I believe that this must hurt the heart of the Great Spirit. But tell them that I understand, that the land we will give them is not as large as they deserve, nor as large as I would wish to give them, but it is as much as I believe the government will agree to let them have. And tell them I agree that I will have no more talks with the Creeks except to tell them they cannot come to this part of the country. Bowie, do you think that will satisfy them?”

“Yes, sir. We will draw up the treaty and you can all sign it as soon as you can arrange a big smoker to all meet.”

“Thank you, Bowie. Good night.”

“General.” Bowie saluted and left. Houston sat heavily, shaking his head.

Bliven noted his sadness. “General, if I may?” Houston looked up. “Two years ago I was in Florida. My ship was damaged off the Bahamas, and I put in at St. Augustine to effect repairs. It was at the time that Fort King was reactivated, and I had to take supplies and a garrison up there.”

“The beginning of the Seminole trouble,” said Houston.

“Exactly. I had to witness a council with those Indians, and if I may be so bold, I believe you just acted as wisely as the Seminole agent acted rashly and foolishly.”

“Who was that agent?”

“His name was Wiley Thompson, sir.”

“Then this news might hold some meaning for you. We learned not two weeks ago that the Seminole Indians have killed Mr. Thompson and gone on the warpath.”

Bliven drew a deep breath. “Oh, no, I had no idea. I am sorry to hear it, but I am not surprised. I found his lack of sympathy for the Seminoles, and the bluntness with which he told them they would have to quit their lands and remove to the west, to be quite dangerous, even reckless.”

“Captain”—Houston looked at him coldly—“I knew Wiley Thompson well. He was in Congress before I arrived there and remained there after I left to assume the office of governor of Tennessee. No man was more dedicated to the advance of civilization on this continent.”

“I apologize, General. I did not mean to give offense.”

Houston dropped his head. “On the subject of Indian removal, however, I am more inclined to agree with you. Are you aware that I lived with the Cherokees for six years?”

“I knew only that you went to the Indian Territory after you resigned as governor. I believe that was in the newspapers.”

Houston laughed lowly and grew reflective. “Yes, but long before then. I was thirteen when my father died, and my mother moved the family to Maryville in Tennessee, right on the border of the Cherokee Nation. I did not feel that I was cut out to be a plow boy and stock clerk, so I ran away when I was sixteen. I had many friends among the Cherokees, and I lived among them for three years. I was adopted by their chief, who gave me the name of the Raven, which is a totem of their religion that signifies good fortune, but also wandering. Eventually I returned home to go to work and pay debts I had accumulated. Then I joined the Army. I advanced to the rank of lieutenant, and I came to the notice of General Jackson, who took me onto his staff after I was thrice wounded fighting the Creeks in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. After I recovered, he made me the federal agent to those Cherokees with whom I had lived. Then General Jackson made me responsible for moving them west to the Indian Territory. That was a wrong thing to do and a wrong policy, but that was not something that a junior officer tells to a general. Captain Putnam, have you yet had the occasion of feeling compelled to obey an order you did not agree with?”

“Yes, as I did even in coming to Texas.” Bliven pursed his lips. “Sir.”

Houston laughed again, deep and chesty. “I appreciate that. I was still quite young, and I guess I was a little afraid of Jackson. He can be rather overpowering, and those were the orders he gave me.”

“Could you not have resigned?”

“Yes, but I had come to love those people as my own family. If I had resigned, they would have been removed by someone who cared nothing for them, and they would have suffered the terrible consequences that we have seen be endured by others in recent years, the Chickasaws and the Choctaws—and, yes, the Seminoles—including the deaths of hundreds. By staying, I was able to rather conspire, you might say, with the Tennessee governor, who added state money to my own budget to make sure those Indians had adequate food and clothing for their journey.” Houston sighed deeply. “So my name is still attached to a wrong policy that would have been infinitely worse and caused far more suffering if I had resigned for the sake of my precious little conscience.”

It had been decades since Bliven Putnam at forty-seven had felt so taken to school. “I understand, sir,” he said quietly.

“Wiley Thompson was a good American, but he could be a fool. The two are not mutually exclusive. But, anyway, when I left Tennessee, I went to the Indian Territory and was welcomed by those same Cherokees who took me in when I was a boy. It was a salve to my conscience to learn after ten years that they did not blame me for what had happened to them. But now, gentlemen, it has been alleged that when I take to reminiscing, I can keep people all night, and we do not have all night. Putnam, you have been seconded to the Republic of Texas Navy—never mind whether it yet officially exists—to protect our coast while we attempt to deal with the dictator on land. You may read this, it concerns you.”

President’s House

Washington, Dist. of Columbia

Much Esteemed Sir:

This letter will introduce you to Captain Bliven Putnam, of Connecticut, in command of the warship, stricken from our list but still eminently serviceable for your needs, to assist you in your struggle for freedom. Putnam proved his valor as a young midshipman during the Barbary War, again as a Lieut. Commdt. in the War of 1812, and on other missions of importance and delicacy to the country.

It is no mystery to you, sir, as we have spoken of this since 1832, that Texas at some date must separate from Mexico, and her American population join themselves once more to their mother country. The rise of Santi Anna as a murderous despot, while surely to be deplored by all humanity, is the perfect circumstance for them to rise up. For political reasons at home, and for diplomatic reasons abroad, I cannot be seen to aid you. But while he will invade by land, he must be supplied by sea, and this may prove his undoing.

Now, Houston, I am relying on your Cherokee wiles. Putnam is dear to us, one of the best we have. Do not let his name or nationality be known. Putnam, the ship, and provisions for a cruise of six months, I send you. Once he gets to New Orleans, he will be in Texian service (for all that anyone must know). Your agent there must raise him a crew of volunteers, and use him as best you can. If he is captured, he must share the fate of yourself or any other Texian, may God forbid, who are captured by that rabid wolf, Santi Anna. And now for God’s sake, burn this letter.

Yours sir, with great esteem and respect,

Andrew Jackson, Presdt.

Genl. Sam Houston

In camp

Bliven felt his face flush as he read it. He could well imagine that Jackson had given a general order to help the Texas cause and left the doing of it to the navy secretary and his minions. But that Jackson himself, that figure upon whom Bliven had expended so much contempt, actually knew his name and selected him for this duty was fresh evidence of how he had underestimated him. Bliven’s face betrayed the tiniest of smiles. “I notice that once you read it you did not burn the letter, General. There sits a candle, already lit.”

Houston shook his head emphatically and pointed at him. “Nor will I do it, until the revolution succeeds. The great object, if God favors us, is to free Texas from Mexico and, if God further favors us, to join her to the United States. If we succeed, there will be time enough to destroy this letter. But if we fail, and if I am captured, then I will see that this letter falls into the dictator’s hands before I am shot. He will declare war on the United States, which war he must lose, badly, and Texas will be annexed just the same. That must be accomplished whether any of us survive the battle day.”

“Suddenly I perceive the depth of your earnestness,” said Bliven.

“Well, keep it to yourself. For now it serves my purpose for people to think I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Putnam rose and regarded the map spread over the camp table. “No, sir, General,” he said, pointing at the crooked inky line that was the Sabine River. “It seems to me you know precisely what you are doing. Once the Mexicans invade and come east, if you can get Santa Anna to follow you to the Sabine, General Gaines is west of Natchitoches with a large force of infantry. If you can get within his striking distance, he will cross into Texas and settle the issue once and for all.”

Bliven and Sam could almost see the color drain from Houston’s face as his eyes shot open, accentuating their cutting, brilliant blue. Almost before Bliven finished speaking, Houston flew to his feet, snapping shut the tent flap, and lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper. “God damn it, Captain Putnam! There are not five men in the United States who know what you just told me. How in all echoing hell have you come to know the very depth of all our intriguing so carefully kept secret?”

“I am sorry, General.” Bliven held up his hands defensively. “At the time I reached New Orleans, volunteers were actively being whipped up to organize and march to Fort Jesup. It was commonly discussed.”

“God damn!” Houston breathed. “I had no idea. If one of my soldiers told me what you just told me, I would have him shot before risking that General Gaines’s name be attached to this campaign in any connection. Do you understand my meaning?”

Bliven and Sam exchanged looks, their eyes wide. “Our lips are sealed, General. No one will learn of it from us. But how can it matter now? If hundreds, even thousands of volunteers are joining, how can it be a secret?”

“Putnam, men are volunteering all across the United States. That is no secret. These men in Louisiana believe they are part of that movement; as far as they know they are just coming to Texas to fight. What no one knows is that for these men there is a plan behind it, and if Santa Anna caught one breath of it, he would never place himself within striking distance of the American army.”

“Very well, I understand.”

“Now, this probably won’t mean anything to you, but I am engaging Santa Anna with the strategy of Fabius.”

“Wait!” Bliven thought fast, trying to remember. “Quintus Fabius, who refused to fight Hannibal and his elephants head-on after they crossed the Alps?”

Houston leaned back in shock. “I underestimated you, Captain Putnam.”

“I have always loved history.”

“Yes. And if you remember, the Roman Senate grew disgusted with his retreat, removed him from command, and installed some braggart who said he would fight, and Hannibal slaughtered the Roman army at the Battle of Cannae. Gentlemen, I run that exact risk with the fools who are governing Texas. I cannot allow there to be a Texian Cannae. No one, and I mean no one, must know that I have planned for events beyond the forecast of the village idiots on the Permanent Council. It is imperative that they be allowed to think they are directing me. An election will shortly be held for a new convention to assemble on the first of March, at which independence will be declared and an interim government organized. I do not much believe that Santa Anna can invade before then, but I cannot depend on it, and I need you to guard our coast as much as one ship can do.”

“And you have the San Felipe.”

Houston huffed. “A ship and a half, then. The four we have bought are not here yet.”

“Well, then,” said Bliven, “you will be pleased to hear of our first action. We were only a day out of New Orleans when, with Mr. Bandy’s assurance that our commission was good as of that moment—”

“I will guarantee that,” said Houston.

“—we overhauled an American trading brig. Under his most vigorous protest, we inspected his cargo and found him to be carrying forty-eight cases of rifled muskets of the latest design, plus pistols, powder, and bulk lead for melting into balls, bound for Matamoros. Under color that he was sailing in your war zone”—Bliven shook his head—“our war zone, we confiscated his cargo, and he returned in a rage back to New Orleans. The factors and the insurance companies are sure to be equally put out.”

“But he did not know your true identity, am I correct?” said Houston.

“Only that we were a Texas warship, but he expressed his certainty that Texas could never float such a vessel of her own resources.”

“That’s all right, as long as he had no certain information. What did you do with all these arms?”

“They are in my hold until we learn from you whether you have some secure arsenal in which to store them until you need them.”

“Where is your ship now?”

“I sent her back out for a month under my second lieutenant to continue the hunt. I did not want her anchored off Velasco all this time, raising questions.”

“Well done,” Houston said softly, “well done. This is all good to hear. There is the Stone Fort here in Nacogdoches, but that is too far inland to effect a clean transfer. In the forward areas there are only two stone fortifications that could serve as an arsenal, at Goliad and at the Alamo in San Antonio. They are in our power at present, but we have nowhere near enough men to hold them in the face of an invasion. To deposit such a cache of arms there would be as good as to hand them to Santa Anna in the end. However, I do not want them on your ship indefinitely, I want them at hand for after our volunteer army has come together.” He studied his map. “Galveston,” he said at last. “It is at the opposite end of the country and must be the last place that Santa Anna can reach if he overruns us. It is an island and protected by the lagoon. It cannot be assaulted except by boats. I will assign a new customs collector to that port and have him prepare a warehouse to receive these weapons, with enough men to guard them. When you get back on your ship, you will go to Galveston and confer with the customs collector. I will see to it that he is expecting you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bliven. “That is how we shall proceed.”

Houston leaned back in his chair. “Well, this has been satisfying to sort out. However, I am afraid, gentlemen, that what we have discussed to this point is but half of the intrigue that we must employ. After Galveston, once you put to sea, you must stay there for the duration of the conflict. Do not touch our shore again except to save your lives, and if you do so, you must disappear into the brush and make your best ways home.”

“I don’t understand, General,” said Bliven.

“Well, it’s like this. There is newly in Texas an unpleasant little man, one Robert Potter, formerly of North Carolina. I have reason to doubt his loyalty to our cause, and of his enmity to me personally there can be no doubt. He is campaigning to be a delegate to the coming convention, at which he expects himself to be made secretary of the navy.”

“Potter?” Bliven shook his head slowly. “That name is distantly familiar to me.”

“He was formerly in the navy of the United States; never made any great shakes. He had some connection to John Paul Jones; seems like maybe he was one of the boys who boarded with him while they studied.”

Bliven snapped his fingers. “Of course! I was on the board of promotions that denied him advancement. According to his captain, he was a shirker and a troublemaker, and a constant duelist. He must hold the record for length of service as a midshipman without becoming a lieutenant.”

Houston harrumphed in a suddenly jovial and avuncular way. “I did not know that, but I am not surprised.”

“And the word was there was no counting the bastards he may have left in dockside stews around the world. One of his superior officers characterized him as ever first in line to claim his shore leave, first in line to boast of his conquests, and, at sea, the first to excuse himself from duty.”

Sam Houston seemed to relax in the comfort of exchanging dirt on a man he hated so viscerally. “Well, then, that would be a rich irony, considering his career since that time.”

“I know nothing of him since he resigned from the service.”

“Oh, my God.” Houston shook his head. “He ran for Congress in North Carolina, but the state election commission disallowed the vote on account of the violence of his partisans. Anyone who spoke against him wound up beaten by a roadside.”

“Good Lord! How then does such a man design himself to become the secretary of your navy?”

Houston leaned back and laughed, in enough lamplight for his teeth to show white and his eyes their brilliant blue. “Well, boys, the likelihood is that at the convention he will be the only man present who has ever served on a ship at all! He is a persuasive talker, and I have no doubt he will secure the appointment he seeks.”

Sam had been taking all this in. “At the time I came to Texas, I had to have a judge swear to my good character and industry.”

“Ha!” barked Houston. “Then you did come early! Once the squatters came in their thousands, such nice stipulations were left far, far behind. Potter came one jump ahead of the law back in North Carolina. It seems there was an elderly minister of the holy gospel whom Potter maimed on the charge that he had violated Potter’s wife.”

“Good God! You mean he—”

“Castrated him like a steer. The shame of it was the charge was not only untrue, it was probably impossible owing to the man’s age and infirmities. But rather than admit the mistake, Potter then charged his wife with lying with a seventeen-year-old boy, and he maimed him as well. Then, when the law came for him, he sloped for Texas, where he is beyond the reach of American justice.”

“Heavens!” exclaimed Bliven.

“You judged him well when you denied him advancement. He would have made the worst commander since Captain Bligh.”

“Lord, what kind of country are you going to have out here?”

“Crude, at first,” said Houston. “All new countries are, at first. Well, boys”—he clapped his open hands onto his knees—“is this where we can leave it? You get yourselves back to Velasco, and when you meet your ship, sail her to Galveston and unload your armaments at the customshouse. They will probably have a further instruction for you from me.”

Sam and Bliven stood to go, and Houston came around the table and shook hands with them. “Captain, you asked me earlier why I did not resign rather than accept the assignment of removing my Cherokees to the West. Shall I ask why you did not resign rather than allow yourself to be sent into our fray?”

“Well, in all candor, as my boat came down the Mississippi, I did not know what my orders would be, and I was in truth considering to resign, because I suspected that the administration—”

“By which you mean General Jackson?”

“—yes, sir—was involving me in some fantastical scheme in which I would not want my name involved. But I had never seen the West before, and I had never seen New Orleans before, and although I am no partisan of Jackson’s, there is no gainsaying that he was responsible for keeping them in the United States. That stayed my hand until I could learn more. And having now traveled through your country, I am content to play out the hand, for the people I have met here deserve to be brought into the United States. Only I would take it as a great favor, when we deliver your arms to Galveston, to find a Texas service commission waiting for me there so I will feel less like a pirate. In my time I have fought enough pirates to be somewhat sensitive upon the subject.”

Houston opened the tent flap. “Done. Sentry, find these gentlemen something to eat and a place to bed down.”

They turned to follow, but stopped when they heard Houston bark after them, “Wait!”

He leaned close to the sentry and mumbled, “Hell, let them have some of my peaches.”