The Seekers (59 page)

“I’ll do all I can to find out whether our bogus reverend gave any indication of his destination, following the expression of our communal will that he remove himself—”

Jackson turned, whipped the cane across in front of his chest in such a swift arc that Jared jerked back even though the cane’s tip was several feet from his nose.

“Remove himself or be shot down like the dog he is!” Jackson exclaimed. “Too bad we gave him a choice!”

He yanked the door open.

“I’ll order several of my best niggers to make inquiry in Nashville tomorrow. In the meantime”—he pointed the cane at Jared—“you don’t give my wife any cause for worry. Take what you’re fed and stay abed as you’re instructed and we’ll all get along splendidly.”

Jared chafed under the enforced delay that resulted from Judge Jackson’s absolute domination of the estate he called the Hermitage. The property, six hundred and forty rolling acres with a slave population of twenty, was centered around the crude but somehow comfortable two-story blockhouse attached to the other, similar one in which Jared recuperated.

He was invited to the main house as soon as the doctor removed a few of the bandages and pronounced him well enough to get up. The Hermitage proper consisted of one huge room on ground level. The room had a mammoth hearth, a puncheon floor and massive smoke-blackened joists overhead.

Upstairs, Judge and Mrs. Jackson and their miscellany of children—three or four, Jared was never precisely sure—had their quarters. One of the small boys was named Andrew Jackson, Junior. Jared couldn’t keep the names of the others straight, since they were usually all mixed up with the slave children with whom they played. He did learn from Clara, who controlled the kitchen attached to the back of the house, that all the children were adopted. To add to the burden of being publicly called an adulteress—a burden already turning her into a recluse—Rachel Jackson had proved barren. Clara said scandalmongers called it Divine punishment. But never within the judge’s hearing.

Various men in military uniform came and went on horseback at all hours of the day and night. Jared soon decided the judge seldom slept. At the end of Jared’s fifth day at the Hermitage, Mrs. Jackson informed him that the judge had indeed been named to a generalship in the regular army as a result of his spectacular rout of the Creeks. Plans were being made for his early departure to the south, where he still anticipated a British thrust.

Several times Jared wandered into the main house, searching for the judge and failing to find him. He began to fear Jackson had forgotten his promise about gathering information on Blackthorn’s possible destination. Then, one noon, he was abruptly told that a huge banquet was being prepared for evening. “Last meal the judge figures to eat here for a spell. You too, I guess.” Clara smiled.

Jared stuffed himself sampling everything set out on the thick plank table in the lower room: slabs of bear and venison; tender meat from ducks and wild turkeys; heaping bowls of vegetables and fresh, mealy cornbread; maple sugar lumps tied on a string for a confection—and the strongest coffee he’d ever tasted. The judge spent most of the meal railing against the British.

Afterward, he cleared the lower room of blacks, the assorted small boys and his wife. But he instructed Jared to remain.

Jackson produced a stoneware jug, pointed to a chair.

“Pull that up here close to me, Kent.”

Looking like a long-legged bird, he folded himself into his own chair with a groan. He tilted the jug over his forearm, swigged, then wiped the neck and handed the jug to Jared.

“Treat it with respect. That’s the sweetest sipping since God made Eden. Tennessee whiskey. I reckon you’re old enough. Go on! Take a good slug”—Jared tilted the jug over his arm, hopefully showing the grace Jackson displayed, but he slopped liquor on his sleeve as the judge added—“because I have glum news.”

Some of the whiskey scalded down Jared’s throat. With unsteady hands, he held on to the jug. The judge’s expression was unsmiling.

“Yes, sir?” Jared prompted.

“One of my niggers finally caught a whiff of Blackthorn’s trail.”

Jared waited.

“Before he left town, Blackthorn visited the bar of the City Hotel. He boasted that he’d be glad to leave. Said a man could do better where there’s less law. He mentioned the sort of place he meant. St. Louis.”

Jared wiped his mouth, feeling the whiskey burn his belly. He set the jug on the puncheons near the ferrule of Jackson’s cane. The tall man looked wasted and weary. Clara had told Jared that while the judge was off commanding the militia against the Creeks, his body had pained him so greatly, he could neither sit down nor rest in bed. So he’d ordered a sapling spiked to a pair of posts in his tent, and spent hour after hour standing, one arm and then the other hanging over the sapling for support.

“St. Louis—” Jared repeated. “That’s a long way off.”

Jackson’s eyes showed more animation. “Northwest, all the way to the Mississippi. But if you’ve the gumption to go there, maybe you can catch the bastard.”

Jared nodded, his face unhappy. “I’ll go.”

“I thought you would.” Jackson picked up the jug, drank. “St. Louis is the capital of the new Missouri Territory. Your best source of information would be the governor.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Jackson pointed a skeletal finger.

“Don’t get your hopes too high, though. If Blackthorn’s gone any further, you’re pretty near done. By yourself, you’d have as much chance of locating him west of St. Louis as you would of finding the Ouragon.”

Jared frowned. “The what?”

“Oh, that’s what they call the damn river that’s supposed to cut from the Missouri to the Columbia but doesn’t. A myth—the Ouragon. You’d better make a speedy departure, Kent. Get to St. Louis before Blackthorn fades away just like the dreams of finding the Ouragon did, once the beaver men started heading up the Missouri to see what the country was really like—” He sniffed. “You do realize Blackthorn could have been throwing out a false scent, too?”

“And not be there, but someplace else? I do.”

Jackson whacked the ferrule of his cane on the floor. “All right, then. You know there’s a chance it’s a blind trail. But don’t look so damn grieved! It might not be. You’ve got a scent to follow—which you didn’t have before. That’d be plenty for a Tennessean!”

“Well, I’m not a Tennessean!” Jared shot back.

“That’s very plain, Kent, very plain. I changed my estimate of you since that first night we talked. It’s no less complimentary, mind—just different.” Jackson didn’t speak with malice, only bluntly. “I’ve glimpsed you around the property once or twice. Your whole manner fairly yells your dislike of these parts. You’re not one of those goddamned, ass-kissing Federalists, are you?”

Jared tried to give as stern a stare as he was receiving. “No, sir! The opposite. I just never wanted to wind up in the west. My”—he hesitated, then poured it out, relieved somehow, yet pained—“my father homesteaded in Ohio for a couple of years. I was born there. My father failed as a farmer. After Indians killed my mother, he went back east. He never got over the failure, either. He turned into a drunkard, disappeared—I never saw him again.”

Jackson’s craggy features seemed to soften. “And then you had to come back out here to escape the law. I can appreciate why you don’t think much of the west—and less of your present situation.”

Jared was thankful he didn’t have to amplify his answer, didn’t have to explain that what really tormented him was not his parents’ failure but his fear that he was doomed to repeat it in a land that invited failure. He’d certainly made a good start, losing Amanda as he had—

After a moment, he said, “Regardless of how I feel, Judge, I’m going to try to find my cousin.”

He thought he saw a flicker of approval in the judge’s eyes. “You know,” Jackson said in a surprisingly gentle voice, “you’re nothing special in these parts, Kent.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it must seem to you that the whole world has its eye turned on you. Because of the trouble back east—”

Jared nodded at the uncomfortable truth.

“That’s not so. Out here, what a man is counts for more than what he was—”

And what I am is my parents’ child.

“—and for good reason. If you checked the history of people who settled in Tennessee, for instance, you’d find plenty of cases just like yours. Some came here for land. Some came because they had a yearning to see new country, and when they got tired or the yearning wore itself out, they stopped. But quite a few came here because they had to—and that’s where you fit. You’re a westerner, like it or not.”

Then I’m condemned.

But all he said aloud was, “I guess I am.”

“Hell, boy, it’s not that grim! This is a bountiful land—”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard that—often.”

“Don’t sound so sour! It’s the truth! I love the land out here—and the people. They may lack manners, but that lack’s more than made up in fortitude. I’ve had some dealings with your part of the country, you know. I was in the Congress and the Senate a while, until I got my belly full and came back here to spend six of the happiest years of my life, on the bench of the state supreme court. I hated the capital about as much as you hate the idea of going to St. Louis. When I used to walk into a room crowded with all those rich, educated politicians cozying up to each other, trading favor for favor, vote for vote like they belonged to some private club, I could feel them looking down their noses at me. Backwoodsman! they were thinking. Not fit to help run a country! Back east, some of our
gentlemen
don’t put much stock in common people. Got to keep those poor, dumb backwoodsmen in line! They don’t know what’s good for themselves, so the members of the private club will have to show ’em. In Tennessee, it’s different. We
believe
in the kind of government Mr. Jefferson professed to admire but somehow never managed to put into practice. I’d like to see a western man in the presidency one day. A man who understood what the freedom of this country’s all about—by the Eternal, I would! Salt of the earth, westerners—”

Jackson sounded almost sad. He shook his head. “The only blood relations I have in all the world.”

After a moment, he went on. “You know I’m exaggerating. Blackthorn’s a western man—the worst kind. I think the east has a bigger quota of Blackthorns, though. Only difference is, they do their killing and maiming with words and money—”

Not wanting to launch into an argument, Jared said, “I’ll agree with you from the standpoint of kindness, Judge. I’ve been wonderfully treated at the Hermitage—”

Jackson shrugged, brushed a bony fingertip across one eye. “Nothing special about your welcome here. Rachel takes to lost boys. You’ve seen the pack we’re bringing up. Pity she couldn’t bear her own,” he sighed. “She’s a wonderful woman—as I’m constantly forced to remind the sons of bitches who defame her. Well—”

He braced both hands on the top of his cane and stood, wincing in pain.

“Are you sufficiently well to ride, Kent?”

“I think so. Most of my aches are gone—”

“Nothing broken, thank God. You were lucky Blackthorn’s thoughts were on your cousin. Else you couldn’t go after him. He’d have crippled you.”

“I’ll give him plenty of his own if I find him,” Jared promised.

Jackson smiled. “By the Eternal, I think you will.” He laid a lean hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Culley will have a horse for you at sunrise.”

“Oh, Judge, I can’t pay for—”

“Who said pay? I’m making an investment!” He flourished the cane. “An investment in the punishment of the good reverend. I’m investing a horse and food and some sturdy frontier clothing and five dollars in gold Culley will wrap in a kerchief. I’ll be off for Nashville before daylight myself. We’re mustering men—” His eyes actually looked merry a moment. “The Tennessee regulars could use you, Jared Kent.”

“You know I’ve got other fighting to do, Judge.”

With myself.

With my fear
—

“Yes,” Andrew Jackson said. “Bend down and pick up that jug and let’s drink to it—what do you say?”

At dawn, Clara filled him with a hearty breakfast. Culley gave him the kerchief containing five gold pieces, then brought the horse to the front of the Hermitage.

Rachel Jackson handed Jared an unexpected gift—a black-bound Bible with a ribbon marker in it.

“The judge has left for Nashville—” she began.

“Yes, he told me he was going early.”

She smiled in a melancholy way. “He’s not the most religious man who ever walked the earth. At least not so you would notice in public. He might think you need a jug of whiskey more than you need that book. But perhaps it’ll sustain you better than whiskey in the weeks ahead.”

A bit uncomfortable, Jared ran a hand over the pebbled cover of the Bible.

“Mrs. Jackson, I thank you very much. For everything.”

“I pray you’ll find your cousin in St. Louis.”

He tucked the Bible into his canvas bag. “I will.” Their expressions said neither of them fully believed it.

Jared swung up into the saddle. “Goodbye, Mrs. Jackson.”

“Goodbye, Jared. God guide you in your search.”

O
N THE TWENTIETH OF
July 1814, Jared Kent approached St. Louis from the south, riding Jackson’s sorrel mare along the west bank of the wide, sun-glaring river. He’d followed the river shore since ferrying across two days earlier.

Necessity had turned him into a passable rider. The sorrel was a gentle animal. Even so, he’d been thrown three times during his first two days on the road. Having thus demonstrated her mastery, the horse settled down and Jared traveled the rest of the distance without mishap—if you discounted the brutal aches at the end of each day. By early July his body was more limber, accustomed to the up-and-down rhythm of riding.

He reined into a grove of cottonwoods on a slight rise overlooking the Mississippi. From there he surveyed the town ahead. St. Louis shimmered in the intense heat.