Bon Marche (25 page)

“We all loves ya, Mistah Charles,” she told him. “We don't wanna see ya hurt this way.”

He fell asleep again that way. For a long time Angelica held him. Finally, she eased him down onto the blanket.

“If ya ever needs me…” she whispered. And she returned to the children.

II

“A
UGUST
25: Left the Wilderness Road this morning,” Dewey wrote, “to head west. I never felt more alone than I do now. We have not seen any other person since leaving Bristol. The vastness of this wild country continues to astound me. I daily beseech my guardian spirit to bring my children through this safely. How foolhardy I was to undertake this journey without a competent guide!”

They continued to push forward through deep woods, with Dewey insisting that they not try to move too fast. He was afraid they would miss the connection with the Cumberland River. If they did, he knew they'd be lost in the wilderness, with not even the friendly buffalo trace to follow. Each morning he rode ahead of the caravan a mile or two to scout the area. He wanted to make no mistakes. His caution caused them to move only a few miles a day.

A week went by as Dewey's spirits dropped lower and lower. Then, just when he was debating with himself about whether they ought to retrace their steps to the Wilderness Road to seek a guide in one of the Kentucky settlements, he was able to write in his journal, “September 1: Reached what I believe is the Cumberland River in the midafternoon! Will scout a bit to determine whether there are other streams in this area. But once I convince myself this is really the Cumberland, we will finally be able to make speed to Nashville. Likely will be here several days to build rafts for the river. But tomorrow will just rest. Everyone extremely weary.” He paused in his writing. Then he added just one word: “Angelica.”

It flashed through his mind what he had thought when he heard of white masters who had taken Negro mistresses in Virginia. How abhorrent that had seemed to him. Now, however, he wasn't so sure anymore. He only knew that he wanted her. He knew, too, that she would come to him eagerly.

They were alone that night. They were one that night.

As they moved together, rhythmically, it was all so unaffected. So correct. For a few moments.

“My God!” he breathed as he reached a climax. He rolled off of her, suddenly struck with guilt. “Oh, Lord, I'm sorry, Angelica.”

“Fer what?” she asked quietly. “Fer bein' a man what's hurtin' an' needin'?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. “It's just that—”

“Is it 'cause Ah'm a nigger?”

The question was so direct that he had no ready reply for it. It shamed him.

“You're a warm, desirable woman,” he assured her.

“Ain't thet 'nuff?”

She was wise, he decided. And they held each other. Content.

III

O
N
September 3, the Dewey party began to fell trees to lash together into rafts. Charles had hoped to transport everything on the rafts—the supplies, the humans, the horses. But two days later, when the rafts were finished and floated, he had to change his plans again.

One of the larger rafts, built to carry animals, was pushed into the water and lashed to trees lining the shore to give it stability. A light draft horse, blindfolded to keep it from shying when it saw the unfamiliar craft, was carefully led on to the raft.

As soon as the hooves touched the raft it rocked in the water. The horse reared in fright, tossing one of the handlers into the river. The animal went down on its back on the roped-together logs, screaming and kicking insanely.

There was a sickening snap as the stricken horse's neck broke.

While the slaves dragged the heavy body of the dead horse off into the woods, Charles sat on his haunches on the riverbank, despondent, cursing himself for having tried an experiment he should have known was sure to fail. He contemplated his next move.
My next stupidity!
he thought.

“All right,” he said after a few minutes, “we'll load all of the supplies on the rafts, with one man on the tiller of each of them.” There were five of the log rafts. “The rest of us will be mounted. We'll try to stay together—the rafts in the river, the horses following along on the shore.”

On September 6, he wrote in his journal: “We finally began the Cumberland River phase of our journey today. It seems to go smoothly enough, although at times the horses must be guided away from the river when the wild growth becomes impenetrable along the shore line. But we make good time. Estimate we covered better than ten miles today. Horace, who has to herd the extra horses, works especially hard to compensate for his missing hand. He's a brave man—he deserves something better than his sad lot in life.”

Dewey learned soon enough that the Cumberland was a meandering river. What he had anticipated as a fairly straight course to Nashville was anything but. Nevertheless, they continued to move forward each day, and their steady progress made Charles believe they might reach their destination by the end of the month.

IV

“S
EPTEMBER
15: Saw our first savages today…”

“Father, look!”

Franklin was pointing off to his right, standing excitedly in his stirrups.

Some eighty yards removed from the Dewey party, Charles saw three faces in the brush. Painted faces. Stern faces.

Charles stopped his horse; the others did, too.

“Everyone sit very quietly,” he instructed. “Don't make any sudden moves.”

Slowly, his eyes fixed on the Indians, Dewey raised his musket over his head. He wanted them to see that he had a gun, but he wondered if it meant anything to them. Had they ever seen a gun before?

Once more Charles felt his lack of wilderness experience. For minutes—it seemed an interminable time—the white man and the Indians stared at each other. Dewey felt his right hand starting to quiver.

Just as slowly as he had raised the gun he lowered it to his shoulder, aiming it several feet above the Indians' heads, squeezing the trigger. The shot tore several branches from the trees.

The Indians were gone. Not that Dewey had seen them running away. The impression he had was that they simply … evaporated.

He let out a deep breath. The hand holding the gun was still shaking. His heart was beating much faster than usual.

“Will they come back, Father?” Franklin asked.

“I don't know, son.”

“Do you think there were more than three?”

“I don't know.”

Corrine piped up: “I wasn't scared, Daddy,” she said forcefully. “I knew you'd take care of us.”

Charles wanted to weep. Terrible questions coursed through his brain:

What if my shot had caused them to attack?

Were there three out there? Or thirty? Or three hundred?

Are they still there? Stalking us?

Corrine might not have been frightened, but Dewey was. Desperately frightened, because he had no answers to his questions.

He ordered the party forward again, at a faster pace, trying to put as much ground as possible between them and where they had last seen the Indians.

After a half-hour of what approximated a forced march, Charles stopped again, ordering the rafts brought to the riverbank.

Immediately, he distributed muskets to the Negro men, along with an adequate ammunition supply. He gave Angelica a pistol to carry. And to one-handed Horace, too.

He issued a stern order: “If we see savages again, we must shoot to kill. We must protect the children at all costs.”

The blacks nodded solemnly.

As they made camp for the night, Dewey wondered what Funston Lee and his ilk would think about his arming of the slaves. It was the first time in several weeks that he had thought of the people back in Virginia.

And what of Andrew? Had Fortunata been sold yet?

V

“S
EPTEMBER
30: Exhaustion again,” Charles wrote, “although we make progress. Have set up camp for two days. All need a rest. Angelica.”

The first week in October brought heavy rains, flooding the Cumberland.

Dewey tried to push forward, but one of the rafts got sideways in the roaring waters, struck a large rock, and capsized. The slave manning the raft was pulled from the river, but the provisions were lost. One of the things claimed by the angry stream was their bag of salt. It was strange, but the lack of salt for the game they shot seemed a great hardship.

The flood halted them for two more days.

During the necessary idleness, Charles had an opportunity to marvel at the good spirits of the children. They were wet and dirty, probably bone-weary, but they didn't show it. The twins, especially, were gay youngsters under the guidance of Angelica, beginning again the silly little song they had chanted for so many days at Fortunata:

“We're going west, you hear.

For to be a pioneer.”

Sober-faced Franklin, the eldest, insisted that Charles teach him to use the musket while they waited out the flood. They went into the woods for the lessons. The recoil of the first shot knocked the youngster to the ground, but he was up immediately, demanding to fire the gun again.

“We may need another gun, Father,” the lad said, “if we see any more savages.”

Dewey tousled his hair, continuing the instruction until Franklin's badly bruised shoulder brought it to an end.

Charles was proud of his determined son. Very proud.

By October 10, they were under way again, making good progress each day.

VI

O
N
October 15, Charles wrote, “Saw our first sign of Tennessee civilization today…”

They glimpsed a farm on the opposite side of the river. Dewey saw a man in one of the cultivated fields, and shouted over to him: “Hello, there!”

The farmer waved at him.

“Are we nearing Nashville?”

“Two days down river!” the man yelled back.

Everyone cheered.

On the night of the sixteenth, when the rafts were dragged ashore once more, Charles gave orders for everyone to bathe and prepare for their arrival in Nashville. Angelica went into one of the trunks lashed to the raft and brought out clean clothing for the children.

“What would I have done without you?” Charles asked the Negro woman as they sat before the fire that evening.

She smiled at him.

He returned the smile. No other words had to pass between them.

Three months and twenty days after leaving Goochland County, Virginia, late in the afternoon of October 17, 1796, Charles Dewey first saw Nashville, Tennessee.

Strangely, he wasn't exhilarated. His thoughts were on Martha as the rafts drifted up to the landing at Nashville and he slid wearily off his horse.

The rafts were unloaded quickly; what provisions remained were put on the backs of the horses.

Darkness was falling as they made their way afoot through the dusty streets of the frontier village to Mr. Parker's Nashville Inn, a rather handsome two-story frame building with broad porches across the front.

The horses and the slaves were bedded down in the stables behind the inn, and Charles sought two rooms for his family. He and the older boys, Franklin and George, would occupy one room. The younger children—Corrine and the twins, Lee and Louise—would have the other with Angelica.

“Uh … sir,” the proprietor said hesitantly, “it's a rule of the house … well, coloreds aren't permitted in our beds.”

“She's a nursemaid to my small children,” Dewey explained.

“Nevertheless, I can't—”

Charles battled with his rising temper.

“My wife, Mr. Parker, died on the trip from Virginia.” He was speaking softly, but the words were being forced through his teeth. “The children saw her die. Angelica is as much a mother as they have now. She's … going to stay … with … them!”

The innkeeper coughed nervously. “Yes, well, I suppose under those circumstances…”

Before retiring for the evening, Charles wrote a message to be delivered to Patton Anderson, his correspondent friend, informing him of his arrival.

As he put his tired body between the sheets of the first real bed he had known in nearly four months, he gave thanks to his guardian spirit.

It had sustained him again.

19

“Y
OU
mean to tell me that you made that journey without a professional guide?”

Patton Anderson's tone was one of disbelief. The Nashville gentleman with whom Charles Dewey had been corresponding sat with him now at breakfast in the Nashville Inn.

“Yes, we did,” Charles said, unable to hide the defiant pride in his reply. He was, however, unwilling to tell Anderson that he felt a fool for not realizing in the first place that he would need a guide.

“Astounding! That's what it is—astounding! And you had no brushes with the Indians?”

“Just one. I fired a shot in their direction and they disappeared into the wilderness.”

Charles's new friend laughed loudly. “With that kind of luck, Dewey, I suspect that I ought to stay close to you. Does that good fortune follow you to the racetrack?”

“I've always believed that luck had very little to do with my success at the races,” Charles answered soberly. “I'm very good with horses.”

Another hearty laugh. “My God—luck and self-assurance, too! You're too good to be true, Mr. Dewey.”

Anderson was only half of what Charles imagined he would be. His enthusiastic demeanor had been reflected in his letters, but Dewey had not expected a man who was such a dandy in dress. His mind's eye had seen Anderson as a rugged frontiersman; what he saw before him was a handsome, somewhat effete “gentleman”—not at all unlike many of the plantation owners he had known in Virginia. In a vague sense (Charles didn't really understand why), Anderson reminded him of Funston Lee. Perhaps that was why he saw in Anderson something faintly illicit. The word “shady” came to his mind, but he hesitated to accept it until he knew the man better.