Bon Marche (36 page)

“Andy,” Verell was saying, “I think we ought to pay the forfeit.”

Jackson looked around the circle of advisers. Coffee nodded his agreement with Verell, as did Pryor.

Charles pressed forward to get a closer look at the bay horse. A large swollen knot was immediately evident on his left thigh. He moved around the stall with obvious difficulty.

Jackson clucked to the stallion, and the horse came to him. He massaged the swelling for a brief moment, then stood back to take in the whole animal with a glance. He stroked Truxton's nose, whispering something to him that the others couldn't hear.

Finally, Andy turned to his friends. “Gentlemen,” he said, “Truxton will run.”

News of the decision swept across the racecourse like wildfire, setting off another flurry of wagering, although with less enthusiasm in the Truxton camp. Nevertheless, thousands more were bet.

Jackson, himself, saddled the horse when it came time for the race and boosted the Negro jockey aboard.

There was tension in the air as the horses came to the start line, Jackson's big bay horse limping on his injured hind leg.

The drum tapped.

They were off, to a mighty roar from the crowd.

The roar turned to a collective gasp as Truxton, against all expectations and with little effort, quickly gained the lead. He held it during the first mile or two and, in the second time around, even increased it, winning going away.

Charles winced when he saw the condition of the horse as he crossed the finish line. The right front leg had gone lame, as well, and the plate on the left front had been sprung and was lying across the foot.

“Will he be able to start again?” Mattie asked.

“Not likely.” He thought for a moment. “Of course, I'm not Andy Jackson.”

It started to rain—hard, beating rain—adding another disadvantage to Truxton. Ploughboy, although beaten, came out of the first heat in good condition.

There was another mad rush of betting on Ploughboy. Certainly he would win the second heat. And the third? How could Truxton ever be expected to run a third heat?

A blacksmith did his repair job on Truxton's plates, although it was difficult under the prevailing weather conditions.

Rain poured down, soaking everyone, as the drum tapped for the second two miles. Immediately, the long, bony body of Truxton showed in front, even though Ploughboy's rider was whipping and driving.

“I can't believe what I'm seeing!” Charles said to Mattie.

Without using either the whip or the spur, Truxton's jockey urged him forward. Every stride took him farther ahead of Ploughboy. At the finish line, Truxton was the winner by sixty full yards!

A horseman standing by Charles held up his watch, staring at it in amazement. “Three minutes and fifty-seven!” he shouted to all around him. He repeated it in disbelief. Like a wave, word of the astounding time swept across the crowd.

Charles wiped the rain from his face.

“Mrs. Dewey,” he said, in the manner of a pronouncement, “you have just seen a miracle. Your Cousin Andy is either a genius with a horse or the luckiest damned racing fool I've ever seen!”

III

“D
ID
you notice the flurry of activity over at the newspaper office when you rode in?” James Jackson asked of his son-in-law as Charles walked into the store.

“No, nothing special that I could see.”

“Well, a lot more folks than usual have been coming and going there today.”

“For what reason, do you suppose?”

“It might be,” James suggested, “because Charles Dickinson's back in town.”

“Oh, God! And he's probably read all that inflammatory stuff from Andy in the paper.”

“More than likely.”

Charles shook his head. “Well, I can't worry about that. I have other matters of more concern to me.”

Dewey had come to Nashville for a meeting with a fellow horse breeder named Joseph Coleman. In recent months, every visit to the town brought surprises for him. Nashville was growing rapidly; there was talk that it would soon be incorporated as a city. But it was in Jackson's store that the increasing sophistication of the frontier community was most noticeable.

James now offered shell combs, cotton pantaloons, ostrich feathers, shawls of silk and damask, long silk gloves, for the ladies, cashmere and satin, hosiery, hats, and even some recently published books from Philadelphia and Boston side by side with the staples he had always carried: blankets, saddles, nails, firearms, farm tools, and spirits.

Civilization was coming to the West. Swiftly. It was too bad, Charles thought, that Sarah Jackson couldn't have waited for it.

He walked to the Nashville Inn for his meeting.

“Dewey, there's a good chance,” Coleman told him, “that we can get the English sire, Royalist, here in Nashville. He was bred by the Prince of Wales, you know.”

Charles nodded. He knew of Royalist from the English studbook.

“I've been informed by agents in New York that he could be brought here in time for next year's stud service.”

“I'm interested, of course. For how much?”

“The asking price is twenty-five hundred.”

The master of Bon Marché thought about it. “We could use some English blood here. I'm in for a thousand.”

Coleman smiled. “I was hoping you would be. Two other breeders, besides myself, want a share of him. We could move him around from farm to farm.”

Charles brushed aside the details. “Do it in the way you think best, Joseph. I'm content to have him stand at your place—my stud barn is full at the moment. Just as long as I can get my mares to him.”

When their luncheon was ended, and Charles was walking back to the hitching post in front of Jackson's store to get his horse, he spotted a knot of people in front of the newspaper office, talking excitedly.

As he came up to them, one of the men said, “It's settled, Mr. Dewey. There's to be a duel between Andy Jackson and Charles Dickinson!”

Without comment, Charles pushed his way through the cluster of Nashvillians into the office.

“Mr. Eastin,” he asked of Rachel Jackson's nephew, “is it true? Is there to be a duel.”

“Yes. I'm about to start printing tomorrow's issue. It's all in there.”

“May I see it?”

The editor handed him a smudged stone proof of the first page. Dewey scanned it quickly.

Printed there was a letter from Dickinson in which he characterized Andrew Jackson as “a worthless scoundrel, a poltroon and a coward.”

There followed a paragraph in which Eastin reported that Jackson had issued a formal challenge on May 23 and that Dickinson had replied in kind on the same day.

Charles looked up at the editor. “The twenty-third? That's today.”

“It all came to a head this morning.”

Dewey was angry. “Doesn't it bother you, Mr. Eastin, that you may have precipitated this by printing those scurrilous letters?”

“I print the news. I don't decide whether or not it's scurrilous.”

“I would think that you would have more concern for the feelings of your Aunt Rachel.”

The young editor gave him no answer.

“You're a damned fool, Eastin, and a dangerous one!”

Back at Bon Marché, Mattie already had the news. “Rachel sent a slave over with the information. She asks that you come to see her.”

“For what purpose?”

“To ask you to accompany Andy to wherever the duel is to be fought.”

Dewey shook his head vigorously. “No! Andy has that coterie of cronies to see him through it.”

“I don't imagine she trusts any of them. She trusts
you.
”

“And what am I to do, save his life?” His anger came from the realization that there was no way he
could
save the man's life if it was ordained that he was to die in the duel.

“You might, in some way, if you were there.”

“No!”

“I want you to do this, Charles.” She said it quietly, but he recognized the determination in her words.

“Mattie, you're asking too much. I want no more talk of this.”

IV

A heavy fist knocked on the door. “Mr. Dewey! Five o'clock!”

“Thank you, General.”

The knock hadn't wakened Charles Dewey. For one thing, the extremely uncomfortable bed at Miller's Tavern, just over the Kentucky-Tennessee border near a place called Harrison's Mills, would have kept a dead man awake. For another, his concern about what would happen in the morning had built a tension in him that made sleep impossible.

He didn't want to be there. Just before the knock he had been thinking of mounting his horse and riding back to Nashville. Yet, there he was. Mattie's unyielding pleas had made him a member of the four-man contingent accompanying Andrew Jackson to his duel with Charles Dickinson.

On the forty-mile ride from Nashville, Charles had consciously stayed by himself. He watched and listened to the others, impressed with the easy manner in which Jackson approached what could be his death. The talk as they rode was about everything but the duel. Indeed, there had been a virtual political monologue by Andy. And, for Dewey, it set in stone his image of Jackson: a man who reveled in violence, who saw nothing more glorious in life than deadly combat. Charles tried to understand it, but could not. To him, life was a precious thing. He had struggled too hard on the streets of Paris sustaining life to risk it in something as mercurial as a duel. Indeed, the thought of losing life on a battlefield was just as abhorrent to him. Andy, though, seemed to have a destiny in risking life.

On the ride he had made that clear, speaking bitterly of the current difficulties with the English.

“How long,” Andy had intoned, “can we be expected to allow the impressment of our seaman and the intrusions on our commerce on the high seas? We
must
fight England again! In the last war I wasn't old enough to be of any real account. I pray that the next will come before I get too old to fight.”

Now Dewey rose from the bed and pulled on his boots. He had tried to sleep in his clothes.

The Jackson party rode in virtual silence to a nearby grove of poplar trees on the banks of the Red River. A delicate mist was rising from the water in the early morning, putting a ghastly pall over the scene.

Thomas Overton, a brigadier general in the Tennessee militia, was Andy's second. Dr. Hanson Catlett was Dickinson's. The seconds met in the center of the grove and tossed a coin. Catlett won the choice of position. To Overton, then, fell the task of giving the command.

The night before, General Overton had let Charles see the written rules for the duel: “Distance, twenty-four feet; the parties to stand facing each other, with their pistols down perpendicularly. When they are READY, the single word FIRE! to be given; at which they are to fire as soon as they please. Should either fire before the word is given, the seconds pledge themselves to shoot him down instantly.”

A contract for murder, Charles thought.

He stood now and watched as Jackson's dueling pistols, with barrels nine inches in length, were loaded with one-ounce balls of seventy caliber. Dr. Catlett paced off the twenty-four feet; the protagonists took their places.

Dewey noticed that Andy had put on an ill-fitting frock coat, reaching below his knees. He wondered why. Certainly the morning wasn't cool enough to warrant a coat.

Both men stood with their pistols down.

General Overton took a deep breath.

“Fire!”

Dickinson, a noted snapshooter, fired immediately.

A puff of dust came up from Jackson's big coat. It seemed to Dewey that Andy staggered slightly, but he couldn't be sure. He knew only that the duelist's left hand went to his chest.

Birds scattered from the tall poplars. The smoke from the black powder of Dickinson's shot drifted away on the mist.

“My God!” Dickinson cried in disbelief. “Have I missed him?” Involuntarily, he moved backward.

“Back to the mark, sir!” General Overton commanded, pointing his own pistol at the disconsolate younger man.

Dickinson took one step forward to the mark, but his head was turned away from Jackson, his eyes averted. He folded his arms. Dewey saw it as a gesture of resignation.

Jackson drew himself up as tall as he could, his left hand still on his chest. He raised his gun. Aimed. Pulled the trigger.

There was a sharp click as the hammer stopped at half-cock. The noise of it seemed deafening, although it was actually a small sound.

Dewey wanted to shout with delight.
It was over!
Providence had somehow intervened and stopped the fatal shot. “Honor” had been served.

But, no! His delight turned to horror as Jackson lowered the gun, calmly examined it, and then returned it to the firing position.

Once more he drew back the hammer.

Once more he aimed.

Once more his finger squeezed the trigger.

Once more the explosion of a pistol shot panicked the birds from the poplars.

Jackson didn't miss.

Dickinson's falling body was caught by his friends. Blood soaked his shirt before he could be gently lowered to the ground, flowing freely from a hole in his belly, just below the ribs. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was mortally wounded.

With as little concern for his adversary as he had shown when he recocked the pistol, Jackson strode to his horse.

General Overton noticed blood running into Andy's boot. “My God, you've been hit!”

Jackson smiled. “Oh, I believe that he pinked me. But I don't want those people to know.” He nodded toward the Dickinson party.

The smile left his face, turning it hard. “I should have hit him,” he said coldly, “even if he had shot me through the brain.”

V

M
ATTIE
had never seen her husband so angry. Or so unable to keep a rein on his emotions. Alternately shouting and weeping, he recounted for her what had happened in the Kentucky riverside grove.