Home of the Brave (26 page)

“Like that and worse. So she
went back to find her band and ended up with Wabasha
instead.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

“I should have backed you up
in there.” Atkinson nodded toward the Governor’s residence. “I
apologize.”

“Not necessary. You’d have
only harmed yourself. Reynolds isn’t the type that can be reasoned
with.”

“He sees Indians as
sub-human.”

“That may be the real root
of the problem. We’re treating them like herd animals that we
discovered in our new world instead of like people.”

“This Black Hawk is a
genuine bad one, Yank. He’s signed three or four treaties and moved
back west of the Mississippi and then the minute we release the
militia, he crosses back into Illinois.”

“We keep making treaties
with these people, Henry, but if we decide we want something that
they have, we break the treaty. And then we wonder why they do the
same thing.”

“At some point we have to
protect our own.”

Yank shrugged. “Maybe you’re
right, Henry. Or maybe I’ve just spent so much time among the
Indians that I can’t tell who ‘my own’ are any more.”

“I meant
Americans.”

Yank looked at him. “We
better stop this discussion before I start saying radical things
like: they were Americans before we were.”

May 28, 1832

Buffalo, New York

Major Jack Van Buskirk was
standing at the window of his home. As the death cart rumbled
closer, the driver’s voice could be heard. “Bring out your dead.
Bring out your dead.”

Jack opened the front door,
signaled the driver and waited for the cart to stop. “Can you help
me, please?” he called, “I have three.”

The driver set the brake,
climbed down and followed Jack into the house. “Jesus
wept.”

“I will carry my wife if you
can manage the children.”

“Yes, sir. They’re but wee
little things and no burden.”

Asiatic cholera had been
spreading across Europe throughout 1831, and despite all efforts to
keep it out of North America, the first case appeared in Quebec
during the spring of 1832. As the disease spread up the St.
Lawrence, half of those infected were dead in from four to eight
hours of their first symptoms.

“Thank you,” Jack said, as
the driver mounted his cart.

“May God bless you,
sir.”

Jack turned and started
toward the waterfront.

“Sir,” the driver called.
“You left yer front door open.”

“I know. I’d burn it down if
the neighboring houses wouldn’t burn with it. Take anything you
want.”

~

General Winfield Scott was
pacing the quay. Below him in the inner harbor of Lake Erie, barges
packed with soldiers rocked in the waves. Of the force of fifteen
hundred that Scott had first assembled for this mission, he now had
less than a thousand.

At last, with enormous
relief, he saw Major Jack Van Buskirk walking briskly down the
street toward him.

“I had about given you up
for dead, Major”, Scott said angrily.

Jack stopped and saluted
Scott.

Scott purposely withheld his
return salute. “Are you aware that delaying a troop movement is a
court martial offense?”

Jack dropped his hand. “I
had pressing business.”

There was an edge to the
young major’s voice that warned Scott to abandon any disciplinary
speech. “What’s happened?”

“My family has been struck
down with cholera. I was unable to locate a sexton and had to wait
for the death cart.”

“Your family? All three?”
Scott asked, fearful of the answer.

Jack nodded. “Caroline and
little John died during the night. The baby awoke with diarrhea and
died before noon.”

“Oh God. I am so very sorry,
Jack.”

“Thank you.”

“I’d excuse you from duty
but you’re the only other field grade officer in the
corps.”

“I have nothing here,
General. Are we ready to cast off?”

~

During the three days it
took to reach Detroit, many of the troops became sick or died, and
were left there. General Scott left more sick and dying soldiers at
Mackinaw at the north end of Lake Huron, and more at Two Rivers. He
arrived at Chicago with two-hundred fifty healthy men after leaving
a trail of disease in his wake.

June 26, 1832

Sioux Village of Chief
Wabasha, Minnesota Territory

The sun had not yet risen
and Yank was asleep on the ground next to the smoldering embers of
last night’s fire.

“Wake up, Yangee.” The woman
kicked him with her moccasin clad foot. She was dressed like a
Sioux squaw but her hair was blonde, streaked with white. She
kicked him again. “Yangee.”

“Huh.” He rolled onto his
back and squinted up at her then sat up. “What is it, Clarissa?” he
complained.

“There is a dragon in the
river.”

“Feed it some of those damn
dogs that kept waking me last night.”

She probed his bedroll with
her foot then when she discovered his leg, kicked him in the thigh.
“Chief Wabasha sent me for you.”

“If you kick me again I’ll
send him your scalp,” he snapped.

“The people are
afraid.”

Grumbling, Yank began to
dress. “If the people have convinced you to believe in dragons,
you’ve been with them too damn long.”

“I saw and heard this one
with my own eyes. It breathes fire, boils the water and makes
terrible noises like nothing I’ve ever heard before.”

Yank pulled on his boots.
“I’ll go slay your dragon if you’ll roll up my blankets and put
them in your teepee.”

“What will people
think?”

“I don’t much care. But if
you don’t do it for me someone will steal them and make me buy them
back for silver.” He stood up and stamped his feet as the woman
knelt and began rolling his blankets. “Where is this dragon
exactly?”

Before she could answer a
steam whistle from the river shattered the silence.

“Never mind, I heard it.”
Yank crossed the camp, pushed through the underbrush and trudged
down the grade to the bank of the Mississippi where a side-wheeled
steamboat with the name
Warrior
painted on her paddle cover was churning to stay
abreast with the current. Yank cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Hello aboard the
Warrior
.”

“Hello, please identify
yourself,” a man answered.

Yank could now see the
silhouette of three men on the bow and a forth on the rail manning
a small 6-pounder. “John Van Buskirk representing President Andrew
Jackson.”

“General John Van
Buskirk?”

“Retired.”

“Is that the village of
Chief Wabasha, General?”

“Yes it is.”

“We have an urgent message
for him and were waiting for dawn to try to put ashore.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Lieutenant James W.
Kingsbury, United States Army. Lieutenant Reuben Holmes and I are
in command of fifteen regular army infantrymen and six militia
volunteers.”

“What’s your message for
Chief Wabasha?”

“We want to warn him that
the Sauk and Fox are fleeing from U.S. forces.”

“I already told him that.
He’s prepared to come down to the Bad Axe and support
us.”

There was quite a long
silence and then finally a new voice called out. “General, I’m
Joseph Throckmorton, captain of this vessel.”

“Yes, Captain. What can I do
for you?”

“I was wondering if I could
do something for you. Do you perchance need a ride?”

“A ride to
where?”

“Any point between here and
Philadelphia.”

“That depends upon the price
of the passage. I don’t have much money left. The Sioux keep
finding ways of taking it from me.”

“The boat’s chartered by the
Army, General. You’re welcome aboard at no cost.”

“In that case I’d be very
pleased to accompany you all the way to Philadelphia.”

“How long will it take you
to get ready?”

“Fifteen minutes. All I have
to do is get my bedroll and sell my horse.”

“I’ll see if I can find a
place to anchor close enough to shore to reach the bank with a
gangway.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll swim
out.”

“Are you sure? The current
is quite swift.”

“I swam over here from the
other side leading a horse so I can surely swim half way without
one.”

“Very well, sir.”

June 10, 1832

Anahuac, Coahuila, Mexican
Province of Tejas

“I’m looking for Captain
Frank Johnson,” Thomas said. “I’m told he’s in command
here.”

“And who might you be,
sir?”

“Thomas Van
Buskirk.”

“I’m Johnson.” He stood up
and offered his hand. “I think you know my parents. Carl and
Melinda? They have a farm south of San Felipe.”

“Oh you bet, I know them,”
Thomas said, shaking Johnson’s hand with a grin. “They may have
saved our lives when we got to Texas. How are they?”

“Fine, thank
you.”

“Weren’t you going to law
school?”

“Yes, sir. I graduated from
Harvard last year.”

Thomas chuckled. “Your
father gave me a hard time about wasting my education chasing
cows.”

“I hear similar complaints
regularly, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I’m not sure, Captain. I
stopped and talked to Colonel Ugartechea at the Brazos garrison but
he didn’t seem to know any more about what was going on here than I
do.”

“Do you know about the
arrest of Patrick Jack and William Travis?”

Thomas shook his head. “I
know that Travis is a lawyer but I’ve never met him and I’ve not
heard of the other man before now.”

“Patrick Jack was arrested
by Colonel Bradburn for discussing raising a Texas militia in a
tavern.”

“In a tavern?”

“Yes. Apparently any
discussion of militia is against one of Bustamante’s new
laws.”

“The Law of April
6
^th
.”

Johnson shrugged. “Jack
hired William Travis to defend him and right now, as we speak,
Bradburn has both men staked to the ground with his cavalry
surrounding them, aiming muskets at their heads.”

“What? Why in the world
would they do that?”

“To keep us from freeing
them and all the other prisoners he’s holding
illegally.”

“So this has nothing to do
with the Federalist rebellion under López de Santa
Anna?”

Johnson looked confused.
“Who’s rebelling against what?”

“Santa Anna is leading a
rebellion against President Bustamante,” Thomas explained. “It
looks like it may succeed.”

“These people are mad.
Bustamante just became president when he had President Guerrero
executed.”

“You’re missing the
point,” Thomas said. “The Law of April 6
^th
that halted American
immigration and caused all these problems was decreed by
Bustamante. If Santa Anna deposes him as president we have a good
chance at getting the law repealed.”

“How does that solve our
immediate problem of freeing Jack, Travis and the other
settlers?”

“It doesn’t but you’re at a
standoff anyway, so unless you want to make those two men into
martyrs, you’ve got no choice but to pull back.”

“And do what?”

“Well the first thing I’d do
would be to issue a formal complaint listing your grievances so
that you don’t appear to be a band of criminals attacking a legal,
government institution.”

Johnson nodded. “Like a
declaration of independence.”

“No, no, hell no. Don’t go
that far or you’ll have Santa Anna down on you the minute he takes
office or installs his puppet government.”

“You should write
it.”

“You’re the
lawyer.”

“I’m a law school graduate,
sir. You should write it.”

“I don’t know enough about
what’s been going on down here to even begin,” Thomas said. “I live
in another world up there on the Colorado.”

“Well, I suppose I should
put it to a vote first,” Johnson said after a moment.

“Put what to a
vote?”

“Whether we should withdraw
or try to free Jack, Travis and the other prisoners.”

Thomas shrugged. “That would
be your decision.”

“If they vote to fight are
you with us?”

“Yes. But I can’t stay here
through a long siege. We’ve got troubles with the Cherokees and the
Kiowa.”