VII A Mystery
Furs were piled everywhere, the furs that had been wont to go to Europe,—otter, beaver, deer, and bear and buffalo. American ships, that had sped like eagles on every sea, were threatened now by England if they sailed to France, by France if they sailed to England.
“If our ships, our sailors, our goods are to be seized, it is better to keep them at home,” said Jefferson.
“War itself would be better than that,” pled Gallatin.
The whole world was taking sides in the cataclysm over the sea. Napoleon recognised no neutrals. England recognised none. Denmark tried it, and the British fleet burned Copenhagen. Ominously the conflagration glimmered,—such might be the fate of any American seaport.
“If we must fight let us go with France,” said some. “Napoleon will guarantee us the cession of Canada and Nova Scotia.”
But Jefferson, carrying all before him, on Tuesday, December 22, 1807, signed an embargo act, shutting up our ships in our own harbours. In six months commercial life-blood ceased to flow. Ships rotted at the wharfs. Grass grew in the streets of Baltimore and Boston.
St. Louis traders tried to go over to Canada, but were stopped at Detroit—“by that evil embargo.”
St. Louis withered. “De Meeseppi ees closed. Tees worse dan de Spaniard!”
This unpopularity of Jefferson cast Governor Lewis into deepest gloom. The benevolent President’s system of peaceable coercion was bringing the country to the verge of rebellion. England cared not nor France, and America was stifling with wheat, corn, and cattle, without a market.
Fur, fur,—the currency and standard of value in St. Louis was valueless. Taxes even could no longer be paid in shaved deerskins. Peltry bonds, once worth their weight in gold, had dropped to nothing. Moths and mildew crept into the Chouteau warehouses. A few weeks more and the fruits of Lisa’s adventure would perish.
Into the Clark home there had come an infant boy, “named Meriwether Lewis,” said the General, when the Governor came to look at the child. Every day now he came to the cradle, for, weary with cares, the quiet domestic atmosphere rested him. He moved his books and clothes, and the modest little home on the Rue became the home of the Governor. Beside the fire Julia stitched, stitched at dainty garments while the General and the Governor worked on their journals. Now and then their eyes strayed toward the sleeping infant.
“This child is fairer than Sacajawea’s at Clatsop,” remarked Lewis. “But it cries the same, and is liable to the same ills.”
“And did you name a river for Sacajawea, too?” laughed Julia.
“Certainly, certainly, but the Governor’s favourite river was named Maria,” slyly interposed Clark.
A quick flush passed over the Governor’s cheek. He had lately purchased a three-and-a-half arpent piece of land north of St. Louis for a home for his mother,—or was it for Maria? However, in June Clark took Julia and the baby with him on a trip to Louisville, and the same month Maria was married to somebody else.
But on the Ohio the joyous activity had ceased. No longer the boatman’s horn rang over cliff and scar. Jefferson’s embargo had stagnated the waters.
When General Clark returned to St. Louis in July he found his friend still more embarrassed and depressed.
“My bills are protested,” said the Governor. “Here is one for eighteen dollars rejected by the Secretary of the Treasury. This has given me infinite concern, as the fate of others drawn for similar purposes cannot be in doubt. Their rejection cannot fail to impress the public mind unfavourably with respect to me.”
“And what are these bills for?” inquired Clark.
“Expenses incurred in governing the territory,” answered Lewis.
General Clark did not have to look back many years to recall the wreck of his brother on this same snag of protested bills, and exactly as with George Rogers Clark the proud and sensitive heart of Meriwether Lewis was cut to the core.
“More painful than the rejection, is the displeasure which must arise in the mind of the executive from my having drawn for public moneys without authority. A third and not less embarrassing circumstance is that my private funds are entirely incompetent to meet these bills if protested.”
With the generosity of his nature Clark gave Lewis one hundred dollars, and Lewis arranged as soon as possible to go to Washington with his vouchers to see the President.
With the courage of upright convictions, Governor Lewis contended with the difficulties of his office, and in due course received the rest of his protested bills. If he raged at heart he said little. If he spent sleepless nights tossing, and communing with himself, he spoke no word to those around him. Though the dagger pierced he made no sign. Borrowing money of his friends as George Rogers Clark had done, he met his bills as best he might. But his haggard face and evident illness alarmed his friends.
“You had better take a trip to the east,” they urged. “You have malarial fever.”
He decided to act on this suggestion, and with the journals of the western expedition and his vouchers the Governor bade his friends farewell and dropped down the river, intending to take a coasting vessel to New Orleans and pass around to Washington by sea.
But at the Chickasaw Bluffs, now Memphis, Lewis was ill. Moreover, rumours of war were in the air.
“These precious manuscripts that I have carried now for so many miles, must not be lost,” thought Lewis, “nor the vouchers of my public accounts on which my honour rests. I will go by land through the Chickasaw country.”
The United States agent with the Chickasaw Indians, Major Neely, arriving there two days later, found Lewis still detained by illness. “I must accompany and watch over him,” he said, when he found that the Governor was resolved to press on at all hazards. “He is very ill.”
One hundred years ago the Natchez trace was a new military road that had been cut through the wilderness of Tennessee to the Spanish country. Over this road the pony express galloped day and night and pioneer caravans paused at nightfall at lonely wayside inns. Brigands infested the forest, hard on the trail of the trader returning from New Orleans with a pouch of Spanish silver in his saddlebags.
Over that road Aaron Burr had travelled on his visit to Andrew Jackson at Nashville, and on it Tecumseh was even now journeying to the tribes of the south.
“Two of the horses have strayed,” was the servant’s report at the end of one day’s journey. But even that could not delay the Governor.
“I will wait for you at the house of the first white inhabitant on the road,” said Lewis, as Neely turned back for the lost roadsters.
It was evening when the Governor arrived at Grinder’s stand, the last cabin on the borders of the Chickasaw country.
“May I stay for the night?” he inquired of the woman at the door.
“Come you alone?” she asked.
“My servants are behind. Bring me some wine.”
Alighting and bringing in his saddle, the Governor touched the wine and turned away. Pulling off his loose white blue-striped travelling gown, he waited for his servants.
The woman scanned her guest,—of elegant manners and courtly bearing, he was evidently a gentleman. But a troubled look on his face, an impatient walk to and fro, denoted something wrong. She listened,—he was talking to himself. His sudden wheels and turns and strides startled her.
“Where is my powder? I am sure there was some powder in my canister,” he said to the servants at the door.
After a mouthful of supper, he suddenly started up, speaking in a violent manner, flushed and excited. Then, lighting his pipe, he sat down by the cabin door.
“Madame, this is a very pleasant evening.”
Mrs. Grinder noted the kindly tone, the handsome, haggard face, the air of abstraction. Quietly he smoked for a time, then again he flushed, arose excitedly, and stepped into the yard. There he began pacing angrily to and fro.
But again he sat down to his pipe, and again seemed composed. He cast his eyes toward the west, that West, the scene of his toils and triumphs.
“What a sweet evening it is!” He had seen that same sun silvering the northern rivers, gilding the peaks of the Rockies, and sinking into the Pacific. It all came over him now, like a soothing dream, calming the fevered soul and stilling its tumult.
The woman was preparing the usual feather-bed for her guest.
“I beg you, Madame, do not trouble yourself. Pernia, bring my bearskins and buffalo robe.”
The skins and robe were spread on the floor and the woman went away to her kitchen. The house was a double log cabin with a covered way between. Such houses abound still in the Cumberland Mountains.
“I am afraid of that man,” said the woman in the kitchen, putting her children in their beds. “Something is wrong. I cannot sleep.”
The servants slept in the barn. Neely had not come. Night came down with its mysterious veil upon the frontier cabin.
But still that heavy pace was heard in the other cabin. Now and then a voice spoke rapidly and incoherently.
“He must be a lawyer,” said the woman in the kitchen. Suddenly she heard the report of a pistol, and something dropped heavily to the floor. There was a voice,—“O Lord!”
Excited, peering into the night, the trembling woman listened. Another pistol, and then a voice at her door,—“Oh, madame, give me some water and heal my wounds!”
Peering into the moonlight between the open unplastered logs, she saw her guest stagger and fall. Presently he crawled back into the room. Then again he came to the kitchen door, but did not speak. An empty pail stood there with a gourd,—he was searching for water. Cowering, terrified, there in the kitchen with her children the woman waited for the light.
At the first break of day she sent two of the children to the barn to arouse the servants. And there, on his bearskins on the cabin floor, they found the shattered frame of Meriwether Lewis, a bullet in his side, a shot under his chin, and a ghastly wound in his forehead.
“Take my rifle and kill me!” he begged. “I will give you all the money in my trunk. I am no coward, but I am so strong,—so hard to die! Do not be afraid of me, Pernia, I will not hurt you.”
And as the sun rose over the Tennessee trees, Meriwether Lewis was dead, on the 11th of October, 1809.