1824: The Arkansas War

CHAPTER 2

A tavern not far from Lexington, Kentucky

The innkeeper eyed the big man in front of him uncertainly.

First, because he was big. At least two inches over six feet and very broad-shouldered. The heavy Cherokee blanket he was wearing over his uniform made him seem as massive as a bear. He filled practically every square inch of the doorway to the room he'd rented for the night.

Second, because he'd obviously had some whiskey to drink, even though it was only two hours past dawn. The smell of it on his breath was not overwhelming but was still noticeable.

And finally, of course, simply because of who he was.

If there was one thing the whole country had come to know about Colonel Sam Houston, it was that:

You never knew. He might do anything.

The innkeeper decided to try reason. "Look, Colonel, you were planning to leave town this morning anyway."

"Not before breakfast," came the feared rejoinder. Stated every bit as reasonably.

"Well, sure," the innkeeper admitted. "But there's a good tavern just six miles down the road. And your boy's already getting your horses saddled."

The big young colonel smiled. "Chester's five years older than I am. Not as tall, I admit. Still, it seems a bit silly to be calling him a boy."

Who else would even think that way? A black man was always a "boy"-and the colonel's was a slave, to boot.

But the innkeeper wasn't about to argue the point. Not now, for a certainty, when he was trying to keep his tavern from being turned into a shambles.

Where reason hadn't worked, perhaps outright pleading would.

"Colonel:Jack Baxter's the meanest man in northern Kentucky. Just take my word for it. Been that way since he was a kid. He'll pick a fight over anything. And, uh:"

Houston's smile widened. "And, in my case, he's got real grievances."

"I guess. Depending on how you look at it."

"Well, then!" Cheerfully, Houston came into the hallway, moving the innkeeper aside the way the tide shifts seaweed. "As an of-fi-cial of the United States government, I figure it's my bounden duty to listen to the complaints of a taxpayer."

Over his shoulder, as he moved toward the stairs leading down to the tavern's main room: "He does pay taxes, doesn't he?"

"As little as he can," the innkeeper muttered, hurrying after him. "Please, Colonel-"

"Oh, relax, will you?" Houston's soft Tennessee accent thickened noticeably. "I bean't a quarrelsome man. In fact, my mama told me she almost named me Tranquility instead of Sam."

He started down the stairs, not clumping as much as a man his size normally would. Partly because he was wearing Cherokee-style boots to match the blanket he still had over his shoulders, but mostly because he was very well coordinated. The innkeeper had been surprised by that the night before. There were usually impromptu dances in the tavern of a Friday evening. Half drunk-better than half-Houston had still been able to dance better than anyone else. Any man, at least.

"Almost," he added.

The innkeeper was following close behind. " 'Almost' is what I'm worried about, Colonel."

Houston chuckled. "I told you, Ned, relax. Just have Mrs. Akins fry me up a steak."

"No porridge?"

The chuckle came again. "Don't think porridge would do the trick. At all."

By the time Ned Akins scurried into the kitchen, gave his wife the order, and got back into the main room, the worst had happened. He was just in time to see Houston pull out a chair at the table in the corner where Jack Baxter was having his breakfast. A moment later, the young colonel was sitting right across from him.

Houston was smiling cheerfully. Baxter returned the smile with a glare.

It wasn't a very big table, either.

"And I just put in a new window," Akins muttered to himself. Fortunately, the window was a good ten feet from where Houston and Baxter were sitting. Maybe it wouldn't get smashed up along with everything else.

The room had fallen silent. Even packed as it was with men having their breakfast, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Most of the diners were travelers passing through on business, not locals. But it didn't matter. Every one of them had heard Baxter's loudly stated threats, should the nefarious nigger-loving traitor Sam Houston dare to show his face. And the fact that Jack Baxter was the meanest man in town could have been surmised by a half-wit, upon fifteen seconds' acquaintance.

Houston turned his head part way around, ignoring Baxter's glare. "Oh, Mr. Akins-I forgot. Be so kind as to tell your wife that I prefer my steak cooked rare. No blasted leather for me, thank you. When I stick my knife into meat, I want to see it bleed. "

He turned back to Baxter. "I've got quite the knife, too. Here, let me show you."

From somewhere under the blanket, Houston drew out a knife that looked more like a short sword than what any reasonable man-certainly any reasonable innkeeper-would have called a knife. It was all Akins could do not to hiss.

Two of the customers in the room did hiss.

"Had it made for me in Arkansas," Houston continued, his tone as cheerful as ever. "At the knife shop James Black set up in Fort of 98. I think Rezin Bowie designed it, though. He or his brother Jim, anyway. Can't say either one is exactly a friend of mine, so I'm not sure."

All the while he'd been prattling gaily, Houston held up the knife and twisted it back and forth, letting Baxter-every man in the room, for that matter-get a good view of it. The thing looked as lethal as a rattlesnake.

"You know Jim Bowie?" Houston asked Baxter, not looking at him.

He didn't wait for an answer, which he wouldn't have gotten anyway because by now Baxter's glare was enough to melt brimstone.

"Hot-tempered man." Houston shook his head, still looking at the knife. " 'Course, I admit, sometimes a man's got to have a temper."

Finally, he lowered the knife and looked across the table at Baxter. Still, for all the world, seeming to be completely oblivious to Baxter's fury.

"I should've asked your pardon for just sitting here. But I'm afraid I've got no choice. Nowadays-sad to say, but there it is-I pretty much have to take a corner table anywhere I go. It seems I've got enemies. Got to watch my back."

In point of fact, it was Baxter's seat that gave a view of the entire room. Houston's back was turned to everybody except Baxter.

Houston shook his head again. "Hard to believe, isn't it? Why, there's people say I caused the trouble with all the runaway slaves, even though-to any fair and judicious man-it's obvious as the nose in front of his face that the trouble was caused by that blasted Calhoun and his exclusion business."

He raised the knife a couple of inches above the table and brought the heavy pommel down. Hard.

"No, sir!" he bellowed. Baxter must have jumped the same two inches above his chair-and the glare suddenly vanished. Perhaps he'd finally remembered that that same voice had once bellowed orders across a battlefield, where British regulars had been beaten.

"No, sir," Houston repeated, forcibly if not as loudly. "Calhoun's to blame-him and every one of those Barbary killers of his. Going around the way they have, murdering black folk for no reason."

Houston looked very, very big now, hunched like a buffalo at the table. That huge knife was held in a hand of a size to match. His left hand was clenched into a fist that looked pretty much like a small ham.

Suddenly, the buffalo vanished, replaced by Houston's earlier cheerful smile.

"But, now-why am I carrying on like this? I'm sure a reasonable-looking man like yourself has no quarrel with me."

The steak had arrived. Akins's wife shoved the plate into Ned's hands. "Get it over there quick," she hissed. "Maybe we can still get out of this without the place being torn down."

The innkeeper hurried over to the table. By now, he wasn't actually worried about the tavern itself being wrecked. Meanest man in northern Kentucky or not, it was plain as day that Jack Baxter was thoroughly cowed. That still left the problem of cleaning the floor.

Akins was proud of that floor, tarnation. Real wood. And he didn't want to think about the howls his wife would put up, having to scour blood from it. Several quarts of blood, from the looks of that knife. Not to mention maybe eight feet of intestine.

He planted the plate in front of Houston. "I'll get you a fork."

"Don't bother," Houston growled. "Can't stand forks. Never use 'em except at my wife's table. Well, and my father-in-law's, of course."

There was that, too. The buffalo who'd broken British regulars in front of the Capitol, and then again at New Orleans, also happened to be married to the president's daughter.

Jack Baxter was just about as dumb as he was mean. But it seemed his intelligence was rising in proportion to the way he was slumping in his chair.

Houston seized the whole steak with his left hand, shoved it into his mouth, and began sawing off a chunk with the knife.

"Goo teak" he mumbled. After chewing more or less the way a lion chews-twice; swallow-he lowered the meat slightly and said: "My compliments to the good wife, Mr. Akins. Why, this steak is cooked proper, for a change!"

Akins looked at it. He'd wondered how Houston had managed to hold it bare-handed without burning himself. Now that the lion-bite had exposed the inside of the steak, the answer was obvious. His wife had been in such a hurry she'd barely cooked it at all. The meat was practically raw, once you got past the outside char.

Houston shoved it into his mouth, and sawed off another chunk. "Some whiskey, if you would," he said, after he swallowed. Again, after chewing it twice.

Akins didn't argue the matter. There was no way to stop Houston anyway-and, at least judging from his reputation and what the innkeeper had seen the night before, whiskey made him good-humored.

The innkeeper blessed good humor four times, on his way to the whiskey cabinet and back, tossing in a short prayer for good measure.

He didn't bother offering the use of a tumbler. As soon as the whiskey bottle was on the table-by then, half the steak had vanished, and what was left was back on the plate-Houston grabbed it by the neck and took a hefty slug.

He brought the bottle down with a thump. "Love whiskey with a rare steak. 'Course"-one more time, he bestowed that cheery grin on Baxter-"I dare not take more than the one good swallow, of a morning. Maybe two. As many enemies as I have."

Akins almost burst into laughter, then. He was standing by a table where a lion was beaming down on a rat. A cornered rat, at that, since there was no way for Baxter to get away from Houston, sitting where he was.

"No, sir, " Houston stated, stabbing the steak again and bringing it back up. He reached halfway across the table and waved the piece of meat under Baxter's nose. "I got to be careful. Even though I can drink half a bottle and still shoot straight or cut slicker'n you'd believe a man could do plain sober."

The steak went back into his mouth, and the knife sawed off another chunk. By now, at least, Houston was chewing four or five times before he swallowed.

Akins heard a noise behind him. Turning, he saw that Houston's slave had come into the room. He was holding a satchel in his left hand.

"We're ready to go whenever you've a mind, Mr. Sam," he announced. "The horses are saddled, everything's packed, and-"

The same two men hissed as the slave brought a pistol out of the satchel.

"-I got your pistol here, if you've a mind for that, too."

Houston swallowed, turned his head, and frowned. "Now why in the world would I need a pistol, Chester?" He held up the steak-what little was left of it-skewered on the knife. "Cow's already dead."

The slave didn't seem in the least abashed by the apparent rebuke. Nor did anyone in the room miss the fact that he wasn't holding the pistol by the barrel, the way a man normally does when he's readying to pass it over to another. Instead, he had the handle cupped neatly in his palm. And if his forefinger wasn't precisely on the trigger, and his thumb wasn't precisely on the hammer, neither digit was more than half an inch away from turning the gun into a deadly thing.

He was holding the weapon as if he knew exactly how to use it, too. Most slaves didn't.

"You got enemies, Mr. Sam. Remember? Turrible enemies, people say."

Houston shook his head and waved the steak around the room. "Not here, surely! Chester, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Even thinking such a thing!"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Sam. Sorry 'bout that." He didn't seem any more abashed by that rebuke than he'd been by the first one.

"As you should be! Why, I oughta have you apologize personally to every man in this room. Would, too, 'cept"-he paused for a moment while he sawed off another piece of steak and swallowed.

"Except that wouldn't be proper," he continued. "You being a black slave and them being free white men. Apology presumes equality, you know. All the philosophers say so."

He turned and scowled at his slave. "You got no excuse, neither, since you read the same philosophers. I know, 'cause I taught you how to read."

Teaching slaves to read wasn't illegal except in Virginia-yet, anyway. Calhoun and his followers were pressing for that, now, along with freedmen exclusion. Still, it certainly wasn't the custom in slave states like Kentucky.

But that, too, was part of Houston legend. He might as well have had Custom Be Damned for a crest on a formal coat of arms.

"Yes, Mr. Sam. No, sir, I mean, it wouldn't be proper."

Houston chewed the last piece of steak more slowly than he had any of the others. With a thoughtful expression on his face, now.

When he was finished, he rose from the table. Then, suddenly and abruptly, shoved the table aside. Baxter, who'd been frozen in place for the past few minutes, started to jump from his chair, but Houston's big left hand jammed him back in his seat.

The young colonel held the knife in front of his face. Baxter's eyes were round, and his complexion was ashen.

"You'll have to excuse me, sir," Houston said politely. "I need to clean my knife, and there's nothing else handy. I daren't soil my blanket, of course. It's a personal gift from none other than Major Ridge himself. He'd be most offended if I showed up in the Confederacy with stains on it."

Quickly and efficiently, he wiped the blade clean on the shoulder of Baxter's coat. Then, moved the blanket aside and slid the knife into a scabbard.

"My thanks, sir." He bestowed the beaming smile on him. "And now, I must be off."

He turned and strode toward the door, where Chester was waiting. The slave raised the pistol as if to offer it to his master, but Houston shook his head.

"No, no, you keep it. I do have enemies, it's true enough. Some of the rascals might be lurking outside. Since you shoot better than I do, best you keep the pistol."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Sam. If you say so."

Houston stopped abruptly. "Of course I do! Makes sense, doesn't it? The slave shoots them, and the master guts 'em."

He patted the knife under his blanket, turned around, and bestowed the grin on the whole room.

"You see, gentlemen? Easiest thing in the world to figure out, if you're not an imbecile like Calhoun. I never have trouble with runaway slaves. You're not planning to flee from lawful bondage, are you, Chester?"

"No, sir. Don't need to. 'Bout another two months, and I'll have saved up enough to buy my way free."

Houston's eyes widened. "Why:so you will. And since you learned how to blacksmith along the way, you won't have any trouble setting yourself up."

Akins didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, seeing Baxter get his comeuppance was worth its weight in gold. On the other:

Hiring out slaves as craftsmen was common, of course. Many of them were quite skilled, in fact. But Houston's practice of letting his slaves keep their wages was just plain:

"Some people say I'm a lunatic, Chester," Houston boomed. "A veritable bedlamite!"

"Yes, Mr. Sam. But maybe we ought to be going, now. Before your enemies learn where you are."

"Probably a good idea. Mr. Akins, the bill, if you please."

Less than a minute later, Akins had the money-a tavern still intact, too-and Houston was on his way.

He watched him and the slave Chester for a while. The slave rode a horse just as well as the colonel did.

"That man is pure crazy," he muttered.

His wife had come out of the tavern and was standing next to him.

"I thought you said-bean't more than two months ago-that if Colonel Houston ever ran for senator from Kentucky, you'd vote for him."

"Well, yes. He got rid of the Indians for us, didn't he? And he backs Jackson against the stinking bank. The Senate's way out there on the coast, anyway. But I sure wouldn't vote for him as governor. "

"Nobody would," his wife agreed, "outside of a bedlam house."

1824: TheArkansasWar