LVI.

The rebel guerillas decamped before dawn as the stars grew faint in the lightening firmament and they moved east down the Cumberland Mountain for their rendezvous. There were two-hundred all of Gurley's troop, men and horses snaking down the switchbacks of the escarpment. They avoided the main roads where the Yankees were patrolling, and with their knowledge of the ground they used old game trails and the gullies slabbed by limestone down which the springs would rill. They made their way down into the Valley of the Sequatchie. 

From the clearings between the thick wooded slopes they gained a sublime vantage of the land which lay below them.  The sun was about three palms westing over the Walden's Ridge. It began to burn patches of fog which shrouded the Sequatchie River below.  Gurley and Bill Marmaduke removed their eyepieces and surveyed up and down the valley, which opened like a wide gash from the Crab Orchard Mountains of the northeast and down towards the Tennessee River to the southwest, near Bridgeport.  There the Tennessee River picks up the floor of this great rift valley and flows thence southwest towards Gunter's Landing.

The Sequatchie River glittered between the gossamers of fog.  Upon that road they beheld a great caterpillar of wagons curving into the valley from the south around the Jasper Bend. It stretched across the length of that great divide before turning east over a high pass through the Walden's Ridge. It was miles long from one horizon to the next, the canvas covers of the wagons like the metamerism of some great insect, and they were pulled by mules that looked like ants. This great stream of vehicles and asses and all their precious burden was coming to be called the Cracker Line, a mere thread of artery feeding 50,000 Yankees trapped just beyond the Great Tennessee Gorge. Supplies were never in want.  Only the means to get it where it was needed was lacking, and they were desperately needed in Chattanooga.

It is October 1863.  The Yankees under General Rosencrans were defeated at the great battle of Chickamauga, Georgia by the Army of Tennessee and were now bottled up in Chattanooga.  From his observation post on Bell Hill, the anxious general could survey the campfires of rebel soldiers blinking along the wrap-around crest of Missionary Ridge and then up the brooding shoulder of Lookout Mountain.  The numbers were about even, but after a solid whipping at Chickamauga, General Rosencrans was in no mood to test rebel resolve, not yet anyway.  The problem was that he was running out of time. Mr. Lincoln was aggrieved at this setback, and War Secretary Stanton was at once apoplectic and downcast.  The General's primary problem was one of supply.  Napoleon once said that an army marches on its stomach, and as of yet, there was but one supply line that stood to snake around the Great Tennessee Gorge and across the lower Sequatchie Valley.  Reinforcements were on the way, he was wired by Secretary Stanton.  Rosencrans was certain reinforcements also a meant a replacement for himself... perhaps Sherman, or even Grant.

In the event, it was both of them. Already great forces were on the move to rescue the Yankee army besieged in Chattanooga, a bowl as it were with the high ground all around teeming with rebel infantry under General Braxton Bragg.  But that would take time. Meanwhile, General Rosencrans wrung his hands anxiously as but a thin, single road was all that stood to feed his army, which was already on half rations and bombarded daily by the rebel cannons.  To interdict this lifeline, General Joseph Wheeler proposed a raid into the Nickajack to sever it across its length.  It was agreed to by General Bragg, and Wheeler crossed the Tennessee River above the beleaguered city and crossed over the Walden's Ridge into the Sequatchie Valley.

And so with their optics Frank Gurley and Bill Marmaduke peered north up the valley where the boom of artillery suddenly echoed down between the two escarpments.  That must have been General Wheeler, who had descended into the Valley from across the way and was pushing in the Yankee cavalry screen. They continued down the mountain and into the valley floor and north towards the rising crescendo of fire some five miles distant when they encountered a like-sized troop of Federal cavalry. They were about three hundreds off and moving at a canter along the brush line. Both parties halted, seeming to take notice of one another at the same time.  Then they observed one another with binoculars. Gurley and the Yankee cavalry captain looked at one another and then they looked at each other's guidons. And when they were certain each were one another's enemy, they seemed to come to the like-mind. 

And so Captain Gurley sounded the bugle to charge, and they rode thundering down in a shallow wedge whooping like savages, and the Yankee captain did likewise. And this terrible mass of flesh and gunpowder and steel came careening towards one another across a field of cut corn and rotten squash.  And so these two mobs collided into one another, horses screeching and rearing up and men blazing away with their pistols at one another.  Men fell with a thud, legs crushed by their steeds, or just bowling over dead, shot through the hearts. Sabers were drawn and men incised one another in blood.  

It was impossible to tell how or when it would end. Smoke and dust embroiled this bedlam of mutual slaughter, and the men continued to circle around one another on their terrified horses, slashing with their sabers and firing their pistols at one another. By and by the whole bloody affair suddenly ended within the space of a few minutes. For the victor, they simply saw less and less of the enemy to kill as they either died, fell wounded, or were fleeing to the rear.  As it were, Frank Gurley's company prevailed, and when they had come to the collective realization of this, they cheered however wearily, but it was carnage. There were wailing, wild-eyed horses jerking in the field, and moaning men and the certainly dead, and the probably dead.  And Gurley took stock, and the sergeant reported fifteen dead and thirty-seven wounded. The enemy left thirty dead on the field and forty-two wounded.  

Contact had been made with General Wheeler, and he forwarded carts for the wounded and summoned the remainder of Gurley's command.  They were admitted into lines and both Gurley and Marmaduke reported to the General at his headquarters in the field. Bill Marmaduke was warmly acquainted with the General when the latter had commanded the 19th Alabama at Shiloh. The General explained that the Yankee cavalry guarding the wagon train had been driven off, and that his men were now looting the baggage and scavenging what they could take, and destroying the rest. It was no small enterprise. There were hundreds of wagons loaded with supplies stretching for miles.  They all needed to burned before Yankee reinforcements arrive.  Moreover, the mules could not be left to the Yankees either.  They were too valuable in driving supplies over the Walden's Ridge and must be killed. Gurley was told to rest up his men for an hour before they were to proceed to kill all the animals they could find along the train. Then they were report back when they had encountered the enemy. When he had finished, the General gave a very serious salute to them and dismissed them both.  

Gurley and Marmaduke were less appalled by the orders than they were disgusted by them.  It was war, after all, and war is a beast that will feed itself.  The men were fed lavishly from the loot of the train, and they began to examine the wagons that Wheeler's boys were looting. They were great covered wagons as big as balloons and stamped with the mark U.S.A. And they were at once astonished to find within them all the largess of a superior Yankee economy.  There were whole loaves of sugar, and hoops of cheese, bushels of pasta and barrels of flour. One wagon held an entire printing press. Another was filled with musical instruments, and yet another with a steam laundry. There were even wagons carrying wagons.  Most amazing of all was a vehicle which encased a precious cargo of ice. It was the excess of the Army of Xerxes itself, and for miles and miles this great train had stalled and broken down in the Sequatchie Valley, and left almost wholly unguarded.  

When Gurley's men had finished gawking at the immensity of this bounty, they mounted up and prepared to carry out their notorious deed.  All around them Wheeler's men were sliding into a drunken revelry.  Discipline was breaking down. For soldiers who were half-starved and mostly deprived these days, the temptation was too great.   Men were stuffing their pockets with what they could never get home. Some collected little piles of doubtful items to claim possession over, like furniture and dresses. Someone had found a whiskey cart, and the musical instruments were brought out and a man put on the dress jacket of a Yankee colonel and began to sing Yankee Doodle. Gurley's men set off.

As dusk was casting rosy fingers across the cool October sky, Gurley's men rode along the column with their sabers out.  They approached each mule, four to a wagon, and lanced each in the throat with the tips of their blades.  The mules screamed and sprayed blood on the wagons' canvas top.  They sprayed blood on the men.  When they came across a drove of cattle, they shot volleys at them with their carbines. The animals lowed and huddled and took every bullet and all gave up and fell.  Shooting the horses was the worst, and they most often dismounted for this work.  Taking each horse from its harness, they felt compelled to walk it some before putting a bullet up through the bottom of its head. Then they fired the wagons. By and by Gurley and his men left about a thousand yards of such carnage across the Valley floor. 

By night the wagons were all lurid pyres. Their embers licked up into the firmament in great cyclones. as they burned all up and down the Valley. It was like a fault had opened up from Hyades itself across the landscape. All that sublime munificence of human industry reduced to ash.  That didn't bother Gurley, or Marmaduke, or any of the other men. They had killed thirty men that day, and Lord knows who else yet. They rarely minded killing the mules either.  What they did mind was killing of the horses.  And slathered in the blood of all the beasts they had killed that day, every man thought to himself that this was not what he had signed up for.  

LV.

Bright Marin and The Major found tables at the Nickajack Hotel where Chef Burman was serving up steer butt with steamed asparagus and roasted potatoes. It was the Magic Hour of a cool October.  The sweet smoke of a pit wafted down into the bottoms of Strangetown, which returned the exchange with the sound of guitar picking by the band called the Hine Streeters, or what was left of them anyway. They were playing a giddy-up from the gazebo overlooking the creek. The concierge had the windows opened, and the music ambled in to the leisure of the guests, many of whom were visitors passing through from the North. Many of them knew The Major, and he'd greet them with great gusto and present Bright Marin as his business partner, which in fact she was. This drew surprise which Bright reveled in. It piqued the air of the sanctum of men. She enjoyed the brusque manner and relaxed etiquette of Northerners, who all seemed so pragmatic and restless she thought.  Above all, she was positively grateful that so many of them were Republicans. Those goddam Democrats are were so demented! 

They were seated, and The Major ordered a bottle of Chablis Laroche 1859, the stock of which he procured himself for the hotel. It was poured and examined and accepted.  He glided through these rituals with such a big smile, and with physically elaborate grace. It always amused Bright more than it ever impressed her. The Major was in such in an expansive mood, she felt guilty she was about overturn it. Unsure of where to begin, she got right to the middle of it.  

I'd like to speak at the rally for Jimmy Sugar next Saturday, Bonwit.  I need you to get me in.  

The Major nearly coughed up his Chablis.  Bright recognized the slight look of palpitating that Bonwit Vrooman exhibited when confronted with crises.  His eyes grew glazed and still, and slid slowly into the dead space past your face.  His breathe grew a pace faster, but more measured.  

Bright, you can't do that.  You can't even vote.  What will the coloreds think of a rich white woman coming to speak to them about... about what?  What would you say anyway?  

You'll hear my voice when the time comes, Bonwit, she said huffily.  

That may be so, but if you want to be heard, you might as well dovetail behind Mary Fletcher Wells and the Temperance Society.  They're grabbing up quite the basket of ears among the Bible beaters.  

She snorted and drank her wine. Then she crossed her legs and kicked them impatiently.  When The Major's palpitations had passed, she leaned in.  

Bonwit, she said again, I want to speak at Jimmy Sugar's rally. You are going to let me.  

Goddamit woman, he barked with exasperation such that it drew the askance attentions of the next table. This election means everything. More importantly, it means everything to my superiors in Washington. 

Are you saying I could lose Jimmy Sugar the election by what I might have to say?  

No, but you sure as hell won't help win it.  

She was indignant.  She was hurt.  It sparked the forgiven resentments that come with a ripened love.  She felt like throwing her drink in his face. She felt like slapping him. She felt like kicking him out of his chair.  But she said again:

Bonwit. I'm going to speak at Jimmy Sugar's rally.  You're not going to stop me.  I've got Barry Hogan approval.  

The Major looked red in the face.

You went behind my back to Barry Hogan?  

Now she was angry.  Who are you to keep me from speaking to whom I please?  

Bonwit shook his head with exasperation.  He picked up his fork and pushed around a morsel of meat. He looked like he was divining an entrail.  Then he sighed.  

I didn't mean it like that, Bright.  Its just... its just politically risky.  The Democrats can hook into it and drag it through the mud.  I'd expect nothing less from Lyman Resnick and his dogs at the Limestone Democrat. But... I'd be grateful to hear what you have to say.  He said this with the exhale of resignation.

Bright Marin rubbed her mysterious amulet she always wore around her neck, which was a red and milk white agate.  Then she leaned forward across the table towards The Major and kissed him.  At every last word, he had always had her back.  

He returned to eating, more silent now seemingly lost in thought. Bright watched him.  Loved on him.  Drank him in.  She let it wash through and over her.  But it did nothing to change the sadness she suddenly felt for him.  

She would never tell him of the pregnancy she terminated. Why this thought occurred to her, she did not know.  

She had visited Maw Possum, and she was prescribed the abortifacient Black Cow.  It took three days with few complications, during which she rested at her mansion Swan Song on Beaty Street.  She pretended fever and turned Bonwit away during those troubled hours.  

She felt he never needed to know.  No good would come by it.  And though she loved Bonwit Vrooman deeply, she simply did not want his child... any child.  She watched him, and she pushed the watercress on her plate pretending to be hungry.  When her emotions seemed to rise to brim of her eyes, Bonwit sensed something was amiss.  

What's getting you so upset?  I'm acquiescing to your desire to speak at the rally.  That's about it.  It doesn't mean I can't be nervous about it.  Why the tear that I see?  

Nothing, she said, smiling and dabbing at a rivulet that ran down across her cheek.  

I was thinking about something sad from long ago, she replied, and it was mostly the truth.  

LIV.

The carpenter Jonas Jackson, called Big Jim Crow, was contracted by the preacher known as Swampy Joe to build a new church in Strangetown.  It would be the second such freedman's church in the district, the first being Jessup Floyd's African Methodist Church.  It was to be known as the Chapel of Freedom, and the cost was put up by a parishioner's trust funded by Maw Possum and The Major.  Swampy Joe, whose Christian name was Joseph Greene, was a highly unusual preacher.  

Before Emancipation, he was a slave preacher on Drummond Downs, which was on the Mooresville Road. He had surreptitiously run an invisible church from inside a crumbling gambrel-roofed barn on the outskirts of the plantation. It was partially caved in and grown over with brush and ivy, the rafters sagging with wisteria. And in this crumbling structure he ministered his fellow brothers and sisters into the presence of the Holy Spirit. His church was vaguely of the Baptist tradition. The power of his theology was Freedom, and his brothers and sisters were the Israelites. This was a common theme among most slave churches. What made Joseph Greene's church so unusual was its Hoodoo ritualism.  

At his invisible church, Joseph Greene would throw himself into trances and speak in tongues. He'd call up Ring Shouts and dance bare-chested around the fire, babbling glossolalia and blowing goofer dust from his palm into the faces of his supplicants. He'd charm snakes with fevered hymns and snap chains with his teeth. It was a dazzling spectacle of the Holy Spirit!  It was also provocative to the slaveowning society and placed his life at great risk, but risk it he did as he travelled by night to preach and shout and dance at the various plantations. He'd baptize in the marshes of Limestone Creek where he earned the name Swampy Joe. Now that the war was over, the Chapel of Freedom would become a beacon for all the freed slaves whose Salvation was groomed in the shadow of Swampy Joe. 

Evander Pruitt accompanied Big Jim Crowe to work on the church.  It was his penance for his sins - his recent ones, anyway.  Unlike the traditional gable and steeple of Jessup Floyd's AMC, which was on Strange Street itself, Swampy Joe's church was being built with a thatched hip roof. Keen on the power of symbolism, Swampy Joe had a well dug into the groundwater, and instead of a bucket he hung a bell.  He would ring it on Sundays and his congregants would stand in line as he cast water on them drawn from the well using a gnarled stump of ash wood for an aspergillum. His eyes would lift into his head, and he would cast some benediction, then quote Leviticus or some such, and then open the double doors which revealed a room of split-log pews and a great chest-like structure which doubled as some form of altar.  A grotesque Catholic-like crucifix was hung by hemp at the back end.  

Swampy Joe's performance had tempered somewhat since Emancipation. He slackened somewhat from his Hoodoo roots.  His renowned ministry in the in the County was suddenly challenged by the appearance of another renowned minister. This was Jessup Floyd, who had come by way of a prominent family of New England freemen. He was an educated and well-spoken brother. He had organized congregations of the African Methodist Church among the Low Country Gullah of the Carolina Sea Islands. Now that the war had ended, Jessup Floyd had come to the Nickajack to bring his orthodox brand of social and spiritual enlightenment to the emancipated slaves, who were left bereft with sudden freedom and little more. 

Jessup Floyd always wore a black waistcoat to service with a clerical collar, and his salty beard and gray hair gave him an avuncular air.  In spite of this observant outfit, he had the personal touch. He recounted the possibilities of free labor in devotion to Christ.  He shared the Israelites rejoice of Freedom, and the earnest labor and study of these people to follow in the pathway of the Lord. He dazzled his congregations with photographs of himself in Faneuil Hall in Boston, and shaking hands with Frederick Douglas, and of his free children who were never sold off, and of him standing next to white men, all of them smiling. To freedman this was all quite foreign, but it proved that some form of harmony existed elsewhere when their current post-war world was fraught with violence and tumult. And so Jessup Floyd's flock increased to Swampy Joe's consternation.

But if Jessup Floyd's favorite Gospel was Mark, then Swampy Joe's was John. Whereas Jessup Floyd could recite the Aquinus and Augustine when the assault of logic required it, Swampy Joe could recite Acts and Revelations when the Holy Spirit compelled it. He did it in the fever of what he called the "Gittup." And whereas Jessup Floyd's orthodox Sunday service over the newly emancipated freemen was noted with satisfaction by the Greeks, Swampy Joe's preaching was regarded as bombastic and heathen by the same.

And so the Chapel of Freedom rose from the funky bottoms of Strangetown by the earnest labors of Big Jim Crow and his crew. For his penance, Brother Pruitt helped build the church. He saw no error in the charge. Penance was penance, and Evander Pruitt always paid for his sins - recent ones anyway. Before service, Swampy Joe would slather his hair in pomade and douse his head with water.  In the heat of summer, he would steam and bead water.  His preaching was fevered and fervent. He scooted and shouted and sweated and seethed. What he seethed at was what Lyman Resnick, editor of the Limestone Democrat, was calling the "New Condition." It was not pejorative, but an apt label for the post-war limbo of black-white labor relations. But for Swampy Joe, he proclaimed the New Condition was the freedman's chance to forge a new identity.  The New Condition was a black Israel freed.  And that black Israel meant a new brotherhood nation of freedom, free labor, free choice, free worship, and free expression. When Swampy Joe trifled with sermons preaching land reform and support for the Fifteenth Amendment, his church on Drummond Downs was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan. On the front page of the Limestone Democrat, the arch-conservative Lyman Resnick could scarcely conceal his satisfaction.  

And so Swampy Joe paid homage to Maw Possum, who proffered him a Quark and a Promissory Note for the construction of a new church, smack dab in the middle of Strangetown. And he rode the cars to Huntsville to draw upon her check from the parishioner's trust at the State Bank on Jefferson Street, and returned to Strangetown to place this cash in the hands of Big Jim Crow, who immediately began construction of the Chapel of Freedom. And so it rose on Strange Street, across from Jessup Floyd's AMC. And the music of both churches would rise on Sunday's into the milieu of sound of Strangetown's busy streets. And so it was that the aroma of sound from both temples would compete but was deemed pleasing all the same to the Lord. 

LIII.

Jeanne Dorvil didn't know what to think of her new half-blood Huron husband.  She thought she had a decent life living in the streets of La Rochelle, France.  She earned a living in thievery in the seaport underworld known as La Milieu, a runaway from abuse in the orphanage. She called this past life her Petits Doigts, and she forever kept the brassy ways of the streets about her.  She was no lady.  So it was unfortunate for her that she was caught and transported unceremoniously to the New World as a "King's Daughter." Worse, she was indignant at the prospect of being wedded to one of these starving, bereft settlers who looked worse off than any street beggar of La Rochelle. She was disembarked at a sickly waste of a settlement called La Mobile. It was at the edge of the King's empire in wild place they called Alabama. 

The appearance of these Casquette Girls had brought out the entire colony. They came out from their shacks and huts, some coughing and swaddled, for there had been an outbreak of malaria. They were all men. These women were disgusted, even terrified at this leering mob.  For her part, Jeanne Dorvil sneered contemptuously at their sunken, hungry eyes.  She snapped her teeth as they reached out to her.  At length there came the sound of a trumpet and drums that turned the heads of the crowd towards where a bizarre procession began to part them all.  It was led by a man in a robin egg doublet and a white waistcoat. Brilliant white curls fell out from beneath a wide brim hat plumed in the feathers of a Carolina parakeet. His stockings were bleached, and he moved lavishly with a polished cane, his fingers glittering with precious stones. Beside this lavish and contrary figure was a man in a black cassock with a thin face and concave cheeks. He was the priest. Jeanne Dorvil could also see that behind these two French men was an assemblage of savages.  

The gentleman and his entourage moved down to where the Casquette Girls seemed to huddle with uncertainty at the approach of the savages. These were Chocktaw, allies of the French, who seemed no more intrigued at the women than the white men of La Mobile, perhaps even less.  A few of the younger Choctaw braves guffawed when they saw Jeanne's blond hair, and babbled wildly with their arms.  They seemed to be resolving a bet. The French gentleman stood before the women and turned, raising his arms to silence the crowd.  When this had been done, he turned back to the frightened women with an opulent smile.  Then he removed his hat and, giving it a twirl, he bowed extravagantly.  

Ladies, may I present myself as your most gracious servant. I am Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. I am the Governor of Louisiana on behalf of his Most Beloved Majesty, King Louis XV of France.  I welcome you to Alabama! 

Seeing that his welcome had not lessened any hesitation on the behalf of the King's Daughters, he moved aside to introduce the priest, who seemed to hover forward beneath the hems of his long, black cassock.  

Ladies, may I also present to you Father Francis Le Moyne Boucher.  He will be ensuring you are properly coupled here in La Mobile, and with the most assuredly suitable husband.  

The priest nodded. The Governor continued.

You shall be bathed and quartered at my expense until the day of your wedding, which you need not worry shall last long.  For we are building a New World together!  And you shall ensure the blood of the Old World will course fresh in its veins.  Rejoice, my loves, and pray we all that you will multiply and bring fruit!  

And with this uncertain benediction, he beckoned over to the Choctaw to have a look themselves. These were terrifying men to behold.  Their skins were not noir, but tanned like a Barbary corsairs. But they were wildly painted. They mutilated themselves.  They wore buckskin over their loins.  Their eyes were alert, but moved with a childlike inquiry.  The women were terrified.  Jeanne Dorvil, on the other hand, remained instinctively keen in these uncertain moments. These poor souls, she thought. They are not going to survive out here.  I'm not sure I will, she thought. When the chief reached out to touch her blonde hair, she winced from him. The savages laughed. She glared back at them. The Governor continued to smile, and blinked to show his satisfaction. 

It was then she noticed one of the savages did not appear so deprived of clothing.  He wore a buckskin clothe still, but at least he wore breeches and a linen shirt. His eyes were dark, and though most of his hair was shaved leaving only a braided tail, the upper half of his face was painted ochre. He leaned on a long rifle. He did not laugh with the others, but this particular savage seemed to watch her. She had to believe this as she turned from him, and when she had turned back she saw him again watching her. Observing her.  His eyes never left her.  She was was even more indignant at this scrutiny, which seemed calculating to her.  Dangerous even, because behind the dark eyes of this red-faced savage there seemed at first determination, and then a decision. She watched him as he stepped forward to the Governor.  To her surprise, the Governor placed his arms around this man with an uncharacteristic familiarity and listened to him with great pragmatism. Jeanne Dorvil felt a sudden dread that her fate, the rest of her life, was being decided now at this moment, and in this wild place.  

And so it was, for the Governor nodded with affirmation, and the red-faced man stood aside and continued to watch her as Governor de Bienville approached her. He once again removed his hat with a twirl, placed it under his arm, and half-kneeling he extended his palm out to Jeanne Dorvil.  

Take my hand, love, he said. With no other option, she did so, and the Governor kissed it. The Choctaw observed this with great amusement. 

You, my Darling, you shall be the first of the King's Daughters to be wedded! Go with my blessing and with that of His Majesty, the King. And may God always go away with you! You are the fruit tree of the Empire!  

I'm not marrying that savage, Jeanne Dorvil growled.  

The Governor acted aback, pursing his lips, and smiling at her as though a father to a child.  

You do not understand, my Darling.  This savage of which you speak is my nephew, Emil.  And yes, he will call himself a savage, and that may be so when he must become one, but he is not like these Choctaw.  He is my blood, however, and you shall find yourself living a life of great purpose here in Alabama.  He said this rather matter-of-factly.  

Jeanne Dorvil growled again. You will have me marry a half-breed at that?  

The Governor blinked.  He leaned close to her. You are a woman of narrow-mind, he said quietly and without extravagance. You will come to know this New World and learn that survival here is but a narrow trail.  Marriage to my nephew is your best hope of surviving here in Alabama. He is of the opinion that your fate is worth more than just bearing fruit.  He has fantastic plans for you.  Rejoice! 

And with that, he withdrew from her and bowed lavishly to people gathered and dismissed them all.  This they did, and the Casquette Girls were led to their quarters. All except, Jeanne Dorvil, who was bid to remain with the savage to whom she would become bride. He stood staring her as the Governor returned by great ceremony the way he had came and the crowd disbursed rather disappointedly.  She stood staring back at him.  She thought about grabbing a nearby lathing tool and jamming it into the red man's neck and running. But where would she run too? And she had not the killer instinct unless it were brought forth by a threat to her own life. But if that time came, she would kill him for certain if necessary.  Even so, she dreaded having to go away with this man.  

When they were alone together in the public space besides the docks, this red savage they called Emil finally approached her.  She backed away, and she eyed the lathe beside a log pile, then took in a breathe as he came close to her.  He looked her over.  She might have felt violated at this encounter but for the words he said to her in perfect French.

You stink, woman.  What is your name?  Never mind.  It is not important right now. I'll learn it later. Let's get you cleaned up.  You must bathe.  The natives will not appreciate your odor.  That is why they were laughing at you.  

She was appalled!  How dare this moor, this half-blood, this Metis!  There was a fight in her eyes, and Emil looked into them again.  Then he smiled a half-smile.  

Let's go, woman.  We've got a long journey ahead of us.  

LII.

When he had sobered up, Linus Poteat intended to skedaddle the first chance given, but none was forthcoming. It wasn't cowardice, he told himself. This war stuff just wasn't his jam. He could find his way.  Way where?  Where the hell am I?  His eyes were red and sunken.  His normally cheerful smile was downturned, a thread of drool hung down into the grass.  Stumbling, blinking, he rose and found his shoe and turned it upside down thinking something might fall out. He could not be sure what to find, but did so habitually on account of some dim and mystifying experience from beyond the verge. For drunkards like Linus Poteat have their waking rituals where clues may be found as to their comings and goings from nights previous.  He need not have looked far.  Down through the brush to the big river was the smoking hulk of a Yankee ironclad.  My God!  I remember that!  We blew her up!   

As he stood watching the spinning whisps of smoke rising from the river, he was approached by a rebel patrol.  He was rounded up and marched north. He recognized Skid Johnson and Stew Harlow who were both from the Nickajack and were in his conscription class.  Skid Johnson was from the Warrior Mountains. He said his family grew little more than a vegetable patch and hunted for the rest of their food like so many redskins. He was a red-headed freckled kid, and he said he was rounded up like a fugitive slave by the Home Guard.  They clasped him in chains and carted him into Moulton with a few other forlorn souls and told them all they could hang or they could join. Stew Harlow was of the prominent clan of Rats who inhabited the coves and inlets around Rodgersville.  He simply couldn't run fast enough, or he couldn't row fast enough, or he was too drunk to escape the clutches of the Home Guard.  He couldn't be too sure himself.  It could have been all three.  

And so they were marched into the town of Grand Gulf, or what was left of it anyway.  It used to be a thriving little cotton landing about twenty miles south of Vicksburg as the crow flies.  Now it was a burnt out gathering of gutted frames and scorched chimneys. The Yankees had put the town to the torch the year before. Now the Confederate Army was building gun batteries along the bluffs. The boys were hauled before an officer, who disgustedly sent them to dig earthworks. This they did for weeks, and in their penal state, they were watched constantly.  There was simply no way to skedaddle.  Worse yet, alcohol was difficult to come by.  It was around, but not near enough to numb the anguish of monotonous labor.  A sutler's wagon would ride down from Vicksburg three times a week, and he would peddle the most awful rotgut that would blind Linus for hours.  So he started picking through the wreckage of town looking for anything from which he could fashion a still, a unusual aptitude but none too far removed from the workings of a steamboat boiler. In this endeavor he was unsuccessful.

In late April there was a most tremendous cannonade that echoed down the river where the Yankee ironclads were trying to make the run past Vicksburg, that Gibraltar of the South. The rumbling of this distant fire continued ominously for hours.  If the Yankees were not destroyed by Vicksburg batteries, then it meant the next boats to come churning around the upriver bend would be their dreaded ironclads.  And in time they did come.  Seven of them, their armored wheel boxes slapping the water and their stacks belching round nimbi of grey smoke. As soon as they rounded the bend, they coughed thick black shot into the bluffs of Grand Gulf.  The rebel batteries responded in kind. A most furious cannonade ensued.  The guns along the bluffs barked and jerked, and the men would swarm across the gun with their plungers and shot and powder bags. Linus Poteat had never heard such a racket!  And then the Yankee shots came roaring in like freight trains. They fell into the earthworks digging up huge clogs of dirt, or sometimes burst overhead sending shrapnel everywhere that sounded like sleet.  This was a terrifying experience sober.  No wonder why so many officers drank too.

Things got worse as the big Yankee ironclads, which resembled old flat boats or even great metallic moccasins, churned their way closer and closer until they were just under the bluffs.  Linus found himself kicked by a sergeant whom he couldn't hear.  It was then he realized he was crouched with his knees under his chin and that he had urinated himself. 

Get up you bastard and bring water to the gunners with that bucket, the sergeant barked!

Linus watched as Stew Harlow seemed to skitter like a crab bearing a box of ammunition, his head always peering up then ducking with each shell that passed over.  Linus worked up just the bare modicum of courage to crawl after his hat and then crouch-run to a cistern.  

Jesus Christ!  This is madness, he thought to himself!  

The air rocked with successive shockwaves.  Every time the big pop bottle guns fired, they blew a wave of heat and rent air that rattled his clothes. He found a pale and filled it with water, then dashed from cover to cover until he had reached one of the guns.  So frantic had been his scramble that he arrived with almost no water at all.  

Shit!

So he ran back again and returned and found he had lost all the water again. The Yankee ironclads had swung to within a hundred yards of the bluffs, so close you could hear their officers barking orders. Linus saw a Confederate colonel who was brazenly standing atop an earthwork with his binoculars.  In the next moment, his head had simply vanished, knocked to bits by a cannon ball.  This was bad business, Linus thought. It was the most horrible thing he had ever seen when he realized what must have happened to the man's head that had splashed into a pink mist.  Linus Poteat had never been so frightened in all his life. All he could think of was running as far away as possible from this hellish juncture of madness, but there was nowhere to go!  

He heard Skid Johnson call his name through the cacophony of exploding guns. He beckoned him over from one of the rifle pits. So Linus crawled on all fours to where Skid Johnson was and slid down face first into the rifle pit.  He saw Stew Harlow huddled in a corner.  He looked frightened. There was someone else too, but he wasn't moving. No one had the courage to check on him, and assumed correctly he was dead.  

Boys, we gotta get out of this place, Linus said. This is bad business! Real bad business!

Skid and Stew agreed. He'd never had the chance to desert, and it didn't seem any more possible now. Getting blasted to bits, however, made him carve his own chance now out of a primal desire to live, and he intended to take it for better or worse.  So they all bound out from the rifle pits and in the din and chaos of the bombardment, they dashed from cover to cover to the magazines, which were set a good way back.  There they made a pretense of gathering munitions for the gun batteries before leaping into a wooded defile and skedaddling into the forest.  They had no rifles, no food and no camping kit.  They had no idea what to do next but run as far away as they could from that place of hell, and this did into evening to avoid the army patrols.

They wandered through wild ridged country to a river called the Big Black where to their amazement and divine gratitude they came across an abandoned still. It was a lean-to shack built against a gnarled old cedar, and within it they found a trove of moonshine. It was too good to be true, but it was.  There was no better way to settle the nerves than a drip of that fine Mississippi dew, and this they did while they ate tinned bully beef they had rummaged from a crate. It may have been a good time to plan about what to do next. They were all a long way from home.  Instead, they decanted moonshine down their gullets for the next few days and tried to forget the dreadful experience they endured.  

It would not be long, however, before the war itself would chase them down, for General Grant had crossed the Mississippi and had landed on the rebel shore with over 15,000 Yankees and were marching towards the Big Black River.  

LI.

My Beloved Amelia, 

I pray this letter finds you.  I've not heard from you in several weeks.  I confess my heart is filled with even greater longing for you. I did not think that was possible.  It feels like everything around me has grown empty, and grows emptier still.  There is nothing to fill the void but my desire to see you again.  Your face. Your breathe. Your touch. You fill my dreams, and light the pathway towards a last hope. Oh God what I would give to see you again! 

And so it pains me terribly that I've not received a letter from you.  I suspect the postal service must be at fault.  The other officers say they've not heard from their sweethearts in weeks either.  There is Yankee cavalry raiding deep behind our lines, and I'm sure the Yankee occupation has not helped. I knew you said that if things got bad that you would stay with your step mother in Athens. I will write to her and pray that I might find you there if that is where you have fled to. I pray the Yankees will let the letter through.  

The rains have stopped here in Virginia. We heard that General Ulysses Grant has taken command of the Yankee army. He know he is a very aggressive commander - a real fighter.  General Lee, however, has always been the Old Grey Fox. Most of the men are all sure that General Lee will give Grant a good whipping with some hard fighting.  That may be so, but I'm not sure there will be anyone left to kill the last Yankee. There are too many of them.  They are of all nationalities.  Many don't even speak English, and even less speak the King's English. We've captured so many Irish and Germans that you'd think we were fighting in the Old World.  All we have are the blacks, who just dig ditches and flee our lines every chance they get to escape bondage. I can't say I blame them. Most of us who've never owned slaves wonder why we don't give them guns to fight in exchange for freedom. We're just told that the government will never give a n****r a gun they could just turn on us whites. 

It just sounds like fighting with a greater fear at your back than what you face to your front.  The Fire Eaters and slaveowners are more terrified of freed blacks than they are of losing the war! God forbid if you talk about giving them guns to fight for their freedom. Our leaders are terrified of arming the blacks.  I've even heard General Cleburne, who is about the only hero we know of out West, has been reprimanded by Jeff Davis for even suggesting this.  How do these rich slaveowning politicians expect us to win this war they got us into?  Of course, most of them are not the ones fighting it.  Certainly not in the Nickajack.  Those who were committed to the Cause who came with us to Virginia are all dead. Most fell at Sharpsburg. It seems like everyone left from the old regiment are losing hope.  I'm losing hope.  We get replacements to fill in those who were lost.  Nobody wants to grow familiar with them.  I try to get them fitted into the company as best I can, but there is a deep rotting of hope among the older grumblers.  

I hope, however, that is changing for the better, and not to soon.  The roads are drying and we're expecting General Grant to attack any day now.  Everyone has been taut and on edge.  But this past month we received several draftees from the Nickajack, several of them musicians from Athens. I'll be damned if these boys weren't piss poor soldiers to start with, but they've really warmed up to the old grumblers with their music. The regiment itself hasn't had a full string band since before Sharpsburg. Even now I can hear them outside the tent playing a tune - Star of County Down. They call themselves the Hine Streeters.  They've got fifes, drums, mandolins, guitars, fiddles, banjos... one of them even has a hurdy gurdy.  They really are a remarkable bunch, and I confess I feel deeply saddened that they are about to go into combat.  I wonder if that spark, that lightness of spirit that accompanies their music will still be there after the day of battle.  They've raised our spirits for certain, and not just F Company, but the whole 4th Alabama.  The colonel has said the Hine Streeters will be given the honor of leading us into battle with their fifes and drums.  As foolish as it sounds for men to face death in such way, it shall be glorious for the boys if we triumph.  

The men are bedding down for the night, and the fires are growing dim.  Lights will be out soon.

I feel like I could write to you forever, and may the dawn never come.  It is the magic hour when I finish my each letter to you, and I blow out the candle, and pray for courage and that God keep you well, and I feel for briefest moment that all is well, everywhere and for all time. God I pray this letter will find you.  If it does not, I will write again. I will also make my inquiries to your step mother, Bright Marin, in Athens.  Be safe, and pray to await my coming home when this war shall be over.  I suspect the climax is nigh.  

Yours Eternally Devoted,

Noah Amherst, Cpt. CSA

F Company, 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment

May 3, 1864

L.

The nexus of Republican power in the Nickajack was in Huntsville where Alabama Governor William Hugh "Skedaddle" Smith had a powerful base of Scalawags and Carpetbaggers. They collected around the railroad money, which was fed down by Washington Republican interests. Limestone County politics, however, remained dominated by the Democrat Greeks. They were putting up their own candidate for governor in the next election - "Bourbon George" Smith Houston.  Rocked by scandal over railroad bonds, Skedaddle Smith's hold on power was shaky.  Distrust was growing among local white Republican reformers over rampant and shameless corruption controlled by Washington.  This growing cynicism was amplified by the powerful Democrat press and establishment in Montgomery, which Bourbon George called his "Swamp."  

Back in Washington, Benjamin "Spoons" Butler wrang his small hands over what should be done to maintain their Party's hold on Alabama.  "Pig Iron" Kelly sat nervously in an ornate armchair whose arms curved uncomfortably inward as though to clasp him. He held onto his whiskey with both hands as Spoons Butler raved in one of this nervous tantrums.

The Consortium had a lot invested in the railroads there, and these goddam bonds!  If Skedaddle Smith can't make payments on those state railroad bonds, then we'll be tits up he said. Spoons threw his arms in exasperation. If they elect Bourbon George, he will end Reconstruction and we'll be left holding a bag of shit.  

Pig Iron cleared his throat. Sir, I think we can fight Bourbon George and the Greeks in their own backyard.  There's a strong base of Republicans we've allowed to languish in Limestone County in the freedman's camp they call Strangetown.  It is quite literally in Bourbon George's back lawn.  Ever since the Freedman's Bureau was defunded, our man there has been floating on railroad contracts. Bonwit Vrooman is his name.  They call him The Major.  We've got the money there in Limestone County. We just need the right man to pull everything together and put some easy candidates up. Give our base some hope.  Bownit? He's just another government contract dimwit. But I think I have someone in mind.

And so that man arrived in Alabama by way of Chicago where he had been an early Party organizer among free persons of color.  He had impeccable Party credentials.  He had organized torchlight parades by the Wide Awakes. He had even been there at the Great WigWam when Lincoln was nominated in 1860.  Loyal, hard-working and black, he was exactly what the Limestone County Republican Party needed to fight back.  Spoons Butler was delighted at the idea. He didn't bother asking this person's name, so Pig Iron volunteered it.  

His name was Bartholomew Hogan, but everyone called him "Barry." He was a graduate of the Institute of Colored Youth in Philadelphia whose family were influential freedman of that city.  He moved out West to Chicago where he sought work in the young Republican Party, and he found a knack for bringing out the vote.  He was rakishly handsome, well-spoken and remarkably keen at wielding Party power among the coloreds. Moreover, he excelled at it on both the stump and in the streets. The man has style, promised Pig Iron Kelly.  And Barry did.  He had that ease of familiarity that warmed everyone over, inspired them even.  

When he arrived in Athens, he immediately moved the Republican Party headquarters into Strangetown. The old headquarters on Pryor Street had been sacked by the Ku Klux Klan, and it would be vulnerable anywhere else but in the heart of the Party's base. Barry's investigation into this curious community revealed that the real power of Strangetown lay behind a hoodoo witch named Maw Possum, whose activities on the Underground Railroad helped feed Strangetown with contraband slaves during the war.  And so he paid homage to the Witch, and after a productive conversation with what he smugly assumed was a brilliant old con artist, Maw Possum gave him an obsidian stone, which she called a Quark.  She cast an uncomfortable spell over the stone and cautioned that he may only come to see her by bringing this Quark and placing it in a basket as an offering.  Then she wrestled a dove out of a cage and slit its throat to seal this vaguely unholy covenant and bid him well.  Whatever this bizarre ritual meant, he felt compelled to protect the stone thereafter.  

And then Barry got to work. He had two offices in mind that he'd like to fill with Republicans. The first was Sheriff of Limestone County.  For that he searched for a white candidate.  The second office was far more ambitious.  It was Congressman for the Nickajack.  A negro at that. For that he already had one man in mind - James Thomas Rapier - called Jimmy Sugar.  

XLIX.

A Confederate lieutenant was inspecting the new allotment of soldiers he had just received  These were the dunces he'd been shipped from Alabama. They were drunkards, shirkers, bogtrotters, low-downers and other assorted white trash from the Nickajack, about twenty of them rounded up in the last conscription class.  They'd been barged down from Vicksburg to Fort DeRussy on the Red River where the lieutenant was told these would the last reinforcements he would ever see.  The Yankee gunboats were marauding below Vicksburg now and were capturing transports and ferries all down the Mississippi River.  That may have been so now, but the South had a real surprise up their sleeve.  

The night before the Yankee gunboat USS Queen of the West had slipped into range of the gun batteries of Fort DeRussy and was disabled and abandoned.  She had careened into the brushy banks of the Red River where she was claimed by a band of whooping rebel soldiers. They swarmed across the hulk like so many Lilliputians and put her back into action as the CSS Queen of the West.  She was armed with a large 30-pound cannon on her bow, and three small 12-pound guns poking out three sides of her forward cabin. Her deck was crowded with wet bales of cotton to help absorb shot. And so the plan was to take the fight back to the Yankees and retake the Mississippi River with this contraption.  

So, the lieutenant said, we will be attached to this gunboat as sharpshooters. When we come across another a boat, you boys will sweep the enemy decks of Yankees.  

Some of these people were crack shots, but they were also ill-disciplined and he was certain half of them were drunkards. But this was all he had to work with. An old saying went that when it comes to recruits, Virginia gets the cream, Tennessee gets the corn, and the Trans-Mississippi gets the slops. 

Have any of you worked in the steamboat business?  

One man raised his hand.  

Step forward, private. State your name and your qualifications.  

A short and fat cherubic-like man stepped forward.  He smiled bigly, which flared his gin blossoms and exposed a missing eye-tooth.  It wasn't an unpleasant smile, but it gave the impression of some mental vacancy. He wore a greasy slouch hat and suspenders.  

Linus Poteat, he saluted. Sir, he added. I helped build an ironclad once, he said proudly. There were a few chuckles.  The lieutenant nodded slowly with astonishment, but not in the affirmative. They seemed to expect more, so Linus continued.  

Sir, I know how to work a boiler and I can work a grasshopper steam engine.  I owned a scow on the Tennessee River.  That was my ironclad.  We called it the Gar!  

More chuckles.  The lieutenant decided to test the recruit.  He dismissed the rest of the recruits with his sergeant and brought Linus Poteat down to the river bank where the CSS Queen of the West was being outfitted for her mission.  Linus never ceased smiling, and looking about at the trees and birds and soldiers, and he wiggled his nose towards the scent of coffee.  The lieutenant looked over his shoulder at Linus suspiciously as he followed him down to the gunboat.  Aboard was a Confederate officer, Major Joseph Bent, who would lead the operation.  Linus Poteat was led below decks where he stepped between the pipes and hoses and the boilers and piles of coal to examine the engines they called 'grasshoppers' on account of the motion of their stroke resembling the legs of a grasshopper.  Linus immediately impressed them against all better judgement. The man seemed to know his way around an engine.  So he was assigned to the chief engineer as a mechanic's mate and he immediately set to work getting the engines ready for their sortie against the Yankee invader.

Specifically, they intended to sortie against the Yankee ironclad USS Indianola, which had run the rebel batteries at Vicksburg to harass rebel shipping along the Mississippi and Red Rivers.  Here was a real river beast.  Squat like a river beetle with her rear paddle wheels protected by skirts of tin, she was armed with four enormous Dahlgren guns. These things were shaped like pop bottles and capable of firing enormous cannonballs the size of ten-pin balls.  She had already captured several rebel steamers and was now tied up near Davis Bend, just miles south of Vicksburg.  Lashed to her sides were several coal barges and she was undergoing replenishment while waiting for new orders from General Grant.  And so by the light of the half moon, the CSS Queen of the West was accompanied by another "cotton-clad" named the CSS William Webb as they shimmied among the muddy river's tortuous bends until they passed the rebel batteries at Grand Gulf, which were about 20 miles as the crow flies south of that Gibraltar of the South, Vicksburg. The rebels announced by horn that the USS Indianola was just up the next bend, which was David Bend where Jefferson Davis's family kept their great plantation estate.  The rebel gunners lined up along the earthworks overlooking the river and gave three cheers for the little rebel squadron as it chugged upriver.   

Major Bent called down by the sound tube - enemy in sight, increase to full speed.  The crew cheered. Linus was below decks and monitored the pressure gauges while maintaining his hands on the vital switches and valves that controlled one of the grasshoppers. The chief engineer barked near indecipherable Irish, but it was the sort of industrial pidgin language of the burgeoning caste of mechanics that they all seemed to understand.  It may have been February, but the colliers kept the coal hatches open as they shoveled filthy Arkansas coal into the boilers and the temperature spiked below decks to near 120 degrees.  Everyone was soaked in sweat. Suddenly they heard the boom of cannon fire as first the Confederate gunboats opened fire and then the Yankee ironclad responded. The grasshopper was kicking and the entire boat seemed to bound with each stroke of the pistons.  

He couldn't help himself.  Linus had to see what was going on, so he peeked above decks to see rebel rifleman popping shots off into the night and the enormous thunderclap and burst of sparks that resulted from the 30-pounder gun firing.  About a hundred yards ahead he saw the stooping, turtle shape of the Yankee ironclad abeam off their bow. When its Dahlgren guns fired, they created a tremendous roar and even a passing shot could knock a man to his feet from the passing shockwave. With this looming shape growing larger on the horizon, Major Bent called down the sound tube again - increase to ramming speed! With this the chief engineer lambasted the colliers in Gaelic curses and Linus released more pressure into the pistons.  The grasshoppers seemed to jump off their base plates. They jerked uncertainly in an arhythmic motion before finally grasping their rhythm, and the Queen of the West lurched forward with a few extra knots of speed.  

The crew of the CSS Queen of the West roared with awe and spectacle and exhilaration. The Yankees aboard the USS Indianola were horrified to see two rebel gunboats steering directly for her. They braced for impact as both rebel gunboats cleaved into the wooden coal barges that were lashed to the ironclad's side.  They were sliced in half and the USS Indianola shuddered under the impact. A sickening sound of crumpling iron and snapping beams was heard. The Confederate gunboats were crowded with whooping and excited rebel riflemen. They fired at the Yankee ironclad. They fired into the air. They fired into the moon.  They were like pirates of the damned.  

And that was not all.  Linus Poteat was thrilled. He threw the grasshopper into reverse with a clunking and a hissing, which backed the boat up, then Major Bent would order the boat forward again. Both gunboats rammed the Yankee ironclad again, and stove in her amidships and wrecked her rudder.  The rebels roared with excitement.  Yankees were already jumping over the sides.  Her humongous guns were too slow to load and never got more than a half dozen shots off. 

Reverse the engines, Major Bent called down the tube!  Ahead ramming speed, he called down again!

The rebel gunboats continued this business of reversing, then ramming again the mighty Yankee river beast again, then again.  Lastly, the CSS Queen of the West headed above stream, then swung back downriver to ram the USS Indianola with the full force of the Mississippi backing their run.  This final blow finished the river beast.  It took seven rams, but the river beast was vanquished. The Yankees hauled down their flag and were taken prisoner, their stricken ironclad towed to the rebel shore where the Confederates planned to place this Union warship in their service.  The victory was announced upriver to Vicksburg by the tolling of bells. The city fired salutary shots from its gun batteries in honor of the brave crew of the rebel gunboats.  Meanwhile, Linus Poteat and the other engineering crew of the rebel gunboats leaped aboard the captured Yankee ironclad. They were amazed the quality of construction, the size of the guns, and above all by the bottles of rum that was kept in the captain's locker.  This they immediately partook in celebration of their victory.  

The next morning, Major Bent left a crew of mechanics and engineers to help salvage and repair the Yankee ironclad. This they put to the attempt, and Linus Poteat set to work on assessing damage to the Indianola's grasshoppers.  As they all did so, Linus Poteat and the other colliers would sneak off behind the boilers to swill the rum and smoke the cigars they had found.  Meanwhile the Yankees were in great distress at this development.  They devised a most improbable plan to send a "fake" ironclad down the river crafted from wood painted dark like iron, bristling with wooden Quaker guns, and stoked by a false engine which was little more than bonfire.  Even its smoke stacks were made of pork barrels. They jokingly called it the "Black Terror," and they sent this bizarre raft downriver thinking it would no good at all.  In fact, it did. 

So drunk was Linus Poteat and the rest of the salvage crew that when the Black Terror was spotted drifting downriver towards them, they panicked and scuttled the Indianola.  This they did with such great alacrity that it was downright vandalism.  Linus and the others set the stricken ironclad afire. Then they took two of the giant Dahlgren guns, pointed them at each other, and with a long and spliced primer cord, they fire both guns into one another.  It blew the bow of the Indianola off in a great shower of splinters and the boat burned down to her waterline in a great bonfire of popping sparks and great coils of smoke.  Linus Poteat and the rest of the drunken salvage crew leaped to shore where they cheered the great display they had made.  

And when the Black Terror passed by the shore where they gawked, they were embarrassed to see that this new Yankee ironclad was nothing but an utter hoax. But they didn't seem embarrassed for long.  Linus Poteat snorted, then fell on his back drunk and laughing.  The rest did the same.  To them, it didn't feel like war. It felt buccaneering. And so at times, this war was fought strangely on the rivers and certainly seemed that way.  

XLVIII

Bill Marmaduke, Sheriff of Limestone County, tipped his hat to the ladies as he walked down the boardwalk, and shook hands and patted the backs of the good ole boys and brothers of Strangetown. His smile was as big as a shotgun blast, and his grip as warm and as welcome as a Christmas fire. You couldn't help but love the man.  He knew everyone's name.  He knew something about you, some connection or witness, that he never forgot. He was a master politicker. Goddam him, Bourbon George Houston would say, give him five minutes and you'd go from hating a man you never met to making a friend you'd share your sister's diary with.  To the Democrat Greeks of the County, he was a dangerous political opponent.  

He walked far up the deep bottoms of Town Creek past Madame de Smet's cathouse and the Nickajack Theater, and past the public gazebo where, directly across a foot bridge crossing over to the left bank sat the lair of Maw Possum. It was a two story clapboard rowhouse with no windows at all save for a large, round and curious porthole on the second floor.  This is where the old witch told fortunes and worked hoodoo elixirs and cast magic spells. Like it were church, Bill removed his hat before entering.  Inside the single porthole cast an iridescent shaft of light into this space, which was hazed by the smoke of berries and pinecones that smoldered from a pair of urns, beside which a sort of altar-like table sat on a platform.  Something like a laced bridal veil hung over this table, obscuring the figure which sat behind it.  This wasn't the first figure to notice, however.  That would be the large black man who sat behind the door trying to read the papers by the scant light. That was Papa Laduc, who at full height was near seven foot plus a stovepipe hat.  Slung at the man's side, Bill noticed a long Colt 1860 Army revolver.  A bit antiquated by this time, it was a beast of a pistol.  The man was said to be one of Maw Possum's husbands. Even the sheriff did not seem to draw his interest. He merely nodded to Bill, then nodded over to a sweetgrass basket on a pedestal beside the door.  

In this basket, most supplicants would usually place cash, sometimes to see the Witch of Strangetown, and sometimes just to pay their kickback to her. Others would place a stone into the basket, a small polished obsidian stone that she called a Quark, unique to the carrier which they were loathe to lose, for it bound them in thrall to Maw Possum's power and favor. Every freedman that Maw Possum had moved through her Underground Railroad had a Quark.  Every man who couldn't pay for one of her spells or remedies had a Quark.  Every man who owed a debt to Maw Possum had a Quark. And for every Quark they had presented, there was an equal and mysteriously identical Quark she would fish out from a velvet bag.  It was all a very nice trick, Bill admitted.  Nevertheless, he took out his Quark from his pocket and tossed it into the sweetgrass basket and carried it thus before the alter-like table where, behind the white veil, Maw Possum sighed.  

Well if its not our Knight of Cups, she said.  You just hang on, Bill. I's got your Quark somewhere. She spoke with a raspy voice with a surprising singsong range of pitch.  

She grunted as she leaned down to grab her velvet bag of Quarks.  On the table at which he took a seat sat a human skull draped in wax from a sagging candle. The flame looked sick. Bill looked around.  Beyond the veil and around the platform were shelves and benches filled with curious objects and strange bottles. There was a satanic-looking cornucopia, there was the flayed skull of a lamb that had been cured, there was a jar of eyes, there was a necklace of German sausages dangling from a bookcase. A statue of High John de Conquer held out a morsel of molded bread. There was a boiling cauldron with what must have been Maw Possum's supper, because it smelled of vinegar and lemons and oil.  Maw Possum had finally found her bag and she shook out about a dozen Quarks. The bag looked like it held a hundred of such Quarks, but amazingly she found the one that matched that which Bill Marmaduke placed on the table from the basket. Bill shifted uncomfortably. Her tricks were uncanny. He overcame this sensation and rubbed his eyebrows, then blurted out.  

Let's cut the shit, Maw. Your so-called husbands are squeezing in on my tote.  I get 15% of the purse on the tracks, and 10% of the tables across Strangetown. What the hell is this I hear that you raising your taxes on Wagon Wheel and the Broken Spoke?  I'm getting shrugs when I come around to collect.  They say your rail-splitter here had done cleaned them out. He tossed a hand towards Papa Laduc, who remained uninterested.  

Bill Marmaduke was the only white man who talked to her like this, and it snapped the old witch's patience.  She threw open the veil and shook her matching Quark at Bill between her gnarled old fingers. She looked old, crumpled and porcine. She wore a turban set with rhinestones, and wore a panoply of charms from about her neck. Her spirit was spry, however, and she spat back at Bill Marmaduke.  

I wonder, Bill, if it ain't a goddam nuisance to even hold onto this thing.  You have been the biggest pain in my ass since I got you elected.  Did I not build this town?  Did I not make you Sheriff?  

I wonder if that wasn't Barry Hogan who got my elected with his wagons and his liquor.  

I's got his Quark too, Bill. She was nearly out of her seat.  Everyone was on edge. The gubernatorial election was approaching and the Klan was pressing in on the rural precincts. She shook her head and sighed again.  

Let's go for a walk together, Bill. It will do us both good.  

She stepped out from behind the veil with her cane, a gnarled old women who was surprisingly locomotive on her feet once she got started. When Bill thought to offer his hand to help her down the platform, she snapped at him.

Git your goddam hands away from me.  They've got greed all over them.  I don't want to lose my coins.  

Outside in the broad noonday sun, Papa Laduc removed a parasol and walked with Maw Possum down the boardwalk offering shade to his wife. Bill Marmaduke walked beside Maw Possum. He kept his hat off out of respect for the Witch.  She approved of this smugly.  

Folks tipped their hats and curtsied to these respected matron and patron of Strangetown.  All eyes were on them.  Maw Possum walked with a limping and rhythmic gait, first throwing her cane and dragging herself forward behind it with a surprisingly rapid and light motion. She gave an airy grunt with each step she took, though she never gave the impression of exertion or exhaustion.  She was like some dark old gnome who had strolled down from the mountains for a brisk hike among the realm of men.  

Look what I built here, Bill, she said.  Dey's nowhere in the world like it.  Not in da whole South. I come into this place from a home and family I don't even remember.  I come from the East, over the mountains.  I been bought and sold a half dozen times over.  All I've got is dis family.  This is my home.  These are my Darlings.  And you my Darling too, you know.  White and greedy as you ass is. 

She placed her hand on Bill's lower back, her hand glittering with rings and nails as long as bullets.  She continued.

Look. Times are tough. I know. Ask a sister how tough times can be?  You just white.  You ain't never going to know, and I don't hold that again' you. But there are evil plans afoot. I need you to do as you been elected to do, Sheriff. The new world we building together here?  It is in great danger, Bill.  I can guarantee you first cut on Wagon Wheel and Broken Spoke, but I need you to turn your attentions to this danger, or we risk losing it all.

Bill held out a hand. She stopped.  They were just outside the Wagon Wheel where a handful of Germans were playing dominoes on the porch of the saloon.  

What evil, he asked?  What the hell are you talking about?  

I talking about an old evil from over the water dat come to the New World. She squinted an eye and cast it about before shooting it up towards his face.  Then she asked, what do you know about Adelphon Kuklos?  

XLVII

Lis Cherie was dreaming about the Tiger again, who danced on its hind legs about a great bonfire. He was surrounded by a thousand faces black like hers, who swayed with the guttural rhythm of the drums. He held before him a white serpent while the mambos threw goofer dust into the fire, which flared into a cyclone of sparks that spun up into the strange constellations. That's when she was awoken be her father, who looked very urgent and serious.

Lis Cherie. get your things, Bebe! We have got to go!

His tongue was French. His skin black as coal. Lis Cherie only knew her father's name as Francois. She did as she was told and took only her doll, whose limbs were porcelain but bound by twine. She was united with her beloved mother in a heartfelt reunion. Outside you could see plantations burning up the River Road towards La Place, casting a red glare across the low cloud deck. Francois and the other slaves were assembled on the porch of their master's home, which was Destrehan Plantation. This was on the Cotes de Allemands upriver from New Orleans. The year was 1811.

What they saw from the porch was a great assemblage of slaves bearing torches and cane knives and pitchforks. Many were women and children. There were perhaps two hundred of them. Standing for them was a tall man powerfully built. His French was like Lis Cherie's father, that of the colony of Saint-Domingue, which was now Haiti. This was Charles Deslondes, who lead this slave revolt.

Where are your masters, Francois?

Lis Cherie saw in her father great apprehension, and herself sensed great and unusual events were in progress. She was but eight years old. The twenty-something slaves on the porch looked to Francois, who replied that Jean Noel Destrehan and his family were in New Orleans. The white overseers had fled, along with half the slaves. They are streaming down the River Road towards New Orleans.

Why have not you fled yourself, Francois?

You know why, Charles. Because if it can be done over the water, then it can be done here. Do you think this is the moment?

Francois referred to the Saint-Domingue revolt of 1791. Tens of thousands of blacks and whites were slaughtered in the bloodiest slave revolt in the New World. It had been instigated by the voodoo priest Dutty Boukman and the bewitched mambo Cicile Fatiman. And that was not all. Saint-Domingue entered into a decade and more of terror and invasion during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Both Charles and Francois had been young men during those dark times, and they related their experiences together as friends, for Charles Deslondes was a frequent visitor to Destrehan with his master. They both dreamed of freedom, which had been fleeting and furtive prospect as Saint-Domingue was rocked by revolution. Both Charles and Francois had come to New Orleans when their masters finally fled the turmoil of Saint-Domingue. They remained in bondage while they learned only by mythic rumors that Saint-Domingue had become a republic of former slaves called Haiti.

Do you think this is the moment, Charles Deslondes said, repeating the question to himself. He turned to look at the throng of erstwhile slaves behind him. There was no turning back, he thought to himself. He saw the women and the children. He held back a tear, then turned back to Francois.

Freedom is worth more than just living, he said. We breathe in this moment of freedom now, Francois. Breathe it with us.

Francois looked at his wife Marielle, and his daughter Lis Cherie, and then to the other slaves of Destrehan who had stayed behind. He already knew the plan. He just did not realize it would happen so soon. The plan was collect an army as large as 3,000 slaves, which all the conspirators thought possible. Slaves were essentially worked to death in the cane fields. The alternative of freedom and a state of desperation was expected to swell the revolt's numbers as it had in Haiti. But the breathe of freedom? That alone was enough for Francois to make the decision to join the revolt. He stepped down off the porch and was embraced by Charles Deslondes. And with his wife and little Lis Cherie, they stepped out into the dark unknown on a desperate run towards freedom.

XLVI

The Molly MacGuires had come to the Nickajack by way of the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad, and the prospect of good paying jobs in the coal mines that were being opened up in Birmingham. These were rough gangs of Irish who had been hustled off the boats off the East River Docks in New York by Boss William Tweed. They were given a hot meal and told to vote Democrat, then they were signed on to a coal mining company in Pennsylvania controlled by Tammany Hall cronies. During the war, Boss Tweed was signing these same bereft Irish into the Union Army. Little had changed since. The Irish were still coming off the boats in droves, and they were told to sign here for a Square Deal somewhere in the ferment of post-war America. Tens of thousands ended up in the mines of Pennsylvania where their Democratic voting bloc proved a headache for "Pig Iron" Kelly, a powerful House Committee chairman and Radical Republican.

The origins of this Irish phenomenon known as the Molly MacGuires are clouded in mystery, but certainly stem from the bond of poverty and resistance of the Old Country which characterizes every Irish-American immigrant. Dozens of such Irish gangs existed in Boston and New York, and their strange Celtic rituals migrated inland everywhere from the meatpackers of the Midwest to the coal mines of the Alleghenies. Each were familiar with each other by way of ties with the Old Country, though the Molly MacGuires tended to have origins in County Kerry. 

Meanwhile, Pig Iron represented the Southern concerns of the Consortium, which was a cabal of Radical Republicans who were as corrupt as the day was long. One project he was exceptionally proud of was the Huntsville Railroad Corporation, which bilked the government for millions on overbid contracts to build a new bridge across the Tennessee River at Decatur. Now the Consortium had purchased a controlling stake in the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad, which was then racing Jimmy Sloss's L&N railroad from Decatur toward the newly founded settlement of Birmingham. The Molly MacGuires came to the Nickajack from Pennsylvania at the behest of Frank O'Brien, an influential Irish land speculator in that promising new settlement. They called him "Billfold" O'Brien on account of his mysterious wealth. He was also an ally of Jimmy Sloss, who was building his own competing railroad from Decatur south to that Birmingham.  Many of these railroad investors included Greeks like Bourbon George Houston, who was then running for Governor of Alabama.  

Through those ancient and mystic cords that seem to bind the bereft Irish race together the world over, Billfold O'Brien beckoned the Molly MacGuires. And they tumbled down South along the railroad like so many gypsies. The honest ones were finding work in the mines they were beginning to bore through Red Mountain like so many dwarves in a subterranean fantasy of cursed toil. The more pragmatic ones took to the usual racketeering among their own race, but there was more than that.  O'Brien set them to harassing the Consortium railroad interests in the Nickajack.  They plagued Pig Iron Kelly's machinations by roughing up the Alabama & Chattanooga railroad crews, and sticking up trains on the Memphis & Charleston. They were a plague on the Consortium's interests, and an embarrassment to the Radical Republicans.

Congressman Benjamin "Spoons" Butler, who was Pig Iron Kelly's boss in the Consortium and on Capitol Hill, was livid over sagging profits. Moreover there was this influx of Irish cockroaches flooding into Birmingham and the Nickajack. They were buoying the already anemic Democrat base in Alabama, and threatening the Republican hold on the Alabama governorship. In a secret meeting with Senator "Parson" Brownlow of Tennessee and Pig Iron Kelly, Spoons Butler orbited his desk a dozen times while reciting a litany of bitching. Spoons Butler was a figure to behold. He was so corrupt, he had two pejorative nicknames - "Spoons," on account of his habit of purloining silverware, and "Beast," on account of the rough and indignant manner he treated sesech women during the war.  He had hound dog eyes and sagging jowls. The swale of his gut sloped away from his chest to where he could not see his small feet. No matter. He spoke with his hands, which were also unusually small.  Little was this detail noticed, however, on account of the enormous dome of head which was speckled and repulsively matte. A tonsure of long hair, however, seemed to rebel at the encroaching desiccation of his skull, and it looked seldom washed. He could have worn a toupee, but he was naturally uncouth about his appearance.  His power, influence and ego spoke for themselves. 

These goddam Micks are a real burr in our ass, you know.  Parson?  What about your man, The Melungeon? What can he do about this?  

Parson replied.  He had blue marble eyes and sunken cheeks like the late Mr. Lincoln.  His mouth was wide and curled downward at the ends.  These Molly MacGuires, they're mostly operating out of Huntsville and Chattanooga. He said The Melungeon could clean the Molly MacGuires off the Memphis & Charleston tracks, but the Chattanooga to Birmingham Railroad was beyond what the Melungeon could manage.

I'll work on that, Spoons Butler spat.  I've got negroes in Chattanooga that can work the railroad to Birmingham, but you just get The Melungeon to work on the Irish in Huntsville.  Parson Brownlow nodded.  

As for you! Spoons Butler pointed his child-like finger at Pig Iron Kelly.  This Credit Mobilier scandal is getting out of hand and could blow open the whole circus tent.  I think we can put a lid on this, but this Huntsville Railroad Corporation. We can't have that dangling as a loose end.  I want you find a way to tie that up. There's an accountant somewhere who knows too much.  Find him.  He's probably Jewish.  So he was.  His name was Asher Applebaum, and he was now the accountant for The Major in Athens.  But for now the Molly MacGuires were the priority. No one expected violence from a Jewish accountant, but from an Democrat Irishman with a knife?  This was more than what any of these men bargained for sinking their interests in the Deep South.  

XLV

After the war, Bill Marmaduke's home and plantation had been confiscated by the military government of Alabama on account of a forfeiture of property taxes. He had been away fighting in Jackson Co. when his father died, leaving the estate to wither and the slaves to wander into freedom. And so it was auctioned from the Limestone Co. Courthouse steps by Captain Fritz Hermann, who commanded the local Yankee garrison of Fort Henderson on the Browns Ferry Road. By freak of bureaucratic fumbling, he commanded a company of 120 Irish "volunteers" who spoke incomprehensible English while he himself spoke only German.  It was by luck that there were several German families who had taken up temporary residence in Strangetown, many of whom spoke English.  These were immigrants who were bound for Colonel John Cullman's colony of Germans south beyond Falkville in the Warrior Mountains, where Jimmy Sloss was building his railroad to Birmingham.

Colonel Cullman and Captain Hermann became fond friends. Among the German immigrants, they organized concerts at the public gazebo in Strangetown where polka and the waltz wafted through the crisp autumn air.  Oktoberfest was celebrated, and these immigrants set up a makeshift beerhall beneath a circus tent on the Niphonia Track on West Houston Street.  To the dismay of Ms. Mary Fletcher Wells and the Temperance Society, the Germans brewed a a variety of beers for public consumption.  Most negroes had never tasted beer before. It flowed freely along with linked sausages and boiled cabbage.  And so did the Bavarian polka and the Austrian waltz. Both John Cullman and Captain Hermann dined together often in the Nickajack Hotel over a fine bottle of Franconian and retired to the Captain's private quarters for cards or to recite Goethe together.  The Greeks whispered else. 

Oktoberfest brought its own joys, but the freedman were celebrating more than that.  Captain Hermann was auctioning off confiscated properties of former Confederates who had failed to pay their property taxes.  These included Bill Marmaduke's plantation Damascus, and Drake Shoney's farm at Gloaming Birch.  According to a formula formerly proposed by General Sherman, each plantation would be subdivided into 40 acre parcels. Prices ranged from $4 - $12 per acre.  The Freedman's' Bureau under The Major, Bonwit Vrooman, ensured all coloreds had the first right of refusal on bidding above the reserve.  Big Jim Crow had high hopes.  He counted himself lucky. His survived the war and more in the Union Army and found gainful employment in the uncertain world of post-war freedom as a carpenter.  He had help construct most of Strangetown's boarding houses and saloons. He'd even help build Father Jessup's new African Methodist Church and Swampy Joe's Chapel of Freedom, which was vaguely of the Baptist tradition. Now with all he saved, he had his eyes set on his 40 acres of fertile bottomland on Bill Marmaduke's plantation called Damascus.  Bill Marmaduke was as of yet the Sheriff of Limestone County. He was at that time nowhere to be seen. He was rumored to be mining in Nevada, whaling in the Galapagos, or filibustering in Venezuela.  Wherever he was, he was nowhere to dispute the sale or payoff the lien.  

And so the morning of the sale, Drake Shoney had shown up with a mysterious carpet bag full of cash and paid off his lien in the nick of the moment.  He retained Gloaming Birch.  Damascus, however, was sold off in ten parcels of 40 acres, and the mansion went to the carpetbagging attorney names Rufus Lipman.  Big Jim Crow won his bid for the price of $385 the plot he so desired.  But the sale had been sneered at by Lyman Resnick of the Limestone Democrat.  He reflected the arguments of Dr. Prentiss, that the negro was naturally indolent and impulsive, and whose inability to subsist even on his own property will subject the State to burdensome welfare.  Better that the negro continue to work the plantations they knew under contracts negotiated by the planters.  This, of course, would not do so long as the Yankees were in charge. Freedman who continued to work these plantations had their contracts negotiated by The Major himself, who organized their labor according to blocs of collective contracts.  It infuriated the Greeks, but not more than giving negroes their own land. If their black labor fled to the yeomanry to plant their own plots, they will simply grow subsistence crops.  The Greeks' entire plantation system, which was dependent on the ability to command labor, was in jeopardy.  

But these concerns were none of Big Jim Crow's. He held in his hand something more than freedom - he land of his own.  It was a deed with his name - Jonas Jackson, owner of 40 acres of good bottom land on parcel 16-06-16 along Piney Creek. This was it - the Square Deal.  Not so many others were lucky.  As a carpenter and a soldier, Big Jim Crow was able to save up for his land.  Most of the freedman were laboring on contracts that, although negotiated by The Major, still resulted in conflict with former masters.  Many planters sought to impose old habits of controlling the lives of their laborers, while at the same charging them for clothing, food and shelter... all of which they benefitted from for free during slavery.  It was a tumultuous time as the freedman sought to exert their new independence, and define what their new freedom and community would look like after emancipation.  Meanwhile, the planters sought to command from their laborers as much work as they provided during slavery.  It was an impasse of plantation capital against agricultural labor, complicated by the racist assumption that a man like Jonas Jackson, on account of his skin, could not make it on his own, nor should he.  

XLIV

I send from the Great Father, the King of France, his most gracious compliments to Kis'kambu, Beloved of the Chicaza, and bring these gifts to honor your power over your people and your sacred hunting grounds. May thou and Our Great Father be as brothers against the encroachments of the English slavers, and their allies, the Cherokee.

Kis'kambu, Chickasaw Chief, kept his head facing low towards the gifts sprawled before him in his council house on Old Chickasaw Fields. They included twenty matchlock muskets, two small kegs of powder, a basket full of glass beads, and a case of brandy. His eyes looked up. Who is this French half-blood vagabond and what does he want from me? He smells like a tannery. Kis'kambu admitted he was better mannered and spoke better Muskogee than the Englishman. But he wants me to fight the English? He better bring more guns than this. They are allied with the Cherokee, who also have guns.

The Frenchman before him was named Emil Fouche. He was clad in buckskin and squatted like Kis'kambu in the dusty floor. They were both surrounded by the chief's brothers and cousins, and other leading warriors. They observed these proceedings eagerly. A shaman sat interposed aside murmuring before a gourd that smoked with smoldering berries.  Kis'kambu swept his arm slowly over this offering of goods and made a fist, and pressed it towards the Franca. No deal, Emil interpreted this. He leaned back on his heels and eyed the chief, whose eyes were black and impassive.  He was driving a hard bargain.  It took back breaking work just to haul these twenty muskets across the mountains from Fort Toulouse into the Nickajack. 

Emil was here for more than just profit. He was also here as a spy.  Inglish traders from the Carolinas were pushing deeper into the Nickajack every year. They had been arming the Cherokee who lived on the great river they called Hogohegee above the Gorge, which is the Tennessee River. These armed Cherokee helped the Carolinians suppress and enslave the Yamasee until that tribe had become extinct. Now these Iroquoian speakers, the Cherokee, turned their eyes west into Chickasaw territory, which extended from the Gorge and along the Hogohegee west into Mississippi.  Even the Shawnee were pressing down from the Wasioto River, which is the Cumberland River.  Every tribe was forsaking old methods of warfare with the spear and the bow for the white man's guns. They had no choice. It was arm up with guns, or be enslaved by those tribes with them.  

Emil Fouche was the half-Huron bastard of that legendary captain and explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville. Born in 1690 in Quebec, New France, he flourished under the patronage of the powerful Le Moyne family of that province and accompanied his father to the colony of Louisiana, which he founded in 1700. It was a hard luck sojourn, for he found himself for several years attached as a sort of informant for the Le Moynes in the various settlements along the Mississippi and Mobile Rivers.  At length he found himself at the furthest fringes of the French Empire. Here was a god-forsaken outpost named Fort Toulouse, along the Coosa River near what is now the town of Wetumpka.  It was a log palisade surrounding a few hovels, and around which a sort of Indian camp was erected.  It was guarded by a platoon of Troupes de Marines and they were commanded by a Marine Captain named Francois Marchand de Courcelles, whom the natives called Bald Eagle on account of his pate. 

Emil was no stranger to the frontier. He had been on missions for the Le Moynes to Arkansas, Illinois and even Haiti. He's been shot with arrows, he's killed men with his hatchet, he's sold scalps. But Fort Tolouse was an especially bereft place. He was warned in Mobile by his superiors that Captain de Courcelles had "gone native." He'd served two terms in what was being called Alabama, and had married a Creek princess named Sehoy. He was known to have practiced scalping to the dismay of the Jesuits and he held considerable influence over the Creeks of that region.  Captain de Coucelles would be his controlling officer in his next mission, which was to dislodge the English from the Nickajack by alliance with the Natives. 

And so he rowed the bateaux through the great swamp of the Tensaw and up the Alabama River through wild country and the bluffs of the piedmont, the banks brooding and primeval. Arriving at the sullen fort deep in the interior, the Marines escorted him into the presence of Captain de Courcelles.  He wore his linen blouse and white wool jacket open, where you could see the tattoos some crazed shaman had scratched upon his chest.  A squaw hung on his arm as he sat behind an incongruously imported desk of crafted mahogany.  She was on her knees murmuring and knitting and looked quite pregnant. The Bald Eagle was as bald as a tonsured monk.  The only wrinkles his face beheld were on his chin and his heavy jowls. His pate was as taut as it were stretched at a tannery.  He rubbed water from an enamel basin over his speckled scalp and leaned back.  Lighting an enormously long pipe of tobacco he eyed Emil with suspicious eyes.  

So you are the spy?  You're a Le Moyne.  You are also a Half Blood.  What is your blood, Metis?  

Huron. You know my father, Emil replied confidently.

Yes, I know your father, I know your family. I've fought with them.  And here you are! Welcome to Alabama! A sergeant beside him chuckled. I've got orders for you, he continued. He withdrew an envelope sealed in red wax from a letter box and passed it to Emil.  

The Captain took another long puff from his pipe and passed it to his squaw. He gazed longingly at her as she did so, and he poured a brandy into a glass and drank it hazily. The orders were that Emil should proceed north into the region known as the Nickajack where he was to intercept a pair of white cousins who were English gun and slave traders penetrating into that country.  They were known as Havelock and Lang.  Not much more was known about them.  You have the support of a Jesuit Missionary at the Shoals, the apprentice of which is a La Moyne agent from Illinois Country who goes by the name of Duplantier. Win the support of the local natives and eliminate the English interlopers.  God go away with you.  Your beloved uncle, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, Governor of Louisiana.  

And so after a three month ordeal through the mountains of Alabama and arriving here at the island called Chickasaw Fields, he sat before Kis'Kambu and wondered how he might turn him and his people from the English. The twenty muskets the Le Moyne's had given him were not enough.  He needed something to really impress these people and win their admiration.  It meant guns, of course, but it could mean more than that.  Emil understood that the novelty of the alien impressed the natives, in as much as the alien drew himself unto it. And so he returned to Fort Toulouse where Captain de Courcelles was absent, for his controller was casting about the countryside dressing as a Creek chief himself and dancing about the council fires.  Without authorization from the Captain, Emil subscribed to a Casquette Girl in Mobile and brought her to Fort Toulouse where he was married to her by a Jesuit and began to trek north with her towards the Nickajack. 

Her name was Jeanne Dorvil, and she was an orphan swept off the streets of La Rochelle and committed to transportation to Louisiana as a Casquette Girl.  Her experiences in the Old World were one of unspeakable depradations and poverty.  But the journey upon which she was embarked now with her strange Half-Blood husband would lead to places she could not, in her imagination, have even wondered of. She was going to the Nickajack.  

Huntsville City Map, 1819

This is a map depicting Huntsville city around the time of the statehood convention in 1819.