John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

He was just within reach. Soon, I thought, you’ll have nothing else to tell me.

“You have a scheme, sir, I suppose?”

He looked guardedly up the bluff, then along the bank, then back to me. His head bobbed very slightly.

“I had a scheme—; now you might say it’s a policy. In a matter of two weeks, perhaps a little more, it will ripen into a fact. A fact of history, no less.” He smiled shyly. “I’ll tell you about it, if you’re curious. I’ve borrowed a page — or should I say a leaf? — from our pagan brethren-at-arms.”

I regarded him blankly for a spell. “The Indians?” I said at last.

He snapped his fingers. “ Exactement! Now listen, Kansas. The great advantage of being the common enemy is that your opponents carry the seed of dissent within them—; otherwise they wouldn’t need you. Do you follow?” He waited patiently for my nod. “Good. You are acquainted, I suppose, with the Nauva-Hoo tribe of the Rio Grande head-waters?”

I confessed that I was not.

“What!” He clucked his tongue at me. “You, who were born and raised in the territories?”

“You never see them in the territories,” I said. I paused a moment. “I don’t think they’ve been sent there, as of yet.”

“Ah! And why is that, do you suppose?”

I shrugged. My hands were twitching in my pockets. “Perhaps nobody cares about the Rio Grande head-waters.”

He scoffed at this. “Think a little, Virgil. Think! Who borders the Nauva country to the east?”

“We do.”

“And to the south?”

I considered this a moment. “Mexico.”

“Spot of trouble with Mexico a few years back, I seem to recall.”

“A spot of war,” I answered.

He gave a triumphant little jump. “Do you remember the incident that set it off, Virgil? An unprovoked attack, by the Mexicans, on a unit of Federal infantry?”

“The papers were full of it for weeks,” I said, bringing my hands out of my pockets. “There were rumors that it was staged.”

“It was staged,” Morelle said tenderly. “Beautifully staged. But not by our army, Virgil. Or by Mexico’s.”

I stared out at the river in perplexity. What he was proposing was so far-fetched that I felt foolish giving voice to it. “Do you mean to suggest, the Indians—?”

Morelle let out a war-whoop at this and jabbed me in the ribs. “The Nauva-Hoo country is rich in salt-peter and copper, and we wanted it tout de suite ! Plans were in place for the inevitable rounds of treaties, pacts, and heaven-mandated coercions—; the land was to be carved up like pork-shoulder. A joint invasion would have left the natives with no means of escape. The Nauva-Hoo were finished, Kansas! Finished! ”

I took a breath. “That’s all well and good—”

“Hssst!” He put his hand on my nape and drew me gently toward him, as one might a bashful lover—:

“A sudden stroke of genius — a pau-wau before dawn — a clutch of stolen uniforms — a strike at sunrise, with the morning sun behind them — and voilà ! From enemy to indispensable ally in a morning’s work.” He beamed approvingly at me, as if the plan had been my own. “The Nauva-Hoo of the upper Rio Grande will endure for a thousand years yet—; mark my words.” He clucked contentedly. “And so, Mr. Ball, will we.”

I said nothing for a time. “That’s a fairy-story,” I said finally. “You’re farting into the breeze.”

“What would you say if I told you I’d heard that ‘fairy-story,’ as you term it, from the chief of the Nauva-Hoo nation?”

“You’ve never met a Nauva-Hoo in your life,” I said. “It’s Nauva- Ho, first of all. And they’ve long since been driven into the mountains.”

Morelle only shrugged. “Disregard the Nauva-Hoos then, if you like. The rub of my little parable is this—: the eagle of history sheltered them, in their hour of greatest need, in the crick of its great black wing. And it will do the same for us, Virgil, if we only let it.” His eyes snapped shut. “I see that mighty eagle coming, Kansas. I see its shadow sweeping towards us. Close your eyes for an instant—: both of them. Can’t you see it too?”

“It looks more like a buzzard to me,” I said.

“A buzzard then, if you prefer.” He opened his eyes and sighed. “You do see that it’s the only way left to us, don’t you? To the Trade?”

The mention of that word, grown so hateful to me since Memphis, brought my fists out of my pockets. I had only one question left.

“Will it be at Fort Sumter?”

There was no way he could have overlooked the violence in me now. He stepped to one side and gave me a thin, proud smile.

“You have had a vision, haven’t you! If so, then you must know that there’s no way of stopping things — none whatsoever — once the black ball gets to spinning. Things that may happen don’t appear in it—; once you see them they’re as good as done already.” His face clouded for a moment. “Not that I can see why you’d want to put a stop to things. What’s come over you, dear K?”

“Will it be Sumter?” I said again. In my mind’s eye he was already at the bottom of the river. A noise had sprung up somewhere behind me — the scream of a steam-whistle, shivering and shrill — but I paid it no attention. One hard push and I’d be free. “Is it going to happen there?”

He chuckled at this and wagged a finger. “Didn’t Beauregard explain things, google-eye? Didn’t he spell things out for you?”

The whistle blew again, much louder than before. “I’m not here on Beauregard’s account,” I murmured.

“What?” Morelle said, bringing a hand up to his ear.

“Beauregard never sent me!” I shouted, seizing him by the collar. To my astonishment he was heavy as a boulder.

Morelle looked up at me disdainfully. “Don’t touch people, Kansas, when you have occasion to address them. Catching people by the arms or shoulders, or nudging them to attract attention, is a violation of good breeding. It can’t help but provoke—”

“I’m here for Clementine! For Clem, you ghastly little thing,” I cried, meaning these to be the last words he would ever hear. Heavy as he was, I hauled him inch by inch toward the water’s edge. He put up no resistance whatsoever.

The steam-boat was close enough now that I could hear shouts coming from its deck.

“Why are you blubbering, Kansas?” Morelle asked gently.

“Shut your mouth!” I gasped. I was weeping freely now.

“Afraid you’ll never see your Clem again? Is that it?”

I tried to speak, to shut his mouth, to hurl him into the current—; but all I could manage was a groan of pent-up misery.

“In that event, take heart!” Morelle said brightly, slipping free of my arms. “Turn yourself about, dear K, and welcome her!”

The groan died in my throat. My head turned smoothly, like a weather-vane, to face the approaching steamer. Clem was there on the hurricane deck, her face as empty as a well—; Parson stood to one side of her, supporting her triumphantly by the elbow. Harvey cowered to her left. Clem looked neither at me nor at Morelle nor at the landing, and I saw by the dullness in her eyes that she was looking at nothing on God’s earth.

“A precautionary measure, in the event of war,” Morelle said, stepping past me. “Try to be brave and accept it, Virgil. As a Nauva-Hoo might do.”

THE MISSIVE WAS BROUGHT TO MY CHAMBERS still sealed in its envelope of foolscap—; I forwarded it to the Butternut’s office without delay. That afternoon, when I rapped at his door, I found him reclining in his mole-skin chair with a camphored handkerchief draped over his face. Lloyd Harris, his aide-de-camp, was reading to him with sleepy fatalism from Paradise Lost, Book VII. Harris shot me a desperate smile as I entered. From the looks of him, I reckoned they’d begun at Book I sometime before dawn.