"So, to get back to the point, there's no way Patrick would want the Red River cleared of the Great Raft. In fact, I think that's the main reason he went into business with Henry Shreve. Sure, and he's gotten rich from that partnership, too-everything Patrick touches seems to turn to gold, these days-but that's not why he did it. Now that Fulton's dead, Shreve's probably the only man in the United States today who'd have the wherewithal to figure out how to clear the Great Raft. So Patrick made sure to tie him down good and solid. As long as the Great Raft stays where it is, he doesn't have to worry about anybody using the Red River to attack him. His southern flank is pretty well protected."
Julia shook her head. "Man sounds a little crazy, to me."
Sam drained the last of the whiskey, grinning through the glass. "So people say. Lots of them."
He didn't bother to add but not me. The grin alone made it obvious enough.
He found Richard Johnson in one of the barns, attending to farm business of one kind or another. Something to do with a cow, apparently. Sam wasn't quite sure, because he'd decided at an early age that farming was even more boring than storekeeping. Tedium was bad enough on its own without piling study onto the affair.
He didn't need to, anyway, since as soon as the senator spotted him, Johnson broke off his discussion with the two slaves handling the barn animals and came over.
"You leaving now?"
" 'Fraid so, Dick. I want to make it to the Confederacy by the end of the month, and:ah:"
"You've got to pay a visit to the general first."
Sam half winced. "Yes, I do. Can't say I'm looking forward to it, this time."
Johnson studied him. "On account of how you figure you may have lost the general his chance to get elected president."
"You could have maybe sweetened that a little. But:yeah. On account of that."
Johnson looked away for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, maybe you did. Although I think Jack Hartfield's right. If Andy had just kept his mouth shut after Algiers, I don't think the affair would have hurt him much. He was not in any way directly involved, after all."
"I think Jack's probably right, too. But you know the general. Andy Jackson has a lot of virtues. Being fair-minded-especially when it involves something he did-just isn't one of them. Not usually, at least."
"True enough. Well, you have my sympathies. Give the general my best regards, will you?"
"Certainly."
Sam hesitated, then added: "But there's something else I wanted to raise with you, Dick. Tell me the truth. How bad are you hurting?"
Johnson looked away again. "In terms of money? Pretty bad, Sam." A half-whining note of resentment crept into his voice. "I was hoping the schooclass="underline" "
The one thing Sam didn't want to do was rehash that matter. "Forget the school," he said forcibly. "You would have lost money on it, anyway. Did lose money, and plenty of it, before you even got it set up."
He summoned up the memory of his mad charge on the Creek barricade at the Horseshoe Bend. That seemed as good a model as any.
"Look, Dick, face it. You're a man I think well of personally, and a public figure I admire even more. But when it comes to business, you're a walking disaster. You've got no head for it, at all."
The senator scowled but didn't argue the point. Given his track record, that'd be pretty much impossible, even for a man as generally insouciant as he was.
So Sam kept the charge going. "I think there's a way out of the bind you're in, but you'd have to be willing to do two things. First, go into partnership with a man who does know how to make businesses run profitably."
Johnson snorted. "And why would that be a problem for me? Except-good luck, finding a smart businessman who'd touch me with a ten-foot pole. Why should he? I've got nothing to bring to a partnership, Sam. No skill at it"-the scowl came back, for an instant-"as you've just been unkind enough to rub my nose in. And no capital to back someone who is. I'm broke, Sam. Worse than broke. I'm up to my waist in debts, and pretty soon the creditors are going to take me to court. The ones who haven't already, that is. Won't be surprised at all to see Henry Clay arguing the case for 'em. My biggest creditor is the Second Bank, after all, and he's one of their top lawyers whenever he takes the time away from his political chiseling."
Sam took a deep breath, remembering that final moment when he'd scaled the barricade. Right after Major Montgomery got his brains blown out by a Creek bullet.
"I've got a partner for you, Dick. He'll put up the skill, and he'll put up all the money. In fact, he'll advance you enough to fend off your creditors. Far enough off to give you some breathing room, anyway, while he gets the business up and running and turning a profit."
Johnson's eyes widened, and then immediately narrowed. " What business? And who is this paragon? Or bedlamite, I should say. Why in the world would a sane man do something like that?"
"The business is complicated. More complicated than I can follow, to be honest. Mostly it involves setting up a big foundry-biggest west of Cincinnati-but that also requires expanding the steamboat traffic. Expanding a foundry, I should say, since it's already in operation. But the expansion would be major. The man I'm talking about is one of the silent partners in the steamboat business Henry Shreve and Patrick Driscol set up."
Another deep breath. "His name is Henry Crowell, and the reason he's silent is because he's black. He's gotten rich enough over the past few years that he'd like to expand his business into the United States, but he can't do that without a white partner as his public face."
Sam was half expecting an outraged reaction. Despite his relationship to Julia, Richard Johnson's general attitudes on matters of race weren't really all that different from those of most people in the country. Like Andy Jackson, Johnson was always willing to make personal exceptions to generalities. But the generalities themselves, he didn't really question much.
To his surprise, though, Johnson's face simply seemed pensive. "Crowell? That name's familiar."
"Well, it ought to be!" Sam exclaimed. "He was the teamster who supplied us at the Capitol during the battle with the British. He fought well himself, later, as part of a gun crew at the battle of the Mississippi."
Best to leave it at that, he thought. The same Henry Crowell had also been the cause of the Algiers Incident-as the victim who triggered it, if not the instigator-but Sam saw no reason to bring that up.
"Yes, that's it. But I think there was something:"
"Look, Dick," Sam said, maintaining the stout tone to keep Johnson from dwelling on the name, "Henry's as good a businessman as you can find; I don't care what color. He parlayed the supply contract I got for him for the New Orleans campaign into a small fortune-okay, real small fortune, but big enough:"
His voice trailed off. He'd just stumbled into the pit he'd been trying to avoid.
Alas, that was sufficient to jog Johnson's memory. " That Crowell? The one they castrated in New Orleans? Set off the whole blasted ruckus there?"
Sam gritted his teeth. Tarnation, he was tired of being diplomatic.
"Yes, that one," he growled. "The reason the Creoles had him castrated was because he'd gotten rich enough and prominent enough that he drew the attention of one of the girls they were grooming for one of their stinking Quadroon Balls. He almost died from the injury-castration's usually fatal, though most people don't realize it-and, yes, that's what set off the Battle of Algiers. Driscol called the Iron Battalion back into service. They marched into the French Quarter and blew the place half apart, and strung up every slave-catcher they got their hands on. Seeing as how they'd done the dirty work. Killed the Creole grandee who'd ordered it done, too. Patrick saw to that himself."
To his surprise, Johnson laughed. Quite a cheerful laugh. "And then pounded into splinters the Louisiana militia, when they got sent in to 'suppress a servile insurrection.' "