He patted the knife under his blanket, turned around, and bestowed the grin on the whole room.
"You see, gentlemen? Easiest thing in the world to figure out, if you're not an imbecile like Calhoun. I never have trouble with runaway slaves. You're not planning to flee from lawful bondage, are you, Chester?"
"No, sir. Don't need to. 'Bout another two months, and I'll have saved up enough to buy my way free."
Houston's eyes widened. "Why:so you will. And since you learned how to blacksmith along the way, you won't have any trouble setting yourself up."
Akins didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, seeing Baxter get his comeuppance was worth its weight in gold. On the other:
Hiring out slaves as craftsmen was common, of course. Many of them were quite skilled, in fact. But Houston's practice of letting his slaves keep their wages was just plain:
"Some people say I'm a lunatic, Chester," Houston boomed. "A veritable bedlamite!"
"Yes, Mr. Sam. But maybe we ought to be going, now. Before your enemies learn where you are."
"Probably a good idea. Mr. Akins, the bill, if you please."
Less than a minute later, Akins had the money-a tavern still intact, too-and Houston was on his way.
He watched him and the slave Chester for a while. The slave rode a horse just as well as the colonel did.
"That man is pure crazy," he muttered.
His wife had come out of the tavern and was standing next to him.
"I thought you said-bean't more than two months ago-that if Colonel Houston ever ran for senator from Kentucky, you'd vote for him."
"Well, yes. He got rid of the Indians for us, didn't he? And he backs Jackson against the stinking bank. The Senate's way out there on the coast, anyway. But I sure wouldn't vote for him as governor. "
"Nobody would," his wife agreed, "outside of a bedlam house."
1824: TheArkansasWar
CHAPTER 3
"Probably shouldn't have done that," Sam admitted, a couple of hours later. They'd stopped at a creek crossing to let their horses drink.
Chester studied the creek intently, as if the small stream were vastly more fascinating than any other body of moving waters on the face of the globe. " 'Probably' meaning how, Mr. Sam? 'Probably,' as in 'I probably shouldn't have baited that bear'? Or 'probably,' as in 'I probably shouldn't have stuck a pitchfork in Sam Hill'?"
Houston grinned. "Oh, surely the latter. But since I'm not a sinner-well, not much of one-what do I have to fear? Sam Hill won't have no hold on me, when the blessed day comes. Hand me the whiskey."
Chester rummaged in the saddle pack and came out with the bottle. He didn't say anything, but the expression on his face made clear his disapproval.
"And stop nattering at me," Sam said.
"Didn't say a word."
"Didn't need to." He opened the bottle, took a hefty but not heroic slug from the contents, stoppered it up, and handed it back to Chester. "See? Just needed something to take the taste out of my mouth. Blasted meat was practically raw."
As always, the warm glow in his belly steadied his nerves. Which needed it, in truth. There'd been a lot of encounters like that over the past two or three years. They'd been getting uglier, too.
The United States had been hit by a series of crises, coming in quick succession. Sam thought people would have handled the Panic of 1819 and the economic dislocation that followed. They'd also have handled-well enough, anyway-the Missouri Compromise that Henry Clay had engineered the following year, and the political tensions that came with it. Sam was no admirer of Clay, but he'd admit the man's vaunted political skills had been fully evident in that crisis.
But together, the Panic and the Compromise had brought the nation to a heated point just short of boiling-and then John Calhoun had seized upon the Treaty of Oothcaloga and the Algiers Incident to advance his proslavery political program. His speeches and actions had met a receptive audience in much of the South and the West. Almost overnight, it seemed, Sam Houston had gone from being a man generally admired both for his heroism in the war with Britain and for his settlement of the most acute Indian land questions, to the architect of a fiendish scheme to undermine the supremacy of the European race in America in favor of its lesser races.
"Still not sure how that happened," he muttered, looking down at the back of his hand. "My own skin's still as white as ever."
"What was that, Mr. Sam?"
Houston glanced at Chester. "Just talking to myself."
He decided to change the subject. "When are you planning to buy your freedom, by the way? It'd be handy if you'd let me know a bit ahead of time, you rascal, so's I don't get caught in the lurch."
Chester went back to his creek-scrutiny. "Well. Wasn't actually planning on it, all that soon, Mr. Sam. Thought I'd keep saving up my money. Once we get to Arkansas, I can put it in Mr. Patrick's bank. It'll be safe there."
"Wonderful! Now you'll make me a liar, too."
Chester smiled apologetically but didn't look away from the water. "You didn't say anything about it in the tavern, Mr. Sam. I was the one said I could buy my way free in 'bout a couple of months. Wasn't lying, neither. I could. But 'could' and 'would' is two different things. I just don't see the point in being a freedman when I wouldn't have enough money left to do anything more than work for someone else. I'm gonna do that, might as well keep working for you. There's really not all that much difference for a poor man, when you get right down to it, between a master and a boss-and, either way, you're the best one I know."
Sam rolled his eyes. "In other words, you're agreeing with Calhoun. Slavery's just the thing to elevate the black man. While his poor downtrodden white master pays the bills."
Chester's smile widened and lost its apologetic flavor. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Sam, but I don't recall Mr. Calhoun ever saying anything about black men being free, at any time, for any amount of money."
Sam scratched his chin. "Well, no. Of course not. If Calhoun had his way, freedmen wouldn't exist at all. How'd he put it in his recent speech to the Senate?"
His accent took on a mimicry of a much thicker and more Southern one. " 'I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color as well as intellectual differences, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good-a positive good.' "
Sam dropped the accent and shook his head. "Not much room there for freedmen. Now that they've gotten exclusion acts passed in most states, Calhoun and his people are pushing to make manumission illegal altogether. Not to mention getting laws passed that make teaching slaves how to read and write illegal."
Chester stopped smiling, then.
"He's a prize, Calhoun is." Sam leaned over and spit in the creek. Not so much as a gesture of disgust-although that was there, too-as to get rid of the taste of raw meat he still had in his mouth. The whiskey had helped some, but not enough.
For a moment, he contemplated taking another slug but decided against it. He'd already drunk almost a quarter of the bottle this morning. He wasn't worried about being able to ride a horse, of course. Sam could manage that with a full bottle under his belt. But he had an awkward interview coming up today, and he needed his wits about him.
"Come on," he said. "The horses have had enough, and I'd like to make it to the senator's house by midafternoon."
"Hi, Sam!"
"Hi, Sam!"
He grinned at the twin girls scampering around the front yard of Blue Spring Farm, as Richard M. Johnson's house and plantation were called. "Settle down, will you? You're making the horse nervous."
The admonishment had as much effect as such admonishments usually have on twelve-year-old girls. Fortunately, Sam's horse was a placid creature.