1824: The Arkansas War: Chapter Nineteen

The confluence of the Arkansas and the Mississippi
October 5, 1824

    By the time their flatboat reached the confluence with the Mississippi, Scott Powers and Ray Thompson knew they were facing the most desperate situation either of them had ever encountered, in lives which had both been full of perils aplenty.

    To make things worse, the flatboat was under the control of a gang of seven men under the leadership of a fellow named Robert Lowrey. His lieutenant—using the term loosely—went by the charming monicker of Alfred “Two Bear” Decker. The nickname came from Decker’s immense size, but it could just as easily have been a reference to his intelligence.

    Or his disposition, which rivaled that of a grizzly with a sore paw. Decker had killed one man in the boat before they’d gotten more than three miles downriver from Arkansas Post, by clubbing him to death. Why? Who knew? Apparently the man had made an offensive remark of some sort. Offensive, at least, once filtered through Decker’s mudflat of a brain.

    The second man he killed—a stabbing, this time—was at the command of Lowrey.

    Why? Who knew? Apparently the man had made an offensive remark of some sort. Offensive, at least, to Lowrey—who, if he was smarter than his sidekick, also seemed to have an even more tenuous grasp of reality.

    As he proved again, the moment the flatboat came into sight of the flotilla of Arkansas steamboats that commanded the confluence.

    They’d known of the flotilla, already. Half an hour earlier, a small steamboat had come chugging back upriver, calling out a warning to the stream of crafts that were trying to make their escape into the Mississippi.

    “You cain’t get past ‘em, boys!” shouted one of the men on the steamboat. “They got’s cannons and everything! Fuckin’ niggers are killing anybody they get their hands on!”

    Lowrey had ignored the warning, and kept going. Being honest, neither Powers nor Thompson had blamed him at the time. What was the point of going back upriver? They were butchering everybody up there also. Besides, the Mississippi was a big damn river. Surely—at least with some luck—they’d be able to get past a couple of steamboats being run by illiterate negroes who thought a wrench was a funny-looking hoe.

    But now that they could actually see the Arkansans’ flotilla, Thompson and Powers immediately recognized the mistake.

    Just for starters, there were five steamboats, not the two or three they’d expected. The Arkansans must have captured prizes and turned them into jury-rigged warships. Five steamboats were more than enough to cover a river even the breadth of the Mississippi. For a second thing, sure enough, they had cannons.

    Quite a few of them, too. Peering past the monstrous figure of Two Bear in the prow, Thompson and Powers watched as two of the enemy vessels converged on a keelboat and pounded it into a wreck in less than two minutes.

    And, sure enough, men at the guardrails of the steamboats were shooting anybody who went into the water. A goodly number of the men doing the shooting were white themselves. Where in Creation had they come from?

    Finally, if those boats—not to mention the cannons—were being crewed by illiterates who had no idea what they were doing, there sure wasn’t any sign of it.

    “We’re fucked,” hissed Powers, slumping back into the bench they’d taken at the very stern of the boat, to get as far away from Lowrey and Decker as possible.

    “What do you want to do?” asked Ray. He kept his voice as low as Scott’s, not wanting the maniacs running the boat to get it into their heads they had mutineers to deal with.

    Thompson’s eyes scanned the riverbank. At least Lowrey had had enough sense to stay closer to the northern than the southern shore. By now, the south shore of the Arkansas was practically crawling with Cherokees and Creeks, coming down from the massacre at the Post and looking to add to it as best they could.

    “We could slip over the side and make it to shore,” he whispered. “Can’t be more than fifty yards.”

    “And then what?” Scott demanded. “What’s the point of being stuck in Arkansas, with no food and no horses, the clothes on our backs, and—” He checked his pouch. “Hardly any shot or powder left. Unless you got some I don’t know about.”

    In point of fact, Thompson’s pistol—he’d dropped his musket in the panicky flight to the boats—had the one shot loaded, and that was it. He was out of ball and powder altogether.

    “And then what?” Scott repeated.

    Ray had no answer. True, the Arkansans might not extend the pursuit to the north bank of the river. Given the maniacal way they’d conducted themselves thus far, though, he rated the chances of that somewhere a long ways south of filling an inside straight. But even if they didn’t, that still left the prospect of trying to get through rough country to St Louis, or at least the nearest settlements in Missouri. With no food, no mounts, and hardly any ammunition.

    The smartest thing left to do, of course, would be to wait until nightfall to try to run past the blockade at the confluence. But sundown was still a good two hours off, and Thompson was glumly certain that a man like Lowrey didn’t have the patience.

    Sure enough. “Let’s go, boys! Throw it into those poles! Them niggers cain’t shoot straight nohow!”

    Thompson wondered, given the day just past—not to mention the sight of another keelboat being ripped to pieces by the cannons up ahead—if he’d ever heard a more idiotic statement in his entire life.

    They were dead meat. Especially once they got into the Mississippi where the steamboats were cruising. Poling down the Arkansas was possible, most places. Poling down the Mississippi was chancy. They’d have to unship the oars.

    All one of them. Two Bear had shattered the second one during the first killing. Nobody knew what had happened to the other four that should have been on board.

    Dead fucking meat.

    “Pole, boys, pole!”

    Any second, Lowrey was going to look around and see that neither Thompson nor Powers had joined in the poling.

    There was only one chance, slim as it was. Thompson had half-considered it earlier, on the assumption it was each man for himself, and too bad for Scott. But now, seeing the relentless way the Arkansans were continuing the slaughter, he realized the only chance at all would depend on including Powers.

    “You lie pretty damn good, Scott,” he whispered. “And you met Henry Clay once, didn’t you?”

    “Yeah—and so what? Met him in his office in Washington that time—”

    “Never mind the details. Ever been to his place in Kentucky?”

    “No.”

    Damnation. Thompson would just have to hope the description of the Clay estate he’d gotten from Crittenden would do the trick.

    “Okay. You just stick to the personal details about Clay. I’ll do the rest of the talking.”

    “What are you—I”

    “Shut up.” He jabbed a finger toward the bow. “Shoot Two Bear. Now. I don’t dare try it with this pistol, not as big and crazy as he is. I’ll handle Lowrey.”

    “What in the—”

    One of the steamboats was coming. Coming fast. It looked as big as a mountain.

    “Just shut up and do it!” he half-shrieked.

    Lowrey heard, and started to turn around. Two Bear was still leaning into his pole, as were a number of the other men on the boat.

    “Well, shit,” Powers muttered. He rose to a crouch, leveled the musket, and shot Two Bear in the back.

    Nice clean shot. Even a man as big as Two Bear Decker couldn’t survive a .69 caliber round fired at close range that cut his spine and probably jellied half his guts in the process. He threw his hands wide, the pole went sailing, and over he went with a big splash.

    “You fucking—!” Lowrey was drawing his pistol, but Ray already had his leveled. He damn near missed altogether, with the unsteady footing, but he managed to hit Lowrey in the arm. Not much of a wound, but enough to make his own shot go wild.

    Scott was frantically reloading. Not seeing anything else to do, Ray drew back the pistol and prepared to throw it at Lowrey.

    And then a hail of canister from the steamboat’s forward gun made it all a moot point. Lowrey took maybe half the rounds himself. By the time he hit the river he was in pieces.

    The same blast killed three other men toward the bow and wounded a couple more. The steamboat started to swerve, bringing the rear gun in line.

    Ray stood up as straight as he could, balancing precariously on the bench, threw his pistol in the river and spread his hands wide.

    “We give up! We give up! I know something you want to know! I know something!”

    Scott was no dummy. He’d already pitched his musket in the river and was emulating Thompson’s stance.

    “Yeah! Yeah! We know everything! You don’t want to kill us! You’ll never find out how it happened!”

    The surviving men in the middle of flatboat were gaping at them. The steamboat’s rear gun went off and took care of that.

    The steamboat was almost alongside, now. Five men—two of them white—were leaning over the guardrail with their muskets leveled.

    “We know something!” Thompson shrieked. Desperate, now. Those men didn’t look the least bit interested in expanding their education.

    “It was Henry Clay!” Scott screeched. “Henry Clay hisself! I talked to him! Right there as near as you and me!”

    There seemed to be a slight hesitation in the way the guns were coming to bear. Well, not that. They were already to bear. Still—

    Belatedly, Thompson remembered. It was risky, but…

    He lowered his hand—left hand—and pointed to his haversack under the bench. “It’s all in there! All of it! I got the records! I was Crittenden’s money man!”

    No use. Ray could tell, just from the way the guns weren’t wavering.

    But then—

    “Hold up!” A young man in a fancy Eastern-style frock coat came to the rail. “Hold up!”

    He leaned over the rail. “Did you say, ‘Henry Clay’?”

    “Yes!”

    “Yeah! Henry Clay hisself!”

    The meanest-looking negro Thompson had ever seen was at the guardrail. Wearing a fancy uniform that Ray would have laughed at seeing on any black man anywhere else, even a doorman in Philadelphia or New York. But there wasn’t anything funny about this one.

    “You lyin’ through your teeth,” he proclaimed.

    Scott started to protest their innocence, but Ray could tell that was no use at all with this black bastard.

    “Try us, then!” he shouted. “What you got to lose?”

    The negro hesitated, then glanced at the Easterner. The young man in the frock coat came to his side and whispered something.

    The uniformed negro looked back down at them.

    “Fine. Swim on over. You tellin’ the truth, I’ll let you live.” A grin colder than Canadian winter came to his face. “Best dive in quick, though. You ‘bout to have no boat under you.”

    Thompson and Powers just barely made it off the side when another cannon blast shredded the flatboat’s stern.

    So, the worst day in Ray’s Thompson’s checkered life ended in a miracle.

    Two, actually. They didn’t even get beaten after they were hauled aboard the steamboat.

    Well. Nothing unreasonable, anyway.