Crockett of Tennessee Read online

  “Blast it, Crockett, you seem determined to be a bane to me! This Indian vote of yours is only part of it. Look at the record! In the time you’ve been here, you’ve opposed me on the lands issue—”

  “Only because you’ve seemed to cast your lot with the enlightened yeomanry of our state ’stead of the common man you were supposed to represent.”

  “—on the matter of West Point, which you seem to want to actually close down—”

  “It’s the rich and the ‘elite’—there’s a new word I’ve learned here in Washington, Mr. President—who are served by West Point, while the poor and common man’s taxes pay for it.”

  “—and you’ve opposed me on the Indian removal—”

  “For reasons I’ve made plain.”

  “—and you’ve supported the Maysville Road bill, which I have vetoed.”

  “Now, there’s a prime case showing the changes that bad advice has made in you, Mr. President. Back in the Senate you supported federal road improvements for places like our own home state, and now when you’re in the White House, you’ve gone and given such a bill the boot. You see, President Jackson, all I’ve done is what’s right and gone ahead with it. You, you’ve been listening so much to bad counselors that I don’t believe you have a clear notion of what right is anymore.”

  Jackson stopped and faced Crockett. For several moments all was silent except the quiet music of the river, the singing of birds, the rustle of trees, and the farrago of noises made by city and waterway. At last Jackson drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “I’ll never draw you into the fold, will I, Crockett?”

  “I’ve never left it, sir. It’s you who’ve done that.”

  “Words, words! Endless words! You play with them, shift them here and there, like a boy playing with tin soldiers. Hear me, Crockett. I’d appreciate your support. Appreciate it more than you could know. Give it to me, and your political future is assured. Deny it, and …”

  “And what, Mr. President?”

  Just then, as chance would have it, a large beetle came scuttering from beneath a loose board lying amid trash along the river. It passed between the two men, and Jackson reached out his foot, caught the beetle beneath it, and slowly, deliberately, audibly, crushed it. Crockett watched, then lifted his eyes to look squarely into Jackson’s.

  “Do you understand, Crockett?”

  David smiled slowly. “It’s been a pleasure walking with you, Mr. President. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

  “Where I need you to walk with me, Crockett, is in the halls of Congress.”

  “I’ll do it gladly, sir, when I see you walking the right road. Otherwise, I reckon I’ll have to content myself with having walked with you here today.”

  Jackson eyed him coldly a couple of seconds. “Goodbye, Crockett. I wish you a pleasant summer—as you try to explain to your constituents why you voted against the Indian measure that they surely approve to the man.”

  “And a happy summer to you too, Mr. President. And may your conscience be as clear as mine will be when we see the results of this measure you love so well.”

  Without another word Andrew Jackson spun on his heel and strode back to his carriage. As it rumbled away into the city, David waved. Then he glanced down at the crushed beetle.

  “Move over, friend,” he said. “If that man has his way, it appears I’ll be joining you.”

  Gibson County, Tennessee, Summer 1830

  There were no more than a score of men in the crowd gathered before the porch of the feed store, but to David they looked like a hundred. The angry expressions accounted for this. He stood as tall as he could, pulled his shoulders up and his increasingly paunchy stomach in, and smiled in a friendly way, trying to inject a little goodwill into the dour-faced group.

  “Well, what do you have to say for yourself, Colonel Crockett?” a man at the front asked.

  “In regards to what?”

  “In regards to this!” The man slapped at a newspaper he held. “Did you give this speech in Congress?”

  “Yes, I did.” David knew exactly what was in the newspaper. It was a copy of the Jackson Gazette from a couple of weeks or so before. The newspaper had printed the Indian removal speech he had made to Congress, explaining his vote. He wasn’t glad at all the speech had received such a public airing in the press. In a concession of principle to expediency, David had arranged to have the speech left out of the congressional Register of Debates, but someone had leaked a copy to the newspapers anyway. Since the speech’s publication, David had been accosted everywhere he went. It was enough to make him wish Congress were still in session and he was in Washington City rather than Tennessee.

  “And you actually voted against the Indian removal?”

  “Yes. I was the only man in the Tennessee delegation to do so. You know my motto, men: Always be sure you’re right, then go ahead. You’ll notice it don’t say nothing about being sure the way you’re going is the way everybody else is too.”

  “Well, this is one time you should have goed with everybody else. We appreciate what you’ve tried to do with your land bill, Colonel—but you’re dead wrong on this one. Dead wrong.”

  “Well, I knew there’d be aplenty thinking that way when I cast my vote.”

  “How do you defend yourself!” someone else yelled.

  “Have you read the speech, friend?” David answered. His naturally short temper was burning pretty hot inside him, but he was managing to hide it—a skill political life had given him.

  “No.” From the humble, mumbled tone of the answer, David figured the man probably was illiterate.

  “Well, sir, let me summarize my reasons.” And briefly he outlined the same arguments he had put forth in explaining his vote to Congress.

  “Hell, let them redskins be moved out and damned, for all I care!” a voice yelled. “One of them red coons killed and scalped my pappy, and cut away his privates just to spite him as he lay a corpse!”

  A rumble of outrage and agreement passed through the crowd. A man beside the first speaker took a step forward. “Colonel Crockett, you was elected to represent the people who voted for you. The people don’t agree with what you done.”

  “I know that, sir. I’ve tried to stand with my constituents at every place, but this was a time I had to listen to my conscience. I’d rather make an error of politics than an error of the heart. Even if you can’t agree with my vote, I hope you can understand that.”

  “The truth is Colonel, I’ve been growing right weary of several things about you. I don’t like the split with the Jackson men—and there’s no point in you denying it, because the papers are full of the proof of it—and I don’t like all the broken promises about the land bill. I ain’t seen diddly nor squat of that yet, after all this time and talk.”

  “I haven’t broke my promise,” David replied. “I’m still fighting for the land bill, and I intend, by the eternal days, to see it passed!”

  “More talk! That’s all we get from Washington! Talk and jabber! I say the hell with it!”

  “Many’s the time I’ve felt like saying the same thing myself. Men, I wish I could take every one of you into the congressional hall and let you see what a fight it takes to get even the smallest bit of good done. It’s a shameful thing, and I battle it every day.”

  “Well, battle a little harder, and next time, you vote the way your people want!” a man yelled.

  “And stand with Andy Jackson!” another man added. “I’m an Old Hickory man, and proud of it!”

  “That’s fine for you, friend, but around my neck you won’t find a collar bearing the name Andrew Jackson and the words ‘My dog.’ Jackson’s party wanted me to wear such a collar, and I refused. As a result, they banished me from their midst. I’ll stand with Old Hickory at any time he meets one condition, that being that he’s in the right. I’ll not stand with him when he’s in the wrong. The folk of Tennessee merit better than that.”

  “Old Hickory!” the man
yelled. “Long live Old Hickory!”

  David opened his mouth; his temper was really up now. But he held back his words, closed his lips and smiled. “Good day to you, gentlemen. Good day.”

  He walked away, leaving the men to talk among themselves. His ears burned from his knowledge that it was he they were chewing over. To the devil with them, he thought. I did what I thought was right, and that’s the end of it.

  The frightening thing, though, was that it also could mean the end of him as a political figure. Next year’s election would tell the story; he could only hope he wouldn’t end up crushed like a beetle beneath a Jacksonian foot.

  Winter 1830

  Elizabeth Crockett shivered in the icy wind as cold-hardened pellets of snow stung against her face. This was just a peppering of snow, not enough to lay, but three days before, a seven-inch snowfall had blanketed the land, and here in the shady woods most of it remained, even though it had mostly melted off the open roads and fields a day ago.

  “Are you really sure you want to see it … her?” John Wesley asked. “There’s no real need for it.”

  “Yes. Don’t worry about me, John Wesley. Whatever it looks like, I’m sure I’ve seen uglier sights. Are they sure it’s a woman?”

  “No doubt about it. Long hair, wearing a dress. And there’s enough of her left to even tell a little what she must have looked like.”

  The snow on the trail was much disturbed here, reflecting the abundant movement of men in this area since just after dawn. A pair of hunters had found the shallow grave by the first light of day; they would have passed over it entirely had not wolves or dogs dug into it, exposing a skeletal arm. The hunters had gone to the nearest house and given word, leading to a big party of men heading out and excavating the grave. Most of them were still there, talking seriously but excitedly, and standing around in postures of importance, as men will do at such times.

  “Mrs. Crockett, howdy,” said a tall fellow with a long and very thin beard. This was Joe Baggett, one of the hunters who had found the body. “Have you come to see the corpse?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s no sight for a woman.”

  “It’s as much a sight for a woman as a man, I would think. Especially since the body is a woman. And this is Crockett property she was found upon.”

  “Whatever suits you, then. The corpse is yonder under that blanket. We’re still waiting for the sheriff to come.”

  The blanket lay nearly flat, indicative of the degree the body had decayed. John Wesley walked with Elizabeth to the blanket, took a breath and held it, then knelt and flipped back the cover of the cloth. Elizabeth stared without expression on the leathery face, drawn back tight over the skull, with bone showing through at the cheekbones, nose, and around the mouth. The teeth were strong and white, indicating, along with the dark and thick hair, that this had been a young woman.

  She knelt and looked closer; unseen by John Wesley, her hand closed around something on the ground, then slipped to the pocket of her coat. She stood.

  “Cover her back up now,” Elizabeth instructed, and John Wesley complied with haste. He turned away, looking pale. Elizabeth had not lost her color; the gruesomeness of the sight meant nothing to her. Her concern was with the ramifications of this bizarre find.

  “If the sheriff wants to talk to me about this, I’ll be at my house,” she said to Baggett. “Although there’s nothing I can tell him.”

  “Yes ma’am. I’ll tell him.”

  Walking with John Wesley the mile and a half back to the house, Elizabeth said, “I suppose she was murdered.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I don’t know any other reason she would be buried in such a way, except to hide the body.”

  “But there was a clump of evergreen in her hands, and they was folded over her breast,” John Wesley said. “Like she was buried with ceremony.”

  “That’s strange, especially since whoever buried her must have been the same one who murdered her … or maybe it wasn’t murder.” She paused. “I wish your father was here.”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat and brought up an uncomfortable matter. “Betsy, I’m thinking that she may have been mother to that baby that was brought to the house.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she was. I figured that the moment I heard she had been found.”

  “But why would somebody kill her and then bring her baby to a doorstep for rescue?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t killed. Maybe it was a natural death.”

  That afternoon the county sheriff did call and ask a few questions, but he didn’t seem to be holding out any suspicions toward the Crockett family. The younger Crocketts, children of David and Elizabeth and jokingly called the “second crop” by their father, crowded around—Matilda, Sissy, Elizabeth Jane, Robert, these ranging in age from nine to fourteen. The sheriff talked to them too, but they had nothing to tell.

  That evening, Elizabeth sat alone by the fire, examining the thing she had picked up from beside the corpse. It was a bracelet that had slipped from the bony wrist of the corpse. It had been easy to palm away unnoticed. Elizabeth wasn’t sure why she had picked it up. It had been an entirely impulsive act. But it had given her information: the dead woman’s name had been Matty. Probably short for Matilda, Elizabeth guessed. The name was etched crudely on the inside of the bracelet.

  Rising, Elizabeth went to a nearby writing table and fetched paper, quill, and ink from a drawer. She sat down and began writing a letter of her husband, away in Washington City. He would need to know about the corpse found near his house. She would go ahead and tell him about picking up the bracelet, and about the name “Matty,” but warn him to tell no one those details. She had withheld them from the sheriff, fearing she would be in trouble for disturbing the evidence, and she didn’t want to be found out through anything David might say.

  Chapter 43

  A fire burned brightly on the hearth, the room was fragrant with the scent of the doctor’s pipe, and the remnants of an excellent supper of roast beef, potatoes, carrots, and biscuits sat on two plates on the table, abandoned by two well-filled men. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant, but David’s mood was somber.

  Ibbotson put down Betsy Crockett’s letter, which David had just let him read, and removed his spectacles. “Quite an event,” he said. “A corpse, buried near your home … my my. And you believe, I gather, that this unfortunate Matty may somehow be associated with this Tarr fellow you once knew?”

  “Yes,” David replied. It had been a big decision on his part to reveal the existence of and his association with Persius Tarr to Ibbotson, but after receiving Betsy’s disturbing letter, he had been compelled to do so. He felt the need of Ibbotson’s wisdom and advice on this very troubling matter. “I first met Persius when we were small boys. I was separated from him a number of years more, then ran across him again in my youth. And you can figure the kind of man he is from what I’ve told you.”

  “You’re speaking of this killing in Jefferson County that you mentioned?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think this Persius Tarr is a wicked man?”

  “Not wicked, maybe. Just bedeviled. Trouble seems to follow him.”

  “How can you be sure that Persius Tarr has anything to do with that baby, or the buried woman? And how can you know the dead woman was mother of the baby at all?”

  “I can’t know she was the mother, but it would seem mighty unlikely that she ain’t. I mean, how likely is it that a foundling baby and a dead young woman are going to turn up on the same little plot of ground without there being a tie between the two? And as for Persius, I believe he was involved because of the silver piece my son found in the baby’s wrap. The last time I seen that piece of silver was when I gave it to Persius Tarr one night in camp during the Creek War. He’s the one who had it, so he must have been the one to put it in that baby’s wrap.”

  “Why did you give the silver to him in the first place?”

  David ten
sed but tried not to show it. He had told Ibbotson about Persius’s escape from the army camp shortly after the Tallusahatchee massacre, but he had not told about the slain guard or revealed his own involvement in the entire affair. He had told Ibbotson simply that a soldier from Jefferson County had recognized and identified Persius as a fugitive accused murderer. He had no wish for Ibbotson to know the whole story, particularly the part involving himself. “It was just a token. Friendship.”

  “Are you certain the silver piece in the baby’s swaddling was the same one?”

  “Yes. That silver was a gift from a deaf-and-dumb uncle who was held Indian captive for more than fifteen years. He mined it himself in captivity, and it was a prized possession for me. I know every little turn and twist of that silver chunk; it was the same one, no question.”

  Ibbotson scratched his chin. “This whole business is odd, very odd. And I can see why you have concern, your wife being there in Tennessee without you, and foundling babies and dead bodies turning up on her without explanation.” Ibbotson leaned forward, looking intently at David. “Have you considered the possibility that this Persius Tarr might have killed the woman and buried her?”

  “I’ve considered it. But I can’t make it cipher out on those lines. Why would he kill her and then bury her all pretty and laid out, with an evergreen sprig in her hands? You don’t pretty up corpses of folks you’ve murdered. And what about the baby? Why would he have laid it on my doorstep if he’s a murderer? Why didn’t he just kill the child too?”

  “Even a killer can have his heart softened by a child.”

  “Maybe so. I can’t picture Persius harming a baby. But why would he leave the silver piece? That was as good as signing his name. He had to know I would recognize it and figure out he had been the one to leave it. No, he didn’t kill that woman. Maybe it wasn’t murder at all. The letter says there was no mark nor wound on what remained of her. And if Persius had murdered her, he wouldn’t have left the silver to prove it was him.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t expect the corpse to be found. And we must consider, why did he abandon the baby? The fact that he left it and ran away, and this after concealing a corpse—assuming it was him who buried her—makes him look as if he had something to fear, something to hide.”