Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II, Page 2

  Hooch stopped at the gate of the stockade. Now, there was a nice touch. Right along with the standard hexes and tokens that were supposed to ward off enemies and fire and other such things, Governor Bill had put up a sign, the width of the gate. In big letters it said

  CARTHAGE CITY

  and in smaller letters it said

  CAPITAL OF THE STATE OF WOBBISH

  which was just the sort of thing old Bill would think of. In a way, he expected that sign was more powerful than any of the hexes. As a spark, for instance, Hooch knew that the hex against fire wouldn’t stop him, it’d just make it harder to start a fire up right near the hex. If he got a good blaze going somewhere else, that hex would burn up just like anything else. But that sign, naming Wobbish a state and Carthage its capital, why, that might actually have some power in it, power over the way folks thought. If you say a thing often enough, people come to expect it to be true, and pretty soon it becomes true. Oh, not something like “The moon is going to stop in its tracks and go backward tonight,” cause for that to work the moon’d have to hear your words. But if you say things like “That girl’s easy” or “That man’s a thief,” it doesn’t much matter whether the person you’re talking about believes you or not—everybody else comes to believe it, and treats them like it was true. So Hooch figured that if Harrison got enough people to see a sign that named Carthage as the capital of the state of Wobbish, someday it’d plumb come to be.

  Fact is, though, Hooch didn’t much care whether it was Harrison who got to be governor and put his capital in Carthage City, or whether it was that teetotaling self-righteous prig Armor-of-God Weaver up north, where Tippy-Canoe Creek flowed into the Wobbish River, who got to be governor and make Vigor Church the capital. Let those two fight it out; whoever won, Hooch intended to be a rich man and do as he liked. Either that or see the whole place go up in flames. If Hooch ever got completely beat down and broken, he’d make sure nobody else profited. When a spark had no hope left, he could still get even, which is about all the good Hooch figured he got out of being a spark.

  Well, of course, as a spark he made sure his bathwater was always hot, so it wasn’t a total loss. Sure was a nice change, getting off the river and back into civilized life. The clothes laid out for him were clean, and it felt good to get that prickly beard off his face. Not to mention the fact that the squaw who bathed him was real eager to get an extra dose of likker, and if Harrison hadn’t sent a soldier knocking on his door telling him to hurry it up, Hooch might have collected the first installment of her trade goods. Instead, though, he dried and dressed.

  She looked real concerned when he started for the door. “You be back?” she asked.

  “Look here, of course I will,” he said. “And I’ll have a keg with me.”

  “Before dark though,” she said.

  “Well maybe yes and maybe no,” he answered. “Who cares?”

  “After dark, all Reds like me, outside fort.”

  “Is that so,” murmured Hooch. “Well, I’ll try to be back before dark. And if I don’t, I’ll remember you. May forget your face, but I won’t forget your hands, hey? That was a real nice bath.”

  She smiled, but it was a grotesque imitation of a real smile. Hooch just couldn’t figure out why the Reds didn’t die out years ago, their women were so ugly. But if you kind of closed your eyes, a squaw would do well enough until you could get back to real women.

  It wasn’t just a new mansion Harrison had built—he had added a whole new section of stockade, so the fort was about twice the size it used to be. And a good solid parapet ran the whole length of the stockade. Harrison was ready for war. That made Hooch pretty uneasy. The likker trade didn’t thrive too good in wartime. The kind of Reds who fought battles weren’t the kind of Reds who drank likker. Hooch saw so much of the latter kind that he pretty much forgot the former kind existed. There was even a cannon. No, two cannons. This didn’t look good at all.

  Harrison’s office wasn’t in the mansion, though. It was in another building entirely, a new headquarters building, and Harrison’s office was in the southwest corner, with lots of light. Hooch noticed that besides the normal complement of soldiers on guard and officers doing paperwork, there were several Reds sprawling or sitting in the headquarters building. Harrison’s tame Reds, of course—he always kept a few around.

  But there were more tame Reds than usual, and the only one Hooch recognized was Lolla-Wossiky, a one-eyed Shaw-Nee who was always about the drunkest Red who wasn’t dead yet. Even the other Reds made fun of him, he was so bad, a real lickspittle.

  What made it even funnier was the fact that Harrison himself was the man who shot Lolla-Wossiky’s father, some fifteen years ago, when Lolla-Wossiky was just a little tyke, standing right there watching. Harrison even told the story sometimes right in front of Lolla-Wossiky, and the one-eyed drunk just nodded and laughed and grinned and acted like he had no brains at all, no human dignity, just about the lowest, crawliest Red that Hooch ever seen. He didn’t even care about revenge for his dead papa, just so long as he got his likker. No, Hooch wasn’t a bit surprised to see that Lolla-Wossiky was lying right on the floor outside Harrison’s office, so every time the door opened, it bumped him right in the butt. Incredibly, even now, when there hadn’t been new likker in Carthage City in four months, Lolla-Wossiky was pickled. He saw Hooch come in, sat up on one elbow, waved an arm in greeting, and then rocked back onto the floor without a sound. The handkerchief he kept tied over his missing eye was out of place, so the empty socket with the sucked-in eyelids was plainly visible. Hooch felt like that empty eye was looking at him. He didn’t like that feeling. He didn’t like Lolla-Wossiky. Harrison was the kind of man who liked having such squalid creatures around—made him feel real good about himself, by contrast, Hooch figured—but Hooch didn’t like seeing such miserable specimens of humanity. Why hadn’t Lolla-Wossiky died yet?

  Just as he was about to open Harrison’s door, Hooch looked up from the drunken one-eyed Red into the eyes of another man, and here’s the funny thing: He thought for a second it was Lolla-Wossiky again, they looked so much alike. Only it was Lolla-Wossiky with both eyes, and not drunk at all, no sir. This Red must be six feet from sole to scalp, leaning against the wall, his head shaved except his scalplock, his clothing clean. He stood straight, like a soldier at attention, and he didn’t so much as look at Hooch. His eyes stared straight into space. Yet Hooch knew that this boy saw everything, even though he focused on nothing. It had been a long time since Hooch saw a Red who looked like that, all cold and in control of things.

  Dangerous, dangerous, is Harrison getting careless, to let a Red into his own headquarters with eyes like those? With a bearing like a king, and arms so strong he looks like he could pull a bow made from the trunk of a six-year-old oak? Lolla-Wossiky was so contemptible it made Hooch sick. But this Red who looked like Lolla-Wossiky, he was the opposite. And instead of making Hooch sick, he made Hooch mad, to be so proud and defiant as if he thought he was as good a man as any White. No, better. That’s how he looked—like he thought he was better.

  Then he realized he was just standing there, his hand on the latch pull, staring at the Red. Hadn’t moved in how long? That was no good, to let folks see how this Red made him uncomfortable. He pulled the door open and stepped inside.

  But he didn’t talk about that Red, no sir, that wouldn’t do at all. It wouldn’t do to let Harrison know how much that one proud Shaw-Nee bothered him, made him angry. Because there sat Governor Bill behind a big old table, like God on his throne, and Hooch realized things had changed around here. It wasn’t just the fort that had got bigger—so had Bill Harrison’s vanity. And if Hooch was going to make the profit he expected to on this trip, he’d have to make sure Governor Bill came down a peg or two, so they could deal as equals instead of dealing as a tradesman and a governor.

  “Noticed your cannon,” said Hooch, not bothering even to say howdy. “What’s the artillery for, French from Detroit, Spani
sh from Florida, or Reds?”

  “No matter who’s buying the scalps, it’s always Reds, one way or another,” said Harrison. “Now sit down, relax, Hooch. When my door is closed there’s no ceremony between us.” Oh, yes, Governor Bill liked to play his games, just like a politician. Make a man feel like you’re doing him a favor just to let him sit in your presence, flatter him by making him feel like a real chum before you pick his pocket. Weil, thought Hooch, I have some games of my own to play, and we’ll see who comes out on top.

  Hooch sat down and put his feet up on Governor Bill’s desk. He took out a pinch of tobacco and tucked it into his cheek. He could see Bill flinch a little. It was a sure sign that his wife had broke him of some manly habits. “Care for a pinch?” asked Hooch.

  It took a minute before Harrison allowed as how he wouldn’t mind a bit of it. “I mostly swore off this stuff,” he said ruefully.

  So Harrison still missed his bachelor ways. Well, that was good news to Hooch. Gave him a handle to get the Gov off balance. “Hear you got yourself a white bed-warmer from Manhattan,” said Hooch.

  It worked: Harrison’s face flushed. “I married lady from New Amsterdam,” he said. His voice was quiet and cold. Didn’t bother Hooch a bit—that’s just what he wanted.

  “A wife!” said Hooch. “Well, I’ll be! I beg your pardon, Governor, that wasn’t what I heard, you’ll have to forgive me, I was only going by what the—what the rumors said.”

  “Rumors?” asked Harrison

  “Oh, no, you just never mind. You know how soldiers talk. I’m ashamed I listened to them in the first place. Why, you’ve kept the memory of your first wife sacred all these years, and if I was any kind of friend of yours, I would’ve known any woman you took into your house would be a lady, and a properly married wife.”

  “What I want to know,” said Harrison, “is who told you she was anything else?”

  “Now, Bill, it was just loose soldiers” talk; I don’t want any man to get in trouble because he can’t keep his tongue. A likker shipment just came in, for heaven’s sake, Bill! You won’t hold it against them, what they said with their minds on whisky. No, you just take a pinch of this tobacky and remember that your boys all like you fine.”

  Harrison took a good-sized chaw from the offered tobacco pouch and tucked it into his cheek. “Oh, I know, Hooch, they don’t bother me.” But Hooch knew that it did bother him, that Harrison was so angry he couldn’t spit straight, which he proved by missing the spittoon. A spittoon, Hooch noticed, which had been sparkling clean. Didn’t anybody spit around here anymore, except Hooch?

  “You’re getting civilized,” said Hooch. “Next thing you know you’ll have lace curtains.”

  “Oh, I do,” said Harrison. “In my house.”

  “And little china chamber pots?”

  “Hooch, you got a mind like a snake and a mouth like a hog.”

  “That’s why you love me, Bill—cause you got a mind like a hog and a mouth like a snake.”

  “Keep that in mind,” said Harrison. “You just keep that in mind, how I might bite, and bite deep, and bite with poison in it. You keep that in mind before you try to play your diddly games with me.”

  “Diddly games!” cried Hooch. “What do you mean, Bill Harrison! What do you accuse me of!”

  “I accuse you of arranging for us to have no likker at all for four long months of springtime, till I had to hang three Reds for breaking into military stores, and even my soldiers ran out!”

  “Me! I brought this load here as fast as I could!”

  Harrison just smiled.

  Hooch kept his look of pained outrage—it was one of his best expressions, and besides it was even partly true. If even one of the other whisky traders had half a head on him, he’d have found a way downriver despite Hooch’s efforts. It wasn’t Hooch’s fault if he just happened to be the sneakiest, most malicious, lowdown, competent skunk in a business that wasn’t none too clean and none too bright to start with.

  Hooch’s look of injured innocence lasted longer than Harrison’s smile, which was about what Hooch figured would happen.

  “Look here, Hooch,” said Harrison.

  “Maybe you better start calling me Mr. Ulysses Palmer,” said Hooch. “Only my friends call me Hooch.”

  But Harrison did not take the bait. He did not start to make protests of his undying friendship. “Look here, Mr. Palmer,” said Harrison, “you know and I know that this hasn’t got a thing to do with friendship. You want to be rich, and I want to be governor of a real state. I need your likker to be governor, and you need my protection to be rich. But this time you pushed too far. You understand me? You can have a monopoly for all I care, but if I don’t get a steady supply of whisky from you, I’ll get it from someone else.”

  “Now Governor Harrison, I can understand you might’ve started fretting along in there sometime, and I can make it right with you. What if you had six kegs of the best whisky all on your own—”

  But Harrison wasn’t in the mood to be bribed, either. “What you forget, Mr. Palmer, is that I can have all this whisky, if I want it.”

  Well, if Harrison could be blunt, so could Hooch, though he made it a practice to say things like this with a smile. “Mr. Governor, you can take all my whisky once. But then what trader will want to deal with you?”

  Harrison laughed and laughed. “Any trader at all, Hooch Palmer, and you know it!”

  Hooch knew when he’d been beat. He joined right in with the laughing.

  Somebody knocked on the door. “Come in,” said Harrison. At the same time he waved Hooch to stay in his chair. A soldier stepped in, saluted, and said, “Mr. Andrew Jackson here to see you, sir From the Tennizy country, he says,”

  “Days before I looked for him,” said Harrison. “But I’m delighted, couldn’t be more pleased, show him in, show him in.”

  Andrew Jackson. Had to be that lawyer fellow they called Mr. Hickory. Back in the days when Hooch was working the Tennizy country, Hickory Jackson was a real country boy—killed a man in a duel, put his fists into a few faces now and then, had a name for keeping his word, and the story was that he wasn’t exactly completely married to his wife, who might well have another husband in her past who wasn’t even dead. That was the difference between Hickory and Hooch—Hooch would’ve made sure the husband was dead and buried long since. So Hooch was a little surprised that this Jackson was big enough now to have business that would take him clear from Tennizy up to Carthage City.

  But that was nothing to his surprise when Jackson stepped through the door, ramrod straight with eyes like fire. He strode across the room and offered his hand to Governor Harrison. Called him Mr. Harrison, though. Which meant he was either a fool, or he didn’t figure he needed Harrison as much as Harrison needed him.

  “You got too many Reds around here,” said Jackson. “That one-eyed drunk by the door is enough to make a body puke.”

  “Well,” said Harrison, “I think of him as kind of a pet. My own pet Red.”

  “Lolla-Wossiky,” said Hooch helpfully. Well, not really helpfully. He just didn’t like how Jackson hadn’t noticed him, and Harrison hadn’t bothered to introduce him.

  Jackson turned to look at him. “What did you say?”

  “Lolla-Wossiky,” said Hooch.

  “The one-eyed Red’s name,” said Harrison.

  Jackson eyed Hooch coldly. “The only time I need to know the name of a horse,” he said, “is when I plan to ride it.”

  “My name’s Hooch Palmer,” said Hooch. He offered his hand.

  Jackson didn’t take it. “Your name is Ulysses Brock,” said Jackson, “and you owe more than ten pounds in unpaid debts back in Nashville. Now that Appalachee has adopted U.S. currency, that means you owe two hundred and twenty dollars in gold. I bought those debts and it happens that I have the papers with me, since I heard you were trading whisky up in these parts, and so I think I’ll place you under arrest.”

  It never occurred to Hooch that Jackso
n would have that kind of memory, or be such a skunk as to buy a man’s paper, especially seven-year-old paper, which by now should be pretty much forgot. But sure enough, Jackson took a warrant out of his coat pocket and laid it on Governor Harrison’s desk.

  “Since I appreciate your already having this man in custody when I arrived,” said Jackson, “I am glad to tell you that under Appalachee law the apprehending officer is entitled to ten percent of the funds collected.”

  Harrison leaned back in his chair and grinned at Hooch. “Well, Hooch, maybe you better set down and let’s all get better acquainted. Or I guess maybe we don’t have to, since Mr. Jackson here seems to know you better than I did.”

  “Oh, I know Ulysses Brock all right,” said Jackson. “He’s just the sort of skunk we had to get rid of in Tennizy before we could lay claim to being civilized. And I expect you’ll be rid of his sort soon enough here, too, as you get the Wobbish country ready to apply for admission to the United States.”

  “You take a lot for granted,” said Harrison. “We might try to go it alone out here, you know.”

  “If Appalachee couldn’t make a go of it alone, with Tom Jefferson as President, you won’t do any better here, I reckon.”

  “Well maybe,” said Harrison, “just maybe we’ve got to do something that Tom Jefferson didn’t have the guts to do. And maybe we’ve got a need for men like Hooch here.”

  “What you have need for is soldiers,” said Jackson. “Not rummers.”

  Harrison shook his head. “You’re a man who forces me to come to the point, Mr. Jackson, and I can calculate right enough why the folks in Tennizy sent you on up here to meet with me. So I’ll come to the point. We’ve got the same trouble up here that you’ve got down there, and that trouble can be summed up in one word: Reds.”