An Embarrassment of Riches. James Howard Kunstler
returned to his face. “I shall be honored to prepare a portrait of our quarry,” I corrected myself and bowed.
“And I shall be honored to receive it, and yourselves, tomorrow, for I shall like to see it.” He edged us toward the door. “Remember, William, years ago when I was conducting my experiments with the hessian fly?”
“Yes…?”
“O, how I long to be free for such pursuits instead of the detestable toils that keep me here! Politics is a grim duty. Natural philosophy—that is my soul’s passion. How I envy the two of you!”
Uncle and I exchanged an uncertain glance.
“A demain, dear friends,” Jefferson said and showed us out the door. His antechamber was now quite packed with waiting petitioners. Watching them watch us depart filled me with a feeling of importance for the first time in my life. The grandeur of the presidential office had temporarily altered my vision. Everything seemed to glow. And the unfinished mansion itself appeared no longer ignoble, but a monument to Diablo’s uncompromising genius.
It was after a supper of oyster flitters and boiled crabs in the public room of Rupert and MacSneed’s Hotel that we spied those selfsame officers we had seen earlier that day leaving the President’s office, viz., the fair, upright Lieutenant Clark and the broad-shouldered, gloomy Captain Lewis. Whether by chance or intention, they joined us at the fireside where Uncle and I were enjoying a rum punch in celebration of the day’s events.
“Ah, gentlemen,” Uncle greeted them heartily. “I trust your business with Mr. Jefferson was agreeable. Art lately dispatched to some solitary outpost beyond the setting sun?”
The two exchanged a guarded glance.
“And you, sir?” the fair one replied without answering Uncle’s question, “Have you just been named envoy to some glittering capital beyond the rising sun?”
“Why, hardly, sir,” Uncle scoffed at the notion. Then, he leaned forward and in a confidential whisper said, “We are about to undertake a presidential mission of … reconnaissance.” Uncle had consumed a bottle of Madeira (the Malmsy) with his supper, and he was, frankly, tipsy.
“Who? You and the boy?” the baleful Lewis asked.
Boy! thought I. I refilled my pipe and lit it with a splinter from the hearth. Uncle cleared his throat.
“How large is your party, sir?” the sunny Clark persisted pleasantly.
“O, quite substantial,” Uncle confided. “And thee, sir? Art bound for Ontario or some such?”
“Louisiana,” the dark Lewis said tersely.
“French Louisiana?” I exclaimed, alert to the scent of a military adventure.
“French no longer,” Lewis said dryly. “It is American Louisiana now. We have purchased it from Bonaparte.”
“O, la!” Uncle rejoined merrily, thinking it all a jest. “That is rich, my boys!”
“You haven’t heard the news?”
“I hear it now, ha ha….”
“Our government has bought the tract entire,” Clark declared sincerely. “It is a fait accompli.”
This time it was Uncle and I exchanged the wary glance.
“Yes, it shall be announced publicly any day now. The size of our republic has doubled overnight. Monroe has been bargaining at Paris for weeks. I suppose the little dictator decided to sell while the selling was good. Of course, they had no chance of sustaining their claim over time. Sooner or later it would have been overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. Already the little outpost at St. Louis is three-quarters American. The wonder is that we paid anything at all.”
“The French are our staunchest friends amongst the bestiary of nations,” I remarked naively. “We could hardly steal their territory and remain so.”
“A noble sentiment, lad,” Clark responded, and I could not tell whether he was making a joke at my expense. “Where was it you said you were bound for?” he changed the subject without altering his jovial tone.
“We are oof—”
“We didn’t say,” Uncle cut me off, boring his elbow into my ribs.
“Ah,” Clark said. “And how large did you say your party was?”
“Fifty men,” Uncle told them without flinching. “And your party, sirs?”
“About the same,” Clark said. “Perhaps a few less. Yours sounds like quite the corps.”
“O, ’tis, ’tis.” Uncle agreed and sipped his punch. “Might I inquire how much in the way of supporting funds has the President requisitioned for thee?”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars,” Clark said.
I dropped my pipe.
“And you, sirs?” Lewis asked.
“In that range,” Uncle said.
“The President is not one for half-measures when it comes to matters of … reconnaissance, eh?” Lewis said. “A toast to our far-sighted chief!”
“Why, ho! Indeed!” Uncle said, trying to sustain his mask of merriment. We lifted our cups in salute. I could not fathom what demon of vanity had pushed Uncle to such a skein of fabrication. I suppose he simply did not want to be outdone.
“You are not, by any chance, bound also for Louisiana?” Lewis next inquired. Though I did not know it at the time, he had served for some years as personal secretary to Jefferson, and few were better acquainted with the master’s ever-devious mind than this melancholy fellow-Virginian.
“This much I may tell you,” Uncle addressed the pair. “In thy foot-tracks I shall not tread.”
“It is Mexico, then,” Lewis muttered to his partner.
“Poof! Not that land o’ rats and cockatrices!” said I.
“Nephew!” Uncle remonstrated, “thou art about to catch flies. Close thy mandible. Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure. Come, Sammy. Good luck to thee and may the Lord smile on your endeavor—er, has it a name, by any chance?”
“Why, yes,” the fair lieutenant said. “The Corps of Discovery.”
“And yours?” Lewis inquired.
“’Tis a secret,” Uncle said with a pained smile. Clark beamed brightly. Lewis scowled. “I trust thy discoveries will be happy ones. Goodnight to you. Come, Sammy….”
“Corps of Discovery! Piffle!” Uncle fumed when we reached our room upstairs. “Fifty men! At twenty-five hundred dollars! Whilst we are a mere pair, at an hundred! O, shame, Thomas, that thee should use thy old friend at such a penury!” Uncle shook his fist at the wall in the direction of the President’s house.
“But Uncle, an hundred dollars for two persons works out the same as—”
“Don’t bother me with countinghouse blather, Sammy,” Uncle railed on. “’Tis a matter of honor. And to lack a name, some signature of our endeavor…. O, shame and shame again!”
“Why not invent our own?”
“Without an official commission? Pah!”
“Who is to say that those two officers did not think up the Corps of Discovery on their own? Why not call ourselves the Corps of Wonders and Marvels?”
“Corps of … hmmmm. It rings nicely upon the ear.”
“Go to sleep then, Uncle, whilst I spend an hour sketching a portrait of this handsome fellow, megatherium.”
Uncle undressed and climbed into bed.
“Hmmmph … Corps of Discovery, indeed….” Uncle fluffed his pillow and drew