“I can’t see that. Other men, bigger than me, can’t see it, either.”
“Meaning Tonpit.”
“You named him; not me. There are men over the mountains, who stand very high, who believe it would be our salvation from the Western Indians if we had Spain at our back.”
“Spain at our back today means Spain at our throats tomorrow.”
“Bosh! Then there are the Northern Indians. When you get a war-belt from Cherokee and Creek, you’ll get others from the Ohio tribes. Just now the friendship of Piomingo, the Chickasaw chief, for Robertson holds that tribe back. But what if Robertson dies or Piomingo dies? What will hold the tribe back then? And, as the Chickasaws go, so go the Choctaws, seven thousand in round numbers.”
“We haven’t come to that trail yet.”
“But it’s only a step ahead. How can the Western settlements get anywhere or do anything under the present Government? We’re shut off from the seaboard. Spain controls every mile of the Mississippi. Our tobacco rots on the ground. We’re hemmed in. If we accepted Spain’s friendly offer, we could ship our tobacco down the Mississippi and sell it in New Orleans for ten dollars a hundred. Today a man’s lucky to sell any of his crop for two dollars a hundred. And so it is with everything else. We’ve everything to win and nothing to lose.”
“Polcher, you’re a dangerous man, the most dangerous man on the border. Your trade-talk will catch some settlers who are honest at heart but who only think of selling their tobacco. You have other lines of talk to win over the man who refuses to make a move that will divide or weaken the thirteen States.
“Now listen; I know you. I see your hand in the death of Old Thatch. I understand how gladly you’d hear that the Cherokees have gone to water as a nation. I can picture your joy when you hear Creek and Cherokee have taken the red path together. Now this will surely happen: I shall kill you if I can prove you’re working to throw the Western settlements into the lap of Spain. I know you’re doing it, and, when I can prove it to the satisfaction of a dozen men like Stetson, you’ll swing.”
“You talk big about killing folks,” snarled Polcher. “Any more threats?”