Free Sign-Talker by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom Page B

sights of my rifle.
    “Thank you, Señor Lisa. I’ll keep that in mind. Perhaps when I come back we can do business in some way. I regret your present disappointment with the American captains.”
    “Buena suerte,”
Lisa said. His hand was firm but cold. “Come. I’ll escort you out.”
    “No, please. I saw how you escorted out the man before.”
    For the first time ever, he saw Manuel Lisa laugh.
    I bind Myself, my Heirs, & ca to pay unto Freiderick Graeter, or his Order, in the next Month of April, the just and full sum of Three Hundred One Dollars, Sixty Three Cents
in Specie, as per Amount to me delivered, for Value received. Fort Massac. 11th February, 1804
    GEORGE DROUILLARD
    Drouillard had not signed his name in several years, but the inked signature was not crude or sloppy. It represented him and he was pleased with the way it looked.
    It was the first time he had ever signed for a debt. Mr. Graeter had been willing to write a note lending him the money for two reasons: Drouillard last year had bought his long rifle from Graeter on a word-of-mouth agreement, and had paid for it when he promised to; also, the German merchant was beholden toLouis Lorimier in some way, and Lorimier had told Drouillard to remind him of it.
    Graeter counted out the money and gave it to him, and he put it in his possibles bag, which hung from his shoulder. He had never had so much money, and it bothered him. He now had to ride all the way to St. Louis with it, nearly a hundred and fifty miles over unpeopled prairie and lawless roads. Then he would have to trust friends of the captains to transform it into some kind of a document that could be sent six hundred miles to his stepmother in Ontario. And then in two months he would have to have the same amount somehow to pay Graeter back. He was counting on the captains somehow to get him an advance on his pay, though they had been vague on that promise. Drouillard was not very worried about that. He had seen Captain Lewis sign slips of paper and get hundreds of dollars’ worth of goods, with everyone understanding that the United States would pay.
    The primary uneasiness Drouillard felt was that a few people here in the settlement at Massac knew he was getting all this money, and knew that he would be riding out alone with it. The witness to the signing of the note, Antoine Laselle, had a look about him that did not inspire trust. Lorimier knew him and never recommended him.
    Drouillard had enough faith in his own alertness and marksmanship that he knew he would not be easy to rob, not by one or two men. Three or four might be a danger, depending on the quality of their horses and their boldness.
    A good hunter knew how to be elusive prey. Drouillard looked at the winter morning sunlight slanting through a window and said, “Gentlemen, please excuse me. I should start right out if I hope to make Lorimier’s before night.”
    They stood up and shook his hand. He would have liked to visit his uncle, and these men would fully expect him to go there.
    And so he would start out on the trace to Cape Girardeau. But in the swamps he would cut northward to the old Kaskaskias Trace, and leave no trail.
St. Louis
March 10, 1804
    The two captains stood stiff and proud in their blue uniforms, swords hanging at their sides, and on their heads the enormous hats that looked like upside-down canoes. The captains were looking up at the top of the flagpole in front of the Government House, where the blue and white and red French flag was starting to come down. Other American officers and soldiers stood in ranks, and nearby there were French soldiers and Spanish soldiers, all in their finery. The plaza was crowded with the townspeople of St. Louis, many of them looking as if they were about to weep, and in groups around the edges of the crowd there were Indians, colorful in feathers, fringe, quillwork, and silver jewelry, seeming to know ceremony when they saw it, but surely having no notion that their