Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase by David Nevin

naughty boy, you’re late. Come give me a kiss, darling, and tell me your triumph!”
    A week later he dined at the Bull’s Head with his old friend, Jim Wilkinson. “I have a message for you, Aaron,” Jim said, “from people who count in the Congress. Federalists, you understand—they can be the key to your future.”
    He admired Wilkinson; by stealth and guile and a terrier’s willingness to snarl and scrap when aroused, he had made himself commanding general of the U.S. Army. He was a natural conniver, which often was the key to getting things done. They had been young officers in the Revolution, both drawn naturally to staff duties where skill in arranging is a quality much prized, and they had remained friends when Wilkinson went out to Kentucky and cut a wide swath as merchant, trader, speculator in that wide-open climate before the lure of duty—if that had been the lure; you never could tell with Jim—had drawn him back into the army.
    He had set aside his uniform in favor of street clothes now, but even so he drew the alcove curtain closer and turned his bulk farther to hide the letter he took from an inside pocket and slid cross the table.
    “From Harper of Maryland, and I happen to know he speaks for a good many. Hold back, say nothing, give your
friends in Congress a clear field, and the results may please you.”
    This had been a difficult week. He’d found himself torn by hungers, fears, dreams that had been as surprising as they were disturbing. Yes, he’d wanted the tie—mainly to assure the second position, but for a certain vindication too, a sign that he stood equal among giants—but he hadn’t actually considered it much further.
    Then the lightning struck. Doubtless he would step back, and yet that easy assumption had roused a visceral fury that had stunned him. All week he’d wrestled—one moment seeing the good of the party, the common expectations, the need for a stable transition if the new open democracy were to flourish—and then, like the roll of drums in his heart, why he? Was he so clearly inferior? Jefferson and his superiority the automatic leader? Did having equal votes count for nothing?
    “Have you told anyone your plans?” Wilkinson whispered.
    “No.” Burr didn’t add that his turmoil had been so great he hadn’t dared speak.
    “Good. Good. Aaron, I tell you, you can soar out of this. It can be big. Big!”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “The Federalists see huge opportunity here. You can imagine how the idea of Jefferson—and you, of course—taking office just shatters them. Not one in ten believed it would happen. Right until the last minute when our side—”
    “Our side? Since when were you on anyone’s side?”
    Wilkinson winked. “The winning side is my side, Aaron, always has been. Know why I’m a Democrat now? ’Cause they’ll open the West and the Federalists won’t.”
    “You’ve become a western patriot?”
    “Shit! Don’t be ridiculous. There are fortunes to be made in the West, fortunes that easterners can’t even imagine. It’s a place of empire. The Mississippi controls the very heart and soul of the continent, you control that river, and—”

    He broke off, grinning sheepishly, his fat, round face creasing into joviality. “My, I wax enthusiastic, don’t I?”
    “Does sound exciting.”
    “It is, it is. Unlimited future; everyone agrees.”
    “Which the Spanish at New Orleans control.” He eyed the fat general. Rumor had said for years that Wilkinson was in the pay of Spain, and Burr thought it well could be true. He knew Wilkinson would consider it quite innocent, treason in name only.
    Wilkinson smiled and waved off the Spanish with a flick of his puffy hand. “To business, dear Aaron. These Federalists are serious. They’re thinking of improving the opportunity the tie has given them, as they put it, rather quaintly, I thought. They think they can tie up the election in the Congress, they’ll vote for