American Blood by Jason Manning Read Free Book Online Page A

their warmest regards."
    "Of course you do! Of course you do! Hugh, thanks for fetching him at the levee. Stay and have a drink."
    "Don't mind if I do. Thank you, Jacob."
    "Good, good." Bledsoe strode to a sideboard strewn with decanters and glasses. "Gentlemen, name your poison."
    Falconer opted for good Kentucky bourbon. Having acquired a taste for port during his years in England, Delgado indulged it. Bledsoe poured himself a dollop of an expensive claret. As the St. Louis merchant performed the honors, Delgado had a moment to study his host.
    Bledsoe was a short, stocky man. The thinness of hair on the top of his head was compensated for by a magnificent set of muttonchop whiskers. His nose and chin were pugnacious, but that was offset by the merry twinkle in his eye. Here wasa man who enjoyed life. A self-made man pleased with his accomplishments. Bledsoe was living proof that money could make one happy. Delgado's father had portrayed Bledsoe as a hard-nosed Yankee trader.
    It would be overstating the facts to say that Angus and Jacob Bledsoe were friends, but their business association of twenty years had been a mutually profitable one, and both trusted the other's integrity. Angus sold all the goods Bledsoe transported down the Santa Fe Trail: largely textiles—broadcloth, muslin, taffeta, calico, and velveteen, with buttons, razors, thread, writing paper, knitting pins, and scissors thrown in. In exchange, Bledsoe enjoyed exclusive rights to the wool, furs, silver, and gold that Angus shipped back up the trail, gladly paying the export duty levied by the Mexican government on all specie taken into the United States.
    Once they were all seated, drinks in hand, Bledsoe asked Delgado about his journey, and Delgado obliged with a blow-by-blow account of his adventures since departing the hallowed halls of Oxford.
    "I think I should have sailed directly to Tampico, however," he concluded. "These excursions of mine have been pleasant, but costly for my father. Still, it was he who insisted I visit the United States and, specifically, to come see you, sir."
    "Angus has your best interests at heart, my boy," replied Bledsoe. "No doubt he was aware that for some time now there has been a debate in this country regarding the seizure of the port of Veracruz, or Tampico, as a jumping-off point for a strike overland at Mexico City. Already, Commodore Connor's squadron is patrolling Mexico's gulf coast. I expect just such an expedition to become a reality by the end of the year, and I suspect General Winfield Scott will be at its head."
    Delgado did not care to dwell on the subject of the war, so he changed the subject.
    "I wonder, Mr. Bledsoe, if you could give me some advice. It concerns a subject with which I believe you are familiar."
    "By all means," said Bledsoe, beaming. "By all means."
    "Though I doubt my father would approve, I won some money at cards aboard the
Sultana . . ."
    Bledsoe chuckled. "Tell him you did it to defray some of the expense of your travels."
    "Yes, sir. But the currency situation here in your country is somewhat confusing."
    "True, true. This is the heyday of wildcat currency, my boy, there being no stable system in place for the issuance of government paper since Andy 'By God' Jackson dealt the Bank of the United States its death blow. Every state, county, and bank now issues its own notes, and much of it is practically worthless, or, at the very least, depreciates drastically the moment you are a stone's throw from the establishment which issued it. There is one bank, however, that enjoys a record of unblemished integrity and soundness, which imparts upon its paper the merit of full value even so far away as New York and Philadelphia. I refer, sir, to the Banque des Citoyens de la Louisianne, of New Orleans. I can only hope your winnings are comprised of that institution's dixies."
    "Dixies?"
    "Ten-dollar notes. Printed in English on one side and French on the reverse.
Dix
is French forten, as I