Texas

by James A. Michener

  When they reached the cabin, she assumed command of the travelers, introducing her husband and the priest, and when the settlers, a family named Seaver, wanted their two children baptized in order to protect their inheritance, she arranged the informal ceremony, even though it had to be Catholic. Father Clooney performed graciously, assuring the Seavers that they were bringing their children into the family of God and praising them for the loving care they had obviously bestowed upon their offspring. Yancey noticed, during the prayer, that upon any likely occasion Father Clooney spoke of love, and one morning he asked about this, and was told gently: ‘Son, we’re forced by circumstance to lead harsh and sometimes cruel lives. We’re driven from our villages. We live in exile along El Camino Real. We lose our health, and sanity seems not to abide with us. What really is left?’ At this point Yancey realized the old fellow was describing his own condition. ‘The love that God bestows upon us,’ Clooney said. ‘And the love that we share with one another, that’s all we have.’

  ‘Who do you love?’ Yancey asked, and the priest replied in dreamlike sentences: ‘I love the bishop who sent me into this exile, because it was his duty to do so. I love Víctor Ripperdá, who treated us so poorly because he bears great burdens. I love the Seavers, who watch over their children in this wilderness. And I love you Quimpers for the bold way in which you face life.’

  After the Quimpers and Father Clooney crossed the Trinity River, they followed its right bank eastward for some days until they intercepted a minor but well-defined road leading to the old Spanish mission complex at La Bahia, later to be known by its more famous name of Goliad. Had they remained on El Camino Real they would have reached San Antonio; this new road would carry them southwest into the empresario lands of Stephen F. Austin.

  At the spot where the Goliad Road crossed the Trinity River they came to a small settlement, and in its cabins were six couples who had married without the sanctification of clergy. They warmly welcomed the arrival of Father Clooney, whose prayers and written certificates would regularize their unions. Yancey, unaware of the insecurities which could gnaw at families in the wilderness, could not appreciate the joy with which the couples greeted the priest: ‘Why are they so excited about getting a piece of paper?’ His mother tried to explain that not only was legal possession of land involved but also a secure place within society, but he asked: ‘They have their cabins. They have their guns. What more do they need?’ and his mother explained: ‘No man or woman is ever safe until they have their land. So they can pass it along to their children.’ He said: ‘But with all this empty land, anybody can have anything,’ and she warned: ‘You can have it for a while, as long as it’s still empty. But when people start pressin’ in, the sheriff comes around some day and asks: “Where’s your paper … provin’ that this land is yours?” and on that day, if you don’t have the paper, other men can move in and take your land away.’ She said this solemnly, and added: ‘That’s what happened to your father in Tennessee. He had made the land his, done everything, but he had no papers, so they took it away.’

  Demanding that her son sit down and pay full attention, she said: ‘It’s the duty of a man to find his land, take possession, and protect it. Because without land, a man ain’t nothin’.’ And from such admonitions young Yancey began to erect the emotional framework which would structure his life: Get land, like Mom says. Be a good fellow, like Pop.

  His attention was diverted by the festive preparations under way for the celebration of the six marriages, and he accompanied his father and three villagers on a hunting expedition to secure meat for the barbecues that would follow the ceremonies. They went far afield, shot two buffalo, six deer and two wild pigs, providing enough food for days of gorging, but Jubal wished to do more: ‘You got any turkeys around here?’ and when the men said that some roosted in the dead trees along the Trinity, he told them: ‘Carry the meat back to the cabins. Yancey and me, we’re goin’ to get ourself a couple of turkeys.’

  This was a dangerous boast, and Jubal knew it, for the shooting of a wild turkey demanded great skill and patience; killing a buffalo was ten times easier. He began his sortie by heading for the river, then trailing along it in search of the kind of exposed tree in which the great birds liked to roost at sunset. The moon was not going to rise till about midnight, and its help would be needed if he was going to see the turkeys perched on the bare limbs. ‘Why don’t we shoot them in daylight?’ Yancey asked, and his father said: ‘Nothin’ in this world harder to shoot on the ground than a turkey. They got nine extra senses and a bell which rings if an enemy steps close: “Trouble out there!” I’ve shot me many a turkey, but never on the ground.’

  When they found a promising tree, with signs beneath it indicating that birds might have roosted, they took a position from which they would be able to see the turkeys in silhouette, and as they waited for the birds to arrive, Yancey asked: ‘Is what Mom says true? Do you have to have land?’ and Jubal replied: ‘Your mother’s very strong-minded on some things, and usually she’s right. But on this I’m beginnin’ to have doubts. A man needs a woman. He needs children. He needs faith in God. But often he don’t need a settled cabin and a hunk of land to which he’s tied. He can do very well just movin’ about.’

  ‘Do you want land?’

  Jubal considered this, sucked his teeth, and said: ‘For your mother? Yes. To put her heart at ease. For me? No.’ Without endeavoring to explain this decision, he added: ‘In Tennessee I had a bad time. I wish I had nothin’ to do with documents and lawyers and courts. I’m a better man than any of them, Yancey, and you’re to be the same.’

  He was not at ease about his son, for he detected in the lad a lack of firm character. Yancey had not mastered the gun. He could not track an animal. And at the slightest inconvenience he tended to whimper, as he was doing now: ‘Why do we have to stay here in the dark?’

  ‘Listen! That’s turkeys comin’ in to roost.’ And in the darkness the watchers could hear the movement of heavy wings as the huge birds, barely able to fly, made massive efforts to lift themselves high enough in the air to glide onto the waiting limbs.

  ‘When the moon moves behind them, we get turkeys.’ He instructed his son how to pass him the gun when the firing began: ‘There’ll be time for two shots. We must make them count. So as soon as I fire the first gun, hand me the other, like this. No other way but this: push … slap … stand back.’ After they had practiced several times while the turkeys made soft noises in the tree, he said: ‘I think you have it right, Yance.’

  There came a moment of great beauty when the moon first edged above the horizon, bathing the river bottom in a radiant light, and even Jubal gasped when he saw the silhouettes of turkeys perched in the farthest trees: ‘All day they root about the ground for food. All night they sleep in trees. Waitin’ for us, Yance.’

  Finally the moon was right, and Jubal whispered: ‘No better time than now.’ Checking to be sure his son was properly positioned, he took careful aim with his first gun, held his breath, and fired its precious bullet at the big birds. Almost before the sound could be heard, a turkey dropped from the tree, and with a speed that startled his son, Jubal reached for his second gun. But the noise and the unexpected speed startled the boy, who did not deliver as promised. There was confusion and enough delay to allow the turkeys time to scatter, so that when Jubal finally did bring his gun into position the trees were bare.

  For a moment Jubal was tempted to berate his son for the maladroit way he had allowed the birds to escape, but he restrained himself, for this incident, coming after many others like it, merely confirmed Jubal’s suspicion that his son was never going to be a hunter. He could be something else, for he was intelligent, but the hard, stony character that made a reliable hunter was lacking.

  The marriage ceremony for the seven couples—another having come many miles to join the festivities—was both a triumph and a disaster, for the food which the hunters had provided enabled the women to build a feast t
hat would be long remembered, and with a very good fiddler on hand, the dancing would be lively and prolonged. The social success of the affair was assured; it was the spiritual that provided the trouble, because on the afternoon of the day when the weddings were to be solemnized at dusk, with the baptisms of the couples’ children to follow, one of the men grew chicken-hearted: ‘Hell, I been livin’ with Emily for six years, always knowin’ that if things went wrong … ppphhhttt … no trouble. Now she’s tyin’ a knot about my neck—no, thank you.’ And off he went into the woods.

  It was the general opinion that Lafe Harcomb had merely suffered an attack of gun-shy and that within a day his friends could lure him back to the ceremony, so the weddings were postponed, and the men were correct in their guess, because about noon on the next day Lafe came straggling back to town: ‘She ain’t half bad, my woman. We been through a lot together. Flood … attacks by them Karankawa raidin’ north. I doubt I could do much better.’

  So the multiple ceremony was rescheduled for that afternoon, but now a more serious problem arose, and it was the women who circulated the distressing news: ‘Father Clooney is too drunk to officiate.’ When the men investigated, they found that after the preceding day’s disappointment, Father Clooney had found a rather large jug of whiskey. He was immobilized, unable to speak coherently, and just as belligerent as when he had told his bishop to go to the devil.

  Since the Quimpers were more or less in charge of the priest, the settlers looked to them for a solution, but they had none. ‘He’s blind drunk, quite unable to stand, let alone conduct a weddin’,’ Mattie told the women. ‘He’s in there singin’ old songs and he’s wet his drawers.’

  For a second time the wedding had to be postponed, and the couples converged on the Quimpers: ‘Get him sober and keep him sober till tomorrow mornin’. Husbands runnin’ away. Priests dead drunk. Let’s get this thing finished.’ So a watch was set over Father Clooney, and slowly through the night the tremendous cargo of alcohol he had absorbed drained from his system, and at dawn Mattie assured the others: ‘I think he’ll be able to stand up after breakfast.’

  But during the night a much different problem surfaced at this crossroads, for a tall, acidulous man who introduced himself as Joel Job Harrison came to the cabin where the Quimpers were tending their drunken priest and said in conspiratorial tones: ‘I suppose you know. I’m sure they must have told you.’

  ‘What?’ Mattie asked.

  Harrison glanced about, then stared contemptuously at the inert priest: ‘I’m a Methodist minister. I do what I can to keep the true faith alive in this papist land.’

  ‘Doesn’t the government …?’

  ‘It must never know. I work in secret … to keep the true faith alive.’

  ‘And if they catch you?’

  ‘All the people in these cabins, they all support me.’

  ‘Then why don’t you marry them?’ ‘I have. Secretly, at night.’

  ‘Why do they marry a second time with the priest?’

  ‘To ensure their land.’ Bitterly, without compassion, he looked down at the prostrate Catholic: ‘Look at him! God’s vicar! Guide to lost souls, and himself more lost than any.’

  Jubal said: ‘What’s going to happen to you if … I mean in the years ahead?’

  Reverend Harrison, for he was indeed an ordained Methodist missionary, looked about the cabin, drew close to the older Quimpers, and said: ‘Surely, Texas will soon be flooded with trustworthy Protestants. When that happens, we’ll break away from Mexico. What will happen to me in the years ahead? I’ll build a strong church in a free Texas.’

  ‘You could be shot for such talk,’ Jubal said, drawing away.

  ‘Jesus was crucified for His talk, but everything He said came to pass.’

  ‘What do you expect of us?’ Mattie asked, and the tall man said: ‘Food when I pass your way. Help when I organize meetings in your region.’ Again he looked down at the unconscious priest: ‘There lies the enemy. As helpless as the Mexico he represents.’ And like a ghost he vanished.

  On the third try, the seven marriages were solemnized in accordance with Mexican law; Father Clooney was unsteady on his feet and somewhat cotton-mouthed in his speech, but after the vows were exchanged and the paper-marriages brought into the family of the Lord, he surprised the audience by bending his head back and sending to heaven a prayer that might have come from all their hearts:

  ‘Almighty Father, we are Your smallest children. We have no cathedral here in the wilderness. We have no choir to sing Your praises, no trumpets to proclaim Your glory. We are drunk when we should be sober, and we run away when we should stand firm.

  But we do our best. We join hands in love and have children to bless us. We help the poor and care for the infirm. We pay our lawful taxes.

  ‘God in heaven, we beseech You to look after us. We are not a mighty force and there are no generals or cardinals among us. But we occupy the frontier and establish new footholds for Your law, and in our humility we ask for Your blessing. Amen.’

  On the third day south along the Goliad Road, Yancey had a chance to see what his family and Father Clooney meant when they spoke of love, for when they approached a cabin on the western side of the road a bedraggled young woman so weak she could scarcely stand called to them: ‘We are dying. We’ve had no food for days.’ And when they entered the cabin they found that it was so.

  ‘My man, a deep fever. He cannot move.’ There on the hut’s lone cot lay a man near death, shaking with fever, and in a corner, his two daughters, three and five, huddled like skeletons.

  ‘I cannot leave and hunt,’ the woman said, and as she saw Mattie, another wife in the wilderness, she ran to her, fell into her arms, and collapsed weeping. Then, slipping from Mattie’s grasp, she fell to the floor.

  Yancey was astonished by the speed with which his parents and the priest responded to this cry for help: Father Clooney took charge of the children and started feeding them from his store; Mattie prepared a paillasse on the floor and placed the wife upon it, whispering as she did: ‘It’s goin’ to be all right. Your children are bein’ fed.’

  Jubal said crisply: ‘Son, fetch the rifles!’ They hunted all morning, killing enough game to feed the family for weeks, then they butchered the best parts and dragged them back to the cabin, where they camped for nine days until the health of the family was restored. As soon as the husband was strong enough to sit up, Jubal and the priest engaged him in gambling for Mattie’s corn, and the lonely cabin was filled with jollity as the women did the work and Yancey looked on.

  ‘You can make do, now,’ Jubal assured the family. ‘We’ll kill a couple more deer or somethin’, and things’ll be all right.’

  As they prepared to leave, Mattie asked: ‘Have you papers stating that the land is yours?’ and when they replied yes, she told them: ‘Half the battle’s won. You’ll surely be all right.’

  When they had the cart loaded, the man showed them a trick which would make its progress even more expeditious, for he drove one of his precious iron nails deep into the wood at the front, forcing the nail back upon itself to form a loop through which he passed a rope: ‘One pushes from behind, one pulls from the front,’ and automatically Mattie fitted herself into the rope and prepared to start pulling, but before she did so the settlers offered advice which they thought might prove vital: ‘As you move into Austin’s land, keep careful watch for the Karankawa,’ and Mattie asked: ‘What are they?’ and they explained: ‘Big Indians, powerful. They live along the Gulf but they been raidin’ north. Taller than those we see around here. And they eat people.’

  ‘But that’s impossible!’ Father Clooney protested, whereupon the wife said sharply: ‘It may be impossible in Ireland, but not here. The Kronks, they do eat people.’

  ‘Not in my parish!’ Rumpling through his papers, he found a report, and said, almost like a protesting little boy: ‘They told me the Indians would be found only along the seacoast.’

  ‘That w
as last year. But so many white people movin’ in, they’ve had to come inland. We heard they ate a family on the Brazos.’

  ‘I’ll put a stop to that,’ Clooney said, and the woman warned: ‘You’d make a tidy morsel, Father.’

  They had been on their way only two days, heading for the Brazos River, when Yancey saw an alligator, huge and menacing, lurking on the bank of a small stream. Its ugly jaws, locked but with teeth showing, seemed capable of biting a man in half; its bumpy hide glistened menacingly in the sun.

  ‘Shoot him!’ the boy shouted, but his father said: ‘Let him go. If you don’t bother him, he don’t bother you.’ And with a well-aimed stone he nicked the alligator’s tail, so that the beast snapped his jaws and disappeared into the muddy water.

  One morning Jubal said: ‘More trees ever’ day. Must be approachin’ the Brazos,’ and other signs appeared, confirming their nearness to that spinal column of Texas. But Mattie, always alert to messages from their proposed home, saw more ominous signs: ‘Someone’s out there. Behind the trees. Followin’ us.’

  Her husband said deprecatingly: ‘Nothin’ out there, Matt, old girl,’ and on they plodded.

  But Mattie was not satisfied, so on her own she left the trail to inspect the trees, and when she reached them she found herself suddenly facing nine or ten of the tallest, fiercest Indians in North America. They were immense, powerful of arm and leg, and she knew they were the cannibals. They were supposed to be on the seacoast, but here they were, in the forest.

  Before they could grab her, she uttered a wild scream: ‘Kronks!’ and as the echo ricocheted through the trees, she started running to rejoin her men.