Texas

by James A. Michener

  Management of the ferry was arranged slowly and without conscious decision. Jubal had built it, and in the early days had operated it, not effectively—he did nothing effective but hunt, play cards and find pecans —but with enough skill to earn a few coins. However, when more travelers began coming their way, he found himself occupied with gathering meat during the day and gaming with the visitors at night, which meant that he was often too busy to man the ferry: ‘Mattie, old girl, I hear a stranger callin’. Can you go fetch him?’

  So she would interrupt whatever she was doing, go down the steep incline to where the ferry waited, and with increasing ability, pole it across the Brazos to pick up the traveler. In time she began to think of it as her ferry and to resent it if either her husband or her son, each stronger than she, interfered with her operation, for from it she accumulated small sums of money which she set aside to speed the day when she could have a real house.

  The Quimpers had occupied their dwelling about seven months when the owner of their land, Stephen Austin, came up the Brazos to regularize their holding, and as soon as they saw him they liked him. He was an intense smallish man in his late twenties, with a sharp face and gentle eyes. He spoke softly, was greatly interested in the progress of the ferry, and amused by the way the Quimpers had marked out their land. When he saw their corner stakes he burst into laughter: ‘You rascals! Stretching your land along the river, preempting the good frontage! Don’t you know the law of all nations?’

  ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ Quimper asked, almost belligerently. He was four years older than Austin and much heftier.

  Austin laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Let’s have a drink,’ he said, and when Mattie came with a weak but sweet wine they had made from their muscadines, he explained: ‘From the time of Hammurabi, in all orderly societies, governments have told their people: “Sure you want land. But at the river the frontage on the water can be only a small percentage of the depth of the field. You cannot own a long, narrow strip which prevents others from reaching the river.” ’

  ‘What percentage?’ Jubal asked, and he said: ‘The customary Spanish grant along the Rio Grande has been nine-thirteenths of a mile facing the river, eleven to thirteen miles back from the river.’

  ‘Outrageous!’ Mattie exploded. ‘That’s a sliver, not a field.’

  ‘I agree,’ Austin said. ‘Up here we allow a square,’ and using a stick in the dust, he sketched a more legal claim.

  He was also amused to find that the Quimpers had staked out a rather large chunk of land on the opposite side of the Brazos, where their ferry landed, and he told them: ‘My father taught me to oppose that. “No man shall own both sides of a river.” If Mexico City ever lets us have our own legislature, I’ll sponsor a law saying so.’

  ‘Our ferry has to land somewhere.’

  ‘But you can’t own both sides of the river. That would tempt you, in time of trouble, to close down the river.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Keep your dock over there. Keep your road up to higher ground. And even build a small warehouse, if you wish. I’ll certify to the Mexican government it was necessary … for public convenience.’

  Austin stayed with them for two weeks, paying liberally for his lodging, and in this time they had an opportunity to assess his character: he was straightforward, pedantic, stern in protection of what he viewed as his rights, and a loyal Mexican citizen: ‘I have surrendered all thoughts of ever returning to the United States. We have an honorable government in Tejas, and under its protection we can live in dignity and security.’

  They did not learn then, or ever, whether Austin was a true convert to Catholicism or not; some travelers insisted that he had been a stout Catholic back in Missouri, others that they knew people there who had seen him attending a Protestant church. It was definite that he had claimed Catholic membership when seeking permission to assume the huge grant which his father had acquired shortly before his death, and certainly the Mexican government considered him a loyal Catholic.

  This interpretation was strengthened when Austin spoke highly of Father Clooney: ‘When sober, he’s a devout man of God, and we’re lucky to have him in our colony.’

  But the religious problem became more complicated in the early months of 1824 when Joel Job Harrison came south from his cabin on the Trinity to organize his clandestine Methodist services. He took lodging with the Quimpers and convened his first study group at their makeshift inn, a gathering of nine families who had converted in order to get land, but whose secret sympathies were still strongly Protestant. At their first meeting up north, Quimper had not liked Harrison, for he had recognized the tall, angular man as the kind of fanatic who plunged his friends into trouble, and the man’s frenzied words had strengthened this adverse impression. But now when he saw Harrison engaged in his pastoral work and watched the compassion with which the Methodist greeted these lonely souls along the frontier, he had to admit that the gawky preacher was a man of God, as simple and honorable in his way as Father Clooney was in his, and as eloquent:

  ‘It is our holy mission here in the remote woods of Texas to keep alive the sacred fire of Protestant vision. Surely it is the destiny of this great land of Texas to be like the rest of the United States, a haven of Protestant decency and security. We are Methodists and it is our duty to preserve our faith and keep it strong for those who follow. How shameful they will see us to have been if we allow our sacred faith, the noblest possession a man can have, to wither. Friends, I implore you, be of stout heart and soon we shall see our churches flourish openly in this wilderness. We are the beginners, the sowers of seed, the keepers of the sacred flame.’

  He made the simple act of gathering for quiet worship away from the watchful eyes of the Mexican authorities an affirmation of religious and political principle, and he implied that any who did not participate were morally defunct and not worthy of the exalted name of Protestant or Texan, for he identified one with the other. He was incapable of believing that a real Texan could be a Catholic, and although he never preached his treason openly, he also doubted that a Texan could be a true citizen of Mexico.

  When Quimper asked him about this, Harrison explained: ‘I’m sure that what you say is true. Of course Austin pays homage to Mexico. He must. Otherwise he loses his land. And I’m sure he wants the public to consider him a Catholic, for this confirms his ownership. But in his heart, what is he? I’ll give you my right hand, up to the elbow, if Austin is not an American patriot waiting to take Texas into the Union, and a loyal Protestant just waiting to open our churches in this colony and in the rest of Texas.’

  The two men left it there, with Harrison convinced that the Quimpers were still faithful Methodists prepared to summon their fellow religionists to prayer sessions whenever he had an opportunity to visit his Brazos territory. ‘I suppose in my heart I’ll always be a Methodist,’ Jubal told his wife when Harrison returned north, ‘but I don’t like worshipin’ in secret, especially when it could get us into trouble.’ One evening as the pair sat and watched deer graze beneath the far oaks, Jubal asked: ‘Mattie, do you consider yourself a Mexican citizen?’ She pondered this, then said: ‘I never considered myself a Tennessee citizen. I get up in the morning, do my work, and go to bed.’

  ‘But could you be a Mexican? Are you goin’ to learn Spanish?’

  ‘Enough people come through here speakin’ it, I’ll have to.’

  ‘Well, are you a Catholic?’

  She evaded a direct answer: ‘Two of the best men I’ve met are Father Clooney and Reverend Harrison. I like them both.’

  ‘But you have to choose sides.’

  ‘Why?’ And she displayed no interest in which side he had chosen.

  The question of Mexican citizenship became more pressing when a guest reached the ferry to stay at the cave-house while trying to round up extra mules to drove overland to New Orleans. In halting English he gave his name as Benito Garza, said he was eighteen years old and a
native of the little town of Bravo down on the Rio Grande: ‘I cross river’—he called it reevair—‘and catch the mule. You know what it is, the mule? Father a jackass, mother a horse. The mule all gunpowder and fury. But I, I tame the mule—’

  ‘We know all about mules in Tennessee,’ Jubal interrupted. ‘But you’re not going to take those seventeen mules all the way to New Orleans? Alone?’

  ‘Oh, no! At the Trinity, I meet Mister Ford. He got fifty mules, sixty, from San Antonio. We take them together.’

  The Quimpers liked Garza, for the young man was so enthusiastic that his ebullience became infectious: ‘Mr. Ford, fine man. He give me money, I get him mules in Mexico. Maybe I buy four, five more right here?’

  The Quimpers knew of no farmers in the vicinity who might have bred mules, but they promised young Garza to watch his while he scouted the river, and on the next day the irrepressible young man reappeared with four good animals: ‘I always find them somewhere.’

  During the young muleteer’s last night at the inn, Mattie could not control her curiosity: ‘Your mother? What’s she think about such a trip? To New Orleans?’

  ‘She’s dead. But I go on trail first time, twelve years old.’

  ‘Twelve?’

  ‘She tell me: “You got to learn when you young.” ’

  ‘Where’s your home?’

  ‘Rio Grande. Lots of land. Lots of children, too. Brothers get land. I get mules.’

  Despite her inclination to be impartial in most things, she could not help comparing this adventurous Mexican with her timorous son: ‘Weren’t you afraid? Twelve years old?’

  ‘No,’ he said brightly. ‘Men all alike, Mexican, Texican. You quick, you got a little money, is all right.’

  ‘What was your mother like?’ Mattie asked as she passed her salted pecans.

  ‘Most beautiful girl in San Antonio. Everybody said so. Frenchman wanted to marry her. American, too. But she walk to Rio Grande to marry my father. Nine children. Wonderful love story.’

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Make much money, New Orleans. Then help my sisters find husbands.’

  When the young fellow headed up the trail with his twenty-one mules, Jubal said: ‘He’s the best visitor we’ve had since Father Clooney left.’ Then he added: ‘I think I’ll learn Spanish, serious.’ When he caught the rhythm of that beautiful language, probably the easiest on earth for a stranger to learn, he told his wife: ‘When I had to argue with that Ripperdá at Nacogdoches, I wanted nothin’ to do with Mexicans. But now that I see this land, and a fine young man like Garza, I’m beginnin’ to think that Mexico is where we’ll spend our years.’ She replied: ‘Texas, Tennessee, they all seem the same. Catholic, Protestant, likewise.’

  ‘But you said you respected Reverend Harrison?’

  ‘I respect Father Clooney, but that don’t make me a Catholic’

  At times Jubal could not understand his thin, secretive wife. Her indifference to some things mystified him. She could work interminably without complaint. She ran the ferry, and certainly it was she who kept the inn functioning. But she always came back to her two obsessions: ‘Jubal, I won’t live in this cave-house much longer’ and ‘Jubal, we got to get hold of that land on the other end of the ferry.’

  To the first demand her husband temporized: ‘As soon as we get ahead, I’ll build you a real house,’ and to the second he reasoned: ‘You heard Austin say you can’t control land on both sides of the river,’ and she asked bluntly: ‘Does Austin need to know?’ and sometimes when the ferry was waiting on the far side of the river, Jubal would see his wife marching about the land, driving stakes to mark what she wanted.

  She was doing this one day when the Karankawa struck, and only by rushing down to the river and jumping onto the raft as it slid away from the shore did she escape being killed. The Indians raged along the bank, then disappeared into the wood on that side, rampaging far toward isolated cabins, where they killed the inhabitants.

  The response was powerful. A contingent of thirty well-armed men marched down to the new headquarters settlement of San Felipe, where they joined with settlers from the coast in a ten-day campaign against the Kronks. When the Brazos River men straggled back to the ferry, they told Mattie wondrous tales about their battles: ‘We overtook them in their camp. Ten of us up here. Ten over here. Ten makin’ the attack. Cross-fired them till they had to accept a truce.’

  ‘Was Yancey in the fight?’ Mattie asked.

  ‘No, he watched the horses.’

  ‘Not right for a boy to be killin’ folks.’

  ‘He better kill Indians or they’re gonna kill him.’

  There was a strange outcome to this inconclusive battle. One morning when Mattie had guided the ferry to the far bank, depositing two travelers headed for Nacogdoches, she heard a rustling in the woods and saw to her horror that a very tall Karankawa was hiding there, armed with an old-fashioned gun. Unable to reach the ferry as before, she reached for some stick with which to defend herself, but the big Indian put down his weapon and came forward with hands outstretched. Because Mattie had always been willing to accept as her brother any honest man she encountered, she felt no hesitancy in dropping her stick and holding forth her hands, and thus began a strange friendship with a brave the Quimpers called The Kronk.

  He lived in a self-made hut beside the inn, and when he had learned a few words of English he explained, with the help of vigorous signs, that the men of his family had led the sortie against the Brazos cabins and had been practically eliminated in the retaliation: ‘Sun goes down. Karankawa no more.’ He spoke with great sorrow of the deplorable time in which he lived: ‘White man too strong. He break us.’ He made a snapping sound with his fingers, like twigs being shattered. He was capable of real grief, as when he spoke of his women slain in the last battle: ‘Babies, they best. Always hope, babies grow.’ He liked Yancey, who was terrified of him, and longed to teach the boy those things fathers teach their sons, but young Quimper drew away, and one night Mattie was appalled when her son said: ‘If a new battle starts, the men will kill Kronk for sure.’

  When Mattie upbraided him for the insensitivity she perceived, Yancey replied: ‘He’s an Indian, ain’t he?’ and the conversation ended.

  The Kronk was so helpful around the cave-house that Jubal said one morning: ‘Mattie, I think that with Kronk’s help we might could build you a set of real outside walls for this dugout,’ but she snapped: ‘I don’t want no improvements. I want a real house with four walls around,’ and he laughed: ‘We ain’t that ambitious.’

  With great effort Jubal, The Kronk and Yancey chopped out some stout lengths to substitute for the vertical poles that had framed their cabin, and slowly, finishing one side after another, they inserted the heavy logs, converting their flimsy-walled cave-house into a sturdy one. Travelers familiar with the former stopping place congratulated them on the improvement, but invariably the Quimpers confessed: ‘We couldn’t of done it without The Kronk.’

  Strangers who had often been required to fight the Indians were sometimes startled to find a real Karankawa living at the ferry, but those who settled in the area grew accustomed to the bronzed giant with the flashing white teeth. They often found him sitting with Mattie, talking in his strange way with words which only she seemed to understand. She was not afraid to ask him anything, and one afternoon she said bluntly: ‘Why did you Kronks eat people?’ and he explained with grunts and gestures and the few words he knew that it was not done from hunger but as a ritual, confirming victory in battle or as a source of valor, as when warriors ate the heart, liver and tongue of a gallant adversary.

  ‘But you did eat them?’ she asked and he replied: ‘Good. Like turkey.’

  He became a kind of unpaid servant at the inn, but in return for his help he did receive food and such clothing as he wanted and the Quimpers were able to provide. His chief contribution was as a hunter, and under Jubal’s tutelage he learned to be as parsimonious with his powder
and lead as Quimper himself. With a fine hunter like The Kronk available, Jubal no longer took Yancey with him, for the boy was useless in the field; The Kronk was a skilled shot, and with his gun, which his tribe had purchased from French traders in the early years of the century, he could knock down a buffalo or trail a deer almost as well as Jubal himself. As a pair they were formidable, and travelers grew accustomed to having copious helpings of meat when they visited Quimper’s inn.

  Once when he returned with three slain deer, Mattie asked: ‘Why do you shoot so many deer? So few turkey?’ And he explained: ‘Deer easy, turkey damn hard.’ When she asked the difference, he said: ‘Kronk sneak up, deer see. They think “Is Kronk or tree stump?” and they stand there, I shoot. But when Kronk sneak up on turkey, leader cry “By God, Kronk comin’!” and off they go. Kronk never see ’em again.’

  Often in the long months of that first year before Mattie’s corn had ripened or the crops matured, meat was all they had had. Months would pass without flour for the making of bread; salt was scarce; vegetables did not yet exist; and men would say: ‘Last night I dreamed of fresh bread, covered with butter and sprinkled with salt. God, how I hate venison.’ But when they had Jubal’s honey to flavor the great chunks of roasted meat, the frontiersmen stopped complaining. ‘It’s uncanny how Jubal can smell out a honey tree three miles away,’ they said, but others said: ‘He’s just as good at trackin’ bear. When Mattie smokes it properly, you cain’t tell it from Pennsylvania bacon.’ But what Jubal really enjoyed was stalking the wild turkey, for as he told the others: ‘Salt or no salt, bread or no bread, that bird is delicious.’

  Once a wandering Irishman named Mulrooney brought the Quimpers a bundle containing real flour, about three pounds, which he had acquired at great cost from an incoming vessel at the mouth of the Brazos: ‘Could you make me some bread? I’m starvin’ for bread.’