Texas

by James A. Michener

  On this day Finlay made no response, but often during the next month, while María continued to stress her sister’s abilities, he thought of the good land along the river which Josefina, as his wife, would enable him to claim, and she became increasingly attractive. One afternoon he rode in to Victoria to talk with Martín de León, who held rights to this huge tract of land, an entitlement from the government in Mexico City in 1824, and without identifying Josefina, he asked whether a converted Catholic would also be ceded a league-and-a-labor if he married a Mexican woman.

  ‘Of a certainty,’ De León assured him in Spanish. Then De León said in good English: ‘But it would be good if you would caution your friend Xavier about fooling with other people’s horses. Tempers can grow very short in Tejas.’

  Finlay did speak to Campbell, but not about cattle rustling. He asked: ‘Zave, what would you think if I married Josefina? And claimed on the league next to yours?’

  The big man rocked back and forth for some time, staring at the prairie, which could be seen from his porch: ‘Your wife dead?’

  ‘Divorced.’

  ‘Legal?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Marry her. Land is land.’ But later, when Macnab was off tending cattle, Zave asked Otto: ‘What happened to your mother in Baltimore?’ and the boy replied in some confusion, for his memory of his mother was clouded: ‘Things happened, and we left.’

  ‘Was there a judge?’ Zave asked.

  ‘There was a lot of yelling,’ the boy replied, and Zave said: ‘I bet there was.’

  The big man never mentioned the matter again, but when Finlay suggested going back to Quimper’s Ferry for the wedding, Zave said: ‘More better we use the priest from the mission at Goliad.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I hear the new priest serving Quimper’s is very strict. Lots of questions. Maybe even letters to Baltimore.’

  ‘You mean the priest at Goliad … he’d be less rigorous?’

  ‘He’s always in a hurry. Better we use him,’ and Zave was so insistent that in the end he and María, Finlay and Josefina, Benito and Otto rode their horses over to Goliad, where the ceremony was performed. When the priest asked in Spanish whether any man had reasons to oppose this marriage or knew of any impediment to forbid it, both Zave and Otto looked straight ahead.

  As soon as the newly married couple returned home, Finlay hurried in to Victoria and laid claim to his league-and-a-labor. He received it promptly, with one hundred and sixty acres as a bonus for his son.

  With full encouragement from María and Zave, the Macnabs delayed building their own house; they stayed on with the Campbells, adding an improvised room to match Benito’s, thus increasing the value of their holdings.

  Under Benito’s tutelage, Zave was becoming an expert in breeding mules and herding wild long-horned cattle; María and Josefina made some of the best food in the area; Otto helped everyone; and Finlay specialized in marketing the various goods they were producing. They also offered the dog-run to the transient public as a kind of inn, one dollar a night, four dollars by the week. Guests slept in a third lean- to which Zave and Benito built, and the rambling affair became one of the better stopping places in that part of Texas, with respectable meals provided by the wives, plus occasional treats that Finlay acquired through sharp trading with ships putting into Matagorda, or from caravans of merchants hauling their goods overland from Mexican cities south of the Rio Grande.

  The informal inn had both a good reputation and a bad one. Travelers said: ‘No better hospitality than what these women provide at Campbell’s. But Zave is exceptionally sharp. Got to keep your eye on him.’ Travelers as far away as Nacogdoches and Béxar said this of the posada west of Victoria.

  It was Finlay who made the proposal that since mules and cattle were prospering at the plantation, as it was called by travelers from Georgia and Alabama, why did not he and Otto, enlisting Benito as their guide and two of his relatives as helpers, take a herd to New Orleans, where Louis Ferry had promised to buy them at a good price? ‘Victoria to the Sabine, maybe two hundred and fifty miles. Sabine to New Orleans, about the same,’ estimated a man who had traveled it, whereupon Finlay said: ‘We drove cattle lots farther than that on the Trace,’ but Zave corrected him: ‘Trace is four hundred and eighty. I walked every step, three round trips.’

  When it was agreed that such a drive was practical, Finlay hurried down to Matagorda Bay and posted an inquiry to Mr. Ferry, and in a surprisingly short time, less than four weeks, had an answer:

  Bring all the mules and longhorns you can manage. Also some good horses. Market even better than when you were here a year ago.

  Louis Ferry

  With this encouragement, Macnab assembled a herd of forty longhorns, thirty-one mules and two dozen mustangs broken to the saddle, and with a double supply of horses for himself and his helpers he set forth, and quickly he found himself on the famous Beef Trail.

  Since those early days when Benito Garza had pioneered a trail to New Orleans for his mules, so many Texas drovers had followed in his steps that a well-defined path had taken shape. The Beef Trail flourished half a century earlier than the better-known trials like the Chisholm, which cattle followed on their way to the Kansas railheads, and in its day it provided Texas frontiersmen with a chance to earn hard cash.

  Otto had been on the trail only a few days when he realized that his journey down the Natchez Trace had been, in comparison, merely a pleasant excursion. For one thing, the Texas rivers were infinitely more difficult to cross, because their banks could be steep and their currents swift after a rain. Food was scarcer and more poorly prepared, if that was possible, and above all, there was the constant threat that Indians might hear of the movement of so many horses and try to steal their share on the first moonlit night. Finally, the roads and trails in Texas were not yet as clearly marked as the Natchez Trace, which had been used by white men for a long time when the Macnabs traversed it.

  But without question, the Beef Trail, rugged though it was, offered more delights to young Otto than anything in Kentucky or Tennessee. This was true wilderness, with birds and animals he had never seen before, with bayous lined by moss-covered trees, with a daring Mexican rider like Benito to search out the trail, and with always the sense of a new country to be explored in whatever direction one might care to go. Also, as Otto confided to his father at the end of a long day: ‘It’s a lot more fun to ride than to walk.’

  Already skilled as a horseman, he now acquired from Benito those extra tricks that would make him a true expert, but Garza was powerless to make him proficient with the lariat: ‘Damnit! I know you’re not stupid,’ he would shout in Spanish. ‘You can ride. You can shoot. Surely you can learn to throw a rope.’

  But Otto could not. His hands were small and his arms short, and when he tried to twirl the stiff and heavy rope about his head in great circles, he not only got it tangled but he nearly succeeded in strangling himself.

  ‘Damnit, Otto, no! You’re supposed to throw it over the mustang’s neck, not your own.’

  It was hopeless. Despite his sweating determination, the young Scots-Irish-German-American boy could not do what the Mexicans did so effortlessly, and sometimes he would sit astride some huge horse watching in awe as the three men competed in roping; they were superb. But if they wanted to race with Otto, they found him now able to ride as effectively as they, swaying with the horse or leaning far over the neck of his mustang until he became one with his steed, flying over the empty land.

  And if the four dismounted and took their guns to hunt for food, or merely to compete at targets, young Otto proved superior. He was a superb marksman: cool, hard-eyed, even of hand and steady of wrist. ‘Eres un verdadero tejano,’ Benito said approvingly one day, but then he added: ‘Of course, if you want to rope cattle, you must hire a real mexicano.’

  One evening as he and Benito rode in, tired and dusty from chasing one of the few buffalo left in those parts, Otto washed down his horse,
but then stayed with it, saying to himself: I’ll never forget this day. I’ll never have a friend better than Benito. Nor a mother better than María. Nor a dog better than Betsy. Where’s Baltimore? It seems so far away. I’m half Texican, half Mexican. Driven by a sense of wild joy, he leaped back onto his horse and galloped across the countryside. He was an Indian chasing buffalo, a Tennesseean shooting a deer, a Mexican about to rope a longhorn. When he returned to camp he saw Garza and realized how much he owed him. Riding up to the Mexican, he dismounted, grasped his hand, and said: ‘You are my friend.’

  Few lads of Otto’s age would understand Texas as thoroughly as he. By the time they crossed the Sabine River into Louisiana he had been pretty well across the face of settled Texas, save for the Nacgodoches quarter; he knew most of the ferries where boats could be relied upon, most of the river crossings that could be negotiated on foot. He had stopped in most of the semi-formal inns, and his knowledge of horses, cattle and the Spanish language would make him an invaluable ranch hand, or owner when he had acquired enough money to start for himself.

  New Orleans had a magical effect on Finlay Macnab, for the excitement of selling his animals, the bantering of the buyers and the good fellowship of the stockyards reminded him of those faraway days at the Falkirk Tryst when he discovered the kind of person he was, and he hoped that here his son might have the same kind of awakening: ‘When I wasn’t much older than you I drove my grandfather’s cattle to a great fair … and sold them, too. That was the beginning of my real life. This could be the same for you. Study New Orleans. Learn how men do things.’

  Otto’s instruction took a rewarding turn when Mr. Ferry, pleased by the good condition of their cattle and mules, came by their hotel to invite them to dinner at one of the fine French eating places. As an afterthought he tossed a handful of coins toward the three Mexicans: ‘Get yourselves something.’ Otto did not linger to see the bitterness with which Benito scorned the coins, letting them fall to the floor, or the furious manner in which he forbade his helpers to pick them up. ‘Let the maids have them,’ he stormed.

  When Otto saw the luxurious dining room with its high ceilings and glittering lights, he said enthusiastically: ‘This must be awful expensive,’ and Ferry laughed: ‘On the profit I’ll make from your animals, I can afford it. I ship your mules to Uncle Sam’s army and sell your beef to the riverboats and restaurants like this. Young man, tonight you’ll feast upon one of your own longhorns.’

  Otto was old enough to relish good food, and hungry enough after the frontier fare of Texas to appreciate a varied menu. In fact, he considered New Orleans to be about six levels better than Cincinnati and said so, to Mr. Ferry’s approval. But as he gorged on the excellent food he could not help picturing Benito Garza eating in some grubby hole, and he winced as he recalled the niggardly manner in which Mr. Ferry had thrown the coins.

  Two days later, while walking the streets, Otto came upon an auction house where consignments of slaves from Virginia and the Carolinas were being sold, and he followed the action with great interest, trying to guess which of two or three competing bidders would stay the course and win this lot or that. When he heard that one would-be purchaser intended taking his slaves, if he succeeded in buying any, to Texas, he approached the man and warned him: ‘You know, mister, that slaves are not allowed in Texas.’

  This news so startled both the buyer and the men near him that a vigorous discussion occurred, marked by a ridiculous lack of expert opinion, until in the end Otto had to inform the men of the situation. They refused to believe such a mere boy, but an elderly man well versed on the question came to Otto’s defense and stated firmly that Mexican law forbade slavery and the importation of slaves.

  ‘Then, by God, we’ll change the law!’ one hothead shouted, and this brought cheers.

  ‘In five years Texas will be American!’ More cheers.

  ‘I’ll march to Texas and so will a hundred brave lads like me,’ another cried, but when this display ended, the would-be purchaser still did not know how to proceed, and Otto quietly explained ninety-nine-year indentures, and the man was delighted: ‘What a thoroughly sensible solution!’ And forthwith he bid high on six different lots.

  Mr. Ferry introduced Macnab to the convenience of letters-of-credit and suggested that he might like to avail himself of one, but Finlay, having been burned by the skilled salesmen of the Texas Land and Improvement Company, did not propose to be hornswoggled again, and said so.

  Ferry laughed at his fears but at the same time recognized his prudence: ‘Goodness! I don’t mean a letter-of-credit on me. I might skedaddle at any moment. No, I mean a letter on the firmest bank in the South,’ and he took Finlay to the offices of the famous Louisiana and Southern States banking house, where the manager said he would be honored to accommodate any client of Mr. Ferry’s.

  On the spur of the moment Finlay did a most uncharacteristic thing. He was so encouraged by the success of his droving operation, and so titillated at sitting in the offices of a major bank, with every prospect of sitting there more often in the future, that he decided it would be only decent to share his good fortune with his daughters back in Baltimore, and he asked the New Orleans banker if he could convey half his funds to a bank in Baltimore for the account of the Misses Macnab.

  ‘Easiest thing in the world, Mr. Macnab. It can be done at once.’

  So it was arranged, and Macnab felt pleased with himself because of his generosity. He then asked how his and Zave’s funds could best be handled: ‘I’d rather not carry them on my person, seeing that pickpockets infest the steamers.’

  ‘Easiest thing in the world,’ the banker repeated. ‘Leave your money on deposit with us, earn a tidy interest, and when either you or Campbell requires a load of timber for building a new house, inform me by ship mail, and your good friend Mr. Ferry will have it on board the next vessel to Galveston Bay.’

  ‘It won’t do us much good at Galveston, seeing as we live near Matagorda.’ The banker chuckled and said that one of these days he must get down to Texas, for he was convinced it was bound to be a major trading center of the American Union.

  ‘It’s owned by Mexico, you know,’ Macnab said.

  ‘At the moment,’ the banker said, and wherever Finlay moved in New Orleans he found this same attitude toward Texas, as if the Louisiana men sensed that their western neighbor must soon become a part of the United States.

  The closing days of their visit were marred by the discovery that Benito Garza and his two relatives had quit the expedition; for three days the Macnabs tried to find them, learning only that Benito, cursing Ferry, had summoned his two cousins and ridden back to Texas. There was much castigation of the Mexicans, but when the Macnabs were alone, Otto said: ‘Remember when Mr. Ferry threw the money at them? As if they weren’t good enough to eat with us? I don’t blame Benito for getting mad.’

  When the Macnabs returned to Victoria, Finlay sought out Benito and said: ‘I’m sorry for the way Mr. Ferry treated you,’ and Garza snarled: ‘Gringos. What can you expect?’

  Since most of the Macnab horses had been taken to New Orleans, Zave had replaced them, but Otto noticed that several bore strange brands, and later two of De León’s men took the boy aside and warned him: ‘Your friend Señor Campbell, he better watch out. The anglos in this area are fed up with his thieving ways, and something bad will happen to him if he does not mend them.’ When Otto, refusing to hear ill of his friend, protested that maybe it was Benito Garza who took horses with other brands, the men said: ‘We’re watching him, too.’

  Otto felt it necessary to warn his father, and Finlay took it seriously, but when he confronted Zave, the big Kaintuck turned the tables by upbraiding him for not having brought home Zave’s share of the profits: ‘Somehow you made a deal with Ferry that does you good but not me.’ When Macnab tried to explain what a deposit in a bank meant, and how it drew interest, the stubborn redhead could not follow and loudly accused his friend of chicanery.

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nbsp; This so irritated Macnab, who understood the facts but could not explain them over Zave’s shouting, that in anger he informed Campbell that he and Otto would build their own house. ‘Good riddance!’ Zave yelled, but Otto cried that he would not permit this, for he had grown to love big, compassionate María and could not visualize life without her. Josefina was equally good, quite a wonderful mother, but María had come first and he saw her as the architect of his good fortunes. When he flatly refused to part from her, the shouting stopped and the breach was healed.

  Thus began a perplexity which would haunt him all his life, and haunt Texas; he loved Mexicans like María and instinctively respected their values, so vastly different from his own. He saw that such Mexicans led an easy, singsong life, in harmony with the birds and the rising sun, while Texicans like his father lived a tense one in which cattle had to be counted and delivered on time. María followed the easy traditions of Catholicism, in which saints and the Virgin Mary were as real as the people who lived on the next hacienda; he would always be a Presbyterian, with that religion’s harsh commands and unforgiving penalties. She sang, but he brooded; even at age eleven he brooded. To her the family was everything; to him it had proved only a shadowy remembrance. She could forgive a fellow Mexican like her brother Benito his misdemeanors; Otto could forgive no one.

  And there his ambivalence deepened. He saw that American immigrants often conceded that María’s way of life had commendable aspects; certainly it was more relaxed and in many ways gentler and more humane, as in its care for elderly members of a family; but often some relative like Benito performed an act which should not have been tolerated. Otto heard Mexican men accused of being shifty, unreliable, sycophantic when controlled by others, cruel when they were masters, so that what were deemed María’s virtues became flaws when Benito displayed them. For example, Otto had seen Benito excuse his fellow Mexicans for the grossest misbehavior and even encourage it if it helped them gain an advantage over some anglo. Otto heard his own father charge: ‘Mexican men allow themselves to be priest-ridden. They drag their church into areas where it isn’t needed. Like their unstable government, Mexican men can never settle upon one course of action and follow it for a generation; even the slightest mishap diverts them. So revolution is always around the corner.’ Reluctantly, the Macnabs concluded that Benito Garza, specifically, was not a very nice person, and they concluded that the chances for his living in harmony with the immigrating Americans were not good.