Texas

by James A. Michener

  With these two incidents—the shooting of the Indian chieftains during a parley at which they were supposed to be protected by the white man’s code of honor, and the burning of Victoria and Linnville—the Texians spoke no more of rapprochement with the Comanche. War of annihilation was seen to be the only recourse, and it would be fought with terrible intensity by both sides. In 1850 the slaughter would be appalling; in 1864, when the whites were engaged in a great civil war of their own, with their men assigned to distant battlefields and unable to protect their homes, the Comanche would ride right into towns and set them ablaze; in 1870, the same; and up to 1874 this terrible war would continue. Along the frontier Deaf Smith’s rule prevailed: ‘Never let a Comanche capture you. Better you shoot yourself in the head.’

  When Otto Macnab heard of the disaster at Victoria he had to assume that his mother’s unprotected home, and his aunt María’s as well, must have been assaulted, so he sought permission from Captain Garner to ride down to see if the women had survived, and the captain said: ‘Sure, but watch out for stray Comanche.’

  So Otto rode south from Xavier County, and as he approached Victoria and saw the desolation spread by the Comanche six days before, it became clear that only a miracle could have saved the Garza women.

  When he reached the Guadalupe River and started down it toward Victoria he found only burned-out ranches: Around the next bend, I’ll see it. And when he made the turn he did. The two houses which had known so much love between Texian and Mexican were gone. The drying corpses of the two women still lay under the hanging oak, where they had fled to escape the lances.

  I better bury them, Otto told himself matter-of-factly, but digging in this hard, clayey soil had never been easy, and he had to be satisfied with very shallow graves indeed. But you could call it Christian burial, he thought.

  That evening he bunked in one of the houses in Victoria that the Comanche had not burned; the man in charge told him: ‘Señor got himself killed out in the street. Señora, she’s with the other family.’ He said it would be all) right if Otto stayed there and he even helped prepare some beans and goat’s meat, but Otto could not sleep, and at about nine he told the man: ‘I think I better go back and say goodbye.’ The man insisted upon joining him, just in case, but Otto said: ‘No, it’ll be all right. They’ve gone.’

  He rode slowly back to the ruins, giving no consideration as to what he might do when he reached them. The Comanche moon, as it was called in these parts—that bright full moon which encouraged the Indians to raid—was waning, but it would remain a crescent in the sky until morning, enabling him to see once more the landscape he had loved so much when he first came to Texas: the silent Guadalupe, that first important stand of trees after the bleak marshes of the shore, the gently rolling hills that gave the land variation, the oak tree from which Zave … Suddenly he became aware that someone else was near the tree.

  ‘Who goes?’ he called, readying his pistols.

  ‘Amigo’ came a strong Mexican voice. ‘That you, Otto?’

  From behind the oak, his own pistols at the draw, came Benito Garza, who had ridden north from the Nueces Strip to pay homage to his sisters. Standing quietly, he pointed with a pistol to the new graves. ‘You bury them?’ he asked in Spanish.

  ‘I did,’ Otto said.

  Slowly the two men lowered their pistols and moved closer.

  ‘What brought you?’ Garza asked, still in Spanish.

  ‘You hear about the big fight in San Antone?’

  ‘Those Comanche can be bastards,’ Garza said, still in Spanish.

  ‘Why are you speaking Spanish with me?’

  ‘I don’t speak English no more,’ he said in English, and after that explanation he used the language no further.

  After they had found rude seats on the blackened remnants of a wall, Otto asked: ‘If you think the Comanche are such bastards, why did you work with the Cherokee, against us?’ Garza was late in replying, so Otto said: ‘We found papers on the dead spy Flores …’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘On his corpse were these papers, they named you as a principal. We have orders, I suppose you know, to shoot you on sight.’

  ‘Are you going to try?’

  ‘Why side with the Indians? Will you be partners with the Comanche next?’

  Garza laughed, freely, easily. Punching Otto on the arm, he said: ‘You try making friends with the Comanche. Go ahead, try.’

  ‘They sure raised hell here,’ Otto said.

  ‘What will you do with your land?’ And Garza pointed west toward where the Macnab dog-run had once stood.

  ‘It was never our land, Benito. It always belonged to your sisters.’ There was silence for a moment, then Otto reached out with his boot and kicked at some blackened clods: ‘It was your sisters’ land. And now it’s yours.’

  ‘Your government will never let me have it. Me fighting on the side of Santa Anna.’ He ignored his later conspiracy with the Indians.

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ Otto said. ‘We want to forget the battles.’

  ‘You don’t want it?’

  ‘I have no use for it. They gave me land up on the Brazos. For bein’ a hero, I guess.’

  ‘You norteamericanos got your revenge at San Jacinto.’

  ‘You heard, I guess, Santa Anna went free. Used our good money and rode back to Washington in style. Talked with the American President and all that.’

  ‘You have not heard the last of Santa Anna,’ Benito predicted. ‘He’ll be back.’

  ‘And you’ll be with him?’

  ‘The moment he issues his grito.’

  ‘Who will he be fighting?’

  ‘You bastards, who else?’

  ‘And you’ll fight with him … against us?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Otto pondered this a long time, then said slowly: ‘You saved my life. I saved your life. We’re even, Benito. Next time we meet as enemies. Draw fast, because I’ll kill you.’

  Garza laughed easily: ‘Little boy, I taught you all you know. I can handle you.’

  ‘But you taught me very well, Benito. Next time …’

  They parted. No handshake. No farewell words of the affection each felt. Over the graves of the women they had loved they parted, each believing that Mexicans and Texians could never share this land.

  When Otto returned to Xavier County he was a forlorn young man, bewildered by the tragedies that had overwhelmed those he loved: good, bountiful María and Josefina, slain; Martin Ascot, most promising lawyer in the nation, killed in San Antonio; Betsy Belle and her infant child adrift.

  By the time he reached Xavier he had concluded that it would be improper for him to continue living in the shed at the Ascot place, for although he was five years younger than Betsy, his continued presence could cause comment, and this he would not allow. But when he came to the shack and started to collect his few belongings, Betsy said: ‘What in the world are you doing?’ and when he explained, she burst into robust laughter: ‘People might talk? Otto, I’m trying to run a farm. I’m trying to care for a baby. I need help. I need you.’

  Sometimes when he took a side of venison in to Campbell to barter for things like flour and bacon, he was aware that the townspeople did talk in whispers, just as he had expected, but one day the schoolmaster, Reverend Harrison, stopped him as he was passing and said: ‘Son, you’re doing God’s work in succoring the fatherless child. Take Mrs. Ascot this basket of food my wife cooked.’ When Otto thanked him, he added: ‘But, son, if you continue to live there, I do think you ought to marry. It’s the only decent way.’

  Such advice caused Otto greater confusion than any he had previously known; even the death of his father had been easier to fit into the grand scheme of things, because fathers traditionally died sooner than their sons. And right there, in that simple statement, resided the source of his confusion.

  ‘She’s so much older!’ He was barely eighteen, Betsy Belle twenty-three, but she was also a mite tal
ler and had always looked upon him as a child. She was a woman wise in the twists and turns of the world, and mature enough to be his mother, a role she had adopted from the start. How vast the difference between them seemed, not only to him but also to her.

  So he continued to live in the cramped shack he and Martin had built, and sometimes in the evening after an arduous day of work, he and Betsy would sit and talk about the future, and one night she said: ‘You must start looking for a wife, Otto, and I must find a father for my son.’ He was staggered by this bold statement, then listened as she ticked off the local girls whom he might reasonably court. She even went so far as to invite one of them to visit, and the three spent a long Sunday afternoon getting acquainted, and it was obvious that the young woman liked Otto. The visit had one salutary outcome: Otto no longer feared that Betsy Belle might be interested in him as a husband.

  The presence in Texas of a widow of good character who had a son to raise became widely known quickly, and one morning a fine-looking gentleman from Nacogdoches appeared at the Ascot cabin to introduce himself. He was from Mississippi, he was a widower, he had a farm and a daughter, and he had brought with him two extra horses in hopes that Mrs. Ascot would consider riding back with her son and her family goods. He was a pious man, a Baptist, and said: ‘I’d not contemplate this, ma’am, unless we was married proper before we started,’ and Betsy asked: ‘How did you know about me?’ and he said: ‘Your father,’ and he showed her a letter:

  Jared, my beloved daughter Betsy Belle is a widow in Xavier County, Texas. If your sorrow over the death of your Norma has subsided, as God always wants it to, ride down and make Betsy’s acquaintance, with my blessing.

  At the wedding, held in Reverend Harrison’s school, Yancey Quimper served as best man, and when Joel Job asked in his resonant voice: ‘Who gives this woman in marriage?’ Otto said: ‘I do,’ and it was on his arm that Betsy Belle approached her new husband.

  For some days Otto lived alone in the Ascot cabin, now shorn of its warmth and liveliness, and he spent the time brooding about the inescapable manner in which the world turns, bringing day after night and the passage of months and years. He knew almost nothing about girls or women and had been astounded when one of the Rangers on a night ride in pursuit of bandits told him that ‘a woman can have babies only so long, you know, and if she misses her chances, she misses.’ He had never spoken to Betsy Belle about this; indeed, he had been completely embarrassed that Sunday when she invited the girl to visit, but he now supposed that she had ridden north to Nacogdoches so soon after the death of her husband because she felt the passing of the years and the limited time she could expect on a frontier like Texas.

  ‘And what of me?’ he asked in the darkness.

  He was diverted from such mournful speculation by the eruption of another presidential campaign in which the men at Quimper’s Ferry were determined to prevent Sam Houston from returning to power. There was much loud talk about emasculating the old drunk, and one evening when Yancey had himself imbibed rather heavily his cronies persuaded him to pen a vitriolic attack upon Houston’s morals, courage, thievery, treason and bigamy. When Houston refused even to acknowledge having read the widely publicized assault, Yancey was goaded by his friends into challenging Houston to a duel. Had he been sober, he would not have dared.

  Houston handled the Quimper affair with that sense of the ridiculous which characterized so many of his actions. Informed by his partisans that Yancey, now sober, was paralyzed by the anticipation of a duel in which he was likely to be killed, Houston sent him a letter which treated him as a serious opponent. Widely circulated, its ludicrous nature not only delighted Houston’s rowdy partisans but also provided serious ammunition for those sober citizens who were determined to end this murderous folly of dueling:

  My dear Yancey Quimper,

  I have before me your challenge to a duel. My seconds will await yours and we shall fight at the spot and time they elect. Since I am the challenged party, I shall demand horse pistols at five feet.

  However, I have been much challenged of late and at present have twenty-two duels scheduled ahead of yours. I calculate that I can fit you in about August of next year. Until then, I am your humble servant,

  Sam Houston

  Allowing and even encouraging a brief spell of hilarity—‘Horse pistols at five feet, they’d blow each other’s guts out’ and ‘Who can imagine Sam Houston being anybody’s humble servant?’—he put a sudden stop to it and began speaking of Quimper as if the latter were an authentic and dangerous duelist. This achieved two purposes: it brought public attention back to the absurdity of dueling, and it created the image of President Houston dealing courageously with a hazardous opponent.

  He abetted the rumor: ‘I’d be damned lucky to escape that duel with Quimper. He’s a killer. At San Jacinto he was a savage, nothing less. Quimper would do me in.’

  When Yancey heard this assessment he did not appreciate what Houston was doing; and when no one took the trouble to explain, he actually began to believe that Houston was terrified of him, and as time passed he further convinced himself that had the duel taken place, he would have dropped the big drunk. He could see Houston appearing at dawn, badly inebriated, shooting wildly, then crumpling under the devastating fire of Yancey Quimper.

  Free Texas being what it was in those wild days, many citizens were tricked by Houston’s game, and in time it was credibly reported that the duel had taken place, that Houston had reported drunk and had fired but missed, and that Quimper, gentleman to the end, had deliberately fired in the air rather than kill a former president of Texas. Yancey was now not only the Hero of San Jacinto but also the Man Who Shamed Sam Houston in the Duel.

  With this fresh-minted glory, Yancey felt encouraged to take a step popular with Texians: he awarded himself a military rank, and since he was now famous for two different acts of gallantry, San Jacinto and the duel, he made himself a general, and as soon as he had done so, an amazing transformation occurred. He stood taller. He shaved his ineffectual mustache. He sent away to New Orleans for a uniform with a decided French swagger, and he discarded his big slouch hat in favor of a smaller one with a neat cockade. He also began pronouncing final g’s as if he had been to military school, and referred often to West Point without actually claiming that he had enrolled there.

  When General Quimper learned that his friend Judge Phinizy was scheduled to hold sessions in Victoria County, he left the inn, explaining: ‘I have some legal work to clean up.’ By paying assiduous attention to all property law passed by the Texas Congress, he had learned that the ten thousand acres of choice land along the Guadalupe River—called the Wharloopey by many Texians—once owned by the dead Garza women was in jeopardy, because their brother Benito, who should have inherited it, had proclaimed himself to be an armed enemy of the nation, and had thus forfeited any right to own land in it.

  The case that General Quimper brought in the Victoria court was so complicated and long-drawn that Judge Phinizy had no chance of unraveling it, but when the court was not in session Yancey explained the complexities to him. He also attended court in his new general’s uniform, which lent dignity to his claims, and when he encountered any members of the huge Garza clan who were defending their shadowy rights against him, he was immaculately courteous, as if his only interest in the suit was to see justice done and the land distributed equitably.

  In a series of decisions so perverse that no sensible man could have explained them, and certainly not Judge Phinizy, who handed them down, General Quimper achieved ownership of all the Garza lands, and then, as a result of additional suits equally intricate, he was awarded a further twenty-two thousand acres, the courts invariably transferring title from indistinct Mexican owners to this very real Hero of the Republic who obviously knew Texas land law better than the judges and certainly better than the original owners.

  Thousands of acres which had once been owned by Trinidad de Saldaña were now passing quietly into the
hands of enterprising Texians like General Quimper, until in the end more than two million of the best Nueces acres would be so ‘Verified,’ as the Texian judges explained, or ‘stolen,’ as the owners complained.

  The lands did not always pass quietly. When Benito Garza heard of the theft of his acres by Quimper, he led a daylight raid boldly into the outskirts of Victoria, where with the help of sixteen dispossessed men like himself he gunned down a Texian who could be considered a sheriff, so once again the ranging company had to be sent to the Nueces.

  When Otto returned, with three more Mexican bandits to his record, he sat alone in the Ascot kitchen, staring at the wall. At any sound he whipped about, hoping it was Betsy Belle returning with her child, and after several such incidents he realized that it was the baby he really missed. How proud he had been to serve as its father when it cried for attention. A wolf howled, and he leaped in frustration: God, I’ve got to do something.

  Thousands of miles from the new nation, in one of the many German principalities, historical events were painfully forging a solution to Otto’s problems. The Margravate of Grenzler was in trouble. Not only did economic crisis grip the Rhineland, but a frightening surplus of population inhibited the normal functioning of society. Young people could find no homes and older ones no employment; Germany itself remained divided because no central power had yet arisen strong enough to force consolidation. There was talk that perhaps the sturdy kingdom of Prussia might provide leadership, but only the sanguine could hope for this, because each petty ruler like the posturing Margrave of Grenzler held jealously to his ancestral rights, refusing to accept leadership from anyone more powerful or more intelligent.