Texas

by James A. Michener

  ‘I won’t go to Chicago. I won’t waste my life with that cripple.’

  ‘You’ll have to. Can’t stay here.’

  ‘I’ll leave the ambulance when we reach Jacksborough. Finish with the army, Jim, and join me there.’

  ‘And do what?’ This was a compelling question, for he was an Irishman trained only in the care of horses and their utilization in battle. He had not wanted assignment to a regiment of Negro cavalry, but he had accepted because that was the only pattern of life open to him, and now even that frail opportunity was being threatened. ‘I can’t leave the regiment.’

  She sat on the ground beside the gray water and enticed him to join her, and after they had made love, for the last time he swore to himself, she casually reached across to where his belt lay and took from its holster his heavy Colts, pointing its barrel at her head: ‘I think it best if I end this nightmare.’

  ‘Nell! Put that down!’ He reached out to retrieve his gun, when he saw to his horror that she was now pointing it at him, and with a skill he had not suspected, she was releasing the safety. The last thing he saw was the steel-gray barrel aimed at his forehead and her finger pressing the trigger.

  As soon as he fell, she resolutely and with no regrets placed the barrel deep in her mouth, its end jammed against the roof, and pressed the trigger a second time.

  Preoccupation with the tragedy ended when a special courier arrived from headquarters in St. Louis in response to an urgent appeal from the governor of Texas. Major Comstock, after revealing his purpose to Reed, asked permission to address the officers: ‘Gentlemen, as you’ve probably heard, the Texas Rangers are being reactivated for the first time since the end of the late war. They’re needed because that damned bandit Benito Garza has been chewing up American settlements along the Rio Grande. They need our help.’

  Wetzel, as a professional soldier, growled: ‘If you listen to the Texans, their Rangers can defeat anybody. Why do they need us?’

  Comstock had a reply so convoluted that these professionals gasped in wonder at its fatuity: ‘Garza holes up on the Mexican side of the river. The U. S. Army can’t touch him. From that sanctuary he makes sorties into the United States, robbing and killing. If we catch him over here, of course we can kill him, but we cannot chase him if he escapes to Mexico. Forbidden by international law. Absolutely forbidden by Washington.’

  ‘Then why are we going?’ Wetzel asked.

  ‘To support the Rangers. They can cross the river. Not being legally a part of our forces, they can pursue the bandits in what they’re calling “hot pursuit,” that is, in the heat of battle.’

  Reed broke in: ‘So our troops are to protect the American side while the Rangers go after them?’

  ‘Precisely. And that’s all you’re to do. Because if you invade Mexico to get him, you become bandits, just like him.’

  For two hours Comstock reviewed this unusual situation, placing before the restless officers so many ramifications that Wetzel snapped: ‘Hell, this sounds like our border with Indian Territory. The Comanche sneak in and kill, then dart back across the border and claim immunity.’

  ‘Exactly, but in Garza’s case it’s even more complex, because a foreign power is involved.’

  Now the question became ‘whom to send?’—and Reed pointed out that with the deaths of young Toomey at Three Cairns and Logan at the tank, plus the disabling injury to Minor, his staff was pretty well depleted, especially in the cavalry.

  ‘What about this Lieutenant Renfro?’

  ‘Desk duty, Washington. Can’t seem to pry him loose.’

  ‘One of those,’ Comstock said with disgust, and no more was needed.

  Finally, both Reed and Comstock agreed that the ideal man for the assignment was Wetzel, and when this was decided, the courier asked that he meet with Reed and Wetzel alone. As they sat in Reed’s stone house the major was blunt: ‘Captain Wetzel, I’ve heard only the highest praise for your military prowess, but this is an assignment fraught with danger. Can you be trusted to take your men right up to the edge of the Rio Grande and keep them there, regardless of provocation, until you catch Garza on our side of the river?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘None of this “hot pursuit”?’

  ‘No, sir. Here on this northern border of Texas we learn discipline.’

  ‘Captain Wetzel, on this border you have hundreds of observers to report if you stray. On the southern border you have only yourself to enforce the rules.’

  ‘Sir, I’m an army captain. I’m also a Prussian. I’ve been trained to obey orders.’

  ‘And you understand those orders?’

  ‘I do. No soldier under my command will step one inch into Mexico.’

  ‘Good. I want it in writing.’ And while Reed watched, Comstock took from his papers an order, prepared in St. Louis, stating that the officer who endorsed it would allow no excursions into Mexico. The signing was as solemn an undertaking as Wetzel had ever participated in, and when he finished he saluted.

  Comstock resumed: ‘Now, as to your mounted scouts. They’ll have to be black, of course.’

  ‘We’ll send Company R,’ Reed said, ‘but the only officer we can spare is that chinless wonder Asperson they just sent us from West Point.’ When Wetzel groaned, Reed added: ‘But this big sergeant, Jaxifer, he’ll more than make up.’

  Next morning reveille sounded at half an hour before dawn, and when the files were mounted and Reed had delivered a farewell address wishing his men well, Major Comstock, astride a black stallion, motioned Wetzel aside and shared with him certain verbal orders which moved this expedition into its proper military framework. He chose his words carefully, for upon them would hang the reputations of many officers: ‘General Sheridan commanded me to tell whoever led the troops to the Rio Grande that he must not, repeat not, cross into Mexico.’

  ‘I endorsed that order.’

  ‘But he told me further that this officer would be responsible for the honor of the United States, and that in extremity the officer must follow the highest traditions of the army … as he interprets them … on the spot.’

  As the sun rose above the buildings of Fort Garner, the two officers saluted.

  • • •

  Wetzel’s force consisted of forty-eight infantry plus a truncated company of Buffalo Soldiers, a tough, experienced, well-disciplined group of men. Their path to where Benito Garza was raiding was compass south, then a slight veer toward San Antonio, and another slight jog east toward the small riverfront town of Bravo, where headquarters would be established at Fort Grimm and where contact would be made with the Texas Rangers.

  On the trip south only one problem arose: Wetzel still did not like black soldiers and found it impossible to be congenial with them, but he did try to be fair. However, no matter what decision had to be made, the black troops knew that invariably they got the worst location for their tents, the poorest food and the most grudging amenities. The situation was exacerbated by the poor performance of their young officer, Lieutenant Asperson, scion of an old New England family that had prevailed upon their cousin, a senator from Massachusetts, to get the boy into West Point and, upon graduation, an assignment in some post of importance. The authorities, irritated by such pressures, had assured Senator Asperson that his nephew would ‘get one of the finest duty stations,’ and had then sent him to Fort Garner, one of the most dangerous.

  Armstrong Asperson was an awkward, inept, stoop-shouldered fellow who should have worn a frown to reflect his inability to adjust to the normal world. Instead, regardless of what disaster overtook him, and he was prone to disasters, he grinned vacuously and with a startling show of teeth. Did it rain when his men had no ponchos? He grinned. Did Wetzel give him his daily chewing out? He grinned. After he had been at the fort for about a week he went down to Suds Row for his laundry, and one of the toughest washerwomen summarized him in words which ricocheted about the station: ‘They hung the clock on the wall but forgot two of the parts.’
/>   So young Asperson, with two parts missing, was heading for his first battle, and both his colonel and his company were aghast to think that soon they might be fighting alongside this grinning scarecrow. Wetzel treated him with contempt and Jaxifer with condescension. ‘What we got to do, men,’ he said, ‘is stay close to him if anything happens so he don’t shoot hisse’f in the foot.’

  Jaxifer, whose entire life had been spent protecting himself from the peculiarities of white bosses, found little difficulty in adjusting either to Wetzel’s injustices or to Asperson’s inadequacies. Of Wetzel he said: ‘Look, men, he infantry and he just don’t know nothin’ ’bout cavalry. Keep yore mouf shut.’ Of Asperson: ‘Remember, even General Grant, he have to start somewhere. But I doubt he start as low as Asperson.’

  Thanks to Jaxifer’s counsel, the long march ended without incident, and during the second day in their quarters at Bravo they met for the first time a Texas Ranger, and they were not impressed. He wore no uniform; in an almost ludicrous manner he carried strapped to his saddle two rifles and four Colts, and nothing about him was army-clean. A small, wiry man in his late forties, he reported to Wetzel’s tent wearing a long white linen duster that came to his ankles.

  Without saluting, the small, diffident man said: ‘You Wetzel? I’m Macnab.’

  ‘You?’ Wetzel said in unmasked surprise. ‘I thought you’d be much bigger.’

  ‘I look bigger when I’m on a horse,’ Macnab said without smiling. ‘I’m sure glad to have your help.’ And without further amenities he began to draw maps in the sand outside Wetzel’s tent.

  ‘It’s tough down here,’ Macnab said. ‘Maybe even tougher than fighting Comanche.’

  ‘Now that would be pretty tough.’

  ‘Problem is, this Benito Garza, I’ve known him all my life, he’s a lot smarter than me, and if you’ll permit the expression, maybe a lot smarter than most of your men.’

  ‘I’ve heard that,’ Wetzel said, displaying a professional interest in a military situation. ‘How does he operate?’

  ‘Clever as a possum,’ Macnab said, and he let his explanation end as the cook beat upon a ring, signaling supper.

  While Wetzel smoked his cigar at sunset, Macnab resumed his map drawing: ‘Garza waits till something happens on this side of the border. And things do happen.’

  ‘Like hanging Mexican landowners?’

  ‘Mexicans ask for hanging,’ Macnab said. ‘But when it happens, Garza feels he must retaliate. And he does.’

  ‘In the same region?’

  Macnab looked about for a blade of grass, found one, and chewed on it: ‘Now there’s the problem. Always he confuses us. Four times in a row he strikes within a mile of where some Mexican was hanged. Next time, fifty miles away.’

  ‘How can you anticipate?’

  Macnab chewed on his grass, then confessed: ‘We can’t.’ There was a long silence, then as darkness approached from the east, Macnab said quietly: ‘Captain Wetzel, let me tell you what’s going on now.’

  ‘Proceed.’

  ‘We have good reason to think that Garza has taken command of a ranch, El Solitario, about ten miles south of here. He has forty, fifty men there, and they fan out to execute their revenge up and down the river.’

  No one spoke. More than two minutes passed without a word, for each of the three men attending the meeting knew what Macnab was proposing: that he and his Rangers cross the Rio Grande, make a sudden descent upon the hidden ranch, shoot Garza, and rely upon the United States Army to support them as they beat a frantic retreat with forty or fifty well-mounted Mexican riders striving to overtake them.

  Still silent, Macnab drew in the sand the location of Bravo, the river, the distant location of Rancho El Solitario, plus the circuitous route to it and the short, frenzied retreat back to the Rio Grande. When everything was in place he said softly: ‘It could be done.’

  Bluntly, Wetzel scuffed his foot along the escape route: ‘You mean, if someone came along here to hold off your pursuers?’

  ‘Couldn’t be done otherwise.’

  Wetzel leaned back, folded his arms like an irritated German school- master, and said: ‘I have the strictest orders forbidding me to step one inch onto Mexican soil.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ Macnab said quietly. ‘But what if my sixteen Rangers came down that road you just scratched out, with fifty Mexicans sure to overtake us before we reached the river?’

  ‘I would have my men lined up on this side of the river, every gun at the ready. Sergeant Gerton and a Gatling gun would be prepared to rake the river if the Mexicans tried to invade this side. And I would pray for you.’

  ‘Would you allow your men to come to the middle of the river to help?’

  ‘Is that the boundary between the two countries?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘My best gunners would be there.’

  Now came the time for a direct question: ‘But you wouldn’t come into Mexico to help?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  That ended the consultation, so without showing his disappointment, Macnab rode back to his own camp upriver, and it was unfortunate that he went in that direction because downriver some recent arrivals from Tennessee slew four Mexicans trying to prevent illegal seizure of their ancestral ranch land.

  Next morning, about noon, Otto Macnab was back to consult with Wetzel: ‘I’m sure Garza will strike within the next three days. But where?’

  ‘Do you think we should scatter our forces?’

  ‘I really don’t know. If he starts out now, within three days he could be almost anywhere. Since spies must have informed him of your arrival, he’ll hit somewhere near here, to shame you.’

  ‘So we should stay put?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Garza, infuriated by the killing of peasants trying to protect land once owned by his mother, Trinidad de Saldaña, was grimly determined to let the intruders know that this fight was going to be interminable and, as Macnab had predicted, he could do this most effectively by striking close to the new encampment. He allowed five days to lapse, then six, then seven, so that the Rangers and the soldiers would be disoriented. On the night of the eighth day he rode with thirty of his best men across the Rio Grande and devastated two ranches east of Bravo, killing three Texans and escaping to safety before either the Rangers or the soldiers could be alerted.

  He took his men on a wide swing back to the safety of El Solitario. This nest of adobe houses was completely surrounded by a high stone-and-adobe wall, which enclosed fruit trees, a well and enough cattle to feed his men for more than a month. It was a frontier ranch, so built as to protect its inhabitants from assaults coming from any direction, but its major asset was that it lay far enough inland from the river to make an attack from Texas unlikely.

  Macnab did not think it was impregnable: ‘Informers tell us Garza did the job downriver with no more than thirty men, who are now holed up at his ranch with about twenty others. I’m going in there and finish Benito Garza.’

  He spoke these words not to Wetzel but to his Rangers, sixteen of them, the youngest only sixteen years old. Then he added: ‘I do not order any of you to come with me, but I’m inviting volunteers.’ As two men stepped forward he stopped them: ‘You know, I’ve been after Garza for thirty years. I’ve made it my life’s work. I have to go. You don’t.’

  ‘I want him too,’ a thin, fierce Texan said. ‘He killed my brother.’

  Every Ranger volunteered, but the boy he turned back: ‘No, Sam. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘I’m here because he burned our ranch.’

  ‘Well, you stay behind and lead the troops when they come to rescue us.’

  ‘They said they wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘That’s what they said, but they’ll come. Lead them to that fork we saw on our last scout.’ When the boy showed his disappointment, Macnab asked: ‘You remember where the fork is? We’ll be coming there hell-for-leather. Have the soldiers in position to do us some goo
d.’

  He took off his duster, folded it neatly, and stowed it. His men placed beside it things they did not care to risk on this adventure, and when everyone was ready, Macnab took out his watch and handed it to the boy, instructing him as to how it should be used. At five that afternoon Captain Macnab and his Rangers forded the Rio Grande, rode north, then cut into heavy mesquite. Through the night they moved cautiously toward Garza’s ranch, but at half an hour before sunup they had the bad luck to be spotted by Mexicans living on a smaller ranch. There was some noise and a scattering of chickens, after which a young man shouted: ‘Rinches!’

  Men started running for their horses, but each was shot before he could mount. There would be no messenger riding forth from this ranch, and to ensure that no woman tried to spread the alarm, all horses in the corral were shot, and Rangers bound the four remaining women and locked them in a room.

  It was nearly dawn when Macnab’s men reached the high walls of the Garza compound, and now a brief council of war was held, not to devise tactics, for they had been agreed upon days before, but to specify tasks. At a signal, four Rangers crashed through the main gate, paving the way for the rest to follow. There was a blaze of gunfire, and then in the doorway appeared the white-haired figure of Benito Garza, his two pistols drawn, ready for battle.

  Macnab, who had anticipated such an appearance, steadied his rifle against a watering trough and for a second recalled that similar moment on the eve of the battle at Buena Vista when through gallantry he had allowed Garza to escape, and he saw also that incredible scene in 1848 when Garza had passed by him within inches during the escape of Santa Anna into exile. ‘Not this time, Uncle Benito,’ he muttered as Garza started to leave the doorway.

  The heavy bullet sped straight to the heart, and the great bandit, protector of his people, lurched forward, expecting to see his ancient enemy in some shadow, but he saw nothing, and toppled to his death.