In Harm's Way

by Drew McGunn

  “Papa, listen to Buck. You’re all skin and bones.”

  The elder Seguin glared at his son, “If we win, there is still so much to do in Austin. President Ellis’ overtures to the US has created uncertainty in the commodities. The bureau will have to act to shore up confidence.”

  Will cringed when Juan said, “And if we lose, what then?”

  “I’ll retire. If the people favor annexation, staying in the government would be reefing the sails on a sinking ship.”

  Will moved around the room, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries with the attendees. He felt a tug on his sleeve. “A moment of your time, General?”

  John Wharton beckoned him to a corner. “How is private life treating you now that Ellis has brought Lamar back from France?”

  “Mirabeau’s a good sort, Buck. If there’s another diplomat in our stable that can ride herd on our overseas missions, Lamar’s the man.”

  Will wasn’t sure if he agreed with Wharton. Years earlier he had talked President Crockett into appointing Mirabeau Lamar to serve as Texas’ chargé d'affaires to France. Getting the nakedly ambitious politician out of Texas had seemed prudent. “I hope you’re right. Lamar is a bit of a loose cannon.”

  Will had to lean in to hear Wharton’s next words. “Mirabeau may love the sound of his voice more than most, General, but he’s not one of Ellis’ supporters. He’s as ardent a supporter of independence as any of us.”

  “Then why’d he accept your old post?” Will asked, confused.

  “Don’t forget, Mirabeau’s favorite person is Mirabeau. Secretary of State is a step up, and he’s nothing if not ambitious.”

  As he wound his way through the sea of tables and chairs, he spotted the British chargé d'affaires. “Minister Elliot, how nice of you to join us, tonight.”

  Charles Elliot dipped his head to the woman by his side, “General, allow me to introduce my wife, Clara, to you.”

  The trappings of polite society bemused Will even after more than a decade, but he took her offered hand and brushed his lips over it, “The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Elliot.”

  The British minister said, “Of all the votes counted so far, your independence party trails by a few hundred votes, yet there is an air of celebration. Do you think you’ll make up the balance when all the count is in?”

  That was the ten-dollar question. “I hope so. There are thirty thousand people who are now Texian citizens in what was once New Mexico. By the Treaty of Saltillo, they’re all citizens. The results have raced across the desert of west Texas by courier and with any luck, will arrive in San Antonio today.”

  Elliot furrowed his brow, “Why do you expect people who only a few years ago were loyal Mexicans to support Texas independence? Wouldn’t they rather trust the United States than Texas?”

  “I’m hoping they’ll accept the devil they know over the one they don’t,” Will said before taking his leave. He didn’t want to say more, but funds contributed from the Commerce Bank and several other enterprises, allowed several of the Texas Congress’ more eloquent Tejano members to spend the last two months canvassing the people of the Northern Rio Grande district, as New Mexico was now called. The plan was to use the US’s Indian policy as a stand-in for how the US would handle the thousands of newly minted Texian citizens. Time would soon reveal if it were the right strategy.

  He had come full circle, arriving back at the table where his family sat. Becky sat with Liza on one side and David on the other. Six-year-old Liza gave her little brother a nasty look, contrasting poorly with her elegant, frilly dress. Three-year-old David wore a triumphant look as though he had managed some nefarious victory against his older sister.

  “Thank God you’re back. These two heathens have just about found my last nerve.” Becky was stunning in a velvet dress, bought especially for the evening’s festivities. The necklace sparkled in the lamplight. He swept David out of the seat and plopped down beside his wife. Letting the toddler ride his knee, Will leaned in and nuzzled his wife’s neck, propriety be damned.

  “If you should see my hand, I think one of Sam Houston’s Cherokee cronies may have shook it off.”

  Giggling, Becky said, “You’re a martyr for the cause, love.”

  He glanced at a blackboard, which had been brought in to track the vote. All the ballots from eastern Texas were tallied there. In the heavily pro-slavery part of Texas, independence had lost by a margin of two to one. In the area around Galveston Bay, the forces of Independence had eked out a small victory. In west-central Texas, in the area between San Antonio and Austin, the vote favored independence by a large margin. In northeastern Texas, near Arkansas, the vote had split nearly even.

  Except for Santa Fe and everything west of there, the vote was in. More than sixty thousand votes already counted. Less than a thousand votes separated annexation supporters from those favoring independence. The result would hinge on the far west.

  A commotion arose as a courier burst through the ballroom’s doors. The young man held a telegram over his head. “The results are in! Santa Fe and Albuquerque have reported their returns.”

  Will gripped Becky’s hand and gently squeezed as the courier handed the note to Erasmo Seguin, who unfolded it and quietly read it.

  Will heard the ticking of his timepiece in his vest pocket as time seemed to slow to a crawl. The elder Seguin clutched the crumpled note to his chest and called out, “We did it! The Rio Grande District backed independence by a margin of three to one.”

  Will felt Becky’s hands grab the lapels on his jacket and pull him into a passionate kiss. Any sense of decorum was gone. Independence had won and annexation had been defeated.

  Chapter 24

  7 October 1847

  A film of dust lay on the desk as Lieutenant Charles Travis collapsed into the camp chair. A light breeze riffled the pages of an open book; the sides of the tent were rolled up, allowing the cool air to waft through the tent.

  Charlie examined the letter from Captain Orwell Jackson, the company commander. In it, Jackson told him the expected ammunition wagon was again delayed. Charlie crumpled the note and left it on the table. How the hell was he supposed to keep his men trained if the army wouldn’t give him the tools to do his job? He gripped the wooden tent pole at the front of the tent and glared across the small camp for which he was responsible.

  A half-built adobe wall surrounded nearly two dozen tents. The northernmost post in Texian California was home to a platoon of riflemen tasked with monitoring the coastal road between San Francisco in the Jefferson Territory and Monterey, to the south.

  The scowl fell from his face as he saw Bill King, the Customs agent emerge from another tent. “Mornin’ Bill. I hope you have better news than me.”

  Using a cane, King hobbled over. “If I were any better, the good Lord would have to make two of me.”

  When Charlie stopped laughing, he said, “Liar. The way you were walking, I’d have thought you were a drunken sailor instead of Texas’ chief customs officer for San Jose.”

  “I was fifteen when I was shot at the Battle of the Nueces. I nearly lost my leg but got a comfortable job with Customs. At least until we took California from Mexico. I must have pissed on somebody’s boot to get stuck here with you.”

  Charlie gave him a rude gesture.

  Smiling, King said, “Treat the man who supplies your food a bit nicer. Next time I find a barrel of rancid meat, I’ll send it your way.”

  Charlie held his hands up in mock surrender. King collected the tariff on all trade crossing the border. When merchants couldn’t pay with cash or specie, they paid in-kind with a portion of their supplies. All of the food Charlie’s platoon ate came from King’s collections. “You win. I don’t suppose you’ve collected any gunpowder as of late?”

  “No. But I’ll add it to the list of things to take in lieu of payment.”

  A gunshot echoed through the camp startling the two men and, a moment later, one of Charlie’s riflemen raced up to him, “Lie
utenant, sir. There’s some coolies on the road. We stopped ‘em but damned if not a one of them speaks a lick of English.”

  Charlie cringed inside. He hated President Ellis’ latest executive order, banning immigration from the Orient. Since the beginning of the gold rush into Jefferson and to a lesser extent into Texian California, laborer’s from China had trickled into the region, working for low wages.

  “God save us from idiot politicians. I doubt there are more than a hundred of these coolies in the entire country. Why in heaven’s name does Richard Ellis think we need a law against them?”

  King followed Charlie toward the road. “You know the answer to that. Ellis has offered to prioritize claims this side of the border to any slaveholders who bring ten or more slaves. These Chinamen pose a real risk, given how little they’ll work for.”

  Charlie glowered at the customs officer. “Not you, too, Bill?”

  King shrugged his shoulders, “Don’t ask if you don’t like the answer.”

  When they arrived, Charlie found one of his rifle teams corralling a group of Asian men. He demanded, “Who fired their gun?”

  One of his men said, “That was me, sir. One of them tried to run around the gate. I fired a warning shot and he decided he didn’t want to run no more.”

  Satisfied no one had been hurt, Charlie turned on the group of Asians. “Any of y’all speak English?”

  He scanned the faces of the men. The oldest was probably no older than his father and the youngest a few years younger than his own twenty years. But to a man, they wore confused looks. He tried again in Spanish, but with the same luck.

  Down the road, toward San Francisco, he saw a man riding a horse, wearing the blue uniform of the US army. While the US chose to not patrol the border, a small garrison protected the peninsula. By the time Charlie could make out the shoulder boards and see the captain’s bars, he could also see the red piping of the artillery on his uniform.

  The horseman stopped on the US side of the gate spanning the coastal road. “I heard the gunshot, thought I’d see if you people had a problem. Do you?”

  Charlie eyed the officer. He didn’t envy the horse his heavy rider. “Howdy. As much as it pains me to say, these coolies aren’t allowed across the border.”

  Was there a spark of anger in the officer’s eyes? It was gone as soon as it appeared. “You people were shooting because of that?”

  Charlie wanted to curse. He hated Ellis’ executive order. He hated the slaveholders the order was meant to profit. He hated the rifleman whose excitement had brought the American officer here. And most importantly, he hated the pompous ass sitting on the other side of the gate.

  God dammit, I’m the officer. I’m in charge. His thoughts were scarcely framed in his mind before his father’s cool reasoning came to mind. Before an officer can master his men, he must first master himself. He bit the inside of his lip until the iron taste of blood filled his mouth. In a voice he considered measured, he said, “Just a warning shot, Captain. You wouldn’t happen to know any of the coolies’ language by chance?”

  “Just enough to get my laundry done.”

  Before Charlie could respond, King said, “I happen to have a bottle of whiskey imported from Ireland for you, if you could help us let these poor lads know that the border’s closed.”

  The captain appeared to weigh the prospect. It was evident he knew of Texas’ closed door policy regarding the coolies and didn’t care for it. But the temptation of a bottle of whiskey tilted the scales the other way.

  He turned to the Asians and spoke in a language that rose and fell almost melodically. The expression on the men’s face changed from confused to angry, and several of them responded harshly to the captain. When he spread his hands, he turned and said, “Lieutenant, I’ll thank you for that bottle of whiskey. As you can see, they don’t care one whit more for your policy than I do.”

  A few minutes later, as King handed over the bottle of whiskey, Charlie said, “Duty is a double-edged sword, Captain. As soldiers, we must carry out unpopular but lawful acts with the same diligence as we carry out the orders we like.”

  Uncorking the bottle, the captain raised it to Charlie in salute. He upended the bottle and drank.

  ***

  8 April 1848

  Will checked the door before he swore at the newspaper in his hands. The article on the first page proclaiming President Ellis had won his case before the Texas Supreme Court was the source of his ire. At the first whiff Ellis was thinking of running for election in his own right, his opponents in Congress had filed a lawsuit against him, claiming the constitution’s prohibition against multiple terms denied him the right to run for election. After all, each president was limited to one six-year term in office.

  Will missed Lorenzo. Zavala had been an able president, following in President Crockett’s footsteps, pursuing policies that strengthened Texas’ independence. Will had always viewed Zavala’s recruitment of Ellis as a necessary evil to win the presidency, peeling just enough votes away from the pro-annexation Sam Houston to win the election of 1842. But since Zavala’s untimely death, Ellis’ true colors had come through. As a condition to being Zavala’s vice president, Ellis had pledged to support Texian independence, even though he was pro-slavery.

  Zavala’s body had barely cooled before Ellis declared support for annexation. Will had hoped defeating annexation in the plebiscite the previous year would have ended Ellis’ political fortunes. Instead, the president had continued wooing Southern Democrats in the US. Some, like John Calhoun, from South Carolina, had scorned Ellis’ entreaties. He had said, “The people of Texas have spoken. If they change their mind, and if there is a Democrat in the White House, we can talk of this again.”

  Now, Will thought, the Supreme Court had cleared the way for Ellis to run for the presidency in his own right. He scanned the newspaper and reread the offending paragraph.

  Quoting Chief Justice Birdsall, “The constitution assumes the president must be elected in his own right in order to serve a term. The constitution also establishes the vice president will act in the capacity of the president if he becomes incapacitated. When President Zavala succumbed to pneumonia and Vice President Ellis became president, while he completed his predecessor’s term of office, he did not trigger the one-term requirement.

  Will rolled the newspaper into a tight roll and dropped it into a wastebasket. He muttered, “Here’s what I think of your election chances, Dick.”

  He sat in his chair and was deep into reviewing the quarterly finances of the farm machine company he and Dick Gatling had founded when he heard a voice, “Will!”

  Thoughts of balance sheets fled as Becky’s voice registered. He found her in the kitchen, where she was standing over a heavy iron skillet. “You’ve got to try this.” With a large spoon in one hand and the other covered in flour, she looked happy as she said, “Those jars used to store food are a real marvel. Those peaches I preserved last year were perfect for this dessert. And you won’t believe how rich and tasty it is. Try it.”

  Will waited as she dished out a serving. The smell of cooked peaches brought back memories from his own childhood. The flaky crust smelled heavily of cinnamon mixed with peach. With Becky standing over his shoulder, he picked up a fork and took a bite. The sweet peach flavor filled his mouth. He resisted the urge to swallow and sat there, savoring the taste. Rich desserts, like peach cobbler, were usually reserved for the harvest time when the peaches hung heavy from their branches.

  With the canning made possible with sealable glass jars invented by one of the mechanical engineering students from Trinity College a could of years earlier, fruits and vegetables could be stored for months. He swallowed and spooned more into his mouth, it was like eating a little bit of heaven.

  “Don’t eat it all. We’ll save some for after dinner this evening. Is it sweet enough?”

  Will nodded; he had a mouthful of cobbler.

  Becky held up a tin can. “Mr. Borden brought this o
ver yesterday. It’s that condensed milk he’s been working on. I used a bit of it in the cobbler. It’s like having milk and sugar all together in one can.”

  Will swallowed and smiled. It wasn’t like that. It was exactly that. More than a year of Gail Borden’s life had been poured into discovering how to condense milk into something marketable. As Will grabbed another bite, he was happy to see Borden seemed to have worked out the kinks.

  Becky leaned down and used her finger to wipe a piece of peach from his lip. Will tilted his head up and grabbed her by the arm, pulled her down until their lips touched. It was the peachiest of kisses.

  The following Monday, Will leaned against one of the tables in Gail Borden’s lab. Behind him was a stack of tin cans. Borden stood behind a large vat, and said, “I’m glad you liked the condensed milk. I’ve been handing it out to the women in town hoping they would use it in their cooking. I’ve not been disappointed. If we were set up to commercially produce it, I could sell a hundred cans tomorrow.”

  Will asked, “What do you need for us to start manufacturing it?”

  Borden’s smile evaporated, “I’m not sure we can. We need a steady supply of tin and a company who can make our cans. We need more sugar and more milk than what the cows around Trinity Park can produce. We need access to transportation networks and access to markets back east. All of that is available back in New York.”

  Will’s mouth sagged. “New York City! You’ve got to be kidding me. Texas needs this invention, Gail. For Texas to grow into a vibrant country, we need things like your condensed milk.”

  Borden’s shoulders slumped, “I’ve been here nearly twenty years. Texas is my home as much as it is yours. But if we want to make this work, how can we do that so far away from eastern markets?”

  Will paced across the room, thinking. “We can do a railroad easy enough. We can build you a factory in West Liberty or even Houston. That’ll put you on the railroad. If you put out the word you’re buying milk, we can probably get enough milk from farmers located near the railroad to meet demand.”