Louisiana History Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  By contrast, this new country seemed rich with possibilities and wide enough to encompass any number of fresh ideas. For the first time in years Refugio, felt little need to look over his shoulder or search the shadows in front of him. Here, for the moment, there was nothing except the night, no danger beyond that brought by nature.

  Doña Luisa slapped at a mosquito on her arm. The sudden blow jarred the wooden bowl of cold stew she still held in her lap. It tipped over, pouring greasy gravy down her skirts. She jumped up with a wail, dropping the bowl, then kicking it with the sharp-pointed toe of her shoe so that it rolled into the fire.

  “I hate this!” she cried. “I am being eaten alive, my skin is burned so that I could be mistaken for my husband's mulatto mistress. I have nothing to wear except what I stand in, and all I'm given to eat is swill not fit for swine. I demand that you take me back! I will give a thousand pesos, two thousand, to the man who will take me back to New Orleans.”

  Refugio bent swiftly to take a stick of kindling and knock the wooden bowl from the flames. He pushed it to one side, where it lay smoldering; they had only one bowl each and there was no way to tell when they would be able to get another.

  “You have as much as any of us,” he said to Luisa. “However, if you want to die, we can leave you here. It will be a great deal less trouble than returning to New Orleans.”

  “Here! That would be murder!” She gave him a look of angry hauteur.

  “Maybe not,” Enrique said, joining the conversation with a sly glance at the noblewoman. “You might be found by an Indian savage and taken into his bed. He would not work you overmuch, except for the daylight hours, nor trouble you for your favors after the first four or five little savages were born.”

  Doña Luisa looked at the acrobat under her lashes. “Disgusting.”

  “You may find it so at first, but I expect you would get used to it.”

  “You are an ignorant little man.”

  “And you are vain and spoiled, but I forgive you.”

  “I didn't ask your forgiveness!” she cried.

  “Isn't it generous of me to give it to you anyway?”

  Pilar, sitting with her elbows propped on her knees as she followed the exchange, sat up straight. “Your life is in danger, Doña Luisa, and will be so long as my stepfather remains in New Orleans. He is not a reasonable man in his vengeance.”

  “Your stepfather, yes,” the other woman said, curling her lips. “I might have known this was your fault.”

  “Don't blame Pilar,” Enrique said in stern tones. “You threw in your lot with us of your own choice aboard the Celestina. The reason was the thrill of flirting with danger. It's not our fault if things turned out more dangerous than you expected.”

  “Your Pilar might be used to the company of bandits, señor, but I am not.”

  “No?” Enrique inquired with irony. “You knew what we were on the ship. That was fine so long as no one else knew.”

  “Quarreling,” Refugio said, “can be such sweet enmity. I give the two of you leave to enjoy it, but there is no one to spare to return you to New Orleans, Luisa. Pilar is right. I took you from there to spare you the revenge of Don Esteban. There is no reason to think that the danger has passed.”

  She tossed her head. “I can't believe he would harm me.”

  “So my sister thought of his son. But come, you are a woman of valor. If it were not so, you would never have embarked for Louisiana. We have need of valor now.”

  “I hate being uncomfortable,” Doña Luisa said, slapping at a mosquito. “I despise seeing only water and water and more water.”

  “We will leave the river soon enough, and then you may long for water. But you can bear whatever comes because you must, and because you have strength inside that has never been used.”

  “You think so?” she asked without looking at him.

  “Naturally. It's in your blood, the strength of your ancestors who fought and died on the plains of Spain to oust the Moors and bring holiness to the land, who marched against the Indians of strange lands with their swords in their hands and a prayer on their lips and returned to their mother country with gold in their purses and thanksgiving in their hearts.”

  “Yes,” Doña Luisa agreed, sitting down again, a faraway look in her eyes. “Do you know if there is gold in this Tejas country?” Charro, who was sitting behind Doña Luisa, began to shake his head, opening his mouth to speak. Refugio stopped him with a small gesture of one hand. His expression calm, he said, “The illustrious Francisco Vasquez de Coronado marched across the western lands in search of the wealth of the Seven Cities of Cibola. He never found it, but does that mean it isn't there? Does it, when in the lands farther south the Indians once dressed themselves in sheets of beaten gold? There are also rumors of silver.”

  “That would be something, to return from this far country with a fortune.” Doña Luisa gave a small sigh.

  “Wouldn't it?” Refugio murmured as Charro and Enrique exchanged a droll look.

  Doña Luisa said no more, but there was a speculative gleam in her eyes.

  “My father had gold,” Isabel said, her voice soft, musing. “I used to play with it, stacking the coins in piles on the table. Then he gambled it all away, and we had nothing. We were thrown from our house and left to wander the street in rags. It was there that Refugio found me. He saved me from two cart drivers who were trying to carry me into a stable.”

  “Don't think about it, Isabel,” Baltasar said, his voice rough with weary tenderness. “Don't talk about it, either. Let's go to bed.”

  Isabel looked at the big man a long moment, then gave him a sad and tender smile. “Yes,” she said, “I'm ready.”

  Refugio watched them go, and his gray eyes narrowed with what might have been a defense against pain. They all sought their blankets shortly afterward.

  Refugio lay for long hours, staring up into the night sky. A cynical smile curved his mouth as he thought of the gold he had spoken of to Luisa. Gold. Dear God. He sought in his mind for some hope for the future, much less wealth, and could find none. Ahead lay only the unknown.

  Hope was not, of course, a commodity with which he was overly familiar. He had been resigned to a short life for some time. Or so he thought. Circumstances changed. Foolish aspirations were not restricted to dissatisfied widows.

  For the moment, however, he was content. It was a sensation both foreign and unsettling. Wakeful, he lay beside Pilar and watched as she slept. He listened to the soft sound of her breathing and reached often to brush mosquitoes away from her face.

  It was as they were getting into the boats again the next morning that Doña Luisa looked at Pilar. “How does it happen that you have almost no welts from mosquito bites on your face. I have so many my face feels as swollen as a frog, and the itching is driving me mad.”

  Pilar touched her face. “I don't know.”

  “If you have some special cream or something that saves you, I think it's mean of you not to share it.”

  “It's nothing like that, I promise it isn't. Maybe they just don't like the way I taste.”

  Doña Luisa looked skeptical as she stepped into the boat and sat down.

  “Really”, Pilar said, “if I had anything to guard against the mosquitoes, I would share it.”

  Refugio, turned away to hide his wry smile. They reached the Red River a few days later and turned into this more westward-flowing tributary. On an afternoon just under two weeks from the time they had left New Orleans, they paddled up to the landing at the old military post known as Saint Jean de Baptiste de la Natchitoches.

  A warm rain was falling as they pulled the boats up on the shore. It pocked the surface of the river and fell with a soft clatter through the brilliant new, green leaves on the trees. The air had a green cast as the fresh, rich color was reflected from the prismatic raindrops. This was aided by the warm and watery sun that peered now and then through the clouds. Regardless of the heat, however, they were all miserable in their
drenched clothing.

  They were approached with caution, but with friendliness; any traveler with news from downriver was apparently welcome. Nevertheless, they kept the tale of the burning of New Orleans to themselves. They could give no idea of exact damage or loss of life, and to explain why it had been necessary for them to leave the city before this information became available would be sure to call up questions difficult to answer.

  There was something seductive about the sleepy little town with its buildings that were rustic but inviting, its warm hospitality and gentle voices lilting in a patois that mingled French and Spanish, Indian and African words. It seemed that this outpost must surely be too far from New Orleans for interference, far enough for safety. Still, if they could reach it so easily, so could others.

  They sold the boat for a goodly sum. They added that to the last of the silver, and with it bought horses — most of them cheap but fleet and sturdy plains ponies, though Vicente found a young stallion with an appearance of fine bloodlines which he insisted on having. They also bought flour and dried corn, dried beef, bacon and beans and peppers, plus another musket or two to increase their store and an additional supply of ammunition. Finally, they bought a pair of pack mules to carry everything.

  Doña Luisa tried to insist that a change of clothing be bought for each of the women to replace those left behind in New Orleans. The only thing to be had, however, was a few lengths of cheap cloth suitable only for the Indian trade. It was Enrique who, disappearing in the afternoon, returned a short time later with a collection of blouses and shirts and even a day gown in Doña Luisa's size. He would not say where the items came from, but they were still damp, as if fresh from a washline. Nevertheless, he basked in the approval of the ladies, at least for a while.

  At dawn two days after they had landed, they mounted up and rode their horses away from the post and along the trail that led to the Sabine River and the Tejas country beyond.

  17

  THEY LEFT THE MOSQUITOES behind, for the most part, once they crossed the Sabine. They traveled for several more days through rolling hills covered with dense stands of pine and hickory, sweet gum and ash trees, and where wild plum bushes and haw trees were hung with small green fruit. Slowly the trees became more sparse and the pines and ash and gums gave way to scrub oak. The hills became flatter, more spreading. The winding waterways grew farther apart and narrower. The swampy bottomlands opened out to stretches of long grass blowing in the wind.

  Charro became their guide, pointing them along the faintest of paths in a southwesterly direction. He did not pretend to know the way, however; this he told them plainly. He had only heard tales of the trail that was a part of the old El Camino Real, the king's highway, and could recall but a few landmark mentioned during stories told of caravans that had disappeared and massacres by Indians at lonely way stops. He knew the route began at Natchez on the east bank of the Mississippi, crossed the river and passed overland to Natchitoches and through what had once been the mission settlements along the Sabine, including old Los Adaes near Natchitoches, and then continued on to Mexico City. There had been a time when there was much movement on it. In the days of the French in Louisiana, it had been a favorite contraband route for men bent on cheating the king of Spain of the silver from his mines in New Spain, or of the proceeds of the trade between the two colonies, a trade that was illegal under Spanish law. There had also been diplomatic missions between the French commandant at Natchitoches, St. Denis, and the Spanish settlements along the Rio Grande. During one of the latter St. Denis had been arrested for smuggling and imprisoned by a Spanish military commander, then had married the military commander's daughter. Since the closing of the Sabine missions some sixteen years earlier, after Louisiana became Spanish and the area ceased to be one of contention between France and Spain, traffic on the highway had slowed to a trickle and nearly ceased. Travel along it was dangerous for another of the reasons that the missions had closed — the depredations of the Indians of the Tejas plains.

  The man in Natchitoches who had sold them the horses had thought they were crazy to be setting out on the El Camino Real alone. They should wait, he said, at least until another group came along heading in their direction. There were sometimes traders who moved among the Indian tribes, men who exchanged muskets and the aguardiente, known as firewater, for buffalo hides and other furs, men with knowledge and experience in the vast country through which they would be traveling. Such traders were not exactly persons of respect, but the larger the party, the less likely the Indians were to attack. There was a quartet of traders and their helpers who were due to leave in a week or so.

  It was decided among the band that they must go on. The news of who they were and what had taken place in New Orleans might reach the town before the traders were ready to depart. In addition, the kind of men who would arm savages with muskets might well be more dangerous than the Indians. They did not need more trouble than they had already.

  The men were glad to be on horseback again. They showed it by staging impromptu races and displays of horsemanship in which they did everything except make their mounts stand on their heads. Such high spirits soon waned, however, under the day-to-day tedium of the journey.

  Pilar also enjoyed being back in the saddle. She had grown used to the hard pace Refugio set during her few days with the band in Spain, and though it was exhausting, the tiredness it brought was healthy. It was also welcome, since it prevented her from thinking.

  Doña Luisa was shocked that she was expected to ride, something she had never done in her life. She had, at first, refused to go at all unless a carriage, or at least a cart, was found for her use. No arguments about the unsuitability of the country ahead for carriage traffic or the slowness of that mode of transportation moved her. Only Refugio's threat to tie her facedown across a saddle brought capitulation. It also added a bitter note to her ceaseless complaints.

  The woman sat her horse like a bundle of soiled linen ready for the wash. She moaned through the first two days, cataloging her every sore muscle and bruise and rubbed section of skin, and castigating Refugio as a beast for dragging her along on his flight from prosecution. It took two men to help her onto her mount, and three to haul her down again, and she was so insecure in the saddle that their rate of travel was reduced by a third.

  On the morning of the third day Enrique interrupted the woman's grumbling with a suggestion. Doña Luisa could ride pillion with him, he said; he rode light, so the two of them together would not overburden his mount. She refused, she protested, she cried and even cursed. Regardless, she was hoisted up behind the acrobat. Enrique kicked his horse into a gallop. The lady screamed and flung herself against him, wrapping her plump white arms around his narrow waist. Grinning like a dog with a new bone, Enrique wheeled in a wide circle, then came high-stepping back to rejoin the others.

  Doña Luisa's endless cataloging of her grievances did not stop, but only found a new outlet. Enrique, unlike Refugio, did not ignore them, but took issue with every word she said. He questioned her reasons for grumbling, cracked jokes, ridiculed her lack of equine prowess, and generally goaded her into rage. The resulting quarrels and shouting matches seemed to give him vast satisfaction, and at the same time so wearied the lady that she ceased to rail at her circumstances.

  Whether Refugio approved or deplored the arrangement, no one could tell. He was distant, preoccupied. He often ranged for miles ahead, bringing back information on diverging paths and watering holes and instructions on resting places. Sometimes he backtracked, circling around in a wide loop to watch the trail behind them.

  It did not seem to trouble him that Charro had taken a position of leadership. The two of them consulted together often and long, holding midnight sessions in which Refugio went over everything the Tejas-born man knew about the country and its dangers. He extracted details concerning the route they were following that Charro was hardly aware he knew, the names and locations of rivers and distances between them, t
he detours for dry stretches and best ways to cross the open prairie lands, and the characteristics of prominent landmarks. He also delved into the nature, habits, and tricks of the different Indian tribes, from the forest-dwelling, sun-worshiping Caddo Hasinai to the cannibalistic Karankawa of the coastal areas; from the primitive Coahuiltecans of the southern desert and nonmalignant Tonkawas of the grasslands, to the warlike Apaches and hard-riding Comanches who had made the plains their own by driving all others from them. Of the last two tribes, it was difficult to say which was worse.

  The Apaches, Charro said, feared nothing that breathed or walked. They were cunning and devious and renowned for their cruelty. All efforts to convert them to Christianity had failed. They had, during the two-hundred-odd years of Spanish occupation of the Tejas country, been the greatest single factor preventing the settlements from prospering.

  The Comanches were more recent arrivals, sweeping down from the mountains to the north within the last hundred years. Incomparable horsemen, aggressive, swift, and deadly, they were competing with the Apaches for mastery of the plains, and so were their enemies. Caught between the Comanches on one side and the Spanish on the other, the Apaches had become more daring, more vicious, as they waged a campaign to the death against both. In retaliation, the Spanish had formulated their own policy of extermination of the Apaches. Toward that end they had attempted to create alliances with the other Indian tribes, but the rate of success was not impressive. Spanish expansion in the vast region bounded by the Sabine, the Rio Grande, and the western mountains had officially stopped; unofficially, it was in retreat.

  Regardless of the Indian danger, the leagues slid past without a hint of trouble. The weather was dry and mild, a succession of perfect days. Birds called, bees hummed in the wildflowers and the clover, and the sun shone down with heat that slowly increased. Rabbits with tails as white and fluffy as cotton were flushed from the grass before them, and coveys of quail flew up sometimes from directly under the hoofs of their mounts. In the drowsy heat of the afternoon they watched the languid circling of sparrow hawks and buzzards, while dusk often brought the call of coyotes. It did not seem possible that there could be savages somewhere beyond the haze-shaded horizon, savages waiting for a chance to kill them or inflict the horrible tortures Charro described. Imperceptibly, the fears of the past weeks receded, as if they were being left behind as surely as the mountains of Spain and the Mississippi River which curled around New Orleans.