Michener, James A.

by Texas

  Now the governor, wishing to establish our credentials, addressed each of us in turn: 'Rusk, your people arrived in Texas when—1870s? From Pennsylvania? Miss Cobb, your people came from the Carolinas, 1840s, wasn't it? And Quimper, you beat us all, didn't you—1822 or thereabouts, from Tennessee? Wasn't a Quimper the Hero of San Jacinto?' Lorenzo nodded modestly.

  :".;

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  When he came to me, it was obvious he had no knowledge of my ancestry: 'When did your people arrive, Barlow?'

  But I had a real surprise for him; I smiled and said: 'Moses Barlow. Arrived in Gonzales . . . from nowhere known ... 24 February 1836. Three days later he volunteered for the Alamo.'

  Startled, the governor leaned back, then reached out to grasp my hands: That Barlow? We take great pride in men like him.'

  I was eager to hear Professor Garza's credentials, but the charming secretary interrupted: 'Governor, please! The deputation's|in been waiting twenty minutes.'

  After apologies for his abrupt departure, he called back: 'Carry on, Task Force! Let's get the ships in the water.'

  We spent about an hour going over basics and I was pleasantly surprised at how knowledgeable these people were. Rusk cut directly to the heart of any problem, as billionaires learn to do, which is why they're billionaires, I suppose. Quimper provided us with a constant and I must say welcome barrage of Texas observations such as: 'He jumped on that one like a duck jumpin' on a June bug' and 'They'll be as busy as a cow swatting flies with a bobbed tail.' Like any self-respecting Texan, he was adept in barnyard and ranching similes.

  Miss Cobb was, as I had suspected, very bright and well-disciplined, and as always in such circumstances I found myself wondering why she had not married. She was, I learned before the luncheon ended, heiress to the cotton-growing fortune of the two senators, and I was assured by Quimper that 'she could of gone to Washington too, had she wanted to make the fight when Lyndon Johnson pulled that swifty in 1960. He bulldozed a change in Texas election law making it legal for him to run for both the Senate and the vice-presidency on the same day. He won both elections, then surrendered his Senate seat. Neatest trick of his career, because it carried him to the presidency.'

  It was she who verbalized our problem: 'We must remind our students and ourselves that Texas is great because it boasts seven different cultural inheritances.'

  'Which seven?' Rusk asked.

  And now I made an amusing discovery. I had been worrying about the wrong potential dictators, Rusk and Quimper. The real danger was going to be with Miss Cobb, because although she wore the muted gray of a retiring nun, it was really a battleship-gray, and when she spoke it was with steellike authority.

  Standing before the big map in a conference room attached to the governor's office, she lectured us as if we were schoolchildren: Tm not speaking about regional differences. Anyone can see that

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  fefferson up here in the swampy northeast bears little resemblance :o El Paso down here in the desert, nearly eight hundred miles away. Such physical differences are easy. Even Northern newcomers can see them. But we miss the whole meaning of Texas if we miss the cultural differences.'

  'I asked before, which ones?' Rusk did not suffer vagueness, not even from his friends.

  'First, Indian. They flourished here centuries before any of us arrived, but in our wisdom we exterminated them, so their influence has been minimal. Second, Spanish-Mexican, which we try to ignore. Third, those stubborn Kentucky-Tennessee settlers, originally from places like New York and Philadelphia, who built their own little Baptist and Methodist world along the Brazos River. Fourth, we latecomers from the Old South, we built a beautiful plantation life of slaves, cotton and secession. Our influence was strong and lasting, as you can hear when Lorenzo calls me "Miz." Fifth, the great secret of Texas history, the blacks, whose history we mute and whose contributions we deny. Sixth, the free-wheeling cowboy on his horse or in his Chevy pickup driving down the highway with his six-pack and gun rack. And seventh, those wonderful Germans who came here in the last century to escape oppression in Europe. Yes, and I add the Czechs and the other Europeans, too. What a wonderful contribution those groups made.'

  Quimper said: i'd never have placed the Germans in a major category,' and she replied: in the early censuses they accounted for about a third of our immigrant population. My father told me: "Always remember, Lorena, it was the Germans who put us Cobbs in Washington and the Mexicans who kept us there."

  Rusk, who had been studying his fingernails during this recital, said in a deep rumble: i don't think the Spanish influence amounted to a hill of beans in this state,' whereupon Professor Garza said sharply: Then you don't know the first three hundred years of Texas history,' and Rusk was about to respond when I broke in with a conciliatory statement, but the temporary peace I achieved did not hide the fact that sooner or later we were bound to have a Rusk-Garza confrontation.

  The incipient fireworks awakened Quimper's interest: 'Professor Garza, the governor was called away before he finished introducing you. How long you been in Texas?' and Garza replied without changing expression: 'About four hundred and fifty years. One of my ancestors started exploring the area in 1539/

  i'm astounded.'

  'My students are, too.'

  This information was so striking that Miss Cobb reached over, and without realizing that she was being condescending, touched Garza's arm as if she were a benign Sunday School teacher and he a promising lad from the other side of the tracks: 'Who was that first Garza?'

  The professor, looking at her intrusive hand as if he resented it, decided to ignore her patronizing manner and said, with what I thought was obvious pride: 'An illiterate and penniless muleteer on the Vera Cruz-Mexico run. Born 1525. And since I was born in 1945, more than four hundred years separated us. Now, if you allot twenty point six years to a generation, which is not unreasonable, since Garzas usually had sons before the age of twenty-one, that means about twenty-one generations from the original to me.'

  Rusk, who had whipped out a pocket calculator, corrected him: 'Twenty point twenty-nine generations,' at which Garza smiled and said: There were a lot of very early births. But this first Garza didn't marry till he was thirty-three. We count twenty-one generations.'

  'So what's his relation to you?' Quimper asked, and Garza replied: 'My great eighteen-times grandfather.'

  As we stared at the handsome young man in the silence that i followed, the history of Texas seemed to recede to a shadowy j period we had not visualized. But Garza had an additional surprise: 'In his later years our muleteer wrote a few notes about his early adventures—'

  'You said he was illiterate,' Quimper broke in, and Garza agreed: 'He was. Never learned to write till he was thirty-three.'

  'That's the year he married,' Rusk said, still fidgeting with his calculator. 'His wife teach him?'

  'They bought themselves a tutor, a learned black slave. From Cuba.'

  'You just said he was penniless,' Quimper said, for apparently nothing was going to go unchallenged in this committee, and again Garza agreed: 'He was. And how he got his wife, his money and his learning is quite a story.'

  'Does it exist?' Miss Cobb asked, and Garza replied: in family tradition and general legend, substantiated by a few solid references in Mexican colonial history.'

  I

  LAND OF

  MANY L ANDS

  j^Compostela

  (Guadalajara

  Ciudad de Mexico

  0 ( E A S Q P A C I F / C O

  Vera Cruz

  Puebla

  *M

  THE SPAMISH EXWXMEMS

  o

  N A STEAMY NOVEMBER DAY IN 1535 AT THE MEXICAN

  seaport of Vera Cruz, a sturdy boy led his mules to and from the shore where barges landed supplies from anchored cargo ships. He was Garcilaco, ten years old 'but soon to be eleven/ as he told anyone who cared to listen.

  The illegitimate child of an Indian mother and a rebellious Spanis
h soldier who was executed before the woman gave birth, he was soon abandoned, placed in a home that was run by the local clergy, and then turned over to a rascally muleteer as soon as he was old enough to work. That occurred at age eight, and he had been working ever since.

  On this hot morning he had to labor especially hard, for his master had received instructions that the mules must leave immediately for the capital, Mexico City—La Ciudad de Mexico— more than a hundred leagues distant (one league being 2.86 miles), and whenever heavy work was required in a hurry the ill-tempered man rained blows upon the boy.

  From his father, Garcilaco had inherited a build somewhat heftier than that of the average Indian; from his mother, the smooth brown skin and the black hair that cut across his forehead in a straight line reaching down almost over his eyes. And from some mysterious source he had acquired a placid disposition and an incurable optimism.

  Now, as he loaded his mules with the last of their cargo and headed them toward that long and tedious trip through the lowland jungles, he consoled himself with the thought that soon he would see the majestic volcanoes of the high plateau and shortly thereafter the exciting streets of the capital. As he left the port city he hummed a song he had learned from other muleteers:

  'Klip-klop! Klip-klop!

  There in the sky The great volcanoes of the plain.

  Go, mules! Speed, mules!

  For here come I To climb their lovely path again.'

  He had memorized a dozen such songs, one for the mules when they were sick, one for dawn over the pyramids, one for a husband and wife tilling their fields of corn. Since he could not read and had no prospect of ever learning, for he was enslaved to his mules, he used his whispered songs as his bible and his dictionary:

  'Klip-klop! Klip-klop!

  The smoke 1 see Marks where the town hides in the vale.

  Go, mules! Speed, mules!

  Be kind to me, And you shall find oats in your pail.'

  Each trip up from Vera Cruz was a mixture of drudgery and joy, for although traversing the jungle along poorly kept trails was quite difficult, to travel beside the volcanoes and to see the capital looming in the distance was rewarding, especially since he knew that when he reached it he could count upon a few days of rest and better food. So he kept singing.

  On this trip, as he approached the capital, he found his mules competing for road space with unaccustomed hordes of travelers, all going in his direction, and when he asked: 'What happens?' he was told: 'An auto-da-fe tomorrow. A great auto.'

  This was exciting news, for it meant that the streets would be crowded, and that vendors of sweetmeats and tips of roasted beef would be hawking their wares. He himself would have no money to buy such luxuries, but he could rely upon convivial participants to provide him with morsels here and there. An auto in Mexico City, in the cool month of November, could be a memorable affair.

  A formal auto-da-fe, act-of-faith, as conducted in Spain could be a lavish public display of the spiritual glory and temporal power of the Catholic church in its determination to root out any deviation from the True Faith. It consisted of marching soldiers, military bands, a parade of clerics in four or five differently colored robes, the appearance of the bishop himself riding in a palanquin borne by four Negro slaves, and the final appearance of an executioner leading in chains the apostates who were to be burned that day. But in Mexico in these early years an auto was a much simpler affair; on this occasion, as Garcilaco learned on entering the city, two men were to be executed, but as his informant explained, their cases were quite different.

  'The first man, from Puebla, has behaved properly. He's recanted his heretical behavior, pleads to die within the arms of the

  church and will be mercifully strangled by the executioner just before the flames are lighted.'

  'Wise man,' Garcilaco said, for he remembered an occasion when an accused had refused to admit his guilt, and his death had been horrible.

  'The other man, from this city, is mad with lust for his own interpretation of God's will. Refuses to recant. Says he'll welcome the flames. He'll get them!'

  On the morning of the auto, crowds began to gather along the route the procession would take, and as Garcilaco had foreseen, the streets were crowded with vendors, but the greatest crush came at the public square before the cathedral, where stakes had been erected and dry brush piled beneath the little wooden platforms on which the condemned would stand.

  Garcilaco found himself an advantageous spot atop a cask, from which he refused to be nudged by latecomers. Doggedly he held his ground, pushing off whoever threatened and once offering to climb down and fight a young man much bigger than he. When this fellow looked up and saw his opponent's grim determination, hair in the eyes, scowl on the brown face, he desisted, left the cask, and elbowed his way to one less vehemently protected.

  At noon, with the sun blazing overhead, Indian women sold in wooden cups cool potions of a refreshing drink they made from the sweet limes for which the valleys near the city were famous, and Garcilaco thirsted for his share, but since he had no coins, the women passed him by. However, a Spanish official who had purchased two cupfuls could not finish his second, and sensing the boy's desire, handed him a generous leftover. As Garcilaco gulped the drink while the vendor impatiently tapped her foot, waiting for the return of her cup, the Spaniard asked: 'You're a mestizo?' and Garcilaco, between hurried gulps, said: 'Yes, my father was Spanish.'

  'How did he happen to marry . . . ?'

  'I never knew him. They tell me he was executed . . . before I was born.'

  'Why?'

  'Drink!' the vendor admonished him, and Garcilaco drained the cup.

  'That was good. Thank you, sir.' The man was about to ask further questions when the boy's master ran along the edge of the crowd in the open space where spectators were not allowed.

  'There you are!' he shouted when he spotted his helper, and he was about to pull Garcilaco from his cask when the Spanish gentleman gave the older muleteer a hard shove: 'Leave the boy alone.'

  The master hesitated a moment, but when he saw the quality of the man who had pushed him and realized that this stranger was probably from Spain and would have a sword ready for instant use if his honor was in any way infringed, he backed away, but from a safe distance he growled at his assistant: 'Bad news! We must deliver our goods to the army in Guadalajara.' Since that city was more than a hundred and forty leagues to the west, Garcilaco knew that the journey would be a continuation of recent hardships, and that was bad enough, but now his master added: Tou must come with me now.'

  This Garcilaco did not want to do, for it would mean missing *he auto, but his master was insistent, whereupon the Spaniard said in a low, threatening voice: 'You, sir! Begone or I'll have at you,' and off the master went, indicating by his furious stare that he would punish his refractory helper when the auto ended.

  'How lucky you are!' the Spaniard said when the man had gone. 'Guadalajara! Best city in Mexico.' And when Garcilaco asked why, the man said: 'From there you can move on to the real west, and along the road catch glimpses of the Pacific Ocean. China! The Isles of Spice!'

  He had served as a government official on the western frontier and said: 'I'd always enjoy going back. You're a lucky fellow.'

  Now the real business of the auto began, with functionaries running here and there to ensure proper observances, and in the hush before the procession appeared, the Spaniard tapped Garcilaco on the shoulder and said: 'Your master, he seems a poor sort.'

  'He is.'

  'Why don't you run away? I did. From a miserable village in Spain where I was nothing. In Mexico, I'm a man of some importance.'

  i'd have nowhere to run,' Garcilaco said, whereupon the man grasped him by the shoulder: 'You have the world to run to, my boy. You could be the new conquistador, the mestizo who will rule this country one day.' He corrected himself: 'Who will help Spain rule it.'

  'Look!' Garcilaco cried, and into the square where the kindling wai
ted to be lit came four black slaves carrying the poles of a palanquin on which sat a prelate, dressed in deep purple and wearing an ornate miter, who stared steadfastly ahead He was Bishop Zumarraga, most powerful churchman in Mexico and personally responsible for the arrest and sentencing of the two heretics who were to be burned. It was obvious from his stern countenance that he was not going to pardon the wretches.

  'They deserve to burn,' the Spaniard muttered as the great procession made a circuit of the square, and when the executioner appeared with the condemned, it was this Spaniard who led the jeering.

  The ceremony was swift and awesome. Bishop Zumarraga, from beneath his canopy, accepted the repentance of the man who was to be strangled and ignored the contempt of the man who would be burned alive. Soliciting God's approval of the punishments about to be administered, he turned the prisoners over to the secular arm of the government and left the square, followed dutifully by his priests. It would be the soldiers, not the clergy, who would .actually light the fires under the heretics.

  At dusk, when the flames had died, Garcilaco walked quietly to the compound where his mules waited, aware as never before of the glory of the religion he professed and of the power of Spain. His mind was confused by a kaleidoscope of images: powerful Bishop Zumarraga's red face as he cried: 'Let the will of God be done'; the soaring chant of the priests as they marched by; imaginary Guadalajara, 'prettier than Mexico City'; and the great Pacific Ocean, 'much more magnificent than what you see at Vera Cruz.'

  Most of all he remembered what that unknown Spaniard had said: 'You mestizos can do things. Run away. Accomplish something.' And his own response: 'I'm soon to be eleven,' for he was convinced that when he reached that golden age, things would be better and he would find himself more qualified to reach decisions. With these reassuring thoughts he sang a few verses and went to sleep.