by Texas
There were also more than six hundred Indians living in or near the six missions, but the fortunes of these once-valuable institutions had begun to decline so badly that there was talk of closing them down; indeed, a Father Ybarra had recently been sent north i to report on that advisability. He was working now on his recommendations, and since he was a gloomy, unpleasant man, the citizens assumed that his document would be, too.
The town was dominated by the presidio, with its ninety-four military misfits, and the large church started in 1738 by the Canary Islanders. Age had softened this building into an object of some beauty, if one appreciated the harsh desert style adopted by its Franciscan architects.
Trinidad loved Bejar and made each of its corners her own, begging her mother to take her first to some site across the river, then to the lovely missions to the south. The best part of town, she thought, was the two plazas facing the church: a smaller onei to the east toward the river, a larger to the west toward the hill country beyond. In these plazas she and her friends had whiled away many hours of childhood. But lately Trinidad enjoyed even more the family journeys to what she called 'our family's mission,' Santa Teresa, where the handsome carvings by Simon Garza de-j picted the Stations of the Cross. She preferred the one in which Santa Veronica wiped Christ's face with her cloth, and the other in which the man stooped to help Jesus carry his cross, for these showed the kindness of humanity; the others showed only aspects of its brutality. The jamming down upon Christ's head of the
crown of thorns made her feel the thorns piercing her own forehead, while the actual crucifixion was too painful to contemplate.
After one of these journeys, she asked her grandfather about the carvings: 'Is it true that the man who made them was an Indian 7 '
'Half Indian. His Spanish blood enabled him to be an artist.'
'Is it true that he was the grandfather, or something like that, of Domingo, who works at the ranch?'
'How do you know Domingo?'
'We played together. I taught him to read. He taught me to ride.'
'You stay away from Domingo.'
'Why 7 '
'Because 1 tell you to.'
That night Don Ramon had only a broken sleep, for he was tormented by visions of his granddaughter marrying some savage Indian from the mountains of Mexico, and he knew he must prevent this. Early next morning, before the women were up, he called for his best horse, but before he could leave for the ranch, Trinidad, who had heard the clatter of hooves, bounded into the stables in her nightdress.
'Where are you going?' she called.
'Where you're not welcome. Go back to bed,' and before she could protest, for he had always allowed her to accompany him on his travels, he had spurred his horse and headed for the gates of the presidio. There he rounded up a company of armed men to protect him, and together they rode westward over the plains in the early morning sun.
He rode for several hours, until he came to the cluster of buildings from where his men worked the vast, unfenced ranch of El Codo with its thousands of cattle that fed the little town of Bejar. There was a house for the Garza family, whose men had been supervisors for decades, a barn for storing feed, three different sets of corrals, a line of low shacks for the Indians and a good stable for the horses. There was also a large lean-to under which the awkward carts with their creaking solid wheels were kept. It was a handsome assembly of adobe buildings, none pretentious and all well fitted to the terrain in the Spanish manner. Don Ramon was proud of this ranch and not pleased with the job he had to do on reaching it, but he was so determined to protect his granddaughter from the kind of talk Don Lazaro Veramendi had been engaging in that his mind was firm, and as soon as he saw Domingo's father he began.
'Teodoro, you and your family have worked so well for us . . .'
'Only our duty, senor.'
'We want to reward you.'
'You already have, many times.'
in 1749, when I helped the great Escandon explore the valley of the Rio Grande, he liked my work so much that he awarded me four leagues of land along the river.'
'That could be good land, senor, from what the soldiers say.'
'I'm going to give you that land, Teodoro. We'll never make good use of it, I fear.'
'Senor, I wouldn't want to leave El Codo . . .'
'You must,' Don Ramon said firmly. 'You've earned our gratitude.'
'Magdalena might not wish to travel.'
'Wives do what their husbands say, so let's hear no more about it. You have the four leagues. I've brought the papers, signed by Viceroy Giiemes.' From his saddlebag he produced the valuable parchment authorized by King Fernando VI, signed by the viceroy and notarized by the current governor of Nuevo Santander, Mel-chor Vidal de Lorca. The nearly eighteen thousand acres were worth at that time about one cent an acre; in years to come, six thousand dollars an acre, and after that, much more, for they lay on the rich north bank of the Rio Grande, where, according to legend, a walking stick fifty years old would flower and grow fruit if stuck in the loam and watered.
When Garza rode with Don Ramon to the ranch house, he informed his wife Magdalena of the extraordinary proposal, and although neither he nor she could read, he showed her the impressive document heavy with wax seals. They discussed the offer for several minutes while Don Ramon inspected his shoes, his fingernails and his knuckles; then they came to stand before him, holding hands, and Magdalena, delighted to get land, any land, said: 'Don Ramon, we kiss the soles of your shoes. Land of our own after these many years. God will bless you, and we will too. Teodoro and I will go down to the river and take the land'—and here she tapped the precious parchment—'but because we love you and your family, we'll leave our son Domingo here to care for the ranch, as before.'
'No, no!' Don Ramon said. 'Your son must go with you!'
Now Teodoro began to argue that in simple fairness they must leave Domingo behind, but when this was said a second time, Don Ramon became angry: 'He will go with you. To build the corrals, the barns.'
So it was settled, and Don Ramon slept at the ranch for three nights until the Garzas were packed and lesser hands instructed as
to the care of the cattle. He gave the departing family four good horses, a fine bull, six cows and the loan of seven armed men to protect the exodus as it crossed the hundred leagues of Indian lands separating it from the place where the Rio Grande approached the Gulf of Mexico. As they pulled away from El Codo, Don Ramon rode with them for several hours to make sure that they were really on their way; then he embraced Teodoro and his wife, wished them luck in their new home, and shook hands formally with Domingo, seventeen years old, handsome, clever, honest. 'You're a good lad, son. Build your own ranch, and make it prosper.' He reined in his horse, told the armed men protecting him to wait, and watched as the little caravan headed toward the southern horizon. By this time next month they'll reach the place, he thought. I remember it that first night when Escandon and I were riding ahead. Rich land, plenty of water, even some trees, as I recall. Escandon advised me to choose my land on the south side of the river. When I said I liked the look of the north, he said: 'It's yours, if you think something can be done with it.' And now it's Garza's. He reflected on this for many minutes, finally muttering to himself: 'Their son could make his fortune on good land like that. That's why I chose it, for its richness.' As he recalled the capable youth he had sent into exile, other thoughts surged into his mind, but he repressed them, for he did not wish to consider such possibilities: He's a mestizo. He has his own place, and it's not here.
Signaling to his escort, he headed back to town.
The cumbersome entourage which Don Ramon assembled in February 1789 for the long trip to Mexico City would be able to cover about four leagues a day (roughly ten and a half miles), and since the distance was about four hundred leagues, the trip would require a good hundred-odd days of unrelieved travel, plus time for repairs, for rest on Sundays, when Dona Engracia refused to allow the horses to be worked, for
the forced halts at swollen rivers, and for much-needed recuperation periods in the provincial cities like Saltillo. The journey would thus require about half a year, then a six-month visit in the capital, plus another half year for the return. No family initiated a trip like this without prayers and solemn adieus, for everyone knew that sickness or flood or the Apache and bandits who prowled the lonely stretches might take the lives of all. When the Saldanas bade farewell to the Veramendis, there were tears aplenty-, especially when the dear friends Trinidad and Amalia embraced.
The Saldanas knew that the bleakest part of the journey came
at the start, for once they crossed their own river, the Medina, they left Tejas and entered upon those empty, barren plains reaching down to the Rio Grande; it was proper, they thought, that these wastes not be a part of Tejas, for they were El Desplobado, totally unoccupied, and could best be understood as the desert which constituted the northern part of Coahuila.
The Saldanas would traverse almost three hundred miles of this desert before they reached partial civilization at Monclova and real settlement at the entrancing city of Saltillo, so they wrapped damp cloths about their nostrils and lips to keep out the dust and plunged into the forbidding lands. After nineteen wearing days they reached the Rio Grande and the excellent hospitality of the missions at San Juan Bautista, where they lingered for two weeks. The friars were glad to welcome them, for they brought news of Tejas, and the Saldanas were pleased to stay because the missions had fresh vegetables.
Almost regretfully Trinidad bade the friars farewell, and now started the dangerous part of the journey, eighteen days across the desolate, exposed stretch to Monclova, for it was here that the Apache often struck, wiping out whole convoys. Eleven mounted soldiers accompanied the travelers, for the Saldanas were personages and risks could not be taken. Day after day the wagon in which Engracia de Saldana rode creaked over the forlorn pathway, this royal road, with never a house to be seen nor even a wandering shepherd. Once Don Ramon told his granddaughter: 'When they ask in the plaza at Bejar "Why aren't there more settlers here?" this is the reason,' and with a sweep of his arm he indicated that terrifying emptiness, that mix of sand and stunted trees and washed gullies down which torrents cascaded when the rains came, pinning travelers inside their tents for days at a time.
South of Monclova everything became more interesting, for now the Saldanas entered one of the most enchanting areas in all of Mexico: beautiful barren fields sweeping upward to become graceful hills, then low mountains and, finally, crests of considerable size. El Camino Real now became truly royal, providing grand vistas and magnificent enfolding mountains, so that one had the impression of piercing into the very heart of the hills. Repeatedly Don Ramon halted the troop to say: 'I remember this spot when I was a boy. Captain Alvaro, my father of blessed memory, brought me and my brothers here and we took our meal by that waterfall. How long ago it seems.' He told Trinidad that she, too, must remember this spot: 'Let's see. You were fourteen last month. If you marry at sixteen, as a girl should . . . babies. . . then the babies marry . . . and they have babies.' He stopped to count. 'You could
be traveling down this road in 1843 with your own grandchildren. And when you do, halt here and have your merienda and lift a cup to me, as I now do to my father, may God rest his soul.'
It was from such conversations that Trinidad had acquired for a child so young an unusual sense of the passing of time. She perceived that a human being was born into a certain bundle of years, and that it did not matter whether she liked those years or not; they were her years and she must live her life within them. If they turned out to be good years, fine. If they were bad, so be it, for they were the years in which she must find her husband and have her children and perhaps take her grandchildren to a merienda in the mountains like this, at spots where her grandfather and his father had enjoyed their rest stops and the tumbling waters.
When the picnic ended she ran to Don Ramon and kissed him, and he said: There will be even better moments than this, Trinidad, you mark your old grandfather's words.'
The first of them came in the gracious town of Saltillo, for here Trinidad saw her first community of any size, and she was awed by its magnificence: it is so big! There are so many shops! A person could find anything in the world here!'
For the first two eye-opening days she savored Saltillo, especially the new church, so large and so majestic, its ornate facade exquisitely adorned with intricate carving and crowned by a beautiful shell above the entrance. To the right rose a stern tower topped by three tiers of pillars, behind which hid a carillon that echoed long after the last peal was struck. It is overwhelming, like God Himself, Trinidad thought. One side of Him is all gentleness and beauty. The other is almost frightening, so big, so powerful. But the more she studied this uncompromising structure the more she accepted both halves.
Four times she returned in daylight hours, captivated by its mystery, and when Don Ramon teased her for wasting her time, she explained: Tve never seen anything so grand before. In Te-jas . . .' He went to a store and purchased pen and paper for her, and with these she sketched the church, rather effectively, Don Ramon told Engracia, and he pleased Trinidad by asking solemnly if she would sign it for him, and she did: 'Trinidad de Saldana, Dibujado en Saltillo, 16 de Mayo de 1789.'
It was not until the evening of the third day that Trinidad discovered another wonder of a city, for then her elders took her to the church plaza, where she saw for the first time not the aimless wandering about of young people in a rural village like Bejar, but the formal Spanish paseo of a major town like Saltillo. She and her
family reached the plaza when the paseo was in full swing, and for some minutes she watched, open-mouthed, as handsome young men and alluring girls swung past, talking always to someone of their own sex, pretending to be indifferent to the other. Finally she brought her clasped hands up to her lips and sighed: 'Mother, this is so beautiful!'
It was, and there Trinidad stayed till the last promenaders left the plaza. She had seen something which touched on the rhythms of life, its uncertainties, its mysteries. She could not get to sleep that night, for in her mind rose the awkward towers of the church and in their timeless shadow walked the young people of Saltillo, pursuing their unstated passions in the ancient Spanish way.
It was obvious to Engracia that on the next night her daughter was going to plead for permission to join the paseo, and this posed a problem, which she took to her father-in-law: 'I'm certainly too old to parade with her holding my hand. And she knows no one| with whom she can walk.'
'Let her walk alone.'
'Never.'
'I seem to remember girls walking alone, when I was younger.'
'Not girls of good family.'
Don Ramon, recognizing that he must assume responsibility in the matter, went to the manager of the inn at which they were stopping, and said forthrightly. 'Don Ignacio, our fourteen-year-old granddaughter wants to join the paseo. Do you know a girl off impeccable family with whom she could walk?'
'1 have a granddaughter, excellent family, her mother born inl Spain.'
'Don Ignacio, I would be honored.'
'To the contrary. We've all heard of your martyred uncle, Fray;] Damian. The honor would fall upon our family.'
So it was arranged that Trinidad would make the paseo with fifteen-year-old Dorotea Galindez. When the evening bells rang, the nervous girls asked their elders how they looked, and Don Ramon replied: if I were twins, I'd fall in love with each of you.' Then, nodding very low to Dorotea, he added: if there's a cavalier out there tonight, he'll ride away with you.'
Serioras Saldana and Galindez waited about an hour before taking their daughters to the plaza, for they wished to introduce them into the parade unostentatiously, but as soon as the two girls entered the plaza the young men meeting them in the paseo grew attentive, and for the first time in her life Trinidad realized that she had more than an ordinary appearance. Her warm smile and uncalculated approach
so tantalized the passing young men that
one young fellow said to the friend with whom he was walking: 'That's the kind of face you remember at midnight when you can't get to sleep.'
Dorotea, a year older, warned Trinidad that girls must never look directly at the boys, they must appear to be engrossed in each other. Dorotea played this game to perfection, finding in the country girl from Tejas a person of unlimited curiosity, and the two chattered happily as the young men passed. But Trinidad was not interested in games; she was noticing attractive young men for the first time in her life, and she was bewitched, her pretty face turned brazenly toward them, her unforgettable smile greeting them with joy.
That night Dorotea told her mother about Trinidad's forward behavior, and Senora Galindez spoke to Engracia: 'You must warn your pretty daughter against an unbecoming boldness.' So the next afternoon Trinidad's mother and grandfather explained that it was most unladylike for a young woman to demonstrate too much interest in young men. 'You are to smile, of course,' Don Ramon said, 'but only to yourself. That adds mystery.' Inviting Engracia to walk the narrow room with him, he explained: 'Your mother is Dorotea. I'm you.' And he minced along, talking with great animation to Engracia, who smiled back at him. 'This is how proper girls make the paseo,' and on he pranced.
'You look so funny!' Trinidad cried.
Don Ramon stopped, and reprimanded her: 'If a girl of good family like you smiles openly at young men, it's very forward. And if you actually encourage them, you're brazen, as Senora Galindez warned.'
'She's a busybody.'
'Without her approval you cannot walk with her daughter,' Engracia said, and when Trinidad started to reply, her mother pressed a hand against her lips. 'Child, remember that three days from now we go on to San Luis Potosi. Dorotea stays here, and if her reputation is damaged by some foolish thing you do, she suffers, not you.' She cuffed her daughter lightly on the ear and said: 'Now you behave yourself.'
