Michener, James A.

by Texas

  When the Saldanas brought Trinidad to their house in the church plaza, she passed into a kind of coma, unwilling to believe that her chivalric, loving young man had somehow vanished from the earth, as dead as those shadowy figures who had built the pyramids, and she remained in this condition for several days Fray Ildefonso from Santa Teresa came to talk with her, but she stared right past him and would say nothing. Finally, on the fifth day, he shook her and said sternly: 'Each morning the rooster crows, and you've lost five of his days. Now get up and get dressed.' And he stayed right there in the low-ceilinged room until she left her bed.

  When her mother's nourishing meals had restored her strength she ventured into the plaza, but seeing the church at one end and a bed of flowers beside the governor's residence at the other, she imagined that she was back in Saltillo, and sorrow overcame her and she fled back to her room, where she would have returned to her bed had not Fray Ildefonso given strict orders that this must not be permitted.

  So she walked like a forlorn ghost through the beautiful rooms of her home and gradually regained control of herself. Rene-Claude was dead, and a large part of her heart was dead, too. But Fray Ildefonso's sagacious counsel helped her to see her inescapable situation: 'You're fifteen years old. Four times that many years lie ahead, and you must use them wisely God intended you to be the guiding spirit of a Christian household, the mother of children who will help build His world. That is your proud destiny, and you must work toward it. Sew, cook for the poor, help at the mission.'

  It was repugnant to contemplate the full resumption of life after so grievous a loss, and the idea that she should in the future encounter someone whom she might want to marry was inconceivable, but her common sense affirmed Ildefonso's basic counsel that she must reintroduce herself into the mainstream of life. Few girls of fifteen in northern Mexico had ever seen so clearly the grand design of life, so she squared her shoulders and prepared to take her place within it.

  What appealed to her most, after her profound experience at the pyramids, was to work at Mision Santa Teresa, for there she could help the Indian mothers care for their babies. But the new priest in town, this Father Ybarra, who had come north to see if Ithe missions should be closed down, absolutely forbade her to step foot inside Santa Teresa: 'This place is not for women. If God had intended you to enter these precincts, he would have made women friars.'

  When Fray Ildefonso explained that this poor child of God needed such work in order to protect her sanity, Father Ybarra,

  a member of the secular clergy who had never liked Franciscans to begin with, told the gentle friar to mind his own business, and within a week Fray Ildefonso was on his way back to the college in Zacatecas. In his absence Father Ybarra was even harsher with Trinidad: 'Stay where you belong. Pray Strive to regain God's grace.'

  Such orders Trinidad refused to obey, and with obvious distaste Father Ybarra watched her moving about the village as if she were a married woman, and for no specific reason he conceived a great dislike for this girl with the twisted mouth who always seemed to be smirking sardonically at what he said. In church on Wednesdays and Sundays he tried not to look at her, for he was obsessed with the idea that she was somehow allied with the devil. When one of the Saldana servants informed him that in Saltillo on the way north 'some funny business happened on several nights when the young one slipped past the sleeping Don Ramon,' he began to watch her closely, hoping that she was pregnant. He practiced the anathema he would hurl at her from his pulpit when her shame was known— hussy, slut, harlot and wanton featured heavily—and he was disappointed when it became obvious that she was not with child.

  As he went about his duties, those assigned him by the viceroy, who had long suspected that expenses of the northern missions were unjustified when compared with the meager results they produced, he also developed an intense hatred for Mision Santa Teresa, whose saintly founder Fray Damian he saw as a charlatan: 'Got himself killed by the Apache ... in their camp . . . fooling around with their women, no doubt.' He convinced himself, because of his extreme dislike for Trinidad, that he must somehow unmask the chicanery of her great-uncle Damian, and he spent much of his energy trying to do just that.

  He also convinced himself that Trinidad herself, a loose girl with an irreverent attitude, would come to no good, and several times he considered excommunicating her until she showed proper humility, but he was afraid to do so because of the importance of the Saldanas and their obvious friendship with the Veramendis.

  He was in the plaza one morning, watching attentively as Trinidad left her house to meddle in some improper affair or other, when he saw her run across the square and throw her arms about Amalia Veramendi, Don Lazaro's daughter, as if they were old friends. The girls talked animatedly for some minutes, then walked off arm in arm. He wondered what secrets they had.

  It was easily explained. Since the day of the Apache attack Trinidad had been unable to mention Rene-Claude's name, but

  desperately she had wanted to, and perhaps it was this cruel blockage that had driven her into a depression; now, with a sympathetic young woman about her own age available and interested, she was at last free to talk: 'You can't imagine, Amalia, how wonderful he was.' This was an unfortunate beginning, because Amalia looked sideways at her friend and thought: You'd be amazed at what I can imagine.

  Trinidad, unaware of the envy she was creating, burbled on: 'Grandfather did everything possible to humiliate him . . . drive him away . . . said no child of his would ever marry a damned Frenchman. Rene-Claude just smiled, gave Grandfather all the courtesies, and melted him the way the sun melts snow in the Alps.'

  Amalia, suspecting that her friend had enjoyed experiences denied her, wanted to explore more deeply, but refrained. With feigned girlish modesty she asked: 'Was it . . . well, is loving a man ... do you have to surrender as much as it seems?'

  'Not with Rene-Claude. He said we would be equals. And he behaved that way. Of course, he'd take care of the money and make all the big decisions, and maybe we'd live in Saltillo or maybe New Orleans. He'd decide that. But he asked me always what I wanted, which horse I preferred.'

  The girls, each so eager to confide, still shied away from honest questions and answers. 'Is loving a man,' Amalia began, 'well, is it . . . does it . . . ?'

  This should have encouraged Trinidad to speak her feelings. Instead, she reflected, smiled at Amalia, and said: it's all right.'

  'This new priest, Father Ybarra. He condemns it. He seems very afraid of love.'

  'Father Ybarra is a fool.' It was unfortunate that Trinidad said this, even to her trusted friend, because although Amalia was of the same opinion, when she criticized Ybarra to others she repeated not her own judgment but Trinidad's, and when word of this reached the priest's ears, his mind became set: he would settle with the Saldanas, important though they might be.

  Things were in this state when a lone stranger came down El Camino Real from the north. No soldier protected him, no Indian guides, no companions. Just a tall spare man in his late twenties, with a head of heavy dark hair, a tooth missing in front, and an apparent willingness to challenge the world. He announced himself as Mordecai Marr, trader out of Mobile with important connections in New Orleans. He led a horse that had gone lame two days out and three overburdened mules laden with goods of

  considerable value which he proposed trading from Bejar, or perhaps from the new capital at Chihuahua if a decent road could be routed to that distant city.

  Before he had located a place to stay, and there was only a pitiful half-inn run by some Canary Islanders, he asked for the residence of Don Ramon Saldana, and when this was pointed out he walked directly there, tied his horse to a tree and allowed his mules to stand free. Banging on the door in a most un-Spanish way, he demanded of black Natan, who opened it: 'Yo deseo ver Don Ramon de Saldana. Yo tengo letras para el.' He spoke painstaking Spanish but with a barbarous accent, and used the word letras instead of the proper cartas.

  When Do
n Ramon appeared, it was obvious that Mr. Marr expected to be invited in, for he placed his foot against the door so that it could not be closed against him: i have letters to you from the D'Ambreuze family m New Orleans. They heard I was coming.'

  Don Ramon was not a man to be forced into extending an invitation, and especially not to anyone like this bold americano, so he spread himself sideways, as it were, until he occupied the entire doorway, then said graciously: i am pleased to accept a communication from the distinguished family I had expected to be allied with mine ' He took the letters and was about to shut the door when Marr grabbed his left sleeve.

  'Is it true what they said 9 The Frenchman was killed by the Apache?'

  'Yes.'

  'I saw them trailing me, two days ago, so I laid low and shot two of them. It's good to carry two guns . . . loaded.'

  He made another move to enter the house, but this time Don Ramon pressed the door shut and left him standing in the street.

  After the most careful calculation, Don Ramon decided against showing Trinidad the letters, for he felt they would only exacerbate her already tense emotions, but when he read them a second time and felt the warmth revealed in them, the obvious sincerity of a family that had gone to great lengths to have them translated into good Spanish by some official in New Orleans, he felt obliged to share them with her. So, though fearful that such reawakening of her interest in D'Ambreuze throw her again into depression, he decided to give them to her when she arrived home, but Trinidad did not arrive home in the ordinary sense of that word; she roared home like a child of eight at the end of a successful game, shouting: 'Grandfather! Amalia told me that letters from Rene-Claude have arrived!'

  Don Ramon did not know what to say, for he had too many things he wanted to say: 'Your Amalia is a busybody.'

  'The man stopped there first, asking about rooms and saying he had letters from Rene-Claude.'

  'From his family.'

  'It's all the same,' and she jumped up and down, hands out, begging for the letters.

  'Stop that! You're a young woman now, not a child. And besides, the letters are for me, not you.'

  'It's all the same,' she repeated, and she meant it. Rene-Claude and his parents, she and hers, all were united by love, so that a letter from his father was indeed a letter from Rene-Claude to her.

  When she sensed that her grandfather was prepared to surrender the letters her boisterousness stopped; she moved away from him and began to weep, her lovable little face doubly distorted, and in total desolation of spirit she fell dejectedly onto a heavy wooden settee. 'Oh, Grandfather, I loved him so much. Life is so empty when I think of what it could have been.'

  Her grandfather sat down beside her, placing his arms about her trembling shoulders: 'I've lost seven sons and a loving wife. I know how terrible pain can be.' They sat there for some time, each unable to speak further, then, with a tightening of her shoulders which Don Ramon could feel, she asked, as if she were a child again: 'May I see the letters, Grandfather, please?'

  'Of course,' he said gently, and before she began to read them he rose and wandered into another room.

  She had the same reactions that he had had, for the D'Ambreuze parents had written with such obvious pride in their son and such hopes that he had found a good wife that she felt as if they were standing there in the flower-filled room, on the dark-red tiles, and after a long while she sought her grandfather and returned the letters: 'You and I lost a good second family. I'll write in your office.'

  'Write what?'

  'I want to send them our love. Tell them what good people you and my mother are.' Her voice shook, but she finished her thought: They must want to hear as much as I did.' And she wrote a long detailed letter, telling them first of her experiences with their son in Saltillo, which she described lovingly so that they might hear the bells and see the movement of people in the plaza, and ending with what Rene-Claude's business companions had reported about his strong reputation. It was her hope that the letter conveyed a sense of Bejar and Saltillo and the Spanish family of which their son had been for a brief few weeks a member.

  Later, when she went to see Amalia, a year older and two inches taller, she felt as if she, Trinidad, were the more mature, and she spoke like some adult addressing an eager child: 'I'm so glad you told me about the letters. Because I think perhaps Grandfather was going to hide them from me. Afraid they might upset me.' She laughed nervously.

  'Can you still see him 7 I mean . . in your mind?'

  'He's standing behind every corner. I expect to see him in your kitchen when we go in.'

  'Will you always feel that way?'

  'Forever.'

  'But you'll marry, won't you?'

  'Grandfather says I'll have to. When he dies I'll own the house, the ranch.' She became very serious and asked Amalia to sit with her under the trees in the Yeramendi garden. 'I've been thinking about becoming a nun.'

  'That would be wonderful! A bride of Christ!'

  'And I have a very serious disposition toward it, really I do.'

  'You would be wonderful as a nun, and some day, with your brains, Mother Superior Trinidad.'

  Later, when things had gone terribly wrong, Trinidad would remember this conversation and particularly this sentence. Amalia had said 'with your brains,' and her tone had betrayed how envious she had become of her good friend.

  Even now, perplexed by this change in Amalia, Trinidad went to her mother to discuss it, and Dona Engracia sat her down beside the silent fountain and clarified the situation: 'Don't you see? She's jealous of you. You've been to Mexico City, and she hasn't. You've known a fine young man, and she hasn't You read many books, and this makes her fear that you're more clever. And I suppose, Trinidad, that she thinks you're prettier.'

  'But that's all suppose,' the bewildered girl protested. 'Why would that make her change 7 '

  'Because that's the way of the world,' her mother replied. 'You be careful what you tell that young lady.'

  But Trinidad had to confide in someone, and in subsequent meetings with Amalia she returned to the possibility of becoming a nun, and she would picture the entire progression from novice to head of some great religious establishment in Spain, or maybe Peru 'But the other night when I was thinking quite seriously about this, it occurred to me that to become a nun, I would have to gain approval from Father Ybarra, or from someone like him . . .'

  Both girls shuddered, and Amalia said: 'Father Ybarra drives

  people away from religion. Who could ask his approval for anything 7 ' When the dour priest heard this comment repeated he attributed it to Trinidad, and his antipathy toward her deepened.

  On several occasions the two young women pondered why the church would promote such a vain, self-centered man to a position of power, and Trinidad drew the sensible conclusion: '1 suppose all towns get some man like Father Ybarra, sooner or later. The only good thing about him is, he's finishing his report on the missions and will soon be leaving.' She kicked the dust. 'Good riddance, too.'

  Now Amalia opened the important topic: 'I was home when he arrived.'

  'Father Ybarra! 5 '

  'No. The americano. I didn't actually open the door when he knocked, but I could have, and there he was.'

  'What did he look like 7 '

  Td never seen an americano, of course.'

  'Nor I'

  'But he was just what we'd been told. He was taller than usual. White. No mestizo. Lot of matted hair on his head. Blue-eyed. A tooth missing in front. A deep voice. To tell you the truth, Trinidad, he was really rather frightening.'

  'How did you speak to him? I mean, if he didn't know Spanish 7 '

  'Oh, but he did! He spoke it hesitatingly and very slowly, like a little boy just learning big words.' Amalia went on: 'He smelled. Yes, like a horse after a hard ride in the sun, and he must have known it because he asked Don Lazaro where he might find lodging and a bath."

  'Where is he now?'

  'You know the Canary Islande
rs beyond the plaza, that nice family with the large house? Grandfather sent him over there, and I believe they took him in.'

  The two young women left the Yeramendi garden, casually walked south to the big church, past the Saldana house and the low, handsome governor's palace, and there on the western edge of town they studied from a safe distance the adobe house of one of the capable Canary Island families, but they could detect no sign of the stranger.

  Two days later, however, Trinidad and her grandfather were

  surprised to see that Mr. Marr had somehow got hold of a small

  ibuilding on the opposite side of the plaza, right in the shadow of

  the church. 'What does he intend doing there 7 ' citizens asked. 'Is

  this to be a store?'

  No, it was a warehouse for the holding of his trade goods prior

  to shipment onward to Saltillo or distant Chihuahua, but when the goods were stowed and the people of Bejar learned about their excellent quality, they began to pester the americano for a right to buy, and slowly, almost surreptitiously, he sold a copper kettle here, a swatch of fine cloth there, until he was operating a kind of informal shop.

  'I wonder if he has a permit?' Don Ramon asked as he observed operations from across the plaza, and apparently others had raised the same question, for when the quasi-store had been in operation only four days, the captain from the presidio and the town's judge appeared at the warehouse to inquire as to Mr. Marr's papers.

  Without hesitation he produced them, documents signed in both New Orleans and Mexico City granting Mordecai Marr the right to trade in the provinces of Tejas and Coahuila. 'We'll take these and study them,' the judge said, but with a quick motion Mr. Marr recovered his papers and said: 'These do not leave my possession.' The fact that he spoke slowly and in a deep voice intensified the gravity of his declaration, and the visitors acceded.