Michener, James A.

by Texas

  'Why?'

  'To buy their support. To be sure of their votes when we need them.'

  'But isn't that bribery?'

  'It is, and so help me God, it's going to buy us a railroad.'

  If Rusk had been tireless in his initial work, Clyde Weatherby was remorseless in his follow-up, yet at the end of six hectic weeks he had to inform Earnshaw: 'I've handed out all the money and accomplished nothing. There's no hope of a spur south.'

  'Are we doomed?' Rusk asked, for already he could see in other

  aspiring towns the dreadful effect of having been bypassed by the railroad.

  'We are not,' Weatherby snarled, as if he were furiously mad at some unseen force. 'The people we gave money and land to will remember us. But now I'm asking for one last contribution. From everyone. We'll see if the folks in Abilene have vision,' and off he went to the new Texas town that carried the same name as the famous old railhead in Kansas. Before he left he told Rusk and Simpson: if they won't come south to meet us, by God, we'll go north to meet them.' But when he came home, with no money left and no promise of anything, he told his co-conspirators: 'Nothing now, but in this business you plant seeds and pray that something good will spring out of the ground. I have seeds planted everywhere and 1 give you my word on the Bible, something is going to start growing before another five years pass.' So the men of Fort Garner watched hopefully as the years passed and the railroads inched out to other places but not to theirs.

  Three weeks after Franziska Macnab had buried her Husband in the family cemetery overlooking the Pedernales, she received word from the capitol in Austin that her younger brother, Ernst, had died at his desk in the Senate chamber. It had happened at nine in the evening, when the Senate was not in session, he had been working late

  So within a month she had to conduct two funerals, and this reminded her of how very much alone she now was. Her mother had died some years ago; her beloved father and her youngest brother, Emil, had been killed in the horrid affair at the Nueces River, and now Ernst and Otto were dead. The sense of passing time, of closing episodes, was oppressive.

  Her three children, with her encouragement, were preoccupied with their own responsibilities, but this left her in sad loneliness. She experienced a strong desire to reestablish contact with her only surviving brother, Theo, who had gained statewide attention in 1875 by his heroic work in rebuilding the town of Indianola after the destructive hurricane of that year. More than forty places of business had been wiped out by the raging waters of Matagorda Bay, more than three hundred lives lost, and when scores of older men announced that they were abandoning the site, Theo had stated to the Galveston and Victoria newspapers: 'I'm going to rebuild my ships' chandlery bigger than before.'

  And he had done so. Encouraging other businessmen, he had been responsible for the rejuvenation of the destroyed town and watched with pride as it returned to prosperity. His own store,

  which serviced the many ships that sailed into Indianola, doubled in size, and his agency for the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railway Company established him as Indianola's leading merchant. He conducted his affairs from an office which stood at the land end of the pier that reached far into the bay; here he greeted captains of the Morgan Line steamers as they docked with cargoes from New Orleans.

  Despite the obliteration of so many businesses in that hurricane, Theo continued to envision Indianola, where he had first set foot on Texas soil, as the state's gateway to the West, and his letters to Fredericksburg displayed this optimism:

  If you walked with me down our main streets you would think you were in Neu Braunfels, because two names out of three would be German: Seeligson, Eichlitz, Dahme, Remschel, Thielepape, Wiliemin. This is a real German port, with hundreds like me who saw it first from the deck of their immigrant ship and liked it so much they never left.

  We have our own ice machine now and are no longer dependent upon the refrigerated ice ships that used to bring us river ice from New England. We have a new courthouse, several hotels, at least six good restaurants, shops with the latest styles from New York and London, our own newspaper and all the appurtenances of a city. You would like-it here, and any of you who tire of farming in the hills ought to move here quickly, for this is a glimpse of Old Germany installed in New Texas.

  Franziska, welcoming such letters, wondered whether she should move permanently to Indianola to be with her brother for the remaining years of their lives, but after several months of cautious consideration she decided against leaving Fredericksburg, for too many of her cherished memories were rooted there. And Otto had loved the Pedernales, the wild turkeys strutting through the oak groves, the deer coming to the garden, the hurried quail in autumn, the javelinas grubbing for acorns.

  However, in the spring of 1886, Theo did send a sensible letter: 'With Otto and Ernst gone, you and I are all that's left. Come spend the summer with me, for I am lately a widower. Besides, it's much cooler here with the sea breezes each afternoon.'

  Turning the care of the farm over to Emil's children, all of them married now, she took the stage to San Antonio, where she boarded the new train connecting that city with Houston, and at Victoria she dismounted to catch the famous old train that chugged its way out to Indianola. It left Victoria at nine in the

  morning and steamed in to Indianola at half past one in the afternoon.

  She joined her brother on Friday, 13 August 1886, and shared with him some of the best weeks of her life, for Theo spoke both of his burgeoning hopes for the future, which excited her, and of his memories of the Margravate, which reminded her of how happy she had been as a child. They were old people now, he sixty-four, she fifty-seven, and the bitter memories receded as the good ones prevailed.

  'Does your tenor voice . . . can you still sing so beautifully?' she asked, and he tried a few notes.

  'We have a singing society here, you know,' he told her, 'but I yield the lead tenor to others.'

  On Sunday, when they both attended the German church at his suggestion, he apologized: 'Father wouldn't approve of our going to church, but times are different now.' He then took her for a delightful buggy ride in one of his own carriages. They rode out to the great bayous east of town, where he stopped to explain the winds of a hurricane: 'They come in three parts. A fierce storm blows from west to east. Tremendous noise and rain but not much damage. Then a lull like a summer day as the eye passes over. Then a much wilder storm from east to west, and it's the one that blows everything down.'

  'Why does one kill and not the other 7 '

  'Neither kills. Oh, a tree falling or some other freak accident.'

  'What does?'

  'This does,' and he pointed to the flat, empty lands basking in the sun, so quiet and peaceful that they could not be imagined as threatening anyone. 'You see, Franza, tidal waves throw immense quantities of water onto these flat places, so much you wouldn't believe it. And as the storm abates, it has to go somewhere, and with a great rush it finds its way back to sea.'

  He dropped his head, recalling that tremendous surge of trapped water that had destroyed so much of Indianola: it took thirty hours to build up . . . high tides, rain, hurricane winds. It ran back in two, an irresistible torrent.'

  'How did you survive?' They were speaking in German, and he replied: 'Ein wahres Wunder. And prudence. I guessed that the retreating waters would be dangerous, so I took our family to the upper floor of the strongest building in town, not my own, and tied us all to heavy beds, not lying down, of course, just to the heavy-iron pieces.'

  'And it worked?'

  'When the water swirled past, clutching at everything, we could

  see it sucking people to their deaths. It tried with us, right through that second floor, but we were tied fast.' He chuckled: it tore away my wife's clothes, all of them, and she screamed for the rescue party not to save us.' He laughed again: 'Water can do the strangest things.'

  'Will it come again?'

  'Records show that once a hurricane
hits, it never hits that spot again. That's how I've been able to hold the town together. We know we're safe. Only the cowards fled.'

  Indianola, under his driving leadership, had restored itself as the premier port in South Texas and many predicted that it must soon outdistance Galveston. It was clear to Franziska, from the respect in which the citizens held her brother, that this revitalization was due primarily to his optimism, and she saw that he was much like his father: 'Remember, Theo, how during the worst days of our Atlantic crossing, he kept spirits high? You're like him.'

  On Tuesday, Franza and her brother entertained at John Math-uly's seafood restaurant, and the guests, most with German names, shared an enjoyable evening 'of fine oysters, rich crabs and other succulent viands which could not be surpassed this side of Baltimore,' the menu boasted, 'and equaled in only a handful of the superior establishments in that German city.' After the meal there was singing, and at ten, ice cream, made possible by the new ice machine, was served; it was accompanied by four kinds of cookies baked that afternoon by Franziska. This was followed by more singing and a speech by Theo—'The Unlimited Progress Possible When Rails Marry Steam'—which alluded to the impending railroad linkage of Indianola, San Antonio and Brownsville.

  When they left the restaurant, with some of the men still singing, Franziska became aware of a sharp change in the weather, for while they were dining an excessively humid wind had blown in from the Gulf, and although this disturbed her, it pleased her brother: 'Rain! We've needed it since July.'

  But this wind did not bring rain. Instead, when Franziska rose next morning she found Indianola enveloped in billows of dust, and when she accompanied her brother on a visit to Captain Isaac Reed, the United States Signal Service man who now monitored storms in the area, he showed them a telegram he had received from Washington: west Indian hurricane passed south key

  WEST INTO GULF CAUSING HIGH WINDS SOUTHERN FLORIDA STOP WILL PROBABLY CAUSE GALES ON COAST OF EASTERN GULF STATES TONIGHT

  When Franziska asked: 'Isn't that serious?' he assured her: 'Government follows these things carefully, and ninety-nine times

  out of a hundred, such storms collapse and produce no more than a slight rise in our tide.' But later that morning, when the winds became more intense, Theo and Franza returned to the weather office, and Theo, as the elder statesman, asked: 'Shouldn't you hoist the danger signal?' and Reed said: 'Washington would warn us if such a signal was advisable. Rest easy. This storm will die.'

  Later Captain Reed did receive a frantic telegram from Washington, warning of the immediate descent of a full hurricane, but now it was too late. Within minutes the hurricane came roaring in, and before Reed could respond, telegraph lines were whipping in the wind.

  Reed was a valiant man, and when it looked as if his Signal Service was going to be blown away, he stayed inside to screw down the anemometer so that the maximum velocity of the wind could be recorded. It hit 102 miles an hour before it and the building were simply blown apart. Reed and a medical man, Dr. Rosen-cranz, were struck by falling timbers as they tried to scramble away, and the incoming waves submerged them. They were seen no more.

  When the building fell, a kerosene lamp was thrown to the floor, and its flames were whipped about so violently by the roaring winds, which now gusted to 152 miles an hour, that within an incredible eleven minutes the entire main street was in flames, and residents in panic tried to escape the fire. The Hurricane of 1875, which they said could never be repeated, was now reborn with a fur>' more terrible than before. Theo Allerkamp, whose ships' chandlery was struck by the first awesome blast of fire, managed to escape the instant conflagration produced when his turpentine and tar exploded into flame, and for one hellish moment he watched as the street he had rebuilt was attacked by flame on its rooftops and flood at its foundations. Buildings spewed sparks hundreds of feet into the storm, then sighed and collapsed as the irresistible flood tore away their walls.

  'Mein Gott!' he cried. 'What are You doing to us?'

  Mindful of how a hurricane worked, he shouted to those other bewildered men who saw their life's energies destroyed: 'Prepare for the backsurge!' To repeat the precautions which had saved his family before, he struggled through the rising waters to his home, where his sister stood pressed against the wall, protecting herself from the tremendous winds and watching the fiery destruction of her brother's handiwork. 'Oh, Theo!' she cried as he staggered up the three wooden steps which had not yet been washed away by the waters that attacked them. 'How could such punishment come to so good a man?'

  He had no time for lamentation, even though flame and flood nearly engulfed him: 'When the calm comes, then's the danger." And he led her to the highest spot in his house, built to withstand floods such as that of 1875, and fetched ropes with which to hind her to its walls when the waters began to recede.

  This time that would not work, for when the tempestuous wind, now gusting occasionally to more than 165 miles, whipped about, it brought with it a summer's sky of flaming meteors. The clouds were filled with embers, thousands of them, and they arched in beauty over the dark space, reaching for the houses not yet aflame.

  'We shall burn!' Theo cried, not in desperation or in fear, and he ripped away the ropes that bound his sister to the wall and thrust them into her hands. To the trees!'

  But before they could escape, a hundred blazing embers fell on the Allerkamp house and a like number on those nearby. In one vast, sighing gasp, heard above the howling of the wind, these houses exploded into leaping flame, and those who had not anticipated this likelihood perished.

  Waiting for a lull, Theo and his sister headed for the few trees in Indianola, scrawny things barely meriting the name, and she reached them but he did not. A wave wilder than any before came far inland, caught him by the heels, tumbled him about as if he were a wooden toy, then tossed him with terrible force back against one of the newly burning houses. Nothing could have saved him, and he died in the center of the town he had built beside the sea, and then rebuilt.

  Franziska, grief-stricken at seeing him perish, did not panic. With studious care she waited for a pause in the wind, then looked back to check where he had disappeared, lest he mysteriously appear still alive. Seeing nothing, she lashed herself as high into a tree as she could, and when the storm abated into that terrible calm which presaged the arrival of the greater danger, she climbed like a squirrel into the highest branches, but as she did so she saw a young mother with two small children, all so frenzied that none could do anything sensible. So she climbed down, all the way, and found the rope which Theo would have used, and then with her hands and knees scarred from the bark, she goaded the three others into the higher branches of the tree, where she tied them fast.

  They were there at dawn on Friday morning, when the cruel part of the hurricane struck, and from their high perch they watched the town continue burning, with more homes blazing from time to time, while the great waters of the flood began to recede.

  They came first as a slight movement back toward Matagorda

  Bay, then as a quickening—about the speed of a rill tumbling over a small rock—then as a surge of tremendous power, and finally as a vast sucking up of all things, a swirling, tempestuous, tumultuous rush and rage of water pulling away from the terrible damage it had caused. Now those houses which had missed the flames and withstood the first part of the flood collapsed as if from sheer weariness; they had fought honorably and had lost.

  When the raging floods were gone, and the roaring winds had subsided, and the flames had flickered out, Franziska Macnab untied her ropes and helped the others to untie theirs: 'We can climb down now. The storm is past.'

  The two children would not find their father. Franza would not find her brother's body. Some mesmerized survivors would not even be able to identify where their houses had once stood, for when Friday noon arrived, and the sun was back in its full August brilliance, it looked down upon a town that was totally destroyed. Indianola no longer existed, only th
e charred streets and the vegetable gardens with no houses to claim them showing where commerce and affection and political brawling and Texas optimism had once reigned. The incessant gamble which R. J. Poteet had said was characteristic of Texas had been attempted once more, and Indianola had lost.

  By two in the afternoon people were gasping for water as the sun grew hotter and hotter, but there was none to drink, not any in the entire town, and there were no buildings in which the tormented people could take cover. By four in the afternoon children were screaming, and the collecting of dead bodies had to stop as distraught survivors made makeshift plans for the dreadful night that approached.

  Franza, conserving even flecks of spittle to keep her mouth alive, comforted the children, putting her finger in her own mouth, then rubbing it about the child's, and in this mournful, moaning way the night passed.

  At dawn people from another town, less horribly hurt, appeared with water, and Franziska wept: The water destroyed us, and the water saves us.' Those first drops, half a cup to each person, she would never forget.

  Emma Rusk, safe in her little town four hundred miles northwest of Indianola, heard of the disaster by telegraph one day after it happened, but she paid scant attention, for she was preoccupied with her son, who each year became more difficult. In addition to his other exhibitions intended to demonstrate that he was in no way associated with the parents he despised, he had

  taken to eating gargantuan amounts of food. At the age of twelve he weighed more than a hundred and sixty pounds, and when his mother tried to control his gorging, he snarled: 'I don't want to be some thin, scared thing like my father.'

  She had wanted to slap him when he said such things, but he said them so frequently now and with such venom that she did not know what to do. Dismayed as she was by his behavior toward her —which worsened as he entered puberty and faced its dislocations, for now he identified his mother with the most specific sexual misbehavior during her time with the Indians—she was even more distraught the next year by his relations with eleven-year-old Molly Yeager, the sprouting daughter of their foreman.