Michener, James A.

by Texas

  'Oh! 1 would never want to borrow money again,' Rusk said.

  'Not borrow in the old sense. We pass a bond issue. The entire community borrows. The state provides the funds.'

  'Would I have to sign any papers?'

  'Damnit, man. This is a new system. The public signs. The public gets a fine new courthouse. And we all prosper.'

  Weatherby proved to be the staunchest supporter of the bond drive for the new courthouse and the best explicator of the Texas that was coming: 'Let us build good things now so that our children who follow will have a stronger base from which to do their building.' At one public meeting Frank Yeager, now a rancher with his own land, loudly protested that Larkin County could save money by using one of the old fort buildings as its courthouse, and Weatherby astonished Rusk by whispering: 'Ride herd on that horse's ass,' and Earnshaw rose to do so.

  'Frank!' he argued. 'That's a little stable suited to a little town lost on the edge of the plains.'

  AVhat are we?' Yeager asked, and Rusk replied: 'Little today, but not tomorrow. I want a noble building symbolizing our potential greatness. I want to fill the imaginations of our people.' After he had silenced Yeager, he addressed the citizens of Larkin County: 'I want something worthy of the new Texas.'

  He had ten days before the architect was due to arrive, and he spent them in tireless persuasion, a tall, gaunt figure moving everywhere, talking with everyone, always with a sheaf of figures in his pocket, always with the bursting enthusiasm necessary to launch any civic enterprise of importance. On the ninth day he and Weatherby had the money guaranteed, and on the tenth day he slept until two in the afternoon.

  The visit of James Riely Gordon to the frontier town was almost a disaster, for the austere young architect, one of the most opinionated men in Texas history and its foremost artist, went directly

  to his room, speaking to no one, not even Rusk. He ate alone and went to bed. In the morning he wished to see no one, and in the afternoon he stalked solemnly about the old parade ground, checking the buildings, satisfying himself that the stone houses were in good repair.

  He also ate his evening meal alone, and at seven in the evening he deigned to appear before the local leaders. His appearance created a sensation, for he stepped primly before these hardened frontiersmen dressed in a black frock coat, striped trousers and creamy white vest. He wore a stiff collar three inches high, from which appeared almost magically a fawn-colored cravat adorned by a huge diamond stickpin. The lapels of both his coat and vest were piped with silk grosgrain fabric of a slightly different color.

  He had a big, square head, a vanishing hairline which he masked by training his forelocks to cover a huge amount of otherwise bare skin, and he wore pince-nez glasses that accentuated his hauteur He was the most inappropriate person to address a group of frontier ranchers, and had a vote been taken at that moment, Gordon would have been shipped back to San Antonio, where he kept his offices.

  But when he began to speak, the tremendous authority he had acquired through travel, study, contemplation and actual building manifested itself, and his audience sat in rapt attention:

  'You have a magnificent site here on the plains. This old fort is a treasure, a memorial of heroic days. Its simple stone buildings form a dignified framework for whatever 1 do, and I would be proud to be a part of your achievement.

  'I have studied even' penny, especially the difficulty of bringing materials here from a distance, and 1 believe I can build what you will want for seventy-nine thousand dollars, but if you insist on making any wild changes, the cost will be much higher. Have you found ways to get the money?'

  Satisfied that the funds were available, he astonished the hard-headed county leaders by telling them, not asking them, what the new courthouse was to be:

  'It is essential, gentlemen, that we maintain a clear image of what a great courthouse ought to be, and 1 desire to build none that are not great. It must have four characteristics, and these must be visible to all. To the criminal who is brought here for trial, it must represent the majesty of the law, awesome and unassailable. To the responsible citizen who comes here seeking justice, it must represent stability and fairness and the continuity of life. To the elected officials working here.

  especially the judges, it must remind them of the heavy responsibility they share for keeping the system honorable and forward-moving; I want every official who enters his office in the morning to think: "I am part of a dignified tradition, reaching back to the time of Hammurabi and Leviticus " And to the town and the county and the state, the courthouse must be a thing of beauty It must rise high and stand for something. And it must grow better as years and decades and centuries pass."

  And then, as if to prove his point, he asked Earnshaw to fetch the large package from his room, and when an easel was provided, he stunned his audience with a beautifully executed watercolor he had completed earlier. It showed the courthouse he would build at the center of the old fort.

  First of all, it was beautiful, a work of recognizable art. Second, it was both magisterially heavy and delicately proportioned. Third, it was a kaleidoscope of color, utilizing three types of stone locally available, but stressing a brilliant red sandstone, alternating with layers of a milky-white limestone. Fourth, it had the most fantastic collection of ornamentation an artist could have devised: miniature turrets, balustrades, soaring arches four stories up, Moorish towers at all corners, arched galleries open to the air, fenestrations, clock towers, and perched upon the top, a kind of red-and-white-stone wedding cake, five tiers high and ending in a many-turreted, many-spired tower, from which rose a master spire nineteen feet tall.

  Ornate, gaudy, flamboyant, ridiculously overornamented, it was also grand in design and noble in spirit. It was a courthouse ideally suited to the Texas spirit, and it and its fifteen majestic sisters could be built only in Texas. But it was Frank Yeager's comment which best summarized it: 'A building like that, it would show where the seventy-nine thousand dollars were spent. Sort of makes you feel good.'

  Each of the officials had changes he wanted made, with Rusk expressing a strong desire for four dominating turrets at the compass points. Gordon listened to each recommendation as if it were coming from Vitruvius, but when the critic stopped speaking and Gordon stopped nodding his head in agreement, the architect patiently explained why the suggestion, excellent though it might be in spirit, could not be accommodated, and as the evening wore on, it became apparent that James Riely Gordon was going to build the courthouse he wanted, for he was convinced that when it was done the citizens would want it, too. At the end of the long evening, with him standing beside his watercolor, his pince-nez

  still jamming his nose, the ranchers were beginning to speak of 'our courthouse' and 'our architect.'

  The construction of the Larkin County Courthouse was the wonder of the age, and one aspect caused nervous comment. To complete the stonework professionally, Gordon had to transfer to the town the team of skilled Italian stonemasons he had brought to Texas to work on his other civic buildings, and these men did not exactly fit into the rugged frontier pattern. For one thing, they were Catholics and insisted upon having a priest visit them regularly. For another, they preferred their traditional food style and could not adjust to the Larkin County diet of greasy steaks smothered in rich gravy. But worst of all, as lonely men working constantly in one small Texas town after another, they clumsily sought female companionship, and this was resented by the local women and men alike.

  There was one stonecarver much appreciated by Gordon, who assigned him the more difficult ornamental tasks. His name was Luigi Esposito, but he was called by his Texan co-workers Weegee, and this Weegee, unmarried and twenty-seven, fell in love with a charming and graceful young woman, Mabel Fister, who worked for the county judge, who had his temporary offices in one of the old cavalry barracks. Weegee saw her night and morning, a fine girl, he thought, and soon his day revolved about her appearances. He could anticipate when she would come t
o work, when she would leave the judge's office and on what errands. Whenever she appeared, he would stop work and stare at her until the last movement of her ankle carried her away.

  At this period he was working on the four important carved figures which would decorate the corners on the second tier. Gordon had decided they would be draped female figures representing Justice, Religion, Motherhood and Beauty, and in a moment of infatuation Weegee started with the last-named, carving a really splendid portrait of Mabel Fister. When it was finished, he made bold to stop Mabel one morning as she was going to work; he could speak no English, but he wanted to explain that this statue was his tribute to her.

  She was embarrassed and outraged that he should have intruded into her life in this manner, and although she could speak no Italian, and certainly did not wish to learn, she did indicate that she was displeased both with his art and with his having stopped her.

  He next carved Motherhood, again in Mabel's likeness, and again he was snubbed when he tried to interest her in it. He then turned to Religion, and this time the beautiful Mabel appeared as

  a harsh and rather unpleasant type, which he displayed to her one afternoon as she left her work with the judge. She pushed his hand away and spurned his tongue-tied efforts to explain his art and his deep affection for her.

  Before he started carving Justice, which he had wanted to be the best of the series, he asked the interpreter provided by Gordon to arrange some way for him to meet with Mabel Fister so that he could explain in sensible words his love for her, so one afternoon Earnshaw Rusk sat with Weegee and listened as the interpreter poured out the sculptor's story. Rusk inspected the three statues and said: 'I should think that any young woman would be proud to be immortalized so handsomely.'

  'Will you speak with her?' Weegee pleaded, and Earnshaw said that he certainly would. Hurrying home, he asked Emma if she would accompany him, and they went together to talk with the attractive secretary: 'Miss Fister, the gifted sculptor Luigi Esposito had asked us if we would—'

  'I want nothing to do with him. He's a bother.'

  'But, Miss Fister, he's working in an alien land.' Emma was speaking, and when Mabel looked at her wooden nose she wanted very little to do with her, either.

  'I would not care to speak with a papist,' she said.

  'In Rome they claim that jesus was the first Catholic,' Rusk said.

  'We're not in Rome.'

  'Very few young women have themselves depicted in marble by young men who love them.'

  'That's a foolish word, Mr. Rusk. I'm surprised you would use it.'

  'No one ever need apologize for the word love. I would deeply appreciate it if you . . .'

  Miss Fister was adamant. She would not meet with Weegee; she hoped that he would soon finish his carvings and go away: 'He has no place in Texas.' W r hen Justice was finished, Weegee did not try to show it to her, but his mates could see that Mabel Fister had been treated harshly in it. Justice was hard, cruel and remorseless, and not at all what James Riely Gordon had intended. Indeed, he asked Luigi if he would consider trying again on that figure, but the Italian told him, through the interpreter: 'You don't change your plans. I don't change mine.'

  Emma Rusk, aware that she, too, had been rebuffed by Miss Fister, was experiencing an emotional crisis of her own. Her son Floyd, nearly twenty now and as fat and unruly as ever, had made

  the acquaintance of one of the Italian workmen who had done sonic building in Brazil, and from him had obtained a most improbable piece of tropical wood. It was called balsa, the Italian said, and while it was lighter than an equal bulk of feathers, it was also structurally strong. He had paid the Italian a dollar for a piece three inches square and had then played with it, testing whether it would float and trying to estimate whether it weighed as much as an ounce, which he doubted.

  Satisfied with its characteristics and assured that it would accept varnish, he then retired to his room, and after several abortive experiments on fragments of the balsa, came out in great embarrassment, holding out his hands, offering his mother a beautifully carved nose which weighed practically nothing and to which he had attached a gossamer thread which he himself had plaited.

  He insisted that she try it on, explaining that it had been so thoroughly varnished and rubbed that it would resist water. But when she removed her heavy wooden nose, the one carved in oak by her husband, and Floyd saw her again as she was, the experience was so crushing that he fled from the house, weighed down by his haunting images of his mother in the hands of her Comanche captors.

  When he returned two days later, neither he nor his mother mentioned the nose. She wore it, with exceeding comfort; it looked better than its predecessor and its feathery weight gave her a freedom she had not enjoyed before. She felt younger and so much more acceptable that she went to the judge's office to speak with Mabel Fister: 'Young woman, not long ago you said some very stupid things. Don't interrupt. If God can accept all children as His own, you can be courteous to this gifted man so far from home.'

  'I would never marry an Italian.'

  'Who's speaking of marriage? I'm speaking of common decency. Of charity.'

  'I do not need you to come here—'

  'You shied away from me. I understand why. I might have done the same. But do not shy away from humanity. Miss Fister. We need all of it we can get.'

  She accomplished nothing, but with a boldness she did not know she had she sought out Luigi Esposito and, with the aid of the interpreter, said: 'Miss Fister has never traveled. She thinks this little town is the universe. Forgive her.'

  When these words were translated, Luigi said nothing, but he did bow ceremoniously to Emma as if to thank her for her solicitude. Then he turned abruptly, strode to his workshop, and without orders from Gordon, toiled with passionate concentration on

  his secret carving for the fifth and last location. When it was completed he asked three of his fellow workers to help him cement it in place, and when it was fixed on the south facade of the courthouse between Beauty and Motherhood, the other Italians laughed until they were weak to think of the joke Luigi had played on the Americans. Covering it with a tarpaulin, they proposed unveiling it at some propitious moment. Then the three masons went to their quarters and got mildly drunk while Luigi searched for a pistol, with which he blew out his brains.

  When the courthouse was completed, a thing of flamboyant beauty, the time came for the unveiling of Luigi Esposito's four symbolic sculptures plus the mystery creation, and since they were presented in the order in which he had done them, it was apparent that his model had grown increasingly harsh and ugly, as if Justice in Texas was always going to be a stern and uncertain affair.

  Some commented on this, but most were interested in what the fifth mystery sculpture would show, and when the three Italians who had cemented it into place withdrew the tarpaulin, smiling vengefully, a gasp issued from the crowd, for in amazing and intimate detail, Weegee had carved the private parts of a woman, and before nightfall rumor initiated by the workmen was circulating to the effect that Weegee had carved it from life. They vowed they had watched as Mabel Fister posed.

  There it stood on the south facade of this magnificent courthouse, immortalized in stone. Two days later Miss Fister left Larkin for Abilene and did not return.

  Earnshaw, of course, wanted the lascivious carving removed but to his surprise Emma did not: it's part of the courthouse experience, let it remain.' And she was supported by Clyde Weatherby, who predicted accurately: 'Ten people will come to see the courthouse, but a thousand to see Mabel Fister's unusual pose.'

  Surprising news from Jacksborough diverted attention from the statue. Floyd Rusk had disappeared for several days, and his parents feared that he might have gone to old Fort Griffin, where notorious gamblers clustered, but he had gone to Jacksborough, accompanied by Molly Yeager, whom he had married. She was a flighty girl, almost as round and pudgy as her husband, and Emma could find little reason to hope that she would prove a goo
d wife, but as she told Earnshaw: if I criticized Miss Fister for not being gracious toward her Italian, I can't be ungracious to Molly.' What she did not tell her husband was that each day she wore her balsa-wood nose she was reminded that

  in his grudging way Floyd did love her, and that was enough.

  As the century ended, a delightful charade occurred. An official from Washington, eager for a paid vacation, had come to Jacksborough just after Floyd's wedding and had fired the postmaster, stating no reasons for his arbitrary act. He had then announced that henceforth the town was to be Jacksboro, whereupon with elaborate ceremony he reemployed the fired man as the new postmaster.

  After the celebration, at which he got roaring drunk, he boarded the coach to Fort Garner, where without explanation he fired that postmaster too. When Earnshaw protested such unfairness, the visitor pointed at him: 'Because of your agitation, this town is now named Larkin,' and the postmaster was reappointed by a letter from President McKinley.

  During the festivities celebrating the christening, Emma stood well to one side as she heard Weatherby extolling her husband for the good he had accomplished in this town: 'He brought us the wire fence that made our fortunes, he found a way to get us our railroad, he engineered our noble courthouse, and now he has given us a proper name.' The orator pointed out that this was an example to young people of how . . .

  Emma stopped listening, for she was staring toward the plains and calculating how costly this so-called improvement had been. 'The buffalo that used to darken these plains,' she whispered, 'the Indians who chased them, the Longhorns who roamed so freely, the unmarked open spaces . . . where are they? Will our children ever see their like?' She expected no answer, for she knew that the glories which had sustained her through the dark years would be no more.