Fragmentary reports reached New Orleans from time to time by way of the Lafittes or Aury’s privateers. Ellis eagerly devoured the news, trying to envision what was going on, still hoping that somehow he and others could join the expedition. He was thrilled to learn that Mina’s reputation as a fearless and resourceful fighter was well deserved. Time after time, when his little force was surrounded and badly outnumbered, he’d led a daring charge that routed the enemy.
When Mina decided to leave one hundred men guarding his supply base and cut his way through royalist forces to the patríots holding Fort Sombrero in Guanajuato province, Perry protested. Even if Mina took the men from Soto la Marina, Perry insisted, his force would still be too small to invade central Mexico. When Mina persisted, Perry and his fifty men marched north to seize the presidio at La Bahía.
Mina and his men, Ellis learned later, had fought their way through the royalists to the rebels at Fort Sombrero. When seven hundred royalists laid siege to the fort, Mina had led three hundred men on a furíous charge that killed, captured, or scattered the whole enemy column. Ellis heard the reports with delight—Mina, he was now certain, was the savior of the revolution, the man who would revive the rebels and lead them to complete victory. He was so eager to see Magdalena again that he convinced himself Mina was invincible, and chafed to join him. It didn’t make sense that Americans weren’t rushing help to him—he was sure that his friend Guadalupe Victoria and hundreds of Mexican patRíots would come out of hiding and take up arms again. Under Mina they would be irresistible. He urged General Humbert to raise a force of Americans and hurry to Mina’s support. He soon discovered that neither the portly Frenchman nor any of the other plotters in New Orleans was willing to place himself under a leader who cast as long a shadow as Mina.
Arredondo had sent two hundred cavalry on Perry’s trail, then with sixteen hundred troops besieged Mina’s supply base at Sota la Marina. Although his cannon pounded and pulverized the adobe walls day after day, the defenders fought so desperately and inflicted so many casualties on his troops that Arredondo finally offered them humane terms to surrender. They accepted, and Arredondo was stunned when only thirty-seven half-starved Americans staggered out to lay down their arms.
One of Perry’s men limped up to Aury’s outpost at Matagorda Bay and gasped out his story before collapsing. Late one afternoon, just as Perry ordered the presidio at La Bahía to surrender, Arredondo’s cavalry overtook them. Perry’s men found themselves caught in a deadly crossfire between the cavalry and the garrison, which came out to attack. Only the one man had been able to slip away after dark. He was sure there were no other survivors.
Ellis waited impatiently for more news of Mina’s victories, confident he’d never be defeated, whatever the odds. He envisioned rebels by the score eagerly joining him in his triumphant march on Mexico City, and was ready to head for Jalapa the moment he heard that the royalists had been crushed. Unwrapping Magdalena’s mantilla and handkerchief, he held them against his burning cheeks and thought of embracing her once more. A few more weeks, maybe a month or two, he was sure, and Mexico would be free. Then he and Magdalena would have a joyous reunion.
It was late December before Ellis could piece together the story of Mina’s final campaign. The Mexican patRíots had resented the fact that he was a Spaniard, a Gachupín, and many were jealous of his fame. Their support had been grudgingly given at best, and they had detached most of his original men to serve in other rebel units. Late in October, when Mina led a patRíot force in a daring charge that carried to the center of the city of Guanajuato, he suddenly found himself almost alone. Enemy soldiers captured him, and the viceroy had ordered him shot. The royalists were again in control, and the rebels were hiding like rabbits in their burrows. The revolution was dead.
When he finally accepted the awful truth that the struggle was indeed over, and that he’d never see Magdalena again, Ellis felt the blood drain from his face, and his knees buck-led. Breathing with difficulty and choking down a lump in his throat, he staggered to his cot and collapsed on it. Mina had raised his hopes to extraordinary heights. Now he plunged headlong to the depths of despair.
For days Ellis lay on his cot, racked by a burning fever, not caring if he lived or died, while Herrera nervously hovered over him. In his feverish mind Ellis saw himself struggling to get through royalist lines, his legs like sticks of wood, barely able to move. Behind him shouting enemy soldiers steadily gained on him. He saw Magdalena dressed in flowing white robes, waiting for him with arms outstretched. With a last convulsive effort he reached out to embrace her, when both fell in a hail of bullets.
Gradually the fever subsided, and Ellis’ head cleared. He sadly recalled what Gutiérrez had advised. Unless the revolution succeeds, he’d said, you’ll never see your wife again. You’d be better off to consider her dead and forget her. He’s right, Ellis gloomily admitted. That’s what the dream told me. There’s nothing else I can do.
That spring of 1818, Ellis trudged upriver to Natchez, where he’d met Nolan eighteen years earlier. Then with a party of twenty-five boatmen, he headed up the Natchez Trace through the woods toward Nashville. Cutthroats lurked along the trail, ready to rob and murder any party not strong enough to defend itself, and Indians occasionally attacked the unwary. Ellis was on the way to visit his older half-brother, William Shaw, in White County, Tennessee, while trying to decide which way to turn. He’d written William he was coming and why.
Tennessee was no longer the wilderness Ellis remembered, for there were large, prosperous farms in many areas. White County, where Caney Fork entered the Cumberland, was one of these. William Shaw, a heavy-set man in his later forties, farmed and traded in livestock. He and his wife greeted Ellis warmly. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you need to get your feet under you,” William said when they shook hands.
William introduced Ellis to other farm families in the area, proudly announcing that he’d fought in both the Mexican Revolution and the battle of New Orleans. One neighbor was Isaac Midkiff, a small gray-bearded man in his fifties who lived with his daughter Candace on a large farm he’d just purchased. She was a blue-eyed, doll-like girl who wore her blonde hair in braids tied with ribbons; because of her small size, Ellis assumed she was a child and hardly noticed her at first. He immediately took a liking to her father. When Isaac questioned him about the Mexican Revolution, Candace listened wide-eyed.
“I was let out of a stinkin' dungeon to fight the rebels,” Ellis told them. “At the first opportunity I slipped away to Morelos. He was just raising an army and hadn’t fought a battle—they had mostly clubs and machetes for weapons. I told Morelos I’d go back to the royalists and claim I’d escaped, then get a lot of the militia to join him, along with their guns. He warned me the royalists would likely shoot me, but luckily they didn’t.”
“That was dangerous!” Candace exclaimed, sitting up straight in her chair. “You might have been killed!” Ellis looked at her closely for the first time and was struck by her small, well-formed figure. She’s no child, he thought. She’s one good-looking woman, just kind of little.
“It was dangerous,” he admitted, “but I got word to Morelos to have his men meet me at midnight by an abandoned house. There were about five hundred of them, but only thirty had guns, and I wasn’t sure all of them would fire.” He paused, as Candace stared at him, holding her breath.
“Go on,” she said impatiently. “Tell us what happened.”
“I led them to a hill by the camp where a sentry guarded the artillery. We got rid of him without a fuss, then turned the cannon on the Spanish soldiers and ordered them to surrender. When they saw the guns aimed at them, and us holding lit matches, they threw up their hands. The militia ran but joined Morelos the next day. He was one happy man, for it was his first victory, and now he had six cannon and hundreds of muskets as well as many more men.”
That was the beginning. Ellis felt increasingly drawn to the Midkiff farm, where he enjoyed helping
Isaac and regaling Candace with tales of his adventures. He was fascinated by her shapely, diminutive figure, and almost against his will gazed at her with lust in his heart. She’s only eighteen, he thought, and I'm thirty-five. If we got married, there’d come a day when I couldn't get it up anymore and she'd still be... I'd be too jealous to live with if she even looked at another man. Anyway, I already got a wife. I can’t marry her. I’d better clear out and let her find someone her own age. I’ll move on next week or the one after for sure, he told himself, but without conviction.
In spite of his good intentions, Ellis continued to spend every day at the Midkiff farm, telling himself it was because of his warm friendship for Isaac. Seeing the tiny Candace made him forget the difference in their ages, for she gazed at him with doting eyes. She’s waiting for me to ask her to marry, Ellis thought. If I don't get out of here something in me is going to explode.
One day as he sat on a kitchen stool while she prepared food, he noticed that she wore only a thin cotton dress with nothing under it. His eyes grew wide and his pulse quickened, for he could almost see through it wherever it was pressed against her body. When she casually walked to the open kitchen door, where the sunlight streamed in, and stood there feet apart, he could see every detail of her well-shaped body. His desire for her flamed so violently it was overpowering, and he was almost panting.
“Candy,” he said huskily, “I want you badly.” She turned and brightened. “Unfortunately I can’t ask you to marry me.” She looked shocked. “I was married for about a week in Mexico, and I don’t even know if my wife is still alive. But I can’t marry again without knowing. That’s against the law.”
Candace looked crushed, her expectations dashed, her eyes moist. Ellis cleared his throat, then nervously continued. “Like I said, I want you, even if I can’t marry you. If you’re willing, we can live together as man and wife.” Her blue eyes widened and her brow wrinkled. “I can get you a wedding ring and we can tell folks we’re married.” Her shocked expression faded, and she looked thoughtful. Ellis exhaled deeply. His face felt hot, and he tried to mask the fact that he could barely keep from tearing off her flimsy dress and ravishing her on the kitchen floor.
“I want you, too,” she said softly, looking him in the face, “so bad it hurts. Some nights I can’t sleep for wishing you were beside me.” She paused and looked down. “What you ask isn’t all I’d hoped for, but I’ll think on it.”
Ellis said no more, but waited eagerly for her decision. After another sleepless night, she made up her mind. “I just don’t know how to tell Papa,” she said, looking worried.
“I don’t either,” Ellis said, “but that’s for me to do, not you. I wonder if I should unload his shotgun first.”
When Isaac came in at noon, Ellis nervously cleared his throat. “Candace and I have a problem,” he said. The kindly gray-bearded Isaac looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Serious?” he asked. Ellis nodded.
“We want to get married, but....” Isaac smiled. “But we can’t because I was married in Mexico,” Ellis hastily added. Isaac stared at him in surprise. Ellis screwed up his courage and plunged in. “We want to live together as man and wife,” he blurted, his face flushed and perspiring. “If you agree I promise to treat her just like we’re really married. I’d never abandon her.” He was grateful that Isaac didn’t look badly shocked or reach for the shotgun, which lay across two pegs in the wall.
Isaac looked intently from one to the other, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “You sure that’s what you want, Candy?” he asked. She blushed in shame but nodded her head. “Well, since your mother is no longer here to object,” he said, “I won’t.” Ellis felt a great wave of relief sweep over him. “By the way, daughter,” Isaac added, ‘‘don’t think you two are the first who have done this.” Ellis felt like hugging him.
The Panic of 1819 hit Western farmers hard, for by the end of the year there was no money from unsold crops to pay mortgages or other debts. Shortly before the slump began, Isaac had sold several ox-teams and a dozen cattle on credit to raise money to pay his mortgage. He was unable to collect more than the first payments, for the purchasers' funds, like those of everyone else, had dried up. Isaac’s face became set in a worried cast, and he looked like a man who was trying desperately to claw his way out of powerful quicksand that was slowly sucking him under.
Troubled by his expression, Candace asked one day, “Papa, are you worried about something, or aren’t you feeling well?”
He gazed at her sadly. “I wanted to leave you a good farm,” he told her, “but there’s no money to be had and the bankers won’t wait. By next year they’ll foreclose and turn us out.” He suddenly looked old and careworn.
“Don’t worry about it, Papa,” Candace said, hugging him. “We’ll get along somehow.” Ellis looked at Isaac, saddened to see him so forlorn.
“That’s right,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “Arkansas has just been made a territory. There’s lots of good grass there and woods enough so there’s plenty of mast for hogs. I’ve seen it. Let’s pack up and take the cattle and hogs there. We can squat on some good land and buy it when things get better. You’ve been workin’ too hard at farmin’ anyway. Raisin’ stock ain’t that much work.”
Isaac’s face brightened a little. “I guess we don’t have much choice,” he said. “We’re lucky there’s somewhere to go. At least we’ve got enough clothes and tools and stock to get us by for a few years. Maybe by then things will be better and I can collect what’s owed me.”
In the spring of 1820, they loaded Isaac’s big farm wagon, hitched two ox teams to it, and headed west. Candace rode in the wagon while Isaac walked beside the plodding oxen, goad in hand. On horseback, Ellis and two farm youths they’d hired drove the herd of about fifty beef cattle and more than twenty hogs. After a day or two of travel, the animals followed the wagon without trying to turn aside frequently. In a month of slow travel they reached the frontier town of Little Rock, where they rested a few days before continuing on to the southwest. Ellis was relieved to see that Isaac seemed excited about the move and was looking forward to raising cattle on the range.
In two more weeks they reached a little settlement of cabins, each with its own cornfield, where they stopped for a day. “Are there more settlers beyond here?” Ellis asked one of the men.
“Nope, leastwise not yet. This is kinda the end of the line,” he replied.
“We’re lookin’ for a place where both cattle and hogs will do well,” Ellis said. “Any suggestions?”
“ ‘Bout thirty mile on you come to Smackover Crick. It’s real fine country, and ain’t nobody nearer than us.”
They chose a spot near the creek but high enough to be safe if it overflowed. With the help of the two farm boys they built a cabin with a stone chimney and a loft. Then they built a corral, a smokehouse for curing ham and bacon, and a henhouse for the chickens Candace had brought in a crate on the wagon. The two farm lads returned to Tennessee. With the oxen, Ellis plowed ten acres of bottomland and planted corn, sweet potatoes, and a few rows of cotton.
Each morning they turned the cows out to graze, keeping the calves penned, knowing the cows would return at night. Before the calves nursed each evening, Candace got a little milk from each cow for making butter and cheese. To have something to trade or sell, Ellis and Isaac trained the four largest steers as oxen.
In mid-February 1821, Ellis carefully helped Candace into the wagon and headed for the nameless settlement they’d visited, where there were women who could help deliver her first child. There was no road to follow, only the tracks they’d made coming. Ellis watched Candace anxiously, fearful that the jolting wagon might cause her to give birth before they had help. He was greatly relieved when they reached the little settlement, and friendly women shooed him away and took charge. He wiped the sweat from his brow on his sleeve. Don’t know what I’d done, he thought.
Ellis busied himself helping the men prepare fi
elds for planting, grateful to have something to keep him occupied. Finally, on the morning of March 5, he was told that Candace was in labor, and he worked harder than usual that day. Late in the afternoon one of the women came out and called to him. “You have a fine son,” she said. Candace named him Isaac.
Early in 1822, eight well-dressed horsemen with two pack mules rode up to the cabin from the east. Since it was late afternoon, Ellis invited them to make camp and gave them a ham from the smokehouse as an inducement. Starved for news of the rest of the country, he and Isaac visited with them while they ate.
“We’re on the way to Texas for a look-see,” the leader explained. He looked to be in his thirties, and from his appearance it was clear that he earned his living by using his brains, not his muscles. “Now that Mexico is independent and Stephen F. Austin is advertising for colonísts, we figured we’d better see what the prospects are in Texas for making money in land.”
“Mexico independent!” Ellis exclaimed. “We hadn’t heard that. Of course we don’t get much news out here. When did it happen?”
“About a year ago an officer named Iturbide or something like that got together with some of the rebels. It took them the rest of the year to get all of the Spanish troops out of the country.”
“This Austin fellow you mentioned, who’s he?” Ellis wanted to know.
“His father went to San Antonio a couple of years ago and got what they call an empresario contract to bring three hundred families to Texas. He died and left the contract to his son Stephen. Everyone who goes gets a lot of free land; the empresario gets thirty or forty thousand acres for each one hundred families he brings. Mexico is real generous with its land, which I can’t say for the U.S. Anyway, we want to check on its quality.”
“I was there once over twenty years ago,” Ellis told him. “What I saw was damn fine land.”
When Ellis crawled into bed, Candace was already asleep. He lay on his back with both hands under his head, staring up in the dark. If he’d known Mexico would soon be independent, he’d have waited, but there’d been no way to foresee that. His thoughts went back to his days with Morelos and his moments with Magdalena, whom he’d earlier banished from his mind. That was all in the dimly remembered past, like it had been in a former life or had happened to someone else. He could look back on it now with detachment, like something he’d read about, not something that had happened to him.
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