by James Haley
They led the horses into the corral, slipped on bridles, and lay blankets across their backs. “What we hear is everybody wants to run the show,” said Philpott. “The Council has impeached the governor, the governor has dismissed the Council, everyone is issuing orders to everybody, each countermanding the other. The Mexicans could march in right this day and sweep everybody up.”
“Well, we might have known.”
“Seems to me we have way too many chiefs and not near enough Indians.”
“Where are all the volunteers?”
“If you ask me,” said Philpott, “they’re all layin’ low until they figure out just who is entitled to give them orders. I guess the biggest number are at Goliad, some in San Antone, maybe a smaller garrison at the Concepción mission.”
“Where is Houston, do you know?”
“Oh, God Almighty, I think that man is the center of the storm. Seems like half the men in government would follow him anywhere because he used to be attached to Jackson, and the other half want nothing to do with him because he used to be attached to Jackson, or because he drinks, or because he left his white wife, or because he had an Indian wife, or whatnot of a reason.”
Bliven smiled wryly at the memory of Houston’s ruin in Tennessee. “Seems like I have heard all of this before, in years past.”
Sam grunted. “The point is he is the only one of the whole lot who has actually been in battle and led men in battle. These other dunderheads have no idea what they are doing. They would scatter at the first sight of a Mexican line. How about it, Philpott? Do you know where he is?”
“Nope. I think it’s a fair bet the one place he won’t be is in San Felipe. Someone on the Council would probably try to have him arrested.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“Boarding the Ranger, and two weeks’ rental on this one here—seven dollars. Would that be convenient? If you keep the horse longer than that, we can settle up when you return him.”
Sam fished the silver out of his coin purse. “Well, I guess we all have to make a living. Obliged to you, Hiram.”
The road north from Velasco was a well-defined trace—nothing as would be called a turnpike in the Northeast—but there was no losing one’s way. As evening overtook them, they called at a house near the road; they hailed a middle-aged couple in the yard, who happily gave them a meal and blankets to spend the night on the front gallery of their house. They stayed up late in conversation, draining Bliven of news from the United States, and anything he could tell them about his life in Litchfield. Morning brought ham and eggs and coffee, but the owners seemed wounded that Bliven offered them payment.
“He doesn’t know how we do things around here, does he, Mr. Sam?” the husband asked.
“No. He’s never been here in his life. See, Bliv, however much we Texans affect to need no one and nothing, the truth is none of us could get by without the hospitality of our neighbors. It is freely given and cheerfully accepted. When the night comes that they knock on my door, the same will be extended to them. Now, it’s true that some people have gone into full-time inn keeping, and they charge a rate just like you would expect back home, but we out here never expect payment for putting people up for the night.”
Bliven’s surprise was evident. “I ask your pardon, I meant no offense. How can you tell the difference?”
“Well, an inn might or might not have a sign by the road. We just know.”
That second day the coastal grass gave way more and more to belts of oak forest, with taller hardwoods along creeks and sloughs—cottonwoods and pecans.
“You know,” said Sam, “there is another side to that whole thing about paying for lodging. There has never been much money in circulation out here. People might live for months on barter without a coin changing hands. When you offer people money you can appear sort of high-handed.”
“I had no idea.”
Late in the morning they passed from one belt of oak into a meadow more elevated and rolling than the ones before. Midway through it a path extended to the left, and by it a signpost neatly but homely painted “halcyon.” “Why, this is it,” exclaimed Bliven.
“Yes.”
“Then this would explain the postal address I have been using all these years: Halcyon Plantation, Bolivar, Texas.”
“Yes. Bolivar is just a couple of miles further up the road.”
They turned from the road onto the path that led west from the sign, and Bliven pointed to a roof rising from the tall grass ahead. “That must be your house, but where are your fields?”
“Further on. My land backs up to the river. When General Austin was laying out the land grants, he thought ahead to make them long and narrow so that everyone would have frontage on the Brazos and be able to get their produce down to a market. The riverboat stops for everyone who has cotton or hides or corn waiting on the bank.”
“You have steamboats?” Something so modern seemed out of place on so raw a frontier.
“Sure. What do you think, we wear skins and hunt with clubs?”
“I am happy that you can get all the goods you need. What about Indians?”
Sam shrugged. “The Kronks were a problem in the early days, but after we organized some ranging companies, they were punished so hard for killing or stealing they pretty much leave us alone now. There’s some wilder tribes further up the river, but this is pretty well out of their hunting grounds. Then you get out past them, that’s Comanche country, but no white man has any business up there—at least, not yet.”
“I see. Now, Austin’s grant was as large as most countries in the world. What led you to this location? Anything in particular?”
“Apart from being on the river, I just tried to figure out where the future business would be. I got lucky, too, because Bolivar up ahead is where the road from Brazoria to San Felipe crosses the road from Columbia to Harrisburg. That, and the east part of this land here by the road is a little higher than most. When I first looked it over I went down by the river and I looked up and saw old grass and leaves caught in the tree branches, so I could figure how high the water gets when there is a flood, and I know the house is safe.”
Bliven thought it strange to converse so long while walking their horses through the front yard of a single house, but at length the grass was tamped down into a clearing. “And this is your house?”
“Yup.”
“Why, Sam, it is just charming.”
Sam laughed loudly. “I have wondered what you would say if you ever saw it. That is kind of you to say so, but there is no need to pretend. We both know it is nothing like what I knew back at Abbeville.”
“But, like a cat, you have landed on your feet. I had so hoped for you, Sam, that life would treat you right after handing you so much misfortune.”
Sam was taken off guard by such a kind sympathy. “Yes. Well, you have to take what life gives you or you get unhinged, like my first two boys. Look, now, we built the kind of house that everyone has hereabouts. It is sort of a local invention, and if there is such a thing as genius among the common people, this is its product. You see? You get your land and move onto it, and you build a single log pen to live in while you get settled. Then, when you are ready, you build a second one, just the same size, next to it but not too close. That gives you one room to live in and one to sleep in. Then you connect them with the single roof, and that gives you a nice, cool place to sit out in warm weather, or out of the rain. Then at some point you build the kitchen out back.
“Then, if you want, you can close in that open porch for a third room, and when you need to, you extend shed roofs off the back for two more rooms, and if you planned it right and made your ceiling high enough, you can put two more rooms up in the eaves, with stairs in the central hall, and add this gallery across the front. I know it looks humble, but it’s as much as most anyone needs.”
“My
word, that is efficient, isn’t it?”
“Now, some few of our rich folks have built big mansions like they had back home, but really they’re just showing off. No one needs to live like that. Besides, as you remember, I was starting over.”
As they were halfway across the clearing, a Negro woman wearing a blue dress patterned in darker blue exited the house, wiping her hands on an apron. “Well, Mr. Sam, praise the Lord! He has brought you safe home.”
They dismounted, and Sam embraced her with a jarring familiarity. “Bliv, do you remember Dicey? She was just a little girl when you met her in Abbeville.”
“Oh, my heavens, yes! Dicey, it is so good to see you. Do you remember, you brought us lemonade when I was visiting with Mrs. Bandy?”
“Oh, yes, I remember that very well.” She advanced and extended her hand; he was surprised but he took it, uncertain in the scheme of things what her station might be in this household. “I remember I was so shy I liked to have died.”
A black man came around the side of the house, thirty and powerfully muscled, fully but inexpensively clad in the station of the slave, but the presence of shoes told that he was a well-kept slave. “Welcome home, Mr. Sam. Shall I take the Ranger into the barn and give him and his friend a rubdown and some supper?”
“Yes, Silas, that will be fine.” He and Bliven slid their portmanteaus down from the saddles and handed over the reins. Bliven followed Silas to the edge of the house and saw a large barn with a corral beyond. When he turned back he beheld Sam and Dicey kissing passionately. Then they stood facing him, arms around each other. “Come, my sweet. Let us help Captain Putnam into the house, I fear we have given him a shock. Where are the boys?”
“Can’t say exactly. Romping out back with Pompey and them. They’ll be around.”
They mounted two low steps to the gallery porch that extended the width of the house. Dicey passed inside but Bliven held back. “Now, Sam,” he whispered. He was not sure what to say. “Remember, I have been all over the world. I know from my own experience that different countries have different customs.”
“Ho, that was a good effort,” said Sam grandly. “It is all right, you are permitted to be shocked. But I’ll tell you the truth: that our accommodation is not at all unusual in these parts.” He opened the front door. “Look down here. See this? A brass lock set! It makes us the envy of our neighbors; most of them use latchstrings. The hinges are rawhide, though; it’s plentiful and doesn’t squeak.” They passed inside, and Sam continued, “See this floor? Sawn pine lumber. Most people use puncheons out here because wood doesn’t last in this climate, owing to the termites, but I brushed them on the bottom with some nautical pitch that I had saved, to see if that would stop them, and we haven’t fallen through yet.”
Suddenly, Bliven realized that Sam was attempting to draw him out of his consternation over Dicey and decided to cooperate. “So then this used to be the open passage between the two cabins, as you described?”
“Exactly.”
“And these stairs go up to the eave rooms?” There was a staircase that ascended the right wall of the hall, as steep almost as a ship’s ladder.
“Yes, and out back you see the kitchen, and that is Dicey’s domain. Oh, and come look at this!” He passed out a back door opposite where they had entered, onto a small porch. “See, we have a well, and this.” He pointed to a wooden frame of three shelves whose legs stood in a shallow zinc pan with an inch of water in the bottom. Around the shelves was stretched white cotton sheeting tacked into the top, the trailing edge of which rested in the water. “Here, try this.” Sam pulled aside the damp cloth, and from a beige crockery pitcher poured a cup of cool, fresh buttermilk. “We have a German neighbor, name of Lederle, across the road. It’s an invention of theirs: in all the summer heat, this thing keeps milk, butter—everything—just as cool as can be. He had some big word for it that I don’t remember.”
“‘Evaporation’?” asked Bliven.
“I believe that was it. Our first German came through here about five years ago, and a few more every year since. Cleverest people you ever saw, and they work like the very devil.”
“And they are good neighbors, apparently.”
“Well, like with the lodging for travelers, we do help each other out. His place backs up only to Oyster Creek, so I let him use my dock on the river whenever he wants.”
“He came by yesterday,” said Dicey, and she pointed to the bottom shelf of the cooler. “He brought that haunch of venison that we’re having for supper.”
“Well, God damn! Bliv, see what I mean? Let’s get out of her way. Come back inside and have a glass of wine.”
“I am with you.” Bliven’s eyes met Dicey’s for a short, deep look. “Dicey, I am very happy to see you again.”
“Me, too, Cap’n Putnam. You go along, now.”
The parlor lay to the right of the central hall, furnished with a settee and chairs of fine rosewood, as was a table with a marble top. At a sideboard Sam emptied a bottle of ruby-red wine into a decanter that he set, with two glasses, onto a silver gallery tray and carried it to the marble-topped table.
“Your house is very finely furnished,” said Bliven. “Were you able to bring these pieces with you from South Carolina, or did you acquire them here?”
Sam poured the wine. “One big wagonload we were able to save. Good furniture out here is almost impossibly dear.”
“Sam, I have a confession.”
“What is that?”
“I think I like your Texas.”
“Do you?”
“From everything I have seen of the people, they are frank and friendly. Consider that place we stayed in last night, this custom of yours to take in travelers and accept no money. If you are to have a revolution with the aim to join the United States, such people would be of benefit to the country, it seems to me.”
Sam nodded. “I am glad to hear this.”
“But you do realize the political obstacles to it, surely. The Northern states will fight like hell before allowing another slave state into the Union. That would give the South a majority in the federal senate. They will never countenance that.”
“Then let the war be for independence. We must separate from Mexico, and we can go it alone as a separate country. The United States will want us in time, maybe after we start selling our cotton to the English cheaper than theirs. We’re not stupid, you know.” A quiet descended for several moments. “You are being so very good not to ask me about Dicey. It is all right, Bliv. You’re holding a lot in, so speak up.”
He shrugged. “I am just surprised, is all.” Then he added, “When you told me that you were only somewhat married, and explained your separation, I assumed that was the extent of it. Now I realize that was, well, not the end of the story.”
Sam leaned back in the settee. “Sometimes fate throws you together with someone, and you discover sympathy, and affection. Other people may not understand or approve, but at some point you have to decide which is harder to bear, their disapproval or your own misery.”
They heard a commotion at the rear of the house, and when they went out Sam exclaimed, “Howdy, boys!”
“Papa!”
Bliven saw him clutched by apparent twin boys of about ten, whom he scooped up into his arms. In the face they looked like him, but of darker skin, and very curly brown hair. “Bliv, meet the new family, Robert and Stephen. Apparently they knew we were in a hurry to start a family, as they arrived at the same time.”
In a flash the boys went storming off to the barn to play with a couple of Negro children visible there. “Goodness, what energy they have. As for myself and my modest needs, I should probably visit your head, if you will tell me where to go.”
Sam and Dicey looked at each other, their eyes wide. “Lord, Cap’n Putnam,” said Dicey. “You don’t know? That’s why God give us bushes.”
Bliven stared back. “Bushes?”
“Didn’t Mr. Sam tell you? We are going to have us a democracy here in Texas. I don’t empty slop jars no more.”
“You will see a pail of corncobs by the path, if you need one,” said Sam.
“Corncobs?”
“Granted, it is a little more primitive than the lamb’s wool you keep in your captain’s privy, but Texas makes the whole man tough.” He laughed, loudly and suddenly. “Even his arse.”
Bliven nodded slightly in defeat. “Where is this path?”
“Around the side,” answered Sam. “Come on, I’ll show you. Be mindful of any snakes when you get down in the slough.”
“And watch for poison ivy,” added Dicey.
Bliven sighed. “Oh, Lord.”
“You know,” said Sam, placing an arm around Bliven’s shoulder as he escorted him to the corner of the house and pointed the way, “our German friends, the Lederles, and the others who have settled up-country, they build a little house, maybe four feet square, over a cesspit. They think they’re so civilized, but the fact is they are positively indecent. That just advertises your business: everybody knows what you’re doing in there.”
“But you know why I am going into the bushes. What is the difference, except maybe the lack of poison ivy?”
Sam and Dicey’s room lay to the left of the hall, the two boys slept in a shed room behind it, and Bliven was shown up the stairs to a bedroom above the parlor, having for light a single candle wedged into a brass holder. He could stand erect when under the ridge beam of the roof but had to duck to stretch out in a low bed with a mattress soft with ball moss.
Sam rode for Bolivar first thing in the morning, leaving Bliven to explore the plantation, which was on a scale that was hard for him to fathom. It did not surprise him that there were no fences as he would have seen at home. How does one go about fencing a property as easily measured in square miles as in acres? West of the house and gardens and the cabins where the slaves lived, he walked down a well-trod dirt path, gradually lower as he got nearer the Brazos, with vast plowed fields to both left and right. After two miles he began to wonder if he should have come armed in case he happened across Indians. Eventually he could see the gallery forest that he knew must define the course of the river and turned back. In New England no one would know what to do with this much land. The Germans who lived across the road must have their work cut out for them just to haul their produce down to Sam’s landing.
