Michener, James A. (15 page)

hibernation, and often they could see in the distance bands of Indians, who vanished among the gentle hills as the expedition drew near.

Saltillo was a beautiful settlement of stone houses intermixed with low buildings of adobe and a central plaza as charming as any in Mexico. It was so protected on all sides by hills that the colonel said: 'Even a big enemy army would have a difficult time capturing this town if it was properly defended. I'd preempt the high ground and cut the foe to pieces if they tried to come up that valley.'

In Saltillo they witnessed Spain's fundamental attitude toward colonization. This remarkably attractive town contained only two men from the homeland, the commander and the priest, while much rougher Zacatecas had eleven. What accounts for this?' Damian asked his brother, and Alvaro offered a shrewd explanation: 'As you say, Saltillo is beautiful, but what is its function? To guard the border in case the French attack. But Zacatecas! Ah! It has those silver mines, and they've got to be protected.'

is money everything?' Damian asked, and his brother replied: in Madrid, yes.'

One night the Saltillo commander complained: 'We really must have more honest-to-goodness Spaniards. Those born in Mexico can be fine people—my sister's married to one—but they can't be relied upon to preserve the true Spanish culture. And the mestizos they send us?' He spat.

it's the same in Zacatecas,' the colonel said consolingly. 'Young Saldana here—the lieutenant, that is—he's the first honest Spaniard we've had assigned there in two years/ He looked approvingly at Alvaro, and then tapped Damian on the shoulder: 'We don't get friars like this one, either, not from the locals they send us.'

'Will the day come,' the Saltillo commander asked, 'when all of Mexico will be governed by mestizos? They'd get their orders from Madrid, of course. They can be very clever, you know. I've had some mestizos on this frontier I'd put up against any of your men from Spain.' He reflected on this, then added: 'But they could never claim to be gentlemen. There's always something missing.'

'I would deplore the day,' the colonel said, tapping a finger as he spoke each word, 'when any part of our empire is governed by locals. We must never allow that to happen.'

'To the north it's already happening,' the commander said. Waving his arm brusquely to indicate all of Tejas, he said: 'You'll find few Spaniards up there, you may be sure.' He summoned an aide: 'Panfilo, can you think of anyone north of the river who was born in Spain?'

Panfilo laughed and said: 'There are very few of anything north of the river, regardless of classification. Almost none born in Spain.'

'The missions? Surely, some of our missionaries . . .'

'I don't count them,' the aide said.

They dined that night on roast lamb, sweet potatoes, tortillas made fresh from the best corn and a marvelously cool beverage from crushed pomegranate fruit. They toasted the king in Madrid and the viceroy in Mexico City, and when the commander asked if the Saldafias knew any songs from their area in Spam, the brothers offered several with graceful harmony. In response, the two old campaigners offered songs of their own. The formal part of the evening concluded with the opening of a bottle of wine that the commander had been saving for such an occasion.

As the Saldafias walked back under the stars, Alvaro, emboldened by the wine, confided: 'When we return to Zacatecas, I think Benita and I . . .' He hesitated. 'I think we shall be married.'

He looked toward Damian, expecting congratulations, but his brother had turned his head upward toward the sky to contemplate the heavens. As the friar studied the intricate patterns made by the stars, he imagined the three of them, himself, Benita, Alvaro, existing together in some kind of agreed-upon arrangement. He could not yet envisage what its design might be, but only that it must ensure that he not be deprived of their friendship. 'Father would approve, 1 know,' he said quietly.

Even the Colonel, not a sentimental man, was astounded by the rugged beauty of the trail north from Saltillo, for it penetrated interlocking ranges of mountains that twisted through quiet valleys; these contained no houses or farms, for the Indians in this region could be ferocious. 'This must be the most beautiful empty land in the world,' Alvaro cried, and the colonel replied: 'It's our job to see that it doesn't stay empty.'

The Saldafias received important indoctrination regarding their assignment when they reached the Rio Grande, which had on its south bank a remarkable collection of buildings forming the Franciscan center of San Juan Bautista. It contained three different missions staffed by two friars each; nearby stood a solidly built presidio where the soldiers protecting the area lived. Travelers who stayed at the missions heard from the friars how difficult it was to share a settlement with soldiers who had no love of God or respect for Jesus and who made the work of salvation almost impossible. But those who lodged at the presidio heard whining complaints against the feckless friars who did not work, obeyed no civil law,

and converted one dying Indian every two or three years ... at best.

At the dinner in Zacatecas they had agreed that the Spanish system of settlement was ideal, but when they saw it in actual practice on the frontier, they had to admit that it was painfully disorganized. When soldiers mingled with friars, all kinds of animosities erupted. Soldiers seduced Indian girls in the missions, while the friars carelessly allowed Indians access to restricted areas, where they stole precious supplies needed by the soldiers.

If a friar of outstanding Christian humility governed the mission while a soldier of exemplary character headed the presidio, the system had a chance of functioning, and sometimes it did, but more often a situation developed, like the one in San Juan Bautista, in which overt hostility was avoided but petty antagonisms were inescapable. The colonel, suspecting this, assigned Fray Damian to one of the missions, while he and Alvaro lodged at the presidio, so that the young soldier could experience frontier life at its most typical.

'You'll excuse me, Lieutenant Saldana, because I know your brother is a friar, and I suppose one of the best,' said the captain in charge of the presidio, 'but these damned friars ...' He shrugged his shoulders as if to say that mere words could not describe their duplicity.

'Anything I should report to Zacatecas?' the colonel asked.

'Nothing, and everything,' the captain said, and with that summation he began listing the malfeasances of the clergy, and a sorry portrait he painted of frontier clericalism, for he charged the friars with theft, willful contravention of the king's ordinances and general insubordination: 'And one particular charge which I do hope you'll mention in your report. By agreement they are obligated to share with us the fruits of their labor—corn, a good goat now and then, a portion of any steer that is slaughtered. And they have green vegetables in their gardens, I know it, I've seen them. But we get none. They use their food to feed their Indians.' The only charge he did not bring against the friars was one which did surface at other posts: i must admit, Colonel, that unsavory as they are, they do not meddle with the Indian women. In their religious duties they're true Christians, anyone would admit that, but in the management of the mission as a part of our system, they're no better than a bunch of lying, lazy thieves.'

At the mission that night charges which did involve Indian women were laid before Fray Damian, with urgent requests that he convey them to the authorities in Zacatecas. 'We cannot prevent those devilish soldiers, whom God has never known, from

consorting with our Indian converts. Well, to speak truthfully, i they're not really converts, not yet, but we have high hopes. As I soon as a girl of that certain age comes to our compound, the soldiers get after her, and before long she's pregnant. At times it seems that our major function on the frontier is the production of mestizo bastards.'

There was one serious complaint which both the friar and the colonel felt must be presented to the authorities, and it was voiced in noninflammatory tones by the friars: The order clearly states that we shall have in each mission two friars, which we have provided, and three armed soldiers, which the presidio is to provide. But we never get the soldiers.'

To this justifiable complaint the military officials had solid response: 'We originally placed three soldiers in each mission, as required by the king, but when we did we heard much fault-finding from the friars—'The soldiers did this." "Your soldiers did that." 'The soldiers molest the girls." Well, I told them frankly: "If you don't want our soldiers for your work, we can sure as hell use them in ours," so we took them back.'

The colonel suggested that perhaps the presidio could screen its men carefully and find one each for the three missions, but the friars protested: That is not what the order provides.' On the night before the expedition departed, the colonel finally put his finger on the sore spot: 'I take my military orders from Mexico City, you know,' and the friars replied: 'And we take our orders from Guadalajara.' It was obvious that the rupture would remain unhealed.

Crossing the Rio Grande was physically trivial—water up to the ankle on a stone riverbed as smooth as a table—but emotionally exciting, for now the Spaniards entered a potential battleground: real Apache ready to attack from the west, shadowy Frenchmen lurking in the north. The terrain was inviting to horsemen, great stretches of waving grassland punctuated occasionally by clumps of mesquite bushes, those low, thorny, jagged miniature trees which had always populated the river courses of Tejas but which, in recent years, had begun to invade the grassland wherever the grand balance of nature had been disturbed by the grazing of cattle or the scraping of a hoe. For a friar who hoped to establish here his mission and a presidio, with a town following in due course, this was forbidding land, for it contained little visible water.

But after eight days of such travel, with crossing of two rivers, the Nueces and the Medina, the Spaniards entered Tejas, where they found sights which gladdened their hearts. A small stream, the San Antonio de Padua, ran with spring-fed water, and on its

far bank earlier Franciscans had erected two missions of obvious stability, while on the near bank, a short distance away, a sturdy presidio housed the soldiers guarding the area. Close to the barracks an informal little village consisting of two adobe houses had begun to germinate, and here lived the four mestizo families who endeavored to farm the good fields along the river.

In all ways the settlement was minimal: at the missions, two friars, three soldiers in each and fifty-one Indians, two of whom had converted; in the presidio, a captain, a sergeant and fifty-two soldiers; in the two-hut village, seven adults and three children.

These Franciscan efforts had been named Mision San Jose and Mision San Antonio de Valero, after the popular saint of Padua and the equally popular viceroy who had authorized its founding. The viceroy carried a formidable appellation: Baltazar Manuel de Zuniga (this could be considered his name) y Guz-man-Sotomayor (his mother's name) y Mendoza y Sarmiento (historic names adhering to his family). And as if this were not sufficient, he was also Marques de Valero y Duque de Arion (his hereditary titles).

San Antonio de Valero would have been a proper name for this settlement, short and musical, but some busybody remembered that the Marques de Valero had a renowned half brother, the Duque de Bejar, who had given his life in defense of Christian Budapest during battle with the infidel Turks, and this intruder thought it might please the viceroy if the new settlement was named after the hero, so it became San Antonio de Bejar. But as in the case of Mejico and Mexico, local Spanish was cavalier in its interchange of / and x, so it quickly became San Antonio de Bexar, which the locals promptly abbreviated to Bexar.

Here the internecine struggles which had been so prevalent at the Rio Grande missions were avoided, allowing Spanish colonial rule to flourish at its best. Sensible friars at the mission and strong-minded military men in the presidio forced the intricate system to work, riding down any incipient troubles. Into a strange and alien land populated by passive Indians who feared the fierce, untamed Apache to the west, had come a handful of devout Spaniards to build their low-roofed buildings and dig their irrigation ditches.

As soon as Fray Damian saw Bexar he loved it: 'Oh, I would like to work here!' and he asked the colonel: 'Could I not start my mission ... off to the north, where I wouldn't interfere with San Antonio de Valero? There is so much work to be done.' But the soldier had specific orders: 'Our job is to inspect and protect the real frontier, the area of the Nacogdoches mission,' and so with profound regrets Fray Damian left a place which had excited his

imagination and started the long march to the bleak northern extremity of Tejas.

The journey from Bexar to Los Adaes,' explained a soldier who had fought in Europe's mercenary armies, 'is as long as marching up from Paris, across Flanders, across the Netherlands, and into the Germany. Tejas is big.'

As they kept bearing to the northeast, the brothers noticed radical changes in the scenery. They started across flat grassland and mesquite, then encountered rolling country with many trees, and next were in a completely different terrain, with trees but also with real prairies suitable for farming. Finally they came to what they thought was best of all, fine woodlands with promising soil: 'Here a man could cut down the trees and make himself a farm that would feed a village.'

As they traveled through this magnificent and almost pristine region, so totally different from the land around Bexar, Damian reflected on an oddity which perplexed him: 'Why is the capital of Tejas so far north? On the borders of Louisiana?' He pondered this, but could find no rational justification: 'By all reason the capital should be at Bexar, for it is central and the source of leadership in Tejas, but since no one at the Council of the Indies in Madrid has ever been to Tejas or seen an accurate map, the capital is kept far to the north, from where it will be almost impossible to provide good government.'