Michener, James A. (2 page)

Honky-tonks: I enjoyed extended interviews with the owners of the two premier honky-tonks in Texas, Sherman Cryer of Gilley's in Pasadena, Texas, and Billy Bob Barnett of Billy Bob's in Fort Worth. Each owner was a novel in himself, each of the dance halls was overwhelming.

Rio Grande Valley: I wanted to represent adequately and honestly the unique Mexican-American world of the Valley and its citrus industry: Professor Julian Sauls of the USDA Citrus Laboratory, Les Whitlock of the Citrus Committee, Professor Dick Hensz of the Texas A&I Citrus Center and Clyde White, president of the Texas Cooperative Exchange. Former Governor Allan Shivers and his wife were especially helpful in inviting me to visit their Sharyland home near Mission, where their manager, Blaine H. Holcomb, gave valuable instruction on the citrus industry.

Miscellaneous Interviews: Robert Nesbitt, Galveston; Hayden and Annie Blake Head, Corpus Christi; Nelson Franklin and Dean Cobb, Austin; Ed and Susan Auler, Tow; Tom Moore, Lajitas. Cactus Pryor and John Henry Faulk, Austin, provided caustic comment.

Airplane Flights: It is obvious from the above listing that I had to visit all of Texas, not only the easy parts, and in doing so, I was dependent upon generous neighbors who allowed me to use their planes: Trammel Crow and John.

This novel strives for an honest blend of fiction and historical fact, and the reader is entitled to know which is which.

The Governor's Task Force: The Task Force is wholly fictional, as are all the participants, including the governor. At the end of each chapter the Task Force sessions are imaginary, as are the invited speakers.

I. Land of Many Lands: The three great explorations, and all their incidents, were historical. Only the boy Garcilaco de Garza is fictional. For example, Cardenas and El Turco were real people.

II. The Mission: Santa Teresa is fictional, but the other five San Antonio missions, which can be visited today, were historical. Of the principal characters, only juan Leal Goras was real.

III. El Camino Real: Bejar and Saltillo are historical and are accurately reported. All characters are fictional. The Veramendi family of Saltillo and Bejar was real, and very important, but the specific members shown here are fictional.

IV. The Settlers: Only Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston were historical. Victor Ripperda is fictional, but his famous uncle was real. The Quimper family is fictional, as is their ferry. Father Clooney and Reverend Harrison are fictional.

V. The Trace: The Macnabs and all other characters are fictional, but the Glencoe Massacre was historical. The De Leons of Victoria had a real empre-sario grant.

VI. Three Men, Three Battles: Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, William Travis, James Fannin, James Bonham, Galba Fuqua, Mirabeau Lamar and Sam Houston on the Texas side were historical, as were Santa Anna, Cos, Urrea and Filisola on the Mexican. Garza, Ripperda, Campbell, Marr, Quimper, Harrison and the Macnabs are fictional. Descriptions of the three battles, including the blizzard north of Monclova, strive to depict historical fact. Goliad especially, one of the focal events of Texas history, is accurately portrayed.

VII. The Texians: The Allerkamps are fictional, as is their homeland Grenzler and their ship Sea Nymph. The founding of the Texas Rangers was historical, as were their major exploits in this chapter, specifically the expulsion of the Cherokee. Captain Sam Garner is fictional.

VIII. The Ranger: Rangers Macnab, Komax and Garner are fictional. Harry Saxon and Colonel Cobb are fictional. Generals Taylor and Scott were real. Each of the significant actions of the Rangers was historical, but specific sites have sometimes been shifted. The murder of Ranger Allsens was real, as was the retaliation.

IX. Loyalties: Edisto Island, Social Circle and Jefferson are real; the families occupying them are fictional. Events at the siege of Vicksburg are historical, as are the various behaviors of Sam Houston. The cotton trade to Bagdad was historical, as was the now-vanished Bagdad. The massacre of the Germans and the hangings along the Red River were historical.

X. The Fort: Fort Sam Garner and its military' occupants are fictional. Visiting officers Sherman, Grierson, Miles, Mackenzie and Custer were historical. Chief Matark, Earnshaw Rusk and Emma Larkin are fictional, but each is based upon real prototypes. Quakers did administer the Comanche camps, but Camp Hope is fictional, as is Three Cairns. Rattlesnake Peavine is fictional.

XI. The Frontier: All citizens in Fort Garner are fictional. The architect James Riely Gordon was real, and the famous carvings on his fictional Larkin County Courthouse can be found today on his real courthouse in Waxahachie. The Parmenteer-Bates feud was fictional but it could have been modeled after any of a dozen such protracted affairs. The trail to Dodge City was historical, but R. ). Poteet is fictional. So is Alonzo Betz, but the impact of his barbed wire was historical. The destruction of Indianola happened as described.

XII. The Town: All characters are fictional, including the revivalist Elder Fry, but the church trial of Laurel Cobb is based upon a real incident whose details were provided by a son of the accused. The Larkin oil field is fictional, but its characteristics are accurate for that part of Texas. Ranger Lone Wolf Gonzaul-las was real. Details regarding the Fighting Antelopes are fictional but are based upon numerous real teams of that period. Politics as practiced in Bravo and Saldana County aie fictional, but prototypes abound and some still function.

XIII. The Invaders: All characters and incidents are fictional, but the Larkin tornado is based on real and terrifying prototypes.

XIV. Power and Change: All characters and incidents are fictional, except that the summer storm of 1983 was real.

THE GOVERNOR'S

I WAS SURPRISED WHEN SHORTLY AFTER NEW YEAR S DAY OF 1983, the Governor of Texas summoned me to his office, because I hadn't been aware that he knew I was in town. I'd been in Austin for some weeks, preparing a series of five lectures I was to deliver at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. The rather grandiloquent title, 'Southwest America in the World Society,' had been chosen by local scholars in a desire to broaden student horizons. The university authorities had left me pretty much to myself; I had paid a courtesy call on the president and had consulted two or three times with the dean of graduate studies, but to hear from the governor himself was something quite unexpected.

I was a native son and legal resident of Texas; however, for the past year I'd been working in Geneva on leave from my job at Boulder's well-regarded think tank, The Institute for Cultural Studies, which I headed. While serving in Boulder, I'd learned the truth of the old statement: 'When good Texans die they go to Colorado.'

I was gratified by my return to the university, for I found its students refreshing, even though some of the brightest seemed to come from up north. The best football players, however, enrolled at Texas, and that's what mattered.

I started in a low key with my students, but won their acceptance by stating in a newspaper interview: 'The students at the University of Texas may not be the best scholars in the world, but they're among the bravest. Anyone who crosses Guadalupe, the main drag by the campus, six times a day without police escort, has to be heroic' I thought people drove crazy when I lectured at Colmbra University in Portugal, but Portuguese drivers are merely in training for the big time in Texas.

Confused as to why the governor might want to meet me, I left my guest office in the shadow of the main building. When I got outside I glanced up at its tower; the sight of it always set me thinking about the conflicting messages that it sent. After any football university major sports victory, and they came frequently at Texas, it was illuminated gaudily in the school color, burnt orange, but on gray and misty mornings, which came less frequently, I knew that people recalled that horrible August day in 1966 when Charles Whitman, an Eagle Scout, gained a gruesome immortality. After murdering his wife and mother, he filled a footlocker with guns, ammunition and knives and drove to the university. Slaying the receptionist, he took the elevator to the top of the tower, where he unlimbered his arsenal and began shooting at random any students or casual passers-by. In all, he killed sixteen persons before sharpshooters gunned him down. Saluting the handsome tower, I crossed the bustling campus which had so excited me when I first reported there in 1959. The university now had forty-eight thousand students, with some of the most attractive female students in America, a fact which was confirmed every time I stepped outside my office.

I walked south to Martin Luther King Boulevard and saw before me, six blocks down Congress Avenue, that majestic state capitol which had come into being in so strange a manner and with such curious results. In 1882 the state had been broke, but it lusted for the biggest possible capitol building to adorn the biggest state, so it offered three million acres of seemingly worthless western plains to anyone who would finance the project, and some Illinois investors took the bait. Behaving as if they were honorary Texans, they euchered the government out of an extra fifty thousand acres— and everybody was happy.

How wild the turns of history! The land which the legislature gave the Illinois syndicate did seem worthless, but some comparable West Texas land they gave the university—at about the same time—turned out to be dripping with oil, which made it potentially the richest university in the world.

As soon as I entered the familiar old capitol building with its high dome and nineteenth-century dignity, I was as captivated as I had been on that day long ago when I stood in the rotunda with the other children of my grade-school class to honor Sam Houston and the heroes of the Alamo. Today as I passed on my way to the governor's office, a new crop of children listened, eyes aglow.

When I reached the office his secretary, beautiful and leggy, like many Texas women holding such positions of importance, said cheerily: 'So glad to have you with us, Professor. The others are waiting inside.' And with that, she pinned on my left lapel a badge which said 'Dr. Travis Barlow, Institute for Cultural Studies.'

'Who are the others?' I asked, and she said: The governor will explain.'

She led me to an anteroom decorated with a buffalo head on the wall and two fine Longhorn hides on the floor, but the real attraction was a group of four citizens, chosen with care, apparently, as f to represent the strength and diversity of Texas. Since we were obviously to form a unit of some kind, I tried to fix in memory each : ace and its accompanying tag.

The first such pair belonged to a tall, thin, droop-shouldered, cowling man whose appearance alone would attract attention regardless of where he sat, but when I saw his tag I understood his real notoriety. He was Ransom Rusk, designated by both Fortune and Forbes as one of the richest men in Texas, 'net worth probably exceeding one billion.' He was in his late fifties, and from the way n which he withdrew from others, I judged that he was determined to protect both his wealth and his person from would-be intruders. Although he was dressed expensively he was not neat, and this and his permanent frown indicated that he didn't care what others thought of him.

He was talking with a man of completely different cast, a big, easy, florid fellow, also in his fifties, wearing an expensive whipcord nit of the kind favored by ranchers, high-heeled boots, and about his neck a western bolo string tie fastened with a large turquoise jemstone. When I read his tag, Lorenzo Quimper, I had to smile, or he was a legend, the prototypical Texas wheeler-dealer, owner )f nine ranches, friend of presidents, dabbler in oil and everything ;lse, and a rabid supporter of his university athletic teams. He was i handsome man, but there was something too expansive about rim; if he were your small-town banker, you would not trust him vith your money. Seeing me enter, he turned momentarily in my direction, smiling broadly. 'Hiya, good buddy,' he said, offering his land. 'My name's Quimper. Welcome to the big time.' He re-urned instantly to his conversation with Rusk, for in his book I was worth three seconds.

The third person I turned to was a tall patrician woman in her ate sixties, beautifully dressed, beautifully groomed. She had a 10-nonsense mien and looked as if she was accustomed to serving >n boards and making important decisions. Her tag said that she vas Miss Lorena Cobb, and I recognized her as the daughter and granddaughter of two remarkable United States senators who in he years following the Civil War had made commendable contributions to Texas and to the nation. She was one of those standard Texas women, overawed in their twenties by the excessive machismo of their men, but emergent in their fifties as some of the most elegant and powerful females on earth. They formed the backbone of Texas cities, persuading their wealthy husbands and friends to build hospitals and museums, then dominating the society which resulted. Women like her made those of Massachusetts and New York seem downright anemic. But the immediate impression she created was one of agreeableness. I admired her manner, even as she sat there with her hands clasped primly in her la] for she seemed to be saying 'Let's get on with it.'

The most interesting of the four was a small-boned man in h late thirties, about five feet five, weighing not over a hundred an fifty, with a smooth olive skin, black hair and a small, neat trimmed mustache. His tag said 'Professor Efrain Garza, Tex; A&M,' and I concluded from the accent mark in his first narr that he might be a visiting scholar from Mexico. But if that w; true, what was he doing here? I was about to ask questions whe the door to the inner office opened and the governor himself can in to greet us. Red-headed, burly, in his middle fifties, he move with a restrained energy that seemed to warn: 'Let's go. W haven't much time.'

'Hello! Hello! I hope you've all met.' When we indicated th; we had not, he stopped and grabbed Rusk by the arm as if th billionaire was, because of his power, entitled to be introduce first: 'You've surely seen this man in the papers. Well, here he if Ransom Rusk.' The tall man smiled bleakly, and the governc] moved on.

'This rascal is the state's unofficial ambassador of good wil Lorenzo Quimper.' Newspapers had dubbed him Lorenzo il Maf nifico in recollection of the flamboyant Medici prince, and thei was a good deal of the Renaissance condottiere about him: lobb] ist, oilman, real estate developer, wrecker of the university, builde of the university, principal cheerleader at any university athleti contest, scourge of liberal Jewish professors from the North, h had been a stormy petrel of Texas life for a generation. Hated b many, loved by others with equal intensity, he was the darling c the rough-diamond element in Texas life, their spokesman art defender. At the university baseball games, which he rarely missec the irreverent bleachers would rise after the visiting team ha batted in the fifth inning, and a tuba, a trombone and a trumpe would play a sustained flourish as a huge sign was draped across th railing: 'All Hail, Lorenzo il Magnifico! The Bottom of the Fifth And the leader of the undergraduate gang would hoist an immens whiskey bottle filled with some amber liquid and drain it—to th wild applause of an audience who thus toasted Quimper's remark able capacity for booze. Now when he smiled at me radiantly, i: the way a little boy would, I knew I was going to like him. Curs and even despise him at times, yes, but enjoy him.

At this moment he crossed his legs, allowing us to see the fu expanse of his remarkable boots. They were light-gray leathe

domed in front by large Lone Stars in silver. Above each star, as

to protect it, spread extended greenish-bronze Longhorns, while

'It's one of my companies.'

'You make terrific boots.'

'We go for the muted understatement,' Quimper said, brushing le right Colts with his fingers. 'We call it "Texas refined." '

'And here is the star of our group,' the governor resumed, 'Miss XDrena Cobb.' He kissed her, whereupon Rusk and Quimper did ie same. She held out her hand to Garza and smiled warmly. Tien she shook my hand with just a little more reserve, for she /as not sure who I was.

'The brains of our group, and I say that enviously,' the governor ontinued as he reached Garza, 'Professor of Sociology, Texas i&M.'

'Did you hear the one about the meeting of the state library oard?' Quimper broke in, gripping Dr. Garza by the arm. 'They /ere doling out funds and this expert from UT said: "Why should /e give A&M anything? They already have two books, and one of hem isn't even colored yet." ' Dr. Garza, smiling wanly, like a nan who had to suffer much, turned and shook my hand. I was •leased to meet him because, unlike Quimper, I had great regard or A&M, in my opinion the top technical school in the Southwest.

Now the governor faced me. 'To head this group of prima lonnas, I had to find someone with an international reputation. \.T\d here he is, Dr. Travis Barlow, who took a distinguished loctorate at Cambridge in England. And you were an undergradu-:.te here at Texas?'

'I was.'

'And you won a Pulitzer Prize for that book you wrote in Colorado?'

'I did.'

'Well, you're to be chairman of this Task Force.'

'Task Force on what?' Rusk asked, and the governor said: That's what we're here to talk about. I did not specify your duties >ecause I wanted none of you to decline.'

When we were seated about the big table in his office he said: As a main feature of our Sesquicentennial, I want you to place )efore our citizens a comprehensive report on two important ques-ions: "How should our schoolchildren and college students learn ibout Texas history?" And "What should they learn?"

'First thing they should learn,' broke in Quimper, 'is that tr. stupid word sesquicentennial means one hundred and fifty.'

'Lorenzo!' the governor retorted. 'All Texans except you spea Latin.'

'I would too, if I'd gotten past third grade,' Quimper said in th mock-illiterate style he sometimes affected.

'Is this to be just another study?' Rusk asked.

'Heavens, no!' the governor moaned, and he pointed to a she in the corner of his office where a pile of notebooks rested. 'We'v studied Texas education up to our armpits. What I seek now ai specific, hard-nosed recommendations.'

'On what?' Rusk asked.

'On how to instill in our children a love for the uniqueness c Texas.'

'Doesn't that sound a little pompous?' Miss Cobb asked, an the governor said: 'On the day you become governor of this grea state you realize that it really is unique . . . what a priceless heritag we've been given to protect.' I could hear bugles sounding at th Alamo.

'Como Tejas, no hay otro,' Quimper said with a bow towar Garza. "There's no place like Texas. I tell that to all my ranc hands.'

'That's the point,' the governor said. 'The six of us know ho\ unique we are, but the hordes drifting down from states lik Michigan and Ohio, they don't know. And the equal numbe flooding in from below the Rio Grande, they don't know, eithei If we don't take steps to preserve our heritage, we're going to los it.'

'What exactly are we to do?' Miss Cobb asked.

'Three things. First, define the essentials of our history, th< things that have made us rather more significant than the othe states.' Now I could hear the band playing at some remote frontie fort in 1869 when Texas fought off the wild Comanche. 'Second advise our educational leaders as to how they can safeguard thi: heritage and carry it forward. Third, I want you to hold your TasI Force sessions in various parts of the state—to awaken interest pose challenges, organize displays of Texas history, and above all allow everyone with a special interest to have his or her say.'