Michener, James A. (57 page)

He never looked back. After giving his employer notice and receiving from him an unexpected bonus, he told Campbell to quit his job at the saloon, paid the teacher more than she expected, and bought three passages on the New Orleans steamer Clara Murphy, which would be putting in to Natchez on Thursday morning, 25 August 1831, on its way south from St. Louis.

Otto was elated that his long-delayed dream of steaming down the river was at last coming true, and while Finlay and Campbell slept amidst the deck cargo, he and Betsy walked back and forth, surveying the mystery of this great river. It was a trip into wonderland, and he never tired of watching strange happenings along the shore: slaves shifting bales of cotton, mules dragging a damaged boat ashore, freshly cut timbers piled sky-high. That morning, still unwilling to sleep lest he miss some dramatic scene, he imagined himself as captain maneuvering the Clara Murphy past treacherous sandbars, docking her at a plantation wharf where white women carrying umbrellas to protect them from the sun strolled aboard. Twice he chanted with the sweating black crew as they worked the boat, and he tried to hide his pleasure when they called him 'our little riverman.' He was prepared, at the end of that first glorious day, to be a Mississippi man for the remainder of his life.

On this trip he saw the richness of Louisiana, for it seemed that all the wealth of the state was crowded along the shores of the river, and he perceived that families acquired fine homes with vast lawns only when they owned many slaves. Not once on this long, revealing trip did it occur to him that the slaves might have rights of their own or that their condition in 1831 could be temporary. They were black, different in all respects, and obligated to serve their masters.

New Orleans was totally different from Cincinnati and Natchez. It exuded both prosperity and pleasure and had a relaxed spirit the other towns lacked. It was obviously very old, with strong French and Spanish accents bespeaking earlier settlers, and the mighty levees, raised high to keep the Mississippi out of the streets and homes, awed and impressed Otto. Also, there was a bustle about the city which delighted the boy, and he perceived that whereas the waterfront of Natchez had been unhealthy and un-

clean, that of New Orleans was vibrant and almost self-policing, as if the excesses tolerated in Under-the-Hill would be forbidden here.

And there was burgeoning commercial activity. In one afternoon of casual exploration among the shippers his father was offered two jobs, but Finlay had learned from his Natchez experience not to take them lest he become entangled permanently in something he intended to engage in only temporarily. 'Very well,' one trader with a French name said expansively. 'You're the boss. But when you get to Texas and start your plantation, remember me. Louis Ferry, New Orleans. I'll buy your mules, your cotton, your timber.'

'Do all those come from Texas?'

'Look at my yards. I get three parts from Louisiana, seven parts from Texas.'

'How do I get my produce here?'

'Ships run all the time, but they're expensive. Best way is with mules, herd them up and drove them in. Takes time but it costs nothing.'

'You keep speaking about mules. Don't you accept horses?'

'Rich people buy horses, now and then. U. S. Army buys mules all the time.'

He wrote out his name and address for Macnab, and added: 'I've got a better idea. Put together a big herd of mules, bring them in for a good profit, and then stay with me as my manager of the Texas trade.'

'Where would I find the money to get the mules?'

Ferry broke into laughter: 'Man, in Texas the horses run wild. Mustangs they call them. Thousands, thousands—you just go out and rope them and they're yours.'

'Yes, but where do I get the mules?'

'Man, you buy yourself a strong jackass, throw him in with the mares, and let him work himself to death.'

'What happens to the male horses?'

'You drive them to New Orleans. I can always use a few.' When Finlay looked dubious, Ferry cried: 'You ever see a Texas mustang? I got a yard full of them and wish I had a hundred more.' He led Macnab to a corral, where for the first time Finlay saw the powerful little horses of the Texas range, much smaller than he had expected, much finer-looking than he had supposed a small horse could be.

'They run wild?' He studied them carefully, exercising his eye trained among the great horses of Ireland, then said: 'They told me in Natchez that cattle run wild too.'

Ferry clapped him vigorously on the shoulder: 'In Texas everything runs wild. You just reach out and grab.'

'Why aren't you in Texas?'

'Because it's a wilderness. Not a decent place to eat in the whole damned province. And besides, it's a Mexican wilderness, and who wants to live in a country that can't govern itself?'

'Some Americans seem to like it.'

'Right! Right! And if I was that kind of American, I might like it too.'

'What kind of American are you speaking of?'

'An American like you. Energy, courage, stars in your eyes . . . and willingness to live alone. Because, man, Texas is empty. Just wild cattle and untamed horses.'

As he said this, the young man who had brought the mustangs to New Orleans appeared in the corral, and as soon as Otto saw him, he was captivated, for the herdsman was the first Mexican he had met. He was in his mid-twenties, whip-thin, dark-skinned, and clad in the distinctive uniform of the range: tight blue pants marked by a tiny white stripe, bandanna, big hat, boots and spurs To Otto he looked the way a Texan should.

'Show them how you ride,' Ferry ordered, and with just a slight flare of resentment at being spoken to as if he were a peasant, the young man flicked the brim of his hat almost insolently, but then smiled warmly at Otto: 'Is the young man good with the horse?'

'I can ride,' Otto said, and the young Mexican whistled to one of his assistants: 'Manuel, traenos dos caballos buenos!'

From a hitching rail near the corral, Manuel untied two horses already saddled, and deftly the young man lifted himself onto the larger one, indicating that Otto should mount his, which the boy did rather clumsily.

The Mexican then began to canter about the stable area, shouting to Otto: 'Follow me!' and a delightful comedy ensued, for the Mexican rode with skill, swinging and swaying with the motion of his horse like a practiced professional, while the boy tried energetically to keep up, slipping and sliding and nearly falling from his mount. But he did hold on, grabbing his horse's mane when necessary.

Ferry, Finlay and Campbell applauded the exhibition, whereupon the Mexican rider broke loose from Otto's comical trailing to perform a series of beautiful feats, ending with a full gallop at Campbell, bringing his steed to a halt a few inches from the Kaintuck's toes.

'The boy could learn to ride,' he said as he dismounted, and when Otto came up awkwardly, the Mexican helped him dismount

and asked: 'Son, you want to ride back to Texas with me? And help me bring another remuda up for Don Louis?'

'Oh!' Otto cried with enthusiasm. 'That would be wonderful!'

'Who is this young horseman?' the senior Macnab asked, and as the rider continued talking with Otto, Ferry said: 'Young Mexican from Victoria. South Texas. Absolutely trustworthy. What he says he'll do he does.'

'He brought you all these animals?'

'He did.'

'Where did he get them?'

'In this business you never ask.'

'What's your name, young fellow?' Macnab asked.

'Garza,' the rider said, smiling. 'Benito Garza.' He pronounced each syllable carefully, drawing it out in the Mexican way: 'Beh-nee-to Gar-tsah,' with exaggerated accent on the nee and Gar. Having introduced himself verbally, he did so symbolically with another flick of his finger against the brim of his big hat, and with that, he disappeared into the stables.

At the inn where they were staying prior to arranging passage to their new lands, the Macnabs and Campbell met two authentic residents of Texas, well-educated plantation owners who had come to New Orleans to arrange for the sale of their products on a regular basis. After they had reached an understanding with Louis Ferry, whom they lauded as the best man in the business, they chatted about aspects of their new home:

'We have great men in Texas, equal of any in Massachusetts or Virginia. We plan to erect a notable state with all the advantages of South Carolina or Georgia. There's a spaciousness to our view. We can see clear to the Pacific Ocean. And a nobility to our minds, because we're determined to build a new society . . .

'Everything is of a vast dimension and we need men with vast potential to help us achieve what we've planned. Weaklings will be erased, by the climate and the distance if by nothing else, but the strong will find themselves growing even stronger. Any young man of promise who doesn't catch the first boat to Texas is an idiot . . .'

When Finlay raised several questions about things that disturbed him, the two men laughed them off: The Frenchman said the food was inedible? He's right. Abominable. But it can only get better. The Arkansas woman fled because of loneliness? She was surely right. My nearest neighbor is forty miles away, and I don't want him any closer because then he'd be on my land.'

But when Finlay voiced serious doubts about the instability of

the Mexican government, he noticed that the men became evasive, and he was about to find out whether they favored the ultimate incorporation of Texas into the American Union when the men changed the subject dramatically. The leader, spreading his hands on the table, asked energetically: 'And where do you propose settling?'

'I was about to ask your advice.'

'Nacogdoches up here. Victoria down here. Both places wonderful for an energetic man, which I take you to be. But any reasonable place in between is just as good.'

'Where are you?'

'I'm down here at the mouth of the Brazos River. My brother-in-law, he's up here at Nacogdoches.'

'Where should I go?'

'Wherever the ship deposits you. Landing in Texas is not easy. Sometimes the ship can make one spot, sometimes another. How much land you taking up?'

'I've bought myself twenty thousand acres.'

One of the men whistled: 'That's a mighty spread. How'd you hook it?'

Proudly Macnab opened his papers, showing the men his authority for the occupation of twenty thousand acres, as approved by the Mexican government, in any likely area. The men studied the papers, then looked at each other and said nothing. Pushing the documents back to Macnab, they changed the subject to shipping.

'What you must do is catch a steamboat that goes to the mouth of the Mississippi. A sailing ship will be waiting there to carry you to Texas.'

'Why don't the steamboats go all the way?'

'They've tried it. Too many wrecks. It's never easy to enter Texas.'

'Where should I head for?'

'We told you. Wherever the ship lands you. It's all good.'

When Finlay was back in his room he pondered the suspicious manner in which the men had reacted to his papers, and he began to worry that his documents might be faulty, so well after midnight he ascertained where the men were sleeping and went to their room, knocking loudly until one of the men opened the door. 'I apologize, but this is terribly important to me. Is something wrong with my papers?'

'No, no! They're in good shape.' The man tried to close the door, but Finlay kept it open.

'They're not, and I saw it clearly in your eyes when you looked at them. You must tell me.'

There was no light in the room, but the man propped open the door and invited Macnab to sit on his bed while he sat on the bed of his brother-in-law. Painfully, hesitantly they told Macnab the truth: 'Your papers are a fraud. We see it all the time.'

Tou mean . . .'

'No standing at all in Mexico. Land isn't given out that way. That traveler in the next room without a single sheet of paper has as good a chance as you of getting land in Texas.'

'How can such a thing be allowed?'

'Two different countries. Your fake company is in the United States. The land is in Mexico.'

'My God! A thousand dollars!' In anguish Macnab leaped from the bed.

'Completely lost,' the man said. But when Macnab groaned, the men both spoke in rushes of encouraging words.

'1 didn't mean that everything is lost.'

'You can still get land, excellent land, but never twenty thousand acres.'

'You get it free . . . absolutely free.'

After this burst of warm reassurance, one of the men pressed Finlay to sit back down, then patiently helped as his brother-in-law explained the situation:

'You land in Texas wherever the ship drops you, and you establish contact with the Mexican officials. Being Scotch, I suppose you're Protestant, so you volunteer to convert to Catholicism. We're both Catholics, legally, but we're really Baptists. Conversion entitles you to one thousand acres of land, maybe a little more because of your son. The big fellow with you, he can get the same.

'If you're lucky enough to be unmarried and can find a Mexican girl to marry, you could very well get yourself a league-and-a-labor, and that's a lot of land. Or you could buy land from someone like the two of us who already has his league-and-labor. . . 1 have three, he has two. We have none for sale, but it goes for about twenty cents an acre and it can be very good land. Maybe fifty cents for bottomland along the river, and I'd advise you to get some of that. Or you can apply to one of the gTeat empresarios who already have legal title to enormous reaches of land, and you can get that for almost nothing, and sometimes for nothing at all, because they want settlers.

'I got mine in three different ways. Mexican government gave me some. I bought some. And Stephen Austin, as fine a man as you'll ever meet, he was so anxious to get settlers on his properties that he gave me a large plot. Originally one bit here, one bit up here and one bit way

down there. But I traded even till 1 had them side by side, and now 1 have fifteen thousand acres for a little over two thousand dollars. You can do the same.'