Michener, James A. (93 page)

By the spring of 1845 the varied assignments given the self-taught surveyor, Ludwig Allerkamp, had enabled him to know more of Texas than most of its other citizens, and since he had an innate curiosity and a love of nature acquired from his ramblings in the woodlands of Germany, he perceived relationships which others did not. He saw, for example, that this central part of Texas

consisted of five clearly defined strips, each a minor nation of its own.

Along the Gulf; where his son Theo and his wife now had their store, Texas was a swampy flatland inhabited by mosquitoes of enormous size and birds of great beauty. Summers were intolerably hot and damp, but the remainder of the year could be dazzling in its movement of wildlife and the brilliance of its long sunsets. People brave enough to live here tended to love the loneliness, the vast expanses of marshland and the interplay of sea and shore.

Inland came the treeless flats, enormous stretches of prairie populated by wild horses and unbranded cattle. Low shrubs dominated the sandy soil and a thousand acres represented a small field, indistinguishable from a hundred others reaching farther than the eye could see. This was going to be excellent land, Ludwig believed, for the raising of cattle, and whenever he surveyed a segment he assured the new owners: 'Your land will be of great value one day.'

He appreciated most the third strip, the one in which he lived, that mysterious area in which the land began to form small hillocks, the streams wandered easily down twisting valleys and, most precious of all, trees began to appear, cedars, cypresses and four different kinds of oaks, including a small-leafed variety covered with some dead-looking substance of crepuscular character. When he asked about the sickness which attacked these small-leafed trees, he was told: Those are live oaks, and that's Spanish moss.' Very quickly the family came to revere the live oak as one of the great boons in Texas.

When the new capital at Austin had to be surveyed, Allerkamp had an opportunity to see at close hand the fourth strip, one of the marvels of Texas, a sudden uprising of cliffs and rocky prominences called the Balcones, which stretched north to south for over a hundred miles, delineating the end of the prairies and the beginning of the hill country. Here trees began to show in great variety, flat plains disappeared, and rivers ran through gorges. The Balcones had no great depth, east to west they were rarely more than half a mile wide, but they formed a remarkable feature which could not be missed. As Ludwig told his family when he returned from his assignment: it's as if nature wanted to give a signal: "Here begins a new world!" And she laid down this barrier of great rocks and hills.' He told them: 'Austin will become the most beautiful city in Texas because it lies right on the Balcones, land goes up and down, up and down.'

Now the government assigned him the task of inspecting the fifth and most noble strip, those marvelous, quiet lands which lay

to the west of the Balcones. With his two sons, Ernst, home from his service with the Rangers, and Emil, he set out to explore the very best part of Texas, the hill country.

As soon as the three Allerkamps left the capital city they found themselves surrounded by low, wooded hills of the most enchanting variety, graced by exquisite valleys hiding streamlets. The scene changed constantly as they moved westward, now opening out into vistas, now closing in so that they could see only short distances ahead. These aren't even what they'd call hills in Switzerland,' Ludwig told his sons. 'Around Munich they'd not be dignified with names, but after the flatlands they seem like mountains. In years to come, I'm sure that people who live back there in the flatlands will rush to these hills for the summer breezes,' and the boys could see a score of places they wished the Allerkamps owned for just such relief when the hot winds arrived in July.

Such speculation about possible homesites was not idle, for the Allerkamps still owned four certificates authorizing them to claim free land. The catch, of course, was that it had to be legally surveyed, but since Ludwig was now an authorized surveyor, he could pretty much select exactly what he wanted in this fairyland so rich in hills and tumbling streams.

It was in this frame of mind that the Allerkamp men came one afternoon upon the Pedernales River, which Ludwig had discovered the year before. In those days he had deemed the river remote, but now it seemed to run only a short distance from the capital, and he and his sons began to speculate on its virtues, and after they had surveyed it for about thirty miles, they stopped at a point where a nameless little creek wandered in to join the Pedernales from the north, and without any discussion they agreed that this was the land they had been seeking since fleeing Germany.

Very quietly Ludwig told his sons: 'Let's lay out an area of ten thousand acres.'

'Our scrip allows only two thousand.'

'We'll pay for the extra.'

'How?'

Ludwig stood silent for a moment, his face in the wind. 'I've been saving,' he said, and in the deep lines of his face his sons could see the endless labor and the deprivation he had suffered to earn his family their land.

'Start stacking rocks at our corners,' he said, and when their new farm was delineated the three men stood in the center, fired their guns, threw rocks and twigs into the air, jumped up and down as custom required, and then yelled at the top of their voices: it's ours! It's ours!'

Back in Hard work, Ludwig reported to his women: 'Our farm will have the big Pedernales running along the south for about six miles, and halfway along comes this beautiful little creek from the north . . . you couldn't call it anything bigger. One stretch of river cuts through a gorge, real cliffs north and south, and everywhere trees, trees, trees.'

is it like Germany?' Thekla asked, and her husband replied: Well, almost. The trees are farther apart. The land is rougher. The banks of the river are cluttered with debris from floods. And it might be difficult to build only with stone. You could never claim it was Germany, but it will be very congenial.'

'Will there be fields for us to grow crops?' practical-minded Thekla asked, and when the men assured her that with minimum effort large meadows could be cleared for crops, she said: it doesn't sound like Germany, but I'm ready.'

This finicky evaluation of their new home distressed Emil: i saw deer and rabbits and skunks and so many different birds, ! lost count. We have turkeys in the woods and fish in the river, and I'm sure the soil can grow pears and peaches. Father has claimed a paradise for us, and as soon as the papers are cleared in Austin we ought to sell this place and move immediately.' He caught his mother by the hands and danced with her: Tor the hills are beautiful, Mother! They are beautiful.'

When they contacted Yancey Quimper at the county seat they found him most eager to buy their property in Hardwork, and he also offered, in an embarrassing confrontation with the two Allerkamp seniors, to take their daughter Franziska off their hands. The Allerkamp men, who had begun to worry about the future of their unmarried girl, considered his proposal seriously, for as Ludwig pointed out: 'He is well-to-do. He's respected by Xavier County as the Hero of San Jacinto, and he's certainly no coward, for he forced General Houston to back down from a duel. Of course, he's not a German, but . . .'

Mrs. Allerkamp said nothing, but her sons, eager to see their sister married—and to almost anyone—threw reasons at her: 'He's a patriot. He has that profitable ferry. He's strong in debate. And he's . . . well . . . presentable.' When the barrage was at its most intense, Mrs. Allerkamp stared at her daughter, aware that this marriage would be highly improper.

Franziska, taking strength from that silent stare, said no. She gave no reason. Drawing her arms close to her body as if protecting % herself from an alien world, she shook her head, uttering only one word: 'No.' She did not say it with any undue emphasis or animosity; she simply rejected her fifth serious suitor and went about her

work. She was now an expert spinner and a good weaver; she could sew clothes out of the cloth she made and form rough shoes out of the cowhides her brothers provided. She could also embroider seats for chairs and sew patterns on the dresses she made for herself and her mother. Best of all, she was an excellent cook, specializing in heavy meat dishes for the men and cookies for all festive occasions. These she liked to decorate with colored jellies and thumbprint designs, spending hours of an afternoon to make them works of art as well as delights to the taste. She had prevailed upon her brothers to carve a set of hollowed-out stars and crescents and ovals and zigzags out of oak, and with these she cut her cookies, so that when at last she brought a platter of them to the table, they shone with color and danced in lovely forms and patterns. And she always held the platter on the palms of her hands, as if she were a young goddess of the hearth, presenting her offerings to some pagan statue.

Yancey Quimper took his rejection with good spirit, half relieved that he had escaped the bondage that marriage often became in a frontier community. His failure to catch Franziska did not influence his business judgment, and he offered the Allerkamps just enough to encourage them to sell but not so much that he stood to lose. It was a good clean deal, and when it was concluded, with the two Allerkamp women weeping to think that they had lost a home in which they had known stern obligation but also much happiness, Quimper said: 'I'd like to take possession as soon as possible. I have a buyer in mind.'

So in June of 1845 the five Allerkamps loaded all their goods on two ox wagons and set out for the hill country. When they reached Austin they heard exciting news: 'A group of more than a hundred German immigrants stayed in the settlement at Neu Braunfels. But they wanted their own land. They're planning to move into that area you surveyed. Near the Pedernales.'

Many parts of the hill country, that precious segment of Texas, would be German. Its public schools, among the first in Texas, would use German, and the songs sung by the men's choruses at its great festivals would be German, and fathers would teach their daughters the poetry of their homeland, as Ludwig Allerkamp had taught his Franziska the delicate words that summarized their new life:

In that exquisite month of May When all the buds were breaking, I felt within my bosom New life and love awaking.

So the German families from Neu Braunfels established the new town of Fredericksburg, which they named after a Prussian prince, and in quick order they built a struggling community in which English was almost never heard. In time it would become a superior town, with stores, watchmen and a good lodging place run by the Nimitz family; at first there was only one meeting house, but it was unique. Octagonal, it was affectionately called 'The Coffee Grinder,' and was shared amicably by all denominations.

The Allerkamps were delighted to have Fredericksburg only six miles from their farm, and even before the town was well started, Ludwig rode in to talk with the elders, purchasing from them a quarter-acre near the Nimitz farm. When the Fredericksburg people asked: 'Are you going to sell your place out in the country?' he replied: 'Not at all. In here we'll have a resting place for the women,' and that is what it became, a tiny house with only one room and a row of beds. Now the Allerkamp women could come to town on Saturday in the family wagon, while the men rode in on horseback early Sunday.

In this way the Allerkamps obtained two homes, one in the country, one in town, while Otto Macnab still had none. In fact, he was about to surrender the homestead he did have, for with the Ascots gone, his only remaining companion was Yancey Quimper, and the more he inspected that man's shady dealings the more convinced he became that Yancey was the kind of devious person with whom he did not care to associate: Life in Xavier County is finished for me. I better get going.

One morning he rode up to the Ferry and surprised Yancey: 'You want to buy my land?' Quimper made no false show of saying Otto, you mustn't leave!' Instead, he jumped at the offer, and men lounging at the bar who overheard the transaction said: 'Otto's bein' smart. He cain't farm it hisself and he ain't got no wife to tend it in his absence, so hell, he might as well pass it on to someone as'll care for it.' Quimper, aware of the young bachelor's determination to be gone from these parts, drove a hard bargain and got the spread for sixteen cents an acre, and before the week passed he had sold it to immigrants from Alabama for a dollar-ten.

When Otto learned of the outrageous profit Quimper made, he merely shrugged, for he had lost interest in the land. Rootless, he drifted about the county seat, accepting the hospitality of Reverend Harrison at the school, but when Captain Garner rode in one morning with the news that Company M was being reactivated, Otto quickly volunteered, for he wanted something tangible to do. It was as if he realized that his destiny was not a settled home but the wild, roving life of a Ranger.

During the time when Otto was stumbling about, trying to find a home, the young nation of Texas was doing the same: it was bankrupt, it owed tremendous debts; in Mexico, General Santa Anna, magically restored to power yet again, refused to acknowledge that Texas had ever separated from Mexico, and there was violent talk about launching a real war to recover the lost province; and from Europe, France and England continued their seductive games.

Relations with the United States were as confused as ever, for when Texas had wanted annexation, the States had refused to accept her; and recently, when a worried United States invited her southern neighbor to join lest some other nation snatch her, Texas said no. Something had to be done or the fledgling nation might collapse.

At this juncture a small-town lawyer from the hills of Tennessee, a modest man without cant or pretension, stumbled his way into the White House as America's first 'dark horse,' to the amazement of men much better qualified, such as Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, Henry Clay and Thomas Hart Benton Future historians and men of prudent judgment when assessing the American Presidents would judge this modest but strong-willed man to have been one of our very ablest holders of that office, perhaps Number Six or Seven, behind such unchallenged giants as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and especially Roosevelt—Republican partisans nominating the first of that name; Democrats, the second.