The Black Jacks (11 page)

John Henry had made a dispassionate and, Houston was certain, completely accurate report of everything that had transpired before, during, and after the Council House fight. In conclusion, McAllen had apologized for failing to prevent the disaster. But Houston was confident the Black Jack captain had done everything one man could be expected to do. In his heart of hearts, Houston felt that Lamar must at this very moment be gloating in his palatial residence in Austin. Surely the man had known something like this would happen. Only a fool could have expected to bring Comanche Indians into San Antonio with their white captives without violence breaking out. And the Comanches had been naive at best to even agree to it. Well, mused Houston grimly, they would never trust a Texan again. It would be a fight to the death now. The blood-chilling strains of the "Deguello," the Spanish martial tune signifying no quarter, echoed in Houston's mind.

A part of Houston wanted to leap into the nearest saddle and ride hard for Texas. But he no longer enjoyed a bachelor's freedom to act on impulse and go or come as he pleased. The day before yesterday he had married Margaret Lea.

Thoughts of Margaret softened the grim lines of his craggy face.

In May of '36, a month after the victory at San Jacinto, Houston had sailed into New Orleans aboard the trading schooner
Flora,
and among the hundreds gathered at the levee to see the bigger-than-life hero of Texas were young ladies from Professor McLean's school, who had traveled by stagecoach all the way from Marion. One of McLean's pupils was seventeen-year-old Margaret Lea. Slender and fairly tall at five-foot-seven, Margaret was a beauty, with violet-blue eyes, light brown hair streaked with gold, and a serenity that made her seem more mature than her years.

Her family was one of the most distinguished in the South; her ancestors had fought in the American Revolution. Prominent soldiers and lawyers and politicians inhabited her family tree.

Her father managed a prospering plantation on the Cahaba River in Alabama. A pious and proper young lady, Margaret was also clairvoyant, and on that day in New Orleans she confided to her closest friends that she had a very strong feeling she would meet Sam Houston again.

After the expiration of his term as president of Texas, Houston had visited the United States to drum up investors for the Sabine City Development Company, of which he was a major stockholder. Town-building was all the rage in Texas, and Houston was confident that a community located at the mouth of the Sabine River would flourish. He also wanted to buy some blooded horses, and pay Andrew Jackson a visit. The last thing on his agenda was finding the woman of his dreams.

At Mobile he called on a prominent local businessman named Martin Lea. Lea invited Houston to his country home, Spring Hill, where his wife was entertaining her sister Margaret and their mother Nancy. When he saw Margaret, Houston fell in love at first sight.

That night, a thoroughly beguiled Sam Houston sat and stared at Margaret, clad in a beautiful tarlatan dress, soft candlelight gleaming in her hair as she played the piano. Since leaving the McLean school, she had attended the new Judson College for girls, becoming an accomplished pianist and harp player, and impressing everyone with her flair for poetry. Later that evening, Houston walked with her in the azalea garden. He picked a pink carnation and presented the blossom to her. She put it in her hair. The moonlight filtering through the pecan trees, the romance in the sultry, magnolia-scented air—even now Houston could vividly recall that evening stroll.

He was forty-six years old, she only twenty, and yet she fell in love with this gallant adventurer. For his part he had given up on achieving personal happiness. Ten years had transpired since his disastrous marriage to Eliza Allen. During his exile among the Cherokees he had carried on a tempestuous relationship with Tiana, daughter of "Hellfire Jack" Rogers, the Scots trader, and his Cherokee wife. But that, too, had ended badly, due in no small measure to his fondness for ardent spirits, an affliction that prompted the Indians to nickname him Oo-Tse-Tee-Ar-dee-tah-Skee—Big Drunk.

To the dismay of Nancy Lea, Houston courted Margaret for a week, all business forgotten. Houston was charming—this much Nancy would concede. But he was a drinker, a profane man, a duelist, an adventurer, and there were those rumors about his former wife and that Indian princess. Houston was completely candid with Margaret about his many faults, and Margaret decided it was God's will that she should be His humble instrument in saving Houston's life, not to mention his immortal soul. At the end of this week-long whirlwind romance, Houston asked Margaret to marry him and she accepted.

She was his
Esperanza,
he declared, the "One Hoped For." "My heart is like a caged bird," she wrote him, "whose weary pinions have been folded for months. At length it wakes from its stupor, spreads its wings, and longs to escape."

The ceremony had taken place only two blocks from the Lafayette Hotel, at the home of Henry Lea, Margaret's brother. The house, built in the Virginia Colonial style, and nestled in a pleasant grove of oak and elm trees on Greensboro Street, had a large reception room perfect for the occasion. It had been Houston's happiest moment, marred only by Henry's last minute suggestion that the groom owed the bride's family an explanation of the failure of his marriage to Eliza Allen. "That subject is closed," Houston had replied sternly. "I have nothing more to add to what I have previously said. If you insist upon this, sir, you may as well pay the fiddlers and stop the wedding."

Henry Lea had not called Houston's bluff. But later, when he was alone with his new bride, Houston did what he had never done before. He had never told his side of the story to anyone. Honor would not permit him to do so, for the truth would sully poor Eliza's reputation, and that he would not do, not even to save his own good name.

But now, finally he told Margaret the secret of his break with Eliza. Before he had entered her life, Eliza had fallen madly in love with a young man who suffered from consumption. The young man was forced to go to another climate for his health, but soon thereafter died. Eliza's family pressured her to marry Houston, then governor of Tennessee and obviously a man destined for fame and fortune. Though she had not gotten over her first love, Eliza gave in. Shortly after the wedding, Houston came home unexpectedly to find Eliza weeping dreadfully over her loved one's old letters. Only then did Houston learn the truth. She confessed that she had married him only for the position he afforded her as wife of a governor. Houston's temper got the better of him. He angrily scribbled his resignation and thrust the paper at Eliza. "Here is your position!" he roared.

Margaret swore to keep the information a profound secret. She was completely satisfied with her new husband's explanation, and Houston knew instinctively that he could trust her to take his secret to the grave.

At the wedding reception, some of Margaret's friends sang an ode in honor of Houston, which they had authored, and which they performed to the tune of "The Old Oaken Bucket." The last verse went thus:

"Our Washington's name has been hallowed in story

A founder of Freedom's retreat in the West.

Another has risen to share in his glory—

The Texian Patriot, our honored guest!"

Texian patriot? Returning to the hotel room window to gaze once more at Marion's bustling streets, Sam Houston shook his head. The comparison to George Washington was flattering, to be sure, but Houston wondered if even a man of Washington's caliber could save Texas now.

There was only one thing to do. He would run for president. Lamar must be deposed. Many of Houston's friends had been pressuring him to announce, but he had not done so. His courtship of Margaret Lea had occupied him. But now he made up his mind that as soon as he returned to Texas he would do what his friends wanted. What had to be done.

Chapter Ten

Sam Houston knew he could not leave for Texas right away. The town of Marion had organized a public dinner for this afternoon, to be held in an oak grove near the Baptist church, and he was the guest of honor. As such he would be called upon to make an oration.

He had not prepared a speech; he would have to address the crowd in an extemporaneous fashion. He understood that Major Townes, an old friend of Margaret's father, would pay tribute to the new Mrs. Houston. The old gentleman had courteously presented Houston with a copy of the toast in advance: "I presume our honored guest will not deny, in spite of all his victories in the field of battle, that he has been compelled to trail his banner and bow a suppliant knee before our town's fairest woman. I give you therefore, gentlemen, the conqueress of the conqueror, Mrs. Margaret Houston."

Houston smiled. With Margaret at his side he would prevail in Texas. She gave him confidence and hope.

Tomorrow there would be another fete thrown in their honor, and then, on the day following, they would travel to Mobile by carriage, thence to New Orleans by steamer, where, if all went according to schedule, they would secure a berth on the steamship
New York,
bound for Galveston. The
New York
was justly famous for its opulence—mahogany and marble staterooms, and windows of painted glass representing the Texas arms. They said that even the table china bore a blue devil in the center of each plate with a depiction of the
New York
at sea with a Texas eagle hovering above her. Houston could ill afford passage for two on such a floating palace, but he thought it was the least he could do for Margaret, since she would have to live in virtual poverty once they arrived in Texas.

A few minutes later, Houston's bride returned from shopping for a suitable traveling outfit with her friend Sarah Kittrell Goree, who had been matron of honor at the wedding. Margaret showed her husband the blue serge dress and new bonnet she had purchased, and Houston tried to act interested, but she saw right through him immediately, and when she asked him what was wrong he showed her McAllen's letter. He watched her closely while she read it, and marveled again how fortunate he was that such an intelligent and lovely young woman had consented to sharing the rest of her life with him.

"I have decided," he told her, when she was finished, "to run for president. I will have to begin campaigning as soon as we arrive in Texas."

"Of course, dear," she replied promptly. "If you feel that is what you must do, I will help you to the best of my ability, and support you with all my heart and soul."

"It will be . . . difficult for you. My political enemies will say many harsh things about me. And they may target you as well. Texas politics is a cruel and dirty game."

"My brother is a politician, remember? I have an inkling what it's all about. Besides, how bad can it be? Surely not worse than all the venom and bile being hurled by Whigs and Democrats alike in the present campaign for the presidency of these United States."

Houston was familiar with the current American political scene. With the nomination of Old Tippecanoe, William Henry Harrison, the Whig Party was making a strong bid for the White House. Democrat Martin Van Buren presently resided at the Executive Mansion. But the severe depression which had rocked the economy threatened Van Buren's hopes for a second term. So did the Whig campaign. Though his loyalty lay with the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson, Houston had to give the Whigs credit: traditionally the party of the banker and the merchant and the well-to-do planter, the Whigs had launched a remarkably vibrant and effective attempt to woo the farmer and the laborer to their cause with an ingenious "log cabin and hard cider" campaign. Conventions, parades, barbecues, and fireworks were organized by Tippecanoe Clubs on the state and local levels. Orators ranging in style and representation from Daniel Webster and Hugh Legare to Davy Crockett and John Bear, the "Buckeye Blacksmith," traveled around the country stumping for "Old Tip" and casting aspersions on the Van Buren administration. The Whig "slangwhangers" held nothing back in the mud they hurled at the president—or "Van Ruin," as they liked to call him. The 1828 election, in which the National Republicans had called Andrew Jackson a murderer and adulterer, had been bad—so bad that Old Hickory believed to this day that the vile slanders of his political opponents had caused the death of his beloved wife, Rachel—but for sheer mean spiritedness Houston had seen nothing like the current contest.

"All I can promise you, my darling," he replied, "is that it will not be pleasant. And if I should prevail, there will be no financial reward for the service I render to the republic."

Margaret tilted her head slightly and her eyes, serene and wise beyond their years, studied his troubled features. "That doesn't matter to me, Mr. Houston," she declared. "Your destiny is entwined with the destiny of Texas, and now mine is inseparable from yours. I will be right there with you through good times and hard, and you will not hear a solitary word of complaint pass my lips."

Houston put his arms around her and held her close. "With you by my side, how could I fail?" he said.

Eight hundred miles away, at the Quohadi village deep in the trackless, windswept plains of West Texas, Gray Wolf came to stand before the skin lodge of Spotted Tail, the husband of Snow Dancer's sister. He was clad in a buffalo robe painted with the symbol of the sun's rays. Upon his head was a feather warbonnet. In his arms he cradled his infant son, in the papoose which his dead wife had so lovingly adorned with beadwork.

He was expected, for it had all been arranged, and Snow Dancer's sister emerged with a tremulous smile to take the baby from the war chief. He did not look at her, or at the child. He could not bear to do so, for both his son and his sister-in-law reminded him too much of Snow Dancer, and it was all he could do to maintain his gravely impassive facade.

After Snow Dancer's sister had entered the tepee with the baby, Spotted Tail came out.

"Your son will always be well cared for, Gray Wolf. On this you have my solemn vow."

Gray Wolf nodded. "I have sworn never to take another wife, and I cannot raise the child on the warpath. This is best for him."