Michener, James A. (21 page)

On two or three days each week Damian took his evening meal with his brother's family, bringing with him such produce from the mission farm adjacent to the church as he felt he could spare, plus cuts of meat from the animals that Domingo had brought in from the ranch for slaughter. Benita, on her part, would have her Indian servants bake bread and occasionally a fruit tart, if the mission orchards had provided plums.

The three would bow their heads as Damian asked blessing, and then engage in chatter about the doings in Bexar and Saltillo as the platters of food circulated and the bottle of wine was opened. Whenever a problem of management arose, regarding either the mission or the presidio, the brothers would consult, but often it was Benita who offered the practical and equitable solution.

She had developed into one of those extraordinary women who find in the rearing of a family and the organization of her husband's day-to-day life a key to her own happiness; she had never been overly religious and saw no reason to depend upon the rewards of an afterlife to compensate for disappointments in this. She had been reared by her Spanish parents to believe that the greatest thing that could happen to a woman in Mexico was to marry some incoming Spaniard, make him a good wife, and in later years go first to Spain and then to heaven. In the wilds of Tejas she had begun to doubt whether she would ever return to Spain, and she had long ago decided to leave heaven to God's dispensation.

Sensible as she was, she had always known why Damian wanted to stay close to his brother and why he now brought gifts rather more lavish than conditions warranted. She knew that Damian, thinking of her as his spiritual wife, was joined to her with bonds so powerful that neither imagination nor death could dissolve them, and she felt obligated to him. He was her responsibility, and by her acquiescence she knew she had accepted the pleasant burden of his emotional life. When he was ill, she tended him. When

his robe required mending, she sewed it. When he told little jokes about the mission Indians, she laughed. And whenever he appeared at her house or departed, she showed her pleasure at his arrival or her sadness at his going. In Benita he had a wife without the responsibility of one.

Was Alvaro aware of this unusual triangle of which he was a silent part? He never alluded to it. He welcomed his brother with more than brotherly affection and saw no unpleasant consequences from what might have been a dangerous arrangement.

Partly this was because Damian was so helpful, not only with his food contributions but also with his attention to the three Saldana boys; he played games with them and taught them their letters, and often took them to the mission when Fray Domingo was in attendance so they could learn to sing. Invariably, when he visited their home at the presidio he brought them little presents, sometimes so trivial they could scarcely be called presents, but so thoughtful that they proved his continuing love.

He had always been especially fond of Ramon, a bright, eager lad now eleven and thirsty for knowledge of the world. Damian had long ago surrendered his silly hope that Ramon would one day become a priest: That boy would last in a Franciscan college one week, Benita, or maybe one day. Take my advice. Make a pirate of him.'

On Sundays, and high holidays, everything changed, for now the presidio Saldanas entered Damian's world, and they were properly reverent, for no one could live at the edge of the wilderness without speculating upon the nature of the good life, and orderly religion was seen as one of the abiding consolations. When Damian prayed, Alvaro listened, and when his brother preached, the commander followed his arguments. At communion, which carried special weight when one seemed so far from civilization, Alvaro, Benita and their eldest son accepted their wafers solemnly, knowing that by so doing, they were somehow in contact not only with Jesus Christ but with fellow Catholics in Mexico City, Madrid and all other respectable nations of the earth.

On those occasions when Fray Domingo came in from the ranch to lead his Indian choir, Alvaro sang with them in his strong baritone voice, and at such times the three adult Saldanas often looked at one another, assured that a bond of friendship and love held them together.

They would never see Spain again, none of them, but in Tejas they had discovered the joy of lives decently led and work well done.

On 5 September 1734, a day that would be remembered with horror, a little Indian boy half ran, half staggered up to the gates of Santa Teresa with a story that only a child could tell without retching.

To the ranch belonging to the mission, Apache had come, scores of them, and with systematic barbarity had burned every building and driven off every animal. The mission Indians who had tried to defend the place had been slain; the children, all nine of them, had been taken captive, and the five women . . . The little boy had not the words to describe what had happened to them: The Apache undressed them . . . then, you know . . . then they cut them apart.'

Fray Damian clutched at the back of a chair: 'They what?'

'They cut them apart,' and the boy showed how first a finger had been cut away, then another, then a hand and a foot and a breast, until the final rip of the gut, deep and powerful from left to right.

'Mother of God!' Damian cried, and immediately sent Garza to fetch Captain Saldana, and when the brothers faced the boy, they asked: 'What happened to Fray Domingo?' and now the child burst into tears.

'When they were not looking,' he said in his Yuta dialect, 'I ran to the bushes by the river. I hid there all day, and when night came ... I am sleepy.'

'Of course you are,' Damian said gently, taking the boy onto his lap. 'But what happened to Fray Domingo?'

'Upside down, by the fire. His feet tied to a limb. No clothes on. They built a fire under his head. Each woman puts a stick on the fire to make it blaze, then cuts away a finger or a toe. He screamed . . .' The boy shuddered and would say no more.

The Saldana brothers knew they had to organize an expedition to punish the Apache and, if possible, retrieve the captured children and any young women who might have survived. A force of thirty soldiers, sixteen Spanish and mestizo laymen, two dozen Indians and four friars set out for the Santa Teresa ranch, where the smoldering buildings bespoke the ruin that the Apache had wrought. Not even halting to bury the corpse of Fray Domingo, still hanging from a tree, the infuriated men picked up the trail of the Apache and spurred ahead. For three days they sought to overtake them, but failed, however, just as they were about to turn back in frustration they heard a whimpering in some bushes and found the seven-year-old sister of the boy who had escaped. When it became apparent what indecencies the Apache had visited upon her, several of the fort soldiers began to vomit.

That was the nature of Bexar's endless struggle with the Apache. The familiar Indians of this part of Tejas—the Pampopa, the Postito, the Orejone, the Tacame, the dozens of other tribes— were semi-civilized, like the more amenable Indians the French and the English were meeting along the Mississippi and the Atlantic seaboard; Europeans could reach agreements with Indians like the Mohawk, the Pawnee and the Sioux, for those tribes understood orderly behavior, but the Apache did not. Their rule was to strike and burn, torture and kill in the crudest ways imaginable. No persuasion touched them, no enticement tempted them to live harmoniously with anyone else, white or Indian.

They were a handsome people physically, lithe, quick, remarkably at home in their environment, and capable of withstanding the greatest duress. They could go days without food or water; they could withstand burning heat or sleeted trails; and if they were horribly cruel to their captives, they could themselves accept torture with insolent defiance. They were the scourge of the lower plains, ravaging Tejas and venturing frequently all the way to Saltillo in the south, a city they loved to plunder.

Sometimes they traveled four hundred miles in order to steal an especially fine string of horses, but they liked mules too, for these they slaughtered and ate. But even when there was no prospect of capturing horses, they raided white settlements just for the pleasure of killing people they knew to be their enemies, and when a district held no white people, as most of Tejas did not, they raided the camps of Indians weaker than themselves, slaying them indiscriminately.

When Fray Damian rode back to Rancho El Codo to bury his longtime associate and dear friend, he was well aware of the serious undertaking he was about to launch. Directing Simon Garza to climb the tree and cut the cord that kept the charred remains of Fray Domingo swinging by its ankles, he caught the body as it fell, and staggered with his burden to a proper spot, where a grave was dug. As the body was deposited he uttered a prayer and made a promise:

'Brother Domingo, friend of years and warmth to my heart, you died in an effort which brought joy to God. I promise you that I shall take up the burden that you have put down I shall not rest until the peace you sought is brought to the Apache and they are safe in the arms of Jesus Christ.'

He proceeded in an orderly manner to fulfill his oath: 'Simon, halt your work on the Stations and carve a fine plaque showing the

martyrdom of Domingo, and this we will send to our colleagues in Zacatecas.' To his Indian helpers: 'Candido, I must leave to you the completion of our ditch, and speed it. Ignacio, 1 can't ask you to live at the ranch, for that's too dangerous now that the Apache have struck, but you must move through the countryside and rebuild our herds.'

For himself, he must quit the mission walls and move out among the Apache to bring them God's word, but before he could leave he must find someone to guide Mision Santa Teresa temporarily, and he recalled the devout Fray Eusebio who castigated himself so severely. After gaining approval from the head of Eusebio's mission, he installed him, and smiled as the young dreamer lashed himself with his flagellum, crying: 'I am not worthy of such high promotion.'

In the months that followed, Fray Damian was sometimes seen by military expeditions headed north or south from Bexar, and scouts reported back to Captain Alvaro: There we were, loneliest stretch we'd ever seen, Bexar two days distant, and out of nowhere comes this gaunt, long-legged friar on a mule. "You must be careful of the Apache at night," he told us. "They'll steal your animals." We asked him where he was going and he said: "To the Apacheria." '

And that was where he went, and because he moved alone, on a mule and unarmed, a man approaching fifty, they gave him entry to their camps. When he had learned enough of their language, they talked with him and explained that it was impossible for Indians and white men to live together. They acknowledged that he personally commanded powerful magic, but they also pointed out that they were no longer powerless: Those you call the French. Beyond the rivers. They sell us guns. Soon we shoot. Better hunters, you never catch us.'

He was so astonished to find that the French were supplying arms that he told the tribe with whom he had been living and to whom in the evenings he had been preaching: 'I must leave you now and tell my brother at the fort that peace with the Apache must come before everyone has guns.'

They not only let him return to Bexar but they sent a trusted squaw with him, and on the way she confided: That other camp. Two days south. They have two of the children taken in the big raid.'

They detoured, and Damian found that what the woman said was true; a boy of ten and a girl of eight were in the tents, and Damian persuaded the Apache to release the latter so that she could return to her people, but the child refused to leave. Her

people were dead; she had seen them die; and now she had found other parents in the camp.

'But God wants you to live a decent life, within the church,' Damian argued.

'Leave her alone,' the boy snarled, grabbing her away.

'My son, it is proper that she—'

'Get away ' In some curious fashion the children were blaming the friar for the terrible things that had happened to them, and this Damian could not accept. Reaching for the girl, he drew her to him and with a trembling forefinger traced the scars across her face, put there not in the heat of battle but by Apache braves who tortured their captives, even the children.

"What is your name, Child of Heaven?'

'Let her go!' the boy cried again, and this time he wrenched the girl away, struck her violently, and shoved her along to some older women, who began to beat her.

Regardless of his own safety, Damian lunged toward the little girl to rescue her from such abuse, but he was halted by a tall, powerful Apache warrior whose garb caused the friar to stop in horror. With the hand that had traced the girl's scars, he reached out and touched the man's garment, realizing that it was the robe Fray Domingo had been wearing prior to his horrible death.

Holding on to the robe, he said quietly in Apache: 'This is the garment of my friend. I must have it for his grave.'

The Indian understood and respected the emotion represented: 'Your friend, very brave.'

Still clinging to the robe, Damian said: 'You must let me take it.'

'What will you give me 7 '

Damian had nothing to offer but his mule, and this the Apache took gladly, for it would make a feast. So Fray Damian de Saldana returned to his mission, on foot, trailing an Apache woman astride a donkey, and clutching to his bosom the robe in which his dearest friend and companion of many years had approached his martyrdom.

His efforts to bring peace and Christianity to the Apache not only failed, they ended in repeated embarrassment. At the conclusion of his first venture into alien territory, after the Apache woman led him into Bexar, he persuaded Alvaro that the Apache were of sincere intent when they suddenly changed face and discussed the possibility of permanent truce, and he pointed out that with the Indians receiving French guns, it was imperative that a peaceful understanding be reached. So against his better )udg-

ment, Captain Saldana agreed that Damian, with a new mule, should return with the woman and arrange for a plenary between Apache chiefs and presidio soldiers.