Michener, James A. (75 page)

'We'll hang Houston and so many of his criminal supporters that oak trees will look as if they bore fruit,' he told Garza, who, contrary to what he had argued only a few weeks before, now believed it might be possible to exterminate all the troublesome norteamericanos and establish in Tejas a true mexicano province under benign leadership from Santa Anna in Mexico City, and he continued to see himself as governor.

But as they marched out of Gonzales an old man and his wife, both mexicanos, shouted at Santa Anna astride his white horse: 'Murderer'—and the word hung ominously in the air, clouding and contaminating the high hopes with which the army moved toward battle.

When it seemed that Santa Anna, forging ahead to conquer all of rebellious Tejas, was about to trap the fleeing Houston and his entire ragtag of defenders, one of those romantic miracles occurred which still convince Texans that God is on their side. In 1830 the New York investor John Jacob Astor had authorized the building of a steamboat to be used in the fur trade on the Missouri River. Called the Yellow Stone, it entered service in 1831, but ill fortune seemed to haunt the vessel as it tried to dodge the sunken niggerheads of the Missouri.

After less than a year's operation on that river, the Yellow Stone was asked to try its luck on the Mississippi, with no better results, but in 1833 the doughty little boat steamed up the Missouri all the

way to the mouth of its namesake, the Yellowstone River in far North Dakota. However, that was its last run on its intended river, for soon thereafter it turned up as a grubby freight carrier in New Orleans.

On the last day of 1835, when Santa Anna was already marching north, the Yellow Stone left the safety of New Orleans and chugged its way to Tejas, bringing with it the New Orleans Grays, volunteers who were eager to help the rebellious state gain its independence. Having arrived in Tejas, it remained there, and it was picking its way up the tight and shallow waters of the Brazos when Sam Houston's confused army approached, needing all the help it could get.

Miraculously—there is no other word for it—the peripatetic little boat was waiting there when Houston needed it most, and it edged its nose into the western bank so that it could transport all of Houston's men to temporary safety on the eastern shore. By the time Santa Anna reached that area, the boat was gone and Houston's army, such as it was, remained intact.

While this was happening, events of a less satisfactory nature were occurring upstream on the Brazos. Houston's spies had informed him that Victor de Ripperda, ablest of Santa Anna's generals, was speeding north to intercept the main Texas army from the west, and it was imperative that he be slowed down. Considering the problem with what maps he had, Houston concluded that Ripperda would make a dash for Quimper's Ferry, hoping to find it functioning.

'That ferry must be destroyed,' Houston said, and two dozen volunteers hurried upstream, realizing that if they reached Quimper's after the Mexican troops had crossed, it was the Texicans who would probably be destroyed. The average age of the adventurers was twenty-two, their average time within the boundaries of Texas, three months and three days. They came from eleven different states and two foreign countries, and if ever a group of untrained men was willing to fight for the abstract ideal of freedom, it was this disorganized mob.

By forced marches, the contingent reached Quimper's Ferry the day before General Ripperda's troops would begin streaming in from the south. The men ran to the riverbank, saw that the ferry was on the other shore, and sent two men swimming across to fetch it, but when Mattie Quimper saw what was afoot, she ran down from the inn to confront the men: 'It's my ferry. I know what to do with it.' The men, thinking that she was refusing to destroy it, said: 'Madam, we got orders. This ferry can't fall into the hands of the Mexicans,' and she said: it won't.'

With the help of the two soldiers, she poled the ferry to the opposite bank, and when the expedition gathered about her, she grabbed an ax and went back down the slope to where she had tied the crude ferry and began to chop it to pieces, thus demolishing the precious craft that had served her so long. When the watching soldiers saw what she was doing, they ran down the banks and helped her with the destruction.

Slowly the muddy waters separated the logs and turned the superstructure over: 'Better come off, ma'am. She's fallin' apart.'

The ferry did not sink in the sense of disappearing in a rush; slowly the logs settled into the mud along the bank. Tush that stuff into midstream!' a captain called, and when this was done, railing which had once enclosed the deck remained visible, drifting slowly downstream, useful to no one.

Mattie made no comment as it disappeared; it had been a good ferry, improved and enlarged over the years, and many hundreds of travelers had blessed it. But it had to be destroyed and she expressed no sorrow at its going.

But she was now on the opposite bank of the river from her home. 'I must go back,' she told the soldiers, but when they reported this to the captain, he told her: 'Stay with us. The Mexicans will burn everything over there.' She could not accept this advice and made as if to swim back, whereupon he called to some of his men: 'Fetch the little boat and take her across.' When this was done, she stood on the bank and watched silently as the Texicans marched away, taking her son Yancey with them: I hope they know how to fight. I hope Yancey behaves well.

Left on her side of the Brazos, with all other homes abandoned, all neighbors fled, she spent a lonely night pondering what to do, and looking about her deserted inn, she had visions of those who had inhabited this refuge: her husband, Jubal, with his hunting dogs; the giant Kronk; Father Clooney; Joel Job Harrison, whom she had nearly married; the Jewish peddler who had come this way; the hungry settlers gorging on her honeyed pecans; the almost saintly Stephen Austin, so small, so determined. They had been a motley but noble group, battling the wilderness, and she could not bear to see this precious place fall into enemy hands.

Slowly, and with unflagging determination, she gathered branches of trees and shards of wood, placing them where the wind would catch at them and speed the flames she intended to ignite. When the sun was well up, and the sounds of marching enemy could be heard to the south, she went from pile to pile, lighting each with brands, and when the inn was well ablaze, with fire eating at the logs which Jubal and Father Clooney first and then

The Kronk had cut so carefully, she left what had been first her cave-house and then her dog-run and watched it burn.

It was only partly consumed when the first Mexican troops arrived, followed soon by General Ripperda and his staff. Infuriated by the sight of a lone woman burning her house to deprive them of its comforts, this officer loudly directed his men to secure the ferry that his spies had assured him would be here, and when soldiers shouted: 'Colonel, it's gone, seems to be sunk, some pieces floating in the river,' he swore and turned his horse aside to view the damage for himself.

Ripperda, an officer who honored the great traditions of the Spanish army in which so many of his ancestors had served, was not responsible for an ugly incident that occurred at this time. Some of his soldiers, intoxicated by their victories at the Alamo and Goliad, had begun to assume that the conquest of the rest of Tejas was going to be a triumphal affair. 'One more battle, we go home!' was the cry, and now when they saw themselves frustrated by this lone woman they grew enraged, and three men rushed her.

'No!' Benito Garza shouted when he came upon the scene. 'I know her!'

Too late. Three soldiers stabbed at Mattie with their bayonets. She made no outcry. Clutching her throat as blood welled up, she tried valiantly to remain upright beside her burning home, but at last she fell, face down, upon the land she had loved so deeply.

Mattie's prayer that her son perform honorably as a mem-ber of Houston's force bore quick and reassuring results, for when Yancey, now twenty-four, found himself in the company of men his own age he pulled himself together, suppressed his childish petulance, and began acting like a solid, ordinary farmhand forced into military life. He grumbled at the long marches, groused about the miserable food, and fraternized warmly with the other soldiers. What was most surprising, in view of his poor performances in the battles against the Karankawa, he could appear quite belligerent, especially when in the presence of the younger men, and he was always prepared to advise anyone on how to conduct the war.

He was a robust young fellow, with a big confident face and a voice that soared above the babble. He was never reluctant to step forward when dangerous work had to be done, but he did tend to delay his move until someone else had been clearly nominated. He liked especially to instruct the younger troops as to how they must conduct themselves when the Mexicans struck. He had become, in short, a typical Texican patriot, with his long gun, his Bowie knife, and his determination to repel Santa Anna.

One April day, as he was explaining strategy to attentive listeners, he suddenly stopped, stared down the road, and cried: 'My God! What is it? A human porcupine?'

For up the dusty trail came a fourteen-year-old boy, blood-red scar across his left cheek, lugging a collection of weapons whose ends stuck out like the disorderly quills of a hedgehog. As the boy came closer, Yancey saw that it was his onetime friend Otto Macnab, who was not in camp ten minutes before he discovered that he was facing a new Yancey Quimper, matured and self-confident, who asked in a condescending way: 'Where do you come from, son?'

'Goliad, and I come to fight.'

'Goliad!' Yancey shouted to those behind him. 'He says he was at Goliad.'

Soon Otto was surrounded by admirers who wanted to know what had happened at the presidio, how he had got that scar across his face, and what it was like fighting the Mexican regulars.

'They know which end of a gun fires,' Otto assured them.

'How'd your father allow you to join us?'

'He was killed at Goliad. Stabbed in the back after he surrendered.' He said this so matter-of-factly, but with such terrible commitment, his blue eyes hard in the river sunlight, that the men said no more.

Later, the men who had questioned him about Goliad regathered to confirm what a sorry affair Houston's march to the east had been, and from the babble of whining voices he collected these offerings:

'Always he runs away . . .'

'He's afraid to fight. Alamo and Goliad, they terrified him.'

'He's runnin' to the north, hopin' to escape into Louisiana.'

'We could of licked Santy Anny three times over if we'd stood and fought.'

'He's a coward, and until we get rid of him, we accomplish nothin'.'

Harshest in his criticism was Quimper: 'General Houston has a Gulf of Mexico jellyfish for his backbone. Look at us, achin' for a fight. Eatin' our hearts out to revenge the Alamo and Goliad. And all he does is run away.'

'Maybe he has a plan,' Otto suggested, for from his observation of Colonel Fannin he had learned that commanders oftentimes had plans they did not confide to their troops, and sometimes those plans didn't work.

'Read this, Little Porcupine!' Quimper cried, and he grabbed from a Mississippi man standing nearby a dispatch received some

days before. 'Watson here stole a copy, and it tells the whole story.' It was from the man elected president of the interim government and it did indeed lay forth the problem:

To General Sam Houston, Sir: The enemy are laughing you to scorn You must fight them. You must retreat no farther. The country expects you to fight. The salvation of the country depends on your doing so.

David G Burnet, President

The letter, as severe a rebuke as a field commander could have received, gave Otto a sick feeling: We're back at Goliad with a general who doesn't know what he's doing. Everything is falling apart.

But toward dusk a commotion along the river forestalled any demand for a new leader, because a gang of sweating men driving sixteen oxen appeared from the east, bellowing the information that they were bringing treasure into camp. Everyone ran to greet them, even General Houston, erect and dignified despite the pressures that assailed him.

Otto, coming slowly to the realization that he would never again see either his father or Zave Campbell, felt the need of someone older to cling to, and kept close to Quimper. Together they watched the oxen drag into camp two handsome cannon, gifts from the people of Cincinnati.

'Did vou know, Yancey, I used to live in that town?' Otto said.

'You did?'

'Yep, sold pork to the riverboats.'

A soldier supervising the placement of the cannon said: 'Took three months for them to come down the Mississippi. Slipped past customs in New Orleans listed as "two pieces of hollow ware."

'Where'd they get the name Twin Sisters?' Yancey asked, and one of the soldiers explained: 'They was christened off'n the port of Galveston by the lovely twin daughters of a doctor who came on the same boat, and they'll blow the balls off'n Santy Anny.'

The men, with so little to cheer during the past weeks, saw the cannon as proof that someone in the States cared, and they insisted that the two be fired right now, to which Houston agreed, and there in the wilderness, with no sensible target before them, the Texicans loaded both, tamped the charges, and blazed away at the tops of distant oak trees. When a scatter of leaves proved that the guns could fire effectively, the men cheered.

Some days later, while helping to drag the cannon along muddy country roads, Otto had a chance to observe how the most trivial

accident could sometimes determine the course of history. At this time the sweating Texicans did not know whether they would soon head north to Nacogdoches, surrendering all of central Texas to Santa Anna's fury, or east toward the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to engage the Mexicans on some favorable battleground. General Houston refused to divulge his plans, and many thought he had none. They said: 'He's markin' time, hopin' that somethin' favorable will save us.'