‘And that stalwart opening the beer keg is my birth-son James, who merits congratulations, for last week he became a father.’
Mrs. Quimper, a gracious lady who said little, leaving explanations to her voluble husband, did slip in a word: ‘The general thought it would be proper for us to pay our respects to the fort before it was abandoned,’ and her husband broke in: ‘I’ll wager you’ve seen a lot of action here.’ His lively hands imitated the thrust and parry of cavalry actions.
He made a favorable impression on Wetzel, who said at the conclusion of Quimper’s explanation of how his troops had managed the two mountains at Monterrey: ‘General, you have a better understanding of uphill attack than anyone I’ve met in America,’ to which Quimper replied: ‘It comes from study … and experience.’ He also explained how the Texas troops had managed to hold the lunette at Vicksburg, ‘which was a very ugly show, I can tell you.’
Mrs. Reed, who followed military conversations closely, realized that Quimper never claimed that he had actually been at either Monterrey or Vicksburg, and she was about to query this point when the general delighted everyone by announcing that he had brought a surprise for ‘the commanding officer of our Garner fort,’ and after a signal to one of his sons, a large package was brought in and delivered to Reed.
‘Open it, sir!’ Quimper cried. ‘Open it so we can see!’ And when Reed did, out came a pair of glistening military boots, fawn-colored and decorated with embossed eagles, swords and the word TEXAS in silver.
‘They’re genuine Quimpers,’ Yancey said. ‘Fightin’ boots for fightin’ men, and it’s a privilege to deliver them to the commander of our fort.’
‘But how did you get my size?’
‘Ah-ha! Did you by chance miss a pair of your old army boots?’
Reed looked at his wife, who shrugged her shoulders. ‘Don’t stare at her,’ Yancey bellowed. ‘It was him,’ and he pointed at Wetzel, who confessed that five months ago he had purloined the boots in order to make this happy occasion possible.
On the next day Quimper disclosed his purpose in coming so far: he asked to see the girl Emma Larkin, and when she was produced he spoke directly: ‘I should like to purchase the land which the courts have awarded you.’
‘The courts awarded me nothing,’ Emma said, staring at him. ‘I’ve always owned it. My parents patented it in 1869.’
‘Yes, but since you were a minor and an orphan, the courts …’
‘They gave me nothing,’ she repeated, and it was obvious that Quimper was not going to have an easy time with this young woman.
‘You have six thousand acres, más o menos as we say in Old Mexico, more or less.’
‘Why would you wish to buy?’
‘We have a saying: “If you acquire enough land in Texas, something good will surely happen.” With the money I give you, you can live easily, in town somewhere.’ He explained that he was prepared to offer ten cents an acre, slightly above the going rate: ‘That would mean six hundred dollars, and you could do wonders with six hundred dollars.’
When she said no, he raised his bid to twelve cents, and when she still refused, he said: ‘Because of the heroism of your family, twelve and a half cents. That’s seven hundred fifty dollars, a princely sum for a young girl like you.’ But as the evening closed, she was still refusing.
When she returned to the Wetzel quarters, the others argued with her, telling her that with $750 she could buy a good house in Jacksborough and learn to sew or help in other ways. It never occurred to them or her that she might one day marry, or even have children. She would always be a homeless waif, and they wished for her own good to see her settled: ‘We’ll be leaving in a few days, you know. You certainly can’t live alone in a great empty fort like this, even if you do own it.’ But she would not consent.
In the morning the Quimpers, the Wetzels and the Reeds combined to try to make her see the advisability of accepting the general’s offer, but she rebuffed them: ‘This is the land my father settled. My whole family paid a terrible price for it. I paid a terrible price. And I will not surrender it, not even if I have to live here with coyotes.’
Nothing could be said to dislodge her, and she was dismissed, as if she were seven instead of seventeen.
When she was gone, Reed asked Quimper if he would like to see the fort as it had functioned in its glory years, and when Yancey said with pomp: ‘I would appreciate seeing how our fort operated,’ off they went, taking the Quimper sons with them.
Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Wetzel were left to entertain Mrs. Quimper, and this was a pleasing arrangement, for it gave the fort women a chance to clarify certain obscurities. Louise Reed started the questions: ‘I wasn’t aware that your husband had been at Monterrey, your present husband, that is.’
Bertha Wetzel broke in: ‘Of course we knew about your first husband, a great hero. We had a pamphlet to educate the troops about the man for whom their fort was named.’
Mrs. Quimper was eager to talk once more with military wives who understood the intricacies of a soldier’s life: ‘When General Quimper married me, and I was most gratified to find a man so gentle and so helpful … You’ve seen my first two sons. They were on their way to becoming little ruffians when he stepped in to make men of them. I’ll be forever grateful.’
‘You were saying that when you married …’ Mrs. Reed rarely allowed a visitor to leave a thought unfinished.
‘Looking back, I can now see that he was a big, formless man with no character. But when he married me he found himself with a ready-made character, my husband’s. He began to dress like him, speak like him. He stood straighter, learned military talk. He took my sons and gave them his name. And soon he was talking incessantly about Sam Garner’s exploits at Monterrey. But soon it was “our exploits,” and before long, “my exploits.” One night I heard him explain to a group of generals how he had charged the Bishop’s Palace atop that Monterrey hill. He had also been very brave at Vicksburg. He adopted me, and my sons, and my dead husband’s military career.’ She held her palms up and smiled: ‘So he is now both my first husband and my second.’
‘But he did this from a solid foundation,’ Mrs. Reed suggested. ‘San Jacinto and all.’
Mrs. Quimper laughed: ‘Right after the battle, my first husband told me about Quimper and his capture of Santa Anna. The poor Mexican was hiding in the bushes. His ragged clothing made Yancey think he was a mere peon, but they took him in and only later learned who he was.’
‘With such behavior,’ Mrs. Wetzel asked, ‘how did he become a general?’
‘Very simple. One day he announced to the world: “I am a general,” and Texas was so hungry for heroes, they allowed him to be a general.’
Mrs. Reed poured Mrs. Quimper a second cup of tea, then said very quietly: ‘Have you heard about Lewis Renfro’s heroic rescue of that young woman you just saw, the Larkin girl?’
‘Everybody’s heard. Texas papers were filled with little else.’
‘The same.’
Mrs. Quimper looked first at Mrs. Reed, who was smiling, then at Mrs. Wetzel, who was laughing outright, and their humor was so infectious that she had to smile, even though she did not yet understand the reason. ‘You mean’—she fumbled for a word that would not be too condemnatory of her husband—‘that he was also a gentle fraud?’
Now Mrs. Wetzel could not contain herself: ‘This wonderful colored soldier, no neck, could fight anyone. He rescued Emma Larkin from six Comanche.’ She collapsed in laughter.
‘Yes,’ Mrs. Reed said. ‘Our very brave cavalry sergeant did just that.’
Mrs. Wetzel told the rest: ‘So then our hero, Lewis Renfro, Commander in Chief of Desk Forces, he rides up, recognizes the girl, grabs her, and grabs the glory.’
The three women chuckled at the follies of the self-appointed heroes whose antics they had observed, and when Mrs. Wetzel began to gasp for air, the other two broke into very unladylike guffaws.
When the Quimpers departed, with Yancey plea
sed at having seen his fort but dismayed by his failure to acquire the land, Mrs. Reed resumed the task of closing down the post, and as she moved from building to building she saw many things to remind her of the good work she had done in transforming this lonely outpost into a haven of civilization. In this stone building she had organized the social teas for each new wife; in a corner of that building she had arranged for everyone to place his extra books so that a library might be started; in this small garden, fertilized with manure from the stables, she had grown flowers for the hospital; and in the dead-house she had made the disfigured corpses acceptable before their friends or families saw them. In the chapel she had persuaded her husband to conduct prayers when there was no regular chaplain; and on Suds Row she had helped when babies had the croup.
Most important, she had been the guiding spirit in converting this mud outpost into a square-cornered fort of limestone. It had lasted, in its complete form, only three years, but she resolved that if her husband was now assigned to a newly established fort, probably some leagues to the west where the settlers were probing, she would encourage him to build of stone from the start: ‘We live in any place only briefly, George. They may laugh and ask us as we depart: “Why did you take the trouble to build of stone?” If they don’t understand that this was the home of two hundred soldiers, I’ll not be able to explain.’ She did not weep as they departed, but she did keep looking backward until Bear Creek disappeared, and the Brazos, and the tops of the buildings at the fort, and she kept doing so until only the vast plains and its endless blue sky were visible.
• • •
These eventful days had been difficult for Earnshaw Rusk, for the army despised him as a dreamer who refused to look facts in the face, and his own Quakers deplored him as a traitor who in panic had called in the soldiers to settle a temporary difficulty that could have been handled by negotiation.
After his expulsion in disgrace from Camp Hope, he had tried living for a while at Jacksborough, but that robust settlement, where men resolved arguments with guns and fists, provided no place for a man like him. He had also tried the town that had grown up at the edges of Fort Griffin to the south, but that was a true hellhole whose shenanigans terrified him. Then he served as a night nurse in a field hospital at another fort, where his behavior at Camp Hope was not known, and now when he heard that Fort Garner was being disbanded, he came back to the scene of his humiliation.
He went, as he had long planned in his confused imagination, to the house once occupied by Captain Wetzel and his wife, and there he found Emma Larkin working alone as if she were living safely in the heart of some small town. She seemed adjusted to the problem of living without ears or nose, and when, after the first awkward greetings, he asked where she would make her home, she replied in her soft whisper: ‘Here at the fort. I like it and it’s mine.’
He accepted the tea she offered him in a cup left behind by the Wetzels, and she showed him how she had collected quite a few household items from the other departing officers: ‘I’ll live.’
Sitting in the chair that was once Wetzel’s favorite, he began his awkward speech: ‘Emma, I’ve made a terrible mess of my life.’ He did not say it, but she knew he intended to say ‘And thee has made a mess of thine. Or, other people made a mess for thee.’ Instead he plowed on: ‘And I have been wondering …’
He stopped. From that first day when he met this pitiful child he had speculated on what might happen to her. How could a human being so abused survive? How could she face the world? It was out of such wonderment that he had been impelled to carve the nose which she now wore. It had not been because of love, for he had no comprehension of that word and little understanding of the complex emotions it represented, but it was out of concern, and caring. And he was caring now.
‘I’ve been wondering what thee would do … with thy protectors gone.’ By this use of an inappropriate word—for this young woman required no protectors—he betrayed his line of reasoning: ‘And I’ve thought …’ He could not go on. Nothing in his lonely, bungling life had prepared him to speak the words that should be spoken now.
Emma Larkin, damaged and renewed as few humans would ever be, reached out, touched his hand, and used his first name for the first time: ‘Earnshaw, I’ve been given this land, these buildings. I will need someone to help me.’
‘Could I be thy helper?’ he managed to stammer.
‘Thee could, Earnshaw,’ she whispered. ‘Thee could indeed.’
… TASK FORCE
It was midsummer in Austin, and heat lay over the city like an oppressive blanket which intercepted oxygen and brought blazing discomfort. Day after day the temperature hovered close to a hundred degrees as a cloudless sky glared down like the inside of a superheated bronze bowl. Fish in the lovely lake kept toward the bottom where the sun’s incessant beating was lessened if not escaped, and in the countryside torpid cattle sought any vestige of shade. It could be hot in Texas, and all who could afford it fled to New Mexico.
Despite the heat, we were scheduled to hold our July meeting in Beaumont, the famous oil city near the Gulf, where we hoped optimistically there might be breezes. I anticipated a productive meeting, since we were to be addressed by Professor Garvey Jaxifer from Red River State College. My staff assured me that he was not inflammatory, only persistent, and I told them: ‘Persistence after truth we can live with,’ so the meeting was arranged.
I was therefore disturbed when Rusk and Quimper called me on a conference line to ask that I convene an extraordinary two-day meeting prior to Beaumont. I supposed they were going to protest my invitation to Professor Jaxifer, but they assured me that this was not their concern; Rusk growled: ‘I’ve heard the man twice, here in Fort Worth. If he knew figures, I’d hire him. Solid citizen.’
What the improvised meeting was to discuss I could not guess, but at nine one steamy morning Miss Cobb, Professor Garza and I assembled at Austin’s Browning Airport for private planes and watched as two jets landed in swift succession. As they taxied toward us I wondered why two were needed, but when the first opened its doors I saw that Lorenzo Quimper had picked up our three staffers from Dallas, so apparently it was going to be an important session.
The conspirators would not tell us where we were going, but shortly we were flying northwest on a route which would take us, I calculated, over Abilene and Lubbock. ‘What’s this all about?’ I asked Quimper, who rode in my plane, and he winked. I guessed that we were going to hold a preliminary session of some kind in a place like Amarillo, but when we had reached that general area and gave no sign of descending, I knew we must be entering New Mexico.
After Quimper served us a choice of drinks and Danish, we began to descend, and soon one of the young men, a better geographer than I, shouted: ‘Hey! Santa Fe!’
Flying low, so that we could see the grandest city of the Southwest, we swung north along the highway to Taos, circled a large ranch, and landed on a private strip, macadamized and six thousand feet long. ‘Ransom’s hacienda,’ Quimper announced, and when we joined the others on the tarmac, Rusk said, almost apologetically: ‘Il Magnifico and I, we thought Texas was just too damned hot. I want you to enjoy two days of relaxation … anything you’d like to do. The helicopter’s here … riding horses … swimming … great mountain trails. Taos up that way, Santa Fe down there.’
It was the kind of gesture the very rich in Texas like to make, but I noticed that everything about the place was low key: Ford pickups with gun racks behind the driver’s head, not Mercedes; rough bunkhouses with Hudson’s Bay blankets for cold nights; and no Olympic-sized swimming pool, just a small, friendly dipping place in which the girl from SMU was going to look just great, because even if she hadn’t brought a swimsuit, Rusk’s Mexican housekeeper could offer her a choice of six or seven.
It was a splendid break in the heat, for the Rusk ranch was 6,283 feet high, with magnificent views of mountains higher than 12,000. But the emotional part of our visit, and I use that word with
fondest memories, came at dusk on that first day when Quimper signaled his chief pilot to bring before us, as we sat by the pool drinking juleps, four rather long boxes wrapped in gift paper.
‘Working with you characters,’ Lorenzo said, ‘has been both an education and a privilege. Never knew I could get along so amiably with anarchists.’ Bowing to Garza, he said: ‘On this happy occasion I cannot refrain from sharing my latest Aggie joke. Seems your aviation experts have invented a new type of parachute. Opens on impact.’
‘I’m walking home,’ Garza said, whereupon Lorenzo grabbed him: ‘I thought you might, so I brought you just the thing for hiking.’
Shuffling the four parcels, he selected one and handed it to Rusk, who tore off the paper to disclose a long shoebox, inside which rested a pair of incredibly ornate boots. Products of the workmen at the General Quimper Boot Factory, they had been especially orchestrated, with the front showing a bull of the Texas Longhorn breed Rusk was striving to perpetuate on his Larkin County ranch, the side offering one of his oil derricks, and the back of the boot a fine version of his Learjet in blue and gold. The retail cost of such masterpieces I did not care to guess, but I remembered a catalogue that had offered lesser boots at three thousand dollars.
We were still awed by Rusk’s gift when Miss Cobb opened hers to reveal a tall, slim pair ideally suited to her grave demeanor. They were silver and gray, with not a bit of ornamentation to detract from the exquisite patterning of the leather itself; it seemed to have been sculpted in eleven subtle shades of gray.
‘What kind of leather?’ the young woman from SMU cried, and Quimper replied with obvious pride in his men’s workmanship: ‘Amazon boa constrictor.’ They were once-in-a-lifetime boots, and Miss Cobb was so touched by Lorenzo’s gesture that she did not allow herself to speak lest she behave in a sentimental manner ill-befitting her Cobb ancestry.