The Fallon Legacy, page 30
“You’re an Edwards man,” James said.
Sterne spread his hands. “I try to keep an open mind, but I want to keep what I have built. Yes, I am an Edwards man.” A man in buckskins came in and began pawing through the blankets. “You will forgive me, bitte? I have a customer.”
James waited till Sterne was busy with the man in buckskins, then drew Groce farther away. “You never did say what you thought, Jared. Do you support Edwards?”
“Edwards is an ass, James. But the Mexicans don’t like us, you know. Yanquis, I mean.”
“I haven’t noticed any special dislike.”
“Then you haven’t met the right Mexicans. Most—the Congress, for instance—don’t like what we’re doing in Texas.”
“Come on,” James laughed. “If the Congress wanted us out, they’d revoke our grants in a minute.”
“They want it both ways,” Groce said seriously. “In three years we’ve brought more settlers into Texas than the Mexicans ever had here, or the Spanish before them. We’ve done more with the land than they ever did, too. That’s all well and good, but once they see what can be done with the land, they remember we aren’t Mexican. Why do you think they combined Texas and Coahuila, and only gave Texas one seat in the State Legislature? To make sure yanquis didn’t get any sort of control.”
“It’s their country, Jared.”
“Ours, too, James. Or don’t you think that horse ranch is yours? What are you going to do if, after you build it all, they revoke your grant and give it to a Mexican?”
“I took out Mexican citizenship,” James said, a trace doubtfully.
“That didn’t change your blood. You’re not one of la raza, and you’d better remember it.”
“What I’m going to remember is that unless we get things straightened out here, we may all get chased out of Texas. Now, where can I get a room?”
“Quincannon’s,” Groce said promptly. “That’s where Austin and I are staying. Seventy-five cents a day with meals, fifty cents without. It’s better without. Beef and beans, or jackrabbit and beans, is about it.”
“Where is Austin, anyway?”
“He’s trying to chase down Ben Edwards, Haden’s brother. With Haden gone, he’s the only one who can slow things down. If he wants to.”
“Gone! Where’s he gone?”
“You didn’t know? He’s back in the States. Something about investors for the colony.”
“Christ!” The only reason for his being there was Austin’s belief that he could talk to Haden Edwards. When he saw Austin, it would be to say good-bye before going home to Drusilla.
Quincannon’s Clean Rooms and Board was about what he expected, a two-story adobe with the sign painted on the front. There was a menu painted by the door, and he noticed that Groce was right. Beans and more beans. He and José were offered a tiny room with two pallets on the floor and a window with one remaining sheet of oiled paper. They were lucky to get that, the clerk said, considering the crowding in town. Leaving their saddlebags and bedrolls in the room, they split up, José to percolate among the mexicanos, James among the yanquis.
James worked his way from one saloon where norteamericanos predominated to another. They were a decidedly mixed bag. Farmers and tradesmen who’d come with their families and belongings, ready for the glorious new life described in the Eastern papers. Smugglers and river toughs drawn by the rumors of wealth to be had for the taking. Gamblers come to prey on the rest.
Some had bought certificates in the States, purporting to be good for land in Texas. The fine print revealed they merely promised the right to buy land, and then from empresarios no one had heard of. Others had bought land from Mexicans, and had the deeds to prove it, but there was no way to tell whether the Mexicans had had the right to sell it. At least half had bought land from the Edwards brothers, or were signed up to, and tempers were running high. He saw half a dozen fistfights over land, and once knives were drawn. Others in the crowd managed to soothe the combatants down, but James could see it was only a matter of time. Knives, then guns, then the Mexican Army.
He returned to Quincannon’s to find José with much the same story. The Mexicans were a mixture of sharpers and honest folk, some of whom had bought land from the sharpers. A few had bought land from Edwards, land they claimed was already theirs, but for the rest only a distrust of yanquis kept them from joining with the norteamericanos who were complaining about Edwards.
It was late when a boy knocked on their doors and summoned Señor Fallon downstairs. Austin was standing outside in the night, leaning against the hitching rail. The town was only slightly less quiet than it had been in daylight. There were fewer people on the streets, but the increase in noise from the saloons more than made up for it.
“Reminds me of Girod Street,” Austin said. “Cigar?”
“Thanks. Nothing’s as bad as the Swamp.” He paused to bite the end off his cigar and puff it alight from Austin’s. “I haven’t seen any ears bitten off, or eyes gouged.”
“The violence is there, James. Waiting to break out.” Austin’s fur cap was pulled low on his forehead. He wore fringed buckskins.
“How do you intend to stop it, Stephen? I’m assuming you do.”
“I don’t know, James.”
“Christ, I don’t even know which side you’re on. I thought it was obvious, at first, but from what I’ve been hearing since I got here I don’t know who’s in the right.”
Austin grimaced at his cigar. “These things are beginning to taste like rope. I’m smoking too many.” He tossed it into the street, trailing sparks. “I’m not on any side, James. Or maybe I’m on everyone’s side.”
“Straddling a fence is a good way to get a sore crotch, Stephen. You have to come down on one side or the other.”
“Which side are you on? Or are you just going to go back to your ranch and put your head in the sand?”
James puffed his cigar before replying. “I don’t have to take sides. There’s nothing I can do either way.”
“And I can?” Austin laughed. “One side won’t listen to me because I’m an empresario, and the other … James, Haden has some right on his side—a little—but he seems of a mind to run roughshod over everybody. And Ben is a hothead. Siding with them is tantamount to setting a torch to Texas. Hell, siding with anyone will set Texas on fire.”
“What’s left?”
“Compromise.”
“You don’t need me for that. You’re the lawyer.”
“So you’re going home?”
“Damn it, Stephen, Drusilla’s expecting.”
“I heard you’d married. Congratulations. You might even have time to see your baby walk before Mexican troops show up to tell you to leave.”
“Damn you, Austin!” He flicked his cigar into the darkness. “I’ll stay. But only for a few days. I intend to be there when my baby is born.”
“Thank you, James. A few days will do it. Just until Haden gets back.”
38
The days Austin had spoken of stretched into weeks. More than once James was prepared to leave, but always Austin managed to talk him out of it.
In front of Quincannon’s he saw José, and hitched his horse. “Any word, José?”
“Juan returned less than an hour ago, señor.”
“A letter?” he asked hopefully. José shook his head. “He said Doña Drusilla is in good health, though.”
James nodded disconsolately. He’d written to Drusilla, explaining. He’d written every week, the time it took a messenger on a fast horse to carry the letter to the rancho and return. And except for reports on Drusilla’s health from the messenger, there had been no word.
“Be of good heart, señor. With her time drawing near, a woman’s temper is uncertain at best. I mean …”
“I know what you mean, old friend.” He noticed two men in buckskin and homespun lounging against the wall a short distance away. “What are Walters and Lloyd doing around here?” They were Edwards men, but not settlers. James wasn’t sure what they did, except follow Ben Edwards around.
“They were asking for you earlier, señor.”
“For me?” He didn’t like either man. Walters had a face like a weasel and a nose that was always red at the tip. Lloyd sucked his teeth, and a sour smell hung around him in a cloud.
Apparently aware he’d seen them, they approached diffidently, crushing their hats in their hands. It was an unusual attitude for them.
“Mr. Fallon.” Walters wore a toothy grin that slipped from time to time. “Mr. Fallon, me and Lloyd was wondering.” Lloyd tried a grin as well.
“About what, Walters?”
Walters avoided looking at José. “You know the Mexes pretty good, don’t you?”
“Get on with it.”
“Well, sir, they wouldn’t cause no trouble, would they? I mean, take the law in their own hands, so to speak?”
“Have you done something you’re worried about, Walters?”
“Oh, no, sir. Nothing like that. I guess me and Lloyd’s got to go. Come on, Lloyd.” Lloyd mumbled something around his teeth, and the two hurried off.
James turned to José. “Do you have any idea what that’s about?”
“I have heard nothing, señor. Perhaps if I ask a few questions.”
“Do that. I’ll see if Austin’s heard anything.”
James started looking for Austin in the saloons. Austin wasn’t a drinker—if anything he led an ascetic lire—but the saloons were the center of political talk in Nacogdoches, and if anything would draw Austin, it was politics. He didn’t find Austin, but in the last one, a place called the Boston Saloon and Coffee House, he found Gerard Fourrier, sitting alone at a table with a bottle, listening to the talk around him with a sly smile.
He started to duck back out, but Fourrier looked at the door at just that moment. His smile deepened. “Ah, Fallon. Come, man. Sit. Sit. Don’t think I hold anything against you. That was all Cordelia.”
He couldn’t help wondering why the man was in Nacogdoches. “I can only stay long enough for one drink.”
“Just to signify that bygones are bygones.” Fourrier called for another glass and filled it while James was taking a seat. His coat of navy superfine, pale fawn trousers, and curly brimmed beaver hat were more suited to New Orleans than Texas. “You have a place on the Trinidad, isn’t that right? Just a few hundred miles north of us.”
James felt a chill. This man knowing where Drusilla was was disquieting. “You married Cordelia’s niece, I heard.”
“Yes. Lucille. Lovely girl.”
“What brings you to Nacogdoches? I was a little surprised to see you so far north.”
“Business,” Fourrier said vaguely. “You’re quite involved in the local situation?”
“A little. What sort of business?” He knew it was a rude question.
Fourrier frowned before answering. “I’m looking for investments.”
“What sort of investments?”
Fourrier tossed back his drink and rose. “I must meet someone.” With a tip of his hat, he was gone.
James finished his own drink angrily and followed. Whatever Fourrier was up to, it couldn’t be important enough for him to waste time on. As he left the saloon he saw Austin, four houses down and headed the other way.
“Stephen!” Austin looked back and waved, but kept walking. James trotted after the smaller man until he caught up. “Stephen, I think there’s some trouble afoot. Will you stop a minute?”
“There might well be,” Austin said without slowing. “I just found out Haden Edwards is back.”
“Walters and Lloyd approached me a little while ago. They’re afraid the Mexicans might get up in arms about something. They wouldn’t say what.”
“It couldn’t be Edwards. He only returned last night. Oh, damn!” he said as they rounded a corner. Ahead was the stone house the Edwards brothers shared, fronting on the plaza next to the old church. The plaza held two dozen mounted men. A score of horses with empty saddles indicated more men were inside.
The mounted men parted for them silently. They were divided about half-and-half, yanquis and mexicanos. James recognized several—they avoided his eye, now—all of whom were among those he considered honest.
“Did you mark them?” Austin said quietly when they reached the door.
James nodded. “No gamblers, no smugglers, no sharpers.”
“Honest folk, James. And hell to pay, I fear.” He knocked on the door. A black-bearded man with a work-hardened face jerked it open. James knew him, Cap Wainwright, a farmer from Virginia who had bought land from a Mexican before Edwards arrived.
“You two come to testify for him,” Wainwright growled. “or against him?”
Austin crowded forward, and James stuck right behind him, so that Wainwright was obliged to let them in or physically bar them. He stepped aside reluctantly.
“Is Edwards on trial then, Cap?” James said. He tried to make it sound like a joke, but Wainwright’s face tightened.
“That he is.” He jerked his head toward the door at the end of the hall. “The two of you had best come on in, now you’re here.”
The parlor was crowded, the walls lined with men gripping rifles and muskets, three others—the leaders, James assumed—standing out in the floor. Only Haden Edwards was seated, lounging back in a wingchair, one leg over the other, puffing a cigar a trifle too casually and a touch too fast.
Wainwright took his place with three leaders, two mexicanos and a yanqui. Only then did it come to James that Wainwright was one of them. Two from each camp.
“You’ll forgive me,” Edwards said, “for not rising. These people seem nervous if I make sudden moves. Are the two of you also, ah, guests?” He flicked his cigar ash at Wainwright with a curl of his lip. His hand shook slightly.
“We’re not prisoners,” Austin said, more confidently than James thought he had a right to. “We came to help. What are the charges? Señor Wainwright mentioned a trial.”
“They have no damned right,” Edwards began, but one of the Mexicans cut him off.
“The charges are simple, Señor Austin.” Pedro Marin was short, plump, and burned almost black by the sun. A farmer, he had left when Arredondo ordered Nacogdoches abandoned, and returned before Edwards. “Señor Edwards has stolen land from the men who own it, and he will steal more if he is not stopped.”
“I’ve stolen nothing!” Edwards shouted. “I have a grant!”
“Gently,” Austin said as Marin, Wainwright, and the other two rounded on Edwards. “Gently, señores, and we will work this out. Compromise can solve many things.”
“When things are worked out, señor,” Marin said, “it is always Señor Edwards who wins. It is we who were here before him who lose.”
“But surely,” Austin began.
“No, señor,” Marin said. “Too many times have men found their land in the hands of Señor Edwards’s colonos, who refuse to give it back even when the deeds are shown. Too many times men have been told that they must present papers to Senor Edwards to prove that the land they live on is theirs. And if they have no papers, he has said he will take the land.”
“That’s what we must settle, Senor Marin,” Austin said calmly. “There are many claims and counterclaims, and you know as well as I that some on both sides are false. This is a matter that must be solved by compromise.”
Marin shook his head. “It is too late, señor. Yesterday the land owned by Esteban Morales was sold by the brother of this man to one of his colonos. When Morales refused to give up his land, he was beaten by Señor Edwards’s asesinos. If friends had not found him, he would have died.”
The men around the wall growled angrily. Scuffling feet and the firming of grips on weapons told James they were within seconds of hauling Edwards to the nearest tall tree.
“Why don’t you take things into your own hands?” he said. Austin gave him a startled look. Edwards’s mouth dropped open. “You can just take Edwards out and hang him. You say he deserves it.”
“For the love of God, James!” Austin said in consternation. He pressed on.
“No need for a trial, or even a magistrado. Of course, you’ll each of you have to keep a close eye on the others.”
“What do you mean, señor?” Carlos Sarmento asked. A tall, mustachioed vaquero, he had come to Nacogdoches to reclaim his father’s land. That his was a valid claim was evidenced to James by the fact that the land was not the best available, it had not been improved by one of Edwards’s colonists, and Sarmento had resisted all efforts to buy it.
“I mean you’ll know what each other has done,” James said. “Even if you give it the trappings of law, you don’t have the authority. You’ll be the lawbreakers, then. Which of you will talk of it while drunk? Talk about how he helped hang Haden Edwards, and wasn’t it a good day’s work? Which of you will begin to worry and go to the authorities, turning in the rest in exchange for clemency? So watch each other. And watch your own backs, too. If somebody thinks you’re about to talk …” He made a motion like driving a knife home.
“We never mentioned no hanging,” Peter Skelton muttered. He was a leather-skinned Georgia blacksmith whose shoulders seemed about to burst the seams of his coat. He had brought his wife and six children to Texas.
James looked at Austin, and the smaller man stepped right in. “Of course no one did. You’re all law-abiding men. If anyone here attempted anything illegal, I’m sure that he would be promptly reported to the authorities.”
The four leaders had lost much of their belligerence. Those against the wall looked at each other suspiciously.
“But what are we to do then, señor?” Marin asked. “We cannot carry him to Saltillo for trial. It is too far.”
“First you must decide whether there’s reason for a trial,” Austin said.
Wainwright bristled, beard shaking angrily. “Reason! He’s stealing land, ain’t he? He had Morales beat, didn’t he?”
“Did he?” Austin said. “Senor Morales was attacked yesterday, you say. Haden Edwards didn’t return to Nacogdoches until last night.”
