Texas Page 3

  At this moment he crossed his legs, allowing us to see the full expanse of his remarkable boots. They were light-gray leather adorned in front by large Lone Stars in silver. Above each star, as if to protect it, spread extended greenish-bronze Longhorns, while along the outer flank of each boot appeared a small Colts revolver made of burnished gold. ‘Hey!’ Professor Garza cried. ‘Are you General Quimper?’

  ‘It’s one of my companies.’

  ‘You make terrific boots.’

  ‘We go for the muted understatement,’ Quimper said, brushing the right Colts with his fingers. ‘We call it “Texas refined.” ’

  ‘And here is the star of our group,’ the governor resumed, ‘Miss Lorena Cobb.’ He kissed her, whereupon Rusk and Quimper did the same. She held out her hand to Garza and smiled warmly. Then she shook my hand with just a little more reserve, for she was not sure who I was.

  ‘The brains of our group, and I say that enviously,’ the governor continued as he reached Garza, ‘Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M.’

  ‘Did you hear the one about the meeting of the state library board?’ Quimper broke in, gripping Dr. Garza by the arm. ‘They were doling out funds and this expert from UT said: “Why should we give A&M anything? They already have two books, and one of them isn’t even colored yet.” ’ Dr. Garza, smiling wanly, like a man who had to suffer much, turned and shook my hand. I was pleased to meet him because, unlike Quimper, I had great regard for A&M, in my opinion the top technical school in the Southwest.

  Now the governor faced me. ‘To head this group of prima donnas, I had to find someone with an international reputation. And here he is, Dr. Travis Barlow, who took a distinguished doctorate at Cambridge in England. And you were an undergraduate here at Texas?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And you won a Pulitzer Prize for that book you wrote in Colorado?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well, you’re to be chairman of this Task Force.’

  ‘Task Force on what?’ Rusk asked, and the governor said: ‘That’s what we’re here to talk about. I did not specify your duties because I wanted none of you to decline.’

  When we were seated about the big table in his office he said: ‘As a main feature of our Sesquicentennial, I want you to place before our citizens a comprehensive report on two important questions: “How should our schoolchildren and college students learn about Texas history?” And “What should they learn?” ’

  ‘First thing they should learn,’ broke in Quimper, ‘is that the stupid word sesquicentennial means one hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Lorenzo!’ the governor retorted. ‘All Texans except you speak Latin.’

  ‘I would too, if I’d gotten past third grade,’ Quimper said in the mock-illiterate style he sometimes affected.

  ‘Is this to be just another study?’ Rusk asked.

  ‘Heavens, no!’ the governor moaned, and he pointed to a shelf in the corner of his office where a pile of notebooks rested. ‘We’ve studied Texas education up to our armpits. What I seek now are specific, hard-nosed recommendations.’

  ‘On what?’ Rusk asked.

  ‘On how to instill in our children a love for the uniqueness of Texas.’

  ‘Doesn’t that sound a little pompous?’ Miss Cobb asked, and the governor said: ‘On the day you become governor of this great state you realize that it really is unique … what a priceless heritage we’ve been given to protect.’ I could hear bugles sounding at the Alamo.

  ‘Como Tejas, no hay otro,’ Quimper said with a bow toward Garza. ‘There’s no place like Texas. I tell that to all my ranch hands.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ the governor said. ‘The six of us know how unique we are, but the hordes drifting down from states like Michigan and Ohio, they don’t know. And the equal number flooding in from below the Rio Grande, they don’t know, either. If we don’t take steps to preserve our heritage, we’re going to lose it.’

  ‘What exactly are we to do?’ Miss Cobb asked.

  ‘Three things. First, define the essentials of our history, the things that have made us rather more significant than the other states.’ Now I could hear the band playing at some remote frontier fort in 1869 when Texas fought off the wild Comanche. ‘Second, advise our educational leaders as to how they can safeguard this heritage and carry it forward. Third, I want you to hold your Task Force sessions in various parts of the state—to awaken interest, pose challenges, organize displays of Texas history, and above all, allow everyone with a special interest to have his or her say.’

  ‘We could put together a big television show,’ Quimper said enthusiastically, but no one supported him.

  ‘As to housekeeping details,’ the governor resumed, ‘I have ordered that state funds be made available to pay the salaries of three graduate students to assist you. The three I’ve chosen happen to be relatives of state senators, but even so, I’m assured they’re bright. And they’re from different parts of the state. Texas Tech, Texas El Paso, and a very talented young publicity woman from SMU. You have them for the duration, researching the facts, helping to organize the report. You’ll also have ample funds for travel and for guest speakers. As I said before, I want you to hold each of your meetings in a different city. So that the whole state participates. And of course you’ll have access to books, maps, word processors, and central office space here in the capitol building.’

  At this point he stepped back to study us admiringly: ‘My Task Force! You know, I served in the navy off Vietnam, and even the words thrill me. A task force, sleek ships speeding through the night. Your mission is extremely important.’

  ‘We may be your Task Force,’ Quimper said, ‘but I’ll bet you don’t want us to fire any big guns.’

  ‘Let’s go in to lunch,’ the governor said, and when we were seated he counseled us: ‘Lorenzo was right. No gunfire. Make as few people unhappy as possible. Avoid the adverse headline. But snap this state to attention regarding its history.’ Then, pointing his finger at Miss Cobb, he said: ‘And people like you are the ones who can do it.’

  During the luncheon I noticed two peculiarities. Ransom Rusk seemed to speak only to his equals, Quimper and Miss Cobb, ignoring Garza and me. And everyone said ‘Miss Cobb,’ except Il Magnifico, who invariably addressed her as Miss Lorena, pronouncing it with a courtly ‘Miz,’ which she seemed to appreciate. After he had done this several times I thought that if I was going to be chairman of the group, I should participate in some of the conversation: ‘Lorena’s a beautiful name, Miss Cobb,’ and she replied with just a touch of restraint: ‘It was a cherished song in the War Between the States. Cherished by the Southern troops.’

  I detected something else of considerable importance to me personally: Ransom Rusk and Lorenzo Quimper, as two wealthy Texans accustomed to power, expected to dominate this committee. Everything they said and did betrayed this intention, and while they were not stupid, they were in my opinion reactionary and would, if left alone, draft a right-wing document. I vowed right then that I would prevent that from happening, but how, I did not know, because they were formidable men.

  Now the governor, wishing to establish our credentials, addressed each of us in turn: ‘Rusk, your people arrived in Texas when—1870s? From Pennsylvania? Miss Cobb, your people came from the Carolinas, 1840s, wasn’t it? And Quimper, you beat us all, didn’t you—1822 or thereabouts, from Tennessee? Wasn’t a Quimper the Hero of San Jacinto?’ Lorenzo nodded modestly.

  When he came to me, it was obvious he had no knowledge of my ancestry: ‘When did your people arrive, Barlow?’

  But I had a real surprise for him; I smiled and said: ‘Moses Barlow. Arrived in Gonzales … from nowhere known … 24 February 1836. Three days later he volunteered for the Alamo.’

  Startled, the governor leaned back, then reached out to grasp my hands: ‘That Barlow? We take great pride in men like him.’

  I was eager to hear Professor Garza’s credentials, but the charming secretary interrupted: ‘Gover
nor, please! The deputation’s been waiting twenty minutes.’

  After apologies for his abrupt departure, he called back: ‘Carry on, Task Force! Let’s get the ships in the water.’

  We spent about an hour going over basics and I was pleasantly surprised at how knowledgeable these people were. Rusk cut directly to the heart of any problem, as billionaires learn to do, which is why they’re billionaires, I suppose. Quimper provided us with a constant and I must say welcome barrage of Texas observations such as: ‘He jumped on that one like a duck jumpin’ on a June bug’ and ‘They’ll be as busy as a cow swatting flies with a bobbed tail.’ Like any self-respecting Texan, he was adept in barnyard and ranching similes.

  Miss Cobb was, as I had suspected, very bright and well-disciplined, and as always in such circumstances I found myself wondering why she had not married. She was, I learned before the luncheon ended, heiress to the cotton-growing fortune of the two senators, and I was assured by Quimper that ‘she could of gone to Washington too, had she wanted to make the fight when Lyndon Johnson pulled that swifty in 1960. He bulldozed a change in Texas election law making it legal for him to run for both the Senate and the vice-presidency on the same day. He won both elections, then surrendered his Senate seat. Neatest trick of his career, because it carried him to the presidency.’

  It was she who verbalized our problem: ‘We must remind our students and ourselves that Texas is great because it boasts seven different cultural inheritances.’

  ‘Which seven?’ Rusk asked.

  And now I made an amusing discovery. I had been worrying about the wrong potential dictators, Rusk and Quimper. The real danger was going to be with Miss Cobb, because although she wore the muted gray of a retiring nun, it was really a battleship-gray, and when she spoke it was with steellike authority.

  Standing before the big map in a conference room attached to the governor’s office, she lectured us as if we were schoolchildren: ‘I’m not speaking about regional differences. Anyone can see that Jefferson up here in the swampy northeast bears little resemblance to El Paso down here in the desert, nearly eight hundred miles away. Such physical differences are easy. Even Northern newcomers can see them. But we miss the whole meaning of Texas if we miss the cultural differences.’

  ‘I asked before, which ones?’ Rusk did not suffer vagueness, not even from his friends.

  ‘First, Indian. They flourished here centuries before any of us arrived, but in our wisdom we exterminated them, so their influence has been minimal. Second, Spanish-Mexican, which we try to ignore. Third, those stubborn Kentucky-Tennessee settlers, originally from places like New York and Philadelphia, who built their own little Baptist and Methodist world along the Brazos River. Fourth, we latecomers from the Old South, we built a beautiful plantation life of slaves, cotton and secession. Our influence was strong and lasting, as you can hear when Lorenzo calls me “Miz.” Fifth, the great secret of Texas history, the blacks, whose history we mute and whose contributions we deny. Sixth, the free-wheeling cowboy on his horse or in his Chevy pickup driving down the highway with his six-pack and gun rack. And seventh, those wonderful Germans who came here in the last century to escape oppression in Europe. Yes, and I add the Czechs and the other Europeans, too. What a wonderful contribution those groups made.’

  Quimper said: ‘I’d never have placed the Germans in a major category,’ and she replied: ‘In the early censuses they accounted for about a third of our immigrant population. My father told me: “Always remember, Lorena, it was the Germans who put us Cobbs in Washington and the Mexicans who kept us there.” ’

  Rusk, who had been studying his fingernails during this recital, said in a deep rumble: ‘I don’t think the Spanish influence amounted to a hill of beans in this state,’ whereupon Professor Garza said sharply: ‘Then you don’t know the first three hundred years of Texas history,’ and Rusk was about to respond when I broke in with a conciliatory statement, but the temporary peace I achieved did not hide the fact that sooner or later we were bound to have a Rusk-Garza confrontation.

  The incipient fireworks awakened Quimper’s interest: ‘Professor Garza, the governor was called away before he finished introducing you. How long you been in Texas?’ and Garza replied without changing expression: ‘About four hundred and fifty years. One of my ancestors started exploring the area in 1539.’

  ‘I’m astounded.’

  ‘My students are, too.’

  This information was so striking that Miss Cobb reached over, and without realizing that she was being condescending, touched Garza’s arm as if she were a benign Sunday School teacher and he a promising lad from the other side of the tracks: ‘Who was that first Garza?’

  The professor, looking at her intrusive hand as if he resented it, decided to ignore her patronizing manner and said, with what I thought was obvious pride: ‘An illiterate and penniless muleteer on the Vera Cruz-Mexico run. Born 1525. And since I was born in 1945, more than four hundred years separated us. Now, if you allot twenty point six years to a generation, which is not unreasonable, since Garzas usually had sons before the age of twenty-one, that means about twenty-one generations from the original to me.’

  Rusk, who had whipped out a pocket calculator, corrected him: ‘Twenty point twenty-nine generations,’ at which Garza smiled and said: ‘There were a lot of very early births. But this first Garza didn’t marry till he was thirty-three. We count twenty-one generations.’

  ‘So what’s his relation to you?’ Quimper asked, and Garza replied: ‘My great eighteen-times grandfather.’

  As we stared at the handsome young man in the silence that followed, the history of Texas seemed to recede to a shadowy period we had not visualized. But Garza had an additional surprise: ‘In his later years our muleteer wrote a few notes about his early adventures—’

  ‘You said he was illiterate,’ Quimper broke in, and Garza agreed: ‘He was. Never learned to write till he was thirty-three.’

  ‘That’s the year he married,’ Rusk said, still fidgeting with his calculator. ‘His wife teach him?’

  ‘They bought themselves a tutor, a learned black slave. From Cuba.’

  ‘You just said he was penniless,’ Quimper said, for apparently nothing was going to go unchallenged in this committee, and again Garza agreed: ‘He was. And how he got his wife, his money and his learning is quite a story.’

  ‘Does it exist?’ Miss Cobb asked, and Garza replied: ‘In family tradition and general legend, substantiated by a few solid references in Mexican colonial history.’

  ON A STEAMY NOVEMBER DAY IN 1535 AT THE MEXICAN SEAPORT of Vera Cruz, a sturdy boy led his mules to and from the shore where barges landed supplies from anchored cargo ships. He was Garcilaço, ten years old ‘but soon to be eleven,’ as he told anyone who cared to listen.

  The illegitimate child of an Indian mother and a rebellious Spanish soldier who was executed before the woman gave birth, he was soon abandoned, placed in a home that was run by the local clergy, and then turned over to a rascally muleteer as soon as he was old enough to work. That occurred at age eight, and he had been working ever since.

  On this hot morning he had to labor especially hard, for his master had received instructions that the mules must leave immediately for the capital, Mexico City—La Ciudad de México—more than a hundred leagues distant (one league being 2.86 miles), and whenever heavy work was required in a hurry the ill-tempered man rained blows upon the boy.

  From his father, Garcilaço had inherited a build somewhat heftier than that of the average Indian; from his mother, the smooth brown skin and the black hair that cut across his forehead in a straight line reaching down almost over his eyes. And from some mysterious source he had acquired a placid disposition and an incurable optimism.

  Now, as he loaded his mules with the last of their cargo and headed them toward that long and tedious trip through the lowland jungles, he consoled himself with the thought that soon he would see the majestic volcanoes of the high plateau and
shortly thereafter the exciting streets of the capital. As he left the port city he hummed a song he had learned from other muleteers:

  ‘Klip-klop! Klip-klop!

  There in the sky

  The great volcanoes of the plain.

  Go, mules! Speed, mules!

  For here come I

  To climb their lovely path again.’

  He had memorized a dozen such songs, one for the mules when they were sick, one for dawn over the pyramids, one for a husband and wife tilling their fields of corn. Since he could not read and had no prospect of ever learning, for he was enslaved to his mules, he used his whispered songs as his bible and his dictionary:

  ‘Klip-klop! Klip-klop!

  The smoke I see

  Marks where the town hides in the vale.

  Go, mules! Speed, mules!

  Be kind to me,

  And you shall find oats in your pail.’

  Each trip up from Vera Cruz was a mixture of drudgery and joy, for although traversing the jungle along poorly kept trails was quite difficult, to travel beside the volcanoes and to see the capital looming in the distance was rewarding, especially since he knew that when he reached it he could count upon a few days of rest and better food. So he kept singing.

  On this trip, as he approached the capital, he found his mules competing for road space with unaccustomed hordes of travelers, all going in his direction, and when he asked: ‘What happens?’ he was told: ‘An auto-da-fé tomorrow. A great auto.’

  This was exciting news, for it meant that the streets would be crowded, and that vendors of sweetmeats and tips of roasted beef would be hawking their wares. He himself would have no money to buy such luxuries, but he could rely upon convivial participants to provide him with morsels here and there. An auto in Mexico City, in the cool month of November, could be a memorable affair.

  A formal auto-da-fé, act-of-faith, as conducted in Spain could be a lavish public display of the spiritual glory and temporal power of the Catholic church in its determination to root out any deviation from the True Faith. It consisted of marching soldiers, military bands, a parade of clerics in four or five differently colored robes, the appearance of the bishop himself riding in a palanquin borne by four Negro slaves, and the final appearance of an executioner leading in chains the apostates who were to be burned that day. But in Mexico in these early years an auto was a much simpler affair; on this occasion, as Garcilaço learned on entering the city, two men were to be executed, but as his informant explained, their cases were quite different.