The fallon legacy, p.37
The Fallon Legacy, page 37
He went north, up the coast, to the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon country. The British had forced John Jacob Astor out nearly fifteen years before, but there were still American trappers there. For almost ten years Great Britain and the United States had occupied it together. Americans weren’t liked, though, and the British took advantage of having their Navy to call on. He headed east with a dozen trappers to the Great Western Mountains. Some called them the Great Rockies.
A man could lose himself in a winter of beaver trapping. The days were long and hard, filled with snow and wolves and empty traps. Blackfeet and Crow tried to kill them. There was no time or energy for thinking of Texas.
In the spring there was rendezvous, a gathering at Bear Lake of every trapper in the Rockies who could ride, walk, or crawl. For two weeks they sold furs to the fur company representatives, drank and danced and celebrated living through another winter. Some of them asked James to come to Saint Louis with them, where they intended to outfit a trip to find one of those valleys everyone talked about, where the Indians were friendly, the snows came late, and the beaver were knee-high to a horse. But something seemed to be pulling him. He drifted south.
He wasn’t going back to Texas, he told himself. He was simply drifting, leaving the last place he had been before he had been there long enough to form memories. Memories were something to avoid. Memories brought pain. There were memories in Texas.
In May of 1828 he rode into San Antonio de Bexar.
San Antonio had changed little. The two plazas flanking the church of San Fernando were still filled with a gaily colored mixture of peóns displaying vegetables and baskets, marketing women, strolling vaqueros, and Indians down from the hills. The music of guitars drifted on the air, from wandering musicians and from cantinas.
No one gave him a second look. The feather on his fur cap and the length of his hair marked him for a trapper, but his buckskins were relatively clean, he was clean-shaven, and San Antonio was used to the rough yanqui trappers. He dismounted in front of a cantina and went in.
“Whiskey,” he said. The cantinero waited. He laid a coin on the bar. The cantinero brought out a bottle and glass. He tossed down the first glass and poured another. He should get back on his horse and ride north.
“James? James Fallon?”
He turned his head and frowned at the tall, sandy-haired man who had addressed him. His clothes were Eastern, a black frock coat, pale gray trousers, snowy lawn shirt, and well-polished boots. “Bowie. What are you doing in Texas, Jim?”
“Why, all your talk finally got to me. I’ve been out here a couple of months. Damn it, man, you look rough as ten miles of bad road.” Bowie’s face sobered. “I heard what happened, James. I’m sorry as hell. I wish—”
“Let’s sit down,” James said. He went to a table near the back and waited for Bowie to join him. “What’s the news from the States, Jim?” He filled his glass and pushed the bottle across to Bowie.
“Well, your mama and your step-pa are fine. They were kind of broke up about …” Bowie cleared his throat and looked away. “Elaine and Eleanor said I was to give you their love if I ran into you. They’re prettier than ever. Barbara got married just before Christmas. Charles Devereaux. You know him. Thomas Devereaux’s son.”
News of his family reminded him too much of the family he had lost. “Adams still President?”
“What? Oh, yes.” He seemed to understand James’s need. “Maybe he won’t be much longer, though.”
“Andy Jackson going to run again?”
“Of course. Most folks figure Adams to win, though. Except, the Congress is considering a tariff that has everybody up in arms, North and South. The South’s hottest about it. Calhoun says it’s an attempt to make agricultural states colonies of industrial states, and the South won’t stand for it. He could be right. Anyway, if it passes, there may be enough people mad at Adams for Jackson to win.”
Tariffs. Elections. It was hard for James to believe there were people who tied up their entire lives in such things. “Do you know I haven’t seen a newspaper in—it must be a year now. Can’t say that I missed it.”
“You haven’t missed much,” Bowie agreed. “Same things as always. The Russians are at war with the Persians. The Turks captured Athens. There’s a civil war just started in Brazil. Hell, you haven’t missed a thing.”
“You never said why you came, Jim. It’s hard to picture you settling down as a rancher. Or a farmer.”
“God save me from that,” Bowie laughed. “I’m no farmer. No. Does the name San Saba mean anything to you, James?”
“The San Saba silver mines? There are easier ways to commit suicide.”
Bowie leaned forward excitedly. “When Louis de Saint Denis found them back in seventeen fourteen, he took a fortune out.”
“The Lipans killed Saint Denis, Jim. His wife took the fortune out, if there was one. All anybody knows for sure is that she went to Spain and supposedly lived in luxury. Supposedly.”
“You know a good bit about them,” Bowie said.
“Everybody in Texas does. Finding them might be hard; staying alive is harder.”
“Come with me, James. I’m going to find them. You were a pretty good scrapper, even as a boy. Now you look hard as nails and mean as a puma.”
“I’m not interested in silver, Jim. In the morning I’m leaving Texas, and I’m not coming back.”
“You could go a lot farther with a muleload of silver.”
“I’ll go farther with my scalp on my head.”
Bowie pulled a pocket watch from under his coat and frowned. “Damn! I have an appointment to see the jefe politico, James. Why don’t we have dinner afterwards? We’ll make a night of it. Show these folks what New Orleans drinkers can do.”
“We’ll start here. In a couple of hours?”
They split outside the cantina. Bowie hurried toward the old Governor’s Palace, while James strolled the plazas. The town was poorer than it had been. More of the clothing was worn; more of the peóns were in patches. Prosperity had drained out of San Antonio with the moving of the capital to Saltillo. But there was still pride and dignity. The worn clothing was neat and clean. The peóns still joked and laughed, the strolling vaqueros still smiled, and the music was still merry. A few were still wealthy, lace-shawled women followed by maids with baskets for their purchases, and there was no envy or hatred visible among the poor.
Suddenly he stopped, rooted to the spot. There was a girl, perhaps sixteen, haggling over peppers, an ivory lace shawl drawn over her raven hair, dark eyes large in her oval face, her complexion olive satin. She was beautiful, and she looked so much like Drusilla he knew she must be Elena. Her maid, waiting patiently behind her, noticed his stare and touched the arm of a large, bearded vaquero.
The last thing James wanted was a meeting with Elena or Don Tomás. He turned away into the crowd. Before he had gone a dozen paces, a hand grabbed his arm. He turned to face the bearded vaquero. He looked vaguely familiar.
“Dispense me, señor,” the vaquero said in a deep bass, “but—”
“I don’t know you,” James said angrily. He put a hand to the knife in his belt. “Back off!” The vaquero took a quick step back, reaching for his own knife. The crowd around them buzzed and opened a space. James began to back away. If he could lose himself in the plaza …
The people behind the big vaquero parted to let Elena through. “Felipe, put up that knife!” she snapped. “And you, señor—” Her eyes widened. “James? Blessed Mary, it is you! You have returned.” She grabbed his hand in both of hers. “Felipe, it is Señor Fallon. He has come back to us.”
“Senor Fallon?” Felipe rumbled wonderingly. “Madre di Dios, it is. Forgive me, señor. I did not recognize you.” The crowd buzzed louder now that the yanqui had been recognized.
James spoke haltingly. “Elena, I … it’s been a long time. Too long. It’s best you go back to your shopping and forget you saw me.”
“Never,” she said fiercely. “I will never let you go again.”
He suppressed a smile that caught him unawares. “You’re getting to be a grown-up lady, Elenita.”
“You will think of me as a child,” she said tight-lipped. Suddenly she put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I have forgotten. It has been so long. There are letters for you. I have kept them as they came, carried them against your return. You must come with me, and I will give them to you.”
Letters. Word from his mother and stepfather, no doubt, and his sisters. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to hear from them. But getting them would mean meeting Don Tomás. “Will you send them to me? I’ll be at the Cantina Lopez for tonight.”
“You must come for them yourself, James. Papá and I are staying in the house of Don Juan Verimendi. I wish Papá was here to see you. But he and Don Juan have gone to Saltillo, and they will not be back for another week at least.”
“I might as well go get them right now.” She looked so much like Drusilla, he thought.
“Of course,” she said quietly. “Felipe, Conchita, come along.”
The Veremendi hacienda was a mansion by San Antonio standards. Broad, spacious verandas looked out on a flagstone courtyard with fig trees and oleanders and a burbling fountain. Senorita Ursula Verimendi was a petite blond with merry blue eyes, perhaps a year older than Elena.
“So,” she said when James had been led to a sitting room, “you are the Señor James Fallon of whom Elena is always …” She caught Elena’s eye and spread her hands. “I fear, Senor Fallon, that I talk too much. I am sure that you and Elenita have enough to talk of without me about.” The smile she gave Elena as she left held considerable mischief.
Elena scowled after her, changing it to a smile when she realized James was watching. “I will fetch your letters, James. Would you like something to drink? I can ring for coffee, or tea. Or perhaps wine?”
“Nothing, thank you.”
She hesitated for a moment, then hurried out, and James was left alone. Was it right, he wondered, to be here? Bowie, Elena, the letters were all ties to the past, roots reestablishing themselves. He would have to pull them loose again when he went, this time without the anesthetic of numbness.
“Here they are.” She trotted back into the room, and stopped with a small laugh, holding out a bundle of letters tied with a yellow ribbon. “I thought … I feared that you might go.”
“I won’t go without saying good-bye, Elena.”
“Of course not. Here.” She thrust the bundle into his hands. “I will leave you to read them. You … you will say good-bye before you go?”
“Don’t go,” he said. “I would enjoy the company.” Her face lit with a smile that twisted his heart. She obviously still bore her childhood love for him, and she looked so much like Drusilla that … She still was a child, he reminded himself. He would be gone in the morning.
He sat across from her and untied the ribbon, thumbing through the letters. They bore the stamps and seals of their travel through the United States and Mexico, endorsements by post offices, ship captains, and express riders. Three were from his mother and stepfather, two from Barbara—the last bearing the name Mrs. Charles Devereaux—and four each from the twins. One bore the postmark CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, and the name Robert Fallon.
He shivered with the feel of feet walking on his grave.
Elena half rose from her chair. “James, what is the matter? Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” he said, turning the letter over and over. “I don’t know,” he repeated, and broke the seal.
My Dear Son,
His hand shook, and for a moment the page blurred. He took a deep breath and read on.
I know no other way to do this than to plunge in. I am your father. I can only plead with you to hear my case and find it in your heart to understand.
Before you were born, I sailed for France for what I thought at the time were good reasons. I promised your mother I would return before you were born, and I earnestly tried to do so. Unfortunately, my ship fell prey to Barbary pirates. I was given up by the world for dead, and in truth I was not far from it. For two years I lived in chains, a slave in a North African quarry.
When at last I managed to escape and return to Charleston I found that your mother, believing me dead, had married again and left Charleston with her new husband and you. I have never found it in my heart to blame her. She was a young woman with a baby and, she thought, no husband. The man she married was a good man. I wished them, and still do wish them, all the best that life can bring.
And yet, I could not simply abandon you, my son. Even if your mother had another life, a life I could not enter, I had to find you. For years I have tried, without success. Then, when I was on the point of despair, a friend of mine, John Lafflin, wrote that he had met my younger image in Mexico City, and that that man was named James Fallon. He told me of the life you are building for yourself in Mexico, of the young woman you have married. I am glad that you have found happiness, my son.
We Fallons are often driven men, driven to build, driven to follow our dreams, often at the cost of those we love. So it was with your grandfather; so it has been with me. If you share this Fallon legacy, I ask you to temper it, as I have never been able to. Build, follow your dreams, but hold hard to those you love, and to those who love you. That last duty, to those who love you, is sometimes the easiest to forget. In such cases the right thing to do is often that which is hardest.
But enough of advice from a man you have never seen and may never wish to see. What further contact exists between us I must leave to you. Long ago I forfeited any right to do otherwise. But know this, James. Over the years I have gathered some measure of wealth. Should you ever have need, it is yours to call on. My love, my son, is yours always.
Robert Fallon
His father was right. His dreams possessed him as firmly as any Fallon ever could have been. But he didn’t want to be possessed. He wanted to forget, to run. To hide. Maybe his father was right about something else, too. Don Tomás, Elena, Henry, José, all people who loved him. The right thing to do for people who loved you was often the hardest.
“How are Henry and José? And Leonie? Do you know?”
“They visit Papá often. Leonie has just had a baby boy, Peter. Señor Cameron is so proud of him. They want you back, too. Whenever they speak of the future, of their plans, they speak of you.”
“I have to write some letters,” he said. “To my mother and stepfather. To my sisters.” He fingered the open letter. “To my father.”
“Su papá! I saw the name, but I thought only that he was a relation.”
“My father. It’s a long story, Elena. I’ll tell you sometime. Is there someone who can carry a message to the Governor’s Palace? I need to tell a man there I’m staying.”
Elena leaped to her feet, her face lit with that glowing smile. “You are truly staying? Oh, James, I am so happy.”
He laughed, and reached out to flick the tip of her nose with one finger. “Be careful, little Elena, or you will break my heart when you marry.”
The right thing to do was the hardest. If he was driven, by dreams or by nightmares, he would nevertheless remain in Texas, and do his duty by those who loved him.
Book Three
Texas, South Carolina, and Washington 1832–1833
46
Texas, 1832
Are you going?“
James didn’t pause in slipping on his buckskin jacket as Isobel de las Piedras sat up in bed, letting the sheet fall to reveal rosy-tipped breasts. He had rented the room in Hillyard’s Tavern two days earlier, when he arrived in Nacogdoches to sell horses. He stuffed his father’s latest letter into his pocket. “I have business, Isobel.”
She stretched langorously. “I knew how wonderful you would be when I met you at General Santa Anna’s palacio. How many years ago that was!”
James didn’t want to remember. Drusilla had been alive then. Isobel’s husband now commanded the garrison in Nacogdoches. If he hadn’t been drunk, James would never have brought her to his room. He drank too much in recent years. And gambled too much, wenched too much, and ranched too little.
“We’d better let it go at this, Isobel.”
“My husband would not like knowing that his wife is being bedded by a yanqui,” she said. “There are not many suitable men in this benighted place.”
Blackmail? He changed the subject. “Your husband will have trouble enough with the yanquis if he doesn’t stop stirring up trouble between them and the Indians.”
“There is no proof,” she said chidingly. “Besides, he does not like it here in the wilderness. But I am afraid José is still a royalist at heart, and even Presidente Bustamente would not give him a command closer to Mexico City.” She giggled. “El presidente does not like yanquis, either.”
Bustamente certainly didn’t like yanquis, James thought sourly. Two years before he’d signed what most Texans called Bustamente’s Law, usually spitting for punctuation. New immigrants were forbidden to settle in any Mexican state bordering their country of origin. Colonization grants not already fulfilled were canceled. Only Austin’s and Green DeWitt’s grants had been fulfilled; hundreds of settlers were still wondering if their land titles had been destroyed along with the grants. Passports were required for all foreigners, including colonists; customs duties had been raised, making even necessities almost too expensive to afford; and worst of all, presidiarios, convict troops, had been garrisoned throughout Texas.
“I have to go,” he said.
“I will see you tomorrow,” she called as he shut the door. It was not a question.
Bowie was waiting in the common room, stylish in short, embroidered jacket and flared trousers slashed at the cuff with gold. He had married Ursula Veremendi the year before and become a solid citizen, opening a cotton mill in Saltillo. There was a bottle and two glasses on his table.
