The Son (51 page)

As the crowd pressed around the fallen derrick, the lake of oil growing larger, the driller, whose back teeth were still well afloat, could not decide whether or not to ignite the well. Gas can travel hundreds of yards aboveground, flashing at the smallest provocation; it is not uncommon for spectators to be immolated in this fashion, hours or even days after a well comes in.

After more whiskey to clear his head, he decided not to flare the well. The oil was flowing, not gushing. There could not be much gas. Or so he reckoned. I reckoned he was drunk. I told everyone to stay clear of the well, though when I saw Niles Gilbert and his two porcine offspring clomping out of the viscous mud, having stood nearly at the mouth of the burbling black spring, I began to wish for a divine spark. It occurred to me, as I watched the oil flow down the hill, that soon there will be nothing left to subdue the pride of men. There is nothing we will not have mastered. Except, of course, ourselves.

T
HE VAQUEROS ARE
using horses and fresnoes to build a dyke, but they are losing the battle. A jimberjawed Yankee farmer offered to rent us his new Hart-Parr tractor. Had he been born here, he would have simply driven it over, but being from the North he thinks only of what fattens his pocket. After some consideration I agreed to pay him. The oil is flowing strongly into the stream—the fresnoes are not designed for emergency work.

Nonetheless everyone was in a good mood and proceeded to get drunk, including the fallen derrickman and the partially crushed floorhand. People from Carrizo began to show up, though what attraction there was—a black pit, a sulfurous stench, even more money flowing into their wealthiest neighbor’s pocket—I did not understand. The Colonel appeared at midnight, having driven all the way from Wichita Falls at sixty miles an hour, blowing out a tire from the speed.

He found me in my office. Through the windows came a faint odor of brimstone, as if Old Nick himself were having a smoke on our gallery. By sheer coincidence, I am sure, this is also the odor of money.

“Son,” said the Colonel. He hugged me. He was already as drunk as the others. “From now on, you can pay for all the brush-clearing you want.”

Not a word about María. In a moment of panic I went and checked her room: she was asleep in her bed, sighing about something. I watched for a long time until she stirred.

J
ULY 8, 1917

This morning I find her waiting for me downstairs.

“Very exciting news, no?”

I shrug. I am only thinking about what she’s lost; I’m happy the oil was found on our land, instead of hers.

“Will you have much work today?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I have some errands in Carrizo, if you want to come.”

She agrees, which puts me in a good mood about everything, even the steady stream of cars going to and from the drilling site, the gates left open—fifty heifers found on the road this morning.

When we get to Carrizo there is nothing in particular either of us want to do. On a whim we decide on Piedras Negras for lunch (Nuevo Laredo is brought up; María does not want to go there). It will be a three-hour drive; we will be home late; we do not discuss this. She ties her hair back to keep it out of the wind; I steal glances, her warm mouth, dark eyelashes, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.

When we finally reach the town, around four in the afternoon, I am nervous, wondering about the Carrancistas, Villistas, Zapatistas, but María does not seem concerned. We ignore the shoeshine boys and lottery vendors and find a cantina where we sit on the patio under an arbor. We order
arrachera
eels, grilled fish,
tortillas sobaqueras
, chopped avocados and tomatoes. She has a tequila sour; I have a Carta Blanca. We cannot fish all the food; she stares at it. We hesitate at ordering more drinks. We hesitate again at the car.

Instead of heading home we drive farther into the country to see the old San Bernardo Mission. It is a small old ruin, a single story, nothing on the scale of the cathedrals of Mexico City, but in its time it was the upper reach of Spanish influence here. All the northern expeditions left from and returned to it; you could sense the relief the riders must have had when the mission, with its dome and archways, appeared on the horizon. And the fear they must have had when they left it. This land was far more dangerous than New Mexico ever was.

It occurs to me that the San Bernardo is not much older, fifty or sixty years, than the Garcias’ casa mayor. I become quiet. María either reads my thoughts or thinks my silence is due to something else, because she takes my hand, and puts her head against my shoulder.

“It is nice to be out of your house,” she says.

We walk slowly, small steps, waiting for something important to be said. She does not let go of my hand, but she will not look at me either.

“And your wife? When will she return?”

“Never, I hope.”

“Will you divorce her?”

“If I can.”

“She is the beautiful woman in the pictures.”

“She comes from a good family.”

“She looks it.”

“You know she married me because her family is bankrupt. She thought she was marrying a younger version of my father, but unfortunately that is my brother Phineas.”

“Perhaps she preferred you because you are handsome.”

“Certainly not.”

“Certainly,” she says. “Your brother has a weasel face.”

“My wife wants me to be a different person.” I shrug. “I am happy she is gone.”

We continue to walk. I expect her to let go of my hand, but she swings our locked arms back and forth, as if we are children, and holds on firmly.

When we reach the car she says: “We will be very late driving home, no?”

Some part of me, the part that takes over when there is something at stake, says: “I’m expected back.”

“Oh,” she says, and looks away.

She sits in the car, arms crossed, looking out over the mission and the
brasada
to the south, while I get the engine started.

When I get in with her, I swallow and say: “Perhaps it will not be safe to make the drive after dark.”

“Perhaps not,” she says.

We find a hotel by the railroad depot.

“How is this?”

Now she won’t look at me. We are silent as if we are an old couple having a fight. It’s cooler and the ceiling fans are turning but I feel the sweat running down my back. Every noise amplified, my boots scuffing the floor, the counter creaking when I lean to sign the register. I hesitate, then write Mr. and Mrs. Garcia. The clerk winks. Our room is on the second floor. We walk up the stairs, silent, then into the room, silent.

“Well?” I say.

She sits on the bed and looks at everything but me. The furnishings are cheap; someone has carved their initials into the headboard.

“This is wrong,” she says. “We should go back.”

I blurt out, “
No quiero vivir sin ti.
”

“Say it in English.”

“I will not live if you leave me,” I say.

She goes back to looking at the floor, but I think she is smiling. “I wondered if your hesitations were because of the way I look.”

“No,” I say.

“This is when you tell me I’m beautiful,” she says. She laughs. She pats the bed next to her. “Come over here.”

“I love you,” I say.

“I believe you,” she says.

J
ULY 9, 1917

We are on the bed facing each other, her leg is thrown over me, but we are not moving; she is lying sleepily against me. I watch my finger go along her arm, her shoulder, her throat, then back down her arm. The glow from the railroad comes through the window.

“Touch my back,” she says.

I spend a long time drawing lazy shapes, then kiss her to let her know my intentions. She pulls me on top of her and sighs. She begins to move her hips.

Afterward we fall asleep like that. When we wake we do it again.

“I would be happy if we never left this bed.”

“Me too,” I say.

She kisses me and then again and again and again and I close my eyes.

In the morning, when the light comes through the curtains, I wonder if the spell will have passed, but she looks at me with the sun shining brightly on us and puts her head against my neck. I can feel her there, breathing me in.

Chapter Forty

Eli McCullough

I
t was not long before Judge Wilbarger was making arrangements for a necktie social, because once Whipple blabbered, the slaves were blabbering as well and then the whole town caught the whispering fever; everyone knew I’d been pirooting the judge’s wife eight and ten times a day, drinking his wine, stealing his horses, feeding his cigars to the hogs. It was reckoned a miracle he had not shotgunned his untrue companion, though it was equally reckoned that someone would have to meet Old Scratch in her place.

I had hopes I might win on popularity, but that was youthful ignorance, as the whites had no love for horse thieves and hog killers, even good ones. The only thing that saved me was Judge Black in Austin, who got the statehouse involved, and accused Wilbarger of mentally abusing me, a helpless returned Indian captive, son of a martyred Ranger, and so the trial and hanging were put off until Wilbarger found a way to get rid of me, namely mustering me into a Ranger company. Which, in those days, was considered near the same as a neck-lining.

T
HE IDEA OF
riding with the Rangers appealed to me the same as riding with the Comanches would have appealed to my father, but the seriousness of my situation was made plain. I was taken to Austin in bracelets and released into Judge Black’s custody, though I was only there for a few hours. He had a small bay waiting for me, a good saddle, a second Colt Navy and a Springfield carbine. The children came and saw me but his wife would not, and the judge was down at the mouth, and nothing I could say would make it better.

I
MUSTERED INTO
the company at Fredericksburg, near our acreocracy, which my father had deeded to my stepmother. Rangering was not a career so much as a way to die young and get paid nothing for doing it; your chances of surviving a year with a company were about the same as not. The lucky ones ending up in an unmarked hole. The rest lost their topknots.

By then the days of the ace units, under Coffee Hays and Sam Walker, were over. Walker was dead, killed in Mexico. Hays had given up on Texas and gone to California. What was left was an assortment of bankrupt soldiers and adventure seekers, convicts and God’s abandons.

At the end of each tour, the ones who survived were given a square mile of unclaimed land somewhere in the state. It was a sharecropping of blood, in which we killed Indians and took a portion of their lands in payment, but like any other share work, you always came out a loser. The safe land was all claimed and the only acres still redeemable would not have value for decades. And so the vouchers were always traded for equipment, mostly to speculators who lived in big houses and offered us horses or new revolvers, picking up the land for ten cents on the dollar. Our only other remuneration was ammunition, which we got in unlimited supply. Everything else—from corn bread to side meat—we were expected to forage or otherwise annex.

W
E DUNNED THE
state for powder and lead and spent a few weeks training before riding out. All we did was shoot. We set up a fence post and the captain told us we were not leaving until everyone could hit the post five out of five times from horseback, at a lope at least, a gallop being better, with no preference for handedness, those appendages being considered disposable.

After those few weeks it was clear that a gun fit my hand better than a bow. Those who afforded it carried two Colt Navys, as reloading in those days took several minutes. A few of the men carried Walker Colts, which were twice as powerful but also twice as heavy, and had to be carried in saddle holsters, rather than a belt holster, which was not safe if you were separated from your horse. Not to mention the loading lever would sometimes drop and jam the cylinder; despite all that has been written about them, there was a reason not many Walkers were made.

M
Y FIRST TOUR
we did not see a single Comanche. We saw their tracks and leavings, but could not catch them. Being better raiders they were better at avoiding raids, being better trackers they were harder to follow, and so my fears that I would one day see N
uu
karu or Escuté over the barrel of my Springfield turned out to be laughable.

With the exception of a few tired Lipans and Mescaleros, most of what we caught were Mexicans and vagabond Negroes, or starving Fort Indians whose skills had rusted by close proximity to the whites. Meanwhile, any outlaw group worth its name carried an old bow and arrow and after making their killings they would shoot a few arrows into the victims, so the Indians would get blamed for whatever they’d done. Wherever you looked, the red man was at a discount.

When game was scarce or settlers stingy it was normal for us to go hungry a few days, so whenever we recovered a big lot of property, say horses or cattle, unless we recognized the brands we would take a detour to sell them in Mexico, along with any saddles and guns. To the settlers we sold scalps, lances, bows, and other Indian accoutrements that people wanted to hang as trophies. Ears were especially popular.

Despite this pilferage we usually rode home with empty pockets, our gear was always breaking and our horses dying and it all had to be replaced in the field. The legislators encouraged our thieving ways,
plunder the plunderers
—which of course was the same as stealing from our own people—but so far as the elected ones cared, anything not recorded in the register did not count as a tax increase, which was all that mattered to their owners, the cotton men.

As for the cotton men, they admired and respected the state’s public servants, who unlike them worked for glory rather than money. They passed this wisdom to the cattlemen, who passed it to the oilmen. It was a smooth-working system, as any foolish servant who suggested he might be paid in dollars, rather than pats on the back, was tarred as a Jayhawker or Free-Soiler, or, worse, an Abolitionist, and run out of the state.