Texas

by James A. Michener

  But then Héctor Garza sent a telegram to Washington, and a Mr. Henderson appeared in town, a tall man in a blue-serge suit. Summoning Norman Vigil and Oscar Macnab to his hotel room, he informed them: ‘Thomas Henderson, Justice Department. I’m here to see that the civil rights of your Hispanic citizens are protected in the coming election. I’m bringing in two deputies, so you men keep your noses clean.’

  The Vigils of Saldana County had been fending off Washington since 1880, and never had they allowed its representatives to penetrate the power structure of the Rio Grande. Norman assumed that he could resist them again, but Mr. Henderson sought his injunctions not in Bravo but in the federal court in Corpus Christi, and he opposed every connivance put forward by Vigil and the Rangers. Finally, in irritation because these men continued acting as if the twentieth century had never dawned, he went to see Oscar Macnab, for whom he had considerable respect: ‘Captain, why does a man of your apparent good sense always side with a man like Norman Vigil?’

  ‘Because he represents the law.’

  ‘You ever hear of justice?’

  ‘I’ve noticed, sir, that whenever somebody starts talkin’ about justice, everybody else runs into a lot of trouble. Law I can understand, it’s specific. Norman Vigil has represented the law in this community since I can remember. Justice is something people make parades about.’

  ‘Why do you always side with the few whites against the many Mexicans?’

  ‘This is a white man’s country, Mr. Henderson, and when you fellows in Washington forget that, you’re headin’ into deep trouble. We don’t want that trouble down here. We seek to avoid it as long as possible.’

  ‘You seem to classify all Mexicans as crooks and rioters?’

  ‘In my experience, that’s what most of them are.’

  ‘Captain Macnab, it’s two weeks before election. If you don’t change your attitude, right now, when the election is over I’m going to hale you into federal court with a list of charges this long.’

  In a dozen similar situations Mr. Henderson had been able to strike fear into the hearts of local tyrants, but he had never before tried to interfere in a Texas county filled with many Hispanics and a few determined whites. He was startled by the brazen defiance Vigil and Macnab threw at him, and when election day arrived he was unprepared for the open violence with which these two men threw back the Hispanics who wanted to vote, the repressions, the animosities, and he was shocked to find that Vigil had imported from south of the Rio Grande more than a hundred peons who had been paid two dollars each to vote against the interests of their Hispanic cousins north of the river.

  The Garza challenge lost, for Precinct 37, with more than ninety percent Hispanic voters, reported an overwhelming majority for the Vigil slate, which meant that Norman would remain patron for four more years.

  Hector and his grandson vowed to resume the fight in the next election, but this was not to be, for shortly after the failed election Hector fell ill, passed into a coma, and died without regaining consciousness. From the time of his youth in the early 1900s, and during the violent years of Horace Vigil, ending with the old man’s death in the 1920s, he had been a loyal foot soldier for the dictator. He had then served Norman Vigil faithfully, but in his seventies he had begun to see what a fearfully heavy price the Hispanics paid for this allegiance. He had tried to break it and had failed, but he had inspired his grandson Simon to launch an effort, and he died trusting that Simon would carry on this crusade.

  In the meantime, law and order, Rio Grande style, remained in effect.

  With a little money in their pockets, the Morrisons of Detroit were having an exciting time in Texas. When the big bosses in the home office discovered that Todd had been buying and selling real estate on his own without informing them, they summarily fired him. Loss of the salaried job meant that Todd had to work more diligently at his deals, but with continued advice from Gabe Klinowitz he accumulated commissions and outright deals in his own name. Also, Maggie, having obtained her own real estate license, was now selling rather effectively for a large central-city firm. She wrote to her friends in Detroit:

  Each week we like it more. Todd is doing amazingly well as what the Texans call a wheeler-dealer, and with my own license I am becoming Madam Real Estate.

  What has been most difficult to adjust to? You’d never guess! The size of the cockroaches. I mean, as big as sparrows and terribly aggressive. The other evening I heard Lonnie screaming in the kitchen, and there he stood with a broom. ‘Mummy!’ he cried. ‘Two of them were trying to drag me outside.’ I gave him a real swipe.

  You would be unprepared for the noise and bustle of Houston. Where Detroit was dying, this place springs to a more abundant life each morning. Whew! Life in the fast lane! Dips and darts on the roller-coaster! And you’d also never guess the little things that we like so much.

  Beth and Lonnie both excel in school, claiming that Texas schools are about two years behind the ones they attended in Detroit. I doubt this. Just a different approach.

  The city is a joy, and half you kids ought to pack up right now and move down here, for this is tomorrow. I’m sure I wouldn’t have advised this fifteen years ago, because the temperature in summer can be ugh! But air conditioning has remade the city, and they should erect a monument to Westinghouse or whoever invented it. A step forward in civilization.

  The barbecue, about which we heard so much, has been a disappointment. Not that delicious stuff we bought on Woodward Avenue, bits of beef with that tangy sauce. Here it’s great slabs of beef, well roasted I’ll grant, but no sauce, no taste unless you like the smell of charred mesquite, which I don’t.

  What do I miss most? You’d never guess. The New York Times crossword puzzles. Remember how we used to wait for the one o’clock arrival of the Sunday Times, and then we’d call one another about five in the afternoon: ‘Did you get 43 across? Sweet idea, eh?’ It sort of made the week legitimate, a test of whether the old cranium was still functioning. Well, I doubt there’s a person in Houston does that puzzle, and we’re all the worse for it.

  Todd was entering the most rewarding span of his life, for in Roy Bub Hooker he had discovered a man who loved the outdoors as much as he did, and after the sale of the Hooker corner was completed and Roy Bub did buy the expensive stereo for his truck, they drove about the suburbs of Houston, talking real estate, listening to country and western music, and sharing their attitudes on wildlife.

  ‘Todd, they ain’t nothin’ on this earth more fun than stalkin’ a brood of wild turkey. Man, them birds has radar, they can outsmart you ever’ time. Only thing saves the hunter is that they are also some of the dumbest birds God ever made. They escape you, run in a circle, then double right back to where you’re waitin’.’

  ‘Best I ever experienced,’ Todd said, ‘was hunting whitetail deer in northern Michigan when snow was on the ground. Icicles in the trees. Brown grass crackling. And all of a sudden, whoosh, out of a hollow darts this buck. Temptation is to shoot him in the rear, but that always loses you your buck. You cannot kill him from the rear. So you wait. He turns. Wham, in that instant you got to let fly.’

  They continued to differ on turkey, which Todd had never hunted, and whitetail, which Roy Bub scorned, but they did agree on quail, and that was how their long and intense friendship began: ‘Todd, I got me these two partners, sort of. A young oilman who may be goin’ places, and this dentist who loves dogs. We’ve been rentin’ a place, week by week, and if you cared to come along …’

  It startled Todd to learn that in Texas one leased a place to hunt, for he was familiar with Michigan and Pennsylvania: ‘A man wants to hunt, say he lives in Detroit or Philadelphia, he just buys himself a gun and a license, and he can go out in the country almost anywhere and shoot his heart out. Millions of acres, thousands of deer just waiting for him.’

  ‘That ain’t the way in Texas. Someone owns ever’ inch of our land, and if you trespass without payin’ a prior fee, the owner’ll shoo
t your ass off.’

  ‘Prehistoric,’ Todd said. ‘Where is your place?’

  ‘Close to Falfurrias.’

  ‘Never heard of it. How far—fifty miles?’

  ‘Two hundred and forty.’

  ‘I wouldn’t drive two-forty to shoot a polar bear.’

  ‘This is Texas, son. You drive two-forty to go to a good football game … and some not so good.’

  When Todd met the oilman and the dentist, both in their early thirties, he liked them, for they were true outdoorsmen, and like most men of that type, each had his strong preferences. ‘I like to hunt on foot, without dogs,’ the oilman said. ‘I got me this fabulous A.Y.A. copy of a Purdy with a Beasley action …’

  ‘What’s that?’ Todd asked.

  ‘A Purdy is the best shotgun made. English. Sells for about eleven thousand dollars. Who can afford that?’

  ‘You can,’ Roy Bub said.

  ‘Maybe later. But there’s this amazing outfit in a little town in Spain.

  They make fabulous copies. Aguirre y Arranzabel. They made me a Purdy, special order, my name engraved on it and all—forty-six hundred bucks.’

  ‘You paid that for a gun?’ Todd asked, and the oilman said: ‘Not just for a gun. For an A.Y.A.’

  The dentist did not take any gun with him to the hunts; he loved dogs and had rigged up the back of his Chevrolet hunting wagon with six separate wire pens, three atop the others, in which he kept six prize dogs: two English pointers, two English setters, and the two he liked best, a pair of Brittany spaniels. He had trained them to a fine point, each a champion in some special attribute, and when they reached the fields he liked to carry the men and dogs in his wagon, with Roy Bub driving, till Todd, keeping watch from an armchair bolted to the metal top of the wagon, spotted quail and gave the cry ‘Left, left,’ or wherever the covey nestled.

  Then as the car stopped, the dentist would dash out, release the dog chosen for this chase, and dispatch him in the direction Todd had indicated. In the meantime, the three men with their guns would have descended, Todd scrambling down from his perch and Roy Bub from behind the wheel, and all would leave the car and proceed on foot after the dog, who would flush the quail and follow them deftly as they ran along the ground.

  It was not light exercise to follow the birds and the dog, heavy gun at the ready, but at some unexpected moment the covey of ten or fifteen quail would explode into the air and fly off in all directions, seeking escape by the speed and wild variety of their flight. Then the guns would bang, each hunter firing as many shots in rapid succession as his gun allowed. Fifteen birds in fifteen heights and directions, maybe a dozen shots, maybe three birds downed.

  Then came the excitement of trying to locate the fallen quail, and now the dog became a major partner, for he scoured the terrain this way and that, in what seemed like frantic circles but with the knowing purpose of vectoring the land until he smelled the blood of the dead bird.

  ‘It could be the best sport in the world,’ Todd said one day after the team of three guns and six dogs had knocked down forty-seven quail, each a delicious morsel relished by the families of the three married hunters—Maggie Morrison roasted hers with a special marinade made of tarragon vinegar and three or four tangy spices. Roy Bub had no wife yet, but did have four likely prospects whom he took out at various times and to various honky-tonks.

  In September one year the oilman presented a stunning offer to his three buddies: ‘I’ve located forty-eight hundred acres of the best quail land in Texas. Just north of Falfurrias. Owner wants four dollars and twenty cents an acre just for quail; five dollars for quail and deer and one turkey each; six for twelve months, including javelina and all the deer and turkey we can take legally.’

  On Tuesday the four men took off from their obligations in Houston, thundered south to Victoria, then down U. S. 77 to Kingsville and across to the proposed land. They covered the two hundred and forty miles in just under three hours, thanks to an electronic fuzz-buster that Roy Bub had installed in the dentist’s car; it alerted him to the presence of lurking Highway Patrol radars. The four arrived at the acreage about an hour before dusk and spent those sixty minutes in a dream world, because this land was obviously superior. ‘Look at that huisache and mesquite,’ Roy Bub cried, for he was the expert. ‘No tall trees, but those gorgeous low shrubs providing plenty of cover. And the mesquite aren’t too close together, so the quail will have to strike open ground.’ He pointed out that the fence rows had not been cut, which meant there would be plenty of protection for the quail during nesting seasons, and he was especially struck by the richness of the weed cover.

  ‘Look at that seed supply. All the right weeds, all properly spaced. This place, to tell you the truth, is worth double what they’re asking.’

  The owner, eager to get top dollar but not hurting for the money, was a rancher who said frankly: ‘I’d like to rent it for the full six dollars, but you’re working men. If you want it during a trial period just for quail in the autumn, I’ll be more than happy to rent it for the four-twenty I said. Feel it out. See if it seems like home. If so, we might have ourselves a longtime deal.’

  ‘Have you other prospects?’ the oilman asked, for the $20,160 involved was a little steep and the $28,800 for twelve months, all rights, was forbidding.

  ‘I do, but people tell me you’re four responsible men. They say you’ll help keep the hunting good. For the long haul, I’d prefer someone like you.’

  That night the four Houstonians held a planning session, and it was clear that the oilman and the dentist could afford rather more of the total fee than could Roy Bub and Morrison, so a deal was arranged whereby Roy Bub would continue to drive the dentist’s wagon while Todd would occupy the armchair topside and also care for the land. This meant that in the off season he would lay out roadways through the mesquite, drag the earth so that weeds would prosper, and look after the quail and turkeys in general.

  ‘We promise you this,’ Roy Bub told the owner, ‘when we leave, your land will be in better shape than when we came.’

  ‘One important thing,’ the oilman said, for he was an expert in leases. ‘We have the right to shoot October to January?’ The owner agreed. ‘But we have the right to visit all year long. Picnics, families?’ The owner said of course. ‘And we have the right, as of now, to build ourselves a little shack?’

  ‘You certainly do,’ the man said. ‘But you understand, anything you erect on my land remains my property.’

  ‘Now wait!’ the oilman said. ‘If we affix it to your land, dig cellars and all that, it’s yours. But if it remains movable, we can take it with us if you close us out.’

  ‘Of course!’ There was a moment of hesitation, after which he said impulsively: ‘I like your approach to the land. Twenty thousand even.’

  So the four young men obtained the right to hunt this magnificent land —flat as a table, few trees, no lake, no river—during the legal quail season, and permission to roam it during the other months. The elaborate division of labor they had worked out to protect the oilman and dentist who were paying more than their share of cost was unnecessary, because those two worked as hard as anyone. They built the lean-to; they planted seeds along the trails so that weeds would grow; they tended the hedgerows where the quail would nest; and they cared for the dogs.

  The team’s first autumn on their lease was gratifying. With the dentist running his dogs and Todd spotting from his perch atop the wagon, they uncovered quail almost every day, and with the practice they were getting, the three gunners became experts. From time to time the oilman allowed one of the other two to use his A.Y.A., and one day toward Christmas, when they were huddling in the lean- to after dark, he asked quietly: ‘Either of you two want to buy that Spanish gun? Real bargain.’

  ‘What about you?’ Roy Bub asked.

  The oilman went almost shyly to the wagon, and as if he were a young girl showing off her first prom dress, produced an item he had sequestered when they packed
in Houston. Unwrapping it, he revealed one of those perfect English guns, a Purdy with a Beasley action which he had purchased for $24,000. When it stood revealed in the lantern light, it was not handsome, nor garishly decorated, nor laden with insets of any kind. It was merely a cold, sleek, marvelously tooled gun which fitted in the shoulder like a perfectly tailored suit. ‘There it is,’ he said proudly.

  ‘How much for the Spanish job?’ Todd asked.

  ‘It cost me forty-six hundred, like I said. I’d like to keep it in the crowd, maybe use it now and then for old times’ sake. I’ll let you have it for twenty-six.’

  ‘Time payment?’

  ‘Why not?’

  So at the end of the season, and a very fine season it had been, the quartet had both a genuine Purdy and an A.Y.A. copy, and Roy Bub also had a very good gun, because Morrison sold him the good weapon he’d been using at a comparable discount.

  They were a congenial crowd that winter, for at least twice a month, when no hunting was allowed at their lease, they left Houston at dusk on Friday, roared down to Falfurrias, and worked on their place. They turned the lean- to into a real house, with eight bunks, two temporary privies and a portable shower, and they improved the roadways through the far edges of the fields. In March everyone but Roy Bub brought wife and children down for a festival, kids in sleeping bags, older ones in blankets under the cold stars, and Maggie said to one of the other wives: ‘I wouldn’t want to cook like this four Saturdays a month, but it’s worth every cent the men spend on it.’

  In June, after a serious meeting in the bunkhouse, Roy Bub drove to the owner’s house and invited him to join them. When he appeared, the oilman said: ‘Mr. Cossiter, you know we like your place. We’d like to take it all year, at six dollars an acre, unrestricted. That would be twenty-eight thousand eight hundred. And we were wondering if you could shade that a little?’