by Drew McGunn
Only the desperate or those with an urgent need crossed Panama’s mosquito-infested swamps. The dangers of sailing around South America were often preferable to the malarial swamps of Panama. The problem was that Will was running out of time. His boot kicked up dust on the hard-packed road. God alone knew when the next ship would arrive. He worried about Charlie. What were his kidnappers doing? His heart sank as he wondered if his son was still alive. The violence his captors were willing to mete out was startling in its savagery.
Once out of town, away from the playing children, Will turned, looking behind him. Chagres’ few crude streets ran east to west, climbing a slope to an old Spanish fort. The Spanish had abandoned it in 1821 when Panama joined with her neighbors to form the nation of Gran Columbia. Although the state had been short-lived, Panama remained in union with Columbia.
Will cast a glance up at the fort atop the bluff overlooking the village. It was the Columbian flag that flew over the fort, which now housed a small prison. Squinting, he could see the red, blue, and yellow flag flapping in the Caribbean breeze. The flag’s brilliant hues were in stark contrast to the steel-gray November sky. The normally azure water was choppy, matching the sky’s dark shade. Despite this, the wind off the sea was mild.
As far as he could see across the water, the Caribbean was empty. Will’s chest constricted as he felt hopeless. Nothing mattered more than tracking the kidnappers down and yet, he was stranded on a beach with nothing but endless seas at which to stare. Before returning to the town’s lone inn, he pulled the binoculars he carried from the leather case. He lifted the well-made Italian glasses and scanned across the briny expanse hoping against hope he would see something. It was too much to ask for, but he made one final sweep when he caught a glimpse of a speck. He steadied the glasses and brought the tiny abnormality into focus. He gasped as he counted three dots on the horizon.
He stood on the shore until the tiny specks turned into ships. He lost track of time, as he felt hope rising. Every minute passing by gave promise these ships were coming toward the town. Eventually, he saw the colors flying above the nearest ship. He frowned at the green, white, and red. Those were colors shared by the Mexican flag. He strained his eyes, grinding his teeth in frustration. Mexico owned no navy, not after they lost their fleet at the Battle of Campeche the previous year.
The last ship stood out, as Will focused on the black soot swirling into the sky from its smokestack. As it came into focus, Will saw a few sails unfurled, gusts of wind billowed the canvas and pushed the ship through the water. Minutes passed by until he felt his heart skip a beat as the lone star flag of Texas came into focus. What was it doing so far south? Was it pursuing the other ships?
Refocusing on the first ship, the green, white, and red colors were not in the style of the Mexican flag. The green field held a circle of stars. Three horizontal bars, red alternating with white, filled the rest of the flag. Now Will recognized the flag flown by the rebel state of Yucatan. The Yucatecans were allies of convenience against Mexico. The Texas steamship appeared to be escorting the two sail-powered ships. A smile plastered Will’s lips when it was clear the ships were heading toward Chagres.
With hope renewed, Will tore his tired eyes away from the oncoming ships and raced back toward town. His men were resting under an awning of a tavern next to the hotel. On a table stood an open tequila bottle. Sitting around the table, several of his companions played a round of poker. In a voice louder than intended, Will said, “I don’t know how or why, but there’s a Texas flagged warship sailing straight towards us.”
The poker game disintegrated as the men leapt to their feet and followed him to the harbor.
Hours later Will climbed aboard the steam Schooner-of-war Nueces. Elias Thompson, the ship’s captain, stood slack-jawed as Will’s feet hit the desk. He recovered, saying, “General Travis? How’d you get here so fast?”
Will raised his eyebrows in surprise. The military of the Republic wasn’t so large that he didn’t know the names of all of the Navy's ship’s captains, although he didn’t know them on sight.
“Am I late? I wasn’t aware you were expecting me.”
The naval captain closed his jaw, as he regained his composure. “No, sir. I wasn’t. But having just heard of the ransom, I assumed you had, too.”
Will’s heart skipped a beat. His unwelcome constant companion had been the fear gnawing away at his insides over what his son’s captors intended. “Do you have a copy of their demands?”
Thompson turned to a midshipman, “Fetch the copy of the Picayune from my cabin.”
A moment later Will devoured the article detailing the kidnappers’ demands. He whistled low and offkey as he read the dollar amount the kidnappers were demanding. He handed the newspaper back to the captain, “Fifty-thousand dollars, they don’t think small.”
“No, sir.” Thompson folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm, “I take it that you didn’t know about the ransom?”
Will shrugged, “After viewing the evidence in California I’d assumed they had kidnapped my son for a ransom, but this is the first confirmation I’ve received.”
It was Thompson’s turn to whistle. “That’s a hell of a lot of traveling over the past couple of months.”
Will’s impatience crept into his voice, “What would you do if your child was taken?”
An apologetic look washed over the naval officer’s face. “If I were in your shoes, I’d do the same thing. I’d have no choice but to hunt the bastards down. I’ll never see fifty thousand dollars in my life.”
Will turned his pockets inside out and chuckled ruefully. “I’m afraid I don’t have that kind of money lying about, either. But I’m glad to know you’d chase someone down if they tried to hurt your family.” He paused, searching for the right words. “I could use a favor. Your newspaper indicates the kidnappers took my son to Charleston. Can me and my boys impose on you for passage?”
Thompson said, “I’ve done my duty, escorting the Yucatecan ships this far. I think they can manage the rest of the distance to Gran Columbia on their own.”
Chapter 10
12 November 1843
“Two days to get from San Jacinto to here!” Becky’s back hurt as one of the coach’s wheels lurched into a hole. When she had started out from San Antonio, she had admired the speed of the stagecoach. The idea of traveling more than seventy miles in a single day was hard to fathom. Growing up in western Tennessee, where roads were seldom more than meandering trails between homesteads and villages, distances beyond a dozen miles typically took longer than a day.
Even the stage from Austin to Houston was but three days. She glanced out the window and saw the elevated tracks. Only the bridge over the San Jacinto River remained to be completed. As the wheel jounced again, she winced and thought about how much faster it would be to travel between Harrisburg and West Liberty along the straight and smooth rails.
To listen to her husband, railroads were the future. Before the war, he had regaled her with tales of trains rolling out of New York and crossing the mighty Mississippi before curving south and crossing the Sabine River, connecting San Antonio with folks on the east coast. It was only a dream, but as she saw the tracks, she wondered if perhaps he was right. Even in frontier Texas, progress marched ever onward.
Were it not for the other passengers Becky would have laughed. Everyone had their own idea of what progress meant. To her father, progress meant an ever-widening expanse of a new frontier. That idea of progress had kept her parents apart as often as they had been together. Her father’s wanderlust was the stuff from which legends were cast. The memory of David Crockett brought an unbidden tear to her eye. She missed him something fierce.
Through the opposite window, Becky could see a plantation. Despite the lateness of the season, she saw slaves preparing the field for the spring harvest, still several months away. To the plantation owner progress meant the ability to move ever westward, opening up new territories to the slave eco
nomy. Growing up in Western Tennessee it wasn’t that slavery wasn’t present, it was just something she didn’t give any thought to. Marrying William Travis had opened her eyes to his idea of progress. Railroads that crossed a continent, ships that could steam across the Atlantic without a stitch of canvas. Machines that would do the work of a hundred men, that was Will’s idea of progress.
The coach was slowing, and a few minutes later, she saw clapboard buildings pass by as the coach rolled into West Liberty. In a way, it was Will’s ideas of progress which brought her to this small town forty miles northeast of Houston. Will was a major stockholder in the Gulf Farms Corporation. In the years immediately following the revolution, he and several other veterans had pooled their land grants, claiming some of the most fertile farmland along the Trinity River. They had hired men who were struggling with their farms as well as families from Ireland, the Germanies, Mexico, and elsewhere to work the land. The hired men were not tenants, but employees.
Before the war, every few months Will received a check from the corporation. Dividends, he had called the money. It had been a while since Becky had seen any dividend checks and that’s why she was here.
The next morning, she crossed the road from the boarding house where she had stayed the night. The house she approached was large, built in the Spanish Hacienda style. The President of the corporation was a man by the name of Don Garza. As Becky walked up the cobblestone path from the dirt road, the door opened. Standing there was an older man.
Becky eyed the man pensively. She judged he was closer to seventy than sixty. His black hair was streaked with silver. His face was lined with age. When he spoke, his voice was a deep, yet soothing baritone. “Señora Travis,” he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. “Your telegram arrived last night. Please come in.”
After accepting a cup of hot tea from Don Garza, Becky settled into a leather chair in the hacienda’s study. After she took a sip, she said, “Thank you, Señor Garza, for making time for me. I can only imagine how busy you must be.”
The old man waved away the comment, “You haven’t traveled all the way from San Antonio for a social call, although I would be honored were it so. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your father. President Crockett was a fine man. I am also troubled by the news of your stepson’s kidnapping.”
Despite every effort, a tear slid down Becky’s cheek. Being so far away from her mother and children, she felt alone, notwithstanding the warmth of Don Garza’s hospitality. Fearing her voice might shake, she nodded her thanks.
Garza filled in the silence. “Do you need any help, child?”
Becky swallowed her loneliness and offered a weak smile. “I understand my husband owns stock in Gulf Farms, Señor Garza.”
The old man dipped his head, “Indeed. He’s one of our largest stockholders.”
Becky set the teacup down and asked, “Why did the dividend checks stop coming?”
Garza’s smile faltered for a moment before he ruefully chuckled. “The company has to be making money to pay a dividend. Apart from the first couple of years, Gulf Farms has been profitable, and we paid dividends to our shareholders. At least until the recent war with Mexico.”
Taking in Becky’s silence, Garza continued, “When Texas declared war after the debacle at the Alamo last year, it wasn’t long before the militia companies were called up and we lost more than half our men to the war effort. I had far more women and children working the land the past year than I had men. But we were forced to cut our cotton production back and grow food instead. Most of that was bought by the government with promissory notes.”
He stood and walked around a long table at one end of the study until he stood at the window. He pointed down the road, “Because of those promissory notes, I am in arrears to the men and women who worked the fields this past year.”
What had started as a single tear turned into a steady trickle. Becky felt powerless at the news. She needed to provide for her children and mother, let alone find money to pay Henrietta’s salary. Garza’s words held no comfort.
As she wiped the tears with a handkerchief, she felt Garza’s bony hand on her shoulder. “Senora Travis, I may not be able to pay your husband’s dividends, but I am not without means. There are homes here in town that are still vacant. I will gladly put you and your family in one of them until General Travis arrives back in Texas.”
Becky reached up and squeezed his hand, “You’re too kind, Señor Garza. But I won’t be beholden to anyone. My husband wasn’t without other investments. I will check on them before returning to San Antonio.”
***
Becky bit her lip when she realized she had whistled when she saw the port of Galveston from the deck of the coastal schooner. She had read Galveston received seven hundred ships a year. She could believe it, looking at the forest of masts crowded alongside the docks jutting into the water. She repressed a grin, what would her mother think if she’d heard her whistle. Becky could almost hear her mother’s voice, Ladies don’t whistle, she’d say. A glance around the schooner’s deck revealed no one had listened to her unladylike response to the bustling port.
As she waited for the longboat to be lowered into the water, she thought back to the short, hourlong ride on the train to Anahuac. Thirty miles in an hour. What a difference to the two-day trek from Harrisburg to West Liberty. Although she had been forced to stay overnight in the coastal town, waiting for the small ship to take her from Anahuac to Galveston, even the ride on the schooner had only taken a few hours. As the crew helped her into the boat, she decided, this was the type of progress she could support.
Later, she stood on a street where the signpost informed her she was on Avenue B. Someone had used some chalk and crossed out the words and in poor penmanship had written, “The Strand.” Most of the buildings were wooden, but on both sides of the street, a few brick and stone buildings stood as a testament to the importance of Galveston’s role as the gateway to the Texas frontier.
A sidewalk ran alongside the dirt street, and Becky was glad to lift the hem of her dress and step onto the wooden planks. As she walked by stores and offices, she was amazed at the many languages she heard. She recognized the guttural accent of a German speaker and the familiar sound of Spanish, but other languages were unrecognizable. Apart from when she and her mother had visited her father once while he was still a congressman in Washington City and when they had passed through New Orleans, this was the largest town she had seen.
Above one brick-faced building was a sign which read, “The Commerce Bank.” A sign was posted in the window. She peered through the glass and read, “All deposits are guaranteed. Ten-dollar withdrawals are permitted every fortnight.”
Unlike the darkened bank in San Antonio, when she turned this doorknob, the door swung open. A guard was posted nearby, and a young clerk stood behind a barred countertop. She had traveled a long way, and she wanted nothing more than to hold her children but she was determined to see the reason for her visit through to completion.
“Mrs. William Travis to see Mr. Samuel Williams.”
Before the clerk could say anything, a head poked out from an office toward the back of the building. “Mrs. Travis, as I live and breathe.” A body followed the head. Although she had not yet met Sam Williams, she recognized him from Will’s description. Despite a youthful face, his hair was prematurely gray.
“Abel,” he said to the clerk, “let Mrs. Travis through, and bring her back to my office.”
As Becky settled into a chair across from a well-worn desk in Williams’ office, he left the door open as he returned to his seat. After offering condolences on the death of her father, he said, “Yours isn’t a face I expected to see today. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“Your bank in San Antonio has closed. My family’s account is unavailable, despite the sign on the window to the contrary.” Becky worked to keep her voice steady. Crisscrossing the republic to provide for her family was taxing, a
nd she felt fatigue setting in.
Williams leaned forward, “It’s a temporary setback. We’re trying to arrange a loan from the Treasury Department to make sure we can cover any transactions our customers may need.”
Becky was frustrated. “How did you allow things to get so bad?”
Williams' eyes widened at the words before he laughed. “Buck warned me you were a woman with your own thoughts and… dashed… if he wasn’t right.”
Becky’s lips twitched upwards at Williams efforts to not offend her with profanity.
The banker continued, “Even though the war with Mexico wasn’t long, it was disastrous for the nation’s financial health. The president and Congress were forced to spend a lot more money than the government had coming in. To make up the difference, they issued bonds.”
Becky said, “Isn’t a bond just a loan by another name?”
“Exactly. Earlier this year, there was a threat that new bonds wouldn’t be able to find buyers. That would have risked a collapse of the cotton-backs. Secretary Menard talked me into buying enough bonds to forestall collapse. The problem now is that we have very little cash on hand. To shore up the Republic’s finances, Michel Menard has choked off new loans, which I need so that I can make sure depositors like Buck can have access to their money.”
It was similar to what Señor Seguin had told her a few weeks earlier. Fearing despair would overtake her, she shoved her fears aside and refocused on Williams. “What about my husband’s stock in your bank? Surely there are dividends owed.”
Williams said, “Would that there were.” He asked if she knew of the source of the loan with which Will had bought his interest in the bank. When she nodded, he continued, “We’re two months behind in our repayment to our British friends. I’ve not heard any word from them about it, but I suspect they’ll be eager for repayment to continue.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a box. “Your husband doesn’t really expect to receive payment on the investment for a while. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do something to help you.”