All God's Children

by Aaron Gwyn

  She folded her saddle blanket and made a pillow, then slipped it under the crook of his knee. The ankle seemed to be swelling even bigger as she watched, but it was likely just the way the firelight was flickering.

  Samuel said: “Heat me up some water to pour on it.”

  “Why?”

  “I feel like I want some, is all.”

  “No, you don’t,” she told him. “You don’t want any heat. If it was colder, we could skim ice from that creek and wrap it in a bandage. Hot water will swell it worse.”

  She was touching his shinbone very lightly, working her way toward his ankle. When she looked back down at him, he was staring up at her curiously.

  “Is that true?” he said.

  “Yes,” she told him.

  “How do you know?”

  “I read it,” she said. She realized she still had the knife beside her. If he didn’t like that she could read, maybe he’d like the point of the blade. She watched the knowledge that she was lettered sink down into his eyes, waiting for it to catch.

  “Where?” he said.

  “Where what?”

  “Did you read it?”

  “In a book,” she told him. “In Virginia.”

  She watched him take in this information; it went right down inside him, and he nodded. He lay there with light and shadow on his face.

  “Did you read anything about boot-making?” he asked.

  “We didn’t have any books on boots.”

  “Figures,” he said, and he looked so disappointed. Like a disheartened child. She felt something happen in her chest, like there were ropes attached to different bones inside her, and all her life, the world had been pulling them tighter. But the disappointment on Samuel’s face made them loosen, and she felt like she could breathe. Her eyes welled up. She turned her head so he wouldn’t see.

  But, strangest thing, he felt it. He felt it right away. The very moment the ropes went slack, Samuel said, “What is it?”

  She didn’t answer. She stared into the dusk.

  He said, “I’m not going to let them get you.”

  The Indians, she thought. She wasn’t scared about Indians, but it was just as well to let him think so.

  Because now he was old again. He was leaning up on his elbows, telling her not to be afraid, why he kept two of the pistols on his right side, and the other on his left, and she couldn’t listen to his big talk anymore. The ropes had gone loose. Everything felt loose inside her. She’d been pushed and pulled so much today: the Indians, the boot, the books. Pour hot water on my ankle. She put her hand on his chest, pressed her cheek to his forehead, closed her eyes and held him still. She was saying, “Shhhhhhhhhh, now. Shhhhhhhhhh,” and he wasn’t speaking anymore. He was lying very quiet, his heart beating so violently she could feel it in her palm. She knew right then he’d never been with a woman, and there was something about this that softened her even more. There was the riding softness, and the yipping softness, his disappointment over boots. The rope-slack softness, the softness of her knowledge. She had him here with his leg propped up, forehead against her cheek and his heart slamming against her hand—bee-dum, bee-dum, bee-dum—and she’d never felt softer in all her life.

  DUNCAN LAMMONS

  —TEXAS, 1840—

  Come springtime, I received word that Noah had established a gunsmith’s shop up on Webber’s Prairie and taken himself a bride. I put in for a furlough and went to pay the newlyweds a visit.

  Being mechanically gifted as ever, Noah had constructed a marvelous cabin, the joinery so fine it looked to’ve been done by freemasons. I tied my horse and halloed the house. A dog started barking behind the cabin. Then the front door opened and Noah walked onto the porch.

  This life will change you if you let it, though I suppose it’ll change you even more if you don’t. My old friend bore little resemblance to the ugly, freckle-faced boy I’d first met in New Orleans, back in the winter of ’27. His beard now was long and thick, and the hair atop his head had started thinning. Married life seemed to agree with him: his belly poked out over his belt and there was the unmistakable glint of happiness in his eye.

  He came down the steps, seized my hand and started to shake it.

  “Ole Duncan,” he said. “You are looking well.”

  I reached down and patted his stomach. “You don’t seem to’ve missed any meals yourself.”

  “Come meet my Thurza,” he said, then turned and called toward the door. “Thurza! Mister Lammons is here.”

  “Captain Lammons,” I informed him.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Smithwick appeared and beckoned us inside. She had supper steaming on the table, and when a woman fixed a hot meal in those days, you didn’t do her the injury of letting it cool.

  She was precisely what I would’ve wanted for Noah if I’d selected her from a store: sturdy and broad-shouldered, with a plain faultless face and a wise pair of eyes. Thick wrists. Callouses on her palms. There were no dainty women on our frontier, I assure you.

  Noah kept up a steady stream of chatter while Thurza and I smiled and traded glances. Yes. They were a good match, though I failed to understand why a man would muster out of a ranging company and resort to family life. Perhaps I’d set so little store by family, it would’ve been mysterious to me whatever the pairing. I’d long since determined that no woman would master me. Of course, there was no danger of that; my dear mama excluded, I felt nothing for women but a mechanical curiosity. They were such different creatures from us.

  Noah was still talking. He’d asked a question I hadn’t heard.

  “Beg pardon,” I said. “I’ve grown rather deaf in my declining years.”

  He said, “I asked if you’ve considered taking your land payment.”

  “No,” I told him, expecting I was about to be subjected to a lecture on how I ought to find a bride, take my headrights and stumble into my dotage like a respectable citizen.

  But that wasn’t his tack at all.

  “It’s likely for the best,” he said. “Let Thurza tell you what happened to her mother.”

  “You tell it,” she said.

  “No,” he told her, “go ahead.”

  Thurza started to do so, but then Noah interrupted her.

  “Mother Blakey,” he began.

  “My mother,” Thurza interjected.

  “Her mother,” Noah said. “A widow, mind you, who gave two sons and a husband to our revolution—”

  “Daddy died before the war,” she said.

  Noah waved away this fact, inconvenient as it was to the tale he was unfolding.

  “Do you remember T.J. Chambers?”

  “Judge Chambers?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Judge Chambers. Well, your honor laid claim to four leagues of land on yonder side of the Colorado.”

  “Good for him,” I said.

  “Oh, there was nothing good in it,” he said. “It was the selfsame acreage where Mother Blakey had installed herself. She’d been given those headrights back in ’36. Not to mention the Hemphills, Colonel Knight, and several other families. Chambers said they would have to buy back the land from him or lose it and their improvements as well.”

  “How could he do that?” I said. “Did Mrs. Blakey and the others have proper title?”

  “They did indeed,” said Noah, “but titles are being contested left and right. I hired Judge Webb to represent Mother Blakey, and Chambers agreed to write out a deed for half her headrights, 4,400 acres further up the Colorado. She was able to relocate, at least.”

  “So, he stole half her land,” I said.

  “It’s better than what happened to the others. The Hemphills and Colonel Knight lost all their property.”

  “I don’t see how he could do that,” I said.

 
; “He did it. So, when you decide to take your own payment, be certain there are no flaws in the title. Or hope no one invents a flaw, as I suspect His Highness did to Mother Blakey. Folks won’t say so, but this Republic needs some sorting.”

  “I suspect so,” I said, “but who will do it?”

  Noah pushed his plate away and leaned against the table conspiratorially.

  “I’ve exchanged letters with President Houston on the subject. He wants the United States to annex us as a state.”

  Well, this was as bad a bit of news as I’d heard since they’d told me Sam had been sent out as a courier.

  I said, “I left Kentucky to get out of the States.”

  Noah laughed. “Is that not something? Man runs away from his nation only to find he didn’t run far enough?”

  Thurza giggled at this, but I didn’t see the humor. I hadn’t fled a thousand miles risking life and limb only to see America plant its flag on soil I’d fought to free.

  “Far enough,” I repeated. “Just how far does a body have to go?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Noah. “The moon?”

  * * *

  When I got back to camp, Felix McClusky was waiting for me at the edge of the grove where we picketed our horses: arms crossed, his lean, bearded face a bright red.

  “And are we taking in every foreign nigger that comes calling?” the Irishman asked me. “Is that the way of things?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve no complaint against Ramírez, now. But isn’t one greaser enough?”

  “Felix,” I said, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “So, it’s not your doing, you say? Then maybe you should tell him, Cap’n. Or maybe I will. Maybe I’ll—”

  And before I could figure out what had touched him off, he stomped away into the trees.

  I gathered my traps and followed, curious as to what could get him in such a lather.

  When I reached the little glade where the men were camped, I discovered a new rider had joined our ranks, a tall, broad-shouldered Spaniard with a head of thick black hair which he wore in a long, braided queue—a style fashionable among our colonial forefathers and perhaps still in vogue across the sea. He was talking and laughing with the other men while McClusky looked on, fuming.

  His name was Juan Juarez and from the moment I shook his hand, I knew he was first-swath: here was a man with a square, dimpled chin and a calm, soldierly bearing.

  “It is good to meet you, Master Juarez.”

  He performed an elegant little bow, dipping his head and placing his palms along thighs. His skin was the color of silt.

  “Pleasure,” he said.

  “Did you come to us direct from Spain?”

  “Galveston,” he told me. “I am in New Orleans before this, sailing from France, the port Le Havre.”

  I choked down the urge to ask a thousand questions, contenting myself with the most important of them.

  “Have you scrimmaged with the aborigines?” I asked.

  He stared at me a moment. “Your Indians?”

  “Our Indians,” I said.

  “My experience as soldado is from the Canut revueltas.” He lifted a hand and rubbed his thumb against his forefinger, trying to produce a word. “The sublevacion. The rebeliones.”

  “Rebellion,” I said.

  “Exactly so. We are led by Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult. But in this country, I have seen no combate. I did luchar one of your Tonkawa in Galveston. I have heard the Comanche are very different.”

  “For a fact,” I said. “I hope you didn’t muster in for the sport.”

  He shook his head. “No. No deporte. They said this service is pay in land. I have wanted to own land for many years.”

  I nodded, thinking about what Noah had said regarding the problems with our titles, deciding not to mention it lest I discourage our new recruit.

  Then something he’d said struck me: it took several moments for Spanish words to sift their way into English. Luchar meant wrestle: had he really luchar-ed a Tonk?

  I asked him and a grin spread over his face. He had dark brown eyes, almost black, like polished stones beneath his brows.

  “Yes,” he said. “Tonkawa Joe, he is called. Men luchar him for money. Or they tell me you may. No one was excited to do this. His teeth are filed to points.”

  “You know why they do that, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “They say, ‘Juan, he is caníbal—his teeth are sharp to eat the flesh of men.’ Maybe this is so. But I only see Tonkawa Joe eat griddlecakes or bacon. He is three trescientas libras.”

  “What caused you to mix it up with him?”

  Juan smiled. “Myself and the other stevedores are speaking after work and this Tonkawa Joe comes to the docks with the man who collects his monies. He calls to us, this man, and says that we are all cobardes: none will luchar Señor Joe.

  “I tell him I am no cobarde at all. And I have gold to say so.”

  He stopped and looked around where the men of the company had begun to gather to hear the story of this great Tonk wrestling bout.

  “Go on,” I told Juan. “They’re eager for entertainment, is all.”

  “I was speaking of the wager?” he asked.

  Which is when McClusky said, “You were spinning a yarn about how you whipped a Tonk.”

  Juan said, “I made no claim of whips, senor. We luchamos. He is so greased with lard I could not get a hold.”

  “Well,” said McClusky, “this company don’t luchamos an Indian. We knock his brains out with our rifles.”

  “Felix,” I said, “why don’t you let the man say his piece.”

  McClusky shrugged. “I’m not amused by lies, Cap’n.”

  The men had been snickering; now they went quiet. I could hear the fires crackling.

  Our new recruit didn’t seem to be a man whose honor you’d want to insult, but he was still unknown to me, as he was to the rest of the company. McClusky was testing him. And not for no reason: a ranger is only as good as his ability to inflict violence; a man who is just talk is dangerous.

  Juan looked confused. He glanced at me and said, “¿Él me desafía?”

  “What’d he say?” McClusky asked.

  “He wants to know if you’re challenging him,” I said.

  “Challenge?” McClusky guffawed. “Challenge to what? I wrestle a deal better than a greased-up Indian.”

  “Bueno,” said Juan. “It was a poor match.”

  The men all laughed at that. McClusky’s ears turned bright red and before I could stop or steer it, we went from hearing the tale of a wrestling bout to witnessing one in person.

  And so, the would-be combatants walked out beyond the light of the cook fires to a bare space of dirt and we all gathered to form a ring. Juan was the taller of the two by a head, but the Irishman was mean as a snake. He stood there eyeing Juan for several moments.

  Then he said, “First man to call quits?”

  Juan shook his head. “I do not quit, señor.”

  McClusky said, “How’re we deciding a winner, then?”

  “It will be no mystery,” Juan told him, and a vicious look came into McClusky’s eyes. He lowered his chin and lunged for Juan with both arms extended like a man diving into a creek.

  Juan didn’t flinch or falter. He sidestepped McClusky and latched onto him from behind, snaking an arm under the Irishman’s chin and putting some kind of hold on him. You could see he’d done it before. Many times, perhaps.

  McClusky’s entire head went purple and he commenced to make a gurgling sound. In a few seconds, his legs went wobbly and his eyes rolled back into his head. When Juan let go of him, McClusky hit the dirt like a sack of flour.

  Everyone was quiet for a heartbeat or two.

  “Shit on a s
nake,” said Levi English. “Is he dead?”

  Juan shook his head. He wasn’t even breathing hard, and I was reminded of Sam that day at the Battle of Concepcion, loading his rifle and firing on the Mexicans as their cannon blazed away.

  “Roll him,” he said. “Lift his legs.”

  Which the men did, and directly, McClusky sputtered, sat up and eyed everything like a newborn calf.

  “Did I whip him?” he said, and everyone began to snigger.

  Or everyone but me. McClusky had gotten the humbling he deserved, but I have never enjoyed to see men embarrassed. I knelt beside him and patted his shoulder.

  “You whipped him good, Felix. Why don’t you celebrate by resting yourself, now? I don’t think our new recruit can take another beating like that.”

  * * *

  We sat up late into the night, Juan and myself, visiting while the men around us dozed. In addition to being a wizard in a wrestling match, he was a bit of a scholar, much better educated than myself, which was no high hurdle.

  Thing was, I’d become so accustomed to dealing with the unschooled men who populated our companies, I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to conversate with someone who’d mastered the written word. Not that I held myself superior to those under my command, but there is a close feeling that comes to you from the pages of a book—and in fellowship with someone initiate in its mysteries. Talking with Juan was like a lamp inside my brain. I felt myself lighting back up.

  He put me in mind of Sam, though the two of them shared little but physical courage. All told, I’d spent less than six months with young Samuel, but still he loomed large in my memory and affections. Why should that be? Who are these people who, at a moment’s meeting, seem as if you’ve known them forever, while others you live with daily feel lifeless as faces in a cracked painting?

  If Sam possessed a natural intelligence for friendship and fighting, Juan had a mind that appreciated the literary arts too—things I’d paid so little attention to over the past several years that I’d nearly forgotten their existence. At the blab school my folks sent me to where the whole room of pupils recited their lessons all together like Catholics taking Mass, we hardly touched on poetry, and I thought of my dear mother who had tried in vain to supplement my education with the poets of antiquity—Virgil and Dante, Shakespeare and Milton. But I was an anxious child, eager to please my father, and I wondered if I’d become a hand at hunting and marksmanship because I was truly drawn to such things, or if it was only Pap’s affection I was trying to earn. It is hard to figure why we choose what we do, and perhaps the real detriment in all of it is that we feel we have to choose at all, for why shouldn’t a boy love verse and the rifle too?