All God's Children

by Aaron Gwyn

“Did I enjoy it very much?”

  “Did you enjoy what?” I asked.

  He lifted the book in answer.

  “You used to read it every night,” I told him. “You’d read it to the company pretty regular.”

  He nodded.

  “It is a strange thing, Captain. I can tell it ought be familiar to me.”

  “It’ll come back to you,” I said.

  “I do not know. I can make nothing of it. If I had a gusto for it, it has gone.”

  To this I had no response. And I could see his concern: to lose memory of having read a book is one thing. But to be unable to appreciate a thing that once gave you such pleasure is quite another. Your memory of something can change, but what you love, you love.

  Unless you become a stranger to yourself.

  * * *

  Word came that we would go to war with Santa Anna for a second time—only now, instead of the Republic of Texas against that foul tyrant it would be the Republic of these United States.

  From the time I heard that President Polk had ordered General Zachary Taylor to build a fort down on the Rio, I knew the wire-pullers back in Washington were looking to honey-fogle us into a fight.

  The sticking point was the border. While Texas claimed the Rio as our boundary marker, Mexico put the border farther north at the Nueces. The papers said President Polk wanted to extend his country coast to coast and was seeking some way to acquire New Mexico, California, and other territories in the west. And so, looking to force the issue, he had General Taylor move his army and occupy the mouth of the Rio Grande. Naturally, the Mexicans took this unkindly, sending their own troops to probe American defenses which led to the ambush of Captain Seth Thornton, who the Mexicans took prisoner, a number of his soldiers being killed in the skirmish.

  And so President Polk had his war, but when I heard that the Rangers were being mustered into Federal service to act as scouts for the Army, it didn’t set right at all. There was no doubting Santa Anna was a despot, but what of that? Were we in the business of deposing these? During our Revolution, we’d fought to lift his boot from our throat, but what was the governance of another nation to me? I did not care to see the U.S. plant its flag in California. Would the men in my company benefit from this expansion? No—they’d bleed for it.

  The Texans acted as though they’d won the war already. Men who’d ridden with ranger companies over the past ten years were encouraged to swell our ranks. Many of them would die on foreign soil in a fight that was not theirs.

  As the days passed and we prepared to head south, I began to take a different tack. I thought of those early days with Captain Tumlinson’s company, riding with Sam and Noah; it seemed that life had never been so sweet. I felt that if only Sam would muster in and join us, it would be old times again.

  Thus, my prejudice against the enterprise took wings, and I was all for riding on Mexico forthwith—provided, of course, I had Sam to ride with me. Perhaps we could even manage to drag Noah out of his retirement.

  This should tell you the quality of my thinking at the time, and it wouldn’t be wide of the mark to guess that liquor played a good part in my fantasies.

  The problem, as I saw it, was that if I mentioned all of this to Sam, Cecelia would smother the idea straightaway. The woman did not like me; you could see that very plainly. If there was any hope of recruiting Sam for the venture, the proposal could not come from my lips.

  So, I went to Juan and spoke with him over supper, told him of Sam and the asset I believed he’d be for our company.

  “Take some of the others and go talk with him in the morning. It’s no need to mention me. Just say you’ve heard of his service during the Revolution and that his country could use him once again. Or don’t say country. Say, Texas, rather.”

  “Texas?” Juan said.

  I nodded. “Will you do this for me?”

  “I will,” he said, then paused. “But you say you are friends of this man?”

  I could tell where he was headed with the question—why not communicate the message myself?—and I began to grow cross.

  “If you aim to do it, do it. I’d rather not talk it to death.”

  His brow knit and he studied me a moment. He shrugged.

  “We do not have to talk at all. I will go when it is light.”

  * * *

  And he did, taking Levi, Uncle Ike, and John Douglass to make the case. And Felix, of course, which was something I hadn’t reckoned on when I brought the matter to him. I ought to’ve told him to leave the Irishman in camp. Lord knew McClusky didn’t put the best face on the things.

  Well, it was too late now. I milled around, awaiting their return, restless as a gypsy. I busied myself tidying up, scouring pots and pans, distributing kindlers to the firepits around camp.

  When I passed by the fire Juan had been using the past several days, I saw something in the ashes that hadn’t quite burned, a wedge of paper, it looked like. I bent and lifted it from the cinders.

  It was his volume of Wordsworth. Or what remained of the book—a length of the spine and a chock of a blackened pages.

  I stood there holding it in my palm and a feeling of dread blew through me. I felt like I’d committed some terrible crime, though I couldn’t think of what that might be, and after a while, I laid the charred book back among the ashes and went to see to my horse.

  CECELIA

  —TEXAS, 1846—

  She was sitting out in front of the cabin, drawing in the dirt with Robert, when a pack of rough-looking men came loping up the trail. They seemed to be soldiers of some kind, but they had no uniforms to speak of. They wore bob-tailed black coats, or long-tailed blue coats, felt hats, leather caps, all kinds of trousers.

  The man at the head of the band rode an apron-face sorrel with four white stockings. He reined up and sat glancing around.

  He was a hard, little man, a tight little man. He had a shock of red hair, and freckles across his nose like flakes of rust. He didn’t seem to notice Cecelia. Then he did. He turned and stared down at her, and she saw he was blind in one eye. It looked like someone had dropped milk in it: the pupil was wide and white.

  “Samuel Fisk,” he said, and his voice was a thick Irish brogue.

  She didn’t say anything. She picked up Robert and set him on her lap.

  Then the door opened behind her; Sam stepped out.

  The man’s good eye went from Sam to Cecelia, Cecelia to Robert, back to Sam again. You could see him calculating.

  “You’re Samuel Fisk?”

  “Maybe,” Sam said.

  “I’m Felix McClusky.”

  “All right,” said Samuel.

  A tall man next to Felix said, “Señor Fisk, I am Juan Juarez. Could we speak to you?”

  “Speak,” Sam told him.

  “Could we speak inside, perhaps?”

  Samuel shrugged. He stood to one side of the door and made a motion with his hand.

  The men dismounted and lumbered in. Samuel glanced at her. He shook his head, stepped inside and shut the door.

  She sat there, holding Robert.

  He said, “Pawpaw’s friends.”

  “No,” she told him. “Definitely not.”

  After several minutes, the Irishman came out. She was glad this man was no longer in her home, but there was also an insult to it, as if he couldn’t stand to be inside the cabin.

  It’s fine, she thought. The quicker they’re gone the better.

  She glanced down and saw the boy was staring up at McClusky. She squeezed his arms, and Robert looked down and studied the ground.

  Then he glanced back up.

  “Your eye,” he said.

  The man turned and regarded Robert a moment.

  “Yes,” he said, pointing to the clouded pupil, “it is my dirty eye.”

  The hair s
tood up on her arms. She opened her mouth to speak, but McClusky was talking again: “All’s it sees is dirt.”

  “Dirt,” Robert repeated.

  McClusky nodded. He palmed his knees and bent over until he was nearly nose to nose with the boy.

  “Aye, lad. But just this minute, it is seeing you.”

  * * *

  “What were they after?” she asked once the men had left.

  Sam said, “Wanted me to sign on for this commotion down in Mexico.”

  “The war?”

  “I guess that’s what it is.”

  “And what did you tell them?”

  “Told them I wasn’t interested.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like it.”

  He said not to let it worry her; he’d told them flat out his rangering days were over.

  “And how’d they take it,” she asked, “your not joining up?”

  “They weren’t just real happy, but it’s not a whole lot they can do. They’re riding for Mexico next week. And it’s some of them won’t come back, neither.”

  She debated whether to tell him of the Irishman’s exchange with Robert, then decided to leave it alone.

  But she couldn’t get shed of the feeling McClusky had given her. She hadn’t felt like that since Louisiana. For the past nine years, she’d been shielded by live oak and cedar, acres of green pasture: sage grass, wild rye. She’d grown into motherhood. And something else besides.

  Then one day five filthy men appeared and she was this other person again. The trees and prairie didn’t protect her. The glare of a one-eyed Irishman brought it all rushing back.

  * * *

  The next morning Duncan Lammons paid them a visit; it seemed he was headed for Mexico as well.

  He sat at the table with Sam, drinking coffee. She pulled a chair back and sat between them, watching Lammons very closely, watching how he looked at Sam.

  Lammons smiled. “Best go with me,” he said.

  “To Mexico?” said Sam.

  “Absolutely. We could sure use your rifle. It might could be rather enjoyable.”

  “Might could be we’ve got different notions about enjoyment, Duncan.”

  Lammons chuckled. He sipped his coffee. “They say that—”

  She interrupted him, couldn’t hold it any longer. “And what am I to do while the two of you are traipsing about Mexico?”

  Lammons’s smile faded. He said, “We won’t be that long, Miss Suss. You might manage without him for a bit, couldn’t you?”

  “And what if he’s killed? How will I manage then?”

  Lammons blushed.

  “Just an idea,” he said. “Course, it’s his decision entirely.”

  “Yes,” she told him. “It is his decision.” She looked at Sam. “And he’s made it.”

  Sam said, “I told them I wasn’t interested. Fact, I’m a little surprised you’re going, Duncan.”

  Lammons said, “Well, I reckon I’ve got a fight or two left in me,” but by the look on his face, he didn’t seem to believe it. There was a sadness in him, and something in her couldn’t help but reach for him. She’d been angry just a moment ago, and now she had her hand on this sad man’s arm.

  “You be careful,” she said. “You’ll come visit us when you’re back?”

  Lammons nodded, seemed about to say something, then just sat there, staring down at his coffee, and it occurred to her she might never see him again.

  There was a relief in that thought. She was of two minds about him. He seemed to be a threat and then not. She was jealous of the time he’d spent with Sam and she was saddened by his loneliness.

  You are strange, she thought. A strange kind of man.

  And that was the problem, for she was strange as well.

  DUNCAN LAMMONS

  —TEXAS, 1846—

  The summer of ’46 was a thick, hot summer. Ten years had gone by since my previous war. It might as well have been a hundred, so changed was the country and the men I’d ridden with. In truth, it seemed everything was altered but my loyal, lustful heart. I’d turn forty the following spring. I had no home other than my own busted saddle; I was a perpetual bachelor; my hopes for a union with Sam were beyond recovery. Which didn’t diminish my affection, but on that journey to Mexico, I took myself to do.

  Mister Lammons, I thought, if you are to have association with Sam you must cast out any last notion that this fantasy you’ve pursued these years will ever come to be. It is time you woke from your dreams. You may yet be of some use to him. Accept what fellowship he’s offered; rid yourself of your jealousy. If you are to wring any joy from the years that remain to you, you must receive this truth.

  This lecture—and others of a similar nature—occupied me as we rode down into the dust of Mexico, and on this journey, I had occasion to see Juan with fresh eyes. So much had transpired between the time he returned to us and our leaving out to rendezvous with General Taylor’s army that I hadn’t realized what a different man he was. The good-natured lover of poetry who cheered the men and lifted the burden of my loneliness had vanished.

  How much of what we believe about our companions is what we must believe in order to keep from falling into black despair? I’d spent the balance of my life searching for a kind of family—not the usual sort with wife and children, but a family nonetheless. What I hadn’t been particularly eager to find was the truth about folks, and I began to see how my desire that people be a certain way had polluted all my thinking. This was yet another thing I’d have to tend to. The farther south we rode, the more I saw the size of the tasks that lay before me. Why was I traipsing off to war? There were battles aplenty to be fought within the thin walls of my skull, enough to keep the armies of my spirit occupied for years.

  One night, once the men were asleep, I walked off some little ways from camp, found myself a flat shelf of sandstone, inspected it for snakes, then took a seat and uncorked a bottle I’d hidden away in my traps. Soon, I’d be in the company of Federal troops and might not be able to take a nip of whiskey when I pleased, and when I began to ruminate on that, I saw how reliant on strong drink I’d become.

  And why? The first thirty years of my life I’d not taken so much as a sip. Was it Sam that sent me to the bottle? No. I couldn’t lay that at his door. I thought about the past decade. It’d been at the Battle of Concepcion that I’d first taken up with liquor and was it some great coincidence that this was where I’d first shot a man? Mind you: it was not the killing itself that caused me to seek the aid of stimulants, but rather the come-down from killing. The fighting had frightened and thrilled me—in many ways, I’d never felt more alive than when the bullets were whizzing—but there was a sadness after battle was done, a melancholy waiting for me like a lost companion. I’d taken this for a kind of weakness. Whiskey helped push the blue devils away, or so I’d thought, but now I considered the possibility that it merely numbed me to things. It made little difference I considered our cause just: there is a heaviness that descends on you after a fight, and I’d sought to lift this heaviness with drink.

  But the fog that puts you in must itself be lifted. To feel some life again, you must seek another fight; then another drink; and thus it had been for over a decade now.

  And even so, reflecting on all this, I neither put down the bottle I was sipping from nor saddled my horse to ride north. I required both liquor and combat, and yet I had begun to despise them both.

  I was startled out of my musings by footsteps approaching. I stowed the bottle under the ledge of sandstone and tried to determine just how slewed I was.

  Presently, the figure came closer and I saw that it was Juan. He stopped and stood there a moment, trying to make me out.

  “Captain?” he said.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  He came up and seated himself on the rock beside me. I offered hi
m the bottle, but as always he waved it away.

  “Can’t sleep?” I said.

  He shook his head. “For all I sleep, Captain, it is not worth the lying down.”

  “Didn’t used to have any trouble in that regard, did you?”

  “No,” he said, “I did not.”

  We sat a moment. The Jerusalem crickets drummed around us.

  “I am change,” he said. “Very much change. It is not some secret. I cannot even recordar how I felt beforehand. I just know I am different then.”

  “It takes time.”

  In the starlight, I could just make out the bulge of his jaw. You could feel rage coming off him like heat from a stove. He was like that now: cool one moment, hot as a poker the next. And for no particular reason that I saw.

  “He tells me it might be this way. El médico.”

  “Chalmers,” I told him.

  “You see?” he said, tapping his temple with a finger. “Was I this bird-witted beforehand?”

  I exhaled a long breath.

  “No,” I said. “If I am honest, I would say you were not. You could recite your poems from heart like you read them off a page.”

  He was silent for several minutes.

  Then he said, “You ought have let me go, Captain.”

  “Let you go where?”

  “You should not have taken me to Chalmers.”

  “Just let you die, you’re saying.”

  “Yes. That is what I say.”

  I stared at him for a time.

  “You need to get some sleep,” I told him. “You’ll feel different after a good night’s rest.”

  “It has nothing at all to do with sueño. You know it does not.”

  And he was right: I did know. But if really he thought I’d have let him die without trying to get him seen to, that arrow had hit him harder than he realized.

  “Have you given any consideration to what you’d have done in my place? If you were captain and I’d have fallen?”