Adelsverein

by Celia Hayes

  “I never knew you had been a soldier!” Peter said, with genuine astonishment.

  Hansi snorted. “So I was, but not of my choice. Not much of a soldier or for very long, though I learned to shoot and drill and salute. When my service was done, I came home and married my wife, whom I had known since her sister and I were children together. Her father and mine were neighbors, although my father was a better farmer.” Hansi puffed at his pipe until the tobacco glowed as red as coals in the cookfire.

  Intrigued, Peter asked, “Why did you think to immigrate? Were you not happy working for your father?”

  “I had two older brothers,” Hansi answered, “and my father’s fields were not enough for three of us or his house large enough for each of us to take a wife and beget children. Land,” the big man sighed, “there was never enough of it. When the Verein promised us land—oh, they promised so many other things, if we would but sign their contract and come to Texas! But all they needed to say to me was ‘land.’ I had no mind for the other things. I think I knew that those promises were tinsel, things to promise to children and rash young men. But land that I could put my own work into, not my father’s little plots and fields, nor my father-in-law’s! Lad, that was all they needed to draw me away from everything I knew. My father-in-law, he was a clever man, full of books and notions. He thought it a grand idea so we came away together. But if he had not, I would still have gone with just my wife and our children. Only the two we had then.” He chuckled again. “Oh, what I had to promise my wife—a house of our own, just as she wanted it.” He drew on his pipe again, the coals flaring red in the darkness as the cookfire died down. “Just to get some peace! My dearest Lise knows well this one thing about me, you see.”

  “And what is that?” Peter asked.

  “What I have made my mind up to do, I will.” Hansi jabbed his pipe stem at Peter for emphasis. “All my life until coming to this country, I had never thought to do anything but farm, just as my father had. It was the way of it, in Albeck and the country we came from. Only my dear Liesel’s father had any thoughts of doing different. And I tell you, behind his back some laughed at him for his ideas and his books. But once here, I began to look around and to see that Vati was right. There was nothing to stop a man from choosing his work, his business, and to work to better his station.” Hansi gave a curt chuckle in the darkness. “I came here to be a farmer and once I would have been content to remain so. Then I began to drive wagons, and to see how the world works. Now I have ambitions, would you believe? I have decided to become a rich man, as rich as a prince.”

  “That’s a lofty aim,” Peter mused judiciously. “But didn’t the preacher always say that a love of money is the root of all evil?”

  “So swear those who do not have any,” Hansi snorted. “Money is a tool—like a hammer, or a hay-fork. It is what I will use to ransom my children back from the Comanche, to make my wife happy again, and perhaps find a doctor that will make her truly well. And to build a grand house for us, and the same for each of my sons as they marry. That is what I want for me and mine. I will have it, so. I have set my mind on that! There was only ever one thing that I did not acquire for myself, once I had decided on it.”

  Around the dying campfire, most of the other hands had fallen asleep in their blankets. The night invited confidences. Peter felt himself rather honored that Hansi would share his thoughts and ambitions like this. “What was that one thing, sir?” he asked.

  Hansi chuckled again. “A woman that I asked to marry but she said no; and rightly, too. It may be that I did not really want her that much and she was wise enough to set me straight. I took her advice and married her sister.”

  “Ma’am Becker?” Peter nearly swallowed his own pipe-stem out of sheer astonishment. “You proposed marriage to Ma’am Becker?” he again asked in disbelief.

  The big wagon-master sounded amused when he answered, “You wonder I had the nerve? She was the oldest, her dowry-field adjoined mine, and we had known each other since childhood. Why not, eh? But we are friends still and she a better sister and partner in business than a wife. Women know these things, sometimes better than we men. Especially clever ones like Sister Magda and my Annchen.” Hansi paused, which gave Peter an uneasy feeling that this whole conversation had a purpose to which Hansi was just now coming.

  But still, he did not expect the question which Hansi broached. “Had you thought of marrying? You are of an age to consider such matters. I had been a father twice, before I was of the age you are now.”

  “I had not thought of marrying,” Peter returned warily. “My affections are not. . .they are not fixed at present.”

  “Ah,” Hansi said, as if quite content with it. “So. There is something I should tell you. But I must beg your forgiveness for seeming to poke my long nose into your matters of the heart. It is only the interest of a father, or perhaps a kindly uncle. You and young Dolph alike, I take an interest in your happiness. Since both of you have no father still living, it is permitted, not so?”

  “Yes, of course,” Peter stammered. “It is kind of you to take such an interest. More than kind.”

  Hansi held up a deprecating hand, and the faint light from his pipe made a queer gargoyle shadow on his face. “It is only right, for family, you see.” He drew deep on his pipe, and Peter waited with no little puzzlement as he brought himself around to the point. “My daughter, Annchen. She is a clever one, like her aunt. It is in my mind that she has a regard for you.”

  “We have no understanding,” Peter blurted, before realizing how ungallant that sounded and that perhaps he should justify himself to Anna’s father. “We have a friendship with one another. I hold her in deep respect. I was not aware of any particular favor on her part,” he finished lamely.

  Anna’s father nodded, as calm as a magistrate on the bench. “I did not mean to suggest anything else, lad. Only you should know that I have observed. Know also that should Annchen’s feelings for you prove to be serious and if you return them alike, than you have my approval. Without even asking for it, eh? A bit of a relief for you, not having to come to me, I think!” And Hansi puffed furiously at his pipe. It came to Peter that perhaps Hansi was himself somewhat embarrassed at having spoken so openly of such personal matters. Before he could say anything, Hansi added, “I wished to speak of this privately to you before anyone else, such as my wife, makes mention. And she would—women being like that, full of romantic fancies and suchlike. And I would not see you made obligated to profess feelings that you did not have. Embarrassing to be in such a spot.” The darkness entirely hid Hansi’s expression, but Peter thought that if it were light, he would have seen something of shrewd sympathy in that look. Doubtless, Daddy Hurst had exchanged gossip with Hansi, during all those hours when they made camp ahead of the moving herd.

  “I am grateful for your consideration,” Peter said.

  Hansi waved his pipe dismissively. “Think little of it. Besides, this is my daughter Anna we speak of.” And now Peter knew from the sound of his voice that he was smiling, “If she decides that she wants you and you want to wed, I do not think my opinion will have any weight at all.”

  Peter remembered how Anna’s brothers had watched him with lively interest and amusement, that first evening in Captain Nimitz’s beer-garden, when he had drunk with his cousin Dolph and this man who now took such a fond and fatherly interest. “Thanks for the warning, sir,” he said, and Hansi laughed, rich and deep.

  “Good night then, lad. Sleep deep, for we will be in Kansas in a day or so and on our way to be as rich as any of the Firsts.”

  Into Kansas they moved with the herd, into a sea of grass that swayed with the motion of the wind upon it, endless waves of tall grass bowing and rustling, green and silver where the sun shone upon it, starred with flowers. They passed out of Indian Territory and into new settled lands, here and there a scattered sod house or cabin of logs dug into the hillsides, or a solitary little lean-to, like half a house of newly sawn lumber, n
ext to a garden bravely cut into the prairie. The people who lived there came out to see the cattle go past, watching with wary curiosity, and advising Hansi and Fredi of the proper trail to follow. Daddy Hurst traded some of their stores for eggs from the settlers’ wives, knowing that they were within a week or so of reaching Abilene. Once, they left a newborn calf with a farmer who traded them a bushel of fresh greens for it; otherwise they would have had to shoot the calf, for it was too small to keep up with the herd, even at the pace they kept. They found handbills plastered to trees at the creek crossings, or pasted to stakes pounded into the ground, directing them to cattle buyers and advertising the stockyards at Abilene.

  One day they saw a faint brownish smudge of smoke against the clear blue sweep of the horizon, a smudge that did not change position. “There’s the town,” Fredi said to Hansi. He had returned from a forward scout as the herd nooned in a lush pasture a little short of a creek that ran into the Kansas River. “About twenty or thirty miles ahead. Tomorrow we pasture the herd, and you and I and ride into town and find this agent.”

  “More than one.” Hansi laid a finger alongside of his nose and looked sly. “Think you I promised to deliver this herd to only one buyer? No, our letters promised only that we would bring a herd to Kansas and discuss a final price upon arrival and depending upon the condition of the animals. And,” he added, “I would like to see this place. It is in my mind to arrange for a purchase of good pasturage here, so that next year our herd may rest and fatten and that we may have leisure to wait on the best offer.”

  “You plan on doing this again?” Fredi asked in some astonishment.

  His brother-in-law smiled. “Of a certainty, for I have made a most careful study of the market, whilst you were worrying about the condition of the herd and the quality of men to be hired and all these matters of the trail. There is a demand for beef cattle in the North that we hardly imagined! By our good fortune we have the means to deliver it, just at the moment when the railways make it practical. Next year, we shall bring another herd north.” Hansi squinted thoughtfully towards the smudge that overlay their destination. “But by then, other men will have perceived the wisdom of what we have done. We will have competition, Fredi. But we have a head start and the field is very wide. I think that we should stay as far ahead as we can. I would like to meet with such men in the North as can best advise us. I should also like to begin improving our breed of cattle. As soon as the herd is sold and the drovers paid, I will go to Chicago. I should like to take some of my profits and purchase some fine eastern bulls and heifers. Young Dolph is in agreement with me, having already enclosed his best pasturage,”

  “As am I,” Fredi agreed hastily. “I did not know you entertained such grand plans as this, Hansi.”

  “You thought this was a gamble? That we would only throw the dice once, and be content with our winnings?” Hansi shook his head. “Perhaps I thought so at first. But the longer that I considered it, the better I perceived the advantages. This,” Hansi waved his hand at the mass of cattle, grazing to their bellies in rich green grass, “to you it is an adventure, a day full of work to do and the chance to break your neck. But to me, it is business, a matter of providing goods at a profit to a customer, only not like a paper of pins or a wagonful of shingles. This is larger and of better profit as long as favorable conditions and the market for beef lasts.”

  “As long as it lasts?” Fredi raised an eyebrow. “You think it will not?”

  “Nothing lasts under the same conditions.” Hansi’s teeth flashed white in the thicket of his beard. “All changes. And if we are shrewd and far-seeing, we change as well.”

  Hansi returned, jovial and beaming from ear to ear after that first foray into town. “They have arranged things very sensibly,” he reported to Peter and Dolph, “stock-pens for the herds, so we need not pasture them for much longer. There is even a hotel—no need to sleep on the ground after tonight!”

  “But what of the buyers?” Dolph asked, with some urgency. “What do they offer? Better than in Texas, I hope?”

  “Aye, so they do,” Hansi grinned. “You would not believe! Forty-seven dollars a head I was offered for the cattle, twenty-five for the horses.”

  Dolph whistled in amazement. “You took it, I hope?!”

  “No,” Hansi answered, “not since I have a chance to do better. There are many cattle buyers in Abilene, lads.”

  In the end, he did do better. Peter never thought he was so glad to see a town again, even one as muddy and rambling as Abilene, a sprawl of hastily built saloons along an impossibly wide street, each thirst parlor noisier than the other.

  “Does anyone ever close their eyes?” he asked his cousin. “I can’t see anyone getting a wink of sleep, between the racket from the stockyard and the trains, and the music from the gambling hells!”

  “Fierce, isn’t it?” Dolph agreed. “When I get home, that’s when I’ll sleep.”

  The two of them had repaired to a bathhouse near Abilene’s largest and only hotel, named—with no small degree of humor—the Drovers’ Cottage. Three stories tall and with splendid broad verandahs, it stuck up from the flat prairie like a tall plank-built thumb. They each carried a bundle of their best town clothes, creased from storage in the supply wagon. After removing their filthy work clothes they sank gratefully into tubs of gloriously hot water to scour off the accumulated layers of trail grime.

  “Me, I think I’ll go to the barber next,” Peter ventured. But when he looked across at his cousin, Dolph looked to already be half asleep, with his head lolling against the tub rim.

  Afterwards they hardly recognized each other. They walked down the wooden sidewalk that was elevated slightly above a sea of churned mud. This expanse was dignified by terming it a street.

  “Texas Street,” Dolph said to Peter.

  Peter laughed and responded, “Do tell, Cuz.”

  A dapper gentleman in a fine pearl-grey suit sauntered towards them along the wooden sidewalk. The splendidly attired newcomer remarked, “I say, isn’t this place most remarkably raucous?”

  Peter blinked—the voice sounded familiar. “Jack?” He said in disbelief, for so it was. Gone was the grubby, bearded ruffian who had ridden with them since Austin. Here was a sleek and immaculately barbered Englishman in a faultlessly tailored jacket, and a silk waistcoat that was a miracle of quiet elegance.

  Jack tipped his hat at them and smiled in wry amusement. “Quite a miraculous transformation, no? I hardly recognized myself. Extraordinary, the difference it makes, washing off most of Kansas! But now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with a gentleman of parts who intends to relieve me of my purse by way of a friendly game of cards. Or so he hopes.” Jack smiled, a fleeting and coldly calculating smile.

  “A poker game?” Dolph asked.

  Jack looked pained. “Really, chaps. Whist.”

  “He’ll never know what hit him,” Peter said, clapping Jack on the shoulder. “Good luck, then.”

  “Luck will have had nothing to do with it,” Jack said as he took his leave.

  They walked the entire length of Texas Street, crossed over, and walked back with Alonzo Brown and his brother. All of them were agog with excitement. They reveled in the noisy bustle of commerce of young men just like themselves, having come all the way up from Texas and now permitted liberty to blow off steam and enjoy all those things they had not seen for some three or four months. On one corner, a Negro minstrel band made merry music in the open air, competing with music spilling out from saloons farther down the street. A blanket spread out at their feet was half-covered in notes and coin, thrown down by their audience. A man came out from a photography parlor, and importuned them to have their pictures taken. To their amusement, the photographer offered to let them pose with their pick of some revolvers that he had on hand.

  Peter, Dolph, and the Brown boys sat stiffly on a satin-upholstered settee and tried to look fierce. “I guess we should appear to be dangerous customers, Cuz,” Peter
ventured. They paid and promised to return for the developed pictures in a few days, although Peter wondered how on earth young Alonzo could look like anything more than a school boy, diffident and shy in his good town clothes and high-laced brogans. More than once, a longhorn cow galloped the length of the street, pursued by one or more laughing, shouting horsemen swinging their lariats overhead. At the next corner they skirted an excited group of hired drovers ringing a dogfight, a swirl of snapping teeth and brindle and fawn fur. Dolph looked pained as the losing dog yelped, a shrill and agonized cry.

  “They oughtn’t to do that,” he whispered in distress.

  Peter answered low, “Don’t interfere, those boys are pretty liquored up, and there are more of them than us.”

  The dogfight broke apart. The loser fled, a young hound with a torn ear and a mangled throat oozing gore, as the ring of men around the fight exchanged truly amazing quantities of money. Dolph went after the hound, and his exasperated cousin followed after him, along a side street into the yard behind a grocery store. The young hound had taken refuge behind a stack of crates, snarling at all within reach.

  “You and dogs,” Peter said. “Don’t you have enough of a pack at home?”

  “I suppose,” Dolph allowed, after the animal snapped at Dolph’s gentle hand when he reached into that pitiful and insubstantial den. Dolph stood with some reluctance and dusted off the knees of his good town trousers.

  “Let’s go do what everyone else is doing,” Peter urged him. “Getting a good meal and a better drink. If nowhere else promises better, we can go back to the Drovers’ and Uncle Hansi will spot us dinner. He’s a rich man, he can afford it.”

  “He’s meeting with some buyers’ agents,” Dolph said. “Businessmen. I’d planned to be there, anyway.”