by Texas
If a friar of outstanding Christian humility governed the mission while a soldier of exemplary character headed the presidio, the system had a chance of functioning, and sometimes it did, but more often a situation developed, like the one in San Juan Bautista, in which overt hostility was avoided but petty antagonisms were inescapable. The colonel, suspecting this, assigned Fray Damian to one of the missions, while he and Alvaro lodged at the presidio, so that the young soldier could experience frontier life at its most typical.
'You'll excuse me, Lieutenant Saldana, because I know your brother is a friar, and I suppose one of the best,' said the captain in charge of the presidio, 'but these damned friars ...' He shrugged his shoulders as if to say that mere words could not describe their duplicity.
'Anything I should report to Zacatecas?' the colonel asked.
'Nothing, and everything,' the captain said, and with that summation he began listing the malfeasances of the clergy, and a sorry portrait he painted of frontier clericalism, for he charged the friars with theft, willful contravention of the king's ordinances and general insubordination: 'And one particular charge which I do hope you'll mention in your report. By agreement they are obligated to share with us the fruits of their labor—corn, a good goat now and then, a portion of any steer that is slaughtered. And they have green vegetables in their gardens, I know it, I've seen them. But we get none. They use their food to feed their Indians.' The only charge he did not bring against the friars was one which did surface at other posts: i must admit, Colonel, that unsavory as they are, they do not meddle with the Indian women. In their religious duties they're true Christians, anyone would admit that, but in the management of the mission as a part of our system, they're no better than a bunch of lying, lazy thieves.'
At the mission that night charges which did involve Indian women were laid before Fray Damian, with urgent requests that he convey them to the authorities in Zacatecas. 'We cannot prevent those devilish soldiers, whom God has never known, from
consorting with our Indian converts. Well, to speak truthfully, i they're not really converts, not yet, but we have high hopes. As I soon as a girl of that certain age comes to our compound, the soldiers get after her, and before long she's pregnant. At times it seems that our major function on the frontier is the production of mestizo bastards.'
There was one serious complaint which both the friar and the colonel felt must be presented to the authorities, and it was voiced in noninflammatory tones by the friars: The order clearly states that we shall have in each mission two friars, which we have provided, and three armed soldiers, which the presidio is to provide. But we never get the soldiers.'
To this justifiable complaint the military officials had solid response: 'We originally placed three soldiers in each mission, as required by the king, but when we did we heard much fault-finding from the friars—'The soldiers did this." "Your soldiers did that." 'The soldiers molest the girls." Well, I told them frankly: "If you don't want our soldiers for your work, we can sure as hell use them in ours," so we took them back.'
The colonel suggested that perhaps the presidio could screen its men carefully and find one each for the three missions, but the friars protested: That is not what the order provides.' On the night before the expedition departed, the colonel finally put his finger on the sore spot: 'I take my military orders from Mexico City, you know,' and the friars replied: 'And we take our orders from Guadalajara.' It was obvious that the rupture would remain unhealed.
Crossing the Rio Grande was physically trivial—water up to the ankle on a stone riverbed as smooth as a table—but emotionally exciting, for now the Spaniards entered a potential battleground: real Apache ready to attack from the west, shadowy Frenchmen lurking in the north. The terrain was inviting to horsemen, great stretches of waving grassland punctuated occasionally by clumps of mesquite bushes, those low, thorny, jagged miniature trees which had always populated the river courses of Tejas but which, in recent years, had begun to invade the grassland wherever the grand balance of nature had been disturbed by the grazing of cattle or the scraping of a hoe. For a friar who hoped to establish here his mission and a presidio, with a town following in due course, this was forbidding land, for it contained little visible water.
But after eight days of such travel, with crossing of two rivers, the Nueces and the Medina, the Spaniards entered Tejas, where they found sights which gladdened their hearts. A small stream, the San Antonio de Padua, ran with spring-fed water, and on its
far bank earlier Franciscans had erected two missions of obvious stability, while on the near bank, a short distance away, a sturdy presidio housed the soldiers guarding the area. Close to the barracks an informal little village consisting of two adobe houses had begun to germinate, and here lived the four mestizo families who endeavored to farm the good fields along the river.
In all ways the settlement was minimal: at the missions, two friars, three soldiers in each and fifty-one Indians, two of whom had converted; in the presidio, a captain, a sergeant and fifty-two soldiers; in the two-hut village, seven adults and three children.
These Franciscan efforts had been named Mision San Jose and Mision San Antonio de Valero, after the popular saint of Padua and the equally popular viceroy who had authorized its founding. The viceroy carried a formidable appellation: Baltazar Manuel de Zuniga (this could be considered his name) y Guz-man-Sotomayor (his mother's name) y Mendoza y Sarmiento (historic names adhering to his family). And as if this were not sufficient, he was also Marques de Valero y Duque de Arion (his hereditary titles).
San Antonio de Valero would have been a proper name for this settlement, short and musical, but some busybody remembered that the Marques de Valero had a renowned half brother, the Duque de Bejar, who had given his life in defense of Christian Budapest during battle with the infidel Turks, and this intruder thought it might please the viceroy if the new settlement was named after the hero, so it became San Antonio de Bejar. But as in the case of Mejico and Mexico, local Spanish was cavalier in its interchange of / and x, so it quickly became San Antonio de Bexar, which the locals promptly abbreviated to Bexar.
Here the internecine struggles which had been so prevalent at the Rio Grande missions were avoided, allowing Spanish colonial rule to flourish at its best. Sensible friars at the mission and strong-minded military men in the presidio forced the intricate system to work, riding down any incipient troubles. Into a strange and alien land populated by passive Indians who feared the fierce, untamed Apache to the west, had come a handful of devout Spaniards to build their low-roofed buildings and dig their irrigation ditches.
As soon as Fray Damian saw Bexar he loved it: 'Oh, I would like to work here!' and he asked the colonel: 'Could I not start my mission ... off to the north, where I wouldn't interfere with San Antonio de Valero? There is so much work to be done.' But the soldier had specific orders: 'Our job is to inspect and protect the real frontier, the area of the Nacogdoches mission,' and so with profound regrets Fray Damian left a place which had excited his
imagination and started the long march to the bleak northern extremity of Tejas.
The journey from Bexar to Los Adaes,' explained a soldier who had fought in Europe's mercenary armies, 'is as long as marching up from Paris, across Flanders, across the Netherlands, and into the Germany. Tejas is big.'
As they kept bearing to the northeast, the brothers noticed radical changes in the scenery. They started across flat grassland and mesquite, then encountered rolling country with many trees, and next were in a completely different terrain, with trees but also with real prairies suitable for farming. Finally they came to what they thought was best of all, fine woodlands with promising soil: 'Here a man could cut down the trees and make himself a farm that would feed a village.'
As they traveled through this magnificent and almost pristine region, so totally different from the land around Bexar, Damian reflected on an oddity which perplexed him: 'Why is the capital of Tejas so far north? On the bor
ders of Louisiana?' He pondered this, but could find no rational justification: 'By all reason the capital should be at Bexar, for it is central and the source of leadership in Tejas, but since no one at the Council of the Indies in Madrid has ever been to Tejas or seen an accurate map, the capital is kept far to the north, from where it will be almost impossible to provide good government.'
Alvaro offered a clear explanation: 'France. They control Louisiana a few leagues to the east. Our father fought against them three times, and even though we have a kind of peace now, would you like to gamble on what the situation will be next year? Madrid's clever: "Keep the capital on the frontier. Keep your eye on those damned Frenchmen." '
In late January they reached the west bank of the Neches, a stream one could jump, and although military practice required that a military force cross over at dusk so that it would be prepared to march on in the morning, regardless of any change that might have occurred to the river, the western bank was so hospitable that the men had unpacked the mules and pitched camp before the colonel could stop them. That night a winter storm of huge dimension struck, and by morning the Neches was a torrent which raged for seven days, to the colonel's disgust with himself for having ignored a basic rule.
However, since the Saldaria brothers were an enterprising pair, they utilized the forced delay to inspect one of the saddest sights in Tejas, the abandoned ruins of a cluster of missions that had once served the region. They had flourished briefly in the 1690s, giving
promise of becoming a focus of some importance, but the hostility of the Indians and the fluctuating attitudes of the nearby French had doomed the effort Worthy Franciscans had lost their enthusiasm and sometimes their lives in these ruins Their efforts had marked the high tide of Spain's colonizing effort, and they had not succeeded.
Soldier and friar looked upon the ruins from vastly different perspectives, and it was Alvaro who voiced the no-nonsense interpretation sponsored by the Spanish government in Madrid: 'No cause for grief, Damian. Missions are thrust into locations to establish a foothold, no more. Pacify the Indians, start a community, and when things are stable, invite the civil government to take over. The mission closes, job done. The buildings gradually fall apart. And you friars move along to your next obligation.' He saw the .deserted ruins simply as proof that in this instance the procedure had failed.
But Damian saw in the rotting timbers the tragedy of crushed aspirations, the death of plans which once must have seemed so promising, and he could hear the early friars assuring one another. 'We'll establish our mission here, and bring the word of God to the Indians, and watch as families from Spain move in to build a city.' Now only the pines whispered over the graves.
'This could have been a major settlement,' Damian said. 'Families should be living here. Children in the shadow of the church. This is heartbreaking.' He asked his brother to kneel as he said prayers for the departed souls who had struggled so diligently to accomplish so little. For Damian, a mission was not some temporary agency that appeared casually and slipped away when its work was done; it was intended to serve as the everlasting soul of a community, and any abrupt demise was tragic.
When they finally negotiated the swollen Neches, they came upon rude buildings in which new missions were being attempted, but their success seemed doubtful, and as Damian bade these Franciscans goodbye, it was with a sense of futility. Spain was not impressive in these remote corners of its empire.
The ninety-odd miles to Los Adaes were some of the most mournful Alvaro would ever travel, for they proved that the expedition was leaving the Tejas sphere of influence and entering a world in which Spaniards played no significant role: 'It's all wrong, Damian. We should be back in Bexar, building a city.'
The new capital was a pitiful sham, a few wooden buildings at the farthest end of a supply line along which Madrid rarely sent anything usable. Spanish officials confided: 'The French over at Natchitoches arrange things so that we can buy goods smuggled
in from the former French capital at Mobile, and for every honest man in the area, there must be a dozen cutthroats who have escaped down the Mississippi River.' The chapel had barely the equipment for a proper Vlass, and Damian thought that if this was the best Spain could do with its empire, that empire was doomed.
The captain acting as governor was always sickly, the foul air from the marshes having affected his lungs so that he coughed continuously. After he read the instructions sent him from Mexico City, he informed Damian: 'You are to come back with settlers and attempt a new mission in these parts,' an assignment which the friar accepted without comment.
'Am I to man the presidio?' Alvaro asked, and the governor tapped the letter: 'No mention of it.' But the colonel interrupted: 'These are good men, Captain. I shall recommend that they work as a team, and I pray that you will second it.' Without giving the suggestion even a moment's study, the weary governor coughed several times, then said: 'Very well. It can do no harm, I should think.'
When the garrison troops were lined up to see the visitors off, Alvaro saw to his disgust that no two men had the same uniform and that most had none. They were a ragtag disgrace to the army, and the governor confided: These are my best. The worst run off to New Orleans once they see this place.' And this ineffectual man, governor of all Tejas, wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Joyous news awaited the brothers when they returned to Bexar for a letter from Benita Linan informed Alvaro that she was eager to mam' him as soon as he returned home. It sounded as if she had wedding plans under way, even though the young officer had not yet spoken to her father, as custom required.
When they reached Zacatecas, Benita told Damian that they wanted him to officiate, and as he was preparing for a day which he knew would bring him confusion, he received good news of his own. The administrator of the district summoned him and his Franciscan superior to headquarters, and told them: 'The new viceroy arrived in Mexico while you were in the north, Fray Damian, and he believes that the French menace has subsided. He doesn't want to build a mission near Los Adaes. But he does command the Franciscans to establish one more strengthening mission at Bexar. And the father-principal and I have decided that you're the one to go. We'll provide you with an escort directly after the wedding.'
Damian, contrasting the fraternity he had experienced at Bexar with the mournful emptiness of the Louisiana border, was de-
lighted with what he held to be a promotion. But when it occurred to him that he might be rejoicing over something which represented a reversal of God's plans for him—perhaps He meant for me to do His work in Los Adaes; perhaps those ruined missions were left along the Neches to inspire me—he was ashamed of himself for having found joy in a lesser task while escaping the greater to which heaven might have assigned him. This was a real concern, and one which agitated him for some weeks, so that as
i the wedding approached he found himself beset by doubled turmoil: he was in love with his brother's bride, there could be no other word for it, and he was ashamed of himself for exulting over his escape from unpleasant or even dangerous duty. He fell into that anguish of self-doubt which would characterize his early years as a missionary: I'm a poor example. I have sin upon me and I cannot cleanse myself. I'm unworthy to be a shepherd and am
: amazed that God does not strike me.
He was diverted from such self-chastisement when he met the young friar who was to share the duties at the new mission, for Fray Domingo Pacheco, fourteen years younger, was a round-faced, happy, brown-skinned mestizo. His father, a Spanish soldier in charge of a ranch belonging to the viceroy, had been so beset by loneliness that he had taken to wife a comely Indian woman, who had been given the name Maria and who had raised their son
> Domingo with songs and slaps, kisses and chastisements.
Fray Domingo looked upon the world as a place of contradiction and insanity which could be managed only with a grin, a shrug of the shoulders and the avoidance of as much unpleasantness as possible, and by unpleasantness he me
ant work. When assigned a job, he nodded, said it was easy to perform, assured the man in command that it would be done promptly, then worked as little and as slowly as possible, smiling warmly whenever a supervisor stopped by to inspect his progress. With Domingo things were always going well, tomorrow was sure to see the task finished, and for each time an observer saw him frown, he saw him smile a score of times.
He was not a stupid fellow, for in his twenty-two years he had accumulated a world of practical knowledge, so that his instructors at the college were often surprised by the astuteness of his answers and reassured by his obvious devotion to his calling. Though he had been characteristically satisfied with taking only minor orders, he was still a full-fledged friar, and he could perform marriages and baptisms but he could not sing the Mass or engage in certain other restricted rituals. Fray Domingo was a servant of God who believed that with all the sour-faced monks
and friars and priests in the world, there must be a place for someone who smiled.
He had what Fray Damian would never attain: an absolute faith in the benevolence of God and a comforting assurance that whatever he, Domingo, did was in accordance with God's will. This supreme confidence came from his mother, who had belonged to a primitive tribe of Indians far south of Oaxaca; this group held women in low regard, and when she first learned of Christianity and the exalted role played by the Virgin Mary, she placed her entire confidence in the new religion. It was a beautiful religion, consoling, rich in its promises and realistic in its earthly performance. If the Spanish conversion of Mexico had accomplished nothing but the reorganization of women's lives, as in the case of Maria Pacheco, it would have achieved great triumphs, for she accepted the new faith joyously and taught her son to do the same.