The Raven's Honor

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Footsteps rattled down the dark chamber, and the big man fetched the cane for support, ready to do battle again with the man hurrying through the corridor. A well-dressed man with dark hair emerged from the shadows, stopping suddenly, breathing hard, his face damp with sweat.

  “Jack, your mother has been worried sick.” A young man to the giant, an old man to the boy, the newcomer spoke as a man with much education, and with an accent unlike what either the old whittler or the boy typically heard in these parts. “What are you doing down here?” The intruder straightened when the giant stepped into the light.

  “I’ve been teaching Jack here how to whittle,” the Goliath said, adding with a polite nod, “Reverend Baker.”

  “Governor,” the minister said. He wet his lips. “Sir, they have called for you twice.”

  Hearing this bit of news, the boy slid away.

  “The hoi polloi yell loudly,” the governor said. “I heard, yet chose to ignore such bidding.”

  The parson’s face brightened, but no smile followed on such a solemn day. “I knew you would, sir. As Senator Throckmorton said the other day … ‘When the rabble hiss, well may patriots tremble.’”

  After a curt nod, the old man sat back into his chair.

  Above, his name rang loudly for the third time.

  “Houston! Governor Sam Houston!”

  No applause followed this time. The silence did not stretch long, and whispers and hisses began creeping through the cracks into the basement. They would not call his name again. He had vacated his office, so those fire-breathing secessionists would now choose a new governor for this Confederate state of Texas.

  “Come along, Jack,” the Reverend William Mumford Baker said. “Let us find your mother.”

  “Awe,” the boy protested, but the preacher scowled, and the boy hurried toward him. After a few steps, the youngster stopped and looked back as the giant pushed back in the chair.

  “Sir?” Jack asked timidly.

  The giant’s eyes found him. Before the boy could speak, the old-timer pointed at the stick and the knife that remained on the floor.

  “Son,” he said pleasantly, “why don’t you take those with you? They might help solve your problems.”

  “I couldn’t take ’em, sir,” the boy said. “It’s your knife and your wood, and you got to do all that thinkin’.”

  “I have plenty of knives and plenty of wood at my home, Jack,” the giant said. “And I fear, lad, that in the coming years, your problems will be much more difficult and demanding than the ones I shall face … after today.”

  The boy hesitated, but the governor pointed. The child shot a respectful glance at the minister, who nodded his approval. Cautiously, the boy returned to where the whittler rocked on the chair legs, no longer looking at the boy or the preacher, but staring at the ceiling. If the boy had not known better, he would have sworn he saw tears in the old man’s eyes. After retrieving knife, wood, and, for good measure, more shavings, the youngster stuffed all inside one pocket. He started again for the preacher, but stopped suddenly, and looked back at the old man.

  “Are you …” he said, “really … Sam Houston?”

  The man stopped rocking. Turning only his head, Sam Houston answered at last, “I am what’s left of him.”

  Chapter Two

  March 18, 1861

  Houston asked himself: What are you doing, old man? You refused to take the oath to the Confederacy. You aren’t governor of Texas anymore. Where do you have to go?

  He sat down on the four-poster bed to pull on his boots. He did not feel like using the rocking chair to finish getting dressed. Rocking chairs were for old men. And beds? This he contemplated before deciding that the rocking chair belonged to him, but the bed belonged to the State of Texas, courtesy of the state legislature and the bill it had passed in December of 1859 that approved the twenty-five hundred to be spent on furnishings for the new governor. He wondered what Ed Clark, the first Confederate governor of Texas, would do with the furniture.

  Burn it, he guessed, using one of the bedposts to pull himself to his feet.

  Downstairs, Margaret shepherded children and slaves as they packed up their possessions and prepared for the long trip to Cedar Point. Well, he had never liked the city of Austin, anyway. He had fought against the foul, polluted raw town—or fought Mirabeau B. Lamar back during the late 1830s and early 1840s—to prevent Austin from becoming the capitol city, but to no avail. Texas’ government should have been in Washington-on-the-Brazos, or, better yet, Houston City. Yet he did not feel the urge to leave Austin just yet. Grabbing his walking cane and hat, he left the bedroom and headed downstairs.

  His boots, and that damnable cane, echoed in the mansion. He had never gotten used to this expensive palace of yellow bricks. By Jehovah, back in his day, he had lived in the Bullock Hotel as president of the Republic of Texas. And when he moved to Washington-on-the-Brazos, the president’s home had been a small cabin. Even then, he had been unable to pay rent in advance so he and Margaret had lived with the Lockharts; Margaret would have disapproved of anything less than a good Baptist family.

  “Wealth does not fit me,” he told Margaret often. “Which is why we are poor.”

  Although he was anything but.

  Jeff, his young personal servant, met him at the bottom of the staircase, holding an overcoat.

  “Master Sam,” the thin, young Negro said. “Joshua be hitchin’ up the buggy, sir, to run you over to the Capitol this mornin’.”

  “Thank you, Jeff,” he said, “but I’ll walk this day.”

  “Master Sam …” The slave took the walking cane and helped Houston into the coat. “You catch your death if you walk, sir.”

  “Catch my death?” Houston asked. “Or catch a bullet?”

  Jeff ignored the remark or did not hear it. “It’s a mite chilly this morn, and be lookin’ like rain.”

  “I will be fine, Jeff.” He took his cane, although the pain in his leg made him consider turning to the crutch. Pride prevented that, however. No one in Austin outside this house would see him using a damned crutch. A hickory cane was bad enough. He peered into the parlor, but Margaret had her hands full, ordering this and that to be done, so he moved toward the front door.

  “Papa?”

  His third child, Maggie, came toward him. “You have not taken breakfast yet, Papa.” Not yet a teenager, Houston grumbled to himself, and already just like her mother.

  “I shall eat upon my return from the office,” he told her.

  “Office?” She could not hide her concern.

  “I did not get all of my belongings on Saturday, Maggie,” he explained, which was what he had told Jeff earlier this morning. Which was true. He turned quickly to Jeff. “Where’s that basket I asked for?”

  The slave pointed toward the front door. Houston saw the basket and nodded at his daughter. “See. I shall fetch a few important things home. I should be back in time for dinner, likely famished.”

  If I can eat at all.

  “Well, let me find my shawl and I shall accompany you.”

  He wanted no companionship this day. Not even Maggie, a sweet girl who prided herself on being her father’s secretary and whose penmanship looked a hell of a lot better than his horrible scrawl. “I have no letters to dictate this day,” he snapped, immediately regretting his tone. He frowned at his temper before gently squeezing her shoulder. “I will be back directly, my spring rose.” He managed a pleasant voice. “But you must help your mother. We have much to do. And I promise I will feast on whatever Aunt Liza fixes for dinner and supper.” He wanted to tell her, Don’t worry.

  Making herself brave, Maggie said, “All right, Papa,” and hurried up the stairs.

  “How long you reckon they’ll lets us stay here, sir?” Jeff had somehow beaten Houston to the door, and pulled it open.

 
“They are not burning me in effigy on the lawn.” Houston pulled on his hat and grabbed the wicker basket. The door did not close behind him until he reached the street.

  * * * * *

  Reality punched him when he found Edward Clark sitting at the governor’s desk. Clark had a rectangular head, big ears, a graying mustache and beard, and very little hair on the top of his head. What Houston saw was the bald head, beading sweat, as Clark bent forward, eyes squinting, reading the morning newspapers.

  “Well, Governor,” Houston said in a mocking voice, “you are an early riser.”

  Clark sat erect, and held his breath for a long while.

  Sitting at my desk, Houston thought. In my chair.

  “Yes.” Clark found his own sarcastic tone. “General. I am illustrating the old maxim … ‘The early bird catches the worm.’”

  But, sir, you are the worm. Houston let that thought go unsaid. Instead, he pointed at the chair. “Well, Governor Clark, I hope you will find it an easier chair than I have found it.”

  “I’ll endeavor to make it so, General, by conforming to the clearly expressed will of the people of Texas.”

  Houston wondered how he had managed to tolerate the blubbering fool as his lieutenant governor for all those months. Will of the people? The people favored secession. The people favored war. Secession—and Houston’s removal as governor—were entirely unconstitutional. And war?

  “You are in for a long war, Governor.” This time, he spoke in a serious tone.

  “I suppose not,” Clark said. “Being tempered from war, at Monterrey, as you might remember, where I had the honor and privilege to serve under General Henderson, I daresay that Texans always give their utmost, which will be more than enough to send Northern tyrants retreating back to Washington City to crucify Mister Lincoln, that Abolitionist zealot, for starting this ruction.”

  Working on his speech, Houston thought. It needs work. Much work. And he knows nothing about war. He pointed. “I’ll not bother you, Governor. I merely came to gather the rest of my personal effects, if you do not mind.”

  “By all means, General.” Clark returned to his newspapers, and Houston set the basket down. His copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey were so torn and ragged, he thought Clark might have thrown them out with the garbage, but, of course, Clark would have no reason to peruse a bookshelf. Houston cushioned the volumes, his most valuable treasures, with his gloves, grabbed a few trinkets he had carved, and two unopened letters. Recognizing the handwriting and return address on one, he immediately opened it, surprised that a letter from a damn Yankee state like Connecticut could make it into the Capitol.

  Save Texas for us, Lydia Sigourney had written, if you can.

  “Oh, you sweet singer of Hartford,” he said softly, “this, I fear, I cannot do.”

  Placing the letter from his friend and poet on top of his carvings, he closed the basket’s lid. He opened the other letter, read a few lines, and crumpled it and the envelope and let them fall into the trash.

  Clark kept reading the newspapers, and down the corridor someone cleared his throat. Glancing around the governor’s office, Houston knew he did not belong here. If he stayed much longer, he might fall into myriad pieces.

  “Good day, Governor Clark,” he said at the entrance, his bow as exaggerated as his tidings. But Houston would be damned if he walked away without a final punch.

  Clark raised his bald head and opened his mouth, but stopped when Houston pointed to the washstand. “I have left you that bar of soap,” Houston said, “for a governor should have clean hands. Mine are, sir.” Clark appeared too stunned to respond, and, grinning, Sam Houston left the Capitol.

  * * * * *

  The men who complained that their wives did nothing all day but natter sat outside the barbershop next to the post office doing what they did best: gossip and pontificate on matters of importance.

  “Crockett,” one said. “That’s who we need. Davy. Why he’d lick the Yanks.”

  “I’d sure enough fit alongside Davy,” said another. “More’n I’d join up to serve under Johnston.”

  “Johnston’s all right,” said the third, “but I like Ben McCulloch. Why, once the Yanks found out Jeff Davis had put McCulloch in charge here in Texas, they skedaddled like the yellow dogs they are.”

  “Who’s McCulloch?” asked the fourth.

  “Shhhhh,” the first whispered. “Here comes ol’ Sam Jacinto hisself, the traitor.”

  Ignoring the chin wags, Houston posted a letter to Sam Junior, now attending Colonel Robert P. T. Allen’s Military Institute in Bastrop, and continued on for home. The know-it-alls were talking as soon as he passed the haberdasher.

  “How old you reckon he is now?” asked the first.

  “Right behind Methuselah,” answered the second.

  “Sixty,” said the third.

  “Eighty,” guessed the fourth.

  “I wonder what got into him, turnin’ down the governor’s job and all,” said the third.

  “All ’em years in Washington City,” the second said. “They got to him, the Yanks did.”

  “Shoot,” said the first, “if he had any backbone, Davy Crockett’d still be with us. Travis and Bowie, too. He was marchin’ to the Alamo, Houston was, but drug his feet. Didn’t see no hurry, he did. Ask me, he’s to blame.”

  “Well,” said the fourth, “but wasn’t for him and San Jacinto, we might not be here.”

  “Maybe,” said the third, “but, still, he weren’t no Crockett.”

  When war finally reached Texas, Houston figured, those windbags would still be in front of the barbershop, their mouths filled with tobacco and lungs filled with hot air. They’d be sitting there when the war ended, as well.

  * * * * *

  In the dining room, he ate only half a sandwich, but drank all the tea, before handing the copies of Homer, as well as the rest of his dinner, to Lewis, the oldest slave he owned. Exhausted from the walk to the Capitol and post office and back, though refusing to admit it, he climbed the stairs and sank into his rocking chair.

  Maggie checked on him again. So did Mary Willie, his ten-year-old daughter. So did the slaves—Aunt Martha, Joshua, old Lewis. He wanted the damned door shut, to be alone, but he lacked the strength to stand up and close it.

  He felt older than his sixty-eight years. He had a wife, beautiful Margaret Moffette Lea Houston, who would turn forty-two next month. They had eight children, the youngest, Temple Lea, born right here in this governor’s mansion less than a year ago. Looking up, Houston caught his reflection in the mirror. Silently, he had mocked Governor Clark’s bald pate, yet Houston’s own hair had thinned so much, he no longer could find much to comb over. What remained glowed stark white, yet still as unruly as his temper and, he had to concede, his own ego. He ran his fingers through his sideburns, and then rested the cleft in his chin against his right hand.

  Down the hall, Temple Lea began to cry, and footsteps immediately sounded on the stairs. He stared through the open door, too tired even to see to his youngest son as he watched a black woman hurry to change the diaper or whatever Temple Lea demanded right now. Houston pushed himself out of the rocker, removed his coat and vest, and then his shirt. He pulled off his undershirt, and walked to the wash basin.

  “Are your wounds bothering you again, Sam?”

  Margaret stood on the threshold. Before he could answer, she moved to his side, dipped a washcloth in the soapy water, and brought it to his right arm. She grimaced, but refused to let the clear fluid bother her. Most women, even most men, would be sickened by the sight, but not Margaret.

  The bullet had struck him forty-seven years ago, and for forty-seven years that wound had refused to heal completely. Just like another bullet wound in the shoulder, as well as one from a Creek arrow in his groin—three unhealed scars from the same damned battle. “They annoy me when my E
benezer is up,” he often complained, but the wounds troubled him even during good moods. His dander rose again for he did not want Margaret to clean the other wound.

  “I can do this,” he said. “Or get Jeff to dress it.”

  “I know you can,” Margaret said. “But so can I.”

  Defeated again, he sighed. “How is Temple?”

  “Dry.” Her grin proved infectious.

  “Why,” he asked, “are you with a leaky, mouthy old reprobate like me?”

  “Sam Houston,” she said, “I was smitten when I first laid eyes on you.” She dipped the cloth in the basin and began to wring out the water. Her voice, always musical, turned dreamy as she reflected. “The Reverend and Missus McLean said that we must go to the docks for the great hero of the Texas rebellion was being brought to New Orleans, and that we should be there to cheer on such a leader.” The cold compress returned to his arm.

  He had heard this story a million times before. He could hear it a million more.

  “Why there must have been a thousand people on the docks that day, waving flags and ribbons and flowers. And we went, and we waited, and they told us that the Flora had been delayed by storm. And thus I said my chance at seeing a hero was gone. But the next day, our chaperones insisted that we return. So off we went, the reverend, his wife, and a bunch of schoolgirls from the Pleasant Valley Academy. And on this day, maybe five thousand people massed together on the waterfront. Bells from the cathedral pealing, bands playing, everyone clapping. They knew, for we had been told, that this time, the Flora had arrived … what a decrepit ship she was. Not fitting, I thought, to be transporting a grand hero, and this time you limped out on crutches. I had read about heroes, in Ivanhoe and The Last of the Mohicans. But you were the first I saw.”

  Houston’s big head bobbed. “The surgeon said that I would be carted out on a stretcher, but when I heard the cheers, I refused. I walked. Somehow, I walked.”

  “And talked,” she reminded him. “After we made the bands stop their infernal racket.”

  “Briefly,” he said. “I spoke but few words.”