The Fourth Western Novel

by H. H. Knibbs

  This vengeful spirit of the Reconstruction law had caused many Confederates to leave the state. At the close of the war, many had fled across the Rio Grande. There they joined another lost cause, the Imperialist army trying to make Maximilian emperor of Mexico. Some now drifted northward, as agents of the Imperialists, seeking to find recruits and arms and support among the embittered Confederates. They offered alluring alternatives to a questionable life under Yankee carpetbag rule.

  In the Travis county jail, Ben listened to the sales talk of the Imperialist agent. He was so convincing that he got not only three prisoners, but all three jailers to sign up and head for Mexico.

  Ben Thompson on a pinto pony, and the five other men on horses of various hues, stirred the limestone dust of Austin as they hit the San Antonio road early one mild December morning of 1865. They forded the Comal and struck out across the foothill trails that mark the boundary of the Texas hill and mountain regions. This is the rim of the Edwards Plateau, at the Balcones Escarpment. From there, the terrain slopes gradually south and east, toward the flat plain of the brush country.

  Ben Thompson and his companions pushed ahead on a forced ride for six days through the big coastal triangle stretching from Corpus Christi across to Eagle Pass, down the Rio Grande on the west and the Gulf coast on the east, converging in the third point of the triangle at Point Isabel and Brownsville.

  CHAPTER 18

  Ben Thompson and the other five recruits for Maximilian’s army found plenty of company on their way to the Mexican border. The brush country was boiling in a frantic scramble for cattle, in the wake of the opening of the northern markets. Hundreds of cattle hunters and outlaws roamed the vast area. The Rio Grande was just another one of a series of rivers, lining the land like the ribs in a section of an umbrella, cutting through to the Gulf from their sources in the mountains to the west: the Comal River, the Guadalupe, the San Antonio, the Medina, the Sabinal, the Leona, and the Neuces.

  Three of the men found the free-ranging cattle business tempting and joined up with the vaqueros. Ben and the other two resisted the lure and pushed on toward Mexico. Nearing the border, they stopped at a small stream to refresh their horses. They found the water churned up with so much mud that the animals refused to drink. The three followed the stream upland and in a clearing alongside some big oak trees, they found a small herd of sheep trampling around in the water.

  Ben broke out in a rage of fiery profanity. His cussing brought out four men, two carrying carbines, from behind a chaparral motte. Ben told them in unmistakable terms what he thought of sheepherders generally, and especially of sheepherders who permitted their animals to put water-holes out of use. That the men happened to be on their own land was beside the point.

  The argument grew more heated, and the trail-raw tempers flared into open challenge. One of the sheepmen made the tactical error of raising his carbine as he ordered the trio away from the water-hole and off the land on which they were trespassing.

  Ben’s reply was a blast from his revolver, drawn so fast into spitting flame that it startled even his companions. They pulled rifles from saddle-boots. The sheepman with leveled gun fell heavily sideways into a thorn-bush. All six other men were shooting with shoulder and hand arms. Horses reared, and frightened sheep milled in the water. The battle was short. The rapid explosions, starting suddenly and ending quickly, might as well have come from a string of firecrackers. In the dusty silence four sheepmen and two horsemen lay dead, sprawled haphazardly on the sloping terrain. Ben’s pinto was badly wounded, writhing on the ground. Ben shot him in the head, and walked a short distance to a stand of yucca, where he found a sorrel mare that had taken shelter after dumping her mortally wounded rider.

  Alone on the sorrel, Ben turned south and east, over a small cliff. A sharply descending trail led across a dry riverbed and into a big expanse of mesquite and cactus. He scared up white-wing doves and coveys of quivering quail, as he guided his horse through a winding path that found the wide trail to the wagon road along the Rio Grande. After five days, he approached Brownsville.

  At the Ramireno Bend, he forded over to the Mexican side, and slipped through the outpost patrols. Within another hour, he was being formally inducted into the Mexican Imperialist army by Captain Gilley, and commissioned a captain by General Tomas Mejia. Mejia’s forces held Matamoros, now under siege for fifteen months by the Republican-Liberal army of the Rio Grande under General Escobedo, with assistance of General Juan N. Cortina.

  The Imperialist army in central Mexico had driven Juarez’s men to the north and to the south. A combined land-sea pincer movement was now under way to wrest control of the Rio Grande. On land, Maximilian men marched from Monterrey to Reynosa and Matamoros. At sea, Admiral de la Bedouliere, on the French warship Tisifone, anchored off Bagdad, at the mouth of the Rio Grande. French sailors and Austrian infantrymen were taken up the Rio Grande to Matamoros on the packet boats, Eugenia and Antonia.

  Along the north bank of the Rio Grande, thousands of fresh troops of General Philip Sheridan’s Union army were being deployed. There was real fear that an Imperialist victory would revive the War Between the States. A larger number of Confederates fought on the side of Maximilian. They hoped Maximilian would help them invade the United States once he was on the throne of Mexico.

  So, in effect, the Civil War continued along the Rio Grande, although Robert E. Lee had surrendered a year ago. Scores of guerrilla bands ranged along the river, some of them Imperialists foraging for supplies, others from the besieging Republican force on harassing missions. Soldiers of all the armies fought smugglers of Texas cattle and horses. Outlaws waited to seize the stock as it neared the end of the illicit trail. Every day a score or more men were killed in border encounters, and their corpses lay rotting where they fell.

  In this environment, a ready and accurate pistol like Ben Thompson’s was a decided asset. It was a key to a position of some prominence, or at least respectful recognition, in the community. Ben exercised his talents here with the full immunity offered by the circumstances. The Texan was in Matamoros for six months or so, and he lived high, wide, and handsome. How many men he killed remains a question to which the irregularly kept statistics of that day gave no accurate answer.

  Some special occasions are recorded in the verbal lore of the region. One was Ben’s singlehanded slaying of six Imperialist deserters. Then there was the pitched battle in which Ben, aided by his brother Billy and two others, took on a detail of Matamoros policemen, and left eleven dead on the plaza.

  A series of similar encounters had built up Ben’s reputation as a tough hombre, very, very dangerous with the pistola. They had also produced a crop of enemies, anxious to provide a quick finish to his career. But at the same time, in his rounds of the gambling casinos, the dance-hall fandangos, the red light district, El Capitan Benito had acquired a host of friends. Some were admirers of his skill at arms. Some wanted to stay in his good graces because of that skill. Others he had helped out of tight spots in a fight or a money pinch. Many were charmed by the sweet-talking Texan with a warm smile, by the quiet, gracious, and courteous manner of his sober periods. All these people constituted an unsolicited, unorganized army that protected Ben by keeping him apprised of threats and of imminent danger.

  While dancing at a fandango establishment, Ben was warned that the brother of one of his victims planned to kill him that night. As the small orchestra played, and Ben wheeled his señorita on the floor, he had his eye on the man who was stalking him. He, too, was swinging a young lady around and around. It was not long before the word spread among the rest that trouble was brewing.

  One couple left the floor, then another, and another, and soon there were only six couples dancing. Ben and his enemy were now wheeling and turning and sidestepping like two gamecocks, about to tangle. Each had his gaze fixed on the other, and each still smiled and chatted as if he had not a care in the world.

&n
bsp; For a moment in the dance, the other four couples had scattered. The two hostile dancers were at close quarters. The other man stepped away from his dancing partner. The flash of a long, thin, steel blade swept toward Ben.

  The Texan’s pistol flared. Four bullets pumped death into the dagger-wielder’s belly. He stood inert for an instant, then crumpled like a punctured balloon. A scarlet trickle came from his blanched lips, and another from one nostril oozed down his cheek. They merged in an undulating rivulet on the floor.

  CHAPTER 19

  Before leaving with General Mejia in the evacuation of Matamoros, Ben Thompson carved another memorable niche in border annals.

  A Union army captain, drinking at a Matamoros saloon, offered a toast to Abraham Lincoln. The drinkers at the bar graciously raised their glasses. Following suit, Ben proposed a companion toast, to the Confederate counterpart of Lincoln—Jefferson Davis. All but the Union officer complied. Ben insisted. The other drinkers, knowing Ben’s reputation, melted away from the bar.

  The two opponents squared off, facing each other, a few feet apart. But there was no shooting. Ben drew his pistol, and with the same speed that he showed in firing, now brought the weapon up against the side of the Yankee’s head. The stunned man fell, and lay flat on the floor. Ben got a knife from the bartender, sliced off the captain’s left ear, and departed with his trophy.

  Mejia’s depleted forces left Matamoros on the packet boat Antonia on June 23, 1866, and reached Bagdad, at the mouth of the Rio Grande the next day.

  Here, Mejia told his American recruits they could return to Texas, simply by crossing the Rio Grande to the village of Clarksville. If they chose, they could continue aboard the vessel that would sail the next day to Veracruz, several hundred miles down the Mexican coast. From Veracruz they could go to the nearby town of Cordoba, high in the eastern sierras of Mexico. There, amid orange groves and coffee and tobacco plantations, fugitive Confederates from all over the southern states had been assembling for two major projects.

  One was a plan for colonization in Mexico to perpetuate the way of life that had been established in the Old South. Mexico, it was true, had decreed the abolition of human slavery many years before, but the peon system of agriculture had persisted. It offered practically the same advantages to the plantation owners. The workmen were tied down all their lives by a system of debt accumulation tantamount to forced labor. The other dream of the Confederates was the organization and training of an army that would return to the United States and claim what had been taken by the Yankee invaders.

  Ben Thompson took a third choice offered by Mejia. The Mexican general called for volunteers to march cross-country and try to reinforce the Imperialist forces in central Mexico. Spurred by the Union victory in the United States, the Juarez forces had rallied. With the support from north of the Rio Grande, they had succeeded in taking control of northern Mexico, and their victories made them supreme in the south also. Only in the central tablelands and in Veracruz were the Imperialists still holding out. The whole tide of the war had turned.

  For months on end, Ben Thompson rode with the seven hundred volunteers that went along with General Mejia. Through the tropical jungles and across the mountains they moved. Word reached them that the Imperialists would make a stand in the city of Queretaro, and Mejia ordered a forced march to that city. There, the Republican general, Escobedo, had gathered a huge army. He demanded unconditional surrender of Maximilian and his armies, and hardly waited for a reply. Maximilian and most of his army were captured before they could fight back. Maximilian was executed on June 19, 1867, on the Hill of the Bells (Cerro de las Campanas) at Queretaro.

  Ben Thompson and a friend in the French army, Jean Lefebre, were among several hundred of the Imperialist soldiers who escaped. They fled across three hundred miles of a hostile Mexico. A familiar figure, Defeat, again rode at Ben Thompson’s side. Finally they reached the comparative safety of General Bazaine’s command in Veracruz.

  In that Mexican port, while trying to make up his mind whether to go to the Pacific coast or go back to Texas, Ben Thompson came down with yellow fever. Yellow Jack was then the scourge of every Gulf Coast port, and at that time still a mysterious plague of uncertain origin. For weeks Ben lingered in the throes of the torturing pain and fever. In his more lucid moments, he got glimpses of the scores of buzzards roosting on nearby trees and atop sidewalk balcony railings.

  During his recovery and part of his convalescence, Ben was nursed by the Sisters of Charity. He remembered with special gratitude the attentive ministering of Sister Josefa. Later, as his strength came back little by little, he boarded with a private family.

  Ben thought of them often in later years, with deep feelings of gratefulness. He remained in Veracruz during the summer and winter and far into the spring. During these months he found ample opportunity for card-playing and other forms of gambling, including the lottery, a universal pastime among the inhabitants there. His stay in Mexico also gave Ben a liking for the clothing of the country. He wore the flared trousers, split up the sides and laced with colored cord, the silk shirt, flowing tie, fringed sash, and flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat with gold and silver tassels.

  After his return to Austin, Ben Thompson for months continued to dress in Mexican style. Later he changed to the conventional costume of the Mississippi River gambler: puffed and pleated white shirt, string tie, long black broadcloth coat, brocaded vest, and silk or Boston beaver hat.

  In 1868, a short time after Ben’s return, Billy Thompson killed Tim Burke, a Federal soldier who had been a friend of his. The two had gotten into a fight after a series of disagreements, and Billy had claimed a clear case of self-defense. But the climate of opinion under the power of Reconstruction police was against all Southerners. Especially was it bad for the defiant, independent Texans, and most particularly for those whose pistol-throwing skill sometimes made the spiteful law-enforcers a bit ridiculous.

  Billy fled from Austin, and a systematic persecution of Ben began. He was constantly shadowed by police soldiers, and plainclothesmen. A recalcitrant farmer, Jack McGuire, had fired on a group of soldiers who demanded entry to his home, and a gun battle ensued. He said other bands had tried to enter his home, pretending they were soldiers, and with intentions of robbery. The reinforced Federals besieged McGuire, brought him out, burned his house down. Rumors spread that Ben Thompson had been involved in the shooting, and troops broke into his house at night.

  Because they felt Billy was being helped by his brother, the soldiers kept up a steady harassment of Ben. Several altercations occurred, but Ben’s reputation as a dead-shot was such that none would provoke him to drawing his revolver. On one occasion he took a pistol away from a soldier who had tried to appropriate his horse, because he had thought Ben was a Mexican due to his costume.

  Ultimately the Federals got a legal hold on Ben through a round of difficulties that Ben had with a man named Theophilus Brown. In a scuffle, Ben wounded the man in the thigh, after having sought previously to put the man under peace bond, which was denied him. With the wounding of Brown, the Federals seized Ben and brought him to trial on charges of assault with intent to murder, and threatening to kill.

  In the stockade known as the Bull Pen, McGuire was attacked by some of the other prisoners, and Ben came to his rescue. As a result he was put in chains. During the trial he was forced to carry his shackles a mile each way to the courthouse. He was found guilty by the military court, despite his formal pleas of innocence. Only one modification was made in the original charges, which stated that Ben had said to Brown:

  “You God-damned old, if you attempt to have me arrested again, I will kill you, and everyone who has anything to do with it.”

  The judge advocate ruled Ben was guilty of making the statement, with exception of the words, “God” and “again.”

  Ben drew a four-year sentence at hard labor, and he was sent to the peniten
tiary at Huntsville.

  CHAPTER 20

  At the Huntsville penitentiary, Ben Thompson was put to making articles of braided hair, since his physical condition made hard labor impossible. While in prison, Ben had plenty of spare time to take stock of himself in that moment of historic importance to the state of Texas.

  He could consider, for instance, that men of his day who lived by their guns also generally died young. According to these standards, Ben Thompson in 1868 had reached middle age. He was actually twenty-five years old. The gun play in his past was enough to provide a lifetime of such experience for a half-dozen ordinary pistol-toting men.

  In his maturing manhood, Ben Thompson was what the Scotch-Irish ancestors on his mother’s side might have called a fine broth of a man. He was not the rangy, tall-in-the-saddle type of westerner who figured in many another saga. But in his erect bearing, with his head held high and proud, he gave the impression of a height greater than his five feet nine inches. His youthful leanness had begun to fill out, foreshadowing the more familiar stockiness; his shoulders bunched up a bit where they met the neck—this firm-fleshed and wire-muscled, lightning-swift master of the pistol draw who became known as the deadliest revolver shot in all of Texas. And even far to the north and west, where the Texans and their millions of cattle marched in the great procession over the Chisholm Trail for a score of years.

  Ben Thompson had a face like that of an amiable bull terrier, a basic squareness mellowed by the curves of high cheekbones, bulging forehead, fleshy cheeks, and ball of a chin. His mouth was small, at times even seemed dainty in the precise lines shaping his lips, but their fullness in a smile gave evidence of an amiability which was one of the traits most remembered about him. Later, as the size of his mustache grew with the years and the fashion, its waxed sweep overshadowed and partially hid any expression that might reach his lips. In a tense moment his lips might be sucked in, so that there was nothing to mark his mouth, but the thinnest crease of a line concealing his tightly-clenched teeth.