Philipp Meyer - The Son

I have always possessed a near-perfect recall, of which both Charles and my father are quite aware, but neither supported me when I pointed this out to the others. It had been less than three hours, but the facts were already changing — men who had appeared as apparitions, their white shirts barely visible in the dusk, were now seen clearly. I reminded everyone that it had been too dark to identify any man — so dark, in fact, that the flashes from our guns left us blind — but it no longer mattered. In the light of memory, it was bright enough to see faces, and the faces belonged to the Garcias.

I suggested we might wait for more Rangers or the army — I was anxious to delay until daylight, when men become harder to lynch — but Charles, who spoke for most in the room, said firstly we could not let them get away with shooting Glenn, and secondly that the army would not be coming at all, as General Funston had made clear that he would only interfere if his soldiers were directly fired upon. He would not put his men to chasing common cattle thieves. Unless of course the cattle are King Ranch Brahmas.

At this I got even more depressed. The soldiers are the only government agents in South Texas who have no marked tendency to shoot Mexicans. As for the Rangers, they are both the best and the worst. The sergeant pointed out that there were only thirty-nine of them in the entire state of Texas; the fact we had three in the same room (a third had arrived from Carrizo) was a miracle.

A miracle for whom, I thought. The room had the atmosphere of a cattle association, old friends politely discussing grazing rights and which politicians we ought to be supporting and how we were going to keep our stock competitive in the northern markets. The Colonel chimed in from the peanut gallery and laid out a long argument in support of Charles, in what I have now begun to consider their usual unholy alliance. He claimed that Glenn’s wounding was his responsibility, as he’d had a chance fifty years ago to push the Garcias off this land forever, and had not taken it, and damned if he was going to let the same thing happen twice in a single lifetime.

I pointed out that due to various events on our land our family tree had already shed quite a few leaves. My father pretended to ignore me.

“I have lost my mother here and a son and a brother,” I said. “And now another son is on his way to the hospital. I would prefer to wait until daylight.”

All agreed that our family had suffered great tragedies, but the best thing was to take Pedro as soon as possible. This was the community’s problem now — not just ours — no telling who the Garcias’ next victim might be.

I laid out another argument, namely that Pedro Garcia was as proud as any other man, and if pressed by a mob, he would certainly not give up his yerno, or any other member of his family, but if asked by the law, in the light of day, it would be a different story.

“We are the law,” said the Ranger sergeant.

The others agreed. Not one of them would have considered surrendering to an armed mob in the middle of the night, but they did not see why the Garcias ought not to. I considered mentioning this but instead I said: “With due respect it might be better to wait until the sun comes up. Pedro will give up the guilty parties if they have anything to do with his family.”

Not only was this suggestion dismissed, but now there was rumbling that I might retreat to the kitchen and sit it out with the other women. We would hold a little longer for reinforcements, which were certainly coming, as by now the word was out all over the four counties.

A SHOAT WAS killed and set roasting; a loin of beef set out with tortillas and beans, the good linen, the fireplace lit and coffee served. Men lounged in the great room, talking or flipping through old issues of Confederate Veteran, boots up, rifles askew in the palatial dark room with its drawings of Florentine ruins, its busts and statues, idly thumbing the engraving on the chairs and tables, resisting the urge to whittle with their pocketknives, everything around them bought wholesale from a dead Philadelphian, the contents of the entire house including the Tiffany windows bought and shipped, the house built to contain them. Not a single man asked about the marbles; they stopped to admire the picture of Lee and His Generals, a dime-store print they have in their own homes, then moved on for another serving of beef or coffee.

Around three A.M., fifteen more men arrived; an hour later another dozen drove up in two Ford trucks. Until then I’d been hopeful the plan would be scotched, as we had less than forty men, versus the Garcias’ twenty or so, and them holding a virtual fortress. Now we had over sixty, all with repeating rifles, a few with Remington and Winchester automatics. The Colonel could not contain his satisfaction.

“One of your grandsons has been shot,” I told him, “and the other is about to go to war. What you might be happy about I cannot fathom.”

He gave me a look that said, for the thousandth time, how sorry he was that I had abandoned my studies to return to the ranch. I reminded myself that he is from another era. He cannot help it. Of course there is the third grandson I did not mention, my namesake, buried now next to my mother and brother.

I went upstairs to my office, lay in the dark among my books — the only comforting thing I have. An exile in my own house, my own family, maybe in my own country. Outside the coyotes were yipping in the distance; on the gallery the vaqueros were talking in quiet Spanish. Someone told a joke. If they were nervous or had second thoughts about attacking their own countrymen, I could not hear it. I knew things would get worse.

I must have fallen asleep because I heard someone shouting my name. At first I thought it was my mother calling me down for supper; we were back in the old house in Austin with its green fields and woods and streams running all night. My mother and her soft hands, the scent of roses lingering everywhere she walked. I thought about those things and allowed myself to forget where I was, and for a few moments I was certain I was young again, that we had not yet moved out to this monstrous country where all our misfortunes began. How the Colonel can love the place that has claimed so many members of our family, and may yet claim a few more, I don’t know.

IT WAS NEARLY five in the morning when we rode out. Nearly seventy men. Everyone had been up all night but was as somber and awake as if we were riding to Yorktown or Concord. The Colonel wore the buckskin vest that is famous in town, everyone believing that it is made from Apache scalps. Even the Rangers were deferring to him, as if they were in the presence of a general, rather than an old man who was not even a real colonel, but a brevet colonel, and had fought for the cause of human slavery.

The vaqueros formed a flying squad around him; the Colonel has no great respect for the Mexicans and yet they are all willing to die for him. I, on the other hand, consider myself their ally — no patrón has ever been more generous — and they despise me.

AN HOUR BEFORE sunrise we hobbled the horses and made our way on foot toward the Garcias’ house, which overlooks the surrounding country with its watchtower and high stone walls and parapets. A hundred years ago it was a bastion of civilization in a desert, a stronghold against a wilderness of Indians, but now, in the minds of the men marching toward it, it had come to be something else: the guardian of an old, less civilized order, standing against progress and all that was good on the earth.

I slipped off into the brush. I noticed the Colonel squatting nearby. He looked at me and grinned and I couldn’t tell if he was smiling because he was looking forward to the gunplay or because he was proud of me for coming out for the old family ritual.