He had always been especially fond of Ramón, a bright, eager lad now eleven and thirsty for knowledge of the world. Damián had long ago surrendered his silly hope that Ramón would one day become a priest: ‘That boy would last in a Franciscan college one week, Benita, or maybe one day. Take my advice. Make a pirate of him.’
On Sundays, and high holidays, everything changed, for now the presidio Saldañas entered Damián’s world, and they were properly reverent, for no one could live at the edge of the wilderness without speculating upon the nature of the good life, and orderly religion was seen as one of the abiding consolations. When Damián prayed, Alvaro listened, and when his brother preached, the commander followed his arguments. At communion, which carried special weight when one seemed so far from civilization, Alvaro, Benita and their eldest son accepted their wafers solemnly, knowing that by so doing, they were somehow in contact not only with Jesus Christ but with fellow Catholics in Mexico City, Madrid and all other respectable nations of the earth.
On those occasions when Fray Domingo came in from the ranch to lead his Indian choir, Alvaro sang with them in his strong baritone voice, and at such times the three adult Saldañas often looked at one another, assured that a bond of friendship and love held them together.
They would never see Spain again, none of them, but in Tejas they had discovered the joy of lives decently led and work well done.
On 5 September 1734, a day that would be remembered with horror, a little Indian boy half ran, half staggered up to the gates of Santa Teresa with a story that only a child could tell without retching.
To the ranch belonging to the mission, Apache had come, scores of them, and with systematic barbarity had burned every building and driven off every animal. The mission Indians who had tried to defend the place had been slain; the children, all nine of them, had been taken captive; and the five women … The little boy had not the words to describe what had happened to them: ‘The Apache undressed them … then, you know … then they cut them apart.’
Fray Damián clutched at the back of a chair: ‘They what?’
‘They cut them apart,’ and the boy showed how first a finger had been cut away, then another, then a hand and a foot and a breast, until the final rip of the gut, deep and powerful from left to right.
‘Mother of God!’ Damián cried, and immediately sent Garza to fetch Captain Saldaña, and when the brothers faced the boy, they asked: ‘What happened to Fray Domingo?’ and now the child burst into tears.
‘When they were not looking,’ he said in his Yuta dialect, ‘I ran to the bushes by the river. I hid there all day, and when night came … I am sleepy.’
‘Of course you are,’ Damián said gently, taking the boy onto his lap. ‘But what happened to Fray Domingo?’
‘Upside down, by the fire. His feet tied to a limb. No clothes on. They built a fire under his head. Each woman puts a stick on the fire to make it blaze, then cuts away a finger or a toe. He screamed …’ The boy shuddered and would say no more.
The Saldaña brothers knew they had to organize an expedition to punish the Apache and, if possible, retrieve the captured children and any young women who might have survived. A force of thirty soldiers, sixteen Spanish and mestizo laymen, two dozen Indians and four friars set out for the Santa Teresa ranch, where the smoldering buildings bespoke the ruin that the Apache had wrought. Not even halting to bury the corpse of Fray Domingo, still hanging from a tree, the infuriated men picked up the trail of the Apache and spurred ahead. For three days they sought to overtake them, but failed; however, just as they were about to turn back in frustration they heard a whimpering in some bushes and found the seven-year-old sister of the boy who had escaped. When it became apparent what indecencies the Apache had visited upon her, several of the fort soldiers began to vomit.
That was the nature of Béxar’s endless struggle with the Apache. The familiar Indians of this part of Tejas—the Pampopa, the Postito, the Orejone, the Tacame, the dozens of other tribes—were semi-civilized, like the more amenable Indians the French and the English were meeting along the Mississippi and the Atlantic seaboard; Europeans could reach agreements with Indians like the Mohawk, the Pawnee and the Sioux, for those tribes understood orderly behavior, but the Apache did not. Their rule was to strike and burn, torture and kill in the cruelest ways imaginable. No persuasion touched them, no enticement tempted them to live harmoniously with anyone else, white or Indian.
They were a handsome people physically, lithe, quick, remarkably at home in their environment, and capable of withstanding the greatest duress. They could go days without food or water; they could withstand burning heat or sleeted trails; and if they were horribly cruel to their captives, they could themselves accept torture with insolent defiance. They were the scourge of the lower plains, ravaging Tejas and venturing frequently all the way to Saltillo in the south, a city they loved to plunder.
Sometimes they traveled four hundred miles in order to steal an especially fine string of horses, but they liked mules too, for these they slaughtered and ate. But even when there was no prospect of capturing horses, they raided white settlements just for the pleasure of killing people they knew to be their enemies, and when a district held no white people, as most of Tejas did not, they raided the camps of Indians weaker than themselves, slaying them indiscriminately.
When Fray Damián rode back to Rancho El Codo to bury his longtime associate and dear friend, he was well aware of the serious undertaking he was about to launch. Directing Simón Garza to climb the tree and cut the cord that kept the charred remains of Fray Domingo swinging by its ankles, he caught the body as it fell, and staggered with his burden to a proper spot, where a grave was dug. As the body was deposited he uttered a prayer and made a promise:
‘Brother Domingo, friend of years and warmth to my heart, you died in an effort which brought joy to God. I promise you that I shall take up the burden that you have put down. I shall not rest until the peace you sought is brought to the Apache and they are safe in the arms of Jesus Christ.’
He proceeded in an orderly manner to fulfill his oath: ‘Simón, halt your work on the Stations and carve a fine plaque showing the martyrdom of Domingo, and this we will send to our colleagues in Zacatecas.’ To his Indian helpers: ‘Cándido, I must leave to you the completion of our ditch, and speed it. Ignacio, I can’t ask you to live at the ranch, for that’s too dangerous now that the Apache have struck, but you must move through the countryside and rebuild our herds.’
For himself, he must quit the mission walls and move out among the Apache to bring them God’s word, but before he could leave he must find someone to guide Misión Santa Teresa temporarily, and he recalled the devout Fray Eusebio who castigated himself so severely. After gaining approval from the head of Eusebio’s mission, he installed him, and smiled as the young dreamer lashed himself with his flagellum, crying: ‘I am not worthy of such high promotion.’
In the months that followed, Fray Damián was sometimes seen by military expeditions headed north or south from Béxar, and scouts reported back to Captain Alvaro: ‘There we were, loneliest stretch we’d ever seen, Béxar two days distant, and out of nowhere comes this gaunt, long-legged friar on a mule. “You must be careful of the Apache at night,” he told us. “They’ll steal your animals.” We asked him where he was going and he said: “To the Apachería.” ’
And that was where he went, and because he moved alone, on a mule and unarmed, a man approaching fifty, they gave him entry to their camps. When he had learned enough of their language, they talked with him and explained that it was impossible for Indians and white men to live together. They acknowledged that he personally commanded powerful magic, but they also pointed out that they were no longer powerless: ‘Those you call the French. Beyond the rivers. They sell us guns. Soon we shoot. Better hunters, you never catch us.’
He was so astonished to find that the French were supplying arms that he told the tribe with whom he had been living and to whom i
n the evenings he had been preaching: ‘I must leave you now and tell my brother at the fort that peace with the Apache must come before everyone has guns.’
They not only let him return to Béxar but they sent a trusted squaw with him, and on the way she confided: ‘That other camp. Two days south. They have two of the children taken in the big raid.’
They detoured, and Damián found that what the woman said was true; a boy of ten and a girl of eight were in the tents, and Damián persuaded the Apache to release the latter so that she could return to her people, but the child refused to leave. Her people were dead; she had seen them die; and now she had found other parents in the camp.
‘But God wants you to live a decent life, within the church,’ Damián argued.
‘Leave her alone,’ the boy snarled, grabbing her away.
‘My son, it is proper that she—’
‘Get away.’ In some curious fashion the children were blaming the friar for the terrible things that had happened to them, and this Damián could not accept. Reaching for the girl, he drew her to him and with a trembling forefinger traced the scars across her face, put there not in the heat of battle but by Apache braves who tortured their captives, even the children.
‘What is your name, Child of Heaven?’
‘Let her go!’ the boy cried again, and this time he wrenched the girl away, struck her violently, and shoved her along to some older women, who began to beat her.
Regardless of his own safety, Damián lunged toward the little girl to rescue her from such abuse, but he was halted by a tall, powerful Apache warrior whose garb caused the friar to stop in horror. With the hand that had traced the girl’s scars, he reached out and touched the man’s garment, realizing that it was the robe Fray Domingo had been wearing prior to his horrible death.
Holding on to the robe, he said quietly in Apache: ‘This is the garment of my friend. I must have it for his grave.’
The Indian understood and respected the emotion represented: ‘Your friend, very brave.’
Still clinging to the robe, Damián said: ‘You must let me take it.’
‘What will you give me?’
Damián had nothing to offer but his mule, and this the Apache took gladly, for it would make a feast. So Fray Damián de Saldaña returned to his mission, on foot, trailing an Apache woman astride a donkey, and clutching to his bosom the robe in which his dearest friend and companion of many years had approached his martyrdom.
His efforts to bring peace and Christianity to the Apache not only failed, they ended in repeated embarrassment. At the conclusion of his first venture into alien territory, after the Apache woman led him into Béxar, he persuaded Alvaro that the Apache were of sincere intent when they suddenly changed face and discussed the possibility of permanent truce, and he pointed out that with the Indians receiving French guns, it was imperative that a peaceful understanding be reached. So against his better judgment, Captain Saldaña agreed that Damián, with a new mule, should return with the woman and arrange for a plenary between Apache chiefs and presidio soldiers.
Damián, heartened by the possibility that he might be the agent for ending the raids and retaliations, returned to the western lands and persuaded his Apache to send for those who controlled the south. With delight he listened as the newcomers consented: ‘We’ll go and talk, and if he’s like you, a man of bravery, perhaps …’
A party of sixteen, led by Damián and the squaw who had made the earlier trip, rode east one March morning in 1736, arriving at Béxar four days later. When the six missions were in sight, Damián and the woman rode on ahead, sounding signals that brought many men to the walls. Captain Alvaro, not at all certain that truce was possible, cautioned his men to remain alert, then nervously admitted the Apache into the presidio.
In sign language the Apache talked incessantly for two days, consuming a vast amount of food as they did, and at dusk on the second day, at a signal from their chief, they suddenly raised a war cry, slew the two guards, and ran outside to join some ninety more of their men who had crept close during the preceding days.
They were a force powerful enough to have assaulted the presidio itself had they so decided; instead, they drove off more than a hundred and twenty Béxar horses, galloping westward into the shadows, whooping and screaming and firing their French guns in the air.
Fray Damián was so distraught after this debacle, which he had unwittingly engineered, that he fell into a kind of trance, not insensible to those about him but quite unable to talk or act. He lay on his straw paillasse staring at the ceiling, indifferent to food, and from time to time calling out the word Domingo, but when attendants hurried to see what he wanted, they found him weeping and unable to speak further.
His health deteriorated rapidly, and it was only the care of Benita, sent to the mission by Alvaro, that saved him. She was a woman of thirty-two now, and as lively in spirit as when Damián had first seen her promenading around the square at Zacatecas. Her eyes still glowed mischievously and her skin remained unblemished, as if time were loath to touch something so flawless. Most surprising of all, under these deplorable circumstances, she still retained a cheerfulness that prevented her from taking troubles too seriously.
‘Come now, Damián! We need you in Béxar,’ she said teasingly. Disregarding mission rules, she propped open the door to his cell, brought in flowers, and personally cooked nourishing meals for him. When he seemed to revive, with senses clarified so that he could understand what she was saying, she assured him that her husband did not blame him for the disaster with the Apache: ‘They’re savage brutes, and what could anyone expect?’
‘I expected peace,’ Damián said.
‘No one should have been so easily deceived.’ she said.
‘Were you?’
She reflected on this for some moments, then said the right thing: ‘No, but I love you for being such a dear, good man and I prayed that you might be right.’ As soon as she said this she realized that her words stressed the fact that he had been wrong, so she added quickly: ‘It’s always good to try, Damián. Maybe another time …’
As he watched her move about his cell he appreciated anew the miracle that even though he was forbidden by church law to have her for himself, she was nevertheless a part of his being, a mystical wife in another world whose conventions he could not fathom. She was the woman he had loved from that first moment when he saw her laughing with the other girls, and that she should now be so close to him, and mending his broken spirit, was a joy he could share with no one, not even with Jesus Christ in his prayers.
When Damián finally rose from his cot, a most pleasing honor awaited him: Simón Garza had finished his fourteen Stations of the Cross, but their installation had been deferred until Damián could supervise it. Actually, all he did was stand in his adobe church and tell the workmen how to hang the carvings, but when the light fell across them, showing the marvelous detail Garza had achieved with his rude chisels, tears came to his eyes and he fell to his knees and prayed. It seemed that God Himself must have bent down and guided Garza’s hand, for Damián could not conceive how an illiterate mestizo carpenter could otherwise have accomplished such a work.
When the carvings were in place, Captain Alvaro, supported by friars from the other missions, told Damián: ‘We must have a celebration to dedicate your Stations,’ and it was arranged that a cloth covering would be draped over each carving, and that Garza would move from one location to the next, pulling aside the cloth to reveal the beauty beneath. Damián would expound the religious significance while the choir trained by Fray Domingo sang holy verses he had taught them. Fray Eusebio, still protesting that he was not worthy of such high honor, would represent the other missions.
It was the culmination of Damián’s custodianship. Indian women filled the rude church with flowers, and as the veils fell away and sunlight illuminated the carvings, Damián thought that Jesus Christ Himself had come to Béxar to relive those tragic, hallowed moments when he moved
painfully along the road to Golgotha.
Damián’s exultation was short-lived, because when word of the episode with the Apache reached Mexico City, the viceroy cast about for a new governor of Tejas who would bring stricter order to the region. Unfortunately, he had no one available to send, but a conniving assistant who wanted to rid himself of a real incompetent whispered: ‘Excellency, why not send Franquis? He’s a Canary Islander and he’ll know how to handle things.’
What a sad miscalculation! If one searched the archives to find an example of Spanish colonial policy at its worst, one would surely select Don Carlos Benites Franquis de Lugo, a vain, arrogant, opinionated fop who never displayed a shred of either courage or discernment but who did distinguish himself as one of the most inept and vengeful Spaniards ever to function overseas. In fact, he was too obtuse even to realize that his assignment to Tejas was a demotion, for he boasted to his friends: ‘I’m to restore Spanish dignity in an area which has forgotten what discipline means.’
The character of his administration was defined when he reached San Luis Potosí, where he raged at the local garrison for not having fired enough salutes to honor a dignitary of his exalted stripe: ‘I am, after all, Governor of Tejas!’ At Saltillo he abused the entire establishment because not all the officials were lined up to meet him as he entered town, but he reserved his most ridiculous behavior for San Juan Bautista, a hard-working post with limited amenities. He was so incensed by the lack of spit-and-polish in the presidio that he dismissed everyone on the spot, and then had to hire them back when he learned that no replacements could reach the forlorn outpost in less than a year.
In Tejas he took immediate dislike to the Saldaña brothers, accusing Fray Damián of being tardy in asking Zacatecas for a replacement for Fray Domingo, and of deepening the Santa Teresa ditch without written authority. But his special scorn was reserved for Captain Alvaro, whom he denigrated as follows: