As he went about his duties, those assigned him by the viceroy, who had long suspected that expenses of the northern missions were unjustified when compared with the meager results they produced, he also developed an intense hatred for Misión Santa Teresa, whose saintly founder Fray Damián he saw as a charlatan: ‘Got himself killed by the Apache … in their camp … fooling around with their women, no doubt.’ He convinced himself, because of his extreme dislike for Trinidad, that he must somehow unmask the chicanery of her great-uncle Damián, and he spent much of his energy trying to do just that.
He also convinced himself that Trinidad herself, a loose girl with an irreverent attitude, would come to no good, and several times he considered excommunicating her until she showed proper humility, but he was afraid to do so because of the importance of the Saldañas and their obvious friendship with the Veramendis.
He was in the plaza one morning, watching attentively as Trinidad left her house to meddle in some improper affair or other, when he saw her run across the square and throw her arms about Amalia Veramendi, Don Lázaro’s daughter, as if they were old friends. The girls talked animatedly for some minutes, then walked off arm in arm. He wondered what secrets they had.
It was easily explained. Since the day of the Apache attack Trinidad had been unable to mention René-Claude’s name, but desperately she had wanted to, and perhaps it was this cruel blockage that had driven her into a depression; now, with a sympathetic young woman about her own age available and interested, she was at last free to talk: ‘You can’t imagine, Amalia, how wonderful he was.’ This was an unfortunate beginning, because Amalia looked sideways at her friend and thought: You’d be amazed at what I can imagine.
Trinidad, unaware of the envy she was creating, burbled on: ‘Grandfather did everything possible to humiliate him … drive him away … said no child of his would ever marry a damned Frenchman. René-Claude just smiled, gave Grandfather all the courtesies, and melted him the way the sun melts snow in the Alps.’
Amalia, suspecting that her friend had enjoyed experiences denied her, wanted to explore more deeply, but refrained. With feigned girlish modesty she asked: ‘Was it … well, is loving a man … do you have to surrender as much as it seems?’
‘Not with René-Claude. He said we would be equals. And he behaved that way. Of course, he’d take care of the money and make all the big decisions, and maybe we’d live in Saltillo or maybe New Orleans. He’d decide that. But he asked me always what I wanted, which horse I preferred.’
The girls, each so eager to confide, still shied away from honest questions and answers. ‘Is loving a man,’ Amalia began, ‘well, is it … does it …?’
This should have encouraged Trinidad to speak her feelings. Instead, she reflected, smiled at Amalia, and said: ‘It’s all right.’
‘This new priest, Father Ybarra. He condemns it. He seems very afraid of love.’
‘Father Ybarra is a fool.’ It was unfortunate that Trinidad said this, even to her trusted friend, because although Amalia was of the same opinion, when she criticized Ybarra to others she repeated not her own judgment but Trinidad’s, and when word of this reached the priest’s ears, his mind became set: he would settle with the Saldañas, important though they might be.
Things were in this state when a lone stranger came down El Camino Real from the north. No soldier protected him, no Indian guides, no companions. Just a tall spare man in his late twenties, with a head of heavy dark hair, a tooth missing in front, and an apparent willingness to challenge the world. He announced himself as Mordecai Marr, trader out of Mobile with important connections in New Orleans. He led a horse that had gone lame two days out and three overburdened mules laden with goods of considerable value which he proposed trading from Béjar; or perhaps from the new capital at Chihuahua if a decent road could be routed to that distant city.
Before he had located a place to stay, and there was only a pitiful half-inn run by some Canary Islanders, he asked for the residence of Don Ramón Saldaña, and when this was pointed out he walked directly there, tied his horse to a tree and allowed his mules to stand free. Banging on the door in a most un-Spanish way, he demanded of black Natán, who opened it: ‘Yo deseo ver Don Ramón de Saldaña. Yo tengo letras para él.’ He spoke painstaking Spanish but with a barbarous accent, and used the word letras instead of the proper cartas.
When Don Ramón appeared, it was obvious that Mr. Marr expected to be invited in, for he placed his foot against the door so that it could not be closed against him: ‘I have letters to you from the D’Ambreuze family in New Orleans. They heard I was coming.’
Don Ramón was not a man to be forced into extending an invitation, and especially not to anyone like this bold americano, so he spread himself sideways, as it were, until he occupied the entire doorway, then said graciously. ‘I am pleased to accept a communication from the distinguished family I had expected to be allied with mine.’ He took the letters and was about to shut the door when Marr grabbed his left sleeve.
‘Is it true what they said? The Frenchman was killed by the Apache?’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw them trailing me, two days ago, so I laid low and shot two of them. It’s good to carry two guns … loaded.’
He made another move to enter the house, but this time Don Ramón pressed the door shut and left him standing in the street.
After the most careful calculation, Don Ramón decided against showing Trinidad the letters, for he felt they would only exacerbate her already tense emotions, but when he read them a second time and felt the warmth revealed in them, the obvious sincerity of a family that had gone to great lengths to have them translated into good Spanish by some official in New Orleans, he felt obliged to share them with her. So, though fearful that such reawakening of her interest in D’Ambreuze throw her again into depression, he decided to give them to her when she arrived home, but Trinidad did not arrive home in the ordinary sense of that word; she roared home like a child of eight at the end of a successful game, shouting: ‘Grandfather! Amalia told me that letters from René-Claude have arrived!’
Don Ramón did not know what to say, for he had too many things he wanted to say: ‘Your Amalia is a busybody.’
‘The man stopped there first, asking about rooms and saying he had letters from René-Claude.’
‘From his family.’
‘It’s all the same,’ and she jumped up and down, hands out, begging for the letters.
‘Stop that! You’re a young woman now, not a child. And besides, the letters are for me, not you.’
‘It’s all the same,’ she repeated, and she meant it. René-Claude and his parents, she and hers, all were united by love, so that a letter from his father was indeed a letter from René-Claude to her.
When she sensed that her grandfather was prepared to surrender the letters her boisterousness stopped; she moved away from him and began to weep, her lovable little face doubly distorted, and in total desolation of spirit she fell dejectedly onto a heavy wooden settee. ‘Oh, Grandfather, I loved him so much. Life is so empty when I think of what it could have been.’
Her grandfather sat down beside her, placing his arms about her trembling shoulders: ‘I’ve lost seven sons and a loving wife. I know how terrible pain can be.’ They sat there for some time, each unable to speak further; then, with a tightening of her shoulders which Don Ramón could feel, she asked, as if she were a child again: ‘May I see the letters, Grandfather, please?’
‘Of course,’ he said gently, and before she began to read them he rose and wandered into another room.
She had the same reactions that he had had, for the D’Ambreuze parents had written with such obvious pride in their son and such hopes that he had found a good wife that she felt as if they were standing there in the flower-filled room, on the dark-red tiles, and after a long while she sought her grandfather and returned the letters: ‘You and I lost a good second family. I’ll write in your office.’
‘Write
what?’
‘I want to send them our love. Tell them what good people you and my mother are.’ Her voice shook, but she finished her thought: ‘They must want to hear as much as I did.’ And she wrote a long detailed letter, telling them first of her experiences with their son in Saltillo, which she described lovingly so that they might hear the bells and see the movement of people in the plaza, and ending with what René-Claude’s business companions had reported about his strong reputation. It was her hope that the letter conveyed a sense of Béjar and Saltillo and the Spanish family of which their son had been for a brief few weeks a member.
Later, when she went to see Amalia, a year older and two inches taller, she felt as if she, Trinidad, were the more mature, and she spoke like some adult addressing an eager child: ‘I’m so glad you told me about the letters. Because I think perhaps Grandfather was going to hide them from me. Afraid they might upset me.’ She laughed nervously.
‘Can you still see him? I mean … in your mind?’
‘He’s standing behind every corner. I expect to see him in your kitchen when we go in.’
‘Will you always feel that way?’
‘Forever.’
‘But you’ll marry, won’t you?’
‘Grandfather says I’ll have to. When he dies I’ll own the house, the ranch.’ She became very serious and asked Amalia to sit with her under the trees in the Veramendi garden. ‘I’ve been thinking about becoming a nun.’
‘That would be wonderful! A bride of Christ!’
‘And I have a very serious disposition toward it, really I do.’
‘You would be wonderful as a nun, and some day, with your brains, Mother Superior Trinidad.’
Later, when things had gone terribly wrong, Trinidad would remember this conversation and particularly this sentence. Amalia had said ‘with your brains,’ and her tone had betrayed how envious she had become of her good friend.
Even now, perplexed by this change in Amalia, Trinidad went to her mother to discuss it, and Doña Engracia sat her down beside the silent fountain and clarified the situation: ‘Don’t you see? She’s jealous of you. You’ve been to Mexico City, and she hasn’t. You’ve known a fine young man, and she hasn’t. You read many books, and this makes her fear that you’re more clever. And I suppose, Trinidad, that she thinks you’re prettier.’
‘But that’s all suppose,’ the bewildered girl protested. ‘Why would that make her change?’
‘Because that’s the way of the world,’ her mother replied. ‘You be careful what you tell that young lady.’
But Trinidad had to confide in someone, and in subsequent meetings with Amalia she returned to the possibility of becoming a nun, and she would picture the entire progression from novice to head of some great religious establishment in Spain, or maybe Peru. ‘But the other night when I was thinking quite seriously about this, it occurred to me that to become a nun, I would have to gain approval from Father Ybarra, or from someone like him …’
Both girls shuddered, and Amalia said: ‘Father Ybarra drives people away from religion. Who could ask his approval for anything?’ When the dour priest heard this comment repeated he attributed it to Trinidad, and his antipathy toward her deepened.
On several occasions the two young women pondered why the church would promote such a vain, self-centered man to a position of power, and Trinidad drew the sensible conclusion: ‘I suppose all towns get some man like Father Ybarra, sooner or later. The only good thing about him is, he’s finishing his report on the missions and will soon be leaving.’ She kicked the dust. ‘Good riddance, too.’
Now Amalia opened the important topic: ‘I was home when he arrived.’
‘Father Ybarra?’
‘No. The americano. I didn’t actually open the door when he knocked, but I could have, and there he was.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘I’d never seen an americano, of course.’
‘Nor I.’
‘But he was just what we’d been told. He was taller than usual. White. No mestizo. Lot of matted hair on his head. Blue-eyed. A tooth missing in front. A deep voice. To tell you the truth, Trinidad, he was really rather frightening.’
‘How did you speak to him? I mean, if he didn’t know Spanish?’
‘Oh, but he did! He spoke it hesitatingly and very slowly, like a little boy just learning big words.’ Amalia went on: ‘He smelled. Yes, like a horse after a hard ride in the sun, and he must have known it because he asked Don Lázaro where he might find lodging and a bath.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘You know the Canary Islanders beyond the plaza, that nice family with the large house? Grandfather sent him over there, and I believe they took him in.’
The two young women left the Veramendi garden, casually walked south to the big church, past the Saldaña house and the low, handsome governor’s palace, and there on the western edge of town they studied from a safe distance the adobe house of one of the capable Canary Island families, but they could detect no sign of the stranger.
Two days later, however, Trinidad and her grandfather were surprised to see that Mr. Marr had somehow got hold of a small building on the opposite side of the plaza, right in the shadow of the church. ‘What does he intend doing there?’ citizens asked. ‘Is this to be a store?’
No, it was a warehouse for the holding of his trade goods prior to shipment onward to Saltillo or distant Chihuahua, but when the goods were stowed and the people of Béjar learned about their excellent quality, they began to pester the americano for a right to buy, and slowly, almost surreptitiously, he sold a copper kettle here, a swatch of fine cloth there, until he was operating a kind of informal shop.
‘I wonder if he has a permit?’ Don Ramón asked as he observed operations from across the plaza, and apparently others had raised the same question, for when the quasi-store had been in operation only four days, the captain from the presidio and the town’s judge appeared at the warehouse to inquire as to Mr. Marr’s papers.
Without hesitation he produced them, documents signed in both New Orleans and Mexico City granting Mordecai Marr the right to trade in the provinces of Tejas and Coahuila. ‘We’ll take these and study them,’ the judge said, but with a quick motion Mr. Marr recovered his papers and said: ‘These do not leave my possession.’ The fact that he spoke slowly and in a deep voice intensified the gravity of his declaration, and the visitors acceded.
But he was not rude, for as soon as he was satisfied that the papers would remain with him he became almost subservient, asking the good captain and the respected judge whether they would consider taking to their ladies a trivial sample of his wares as thanks for the courtesies their husbands had extended. And he cut off generous lengths of cloth from his best bolt.
When the men had their gifts under their arms and were out on the plaza, he followed them and asked almost conspiratorily, as if they were his business partners: ‘Where do you think I might find a house to buy in your town? It’s so very pleasant, I need go no farther.’
They thought there might be one available at the far end of the plaza, and with that, they exchanged the most cordial goodbyes, but the two officials did not return to their places of business; they walked across the plaza and knocked on the door of Don Ramón de Saldaña, an elder in such matters, and asked him to send his slave Natán to fetch Don Lázaro de Veramendi, and when the four were assembled in Don Ramón’s most pleasant garden, Trinidad, passing to and fro with drinks and sweetmeats, overheard bits of the discussion.
‘His papers said he came from Philadelphia. What do we know about Philadelphia?’ The four men had considerable if sometimes garbled knowledge on most topics likely to be discussed, for all could read, and their pooled information was that Philadelphia was reported to be the largest city in the new nation to the north. It had been the principal site of the recent revolution against England. It had an excellent seaport, but not directly on the sea. And it had once been the capital but had lost th
at distinction to New York, another fine seaport but also not on the sea.
‘In fact, what do we know about los Estados Unidos, which seem to be pressing so hard upon us?’ They knew that there were thirteen states, maybe more in recent years; one man said he was almost certain that there was also a new state called Kentucky. Another claimed to have special information: ‘I’ve been told that they’re Protestants, with many states forbidding Catholics to enter.’ One good thing about Los Estados Unidos, some years back, when they were still English, they had fought France and won, but that was in Canada. It was a trading nation, but already showing signs of belligerence. The four men deemed it quite probable that sooner or later Spain would have to teach the americanos a military lesson.
‘And most important of all, what do we know about this Mr. Marr?’ He was a big man who had just shown in the matter of the papers his willingness to fight. He spoke Spanish, but in a way that indicated he had learned it in a hurry, as if he wished to use it for some specific purpose. He was armed. He had come down El Camino Real by himself, a daring feat, and he seemed to be in good funds, as witnessed by the gifts he had just made. But he was not a pleasant man, on this all four agreed.
‘He is our first breath of los Estados Unidos,’ the judge said, ‘and not a reassuring one.’
‘I think we must conclude he is a spy,’ the captain said.
‘For what? To what purpose?’ Don Ramón asked.
‘For the general intelligence that all armies need,’ the captain replied. ‘Else, why was he spying out all the streets of our town?’
‘He was looking for a place to lodge,’ Don Lázaro explained, and it was strange that though the two older men were willing to accept the newcomer, the two younger ones were prepared to throw him out of town. The difference was that the older men had fought their battles long ago and were now free to agitate for new ones, assured that they would not have to do the fighting, while the younger men knew that if trouble came in this stranger’s wake, they would be the ones to bear the brunt.