Sons of Texas

PART I

MEN OF THE CANE

TENNESSEE, 1816

1

FOR MANY years, mention of Texas sent a chill shuddering down Michael Lewis’s spine. He remembered it as a wondrous place, new and immense and mysterious, shining in the sun. He remembered it also as a place of cruelty and cold terror, for it was there, when he was sixteen years old, that he saw his father’s brains blown out by a Spanish officer who left the boy wounded on an open prairie to die alone in a wild and alien land.

HE KNEW but little of his forebears, for the Lewises and their kin were by and large a restless people who looked forward, not to the past. They were busy fighting and building and planting, then moving and fighting and building again; they had scant time to do more in the nature of keeping family records than to scrawl laboriously the names and dates of birth, marriage, and death in the front leaves of an ancient family Bible. Even the Bible, more often than not, was passed down only to the firstborn, along with the land and whatever other meager material possessions the elders’ frugality, tenacity, and courage had managed to bind together.

So it was natural that Michael had no knowledge of the first of his Scotch-Irish ancestors who had turned their backs upon troubled Ireland and ventured boldly onto some treacherous seafaring craft which pointed its bowsprit westward toward a dark and little-known continent. They had been told that in this land a man could do as he wanted and think as he wished and worship God after his own lights, answering to no one except that God. Michael was but dimly aware that some of his earliest ancestors had landed in Pennsylvania when that had been a raw and forested wilderness, its rich dark soil stained again and again by the spilled blood of red man and white. The inhabitants changed faces, changed races, continuing an age-old combat for the right to claim the land’s bounties.

He knew but dimly, from stories heard at his grandfather’s knee, about his family’s struggles to gain a foothold at the eastern base of the Allegheny barrier; of restless men whose contempt for authority and the pretensions of tidewater settlements kept pushing them southward and westward, finally up and over the mountains, then down onto the dark and bloody battlegrounds of Kentucky and Tennessee. They were a land-hungry people, the Lewises and their kin, each generation plunging westward in its. own turn onto new and challenged ground; fighting, registering their claims more often by the grave markers they erected than by ink scratchings on parchment records in some courthouse far to their rear. Even in the old countries, they had been borderers for generations that stretched back into antiquity, so that strife was in their blood.

They were—sometimes with contempt—called men of the cane, these Lewises and the buckskin-clad westerers journeying with them, leatherstocking men who pushed relentlessly through the canebrakes and the forests, always straining the western bounds of a new country. They were regarded by the book-learned and fashionable people far behind them as but little more civilized than the red men with whom they battled for elbow room. They knew ax and plow, but they loved the rifle more. They had learned from the agricultural tribes of Indians to grow corn, squash, and beans, but their preference ran more to game, more to the hunt than to the field. As the game thinned, and as courthouses moved west and slick-handed lawyers quibbled over such petty legalities as land titles, the Lewises and their kind, long accustomed to putting such niceties behind them, pressed on into places where no quality-bred lawyer or judge dared go.

Thus it was that the year 1816 found Michael Lewis in western Tennessee—a boy as some reckoned the years but a man in responsibility—slipping out of his blankets in the dark hour before dawn with a rifle that stood almost as tall as he did. He moved quietly to avoid awakening his older brother Joseph. He would rather go to the woods and hunt fresh meat for the family than join Joseph and the younger boys plowing and hoeing the field or chopping wood for their mother’s fireplace. He always justified his abdication of more mundane responsibilities by reasoning that his was the best shooting-eye in the family, better even than that of his father Mordecai. He wasted little powder and lead in his self-imposed duty of keeping meat hanging in the open dog-run between the two sections of the Lewis cabin. If there was game to be found, Michael Lewis would find it. He seldom failed to bring it down with the old Pennsylvania rifle passed to him by his grandpa on his mama’s side. Even Joseph would admit, however reluctantly, that Michael had the keenest eye and the steadiest hand, and that he should not waste such a talent on ax or plow at times when the larder was thin.

He’s cut in his father’s likeness, Patience Lewis would say. Her eyes would turn wistfully to the open cabin door as if she expected Mordecai Lewis to appear there, where she had watched him leave months ago. Even in his own short life, Michael had helped his father build three cabins, each farther west than the one before it; but it seemed Mordecai stayed hardly longer than was necessary to put Patience in a family way. Then he was off again on some extended mission, some duty to General Jackson such as the fight against the English or the war against the Creeks or a campaign against the Seminoles. There was always, it seemed, some higher duty to be met than staying home to plow the fields and tend the stock, to patch the cabin, or to meet the debts that kept building up. The boys were old enough to take a man’s part, he would explain each time he packed his possibles and made ready to leave. Michael would watch the departure reluctantly, for he wished he could know his father better. There was no one after whom he would more gladly pattern himself. In many ways Mordecai Lewis was a stranger to him, more akin to the wild things of the forests than to his own family.

Mordecai seldom seemed to see what was right before him, for his eyes were always fixed on far horizons, his questing spirit seeking places others had not seen and had not had an opportunity to spoil. He knew no hesitation, showed no fear except that by his explorations he opened the way for others to begin the spoiling. He could only keep moving farther west, trying to stay ahead of those who leveled the forests and broke the primeval sod.

Materially the Lewises seemed to fare well enough without Mordecai, for Joseph was a good farmer and Michael an accomplished hunter. But Michael was troubled by the longing he often saw in Patience’s eyes as she stood in the open door at dusk, looking toward the dark forests into which her husband had last disappeared. There were some needs her sons were powerless to fill.

Folks said Michael was already the image of his father, except for the twenty-odd years’ difference in their ages and six inches’ difference in their height. The height would be made up in due time, for Michael was still in the midst of that fast growth and change which comes upon a boy in his middle teens. He had his father’s earnest and unwavering blue eyes, the same stern set to a jaw just beginning to show occasional need for the razor.

Dawn lighted Michael’s way as he moved carefully into the woods, alert for quick movement, for sudden sound. The region was generally regarded as cleared of hostile Indians, but some still occasionally visited old hunting grounds, not yet resigned to their irrevocable loss. Children were taught to be wary of red men in the forest just as they were taught to watch for snakes that lurked in the weeds and thick grass. A major difference was that the snake never attacked but struck only in self-defense, whereas the Indian went out of his way to avenge old blood and retake what he regarded as his own. The settlers who had displaced him indulged in no introspection, no guilt, no need to justify their conquest. That would come later, from generations who had the safety and the leisure that allowed for such contemplation. These first invaders accepted what God had wrought and considered themselves His instruments for bringing Christian settlement into a heathen wilderness. They saw no need to question His judgment and they did not want to risk His wrath by doing so.

Michael looked up toward a rustling sound in a tree. He raised the long, heavy barrel of the rifle, then let it sag as a squirrel skittered across a branch, scolding him for his trespass. He would settle for squirrel later, if the day gave him no opportunity to level his sights on better game. A squirrel now would be small reward for a gunshot that might frighten larger quarry away. Squirrel made good eating; one just didn’t provide enough to go around for the seven children Mordecai and Patience’s love had produced.

Michael came at length to a small clearing where fallen trees had left a tangle of rotting deadfall timber. A series of violent earthquakes a few years earlier had knocked down vast stretches of timber, had changed the courses of streams and created lakes where there had been none before over much of this region west of the mountains. The Lewises had lived farther east then, and Michael had been shaken out of the loft where he had slept with his brothers over the dog-run. The earth’s violent convulsions had left the cabin leaning dangerously and had flung his mother’s old family Bible out upon the dirt floor, breaking its fragile spine. Patience had accepted this as a bad omen and reentered the cabin only to remove from it what was salvageable. With the help of her small boys and a couple of neighbors, she had built a new one. As usual, Mordecai had been absent. He had taken a large bundle of tanned hides to the settlement to trade for necessities, then neglected to return home until he had spent seven weeks searching the western territory for a likely spot to take up a new and lasting home. He had exhausted the necessities on the trip, so the family did without. That experience was hardly new.

Michael made his way over and through the deadfall timber, pausing often to stand stone-still and watch. Such little clearings were a likely place for deer to feed upon the regrowth shrubbery and the green grass, within a few swift bounds of heavy timber and its protection.

He heard a rustling noise behind him and turned quickly, bringing the rifle to his shoulder. A stone’s hard throw away, a boy in a ragged homespun shirt and leather britches labored through the fallen timber. Michael lowered the rifle and let his anger build to a useful level while he waited for his younger brother Andrew to catch up with him.

Andrew Lewis, he declared, you are a vexation and a pain, follerin’ after me thisaway. You’ve made enough racket to run off every critter in three mile.

Andrew, at fourteen still half a head shorter than Michael and spare in build, met his gaze with the unwavering blue eyes of all the Lewis clan, eyes that betrayed neither trepidation nor remorse. Two of us can find more game than one.

"Two can sure enough run off more than one. Michael knotted a fist with his left hand—the right one had all it could do to hold the heavy rifle—and set it upon his left hip with all the assumed authority of the older brother. In his father’s absence he took upon himself the welfare of his younger brothers and sisters when they were away from Mama and the house. Older brother Joseph had enough other responsibilities to fret him, worrying about the crops and livestock. What if you was to run into a bear out here, or even Injuns? You ain’t got a gun or nothin’."

Andrew gave no ground. Grinning, he drew from its scabbard a crude hunting knife his father had forged for him. I’m armed.

Michael gave a long sigh of resignation. Self-doubt had never been an attribute of his father Mordecai, nor of the sons growing up in Mordecai’s tall shadow. He declared dryly, It’s nothin’ to be joshin’ about. Now I wish you’d turn around and go back so I can find some meat for the table.

I can help you look.

I can find it without your help.

Andrew had a quiet and sometimes irritating way of laughing to himself. He could find something funny in an earthquake. You ain’t doin’ too good a job of it. He pointed with his chin.

On the far side of the clearing a fleshy doe ventured out of heavy timber and into the edge of the grassy glade, pausing in midstride to look around, jerking her head from one position to another. She warily surveyed the clearing, gauging it for danger. Michael held still as two days dead and hoped Andrew was doing the same. He could not afford to look back, for even that slight movement of his head might grab the animal’s attention.

The doe relaxed her vigilance enough to take a bite of grass, then jerked her head up again to glance around once more. Each time she bent, Michael eased his lanky frame downward and raised the rifle a little until he was on one knee, the end of the long barrel resting upon a fallen tree. He cocked the hammer, took a long breath, then a careful bead, and squeezed the trigger.

Through the black powder smoke he saw the doe drop to her knees, so he knew he had hit her. Then, quickly, she was back on her feet and bounding off into the timber.

You missed her! Andrew shouted with gleeful accusation.

No, I hit her, but not through the heart. Come on, we got to trail after her. It occurred to him that in saying we he had accepted Andrew’s unwelcome company. Well, when they gutted the doe the boy could help him pack the carcass home. Then maybe he would wipe that smart-aleck look from his face. Michael took time to reload the rifle, ramming a fresh ball into the barrel. Papa had once strapped him good for setting off into the forest without his rifle primed and ready for whatever came. Michael took to book-learning with some reluctance and difficulty, but a lesson a boy learned from the hot side of a leather strap would stay with him into manhood.

When they reached the spot where the doe had fallen, he pointed silently to a splotch of blood and took satisfaction from the quick nod of Andrew’s head. There were times when spoken words were dead weight. Following the trail was easy at first because of the blood, but that thinned and disappeared after a while, and he had to rely on tracks. There came a point in the heavy timber that he could not find even a track. He stopped in frustration.

Andrew pointed. This way, he said.

Michael hesitated. How do you know?

Yonder the grass is bent a little, and there’s a broken twig on that tree. Anybody can see that.

Michael had not. He frowned at his brother, wondering if Andrew’s eyes were that much sharper. Luck, he said.

"How do you think I found you? Andrew demanded. Papa showed me a right smart about how to foller a trail."

All right, you find that doe.

Andrew went about it eagerly. Sometimes Michael could see what the younger boy found; sometimes he couldn’t. He followed Andrew out of curiosity and a considerable amount of faith in his father’s teachings. Andrew might not be quite the marksman Michael was, but he was a Lewis, and every Lewis seemed to have something he was particularly good at. The beginnings of Mordecai’s rugged features already showed plain in his freckled face, as they showed in Michael’s and Joseph’s. The Lewis financial legacy might be slight, but the blood legacy was formidable.

A shot echoed through the woods, and Michael halted abruptly. A chill shuddered through his thin frame. He saw his own misgivings mirrored in his brother’s widened eyes. His first thought was of Indians. Some had rifles, given them a few years ago by English agents when that country tried to reclaim the land George Washington and some of Michael’s forebears had wrested from the crown. Michael did not have to signal for Andrew to drop to his knees and hide in the dense undergrowth.

He held his breath, listening. After a minute he heard a shout. Come on a-runnin’, you-all! Don’t be so damned slow!

No Indians talked like that. Michael pushed to his feet, suspicion building like a slow fire. He thought he knew who that voice might belong to. They were fixing to steal his deer.

Hurry up, he said to Andrew, if you want fresh venison before the buzzards get it.

They broke out into a clearing, and he had a clear view of the buzzards. They were named Blackwood, and three of them stood over his deer. One had just cut her throat to bleed her out and casually wiped the blood across the thigh of leather britches almost black with grease and dirt and God knew what all. Another nudged him, and he turned to look at the approaching Lewis boys with a frown that evolved quickly into a dark scowl.

One of the Blackwoods was a year or two older than Michael, about a match for Michael’s older brother Joseph. Another was Michael’s age, and a third was between Michael and Andrew. Michael had pegged them for sneak thieves as soon as one of the Lewis family’s chopping axes disappeared from its block just two days after the Blackwood family started clearing a cabin spot two miles from where the Lewises lived.

Like Michael, the Blackwoods were frugal with conversation and offered none. They seemed to sense Michael’s intentions and came together shoulder to shoulder in a ragged, dirty line. Michael thought a man would probably have to travel a long way to find three faces that had gotten uglier in such a short number of years. He said, That’s my doe.

Only the older Blackwood boy carried a rifle. He did what little talking there was. I shot her.

Michael moved close enough to touch the carcass. He pointed to the wound in the neck. That’s my bullet hole. Where’s yours?

My second one will be in your ass if you don’t get it back into them woods where you come from.

Michael walked around the fallen doe. He saw only the one bullet hole. He reached down, grasped the thin forelegs and turned her over. There was no wound on that side. Finis Blackwood had missed. He said, You-all backin’ off, or have me and Andrew got to whup you?

Finis Blackwood snickered. Andrew? Is that the baby’s name? He don’t look much like Ol’ Hickory Jackson.

Andrew took the insult with a shout and charged into the big boy like a small pup after a bear, catching him unready and hitting him where it garnered Finis’s undivided attention. The middle brother grabbed Andrew and pulled him off, but Andrew had already compromised Finis’s fighting ability. Finis sagged to his knees and bent over, letting his rifle slide to the ground.

Michael might criticize his little brother’s judgment but never his nerve. He leaned his own rifle against a tree and went at the other two Blackwood brothers in a rush that forced them to drop Andrew and concentrate on the larger problem.

Nobody had ever taught Michael how to fight. Certainly, nobody had ever suggested that there were any rules to it except to hit the other man firstest, mostest and try one’s damndest to come out the winner. When one of the Blackwoods tried to hit him over the head with a piece of tree limb as big around as Michael’s arm, Michael leaned into the other brother and took the blow across his shoulder, then kicked his immediate opponent in the groin and turned to grab the limb with both hands. He wrestled for possession, got it, and brought the limb up under Luke Blackwood’s chin with enough force that he thought he heard lower and upper teeth strike smartly together. He turned to see if Finis was back on his feet and looking for another helping of Andrew’s medicine. Andrew had gotten a limb of his own and brought it across Finis’s ear with an authority beyond his years.

Now, Michael said, heaving for breath, this is my doe. If you-all want to argue about it some more, we’re ready.

Finis Blackwood sat glaring at Andrew and the limb he held ready for further use. Luke Blackwood was rubbing his sore jaw. Isaac Blackwood, youngest of the three, hunched over with his hands between his legs.

A thin line of blood trickled from Andrew’s nose down his upper lip. But Michael took satisfaction in the fact that the Blackwoods looked worse.

He took a razor-sharp knife from a belt scabbard and gutted the doe, saving the liver and the sweetbreads. He hoisted the deer up onto his shoulder and motioned for Andrew to carry his rifle. They started back in the direction of home. His skin prickled with the knowledge that the Blackwoods could shoot him in the back and were probably toying with the notion. But he went on the faith that they lacked the courage. They were a counterfeit lot in his judgment, from their shiftless daddy Cyrus on down to the littlest one he had seen callously squash a turtle’s shell with a rock. The whole mess wasn’t worth more than the price of the tallow that could be rendered out of them.

A rock sailed past Michael and disappeared into the tall grass. The youngest Blackwood, Isaac, was swinging his arm for another throw.

Andrew said indignantly, He’s chunkin’ us.

Ignore him, Michael advised. He’s a poor shot anyway.

Chunking rocks! That was a pretty fair gauge of the whole family’s narrow caliber, he thought. He hoped no Indians came prowling through these woods, for the Blackwood family would be of no use to anybody else and precious little to themselves. They would probably not stop running till they crossed back over the mountains to whatever poor backwater they had come from.

He made up his mind not to look over his shoulder again, for they might take it as acknowledgement that they worried him. Isaac scored a lucky hit with a stone against the small of his back. Andrew shouted in anger and picked up the stone, hurling it at Isaac. They ain’t whupped good enough yet, he declared.

Leave some for another day. Michael frowned, his back stinging where the rock had struck. Mama ain’t goin’ to like your bloody nose. You oughtn’t to’ve follered after me.

You couldn‘t’ve whupped all three of them by yourself. Me bein’ there, it evened the whole thing up.

Michael knew his brother had a point, but he could not afford to compromise the authority of his two extra years. Just the same, ask me next time.

"I can’t. You always tell me no."

When they were well beyond range of Isaac’s rocks, Michael stopped and cut off a tree branch about five feet long. He tied the doe’s feet and swung her from it. He and Andrew carried the deer home between them.

They neared the field where their oldest brother Joseph, a smaller brother James, and sisters Heather and Annie hoed corn. A rock just missed Michael, and he turned in surprise. Isaac Blackwood had followed them all the way home. The boy leaned down and picked up a good-sized stone, putting a strong shoulder behind the throw. Michael had to step quickly aside, or it would have struck him. He saw no sign of the two older Blackwood boys.

Well, he said, Isaac’s got more gumption than the whole rest of the litter. He may amount to somethin’ someday. He shouted, We don’t want to whup you, Isaac. Go home!

The boy did not move, but he did not stoop for another rock.

From the field, little Annie, eight, hollered out her indignation and shook her fist at Isaac. She was inclined to be violently protective of her brothers. Heather, more mature at eleven, touched her shoulder and bade her to silence. Heather had stronger notions of a lady’s obligations to dignity. James, who was six, just stared at first one and then another.

Joseph came to the end of the row to meet Michael, his face creased in rebuke. It’s a good thing you brought some meat home, or you’d catch it for slackin’ off from the field work. He shifted his attention to Andrew. Boy, you better wash that blood off of your face before Mama sees you. What you mean, runnin’ off thataway?

Michael lied, He didn’t run off. I taken him.

Joseph frowned, unconvinced. He repeated, It’s a good thing you brought meat.

Annie had dropped her hoe. She hurried to the end of the row, a small girl with a dusty, freckled face and eyes that looked as big and blue as the old china saucers Mama had brought with her from the other side of the mountains. Those eyes stared with admiration at Michael. He was the brother most like Papa, and she adored Papa. Did you shoot the deer, Michael?

Michael glanced back at Andrew and felt generous. It taken us both. Andrew looked surprised but accepted the acknowledgement with a grin.

Michael jerked his head. Come on, Andrew. We got to skin this doe. He reached out to pat the top of Annie’s head and brought a wide smile to her face. Heather stood back without comment. The older and wiser sister, she would probably counsel Annie not to let such a small gesture from a boy—even a brother—go to her head.

Patience Lewis stood in the open dog-run, holding the baby girl Dora and watching. She was a medium-tall woman—skinny, some would call her. The hard work and sometimes skimpy vittles on a small frontier farm gave no one much chance to run to fat. Michael had always adjudged her a handsome woman, though he had only the vaguest idea what men in general considered handsome. She pleased Mordecai Lewis, and that was enough. Nobody had any business making judgments about Michael’s mother anyway.

Patience put the baby down to play on the dog-run. She gave Andrew a grave but silent scrutiny, then said, You boys got off without any breakfast. I’ll have you somethin’ fixed by the time you’ve skinned that doe and hung her up to drain and cool out. She glanced at a row of metal hooks firmly fixed to a rafter over the dog-run. They called it dog-run because it was an open space where the breeze could move through between the two sections of the cabin, and thus was a favored place for dogs to loaf or to run. Dogs liked staying there anyway when meat was hanging where they could get the scent of it. Michael always made sure it hung high enough that neither they nor any stray varmints were likely to jump up and get their teeth into it.

Patience turned toward the kitchen door, then paused. Her blue eyes were accusatory. You boys look kind of bloodied up. You fall out of a tree or somethin’?

Michael glanced at Andrew. Somethin’ like that.

I hope you wasn’t fightin’ each other. I won’t tolerate that kind of behavior in this family.

No ma’am. We never fight … each other.

By the time he and Andrew had the doe hanging in four quarters, the welcome smell of fried meat and corn dodgers reminded him of his hunger. His mother made the two go wash the blood and grease from their faces and hands before she let them into the kitchen.

They were almost finished eating when a man’s voice boomed, Hello the house! and a tall frame blocked most of the light from the doorway.

Papa! Michael thought. His heart jumped a happy beat. But he blinked and slumped back upon the rough-hewn bench. Uncle Benjamin was Papa’s oldest brother, and sometimes they looked so much alike that it made a body catch his breath. Benjamin was two years older and considerably more prosperous. Only his britches were of leather; the shirt was of cloth. And he owned six horses, the last count Michael had taken.

Michael glanced at his mother and thought she must have mistaken Benjamin for Papa too, for gladness sparked her eyes. She moved halfway across the little room to meet him. She reached out as if to touch him but stopped herself. She said, Come on in, Benjamin, and welcome.

I brought meat. Looks like somebody’s already been out and fetched his own, though. He gave Michael a smile that spoke of family pride. Ain’t Mordecai got home yet?

Patience shook her head. Her smile went quickly to a frown. You have reason to think he should’ve?

Benjamin leaned his long rifle in a corner. Joel Bacon said he seen him four days past, down the trace towards Miller’s Crossin’. Said he was on his way home.

Concern crept into Patience’s voice. I don’t know why he’s takin’ so long, then.

Benjamin replied, You know how it is with Mordecai. He’s got to stop and bide by all his friends, and he ain’t got an enemy in the world, hardly.

He’s got a family. She shrugged off the momentary resentment. I expect you’re hungry. Michael and Andrew don’t need to eat all this truck that I fixed for them.

Michael thought she was being almighty generous without asking him what he thought about it. Uncle Benjamin relieved his mind. My daughters fixed for me before I left the house, but obliged just the same. You boys better finish all that’s on the table. Looks like there’s a-plenty of work waitin’ for you out in the field.

Patience said, It’s a blessin’ and a comfort that you’ve got your children around you, Benjamin. Otherwise, that place would seem dreadful lonely now that Nancy’s gone.

Benjamin’s smile left him. It’s lonely anyway.

Michael’s Aunt Nancy had taken sick during one of the coldest spells last winter. Spring and its warm sunshine had lifted her out of similar slumps in the past, but they had failed her this time. She was a Carolina tidewater woman, small and poorly, and folks said she never should have been exposed to the rigors of childbearing and homemaking on this harsh frontier. They said it was a wonder she had lived as long as she did. But Michael’s own mother was just as thin. Hard work and mean times never seemed to put an intolerable strain on her. She took the work in her stride, and she got angry rather than bitter at the hard times, as if they were a personal affront to be met head on, like varmints in the cornpatch.

Benjamin said, Michael, your cousin Frank came along with me for company. He stopped off down at the field to help Joseph and the young’ uns.

Michael decided he had had enough to eat. To be able to visit with cousin Frank was a treat made the more pleasant for its rarity. Frank was one of