Senator Matthias Ward replaced former Senator James Pinckney Henderson, whom Elizabeth likes to think of as an old friend simply because she signed a petition, along with approximately 499 other Texans, “The protection of slaves as property,” in which they requested “a plan to ensure the protection of slaves in Texas”—the petition’s first stipulation was “the need for an extradition treaty between the U.S. and Mexico in order to require the return of criminals guilty of capital offenses, if necessary,” above all to protect the constitutional rights (and human rights, sovereign rights) of property-owners; in other words, the right to recover fugitive slaves. Its goal, “despite the lying, fanatical dogs in Congress,” was to defend the rights laid out in the Constitution, “Liberty, Justice, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The document referred to Santa Ana as the “bloodthirsty Mexican tyrant, that black murderer of children and Americans.” It held that defending the right to own property (i.e. slaves) was at the heart of American institutions and that persecutory northerners had lost their minds over the issue of slavery, “threatening and attempting to destroy the vital tenets of our Constitution — that ‘chart and chain’ which has united us since the days of Washington.” Etcetera. Out of irrational and cantankerous loyalty to her supposed “friend,” Elizabeth despises the man who now occupies his Senate seat — that’s why she called him a “Mason,” which is the worst possible insult she can think of.
Second digression: Stealman arrived home with a big head for several reasons. It had been a busy day. He had assumed ownership of the barge and the tugboat as well as two other vessels without paying a cent. Then that thing with the damn-fool sheriff and Nepomuceno happened. True, Texas was a land of great opportunity, but it had one major problem: the Mexicans.
Perhaps “big-headed” isn’t the right word to describe a man like Stealman. He’d made a respectable fortune from three silver mines in Zacatecas — they didn’t belong to him but, as they say, “finders keepers,” that is, if the finder is a gringo (the Mexican view is different: the ones who get to keep fortunes are the ones who deserve them, not by virtue of hard work, but by virtue of birth and family ties, etcetera). The truth of the matter is that the money he made was not from hitting the motherlode, it was his management of the mines — with extremely low wages and long hours for the miners, while the impure silver they produced was sold as if it were the very highest quality.
He was canny, that Stealman. He laid the foundations for Bruneville with minimal investment; he got money from the State to build the two main roads; through the sale of plots of land a miraculous transformation took place, and this forgotten end of the earth became a bustling city. With all his connections (not to discount those of his wife’s family), politicians considered Bruneville an important outpost and offered it military protection, which brought the economic benefits of an army base.
Everything Stealman has he created from nothing (just like Gold and many other recent arrivals); in other words, from his own initiative and enterprising nature, despite the obstacles presented by the Mexicans, who had a legal case pending to reclaim the land on which he founded Bruneville. In his defense, Stealman presented a piece of paper signed by the widowed plaintiff, Doña Estefanía, in which she agreed to the use of the land “for the improvement of the region.” To shut her up, Stealman paid her two elder sons one peso per hectare (no joke: one miserable peso, when he had received much more than that for each plot of land, but he thought it was fair because it had been his idea to begin with and he had done all the work). “Same as always,” Stealman said to himself. “Those lazy Mexicans” wanted to make money off what he had in spades and what they lacked: “ingenuity, hard work, and dedication. Just like women.”
In his argument, Stealman omitted a few details. To wit: he rented the mines in Zacatecas from a Mexican who had already mined all the high quality silver out of them; what Stealman managed to dig out of them was of the poorest quality. He knew very well that he had taken advantage of the widow Estefanía, that she had never intended to establish a city there because, in her own words, “The land between the Río Nueces and the Río Bravo is meant for raising cattle.” She was right, plus it must be emphasized that Estefanía never sold her land to Stealman — he made her sign a piece of paper retaining his services to legalize her ownership of it under the new Texas government; they agreed that he would help her put the land to good use under the new government — and she had good reason: she was worried they would tax her out of owning it. Lastly, the dispute between the brothers (those from her earlier marriage and Nepomuceno) created the opportunity to pretend he was sorting things out legally when the fact is that the only thing he planned on doing was mollifying them, he’d find a way to shut them up sooner or later.
And that’s not the only shady business he’s engaged in. Charles Stealman has a box full of “squatter titles,” “labor titles,” and more; but now that the party at his house is starting we don’t have time to get into that. Still, there’s no need to be quite so merciless about him: he really is quite enterprising and organized. He knows everything, and he follows the law to the letter when he’s doing business with Anglo-Saxons, unless he has a good reason not to, of course.
The third and final digression: It’s more than a month since Captain Callahan — who Stealman said is coming to the party — and some of his men ran into a band of horse thieves in the York Ravine. They killed three or four of them and the rest escaped into the prickly bushes that grow in those parts — their small, sweet-smelling yellow flowers blossom only once a year; bees love them, and make well-known honey from them.
The next morning, his men decided to follow the tracks of one of the bandits who had been wounded in the leg: easy prey. They found him in the blink of an eye; without his horse he’d had to drag himself along the ground like the snake he was.
When he saw them approach, he made signs that he would surrender. Captain Callahan approached on his horse without dismounting.
“What, greaser? You wanna go to Seguin?”
“Yes, sir. I need a doctor, I’m bleeding to death.”
“Okay. Get up in the saddle behind me.”
The Mexican took a large silk handkerchief from his pocket and tied it tightly around his leg — the keepsake was dear to him, he always carried it folded away in his pocket, probably a love token, and now that he had a ray of hope he used it. The Mexican struggled to his feet and hobbled over to Captain Callaghan with a mighty effort. When he was an arm’s length away, the Captain took out his pistol and shot him in the forehead.
When Chung Sun, the Chinese man, heard this story, he said what he usually said about gringos: “Properly styled barbarians,” the only intelligible English phrase he knew — his white horses and all his other maxims and epigrams make no sense in any language.
We’ll have to digress again to introduce the women who’ve just arrived at the Stealmans’ home, but we’ve got time; Elizabeth is slow to leave her room because she must give specific instructions to her slaves on how to dress Charles (he can’t show up looking like a beggar), plus it takes her time to descend the stairs because her shoes are too tight.
The first writers in the Henry family were two sisters who authored two books of poetry written by “The Sisters from the West.” Some of the poems allude to reincarnation, as if they had lived before. What is certain is that they were born under the shadow of a crooked forebear. Their grandfather, George, claimed he was descended from the house of Henry, when in reality he was an infantryman who fled the misery of England to seek his fortune, leaving a wife and two children behind. He crossed the ocean. In the new world he enlisted in the Spanish army, changed his name to Jorge, married, and was widowed. In recognition of his service, the Spanish granted him land along the Mississippi River. Then the territory changed hands to the Anglo-Saxons. Jorge changed his name back to George Henry, and remarried a young Anglo-Saxon heiress. They had children.