For a while, it wasn’t clear everyone was coming back. The Mexicans might well kill a few of their number as an example or because they didn’t have family to ransom them. While the released men woke every morning overjoyed to find light coming through windows, a part of them remained in prison with their friends.
One of the last of the lawyers to return to San Antonio was William “Bill” Harcourt. He had spent more than a year in prison in Mexico, and his hometown appeared very changed; both larger — as he approached from the south on horseback, the buildings appeared a vast intrusion on the landscape — and smaller; when he got to the heart of the city, the buildings were neither as many nor as impressive as he remembered. He stayed at home for five days and nights, he and his wile reliving their meeting, courtship, and honeymoon, accelerated by past knowledge. For that long, not even the nearest neighbors saw them, and it was as if Mrs. Harcourt had vanished along with her husband, rather than that he had returned.
But pleasant as it was to catch up on events and become reacquainted with his wife, staying in the house was too strong a reminder of confinement, so on the sixth day, Bill strolled downtown to his law office. It was a bright day in February and the walk cheered him. Being surrounded by people and buildings and commerce made him feel safe. But as soon as he stepped into the gloom of the offices, he thought, Why do people choose to imprison themselves like this?
Harcourt was not an imposing man. Of average size when he was taken hostage, he was now slender to the point of emaciation. Well under six feet tall, he still felt the whitewashed ceiling of the offices as a constant presence only inches above his head. His brown hair had grown thicker and longer and he hadn’t yet cut it back, so he had the look of a frontiersman though he wore his best suit, one that had stayed safely in his closet all this time, with gray pants and a black frock coat with tails.
Harcourt broke into his first smile of the day when greeted by the clerk, Henry, a lad of barely twenty, who studied law in the offices while performing the clerk’s duties: copying documents, running to the courthouse to peruse deeds, looking up statutes, emptying spittoons.
“Henry!” Harcourt cried, clapping the young man’s shoulders. “Still clerking here?” It seemed a wonder to him that life had gone on as usual in his absence. Besides, what clerkly duties had he performed with all the lawyers in town vanished?
“Actually, I’m an attorney now, sir. I took my examinations six months ago.”
“Good for you! Well, nature hates a vacuum. I guess the town needed to grow more lawyers while we were gone. Have you been busy?”
Henry looked embarrassed. Harcourt noticed the other people in the room.
At the time of the lawyers’ abrupt departure from town on September 11, 1842, these offices had been shared by five lawyers. The entry room in which Harcourt and Henry now stood had served as a reception area, law library, and common room, with each lawyer having a small private office for receiving clients. Men were emerging from those offices now, two with smiles of greeting, one with a more interesting expression. A year and a half in captivity, learning the personalities and moods of the different guards, watching for signs of a beating or possible chance for ingratiation, had made Bill Harcourt a quick study of countenances, and he saw in these faces more than their owners intended. Even the smiles of his old partners had traces of apprehension. While they were glad to see him, they saw the possibility of imminent conflict. The stranger, who held a quill pen in his right hand, looked openly puzzled and anxious.
The next moment, there was a tumult of welcome, but Harcourt didn’t forget his first impression. What conflict was hidden here?
Greeting him most effusively and openly was Samuel Maverick. Maverick was one of the leading lawyers in town, and though relatively new to Texas, one of the foremost citizens of San Antonio. He had been trying a case in court on September 11 when the invading Mexican forces captured the courthouse and every lawyer in town. Maverick had also been one of the first three prisoners released, but he had still spent six months in Perote Prison, so he and Harcourt were colleagues in more than the practice of law.
“You’ve been back almost a year,” Harcourt said, “so I assume you’ve stolen all the legal business. Just like those cattle you refuse to brand, any client without another lawyer’s name on him must belong to Maverick.”
“I haven’t had to steal them,” Maverick said genially. “They’ve pressed themselves on me like fallen flowers when the tavern is empty.”
“And express themselves just as satisfied with your services, I’m sure,” Harcourt answered. The men laughed.
But raised voices from the last office gradually intruded on their reunion. Both men were even more sensitive to loud voices than Harcourt was to the flicker of an eyelid, because during their months of captivity, shouting had nearly always preceded a beating, or worse. These voices were only directed against each other, but they still drew the men’s attention. Harcourt glanced inquiringly at Maverick, who rolled his eyes.
Harcourt recognized one of the voices, and a small smile shaped his thin lips. In Perote Prison, the lawyers had been chained together two by two. Being joined in that fashion creates either enduring friendship or such sensitivity that the other man’s breathing becomes an irritant. One night, Maverick had gotten into a fist fight with his chain mate. But Bill Harcourt and one of the men now shouting in the adjoining office, John Lawrence, had become last friends — and confidants in more ways than one.
John had shared these offices with Harcourt for more than two years, but they had only been acquaintances. Now, after a year spent chained together, they were strange twins, their minds running along the same tracks. Somewhat. Bill knew the plans John had shared and some secrets he hadn’t meant to share, such as the names he murmured in his sleep at night.
John had been a prematurely middle-aged thirty-year-old man with a small pot belly, a shy wife of five years, a hearty laugh, but thoughtful moods. Like the other captives, though, he was changed now. Bill stepped into John’s office and saw him pushing a younger man away from the desk. The young man appeared a dandy in tight white trousers, a gray vest with a gold watch chain across it, and a blue coat with a flower in its lapel. Where had he gotten a rosebud in February? It was a small mystery Harcourt’s mind brushed aside while taking in the man’s even features, lively blue eyes, and trace of a smile even as he was being pushed backward by a man made lean and pale.
A woman in a small bonnet stood between them: Madelyn, Colin’s wife; thin and delicately featured, with light brown hair. One of her hands reached toward her husband, importuning. The other hand, Bill saw at a quick glance, was on the younger man’s arm, just before she removed it.
“Come, sir!” the young man said. “There’s no thievery here. I made an arrangement, first with your clerk, then with your wife — whom some thought your widow. Without me, your practice would have died completely.”
John recovered himself. Perhaps he saw his old friend out of the corner of his eye, or sensed the others clustering in the doorway. “Thank you,” he said, in the tone of a gentleman thanking a groom for having kept his horse exercised. “But now, as you see, I’ve returned. You can find accommodations elsewhere or go back to Austin.”
“Oh, I like it here,” the young man said. It was strange how his handsome face nonetheless seemed to find a sneer its most natural expression. “Truth to tell, people like me too. Some of your clients will not be so delighted with your return. You don’t own them, you know.”
“And they don’t know you,” John snapped. “When they do—”