Gone to Texas (4 page)

Three months passed, when orders arrived to take them to Mexico City. “I wonder what they can do to us there they can't do here,” Ellis said.

Day after day they rode south across deserts and through mountain passes. Ellis gingerly held up his wrists and blew away the flies. Most of the cuts had formed thick ugly scars, but a few places had little chance to heal. His muscles ached from the hours in the saddle; it seemed as if they were traveling to the end of the world and would never reach it. “I wonder if they'll ever let us go,” he said somberly. “And if they do, if we can make it all the way back.”

“Nolan told us to fight to the death or they'd make us prisoners for life,” Duncan replied. “It sure looks like surrendering was a mistake.” He brushed the shoulder-length blond hair out of his tanned face with his manacled hands. His wrists were also scarred and raw.

Finally they saw San Luis Potosí below them in the distance, surrounded by lush green fields and orchards. Shining white churches towered over the largest city Ellis had ever seen. He gazed in awe at the splendid buildings, forgetting for a few moments the oozing wounds on his wrists. He had little time to admire the city, for the cavalry stopped by a massive stone building and the sergeant ordered them to dismount.

They were herded into the dark interior and turned over to sullen guards. The foul stench of urine, offal, and rotting food that struck his nostrils like a slap in the face told Ellis this was a dungeon. The guards led them down to the dimly lit lower floor, then divided them. Ellis, Duncan, Blackburn, Pierce, Luciano, and Danlin were shoved into a room that received a little light and air from a small grated window high in the stone wall. Fero, Cooley, Stephen Richards, Reed, House, and Waters were ushered into a similar room. Both rooms had heavy iron doors with small openings through which the guards handed them bowls of food and jugs of water. In one comer was a pile of dung left by previous prisoners. The stench was almost unbearable. “Thank God we'll be here just one night,” Danlin said to Ellis.

In the morning, Ellis watched impatiently for the door to open, but the guards merely handed them bowls of tepid water with a small piece of boiled chicken floating in each one. No soldiers came to take them on to Mexico City. Surely we'll go on tomorrow, Ellis thought. They can't just leave us here and forget us.

On the third day, when the guard brought the food, Ellis asked in Spanish, “When do they take us to Mexico City?”

“Mexico City?” The guard snorted and laughed. “When you're dead, maybe. No one ever leaves this place alive.”

Ellis felt suddenly weak and his hands trembled. For foolishly accompanying Nolan, they had been condemned to die a slow death—it might take years. In a voice as unsteady as his legs, he told the others what the guard had said. In the dim light he saw their faces register shock, then despair. Without feeling hunger or being aware of what he was doing, he ate the little piece of boiled chicken, then lifted the bowl to his mouth and drank the water in which it had been cooked.

Although the others looked ready to lie down and stop breathing, Blackburn's wrinkled face seemed to glow in the dim light. “We are not going to give up hope of deliverance,” he said in a firm voice. “We are going to keep our senses, because one day we will leave this place alive.” He recited from memory a verse from the Bible. Ellis didn't recognize it or any of the others Blackburn recited each morning thereafter. When he had gone through all of the verses he remembered, he started over. He's keeping us all from going mad, Ellis thought, but he resigned himself to dying in the stinking dungeon.

One morning, more than a year later, they were ordered out of the dungeon and herded onto the street. Shielding his eyes from the unaccustomed sunlight, Ellis saw saddled horses and a cavalry troop awaiting them. Still in chains, they were ordered to mount and weakly climbed on. They were escorted out of the city on the same road they'd followed when they arrived.

“They're taking us north,” Ellis said quietly to Duncan. “I wonder what that means.” Duncan didn't reply, for the officer, a short man with a waxed mustache, was glaring at them.

“Where are we going?” Ellis later asked a soldier who rode near him. The man glanced around to see if the officer was watching before replying.

“We're taking you to Saltillo,” he said. “I think from there you go to Chihuahua.”

The officer in charge of the escort apparently regarded the prisoners as criminals who deserved no consideration at all, for he showed them none. One morning, Joel Pierce was too sick to rise. “Put him on his horse,” the officer ordered. “If he wants to die he can do it in the saddle as well as in bed.” Two soldiers roughly shoved the gaunt youth onto his horse's back. Duncan and Ellis rode on opposite sides of him ready to catch him if he started to fall. Somehow he survived, and he was able to ride by himself by the time they reached Saltillo.

When they stopped in the plaza at Saltillo, the people crowded around as usual to stare at the bearded, ragged, dirty prisoners. What was left of Ellis' homespun shirt and pants was barely enough to cover him. The old women, in black dresses, brought them bread and fruit, although they obviously had little to spare. One gave Ellis a white cotton shirt, then wrung her hands when she realized he couldn't put it on because of his shackles.

The cavalry troop that brought them to Saltillo turned them over to another. Ellis looked at the new officer, a clean-shaven young Spaniard with sparkling black eyes. When he inspected the prisoners, he frowned at the sight of their scarred wrists and called to his sergeant. “Send a man for the blacksmith and remove those chains,” he ordered. “I don't care what they did—they don't deserve to be treated like that.”

When the shackles were removed, Ellis tore off what was left of his ragged shirt and put on the one the woman had given him. His arms had been shackled so long he could hardly move them.

“That's better, isn't it?” the officer asked in Spanish, and smiled.

“Muchas gracias,
'' Ellis replied.

“I thought all Spaniards were mean as hell,” Ellis remarked.”Can't say that about the lieutenant.”

“Or the townspeople,” Duncan added, ‘‘although they look more Indian than Spanish.”

At every village on the long ride to Chihuahua, the people took pity on the prisoners and brought them food and clothing. One wrinkled old woman with gray braids that reached nearly to her waist stopped by Duncan to admire his long blond hair. She called to her daughter, and both exclaimed over the color, and fingered Duncan's matted locks. Before the cavalry rode on, the daughter brought Duncan a white cotton shirt.

After thanking her, he said to Ellis, “We've both got shirts. Now maybe someone will give us each a pair of pants.”

They reached Chihuahua in the spring of 1803, two years after their capture. Stem-faced General Nemesio de Salcedo, who had recently arrived, was commandant general of all the Interior Provinces. “When General Salcedo learned that you were in a dungeon at San Luis Potosí,” the commander of the escort told them, “he ordered you brought here.”

Because escaping from Chihuahua and crossing the desert on foot was almost impossible, Salcedo gave them the freedom of the city during the days, but they had to return to the barracks at night. Each was given a little money every day to buy food, but nothing to replace the rags they wore.

One night when they returned to the barracks to be counted, an officer beckoned to Stephen Richards to follow him. Stephen didn't return that night; in the morning when Ellis saw him in a Spanish uniform, he seemed embarrassed. “They let me out to join the army,” he mumbled. “I'm leaving for Nacogdoches in a few days.”

“How come?” Ellis asked.

“I don't know. I didn't expect it,” he replied, not looking Ellis in the face.

“I know why they did it, and he knows,” Ellis said to Duncan later. “It's the reward for his father telling them where to find us. It's not Stephen's doing, but I don't blame him for not wanting to see us.”

Duncan and Ellis wandered about Chihuahua, grateful for at least this much freedom. The city, mostly adobe houses with flat roofs, had a population of about seven thousand. In the public plaza stood the principal church, which dwarfed the royal treasury building and the shops. The prisoners found the people friendly.

The upper classes ate well, lived in comfortable houses of adobe bricks, and amused themselves by playing cards and betting on cock fights. The poor lived in one-room
jacalos
of sticks and mud and ate scrawny chickens, cheap beef
,frijoles,
and
tortillas.

Every evening the upper class families gathered at the public walks on the south side of the city under three rows of trees. At each end of the walks were circular seats where people played guitars and sang songs in Spanish and French. Ellis and Duncan greatly admired the sparkling-eyed young ladies, who wore short jackets, petticoats, and shoes with high heels. Over their dresses, unmarried girls always wore a silk shawl, and when men were near, modestly drew it across their faces, leaving only one eye exposed. “With that thing over their faces, you can't tell if they're smilin' or frownin' at you,” Ellis remarked. “Don't seem fair.” At nine each night the
paseo
ended and everyone went home, for after that hour soldiers stopped anyone found on the streets.

Several of the prisoners, including David Fero, Joel Pierce, and Zalmon Cooley, received permission to move to San Carlos or other towns. Brawny Thomas House, who worked as a blacksmith in Chihuahua, exchanged letters with Fero and Cooley on plans for escaping. House warned the others not to trust Jonah Waters, for he remembered Waters repeating his remarks to Nolan. Waters worked as a hatter in Chihuahua.

“We've got to find a way to earn some money or we'll soon be naked,” Ellis said one morning as they accompanied Luciano to the plaza. “They give us barely enough to keep from starving. If Luciano didn't bargain for us, we'd likely starve anyway.” Men in sandals, white cotton shirts, and trousers, and women in black dresses were already bringing chickens, fruit, and bread to sell.

“I wonder if there's any work for a gunsmith here,” Duncan said. “My father taught me to repair guns, and all you Beans are gunsmiths. Of course, we'd have to have tools.” Luciano listened but said nothing.

“I've repaired plenty of guns,” Ellis observed. “I'd rather make hats, or something like that, but I don't know how.” They bought some bread and fruit, then sat on a low stone wall and watched the girls. Luciano left them.

He returned at noon. “I've been talking to some merchants,” he said. “Rafael Nunez will sell you the tools you need on credit,” he told Duncan. “Manuel Moreno will supply you with material for making hats,” he said to Ellis, who shrugged. “He also knows two good hatters who'd like to work for an Americano.” Ellis smiled.

Both got to work right away. With a vise, hammer, files, and other tools, Duncan soon had all the business he could handle. Ellis' hats were soon in demand—none but the Americano's sombreros would do. They bought clothing, ate well, and soon repaid their debts. When Ellis made the last payment, Moreno invited him to his home for dinner.

The Morenos lived in a spacious, well-furnished house of adobe, with a patio and large yard filled with fruit trees and grape vines. Moreno served wine, then his wife and two young daughters joined them for dinner. Ellis admired the attractive
Señora
Moreno but didn't know how to behave in the presence of ladies of her class. He tried to remain silent, but she wouldn't allow it. “Tell me how you came to be in Texas,” she said, and little by little drew from him the story of their misadventures. “You are all innocent!” she exclaimed indignantly. “They have no right to hold you!”

When they had finished dinner, she and the girls—Ellis guessed them to be ten and twelve—withdrew, while Ellis and Moreno smoked cigars and talked.

“Spanish officials are slow to act on matters of this sort,” Moreno told him. “You could be here the rest of your life. You already speak Spanish well. I advise you to join the church, marry, and settle down. You won't become rich, but you can live comfortably.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” Ellis replied. “I figured one day they'll get tired of holding us and let us go.”

“That's possible but unlikely. Everyone believed Nolan was invading Texas, and some still think he was. I'm afraid you'll be here for a long time. Better think about what I said.”

“I will,” Ellis assured him. He and Duncan, along with House and Danlin, soon began the process of preparing themselves for entering the church. None of them was ready to abandon hope of being freed one day, so they declined to consider marriage.

“We need to save as much money as we can,” Ellis told Duncan.“One day we'll surely have a chance to leave here, but we won't get far without
dinero.
” That's not what we did in Tennessee, he thought. No one ever tried to save money. We spent it as fast as we made it and didn't worry about tomorrow. But now it's different.

Late one day in January 1804, Fero, Cooley, Pierce, and the others who'd moved to San Carlos or elsewhere appeared at the barracks in Chihuahua, escorted by soldiers. “Does anyone know what this is all about?” Cooley asked. No one did.

At mid-morning the next day, an officer and a few soldiers marched the whole group into the city. “Can you tell us where we're going?” Ellis asked him in Spanish.

“Certainly. You're on the way to the
juzgado
to stand trial for entering Spanish territory illegally. It's high time they took some action.”

In the courthouse they saw dignified, stem-looking Judge Pedro Galindo de Navarro, a handsome, gray-haired Spaniard leafing through a stack of papers on his desk. “That's the evidence against you,” the officer told them. “It's taken Judge Galindo a month to read it all. But now he's ready to announce his decision.”