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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

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“BIG FOOT WALLACE!”
Smoke curled from chimneys, drifted low over shingled rooftops, left soot gray patches in the snow. It was late in the day, but the inhabitants of the town were already in the streets, churning two inches of fresh snow into a muddy brown morass. A farmer had discovered the bodies of the blacksmith's kin a few miles outside of town and brought word of the attack. In response the lone mission bell of San Felipe sounded its message of disaster from the church tower on the southeast corner of Constitution Plaza, alerting the entire settlement to the tragedy.
It roused the populace from the warmth of the home and hearth, alerted the merchants and shopkeepers, emptied the taverns and the town hall where Stephen Austin, Don Murillo, and a handful of the colonists had been making plans for the settlement's expansion along the banks of the Brazos.
Men and women flocked to the plaza to learn the reason for the alert. They found Valentina Zavala beside herself with grief. Jesus Zavala, still in his blacksmith's apron, took up his rifle and asked for volunteers to help rescue his children. In a settlement of over a thousand people there was more than one opinion of what should happen and how best to track the Comanche.
Cooler heads argued against charging off “half-cocked,”
Austin suggested that a proper defense of the town needed to be addressed in case there were more war parties about. Zavala only knew his children had apparently been taken captive and with every minute wasted the odds increased that he would never see them again.
Don Murillo offered his vaqueros but cautioned against leaving so late in the day. Blundering about in the freezing darkness was a recipe for disaster.
Within the hour, the grim news had spread from every jacal, log cabin, and stone house. Merchants abandoned their stores and shops around Commerce Square, turned their backs on the drab, sluggish waters of the Brazos to descend on the center of town. A rescue attempt was certainly called for, but the town's safety also had to be taken into account.
Meanwhile the guests at the Farmer's Hotel and across the Calle Comercio at the Whiteside Hotel debated the merits of both arguments. Some of the newcomers chose to remain uninvolved; others loaded their guns and took to the streets ready to follow Jesus Zavala on his desperate mission.
Into the center of this commotion rode William Wallace. With Mad Jack and Roberto to help with the herd, they entered San Felipe by way of the settlement's main street, the Calle Vincente Guerrero. Isabel snuggled against Wallace's chest, burrowed into the folds of his serape, finding comfort and safety in his great size.
The horses smelled water and quickened their pace, traversing the streets at a smart clip that parted the crowd in the street. Men and women scurried out of harm's way as the missing herd burst into Constitution Plaza and formed a circle around the town well.
“Isabel … Roberto!” A dark-haired, big-boned woman broke from the ranks of the populace and, lifting the hem of her dress, hurried across the mud-churned
snow, slipping and sliding, her eyes streaming tears of joy.
“Mama!” Isabel squealed with delight. Roberto echoed his sister. Both children leaped down from horseback and scurried into their mother's embrace.
Then the crowd gathered around the newcomers. More than a few regarded these new arrivals with suspicion. Wallace searched the gathering for a familiar face as Roberto began to tell everyone within hearing distance about the raid and how the Comanche war party had captured him and his sister and, when all seemed lost, the
norte americano
came charging out of nowhere and single-handedly drove off the raiders. Mad Jack grumbled beneath his breath about his contributions being overlooked.
Jesus Zavala came forward. The blacksmith was a man of average height with broad shoulders and powerful forearms, a simple, decent man whose expression spoke volumes. He held out his hand. “I owe you a debt that can never be repaid, señor.”
William dismounted and took the blacksmith's handshake. “Glad I could be of help.”
“Who are you?” someone asked from the crowd.
“A friend,” Stephen Austin replied, making his way through the colonists with Don Murillo at his side. “He's Wallace.”
“Big Foot Wallace!” Roberto exclaimed. The people around him chuckled.
And William said with a good-natured grin, “That'll do.”
 
YOUNG WILLIAM WALLACE TOOK TO TEXAS LIKE A DEERHOUND TO BUCK SIGN. For nigh on to five years he roamed the beautiful country, from the Sabine River westward across the Pecos and down the Rio Grande.
But he always returned to his land on the Brazos. He called his ranch Briarwood, built a strong house, and ran cattle and horses out on the pasture. There were times when wanderlust got the better of him, when, restless as a bobcat with a burr under his tail, William would have to go.
Those were full years, I'm telling you, a time for chasing the wind over the next hill and following the sun. Now don't get me wrong. If the Comanche were raiding, bandits struck, or a child was lost, Bigfoot Wallace always answered the call and rode to the sound of the guns. William met every challenge headon, with cold steel in his hands and fire in his eyes. That was the only hand he played. He knew no other way. William Wallace gloried in the land and in the life.
But times were changing and troubled waters were on the rise … .
“HE ALWAYS TURNED UP WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECTED HIM.”
There was power in the cards, sight beyond seeing in worn and faded images, and magic in the childlike wonder of their keeper. Some called her a seer and came to her with open minds and hearts filled with questions. Others accused the woman of deluding her neighbors and herself with trickery. One day, perhaps while staring into the fractured darkness of her own demise, Esperanza might come to realize the truth of her mother's legacy. But for now, Senora Saldevar could not explain the gift she had inherited, nor did she try. After all, a life without mystery was hardly worth living.
Time and fate had raised her from servant to mistress and made her a woman of substance—tending her sun-washed gardens, riding the piney woods and pea green meadows of East Texas astride a sleek mare, learning the ways of the Rancho Rio Brazos—yet the vaqueros and servants still considered her one of their own. Throughout the first five years of marriage her husband, Don Murillo, had never been anything less than kind and generous and trusting.
“Are you content?” he would ask.
“Of course I am.”
“Are you happy?”
And she would lie. “Of course I am.”
 
 
Esperanza sensed she was being watched and glanced up from the cards on the walnut table to find herself being observed by a fastidious desk clerk who sat slouched forward, elbows propped on the scribbled pages of the hotel's leather-bound ledger. The clerk, Jack Tuttle, coughed nervously, closed and set the ledger aside, then tried to busy himself by polishing the pecan wood desk from which he watched the lobby and the street. Tuttle took care to dust beneath the inkwell and along the beveled edges of the heavy-looking countertop. Like many of the
norte americanos
who had begun to flood across the border during the past couple of years, the clerk was new to the settlement. Tuttle was a lonely man eager to earn enough money to bring his wife over from New Orleans just as soon as he had a proper place for her to live.
Earlier that morning, Tuttle had recognized Don Murillo and his wife when they first entered the lobby. And like everyone else in the community, the clerk was acquainted with Esperanza's reputation as a diviner who could read a man's future.
The bride of Don Murillo considered dealing the cards and putting on a show for her audience of one. She might tilt her head back and roll her eyes up under her lids until only the whites showed and then draw a card and audibly gasp and stare in the poor man's direction as if she had just received some dire communication from those who had gone before, a prediction of some terrible doom about to befall him. But a glimpse of her husband through the front window changed her mind and curbed her impish nature. Don Murillo would not wish her to make a scene. These were sobering days. She didn't need the cards to tell her the time for games was at an end. Esperanza only had to look at the deserted plaza to know that the summer of 1835 promised to be a long, hot season to remember.
Don Murillo Saldevar and Stephen Austin had finished their walking tour of the settlement and were approaching the hotel in the company of the visiting official they had guided through the streets. Esperanza recognized John Bradburn, a heavyset Englishman and the alcalde of Anahuac, who struggled to match his companions stride for stride as they returned to the lobby of the Whiteside Hotel after their troubling sojourn through the dusty streets of San Felipe. It was rumored a hangman's rope awaited the alcalde should he ever return home to London town. England's loss was Texas's ill-gotten gain. Despite that fact that San Felipe's population had swelled to nearly two thousand colonists over the past couple of years, the settlement had fallen on hard times, and Esperanza knew the reason why.
Burdensome taxation and wholly unjustified levies had stifled growth and interrupted the flow of goods coming in from the States. Shipments destined for the settlement had been confiscated by Bradburn and stockpiled in Anahuac's warehouses. Bradburn, as a representative of the Mexican authority governing East Texas, had bravely consented to attend the town meeting to discuss the impasse and clarify the government's position. Colonists from the outlying areas had been drifting into the settlement throughout the morning, drawn by the desire to make their feelings known: most everyone mistrusted Bradburn's motives and considered him a turncoat for accepting Santa Anna's money. Esperanza thought the unpopular alcalde tended to act as if his mantle of authority were a crown. Bradburn might be a scalawag, but the man was no fool. He had wisely brought a troop of Mexican dragoons to enforce his edicts and ensure his protection should any malcontent attempt to cause him harm.
The three men entered through the front doors of the hotel and paused to allow their eyes to adjust to the
shadowy interior. Bradburn glanced hungrily in the direction of the dining room. Don Murillo led the official over to the sitting area by the front window with its view of Commerce Square. The front doors had been propped open and the windows unlatched and swung ajar to permit a breeze. Blue checkered curtains stirred with a breath of wind. A few of the guests, itinerant traders, journeymen, and a couple of colonists and their families lingered over coffee and johnnycakes in the adjoining dining room. Esperanza wasn't hungry and preferred the lobby for its cross breezes and its view of the plaza.
To her dismay, only a handful of stalls had been erected in the square. An old man sold firewood and artfully woven birdcages; another stall had a tinker with a paltry assortment of enameled tin pots and pans. The señora noticed a Texas Indian woman selling poultices and hand-sewn moccasins and, nearby, a widow patting
masa
flour into tortillas and tossing them on a flat sheet of iron propped over a slow-burning fire. A family of mestizos displayed an array of multicolored blankets, clay jars, and braided lariats, hoping to attract the attention of a pair of disinterested dragoons, some of the very same men who had escorted Bradburn from the coast. Children, as frisky as puppies, chased one another across the marketplace, leaving in their wake a dusty brown haze to tint the streaming sunlight.
“The marketplace is almost deserted,” Don Murillo remarked, stating an obvious fact. Esperanza, seated at her sunlit table, smiled and with a flick of her hand brushed back a few strands of her lustrous hair; shiny black as the mane of a new foal. Don Murillo sighed. He was much too old for such a vibrant young wife; at least so his sister had told him. But watching Esperanza in repose like this, he didn't care what anyone said.
“But then there is little to attract the farmers and ranchers into town. There are more empty shelves than
full at Kania's Mercantile,” the white-haired
haciendado
continued.
Though the years had added a few extra wrinkles to his features, he stood ramrod straight and carried himself with dignity. He brushed the dust from the embroidered sleeves of his gray jacket and trousers, then adjusted the silver clasp of his bolo tie. The smooth silver-embossed grip of a flintlock pistol jutted from the black sash circling his waist. He placed a hand on Esperanza's shoulder. “You must be bored. No doubt you are sorry you came along. San Felipe holds little of interest”—he glanced in Bradburn's direction—“these days.”
“I welcome the change,” Esperanza said.
“And the opportunity to escape my sister's company,” Don Murillo chuckled. “Dorotea can be a burden at times.” He gestured toward the two men with him. “You remember the alcalde.”
“But of course. Señor Bradburn was our dinner guest last year. I remember he had a healthy appetite and a fondness for
albondigas
.” Esperanza. had personally prepared the meal, from her mother's recipe for a stew made from coarsely ground beef rolled into balls with rice and jalepeño peppers, seasoned with sprigs of mint, and simmered in a thick, fiery broth. The Englishman had devoured three heaping bowlfuls. As Esperanza recalled, the magistrate had also displayed a thirst for wine, but that wisely went unmentioned.
The alcalde was a man of average height, broad-shouldered, with a gut that drooped over his leather belt like a bay window. Sweat collected in the folds of his cheeks and drained along his thick neck. His scalp was pink and peeling beneath his thinning brown hair. The Englishman extended his meaty paw and clasped her delicate fingers in his fleshy grasp. He bowed and brought his thick lips to the back of her hand. She resisted
the urge to recoil as the tip of his tongue flicked against her skin.
“I am charmed to see you again. Beauty such as yours does not exist in Anahuac. Perhaps you will visit with your husband and brighten up our little port. The coast is not without its attractions.”
“The least of which are the shipments that languish in your warehouses,” Austin interjected with a nod in Esperanza's direction. The founder of the colony carried himself like a man who had never been taught to smile, his pained expression but an outward display of the man's inner turmoil.
Esperanza sympathized with Austin. In the beginning, his word had been law in the settlement. He had personally picked each and every colonist who came to Texas. But all that had changed in just five short years. The
norte americanos
swarming into Texas came without Austin's personal invitation, lured to the frontier by the promise of open range, free land, and better lives. She could recount a litany of the newcomers, men like the Tennessee politician Sam Houston and Bill Travis, a lawyer from Mississippi, and a wild melange of adventurers, poets, farmers, and families of dreamers, who owed no allegiance to Stephen Austin.
The locals welcomed the burgeoning population. With the influx of settlers, Comanche raids had become less frequent as the tribes withdrew to less populated areas of Texas. What had begun as one man's dream had become impossible to contain, and Austin, his prestige and powers reduced, could not help but be bitter.
“Ah, my friend, you wrong me. I am only following the directives of his most excellent president, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.” Bradburn shrugged and his chubby round cheeks split with a smile. “Come; there is no need for us to be adversaries. Indeed, you will find I can be most accommodating.” The Englishman waved
a hand toward the dining room. “Be my guests. Join me.”
“I need to make some preparations for the meeting this afternoon,” Austin said.
“But not at the town hall,” the alcalde replied. “That log house is too smothering. I suggest the cantina by the river. There are plenty of tables outside, and everyone can socialize. I will avail myself to each man. Or woman.”
“As you wish,” Austin said and, touching the brim of his palmetto hat in salute, excused himself. It was clear to all he had complete disdain for the alcalde. But there were other ways to get these policies changed. Perhaps a boldly diplomatic move was called for.
“Surely you and your lovely bride will keep me company,” said Bradburn, turning toward Don Murillo as Austin stalked across the lobby and disappeared through the front door. “And will I at last make the acquaintance of this man Wallace … Big Foot Wallace? I have heard the stories about him. I daresay they are entertaining.”
The alcalde removed a clay pipe from the pocket of his bobtail black coat and clamped the stem between his teeth. His gaze feasted on the ranchero's comely young wife. He took her arm in his. “With your husband's permission, my dear Señora Saldevar.” He moved with surprising quickness and the overbearing confidence of a man convinced of his own invincibility. The familiarity of his unwanted gesture caught Esperanza off guard. The deck of cards slipped from her grasp and landed on the hardwood floor. An errant breeze chose one and flipped it over, face up on the hardwood floor.
El Destripedor Rojo.
Esperanza smiled in silent observation. He always turned up when you least expected him.
 
 
The sun burned high noon over Briarwood as a warm breeze stirred the branches of the live oaks and pecan trees, sent pearl white clouds scudding across the heat-glazed sky, and set the sunflowers and firewheels dancing where they bloomed, in bouquets thick and lovely, sprung from the good earth.
“Well, Samuel, what do you think?” asked William Wallace, in conversation with his brother's ghost. The big man spoke in hushed tones, his voice a whisper on the wind. The frontier had etched his weathered flesh, left his craggy features a war map of seams and crow's-feet. He wore his skin hard as the steel blades he carried. The sun had burned him brown as Texas clay. Only the easy humor behind his green eyes tempered his appearance. Time and Texas had transformed muscle and bone into the stuff of legend.
Esperanza often teased him about how the ladies of the colony romanticized his exploits. She delighted in making him squirm with her descriptions of women she knew who would sacrifice everything, even their own honor, to stand at his side. Alas, not so Señora Saldevar. Despite her sister-in-law's suspicions to the contrary, the only woman who meant anything to William Wallace remained a faithful wife.
The big man slipped his nankeen shirt over his broad shoulders and tucked the hem into his brushed buckskin trousers. He pulled on his boots, armed himself with Bonechucker and Old Butch, grabbed his sombrero from a wall peg just inside the door, then ambled out into the warm air. He stalked across the veranda of the great stone house he had built with his own strong hands, fitting it with wide doorways large enough for a “man-sized” man to comfortably enter.

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