The Son

Chapter Nine. Diaries of Peter McCullough, AUGUST 13, 1915

Memory is a curse. When I close my eyes I see Pedro’s shot-off face and the weeping hole in Lourdes’s cheek, a clear fluid issuing forth like a tear. Aná’s blood-soaked dress. When I sleep I am back in their room. Pedro is sitting up in bed, pointing at me, speaking in some ancient language, and as I get closer I realize the sound is not coming from his mouth, but from the hole in his temple. Upon waking I lie still a long time and hope for my heart to stop beating, as if death might absolve me from my place in this.

What happened at the Garcias’ was only the beginning. In town, there are at least a hundred armed men that no one knows, carrying rifles and shotguns as if it were half a century ago, as if there were no town at all. Amado Batista was murdered sometime in the night, his store looted, an attempt made to burn the building though the fire did not catch.

The Garcias are described in all the papers as Mexican radicals; in truth they were the most conservative landowners in Webb and Dimmit Counties. The picture of their bodies is reprinted in every corner of the state and in Mexico, where, despite the fact that old landowners are not quite in favor, they will doubtless go down as martyrs.

Glenn remains in San Antonio, recovering at the hospital. Neither he nor Sally reacted to the news of the Garcias’ annihilation. I wonder if I am going crazy or if I do not love my family enough, or if it is the opposite, if I love them too much. If I am the only sane person I know.

Meanwhile, the rooming houses are full of the worst sorts the Rio Grande Valley has to offer and the Rangers are having trouble keeping order. I suggested to Sergeant Campbell (Was he the one to shoot Pedro and Lourdes? Was it my own son?) that he send for the rest of his company, but they are occupied up and down the border, guarding other ranches.

Campbell, despite his mean looks, is troubled that half the dead were women and children. I refuse to talk to him about it. People like him think you can apologize things away, that you can confess over and over until you are free to repeat your crime.

OUR HOUSE WAS busy all day with well-wishers; at one point I drove into town to escape them, whereupon I came on two trucks with a dozen men each, well armed and hoping to make battle with Mexican insurgents. I told them everyone was dead. They looked disappointed but after some discussion they decided to go into town anyway: no point giving up hope just yet.

Returned to find Judge Poole eating our beef and drinking our whiskey and taking statements from all present. I gave him my story—just the facts—he corrected me several times—not your interpretation. Finally he asked me to step outside, away from the others.

“This is just a formality, Pete. Don’t let anyone think I’ll side with a wetback over a white man.”

Nearly pointed out that we are the wetbacks, having swum our horses across the Nueces a century after the Garcias first settled here. But of course I said nothing. He clapped me on the back — his butcher’s hands — and went in to eat more free beef.

People continued to arrive at the house, bringing cakes, roasts, and regrets that they had not been able to reach us in time to help — how brave we were to assault the Mexicans with such a small force. By that they mean seventy-three against ten. Fifteen if you count the women. Nineteen if you count the children.

AUGUST 14, 1915

Sally asked why I had not yet come to see Glenn at the hospital. I explained my reasons:

Three houses were burned last night and eight townspeople killed, all Mexican except Llewellyn Pierce, who had a Mexican wife.

Sergeant Campbell shot at least three looters, though two escaped into the brush. The dead man is from Eagle Pass. The three were in the process of setting fire to the home of Custodio and Adriana Morales. The Moraleses were already dead. I thought of Custodio and how he loved our fine horses; he always charged too little to repair the tack and other goods I brought him. I had been meaning to invite him over to ride for twenty years now.

Campbell confided that one of his men refused to shoot at white looters. Also a sheriff’s deputy was found dead, but no one knew any details.

Campbell has cabled again for the rest of his company but was told that they were busy with bigger problems farther south.

“We need to do something about these Mexicans,” he told me. “They’re not going to be safe here.”

He had not seemed very concerned about the safety of the Garcias. I did not say this but he must have read my face.

“Our job is to enforce the peace against anyone who disturbs it,” he said. “I don’t care what color they are.”

SEVERAL TEJANO FAMILIES — the Alberto Gonzaleses, the Claudio Lopezes, the Janeros, Sapinosos, and the Urracas — left town this afternoon with all their belongings.

Campbell thinks tonight will be worse than last. His men are outnumbered fifty to one. “They’ve been talking about buying us machine guns,” he said. “They should have done it already.” Then he asked: “What do you think about this Sheriff Graham?”

“I think he will be sad if he misses out on all this looting.”

“That’s what I thought.”

It was quiet. We sat there on the porch looking out over the country.

“What is it like to have all this?” he said.

“I don’t know, really.”

He nodded as if he’d expected this answer.

“Would you like some supper to bring with you for later?” I said.

He didn’t reply. We looked toward the town but you cannot see it from the porch.

“Your old man is something, I’ll say that.”

“He’s something all right.”

“My daddy is dead,” he said.

Something made me wonder if he were responsible for this condition. Still, I liked him. He could not have been over five foot five in boots and every man in town was afraid of him.

“What are you planning to do about tonight?”

“Shoot a lot of people, I guess.”

“That does not sound like much of a plan.”

“Well, that’s what we got.”

“Have you done much work like this?”

“I shot two guys in Beaumont. But this is like turkey season compared to that.”

It was quiet.

“How do you do it?”

“You use your sights,” he said.

AUGUST 15, 1915

The light of several fires visible from my window last night; gunfire sporadic but constant.

By morning another dozen Mexican families were gone; they appear to have left under their own power. Fourteen more dead, six of them white. On the phone, Campbell admitted that he was the one who shot the deputy the other evening. The deputy was wearing his badge and looting a house.

Charles and I drove into town and came on a Tejano man hanging from a live oak.

“That’s Fulgencio Ypina,” Charles said.

We stopped and Charles climbed the tree and cut him down. We lifted and deposited him as gently as possible in the back of the truck. Fulgencio had cleared brush for us for years. His body was already beginning to swell.

“Who is going to bury these people?” said Charles.

“I don’t know.”

“Is the army coming?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“We should call Uncle Phineas.”

“He is on a fishing trip.”

“Well, you need to do something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But you need to.”

THE STREETS WERE empty. There were handwritten signs posted everywhere:

ANYONE FOUND ON THESE STREETS AFTER DARK (INCLUDING WHITES) WILL BE SHOT. ORDER OF THE TEXAS RANGERS.

When we found Sergeant Campbell, he had been shot again, this time through the upper part of his calf. He was sitting in a chair in the back of the feed store with his boots off and his pants down.

“At least people seem to aim for your extremities,” I joked. The leg did not look bad — the bullet had missed the bone and the artery.

Campbell was watching the doctor. “You get hit in the hands because your hands are in front of your chest when you aim a gun. And I got hit in the leg because when I shot the guy last night, he discharged his weapon when he fell over.” He looked at me as if our ages were reversed.

“You can tell every Mexican family in town that they can come to my ranch,” I said.

“That will make things easier on me.” He did not seem to consider it a big favor. He continued to watch Guillermo Chavez, who at twenty-five is the town veterinarian, having taken over from his father. Chavez unbandaged his hand and arm.

“Who did these dressings?”

“I did. Are you a real doctor?”

“Mostly with animals.”

“Licensed?”

“Look at me and take a guess.”

Campbell shook his head: “This is a goatfuck.”

“I am happy you are here,” said Guillermo. “Which is something I never thought I would say to a Rinche.”

Campbell ignored the insult. “What’s gonna happen if those bones knit like that?”

“You’ll have trouble with your hand.” He shrugged. “But the forearm is the real trouble, because there is a lot of bruising and that will need to be cut out.”

“Or I lose the arm?” His voice cracked and for an instant I saw Campbell for what he was, a scared twenty-year-old; but the mask quickly returned.

“Just keep packing this powder into it. When it begins to ooze and get sticky, add more. Always keep dry powder in the wound.”

“That looks like yellow sugar.”

“Sugar and sulfa.”

“Table sugar.”

“It’s a reliable remedy. The sugar alone would be enough.”

“This is fuckin’ stupid.”

“Use it or not, I don’t care. Your colleagues in Starr County murdered my cousin, your colleagues in Brownsville murdered my uncle and his son, and here I am, fixing you up.”

“There’s rotten ones in every barrel,” said Campbell.

“Tell that to Alfredo Cerda or Gregorio Cortez or Pedro Garcia. Or their wives and children, who are also dead. Your colleagues arrive and stir things up and the army comes and settles them down. But this is obvious. It is not even a matter for serious discussion.”

Campbell was flexing his fingers to see if he could still grip his gun. “Do you have morphine?” he said to Guillermo. To me he said: “We can’t pay you for the use of the ranch.”

“When is the army getting here?”

“Never,” he said.

“Well… One riot, one Ranger.”

“Sure. Unless you’re the one Ranger.”

SALLY WAS FURIOUS that I’d invited all the Mexicans in the town to our house and immediately demanded I put Consuela on the phone. I could hear her ordering Consuela to have the other maids hide the silver and take up the expensive rugs. Consuela handed the phone back.

“What is wrong with you, Peter?”

“These people are going to die if they don’t come here.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Glenn is going to be fine,” I told her.

“You can’t say that,” she said. “You can’t say that when you’re not even here with him.”

I HOPED THE Mexicans would make the move quietly, but by dark, half the Tejano residents of the town, nearly a hundred people, had walked, driven, or ridden up to the ranch, carrying, pushing, or pulling their valuables in donkey carts or handcarts or on their backs.

Midkiff and Reynolds, without being prompted, both sent men to help protect the Mexicans. They are protecting our ranch, the Colonel corrected me, don’t be an idiot.

Campbell came to check in in person, deputized the eight men (though he had no legal power to do so), and returned to town, limping badly, his right arm in a sling. Somewhere he acquired a.351 Winchester, which can be operated with one hand. I did not ask how he got it. We have chained and locked the gates to the ranch and Charles and the vaqueros have dug themselves in by the road.