Hill Country: A Novel - Softcover

Chapter One: The Story Begins

One June evening, just as the falling sun was beginning to paint the Texas Hill Country with lavender halflight, Tom and Eliza Felps, having put their children to bed, were fishing for the fat little smallmouth bass that feed in the pools of Cypress Creek. Lightning bugs were beginning to scatter their minimal fire into the shadows. The night settled down like an old familiar comforter. Time lingered. A small wind breathed high in the cypress boughs. There must have been a moment of warning, a suspension of the cicada's song, a feeling of dread, an awareness beyond horror, for in a moment brief as a thought, Carnoviste, the rogue Comanche chief, came with his knife, and Tom and Eliza were disemboweled, their children taken away. A few miles to the north, Katherine Metzger was coming home from confirmation class when Apaches sent an arrow through her breast, then took her long yellow hair and her tongue. At Kickapoo Springs, while picking berries, Willie Stone and his little sister were captured by Apaches, thrown into the air again and again until they died, their bodies trampled and mangled by the horses. Then they were hung in a tree for the vultures. In Gillespie County, Henry Kensing and his pregnant wife, Johanne, were dragged from their home. He was killed and Johanne was tortured, the unborn baby ripped from her womb. In Sisterdale, Herman Rungie was scalped and mutilated by Apache raiders. Thirteen-year-old Anna Baumann was captured by Kiowa on the Pedernales River, her older sister tortured and killed. Within a day's ride from the Pedernales, Comanches came upon a group of Tonkawa preparing to eat the roasted leg of a captive. The Comanches, including Herman Lehmann, a white boy who had been captured and enslaved by the Indians eight years before, killed the Tonkawa, cut off their arms and legs and then burned all the body parts, including those of the living, in a bonfire.

The Kiowa, Arapaho, Apache, Comanche, the once great nations of the Great Plains were entering their final, dreadful hours. What had been a valiant defense of their land had become desperate banditry. Great chiefs, like Quanah Parker of the Comanche, who wanted an honorable peace, and Geronimo of the Apache, who sought a martyr's death, still maintained some influence over their people. But the bitter fury of the younger leaders, often rogues of uncommon brutality, held sway. The heart, the soul, of the tribes was splintered and the prodigal remnants of the nations fell on the families of the Texas Hill Country with all the terrible rage of the hopelessly lost.

In 1877, at Hoge Hollow, a few acres of rocky ranchland on a bend of the Blanco River, seven-year-old Laura Matilda Hoge and her brothers Charles and John Carlton Hoge were bathing in the shallow rock pools of the river near their home. Laura's big brother was twelve years old and very strong. She knew he would protect her should the Indians come. Even though her father had gone south for several days to hunt wild turkey so he could replenish the meat in the smokehouse, there was really nothing to fear: John Carlton was a match for the Indians and Laura's mother, Little Mattie Hoge, was just out of sight in the summer kitchen, baking a crab-apple pie.

Besides, Laura was not really sure there were such things as Indians. She had never actually seen one. But then, she had never seen God either, and when she told her father she did not believe there was a God, he switched her until she bled. So, on the subject of Indians, she kept her own counsel. Rarely did a day go by when she was not warned of Indians by her parents. Indians would carry her away, she was told, like they did poor little Herman Lehmann and Lewis Staeth and Emma Ahrens and Adolph Korn and some fifty or more other children from Hill Country families. In time, she began to see the Indians as the hand God might use to punish her for such mortal sins as sassing or whining or neglecting her chores. But since it was difficult for her to believe in God, it was also difficult to believe in His avenging angels. Indians became, in her mind, somehow blended with other tales of horror children were told, of witches in dark forests who tried to cook and eat children and wolves who masqueraded as grandmas and trolls who lived beneath bridges and would eat you if you crossed. The Tonkawa certainly had no monopoly on the eating of children.

And so it was not surprising that Laura was unafraid when she saw Carnoviste, Black Cato, and Herman Lehmann come riding, like characters out of a myth, from the brush on the other side of the river.

It was apparent the Indians had not expected to find children in their way as they approached the Hoge place in search of horses. They paused, looked at each other, then back to where the children stood, frozen in a motionless tableau cut away from the flow of time, an interval of images alive with a clarity that would be etched in Laura's mind for the rest of her long, long life.

The man she would later know as Carnoviste was tall and powerfully built, his face painted with red, yellow, and black designs. He wore nothing above his waist and his skin glowed like a copper kettle. His hair, crowned by a fan of eagle feathers, was very black, his nose thin and fine, and Laura was surprised to see that he had no eyebrows above his calm and expressionless eyes. Carnoviste carried a bullhide shield painted with bright stars and a crescent moon, and across his shoulder he carried a short bow. The second of the riders was Black Cato. Later she would learn he was a former slave who had joined the Apache to fight his white masters. He, too, was a very large man. He wore a soldier's blue waistcoat pinned and stitched with a voluminous collection of medals and medallions. An army bugle hung from a lanyard around his neck.

The third rider, Herman Lehmann, was one of the most beautiful people Laura had ever seen. He reminded her of the pictures in her mother's Bible of David playing the harp for King Saul. His hair was golden and long and, in contrast to his two companions, his body seemed carved from ivory. Instead of a harp or a sling, he carried a shield, a rifle, and a bandolier of cartridges strapped across his back. As Laura watched the three strange riders, she was not afraid. Surely no harm could come from a boy so beautiful, even if his companions looked as fierce as any troll or witch in her brothers' fearsome stories.

Then, suddenly, time seemed to take her by the hand and mind and whirl her forward, the moments passing so quickly that one merged into the next in a constant and violent stream of sensation. She saw Charles thrashing through the water toward shore and felt John Carlton pulling her by the arm. The Indians' horses cast jeweled spray into the sunlight as they came flying through the shallows. Then when the horses reached the hole where the great-grandfather catfish lurked and where the flow was deep even in summer, the riders were slowed, holding high on the necks of their swimming mounts. Laura ran frantically, half carried along by her brothers, gaining distance from the Indians, flying across the bottomland, and she knew for an instant how the wolves must feel when pursued by her father and the hounds. She saw the contorted faces of her brothers and could taste the sharp, acrid, burning pain of their fear, now her own, a taste like blood in her throat. She heard the sound of an arrow whispering by and the howls of the Indians and the raucous ringing bleat of Black Cato's bugle. She felt the wind in her face and the sting of branches, like switches, the tall grass grasping at her ankles. They dodged through the apple trees, running, flying, screaming for their mother. Finally, she felt the inexpressible deliverance when they reached the yard, scattering chickens to the four directions, and then the blessed coolness of the house when they passed through the door with their lungs on fire. And she heard the thunder of Old Boomer, the ancient, ten-gauge, double-barreled, shotgun her mother kept loaded with number four lead shot to use when her father was away, and the howl of surprise and pain from the Indians who then retreated noisily to the safety of the edge of the yard.

Little Mattie Hoge bolted the doors, hurriedly closed and locked the shutters. While John Carlton reloaded Old Boomer, Little Mattie pushed apple barrels up against the doors. Laura's sister Baby Lucy, in spite of the noise, slept soundly in her cradle by the hearth. Laura felt betrayed by the golden-haired boy, by the world, and by the sunlit day that had given birth to evil and danger so quickly and unexpectedly. As she listened to the crisp, staccato talk between her mother and brothers, she decided she could never fully trust again.

"Only the three?"

"All we saw."

"It's Black Cato," Little Mattie said, rising by the window to her full height of four and a half feet. She watched the riders through a crack in the shutters. "And there's Carnoviste. Other one must be little Herman Lehmann all grown."

"Where are they?" John Carlton asked.

"By the well. Brazen as you please. Thinkin' things over. Tryin' to figure what kind of fight we'll make," Little Mattie said.

John Carlton handed Old Boomer back to Little Mattie, who was not much larger than the shotgun.

"Get the Colt, Charles," Little Mattie said, turning back to the window. Charles moved quickly to the pine cabinet that J. C. Hoge laughingly called the armory. When Laura's father was home, the Winchester was kept there, along with Old Boomer and the Army Colt he had used against the Yankees in the war. But now, with the Winchester gone, they had only what they called the poor folks' weapons. Charles loaded the Colt and moved next to his mother. Laura watched wide-eyed, her heart still pumping hard from the run and the fear she had seen in her brothers' eyes.

"They must know your papa's gone," Little Mattie said. "Musta seen him passin' on the trail. Wouldn't come around otherwise."

John Carlton called out. "One's leaving!"

"Which?" his mother asked.

"The white one."

"Herman Lehmann?"

"He's just riding on."

Laura moved to the window and looked through a crack in the shutters. Herman Lehmann was silhouetted against the misty distance, his hair flowing behind him like a golden cloak. The others called out words she could not understand, but Herman Lehmann rode on, never turning, until he disappeared from sight.

"Do you think they're all leaving?"

"I don't know," Little Mattie said. "I don't think so."

John Carlton asked, "What we gonna do?"

"Depends. Long as they're in sight, nothin'. Time to worry is when night comes. Likely they'll stay put 'til then."

"Then what'll we do?" It was John Carlton again. Laura was glad he was asking her questions.

"What we have to do," Little Mattie said. "Bring me that stool, John Carlton. Might as well be comfortable. It's a long spell before dark."

The afternoon passed slowly. That was fine with Laura. She wished she could slow it down more, maybe hold it by the coattails and drag it to a stop. As long as there was daylight, she felt relatively safe in the good, strong house her father had built of live oak and cypress and fine heart pine. And what really bad could happen with her mother there? Light from the window played in Little Mattie's dark hair. Laura was reminded that she had only recently come to the conclusion that her mother was not the most beautiful woman in the world. It had come as a shock, bringing a troublesome, uneasy guilt. She had compared Little Mattie to their neighbor, Mrs. Catherton, and Laura decided she would rather look like Mrs. Catherton when she grew up than like her mother. Little Mattie seemed dumpy next to their tall, graceful neighbor. But her mother was surely stronger, a better shot, and could tell wonderful stories. She had schooling and had a whole roomful of books, while Mrs. Catherton could not even read.

Occasionally, Little Mattie would notice that one of the Indians had moved from her line of sight. "John Carlton, look out back. Charles, Laura, get to the windows, peep out, but keep out of sight. We need to know where those rascals are."

The Indians stayed out of Old Boomer's range. They prowled out back, into the toolshed, the corn crib, and the henhouse. "What you reckon they want?" Charles asked. "There's not a thing out there worth much, even to an Indian. 'Cept the horses, and Papa took the best one."

"What they want is in here," Little Mattie said. For a moment Laura wondered what she meant. Little Mattie glanced at her daughter and then, seeming to reconsider, added: "Or maybe they're lookin' for a piece of that old crab-apple pie."

They waited. It was quiet outside. Baby Lucy awoke, fretting. Laura lifted her into her arms to pat her back to sleep. Little Mattie sighed and shifted her position at the window. "Did I ever tell you," she asked, "about the time I met President Abraham Lincoln?" A half smile creased Little Mattie's face, yet her dark eyes never left the crack in the shutter. "Might as well pass the time with some talk."

Laura loved to hear the oft-told tale, though she was not sure she could concentrate this time with the Indians outside. But when her mother's words began to flow and the image of the great, homely, sad face of President Lincoln came to her mind, she realized again her very own mother had known him. She embraced the story, projecting herself into Little Mattie's role and became the heroine of the tale, the good friend of Abraham Lincoln.

"You watch hard now, John Carlton," Little Mattie said, then began: "Well, I was about Laura's age. My daddy was a doctor and we were living way up there in Illinois, up where it snows in winter sometimes as deep as a child is tall. And old Abe Lincoln was running for the United States Senate. He was running against a man named Douglas. Stephen A. Douglas. And they saw opposite sides of just about every question of the day. If Mr. Lincoln said a thing was yellow, Mr. Douglas would say it was blue. If Mr. Douglas said a thing was big, Mr. Lincoln would say it would fit in a hat box. Well, the biggest thing those two disagreed about was slavery. And they traveled all around Illinois debating the right and wrong of the issue of slavery. One of their debates was in the town where we lived. And my daddy took me to hear. We got right up front. I could almost reach up and touch Mr. Lincoln's coattails."

Outside, a footstep?

Little Mattie tilted her head like dogs sometimes do listening. The sound did not repeat.

"Mr. Lincoln thought slavery was wrong. That a country couldn't be half slave, half free. Mr. Douglas disagreed and took the other side of the question. One would talk and then the other and what they said would change the world. It was like they were talking to me and I was a part of it, a witness to what was really important in the country.

"One night, after the debate, Mr. Lincoln came to our house. He knew my daddy because my daddy was trying to help Negroes go back home to Africa. And Lincoln wanted to know about his ideas and how the plan was working. S...