Home to Texas: Recollections of a Texas Badman - Part 1

as you read my tale, you need to know that this is the way I tolt it to that goddammed yankee carpetbagger who wanted to write a damn dime novel of it. I promised him that he could put a silly assed title on it if he didnt change my words. I also promised to play a Comanche trick on him if I ever read it wrote down any other way. I had my brother John read it too, make sure that carpetbagger didnt flimflam me. dont know why the hell the writer called me a badman in the title. I werent no badman, never spent the night in the juzgado, or shot nobody that didnt deserve a damned bullet..

when I rode back to Texas, I was wearin my cavalry shortcoat with my sergeant stripes, and the yella stripes down my legs let every man know I spent the war ridin down goddammed yankees. I had a Le Mat ridin ether hip - eight damn shots through the top barrel, and a shotgun down the center barrel. I kept my saber on me too. there aint many weapons finer then a saber, cept maybe the Le Mat. I had cut down many a goddammed yankee with this saber. a double-barrelled scattergun was holstered both sides of that dammed horse I was ridin. the thing bout the scatterguns, and the shotgun round in the pistols, was that most folk cant take gittin shot at with a shotgun. the scatterguns helped me git home but there was more guns scattered around on that horse, and I hardly ever used em.

some damn slackers, they called themselves militia, tried to stop me a coupla times in alabama and louisiana. these boys were too lazy to go to the War, just not too lazy to hang them they caught as deserters. they tried catchin me, but the scatterguns convinced em I werent no deserter. since we all knew the war was over, I dont believe I was desertin. they come round to my way of thinkin onct I showed em the scatterguns. it wernt that I was tired of killin goddammed yankees but that it was time to git, before I got hung for donnin the grey.

Hellfire Preacherman at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

my shortcoat was real pretty. I cut a nice figure in it for damn sure. I had signed on with one of the most colorful squadrons that I could find, the 3rd Virginia, and since I was ridin The Grey at the time, they let me right in. I think it was more likely that the sight of The Grey that got me in with the 3rd then any general recognition of my skills as a cavalryman, me bein but seventeen. I had traveled all the way to virginia at the time that the war started. The Grey started his way to the war a little later, since I borrowed him at the Texas louisiana border. his owner was the dumbest man I aint never met, cause of leavin The Grey where any bandit, or me, coulda got at him. which I did.

shiny brass buttons, store dyed grey,town tailored cut, bright yella stripes. I woulda bet a stud bull up against a donkey I looked like that french general Napoleaon, who had whupped europe. it was that pretty of a uniform. I sure got a lot of looks ridin back home. I werent on The Grey, so I knew it werent the horse that was gittin all the looks. horses bein damn annoyin animals. I was tired of the stink this one, but I hated walkin more then I hated horses. any good horseman knows to take care of his horse. I just dont like the damn stupid animals, and they know it. but they also know I know to take good care of em, so me and horses have a good partnership. most horsemen love their horses, but Id just as soon eat em as ride em.

the war was over when that jackass hood charged the godddammed yankees outside a atlanta. we coulda held em off for a lot longer, and there was stories the goddammed yankess was goin crazy. in new york city, they had riots over goin to the war, and they burnt up a bunch of niggers, and the waterfront too . there mighta been a lot more of them then of us, and they mighta had all the ironworks and factories in the union, but they couldnt fight worth a damn. a bunch of the goddammed yankees werent even Americans. they was swedes, and polacks, and micks, and germans. if we coulda held em off longer, they might of just gave up. we sure as hell killed a lot of em. I never minded killin em a bit. I never went up to new york city, or to michigan, and told em not to burn up niggers and docks. I dont know who told the goddammed yankees they could come down to our states and tell us what to do.

Alfred Waud [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

and sure enuff, by the time I got to dallas, General Lee had quit us on the war. I bought one of them duster longcoats, cuase of I didnt want to put away my uniform, but I didnt want to wave the colors too high neither. did I say my uniform was pretty? I just wore that duster over my shortcoat. there was a lot of gold in my bags to buy dusters and such cause of we had rode down and butchered a supply train for the godammed yankees. it must have been a pay wagon for officers with all the double eagles we stuffed in our bags. I kept on ridin til I got south of San Antonio, which is where the family land is. my ma and pa was sure glad to see me, but they wanted to put me back to work on the smithy, and back to herdin cows. that sounded too damn boring to think bout. I drank a lot of whiskey with grandpa, and went to the whorehouses in San Antonio with pa, and then signed on with the Rangers.

I was born on the ranchero, south and east of San Antonio. my name is Wallace Stevens, and I was born into the sovereign nation of Texas. I was named after the William Wallace, who chased the english outta Scotland. grandpa had bought a big bunch of land off a mexican who was goin back to mexico after The War of Independence. grandpa give the mexican a lot of horses in trade. I git the feelin that grandpa didnt own all those horses he traded to the mexican. grandpa got his leg cut off after San Jacinto. he said a mex cannonball took of his leg, but pa told me one time after a jug or two, that grandpa had got barely shot in the leg, told the doctor to go to hell, then watched his leg turn black as it rotted, and had to get his leg cut off cause a him bein stubborn. grandpa sat around on the porch all day, drank whiskey or tequila all day, and cussed the vacqeros in spanish all day, who laffed at him and cussed him back and brought him more tequila.

pa had went to San Jacinto with grandpa, but he was just a young buck then. I think the battle unmanned pa in the head. pa never liked lookin at blood. he never slaughtered the cattle, or cut any balls off, or did none of the ranch work like that, and he never went to the other wars or chased Comanche. he didnt kill rattlers, or even carry a gun. pa drank more then grandpa did, and sang sad ballads and mex songs. he also went to the whorehouses in San Antonio a lot. he thought he was foolin ma, but she just ignored those trips. he loved her, it was all in his face, and she loved him the same way, but I guess she didnt like the beast a two backs as much as him.

ma was a preachers daughter, and her pa was a drunk too, and a prespertarian. he died of the flux before she married to pa. she learned me letters and all, and some history. what I remember most is the battles, and proper letters, where you use the capitols for things you respect. she did teach me a lot of big words, but I git fuzzy on some of them. I keep the words that have value in my head, but words about poetry, and other such bullshit fail me. she tried to learn me manners, and I am proud to say she fell flat on her face tryin to git that mess in my head. she was all in favor of the good book, and scolded grandpa and pa regular on their drinkin. she had four children that lived. John is the oldest, he took up with a vacqeros daughter and built a place on the ranchero. Mary and Alice was both married off as they come of age. I was the youngest.

the vacqeros did most of the work on the land until John came of age. John had done more work on the place then I ever in my life did by the time he was twelve, and had outworked the mexs by the time he was eighteen. the vacqueros werent lazy like me, it was just that John liked workin. he was the most responsible of all of us, even ma. it was him that was keepin track of Secession, and kept the rest of us informed on how Texas stood on the matter. he married the second prettiest woman I ever did see. they built their own place bout five minutes ride from our place. maria taught me spanish, I guess better then the rest of us spoke it. I surely liked sitin there lookin at her whils we was talkin spanish.

I liked lookin at all of those mex girls. black hair is prettier then blond, if you ask me. their eyes flashed like the songs sing of, and they had a saucier look to them then the guera girls did. onct I got older I did more then look at em. grandpa knew blacksmithin, and had a smithy on the ranchero. onct I was twelve, he set me to makin horeshoes and nails and such. I werent no giant of a man, and that was easy to see even as a child, but I was stout. I got even stouter bangin that damn metal. anyway, I was about fourteen, and down at the river swimmin. one of the mex girls came down, a litle older then me, and I guess she liked what she saw cause she was just smilin away at me. nature took her course, and I started visitin the mex huts a lot more often after that day. them mex girls sure liked smilin.

By J. W. Orr [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

even with the smiles of them girls, the ranchero was pretty damn borin. I liked cussin from the time I first heard it, it sounds like poetry. but ma would smack me when she heard me cussin, so I didnt cuss round the house. bangin horseshoes and watchin cows chew thier damn cud made me bout fall asleep. sometimes grandpa or the vacqeros would talk bout the War of Independence, or the Mexican-American War, or of fightin Comanche. one old viejo had fought with santa anna, and tolt me bout the ladies of saltillo makin tortillas for the troops. it seemed like a mean trick to play on them girls, but I laughed anyways. an ol tonkawa indian who was probably a bandit with grandpa in the ol days, tolt me about eatin his enemies, but he always made sure ma wasnt around when he tolt them stories. but there werent no wars, and the Comanche hadnt been on a raid down here for a few years before I was born, when a pahio called buffalo hump drove the settlers like the vacqueros drove cattle before him clear down to the coast. the mexes recaptured san antone a coupla years after that, but Texans em chased back down south again. grandpa always told the history of the wars more interestin then ma. we was all Scots-Irish, and if you look at the history of Texas, and of the lesser states, it has always been the Scots-Irish that took up guns against the tyrants first. I figgered that if they had guns back in england, it would be a Scots-Irish sittin on the throne, stead of some aristocratic and pasty englishman. thinkin like that, though, just made smithin and herdin even more tiresome. the only excitin thing to happen was a coupla years before The War, when cortina declared a republic of the rio grande and the Rangers chased him into mexico were he belonged. cortinas family had owned a bunh a land past the Nueces, and he took up the wrong side. I wanted to go with the Rangers then, but ma and pa carried that argument against me. that just made me chomp at the bit so much more.

when Texas joined the Confederacy, I figgered the war would come soon after, and figgered to go into it, so I rode offf from the ranch, out to viginia, and into the calvary.

John Stevens:
Texas was slow to get into the War. Gen. Sam Houston tried to keep Texas from secceeding. He was wrong, but a man of that much respect carried weight when it came to making those kind of decisions. Looking back on things, Gen. Houston might have been right as a matter of practibility, if not duty to liberty, no disrespecting the General.

My brother Wallace carried a grin on him from the time of his birth. He also had the sense of a boar pig. When he was eight, he tried to catch a rattlesnake for a pet. Ma would smack him quite a bit for cussin, but he’d forget the next day or week and try her patience again. He wouldn’t quit a task he took on, but it took the Devil’s patience to put the task on him. He was friendly, but hated to lose at any game, or any task he actually chose to do.

Wallace should have known better then to put words to mouth about the family, but that’s his sense for you. My wife was enchanted with him, being a handsome boy that was always smilin. Ma always wanted to be a schoolteacher, and ramroded the villagers to send their children to her school when she wasn’t teachin us. Pa was a gentle man, maybe not suited for Texas, or mayhap he just saw enough blood at San Jacinto to last his life. Grandpa would tell the story of the massacre on the bayou with relish, and he was a bloody minded old bandit.

I signed up for the Confederacy myself, but Wallace was out the door the same day that Texas announced. Can’t say as I was surprised.