Mexico: A Novel Part 32

"March to September. A man can learn a lot of Spanish in seven months."

As he said this they were resting at a table on the hotel's open terrace facing the city's central plaza and without braggadocio but with a great deal of family pride, Don Alipio explained why his Palafoxes were important residents: 'Two Palafox brothers immigrated here from Salamanca in the 1520s, not long after Cortes. Antonio, the priest, became bishop of Toledo. His brother, Timoteo, the soldier, became a miner. What a pair! The bishop built the first fortress-church; it stood where the cathedral is now, and Timoteo found the silver to pay for it.

"Finding this a profitable way to do the Lord's business and the king's, the brothers then converted the rude church into a fine cathedral. They also built the Hall of Government down at the far end of the plaza, and that fine building over there near the cathedral."

"They sort of boxed in the plaza, didn't they?" and when Don Alipio smiled appreciatively, Jubal said: "Don't tell me they built this hotel, too?"

"A mule train reaching here from Acapulco in 1575, bringing goods from the Manila galleon of that year, misdelivered a package here. No address. Intended for some church somewhere. The Palafox brothers opened it and found that handsome stack of fifty-four blue-and-yellow tiles you now see cemented into that wall."

"The brothers kept them?"

"What else to do? And when the wife of one of them saw the tiles ..."

'The bishop was married?"

"Captain Clay, five Palafoxes in a row were ordained Bishop of Toledo, each the son of his father. They weren't so finicky in those days. And I'll tell you further. Every one of those five wives was an Altomec Indian. Not a Spaniard among the bunch. That's why I'm rather darker than usual and proud of it. Now, Timoteo's branch of the family always married girls born in Spain, casta pura if you wish, and sometimes there was snubbing back and forth between the wives. Their branch would boast: 'Not a drop of Indian blood in our family,' and the women of my branch would retaliate: 'Our ancestors were queens of this city when Salamanca was populated with cows.' But we men made them quit. We said: 'Your Spanish branch made all the money, but our Altomec branch gave it all to G.o.d.' A fair trade."

Clay asked: "Why did your line of priests always choose Altomecs?" and Palafox said: "Simple. They converted the young girls, baptized them, educated them, watched them grow, fell in love with them. These days the two branches are good friends."

After a halt in the conversation Don Alipio said: "I must admit, I take immense pride in the statue of that Indian out there. One of my ancestors," and he pointed to a stone figure who surveyed his plaza as if he still commanded what happened here: "It's Ixmiq. Ruled these parts about A. D. 600. Our tribe was a gentle group, called affectionately by the others the Drunken Builders. He and his young men built the original things that we Palafoxes built upon later." As soon as he mentioned the name he corrected himself. "I fell into the habit of thinking of myself as one of the Palafoxes. Why? Because that name has persisted. For seven generations, the first five bishops and two after them, we've never had anything but an Indian mother in our line. Maybe I'm more of a descendant of old Ixmiq than I am of the Palafoxes. Maybe best of all, an honest mix of both."

Palafox suggested that they take their drinks to the rear porch of the House of Tile, and as they pa.s.sed through the beautiful pa.s.sageway decorated from ceiling to floor and across the ceiling, too, with tiles of many colors, he explained: "Those first tiles that the brothers stole went only on the walls, but everyone praised them so much that the women of our family, Spaniards and Indians alike, fell in love with tiles, so that every mule train from Veracruz brought us tiles from Spain-they're the gold ones. Then one of our women-I don't remember who-said, 'Bringing tiles from Spain and Manila is crazy. Our Indians can make better tiles than those,' and that's how the famous tile works of Toledo began. All these other colors you see, made right here."

When they came to the rear veranda, they made themselves comfortable in chairs brought from Spain and Palafox said: "Look at that pyramid! How it controls our landscape, and our thoughts. There was a song my mother used to sing that goes back to the time of Nopiltzin, the great king about 900," and he leaned back, closed his eyes and began chanting in a tongue Clay did not understand. His voice quavered and Clay saw that his hands clenched. When he ended Clay said quietly: "They must be ancient words," and Palafox said: "They are, and they'd mean nothing to you. You wouldn't be interested," and Clay said: "Oh, but I would," and his host chanted softly: "For thy fame shall perish, Great Nopiltzin, and thou, Powerful Tezozomoc, where are thy songs of triumph?

No more do I cry aloud in thy praise, but rest tranquil That ye have marched back to thy homes.

Ye whom I bewail, I shall know nevermore, never again.

I am bereft here on earth that ye now rest in your homes."

"When was it built?" Clay asked, and Palafox said gravely: "Year 600 built, 700 defaced, 800 resurfaced, 900 almost wrecked, 1000 a terrible group of newcomers enlarged and perverted that n.o.ble structure."

"Perverted? I thought that pyramids all over the world were religious structures."

"We don't like to talk about it. Do you boast of your religious wars? Or we of our Inquisition?" They stared at the huge monument for some minutes, when Clay asked: "What's that litde structure to the left?" and Palafox beamed: "I'll take you there one day," and Clay asked: "Why are you being so courteous? Two weeks ago we were mortal enemies," and Palafox laughed, a big, embracing chuckle: "Because you and I are twins. You come here to see what your enemy is really like. I want to see whether Americans are really human."

They dined together that very evening, very late, and on the front veranda, so it was nearly midnight when Don Alipio broached a subject about which he had often speculated: "You must see this plaza, Senor Americano, a constant theater of revolution. I can't believe that your armies overlooked it. In 1151 the new Altomecs subdued the old Drunken Builders. In 1527 the Spaniards routed the Altomecs. In 1811 the Mexicans in this plaza shot the Spaniards, and who will come marching through here next year no man can predict. But the life of the plaza continues, the cathedral, built on the ruins of a fortress, built on the ruins of an Indian holy place, its bells still ring, its glorious fa?ade is world-famous and old Ixmiq still stands there surveying it all."

In succeeding days Don Alipio took Clay to the pyramid, which overwhelmed him with its silver and gold, and to the nearby terrace, which focused attention on how artistic the Altomecs could be when they broke loose from their terrible G.o.ds. But what really surprised him was the trip they took on horseback to one of the Palafox ranches seven miles to the southwest. It was not fenced in, since it consisted of open range, but there was a handsome stone gate behind which cl.u.s.tered a group of small mud-and-watde shacks and ordinary farm buildings. Don Alipio called for a stable boy to fetch fresh horses, which they rode about a mile south where Clay saw on the horizon several jet-black bulls of moderate size-much smaller than his dairy bulls in Virginia or even his milk cows-but with tremendous horns coming straight from the head and parallel to the ground. For the first time in his life Clay was seeing the famous fighting bulls of Spain and he asked the usual questions: "They aren't fenced in?" "If they're not molested, they remain pa.s.sive." "We can ride among them?" "Yes, they see the horse as another animal, and if the horse doesn't bother them, they won't hurt him. But if you were to dismount and showed only two legs instead of four, they'd become suspicious and might poke at you with their horns, not in anger, you understand, just in curiosity. But all the same, the horn would go through you, and, pfttt, you're dead."

"Why have fighting bulls here in Mexico?" and Don Alipio had a ready answer: "Whatever happens in Spain becomes popular here, and one of these days we'll have more than just gentlemanly fighters running bulls in the park. We'll have bullrings and men who make their living fighting bulls. Right now, my brother and I are building a ring just beyond the plaza. I'll show you this evening. You're dining with me, retnember?"

"Where did you get those bulls?" Clay asked and Don Alipio said proudly: "Way back our family was closely a.s.sociated with the marquis of Guadalquivir in Seville. His daughter Leticia came over to Mexico to marry into the Spanish branch of our family. He raised fighting bulls in Spain. To help us get started, the marquis that's living now sent over as a gift a dozen animals seventeen years ago."

"Is that his brand on the animals?" Clay asked, pointing to the big G underlined by an undulating mark representing the Guadalquivir River.

"On the older animals, yes. It's an honorable brand, that one, but look at the younger animals," and when Jubal had a chance to inspect a calf he saw the new brand, a large P with a heavy bar across the foot of the letter. Don Alipio said: "We hope that will become a mark of honor in the plazas of Mexico," and Clay asked: "You expect many to be built?" With great confidence the breeder said: "Many."

"You must have vast acreage here, to allow the bulls to roam wild," Clay said. Palafox replied proudly as they took cool drinks from an Indian who had followed with a bucket: "The original bishop and his thieving brother converted a quarter of a million of what you call acres to our family's use. In twenty-five years it grew to a third of a million, and in 1740 we had more than a million and a quarter acres. Then came the Revolution of 1810, much land was taken from us, and now we have only some five hundred thousand acres." My grandfather was astounded: 'That's still enormous. In the States you'd own much of the rich part of Virginia," but Don Alipio cautioned: "Anytime the troops march through the plaza, whssst, there goes another quarter million."

Dinner that night at the city home of the Palafoxes was a rare opportunity for an American intruder to witness the social life of an important Mexican citizen. Within a s.p.a.cious courtyard surrounded by a high adobe wall topped by jagged fragments of broken gla.s.s stood a large house on a rise high enough to permit looking over the top of the wall to the pyramid. Three other Palafox couples would be dining with Don Alipio and his wife, and when Jubal arrived, the others were in the garden enclosed by a high wall and made tranquil by the sound of water as it trickled down over, rocks. They were what Clay had supposed a group of Palafoxes would be: the men trim and well preserved from constant life in the saddle, the women well groomed and reserved in manner. He could guess the age of no one but judged that they were all well under sixty. He could see that they were slightly embarra.s.sed, more likely confused, as to why they should have been invited to meet an American army officer with the war less than a month in the past, and they supposed that Clay would speak no Spanish. They were, of course, like most cultivated Mexicans of that day proficient in French, but none spoke English, since it was held to be the vulgar language of business and Americans. But when Don Alipio told them: "The captain is comfortable in Spanish," their reserve softened, and they gradually opened up to a discussion on what terms the peace treaty might contain.

One Palafox man, somewhat older than Don Alipio, warned: "Mexico has adjusted itself to the loss of Texas, but we will never surrender California. We need those ports on the Pacific." Another agreed: 'True, we do have Acapulco, but it's not a major port, and it's cut off from most of Mexico by jungles and mountains."

Here Clay made his first observation: "It seemed to me as we tried to march up those endless hills that Veracruz was also cut off from the high plateaus we're on now," and the men wanted to know how the Americans had been able to push through the Mexican defenses. But when Jubal started to explain, he could see that they were not really interested, for as one man said: "In Mexico we have these wars constantly. One can hardly keep up with them," and another said: "Remember how, a few years ago, your father and mine marched out so bravely to crown Iturbide emperor of Mexico? He lasted two years and Santa Anna shot him."

The first speaker corrected him: "No, Santa Anna didn't do the actual shooting. He wasn't even there. But he did turn his men against the emperor and they did the shooting."

At this point, as my grandfather noted in the brief memoir he left his family, they went in to dinner, for it was approaching the time when Mexicans took their evening meal, eleven o'clock at night, and when they seated themselves in the ma.s.sive sheepskin-covered armchairs at the huge oak table, Senora Palafox said from her place at the foot of the table: "We have a special entertainment for our guest," and signaled to a maid who brought into the dining room a girl of about eight dressed in a national costume of extraordinary charm: flowing skirt reaching to the floor, many lacy petticoats, colorful bodice, lovely shawl, high comb in her hair, and a bright ring on the middle finger of each hand.

"This is our Alicia," Don Alipio said proudly as he placed his arm around her, "our little China Poblana, and now she will explain to our guest from the north the legend of her beautiful dress." In a musical voice the child recited: "Many years ago on the Manila galleon that arrived in Acapulco came this beautiful Chinese lady, dressed as you see me tonight. She came as a slave, but she was so charming that everyone loved her and she married the king, and all the ladies at court had to dress the way she did. And today this is our national costume." Bowing to each of the couples, she curtsied to her mother and left the room.

"A few minor corrections," Don Alipio said. "We never had a king in Mexico since the time of Montezuma, and the ladies were not forced to dress like the Chinese slave. They wanted to, but Alicia was correct, that is our national costume for pretty women," and each of the Palafox wives confessed that even till this day they kept as treasures the China Poblanas they had worn as young girls.

I have spent more time than I probably should have in writing about this evening, and especially the party dress of an eight-year-old girl, but that particular dress became one of the cherished treasures of my family, and Jubal, not an emotional man, wrote shortly before he died: "I was twenty-four that night I dined with the Palafoxes, and I confess I was struck by the peaceful character of their handsome home. They scarcely knew there had been a war."

That night as he tried to sleep in his room at the House of Tile, he lay awake trying to decipher why the Palafoxes were being so attentive. He did not have to wait long for an explanation because the next day the three men who'd been at dinner came to the hotel and suggested that he ride with them out to the Mineral, and when they arrived at the site he had wanted to revisit, they began to explain how this precious property, which they owned, could be converted into one of the world's top mines with the injection of substantial amounts of American money and especially engineering skills.

A man whom he judged to be Don Alipio's brother kept hold of Clay's arm as he explained: "It's not just money we need, but machines, too. They make fine ones in Sweden, I'm told. But above all, we need bright young men like you. Am I correct that you studied mining?"

"I learned trying it on my land in Virginia, after reading books sent from England and Germany."

"Is that why your general sent you out here? Is he a bright man, can he understand a business opportunity when it stares at him?"

Clay replied: "General Scott holds businessmen in contempt," and the Mexicans laughed: "Like our generals, and what fools they are."

In less than an hour the Palafoxes had shown Grandfather the entire surface structure of the Mineral, indicating which buildings and processes would be replaced if funds were available, and then they asked: "Suppose you were in charge? What would you do?" and Clay said: "Around the entrance to the mine I'd build a stone wall, maybe three feet high, with a gate through which you'd get to the shaft."

"Why would you do that?"

"I like to see things neat. No, what I mean is, there are always certain things that ought to be done, just for their own sake."

The Palafoxes asked: "Would you be willing to go down again?" and Clay said: "I would indeed. That's why I wanted to come. This place is magical," and on the descent he watched carefully to see if he could detect which of the hundreds of stone steps ought to be recut.

In the bottom cavern he saw, as if they were old friends, the donkeys, the Indian men working at the face, the women hefting baskets of ore, the high ceiling and the beginning of the shaft that would take the miners down to where the next cavern would be excavated. As he explored the present one and saw the rude beds used by the men who preferred not to climb back to the top each night, he began to contemplate seriously the improvements a real mining engineer would probably undertake, and he asked one of the Palafoxes: "How difficult would it be to square the sides of the shaft?"

"You mean, all the way down?"

"Yes. It's one of those things that ought to be done."

"You'd better ask him." The man indicated the Spanish engineer, but Don Alipio said firmly: "That one knows nothing," so there was no answer to Clay's question.

"Well," Clay continued, "if the shaft was squared off and we found an engine of some kind, and I'm sure they make them in England, you could have a long rope and a cage at the end, and you could haul the ore up to the smelter."

"What would be the advantage?"

"Well, these women, they wouldn't have to climb up and down those-"

"They've done it all their lives, Captain. That's how they live-I mean, earn their living. If you did it with a machine from England, how would they live?"

On the climb up, Jubal had an opportunity to inspect at eye level each step as he approached it. At the top he told the Palafoxes: "I saw four steps that ought to be recut," and one explained: "We keep careful watch, and if something bad happens, we're there that afternoon."

Grandfather stayed in Toledo three weeks, making excursions out into the country, and on one he came upon Valley-of-the-Dead, from which the Altomecs had launched their conquest of the Drunken Builders, and he appreciated what an enticing sight the buildings of Toledo must have been in 1151, when the strangers swept in to take control. He also visited the Palafox bull ranch again, and twice more he climbed to the top of the pyramid, trying to visualize the fearful things that had occurred there. But most of all he frequented the central plaza, with its fine buildings, and the splendor of this colonial city was impressed in his mind.

When it came time to say good-bye to the Palafoxes, they said they hoped he would report favorably to the general, and he promised he would. He bade farewell to each of the Palafox women, and then saw little Alicia, to whom he bowed deeply: "Farewell, Senorita China Poblana," and he was off.

On the ride back to Mexico City his troops ran into trouble, not from the Mexican army, which had been instructed to honor his safe conduct, but from the bandits who infested all highways and who had learned that an attack on an American unit, while risky, produced rich rewards. About ten miles past Queretaro, where wealthy travelers were often spotted on their way to the capital, the bandits struck, and for nearly half an hour there was heavy firing, but Jubal and the petty officer in charge of the cavalry so ably kept their men under control that the sorties were repulsed with two bandits dead and no Americans killed. It had been a spirited fight; for which Clay would earn another commendation and a medal.

Upon his return to the office he occupied with the other aides he found General Scott in pitiful condition. Still convinced that everyone was plotting against him-and many in fact were-he had ordered the arrest of three of his subordinate generals, including President Polk's personal spy, the infamous General Pillow; but they in turn had brought charges against him. The liberal Democrats in Was.h.i.+ngton, seeing a chance to spike Scott's conservative Whig ambitions for the presidency, ordered the charges against the three generals dropped, while those against Scott were to be prosecuted with a general court-martial. Clay helped Scott write his protest to headquarters: "Never has a general accomplished so much with so little and in reward has been so savagely abused and humiliated by his superiors."

In later years when Clay told this story he would conclude: "And I wanted to add my postscriptum: 'You ought to be ashamed of yourselves to treat a general this way,' but when I tried to say this to the general himself, he brushed me aside: 'It's what happens when politicians try to direct wars.' "

My grandfather told one more story about his duty with Scott: "At breakfast on the morning I was to leave, Scott was under a kind of military arrest. Charges that he had stolen funds or something like that, and when it came time to say good-bye he said: 'You know, Clay, I never intended being a soldier. Back in 1807 I was admitted to the bar and considered my course in life well set. But I had barely started when the British frigate Leopard committed an outrage against our s.h.i.+p Chesapeake. I heard about it late in the evening, and that night, with no sleep, I bought a fine charger, rode twenty-five miles in the dark, and borrowed the uniform of a tall trooper. At sunrise I offered myself as a volunteer to a cavalry unit.

" 'I never looked back, Clay, and when this mess is cleared up, which I'm sure it will be, I propose to be the chief officer of the United States military forces.'

" 'How could that be?' I asked in amazement, and he said: 'Because if they have any sense they'll see that I'm the best man available-by far. And they'd have to choose me.' And it happened just as he said. When our Civil War broke out, he was placed in charge of all Union forces, and he did a brilliant job of establis.h.i.+ng the great design that defeated us. Three hundred and fifty pounds, subject to fainting fits, suspicious of everyone and hated as few military men have ever been, he was the architect of Union victory, and as a Confederate fighting against his strategy, I cursed every time his name was mentioned."

In the thirteen years between 1848, when he left Mexico, till 1861, when he became intensely concerned about the efforts of the Northern politicians to deprive Southern planters like himself of their right to own and work slaves, Jubal Clay lived a happy life on Newfields, his cotton kingdom northeast of Richmond. Now most of his family's two thousand acres had been cleared of trees that had once formed a part of the Wilderness; carefully cleaned and graded, his cotton was drawing top prices in Liverpool, his slaves were pa.s.sive again after creating minor disturbances fomented by Northern radicals, and he and Zephania, with their two boys and a girl, lived the stately life of Virginia planters. At home they entertained the gentry of their district and partic.i.p.ated in musical evenings in which Jubal's mother, in her seventies, played the piano while Zephania played the cello, an instrument she was still learning to play, and he the flute. Among the neighbors were several fine voices, both male and female, so that varied concerts of high quality could occasionally be offered the neighbors in the county.

But the highlight of any month came when Jubal and Zeph, as everyone called his wife, drove into Richmond for the richer social life there. On these occasions the Clays saw Southern culture at its best. Businessmen trained in the fine universities of the North mingled with religious and political leaders educated at William and Mary or Tom Jefferson's University of Virginia. But any Richmond gathering carried a somber, stabilizing influence exerted by the military men who had been trained at West Point. These were men of honor, who, in those excitable years, were already grappling with some of the gravest dilemmas a man can face: Do I owe my allegiance to the army at whose headquarters I was trained or to my home state, which nurtured me and instilled in me the scale of values to which I subscribe? At one informal meeting in 1860 a colonel named Longstreth who had served in the Mexican War with two junior officers he admired told Clay's social group: "I knew no finer Virginian than young Robert E. Lee, a West Point man devoted to the army, but also a staunch Virginian. If trouble comes, and I'm increasingly sure it will, he'd face a difficult choice. Fight for the North or the South? But I also watched another type, an aggressive, almost uncivilized lout from some Western state, name of Grant-he was also West Point-and I'm sure he'd remain with the North. I liked Lee, disliked Grant intensely for his lack of any culture whatever, but judged they'd each be honest military men according to their different lights."

This concept of two men, each a graduate of West Point, heading in two radically different directions, and each with ample justification, fascinated Clay: "Maybe men like me were luckier. We didn't go to West Point to absorb Northern ideas.

We stayed home and sharpened our Virginia, Carolina and Georgia loyalties, then got our military training on the field, in Mexico. Our choice is a lot simpler. Let the North make one false move against us, and it's war."

"Do you expect it?"

"No. I see quite clearly that the commercial interests of both North and South require a prolonged period of peace." Several in the group agreed, with one planter named Anderson making an interesting observation: "Of the two nations"-here he pondered the appropriateness of that term-"yes, I do believe we've become two nations, whether we wanted it that way or not, but of the two, the South has far more to gain by an extended period of peace than the North."

This differentiation was far from self-evident to most of the listeners, all ardent partisans of the South, and one planter argued: "You'll have to explain that, Anderson. Seems to me that our position, what with our command of cotton, which Europe must have, is secure."

"No," Anderson countered. "The true situation is that each day of peace we have a chance to grow stronger relative to the North."

"Good G.o.d, man! Are you trying to argue that the North is stronger than us?"

"Sir, I've said that the present drift of peace is all in our favor. But only a madman would argue that as of the present we're as strong as they are."

This unpatriotic reasoning exasperated the planter: "Anderson! Look at the balance sheet. We've got twice as much money from Europe as the North does. Our financial structure is much sounder, and our system of management and control is superior. We're in a favorable position financially."

Anderson, a studious man in his fifties, had traveled in the North and could not be dislodged from conclusions that he had judiciously developed: "A nation's survival capability is not measured by deposits in a bank. Factories are what count, miles of railway line, shops in cities, and above all, the number of men of fighting age that can be called upon."

"None in the North have men that can fight like ours," another planter argued, to which Anderson replied: 'True, but fifteen men who can keep coming at you, one after another as required, must overwhelm the one trained rifleman."

"Now, that's a dangerous theory, brother Anderson," a man in his thirties said. "I signed up yesterday to lead a company in case trouble starts."

"So did I," Anderson said, and the men laughed at the thought of a fifty-year-old volunteering for active duty, but Anderson explained: "I'll be training our young men in military tactics, how one properly trained Southern boy with his good rifle, revolver and saber can hold off fifteen Northerners-for a while."

On the ride back to the plantation that evening Jubal Clay found persistent images forming in his brain: 'Trains, factories, unlimited numbers of men. And those figures growing larger every day. h.e.l.l, we don't even have a train heading northeast out of Richmond, and won't have one for another ten years." As he plunged into the Wilderness other images appeared: "New men up there, as he said, piling out of every boat from Europe. No training, no traditions. But there they come. And down here? Half of our men are black and they don't count. More important, they can't be counted upon." As he broke out of the Wilderness and saw the neatly tended boundaries of Newfields, its image superseded all others: "This plantation is what the fight will be about-supposing it comes. An orderly way of life in which a family can grow."

He had always been pleased with the name the old Clays had given their plantation, Newfields, rather than some cla.s.sical name like Sparta or one like The Oaks or The Pillars. He could picture his ancestors girdling the last tree, pus.h.i.+ng it over when it died, lopping off the branches, burning them around the fallen trunk and scattering the fertilizing ashes over the newly formed field. "It must have been exciting," he said to himself as he approached the big house, "to see a new field come into life and to know that it did so through your work. But the delight in seeing that first crop of cotton white as far as you could see on what had once been black forest! That's what a man lives for."

When he reached the portico, gleaming white in the moonlight, he turned his horses over to the Negro groom and hurried immediately to his office, sat in a big chair at his kneehole desk and rang for the maid: "See if Mrs. Clay can join me." As he waited for his wife the persistent images returned: "Factories, railroads, men, slaves, fifteen against one." Staring at the walls of his office he thought: From this desk the Clays before me built our little kingdom. They cleared the land, planted the cotton, bought the slaves and handled them properly, found the markets and educated their children. It's inconceivable that I would commit mistakes that would destroy all they accomplished. Nor shall I.

When his wife joined him she immediately asked: "What happened in Richmond?" for she had learned that when Jubal invited her into his study rather than joining her in the pleasant sewing room, she could be sure that matters of gravity were involved.

"Zeph, take the easy chair. This could be a long one."

"Is this about those fields we wanted to buy?"

"I'm talking about all Virginia. The entire South. Maybe the nation itself."

"Jubal, what are you saying?"

"It was one of those questions that cut to fundamentals. A military man, I think he was, talked seriously about North and South. Pointed out that they have the factories to produce weapons and gunpowder. They have the railroads to move them quickly here and there. And they have almost unlimited men to press these advantages."

"But who says we're going to have a war?"

"It seemed to me, Zeph, that all the men at the meeting thought so, and if each had felt free to speak his mind, I do believe that most would have warned: 'The South cannot win, in the long run, if the war drags on, and if the Northern advantages are applied with relentless pressure.' "

'Then why have a war?" He had always appreciated the ground-level common sense with which his wife approached any difficult problem: "If prospects are so bleak for our side, why fight? Can't the differences be reconciled?"

"No! Flatly, no! Those in the North have put themselves in a self-righteous position from which they cannot retreat and save face."

"Is the same true about us?"

"With me it is. I can't agree to a situation in which one day we have two hundred slaves worth a fortune and the next day none and no way to keep this plantation functioning. You simply cannot ask men who have spent their lives building-"

"So you too think war's inevitable?"

"No," he said reflectively, "as traditions in our family affirm, I don't want war. I want to see a rational solution." But then he made a statement I've heard members of the Clay family repeat a score of times in this century: "But if they threaten your entire way of life you've got to do something."

They continued all that night, if I understand correctly from the notes Jubal left, to discuss the serious problem of how they would function as a family if Jubal had to volunteer to help fight a war: "I'm thirty-seven and ent.i.tled to major's rank in the Virginia Third. You're thirty-four and the ablest woman I know-in all fields. When I went off to war in Mexico you managed-"

"But this would be a real war, wouldn't it?"

Recalling the fight at Chapultepec, he told her: "Any war is real. A skirmish of three against six is real," and this brought him to a major concern: "If the North is as strong as they say, and if we're as good fighters as we know we are, this could be a long war. As years pa.s.s-"

"Years?" her voice trembled and said what he had been afraid to mention: "Our boys would be old enough . .." and he nodded. Their older boy, Noah, was seventeen; his brother, Paul, fifteen. If the war dragged on, with the North always throwing in more men, the South would have to call upon boys as they neared manhood. This realization altered everything.

Zephania spoke first: "Rock-bottom truth. You think war's inevitable?"

"Yes. Those in the North are determined and we Southerners are resolute. Result? War."

"And you think we would lose?"

"I can't say this to any man-it'd sound like cowardice, but I can tell you the truth. We'd run a great risk."