"Texas..."
Gregorio Quintero's swollen, bleeding hands lifted a rust-streaked shovel and dropped a final clump of dirt over the hole where his dead wife now lay. Buried next to Olivia Quintero was Lorenzo, their youngest son. It took several hours to dig and then fill the fresh graves, and with the task finished Quintero sank to his knees amidst the rough wooden crosses. Seven of them dotted the hilltop.
"Texas..."
Quintero's raspy voice trailed off into the emptiness surrounding the small hill that had become his family's cemetery.
His entire family.
His entire world.
He began digging again, this time between his wife's fresh grave and the two-year-old grave of his father, Ignacio Quintero.
"Texas..."
Ignacio Quintero, like his father and his father before him, was the head of an aristocratic family in Spain. Seeking grander opportunities, he took his wife and two children across the Atlantic where he founded a prestigious law firm in Mexico City and became an influential member of the government of an independent Mexico. His position allowed him to amass an impressive fortune, dine with dignitaries from France and England, and travel throughout Europe.
Now Ignacio was buried in a dusty grave in southwest Texas, his life drained by illness, age, and despair.
Gregorio kept digging.
"Texas..."
Like his father, Gregorio Quintero spent his youth attending school in Spain and traveling through Europe, and returned from his studies to join his brother Humberto in running his father's law firm. He met, fell in love, and married Olivia, who gave him two sons and a daughter. He planned to send the boys to school in Spain, while he would find his daughter, Julia, a respectable husband and expand the family's influence.
Sickness had claimed Julia, and a snake's bite had killed eldest son Guillermo. Gregorio buried them next to their grandfather.
"Texas..."
Humberto and Gregorio moved the family into new businesses, all successful. The onset of war with the rebellious Texans presented opportunity for the brothers, who had business dealings in all the materials an army on the march needed. Humberto proved a brilliant businessman and the family's fortunes soared. They were awarded a parcel of land in Texas where they planned to start a colony of settlers, just as the American named Austin had done. Their colonists, however, would be European, an aristocratic enclave in the new land. They began construction of a new home, a huge two-story hacienda with a tile roof and an entryway with carved wooden pillars and a stone floor. The hacienda would have seven bedrooms, a spacious dining room for formal dinners, and a massive living room with spectacular exposed beams in its high ceiling. The stable and tack room would be well stocked. Humberto was tireless, supervising every aspect of the construction.
Humberto lay next to his father, buried without his scalp. That belonged to some Comanche warrior, who murdered Humberto and took his horse.
"Texas..."
When the Texans defeated Santa Anna, the Quintero family moved quickly to align themselves with the new government. Ignacio sought to keep his position, and perhaps land one for Gregorio, by distancing himself from Santa Anna and declaring his family's loyalty to Mexico's new masters. Positions for himself and both his sons, within the new government seemed at hand.
Gregorio leaned against the shovel and wiped his brow with the sleeve of what had once been an expensive dress shirt, tailored for him in Paris. The sleeve came away caked with sweaty dust. He resumed digging.
"Texas..."
But all the family's plans exploded like a thunderbolt with the news that the Texans had released Santa Anna. He was returning to Mexico. Impossible but true, the fates suddenly swept the Quinteros from the perch atop Mexico City's elite and sent them crashing to ruin, and their betrayal of Santa Anna would cost them all. They barely had time to load up their household goods and flee to their new home in Texas, a home that wasn't finished and now would never be completed. They were also quite alone in their new home. There would be no colony, no aristocratic immigrants from Europe.
Olivia had been slipping away for weeks, dying slowly with each new catastrophe. The death of young Lorenzo, trampled by a horse when he wandered alone into the stable, was the end for her. She simply gave up, and nothing Gregorio did helped. She died in her sleep within two days of Lorenzo's death, leaving Gregorio Quintero alone in the big, unfinished hacienda.
"Texas…"
Gregorio finished his digging and tossed the shovel aside. The hole wasn't quite square at the corners, nor was it quite as deep as it should have been. It wasn't wide enough either, and he knew he the scavengers would be at the body soon, probably tonight. It didn't matter. He had taken care of his family, covering the dirt over their graves with rocks he brought up from the river. They, at least, would be left in peace.
Each grave had a wooden cross at its head. The first markers were made from good cut lumber, with the deceased's name and dates of birth and death engraved on the crosspiece. Today he didn't have the energy for such work, and wasn't even sure any of the cut lumber was left. Above the graves of his wife and young son were simple crosses made of mesquite branches, twisted things that made the markers writhe and appear to be falling over.
He sat back. He wished at this moment to cry but found he had nothing left to cry with, no energy, no tears, no pain. It was all used up.
Gregorio Quintero sat himself in the shallow pit and extended his legs until the bottoms of his feet were snug against the short earth wall. He reached into his belt and drew out a French-made flintlock pistol that his father had given him years before. Gregorio Quintero had never killed anyone, never even pointed a gun at anyone. He had loaded the flintlock in his study and checked it carefully twice, and now he checked it again. He lifted the barrel to his temple.
"Texas…"