by Jeff Long
Houston's barbarians had outdone themselves. It was an unearthly sight, the banquet they had prepared in the forest clearing. When Houston rounded the hill he was almost cowed by their primal concoction.
A huge bonfire had been built, for lack of space, in the center of a shallow pond, rendering the water like blood and lighting the entire region. Flames lapped at the clear night sky.
Houston made his way through the bedlam of five hundred hungry soldiers and at least as many women and children and slaves. Men were wrestling and fighting in the mud while those with common sense were courting more directly for an evening's company. A few fiddles and the army's drum and a mouth harp had come together to whack away at the same songs over and over. Couples were dancing and singing, skunked on liquid corn. Dogs barked and fought and stole food. Children raced everywhere.
One popular attraction turned out to be an old black conjure man. Houston craned his neck to see over the heads of the crowd and there in the center was a white-haired slave. He'd cut a zodiac into the dirt with a string and a stick and was collecting money for predictions. A lot of soldiers seemed eager to part with their pieces of eight and whatever else the conjure man was willing to accept for payment. It wasn't hard to figure out what prediction they wanted. Just as he was leaving, Houston saw J. S. Neill in the line, and the colonel looked apprehen-
sive. Houston didn't stick around to see if Neill's Alamo luck had run out or not.
Houston came across Deaf Smith hunting through the crowd, his thin lips tight, eyes darting. He was looking for his family, obviously, and not finding them. When he saw Houston, the scout shook his head and smiled, though it wasn't really a smile. "I miss my Guadalupe and the youths," he said. Houston smelled the liquor on his breath.
"Perhaps they've already crossed the Sabine," Houston said.
"I pray God the east is not too strange for her. She's just a Bexar girl, you know."
"She'll get kindness from strangers, Mr. Smith."
"I know my people, though," Smith despaired.
"Trust in their goodness," Houston said.
"You're a wonder, General. I don't know how you do it."
"Trust?"
"I mean, to be parted from your wife, sir."
"I'm a widower." It was a tired lie. Eliza was not dead, she wasn't even divorced from him, not formally. The scout examined Houston's eyes, and it was plain the old gossip about Houston's marriage was fire talk here, too. "What I mean to say is," Houston clarified, "my wife, she's dead to me."
Smith wanted to sympathize with him about it. Houston had seen the look a thousand times over the past few years and it made him weary. He had been laid waste all right, but less by the loss of Eliza than the loss of love itself. Ever since he'd been in search of the outcast in himself and finding some way to bring his wandering to a close. Until this revolution, Texas had seemed an ideal place for the quest. It was teeming with lonely hearts like him, but it was full of hope, too, instances of men who had settled their yearning. Bowie had done it with his Mexican wife, a Tejana version of Eliza: landed, young, connected. Travis had found it with his outlandish whoring, and Austin with his quiet cabin mate, a man slightly younger. Everything was possible in Texas.
"But, General, how do you stand the loneliness?" Smith almost pleaded. These questions, forever disguising condolences or confessions or accusations, could sometimes drive Houston to a rage or into black melancholy. Tonight it didn't
seem to matter so much. He had a lady to meet and the sky was clear and sweet as a brook.
"Can you keep a secret, Mr. Smith?"
The scout nodded, expectant.
Houston rested one hand on his shoulder. "Then so can I," he said, and headed back into the riotous din.
The banquet's centerpiece was a table dominated by an entire black bear, complete with hide, meat, and claws. Locked between its fangs hung the red, white, and green flag of the Mexican Republic. A drunken woman dug her hand elbow-deep into a slit in the back of the giant carcass and wrenched free a rib that looked well short from cooked.
Besides holding up the black bear, the table displayed a forest of critters—raccoons, squirrels, two turkeys—plus the hindquarters and backbone of a roasted ox. Though their flour supply was limited, Houston saw that Colonel Forbes had disbursed plenty enough for biscuits.
Not much further, ringed by torches, sat the officers' table. Someone had knocked the sides off a wagon and positioned kegs and boxes around for chairs. Refugees had donated a set of china plates and crystal goblets and Irish linen napkins, though there wasn't a single fork or spoon in the spread. One of Sherman's men, Houston guessed, had stabbed the Buckeye Rangers' standard into the dirt beside the table. The silk flag rustled gently, exposing and then enfolding the image of a half-naked woman waving a sword.
Houston joined his majors and colonels and their guests. Looking around he found hints of the vanity each indulged when not at war. Sherman's uniform was hard to improve on, but he'd managed, adding gold and silver epaulets brought from home to each broad shoulder. Three-Legged Willie had shaved, badly, and his nicked jowls still bled. He was wearing his skin cap with its six coon tails dancing merrily against his shoulders. Forbes and Wharton had their buttons buttoned. Even Ned Burleson—the most unself-conscious man Houston had ever met—had made an effort to reform his appearance: From the shins down he had scraped the mud off his buckskins.
Here and there, like ladies of a royal court, various refugee women perched on the makeshift chairs. Like the officers they had taken pains to fancy themselves up. Houston smelled lavender water. In lieu of lace or bonnets, two giggling sisters were
sporting blue napkins on their heads. Several had powdered their cheeks with flour to obscure the sunburn, and their gingham and calico appeared damp still from a hasty laundering. Houston tried to select which of these famished-looking women had requested his presence.
His eye ranged down to the end of the table where Molly sat beside Mosely Baker. With her red hair washed fresh in the river and braided back, the young widow had obviously aimed at radiance tonight. But her eyes were raw and swollen and her hands cupped emptiness, limp in her lap. Plainly she'd been crying for hours, and probably not over her dead husband.
It was strange to Houston that he should remember her so clearly from that Gonzales street. Maybe it was a matter of contrasts that pronounced her. Eliza had had the translucence of a cholera victim, all white-gold hair and porcelain delicacy. Houston had watched how men were drawn to her fragility, for it was a perfect foil for their chivalry. Suitors had been drawn to her for much more than that, of course. Through her father, the belle had promised pedigree and wealth and political connections. Indeed, her wedding to Houston had resembled a presidential inauguration with every captain of industry and banker and kingmaker in Tennessee present. And this Molly? Except for her beauty and youth, she was Eliza's opposite in every way. She was just a pauper girl who offered no plantation, no political machinery, no dowry, nothing but the present moment from the toes up. Maybe that was her appeal. She was as graceless and unadorned as Texas itself.
"General," Rusk's voice broke in on his thoughts. The secretary of war was escorting a young man his own height. He was sturdier through the chest than Rusk and he had city clothes rather than buckskins. But they could have been brothers, the two of them looking equally chaste, equally joyful. "I want you to meet a dear bosom friend of mine, Junius Patrick. Doctor Patrick, by golly. We shared a childhood together. Now he's come two thousand miles and found us, somehow, in the middle of nowhere."
In the three years he'd known Rusk, Houston hadn't seen him grin half so wide. Maybe this visitant would be the cure for Rusk's moods. Houston pumped Patrick's hand gratefully. "A doctor of medicine?" he offhandedly inquired.
"I am, sir. Transylvania College, the class of 'thirty-three."
"You're a blessing, then."
The doctor made some reply, but Houston missed it. Because at that instant the torchlight
flickered and Houston thought his eyes were playing a trick on him. Over Dr. Patrick's shoulder, nestled at mid-table, was Private Lamar. And it was clear from his dress that he was here as a guest, not as help to serve liquor or fetch meat. The little man had somehow infiltrated Houston's elite and was merrily chatting away with Wylie Martin on one side and John Wharton on the other. Wearing his frock coat with a burgundy cravat and a steep white collar, Lamar had done himself the favor of removing his green spectacles. Worse by far, the man had combed his hair forward upon each of his temples in the popular style of Lord Byron, the martyred poet and revolutionary. That happened to be one of Houston's favorite effects, one he reserved for special occasions like tonight. But it was too late to comb his own hair back. Well then, he resigned himself, we'll give them two Caesars tonight.
"Sam," Rusk murmured discreetly, "here she comes now."
"Ah, yes," Houston said, as if it had slipped his mind. He looked where Rusk was pointing uphill. There was no mistaking which woman he meant.
She was tall, taller than most of the soldiers she passed. Her black hair, caught loosely with a leather whang, created a frame for her extraordinary white neck. Beneath the calico dress, her proportions were long and full, and there was muscle on the inside of her womanliness. There would be thick calluses on her palms, Houston predicted. She was barefoot with a gold band around one ankle. There were copper rings on her fingers and wrists and loops in her ears. She looked wild and uncap-tured and Houston was glad now that he'd come to dinner.
He thought he was the only one anticipating her, then noticed that Lamar was fixed upon the woman also. To his dismay the private was actually standing up as if to be introduced. It was absurd, if only because she was a good six inches taller than Lamar. At least the lady made no mistake about which of them was the general. She paused by Molly—a quick touch of two fingers onto the heartbroken girl's shoulder, a whisper in her ear—then circled around to Houston's side of the table.
"Allow me," Rusk took over, "General Houston, here is Mrs. Pamela Mann."
That name sounded familiar, but Houston couldn't place it immediately. He stepped away from the table to perform his bow. An old French fencing master, somehow overlooked by that country's revolutionary guillotine, had once taught Houston the courtly gesture. It involved several stages and ended with a flourish. An inebriated Daniel Webster had once told Houston that he looked like a peacock in rut every time he met a woman. But, figuring the world was no worse for it, Houston went ahead with his bow.
"Madam," he extemporized, "our wilderness has been a dark and cold place. From tonight forward you light our way."
"We'll see who will light which way, General Houston," Mrs. Mann replied. "One thing, though. I doubt we're done with the dark cold yet." Her voice was plain, yet the plainness had power. Up close, her hair was tangled and greasy and she was baked brown from the sun and blue from weeks of woodsmoke. Here was one woman who hadn't spent the day preparing herself for the meal. Houston liked that. She trusted in her presence.
"Where's that husband of yours?" Three-Legged Willie called from downtable. He was very drunk. The coonskin tails flapped against his neck.
"Gone to Luziane," Mrs. Mann said without bitterness. "He's in Natchitoches by now."
"I swear he has an instinct," Willie said. "He's the best I know at keeping one step ahead of whatever it is."
Now it came to Houston. Mrs. Mann was said to be the real genius behind their so-called Owl Creek money. The counterfeited bank notes were nearly worthless in the United States even when they weren't counterfeit, and had ended up following the Manns to Texas. Of late, so many people in the American settlements had gotten stuck with the paper that Owl Creek money had come to be used like regular cash just to maintain its value. Houston appreciated the fact that Mrs. Mann's imagination had become the coin of the realm.
"Let us eat," Wylie Martin barked at them. "I'm hungry."
"But who will bless our meal?" Mrs. Mann asked the officers. The fire glittered in her eyes.
Houston cleared his throat and searched for an appropriate verse. But Lamar, the interloper, was faster. "I would consider it an honor," he said to Mrs. Mann.
"Colonel?" she smiled, clearly uncertain who Lamar was. Houston saw his opening and took it.
"Mrs. Mann, my manners," Houston chided himself. "Let me present to you, fresh from the States, Private Lamar." He didn't bother stressing the rank, and Lamar's wince, when it flashed, was a tiny thing. But Houston had grazed him, definitely.
"I confess, madam, I am green from the States, bright green," Lamar recovered. "Until my baptism in battle, I can only aspire to a reputation as meteoric as the general's."
"It's a good thing we're all democrats then, equal before our food anyhow," Mrs. Mann diplomatically observed. "So why don't you go ahead with your prayer, sir."
Lamar tucked his head down to recall, finally settling on a snatch from Ezekiel. "Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty," he intoned, "and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats and bullocks. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, and drink sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my tables with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war. So saith the Lord God."
"Amen," Wharton pronounced. "Amen to such a feast. Now eat."
They set to their banquet with fingers and butcher knives, tearing at the meat with their teeth and nails. The ladies were as voracious as the men. Mrs. Mann pitched in, and Houston noticed her preference for the venison and buffalo over the ox. To her very core her tastes seemed to run away from what was domesticated. The animal grease smeared her cheeks and she grew more and more lovely.
There was no war talk for an hour. The conversation wove about, light and airy. The officers openly courted the refugee women. Their flattery was impressive. It was also stolen. Houston recognized at least a dozen lines lifted directly from Scott, that serpent. Sherman and Forbes and Three-Legged Willie seemed most adept with it, offering up bits and pieces about beautiful damsels, the dignity of arms, and the Great Heart. They used "Southron" for Southern, "aristocratical" for aristocratic. Forbes likened their gathering to "Texian chieftains," as if the Anglo-Saxons in Texas went back centuries instead of a scant few years.
Not everyone flirted. Old Wylie Martin was preoccupied with gastric difficulties and finally, to his neighbors' relief, excused himself to go hang his arms over a tree branch and let the wind leak out of him. Rusk and his friend Dr. Patrick were inseparable, engrossed in catching up with all that connected them. Children were constantly barging in, making demands on their mothers and older sisters. And Mosely, who should have been enjoying the rendezvous more than anyone, seemed singularly bent on extending his strange punishment of poor Molly. Gone was his buckishness. The colonel sat there taciturn and humorless. He didn't talk, didn't look around, didn't eat. Molly sat and suffered, too, the unhappiest creature on earth.
Mrs. Mann saw Houston frowning.
"Put down your troubles, General," she said. "It's much too fine a night to waste on worry."
"No worries, Mrs. Mann. It's just my young blade there." He pointed his chin at the starcrossed couple. "I'm beginning to dislike his manners."
She knew who he meant without looking down the table. "He could be taking his news more agreeably."
"What news is that?"
"Don't you know?" Mrs. Mann said. "It's all through the refugees."
Houston shook his head.
"The girl's with child. She found out three days ago."
Houston absorbed the implications with a lagging nod. It came together for him. Molly wasn't going to be so easily freed of her past. Her dead husband had freighted her with more than bad memories. And Mosely wanted nothing to do with it.
Mrs. Mann read Houston's thoughts. "You do understand," she inquired.
Houston paused. "It sounds like I don't?"
"She has your colonel's b
aby in her womb. He cuckolded a ghost, General, and he got a child." What was Mosely's horror began to come into focus. Then Mrs. Mann laughed, at Houston perhaps, or at Mosely or at life.
The army and the refugees swarmed all around the officers' table, shouting and chewing and running about in their tattered clothes and ragged beards. They were overjoyed to have each other for the night. The moon was binding them, one way or another. Couples moved off into the trees. Inevitably
men fell to fighting. Their wrestling turned to fists, the fists to gouging and knives. They bled into the mud as if the bleeding were a sacrament. Their noise soared to thunder.
At the officers' table the conversations revolved around land transactions, the latest price of cotton, and the state of various currencies. Dr. Patrick told them about the release of a group of New York volunteers which had, on its way to Texas, stopped off in Jamaica to plunder British plantations and been captured. He said there had been a new outbreak of cholera in Baltimore. He described Jackson's latest confrontation with the bank. This brought the talk around to politics and the future of Texas.
Houston listened to his officers recite their old litany of woes about Mexican tyranny and taxation and the foreignness of Mexican law. Houston didn't point out that, once "liberated," the Republic of Texas would lay far more taxation and law on their shoulders than Mexico ever had, and these same men would be crying foul upon their own government. And what then, another revolution?
"Gentlemen." It was Sherman, steep with the corn. Beside him one of the sisters with the blue napkins on their heads had acquired the colonel's hat. "We have a poet among us and he has a toast. Give it, brother." He thrust a hand at Lamar, prompting him to stand up. Houston drummed his fingers. The private was certainly getting in his licks of oratory tonight.
"Revenge," Lamar dramatically intoned. "Revenge is all my soul! no meaner care, interest, or thought, has room to harbor there; Destruction be my feast, and mortal wounds, And scenes of blood, and agonizing sounds."