by Drew McGunn
Hays thought the idea was crazy, but the president had a habit of crazy ideas. To some, the idea of a specially trained company of elite Rangers would be crazy, he reminded himself. Even so, this sounded risky. “Senor Ruiz, the Apache have not always been friendly to the interests of the settlers in Texas. Has something changed?”
Ruiz ruefully chuckled before replying, “Yeah, when Santana, the local tribal leader for the band over yonder, heard that Chief Bowles of the Cherokee had joined,” he paused as he searched for the right word, “I think he said, Texas Tribe, he reached out to the government and asked if it were possible for the Apache to do the same.”
This was news to Hays. He hadn’t realized Crockett could play something like this as close to the vest as it appeared he had. He could think of several congressmen and senators who would pitch a conniption fit over the idea of seeking to build bridges with the Apache. He realized Ruiz was speaking, “This will give Texas a buffer along more than a hundred miles of the Rio Grande. We get something we want, and Santana and his people get something they want, which is security from the Comanche. Plus, as I understand it, General Travis will pay those who are interested in serving in the army or as scouts with the Rangers. I believe this is what the president would call a ‘win-win’ agreement.”
Hays eyed Ruiz skeptically, but held his peace. He had learned that between General Travis’ unorthodox training and President Crockett’s unconventional means of governing, they took risks he would not have considered. It left him unsettled, not knowing where things with the Apache might end up, but it was clear this band was permitted to cross into Texas. He returned the letter and map to Ruiz, shook his hand, and wished him luck.
He and his Rangers allowed their horses to rest, grazing among the tall grass and getting their fill of water as Ruiz and his band forded the river. As they rode by, Hays watched as the warriors eyed him and his men, frequently with frank looks of appraisal. It was a bit unnerving to have them pass by so close, obviously taking the measure of his command. As the band climbed up the trail towards Ysleta, Hays shook his head in wonderment. Things in Texas were certainly changing.
***
The hard-packed dirt street ran parallel to the Rio Grande River, a quarter mile away. Squat, adobe houses lined one side of the road, while the other side was lined with shops. At the end of the road, a small building stood detached from the other businesses on the nearby street, a solitary reminder of better days under imperial Spain. Now with its eagle alertly perched atop a cactus, snake clutched in its talon, the Mexican flag billowed in the hot afternoon breeze. It flew over the Albuquerque customhouse. Several laden wagons were drawn up in front of the building, their teams of mules waiting for drivers to drive them forward. Several guards stood outside the building, as a customs inspector collected taxes from the teamsters.
Most of the town’s residents were not Mexicans but were Pueblo, one of the tribes descended from the Anasazi. When three men, dressed in work clothes common to those of the men of the Pueblo, slipped into the town, making their way to a nearby cantina, their arrival went unnoticed. Captain Hays felt ridiculous, his exposed white skin was covered completely in dust and mud. He incredulously eyed his two companions, Corporal Estevan Gonzalez and Private Eduardo Perez, both of whom were dressed in the same stolen garments, neither of whom needed additional coating to hide their features. He was certain by their knowing smiles, they were taking pleasure in his own discomfort.
As the afternoon wore on, they sat in the cantina, ordering drinks, and keeping an eye on the customhouse, where they watched wagons come and go throughout the day. But by nightfall, they were no closer to learning how many soldiers and militia garrisoned the Presidio of Albuquerque than they had been at the beginning.
The next day, they found the main square and the presidio adjacent to it. Through the square moved most of the town’s traffic, and the three men split up, still in their disguises, and observed the comings and goings of the presidio’s soldiers. By the end of the day, when they met back at the disreputable cantina near the customhouse, Hays was convinced two companies of infantry were stationed in town. But on the periphery of Mexico, where the hand of the central government was seldom felt, the regulars were heavily augmented by militia. Hays was concerned the hundred-man garrison only told part of the tale.
As he plopped into the chair between Gonzalez and Perez, Hays was scratching at the dried mud on his arm when he said in a voice only the three of them would hear, “Damned if I won’t be glad to get out of here, boys. What did y’all find out?”
Corporal Gonzalez said, “They’ve got near enough two companies, Captain. What’s hard to estimate is the number of men in the militia. There’s less than a thousand people in town, but how many more live in ranchos and farming villages in the surrounding area?”
As a mule brayed when a wagon rolled to a stop at the customhouse, Hays had an idea. “Boys, I think I know a way to find out …”
Late that night, three figures snuck along the side of the road, hugging tightly to the store fronts, as they made their way toward the customhouse. The few clouds in the sky failed to cover the moon’s luminescence, as the street was bathed in a watery silver glow. In front of the customhouse a sentry sat on a bench, his rifle leaning against the whitewashed adobe wall. Hays tapped Perez on the shoulder and pointed toward the sentry and motioned for him to circle around the building.
Despite the moonlight, the Tejano Ranger slunk into the shadows, and after a few minutes, reappeared inching along the customhouse’s wall, only a few feet away from the sentry, with his Bowie knife in hand. Like a striking rattlesnake, he lunged the last few feet, and finding the sentry had fallen asleep, reversed the blade and used the knife’s handle as a bludgeon, turning the sleeping sentry into an unconscious one.
Hays and Gonzalez sprinted across the ground between the closest store and the customhouse. Each knew their roles as a pile of supplies were collected from the back of a couple of wagons. Everything that could burn was laid against the customhouse’s wooden door. They collected books and accounting ledgers, bolts of linen and cotton, and wooden boxes, piling them high. Once they were done, Hays took a jar of kerosene and sluiced it on the mound. He lit a match and tossed it on the pile. With a loud whoosh, the kerosene caught fire, as flames leapt into the air.
As Hays and his men ran out of town, the conflagration quickly reached the thatched roof, causing the flames to climb into the night sky.
Thirty minutes later, the three men joined a fourth Ranger, who had waited the past two days with their mounts a couple of miles from town. Winded from the run, as Hays climbed into the saddle, he turned to watch the result of his handiwork. From two miles away, he watched flames lick into the sky, as sparks and flaming cloth swirled into the superheated air over the burning building. The area around the customhouse was lit up by the roaring flames, and he saw all the wagons in the lot beside the government building were on fire. He wondered if they had been too successful, as he saw flaming embers blowing toward the other buildings on the edge of town.
A church bell had been clanging for several minutes, alerting the citizens of Albuquerque of the fire’s imminent danger. Hays retrieved his spyglass and watched people racing around the edges of the inferno. It reminded him of a time as a boy, when he had taken a stick and disturbed an ant mound.
“Let’s head back to the camp. Until they get that under control, I doubt they’ll send anyone looking for us.” Hays turned to the south and risked a short look back, hoping the people of Albuquerque could keep the fire from spreading. Destroying a government building was one thing, burning the town down would only sow seeds of discord against Texas.
When the sun came up, the town had been spared, while the customhouse was a gutted ruin. The denizens of Albuquerque had worked through the night and saved all the nearby buildings from catching fire. Hays was glad to see the town still stood, as he gazed through his spyglass at the town. It took another hour before he
saw any sign of pursuit. By the time the sun was high in the morning sky, a large body of mounted trooper rode south. “We got what we came for, boys. It looks like they’ve got around two hundred between the regulars and the militia.”
They returned to the Rangers’ bivouac, south of town, and hastily broke camp. They rode south a short way before crossing over the Rio Grande, where the ground grew rocky. From there, they turned to the north and headed for Santa Fe.
Chapter 4
Next to the sturdy wooden door, the window in Will’s office was open. His jacket hung on the back of his chair, his waistcoat was unbuttoned, and his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. The hot, dry wind sweeping in from the Tamaulipan mezquital barely stirred the papers on his desk, as he dabbed the sweat from his brow. He glanced out the window, seeing the clear blue August sky and sighed, not a cloud in sight. Under his breath he muttered, “My kingdom for an air conditioner.”
Despite the thick adobe walls, the temperature in the office must have been more than ninety degrees. “You’d think after more than five years; a guy would get used to this heat.” He had gotten used to it, for the most part, but times like this when he was anxious for news from the west, his mind wandered, and the heat was a good target at which to direct his discontent. His mind needed a break from the reports and from the worry. He picked up a bill from the Schultz Mercantile Store in town. Becky and Henrietta did much of the household shopping there. As he perused it, he saw household staples such as baking powder, sugar, and coffee, as well as supplies for the baby, who was due within the next few weeks. Becky, a thrifty shopper, seldom bought anything for herself, and this bill was no different. She had, however, bought Charlie new clothes. He was nearly thirteen and had recently outgrown his old clothes.
Will eyed the total purchases for the previous month, did a mental conversion in his head as he tallied how much it would be in twenty-first century dollars and whistled through his teeth at the amount. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a ledger and wrote a check for the amount due and signed it. It was drawn on the Commerce Bank, which had recently opened a branch in San Antonio, in addition to its primary office in Galveston and another branch in Houston. He set the check aside, making a mental note to drop it off on his way home.
A shadow crossed in front of the window and a knock at the door drew his attention. “Come in.”
The door swung inward and standing there was a tired and very dusty Captain Jack Hays. His once black wide-brimmed hat was stained a grayish brown, where the sweat stains competed with natural bleaching from the brutal West Texas sun, giving the headgear a disreputable appearance. As Will stared at the grungy officer, he briefly realized one benefit to the army’s jackets being butternut in color was he couldn’t tell where the tannish-brown color of the jacket ended, and the dusty grime began. Hays’ normally neat beard was gone, replaced by a bushy, brown rat’s nest of matted hair. As the young captain threw a sloppy salute, Will leapt from his chair, “Jack, it’s damned good to see you. Get yourself in here and take a seat.”
As Hays collapsed into the chair across from Will, the pouches under his eyes made the captain look far older and more weathered than his twenty-five years. He dragged his hat from his head, sending eddies of dust fluttering to the floor around his chair. Setting the hat on the chair’s arm rest, he said, “General, it’s good to see you, too. We’ve been on the trail for the past month, riding back from Santa Fe, as you had ordered.”
A narrow credenza behind Will’s chair contained several decanters of amber liquids, and Will turned and grabbed one and poured a large amount into a glass. He offered it to the other officer and watched as Hays downed the fiery whiskey in a couple of gulps. For a moment, his eyes crossed as he coughed. “Damn my eyes, General, but that hits the spot.”
Will leaned back in his chair and waited for Hays to continue.
After setting the empty glass on the table, Hays said, “We arrived at El Paso on June thirtieth with Colonel Seguin and secured the village of Ysleta on this side of the Rio Grande. We raised high our flag then me and my boys went north to Albuquerque. We got there on the tenth of July and scouted out the town. They have two companies of regulars, around a hundred men or so, and probably another hundred militia, most of which are mounted. Our orders notwithstanding, General, I believe we could have captured the town and raised our flag over it.”
Will acknowledged the comment with a silent nod, as he indicated Hays to continue.
“From there, we rode north to Santa Fe. It took us three days to get there. While Albuquerque may have close to a thousand folks living there, Santa Fe is an entirely different nut to crack. As best as I can tell, there must be over seven thousand people there. The Mexican governor, a nasty bastard by the name of Armijo, has at least five companies of regulars, and a much larger militia. All told, probably more than a thousand men.”
Will grimaced when Hays mentioned the number of soldiers. “Are there any changes to the Mexican army that you could see, compared to five years ago?”
Hays’ eyes had slid shut, until the sound of Will’s voice jolted them open. “Ah, not that I could see, General. The soldiers we saw all carried those old Brown Bess muskets the Mexicans seem to favor.”
Will was of a different mind than Hays. He thought there was world of difference between what the Mexican army would like to have versus what they actually had. This was evidenced by the rifled muskets their light infantry carried. “Did your men see any light infantry armed with the Baker rifle?”
Hays shook his head, no.
Will smiled at the good news. “You’ve seen both these towns up close, Jack. If we take our battalion of infantry and Seguin’s cavalry, do you foresee a problem taking these towns and putting them under our flag?
Wearily, Hays replied, “No, General. Even if they had twice as many men, you’d sweep them away.”
Will moved several stacks of papers from his desk, revealing a map covering the entire desktop. He studied his planned route between San Antonio and El Paso, making note of the engineers’ progress with the military road. A penciled line was sketched from the Alamo to halfway between the third depot on the intermittently flowing San Pedro river and the fourth, on the Pecos. He shifted his finger over to the spot on the map marked El Paso and traced it along the Camino Real to Santa Fe. “If we leave in February, how long do you think it’ll take us to get there?”
When Hays made no reply, Will turned, and saw he was sound asleep.
***
The open window let in a light breeze, but the officer barely felt it, as he gazed over the capital of Mexico in the valley below. The transplanted Frenchmen was glad his friend, Antonio, had returned to power. He had a magnetic personality, and the Centralists needed a strong hand, after the failure of the Bustamante administration of the past couple of years. Adrian Woll was certain Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was the person to correct Mexico’s faltering ship of state.
He turned away from the breathtaking view and saw his Excellency sitting at the head of a large table made from cherry wood. It was waxed and polished to a reflective shine. Most of the army’s senior leadership was present in the room. General Urrea was deep in conversation with Vicente Filisola near a marble support pillar, while General Almonte sat next to his Excellency, quietly talking with el presidente.
The last of the officers arrived and Woll hastened to his seat. His Excellency glared at the latecomers, who at least had the good manners to appear embarrassed. Using a cane to support himself, Santa Anna stood. His one leg wasn’t enough to support his weight. The wooden leg he had acquired in the brief, unfortunate war with France a few years before, necessitated the cane. “Thank you for coming, gentlemen. As you are all aware, my predecessor, Anastasio Bustamante failed and has left the government in shambles.”
Woll was pleased to see the officers in the room giving his Excellency their full attention, as he continued, “He let the Yucatecan rebels declare a rump republic on the peninsula
, and now, this latest insult from the norteamericano pirates in Texas. Who do they think they are, showing their pirate flag at El Paso del Norte?”
Many of the officers in the room shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. The news had arrived barely a week ago, when the alcalde of the town had written, requesting soldados to dislodge the Texian mounted troops from the northern side of the Rio Bravo del Norte.
“The time for compromising is over, gentlemen. We’re not going to tolerate any more infringements against our territorial integrity. I’ve assigned my aide-de-camp, General Almonte, to put together a reorganization of the army. I am dismayed, between our permanent regiments and our active reserves, there are well over twenty thousand men in our army, yet, we haven’t been able to field anything against Yucatan or Texas yet. That stops now!”
Every officer in the room was staring at his Excellency, Woll included. “While negotiations with the rebels in the Yucatan continue, and there remains a shred of opportunity for peaceful reunification, we’re going to focus our efforts on punishing the norteamericano pirates. General Woll, my friend, I have decided to assign command of our Northern Army to you.”
Woll perked up. There were close to four thousand soldiers in that formation. A sizable plum indeed. Santa Anna continued, “To Hell with trying to push a few hundred cavalry out of Nuevo Mexico. They have had the effrontery to build forts at the mouth of el Rio Bravo del Norte and at Laredo. I want you to put together a plan of attack that removes the fort at Laredo, captures San Antonio de Bexar, and pushes these pirates east of the Brazos.”
Woll grinned like a schoolboy with his hand in the candy jar. An independent command, at last. “I shall prepare the plans at once, Excellency.”
His Excellency smiled expansively. “When the plans have been completed, I will review them. I want your army ready to march at the beginning of the year.”
Woll’s mind was already at work on the details. The regiments had been allowed to atrophy under Bustamante. Recruits would need to be sent north, and supplies marshaled for the invasion. The new year was four months away, but there was much to be done. He picked up a pen, dipped it in an inkwell and began making notes.