by Lyn Cote
“Well, that was mildly entertaining,” Quinn commented when all had quieted. “What’s Santa Anna drinking in his tea lately, locoweed?”
After the brief encounter, Houston gave the order that his men who had marched all day and half the night should eat and rest. Scully wondered if this was a good idea, with the enemy within sight. But Houston had gotten them this far. He must be trusted.
Soon Carson returned from another scouting trip and slid from his horse. After unsaddling and hobbling his mount, he joined Scully and Quinn as they lounged on their saddles by the small fire, the horses grazing nearby. Mist was rolling up from the marsh.
Carson accepted a cup of weak coffee from his dad. “I’m beat.”
“What’s going on, son?” Quinn asked. “What’s that noise I keep hearing?”
“The Mexicans are doing what they can to throw up a barrier on the prairie between us. They’re working where the prairie rises some.”
“Should we be doing something?” Scully asked, trying not to sound edgy, though that’s what he felt.
“We are doing something,” Quinn replied, glancing at Scully. “We’re resting up. Tomorrow must be the day of fighting. Unless the enemy manages to slip away during the night.”
Carson shook his head and dipped his sea biscuit into his coffee to soften it. “They aren’t turning tail. They’re digging in, getting ready for us. They can’t march eastward toward the ferry without exposing themselves to us. And if they try moving toward the ferry through the marsh, their cannon will get hopelessly mired.”
Carson stopped to sip his steaming coffee. “Even if they could get by our scouts in the night—which they can’t—Vince’s Bridge is probably been hacked down by Deaf Smith by now. And I bet their scouts have found that out. So heading that way would let us follow and catch them in a worse position than they’re in now.”
Quinn smiled, clapping a hand of approval on his son’s shoulder. The same satisfaction worked its way through Scully, and Quinn put it into words. “So we finally have them cornered and Santa Anna shouldn’t have chopped his army into three pieces.” He held up three fingers and counted off, “Santa Anna, de Cos, and that General Urrea who beat Fannin at Goliad. You said Santa Anna had about two thousand when he was at Rancho Sandoval. Two to one are about the way the numbers shake out.”
“What good will it do if we do beat this column?” Scully asked, suddenly considering a danger he hadn’t thought of before. “There’s two other columns out there. Will we have to beat them too?”
Quinn shook his head. “No. If we fight and can capture Santa Anna, we will have won it. Santa Anna is not only the top general, but also the dictator of Mexico. If we get him, we take the king just like in chess.”
The three of them looked into the low fire. Tomorrow it would all be over—one way or the other. Scully took a deep breath. God, let us win. Get this over with so we can breathe free.
Yesterday afternoon Alandra had found Sugar. The little girl had been sitting in the brush near the bayou where the army must have forded earlier. She had walked the inconsolable little girl back to the camp. Dorritt had scolded and then hugged the child.
Now, she, Dorritt, and Sugar sat around the meager fire. Exhausted from nursing all day, Alandra could barely sit up. The measles seemed to be running its course. Some of the men had been well enough to leave the quarantined tent, though they still kept to this side of the camp. The doctors left behind were taking no chances of spreading the disease.
“What do you think has happened?” Alandra asked, rolling her aching shoulders. She was worn thin from worry that never quite left her, no matter what she was doing.
Dorritt shifted on the ground, as if trying to find a comfortable position. “I think by now our men should be where they were headed.”
“What does that mean? Has the fighting started?” The question Alandra really wanted to ask was, When will the fighting end?
“I think we heard the start of it earlier today,” Dorritt said with a tired sigh.
Alandra had hoped that had not been true. She pressed her teeth onto her bottom lip and then asked, “You think that was the cannon, not distant thunder?”
Dorritt nodded. “I’m afraid so. I remember hearing the cannon during the Battle of New Orleans. It was far from the city but I heard the cannon. From a distance, they sound like thunder.”
“But they stopped. I mean, is a battle that short?” She could not put this all together, and was breathing harder than she should have.
“Sometimes a battle starts and stops and then starts up again.” Dorritt groaned softly and stretched her hands over her head.
Because of the little girl sitting beside her, Alandra did not want to say any daunting words out loud. But what would they do if Santa Anna won this war? She tried to imagine living somewhere other than Texas. Her mind came up blank, empty. Texas was her home. How could she leave it? She stroked the little girl’s thin back to soothe her. And then she felt guilty about thinking of herself when so many men—not just Scully, Quinn, and Carson—might be in mortal danger.
Dorritt reached over and took her free hand. “We must not forget what the Lord has promised us.”
But it was painful—hard, tight, piercing—to think that Scully would soon be facing death. And Quinn and Carson. When she had been captured, Scully had come after her and rescued her. Now, she could not protect Scully or the others. She could not protect herself. She prayed yet felt nothing but despair.
Dorritt finished reciting the psalm that Alandra had memorized as a child with her guidance:
“…But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.”
“Let that be fulfilled, Father,” Dorritt said then, gripping Alandra’s hand.
“Amen,” Sugar whispered, the first word they had heard her utter.
Alandra wrapped her arms around the little girl, weeping silently. Tomorrow, would they hear more cannon, distant thunder? And when would Scully ride back to her, that easy grin on his face?
Scully awoke to a strangely quiet day. He roused himself and realized that he had slept long after dawn. Unusual for him. The sun was high overhead. He looked around and saw that Quinn was sipping coffee, just like he had been when Scully had sunk into sleep. Carson was there too.
“What’s going on?” Scully sat up, disoriented from oversleeping.
“Not much,” Quinn said, handing him a tin cup of coffee. “I wondered if you were asleep or dead.” He grinned.
“All morning, the officers have been meeting over with the general,” Carson said in a serious voice.
Meeting? Before Scully could ask about that, he saw that the infantry men around them were being stirred up by their officers on horseback. He gulped his hot coffee and jumped up. Their own officer, Lamar, rode up and said, “Saddle up. This is it.”
Scully’s heart leaped into his throat and lodged there. The three of them saddled their horses in record time. Before mounting, they loaded and checked their weapons, to make sure they would do what they were meant to. At last, all the weapons were primed and stowed within easy reach. Scully stroked the dueling pistol Alandra had given him, which he’d thrust into his belt. He was glad that he had left its mate with her.
As he swung up onto his mount, Quinn leaned forward so only Scully and Carson could hear his low voice. “Remember what I said. When you ride into battle, think of all you have to go home to. Our ranch. Rancho Sandoval. Your mother and Alandra. Santa Anna forced this war on us. We did not go looking for trouble. If he had not slaughtered Texians in cold blood, we would have stayed at home.”
Scully’s pulse thrummed through him, eager and alert.
And then the order came. The cavalry was to go first, to keep the Mexicans occupied while the infantry formed up to march on the enemy. Scully watched the returning Deaf Smith gallop past them, straight for Houston.
“So much for Vince’s Bridge,” Quinn commented, grinning then sobering. “So
much for retreat for any of us. May God give us victory.”
Then the cavalry were trotting forward, as they had practiced in the weeks before this anticipated day. Scully heard the drummer begin to pound out the rhythm of the battle march. His heartbeat matched it. He pictured Alandra’s face, and then her in front of the hacienda at Rancho Sandoval, her arms open wide, welcoming him.
The Twin Sisters began to bark grapeshot and canister; it hailed down over the Mexican camp. Scully saw ahead, just as Carson had, that the Mexicans had piled up baggage and anything they could to shield themselves and slow the Texians.
The infantry had formed behind the horsemen. The drummer quickened his pace to the double quick time march. Scully’s spirit sped up too. Someone yelled out, “Remember the Alamo!” And the call echoed over the sleepy afternoon. Scully shouted, “Remember Goliad!” And others took up the cry.
He was holding back his horse, both he and his mount champing at the bit. And then the cry came, “Attack!”
Lamar led them, galloping forward in a charge over the prairie. The hooves that pounded the ground and threw up grass and earth pounded inside Scully as well. The Mexican cavalry lurked in a thin line of timber off to the side. That was their target. But the Mexicans just stared at them as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.
Following Quinn’s horse, Scully’s leaped, sailing over the shallow hollow that cut the prairie in two. So close now. He slid his long rifle from his shoulder and guided his horse with his knees. He got ready to aim.
As if suddenly waking, the Mexican cavalry turned tail and bolted. Scully and the cavalry chased them till the Mexican horses floundered in the marsh. Then, at Lamar’s order, the Texian cavalry swung back toward the main body of Mexican soldiers. The infantry ran straight at the enemy. Texians charged over the baggage the Mexicans had piled up.
Scully gasped at what he saw. The Mexican troops were lying about, resting. Why hadn’t they heard the horses, the drums and shouting?
Now, finally, they jumped to their feet. Up from their siesta. Looking shocked, disbelieving. A few raised muskets. One blew a bugle. But most of them turned and ran for their lives.
The killing began. The Texians fired their rifles, then pistols. Then they pulled out their tomahawks or swords. Here and there a few Mexicans tried to fight back. But the Texians moved like a scythe, slashing, thrusting, shouting, “Alamo! Alamo!”
Scully fired his rifle. Then slid from his horse, his tomahawk in one hand and his pistol in the other. “Goliad!” he shouted. More Mexicans turned tail and ran. Others sprang forward to fight.
Shoulder-to-shoulder with Quinn, he fought his way through the enemy. Nearby, Texians beat down Mexicans with the butts of their rifles. Shouts. Screams. Bellows. Pleas. Blood splattered into the air. Scully felt it splash into his eyes. He wiped it away with his sleeve.
When he looked again, a Mexican was right in front of him. Scully raised his tomahawk. The Mexican raised a saber. They lunged toward each other. The saber came down. Scully heard his own shriek of pain.
Sixteen
Alandra and Dorritt froze at the same moment. Distant thunder? On a warm spring afternoon without a cloud in the blue sky? If it wasn’t thunder, it must be gunfire. Cannon fire. Alandra turned to Dorritt and they clung to each other. “Do you think…? Has it started?”
Dorritt clasped her tighter but said nothing. Barely able to breathe, they stood together under the canopy of ancient oaks hung with Spanish moss near the bayou.
How far away had Houston taken their men? Alandra gazed in the direction of the sound. “We must go—”
Dorritt tangled her hands into Alandra’s shirtsleeves. “No. I want to go to them too. But they left us here to be safe.”
Alandra tried to pull away. “We have to go—”
“That’s right,” barked the oldest of the physicians left behind, a crusty old man with a bald head and bushy white eyebrows. “We’re leaving the young doc behind. The measles has about run its course and he can manage with the others well enough. You women, help me get the wagon ready to go. You two have shown that you know how to do serious nursing, and the army will need us.”
For a moment Dorritt gaped at the man named McCutcheon, and then released Alandra’s blouse. “Yes, sir!”
Dorritt and Alandra hurried along with McCutcheon and began loading one of the few wagons with boxes of bandages they had made by tearing muslin sheets and rolling the strips neatly onto spindles of wood. The two doctors brought their surgical bags and wooden chests filled with medicines and their pharmacy equipment.
Abruptly, Alandra stopped loading blankets onto the wagon. “Listen!” The four of them turned toward where the thunder had just stopped. “The battle cannot be done yet, can it?” she asked.
Dr. McCutcheon grimaced. “We’re going anyway. Even if one side has surrendered, there will be wounded. We can move faster than a whole army, but it will take us well into the night to get there even by wagon.”
The other doctor, Toomey, nodded. “Come on. We have all the medical supplies and food and water.” He ended the discussion by climbing onto the wagon and picking up the reins. A soldier who had just been pronounced well, had hitched up the team of two mules.
McCutcheon stiffly climbed up on the wagon seat. Alandra and Dorritt scrambled up onto the back of the wagon, finding places to perch among the supplies. Sugar had followed them, found a spot near Alandra and put her arms around Alandra’s waist. The wagon began jouncing over the rutted area around the camp. Soon they were headed forward over the smoother prairie. When they reached the bayou, they found a shallow place to ford it.
Worry about the gunfire they’d heard pecked at Alandra’s peace. What had happened? Who had won? She stopped her mind there. She forced herself to picture Scully, Quinn, and Carson whole and well. She let her memory roam to long past fiestas and rodeos. Scully roping a bull as people cheered. Scully watching her, frowning, while she danced with a young caballero in San Antonio. Then thoughts, flashes, images of the past two months intruded—the courtroom with her haughty relatives, the bandidos. But she clamped down on them, tying a tourniquet against the flow of horrible memories. Scully’s low voice sang in her mind:
“Twas Grace that brought us safe thus far…
and Grace will lead us home.
She drew Sugar onto her lap, stroked the little girl’s white blond hair and whisper-sang the song to her. She brushed away her own tears and clutched the child to her as a lifeline. If only she knew what was happening, if only she could dredge up some hope that she would find them well and Santa Anna defeated.
Silence came. Breathing hard, Carson scanned the scene before him. “Pa! Scully! he called. The battle couldn’t be over that fast, could it? They had barely begun fighting.
Lamar rode up. “Carson, the Mexicans have given up,” he said. “Look for our wounded and help the ones who can walk toward the hospital tent.”
Carson waved in reply and began moving through the black smoke and fallen soldiers who lay around him. The unnatural silence, deeper somehow after the torrent of cannon and gunfire, held. The wounded Mexicans seemed too shocked by the turn of events to moan or cry out. Had fatigue kept them asleep and unaware? Or had the Mexicans thought the weak, ragtag Texians wouldn’t attack? Most of the wounded were Mexicans. Only a few injured Americans staggered to their feet or lay still, waiting for help.
Carson paused twice to rip cloth from a wounded soldier’s clothing to rig up a makeshift bandage or tourniquet over a wound. Then he recognized Scully’s shirt, bloodied now. Carson covered the distance and knelt down beside his friend.
A prickling chill ran over his skin and up his spine. “Scully?” He shook his shoulder. “Scully?” His throat was trying to close up on him.
Scully opened his eyes and gazed up at Carson. He reached out and put his hand over Carson’s where it gripped his shoulder. “Carson,” he muttered. He gasped for air. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough.” Fear r
ippling in cold waves, Carson stood up, took off his buckskin shirt, then shrugged out of his cotton shirt. He ripped off one sleeve, knelt again, and with care helped Scully sit up. Then he tore off the top of the sleeve and folded it into a neat pad over the deep saber cut on Scully’s jaw. Only then did he notice that Scully’s thigh was bleeding freely, and repeated the bandaging process.
Finally, when he’d done all he could, Carson asked, “Can you walk, Scully?”
“I think so. Let me sit up for a while first.” Scully looked up and tried to grin.
“Fine. I have to find my pa.” Carson gripped Scully’s shoulder and then stood and began looking. “Pa!” he called. “Pa! It’s Carson!”
Hearing a faint cry, he turned and saw a hand waving, his father’s, from under a pile of Mexican bodies. Carson rushed over, dug in and gently pulled his father free. Quinn’s shirt was soaked with blood, and Carson blanched. If his father had suffered a gut wound, there was no hope. Doctors could dig out bullets and cut off shattered limbs. But they were helpless to put a man’s insides back in working order.
Don’t panic, Carson told himself. Pa needs help, not me having the vapors.
As his pa had taught him, he began the examination, starting at the scalp and proceeding down the body. When he was done, he sat back on his heels and took a deep breath. His father wasn’t gut-shot. But he had been pierced in the side. The wound had gone clear through front to back. Probably a sword.
His father swallowed. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough.” Carson destroyed the rest of his shirt binding up his father’s wounds. Then, as he shrugged back into his buckskin jacket, he rose and called, “Scully! Come! Help me!”
Scully rose, staggered a little. But leaning on the butt of his rifle, he limped through the littered battlefield to Carson.
“Pa’s hurt. We need to get him to the hospital tent. Stay with him while I get my horse.”
Not waiting for Scully’s agreement, Carson ran down his horse. Then he and Scully managed with some help from two other soldiers to lift Quinn to lie facedown over Carson’s saddle. Then Carson led the horse while Scully clung to the saddle horn and limped along beside, favoring his right thigh.