by Aaron Gwyn
One night—it was October 12th, I recall; we’d break camp the next day and march for Bexar—we were sitting there making merry when a big bay horse came riding up to the edge of our fire. We went quiet all round, and looking up, saw a square-jawed man in a buckskin jacket with leather leggings gartered up under his knees. He had sapphire-blue eyes that shone in the firelight, long hair the color of wheat, and for a hat, a cap of wild pantherskin. And not just the skin, mind you, but the cat’s actual head, its eyes sewn shut and its ears poking up. The teeth hung down from its upper jaw almost touching the stranger’s brow. It looked less like a hat, and more as if a panther had leapt on this young man’s head and bit into his skull—and him not bothered enough to shoo it away.
Well, I’d seen plenty of coonskin caps and those made of otter, wolf, and beaver, but this was the first mountain lion headgear I’d come across. I daresay, on another man it would’ve seemed outrageous and provoked laughs and harsh harangues, but on this worthy pioneer it seemed entirely natural.
We were too surprised to greet the rider, so it was him who broke the silence.
“You all riding for San Antonio?” he asked.
“We leave out tomorrow morning,” Noah told him. “You looking to enlist?”
The young man gave a nod of his head, then slid from his saddle. Someone passed him a mug of coffee.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Samuel Fisk,” he said. “Or just Sam, if you like.”
“Duncan,” I told him, and my throat felt tight as a snare. All of a sudden, I had trouble swallowing.
The next day after we’d taken up our line of march, Noah rode beside me and nodded toward Sam who was a few dozen yards ahead of us.
“Keep an eye out for that one,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. “He seems brave enough.”
“It’s not his courage I’m questioning,” Noah said.
“I reckon he’ll hold up better than some of these others.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I don’t trust a man till I fought with him.”
Noah had been in that first set-to at Gonzales defending the cannon we now pulled behind us with two yokes of longhorn steer—and which ended up proving so worthless we’d bury it at Sandy Creek—and flush with victory and his new rank, seemed to reckon himself quite the soldier.
“Well,” I said, “you’ve yet to fight anything with me except alligators. Do I raise your suspicion?”
“Course not,” he told me. “Just mind our new recruit yonder.”
We reached the Cibolo and met up with reinforcements led by Colonel Bowie, already quite famous for that knife fight over in Vandalia and all the blades that bore his name, and then here came Colonel Fannin with several dozen men of his own. These luminaries had no sooner begun greeting the troops and shaking hands when I turned to see another contingent drifting down the hill, and at their head, an eagle-eyed gent with side-whiskers and a strong, dimpled chin. He rode a yellow Spanish stallion that looked too small for him and was dressed in dirty buckskin like many of us.
I was informed that this was the great Sam Houston, former governor of Tennessee and soon-to-be general of the Texian army. Most of us didn’t know him from Adam, but he had such presence, we all just stopped, and stared, and waited for him to make us a speech.
Which he soon commenced to do in fine fashion. He had a good, deep voice, strong as reverent whiskey, and his words put steel in your backbone; you sat up straighter just to hear them. I can’t recall his exact address that day, but the gist was that while we might have come from various settings and circumstances, the cause in which we’d enlisted was of no less importance than the one our fathers had taken up in 1776. Whatever state we once called home, we were sons of Texas now.
When he finished speaking, we fell to clapping and hurrahing him like he was President Jackson himself. He let this go on a while, then lifted his hand and announced we were to follow the competent command of Colonels Fannin and Bowie and continue our march toward Bexar; he himself was bound for the convention at San Felipe to recruit more men. That took some of the sap out of us, as it had seemed he was about to lead us on to San Antonio himself, and seeing the change in our attitude, he told us matters of tremendous consequence were being decided at that very moment. He would raise a larger force and rejoin us soon as possible.
If we’d known that even then he was in a pitched battle against politicians who were working to undermine both him and our Revolution, we might’ve marched on these scalawags at San Felipe, but in our ignorance, we watched Houston ride off, feeling dejected we’d have to wait to receive his fine leadership.
* * *
We reached the San Antonio River that evening and made camp a quarter mile from the mission of Concepcion. Colonel Bowie posted pickets and then walked around, apprising everyone of the proximity of Mexican troopers—we were close to their garrison now.
Noah and I made a fire and shared our supper of beans and sowbelly with young Samuel, who seemed a good deal older than he actually was—I’d later learn he was twenty-two at the time. He had a firm martial bearing, and there was something about him that made you feel safe. I couldn’t understand Noah’s reservations about him, and it occurred to me maybe he was jealous.
We sat there in the chill autumn air with our blankets shucked up around our shoulders, watching the stars appear; the warmth of the fire and the smell of sizzling meat created a very pleasant atmosphere. The notion that we were soldiers seemed ridiculous.
“So,” I remember Noah saying, glancing across the fire to where Sam sat with his blue, shining eyes and that panther atop his head, “tell us where—”
A distant boom interrupted him and the entire camp went quiet. I heard a shrieking sound and glanced up to see a speck travelling across the purple sky, moving in between the stars, growing larger, coming our direction.
Is that a cannonball? I wondered.
Indeed, it was. It whistled down and struck the earth a few dozen yards from camp, landing in the grass with a wet, slapping sound.
I stood up. I didn’t know much about artillery. Maybe I expected the ball to explode, but it had already done all it was going to.
“That doesn’t seem right,” I announced, and I’d no sooner got these words out than there were several more booms, several more specks traversing the sky, then one cannonball after another smacked into the turf, about five or six in total, each going wide of their intended mark—which, I recall thinking, was us.
The men of camp sat watching them land with a queer curiosity. Everything was very quiet.
I turned to Noah.
“Is that it?”
“I reckon we’ll see,” he told me.
But we saw nothing more that night, and though somewhat more alert, we continued our meals and conversations, and a few hours after nightfall, our march caught up with us, and we fell asleep.
Or most of us did.
I woke to a loud pop that slapped at my ears and echoed across the river. I sat up in my bedding and glanced around. It was gray morning and a thick fog lay over the land. Noah roused himself and sat there rubbing his eyes.
“What was that?” he said.
“Shhh,” I told him.
It was then I noticed Sam. He was standing several feet away with his musket in hand, the butt braced on the ground like a walking stick. He stared out into the mist like the statue of a sentry. Noah and I got to our feet, walked over and joined him, but we couldn’t see any more standing than we could lying down.
“Was that a gunshot?” I asked.
“Yessir,” said Sam.
“Did it wake you?”
“I been awake,” he told me.
“Since when?” Noah asked.
“Since night before last,” he said.
Which seemed to shame the new lieutenant. His cheeks went
red. He and I walked back over to fetch our rifles.
“Thought I told you to keep an eye on him,” he whispered.
“Looks like he kept one on us,” I said.
The camp was coming awake, dozens of men coughing and clearing their throats—a sound like a sawmill buzzing up. Directly, I saw Colonel Bowie coming toward us, pausing to speak to his troopers along the way. He marched over to Noah and told him our scouts had reported several companies of Mexican infantry approaching with field pieces in tow, and two cavalry units mounted up across the river to block our retreat.
“We best get these men to cover,” he said, and ordered us to form a line, sheltering ourselves along the riverbank.
And there we laid in the mud under the pecan trees beside the water. I watched as the men began preparing themselves for a fight, splashing the pans of their muskets with fresh powder, moving their shot pouches close to hand. Noah was on one side of me, Sam on the other, that panther atop his head looking as if it had clenched its eyes up tight, not wishing to see what fate had in store for us. We were outnumbered, and if the Mexicans truly brought artillery with them, outgunned as well.
I gripped my rifle and stared out across the field. The sun was farther up in the sky, and I felt my enthusiasm for warfare begin to vanish. A somber mood fell upon me, and I thought about Mama and Pap, wishing I might say goodbye to them. It occurred to me that it was fairly easy to feel brave while marching along with your compatriots, but lying around waiting for the enemy to shoot you was another matter.
The fog was growing thinner and thinner, then it seemed to lift all at once like a curtain. A few hundred yards out, Mexican soldiers advanced on us in line formation, the men marching up in their single-breasted blue coats and white linen trousers, bayonets winking in the sun. There was a team of mules toward the rear, dragging up an enormous cannon. They unlimbered the piece, got it turned, and commenced to charging it.
The morning was cool, but I broke out in a sweat. My palms were slick as stones.
Colonel Bowie shouted for us to hold our fire.
“What are we holding for?” I asked Noah, but he didn’t answer—the sight of the soldados loading that cannon had seized hold of his tongue.
I steadied my rifle and drew a careful bead on the man standing at the rear of the piece. He already had a match in hand. He was only seventy yards away, and I could’ve made the shot quite easily, but didn’t want to get myself in Dutch with the colonel. Also, I thought that if I fired, the Mexicans might charge our position before I was able to reload, so perhaps it was better to wait. But then again, maybe it wasn’t.
Then one of the artillerymen touched off the piece and the cannon roared. Every thought I had went scattering. I closed my eyes and hunkered. Grape shot peppered the limbs over our head, slicing away branches, sending pecan nuts showering down.
Colonel Bowie yelled: “Keep under cover, boys, and reserve your fire—we ain’t got a man to spare!”
I glanced at Noah. His eyes were bulging. The cannon blazed away and tree limbs rattled. Bits of bark sprinkled the back of my neck, and I felt very certain I was about to die. I began muttering a prayer, repenting all my lust and foolishness.
When I peeped back up over the bank, I saw that the Mexicans had us pretty well surrounded.
“We best commence to shooting,” I told Noah, but he and his bugging eyes had no response. I turned to ask Sam’s opinion on the matter, and that young man looked entirely untroubled by our predicament. He’d gathered up a handful of pecans and was peeling them and popping the nuts in his mouth.
Yes, I thought. He is cool as Presbyterian charity.
Just then, a Mexican in a double-breasted coat with red epaulets lifted a nasty-looking saber and called out something to his men. Then those soldiers raised their muskets and came toward us at a charge.
Well, I reckon we’d seen enough, orders or not, and we let slip with our rifles. The enemy was a rushing blue tide, but when we discharged our volley, that first line of Mexicans went down like they’d been tripped.
It was nothing like I thought it would be: you could not see the hole a rifle ball made at that distance. You sighted your man, pulled the trigger, and down he fell. It did not even seem like something your rifle was the cause of. You knew it in your head, but your heart kicked the notion away. The first soldier I shot went to his knees, then sat down in the grass as though he’d decided to take a rest.
I fumbled up my powder horn and managed to get the snout of it in the muzzle. My hands were shaking and my ears ringing from the thunderous noise. Getting my rifle reloaded was ten times as hard as placing a shot. I’d patched a ball before it occurred to me I’d need to stand up to get it seated and rammed down the barrel, and standing up meant presenting myself to the enemy as a target. I looked at Sam, who’d snuck to the top of the bank and taken a knee. He’d already gotten off three shots to my one and was now reloading a fourth, his hands moving so fast they blurred. It was like watching a card sharp shuffle a deck, everything so quick and perfect—not a single wasted motion.
Out on the field, the Mexicans leveled their own muskets and fired a volley, then came rushing us. Three times they charged our line, and three times we threw them back. The pecan trees and that river bank gave good cover, but it also prevented some of our boys from shooting as much as they would’ve liked. A man named Dick Andrews grew so excited by our displays of marksmanship he stood up and stepped forward to get a better shot. He’d no sooner raised his rifle than the Mexicans touched off that cannon and peppered the poor man with grape. He collapsed on the ground, clutching his stomach.
Andrews just lay there groaning. Noah leapt up, grabbed the man by the ankles and started tugging him back toward the river.
“Talk to me,” I heard him say. “Is it bad?”
“Yes,” Andrews told him. “I’m killed. Lay me down.”
Noah yanked up Dick’s shirt and began searching for his wound. There it was: a thumb-size hole pumping blood and bile. Dick’s face had gone bone-white and I knew there was no way he’d live.
Then I couldn’t watch any longer. I glanced over and tried to concentrate on Sam charging his rifle. He seemed to sense it, turned his blue eyes on me, and just like that, I felt safe again. It was the strangest thing. He was shorter than Noah and myself, but broader through the shoulders, more thickly muscled, his neck round as a tree.
“That cannon,” I told him, “is like a blunderbuss.”
“I don’t enjoy it,” he said, as though speaking about cream in his coffee and not an artillery-piece that’d just split our comrade’s belly.
Then a curious expression came over his face. He mumbled something to himself, turned, and went up the riverbank, disappearing over the lip of it.
I was too startled to call him back. I crawled up a ways and peeked out. Yonder he went, sprinting off across the field, right into the mouth of that cannon.
Well, the Texians had been waiting for the opportunity to get more intimate with their foe and seeing Samuel in his frontier dress and crazy cap seemed to set something off in them. Our entire line gave a cheer.
Then, they stood and went surging forward as well—or we, I should say, for I was with them too—looking to give our enemy the bayonet. This sight was too much for the Mexicans and they began to fall back. Even the gunners operating the cannon gave up. All three of them mounted a mule that had pulled the caisson, one behind the other on the poor beast’s back. Sam slid to a knee, and shouldering his rifle, fired. Two of the Mexicans fell from the mule, one sliding left, the other right, the rider in front leaning down onto the animal’s neck and snapping the reins.
Then Sam had reached the deserted cannon, throwing down his rifle and shouting for us to help him turn the piece. We came rushing up, got it wheeled around, and one of our men who knew something of artillery charged it and lit the fuse. When the gun went off, a swath o
f soldados collapsed like a great wind had blown them down.
* * *
It was a grand victory. We’d routed an army of superior strength, and searching the bodies of those Mexican soldiers, we soon discovered why. The smoothbores they carried couldn’t match our rifles for range or accuracy, and the powder in their cartridges was little better than charcoal. It was not even worth collecting to replenish our stores.
My first taste of combat had a powerful effect on me. I felt like I’d run a dozen miles. Back home in Kentucky, I’d seen men seized by the madness of buck fever: you bring down an animal with antlers the size of a hat rack and the thrill of it is like leaping out of your own skin.
Well, what I’d just experienced was ten times the sensation. It wasn’t just the killing that brought it on—let me say that right out—but rather some mixture of shooting and being shot at and emerging from the affair unscathed. I didn’t want another battle right away, but I knew the whole episode had set the hook in me. My hands were shaking from the flush of it. I went over and sat beside Noah. We looked at each other and I went to laughing. He shook his head, but directly he was chuckling too. It felt very good to be alive, having just seen what we had, and there was also this sense we’d taken part in something that might outlive us, long as there were men to tell the story.
It didn’t occur to me that the Mexicans we’d trounced must have felt as miserable as we were grand. It would take more than a decade for such a thought to come knocking at my door, and when it did, it battered down door, house, and all.
But at just that moment, I was young and victorious and in the company of friends.
“What are we laughing about?” Noah said.
“I don’t rightly know. Not an hour ago, I was pretty certain we’d be killed ever one of us.”
“I was too,” he said.
At some point, Sam had disappeared into a throng of militiamen, all of them slapping his back and congratulating him on leading the charge.
“Where has our comrade got to?” I asked.