by Drew McGunn
Hays asked, “Do we have anything operating west of the second depot?”
Will shook his head, “No. Your command needs to find suitable routes that lead to watering holes. Once you’ve found a good spot for the third depot, I want Company I marching toward it and the engineers extending the road. Next comes the fourth depot. Ideally you should try to establish it along the Pecos river. Once that’s been established, you’re still going to be two hundred miles from El Paso del Norte. That’s two hundred miles through some of the most inhospitable parts of the Chihuahuan desert. Before Seguin gets out there with the main force, I want you to scout out a suitable route through the desert, with enough water for the horses. Captain, without water, Seguin’s command will fail.”
***
A bed of coals glowed in the hearth, an iron pot hung over them. Henrietta, the freedwoman who cooked and helped Becky with the household work, stood between the hearth and the Franklin stove, clenching a wooden spoon in her hands. The object of her ire stood inside the door, facing Will. Charlie sat at the dining table, with schoolwork spread across it, glancing between his father and his former slave, Joe. Next to the stove, sat Becky, in a rocking chair, her needles held in her hands, as they rested against her distended belly. Her pregnancy was well along.
The ex-slave stared at Will, with steady determination. “Marse William, sir, I come here tonight to ask you, why didn’t I get hired to haul them supplies to your army out west? I ain’t the only negro who asked for a contract, but I’s the only negro who didn’t get one.”
Will looked around the room, avoiding Joe’s eyes. He looked to his wife, who cast a look back at her knitting, then to Charlie. Abstractly, he saw the boy’s pants were too short. Finally, he looked to Henrietta. The former slave wore a passive mask, as she tried to hide her feelings behind years of slavery into which she’d been born. Finding no answers, Will looked back at Joe. “Joe, I’m not your master. You’ve been a free man now for five years. Call me Mr. Travis or General. Hell, man, my friends call me Buck. But to answer your question, the contracts to supply the depots in the west are dangerous, man. I didn’t give you a contract because I’m not going to do something that runs the risk of making Henrietta a widow.”
Joe shook his head, stubbornly. “But marse, I mean, General, sir, I done made the decision to do this. If you done give me my freedom, but you’re going to keep me from doing what I needs to do, I ain’t got real freedom, sir. I need to do this for my wife.” He stole a glance at Henrietta, who finally let the mask slip. Tears streamed down her face and she stepped across the room where she clung to Joe, crying, “Oh, my Joe, I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re all I got.”
Will was caught between conflicting views. At his core, he knew slavery was a great evil, dehumanizing both the slave and master. Freeing Joe back in 1836 had been the right thing to do. Even though he had transferred into William B. Travis’ body, he had felt a moral sense of responsibility for Joe, despite the fact that he was not the William B. Travis who had trafficked in slavery. God alone knew what had happened to the spirit of the man he had replaced. On one hand, Joe was free to make the choices that would define his life, but on the other, Will felt a since of moral obligation toward the former slave. He would never admit that when the military contracts hauling supplies from the coast became available, he had placed his hand on the scale and saw to it Joe was one of contractors hired. But the coming campaign carried serious risks. Rumors of Comanche braves slipping across the Red River and stealing horses and cattle had started up and an unguarded supply wagon was vulnerable.
But on the other hand, Joe was right. Will had decided for him. What was freedom to the ex-slave if Will could make those decisions for him?
After a long, agonizing moment, Will nodded, and said, “I apologize, Joe. It wasn’t my place to do that. If you want to apply again for a contract, I promise I won’t get in the way.”
Henrietta shook in Joe’s arms, as Will heard her sobbing. Through her tears she whispered, “Oh, Joe, I don’t want to lose you.”
Becky lifted herself from her rocking chair, and wobbled over to stand beside Will, putting an arm around her husband, she said, “We’ll be praying for Joe and all our brave men, Henrietta. And no matter what, you have a place here, with us.”
***
Officially summer was still three weeks away, but nobody had bothered telling the weather that, Lt. Colonel Juan Seguin thought. As he stood next to his sorrel horse, he felt sweat beading on his forehead, even as the warm southern breeze ruffled his thick, black hair. He straightened his butternut-colored jacket again, as his wife and children waved at him as they crowded near the Alamo’s gatehouse along with all the other wives, sweethearts, and children of the three hundred men assembled in formation in the Alamo plaza. A small platform had been erected in front of the Alamo’s hospital and a narrow wooden podium stood upon it. Hanging from it were streamers of red, white, and blue. Behind the podium stood Texas’ first elected president, David Crockett, who had traveled from Austin to speak to those assembled.
Seguin stood below the platform, studying the chief executive of the Republic. Crocket was in his mid-fifties; his brown hair had turned grey at the sides. His eyes crinkled, as though always ready for laughter. In place of the normal black suit jacket, Crockett had chosen to wear a finely embroidered buckskin hunting shirt. A coonskin cap rested on the podium. In all the years Seguin had known the president, he could count on a single hand the number of times he’d seen Crockett wearing the animal skin on his head. There was Davy Crockett, Lion of the West, who wore a coonskin cap then there was David Crockett, President of the Republic of Texas. Seguin had learned a long time ago which was myth, and which was real. When it suited the president’s purpose, the two merged.
Crockett cleared his throat and looked across the sea of faces crowded into Alamo Plaza. “My fellow Texians, I reckon many of you remember when you and me stood on the bank of the Nueces River and whipped ol’ Santa Anna that day. We shed our sacred blood and bought with it our freedom and liberty. Almighty Providence was with us and we captured that weasel of a dictator. When we negotiated with him in good faith, we expected Mexico to uphold their end of the bargain. In that spirit, we owe it to our wives and children to bequeath to them a legacy of a republic that is secure within our borders, recognized by all nations as a free and independent country. A country that stretches from the Red River in the north, east to the Sabine River, and south and west to the Rio Grande. You elected me to do a job and I would fail in that job, my brothers, if I did not do everything within my power to make it so!”
Seguin watched the president pause and look over the field of soldiers before the podium. “I would never ask a single soldier to go where I wasn’t also willing to go. Unfortunately, congress has said they can’t get by without me.” Crockett cast a sly look at General Travis, who also sat on the platform. “I recall telling your general the same thing. I’m not so young any more that the idea of being hogtied and locked away in the basement of the Capitol appeals to me. Instead, my duty requires that I send each of you out not simply as a soldier of the Republic, but as guardians of our liberty and security. When this campaign is over, and you return home, it won’t be just your wives, sweethearts, and children that greet you, but all of us will lift up a toast to you, our returning heroes.” Crockett grabbed the coonskin cap and sketched a casual salute that took in the whole of the plaza and set the cap on his head.
The crowd in the plaza enthusiastically applauded their president. Seguin had heard worse speeches. He took the black, wide-brimmed hat and pulled it onto his head and swung into the saddle. “First Cavalry, mount up!”
Three hundred men answered by swinging into their saddles. A small band, to the side of the platform, enthusiastically burst into music. It struck up a lively tune, Gary Owen, recently imported from Ireland by immigrants, and taught to fellow Texian soldiers over copious amounts of whiskey.
Seguin gave
the order and the companies wheeled to the right and formed up in columns of four as they rode out the Alamo’s gate, heading into the west.
Chapter 2
Captain Jack Hays stared at the hard-packed road, heading west from the bank of the Concho River. The engineering platoon had extended the military road another ten miles into the West Texas wilderness. Another three hundred ninety miles to go, more or less, Hays cheerlessly chuckled at the thought.
But on the positive side, his Ranger company could have covered the distance in a week had they not slowed down to the pace of the infantry they accompanied. A few days after leaving San Antonio they had caught up with Company I, who were also marching to the west. Even with the infantry, they arrived in nine days. The easy portion of travel behind them, he turned in the saddle and saw his forty mounted Rangers ready to scout the best route for the army to take through the Chihuahuan desert. Behind them were the riflemen from Company I as well as a score of men from the quartermaster’s corps. They would follow behind. They would garrison and supply the next two depots, provided Hays and his Rangers could find the right locations.
Hays shook his head slightly. “I damned well better find the right spots.” Failure wasn’t an option. He tamped down his doubts and turned forward, urging his horse to a canter, into the west.
Two weeks later, Hays cursed the dry heat of West Texas, as he leaned back, soaking in the shallow water of the lazy, Pecos River. He’d decided nothing took the bite out of the dry heat better than a swim. He sat up and swiped his hat from the flat rock next to the water’s edge. It wasn’t just the parched and arid landscape that was seared by the merciless sun, and he placed the hat on his head. The previous two weeks were productive. Both depots had been established along reliable water sources.
He was tempted to amend the thought as he lay in the sluggish, tepid water. Finally, in a moment of charity, Hays decided if any body of water could rise to the designation of a river in this part of the country, the trickle of water, known as the Pecos, flowing from the mountains of New Mexico to the Rio Grande deserved the unmerited title.
He got out and dried off and put his clothes and boots on and walked toward the camp. The handful of men from the quartermaster’s corps had put the infantry to work turning it into Texas’ westernmost outpost. Two lines of bleached white tents ran through the center of the camp. A half-dozen supply wagons were between the tents and the river.
A few soldiers were moving blocks of wet adobe from by the river to the camp, where they were left to dry, the sun acting as a natural kiln. There were too few trees in the area for the soldiers to use wood to construct buildings or erect a wall, but dirt and clay were available in as natural abundance as could be desired and the lieutenant in command of the infantry platoon had wasted no time in using the resources available.
Hays yelled back to the Rangers who were still soaking in the river, “Enjoy the breather, boys, that was the easy part. Tomorrow, we cross the Pecos and head for El Paso!” As he turned back toward his tent, a chorus of groans and catcalls from the river left little doubt the men felt the same way.
That night, the temperature was still warm, as Hays sat next to a cooking fire with his two lieutenants and the company’s first sergeant. A small campaign-sized map was spread over his legs. “I’ve been looking over the map between here and El Paso, and damned if we have much to go on.” The other men had become intimately familiar with the map over the previous weeks. El Paso was clearly marked, as was the long, looping Rio Grande River. But the river ran a couple of hundred miles to the south before curving back to its northwesterly route. Following the Rio Grande would add weeks to their travel time, as well as put their supply line dangerously close to Mexico.
With an audible sigh that brought smiles to the other men, Hays continued, “There’s not much to it, we’re just going to have to find a route.”
The 1st lieutenant asked, ““What are the chances that we could angle southwest, towards the Rio Grande and then follow it up to El Paso, Captain?”
“We’ve been over that before, Ed. While it may ultimately be necessary if we can’t find decent watering holes, my preference is to scour the desert and see if there’s a more direct viable route. What we’re going to do is split the two platoons up and send yours to the southwest. Somewhere to our west are the Limpia Mountains. I want your men to skirt the southern edge of the range, while me and Jed will take his platoon and try going around the north edge.”
The last embers of the fire flickered briefly before going out. Hays stirred the coals with a stick and said, “It’s late. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. We’ll meet back here in ten days, hopefully one or both of our platoons will find a route with water.”
***
The next morning, 1st Lieutenant Edward Brooks led his platoon across the river bed and veered away to the southwest. There were no trails to guide them. What trails they found belonged to those of creatures of the desert. They started and stopped so suddenly, Brooks couldn’t help puzzling where they came from and where they went. The further away from the river they rode, the more dust their horses kicked up.
Dry arroyos, little more than bone-dry deep rivulets, crossed his path. They were created by storms and flash floods, as channels for floodwaters to flow back to the Pecos. Every attempt to follow one upstream resulted in fruitless backtracking, as each one invariably ended in the desert. After two days of blistering heat, the men and their horses were tired of the unforgiving Chihuahuan desert. Lieutenant Brook climbed down from his horse and pulled a map from his saddlebag. He penciled in the ending of the Limpia Mountains, as he saw them. His concentration was broken when a voice cried out.
“Indians!”
The pencil broke in his hand. One piece bounced off the saddle and landed in the reddish dirt. He swore and threw the other piece down then looked up. From the northwest a score of warriors casually rode toward them. “Steady boys. Let’s see what we’ve got before we get twitchy. First Sergeant, to me!”
The company’s first sergeant had accompanied Lt. Brooks’ platoon, while Captain Hays had gone with the second platoon. The sergeant walked over, while holding his hat over his eyes as he tried to discern the warriors’ features. His pale blond hair had gone to gray years earlier, Sergeant Maartin Jensen was approaching fifty. He had served in one army or another for the better part of thirty years, first with the Danish army during the Napoleonic Wars then in the United States dragoons, before he finally made his way to Texas, lured by the promise of free land. Sometime after arriving, he decided he’d rather stay in the army until forced into retirement or killed by a Mexican bullet or a Comanche arrow. He wasn’t the best shot or the finest rider, but his ability to stay steady and calm when bullets started flying explained why Hays had selected him as senior non-commissioned officer of the Ranger company.
The sergeant retrieved his carbine from the saddle scabbard and said with a strong accent, “What are your orders, Lieutenant?”
Brooks wished he had a spyglass. Was he looking at Comanche, Apache, or some other tribe? He scanned his little command. Most of his Rangers were still mounted. “If you’re already on foot, stay afoot, and grab your carbines. Fall in by Sergeant Jensen. Those on horse, to me.” He swung back onto his mount and waited for the warriors to come closer.
Six men, who were afoot, joined Sergeant Jensen, with their carbines in hand, pointing in the general direction of the approaching Indians. Another dozen mounted men lined up to the right of Brooks, their hands resting on the butts of their new model revolvers, waiting.
When the Indians were less than a hundred yards away, the young Lieutenant saw they were wearing paint. “Hold fire, boys. Let’s wait to see if they’re up to any mischief.”
From the center of the warriors, a single rider detached himself and with his left hand held before him, slowly rode toward the waiting Rangers. “Lieutenant, they’re just boys.”
Sure enough, even though they were around three hundred
feet away, he could see that despite the fearsome face paint, they were all teenagers. It was impossible to be certain, but he guessed they were between fourteen and eighteen. “Hold steady, let’s hear them out. It could be we’re dealing with some young bucks wanting to test their mettle by ranging south of the Red River. If they’re on their way to Mexico, I’d rather they keep right on going.”
From the line of horsemen to Brooks’ right, one of the Rangers quipped, “Apart from us and some prairie dogs, I’m damned if I know who they’d be raiding here.”
“If you’re going to talk in line, Reyes, why don’t you join me as we go find out if any of them speak English or Spanish.”
The two Rangers came to a stop halfway between the rest of the platoon and the young, mounted warriors. The lone rider approached from the Comanche. His horse was a majestic chestnut mustang. His face was painted white, with black stripes vertically overlaying the white paint. His long, black hair was braided down his back and his left hand remained outstretched. Despite the war paint, Brooks doubted the warrior was older than eighteen. In broken English, the warrior was the first to speak. “I, Naconah. I, we go to big river.”
Knowing every eye was focused on him, Brooks chose his words with care, “Naconah, you are in Texas. The Comanche Treaty means you stay north of the Red River. Why are you here?”
With a serious expression on his face, the young warrior shook his head. “No. Treaty say we not raid in Texas. We,” he paused, as he searched for the right words, “leave Texas alone. We go to big river.” He pointed south, toward Mexico. Then he shifted and pointed to himself and then to Brooks. “Peace.”