Hawk Banks - Founding Texas

by D. Allen Henry

Chapter 21

  How Wars are Won and Lost

  The Army will cross and will meet the enemy. Some of us may be killed and must be killed; but, soldiers, remember the Alamo, the Alamo, the Alamo!

  -Sam Houston

  San Jacinto, Texas-April 21, 1836

  General Santa Anna gazed out over the prairie, wishing he were at home in his beloved Manga de Clavo. He deserved better than this, to be sleeping in a tent along some stinking marsh, a thousand miles from home. But such was the lot of great men - he had to preserve his country against these backwoods rebels.

  He pondered the coming battle, feeling giddy with excitement. The men would hoist him on their shoulders tomorrow. He would be immortal in Mexico. They would hold a great parade for him, just like Napoleon, perhaps even rivaling Caesar’s victory parade!

  Along the Nearby Bayou

  Sam Houston thought back to that battle twenty-odd years ago, when he’d been with Andy Jackson. Things hadn’t looked so good, but they had won it, all the same. Seemed just like old times to him now. They had managed to evade Santa Anna’s army for more than a month, but now it was all coming down to the end game. The odds were long. Santa Anna had perhaps five thousand men. Houston had less than a thousand. And yet, he liked the odds. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have turned back from the Sabine. He knew he was running out of time. The men were just plain pissed off. More were deserting every day, and those that weren’t had reached the point where they would just as soon shoot him as the enemy. Men who go off to fight in a killing mood are the ones you want on your side.

  Everything he’d heard from his scouts told him the Mexicans were tired and ill-prepared for battle. That brought the odds down from five-to-one to perhaps two-to-one. He needed just one more development in his favor, and the odds would be just right.

  Houston thought on the famous battle of Agincourt. The English had defeated the French against overwhelming odds. The English King Henry IV had pulled it off by taking advantage of weaponry, weather, and confusion in the opponents’ ranks.

  Perhaps Houston could play the same game. Although the weather was good, he nonetheless aimed to catch the Mexican Army exposed in such a way as to get them sort of bogged down, just the way the French horsemen had been at Agincourt.

  The English had had superior weapons – the long bow. Houston reckoned that the Texians held the advantage here, too. Virtually every Texian in the army had grown up shooting small game as a means of feeding themselves.

  Finally, at Agincourt the French Army had been unable to adjust to the English army’s disorganized charge on the battlefield. Houston didn’t really have an army, he knew that. Despite their training over the past month, this was no army in any sense of the word. They were just a bunch of hard men who knew how to fight. Houston hoped that this would play into their favor on the battlefield, exactly as it had for the English at Agincourt.

  The Mexican Army could be expected to charge in Napoleonic order, holding ranks at all costs. The Texians wouldn’t hold ranks. Fact was, they didn’t even have a clue what ranks were! Houston calculated that on the battlefield the Texians would run like the wind and shoot at anything that moved. If he could catch Santa Anna somewhere just right, someplace where there was no place for them to hide from the Texians, they just might pull it off, just like Agincourt four hundred years ago.

  Within the Texian Camp

  Hawk didn’t like the look of things. He could see bayou everywhere he looked to the north and east. That was a big body of water off to their left. There was no way the army was going to cross that. He was thinking things through. What the hell was Houston up to? The Mexican Army was not more than a mile away. Hawk, having caught a couple of fleeting glimpses of soldiers on horseback earlier that morning, he was certain they were out there, off to the south and west.

  This looked to be it – the culmination of all that endless retreat across Texas. Just exactly how long had he been traipsing around Texas? Damn, he thought to himself, he’d been walking for more than a year now, a full year since he’d crossed the Sabine and shown up in Nacogdoches. Except for snatches here and there, he’d been either walking or riding more or less continuously ever since.

  Dang, Texas was big! Was he ever going to walk out of it, or was he going to die right here, maybe tomorrow? Well, heck, he thought to himself, probably should have died at the Alamo, and would’ve if it hadn’t been for Juan Seguin.

  There was no point in getting maudlin about it. Hawk figured he’d walked all this way looking for a good time, and damned if he hadn’t had a fine old time right up to this very moment. So win or lose on the morrow, he couldn’t blame anyone but himself, that was for darn sure. So might as well just go with it and have the best time he could. But he sure as hell hoped that General Houston knew what he was doing. Otherwise the party was about to come to an inglorious end.

  Outside the Tent

  Hank sauntered up and observed to no one in particular, “God damned boots is ruined.”

  Being the only one close by, Hawk answered pithily, “I doubt seriously that God ever damned your boots, Hank. They were damned by you yourself when you set off to join this godforsaken army.”

  “Screw you, Hawk Banks!” Hank responded crossly, “My feet are killing me. Ain’t gonna make it another day in this here army without some rest. I sure as heck hope we’re stopping here for a bit.”

  Hawk rose, a cup of coffee in his hand, and volunteered, “Well, then, I got good news for you, Corporal. After tomorrow you ain’t gonna need them boots. Because you’re either gonna be on your way to meet the God you just got through damning, or this war is going be over. Either way, those boots have run their course.”

  Glancing furtively about as if he’d missed some profound event, Hank inquired, “What the hell you talking about, Hawk?

  “Sometimes I think you have cow turds stuffed between your ears, Hank. We have arrived! This is the place! We’re going to fight it out with the Army of Mexico right here on this very spot!”

  Hank peered doubtfully at Hawk, scratched his beard a moment, then shifted to scratching his left elbow with his right hand. But eventually he found the gumption to ask, “How long we been friends, Hawk? Must be six, going on seven months by now, I reckon.”

  Uncertain as to exactly where Hank’s train of thought was leading, Hawk allowed, “Sounds right to me.”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Hank responded with a frown, “You don’t never seem to be wrong about nothin’, Hawk. Why the hell is that, I ask you?”

  “Aw crap, my man. I’ve been wrong, I’ve been wrong about plenty!”

  “Well, I hope you sure as hell are this time, because if you’re right, we are standing in some mighty deep crap right now, sir.”

  Hawk now took his turn to scratch. He then suggested, “Well, here’s how I see it, Hank. We got ourselves cornered in this stinking bayou. Can’t go anywhere but right back where we came from, and over yonder is where the whole damn Mexican Army is camping at this very moment!”

  “Well, done seen the bayou,” Hank responded matter-of-factly, “Truth is, I just got through fillin’ it a bit. You’re right about not crossing that thing – it’s way too big for that. I saw them Mexican cavalrymen this morning, too. Guess I didn’t think it all through yet, but now I see where you’re going with it. Yes, sir, I believe I agree with you entirely.” Hank paused for good measure, but thinking better of it, he added tangentially, “Well, this here is indeed a fine day if I do say so myself.”

  Now it was Hawk’s turn to inquire, “How so?”

  “Well, you done said it yourself, Hawk. Seems I’ll be havin’ no more need of these damn boots! I don’t mind telling you, - that is the best news I’ve had in weeks.”

  Hearing this, Hawk broke into a grin from ear to ear. “Now you’re talking, Hank MacElrae! We have a party to prepare for, and it’s going be the mother of all parties.
We’re about to dance with the whole dang Army of Mexico, I reckon.”

  “’Bout time if you ask me,” was all Hank could think of as a rejoinder. “Bet I know what your next piece of advice is going to be.”

  “What’s that,” Hawk asked in return.

  “Get your affairs in order. You gave me that advice back in Bexar, remember?”

  “Now that you mention it, I do recall that episode.”

  “Well, sir, you gonna?” Hank asked.

  “Gonna what?” Hawk inquired.

  “Get your affairs in order!” Hank retorted.

  “I reckon I don’t have a single one to get in order. Happy as a bumble bee snortin’ a morning glory. Everything’s in perfect order, if you ask me.”

  “Bullcrap, I say,” answered Hank. “You can’t go into battle without taming that rattlesnake down your pants, Hawk Banks!”

  “Rattlesnake, hell. That snake has sure enough run out of venom for the moment. Besides, I see nary a potential recipient handy at the moment!”

  “Haw, har, ha haa, haaaaa….” Hank guffawed and, halting to wipe the tears from his eyes, he laughed some more.

  Nonplussed, Hawk queried insipidly, “What in blazes are you so happy about, pray tell?”

  Hank submitted, “Ain’t never won no talking match with you, least not till now. That’s one for me, Banks, and you can bank on it! Har har…” and, the contest at an end, he drifted into self-satisfied silence.

  Hawk contemplated for a moment and shot back, “Yeah, right. Score’s up to one to about a hundred thousand. Keep on trying, Mister wet-behind-the-ears!”

  But the damage had been done - Hank was proud of himself, and there was nothing that could erase it. Perhaps he was finally ready to go into battle. Hawk sure hoped so.

  Texian Camp Headquarters

  General Houston blurted incredulously, “You say there’s nobody from the entire Mexican Army guarding that bridge?”

  “No sir, least not when I looked a couple of hours ago,” responded the scout.

  “Gentlemen,” Houston commenced and, breaking into a broad grin, he posited, “I am convinced that this is the time and the place. We will make our stand here. We’re going to attack.”

  “General,” one officer inquired doubtfully, “I know I’ve said we needed to take the battle to them, but is this the right place for that? We’re bottled up alongside this here bayou. What with all these creeks surrounding us, there’s no means of retreat. If they get to running down on us, we’ll be slaughtered!”

  “That’s exactly what I’m countin’ on,” Houston countered, “We got no choice, we got to win or die. Gentlemen, this is a matter of life and death. We’re fightin’ for the birth of a nation, the nation of Texas. We’re fightin’ for liberty, and I for one can think of no better time to do it than right now. Yes, we’re outnumbered, but at least half of Santa Anna’s forces are at this very moment trapped on the other side of the river. There can’t be more than a couple thousand of them on our side of the river. Now that’s still two-to-one odds, but I’ll take those odds. In two months of running from Santa Anna, the odds have never been more favorable. And we’re rested up, better than we have been for some time. Right now, at this very moment, we just might be able to catch the enemy off guard.”

  “How so, general?”

  “Rumor has it that Santa Anna has a siesta every afternoon, and his troops follow suit.” There was a low restrained bit of laughter from the group, prompting Houston to add, “Now here is what I propose. I’ll get Deaf Smith to go out and burn down that bridge. That way no more enemy troops can cross over to this side of the river. And if we don’t do it right this minute, they will cross the river, perhaps two thousand or more of them. Then where will we be? Up the creek, that’s where. Right now, let’s take it to them, for the Alamo, for Goliad!”

  At this, a few voices chimed in with “Yeah,” and “You tell ‘em, General!” Though there were a few who still doubted the general, no one was willing to suggest anything further. The time had come, and each man knew it all too well.

  “Form up the troops,” commanded Houston, “But tell them to do it quietly. We must take the enemy by surprise, while they’re still enjoying their afternoon siesta.” The tent now emptied quickly, the officers scurrying off to prepare for battle.

  “Get me Deaf Smith,” Houston commanded.

  “He’s right here,” said Captain Seguin.