Jones shrugged. He knew, as everyone in the room knew, that the political future of both Crockett and Houston was absolutely nonexistent.
Crockett knew it, too. But Houston did not seem to—at least, not to Crockett. “What are you peddling, Sam?” he asked.
Houston leaned in conspiratorially, tipped his glass in Crockett’s direction and said, “Something a certain congressman might need before long.”
Crockett laughed. “You selling rocking chairs?”
Houston drained his glass and wiped his lips. “I am selling Texas,” he said.
Crockett shook his head, thinking, Here’s another one of Sam’s high-flown schemes. “What would I want with Norte Mexico?” Crockett said.
“Texas,” Houston corrected him. “No man will invest in a war to remain a province of Mexico.”
Crockett’s brow furrowed. “You figger on becoming part of the U.S.?”
Houston smiled and raised his glass: “To the Republic of Texas.”
Crockett reluctantly raised his glass to Houston’s toast. They both drank.
Houston said, “Remember how Tennessee was, David?”
Crockett nodded warily.
“Texas is better,” Houston said. “Timber, water, game, cattle and more land than you have ever seen in your life. It is a virtual paradise, and you can go to dwell there without the formality of dying first.”
Crockett looked impressed.
Houston continued, “Take the oath for militia duty and you will receive six hundred and forty acres of your choosing.”
As Crockett considered this enticing incentive, Houston spotted a wealthy-looking man in the middle of the room. “Now that man looks to have capital,” he said. He patted Crockett’s shoulder and walked away.
Crockett called after him. “Sam?”
Houston stopped and turned.
“You figger this new republic is going to need a president?”
The two men shared a look and a smile. Then Sam Houston continued across the room, looking to plant one more seed for the future.
CHAPTER THREE
George Kimball opened the door with a flourish.
“Here it is, Almeron,” he said, smiling proudly. “Our own hat shop—Kimball and Dickinson.”
Almeron ushered in his wife, Susanna, before him, and then stepped into the small shop. The shelves were lined with hats of every description, from expensive tall beaver hats to cheap cloth caps with narrow brims. As a hatter, Kimball was proudest of his fine hats, produced especially for the upper crust. But he was pragmatic enough to know that Gonzales was not exactly New Orleans, and that the bulk of his business would come from farmers and storekeepers, mostly Anglo newcomers to Texas with little money to spend.
“Oh, Almeron,” Susanna said, clutching his arm. “It is beautiful. But are you sure this is a wise decision?”
Almeron laughed. They had talked over the subject a dozen times. “Did I not tell you, George?” he said. “Women these days just do not appreciate the finer points of big business.” He affectionately gripped Susanna’s shoulders. “I am just a co-owner of the shop, Sue,” he said. “George does not expect me to help run the place.” He turned to Kimball with a teasing look on his face. “Or do you, George?”
Kimball smiled. “Oh well,” he said, “perhaps you can sweep up in the evenings.”
They all laughed.
“I know,” Susanna said. “But you remain so busy with the blacksmith shop. And now this . . . I just worry that you are taking too much on.” She patted her rounded stomach. “Besides, you are going to have yet another job before too long . . . Papa.”
Almeron embraced her. “That is exactly why I want to do this. As Gonzales grows larger, my blacksmith business will grow more prosperous, and so will our hat shop. Why, by the time my son is born . . .”
“ . . . or daughter,” Susanna corrected him, smiling.
Almeron returned the smile. “Or daughter. By that time we will be well on the way to making our fortune. It is why we came here, all this way from Tennessee.”
Susanna placed her head on her husband’s chest. What he said was true. Their lives had been one of constant struggle on their old farm back East. Like so many of their neighbors, they came to Texas firmly convinced that it was a paradise of promise, that it was big enough to fulfill all of their wildest dreams.
Susanna looked at Kimball. “Do you see what you have done to my husband, George?” she said. “You have turned him into a business tycoon, more concerned with making a fortune than spending time with his poor wifey and baby daughter.”
“Or son,” Almeron corrected, grinning.
“Do not worry, Susanna,” Kimball said. “It may turn out that Almeron might not be a millionaire for weeks and weeks yet. You will have plenty of time to adjust to your incredible fortune.”
“Oh well,” Susanna said brightly. “If it will be weeks and weeks . . .”
In due course, those weeks and weeks passed. Almeron was not quite a millionaire yet, but he divided his time between his two businesses while caring for his pregnant wife. And when their baby daughter was born, Almeron took on a new job; not a high-paying one, but the most rewarding of all.
Almeron never actually worked in the hat shop; that was Kimball’s territory and Almeron was content to remain a silent partner. But Susanna enjoyed helping out there from time to time. Angelina was a quiet child who slept easily and was almost always in a good mood. She had a comfortable crib in the back room of Kimball and Dickinson’s for when Susanna took her turn behind the counter.
On a day late in September, Susanna and Kimball were taking inventory. There had been few customers that day but business had generally been so good that neither of them was worried. They looked upon the slow day as a good thing—a little breathing room. Almeron walked in with a large tin pail. “I have brought the midday meal,” he announced.
Kimball smiled. “You will make a wonderful wife for someone someday,” he said.
Almeron laughed. “Well, it is certain that I am that rarest of husbands. Who else would allow his wife to work in a store while he has to cook his own meals and wash his own dishes? It is not natural!”
Susanna kissed him on the cheek and took the pail from his hand. She had already set the table in the back room so they could eat while gazing upon their beloved daughter. “I did not marry you because you were natural,” she said teasingly, “but because you are the best of all possible husbands.”
Almeron bowed. “I must humbly agree with your sentiment.”
The door of the shop slammed open. Sixteen-year-old Galba Fuqua burst into the room, panic on his face. “You are here,” he said breathlessly. “The mayor wants every man to meet up by the crossing on the Guadalupe. As soon as you can!”
Susanna felt a jolt of fear travel up her spine.
“Galba,” she said, “what is it? What is the matter?”
“Mexicans!” he said, his eyes bright with excitement. “The mayor said bring your guns.” The boy turned without another word and raced out of the store.
Almeron looked at Susanna and smiled a little in a vain attempt to calm her. He turned to Kimball and said, “Fetch your rifle, George. I highly doubt if we will need it.”
To Susanna he said, “Stay here, Sue. Everything will be fine. You know Galba—he is a very excitable boy.”
Susanna kissed her husband and glanced at Kimball. “George,” she said in a tight voice, “take care of . . . take care of both of you.”
The crossing was about four miles north of town. By the time Almeron Dickinson and George Kimball arrived there looked to be over a hundred men present, milling around, waiting for instructions. Andrew Ponton, the mayor of Gonzales, walked through the crowd, responding to questions with terse answers. His soft belly and pallid complexion indicated a life lived indoors and in relative inactivity. He did not seem to be exactly in his element, in command of what looked to be a war party. Ponton spotted Almeron and walked toward him.
/> “This could be bad, Almeron,” he said.
“What is it, Andrew?” Almeron said.
“You know that old cannon we have had around here for years?” Ponton asked.
Almeron nodded. “It was here when I got to Gonzales four years ago. Not much of a gun.”
Ponton said, “No, not much of a gun. But now the Mexicans want it back.”
“Whatever for?” Kimball said.
Ponton shook his head. “I do not know. I can only assume that they believe we will use it against them. As if we could even cause any harm with that pathetic instrument. Anyway, they sent a Colonel Ugartechea to retrieve it.”
“What did you do?” Almeron said.
Ponton smiled a little. “I had a very polite parley with him. I told the man I had no authority to turn the cannon over to him. Told him if I made a decision like that, I would be kicked out of the mayor’s office and would never be elected again. I said I would have to consult with my constituents to decide what to do.”
Kimball said, “And he just left?”
Ponton nodded nervously. “He said he would be back today and that I had better have the cannon ready to turn over to them or there would be . . . reprisals.”
Almeron said, “Where is the cannon now?”
Ponton’s smile widened. “I buried it. In the peach orchard.”
Almeron looked to Kimball and then to Ponton. “Well sir, I think you had better dig it up.”
“Dig it up?” Ponton said.
Almeron nodded. “If the Mexicans want our cannon, I believe we ought to give it to them.”
By sundown, the crowd at the riverbank had swollen to over 150 men—nearly all the adult males in Gonzales. Some of them laughed when the cannon was wheeled into their midst. It was a small, slightly ridiculous gun, capable only of firing six-pound shells. It may have once been mounted on real wheels, but they were gone now. Someone had cobbled together rough wheels from tree trunks and the little gun swiveled and wobbled on them like a silly child’s toy.
The men examined it. Young, a recent immigrant from Illinois, said, “Will it even fire?”
Almeron said, “I do not have much confidence that it will shoot a shell, but it may just make enough noise to send a message to the Mexicans.”
Kimball shook his head ruefully. “If it makes even a small farting noise, it is a better gun than I currently give it credit for being!”
The men laughed. Under Almeron’s direction, they cleaned the dirt off it and began preparing it to fire. There were no shells handy, so they loaded it with scrap iron, horseshoes and nails. And then, they waited for sunrise.
The mist was heavy over the Guadalupe, and light was just beginning to peek over the horizon, when a voice called out, “There they are!”
The Texians could see that, across the river, the Mexicans had quietly set up camp overnight. It looked to Almeron like there were about a hundred of them. An officer stood on the opposite bank, smiling a conciliatory smile.
The officer called out, “I am Lieutenant Francisco Castañeda. I have been ordered by Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea to take back a cannon that is known to be in your possession.”
Almeron called back, “I am pleased to meet you.” The other men of Gonzales gathered behind him. “Please give the colonel our regards and deliver this message. . . .” Almeron raised his voice. “If you want our cannon,” he shouted, “come and take it!”
The other men cheered. Someone had already prepared a banner with a crudely drawn picture of the cannon and the words COME AND TAKE IT! printed above it. They waved their banner and shouted at the puzzled lieutenant.
Without a word, he turned and stormed back to his camp, deeper in the woods. “Get ready, fellows,” Almeron said. “They might just come and take it after all.”
But the Mexicans did not make a move. All day long the Gonzales men stood at the ready, but the enemy took no action.
Just after sundown, the Texians had a meeting to decide what their next move should be. Kimball said, “I believe we had better take the bull by the horns.” The others looked at him, concerned and questioning. “Here’s the way I see it,” he said. “We outnumber them. This cannon is little more than a pop gun, but it is one more cannon than they have. I figure if we hit them hard and unexpectedly, we can have them skedaddling back to Mexico with their tails between their legs.”
Almeron nodded. “I think George is right. If they are not going to attack us, I say we attack them. Something tells me our brave Lieutenant Castañeda will not be able to mount much of a defense. He looks like he just started wearing long pants.”
Mayor Ponton nodded. “Then it is decided. What is your plan of attack?”
In the hour before dawn, thick fog blanketed the ground. During the night, the men of Gonzales had quietly moved about half a mile down the river, to a shallow crossing point. They placed the cannon on a rudely constructed raft and floated it across. The men waded or swam to the other side. Once on shore, as silently as possible, they felt their way through the dark woods in the direction of the Mexican camp. When they were about three hundred yards away, Almeron pointed to the dim glow of two campfires in the distance. “Aim there,” he whispered.
The men raised their rifles to their shoulders and aimed, waiting for Almeron’s order. Kimball handed him a lighted torch, and Almeron nodded for the men to prepare themselves. He touched the torch to the cannon.
The blast was deep and loud. There was no way of knowing if any of its ersatz ammunition even reached the camp, but it did not matter much. The men of Gonzales fired a volley in the direction of the Mexican troops, and the sleeping soldiers awoke in panic and confusion.
Lieutenant Castañeda, shirtless and hatless, was rudely rousted from a deep sleep and leaped from his tent. Holding a saber in his left hand, the young officer looked as though he had stepped from one nightmare to another. Almeron almost laughed at his skittish terror. Castañeda waved his arms at the Gonzales force and shouted as loudly as he could. “Parley!” he called. “I request a parley!”
Almeron had already reloaded the cannon. It lobbed more scrap metal in the direction of the camp, followed by another volley of musket fire. The young lieutenant stopped calling for a parley and began running, along with most of his men, toward the main road. “Come and take it!” the conquering army taunted the retreating soldiers. “Come and take it!”
Kimball slapped Almeron on the back. “Think we got any of them?”
“Hard to tell,” Almeron said. “But they no longer seem to desire our cannon.”
The men laughed and cheered. Pathetic cannon or not, at that moment the Texians thought there was no army on earth that was the equal of them.
Susanna wept.
“Oh, darlin’,” Almeron said, lightly massaging her shoulders. “We will be back in no time at all.”
She said nothing.
Almeron said soothingly, “You saw how quickly we ran off the Mexicans from here in Gonzales. We will run them off from Béxar, too, just as easy. Then the war will be over and we can get back to more important things.”
He smiled toward the crib that he had crafted himself from the wood of a walnut tree. In it, their baby daughter, Angelina, gnawed on a piece of pork rind. She was over a year old, beautiful and bright. She would be walking and talking soon, making her next efforts toward becoming a full-fledged human being.
“You cannot blame me for worrying about you,” Susanna said. “Any kind of battle can turn deadly for someone. Even if you win, there are bound to be casualties.”
“I will not be hurt,” Almeron said. “I cannot. I have forged a special suit of armor in my shop. I will clink and clank at the Mexicans and they will flee in fear.”
Susanna laughed a little despite herself. What she did not want to say was that she was also worried about herself, and about Angelina. Even as more trouble was brewing with the Mexican army, there were unexpected threats at home, too. Roaming bands of white mercenaries were taking advantage
of the confusion of war. Susanna had heard terrible stories. It was said that these terrible men were looting businesses, raping women and taking over private homes for themselves. Almeron and many of the town’s good and honest men were leaving to fight the Mexicans in Béxar. But there were new men in Gonzales now, and they did not seem to be good or honest. Susanna feared that among them were some of these terrible brigands. These men looked at her in the most disconcerting way as she passed on the street. Sometimes they muttered things under their breath. Susanna could not understand what they were saying, but the tone was clear enough. She felt vulnerable enough while Almeron was there. With him gone with the army to San Antonio de Béxar, she would be alone and helpless.
Almeron knew about the marauders, too. He did not mention his own fears to Susanna but had been quietly making arrangements of his own.
“I will only be gone for a few days,” he said. “In the meantime, I have asked Smither to check in on you from time to time.”
Launcelot Smither was a farmer who lived just on the outskirts of Gonzales. Some said that he had once been a doctor but Almeron knew little about him; Smither was not the kind of man to answer questions about himself, and he certainly never volunteered any personal information. But Almeron knew that he was both honest and trustworthy. Smither was an accomplished shooter and could be relied upon to protect Almeron’s family just as well as Almeron himself could.
Susanna crinkled her nose. “I do not like that Mr. Smither very much. That smell . . .”
“He raises pigs,” Almeron agreed, “and perhaps he does not keep himself as tidy as you might prefer. But he’s a good man. You can count on him completely. If you ever . . . need anything, just get word to him and he will be by your side. He will also stop by every day, just to make sure you are doing all right. And do not forget, George Kimball will remain here. Everything will be fine.”
Susanna looked at her husband suspiciously. “You have never sought protection for me before,” she said. “Why now?”
Almeron did not meet her gaze. “These are troubled times. The Mexicans . . . and everything. I just want to keep you safe.”
The Alamo Page 3