Houston had seen Indian villages that were composed of tepees and hastily constructed wood lodges. But the Cherokee had built something more stable and permanent along the Neosho River, which flowed serenely through a pine forest. Some lived in log cabins, roofed with bark. Smoke puffed from stone chimneys, and tanned hides covered the windows and doorways. Others lived in huts made from adobe, a material made through a technique learned long ago from the Indians and Mexicans of the West. At the center of the village stood a long, sedate lodge, large enough to accommodate every citizen for town meetings or, more rarely, war parties.
Except for the excitement of the game, the village was peaceful and calm. It looked like home to Houston. He reined his horse to a stop at the top of the hill and looked down on it fondly. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a silver flask, took a nip, then quickly put it away again. A few children, hearing the hoofbeats, noticed him first. They began running toward him, squealing in delight. Some alert parents looked in the direction in which their children were running and saw Houston, too. A buzz went through the residents. Even the players on the field stopped and trained their eyes toward the top of the hill. By the time Houston rode into the village, all eyes were on him.
Talihina Rogers did not at first notice Houston, even though a day never passed that she did not gaze up the river path and hope that she would see him there, coming back to her. Intent on her beadwork, absorbed in a particularly troublesome design, Talihina was not aware of anything else until a woman sitting to her left nudged her, smiling. “The Raven is back,” the woman said.
It was not Talihina’s way to show her emotions to others, so she glanced at Houston and resumed her beadwork. She did not take her eyes from it, even as Houston continued riding straight for her. When she heard his horse stop only a few feet from her, she glanced up again. The entire village gathered around, wordlessly watching this little domestic drama. They all knew what neither Houston nor Talihina would reveal. Houston barely noticed that he was the object of such intense scrutiny, like an actor performing in the round. He was staring at Talihina, marveling, as always, at her beauty, her poise. Like him she was something of an outsider. Her mother was Cherokee, but her father was white. Her hair was as black as midnight, but her eyes were light gray, tinged with flecks of brilliant blue. She was taller than most of the women in the village; some of them believed that this was why she had been chosen by the Raven. He was the tallest man that most of them had ever seen. It only seemed right that he would choose a woman like Talihina as his mate.
Without a word, Talihina stood and walked into her cabin. Houston, still having not yet acknowledged anyone else, followed her inside and closed the door. The Cherokees smiled and nodded to each other and walked away, leaving the two to their reunion.
The cozy cabin was just as Houston remembered it. Hemp carpets covered the floor. Beside a wall stood a table and stools carved from the wood of the poplar. Along the opposite wall there was a broad bed covered with animal skins. As Talihina walked to the bed, she pulled her dress over her head and let it drop to the floor. She turned, facing Houston, then lay on the bed and held her arms out to him. Now he was truly home.
Afterward, Houston sat on the bed while Talihina fetched some cloth, a small bag of herbs and a basin filled with water. She returned to the bed and sat beside him. His eternal wound, just above the knee, looked worse than ever. Talihina cleaned it with the wet cloth, then applied some of the herbs and wrapped it with a white bandage. She said to him, “This has become much worse.”
Houston felt uncomfortable at her ministrations and could barely allow himself to even look down at the wound.
Talihina smiled a little sardonically, “Did not your white wife ever dress it for you?”
There was no need to respond. His white wife, Eliza, had never dressed it. Indeed, she had never comforted him in any way during their brief, maddening union. He did not know why he continued to feel so guilty about Eliza. He had not, for once in his life, been the party at fault. He had spared her good name, had taken the responsibility onto his own shoulders for the failure of the marriage. He would even have divorced her, if she would only consent to it, to allow her to find another husband. But she had not consented, and so he had not divorced Eliza. That made his marriage to Talihina, five years ago, illegal in the white world. But in the eyes of the Cherokee, they were joined together by both God and law.
Talihina was only ten years old when she first laid eyes on Houston. He was twelve. Young Sam Houston walked into the Cherokee camp with a gun in one hand, a copy of Homer’s Iliad in the other and a look of frightened bravado on his face. He and Talihina became childhood friends. Later, as they became older, their friendship turned to lust, then love. They introduced each other to the sweet mysteries of the flesh, and although both of them went on to explore those mysteries with other partners, Houston and Talihina knew that there was a bond between them that could never be eradicated. His ambition kept taking him away from her—even led to his marriage to another woman. Talihina always pictured the white wife as pale and pasty, timid and mewling; not at all the strong, capable, passionate woman that Houston needed—and deserved.
When he returned to the village in 1830, he declared that he was finished with the white world. He asked Talihina to marry him and she consented. How could she refuse? They were fated to be one, for good or bad. No matter how temporary their lives together, they were eternally bound in their hearts. Even if Houston left one day and never returned, he and Talihina would never truly part.
Each time he returned, Houston swore that he would stay for good. But Talihina knew that he was drawn by something large and powerful; something like destiny. He had been wounded in battle at Horseshoe Bend, in the fight with the British that the Americans called the War of 1812. His unhealing wound was a constant, painful reminder of his other life, a physical manifestation of where he had been and what he had undergone. Just as the leg wound would never close, neither would his dreams of greatness fade away. His other life in the white world would never release its grasp upon him.
Talihina completed bandaging Houston’s leg and stood up. “I will get you some food,” she said. Houston reached from the bed and grasped her arm, firmly but gently. “I am not hungry,” he said.
“You have traveled a long distance,” Talihina said. “You need nourishment.”
“What I need,” he said, pulling her toward him, “is you.”
Chief Bowles sat at the head of the lodge, surrounded by leaders of the tribe. Houston sat before him, reflecting once again that Bowles looked like anything but a typical Cherokee. His mother had been a member of the tribe, but his father was Scottish. Their union had produced a hardy son with fair skin, bright red hair and a face mapped with freckles. Now eighty, Chief Bowles had been a father to Houston since the boy first arrived in the village thirty years earlier.
The council in San Felipe had sent Houston to the village to offer a treaty to Bowles—and to ensure that the Cherokee remained neutral in the coming fight against Mexico. The Texians believed that they were going to have a hard enough time fighting Santa Anna’s army without constantly watching their backs against Indian attack.
Houston spoke to his mentor in Cherokee. “We expect the Texas government to be in place before the end of the year—with luck, long before that. I am here to assure you that you will retain all of your lands.” He paused for emphasis. “That is over a million and a half acres.”
Chief Bowles took a long draw from his pipe. “The Mexicans have treated us well,” he said. “They respect our borders. They do not try to move us to ever-worse lands. The Mexican government does not consider it legal to shoot Cherokee.”
Houston nodded slowly, taking a moment to gather himself. He had spent much of the day drinking, and was now concentrating as hard as he could in order to make his case in the most cogent way possible. The warriors were willing to listen to him as he made his pitch, but their faces showed that they expected
little from him, especially in his current state.
“My friends,” Houston said, looking around the lodge, “I realize this is not easy, to make a treaty with a country that is not yet a country, with a nation that has no real government. But that is what I have come to ask. For you, under the Texas government, life will remain the same. You can retain your own laws, live on your own land, pursue your own destiny.”
Chief Bowles took his time before answering, never taking his eyes from Houston’s.
“Raven,” he said, finally, “we fought together in the war against the Creek. I performed the ceremony when you took your Cherokee wife. We have even been to see the Great Father in Washington together.”
Houston smiled and said, “We got to bill all that whiskey to the U.S. Government.”
No one in the room laughed. Houston always felt that the Cherokee did not particularly appreciate his sense of humor.
Chief Bowles said, “There will be fighting in Texas, but it is not your fight. You were Cherokee long before you were Texian. The Cherokee are already a nation. Stay with us and be a representative for our people.”
Houston looked out the door of the lodge, to the peaceful village beyond. Bowles’s proposition was a tempting one. The Cherokee were his family. Talihina was his wife. He understood them like no other, and could defend their rights as no one else could, or would. But Houston knew that it was impossible for him to accept the offer.
A part of him, the nervous twelve-year-old who had first come to this place and found a home here, could stay in the village happily for the rest of his life, raising a family with Talihina, living in perfect peace and contentment. But there was another part of him, the part that knew he was destined for something great, no matter how lonely or bloody was the road to that greatness. The choice was agonizing but clear. He could live a life of happiness, or he could be a ruthless conqueror.
And, God help him, he wanted to be a conqueror, wanted it more than anything in life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The ferry that crossed the Red River was loaded to capacity and beyond. With ten passengers, each with his own horse, as well as a large shipment of mercantile supplies, the creaky wooden craft sat several inches lower in the water than normal. As the ferry made its slow way across the river, little waves continually licked onto the deck. If it made Pasqua nervous, he did not let on. The crotchety old ferryman sat on a bench at the rear of the boat, a rudder in one hand and a bottle in the other. There was a beatific look on his face, as though this were the very life he would have chosen for himself, above all others.
David Crockett looked at Pasqua with some concern, but tried hard not to let it worry him. The opposite bank was close. If the worst happened, Crockett figured, he and his friends could swim to shore easily enough. Standing on the crowded deck with Crockett were his nephew William Patton and his friend Micajah Autry. Autry was a North Carolinian in his early forties. He had tried his hand at teaching and, like nearly every other man Crockett met—or so it seemed—lawyering. But it was Autry’s poetry that drew Crockett to him. A taciturn man who seldom smiled, Autry had a surprisingly whimsical nature that only revealed itself in his writings. On their journey toward Texas, the two men had spent more than one evening sitting by the campfire, Crockett scratching out mournful airs or lively jigs on his fiddle, while Autry read his latest poem. Crockett admired literary talent; he was inordinately proud of the book that bore his own name as author . . . despite the fact that he had not exactly written it.
As the ferry pulled up to the landing, P. A. Hutton, a nosy local merchant, eyed the group of strangers curiously from where he stood on the dock. He and his hired boy Jackson began unloading mercantile supplies. Hutton spat a wad of tobacco and said to Crockett, “Welcome to Texas.”
“How do,” Crockett replied, carefully avoiding Hutton’s eyes. He was trying his best to remain anonymous. Often, when people realized who he was, they were so thrilled that he had to start giving speeches, shaking hands, being funny. When speaking to Autry about it, he called it “being Davy.” It could be exhausting being Davy.
“Where you fellers hail from?” Hutton asked. Jackson was doing most of the work, and the sour look on his face showed that he knew it.
“Tennessee, mostly,” Crockett said, tending to his supplies.
Hutton nodded wisely. “We get ’em from all parts these days,” he said. He looked closely at Crockett. “Desperadoes, debtors, confidence men . . .” He watched Jackson unload a crate of rifles—by himself—and smiled. “But hell,” Hutton said, spitting more tobacco juice toward the river, “now we got them Meskins outnumbered near ten to one.”
Crockett nodded, clearly not interested. “That so?”
A few other locals began to gather. They were curious about the newcomers, too. Hutton said to Crockett, “What brings you fellers? Land? Prospectin’?”
“Heard there’s some nice wild country left here,” Crockett said. “Some buffalo wanderin’ loose. Some bear. Thought we’d give it a look-see.”
Hutton frowned. He was disappointed. “You did not come to fight?”
Crockett laughed. “Not unless them bisons shoot back at us,” he said.
The onlookers chuckled at this. Some, staring at Crockett, had begun to whisper.
“Say,” Crockett said to Hutton, “what’s the lodgings like around here?”
Hutton pointed up the riverbank to a rickety building made of uneven planks. “Lost Prairie Hotel” was painted unevenly on the side. “You are speakin’ to the proprietor,” Hutton said proudly.
Crockett nodded. He made sure his friends weren’t watching, then pulled out a silver pocket watch and handed it to Hutton. “Listen,” he said, “this here is real silver.”
Hutton popped the watch open and read the inscription. Suspicious, he said, “How’d you come by it?”
Crockett was embarrassed and looked away. “It was . . . it was presented . . .”
A light blinked on in Hutton’s eyes. “You are David Crockett?”
The cat was out of the bag. Crockett gave him a weak smile and spoke in a low voice, “Guilty.”
The name rippled through the crowd. Now there were more than a dozen onlookers and Crockett could hear his name whispered more than a dozen times—Davy Crockett . . . Davy Crockett . . . Davy Crockett . . .
Hutton grabbed Crockett’s hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “I will be damned!” he said. “I thought you was off in Washington!”
There was no getting out of it now. Crockett smiled broadly and said in a loud voice the words he had already said at several stops along the way: “Well, there was this little detail of an election back home. I told them folks, ‘You do not vote me back in, you can go to hell and I will go to Texas!’ ”
The crowd laughed and cheered. Crockett thought he should work on the speech a little. The next time, he could add a little more detail, get a few more laughs.
When the laughter died down, Crockett said, as much to himself as to the crowd, “So, here I am. . . .”
CHAPTER TWELVE
J. C. Neill and William Barret Travis stood on the flat roof atop the main gate of the Alamo. From there they had a panoramic view of the whole rambling compound. It was obvious that it had not been built to serve as a fort. It was much too big, for one thing; it spread over three acres. The long stretches of adobe wall were strong but were totally devoid of embrasures or firing ports. Even to Travis, who had no experience with forts, it was immediately apparent that in order to defend such walls, men would have to expose themselves to enemy fire—and that was definitely not a good idea. Even if the walls were defendable, Travis thought, it would take many men to do the job—several times the 150 or so who currently occupied the place.
“It was founded as a mission over a hundred years ago,” Neill said. “The Béxarenos call it the Alamo. I am not completely sure why.”
Travis said, “Alamo means ‘cottonwood’ in Spanish. Maybe it was named after the tree.”
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Neill looked doubtful. “Maybe. But do you see any cottonwoods around here? Anyway, somebody told me it was named after Alamo de Parras—a Spanish cavalry company that occupied the place years ago. As you can see, it was not designed with military intentions.”
The Alamo’s flaws seemed perfectly obvious, so Travis tried to concentrate on its strengths. “The fort is well armed,” Travis said.
“We have got the most cannon of any fort west of the Mississippi,” Neill said, a note of pride in his voice. “General Cós left most of them behind when he skedaddled. I have placed our largest, the eighteen pounder, on the southwest wall, so it fronts the town.” He pointed to the wall opposite where they stood, on the far side of the compound. “The north wall is in ruins, so I have two batteries with five cannon to defend it.” Neill’s arm swept to the right. He indicated a two-story structure on the east side of the fort. “What was the original convento is now barracks and a makeshift infirmary. We call it the long barracks.” Travis nodded, taking it all in. Neill patted him on the shoulder and said, “Let us walk, shall we?”
Neill climbed down the ladder from the south gate roof and Travis followed. At the corner of the building, tall, sandy-haired Green Jameson stood cleaning his eyeglasses, watching as two men put the finishing touches on a low fence made of wooden posts that had been sharpened at the tops.
Neill said, “Colonel Travis, this is Major Jameson, our engineer. He is emplacing a palisade between the main gate and the church building here.” Outside the fort, on the other side of the wooden posts was a deep ditch. It was lined with trees and brush. As a position it looked vulnerable, but Travis could tell that its appearance was deceptive. It would be difficult for the enemy to get through the sharp branches, through the deep ditch and over the sharpened posts.
Travis said, “What was there before?”
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