The crowd laughed. Someone called out, “What brings you to Béxar, Davy?”
Crockett grinned his biggest coon-killing grin. He had given his speech some thought since that day back at the Red River. “Well sir,” he said, “there was this little detail of a reelection back home. You see, I was voted out of office by the fine folks in my district and a ‘gentleman’ with a wooden leg was voted in. Between you and me, I have seen that feller drink and I am plain convinced that his leg was not only wood, it was hollow!”
More laughter.
“Yes, sir! You know what I told them folks?” Crockett said. “I told ’em, ‘You elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me? Well, you can all go to hell—I am going to Texas!’ ”
The crowd cheered and applauded. Mial Scurlock shouted, “Davy Crockett’s thrown in with Texas!” and everyone cheered again.
Crockett quieted the crowd again, still smiling. “Fellow citizens,” he said, “I have come to this Texas country to aid you all that I can in your noble cause. All the honor I desire is that of defending as a private . . . well, a high private . . . the liberties of our common country!”
His speech was met with a roar of approval. It seemed to Crockett that he had come to the right place. Failure in Washington meant less than nothing out here on the far frontier. If an election were held this very night, Crockett had no doubt that he would easily be elected. He saw no reason why that fact should change when the real election time rolled around.
Crockett stepped down from his bench and moved through the crowd, shaking hands and patting small children on the head. Micajah Autry walked just behind him, enjoying Crockett’s celebrity—and watching his back. Albert Grimes stepped up to Crockett with a book in his hand—a tattered, dog-eared, very well read book. Crockett smiled a little sardonically when he saw the title: A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett. Grimes handed Crockett the book and a pencil. “Put your mark in it, Mr. Crockett?” he said.
Crockett took the book from his hand, signed it and handed it back to Grimes.
Scurlock said, grinning, “ ‘I am half alligator, half snapping turtle. I can slide off a rainbow and jump the Mississippi in a single leap.’ Davy . . . Tell ’em. How you can whip your weight in wildcats. I seen you on the stage. . . .”
Crockett, still smiling—although a little less so—shook his head gently and said, “That was not me.”
“Why, sure it was,” Scurlock said, slapping Crockett on the back.
Crockett said, “That was an actor in a play, performing a character. . . .”
“Say the lines, Davy,” Scurlock interrupted. “Lion of the West!”
Crockett eyed the crowd with a growing uncertainty, looking for a way to change the subject.
“I dare Sant’anna to show his face now that you are here!” Grimes said.
Crockett did not like the sound of that. “I had understood the fighting was over,” he said hopefully. “Ain’t it . . . ?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Mexican army continued to trudge north through South Texas. The weather was frightful—freezing cold, battering rain and sleet. There was even the occasional snowstorm. Many of the conscripts, accustomed to the lush warmth of their tropical native land, had never seen snow before. The novelty frightened and thrilled them at first, then tortured them with its bone-chilling cold. Even the best-equipped soldiers were ragged and tired. Many of the peons had no shoes and wore only the light cotton work clothes in which they had been conscripted.
Jesús was one of the lucky ones. His ill-fitting uniform was warm, at least, and his feet were protected by tattered shoes. He watched as, nearby, a half-dozen peons helped to push a brass cannon on a small, ox-drawn wagon across a shallow part of the riverbed. A dozen dust-covered lancers eased their mounts into the water and rode past the peons, splashing them heedlessly. Jesús had never ridden a horse, but wished that he were on one now. It would make the journey so much easier, he thought. More important, the horseman got respect and the lowly foot soldier got none.
He carried a heavy bundle of supplies on his back, a tumpline taut across his forehead. A chain gang of leg-shackled convicts shuffled along beside him carrying similar burdens. He was told that he was a soldier, but he felt like a prisoner, a slave.
As he trudged along, his sergeant fell into step beside him. The sergeant was a hard soldier but kind in his way. Jesús was grateful that the man was sometimes willing to talk with him. It made the long hours and the rugged miles more bearable.
The sergeant looked around at the bleak and barren landscape that surrounded them. Long stretches of prairie, with sparse vegetation. No plants to eat, no animals to kill for supper. “It is a desert,” he said.
“Béxar is beautiful,” Jesús said. “I was born in Texas, but my father only brought us to Béxar once.”
The sergeant shook his head. “It is the end of the earth,” he said.
“It sits on the banks of a river filled with fish,” Jesús said, remembering the happy visit. It was only three years ago, but seemed a lifetime away. “There are great fields of corn and beans. Big, shady trees.” He did not mention the lovely ladies, his favorite memory.
The sergeant shrugged. “We have all of those things in Mexico City. More,” he said. They tramped on for another mile, breathing heavily. “Where is your father now?” the sergeant asked.
“My father is dead,” Jesús said. “My grandfather is alone. I am going to die in a far land.”
The sergeant nodded. “It is a land without God,” he said.
They plodded along for a while in silence. Jesús said, “Where do you come from, Sergeant?”
“From the port of Vera Cruz,” the man said, smiling faintly. “All my brothers are sailors.”
“But not you?” Jesús asked.
The sergeant shook his head. “I get seasick.”
They walked along for another mile, or ten. “Will we win this war, Sergeant?” Jesús said.
The sergeant looked at Jesús and patted him on the shoulder. “Santa Anna will win this war but we will not,” he said.
Jesús looked at him questioningly.
The sergeant said, “We are just cannon fodder, boy. Do not be in a hurry.”
At the head of the column, Santa Anna raised a hand and stopped. Everyone behind him immediately stopped, too. Santa Anna sat atop his horse alongside General Castrillón and they watched as two riders approached. Behind the riders, in the distance, was General Cós’s retreating army.
With a disgusted expression on his face, Santa Anna ordered the column forward again. Castrillón could see as they neared him that General Cós was exhausted and dispirited; he doubted that Santa Anna would notice, or care. When their columns met, Cós stopped his horse and faced his president.
Santa Anna glared at Cós with a mixture of pity and fury. “My wife asks me to give her useless brother a job and what happens?” he said, his voice heavy with contempt. “I end up in this shit hole Texas again.”
General Cós, miserable, said, “We were without supplies, Your Excellency. And the men were dispirited. . . .”
“Turn your horse around, General,” Santa Anna said.
General Cós looked up in surprise. “I swore I would leave Tejas and never return,” he said. “I gave my word. . . .”
“Turn it around!” Santa Anna shouted.
Cós, beaten down, slowly turned his horse and moved forward, back toward Béxar.
Santa Anna nodded and a trumpeter blew the signal that started the army moving north again.
Jesús’s head was forced forward by the weight of his bundle and he often had trouble deciding what time of day it was. He had been marching for hours, it seemed, and had seen little but his own feet and the rough, rocky ground. Up ahead, he heard murmuring and he forced his head up to see what was happening. He saw a dozen soldiers ringed around something on the ground. When Jesús got close enough, he saw that it was the bodies of three men, stripped and mutilated, spread-eagle on
the ground.
Jesús immediately clamped his hand over his nose against the horrible smell of putrefaction. His sergeant turned to Jesús and said, “This is what happens to stragglers. The Indians are always watching. Keep up, boy.”
Shaking his head, the sergeant walked away.
“Sergeant,” Jesús called after him.
The sergeant stopped and turned. “Yes, boy?”
“When can I go home?”
The sergeant jerked his head toward the corpses. “You want to end up like that?”
Jesús did not want to end up like those unfortunate men. But he could not shake the idea that he was more likely to end up that way if he stayed with the army than if he left. Sighing, he adjusted the bundle on his back and started walking again, in the long, long line of miserable soldados.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The citizens of Béxar looked for any excuse to celebrate. Tonight, partygoers crowded the cantina in Béxar Plaza, dressed in their finest clothes, dancing to the lively music of a trio of musicians who strummed guitar and sawed melodically away at violins. Officially, the fandango was in honor of George Washington’s birthday. But everyone there knew who the guest of honor really was. David Crockett worked the crowd with ease, never lingering too long in any conversation, but never allowing anyone to feel neglected. Following him through the room, Micajah Autry thought wryly that if there had been any babies in attendance, Crockett would have been kissing them, campaigning for votes.
The cantina was decorated with festive lanterns and streamers. The soft golden light of dozens of candles gave the room a dreamlike glow. It was an atmosphere made for romance, and throughout the room, young men—Béxarenos and Texians—paid court to lovely señoritas, whose struggles to remain aloof and sophisticated behind their brightly colored silk fans could not quite obscure their delighted smiles.
Maria Ramona Sanchez watched the scene with an amused but alert eye. She was not here for romance—at least, not exactly. She had no doubt that her evening would end with passion—almost every one of her evenings did. But it would also end with an exchange of money. If the gentleman in question desired romance, she would bill and coo and bat her eyelids at him flirtatiously. She knew all the right words to say, to convince a man that she loved him and only him. If her client had a more pragmatic exchange in mind, without the histrionics of pretend ardor, that was all right with her, as well. Maria Ramona Sanchez was very accommodating. That was her job.
But she was not indiscriminate. She knew that there were whores in filthy jacales on the outskirts of Béxar who would rut like pigs with any man who offered them a coin. Maria Ramona looked upon those women with a mixture of pity and contempt. They were driven to that life by poverty and desperation. But Maria Ramona had chosen her profession with the cool eye of a businesswoman. She saw her body as a commodity to be bought and sold. And she knew that for her body to retain its value, she must conduct her trade with discretion and with sophistication. And that meant that she would choose her client—not the other way around. She knew that there was bound to be a young man who would appreciate her unique gifts and would be willing to pay a high price for them—higher than any other professional woman in Béxar charged. But if she did not see such a man, she would go home alone and try again tomorrow. It was not wise to offer discounts in her line of work.
Maria Ramona noticed that most eyes in the cantina were on the man called Crockett. Dressed in fine clothes, he was apparently a man of some importance. She considered making him her prey for the evening. Then she decided against it. He seemed to be the guest of honor at tonight’s fandango. In such situations, there was bound to be a woman or two who would offer him for free what Maria Ramona would only share with him at great price. She stood serenely by the wall, looking around the crowd, carefully making her selection.
Nearby, Almeron and Susanna Dickinson danced. They were very much in love and thought of this fandango as a celebration of the fact that their lives were finally going well after a long stretch of hard times. When Susanna had shown up in Béxar after her ordeal in Gonzales, Almeron had feared for her safety. The siege had just ended and Cós had been run out of town, but the situation was still highly volatile, and Almeron knew that the danger was never very far away. Nevertheless, they settled in a little house just off the main plaza, where they could watch their daughter grow and dream of what their lives would be like once this war was over with. And life was good.
As they danced, Almeron watched Crockett working the crowd, shaking hands and enduring many slaps on the back. “Some of the men are speculating that he wants to be governor,” he said to Susanna, “but I believe we will be declaring for a republic, in which case we will need a president.”
Susanna looked at Crockett and crinkled her nose in distaste. “He seems quite . . . common,” she said.
Dickinson smiled at her. “Perhaps that is how he wants to seem,” he said.
Juan Seguin and a local merchant named José Palaez stood in the corner watching the festivities. To the Texians, the fandango was a beautiful, even sophisticated, affair. But to Seguin and Palaez, it gave a very different impression. To them, their town had been invaded by a rough, uncouth bunch of land grabbers, people who had no respect for the Mexican way of life.
Palaez looked at the rowdy Anglos and grimaced. “Why are you fighting for this scum?” he said.
Seguin shrugged. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” he said. “Santa Anna has betrayed the fatherland and murdered thousands, all Mexicans.”
Palaez said, “But Santa Anna only wants to rule Mexico. These . . . these want the world.”
Travis passed by Seguin without acknowledging him. He moved through the crowd like a man who did not belong. No one spoke to him or offered him a drink. Travis found a spot near the back wall from which to take in the festivities. Maria Ramona noticed him at once. Yes, he seemed promising. . . .
William Ward was having a drink with Bonham. When he spotted Travis he said, “Do not truck much with that feller.”
Bonham smiled. “I grew up with him,” he said.
Ward was surprised to hear this.
“At least until his family moved to Alabama,” Bonham said. “I had not since laid eyes on him until we arrived here.”
Ward glanced over at Travis again and said, “What was he like?”
Bonham settled back in his chair and smiled. “I think of Billy Travis, I think of John Duncan’s birthday party,” he said.
Ward looked at him with curiosity.
Bonham took a drink and said, “The Duncans threw a birthday party for John—big affair—games, tents, a little circus—all set up in a field behind their house. Only children from the finest families were invited.”
“But not our Colonel Billy,” Ward said.
Bonham shook his head, no. “Day of the party,” he said, “I look over to the edge of the field. Off by himself, there’s Billy, ragged clothes, no shoes, just standing—kind of like he is now. Party lasted all day, when it was over, sun going down, I was leaving with my parents, looked back over my shoulder.”
Bonham took another sip. “Had not moved so much as an inch in five hours. Stubborn.”
Ward frowned. “What in the hell was that about?”
Bonham said, “I do not know. Maybe he just wanted to tell everybody he had been to John Duncan’s birthday party. I’d venture a guess if you asked him today, he would remember a hell of a lot more about it than I do.”
As Crockett passed by, Travis quickly stepped forward, seeking a moment with the most popular man in the room. With a hearty smile on his face that did not seem entirely natural, he said, “Congressman Crockett, you should know that I intend to complete the necessary paperwork to make you a colonel in our volunteer forces.”
Crockett, who did not stop walking, smiled a bit patronizingly at Travis. “Seems to me we got more’n enough colonels,” he said. “High private suits me just fine.”
The band finished its song and on
e of the musicians motioned to Crockett. Crockett was relieved that the moment looked spontaneous; he had asked the bandleader to invite him to play. It seemed to Crockett like a good excuse to give another little speech.
Travis walked faster to keep up with him. “I respect that,” he said, “but with your reputation . . .”
Crockett held up a finger to the bandleader to indicate that he was coming in a moment, then turned to Travis, smiling an even more insincere politician’s smile. “Tell you what,” Crockett said. “Let us you and me have a good, long chat about this later, all right, Travers?”
Travis did not correct the mispronunciation. He just watched as Crockett walked away through the crowd, greeting every person he passed. When he reached the band, Crockett stepped onto the box, acknowledging the cheers of the crowd.
Crockett grinned and held his hands up. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “this is my first time at one of these Texian fandangos—and I promise to keep this speech shorter than an Irishman’s temperance vow!”
The audience laughed with far more enthusiasm than the mild joke warranted.
Crockett waited for the laughter to die down, then continued. “Me and my mounted volunteers sure do ’preciate the warm hospitality we have been shown since we got here. And if this Santanner and his bunch should drop by, why, we will make it right warm for them, too!”
The crowd whooped and hollered.
Crockett’s grin grew even wider. “We will lick them like fine salt!” he shouted to even more cheers.
“Now, contrary to popular opinion,” Crockett said with a self-deprecating smile, “I am not that much as a fighter. . . .”
People in the crowd laughed and some shouted, “No! Not true!” Crockett watched and smiled. Across the room, Bowie observed the performance with a straight face.
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