Without looking at Sam, Joe said, “How do you say them words again?”
Inside the long barracks the uniformed members of the New Orleans Greys were digging, too, still working on the trench in the barracks’ dirt floor. One Grey stopped for a moment and wiped his brow. “How good an idea is this? Once we get in here, can we get back out?”
Another kept digging. “Always good to have a fallback position,” he said.
The first Grey solemnly surveyed what they had done. He said, “About the size of a grave, ain’t it, Captain?”
In the southwest battery, Travis called Esparza and Dickinson to him. “Captain Dickinson,” he said, “I am reassigning you and Private Esparza to the battery in the rear of the church so you can be near your families.” Dickinson looked at Travis, wondering what this meant. Travis looked out toward the town, avoiding Dickinson’s gaze. He said, “And I have arranged for a replacement for your midnight watch.” Dickinson and Esparza glanced at each other and went to get their things to relocate to the church. They passed James Butler Bonham on the ramp. “Colonel?” Bonham said. Travis’s look acknowledged him but he said nothing.
“I want to talk to you,” Bonham said.
Travis nodded. “Go ahead.”
Bonham said, “Well, some of the men are uncertain about the loyalty of the Tejano you sent for help.”
Travis glared at Bonham. “Colonel Bowie has absolute faith in Captain Seguin,” he said.
Bonham shrugged. “Perhaps, then, he just did not make it.” He stood up a little straighter and plunged ahead. “I would like to give it a shot,” he said.
Travis gave Bonham a biting smile, then walked away.
Bonham called out, “Billy!” Travis stopped and turned around. Bonham said, “That look you just gave me is exactly why people did not like you growing up. If you think I just want out of here, you are wrong.”
Travis looked down, thinking about it. “I cannot afford to lose another man.” He glanced at Bonham and said, “Particularly another good man.”
Bonham said, “But . . .”
“I have sent fourteen messengers out since we retreated to this fort,” Travis said. “Not one of them has come back.”
Bonham saw the desperation in Travis’s eyes. He smiled and said, “But you haven’t sent me.”
Travis stared at Bonham, then nodded. “All right,” he said. “But come back to us, Jim. We need you.”
Bonham went to prepare his horse and Travis sprinted back to his quarters to write another, angrier, letter, begging for help.
. . . Let the Convention go on and make a declaration of independence, and we will then understand, and the world will understand, what we are fighting for. If independence is not declared, I shall lay down my arms, and so will the men under my command. But under the flag of independence, we are ready to peril our lives a hundred times a day, and to drive away the monster who is fighting us under a blood-red flag, threatening to murder all prisoners and make Texas a waste desert. I shall have to fight the enemy on his own terms, yet I am ready to do it, and if my countrymen do not rally to my relief, I am determined to perish in the defense of this place, and my bones shall reproach my country for her neglect . . .
An hour later, they walked toward the gate. Bonham was leading his horse. Travis had given him a small packet of letters with instructions on where to take them.
“You ever think about Red Bank, Billy?” Bonham said. “South Carolina was a lot different than this.”
Travis shook his head. “I try not to dwell on the past,” he said. “I would rather look to the future.”
Bonham mounted his horse. “Comes a time,” he said, “when the past is all you have. When all your future is . . . used up.”
Travis and Bonham looked at each other solemnly. It seemed to Bonham that Travis’s eyes were always sad these days. Not hopeless, just grief-stricken. They shook hands.
“I will be back, Billy,” Bonham said. “Or die in the attempt.”
Travis lightly patted Bonham’s horse. “I know you will, Jim.” He thought of something, reached into his jacket and pulled out a white handkerchief. “When you ride back in,” Travis said, “tie this around your hat. We have some pretty good shots in the fort. See a horseman coming toward us, they might just blow you to kingdom come. We will all be able to see this from a distance.”
Bonham nodded and put the handkerchief in his coat pocket. At a signal from Travis, the gates opened. He mounted his horse, touched his hat and rode out.
Travis said quietly, “Go with God.”
The Yturri house, already one of the most splendid homes in Béxar, now shone with extra brilliance. Long, beautifully tapered candles glowed in every room. The polished mahogany table was laden with delicacies surrounding a large crystal punchbowl filled with a special elixir fashioned by Santa Anna’s personal chef.
All of Santa Anna’s officers were resplendent in their dress uniforms. Béxar’s leading citizens—those who had not fled in terror upon the advance of the Mexican army—were dressed in their absolute finest. A current of excitement ran through the room. It was not every day, after all, when the president of Mexico and the general of all her armies was to be married in one’s own town. And the fact that his intended was a lovely local girl, the daughter of a prominent family, just made the occasion all the more glittering.
The guests gathered in formation behind the happy groom and his trembling bride. Santa Anna and his fiancée, Juanita Maria Diaz, stood before a large gold cross, reverently waiting to recite their vows. Santa Anna beamed with pleasure. Juanita simply looked frightened. Her mother—indeed, everyone she talked to—had kept insisting to the sixteen-year-old that she was being complimented by a great and rare honor, that the marriage would make her one of the most important women in Mexico. Yes, her husband may be a little older than she might have wished, but he was still a handsome and virile man . . . and wealthy . . . and powerful—indeed, the most powerful man in the country. And, as she stood before the altar in her exquisite lace wedding gown, being gazed upon with envy by the cream of Béxar society, Juanita knew she should feel lucky. But she did not. She felt a little sick. She did not want to leave her friends, her family and her home in Béxar when she moved with her new husband to Mexico City. No matter what splendor awaited her there, it could not make up for a lifetime of memories here.
Juanita was also frightened about the wedding night. Her friends, pretending to know more about the subject than they actually did, had already warned her that the act could be painful in the extreme, that it was something that men wanted but that women merely endured. But Juanita, to her shame, knew that she wanted it, too. She had felt the stirrings of adulthood, when dancing with handsome officer Martín de Soldana or while watching some of her father’s workmen bathing, shirtless, in the river. She dreamed of the act, longed for it. But not this way. Not with this old man, no matter how wealthy and powerful. Everyone acted as if Juanita were being given a rare gift. To her, it felt as if she were being sold into slavery.
Her mother stood behind Juanita. A small smile played upon her lips, but there was no happiness in her eyes. She hoped that she had made the right choice for her daughter—and for herself. Soon, they would be ensconced in a palace in Mexico City and their brilliant future would make all this worthwhile. Yes, she had done the right thing, she was sure of it. It was a very great honor. Indeed, it was her way of serving her country.
General Castrillón looked intently at Juanita’s mother, then whispered to General Cós, who stood beside him, “What do you think your sister will say when she hears that her husband is getting married . . . again?”
Cós, whose sister was already married to Santa Anna, gave Castrillón an innocent look. “And who will she hear it from?” he said. His expression clearly added, Not me!
The more devout Catholics in the room thought that the Latin vows being intoned by the priest did not sound quite right. Most of them shrugged it off—he was undoubtedly n
ew to the order and was still struggling to learn all of the ceremonies of the church. Anyway, he had obviously been found worthy by His Excellency Santa Anna, so who were they to question him?
No one recognized the priest as Santa Anna’s aide-de-camp Batres. As he struggled melodramatically to remember lines he had heard in church, the rest of the congregation nodded pleasantly, moved by the beautiful ceremony.
Bowie’s eyes were open, but it was not clear to anyone that he could actually see anything. His entire body was drenched in sweat. With no other way to comfort him, Juana arranged an altar of candles and plaster saints on tables around the room. On his bedside table, at the center, she placed a cameo of Ursula.
Ana Esparza passed a chicken egg in circles over Bowie’s forehead, heart, and intestines. Sam watched from outside the doorway. He had seen such ceremonies in New Orleans. They unnerved him, seeming uncomfortably close to devil worship.
Juana said, “He has been stabbed three times, once through the lungs, shot two or three times, cholera, and malaria, every two years. . . .”
Ana cracked the egg into a glass and looked closely at it. The yolk had a red spot in the center. “He is already dead,” Ana said. “And this is the place he’s been sent.”
Ana crossed herself and left the close, dank room. After several hours with Bowie, she was desperate for fresh air, for sky—eager to immerse herself in the youthful promise of her children and the steadfast love of her husband.
Behind her, Bowie shifted and groaned and called out for his dead wife. He called to Ursula and . . . she came to him. As Bowie stared in astonishment, Ursula sat before him, in her wedding gown. Bowie reached for Ursula, tears streaming down his face.
Juana took his hand. There were tears on her face as well. She leaned down and kissed him on the lips, quieting him, soothing him.
At the palisade, Crockett turned to Autry and said, “I have had about as much of this wood fence as I can take today. Let us go a-wanderin’.”
Autry pointed over to the north wall. Joe was walking among the men with a pot and a ladle. “Looks like supper’s gettin’ to them first,” Autry said. “I propose we head in that direction.”
Crockett smiled. “You are a practical man, Micajah.”
The men on the north wall were exhausted and dirty, but their faces brightened when they saw Crockett approach. Many of them called out to him in greeting.
“Thought we’d come set a spell with you fellers,” Crockett said. He peered at their faces in mock seriousness. “I don’t owe none of you men money, do I?”
They laughed and made a place for Crockett and Autry to sit. Joe passed them each a plate of stew and some corn tortillas to dip into it. Crockett nodded his thanks.
Daniel Cloud said to Crockett, “You must have been in many a scrape like this.”
“Oh, sure,” Crockett said. “First time I stood up to speak before Congress, my mouth was dryer than a Quaker in a cracker barrel.”
The men laughed delightedly.
“Yes, sir,” Crockett said, grinning, “saw so many politicians run for the door I thought the buildin’ was on fire!”
Cloud said, “But Mr. Crockett . . .”
“Please,” Crockett said modestly, “call me David. Mr. Crockett was my father.”
Cloud smiled and said, “David. All right, but David, in all your Indian fightin’, you must have—”
Crockett shook his head. “I was not ever in but one real scrape in my life, fellers.”
Cloud looked at him in disbelief. Joe walked around the group carrying his clay pot filled with stew, looking for plates to refill. “You was in the Red Stick War,” Cloud said, as if challenging Crockett to own up to his heroism.
Crockett nodded, “Yes, sir, that is true. I was in that. I reckon I was just about your age when it broke out. The Creeks boxed up four, five hundred people at Fort Nims and massacred every one of ’em. This was big news around those parts, so I up and joined the volunteers.”
Other men moved in close to hear Crockett’s tale.
Crockett said, “I did a little scoutin’, but mostly I fetched in venison for the cook fire. You know, I am a tolerable good hunter.”
The men laughed.
“Well sir,” Crockett said, “we caught up with them redskins at a place called Tallusahatchee. We surrounded the whole village and come in from all directions. It was not much of a fight, really. We shot them down like dogs. . . .”
Sentries on the wall peered down as they listened, not watching their posts. Crockett, as always, had the men in the palm of his hand.
Crockett continued, “Finally, what was left of them Injuns crowded into this little cabin. They wanted to surrender, but this squaw loosed an arrow and killed one of our fellers, so we shot her and then . . . then, well, we set fire to the cabin.” Crockett paused for a moment to let the image sink in. The men were nearly hypnotized, hanging on his every word.
Crockett frowned. “We could hear ’em screaming to their gods in there,” he said. “We could smell ’em. Anybody who run out was cut down right quick. But mostly they just burnt up in there.”
Crockett put down his plate of stew. He had not eaten a bite.
“We had had nary to eat but parched corn since October, and that was near gone,” he said. “The next day when we dug through the ashes we found these potaters from the cellar. They’d been cooked by the grease that run off them Indians. We ate till we near burst.”
The rapt faces of the men were trained on Crockett. They barely dared to breathe.
Crockett smiled a little. “Since then, you pass me the taters, I will pass ’em right back.”
The message settled in on the faces of the men. They had begun to relax a little, when the sharp snap of a gunshot broke the moment.
Scurlock turned into the fort from his post on the south wall and shouted, “I think I hit one of ’em!”
All over the Alamo, men scrambled to their positions. But instead of the Deguello or “Charge!” they heard a furious stream of cussing—in plain English. From the bottom of the wall, the muffled voice of Colorado Smith muttered, “Son of a goddamned shit-arse bitch! What do I look like, you blind turd?”
Grimes raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “I think they are talkin’ American.”
Colorado Smith’s voice was still muffled but louder, and angrier. “Open the gate! God damn you! It’s us!”
Several men rushed to open the main gate and several men on horseback, led by Colorado Smith, rode in. There was a whoop from the defenders. Men from all over the Alamo came running toward the gate to greet the newcomers.
Micajah Autry pounded Crockett on the back. “They are here! Reinforcements! They are here!”
In the courtyard, Colorado Smith dismounted and saluted Travis. He said proudly, “I figure this is every able-bodied man in Gonzales.”
Most of the men gathered around, shaking hands and slapping backs as the Gonzales men dismounted. Almeron and Susanna Dickinson spotted George Kimball among them and rushed to him. “George!” Dickinson cried, furiously pumping his hand, “who is minding the shop?”
Kimball smiled. “Kimball and Dickinson’s is temporarily out of business,” he said. “As soon as this ruckus is cleared up, we will get back to it, make it bigger and better than ever!”
Galba Fuqua stood by shyly. Susanna embraced him. “Galba, what in the world . . . ?” she said. “You are too young to be here.”
Galba looked as dignified and adult as possible. “All the other men were a-comin’,” he said. “Figgered it was my duty.” He shook Almeron’s hand. “I was with ’em when the Mexicans tried to steal our cannon. I am gon’ be with ’em when they lick the Mexicans here!”
Travis said, “How did you get all these men through?”
Colorado Smith said, “Those soldados think they got it all sewn up tight, but you avoid the roads, there’s this little sliver you can ease on through. Didn’t nobody bother us till some peckerwood here in the fort started in
ta shootin’.” He looked around accusingly, then turned to one of the Gonzales men who was wrapping a cloth around his foot. “How’s the foot, Eli?”
“How the hell do you think it is?” Eli said angrily. “Son of a bitch shot me. And me comin’ to help.”
Many of the men laughed in spite of themselves. Eli sputtered furiously.
Travis smiled broadly. He said, “And Colonel Fannin is behind you?”
Smith looked puzzled. “He ain’t here?” He threw his saddlebag to the ground. “I shoulda known. When I talked to the prissy coward I shoulda known he was not going to do nothin’.”
Travis looked around with a sinking feeling. The newcomers did not look as plentiful now as they had a few moments ago. He said, “How many rode in with you?”
Smith said, “I brung thirty-two men, Colonel. Counting me.”
Travis turned away to conceal his disappointment. Crockett saw the dejected faces of his comrades. He said in a loud and lively voice, “And if they ain’t the purtiest lookin’ bunch of Texians I ever seen! Let’s hear it for Gonzales, fellers!”
The Tennesseans raised a cheer, and the others joined in. Almeron Dickinson looked at George Kimball, then to his wife. He tried to smile and cheer along with the others, but he could not. His disappointment was too deep. Putting his arm around Susanna’s shoulder, he walked her back to the baptistery. She lay down on the palette she had made of blankets and straw on the floor and held Angelina in her arms.
Susanna smiled up at her husband. “I know what you are thinking,” she said. “But if those men got through, others will get through.”
Almeron nodded. “I should never have left you in Gonzales in the first place,” he said. “I should have stayed with you.”
Susanna said, “And then you would have come here with this bunch—you know you would have. And Angelina and I would be home alone, with no one to cook our lunch for us.”
Almeron laughed a little. He bent down and kissed his wife on the forehead. She grasped the back of his neck and pulled him to her, kissing him fiercely on the lips. They embraced and she whispered, “No matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets, I would always rather be with you. We are together. It’s the only thing that matters.”
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