“I have been sent here by the governor, and though Colonel Neill remains in command, it appears he may soon leave us. I’m only newly arrived here myself, but there is much I can tell you. Come with me; we can talk better in private.”
By darkness, some hours later, David Crockett walked about the old mission, examining it closely and wondering just what would finally happen here. Thanks to the time he had spent with Travis in the afternoon, he had a much clearer conception now of what was going on in Texas and at San Antonio de Bexar. He knew now that much had taken place here during the same period he was conceiving and undertaking his own Texas pilgrimage.
Early in the fall of 1835 there had been a fight at Gonzales, an American settlement about seventy miles east of San Antonio de Bexar. Mexican troops had attempted to take a cannon from the colonists there. They had fired the cannon at the troops, killing several and driving the others back. Afterward the Mexican fort at the coastal town of Goliad was taken by the rebel colonists, and another rebel army set out to take San Antonio. A Tennessee-born former Louisianian named James Bowie, now a resident of and military figure in San Antonio de Bexar, had led his advance force to victory near the Concepcion Mission, and finally the impatient old frontiersman Ben Milam had led the successful siege of San Antonio de Bexar, driving out the Mexicans. Thus the town and the old mission had fallen under the control of American colonists.
Winter had been hard on those occupying the Alamo. With two hundred of their number gone off—taking most of the good provisions and arms with them—on a mad attempt to take the port of Matamoros some three hundred miles away, and with no money or decent clothing to be had, the cold winter was a torment. By mid-January, Colonel J. C. Neill had been left with only fourscore or so men to hold the place, the rest having drifted back to their homes.
Since then, Travis had arrived with some regular army troops, and volunteers such as David’s own group had also come in, but even so, the place was sadly undermanned. At least the Mexicans had themselves done much toward making the place defensible, digging ditches, building gun emplacements, adding palisades and thickening the walls with earth. The Americans had further strengthened the place, and had converted the old mission buildings to new functions. Along the east wall, a row of flat-roofed, joined houses, a former convento, served as barracks for artillerymen and infantry; across from them on the west wall were the officers’ quarters and headquarters. The chapel held the powder magazine. At strategic locations around the fortress, cannon were emplaced. Travis was most proud of a strategically important eighteen-pounder that commanded the southwest corner.
So far the rebels holding the old compound had not been called on to use their artillery. But the garrison had gone through one major scare: a false report in January that a Mexican attack was imminent. Neill, Bowie, and others had known that they were hardly ready for any kind of fight, but defiantly sent word that they would “die in these ditches” before giving up the Alamo to the foe.
Travis seemed a man of similar spirit. Ordered to the Alamo only recently, he had brought with him almost thirty members of the Regular Texas Army. David was favorably impressed with the young officer, who confided in him that he expected to be placed in command here after Neill left. Among his qualifications, Travis noted, was his abundant prior service to the Texan cause, and his fluency in Spanish.
Provisions were still very scarce, and Travis was trying to obtain more. Beef and corn were about all the food there was, and this with no salt to flavor it. Any man wanting a cup of hot coffee to wash down his mundane meals was out of luck.
Yet it was odd, David reflected as he paused near the north wall: every man he had talked to today seemed determined to stay here, to hold this isolated outpost should it come to a fight. Such resolve was hard to explain, yet as David looked around the old compound, which dated back more than a century, he felt the same kind of stirring in himself, as if some valor-loving spirit of the place was whispering encouragements in his ear. He hadn’t come to Texas looking for a fight; he hadn’t come expecting to expose himself to danger … yet here he was, doing just that.
And if there was to be a fight, chances were it wouldn’t be a small one. For weeks now, David had learned from Travis, intelligence had been reaching the Alamo from sympathetic Mexicans who told of Mexican troops amassing south of the Rio Grande. Travis had seemed quite confident about his knowledge of the size and strength of Mexican forces within striking distance of the Alamo.
A sound caused David to turn. A familiar figure approached him.
“Hello, Persius.”
“Ben Breeding, durn it! I ain’t Persius no more, remember?”
“I can’t get used to that. Besides, there’s nobody close by to hear.”
“Well, it don’t matter anyways, I don’t reckon.” He lowered his volume. “The fact is I won’t be here to be called by any name.”
“You won’t … you’re leaving? Running out?”
“I got a bad feeling about this place, David. There’s going to be trouble for us if we stay.”
“Maybe a fight, sure. But we’ve fought before. I believe that behind these walls we could hold out here against a devil of a lot larger army.”
“But why? Why hold out at all? Why the bloody hell should me or you risk our hind ends for Texas?”
David laughed in mirthless astonishment. “What happened to the man who was talking just days ago about building a new life in Texas, and Texas being hope and a future? We want to be part of Texas, we might have to put a few cents’ worth of effort into making it a place worth being part of. You know that as well as I do. You have more reason to stand up and fight here than you did to go fight in the Creek War. You were fighting against your own in that one!”
“Yes, and the only reason I fought in that war at all was because you talked me into it—and then you turned on me because you thought I was too bloodthirsty.”
The subject brought a stab of pain. “That was an ugly time, Persius. I was shook by that war. I said things about you I shouldn’t have said. I regretted the trouble it caused you so much I tried to help you escape.”
“I know, I know. That’s past, and I put it behind long ago. Hell, I didn’t even hold no grudge against you then, if you care to remember! The point now is there’s no reason to make the same mistakes twice. I don’t like war. I’m leaving, Davy. And if you’re the smart man I believe you are, you’ll come with me.”
“You’re deserting, Persius. You’ve already took the allegiance oath. You’ve already put your name on the muster sheet.”
“What’s a muster sheet but a list of men soon to die? And what’s an oath but a piece of paper? I ain’t yet seen the piece of paper worth dying for.”
“It’s your word. Your bond.”
“You’re forgetting something, David Crockett. Persius Tarr is a rogue and scoundrel, and the word and bond of a rogue and scoundrel is so much dirt.” Persius touched his hat. “It’s been a good ride, and I hope to see you on the other side of whatever happens here. The truth is, I hope to see you before that. I hope you get the good sense to light out of this place before the Mex army makes a hell out of it.”
“I’ve vowed I’ll stand up to the fodder rack, and I’ll be shot if I don’t intend to do it or die, Persius. I’m a man of my word.”
“And I ain’t. Fare you well, David Crockett. And if you make it through, I’ll see you again and we’ll buy that land we talked about.”
“No.”
“What?”
“You leave here, and there’s no more partnership between me and you. I’ll not have a thing to do with you again if you turn coward now.”
Persius broke into a sudden spell of coughing right then, and conversation ended for almost two minutes until he was in talking condition again. Obviously his health was beginning to take a serious decline once more.
In a hoarser voice he said, “A living coward still sees the sunrise and tastes the whiskey. A dead brave man, he just rots
away and is gone. You want to turn your back on the best chance you’ll ever have to be free of debt and trouble, then fine. Go ahead and do it. I can spend my money on some pretty Mex good-time gal just as easy as on land for you!”
David’s temper boiled up. “If you see it that way, damn your hide, there’s no more to be said to you. Get on with you! Get out before I take my rifle butt to your skull bone!”
Persius looked at David as if he were a man to be pitied. It was infuriating to David, who realized then that there remained a fundamental difference between him and Persius, a difference time hadn’t changed, and which all the healing words they had recently spoken couldn’t change either. There was no true honor in this man, no sense of duty to any but himself. David knew he had been a fool to think that he and Persius could again be the friends they had been in the days of their youth. Persius might have declared his old self dead and gone, but the man standing before him right now was no different a Persius than ever. Indeed he was a rogue and a scoundrel, and would never be anything else.
“Good-bye, David.”
David turned away and began to stride off.
“I left the fiddle for you, in the barracks,” Persius called after him. “It’s good to while away the time with. I’ll bet you can learn to outfiddle me in no time.”
David ignored him, and kept on walking until he was swallowed by the darkness. He circled the big enclosure, working all the way back around to the big, distinctive front of the roofless chapel, whose black windows stared like empty eye sockets across the plaza. In the darkness the place had an ominous appearance. He looked around the grounds for Persius and sought him in the barracks as well. No sign of him. He really had gone off, just like he said.
For the first time since he had come to Texas, David felt alone. And as much as he hated to admit it, afraid as well. Persius’s grim talk of dead heroes had put a bigger fright into him than anything Travis had told him.
But he wouldn’t show it. He was Colonel Crockett, the man who grabbed comets by the tail, rode alligators for fun, and dropped coons from tall trees simply by grinning at them. Such a man didn’t run from danger.
He made for his sleeping place, missing his wife and family very much, and wishing that Persius hadn’t gone away.
Chapter 57
Northern Mexico Mountains
The soldiers who struggled through the howling blizzard were a diverse group of human beings, though they were being driven as if they were no more than animals. They included uniformed senior officers, infantrymen in white cotton fatigues far too light for such weather and with shakos on their heads, dragoons in breastplates, and even some Mayans from the Yucatan. The Mayans were dying more quickly than the others; their bodies lay where they fell, cooling in the snow, finally buried while the others trudged past, ignoring them.
With the soldiers were the soldaderas, women and children who always trailed after the Mexican army, generally getting in the way, slowing down progress, diminishing supplies, distracting the troops. But they kept the soldiers happier and less prone to desert, and so were tolerated by the otherwise stern officers. Behind them, forcing wagons and two-wheeled carts and pack mules through the thickening accumulation, was the supply train, along with scores of independent sutlers. When their wagons and carts bogged or broke down or their pack mules fell to rise no more, their goods were confiscated by others, piled onto new conveyances or pack animals, and hauled on. The supplies would be needed when the army reached the San Antonio River and the old forted mission that stood beyond it. If there was a fight, medicines and such would be needed as well. Too bad virtually none had been brought along.
Not that the siege, if there was one, would take all that long. There were reportedly only a handful of men inside El Alamo, too few to make much of a stand. Even so, the troops had marched a long way with insufficient food and medical supplies, sometimes living on little more than berries and mesquite nuts they found along the way. They were far too weary to want even a small battle once they reached their destination. They hoped that their numbers alone would be enough to bring about a surrender of the little Texan garrison. With any luck, they might not even have to fire off their aging escopetas, which kicked like diablos, bruising the shoulder, and had a range of only seventy-some yards.
Possibly the lone exception to this prevailing discontent was embodied in the arrogant and extravagant man in command of the army, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Bitterly angry at the nagging Texan rebels who had already made his troops in Texas look so weak and inefficient, he was leading this foray himself. Not that he had any intention of suffering the same want that his troops had to endure. Wearing his ornate silver-draped uniform and a sword worth more money than many poor Mexicans might see in their lifetimes, he traveled far ahead of the main body, followed by a carriage carrying his personal fine china, foodstuffs, tea supplies, and silver chamber pot.
They would soon be through the mountains, and after that the travel would be much easier. Santa Anna could hardly wait to smite the upstarts in Texas. He would give them a single chance for surrender, but he hoped they would resist, at least for a little while. Then, facing the inevitability of their defeat, they would throw down their arms and run up the surrender flag. They would beg for mercy, plead for their lives, grovel before him. And it would make no difference. Already he had decided that if there was any early resistance, there would be no later mercy. He had brought with him his red flag and had made sure his trumpeters were well-practiced in the Deguello. Both the flag and the song carried the same meaning: no quarter for the enemy. All who are captured will be killed.
Perhaps the rebels would fight all the harder once they knew there was no option for surrender. There might be a few more Mexican casualties because of it … but no matter. He, Santa Anna, would be safe, and triumphant, and as for common soldiers, was it not their lot to die? He had not climbed the ranks of Mexican authority and become military dictator by being overly scrupulous about the welfare of others.
Ignoring the snow, the general spurred a little more speed from his tired horse. He was eager to reach the Rio Grande and Texas. The Texans would never expect that a Mexican army this large would advance so far in the winter; they would be expecting no attack before spring. Santa Anna could imagine their surprise when several thousand soldiers appeared on the horizon.
He could scarcely wait. The battle that was almost certain to take place at the old Spanish mission was going to be the most fun he had enjoyed for a very long time.
San Antonio de Bexar, February 23, 1836
Persius Tarr rolled over, coughed spasmodically a few times, and opened his eyes. He reached to the other side of the rumpled, dirty bed and found it empty.
“Rosa?” he said, and coughed again. He sat up, running fingers through his hair and his palm across his stubbly face. He had last shaved four days ago, and the whiskers were just now starting to grow back in.
Another coughing fit hit him; he hacked into his hands, and when he looked at them afterward, they had been stained with a faint spray of blood. He wiped them clean on the bed linens and mumbled a curse. Obviously he was a sicker man than he had first thought. The improvement in his health he had enjoyed after first entering Texas had been only a respite, not a healing.
“Rosa!” he called again. No answer. Grumbling, he stood. His trousers hung over a chair; he slid his legs into them and slipped the galluses over his shoulders.
Sun spilled in through a window to his left. He went to it and peered out. He was in Rosa’s second-story room above the cantina where she worked serving liquor and tortillas and the like; she also worked in a different way here in this very room, selling herself for money.
Persius had been here since the night he left the Alamo. He hadn’t planned to remain in town at all, not with the rampant rumors that Santa Anna himself was leading a massive force up from deep in Mexico to mount a surprise attack on the isolated Alamo. The opinion of the locals was mixed concerning t
hese rumors; it appeared that many doubted the veracity of them, as the Alamo garrison reportedly did. Such tales had been frequently heard since the rebels had taken over Bexar. Nothing had come of any of them. Besides, Santa Anna surely wouldn’t try to advance an army in the winter.
Whatever the truth about the rumors, it really made no sense at all to remain here and take a chance with his safety. Had he not deserted the garrison because it didn’t seem sensible to play the odds? Yet here he was, living for the last several days with a Mexican prostitute, finding every excuse in the world not to leave town.
He had told himself it was Rosa who kept him here, but that was not the truth. She was fat and plain and of no real interest to him. She liked his money, that was all. He was staying because … because.… he really didn’t know. He had tried to leave a couple of times, and both times had returned, puzzled at his own behavior.
There seemed to be an unusual amount of hurrying about in the streets. Wagons, laden with furniture and food and families, rumbled by in a hurry. Many people were on foot, carrying bundles and bambinos, racing along like the devil was chasing them. A woman carrying a bundle and draped in an oversized coat—his coat!—cut across the street below. It was Rosa.
He shoved open the window. “Rosa!”
She stopped and looked up at him like he was a stranger, then turned and went on.
“Rosa! Wait!” he yelled.
Without even slowing her pace, she called back to him over her shoulder in her thickly accented English. “You’d better run, amigo! Santa Anna, he has come! He will be in these streets before the sun sets!” She scurried on around a corner and was gone.
“God!” Persius declared, pulling back into the room. “Santy Anny! It’s really starting to happen!”
He took off his trousers again so he could put on his long underwear and shirt. His head throbbed from the effects of last night’s liquor; he coughed even more than usual, and his fingers fumbled at their work. He could feel his heart pounding unusually hard against his ribs, and fright rippled through him. Santa Anna was here! Why hadn’t he had the good sense to flee earlier?
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