Kontar had also promised that if Holcomb came along, Kontar’s people could help someone or some member of Holcomb’s family if he wanted. But Holcomb had no real family, so he had told Kontar that he would think about that.
Sitting on that park bench, in that park, two hours after Kontar had left, Holcomb had decided to go. He might not have his name in any history books, but if he helped at the Alamo and it made a difference, at least he would be part of a fight that an entire nation would remember.
He gave his notice at the bus garage, talked to a few friends there, and then went back to give notice on his apartment. What surprised him was how many people, both at work and in his building, seemed genuinely sad that he was leaving. He might not have that many good friends, but he clearly had people who liked him, and he liked them back, and some of them would even miss him.
One elderly woman down the hall even brought him a small plate of sugar cookies for a travel snack. He’d only seen her a few times in the hall, and couldn’t remember her name, even though she knew his. She told him that he just made the place seem safer. She was going to miss that.
He had never noticed any of it. He just felt he had been walking through the world alone. It seemed he had been far from alone.
This time around, Kontar knocked on the apartment door and Holcomb answered, a small bag on his shoulder that included his pistol and bathroom supplies and a few changes of clothes. Everything else he was leaving with a note on the kitchen table.
“Seems you have decided,” Kontar said, smiling as he backed up and let Holcomb step out and pull the door closed.
“Just one favor to ask,” Holcomb said as they headed down the wide hallway toward the staircase.
“Ask and I will do what I can do,” Kontar said.
“If you can, I would love to have you use what little money I have left in the bank and add some to it and set up a small college scholarship fund for kids of city bus drivers. Put it in my name if you would, even though no one will remember who I am.”
Kontar glanced at Holcomb as they went down the stairs to the lobby, clearly puzzled. “We can do that, no problem at all. That’s very nice of you.”
Holcomb shrugged. “Always thought about going back to school. Just never got around to it.”
“What would you have studied?” Kontar asked.
Holcomb laughed. “History. I always loved history.”
Kontar laughed. “With luck, for an entire culture in a different timeline, you’re going to help make some history.”
As they went out the door and into the bright light of the warm spring day, Holcomb said, “That’s why I’m doing this.”
NINE
March 5, 1836
Alamo Compound, Bexar, Republic of Texas
THE SUN WAS EASING BEHIND the low hills to the west. Holcomb, Stacy, and DeWitt had been firing consistently all day, picking off any warrior that moved in the direction of the Aztec camp, just as they had done for the past four days.
Travis had reported that the War Chief and the thousands of warriors with him had arrived earlier in the day. And as history in Holcomb’s timeline had shown, no more men came to help those inside the Alamo. They were going into battle with thousands of Aztec warriors with around two hundred men.
But so far, the men inside the walls were in good spirits. No real damage had been done to the walls of the fort thanks to the sharpshooters keeping the cannons at a distance. The fort had stayed a safe little island in a sea of death. Holcomb had no doubt that was about to change. If the Aztec War Chief followed Santa Anna’s plan, he would attack tomorrow, on March 6th.
But many historians and many of Santa Anna’s own officers had thought it stupid to attack directly at the fort. But that had been in another timeline, with another commander and a much weaker Mexican army. The Aztec War Chief was known for just taking what he wanted. There didn’t seem to be any doubt in anyone’s mind he was coming hard and soon. The key would be how much damage the men inside the walls could do to the Aztec force before they were killed.
DeWitt used an inhaler to stop a coughing fit and Stacy used the time to refill the clip in his rifle, tossing the empty shells over the wall wrapped in a small cloth bag. The bag had a special acid inside it that ate the shells and turned them into dust in a matter of days. The shells themselves were designed to deteriorate quickly anyway. No one in ten years would dig up any shells or signs of anything from the future at this sight.
“Incoming,” a voice shouted and all three men went back to staring out over the wall.
Holcomb was shocked at what he saw.
Coming at full run, directly from the center of the city, were about fifty warriors, their war cries filling the air.
“All four sides,” Travis shouted from a perch atop the center cannonade. “They’re coming at us from four directions.”
Firing started up at once, the sounds covering the cries of the warriors. One right after another the cannons of the fort fired, filling the air with smoke, the booming sounds echoing over the countryside.
Holcomb, Stacy, and DeWitt fired as well, Holcomb taking a warrior on the right and killing him, Stacy aimed at the left, and DeWitt the middle.
The cannons sent more warrior bodies into the air, and each of them fired five more times before the firing eased to a stop with no more warriors to kill.
The wave of warriors hadn’t even made it to within a hundred yards of the fort on any side.
“That was just a test,” Holcomb said, staring at the bodies strung along the field between the fort wall and Bexar buildings. “The War Chief wanted to know how strong we are.”
“He sacrificed two hundred men to test us?” Stacy said, shaking his head.
“Sure seems that way,” DeWitt said.
Suddenly Holcomb realized what he had said. With any test, someone had to be looking at the results.
“Watch for movement in the distance,” Holcomb said, flipping his glasses to binocular vision and studying the roofs and walls of the city buildings. “Lower War Chiefs had to have been watching so that they could report back.”
Beside him, Stacy fired and a brightly adorned warrior spun and fell about two hundred yards out.
Holcomb caught sight of another warrior staring at the scene from the top of a building and put a shot between his eyes.
A few of the other sharpshooters on the other walls were also firing, taking out anyone who might show their face.
DeWitt laughed. “The great War Chief ain’t going to like any of this.”
“We just pissed him off is all,” Holcomb said.
“So, when do you three think he will attack us?”
Holcomb spun around away from the wall at the same time as DeWitt and Stacy to see Travis kneeling behind them.
Holcomb couldn’t think of a thing to say to the leader of the fort. And clearly DeWitt and Stacy were just as shocked.
“Look,” Travis said, “I know you three have military experience from some place I am not familiar with, as do a number of others who are volunteers here. And you are the best shots I have ever had the pleasure of watching. I’m just glad you are all here helping Texas in this fight.”
“It’s our honor, sir,” Holcomb managed to say. Stacy nodded and DeWitt coughed as he nodded his agreement.
In the last week he had only said a passing hello to Travis. He figured he and DeWitt and Stacy were staying under the young officer’s notice. Clearly they hadn’t.
History always said that Travis was both smart and very brave. He had just proven history to be correct.
“What just happened was clearly a test,” Travis said, “and you sharpshooters cut down the number of reports the War Chief will get about the results. Any theories about what’s next? Will it be a full attack tonight or any chance he might just leave us and go around?”
“He won’t attack at night,” Holcomb said and again both his friends nodded. “From everything I know about the War Chief of the Aztec, fighting at ni
ght has little honor. They will prepare at night, and they have no problem in small skirmishes at night, but if they come in full attack, it will be at first light.”
He had learned all that from Kontar in the distant future, but he wasn’t about to tell Travis that.
“And he won’t go around us either,” Stacy said. “He can’t show any weakness to those under him or they will challenge and kill him.”
“Agreed,” Holcomb said. “They’re coming in full force at first light tomorrow.”
Travis seemed to think about that for a moment, then nodded. “I agree.”
He stood and saluted Holcomb and Stacy and DeWitt. “Thank you, gentlemen, for the honor of fighting and dying beside you.”
With that he turned and went down the stairs and back toward the sick room where Bowie was being cared for.
“This is a long damn ways from Vietnam,” DeWitt said after a long moment of silence.
Down the wall, Holcomb noticed that Davy Crockett had been watching the exchange. He gave Holcomb a thumbs-up and went back to watching out over the wall.
For the first time, Holcomb knew completely that what he did in this fight really mattered. Dying for this cause was the right thing to do. He knew now what his father had described about fighting in World War II.
“This doesn’t even feel like the same world,” DeWitt said, shaking his head.
“Actually,” Stacy said, “it’s not, remember?”
Holcomb glanced once again at Davy Crockett, one of his childhood heroes. “Tough to forget.”
TEN
March 6, 1836
Alamo Compound, Bexar, Republic of Texas
THE MOMENT THE SUN tipped an edge over the hills in the east, the Aztec flaming arrow cannons filled the sky with streaks of fire, sending rolling thunder over the fort and the peaceful sunrise of a Texas morning.
The night had been long and quiet, with only an occasional shot cutting the stillness from a sharpshooter who picked off a warrior stupid enough to show himself.
“Here we go,” DeWitt said as the cannons went off, bracing himself against the wall.
“It’s been my honor,” Holcomb said, glancing at the two men on either side of him that he now called friends, “to fight with you.”
“I will remember these days for as long as I live,” Stacy said, smiling.
“That’s going to be at least another thirty minutes,” DeWitt said. “If we’re lucky.”
“I’m hoping for more like an hour,” Holcomb said, laughing.
A moment later, thousands of Aztec warriors seemed to appear out of nowhere among the buildings of the town and the gullies of the hills around the fort.
Waves and waves and waves of warriors.
“Make that thirty minutes after all,” Holcomb said, starting to fire.
The sounds of the exploding cannons, and thousands of rifles being fired at once smashed into Holcomb as he fired off one round after another into the ranks, trying to pick off any warrior who looked to be dressed better than any other.
He went through his first clip in a matter of twenty seconds, reloaded, and went back to firing, cutting down warriors in the front lines so that others behind them might trip over the bodies.
It was like facing a sea of ants. The Aztecs swarmed everywhere, screaming and firing as they ran.
One bullet nicked the top of the wall near Holcomb and sent sand into his face, but luckily nothing got into his eyes behind his protective glasses given to him by Kontar.
Beside him, DeWitt was grazed by a shot across one arm. He just swore, wrapped the surface wound in a piece of cloth, and went back to firing, his inhaler stuck in his mouth like a bad cigar.
Holcomb just kept firing, through another clip and then another, his shots always dropping a warrior. And every warrior he killed was one less to fight against Sam Houston and the others defending Texas and the rest of the United States.
The cannons of the Alamo kept up a constant bombardment of the rushing warriors, smashing five and ten at a time into the air.
Suddenly, DeWitt tapped his arm and pointed out at the town’s buildings. The main wave of the warriors were now only a hundred yards from the bottom of the west wall and closing fast, and on the buildings of the town, well decorated and brightly colored Aztec warriors had climbed up to watch the fight.
And one in the center looked to be the top War Chief himself, not more than nine hundred feet away.
The idiot was too arrogant to know he couldn’t be killed.
Holcomb tapped Stacy and pointed to what DeWitt had shown him. Stacy glanced up, then smiled and nodded.
Holcomb used the old hand signals from Nam to indicate in the intense sound of the battle the way the three of them should fire. Stacy would take the ones on the right side, Holcomb would take the top War Chief in the middle, and DeWitt the chiefs on the left side.
Then on the count of three, they all fired, ignoring the wave of warriors approaching the wall below them.
Holcomb knocked down the War Chief with a shot directly between his well-painted eyes.
Before the others could react around him, Holcomb killed two more of the War Chief’s top lieutenants, while DeWitt and Stacy cut down the others on either side.
If nothing else, they had cut the head off of the snake. It would grow a new one quickly enough, but with luck that might give Houston and his Texan army some time and a real fighting chance.
All three of them went back to firing at the rushing warriors below as the remaining brightly dressed war chiefs scattered back into hiding.
When the leading wave of the warriors reached the base of the wall and started trying to toss ropes with hooks over the top, Holcomb grabbed a few of the pen-sized grenades, twisted the caps, and dropped them as beside him Stacy cut a rope and then did the same.
Other warriors were bringing ladders at the walls. Others behind the leading waves were moving cannons into position.
There were just too many. But the Aztecs were paying a very, very high price for this attack.
Along the wall, other defenders followed suit, firing over and over and tossing explosive charges into the mass of warriors coming up at them from the base of the twenty-foot wall.
But nothing seemed to slow the warriors down, they just kept pouring at the wall.
Holcomb went back to picking off the warriors trying to set up cannons to fire directly at the wall from close range. Beside him, Stacy leaned forward to drop a few grenades. Suddenly he spun backwards, a gaping hole in the back of his head from a shot that blew his skull apart.
He went over backwards and then tumbled down the stairs.
Holcomb gave his friend a quick salute of honor and went back to fighting.
Farther down the wall, Crockett was shoving a ladder away from the wall and butting two warriors with the hard end of his rifle, sending them back into the mass of death below.
Holcomb tossed half-a-dozen grenades along the base of the wall in front of him and DeWitt and Crockett.
The smoke from the explosions and the gunshots drifted so thickly it felt like trying to fight on a thick foggy night along the ocean. Only this fog smelled of gunpowder and sweat and blood.
Lots of blood.
DeWitt jumped up and moved to his right along the wall, firing at a warrior trying to breach over the top of the wall. Then he dropped a grenade at the bottom of the ladder and fired downward into the mass.
Suddenly, he dropped over backwards, a bullet hole directly between his eyes.
They had all been wrong. It didn’t look like they all were going to last fifteen minutes.
At a half dozen places along the wall the warriors were coming over the top.
Holcomb took his last ten grenades and twisted the caps on all of them, tossing them at different places along the wall at the bases of ladders.
A shot ripped through his left arm, spinning him around and sending waves of bright red pain across his eyes.
His vision cleared quickly
and he dropped his rifle and grabbed his pistol, firing as he went.
Crockett moved toward him, firing and butting at warriors reaching the top of the wall.
“Retreat to the church!” he shouted.
“I’ll cover you,” Holcomb shouted back and Crockett nodded and scrambled down the staircase to the middle of the compound where dozens of Texans were retreating toward their last stand in the church.
Holcomb kept firing, protecting his childhood hero as much as he could, until a shot ripped through his left shoulder and he went over backwards, tumbling down the stairs to the hard dirt at the bottom.
Somehow, he managed to keep the gun in his hand.
A moment later, Crockett appeared in his vision and yanked him to his feet, pulling him toward the church.
Holcomb let the pain clear his mind and he focused one last time, firing at a warrior who was about to attack Crockett.
Then a shot cut through the Tennessee congressman, spinning him away from Holcomb. The shot had caught him in the chest, but he was still alive.
Now it was Holcomb’s turn to pull his hero to his feet and stumble onward.
But it wasn’t to be.
More fire from the right and more pain cut through Holcomb’s legs and back and he and Crockett went down.
An Aztec warrior with a brightly painted face loomed over Holcomb as he struggled to turn over.
Crockett tried to get up to fight, but the warrior cut off his head with a quick swing of a sword.
All Holcomb could do was smile at the ugly painted face of the Aztec as the warrior raised his sword yet again.
Holcomb knew that they had accomplished what they needed to accomplish. He was sure of that. They had slowed the Aztec army and caused enough damage that Houston could defeat them.
This would be a good world he had helped create.
And maybe in Portland, Oregon, in this timeline, there would be a nice park on the river for people to enjoy. He hoped so. He loved that park, especially on warm spring days.
And as the warrior’s sword came down to cut off his head, Holcomb just kept smiling.
Smith's Monthly #6 Page 7