‘I want to see it all,’ he had told Louise. ‘I want to see the Veramendi house where Jim Bowie lived, Nat Lewis’ store, all of it!’
‘What in the hell for?’ she said. She was filing her nails. Louise spent a lot of time on stuff like that. She was very particular about her person.
‘Don’t you understand anything at all?’ he said. ‘I was named after William Barrett Travis.’
‘So?’ she said. ‘I was named after an empress.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ he said. ‘Which empress was that?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ she said.
He’d been playing poker in a Dallas saloon and he just couldn’t draw a poor hand. One or two of the men he was playing had that edgy look men get around the corners of their eyes when they begin wondering whether the cards have been educated a little. Travis called it quits and cashed in.
‘You gents can have another crack at me tomorrow,’ he said smiling as he swept the money into his hat. ‘Right now, I plan to get drunk and you’re all welcome to join me!’
It was damned good psychology as it turned out. When they played the next day he lost every cent he had and every bad thought the good burghers of Dallas, Texas, had been harboring about Travis Strong was dissipated in the sunshine of winning their money back. ‘Well, gents?’ he said. ‘You skinned me good. Ain’t even got enough to get my ashes hauled tonight.’
‘Shoot, Trav, yore credit’s good here,’ Edgar the bartender said. ‘Git drunk instead!’
‘You know how it is, Ed,’ Travis grinned. ‘Once you got your mouth set for whiskey, coffee don’t taste right at all. How about one of you gents cuts the cards with me. This pistol here against ten dollars?’
He unsheathed the Smith & Wesson Model 2 and laid it on the table. It was as nice a gun as you could buy: rosewood stock, plain body, five-inch barrel.
‘I’ll go you on that,’ a bearded man named Angus Wells said, banging a ten-dollar gold piece on the table. ‘You want to shuffle, or will I?’
‘Go ahead,’ Travis said. The big man laid down the pack and gestured towards it. Travis cut the deck. A nine. Ah, well, he thought. The big man smiled and lifted his card up for Travis to see. It was the three of spades. Travis grinned at the bearded man’s crestfallen appearance and picked up the ten dollar coin.
‘Hey,’ the big man said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Best of three.’
Travis’ smile disappeared. He looked at the gun on the table and then at the big man. Wells smiled showing broken teeth. Feet shuffled as the watching men nearby edged away from the table.
‘Back off,’ Travis told Wells, standing up. ‘You lost.’ The big man grinned again.
‘I’m askin’ you politely,’ Travis said. ‘Everybody take note I asked him politely.’
The big man shouted a curse and hurled himself forward, his huge fist clenched to flatten Travis. The onlookers swore later that Travis hardly moved, but the blow whistled past his head and the big man stumbled past without touching him. When he turned around Travis had a foot-long bowie knife in his hand.
‘Uh,’ Wells said. He reached round the back of his neck and pulled out his own knife from the sheath between his shoulder blades. ‘Want to play rough, eh?’
He came at Travis warily, the knife held in the palm of his right hand, feet planted flat, body bent in a practiced knife-fighter’s crouch.
‘Ha!’ he shouted and thrust. Travis moved in the same moment, but so fast that if it had not been for the flicker of the lamplight on his knife, no one would have seen it. Wells’ thrust missed him completely. The big man’s eyes bulged out of his head like organ stops.
‘Ucchhhh,’ he said. Blood spilled out of his belly. He sank to his knees, hands splayed across the gaping wound.
‘I’d say you got about ten minutes to live, ’less you find a doctor,’ Travis said conversationally. ‘Anybody here a doctor?’
The men in the saloon remained silent, their faces awed by the brutal suddenness of what had happened. Travis Strong shrugged and went across to the table. He picked up his pistol and the ten dollars, then turned to face Angus Wells, who was sitting on the floor in a widening pool of his own blood, hands still clutching his belly.
‘See?’ Travis said. ‘You lost.’
He went out of the saloon, telling the bartender that if anybody wanted him he would be across the street at the cathouse. They watched him go as they might have watched Beelzebub ride by in a chariot.
Dallas wasn’t much of a place by Texas standards, and Texas standards were not particularly high. The settlement – it wasn’t big enough to call a town – boasted about a dozen buildings grouped haphazardly around a dusty plaza. The inevitable Alamo saloon, the equally inevitable store, owned by a man called Bryans but known locally as ‘Neely’s’. There was a stable, a couple of sod-roof dugouts and a frame shack at the river end of the street which was known as ‘Louise’s Place’.
Travis knocked on the door. It was opened by a little colored girl, sixteen or seventeen years of age. She bobbed a curtsy.
‘Evenin’, y’all,’ she said. ‘Won’tchall come in?’
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Travis said, taking off his hat. The place was a long way short of plush, but it was fitted up quite nicely, considering how far it was from anything remotely like civilization. There were one or two overstuffed red plush sofas and there was a carpet on the floor, albeit a shade threadbare. The bar was mahogany and there was decent liquor on the shelf. Travis noted with approval that the glasses had been washed and polished: uncommon gentility this far west. The girls smiled at him as the little colored girl poured him a bourbon and branch water.
‘You’re a little early for us,’ he heard someone say. ‘One or two of my … young ladies are still dressing.’ He turned to face a woman in a black velvet dress. She was small but full-breasted, with an oval face framed by tumbling curls. She had the bluest eyes he had ever seen. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You must be Louise.’
‘Indeed I am,’ she said. ‘And your name is?’
‘Travis Strong, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And mighty pleased to make your acquaintance. Could I offer you something …?’ He inclined his head towards the bar. Louise shook her head.
‘I don’t drink,’ she said.
‘A cigarette, perhaps?’
‘I don’t smoke, either.’
‘Well,’ Travis drawled. ‘I bet you go out with boys.’ She grinned. A nice smile, Travis thought. Best-looking female I’ve seen in many a country mile. He made his mind up suddenly.
‘How’d you like a trip to San Antone?’ he said.
‘I’ve been to San Antonio,’ she replied.
‘Stayed at the best hotel, no doubt.’
‘Of course,’ she said, as though nothing else would do. ‘Champagne and scrambled eggs for breakfast?’
‘In San Antonio?’ she smiled. ‘You must be joking.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘In New Orleans. After San Antonio.’
‘What are you up to, Mr. Travis Strong?’ she said. There was an amused light in her eyes. He was a good-looking devil at that, Louise thought. She was always tempted by the devil-may-care ones, especially when they were tall and bronzed and had hair the color of bleached corn.
‘You’re thinkin’ about it,’ he said.
‘The hell I am!’ she retorted. ‘Excuse me, Mr. Strong. I’ve got a busy night ahead of me.’
‘Give yourself a vacation,’ he said. ‘Take the night off.’
‘What do you mean?’
Travis tapped his chest with his thumb. ‘I’m available,’ he said. Louise grinned again. Tempting, tempting, she thought. And why the hell not? It had been a damned long winter. But she could not resist the even stronger temptation to put this uppity Northern boy in his place.
‘You’re out of your league, sonny,’ she said. ‘I only sleep with the aristocracy.’
Travis grinned. ‘If I was a literary gent, I’d say that was bombast, Louise,’ he said. �
�Let me ask you a question: you a gambling lady?’
‘Cards?’
‘I’ll play you one straight hand of stud poker. Five hundred dollars if I lose.’
‘And if you win?’
‘You spend a night learnin’ why the aristocracy is dying out.’
‘By God, mister,’ she said, softly. ‘You got your nerve.’
‘And that ain’t all,’ Travis grinned. ‘You want to shuffle?’
He took her on a tour of the Alamo. It was smaller than he had imagined it would be, but no less interesting for that. The pockmarks of musket balls were still visible in the stonework. As they stood looking at the coronet above the doorway, a shield bearing the legend Ano D 1758, an old Mexican shuffled across towards them. His serape was faded and worn, his back bowed with the weight of many years, but there was a knowing wisdom in the rheumy old eyes.
‘The señor and señorita wish to know something of the Alamo?’ he said. ‘It would give me great happiness to show them around.’
‘We would be honored,’ Travis said, ignoring the face Louise pulled at his extravagance. The old man beamed at the courtesy and beckoned for them to follow him.
‘The old mission is a sad sight now for one who knew it in its days of glory,’ he said. ‘It was all walled in, then. There were barracks for the soldiers and gardens with fruit trees and vegetables in the labores. I remember it so well and all those fine men. I knew them all, you know. They were all burned by the soldiers. We buried them in the shade of some peach trees, over there. I will show you. I will show you everything.’
He was as good as his word. He showed them where William Barrett Travis had fallen, serving the cannon on the wall, and the bare little room in which Jim Bowie had died.
‘They will tell you he fought to the end, but it is not so,’ the old man said. ‘He was already dead when the soldiers broke down the door.’
Travis gave the old man a dollar. The Mexican tried to sell him a pipe made from the stone of the old mission building. Then they walked back through the town to the hotel.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Louise said after a while.
‘I know,’ Travis said. ‘I didn’t expect to be moved.’
‘You’re a strange one, Travis,’ Louise pondered. ‘You really are. You kill some poor bastard who tries to stiff you, without so much as thinking about it, then get all mushy about some damned battle that happened ten million years ago. I can’t figure you out.’
‘I know,’ he grinned. ‘Exasperating, isn’t it?’
They had dinner that night at the hotel with Jed. He told them that he expected to be going north soon.
‘You’ve doubtless heard the news from Richmond,’ he explained. ‘Jeff Davis has called for a hundred thousand volunteers. ‘
‘What will you do, Jed?’
‘Don’t have much choice, now that Texas has seceded,’ Jed replied. ‘Colonel Lee is going back to Washington to take command of the First Cavalry. Whatever he decides to do, that’s what I’ll do too.’
‘You know what he has in mind?’
‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ Jed said. ‘I’d follow that man into hell with a bucket of water.’
He poured some more wine and they lifted their glasses in a silent toast to Robert E. Lee.
‘I imagine you’ll be glad to get back to civilization,’ Louise said. ‘How long you been in Texas, Jed?’
‘Not even a full year,’ Jed replied. ‘And no, I won’t be glad to leave. I’ve grown to like it here. I’ve made a lot of friends.’
‘One of them named Maria Gonzales, right?’
‘How do you know that?’ Jed asked Louise.
‘It’s a small town, captain,’ she grinned. ‘And I hear most of the gossip.’
‘And you can bet your shirt on that,’ Travis grinned. ‘Why don’t you just stay on, Jed? Join the Rebs.’
‘No,’ Jed said slowly. ‘I’ll go back with Colonel Lee.’
‘Any chance of a fight, I might sign up myself,’ Travis said.
‘With Texas?’
‘Why not?’ Travis grinned. ‘Hell, they pay the same, don’t they?’
‘Listen,’ Louise said, urgently. ‘Don’t you go joinin’ no damned army, South or North. You said … well, you know what you said.’ She looked at Jed. ‘Has Trav told you about us?’
‘Yes,’ Jed said. ‘I think you’re crazy.’
‘Shoot, Jedediah,’ Travis drawled. ‘An’ there was me thinkin’ you might stand for us.’
‘You’re really going through with it?’ Jed asked.
‘You’d better believe it,’ Travis answered.
‘What about … back home? Have you told your parents?’
‘I’ll write to them,’ Travis said, offhandedly. Jed tried to imagine what Uncle Sam and Aunt Abby would think when they got the news. Pleased that they had a new daughter-in-law, maybe. It would be interesting to see their reaction if Travis ever turned up in New York with Louise.
‘What about your folks, Louise?’ he asked.
‘I wasn’t thinkin’ of invitin’ them,’ she said.
‘Well, Jed?’ Travis said. ‘What about it? You gonna stand for us?’
‘Not in any church, I’m not.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Louise grinned. ‘It sure as hell won’t be in no church.’
‘All right,’ Jed said. ‘I’ll do it. But I better warn you, Louise. Your Travis has got one of the blackest tempers of any man I ever met.’
‘I got a line in those myself,’ Louise told him. ‘Ain’t that so, honeybunch?’
‘And a punch like a bare-knuckle carny pug,’ Travis said. Jed refilled their glasses and raised his own for another toast.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Love and marriage.’
‘Marriage,’ Louise echoed, and Jed wondered whether he had only imagined the wistfulness in her voice.
Seven – The Story of Abigail Strong
April 1861
‘Sam, Sam,’ Abigail said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t fret so. We’ll manage.’
‘Aye, manage!’ Sam said. ‘That’s about the size of it. If only that damned fool Ripley would listen!’
Abby smiled. She knew all about ‘Ripley van Winkle’, as Sam called the army’s chief of ordnance. Sam had taken an active dislike to the man the first time he laid eyes on him and his latest meeting had not improved matters at all. As soon as the news burst upon them that Fort Sumter had been fired upon by Confederate guns, as soon as they realized that now, inescapably, it was war between North and South, Sam had hurried to Washington to see Ripley. He had come back even more angry and frustrated.
‘Damned fool!’ she heard him say. ‘Don’t want to confuse himself by examining the facts when he’s already got his mind made up! You know what that old fossil Winfield Scott says? Says that the war won’t be won with rifles but with artillery. Artillery! That’s the sort of stupidity I’ve got to reckon with!’
She’d heard it all before. The War Department was unadventurous. They were interested in the fact that Sam had come up with a design for a solid, reliable repeating rifle. But that was all. They were simply not prepared to buy the gun, despite the fact that the Navy Department had not only bought but actively recommended the weapon.
If you gave a soldier a repeating rifle, the army reasoned, he would shoot off twice or three times as many bullets. A man using a muzzle loader which took him half a minute to load would take that much more care firing. Sam had tried every argument he knew and a few he came up with on the spot, but everyone had failed.
‘If I was making the damned gun in Brussels, they’d be falling over themselves to buy it!’ he grumbled.
‘Maybe you should go down to Richmond, Sam,’ Abby said slyly. ‘Try selling your repeater there.’
He looked up and saw the twinkle in her eye. He knew well enough that she was as much against slavery as he was himself, and that he was about as likely to sell repeaters to the seceded states as he was to get up out of his chair and
fly. Hadn’t they both helped slaves to escape to the North via the underground railway in Kansas?
Kansas, she thought.
It was like another life. Enough adventures out there to fill a book, Sam used to say. Like that time they were taking a runaway slave to the next station, a big fellow who said his name was Jubal. They dressed him in some of Abby’s clothes and a poke bonnet. Abby remembered how Jubal’s face had glistened with sweat as they drove through the town, Sam on one side of him, she on the other. Right across from the sheriff s office, a screech owl spooked the horses. They bolted down the street, tumbling Abby and the black man from the wagon. Sam fought the team to a stop and they got Jubal into the wagon without anybody noticing. But not before, as Sam later put it, he’d sweated off ten pounds.
Abby wondered if other people had the same kind of memory she did. It seemed to her that when she looked back over her life, it was like she’d lived it in chapters, each with a beginning and an ending, just like a book. The orphanage. Old Dr Parker. Sam. The boys. Sam’s service with Frémont. Kansas. This part, now.
She wondered if every family had secrets. The Strongs certainly had their share. Over the years Abby had taken on the job of unofficial family historian. She even knew where Mary Strong, Sam’s runaway sister, had died, and what had happened to her family, the Christmans. But she had not told Sam or anyone else in the family about that. If Mary Christman had never wanted her family to know, she was entitled to her secrets. Everyone was.
She looked across the room at her husband. Sam was bent over his ledgers, frowning furiously at the figures as if they were disobeying his scratching pen. Dear Sam, she thought, how much I have not told you. Even after twenty-five years of being married to you, still I have secrets.
She had left the orphanage when she was sixteen, a pretty enough girl dressed in hand-me-down clothes carrying her few personal possessions in a battered carpetbag. The nuns had arranged for her to work in the home of a doctor as a scullery maid. And that was the end of the first chapter and the beginning of a new one.
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