Eyes of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “Surrender, senor,” Jamie told him.

  The Mexican commander spat on the ground by Jamie’s feet. “There is your reply. Come the dawning, I will see you all dead!”

  “I doubt it. But gracias anyway.” Jamie walked back to his horse and returned to Colonel Travis with the message.

  “Make ready the cannon!” Travis ordered.

  The cannonball crashed into the compound without killing anyone but scaring the hell out of everyone. The Mexican officer was certain that this tiny force was the vanguard of a much larger force and immediately ran up the white flag of surrender.

  Travis rode up to the gate. “Stack your arms and deliver them to us. Tomorrow, at first light, you and your command will leave Texas.”

  “Si, senor!” the officer said.

  As he watched them leave just after dawn, Jamie wondered if all wars were as easily won as this one?

  * * *

  When Travis and his victorious force returned to San Felipe, they found, much to their surprise, that the majority of people there had suddenly had a change of heart and were soundly condemning Travis’s actions at the Mexican garrison.

  “You acted in haste!” one clearly frightened citizen told the startled Travis. “We could all be wiped out because of your brashness.”

  Travis was furious, but managed to contain his anger when a committee from the town wrote a letter of apology to the commander of the small garrison at Anahuac. He even kept his temper in check when that same committee demanded that he do the same. He finally wrote the note of apology, but those that knew him could clearly see that beneath the words, it was definitely tongue in cheek. Jamie knew then that the seemingly straight-laced Travis had a wicked sense of humor.

  Jamie kept in touch with Kate and his friends back in the thicket by posting letters to the village of San Augustine whenever he could, which was not often, for Travis had him riding all over the south part of Texas, gathering little tidbits of information. For the first time since leaving the Big Thicket, Jamie felt he was finally doing something worthwhile, both for the independence movement and for himself.

  Jamie was learning the country and the people who lived there. Since he had mastered Spanish, he moved easily among the Spanish and the Anglos. Several times he encountered bands of Kiowa and Comanche on his lonely rides. But he was not attacked by them. Like Houston, the Indians knew Jamie was a friend if they would let him be, and they did, reluctantly, even though the Comanches were probably the most hated of all Indians in Texas . . . much of that hatred richly deserved, for the Comanche and their allies, the Kiowa, certainly earned the name savage in their wars against the white settlers. They butchered their way through Texas history, until the Texans finally had enough of it and very nearly wiped them out; those that were left were placed on reservations up in Indian Territory, an area that would later become Oklahoma.

  “Man Who Is Not Afraid just might be a fool!” one Comanche chief told Jamie one hot afternoon.

  “And Big Bear just might not live out this day if he does not watch his words,” Jamie retorted. Jamie knew only too well that the Indian admired and respected courage, if nothing else. If he showed one second of fear, they would kill him on the spot. Jamie also knew that the chief — actually a subchief — was watching the muzzle of Jamie’s carbine, which was pointed directly at the Indian’s chest.

  The Comanche grunted. “I think you would die well, but not on this day.” He led his band away in a swirling cloud of dust.

  Jamie rode on, toward San Antonio.

  After bathing and shaving, Jamie walked through the streets of the town. San Antonio was the largest town in Texas at the time, boasted more than two thousand citizens. Jamie enjoyed his first meal cooked by someone other than himself in days, and watched the passing parade of colorfully dressed men and women. But his eyes kept drifting to an old mission some distance away. He felt somehow drawn to the church. Finishing his drink, he walked over to the mission and stood for a moment by the entrance of the south gate.

  “It’s the Mission of San Antonio de Valero, senor,” a nan told him. “People around here call it The Alamo.”

  Twenty-six

  As Jamie rode, he stopped often and listened. If the talk was favorable, he quietly told the men to keep their weapons handy and lay in a stock of powder and shot. And Jamie was amazed that nearly everyone he talked with knew of him and his exploits.

  General Cos was loudly demanding that Colonel Travis be arrested and handed over to him for the raid at Anahuac. Wrong thing to demand as far as the Texans were concerned. If they wanted to chastise Travis for acting impudently, that was all right. He was one of them. But to hand Travis over for a Mexican firing squad was out of the question.

  General Cos retaliated by starting a steady flow of troops into Texas. This, Jamie saw personally and he beat it back to San Felipe to tell Travis.

  “How many did you see, Jamie?”

  “Several companies, at least.”

  Travis nodded his head. “Bonham has just returned from near the border. This only reinforces what he heard. That General Cos is preparing to enter Texas with several battalions of Mexican regulars. War is very close, Jamie. Take some time off and return to your family. Stay a few days, a few days only, Jamie, and then report back here.”

  Jamie took two spare mounts and hardly stopped until he reached Kate’s side.

  His friends left them alone for the first day, but on the second day, everybody came over, hungry for news.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” Jamie said, after everyone had their drinks and was settled down in the yard. The only movement was the occasional batting and swatting at a mosquito. “There will be another convention — at least one is called for. But I doubt there will be time for it. According to both Travis and Bowie, war is on our heels. This will probably be the last time I’ll be back for several months, at least. Perhaps longer. Probably longer.”

  It was August 1835.

  “Tell us about the army, Jamie,” Hannah urged. “It must be a grand sight.”

  Jamie smiled. How to tell them Texas was about to enter into a war and so far, he’d seen no sign of any organized army? He’d been told that Houston and Fannin did have men. But they were poorly organized. “And, Houston and Fannin have quarreled on more than one occasion,” Jamie told them. “Bowie told me that Fannin wanted to be a general. Houston made him settle for a colonelcy. It isn’t that people aren’t really getting along — the quarrels are minor — it’s just that everything is so disorganized. That’s got a lot of people worried.”

  The friends talked well into the night, and then departed. Kate said, “I have clean clothes all ready for you, Jamie. Puts His Foot Down brought you new moccasins and leggin’s that his wife made for you. Hannah made you a new pair of gloves. And Juan sent over a nice serape for you. It will be warm this winter.” She broke down then, and came into his arms.

  Jamie held her, letting her weep and get it out of her system. Kate was a strong woman, but she had kept her emotions all bottled up for too long, so the children would not see her shed tears and get them upset.

  After a time, she pulled away from him and dabbed at her eyes with a piece of cloth. “There now!” she said, patting her hair. “That’s over and done with. It will not happen again.”

  Jamie smiled in the darkness. “Cry if you want to, Kate. When I saw what we’re going to be up against, I felt like shedding a few tears myself.”

  She waited.

  “So far, we’ve fought soldiers that were pressed into serving. Prisoners, for the most part, who agreed to serve in the army in return for their sentences being lifted. Those troops I saw down along the border were professionals. And there are thousands more just like them not far behind.”

  “Juan says he will take up arms and fight alongside you, Jamie.”

  “Yes. There are a lot of Mexicans who will be doing that. I just hope in the years to come, after Texas gets her freedom, and she will, that those peo
ple are not forgotten. I’ve met once with a fine gentlemen named Juan Sequin. He’s political chief of the San Antonio district. He’s solidly on our side and has pledged to fight with us.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “Enough talk of war and politics, Kate. Can’t we think of anything better to do?”

  She smiled and they rose from the bench together and walked into the cabin. Moments later, the candle in their bedroom was snuffed out.

  * * *

  “Jamie Ian MacCallister,” Travis said proudly. “I want you to meet Mr. Stephen Austin.”

  The Mexicans had finally released Austin under a grant of general amnesty. But the time in prison had nearly done him in. He was only forty-two years old, but looked twenty years older when Jamie met him in September of 1835. His health was broken and he coughed persistently. He was Secretary of the State of Texas when he would die two days after Christmas 1836.

  “I’ve heard much good about you, Jamie,” Austin said. “I want to thank you for volunteering to serve with us.”

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  “I’ve been told by Bowie that you are a natural leader of men. Would you take a commission and lead a company of Texas volunteers?”

  “Sir, I know nothing of leading great groups of men in battle. As you no doubt have been told, I was taught warfare by the Shawnees. That is the way I prefer to wage war.”

  Austin smiled, as did Travis and Bowie, who had managed to be together in the same room for twenty minutes without one giving the other an acid piece of his mind.

  “Very well, Jamie,” Austin said. “At any rate, I’m glad to have you with us.”

  Jamie knew a dismissal when he heard one, and he was glad to leave that stuffy room. Austin had the smell of death about him and he said as much to Bonham, just as the voices of Travis and Bowie in loud argument drifted out of the closed door.

  “Prison broke him, Jamie. He isn’t a well man. But he’s a good man.”

  “That I could see plainly.”

  “He needs rest and lots of it, but I fear he’ll not get it.”

  That would prove to be true. In just over a month, Austin would be chosen as a field commander, even though he was not a soldier and did not want the job. Being the man he was, Austin did not turn away from the job.

  Travis’s spies reported to him that the Mexican commander at San Antonio, Colonel Domingo de Ugar-techa, was about to mount an expedition against the people of Gonzales, a small community to the east of San Antonio.

  “Why?” Travis asked. “They’ve done nothing.”

  “To take back a cannon given to them some years ago,” the spy replied.

  The small brass cannon had been given the people of Gonzales some years back to help protect them against Indian attack. The cannon itself was very nearly useless. But the very idea of a large Mexican force of soldiers attacking civilians over a cannon that was practically worthless rankled the Texans. Jamie was ordered to ride to Gonzales, to warn the settlers there. When he arrived, he found the citizens already knew of the impending attack and had strung up two huge banners. One said, GO TO HELL, SANTA ANNA. The other banner was hung over the tiny cannon, now mounted on a cart. It read, COME AND TAKE IT.

  Jamie, as ordered, let the settlers handle their own affairs, and handle it they did. One hundred fancy-dressed and helmet-plumed mounted Mexican dragoons came face to face with some one hundred and fifty Texans armed with long rifles on the Guadalupe River on October 2, 1835.

  The commander of the dragoons laughed at the sight and made a very loud and very derogatory remark concerning the Texans. Bad mistake. One sharpshooter knocked the plumed helmet from his head and the commander fell off his horse as the Texans opened fire.

  The Texas war for independence from Mexico had officially begun.

  * * *

  “Don’t get too cocky,” Bowie warned his men. “So far, we’ve not come up against professional and seasoned troops.”

  “Bowie’s right,” Travis said, in one of their rare agreements. “Most of the soldiers we’ve faced had little or no training. Believe me, the worst is yet to come.”

  Then they started arguing about who was really in command.

  Jamie had waited in Gonzales for a message from a scout in Goliad, about seventy miles southeast of San Antonio. Jamie had already received word that General Cos was in San Antonio with a force of about fifteen hundred men and he was anxious to get that news to Travis. As soon as the scout from Goliad handed him the pouch, Jamie was in the saddle and riding.

  The message read: General Cos left a small force in Goliad. Attacking.

  Just before midnight on October the 9th, a force of Texas volunteers overpowered the Mexican garrison at Goliad and seized arms and powder and shot.

  General Cos was furious and swore dire revenge on the heads of any Texan who dared oppose him.

  Over in Gonzales, Austin now found himself commanding a force of over five hundred men. Further east, in Nacogdoches, Sam Houston was calling for volunteers, having accepted the call for him to be commander. Bowie was commander of about a hundred men, all tough and spirited and loyal to Jim. But Bowie elected to stay loyal to Travis, who was forced to stay in San Felipe awaiting the convention, and take his orders, at least for a time.

  The whole situation was chaos and turmoil. Hundreds of Texas men had taken up arms, but nobody knew whose orders to obey. They were all volunteers and if they decided to go home for whatever reason, they went. They had no uniforms and looked terribly ragtag, albeit very spirited, as some three hundred to four hundred Texans — no accurate record was kept — marched toward San Antonio in the middle of October, hell-bent to attack General Cos. They dragged along the brass cannon from Gonzales, but unfortunately, the wheels fell off the cart, and the cannon — which was useless anyway — had to be discarded alongside the road.

  Jim Bowie and his hundred or so men were scouting far ahead of the main column, Jim, as usual, wanting to be in the vanguard of any good scrap. Jamie had been assigned to Bowie’s company. And was scouting ahead when he saw a large force of Mexican cavalry approaching. He raced back to Bowie with the news and the company barely had time to take cover before the Mexicans attacked.

  Outnumbered more than four to one, the Texans beat back charge after charge.

  “Stay calm, boys,” Bowie called to his men. “And keep your heads down. We can’t afford to lose a man.”

  Jamie was deadly accurate with his long rifle and that did not go unnoticed by Bowie and the other men.

  “They’re bringing up artillery!” Bowie shouted, lowering a spy glass. “Give them everything we’ve got, boys!”

  Within minutes, the Mexicans had retreated under the withering fire from the Texans, leaving their artillery behind.

  “Charge!” Bowie yelled, and the Texans surged forward, capturing the artillery pieces of the Mexicans. “Load ’em up and turn ’em around!” Bowie shouted. “Give them a taste of their own cannon.”

  The Texans began pounding the retreating Mexican army with their own cannon. The Mexicans lost some sixty men, with about that many wounded. The Texans had one man killed and only a few wounded.

  Bowie and his men were jubilant, but cautious. Bowie was under no illusions. He argued against attacking San Antonio, which was defended by General Cos’s force of more than fifteen hundred troops.

  “Surround the town as best we can and settle in,” one of the commanders of the Texans, Ben Milam, said. “We’ll wait them out.”

  It was October 28th.

  “If we wait long,” Jamie said, after walking through the camp and listening to the men talk, “the spirit will wane.”

  “You’d attack a much larger force, lad?” he was asked.

  “I would, Indian style.”

  Edward Burleson, an old Indian fighter from way back, agreed with Jamie. He was overruled and the volunteers settled in to wait.

  “We’re making a mistake,” Jamie warned.

  Bowie nodded his head in agree
ment but did not argue the command. He had other things on his mind.

  “A bad mistake,” Ben Milam said sourly.

  Bowie left camp to attend the convention in San Felipe, where he promptly got drunk and insulted one of the attendees, Anson Jones, who would later be governor of the Republic of Texas. One thing about Bowie: he didn’t give a tinker’s damn who he insulted.

  The convention ended with Austin ordered to go to the United States to ask for money to pay for the war and to round up volunteers. Houston was appointed supreme commander of all the troops except those now garrisoned around San Antonio, the command of those men now given to Edward Burleson.

  Back at San Antonio, conditions among the volunteers were terrible and getting worse. The men were running out of food and most did not have adequate clothing for the winter, which was hard upon them. Many of the men were thinking about the upcoming spring and the planting of their crops. Some left to return to hearth and home.

  Burleson wanted to attack General Cos but his field officers overruled him and voted to withdraw the men.

  “Hell, no!” Ben Milam said hotly. “I’ll not back up a damn inch!”

  Jamie had spoken with several Americans who had just broken out of jail in San Antonio and they had told him that the morale among the Mexican defenders in the town was not good. He went to Ben Milam with the news.

  “You’ll follow me, lad?” Ben asked.

  “I will,” Jamie told him. “And many of the men still here will, too.”

  “You’re a game one, Jamie.” Ben Milam then drew his sword and cut a line in the Texas dust. “Who will follow Ben Milam into San Antonio?” he threw out the challenge. “Those who will, step across this line.”

  Several hundred men shouted back that they would and surged over the line to stand by Ben and Jamie. Then Francis Johnson and his men agreed to go with Ben.

  Ben now had about three hundred volunteers ready to follow him into San Antonio and, as Ben put it, “Kick the pants off of General Cos.”

  It was December 5th, 1835. Jamie had climbed up on a rooftop for a better view before entering the town. The first thing to catch his eye was the Mission of San Antonio de Valero.