Against All Odds

by Drew McGunn

  As the veteran soldiers from the Alamo garrison were taking up positions on either side Jesse’s Rangers, the Cherokee officer pointed back the way he had come earlier. “I want your cadets to take up a position along Chestnut Street.”

  The officer wore an offended look. “But, sir, these cadets are well trained. Once they graduate, they’ll be assigned as officers throughout the army.”

  “I know,” Jesse snapped. “And I want them one block back. If those bastards out yonder force us off our line, there aren’t many things worse than a fighting retreat. What I want is some of our best soldiers back there, to form the backbone of such a retreat.”

  After the officer left, Jesse climbed on top of the overturned wagon’s tongue for a better view of the milling melee north of town. The Rangers from the Frontier Battalion were mixed in with the gray jacketed troopers, and although heavily outnumbered, they were armed to the teeth and gave better than they received. However, despite their superior firepower, the Texas Rangers were pushed back. Watching them wheel away, trying to break free, he recalled something General Johnston had said about quantity having a quality all its own. No doubt the Southern cavalry would have swept the Rangers aside had it not been for the number of revolvers each Ranger carried into the fight.

  In twos and threes, the Texians veered away from the enemy troopers; they’d had enough. To Jesse’s trained eye, too many Ranger saddles were empty as the survivors galloped back toward the makeshift position at the edge of town. Riders who had vanquished the Texians from the field chased after them, staying hard on their heels.

  Jesse leapt from the wagon tongue, “Get ready, boys. Aim true.”

  Rifles cracked, and Jesse watched gray jacketed riders tumble from saddles even as the men from the Frontier battalion streamed through the defenders on their way to the rear. The entire battalion of the army’s Rangers stood behind the makeshift barricade or knelt or lay in the knee-high grass along the roadside. Hundreds of rifles lashed out sheets of lead, knocking gray uniformed horsemen from the mounts by the dozens.

  In just a few minutes, a thick haze of smoke covered the field in front of the Texians’ position, masking the Southern horsemen’s retreat. Climbing back on top of the wagon tongue, Jesse strained to see through the fog of war. The smoke eddied and drifted along, carried by a light, morning breeze that was too warm to be cool but held not a hint of the blazing heat the early summer afternoon promised.

  The haze dissipated, moment by moment and Jesse felt his stomach lurch as he saw, advancing toward Austin, a long line of gray-jacketed infantry.

  He stepped down and told a sergeant who was filling his pockets with ammunition from a wooden box, “Pass the word, fill your cartridge boxes, haversacks, and pockets with cartridges. We’re going to need them.”

  ***

  Once his family had disappeared down the street toward the Methodist Church, Will turned and headed in the opposite direction, toward the sound of the gunfire. The holster slapped against his thigh each time his right foot pounded the dirt street. Despite his regular walks, he found himself gasping for air before he’d gone more than a couple of blocks and he was forced to slow to a jog.

  When did I get to be forty-four years old? He thought as he gasped for air. As little as four years earlier, he would have been able to run the entire length of Congress Avenue from one end of town to the other. Now, as he sucked in a lungful of air, a few blocks were too much. He cursed the desk that he’d been tied to since being elected President.

  The rifle felt good in his hands. It was a gift from Andy Berry, an experimental weapon Berry had gifted to him only a few months earlier. A tubular magazine below the barrel held sixteen cartridge rounds. Instead of using the falling breechblock, Berry chose a lever action to chamber a round from the magazine. The same lever action that chambered a fresh round ejected the spent.

  In all likelihood, Berry would give the rifle some name tied to the Trinity Gun Works, but to Will, it looked remarkably like the Model 1860 Henry rifle, a gun he’d been familiar with as a student of history before the transference.

  Beyond the last building, Will saw men and horses well back from a makeshift defensive position on Magnolia Avenue. The men, Rangers from the Frontier Battalion, by their dress, were huddled around their wounded. Will came upon them as one of them was wrapping a leg wound with an undyed cotton bandage. The Ranger, lying on the ground swore at his companion and said, “A plague on you, Wendell, you’re more a threat to me than those bastards over yonder.”

  The Ranger named Wendell tied the bandage off. “That’ll hold you ‘til we can get you to see a doctor, Frank. I’m a mite gentler than those Allied soldiers.”

  As he stood, wiping his hands on his trousers, he left a streak of red. Stepping back, he admired his handiwork and, in the process, bumped into Will. When the Ranger turned and saw who he bumped into his mouth fell open, “Mister President, what in the blazes are you doing here?”

  Only four hundred feet away, riflemen from behind overturned wagons, or crouching in the tall grass were firing at an enemy not visible from where he stood. The first gunshot he’d heard less than ten minutes earlier had crystallized in Will’s mind that this attack wasn’t merely about destroying the Republic’s capital. What kind of men would travel deeper into Texas after General Davis had chosen to save his army by retreating? Any man whose primary goal was the wellbeing of his soldiers would have fallen back into Louisiana, saving his men to defend their homes and states. The list of men who Will’s policies had impacted was long. Growing within him was a certainty that whoever led the Southern soldiers was someone who had taken Will’s political views on slavery personal. What would a man like that do if he captured Will’s family? Would Southern notions of honor prevail? That was a thin reed he’d not trust. No, whoever sought revenge against him needed to be stopped here and now, not in the heart of town where so much more than just his family would be at risk.

  Blue eyes flashed with anger as Will stared down the Texas Ranger. “Like you, I’m here to defend my home.”

  The Ranger sergeant stepped between Will and the battle. “I can’t let you do that, sir. You’re the goddamned president. What if something happens to you?”

  Will gripped the rifle in his hands and stared daggers at the Ranger. In the back of his mind, he knew the man was right. His duty, at least until the next election, was the lead the Republic. But his heart led him to say, “What good is a life lived behind security’s wall? Liberty, to be of any value, can’t be kept hidden. If you try to protect me for the sake of my security, you deprive me of my liberty.”

  The Ranger took a step back, a look of uncertainty on his face, as Will continued, “This war, thrust upon us by men who draw their wealth and the very notion of who they are from their ability to enslave others, for me has always been about freedom and liberty. We fight so that no child will ever again be born a slave in Texas. Who will join me?”

  Will took a step forward, and the Sergeant moved aside and said, “If you’ve gotta stay, then the least I’ll do is fight by your side, Mr. President.”

  Without looking behind to see how many of the Texas Rangers followed, Will sprinted the remainder of the way, arriving at the makeshift barricade in time to see a wall of men in gray charging the last hundred paces. The smooth lever action chambered the first round as he raised the rifle to his shoulder. There were plenty of targets at which to shoot. He drew down on someone carrying the blue and white flag with a palmetto tree in the center and fired. The flag dipped as the man dropped it as he pitched backward.

  Will levered the action and fired again as a fierce grin crossed his features. He still had thirteen more rounds in the magazine.

  ***

  The rattle of musketry surrounded Jason Lamont as he guided his mount between two regiments of advancing soldiers. The regiments were ghosts of their former glory. A year before they’d marched to war with nearly a thousand men per regiment. Now, only one of the five infantry reg
iments contained close to four hundred men. The others barely mustered three hundred. But they were all veterans. Even so, their attack seemed to be stalling as soldiers in ones and twos stopped and fired their rifled muskets at the enemy.

  Gripping his mount with his legs, he nudged his way forward. A makeshift barricade covered less than a hundred yards. The rest of the enemy fired from whatever cover they could find, be it a fallen log or a drainage ditch alongside the road. Moreover, there weren’t that many men. By God, I’ve got the advantage, but we’re stalled out.

  “Up, men, up!” he screamed until his voice was hoarse as he rode his mount between the two regiments. “Fix bayonets!”

  Lamont dug his heels into his mount’s flanks, and the beast reared up on his hind legs. He held on with one hand gripping the saddle horn and the other gripping his sword and reins together. With less force, he urged his horse forward, ahead of his command. “At the bastards. At them!”

  He cantered forward, pointing his sword toward the enemy. It was working, he thought, as his men charged forward with the tips of their bayonets leading.

  Lamont knew this attack was the last bit of devotion his men retained. They were tired, hungry, and too far away from home, fighting not for their homes nor for their Southern Alliance, but to destroy the government center of the little Republic that had started this war when their President had signed slavery’s death warrant. Their hopes, their aspirations, even their very future, were at death’s door. Destroying Austin and William Barret Travis was a final act of defiance.

  As though thinking of him would make the hated President of Texas appear, Lamont caught a glimpse of a face he’d never forget, standing at the barricade. Every other thought fell away as Lamont focused on his old enemy. He pushed his mount to a gallop and ignored the zip of bullets that missed him by mere inches. Had he looked behind him, he would have seen nearly his entire brigade break into a reckless charge. But his focus was dead ahead.

  Until he found himself somersaulting over his mount’s head as the horse screamed in pain and stumbled. With no time to think about it, Lamont tucked his head into his chest as he slammed into the ground and rolled to a stop. His sword spun out of his hand as his breath was forced from his lungs at the point of impact. A quick look behind showed his mount was down, its legs still feebly kicking.

  Climbing to his feet as he sucked in air, Lamont pulled his revolver from its holster and searched the enemy barricade for Travis. He was so close, scarcely thirty paces away. Unaware his men were only steps behind him, Lamont screamed in primal rage and charged toward Travis, his pistol at the ready.

  ***

  CRACK! Will felt something both soothing and exhilarating each time the repeating rifle punched his shoulder. As he sent leaden death at the soldiers racing across the battlefield, he had never felt more alive. Somewhere inside, he knew he should be worried about being shot. The only time, he’d felt anywhere close to how he felt at that moment was when he and David Crockett had been firing into a milling mass of Mexican infantry following the Battle of the Rio Grande. Nothing in his time before the transference compared.

  The Southern soldiers were closing fast, and Will wasn’t blind to the bayonet-tipped rifled muskets the enemy carried. In close quarters, the advantage in firepower his men held over the enemy fell off fast. He looked around. On either side were Rangers from the Frontier Battalion interspersed with the Army Rangers in their mottled butternut uniforms. Surrounding him was a lot of firepower.

  In front of the barricade, men were falling by the scores, but they were led by their officers, pulling them forward across the last few yards. One officer, on horseback, waved a sword toward the barricade and Will felt as though the man was pointing straight at him.

  As he levered another round into the chamber, Will aimed at the man and was about to pull the trigger when the man’s horse was struck by gunfire and tumbled to the ground, throwing him overhead.

  As the enemy officer sailed through the air, Will realized he’d seen him somewhere before. As he wracked his mind trying to decide who the officer was, the attacking enemy soldiers swept up to him and propelled him along the last few yards to the barricade.

  Will felt himself propelled away from the overturned wagon. He twisted away from grasping arms and found himself facing the Ranger sergeant from earlier. “Sir, the line’s not going to hold, we’ve got to get you back.”

  Will bushed past him and fired at a gray jacketed soldier tangled between two wagons’ interlocked tongues. “Go if you want, but I’m staying.”

  The Ranger stepped up next to him and shot someone crawling over the barricade before he crumpled to the ground, hit in the stomach. Will fired again as the body on top of the barricade was pushed over, where it fell in a heap at the wagon’s base. As the officer, who had taken the tumble from his horse, scampered across the overturned wagon, Will recognized him.

  Will swore and aimed. He hadn’t given a single thought to Jason Lamont in nearly a decade and yet the way the South Carolinian gave him a murderous stare told him the rebel officer hadn’t forgotten.

  CLICK.

  The rifle was empty. Will had failed to count the rounds as he fired and at the moment he needed the gun most, it was empty.

  A pistol was in Lamont’s hand, and he raised and pointed it at Will.

  The rifle might have been empty, but Will stepped forward, trying to close the distance with Lamont as he grabbed his gun by the still-warm barrel and swung it back like it was a baseball bat.

  Lamont fired. CRACK.

  Will felt the heat as the bullet passed next to his ear. He started swinging forward with the rifle-turned-bat as Lamont fired a second time.

  He flinched as he felt a searing pain in his side. But the rifle stock connected with the side of Lamont’s head and the man who had given safe haven to his son’s kidnappers so many years earlier fell like he’d been hit by a ton of bricks.

  Will dropped the gun, the stock connected to the rest of the firearm by nothing more than a screw. He reached to his side, and his hand came away sticky and red.

  He fell to his knees beside Lamont. One glance at the Southern officer told Will what he needed to know. Lamont’s head was at an impossible angle to his body, and his eyes blankly stared back at Will.

  From the direction of town came a piercing battle cry. As Will knelt beside a man, who for a decade had wanted him dead, the Alamo cadets attacked and struck the barricade, throwing back the Southern soldiers, who, without their leader, retreated, exhausted, and demoralized.

  “Sir, are you alright?”

  Flinching from pain as he raised his head, Will saw the young Cherokee-born Ranger colonel standing over him. “You’re Running Creek, right?” he gasped as he accepted a hand and was helped to his feet.

  When the colonel saw Will stagger and saw blood spreading across his white shirt, he yelled, “Get a doctor, the president’s been hit.”

  Someone had found a box that hadn’t been turned to kindling in the battle, and Will found himself forced to sit down as a medical orderly knelt beside him and lifted the shirt to see. A moment later the man whistled, “Another inch and we’d be hoping for a miracle, sir. The bullet gouged you pretty good and may have bruised or broke a rib or two. Let me get a bandage on you, and we’ll get back into town where a doctor can look you over.”

  Behind the makeshift barricade on the edge of town, hundreds of men were down. To Will, it seemed as though as many wore the butternut brown of the Texian army as wore Southern gray. The bravery of the defenders had saved Austin, but at a terrible price. The South was done for, Will thought, Longstreet’s army was paroled, and it was merely a matter of time for the federals to take control of the rest of the rebellious states. Lamont’s quest had been bloody and pointless.

  With a steadying arm from the orderly, Will climbed to his feet. In the distance, hundreds of civilians congregated just beyond the last house on the north side of town. Most were dressed in their Sunday best, and
all looked somberly on as the defenders started separating the wounded from the dead. Letting the orderly lead, Will stepped around the dead Ranger who had tried to get him away to safety. Then they were beyond the carnage.

  A single shout rose above the murmuring, “Will!”

  A woman in a green dress was running down Congress Avenue toward him. Not even when he’d seen her the first time so many years earlier had she looked so beautiful. She stopped when she was but a few feet away, her eyes fixed on the bandage around his chest. “Lord please, are you alright?”

  Will nodded, “Yes. Everything is going to be alright.” He closed the last few feet and swept Becky into an embrace, kissing her.

  Chapter 29

  With a faint click, the door closed as the blue-uniformed soldier stepped outside, leaving the men in the room to their meeting. It was, to Horace Greeley’s assessment, an august assortment of men. On one side of an ornate desk sat Secretary of State Fletcher Webster. Flanking him were Generals Robert E. Lee and Don Carlos Buell. Next to Lee was a third general, the young Texan who had captured New Orleans in a joint operation between the Republic and the United States, William Sherman. On the other side of the desk sat James Longstreet and Jefferson Davis, formerly of the now defunct Southern Alliance.

  “Mr. Secretary, we’re grateful for your forbearance in agreeing to meet with us,”

  Sitting in the corner of the room with his notepad open, Horace Greeley leaned forward. He didn’t want to miss a word from Longstreet, who, three months after his surrender in Georgia, still wore the gray dress uniform of the Southern Alliance’s now non-existent army.

  Webster chewed on an unlit cigar as he nodded back at the former general. “The sooner we can put your states back on the path to readmittance, the sooner things will improve for the citizens hereabouts. I agreed to this meeting to hear your grievances, General.”