The Lone Star Reloaded Series Box Set

by Drew McGunn

  Will glowered. “Let them think that, as long as they pay the bills.” But softened as he asked, “Is it that bad in Harrisburg, David?”

  Crockett howled with laughter. “Hell, Buck. If it were only that bad. I got plantation owners like Robert Potter grousing about the property tax he’s saddled with paying. Then there’s the Galveston merchants screaming about the tariffs. Congress is screaming about the expenditures for the army and the navy. The only good news is Lamar wrote from France saying he is hopeful for recognition soon. Come ’42, if Houston wants the presidency so damn much, I’ll go to stumping for him.”

  Will chuckled at Crockett the raconteur. “Don’t. Sam’ll make a beeline strait for Washington. Right after he disbands the navy and cashiers the army. But never any mind about the Raven. I told those fools in Congress that staying in the field inside the Comancheria was costing us men, weapons, and supplies. It’s damned hard to defend a moving supply train without drawing down our forces. The mounted militia we had was damned near useless. By the time we had nearly two hundred prisoners, it would have left us too exposed to have sent back a force with the second group of prisoners.

  “The fact is, I delivered our message. The Comanche know we have lots of their women and children prisoner here in San Antonio. After meeting their peace chief, Spirit Talker, I believe the Comanche will try to take them back by force before they consider peace. God knows I wish they’d listen to reason and negotiate.”

  Crockett nodded, grimly. “I know, Buck. Sam even sent a couple of his friends among the Cherokee to see if the Comanche would listen. They didn’t. I allow I have fought in a few Indian fights back east, but none of those tribes come close to the fierceness and ruthlessness of the Comanche. They take an all or nothing approach to life, Buck. Not unlike a few of our own congresscritters.” He deflated at that. “Dammit all. If we don’t win a resounding victory here soon and bring the Comanche to the treaty table, I’m not sure that a majority of our illustrious Congress won’t be calling for a war of extermination against them. More than any other reason, that’s what brought me here. I can’t let that happen.”

  ***

  Will pulled the door closed and locked it. As he took hold of Charlie’s hand and walked toward the road, he looked back at the low adobe building, a block away from San Antonio’s main plaza. The windows were shuttered and padlocked. Their home sealed against their return. A glance to either side, revealed other families packing their belongings. San Antonio was fast becoming a ghost town. Word had reached San Antonio yesterday in the guise of a Ranger from the fort on the Pedernales Falls, of Comanche bands joining together on the frontier. There was little doubt the target was their fair town.

  Only the distance of a city block separated their house from the plaza, so Will and Charlie walked there. The tower of San Fernando Church provided a clear view not just of the plaza, but the prairie surrounding the town. A sentry stood in the belfry with a telescoping spyglass, looking first to the north then swinging the lens to the west.

  Dozens of wagons crowded the plaza. Frazzled looking women, both Tejano and Anglo, were attempting to keep control of their children. In front of the governor’s palace a small company of San Antonio militia stood by their horses, waiting to escort the civilian caravan east to Gonzales. It was second nature for Will to assess the men standing under the Texas flag. He was shocked to see how young they were, before surmising the officer in command of the militia company was sending his youngest and least experienced out of town, ostensibly to protect the women and children of San Antonio.

  There were heavy militia patrols east of San Antonio, and the presence of the young soldiers was superfluous. At least that is what Will’s analytical side contended. The part of him that worried, as a parent, was glad to see they would accompany the civilians to Gonzales.

  Corralling Charlie, Will walked over to the very young-looking officer. “Lieutenant.”

  The young man turned and seeing Will in his butternut officer’s uniform with the gold stars on each of his shoulder straps, threw a hasty salute. All the young men, boys really, wore the grey militia jackets still favored by the Texas militia. They wore an assortment of hats and the pants ran the gamut of civilian clothing. “General Travis, sir! Lieutenant Carlos Bustamante at your service, sir.”

  Will kept the smile from his lips as his attention was drawn to the young officer’s attempt at a mustache, but the down on his upper lip was all he could manage. “Lieutenant, how many men are assigned to your command?”

  The eager youth replied, “I have thirty men here, General Travis, sir.”

  Will let the smile crease his face as he listened to the young officer’s enthusiasm. “As you were, Lieutenant.”

  He took Charlie to a wagonful of the Seguin clan’s children, where he lifted the boy on to the back of the wagon and tossed Charlie’s bag of clothes beside him. As the Seguin children climbed into the wagon bed, Charlie’s eyes started streaming and he pleaded, “Pa, do I have to go?”

  Will picked him up and hugged him and said, “Hush, Charlie. We’ll both be safe. You know I have my job to do here, and you’ll go with the Seguins and all these other fine folks.” Will gestured toward Juan Seguin’s eldest daughter, Antonia, and said, “After all, all of these pretty ladies need brave lads, just like you, to keep them safe.”

  Charlie wiped the tears away with his arm and sniffled as he tried to put a brave face on for both his father and the girl a year older than himself, who sat down beside him, her feet dangling from the back of the wagon. Will smiled at his son, who at nine years of age, was growing into the image of his father. No matter how Will ransacked Travis’ memories, he couldn’t fathom how Travis could have so thoroughly abandoned his duties to his children and to their mother. He tousled the boys’ hair and stepped back as the wagon lurched forward, heading out of San Antonio to safety.

  As he watched the wagon roll away, carrying the child who was more son to him than the boy had ever been to his own father, a noise startled him from his reverie. He turned and saw Crockett stroll up beside him. The older man joined him and together they watched the wagon disappear around a corner, following the road eastward.

  “Not many things are harder to behold than watching them go when they’re so young, Buck. I spent so much time traveling, hunting, exploring, and yes, politicking, I never saw any of my children’s first steps.”

  Will glanced at his president and saw Crockett wearing a melancholy expression, watching each wagon roll out of the plaza, heading east, to safety. “I didn’t know, David. I’m sorry.”

  Crockett smiled, sadly. “I didn’t learn of my Polly’s death until weeks after it happened. Had I been the dutiful husband and father, I’d have been there. I don’t know if I could have stopped it, but at least she wouldn’t have died without hearing me tell her how much I loved her.”

  This wasn’t a side of Crockett he’d seen before. Uncertain what to say, he simply watched the last of the wagons roll around bend in the road.

  The silence lingered after the last wagon was gone. Clearing his throat, Will forced a jovial tone into his voice. “And here I thought you were escaping the family hearth to get away from all the trappings of family. I’d have never imagined the famous Davy Crockett going soft on me.”

  Crockett let out a loud harrumph. “Damned if I know if Davy Crockett is going soft, but David, well, David knows better to speak of himself in the third person.” Both men laughed, and turned to leave the plaza. Crockett was in a talkative mood, as they retrieved their horses. “I’ve spent less than half my life at home with Liza, the woman I love who gave me three beautiful children. My boy, Bob is almost twenty-two years old, and I barely know the man he’s becoming. Becky is nineteen years old and I’ve sent more suitors packing since she’s arrived than I’d ever dreamed of, as not a single one of them is worth spit. Hell, Buck, my youngest, Matilda ran off with her beau when Liza packed up the house to come here to Texas. That’s a kick in the pants. My o
wn baby girl didn’t want to come out here with her family. I can’t tell you how much that hurt, Buck.”

  The last year and a half had allowed Will to get to know Crockett well. This was the first time he’d ever heard Crockett talk about his love for his family. The other times, it was jokes and fun. One benefit of soldiering Will had learned to appreciate over the past decade was it allowed him to keep his emotions at arm’s length. Out of his depth, Will reached over and put his hand on Crockett’s shoulder. “A wise man told me once, to be sure that I was right and then go ahead. I’d say he gave me good advice.”

  Crockett turned to Will, “Good advice, I would have been a better father had I taken it more often.”

  As they rode back to the Alamo, Crockett stopped on the wooden bridge over the San Antonio River. Water flowed quickly over the rocks and pebbles lining the river bed as it gurgled along. He looked down, watching the river flow by. Finally, he said, “I’m glad I came to Texas, Buck. It’s given me and now my family a chance for a fresh start. I know I can give them a better life here, if I don’t wind up killing every blasted ne’er-do-well who comes a-knocking on my door wanting to come courting for my Becky.”

  He nudged his horse along, and the river fell behind them as they approached the walls of the Alamo. “You know, General Travis, there’s one young ‘Buck’ that I know I wouldn’t object to should he come calling on my Becky.”

  Chapter 11

  Twenty-five-year-old Ben McCulloch pulled his horse out of the line of march, which allowed him to watch the men of the Gonzales Military District kick up dust as they marched west, toward San Antonio. Forty mounted riflemen and a little more than a hundred men afoot had responded to General Travis’ command. He knew it should have been more, a lot more. As the elected officer responsible for maintaining the militia roll, it had fallen to him, as Major of Militia, to muster the district for military service. He was piqued by the poor response from the men of the district. More than four hundred men were listed on the militia roll, and far fewer than half had even bothered to answer the call to arms.

  When he wasn’t so angry, he tried to put himself into the shoes of those who hadn’t turned out. More than half the men who failed to show were married men with wives and children and they were relocating their families away from the frontier, to the east. Word had arrived at Gonzales a few days before the mobilization order that the Comanche had attacked a few farms west of a tiny hamlet on the Colorado River called Waterloo.

  As the last of his small force filed by, McCulloch edged back onto the road, following behind his command as they rode toward the Alamo.

  Later in the week, Major McCulloch watched as his men joined with the Militia districts of San Antonio, Goliad, Victoria, and Bastrop. They were deployed on the field south of the Alamo, a little more than five hundred men. They were a ragtag assortment, some few dressed in militia jackets of gray, but far more wearing the clothing of their civilian occupation. Their weapons were a hodgepodge of rifles, muskets, and shotguns. Many wore the fearsome Bowie knife at their belts.

  McCulloch glanced down at his pocket watch and saw it was time. He yelled, “By the left face! March!”

  ***

  The men who styled themselves as the 2nd Texas provisional Infantry shifted from parade rest to columns of four men each, and began marching past the ten-foot-tall southern wall of the Alamo. Will stood on top of the wall, above the gatehouse. It was all he could do to keep the disappointment from his face as he saluted Major McCulloch’s command. Between the five military districts, which had been mobilized, their paper strength was over twelve hundred men. But only five hundred had answered the call, and nearly half of them had been from the San Antonio district. Goliad, Victoria, and Bastrop each had sent around thirty men or so.

  With a neutral expression on his face, Will couldn’t stop thinking the poor turn-out bade ill for Texas the next time Mexico decided to invade. Given the poor state of the militia, he was glad there were six hundred regulars already assembled at the Alamo. Standing next to Will were Lt. Colonel Johnston and President Crockett. As the militia finished their parade in honor of the president, Will turned to the other men and said, “Only four out of ten men mobilized. I don’t want to minimize the challenge posed by the Comanche, but what will this kind of turn out mean to us when we face an existential threat from Mexico?”

  “Nothing good,” replied Johnston. “Their drill is nearly non-existent, and we just can’t trust them to turn out in significant enough numbers as to be useful.”

  Crockett shook his head, “I’m not sure if I should ask you what you have in mind or how much this is going to cost me, Buck.”

  Will smiled contritely, “I’m just thinking out loud about taking a small number of our better militia units and turn them into something that organizationally would fall between the regulars and the militia. Kind of a national guard, of sorts.”

  Crockett blanched, “That could get expensive real quick like.”

  “David, look at those boys out there. If they’re defending San Antonio, they might be alright, I know a few of them were with Ben Milam when he took the city away from Cos two years ago, but I don’t trust their training to commit them to a standup fight against the Comanche, even less if they’re called to face the Mexicans in a pitched battle.” Will turned to Johnston. “Sid, how many men are enrolled throughout our entire militia?”

  “Maybe a bit over five thousand men, General.”

  Will nodded at Crockett while waving at Johnston. “See, David. Maybe this year or next, we just set aside an equal amount of men as guardsmen as are regular. They’re volunteers, part of the militia, when it comes right down to it, but we could equip them and train them, and even more importantly, give them professional officers. No more turning an election for officers into a popularity contest.”

  Crockett still remained skeptical, “The fly in the ointment is cost. We already spend a half million each year on the army. Asking anything more of Congress may be asking them to swallow an alligator. How much would this cost us?”

  Will glanced over at Johnston, who pulled a scrap of paper from his vest pocket, and opened it. “This is purely hypothetical, Mr. President, but for a thousand guardsmen each year, you’d be looking at eighty thousand dollars give or take a bit.”

  Crockett chuckled as he looked askance at the two officers. “Eighty thousand dollars here and another eighty thousand dollars there and soon enough you’re talking about real money.”

  ***

  The lieutenant lifted his black, wide-brimmed hat from his face with one hand and wiped away the sweat from his face with a red checkered handkerchief. His charcoal black hair had streaks of grey shooting through it. Summer, it appeared, had arrived early in south Texas. Lieutenant Gregorio Esparza had ridden with Juan Seguin since before the Revolution and after victory over Santa Anna had stayed in the cavalry. At first it was out of loyalty to his friend, the land grants in lieu of pay wasn’t anything his wife, Ana had much use for. He had lost track of the number of times she had asked him how to prepare the land grants for dinner. But when the government started paying in cotton-backs at the beginning of the year, she stopped complaining.

  New reports had trickled in over the previous couple of days regarding Comanche raids on homesteads on the Colorado River, to the north. Esparza’s platoon of twenty cavalry were deployed in two squads of ten men each. His men had been mounted since before dawn and were keeping a watchful eye on the fords, along the Guadeloupe River, where the trails led north from San Antonio.

  Esparza and the squad with which he rode, watched a ford which had cedar elms growing along its banks, as well as various shrubs. There was more cover along the opposite bank than he liked, and he turned to the squad’s sergeant, Gustav Fredericks, saying, “Sergeant, you see that elm on the other side of the river? All that scrub brush so close to the ford bothers me. What do you think about putting a couple of our men opposite it. Putting some guns on the right spot on this
side could negate anything coming from the other side.”

  Fredericks gave a precise salute, and with a thick German accent, said, “Yes, sir, Lieutenant. Private Garcia, come with me.”

  The sergeant followed the wagon ruts down the river bank, scouting positions where he could place his men into cover. Several arrows arced out of the very area Esparza was studying. Unlike many cavalry troopers, the sergeant was a large man and two arrows took him in the chest, flipping him off the back of his saddle, in a somersault, where he landed on the river bank with a bone-jarring thud. Private Garcia wheeled his horse around and ducked his head low against animal’s neck. Arrows sped over his head as he dug his heels into his mount, beating a hasty retreat toward Esparza and the rest of the squad.

  From the northern side of the Guadeloupe River, more than a dozen Comanche warriors plunged their horses into the shallow water, as they screamed insults and waved muskets, bows, spears, and clubs at the troopers. Esparza grabbed his carbine, and confirmed that the percussion cap was in place. There were more than enough targets to pick from. What was the expression used by General Travis? Target rich environment. But when he saw a warrior rise from behind the brush, he inferred he was seeing Sgt. Fredericks’ murderer. He raised his rifle at the same time the warrior drew back his bow, aiming at the retreating private. Both weapons fired at the same time. Both aimed true. As Private Garza jolted in his saddle with the arrow’s impact, the bullet struck the warrior in the throat, spraying blood as the carotid artery was severed. The warrior tumbled into the shallow water, dead before his body splashed in the river.

  An arrow protruding from his back, Private Garza managed to guide his horse back to the squad. Esparza grabbed the private’s reins and turned. “Let’s get moving, boys! Let’s find the other squad and send these bastards back across the river.” With that, he dug his spurred heels into his horse’s flanks and urged it to a gallop. The other seven troopers raced after the officer. Each effort to veer back to the river was met with a shower of arrows, driving them to the southwest, toward San Antonio. Glancing behind him every few minutes, he saw more than a score of Comanche spread out behind him and his men. As a pointed reminder, they were racing for their lives, every few minutes, one of the warriors let loose an arrow, which fell behind him and his men.