The Black Jacks

by Jason Manning

  "A few of the Indians escaped, I think," said Yancey. "Wingate sent his Rangers out to hit their camp. He probably thinks there might be more white captives there."

  "Yes," said Tice. "His little niece, perhaps."

  McAllen muttered a curse under his breath. "Well, gentlemen, I have to go after those Rangers. They'll kill women and children without thinking twice, and that can only make matters worse."

  "Not a good idea, John Henry," said Yancey. "What can you do—except maybe get yourself killed?"

  McAllen spared him a grave look. "I won't know until I try, will I?"

  Yancey sighed. "Let's go, then."

  McAllen turned to Tice. "You stay and do what you can for Wingate and the other wounded."

  Joshua was waiting for them at the hotel, the horses saddled and ready, and the three men hastened north on the Calle de la Soledad, following the river past the Old Mill. The sound of gunfire guided them. Reaching the crest of a grassy slope, they checked their horses. Below, the Comanche encampment was partially obscured by a pall of dust. Texas Rangers were charging through at a gallop, their Colts blazing, shooting anything that moved. The sight made McAllen sick to his stomach with helpless rage.

  "Damn them," he rasped. "Don't they know what they're doing?"

  Yancey glanced bleakly at the man he had followed unflinchingly from the cypress swamps of Florida to the windy plains of Texas. He knew what McAllen meant. The Comanches would never forget or forgive this day. Thirty of their chiefs had been killed, and now women and children were being exterminated. From this day forth, no one in Texas would be safe until the Comanches were utterly destroyed—and if the bands united that would be an impossible task.

  "They know," replied Yancey grimly. "They just don't care."

  Cold fury etched on his face, John Henry McAllen kicked Escatawpa into a gallop. The gray hunter seemed to fly down the long slope. Yancey and Joshua followed, both committed to watching their captain's back.

  McAllen rode straight into the melee, without giving a thought to his safety. Directly ahead of him a mounted Ranger was riding an old man down. Before McAllen could reach him, the Ranger fired point-blank into the Indian's back. The deed done, the Ranger slowed his horse and looked around to see if he needed to expend another cartridge on the old one. The gray hunter carried McAllen past, and as he went by, McAllen reached out and got a handful of the Ranger's coat and dragged the man out of the saddle. The Ranger hit the ground so hard he was knocked unconscious.

  McAllen rode on. He did not see the Comanche brave emerge from a skin lodge and, taking aim, draw back the arrow in his bow. But Joshua saw the danger, and he leaped from the saddle, carrying the Comanche to the ground before the warrior could loose the arrow. Joshua's Bowie knife rose and fell, rose and fell, dripping blood.

  Up ahead, McAllen saw a young woman, carrying an infant in a papoose, dart into another tepee. A Ranger made a running dismount and followed her in, Colt drawn. McAllen dismounted without breaking Escatawpa's stride. Yancey was coming up fast, but as McAllen entered the tepee Yancey's attention was diverted by a warrior who emerged from the smoke and dust at a run and lunged, his knife flashing in the dull sunlight. The Comanche grabbed Yancey's reins as he hurled himself into Torrance, jerking the head of Yancey's mount around. The horse and both men went down.

  Just as he entered the skin lodge, McAllen heard gunshots from within. Rushing in, he caught a glimpse of the woman falling. The Ranger whirled, and the grin on his face infuriated McAllen. "Bastard," he rasped, and slammed the barrel of his Colt as hard as he could into the Ranger's face. The man crumpled, blood spewing from mouth and nose. McAllen kicked him in the ribs. The Ranger moaned and flopped over on his back. Bending over the half-conscious man, McAllen put the barrel of the Colt to his head. He had never wanted to kill a man—until this moment. His finger whitened on the Colt's trigger. The Ranger stared blankly up at him.

  The squall of the baby in the fallen papoose wrenched McAllen to his senses. He drew a long breath, straightened, and put the Colt under his belt. The papoose lay beneath the arm of the dead woman. McAllen gently moved the arm and picked up the papoose. The Ranger lay perfectly still, watching his every move.

  "If I ever see you again," said McAllen, "I'll kill you."

  He walked out of the tepee, and saw Yancey locked in a lethal wrestling match with a Comanche. Before he could go to his friend's aid, another Indian, this one mounted, came out of nowhere, bearing down on him with a war club raised and a piercing cry on his lips. McAllen recognized him as one of the young Quohadi chiefs at the Council House. This one, then, had been among the few who had managed to get out of San Antonio alive.

  McAllen instinctively reached for his Colt, cradling the papoose in his left hand. In a split second he changed his mind. He had killed one Comanche today, and that was one too many. The senseless carnage unfolding around him made him ashamed of his own kind. So he left the Colt in his belt and raised the papoose over his head.

  At the last moment, as he reached McAllen, Gray Wolf dropped the war club and plucked the papoose which carried his infant son from the white man's hands. His pony thundered on, and he looked back once, to see a Texas Ranger stumble, bleeding, from his own tepee. He saw McAllen turn and hurl the Ranger to the ground, his face twisted with rage and hate. Then Gray Wolf understood. One white man had killed his beloved Snow Dancer. She would not have allowed herself to be separated from the papoose. He did not need to see her body to know the truth. And yet another white man had saved his son's life.

  Grieving and confused, Gray Wolf rode north out of the encampment, the fleet mustang carrying him and his motherless child to safety.

  Chapter Nine

  Sam Houston stood at the window of his room in the Lafayette Hotel in Marion, Alabama. Had anyone been present to study his face they would have thought him on the verge of exploding into a towering rage. John Henry McAllen's letter had arrived today. It was crumpled in Houston's white-knuckled fist.

  The Council House fight had occurred five weeks ago, and McAllen's letter was not the first Houston had heard of the affair. But McAllen had provided a great deal more information than the sketchy newspaper items previously available to him. Papers east of the Mississippi did not think much of the whole business—just another scrape between settlers and hostiles on the untamed Texas frontier. But Houston knew how much was at stake. The future of Texas hung in the balance. By the eternal, Mirabeau Lamar ought to be drawn and quartered! What a debacle!

  By the eternal. Houston smiled. How many times had he heard his mentor, his idol, and his friend, Andrew Jackson, roar those words when riled? Old Hickory had gone into retirement at his plantation near Nashville, Tennessee, after eight glorious and tumultuous years as president of these United States, an old man whose rail-thin body was worn out by seventy-three years of travail, but whose mind was still sharp as saber steel.

  These United States? Houston shook his head. A mental slip. Despite his best effort, Texas remained an independent republic. Annexation had eluded him. And that was a shame, because Texas needed to become part of the United States. There was ample cause to wonder if she would long survive on her own.

  A magnificent destiny had aligned Sam Houston's life with Jackson's, and as he stood there gazing down at the street from his hotel window, Houston reminisced. Virginia-born forty-seven years ago, he had moved to Tennessee with his mother and siblings following the death of his father. Farm work was distasteful to him, and he had run away from home to live among the Cherokee Indians for three years. Adopted by Chief Oo-loo-te-ka, he was called The Raven. Later, to pay his debts, he was forced to find work as a schoolteacher, though in large measure he was himself an unlettered backwoodsman.

  Then, in 1813, Regular Army recruiters had come to Maryville, Tennessee, where Houston was teaching. By taking a silver dollar from the drumhead, Houston had pledged himself to military service. His mother gave him a musket and his father's ring, the one inscribed with the
word HONOR. She had enjoined him never to disgrace the family name. "I had rather all my sons should fill one honorable grave than that one of them should turn his back to save his life. My door is open to brave men. It is eternally shut to cowards."

  With the rank of ensign, Houston had distinguished himself at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Twice wounded, once by arrow, the second time by musket ball, his heroics came to the attention of General Jackson himself. The shoulder wound was still a running sore to this day, and bothered him with nearly as much consistency as the ankle more recently shattered at San Jacinto.

  Following military service, Houston had become a lawyer and entered Tennessee politics with Andrew Jackson as his sponsor. Before long, Jackson was president, and Houston was governor of Tennessee. The Raven's future shined with almost blinding intensity.

  But then he married Eliza Allen. He was thirty-five, she nineteen and unsure of her feelings. Emotionally still a child, and terribly naive, Eliza was woefully unprepared for the role of a wife, and three months after their marriage the Houstons separated.

  Frowning, Sam Houston turned from the window and proceeded to pace the room. Those days had been the most bleak and bitter of his life. He had resigned the governorship and sought refuge among his old friends the Cherokees, forsaking a promising future. Sic transit gloria mundi! Fame was indeed fleeting. A thousand rumors were circulated; his political enemies claimed he had acted in an ungentlemanly fashion toward poor Eliza, and when he refused to answer these charges they "posted" him as a coward, after a custom of the day. He did, however, chivalrously defend Eliza: "If any wretch ever dares to utter a word against the purity of Mrs. Houston I will come back and write the libel in his heart's blood!"

  Everyone acquainted with Sam Houston knew this was no idle threat.

  Aboard the steamboat Red River, bound for the mighty Mississippi by way of the Cumberland River, he had been standing on deck one day, giving serious thought to hurling himself into the sparkling blue waters below, when he saw an eagle soaring against the blazing yellow orb of a setting sun. The eagle swooped low over his head and screamed defiantly. Suddenly he had known, with a pure conviction, that his destiny lay to the west. A few days later he made the acquaintance of Jim Bowie, the legendary knife fighter and adventurer. Bowie's tales of Texas had filled Houston with wonder and excitement.

  Billy Carroll, his political foe, who replaced him as Tennessee's governor, had been heard to say sarcastically, "Poor Houston! Rose like a rocket, and fell like a stick." But Houston had risen again, like a phoenix from the ashes. After a sojourn with the Cherokees he had gone to Texas as President Jackson's agent to report on Indian affairs. To Texas Sam Houston hitched his star. He had led that ragtag army of volunteers to stunning victory at San Jacinto, defeating Santa Anna, the self-styled "Napoleon of the West," and an army of veterans who had recently—and with astonishing brutality—suppressed rebellion in Mexico's southern provinces. Houston had gone on to serve as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

  But recently it had seemed as though his star was on the wane yet again. Shakespeare was right—there most certainly was a tide in the affairs of men. And his tide had ebbed. He had served his term as president; Texas law forbade him to serve two consecutive terms. Now, God forbid, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar held the reins of state in his completely inadequate grasp. And Houston, nearly destitute, had resorted to the practice of law in a country burdened with a surfeit of "cornstalk lawyers." Finally, and worst of all, his beloved Texas was in dire straits. The Panic of 1837 which had ravaged the economy of the United States was now having a doleful effect on Texas. Currency was worthless, land could scarcely be bought and sold, and debts remained unpaid. The republic was threatened by Mexican aggression. Now, on top of everything else, Texas would be locked in a terrible struggle with the Comanche nation!

  But Sam Houston was not the kind of man who would give up. He had learned from Andrew Jackson that a real man never did. No, he would resurrect himself once more, with the Almighty's help and Margaret's love, and somehow he would save Texas from disaster. Therein lay the reason for his impatience. So much to do in so little time.

  John Henry had made a dispassionate and, Houston was certain, completely accurate report of everything that had transpired before, during, and after the Council House fight. In conclusion, McAllen had apologized for failing to prevent the disaster. But Houston was confident the Black Jack captain had done everything one man could be expected to do. In his heart of hearts, Houston felt that Lamar must at this very moment be gloating in his palatial residence in Austin. Surely the man had known something like this would happen. Only a fool could have expected to bring Comanche Indians into San Antonio with their white captives without violence breaking out. And the Comanches had been naive at best to even agree to it. Well, mused Houston grimly, they would never trust a Texan again. It would be a fight to the death now. The blood-chilling strains of the "Deguello," the Spanish martial tune signifying no quarter, echoed in Houston's mind.

  A part of Houston wanted to leap into the nearest saddle and ride hard for Texas. But he no longer enjoyed a bachelor's freedom to act on impulse and go or come as he pleased. The day before yesterday he had married Margaret Lea.

  Thoughts of Margaret softened the grim lines of his craggy face.

  In May of '36, a month after the victory at San Jacinto, Houston had sailed into New Orleans aboard the trading schooner Flora, and among the hundreds gathered at the levee to see the bigger-than-life hero of Texas were young ladies from Professor McLean's school, who had traveled by stagecoach all the way from Marion. One of McLean's pupils was seventeen-year-old Margaret Lea. Slender and fairly tall at five-foot-seven, Margaret was a beauty, with violet-blue eyes, light brown hair streaked with gold, and a serenity that made her seem more mature than her years.

  Her family was one of the most distinguished in the South; her ancestors had fought in the American Revolution. Prominent soldiers and lawyers and politicians inhabited her family tree.

  Her father managed a prospering plantation on the Cahaba River in Alabama. A pious and proper young lady, Margaret was also clairvoyant, and on that day in New Orleans she confided to her closest friends that she had a very strong feeling she would meet Sam Houston again.

  After the expiration of his term as president of Texas, Houston had visited the United States to drum up investors for the Sabine City Development Company, of which he was a major stockholder. Town-building was all the rage in Texas, and Houston was confident that a community located at the mouth of the Sabine River would flourish. He also wanted to buy some blooded horses, and pay Andrew Jackson a visit. The last thing on his agenda was finding the woman of his dreams.

  At Mobile he called on a prominent local businessman named Martin Lea. Lea invited Houston to his country home, Spring Hill, where his wife was entertaining her sister Margaret and their mother Nancy. When he saw Margaret, Houston fell in love at first sight.

  That night, a thoroughly beguiled Sam Houston sat and stared at Margaret, clad in a beautiful tarlatan dress, soft candlelight gleaming in her hair as she played the piano. Since leaving the McLean school, she had attended the new Judson College for girls, becoming an accomplished pianist and harp player, and impressing everyone with her flair for poetry. Later that evening, Houston walked with her in the azalea garden. He picked a pink carnation and presented the blossom to her. She put it in her hair. The moonlight filtering through the pecan trees, the romance in the sultry, magnolia-scented air—even now Houston could vividly recall that evening stroll.

  He was forty-six years old, she only twenty, and yet she fell in love with this gallant adventurer. For his part he had given up on achieving personal happiness. Ten years had transpired since his disastrous marriage to Eliza Allen. During his exile among the Cherokees he had carried on a tempestuous relationship with Tiana, daughter of "Hellfire Jack" Rogers, the Scots trader, and his Cherokee wife. But that, too, had ended badly, due in no small me
asure to his fondness for ardent spirits, an affliction that prompted the Indians to nickname him Oo-Tse-Tee-Ar-dee-tah-Skee—Big Drunk.

  To the dismay of Nancy Lea, Houston courted Margaret for a week, all business forgotten. Houston was charming—this much Nancy would concede. But he was a drinker, a profane man, a duelist, an adventurer, and there were those rumors about his former wife and that Indian princess. Houston was completely candid with Margaret about his many faults, and Margaret decided it was God's will that she should be His humble instrument in saving Houston's life, not to mention his immortal soul. At the end of this week-long whirlwind romance, Houston asked Margaret to marry him and she accepted.

  She was his Esperanza, he declared, the "One Hoped For." "My heart is like a caged bird," she wrote him, "whose weary pinions have been folded for months. At length it wakes from its stupor, spreads its wings, and longs to escape."

  The ceremony had taken place only two blocks from the Lafayette Hotel, at the home of Henry Lea, Margaret's brother. The house, built in the Virginia Colonial style, and nestled in a pleasant grove of oak and elm trees on Greensboro Street, had a large reception room perfect for the occasion. It had been Houston's happiest moment, marred only by Henry's last minute suggestion that the groom owed the bride's family an explanation of the failure of his marriage to Eliza Allen. "That subject is closed," Houston had replied sternly. "I have nothing more to add to what I have previously said. If you insist upon this, sir, you may as well pay the fiddlers and stop the wedding."

  Henry Lea had not called Houston's bluff. But later, when he was alone with his new bride, Houston did what he had never done before. He had never told his side of the story to anyone. Honor would not permit him to do so, for the truth would sully poor Eliza's reputation, and that he would not do, not even to save his own good name.