Bowie, fighting to control his rage, said in a low, strangled voice, “Dying for nothing means shit to me.”
Travis eyed the letter in Bowie’s hand. “Their response?”
Bowie stuck it out. Travis took it from him, read it, and looked up. “ . . . Surrender at discretion . . .” He almost smiled. “Discretion means they can do anything to us that they please. Perhaps, Colonel, they will only execute officers?”
Crockett pointed to the skull and crossbones flying above the San Fernando church belltower. “Looks like we all just got promoted.”
In the courtyard of the Alamo, the Tejanos gathered in a small group. “I saw General Cós,” said Gregorio Esparza. “He has broken his promise not to return.”
Seguin scowled. Cós was a coward, and that, Seguin could almost accept. But he was also a liar, and that stabbed at the very heart of Seguin’s principles. “A man should keep his word,” he said. He thought of something even more troubling and said to Esparza, “Is your brother with them?”
Esparza looked sadly toward the town. He and his brother Francisco had argued bitterly about the future of Texas. Francisco was ruled by his country. Gregorio was ruled by his conscience. “Maybe he raised the flag,” Gregorio said.
Up in the southwest battery, the angry confrontation between Travis and Bowie had cooled into something like an impromptu council of war. Bowie and Crockett looked at each other, and then both turned their gaze toward Travis. It was a look that said, Well, now what?
Travis said, “We wait for reinforcements. Within a few days all of Texas will know our situation.”
Bowie sneered, “Tell me, Buck, in Alabama, precisely how many is a few?”
Travis ignored the remark. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I suggest we man our posts and prepare for a response not made of cloth.” He walked away, the very picture of the in-control commander. Bowie and Crockett looked at each other skeptically. Crockett said, “You figger that fancy talk just comes off the top of his head?”
“I have never been too fond of the heroic gesture,” Bowie said.
Suddenly they heard the roar of a Mexican cannon. The men in the Alamo saw the puff of smoke from an enemy position and braced themselves for the hit. A pitch black cannonball cleared the wall, traveling slowly enough to be clearly visible to the men, but fast and powerful enough to blast into the long barracks and leave an angry ragged crater in the wall. In the baptistery of the church, only a few yards away, little Angelina Dickinson wailed with terror. Her mother tried to comfort her, but felt on the verge of screaming herself. The other women held their children close and kept their heads low as dust swirled all around them. “There, there, baby,” said Susanna, because she could not think of anything else to say. “Go to sleep. . . . Go to sleep. . . .”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
At the Yturri house, Santa Anna called for a war council. As his generals gathered there, Mexican soldiers, Jesús among them, were unloading Santa Anna’s belongings from a cart and carrying them into the house. It was Batres’s job to oversee them. Since he had no idea what it actually took to do any task, the only supervisory method he could come up with was a combination of threats and warnings. “Careful with the general’s crystal!” he shouted officiously. “Broken bones for broken glass!”
The soldados knew that this was no idle threat, so they handled the crates carefully. Jesús grasped his end of a long wooden box tightly, walking backward into the house, taking tiny, cautious steps.
Inside, Jesús was overwhelmed by the splendor. The home was like no other he had ever seen, as unlike the jacale in which he lived with his grandfather as a mighty river is from a dribble of spit. The main room of the Yturri house was richly painted in shades of burnt umber and orange. Delicate mosaic tiles framed the entrance. Santa Anna sat at the head of an oblong mahogany table, which was polished to a mirror-like shine. Likewise glossy black stones of the floor reflected the flames in the ornate fireplace in the corner and the tinier flickers from the candelabra, making it seem as though the generals were standing in a shallow lake of fire.
Generals Castrillón, Almonte, Sesma, Cós and Caro gathered around the table. Castrillón and Almonte sat; the others stood behind them. All awaited the words of their president. For the moment, Santa Anna was not speaking. He was sipping coffee poured by his manservant, Ben, a free man of color who had found a more congenial home in Mexico than in his native America.
Santa Anna placed the fine china cup in its delicate saucer and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “Is Houston with them?” he asked.
“No,” Almonte replied.
Santa Anna thought about this for a moment and nearly smiled. He took another sip of his coffee. “I heard that his young wife deserted him,” he said. “Because he has a wound that never heals.”
“He left office rather than answer to the scandal,” Almonte offered.
Santa Anna found the idea baffling. “What kind of man gives up power for a woman?” he asked. Then he smiled again. “He will come—if only to salvage his reputation.”
Santa Anna took another sip of coffee. “What of Jim Bowie, the knife fighter?”
Almonte said, proud to be the source of so much good information, “Inside the mission. And someone else of worth . . . Davy Crockett.”
Santa Anna looked delighted. “Crockett? The great bear killer?”
Almonte nodded.
“He is a real person?” Santa Anna said.
“Yes, Your Excellency,” Almonte said. “He recently served in the United States Congress.”
This was another puzzling idea to Santa Anna. “Congress?” he asked. “Are you sure it is the same Crockett?”
Almonte nodded, “The very same. He sometimes wears an animal on his head, or so I have heard.”
Santa Anna smiled. “How extraordinary,” he said.
“They are disorganized and outmanned,” Almonte continued. “We should take advantage immediately.”
Castrillón knew that he was about to incur the wrath of the president once again, but he felt compelled to offer a few rational words. “We have heavy cannon arriving in a few days,” he said. “They are not going anywhere.”
Almonte shook his head and scowled. “There are more rebels less than a week’s march from here, at Goliad, under Colonel Fannin.” He looked to Santa Anna for approval.
But Santa Anna had little reaction to either general. He seemed calm, as though everything were going exactly as it ought to. “Houston, Fannin—more meat for the spit,” he said. “We wait. But we will make the dark a nightmare to remind them of the truth yet to come.”
Travis walked the north wall battery. He had chosen this spot as his command post, since it was arguably the weakest position in the fort. Crockett and the Tennesseans were over at the palisade. To the naked eye, that wooden fence would seem to be the Alamo’s most vulnerable spot. But the sharp timbers and the trench outside, lined with ragged cut trees, combined to make it a formidable place to attack and a rather easy one to defend.
But the north wall worried Travis. Cós had done some work on it back when he and his army occupied the Alamo in the fall, and Jameson had been working on it ever since, shoring it up as best he could. Yet it remained a crumbling patchwork of stone, logs and adobe. A couple of good cannon blasts would turn it into a sieve. And if the Mexicans attacked, there were hand- and footholds aplenty. They would not even need ladders to get over this wall—they could simply climb right in.
Right now, however, it did not look like the Mexican army had any intention of attacking. They were slowly and methodically going about setting up for a siege. This could be bad, Travis thought, but it meant more time. The longer they laid siege to the Alamo, the more chance he had of getting help. Travis was nervous, but hopeful. Houston would come, and Fannin. This might all turn out just fine.
At the palisade, Micajah Autry fought the boredom by cleaning his rifles. Again. He said to Crockett, “Personally, I’d just as soon take my chances fighting
out there in the open.”
Crockett nodded. “I do not like being hemmed in any more’n you,” he said. “But here we sit.”
Bowie walked toward them, eyeing the ridge. Already Powder House Hill was dotted with tents—dozens of them. He seemed to be about to say something when he was overcome by a fit of coughing. He steadied himself with one hand against the wall until the attack was over.
Crockett said in a kindly voice, “If it ain’t getting too personal, what ails you, Jim, exactly?”
Bowie shrugged. “Consumption. Typhoid. Pneumonia. One or all. Exactly.”
Crockett spotted Bowie’s famous knife and eyed the hilt with fascination. Bowie noticed his interest, pulled back his coat and slipped it out without even looking. He offered it to Crockett, who held it a little like a religious artifact. Crockett whistled softly, impressed at the size and heft of it but, more important, at the knife’s history.
“That knife fight you was in, at that sandbar in Natchez,” Crockett said, “the one that got written up. . . . Was all that true?”
Bowie smiled slightly. Everybody always wanted to know about the sandbar fight. It was a story he had told a thousand times, and could have told ten thousand times, if he complied every time somebody asked. It amused him that the legendary David Crockett seemed just as impressed with the Bowie legend as anybody.
It was not even supposed to be his fight. He was just acting as a second in a duel between Samuel Wells and Dr. Thomas H. Maddox. One of Maddox’s seconds, Norris Wright, was an old enemy of Bowie’s—a banker, a sheriff, a scoundrel. Hell, it wasn’t even that much of a duel—both men missed. They stepped forward to shake hands, but there was too much bad blood among the seconds for things to end there. Sam Cuny, another of Wells’s seconds, decided to use the opportunity to settle a score with Col. Robert Crain, who was with Maddox. Nobody said a word. . . . Nobody had to. Cuny and Crain pulled out their pistols. Bowie pulled out his, too. Crain fired. Bowie fired back, clipping Crain’s cravat but not hurting him. Crain drew his second pistol and fired, hitting Cuny in the thigh. The blood spurted from it as if from a spigot.
Crain started to run back toward the trees, but Bowie drew his huge knife from its scabbard and chased him. Crain whirled and threw his empty pistol full force at Bowie, smacking him square in the forehead. Bowie staggered and fell back against the upended trunk of a driftwood tree. Dr. James Denny, one of Wells’s party, came to Bowie’s aid, helping him up. But now Wright was there, firing his pistol. The ball blew two of Denny’s fingers off and passed with a thud into Bowie’s lung.
Bowie was like a maddened bull now. He lunged toward Wright, who ran away. Two of Maddox’s party, the Blanchard brothers, fired their pistols at Bowie. One shot hit him in the thigh, bringing him down. Wright turned, pulling the tip of his sword cane to reveal its sharp blade. He began to stab Bowie on the ground, joined by Alfred Blanchard with his sword cane.
Bowie, stabbed repeatedly, flailed with his legs and knife, nicking his assailants several times.
Finally, Bowie managed to sit up, grabbing Wright by the collar. When Wright straightened, he pulled Bowie to his feet, and Bowie thrust his knife deep into Wright’s chest. It was a frozen moment—two old enemies staring into each other’s eyes, Wright’s wide in shock, Bowie’s hard with rage.
Bowie twisted the knife sideways. Blood spurted into Bowie’s face, covering him with gore. Wright’s eyes were still wide, but now they saw nothing. He crumpled to the ground. Blood pulsed from his chest for a brief moment, and then all was still.
“It was him or me,” Bowie said to Crockett.
Crockett smiled. “Yeah, but ‘him’ had already put a sword cane and two shots in you. . . . Least that is the way I heard it.”
“I do not recall, rightly,” Bowie said quietly. “I was too busy killing the man.”
Crockett and Bowie looked back to the ridge. There were no cannon up there yet, but it was only a matter of time. Mexican soldiers swarmed over the hill like fire ants.
“They are in no hurry,” Bowie said. He scanned the horizon. The sun was setting, casting the venerable face of the Alamo church—and Crockett and Bowie before it—in a soft glow of crimson and gold.
Autry shook his head. “Why do they not simply attack us?”
Bowie looked at Autry, then at Crockett. He said, “I have seen vaqueros spend all day killing one bull.”
Crockett said, “You can spoil the meat, worrying the animal like that.”
Suddenly, the air was filled by the strident sounds of a bugle call. It was not a pleasant tune, and all around the wall, the men of the Alamo looked in the direction of the sound. Ward said, to no one in particular, “You bring a band, you are counting on having something to celebrate.”
Crockett joined Travis at the southwest battery and looked toward Béxar. “Mighty nice of them to serenade us like this,” he said. “Now, that ain’t a ‘charge,’ is it?”
Travis shook his head. “It is a cavalry march, but I am told Santa Anna fancies it for other uses. He borrowed it from the Spaniards, the Spaniards from the Moors. It is called Deguello.”
Crockett said, “Kinda catchy.”
Travis smiled grimly. “Deguello means ‘Slit. Throat,’ ” he said.
Crockett’s own smile faded. “Well, it ain’t that catchy.”
Abruptly, the music ended. There was a long, ominous silence all around the courtyard. Instinctively, the men knew this was not a good sign. Suddenly, Mexican cannon began firing from every emplacement. Cannonballs hit the north wall, splintering one of the timbers holding it up. Another followed close behind and punched a hole almost through to the other side. Other cannonballs landed in the river, just short of the west wall. The men on that side of the fort could feel a spray of water from the blasts.
Then a cannonball vaulted over the wall and rolled across the courtyard. The men were shocked to see that its fuse was still burning. Panicked, they flung themselves toward cover. There was an eternity of anticipation—all eyes on the bomb. Just when they thought it might be dead, it exploded with a deafening roar, sending shrapnel in all directions. Pieces of metal blasted into walls and doorways. The men crouched lower, holding their arms over their heads, finding whatever protection they could. Waters grabbed his mutt and dove for cover. Men, women, children cowered at the walls, in the baptistery, in the long barracks. In Travis’s quarters, Joe huddled in a corner of the room, his hands over his ears, his face in a grimace of terror.
It was no easier on the Mexican side. Jesús was completely unnerved by the noise, the acrid smoke, the chaos. His task was to throw water on each cannon after it was fired. Between shots he slumped to the ground, crying and screaming.
There were screams in the Alamo baptistery as well. Angelina Dickinson wailed loudly, squirming as if desperate to free herself from her mother’s arms and run away from the horror. But as dawn broke over the placid Texas countryside, the bombardment abruptly ceased and, within moments, so did the cries of little Angelina. Exhausted, she nestled against her mother’s breast and quieted down. In moments, she was asleep.
The other women exchanged glances. Was it over? Nervously, they arose from their hiding places and peered outside into the courtyard. At first, it was completely empty; the silence was deafening. And then one by one, two by two, others began to emerge from their cubbyholes and step into the light. It was over. For now.
Green Jameson ran through the compound, pointing at men to follow him to the north wall. The fort’s weakest point was now considerably weaker than it had been the night before. There was not much to work with, except mud and scraps of wood, but Jameson and his crew worked diligently at patching the crumbling section. Above them, Ward and five other riflemen aimed out at the cannon placement on the north side, covering the working men as best they could, knowing that if the Mexicans opened fire with the cannon right now, they would all be wiped out.
Ward peered into the distance. Dolphin Floyd, a farmer from North Carolina, st
ood beside him, his flintlock shaking mightily in his trembling hands.
“Notice anything different about them cannon?” Ward asked quietly.
Floyd did not say a word. He was afraid if he opened his mouth, he would just start screaming. He simply shook his head no.
Ward nodded in the direction of the gun emplacements. “They moved ’em closer last night.”
Floyd closed his eyes tight and tried to think of North Carolina, of his small farm and his wife, Emily, prettiest girl in the county. At least she had been when they met, before the fever took her. But none of those pictures of past beauty and peace would come into focus. In his mind’s eye, all Floyd could see were images of himself being torn limb from limb by a Mexican cannonball. When he opened his eyes again, he could see that Ward was right. The mound of dirt protecting the cannon placements had advanced. Closer and closer, heading straight for the walls of the Alamo.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Travis pulled his saber from its scabbard and drew a line in the sand.
“There,” he said. “That would be the spot.”
Sam and Joe were standing in the middle of the courtyard, holding shovels and looking at the slash that Travis had just made in the ground.
“As our well is drying,” Travis said to them, “any day you find yourself not busy with other matters, you need to be digging a new one here.”
Both men nodded and Joe softly said, “Yes, sir.” Travis walked away to check on Jameson’s progress on the north wall. When he was out of earshot, Sam said with disgust in his voice, “Ain’t bad enuf we got to fetch ’em the water, now we got to find it, too.”
Joe had already begun digging in earnest and Sam shook his head. “Don’t work so hard,” he said.
Joe kept shoveling. “Sooner I get down this hole,” he replied, “sooner my head don’t get taken off.”
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