Eyes of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “Buenas noches, Jamie MacCallister.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  Santa Anna walked off into the darkness.

  His horse was brought to him, and Jamie stepped into the saddle. He looked down at the faces of the Mexican soldiers who surrounded him. They were not unfriendly faces, just curious. “Good night, gentlemen.”

  He walked his horse away, back to the Alamo, amid a chorus of buenas noches and vaya con Dios. Travis and Crockett met him at the gate.

  “We thought they’d taken you captive, lad,” Crockett said.

  “Are you all right?” Travis asked.

  “Yes, sir. Fine. I had coffee and some conversation with General Santa Anna, that’s all.”

  Crockett and Travis were speechless for a moment. And for both men, that sensation was quite a novel experience.

  “You did what?” Travis finally found his voice.

  Jamie told them of his encounter with the general.

  “Incredible,” Travis said.

  “Well, I’ll just be hornswoggled,” Crockett said.

  “Rider comin’ with a white flag,” a lookout hollered.

  “Find out what he wants!” Travis called.

  After a moment, the sentry said, “He wants to speak with you, Colonel Travis, and Davy and Jamie. Says Jamie speaks good Spanish and can translate if the courier loses his English.”

  The trio of men walked out the south gate and stood in front of the mounted courier.

  “General Santa Anna says that he is calling for a cease-fire until noon tomorrow. He is giving you time to reconsider your position and to surrender. My general also wants you all to know that he is aware of the band of men coming from the town of Gonzales to help you. He has ordered cavalry to cut them off.”

  Travis, Crockett, and Jamie exchanged glances. That sure was news to them. Good news. They all wondered how many men were coming to their aid.

  “You are alone here,” the courier said. “And no help is coming. Your dying will accomplish nothing. My general is not a cruel man. He will accept your unconditional surrender. You have until noon tomorrow. After that time, surrender will not be possible and you will all be killed.”

  Travis replied, “Tell General Santa Anna we thank him for the respite, but he knows we cannot surrender.”

  “I am sorry, Colonel,” the courier said, real emotion in his voice.

  “So am I,” Travis spoke softly.

  The courier, a young officer, looked into the eyes of the three men. “When you hear the degüello, pray to God. For it will soon be over for you all.” He saluted, turned his horse, and rode back to his lines.

  “What’s the degüello?” Crockett asked.

  “It’s a song,” Jamie said. “Means fire and death. It also means no prisoners will be taken.”

  “Total annihilation,” Travis added.

  “Well, we’ll see about that,” Crockett said. “I wonder how many men is comin’ from Gonzales?”

  “Certainly not enough,” Travis said. “But any number will greatly improve the morale of the men. And they’ll be bringing provisions, too.”

  “We hope,” Crockett added.

  “I’ll go tell Jim the good news,” Jamie said, and walked back into the mission.

  “They’re fools,” Bowie said. “They’re marching straight into hell. I admire their courage and love each and every one as I would my brother, but part of me hopes they don’t make it and turn around and go back home.”

  Jamie told him about his conversation with Santa Anna.

  “You hear that, Sam?” Bowie called weakly. “You don’t fight no more now, you hear me? You just stand back and when the smoke clears, you can walk out with your head held high.”

  “Hush up,” Sam told him. “And take your medicine like the doctor told you to.”

  “Not only has he turned uppity,” Bowie said with a grin. “He’s turned bossy, too.”

  “You hold his head, Mr. Jamie,” Sam said. “And I’ll pour this medicine down his throat.”

  “You won’t have to do that if you’ll just put a little whiskey in it,” Bowie said with a laugh.

  “You’re a mean and ornery man, Mr. Jim,” Sam said. “I’d leave, ’ceptin’ I knows you can’t get along without me. Now take this here medicine.”

  “Will you be quiet if I do?” Bowie asked.

  “Yes.”

  Bowie held out his hand.

  Thirty-four

  The Six Day

  February 28th, 1836

  Jamie stood on the parapet beside Travis and Crockett and watched the Mexican soldiers beef up their positions. Santa Anna had been true to his word: not one shot had come from the Mexican side that morning.

  But his word was in no way etched in stone, for during the night, General Santa Anna had ordered his men to silently creep closer, trusting in the Alamo defenders to hold their fire. They did.

  “The black-hearted son of a bitch!” Crockett cursed the trickery of Santa Anna.

  “No honor,” Travis said scornfully

  “I’d a-done the same thing he did,” Jamie said with a smile. “I don’t think there is any such thing as honor in a war.”

  Jamie jumped down from the platform and walked over to Bowie’s quarters.

  “Strange young man,” Travis remarked.

  Crockett said nothing.

  Bowie was sleeping. When Jamie had pushed open the door, Sam stepped outside the darkened room to talk with him. “He’s driftin’ in and out, Mr. Jamie. Sometimes he don’t even know who I is. He babbles some. He needs to be in a proper hospital. I tole him that and he tole me what difference does the place make when dyin’ is a certainty?”

  “Has he finished his letter?”

  “Not quite, sir. But I heard him mumble that he was purt near done with it.”

  “Sam, you and Joe take up no more arms against Santa Anna,” Jamie cautioned the slave. “Stay out of the fight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jamie restlessly prowled the three-acre compound. He glanced up at the winter’s sun. Noontime was near and when it came, Santa Anna would once more start his bombardment. The ultimatums of Santa Anna had been passed to all the men. The word surrender was met with cold, stony looks from the defenders.

  Jamie ate his meager rations and once more moved to his position along the wall. Like all the others inside the mission, there were few things he could do other than wait, and think of family and home. And wonder if, when the time came, he would die well?

  Jamie was inwardly torn with conflicting emotions. He certainly did not want to die — who does? — but he felt guilt at Bowie and Travis, and to some degree, Crockett’s plans for him to slip out of the compound and flee. The men knew how he felt, and many had come to him, telling him his mission was an important one. Someone had to escape to tell the world the story. That made Jamie feel better. But not a lot.

  The Mexican artillerymen began their bombardment, the first round landing inside the compound, smashing into the ground near the front of the old church. The truce was over. There was no turning back now. For those trapped inside the Alamo, only two ends existed: victory or death.

  * * *

  The cannonade that day had been the worst so far. A half a dozen defenders had been slightly wounded by shrapnel, although none seriously. But the psychological effects were beginning to show. The nerves of the men were ragged from lack of sleep, the bitter cold, the constant shelling, and lack of proper food. And the news that Bowie was drifting in and out of consciousness was very unsettling to the men.

  Even Davy Crockett was affected by it, the frontiersman becoming almost morose for a time.

  Outside the walls, the Mexican infantry had become very cautious, taking great pains not to expose themselves unnecessarily. They had learned a painfully hard lesson about the deadly accuracy of Davy Crockett’s sharpshooters along the walls of the Alamo.

  Only the wounded Mexicans had been picked up during the surprise cease-fire called by Sant
a Anna, and the grounds all around the mission were littered with stiffening bodies of soldiers. Had it not been an unusually cold winter, the stench and following health problems would have been awful.

  When darkness fell on the evening of the sixth day, Jamie went to Travis’s quarters and found the man writing yet another report. Jamie, along with many of the other men, wondered just what in the hell the colonel found to write about.

  “Yes, Scout MacCallister?” Travis said, looking up from the reports.

  “I would like your permission to go over the walls and gather up powder and shot from the dead Mexican soldiers, sir.”

  “An admirable thought, MacCallister. But I believe the Mexican rifles are of a different caliber from ours.”

  “We have all kinds of calibers here, sir. Besides, the lead can be melted down and remolded to our caliber, sir. And we desperately need the powder.”

  Travis slowly nodded his head. He knew perfectly well that Jamie was going over the walls with or without his permission. This was the goddamnest bunch of independent-minded men he had ever commanded. The young man standing before him was just being respectful by asking his permission. “All right, Jamie. Go ahead.”

  Jamie stopped by to see Bowie. The man was in one of his more lucid hours and actually looking well. He grinned when Jamie told him what he planned to do.

  “And just how do you plan on accomplishing that feat, Jamie?”

  “By becoming a snake, sir. Just like the Shawnee taught me.”

  “Stop by and see me when you return. But change back into human form before you do,” Bowie added dryly.

  “Yes, sir,” Jamie replied with a smile.

  Jamie blackened his face with soot and tied a dark bandanna over his blond hair. He took only two pistols and a knife. Crockett stood leaning on his rifle, watching him.

  “You larned well from them Shawnee, son,” the man said. “Can you make like a mockingbird?”

  Jamie’s bird call was so much like the real thing Crockett was startled. “That way we’ll know where you are and you won’t get a ball in the brisket.”

  “Or in the butt,” Jamie said, his eyes sparkling with good humor.

  “That, too,” Crockett said with a laugh.

  Jamie left the mission by way of the cattle pen. He slithered on his belly like a huge reptile, slowly working from stiffened body to stinking body, removing the powder flask and shot pouch from each dead soldier. When he had retrieved a dozen, he worked his way back to the cattle pen, whistled softly, and handed the badly needed shot and powder to Galba Fuqua, who was manning the watch when Jamie returned.

  They spoke softly in Spanish to one another.

  “It must be terrible out there,” Galba whispered.

  “It isn’t a picnic,” Jamie admitted.

  Galba handed the filled pouch to another man and gave Jamie an empty one. “Take care, amigo.”

  “I shall.” And Jamie was gone again.

  Jamie soon ran out of bodies closer in and had to work his way further out from the Alamo. He worked so close to the Mexican lines that he could smell the fragrant odor of coffee and hear the lilting Spanish words of men far from home and loved ones. Soldiers are soldiers, he concluded. The world over.

  He made five more trips back to the pen before Travis ordered him back inside.

  “It’s getting just too risky, Jamie,” Travis told him. “Besides, you’ve brought back ample shot and powder. Take a much deserved rest.”

  For a fact, Jamie had brought back seventy powder flasks, all full, and sixty shot pouches, all full. Jamie did not argue with Colonel Travis. Bowie had assigned him to the regular army, and he would follow orders. In most cases.

  * * *

  Santa Anna was now under pressure to do something. He knew his men were becoming demoralized. Six days had passed and little, if any, damage had been done to the Alamo. As far as he could tell, the defenders had not suffered a single casualty. It was infuriating. He knew he had to do something to restore morale.

  But what?

  The arrival of an aide with news gave him the thought.

  “Sir! The troops from Aldama and Tolucca are within a few hours’ ride of Bexar. Some two thousand strong!”

  Santa Anna’s dark face brightened. “We shall have a parade and much music. At first light, instruct the cooks to prepare a feast. Butcher some of the oxen.”

  With the arrival of those men, Santa Anna probably had close to seven thousand men at his disposal — the exact figure was never known — against some one hundred and fifty or so men holed up in the Alamo, who were low on powder, low on food, and cold — some did not even have shoes and were forced to wrap their feet in rags and strips of blankets to ward off frostbite.

  But there was one thing the men of the Alamo did not lack, something they had plenty of, and because of that, the world would praise them for generations to come. The word Alamo would become a battle cry for freedom.

  The one attribute the men of the Alamo had plenty of was Courage.

  Thirty-five

  The Seventh Day

  February 29th, 1836

  “Joe,” Jamie said to Travis’s slave just after dawn. “Get him awake and to the walls. He’ll want to see this.”

  Travis was at the door in jig-time. “What is it, Jamie?”

  “Santa Anna’s reinforcements have arrived. Or are arriving. Several thousand of them. With more cannon.”

  Travis paled just for an instant. Then he caught himself. Joe pressed a cup of coffee into his master’s hand.

  “And like the ones here,” Jamie said, “they’ve brought their women with them.”

  Travis strode quickly to the walls and climbed up to the parapet. The sight before him was anything but heartening. The town of San Antonio de Bexar was filled with thousands of people. Several bands started playing, each one seeming to be competing against the other.

  All Travis could say was, “My God!”

  Crockett said, “Yep. I reckon it’s time we all was callin’ on Him. For a fact.”

  All that day the men of the Alamo crowded the walls, watching as more troops rode or marched in, with their colorful uniforms, flags and pennants waving, and the bands playing. The smell of cooking meat came to the men along the walls, the spices the Mexicans were using causing many a mouth to salivate. Since the Mexican army permitted their soldiers to bring their wives and kids and girlfriends and various female camp-followers along, the scene before the men of the Alamo was particularly unnerving... both above and below the belt.

  Travis seemed to sense that the end was near. He retired to his quarters to write yet another plea for help. He wrote passionately but rationally to Governor Smith and to Sam Houston, telling about the hundreds of shells that had fallen in, around, and on the mission. He wrote that the morale of his men was still high, even though there now appeared to be no hope left for any of them. He implored Smith and Houston for help, particularly for shot and powder.

  Travis closed with this: God and Texas — Victory or Death.

  In Bexar, Santa Anna had forgotten all about the news of reinforcements coming in from Gonzales. He wanted all his men to enjoy the feast and the bands and the parades. He pulled in most of his patrols, giving the small band of men coming from the east a much better chance of making it, at least to the outskirts of town. Getting through the enemy lines to the Alamo was quite another matter.

  Only a few cannons from the Mexican side roared that day, and the cannons of the Alamo were silent; Travis was pitifully low on powder, and what powder he had for his artillery was not much good. He knew he had to save his powder for the final assault.

  “God help us all,” he muttered.

  * * *

  By late afternoon of the seventh day, the volunteers from Gonzales had come to within a few miles of San Antonio. They took to whatever cover they could find and stayed out of sight, shivering on the cold ground until full nightfall. Then they abandoned their horses and struggled out on foot, each man
carrying a heavy load of supplies.

  Their plan was to reach the Alamo a short time after midnight; when the Mexican camp would be sleeping and most of the fires low. Of course they also had another worry: not to get shot by the men along the walls of the Alamo.

  The men from Gonzales carried with them a homemade flag of silk. It was to be the battle flag of the Alamo. It had a hand-sewn picture of a cannon in the center and above and below the cannon, the words: COME AND TAKE IT. They had no way of knowing how prophetic those words would turn out to be.

  The men from Gonzales crept along slowly, by some miracle making their way through the Mexican lines. Then they reached the ditch that surrounded the compound and stayed in it until they were at the walls.

  A nervous sentry heard a noise and fired. The men from Gonzales went belly down in the muddy ditch.

  “Goddamnit!” one said.

  “Hold your fire,” the captain of the guard yelled. “Them boys is ours!”

  Thirty-six

  The Eighth Day

  March 1st, 1836

  The men from Gonzales had reached the Alamo at about four o’clock in the morning. There would be no more sleep that night for anyone, not even for Bowie, who had managed to overcome his often comalike malady and would remain lucid, if still very weak, for the next one hundred and twenty or so hours... and then the men of the Alamo would sleep forever.

  Travis greeted Captains Kimbell and Martin and John Smith warmly. If the colonel had any disappointment about the small size of the group, and he certainly did, he did not show it. After the initial whooping and hollering from the defenders had died down, Travis took Captain Martin aside.

  “You’re the first of the relief columns, right, Albert?” he asked.

  Captain Martin threw formality to the cold March winds. He shook his head. “There will be no relief columns, Bill. We’ve been written off.”

  Colonel William Barret Travis sagged against the thick wall; its coldness felt to him like the icy hand of death touching his shoulder. “My God, Albert,” he exclaimed softly. “You’ve come to die.”