Eyes of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes,” was the reply.

  “The men with you?”

  “They know.”

  “Then so, too, will the others before dawn breaks.”

  “Probably. But I feel we shall not die for naught. We’ll be the spark that ignites the fuse for independence.”

  “One hundred and eighty-nine men,” Travis whispered, his words barely audible. “Against thousands.”

  Some accounts say one hundred and eighty-three men died at the Alamo, and estimates are that Santa Anna had under his command about five thousand crack, seasoned combat troops, with very few unwilling conscripts. That so few could hold out against so many for so long still, to this day, evokes wild stirrings of passion, and not just in Texas, for the men who fought and died at the Alamo came from all over the young nation and either nineteen or twenty-one were from foreign countries.

  Martin gripped Travis’s arm. “Bill, we shall not die in vain. I promise you.”

  “No,” Travis said, rising to his height and straightening his uniform. “We most certainly shall not.”

  As the first rays of the sun touched the land, Travis assembled the men and raised the new battle flag of the Alamo. The wild cheering caused an aide to run to Santa Anna’s quarters, where he’d been engaged in a bit of early morning dallying with his new bride.

  Santa Anna was not happy at being interrupted. He was even less happy to learn that the volunteers from Gonzales had managed to slip through his lines and were now in place inside the walls of the old mission. He was unhappier still when he took his glass and viewed the new flag that now flew over the bastion of freedom and liberty in open defiance toward the Mexican government. The words on the flag made his stomach churn.

  COME AND TAKE IT.

  Santa Anna went into a wild fit of rage. He hurled the spy glass against the wall of the room and stomped around in his bare feet while his nervous aides tried to steer him away from the broken glass and sharp metal that now littered the floor from the impact against the wall.

  He finally calmed down enough to issue some rational orders. “Increase the cannonade. I want a steady bombardment and I want to see some damage done.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “I want to see some Anglo blood spilled.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “Then do it!” Santa Anna yelled. He took a step and his bare foot landed on a shard of broken glass. Santa Anna screamed like a panther.

  When he stopped jumping around and hollering, Santa Anna found a chair and sat down. He was livid with rage. “I want all patrols increased in size and all roads and trails and paths leading to the Alamo found and guarded. No one leaves and no one enters that accursed place. Is that fully understood by all?”

  His aides assured him it was.

  “It better be,” the general said menacingly.

  * * *

  The news had spread like a raging fire among the defenders inside the old walls. There would be no more help from the outside. Fannin was not coming. Houston was not coming. They were alone. They had been abandoned. Written off. Only death awaited them. Earlier that week, they had watched as a courier, Jim Bonham, had ridden out in the darkness with a final plea from Travis to Fannin to change his mind: For God’s sake, man, help us!

  All day long the Mexican bombardment slammed the Alamo, some of the batteries less than four hundred yards away; the heavier pieces set back nearly half a mile. If the powder Travis had at his disposal had been worth a damn, the defenders could have played havoc with the Mexican artillery. But as one artilleryman summed up the quality of gunpowder for the cannons, “We might as well be usin’ dust from the road.”

  The powder the men from Gonzales brought with them was distributed equally and the defenders of the Alamo settled down to await the charge they knew was coming. What thoughts they must have had as they watched the thousands of Mexican troops that surrounded them. Surely all shared thoughts of home and family that they all knew they would never see again.

  Men not on duty along the walls gathered in small groups and spoke, when the booming of cannons would allow it, of friends and family on the outside, of good dogs and fast horses. They spoke of last year’s crops and of the plans they had for this year...

  ... Before they answered the call to arms.

  History does not record any elaborate religious ceremonies being conducted by and for the men inside the walls of the Alamo. What praying there was — and surely there was a considerable amount of that — was done privately.

  For several hours on that afternoon of the eighth day, the men of the Alamo were quiet; when they did speak, it was in hushed tones. Then, on the evening of the eighth day, just as afternoon was giving way to dusk, the men seemed to rouse; flagging spirits caught fire.

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll sit around here lookin’ like a lost calf,” a man with rags wrapped around his feet said, rising from a squat. “Davy,” he shouted to Crockett, standing on a parapet. “Get your fiddle and bow and do us up a tune. I feel like dancin’.”

  It must have been a sight. Davy struck up a slow reel and the man, whose parents had come over from Scotland, did a fling, his rag-covered feet kicking up dust in the plaza of the old mission. John McGregor got his bagpipes and joined in, and soon half a hundred men were dancing. Sam opened the door to Bowie’s quarters so he could see the revelry and the famous knife fighter smiled at the antics of the men.

  “They might overwhelm us, Sam,” Bowie said. “But it won’t be due to any lack of courage of the men out yonder.”

  The Mexican officers, upon hearing the music and the shouting, signaled for their cannons to stand down.

  General Juan Amador galloped up and jumped from his horse. “What is happening?” he shouted.

  “They are having a fiesta,” a young lieutenant said.

  “A ... fiesta?” the general was astonished. “They are hours away from being dead men and they are having a dance?”

  “Sí.”

  What must the Mexicans have thought? Surely many must have thought: what manner of men are we facing? They are looking at total annihilation and still have the courage to sing and dance.

  “Should General Santa Anna be informed of this development?” the young lieutenant asked.

  “Good God, no!” General Amador was quick to say. He knew Santa Anna would fly into a screaming rage if he should learn of this. “No. Absolutely not. The general is... occupied at the moment.”

  “Should we resume the shelling, then?”

  General Amador was silent for a moment, listening to the fiddle and the pipes. He shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “Not yet.”

  “But General! There are quite a number in the plaza of the mission. They are exposed. We could kill many of them.”

  “We will kill them all very soon,” the general said, weariness in his voice. “Are we such a barbaric gathering here that you would deny dying men a few moments of pleasure?”

  “No, General.”

  “Then allow them what simple pleasures they can afford, Lieutenant. Resume the shelling when their festivities are concluded.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  General Amador turned, then stopped and looked back toward the faint sounds of music. He listened for a moment, sighed, shook his head, then swung into the saddle and rode back to the town.

  A sergeant in command of a battery walked over to the lieutenant. “Loco,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the walls of the mission.

  The lieutenant shook his head. “No, Sergeant. Just very brave men. Very brave men.”

  Thirty-seven

  The Ninth Day

  March 2, 1836

  Although the men of the Alamo never knew it, those delegates meeting at Washington-on-the-Brazos, on this date, officially rejected the Mexican constitution of 1824 and with a rousing cheer, adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring Texas to be a Republic.

  Had they somehow by magic learned of that decision, Davy Crockett would have more tha
n likely spat on the ground and said, “Why, hellfire! We done that a week and a half ago! You boys is suckin’ hind tit!”

  Or words to that effect.

  The bombardment from the Mexican cannon continued without letup. Miraculously, despite all the hundreds of shells that had dropped all around and inside the mission, none of the defenders had been killed and only a few had been wounded, none of them seriously.

  Travis had given the order: “Save your powder, boys. Don’t bother returning the fire. We’ll need everything we’ve got when...” He stumbled over the last words. “... the time comes.”

  Bowie called Jamie to his quarters. Jamie was shocked at the man’s appearance. Bowie had lost weight and his eyes were deep-set in his head. He looked much older than his years. He handed Jamie several sheets of paper.

  “Commit it to memory, lad,” Bowie requested. “Just in case something happens to your pouch. Sit down over there by the light and read it over and over. I’ll rest while you’re doing that. I am so damned tired!”

  Bowie was dying.

  Jamie committed the pages to memory over the rasping breathing of Jim Bowie. Sam walked over to his master and covered him with a thin blanket.

  “He’s asleep, now, Mr. Jamie. He might not wake up for hours. Them pages you read, was they most eloquent?”

  “Yes, Sam. They were very eloquent.”

  “I knowed they would be. He mutters in his sleep a lot after he writes. Words like liberty and freedom and abouts how the men of this garrison gonna shed they blood for all Texas to be free. He can speak right good when he puts his mind to it.”

  “You like him, don’t you, Sam?”

  “He don’t beat me none.”

  Jamie arched an eyebrow at that simple statement of loyalty and devotion. “Stay out of the fight, Sam. Stay clear out of it and when it’s over, head for the high country and live out your life as a free man.”

  “We’ll see,” the freed slave said.

  Jamie stepped out of the sick room and walked across the plaza. His patience was now wearing thin. While he no longer felt like a traitor because of his orders to leave the fort when the battle was nigh, he felt helpless locked inside the walls. And he was outraged that these brave men had been abandoned to die. He paused at Travis’s hail from his quarters, changed direction, and walked over to the colonel.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Bonham should be back tomorrow. I’m sending Smith out tomorrow night. You’d better go with him, Jamie.”

  “Is that an order, sir?”

  Travis hesitated. “Ah... no, Jamie. It isn’t. But I feel that Santa Anna will not wait much longer. For some reason, March sixth keeps creeping into my mind. I am not a man much given to premonition, Jamie, and have told no one else that.”

  “I won’t repeat it, sir.”

  “I want you out of here no later than midnight on the fifth, Jamie. And that is an order. Those dispatches in your pouch will be our last farewells to the outside world.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “You saw Bowie?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “His condition?”

  “Worse. He’s very weak.”

  Travis nodded, and then left when he was called by a work party along the log-reinforced south wall by the church.

  “March the sixth,” Jamie muttered. “Well, maybe the colonel is wrong.”

  He wasn’t.

  Thirty-eight

  The Tenth Day

  March 3, 1836

  The spirits of the men inside the walls of the Alamo were high, and for a time on this day, Travis still held out some hope that help was on the way He had once more composed a letter and would be sending it out under cover of darkness that evening. John Smith would be the courier.

  At midmorning, Bonham rode back into the mission and told Travis, “There will be no help, Bill. We are considered a lost cause. No help is coming.”

  “John is leaving this night,” Travis said. “I have to keep trying.”

  “Don’t ask him to return,” Bonham pleaded. “We’re doomed.”

  “Then why did you come back?” Travis snapped.

  “To die shoulder to shoulder with my comrades,” was Bonham’s reply.

  Travis’s spirits sagged. He knew Bonham was speaking the truth. The men of the Alamo had been abandoned. He walked dejectedly to his quarters.

  “You’re all fools,” Louis Moses Rose told a gathering of stony-faced men. “Not cowards; just fools. Look, I’ve been a soldier all my life. Listen to me. This place has no strategic value. None. Let’s get out of this death trap and fight Santa Anna Injun style. We can do Texas a lot more good that way.”

  “It ain’t that this old mission has any value, man,” Crockett said. “It’s provin’ a point to Mexico that we’re doin’.”

  “What the hell is the point of dying?” Rose snapped back.

  “How ’bout your friend, Jim Bowie?” Micajah Autry asked. “You just gonna leave him here?”

  “Jim’s dying,” Rose said softly. “I went to see him just an hour ago. He didn’t even know me.”

  “Go if you must,” Daniel Cloud said. “I won’t fault you. But as for me, I’m stayin’.”

  Cloud turned and walked away, the others quickly following him. Louis Moses Rose was left alone in the plaza.

  Jamie had listened to the debate, squatting by the well. He harbored no ill will toward Rose. If the man wished to flee, then let him go. To go or to stay was a decision that each man had to make for himself. Jamie had heard others speak of Rose — the man had proven himself in combat more times than any of them. He was no coward. Perhaps, Jamie thought, the man was simply weary of it all.

  But then, he silently added, who among us isn’t?

  The Mexican cannons began booming after a short respite. Jamie moved closer to the wall, next to the low barracks, and waited. Shot and shell dropped into the plaza, crashed against the walls, and the ground trembled beneath Jamie’s moccasins. How many hundreds of rounds had been fired at the Alamo to date? With, so far, little effect.

  His eyes found Louis Moses Rose, squatting with his back to a wall. He was alone, with not a man near him. The word had gone out quickly and the other men had chosen not to have anything to do with him.

  Staying close to the walls, Jamie made his way over to the ostracized man. Rose looked up at Jamie’s approach, surprise in his eyes.

  “Ain’t you afraid you’ll catch something, moving so close to me?” Rose asked.

  Jamie ignored that. “Look, Rose. Whether you stay or go is your choice and your choice alone.”

  “I ain’t made it yet,” Rose said. “You seen them ladders the Mexicans is building?”

  “Yes.”

  “Won’t be long now. They’ll be crawling over the walls like ants to honey.”

  “Probably,” Jamie replied, after the cannon barrage had momentarily ceased.

  “They’re all going to die here.”

  “They know that.”

  “It just don’t make no sense to me.”

  Jamie knew then the man had made up his mind. He was going over the walls. The cannons began roaring again, and any further conversation was impossible.

  Rose stood up and looked down at Jamie. “You had your decision handed you, MacCallister.”

  Anger filled Jamie and he stood up, towering over the man. “You think I asked for it?”

  “No,” Rose said, his voice just audible over the booming of cannon. “That ain’t what I meant.”

  Jamie’s anger faded and he put a hand on the much older man’s shoulder. “I know it isn’t. Sorry, Louis. Whatever decision you choose to make, Louis, I’m still your friend.”

  The man smiled. “I can use one about now,” he admitted. And then further conversation was impossible as the cannons boomed. During an abatement, Louis said, “They have to be the worst goddamn gunners I have ever seen. They don’t appear to know anything about elevation. If they did, there wouldn’t be a platfo
rm or parapet left intact.” He shook his head and walked off.

  Jamie squatted back down against the trembling walls and waited. There just wasn’t a whole hell of a lot else to do.

  An hour later, just about an hour before sunset, the Mexican cannons fell silent. Jamie was eating a piece of bread and drinking coffee when Travis walked slowly out of his quarters and into the center of the plaza. He called for the men to assemble in front of him. All but Jamie.

  “Scout MacCallister!” Travis called. “Stand lookout, please.”

  Jamie wondered what in the world was going on. Was Travis thinking of surrender? No. He immediately dismissed that. On his way to the parapet, Crockett stopped him and said, “You’re out of this, lad. You just get them messages through. I done spoke to Travis. He’s gonna give the men a choice. You stay up yonder on the platform.”

  Jim Bowie was carried out into the windy plaza, on his cot. He was lucid and feeling somewhat better. Sam put several pillows behind his head so he could see better.

  Travis said, “I take full responsibility for our situation. And from the very depths of my heart, I apologize to you all. I did not even entertain the thought that we would be abandoned. That was, to me, unthinkable. But obviously, we have been forgotten. I was promised that help would come. It has not. It will not.” He paused to let that sink in. “We alone stand in the way of Santa Anna’s mighty army. We... alone!” No one there missed the emphasis on that last word. And no one there missed the true meaning of it. To a man, they knew that Travis was saying farewell to them all, in the only way he knew how.

  “We have bought precious time for those delegates meeting at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Precious time for Austin and Houston to mount an army. Precious time for our allies on the outside to lay in powder and shot. Now I’m asking you to help me buy them more time. Two days; three days. Maybe longer. I will not surrender. If I must, alone, stand on those parapets and swab and load and fire the cannon, I by God will. Surrender is not a word I will ever let pass my tongue again.”

  The men cheered loudly at that.