by James Haley
“Are you Dr. Ewing?” he asked when he reached the medical tent.
“I am.” He was washing his hands in a basin of water.
“I was with General Houston when he was wounded. How is he?”
“He took a musket ball in his ankle. It is not a simple wound, and it is most dangerous, for the ankle bone was shattered; bone fragments went everywhere.”
“Howdy, Pap.” It was David’s voice, coming from the nearest of the pallets of wounded.
“Doctor, excuse me; that is my son.” Sam walked out to him. “David, are you badly hurt?”
“Naw, it’s just a flesh wound. Had to pull a ball out of the meat of my back—probably one of ours, from someone coming on behind me. It’ll hurt for a spell, that’s all.”
“Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?”
“Naw, Pap, I’m all right.” Sam nodded and turned to go back to Ewing. David had wasted his youth, a vandal and a hell-raiser, but at least now he could know he’d been honorably wounded in the contest for the birth of his country. That was no small thing.
“How is he?” asked Ewing.
“He is not badly hurt, I am happy to say. You were telling me about General Houston.”
“Well, if he lives I suppose he can add it to his”—Ewing stopped and searched for the words “—his wound collection. Before my God, I do not know how the man keeps going.” From his medicine cabinet Ewing produced a bottle of whiskey, poured himself a glass, and looked quizzically at Sam.
“Yes, please, but are you not needed among the wounded?”
They seated themselves on camp stools, and Ewing took a quick swallow. “No, each regiment has its own surgeon and assistant. If Texas had as many soldiers as it has physicians, the question of independence would have been decided ’ere now, I do believe. Do you know, when I was working on his ankle, I noticed a spot of blood on his shirt, which I took to be splatter from the battle, but then I saw it increase by a little. I opened his shirt and he said, ‘Doctor, do not trouble; those are old wounds.’ Do you know how old those wounds are? He received them in the War of 1812! They have never healed. I opened the bandage and let them run freely for a few moments, then cleaned and dressed them. And then, by God, there is an old wound high on his thigh, from an Indian arrow, he said. It was also bleeding and has never healed.”
“I had heard before that he bore old wounds, but I did not know they never healed. Could there be something in his nature that prevents old wounds from healing?”
Ewing shouted in laughter. “That is true of his mind and heart, sure enough! He is famous for the grudges he carries. But I never heard of a body refusing to heal. I swear to God, he is like some kind of Golem. He is not made of living tissue; you can just shoot him and shoot him and he keeps on coming.”
Sam took a slower sip of his whiskey. “What are his chances of keeping the foot?”
“About even, maybe. If it goes to gangrene I will have to remove it or he will die. Or rather, normal men would die. He has carried those other wounds for over twenty years and somehow he manages to keep them from getting infected.”
“Is he awake? Can I see him?”
“No, I have given him laudanum. Try back in the morning.”
Sam stood to go. “Doctor, I thank you for your time, and your whiskey. I will—” Movement farther back in a deeper part of the glade caught his attention. “Now, who are they?”
“Them? Oh, poor creatures. As Santa Anna came on to the east, every town he burned he would round up the slave women and bring them on the march.”
Sam felt his pulse quicken. “You mean—”
“To provide the services of Venus to his soldiers, yes.”
His pulse became near panic. “Where are they from? Are any of them from near Velasco?”
“We don’t know. No one has talked to them yet; we’re just trying to make them comfortable until we can see about who owns them and send them home.”
“Doctor, forgive my anxiety. My plantation is near Velasco and was in his path. I have slaves who— May I?”
“Yes, of course, go on down. If you find any that are yours, you will be welcome to take custody of them.”
Sam started down the path, but suddenly he heard David’s voice from the pallets of wounded. “Oh, Pap, don’t! Oh, hell’s bells.”
Sam decided not to acknowledge him again, for he heard another ask David what was wrong. “Oh, he’s got a slave woman he’s been pokin’ since my mama died. Makes me sick. Now he’s just afeard the Mexicans have been havin’ her. I’ll thank you not to speak of it further.”
In the makeshift camp of tarpaulins stretched over oak boughs, he asked of several slaves if they knew of a woman named Dicey, but none had, and he recognized none from the Velasco environs. At least, he thought, his mind was eased on this point, but the condition of these women irked him. Like all Texas planters, he well knew the dance that the Mexican authorities had always stepped around slavery: that it was officially illegal and that the accommodations made by the state government in Coahuila had been repudiated by the new centralist government. In fact, Santa Anna used it as one of his excuses to break up the state legislature and replace it with a military regime under his brother-in-law. But that had not prevented him from herding slave women into his ranks and forcing them into the most bestial and degrading existence imaginable.
Sam bedded down that night amid the tarpaulins of the officers and awoke in the morning to breakfast—an astonishingly good breakfast, prepared from victuals dropped off by settlers on their way back home. Of those who had fled eastward before Santa Anna, the last were within earshot of the battle. They learned quickly of the victory, and word of it flashed eastward down the trudging line of refugees. Now the movement washed back to the west, ebullient and as much in a body as a tide that had ebbed and was now flooding back. Nathaniel Lynch was busy once more at his ferry, and no doubt in a few days would be a very wealthy man. The first in the long stream of wagons had to stop and start and stop as dead Mexicans were pulled out of the road, although no trouble was taken to bury them, and by midmorning the stench began to rise.
Sam was among those who carried Houston on a litter from his tent and set him down at the foot of a live oak at the edge of the glade, looking out across the field. There he learned that he had lost eight men killed, and a few more were likely to die. He did not believe it at first, and inquired of its veracity with the chief surgeon, and Ewing confirmed it.
“How many Mexican dead?” he asked.
“Six hundred so far; we’re still counting, trying not to count anyone twice.”
A skinny, anxious-looking private came uncertainly into Houston’s presence. “Excuse me, General, we have a prisoner you may wish to see. Says he is Santa Anna. We don’t know him from Adam, but from the way he’s bitching about the conditions, he must be pretty important.”
Houston looked up, in pain and annoyed. “How do we make sure?”
It was War Secretary Rusk who spoke up. “General, we also captured Colonel Almonte, his second in command. He is well-known to many of us, and he is an honest and frank man. I would bring him over to translate, as Santa Anna speaks no English, and Almonte’s English is probably more correct than our own.”
“Well, bring Colonel Almonte first. I wish to speak to him. Then bring Santa Anna, and bring Dr. Labadie, too. He speaks enough Spanish to know if anyone tries to play a trick on us.”
Sam observed Almonte when he was led up. He was a strong, medium-sized officer of about thirty, with very copper skin and an Indian’s visage.
“Colonel Almonte,” said Houston, “I have heard that at the shore of Galveston Bay your troops overtook our government as they fled before your invasion. I am told that you refused to fire on their boat because the president’s wife was among them. Is this true?”
“Sir,” he said, “I do not shoot at wo
men.”
“Allow me, then, to express my respect for your actions. Such chivalry is rare.”
Almonte nodded gravely.
“Now, Colonel, Santa Anna is being brought here. You will be asked to identify him and confirm that it is indeed he.”
Almonte stiffened. “Is he alive or dead?”
“He was taken alive this morning. It is my understanding that he does not speak English. Are you willing to translate for us whatever he wishes to say?”
“Of course.”
Sam was shocked at the sight of Santa Anna. He looked like any shopkeeper or cobbler but for his hauteur—nothing like the butcher he was known to be. The Mexican president studied Houston’s face before saying to Almonte in Spanish, “He may consider himself born to no common destiny who can say that he has conquered the Napoleon of the West. Now it remains for him to be generous to the vanquished.”
Almonte was clearly uncomfortable relating such misplaced vanity from a captured dictator. Houston frowned and shifted, waiting for Almonte to finish rendering such a flowery exposition. “You should have remembered that at the Alamo!” he snapped.
“Señor.” Almonte launched into an English rendering of the rapid Spanish staccato from the dictator. “I had no choice in my conduct at the Alamo. My government had decreed that those taken under arms should suffer the fate of pirates, which is summary execution. I had no choice but to obey their command.”
“Oh, stop it!” spat Houston. “You are the government yourself, sir. It is no use to try and hide behind the empty form of a Congress you have set up to give the illusion of some kind of democracy. And what is more, you have not even that excuse for your ordering the murder of Fannin’s men at Goliad.”
Word that Santa Anna was a prisoner and meeting with Houston had quickly raced through the Texian camp, and within moments the scene was observed by hundreds. One of the volunteers, backed by this solid phalanx, took encouragement from Houston’s tone and brandished a coil of rope, one end of which was already tied into a noose. “Let us have him, General. We know what to do with him!” Some of those behind him cheered.
“No,” said Houston loudly, “I forbid it. Now, boys, listen to me, and listen well. Alive, Santa Anna is our insurance that the other Mexican armies will march out of our country in peace. Alive, his signature guarantees our recognition. Dead, he is just another dead Mexican, so that is how we must have it. Moreover, killing him would bring the censure of the civilized world down upon us, and we cannot start our life as an independent nation under that kind of stain. He is not to be harmed, do you hear me? The man or men who kill him will themselves hang as murderers by my positive order. This I swear, so do not try me.”
Writing materials were brought, and Santa Anna dictated orders to his other division commanders to withdraw, Filisola and Gaona to San Antonio, and Urrea to Victoria, and await further instructions.
Houston then gave Santa Anna his parole to live with the other prisoners, not in chains or under close arrest, an act that shocked the dictator to his core. He could not even believe he was still alive, for had the roles been reversed, everyone present knew the outcome would have been far different.
“Gentlemen,” said Houston as matters concluded, “I thank you for your kind attentions. Now I must speak privately with Lieutenant Bandy.”
The various officers made their salutations and drifted away until they were alone. “Pray be seated, Bandy. You may even use the camp chest throne lately occupied by His Napoleonic Highness.”
They chuckled. “Where does he find the nerve?” asked Sam. “I mean, he was not just defeated but his army was annihilated, and he still views himself as a conqueror and his defeat was just the fault of others. How does he do that?”
“I believe it is simple,” Houston said wearily. “I believe he is crazy. Just as I believe all great conquerors have been crazy—Alexander, Caesar, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, yes, even Napoleon—believe it is a species of mental disease. The question is whether the man who suffers from this disease also has the military skill to give it effect. It seems clear to me that Santa Anna suffers from the disease but lacks the skill to become a conqueror on any great scale. He is a conqueror of shirtless peasants.”
“That makes sense,” said Sam. Oh, how he wished Bliven were with him. Bliven would know how to talk to Houston; he would know who in hell he was talking about.
“Well now, Bandy, let us put our heads to it. How are we going to get word out to Captain Putnam that the war is won, and he may stand down?”
“I don’t know that, General,” said Sam, “but I do know we could have a worse problem. We could be puzzling over how to get him word that all is lost and he must sail away and save himself.”
Even in his pain and laudanum, Houston chuckled. “That is true, sir, that is true.”
“You will find an interest in this, General.” He unfolded and gave over the proclamation of their ship to be that of pirates. “It seems that Mr. Potter has caught scent of us. He asks the help of all nations in tracking us down.”
“Well, hell,” murmured Houston. “That complicates the matter.”
“You can do nothing?”
“No. I am the commander of the army; I have no authority over the navy. The new provisional president, Mr. Burnet, is a hateful old polecat who cheated me out of a legal fee ten years ago, and he is Potter’s biggest backer. I can’t touch him. Where do you think Putnam is about now?”
“Well, sir, after he put me ashore near Galveston, his intention, I believe, was to return to the waters off Cópano and continue to carry out his instructions, which were to interdict shipping.”
“And Cópano is still in Mexican hands, although they should receive Santa Anna’s orders to stand down in a couple of days.” Houston reflected for a moment. “That is good. Any supplies that fall into his hands will come to us and equally encourage Urrea’s army to go home or go hungry. But that is not what worries me.”
“General?”
“If Potter can read a map, he will know as surely as we do that Cópano is the only place where Putnam would be.”
* * *
* * *
After getting Sam Bandy ashore and securing the gig in its davits, Evans Yeakel approached Bliven and saluted. “What are your orders now, Captain?”
“This needful errand is done,” he replied, “but our mission has not changed: we are to blockade Cópano until we receive other orders or until we are certain that the war is over. When the sun comes up, it will be the nineteenth of April. We know that the war is in progress, and we know Mr. Bandy’s estimate that the issue will be decided quickly. Therefore, my intention is to return to the waters off Cópano for perhaps three weeks and, if we learn nothing there, then to withdraw to Velasco, where we first called. There we will put a party ashore, strong enough to defend themselves until I can cover them, and find out whether the war is over and what was the outcome.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Come to full sail; set your course west southwest.”
In the three days back to Aransas Pass their lookouts spied no other ship. They assumed a pattern of patrol in conformity to what he took to be the spring pattern of prevailing winds: light and variable for several days, then accelerating from the south before blowing cool and steady from the north, easing off, and repeating the cycle. Thus it was no difficult task to position his vessel to chase a ship coming out of Cópano or block the entrance to Aransas Pass to one coming in. But in three weeks they saw no more commerce on the sea than if they were sailing in prehistoric times.
More so by the day, Bliven grew less patient, and from the lack of shipping more certain that either the Mexicans considered Cópano closed to them and were sending no more ships by sea when supplies could be sent overland or, more likely, they knew what he did not yet, that the war was over.
On the morning of May 8
the cycle of weather entered its increasing southerly blow, and Bliven called White, Yeakel, and McKay to him on the quarterdeck. “Gentlemen, I have had enough of this. At the very least, no more ships will come here, and, moreover, my instinct is that the war on land is over, one way or another. This morning the good Lord sends us a stiff south wind to take us to Velasco. Let us take advantage of it.”
They were now well past the date when Houston thought the struggle would be concluded. In two days the sextant told them that the distant thread of a shore was near Velasco, and it was time to consider how strong a party to send over the bar and up to the town. If two men stepped onto their rickety dock from his gig, he could have well-armed marines in the cutter to cover them should they find the place under Mexican occupation and a need to flee.
“Ahoy the deck! Ahoy!”
“What do you see?”
“Two ships, four miles southeast!”
Bliven and Lieutenant White walked to the starboard railing and raised their glasses, just seeing the specks on the horizon. Bliven looked up and shouted, “Can you make them out?”
“Not yet, sir!”
“Very well. Keep a sharp watch and sing out.” It was midday, with bright sun, balmy to uncomfortably warm, the wind increasing from the south, the seas running not more than four feet. If the inbound ships had unfriendly intentions and played their position correctly, they would hold the weather gage.
It was McKay who had the wheel. “Have you orders, Captain?”
“Not at this moment, Mr. McKay. Steady as you go.”
“What do you think, Captain?” asked White. “Shall we run up American colors until we learn their intentions?”
Bliven lowered his glass and looked at him, always surprised at how far up he had to crane his neck. “An interesting question, Mr. White, with competing considerations. Let them show their colors first and we shall see. Beat to quarters, if you please, and let us be ready for anything.”
White descended the ladder to relay the order to the men acting as marines, and in a moment Bliven heard the tattoo on the drum and the men dropping whatever they were doing. He relaxed for a moment, allowing himself to enjoy, even after so many years, the thrill of it—the scurry of feet, the orders barked by the gun captains, the squealing wheels of the gun carriages, the appearance of Yeakel armed with marlinespikes and the precious knowledge of how to repair any damage to their rigging.
