Eyes of Eagles (29 page)

Jamie flattened out against the wall of a building as a dozen or more cavalrymen walked their horses up the street, the hooves making a frightful echoing racket on the stones. Jamie used that noise to cover any slight sound he might make and slipped away. He made his way over to where a battery of artillerymen were swabbing out and reloading cannon. Then, Jamie supposed, they decided to take a break, for coffee or food or whatever, for they all walked away and vanished into the night. Jamie slipped over to the row of cannon and finding a bucket, began working quickly, scooping up mud and pouring it into the barrels of two of the eight-pounder cannon. Then he packed it in tight and rolled over into a ditch just as the men returned to their stations.

It was going to get real interesting when the order came for those men to fire their cannons.

Jamie collected three more scalps that night before he decided not to push his luck any further. He headed back for the Alamo, finding it almost ridiculously easy to wend his way unseen through the Mexican lines.

“Thanks, Tall Bull,” he said under his breath, for the brutal training the Shawnee had given him on how to survive.

Reaching the rear of the Alamo, on the east side, near the cattle and horse pen, he called, “MacCallister. Coming over.”

“Come on, Jamie,” the sentry said. “How was it over yonder?”

“Busy,” Jamie said with a smile, towering over the man.

“What that a-hangin' from your belt, son?”

“Scalps,” Jamie told him, and walked on.

The man shuddered and muttered, “Travis ain't gonna like that a-tall.”

Jamie told Crockett and Bowie what he'd done with the cannon and both men guffawed and slapped their knees in high humor. “Land sakes, boy,” Crockett said. “You done fixed it so's we'uns can have quite a show this night.”

Jamie wondered about Crockett's speech; wondered just how much of it was affectation and how much was real? No matter, though. Davy was a fearless fighting man and a dead shot.

“My God, boy!” Bowie said, stepping back. “What have you got hanging from your belt?”

“Half a dozen scalps. I thought I'd give them to Travis as souvenirs.” Actually, Jamie had no intention of doing that.

Bowie grinned. “No, lad. Let me have the honors.” Before Jamie could stop him, he jerked the bloody scalps from Jamie's belt.

“What's going on up there?” Travis suddenly appeared in the night and called from the plaza. “Oh. It's you, MacCallister. What did you accomplish among the enemy this evening?”

“Killed half a dozen and fixed two of their cannon so when they fire, it'll surely backfire on them.”

Travis climbed up onto the parapet and faced Jamie. “Report,” he said.

Jamie told all that he'd seen and done — almost.

“Yeah, you want these, Bill?” Bowie asked innocently, then held out the bloody scalps.

Travis recoiled as if being handed a writhing poisonous snake. “What in God's name are those?” he demanded.

Crockett and his men — all skilled Indian fighters who had certainly taken more than their share of scalps over the years — could barely contain themselves. One swallowed his chewing tobacco trying to stifle his laughter.

“Scalps, Colonel,” Bowie replied calmly. “Jamie took them. He thought you might want to keep them as souvenirs.”

Travis drew himself up to his full height, which was eye to eye with Bowie, and smiled. “Why, yes,” he said. “I certainly would. Thank you, Scout MacCallister. I am sure I shall treasure them always.” He took the scalps and tucked them behind his own belt.

Crockett leaned close and whispered hoarsely, “He beat you on that one, Jimmy my boy.” Then he burst out laughing.

Soon all the men along the parapet were howling at Travis having put one over on Bowie. But Jim was good humored and he soon joined in the merriment.

When the laughter had died down, Bowie stuck out his hand toward Travis. “Colonel, would you be so kind as to join me in my quarters and we'll have coffee and discuss, together and mutually, the defending of this bastion of liberty?”

Travis smiled and shook the hand of the older man. “It would be my pleasure, Colonel Bowie. My great pleasure indeed.” He chuckled, a rare thing for Travis. “Perhaps then, Jim, you can tell me what you really told that emissary from General Santa Anna this afternoon.”

“Oh, that's easy, William. I just told him to tell Santa Anna to kiss my ass!”

Travis was startled silent for a moment. He blinked, then slowly started chuckling. Soon he was roaring with laughter and wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. Once again, the men along the parapet were howling with laughter.

From the Mexican battery of artillery, there suddenly came a mighty roar and a huge shower of flame and shredded metal and hardened mud. The flames touched off two more cannon and they blew apart. The blast from the first explosions knocked the two other cannons out of alignment and the cannonballs fell far short of their target and the scene was one of confusion and screaming and mortally wounded men.

Travis patted Jamie on the shoulder. “Good work, Scout MacCallister. Very good work. Colonel Bowie, shall we retire to your quarters to map out the battle plans?”

“After you... amigo.”

So it was a truce. But would it have lasted had Bowie not been terribly hurt in an accident the very next day?

No one knows.

 

The Mexican artillery had kept up their bombardment all during the night, causing most of the defenders of the Alamo to sleep lightly at best, at their posts. This was to be the case for the next twelve days. A few of the men had managed to get a few hours good rest despite the bombardment: Bowie, Crockett, Jamie, and several others awakened rested. Most of the others had slept only fitfully.

Over coffee and beef and beans, which for the most part, was what the defenders would live on for the next twelve days, Jamie studied the one hundred and fifty or so men. The discussion that morning was not of the thousands of Mexican troops just outside the old church, but of the letter, drafted and signed by both William Travis and Jim Bowie, that a courier had taken to Governor Smith of Texas before dawn. That letter stated that Travis and Bowie would, from that date on, share command of the Alamo and orders to the men would be mutually agreed upon. That had come as a real shock to men loyal to each faction. But even though all considered it a good sign, most of the defenders' loyalty still went with Jim Bowie.

Most of the defenders still clung to the belief that reinforcements would come, and together they would whip the Mexican Army. It was a false hope, but it was all they had to keep them going. They had food enough for about three weeks, simple fare, but enough to keep them alive. They were low on powder and shot. But they had plenty of spirit, and that was something that Bowie and Travis had spoken of long into the shell-shot night.

“You know it's hopeless,” Bowie had told Travis.

“I do not know of any such thing, Bowie.”

“Bill, we're a hundred and fifty against six or seven thousand.”

“Fannin will come.”

“Only with his wife or a whore,” Bowie said with a smile. “Fannin will do nothing without orders, and the advisory committee will never issue those orders. We're being sacrificed. But that's not without merit. What we're doing here is buying time. Precious time. Time for Houston to get his army ready and in place.”

Travis dropped his eyes to the grounds in his cup and was silent for a moment. “The men?”

“I think they know. The chaplain does.”

Travis sighed heavily. “I have started writing a letter.”

“So, too, have I.”

“Mine is not yet finished.”

Bowie poured them both fresh coffee. “Nor is mine.”

“I expect to have mine finished by tomorrow...” He consulted his timepiece. “... This afternoon. I have asked Captain Martin to stand by to ride.”

“I have not yet started committing mine to paper.” He tapped the side of his head. “But I have it here. I shall start this evening. By then I should have time.”

He wasn't aware of it, but he would have lots of time to write until the bloody, awful end, still some week and a half away.

“If I might make a suggestion... ?”

“By all means.”

“Jamie MacCallister could take your message from these fortified walls.”

Bowie smiled. “That's the lad I had in mind.”

“Good! Good! The men tell me he's like a ghost in the night.” Travis smiled at the knife fighter across the rough table. “I have some brandy...”

Bowie returned the smile. “I don't recall ever turning down a drink, Bill.”

Brandy poured, the men sniffed and then sipped the explosive mixture.

Travis rose from the table and walked to a makeshift desk. He took out several pages of paper and handed them to Bowie. Bowie pulled the candle closer and read:

Bowie nodded his head in agreement with the words. “I can add nothing to this stirring tribute to the defenders of this mission, Bill. You've said it all.”

“Then there is nothing left to do, is there, Jim?”

“Yes,” Bowie said softly. “Fight and die for Texas.”

* * *

The Mexican bombardment continued throughout the day, with very little damage to the makeshift fort, and no injuries or fatalities to the defenders. But Crockett and his sharpshooters played hell with any Mexican soldier who came too close to the walls. Because of the sharpshooters' deadly accuracy with their long rifles, the Mexicans were unable to move their light cannon any closer.

Inside the compound, the defenders were working frantically to get everything ready for the charge they knew was coming. They shored up the walls and reinforced any broken places in the walls. The hospital was made ready. The noncombatants, some twenty-five of them, were instructed to tend to the wounded, when that occurred, and all knew it would, and soon. For now, they saw to the keeping of fires, the preparation of food, the washing of the defenders' clothing, and to the rolling of bandages and the safekeeping of the meager supply of medicines.

It did not rain that day, and the sun was welcome, for it had been a cold and very wet month so far. The sun felt good and Bowie's cough was not nearly so pronounced as he worked to mount another cannon on the south end of the plaza, on a fifteen-foot platform.

Bowie's mind was not entirely on the placing of the cannon. The Mexican bombardment was continuous and distracting. During the night, the Mexican gunners had crept closer and now some of the cannonballs were actually striking the walls of the mission. Also, after he'd left Travis's company the night before, he'd gotten drunk and now he had a headache. And the ropes holding the cannon were badly frayed.

Whatever the reason for the accident, Bowie felt the heavy cannon shift on him. “Look out!” he called to the men below him. The men below scrambled out of harm's way. For a few seconds, all that held the heavy cannon was Bowie's tremendous upper-body strength. Men raced toward him with rope, but it was too late. The cannon shifted again and slammed into Bowie's side, crushing his ribs. Bowie fell from the platform and the cannon pivoted again, and stopped against a heavy support post sunk deep into the ground. Bowie lay nearly unconscious on the ground, a fearsome head wound gushing blood and each breath agony because of his broken ribs. Bowie passed out on the way to the hospital.

* * *

Still far to the north, Tall Bull and his small band of warriors made their way cautiously south, staying clear of any settlements. They were not a war party. Not yet, anyway. If by some miracle Jamie MacCallister escaped from the old mission, then and only then, would they become a war party. After only one white. Jamie Ian MacCallister.

* * *

Deep in the Big Thicket of East Texas, Kate sat out the cold winter with the children and waited for some word from Jamie. But none came. Finally, on the 24th of February, the day of Bowie's accident, a merchant from San Augustine brought her a letter that Jamie had written and posted several weeks back.

She carefully broke the wax seal and with trembling fingers unfolded the paper.

Kate wept silently for a few moments, then dried her eyes and rose from the chair. She must be brave. For she knew she was not the only Texas woman who had a man at the Alamo. She wondered what it must be like at that place.

* * *

Jim Bowie was down and was not likely to ever rise again. That news spread like a raging fire throughout the compound. The regimental surgeon, Dr. Pollard, had left Bowie's quarters shaking his head in amazement that the man was still alive. He had allowed the men of the Alamo to file past Bowie's bed, to offer condolences and, many of the men knew, to say goodbye to the famous knife fighter. Bowie was dying.

When the last man had filed past, Bowie asked Jamie to sit for a time with him.

“Place those quills and the inkwell close by me, lad,” Bowie requested in a weak voice. “It's come the time for me to write my farewell. Those scraps of paper, too, lad. Ah. Thank you. Have you written to your loved ones, Jamie?”

“Yes, sir. Before I arrived here. I posted it on the way in with Crockett.”

“Good. I'm writing you out a bill of sale for my horse, Jamie. For when you leave here, you're going to have to fly. You know where my mount is hidden? Good. You think you can slip out of this bastion one more time, with your horse?”

“Easily, sir.”

“A few miles outside of town there is a ranch that belongs to a friend of mine. His name is Ruiz. Take both our horses there and they will be stabled and grained properly. When the time comes, Jamie, you must leave with this message. You will not question my orders?”

“No, sir.”

“Good lad. The doctor says I must not have any whiskey. So would you please pour me a cup from that jug yonder?”

Jamie was not about to refuse his commander's request. He poured a cup and Bowie thanked him and sipped and smiled. “Now leave me, lad. Ah, one more thing before you go. Place that jug within arm's reach, would you? Thanks.” He winked at Jamie. “I'll not die before the battle's conclusion, lad. When I close the door to this life, I shall do so in the company of my volunteers and all the men defending this bastion of independence. Pass that on to the men, would you?”

“Yes, sir.” Jamie quietly left the man. He paused at the door. Bowie was writing, the only sound in the room the scratching of quill-point against the paper. Jamie stepped outside, gently closing the door.

Travis had been the first to call on Bowie. He now met Jamie just outside the door with a worried look on his face. “How did you find him, Scout MacCallister?”

“In good enough spirits.” He told Travis what Bowie had said for him to tell the men.

“Good! Good! That will bolster their resolve.” He patted Jamie's shoulder and walked away.

The cannonade had picked up, and the Mexican gunners were getting better, the balls and grapeshot crashing against the walls of the mission. Each time they paused to reload, Crockett and his sharpshooters would line the walls and take their shots, and the defenders were taking a toll on the cannoneers.

The defenders of the old mission were still in a good mood, many of them cracking jokes and laughing while the cannonballs drew ever nearer.

Perhaps, Jamie thought, they still believed that reinforcements were on the way. Jamie was operating under no such illusions. Although he could not say why he was so sure of his feelings, he felt the men of the Alamo were being abandoned. Bowie had said from the outset that they would fight and die alone; that they were being used as a way to rally Texas behind the independence movement.

“When we die, lad,” Bowie had said, “all Texas will rise up and fight Mexico. As sure as the sun sets in the west, we are dead men. But we shall not die in vain. The blood spilled here will stain the conscience of all Texans and drive them to fight. Tough as hell on us,” he added dryly, “but good for Texas.”

As evening fell, Jamie slipped out of the mission, without telling anyone. Crockett and a few others watched him leave, but kept silent. They knew, to a man, that Jamie was not running from the fight, and that he would return. His reasons for leaving were his own, and none of their affair. But they also knew that Travis would soon miss him, and would probably demand answers. Travis did miss Jamie before an hour had passed, but he asked questions of no one except Bowie, and that was done in the privacy of Bowie's quarters.