Paxton and the Lone Star (58 page)

What Houston was doing was buying time and organizing. Jared Groce's plantation supplied food. His house was stripped of lead pipes which were turned into shot. What was left of the once magnificent structure became a hospital for those stricken with measles. Many of the women helped there, along with a Medical Corps Houston shaped out of the two or three doctors he found and the men who weren't fit to fight but could help in other ways. At the same time, the army began to grow again as new blood joined it. Houston was tireless. New units were formed, new lines of command instituted. The army grumbled but settled down to work in earnest when grim news reached them: after Fannin's defeat at Coleto, he and virtually all his men had been massacred at Goliad and burned. The debt was growing. The men lived for revenge. Santa Anna's soldiers were perfidious heathens and needed killing.

Life became a succession of dull, rainy, muddy days. The women established their own camp, spent the majority of their time cooking, making bullets or bandages, and helping out in the hospital. The men drilled incessantly. Scott and Joseph were made sergeants, True a lieutenant. They saw their wives long enough to stare at them over a bowl of stew or gruel before falling into a stuporous sleep.

And then, suddenly, they were moving again. Two days were spent crossing the flooded Brazos, two more slowly moving south along refugee-crowded roads that were ankle-deep in mud. An air of expectancy raced through the mud-caked camp on Saturday night. Before morning, everyone knew. One of Santa Anna's aides had sent a derisive message to Houston in which he revealed that Santa Anna himself was on his way to Harrisburg in an attempt to capture the provisional government of the newly formed Texas Republic. The letter was undoubtedly meant to draw them hither, but no one cared. Trap or no, the men smelled blood. And any one of them would have walked willingly into a cage full of wildcats for a chance to strike at Santa Anna.

Not often, in the annals of military history, has the march that followed been equaled. Everyone helped—men, women, and children. Animals died of fatigue, fell and drowned in mud. Men literally lifted cannons out of the mud and carried them to the next solid stretch of road. Creeks, bayous, streams, gullies, and ravines all deep in water, blocked their way. They crossed each one with little more than raw courage and the strength of the driven. When it was over, they had marched fifty-five miles in two and a half days under impossible conditions. And only then, as if in recognition of their effort, did the rain stop. Few noticed. They were too exhausted.

The rest had done him good, the solitary walk even more. True stood high in a cottonwood that grew on the edge of Buffalo Bayou across from the town of Harrisburg. Across a hundred yards of open water, campfires winked and flared. The campfires of the Mexicans. Much the same as he had seen another night not long before. Not as vast as the army encircling the Alamo, but awesome all the same, for it was the cream of Major General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's army, the ones in whose number he hoped to find the man he sought, Luther O'Shannon. Four weeks had passed. Four weeks of running and hiding. Four weeks of retreat, and always retreat with no visible end in sight. Now there would be no more running, no more retreat, no more humiliation. They would fight. Houston had been right after all. The time was right, the place was right. The men were hardened and angry as hornets. They would fight with a ferocity that would overcome thrice their number. True would fight with one added incentive: Luther O'Shannon.

O'Shannon was there. True could feel his presence in his bones. The sensation struck him like a bolt of lightning. The skin on his arms and neck grew flush. His hair stood on end. O'Shannon was there. He had to be. How many yards away? Watching the dark woods, perhaps, at this very moment? Feeling True as True felt him? He hoped so.

The bark of the cottonwood was cool against his cheek. Frogs set up a din from the darkness below. Slowly, True climbed down from the tree and walked back through the woods, stole past the sentries using tricks Hogjaw had taught him, and found his way to the fire around which sat their little group, the Campbells, Joseph and Lottie and the baby, Mila with Buckland's Bible held close, and Elizabeth.

“Well?” Mackenzie asked as True materialized at Elizabeth's side.

“They're out there. You can see their fires.”

“He'll have to let us get our licks in now,” Scott said. “No way a lousy hundred yards of water are gonna keep us off their backs.”

Elizabeth glanced from True to Joan, who shook her head in agreement. “I just wish I could be with you when it comes,” the older woman said, thinking of Dennis.

“Changed your tune, haven't you?” Scott asked.

“You're damned right I have,” Joan said. “Killing all those boys in cold blood … He deserves whatever he gets. Serve him right to have a woman shoot him, too.”

“Maybe we'll just go over there and bring him back so you can,” Mackenzie said. “If,” he added with a sneer, “our Runaway General will give us leave.”

“Mighty brave talk, son. For a boy,” a deep voice rumbled from the darkness outside the light of the fire.

Mackenzie gulped, and choked on a swallow of coffee. “Oh, shit,” he wheezed, jumping to his feet with the others.

A tall, buckskin-clad man, whose lot it was to lead the glorious, mud-caked remnant of the Texas army, stepped into the light. Sam Houston was making his rounds, as he did almost every night. Rarely did he stop by the individual encampments to seek the fellowship of his men. Rather he kept to himself and, behind those stony features that hid his thoughts, he evaluated the heart and soul of each man he beheld, as if gauging whether this one would stand and fight, this one run from powder smoke or bayonet. “Ladies,” he said deferentially, touching his hat brim. “Hope you got some rest. And vittles.”

“Yes, thank you,” came the chorus of agreement.

Houston nodded to True. “Saw you come in. Reckon I'd better have a word with the sentries. It was my Cherokee blood that spotted you. Who taught you?”

“Hogjaw Leakey.”

“Ah.” Houston's head nodded up and down. “That makes you Paxton, then. Heard of you. Knew Hogjaw, these years past. Damned shame. A good man gone under.”

“The best.”

“He died fighting at least,” Mackenzie snapped, bent on showing he wasn't afraid of Houston.

Steel-gray eyes hooked into Mackenzie like a barb in a bluegill. “You'll get your chance to do the same, boy,” the general growled. “But when it counts. Not before.”

Mackenzie's insolence melted and he hung his head.

“His brother's death weighs heavy on him, General,” Scott interceded.

“On us all,” Joan added. She sat with her hands folded around a cup of coffee. The veins on the backs of her hands were dark scribbles underneath the skin. “It's hard, General, to know they're dead and not do anything about it.”

Houston pursed his lips, sighed softly. “Not a man nor woman here but feels a loss, ma'am. We have to be strong enough to pick our time, though. There never was any sense in running off half-cocked.”

“Nor was there ever sense in never going off at all,” Joseph interjected, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Santa Anna's army.

“No, I reckon not.” Houston locked eyes with Joseph, the only man around the fire who matched his height. A slow secretive smile played over his face. “But I wouldn't worry on that account, if I was you.”

Bethann interrupted with a squawl. Lottie reached down quickly, picked her up, and began to jiggle her. After a loud burp, the squawl became a soft cooing sound and then a pleased giggle.

“That's the sweetest sound in this whole big ugly world,” Houston finally said, his voice rumbling deep in his throat. A second later, he was gone as abruptly as he had appeared.

Houston's words never went unremarked. Every comment he made or was reported to make was grist for the rumor mill. The small group sat around the fire and eagerly dissected and analyzed everything he had said to them until, at last, Lottie yawned and took herself and Bethann off to bed. A moment later, Joseph followed. Joan and Scott soon said goodnight and went off to their wagon, which they had, miraculously, managed to keep through the long journey. Mackenzie slipped away at the same time to join some companions his own age and regale them with his recent confrontation with General Sam himself. True and Elizabeth sat chatting quietly across the fire from Mila, who was reading her Bible. The night was quiet and peaceful. Horses stirred, and nickered to one another. Frogs and insects chorused the coming of spring. Soft laughter and the voices of men at ease drifted across the open ground. Once, Mila turned a page and the hastily scrawled letter from Buckland fell out. She hurriedly picked it up and wiped it off before putting it back.

“He was a fine man,” True said, reading her anguished thoughts. “But then, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.”

“It's nice to hear it,” Mila said. “He loved you both. He loved God. And he loved Texas. Too much, perhaps.”

“I don't think so,” Elizabeth said, reaching to touch her arm.

Mila placed her hand over Elizabeth's and gave it a little squeeze. “Neither do I. Although I wish …” Her eyes misty, she closed the Bible and held it to her breast. “Someday,” she finally said in a small voice, “when I'm … When I can … Someday I'd like you to read you his letter. Right now, I think I'd like to try to sleep.” Mila's voice broke and failed her. Weeping softly, she ran from the fire and, a moment later, crawled out of sight into the tiny tent they had found for her.

True and Elizabeth sat without touching each other, as if somehow embarrassed at being together when Mila was alone. Somewhere across the camp a voice swelled in a gentle, lilting ballad. Elizabeth hummed along quietly.

Love is the one you are silent with. Love is the silent moving stream that moves unhurriedly—there is time enough, always time enough—to reach the sea.

True's arm crept around her waist, drew her to him. “Yellow Rose,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “You are my Yellow Rose, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth craned her neck to look at him. “What did you see out there? You looked different. Less … I don't know what to call it.… less angry?”

“Maybe.” He sounded lazy, half-asleep. “Calmer, I guess. Not less angry.” A muscle in his arm twitched. “Because I know it'll be soon. So the waiting doesn't bother me any more. I can even enjoy it. You about ready for some sleep?”

“I guess.”

Their house was a half-shelter pitched over a ground cloth, their pillows rolls of clothes, their bed three wool blankets they had managed to salvage. One by one, careful not to knock down the flimsy poles that held the shelter erect, they crawled in and arranged themselves. The blankets were warm after the moist night air, and Elizabeth was soon dozing, then sound asleep and dreaming of a rose bush consumed in flames, of thorns, spindly branches, green leaves, yellow blossoms turned black and charred. She woke with a violent jerk, lay trembling and breathing heavily.

True held her in the crook of his arm. “Nightmare?”

Elizabeth nodded. “I don't want to be alone like Mila,” she finally said. “I don't, True. I don't.”

“You won't be.”

“Hold me, True? Just hold me?”

He turned onto his side, caught her hip with his free hand and pulled her to him. Their lovemaking was ardent and demanding, a fierce union, as consuming as love's first joining.

Or last.

Chapter XLII

Elizabeth woke to empty bedding. Sensing activity before she saw it, she hurriedly arranged her clothes and ran from the tent just in time to collide with True. Over his shoulder she could see the camp in an uproar, men clasping their wives close and hugging sleepy children. Her heartbeat quickened. “What's happening? Are we leaving?”

“Not you. Me.”

“I don't understand.”

“There was an early morning meeting. The women and children are to remain here. Houston's leading us to Santa Anna. This time we're not running.”

Elizabeth had suspected as much from the very first. She could hear the weeping and the frightened moans of some of the women. She too wanted to hold her man, to keep him safely with her, to have him close. But pride and a sense of duty—and more, love—would not let her make a fuss. “You've forgotten the pistol,” she said as calmly as she could, assessing his armament. She disappeared into their tent and came out with the weapon.

“I need three days' rations,” True said. “I'll be drying powder while you get the food ready.”

Two hours passed. The cannon had already been taken away to allow for a head start. The unmarried men, those who had nobody to say goodbye to, were beginning to form a rough marching order. Elizabeth stood by True and looked around, as if memorizing all she could see to tell those who came after her the price that was paid for the land they called Texas. Scott held a daughter in each arm and could not receive enough of their kisses. Mackenzie suffered embarrassment in his mother's embrace and tried to hide the emotion he felt as deeply as any man. Lottie cradled Bethann and wept against Joseph's chest. When he let her go and turned to leave, she followed him for three steps and then, cheeks streaked with tears, retreated to their tent. True held out his arms and folded Elizabeth in the cocoon of his embrace. “God, how I love you,” he whispered.

Elizabeth could feel his pistol against her ribs, the scabbarded Arkansas Toothpick against her left hip. His rifle hung over his shoulder and knocked against the back of her hand when he bent to kiss her. “There will be coffee and a meal waiting for you when you return,” she said, her lips numb from the pressure of his kiss. “No matter the time, no matter how long it takes, they will be waiting. You come back to me, True Paxton.”