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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: The Red Ripper
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“I'LL PLAY ‘EM AS THEY LAY.”
Stand aside! Lay a hand on me and I'll keelhaul you!” Mad Jack bellowed as the sentries outside the cabin on a knoll overlooking the Brazos tried to intercept him. The soldiers were Mississippi volunteers, recently arrived, and they didn't know Mad Jack Flambeau from the man in the moon. But they heard the commotion as he blundered through the camp, a mongrel dog at his side and both of them snapping at the soldiers around them. It was a toss-up who growled the loudest. The dog bared his teeth at anyone who tried to approach him. Flambeau wielded a cutlass with the expertise of one familiar with the blade.
“General Houston and Mr. Austin left strict orders they wasn't to be disturbed,” one of the sentries tried to explain. He brought up his rifle across his chest to block the intruder. The volunteer had never seen a pirate, but this cantankerous old-timer sure looked the part.
Flambeau was dressed all in black save for a yellow scarf to cover his shaved skull. A gold ring glinted in one ear; a black patch covered one eye. He was wrinkled and wiry and looked tough as whipcord.
Several other sentries hurried forward. Lucky stopped them in their tracks with a guttural snarl; saliva dripped from his scarred muzzle. Mad Jack swung the cutlass
over his head. Come heaven or high water he was getting past the guards.
“Ready yourselves, my buckoes. I'm the Butcher of Barbados, the Scourge of the Antilles. Trim your sails and rig for boarding; there's a man coming your way!” Flambeau charged the sentries, who balked at the onslaught and might have dashed from harm's way, but just then the door opened and a tall, powerfully muscled figure loomed in the doorway.
“What the hell is going on out here?” Sam Houston stepped out into daylight, squinted against the glare, and then recognized the buccaneer. “Mad Jack … where did you come from?”
“The Flying Jib, where else?” Flambeau said, lowering the cutlass. “I came over with Jesus and Roberto and the boys from town.” He stabbed the cutlass into the dirt. “I aim to talk with you. And Austin if he's in yonder.”
“I'm here, you old sea dog!” Austin called out, standing in the doorway. “Come inside and have a drink. Our general is buying. He's got real Tennessee sipping whiskey.”
Houston glowered, but he waved a hand toward the cabin. “We don't have the time. Austin and I are pretty busy—”
“Make time. It won't take me long to speak my piece,” said Mad Jack.
“What the hell. Join us,” Houston replied. He glanced around at the encampment. Over six hundred men had answered the call to arms. And more were crossing the border from the United States every day, lured by the notion of a good fight and Texas's struggle for liberty.
Mad Jack kept his counsel until the door to the cabin was closed; then he turned on the two leaders of the revolution and, ignoring the whiskey set before him, dug
his knuckles into the tabletop and the draft documents Austin had been laboring over.
“I heard dispatch riders had been arriving.”
“Some,” replied Houston.
“Santa Anna's got the Alamo surrounded. Been that way for days now.”
Houston glanced aside at Austin, then nodded. “For the better part of a week.”
“Then what are you doing hiding out up here? You ought to be marching to San Antonio right now. Just give the word.”
“It isn't that simple,” Houston told the older man.
“Santa Anna has an army larger than anything we can put in the field. We simply aren't ready to confront him. Wallace, Don Murillo, Bowie, and the other men can't take the general on.” Mad Jack glared at the men until they both shifted uncomfortably before him.
Finally Austin broke the silence. “Yes.” He looked at Houston for support. “We know what we're doing, Jack.”
“
Mon Dieu,
that makes it even worse.”
“I need time to turn this bunch into an army,” Houston said. He walked to the windows, leaned on the sill, and studied the tents among the trees; a canopy of branches dispersed the sunlight in slanted rays of molten gold. They had come to fight, were ready to march at the drop of a hat, but not yet, not now. He wanted them good and mad, so crazed for battle as to be able to overwhelm a superior force. “Look at them. Farmers, shopkeepers, trappers, riverboat men. I won't throw them at Santa Anna until they have a chance to defeat him.”
“And meanwhile, the men at the Alamo can fight and die to buy you that time.”
Houston turned back and looked at Flambeau. “I didn't like the cut, but that's the way the cards were dealt. I'll play 'em as they lay.”
“Why don't you come with me, Captain Flambeau?” Austin said. “I am leaving tonight for the coast. We're setting up a provisional government for the Republic of Texas and drawing up the articles and such with the representatives from the colonies. It ought to be safe on the coast. We'll have time to complete our work.”
Mad Jack Flambeau spun around as if struck. Some things were beyond his control. But not everything. His reply spoke for the living and for those about to die.
“I didn't come here to be safe.”
“ … NO QUARTER …”
William Wallace rode out of the Alamo on the fifth of March in broad daylight amid a calm made all the more terrible after twelve days of siege. The army surrounding the fortress had announced each morning with a barrage that lasted until the defenders with their long rifles sighted in on the artillery crews and began to pick them off. Then the cannons would be drawn out of range for the day only to be relocated under cover of darkness and positioned for the next morning's barrage.
Bill Travis should have ridden out to meet with the Mexican officer under a flag of truce. But Wallace had recognized the man beneath the white flag and received permission to meet with the envoy in Travis's place. Of course, if William had mentioned the officer bearing the flag of truce had murdered Samuel Wallace, Travis might have thought twice before allowing “Big Foot” to represent the defenders.
Once he was clear of the gate and fifty or sixty yards from the mission, William glanced over his shoulder at the besieged garrison. He was shocked by what he saw. The mission walls were pockmarked and crumbling from the pounding they had endured. The makeshift fort seemed small, even paltry, compared to the vast array of soldiers surrounding its ravaged battlements. And yet
the Alamo's defenders waved to him with their hats and lifted their rifles in defiance.
After twelve days of being pummeled by Santa Anna's artillery, of staring at the columns of Mexican infantrymen parading in the distance whose camps completely ringed the mission, of knowing in their hearts that they were hopelessly outnumbered and it was only a matter of time before the final attack, the Texicans could still muster a show of defiance. Cornered, they continued to bare their fangs and await the inevitable.
“Once again our paths cross. For the last time, I think,” Juan Diego said, riding up to confront the Texican.
“I wouldn't be so sure,” Wallace replied suppressing the urge to lunge at the man despite the flag of truce. “Looking through my spyglass, I see Santa Anna hasn't found himself another hat.”
“Then it was you at the river,” said Guadiz. “I might have known. You have a way of being where you are not wanted.”
“A time is coming when you will no longer have to worry about it,” Wallace told him.
Guadiz chuckled. “Señor, are you threatening me? You are in no position to do anything of the kind. Although such talk costs you nothing. Maybe it even gives you courage to face what will come. His Excellency the President offers you one last chance to surrender and place yourself at his mercy. It is a more generous offer than you deserve. I think he will even allow some of you to live.” Guadiz shrugged. “What is your reply?”
“You should not have come to Texas,” William told him. “Because you will never leave it.”
“You have been a thorn in my side. But I shall pluck you out.” Guadiz stroked his carefully trimmed goatee. “Not so the beautiful wife of Don Murillo. I find her company most refreshing. Tell the
haciendado
my sister
and I are enjoying his hospitality. Too bad he cannot join us.”
Wallace's blood went cold; his skin paled as he struggled to keep his features impassive. “If you harm her—”
“Harm? Come now. Esperanza is a most efficient servant. But then, she had years of practice before seducing that randy old peccary, Saldevar. Now she is back where she belongs … on her knees!”
“You are a bastard,” Wallace growled. “Are you without shame?”
“Of course not,” Diego said. “Why, I shall see her a merry widow, mark my words.” Guadiz smiled broadly, showing off his white, even teeth. The colonel of lancers steadied his horse. Thunderheads were building on the western horizon. But “if” and “when” the rain might come was anyone's guess. He gestured with the pole bearing the white flag, fluttering in the breeze, and jabbed it at Wallace's chest. “I will have your answer. Surrender and save some lives. Tomorrow the bugles will play ‘De Guello,' no quarter, and all will be put to the sword.” He tapped Wallace once again. “What is your reply?”
Wallace's hand was a blur as he slipped Bonechucker from its sheath; cold steel flashed in the sunlight and severed the pole, dropping the white flag in the dirt beneath the iron-shod hooves of his mustang. Guadiz almost fell out of the saddle as he jerked backward to avoid what he thought was a killing thrust. He stared blankly at the truncated shaft still gripped in his hand. It took him a moment to realize he was still alive and not gushing blood.
“Next time,” Wallace warned him.
A cheer rose from the walls of the Alamo. The men there did not realize what was happening; they only knew William Wallace had saved face in a most dramatic fashion. Guadiz scowled and whirled his horse
about and galloped back the way he had come. William took his time, allowing Juan Diego to be first to reach the ranks of his command.
The moment Guadiz was safe he ordered the troops around him to open fire on the Texican. A column of dragoons trotted forward until they had the range, then loosed a volley in William's direction while he was still outside the walls. The big man refused to dash for cover as geysers of dirt erupted all around him. A few well-placed shots even tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. He kept his back contemptuously turned to his enemy as if daring them to take their best shots. A cheer rose up from the Alamo as he high-stepped the mustang right on through the front gate. He wondered if Bowie, Kania, Crockett, and the others would still be cheering when they heard the terms of surrender and Santa Anna's threat of
de guello.
No prisoners.
Now the men in the Alamo had no other course but to fight to the death.
“I NEED A KILLER THIS NIGHT.”
TO THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS AND ALL AMERICANS IN THE WORLD.
FELLOW CITIZENS AND COMPATRIOTS—I AM BESIEGED BY A THOUSAND OR MORE OF THE MEXICANS UNDER SANTA ANNA. I HAVE SUSTAINED A CONTINUAL BOMBARDMENT & CANNONADE FOR 24 HOURS & HAVE NOT LOST A MAN.
William ducked inside the church as another explosive shell blew a grave-size crater in the plaza. Travis's headquarters were just inside the door, to the left and nestled against the north wall dangerously close to the powder magazine. Wallace instinctively ducked as the ground shook and dust came raining down on everyone and everything within a thirty-foot diameter.
Travis was seated at a weathered old desk, an oil lamp gallantly attempting to dispel the gloom. A draft of a letter lay before him on the desktop, an inkstand and quill nib close by. Twelve days of siege had sapped the youth from the colonel's once-boyish features. His eyes were sunken and hollow-looking, his flesh drawn taut over prominent cheekbones. But there was determination in his voice. He was bent, not broken.
“Look at you,” he said, appraising the big redheaded man whose great bulky presence crowded the room. By
heaven, a titan walked among them this night. “The more desperate our situation becomes, the stronger you seem. What is it with you Wallaces? Do you revel in this?”
“A fight is coming. So be it. Whether I live or die, I swear Santa Anna will rue the day before it is done.”
“Indeed he shall,” Travis said. “But you will have a different role to play in the general's fate.”
“Colonel, I'm a simple man. That's why I leave all this talk of governments and ranking to you and Austin and Houston, folks it matters to. I deal with things head-on, with either my word or these knives at my side.”
“And God bless you for it,” Travis said. “Yours is the greater strength, and that is what you will need to carry you beyond the lines tonight. Strength, a fast horse, and plenty of luck.”
“Why would I leave?” Wallace asked, frowning.
“Because I asked you to,” Travis said. “Carry this letter out of here. Find Houston and the rest of the army. Tell them what happened.”
“I can't ride out, not now. I have the right to—”
“Die with the rest of us, of course you have, and then some. But what I ask is more important. This letter is the voice of every man here. Don't get me wrong. You were outside today with the officer and the flag of truce; you could see how tight the noose is drawn. Chances are you'll never get past the first line of skirmishers. But if anyone can, it's you.”
“There are other men, smaller, faster,” Wallace blurted out.
“I don't need speed. I need a man who can ride, yes, but also a man who can fight like the devil, who will carve his way through Santa Anna's lines if necessary.” Travis poured a small glass of whiskey for himself and one for his guest. “I need a killer this night. I need El Destripedor Rojo.” He raised his glass in salute. Wallace shook his head.
“In this letter I tried to speak for all of us. Carry it out to the rest of Texas. Let that be our triumph. Years hence, when men of good will are forced to buck the odds and make a desperate stand against tyranny, let them say, ‘Remember the Alamo,' and take heart.” Travis leaned forward, resolute, willing to accept his destiny and the sacrifice it entailed.
Wallace closed his eyes, shook his head, reached for the drink, and then took up the letter. The whiskey burned his throat, but he hardly noticed. His eyes began to water. He wiped them on his sleeve. He turned and left the way he had entered, forgetting to salute.
Travis didn't call him back.
THE ENEMY HAS DEMANDED A SURRENDER AT DISCRETION; OTHERWISE THE GARRISON ARE TO BE PUT TO THE SWORD, IF THE FORT IS TAKEN … I SHALL NEVER SURRENDER OR RETREAT.
Don Murillo, Chuy Montoya, and Jim Bowie found Wallace in the corral. The big man had already saddled his mustang and was tightening the cinch. The ground trembled as another pair of shells landed in the plaza; another round exploded against the eastern wall where the adobe was at its thickest. The Mexican gunners could shoot another month and that battlement wouldn't be breached.
“So you're going out,” Bowie said. “That damn lawyer talked you into suicide.”
Another shell burst flared against the night sky and peppered the hard earth with fragments of iron, causing them all to duck.
“Yeah. I suppose I ought to stay here where it's safe.”
“Maybe so, but at least we have good company. There's only you and the night outside these walls.” Bowie shrugged. “Guess it's your call. You told me
once, ‘This is Texas. If a man wants to get himself killed, he's come to the right place.'” Bowie extended his right arm. “You sure called it.”
“I'll be seeing you,” Wallace said, shaking hands.
“Stay low and don't stop to smell the wildflowers,” replied Bowie. “Too bad we never found out who was the better man.” He patted the knife at his side.
“Hell, Jim, it was you all along,” Wallace said.
“Sure thing,” Bowie chuckled. He trotted off in the direction of the east barracks.
Don Murillo watched him leave and added, “There goes a man.”
“Sí,” Wallace replied. “Much man. Like you,
padrone
.”
“There are no cowards within these walls,” Don Murillo said. “Chuy, keep close or one of those stray rounds will part your hair.”
“I will keep my sombrero on.” Chuy grinned.
“I reckon the entire garrison knows I am going out,” Wallace grumbled.
“Yes, and none of them envy you,” said the landowner. Wallace had kept Guadiz's comments to himself. As far as Don Murillo was concerned, Esperanza was safe and well. It was the least Wallace could do to ease the older man's burden. Don Murillo reached in the pocket of his frock coat and handed Wallace a small oilskin packet.
“It is a Bible. I have written in it, on the front page. Perhaps you will … deliver it to Esperanza for me.” He cleared his throat and struggled to continue. “If I am unable to. And if it is no problem.”
Wallace accepted the packet and placed it inside his shirt, next to his heart. “I shall give it back to you one day and you can hand it to her yourself.”
“Of course,” Don Murillo said. Neither of them believed that for a second.
Wallace removed his hat out of respect for the white-haired
haciendado
who had joined the cause and sacrificed everything for freedom. He hoped the colonists remembered. He hoped Texas remembered.
Don Murillo looked up at the stars, like diamonds flung against the black velvet canopy of night. The ground shook. Would the bombardment never end? Beauty and death, bound inextricably by fate. There was a terrible truth here; if he looked long enough he might just figure it out. Maybe tomorrow … He wanted to ask Wallace to watch over Esperanza, to be her friend, to protect her if the worst happened. But the words would not come, not that they were necessary. After all, this was William Wallace. And some things were understood.
The three men skirted the corral, avoided the main plaza, and hugged the barracks wall as they made their way to a side gate where Ken Kania and a handful of the original colonists waited to shake Wallace's hand. The big man greeted them like old friends. The words were few, the farewells heartfelt and laced with humor. The defenders quickly returned to their positions on the battlements. Tomorrow they had a date with destiny. This was William's night. On his word, Chuy Montoya unlatched and opened the gate.
Don Murillo patted Wallace on the shoulder. William took a deep breath and hurried down the passage between the church and the barrack. As he approached Montoya, the
segundo
whispered, “Go with God.” And when William had vanished into the night and Montoya had closed and barred the door the
segundo
could be heard to add, “And I don't envy God.”
THEN I CALL ON YOU IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY, OF PATRIOTISM & EVERYTHING DEAR TO THE
AMERICAN CHARACTER, TO COME TO OUR AID WITH ALL DISPATCH.
Men crowded the battlements. They searched the Mexican lines for movement, for any indication that Wallace had been discovered. Bright fires burned on the plain, ringed the fortress, blazed against the line of trees where the waters of the San Antonio River flowed sweet and clear. Campfires beyond the river flanked the road to town, the Camino Real. How could any man hope to run a gauntlet of such magnitude and survive? The cannonade had momentarily abated; the stillness that followed was damn near intolerable.
“Listen to that,” one of the men muttered. Not a sound, nothing stirred, no dark wing or scurrying rodent, not a gnat or jackrabbit. “Loud, ain't it?”
Everyone agreed, but no one spoke.
“I think he made it,
padrone
.”
“He'll make it, if his horse is fast enough,” Bowie said. “And if them guards have been drinking. We could have used some of Mad Jack's home brew to spike the wells.”
“They'd have to move the town,” Kania commented. He had come to Texas to open a store. Now a place in history had been thrust upon him. He wondered if the men around him were frightened. He was. But he would see this through. “And dam the river.”
The men on the wall chuckled. The shopkeeper straightened a little, squared his shoulders. He had been accepted as an equal by men of action. And though his hands were sweaty and his mouth dry, he felt proud.
 
In San Antonio, in the house of Saldevar, Juan Diego sighed with pleasure as Paloma's fingers massaged his temples, easing the sudden spasms that threatened to bring him down. She hovered over her brother like a fallen guardian angel, the two of them in the study,
among the books, wood desk, and wing-backed chairs, one of which Guadiz had chosen to sit in while his sister tended his needs. Orange flames from the hearth cast a host of dancing wraithlike shadows upon the bare walls and bookshelves. His gut rumbled.
“What's taking her so long?”
“Shall I see?”
“No. Stay here.” He reached up to pat her hand. “I spoke to him today, that damned
norte americano.
The pirate's whelp, Wallace.”
A sudden intake of air, Esperanza tried to stifle her gasp. Guadiz glanced around his sister and caught sight of her in the doorway. “Food at last.” He waved her in. “So you are interested in the redhaired one. I have always felt like I know him, yet I do not think I have ever seen him before.” His cruel eyes undressed her as she carried a platter of beans and tortillas and a jug of whiskey to the desk. In his mind he peeled away the peasant blouse and skirt she wore and imagined every appealing curve of flesh. “But you like this man, very much I think. Does your husband know? Perhaps he even has given his blessing. After all, Don Murillo is an old man to have taken such a young wife. Does Wallace make up for what is lacking in your marriage bed?”
“Here is your food,” Esperanza said, unwilling to play his game or to be baited into humiliation.
“I could take you, here and now, drag you upstairs by your hair, and have my way with you,” Juan Diego warned. “It is a tempting notion.” Paloma's fingers dug into his scalp. He yelped and brushed her hand away. Now that the pain had subsided he enjoyed arousing his. sister's jealous nature. He returned his attention to the señora. “Who could stop me?”
“I see beyond seeing. I hear while others merely listen. I am ‘She who walks in shadows,' the path that lies
between the darkness and the light. The powers of both dwelt in my mother and now in me.”
“I am no peon. Do not seek to frighten me.”
“I say what is.” Esperanza spoke quietly, yet her voice seemed to fill the room. It whirled about the twins like dead leaves in a gust of wind. Her eyes began to bore into Guadiz, who began to shift uncomfortably in his chair by the hearth. “I bend to your will, but I do not break. Touch me and I will summon the ‘haunter of the dark,' for he is the bearer of lost souls; he is
muerte.
And this will be my curse. Your manhood will shrivel and rot away, then your bowels and gut, then at last your heart. And you, Senorita Guadiz, will experience all the pain you have caused, your own bitterness will eat your flesh, and your tears will scald you.”
Standing before them, with the firelight transforming her comely features into a lurid orange mask, Juan Diego was tempted to believe this woman. Chancing a scratched cheek was one thing; risking the wrath of some demon called the haunter of the dark was an entirely different matter. She wasn't the only beauty in town.
“Go on. Get out of here. You may be ‘She who walks in shadows,' but tomorrow you will be just another widow.” Guadiz laughed aloud. “What do you think of that?”
Esperanza paused in the doorway. Again she refused to be goaded into hysterics. “My husband is ready to die,” she said. “Are you?” She continued down the hall, encountering Dorotea in her nightdress, who had followed her and been listening from a distance. Esperanza took her sister-in-law by the arm and led her to the back of the hacienda. The two women retired together to the servants' room, a small but adequate chamber with a featherbed on a brass frame, a hand-hewn dresser, and a washbasin. Years ago, Esperanza had shared this same room with her mother, but those were in the days of the
first Senora Saldevar, a woman of culture and civility, fair but rarely familiar with her servants. Safe within the room, Dorotea sat on one side of the bed while Esperanza prepared herself for the evening. She removed her clothes and slipped into a warm cotton gown that fastened at her neck with tiny white satin bows and hung to the floor.

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