Eyes of Eagles (35 page)

 

Travis wrote no more reports to be sent outside the walls. He told Jamie, “I have no more dispatches for you, Jamie. There is nothing left to say. I cannot write of my own death before it happens. You may leave whenever you wish.”

“I'll stay for a time yet,” Jamie told him.

“Santa Anna's men are knocking at the gates now, Jamie. Don't wait too long.”

Knocking at the gates was not far from the truth. During the night, the Mexican lines had moved to within two hundred yards of the walled compound. Under the now constant bombardment from Mexican cannon fire, the walls were crumbling at a much faster rate than the nearly exhausted defenders could shore them up. And they were out of timbers.

As Jamie moved around the plaza that day, men would call out to him.

“Take another scalp for me, MacCallister!”

“Godspeed, Jamie.”

“Remember the Alamo!” another called. Jamie would, and that phrase would become the battle cry for freedom.

The men were tired, but their spirits were high. They had made their decision, and that had seemed to pull them closer together and lift the general mood. They were going to die, they had accepted that fact, but they were going to die for
By God Texas!

The Alamo was no longer thought of as a church. It was a mighty fortress of defiance.

Outside the walls, Santa Anna had had quite enough of those inside the Alamo. He ordered his commanders to make ready for the attack. Thousands of troops drew additional powder and shot. Scaling ladders were made more secure. Knives, swords, and bayonets were sharpened. Men said goodbye to their wives and/or girlfriends and their children. The defenders of the Alamo had about forty-eight hours to live.

Jamie had worked out his escape. It was a simple plan, for he knew that the more elaborate a plan was, the more likely it was to fail. He gave his spare rifles to men along the parapets. He would leave with one rifle, two pistols, his knife, and his bow and quiver of arrows.

He was ready to go.

* * *

Santa Anna could not get the image of the tall, strongly built young man with the golden mane of hair out of his mind. If all the defenders of the Alamo are as that one, he thought but shared it with no one else, we will suffer terrible losses before we breach the ramparts.

He cut his eyes to his brother-in-law, General Cos, sitting across the room. Cos, Santa Anna knew, wished desperately to enhance his shattered reputation, for Cos still smarted over his earlier defeat by the Texans, many of whom, Santa Anna felt, were probably over there in the Alamo at this moment. Cos had given his word that he would never again return to Texas to fight, but had broken it without pause. So much for honor, Santa Anna thought with a cruel smile.

“You and your men will lead the charge,” Santa Anna said abruptly, and watched as Cos's eyes widened. “You may redeem yourself in that manner.”

That was all Cos was waiting to hear. He stood up and saluted. “Thank you. You will not regret your decision.”

“I hope not,” Santa Anna replied dryly.

“When do we attack?”

“Make your men ready. I will tell you when.”

General Cos saluted and left the room.

* * *

Back at Washington-on-the-Brazos, the last courier from the Alamo had handed a delegate Travis's last communique. The man rushed into the meeting and bulled his way to the speakers' platform. He waved the tattered piece of paper and then read the plea for help aloud.

Pandemonium ensued. Men shouted and cheered and cursed and prayed. Some men shouted for all to mount up and get the hell to the Alamo to fight.

But calmer, cooler heads soon prevailed. Chiefly, Sam Houston. The room settled down as he began to speak. When Houston had concluded, it was agreed that no reinforcements were to be sent to Travis's aid. It was a decision that was to haunt Sam Houston for the rest of his life, but one that he knew he was right in making. Travis and the men under his command had to buy the fledgling government time. A day, maybe two, maybe three days. Precious time to establish a government for the Republic. Promised aid from the United States had not arrived. Without it, the shaky Republic could easily fall.

There were a dozen valid reasons why that fateful decision was reached that cold windy day back in March of '36.

“President Jackson was dragging his feet in sending help,” one delegate said.

“We don't know even if he is sending help,” another said.

“The Army is right over there in Louisiana,” it was pointed out.

“Yes. And they marched right up to the border and stopped.”

“That could mean they're not coming!”

“We don't even have a constitution.”

“The world would condemn us,” another delegate said. “For starting a civil war. Remember, technically, we're still a part of Mexico.”

Someone made a very vulgar remark about Mexico and another very personal remark concerning the delegate who brought it up and what he could do with it.

A fistfight promptly ensued.

And so it went. It all amounted to the same thing: Travis and the men at the Alamo were to be sacrificed. There is no other word to use. Fannin refused to come to Travis's aid. President Jackson refused to send U.S. troops out of Louisiana into what was Mexican territory Houston's hands were tied as surely as the destinies of those men at the Alamo.

No one liked the decision, most of all Houston. But it was done, and no one could undo it.

Only one thing could be done, and that was: Remember the Alamo.

 

General Cos stared at the walls of the place he had once commanded and cursed those inside it. “I will kill you all,” he said. “I will not leave a single man alive.”

Dawn began streaking the sky and Cos ordered his cannons to resume firing. The firing would continue all that day and into the night. He still didn't know when Santa Anna was going to launch his full-scale attack against the rabble in the Alamo, only that he, General Cos, was going to lead it.

He could hardly wait.

Inside the Alamo, shoring up the crumbling walls took most of the men from the parapets. Only Crockett and his sharpshooters and a small contingent of volunteers manned the parapets and platforms. Santa Anna had ordered all his cannon into play and the old walls were really taking a pounding.

Travis found Jamie standing beside Crockett and waved him from the parapet. “I feel in my heart that Santa Anna will attack this night, Jamie. I want you gone from here at full dark. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Since there is no record of William Travis being a clairvoyant, no one knows exactly how he reached his very accurate conclusion as to the time of the attack. But he was right almost to the hour.

“I'm ready to go, Colonel.”

“Be sure and see Bowie before you leave. He thinks the world of you, Jamie. And Jamie... so do I.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You better see him now, Jamie. Those moments in the plaza weren't good for him. It was far too cold. He's taken a turn for the worse.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bowie looked awful. But he was lucid. He took Jamie's hand in his own big hand and smiled up at him. “You're a fine young man, Jamie Ian MacCallister. It's been my pleasure knowing you. Travis just left me. You've seen him?”

“Yes, sir. He ordered me out at dark.”

“Wise move. Travis seems to think Santa Anna will attack this night. I hate to have to agree with him...” Bowie tempered that with a chuckle. “... But I think he's right.”

Bowie cut his eyes to Sam. “You think you could get him out, Jamie?”

“Yes. I believe so.”

“I ain't goin', Mr. Jim,” Sam said. “I done tole you an' tole you. It's time to hush up on it. Me and Joe done agreed on that.”

The two men chatted for a couple of minutes and finally Bowie smiled sadly at Jamie. “What else can I say, my young friend, except goodbye.”

Jamie again took Bowie's hand and gripped it gently for a moment. “Give them hell, Jim.”

“I shall, Jamie. Godspeed, lad.”

Those few moments of speaking had so tired the man, he was asleep when Jamie gently released his hand and placed arm and hand back under the blankets.

At the door, Jamie looked back once at the sleeping Jim Bowie. He would never see him again. “Goodbye, Sam.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Jamie.”

* * *

At noon, the wind shifted, the sky darkened, and the temperature plummeted to below freezing. Strange weather for this time of the year. Those recently killed Mexican soldiers began to rapidly stiffen in all sorts of grotesque shapes on the bloody ground around the Alamo.

The wind became so violent, it whipped the dust up and for a time, the Mexican cannons were silenced. And not just from the dust, for the weather was most foul.

Jamie found Travis and said, “This is a good time for me. The dust is so thick out there the sentries will be half blind.”

Travis gripped his hand. “May God be with you this day, Jamie MacCallister.”

“And with you, sir.”

Travis drew himself up to full height and saluted Jamie. Jamie did his best to properly return the salute and then was gone, waving at the men as he headed for the irrigation ditch that ran under the walls.

The defenders of the Alamo watched him go and silently wished him Godspeed as the bitterly cold winds howled furiously and the swirling dust reduced visibility to nearly nothing.

Jamie had spent hours on the parapets studying the placement of troops, and knew where the Mexican army was the strongest, and where they were the weakest. It was really no big trick to slip through the lines. Outside of town, he alternately ran and walked to the Ruiz ranch. Some of Ruiz's vaqueros spotted him and escorted him to the sprawling home.

Senor Ruiz greeted him warmly and took him to the fireplace. Over coffee, Ruiz asked, “The Alamo?”

“It's still standing. Colonel Travis thinks the main attack will come this night.”

“The men?”

“They're in good spirits. They know they're going to die and have resigned themselves to it. Bowie is very sick. When I left his side, only hours ago, he had a brace of loaded pistols and his knife at hand. He'll not go into death quietly.”

Ruiz shook his head and sighed. “A waste. Such a waste.”

“They don't think so, senor. The men at the mission are prepared to die for what they believe in.”

“You will rest here for the night?”

“No. But thank you. I must be on my way.” He tapped the pouch. “These messages must reach their proper destinations.”

“I understand. Bowie's horse has been well taken care of and is ready for the trail. I will have him saddled while you eat and relax.”

“
Gracias,
senor.”

Ruiz did not ask where Jamie would ride first, and Jamie knew that was deliberate on his part. One cannot tell what one does not know.

But the food and the warm fire and the glass of wine took their toll on the weary young man. For days Jamie and the men from the Alamo had been battling intense cold and not enough food; they had been subjected to many hours of brutal cannon fire. Jamie's buckskins were filthy and he needed a bath in the worst way. He did not want to stretch out on Ruiz's couch, so he decided he'd nap for a few minutes on the rug; just for a few minutes only. Just for a few minutes. No more than...

Senor Ruiz returned and looked at the sleeping man with a knowing smile. He gently covered him with a blanket. So deep was Jamie's exhausted sleep that he did not stir at the blanket's warm touch. Ruiz ordered his servants not to disturb him. “Your messages can wait, young man,” Ruiz whispered. “Nothing you have in that pouch can change what is certainly going to happen to those brave men at the Alamo.”

He ordered the doors to the room closed and Bowie's horse to be unsaddled and returned to its warm stall. “Sleep, young man,” he said. “Sleep.”

 

Santa Anna ordered his cannons to cease firing just before midnight and the men of the Alamo wrapped up in their ragged blankets and tried to get some desperately needed sleep.

Travis had counted his defenders. One hundred and eighty-two men. Two slaves, Sam and Joe. Eight women, and a handful of children. Travis ordered the brewing of the last of their coffee; actually more than half of it was chicory. Crockett jokingly said if they could find some, a few rattlesnake heads would give it some flavor, and if they could spare it, some gunpowder might help, too.

The women, just as exhausted as the men, cooked up the last of the food and the men ate and drank and then tried to sleep.

Less than three hundred yards away, the Mexican army had received orders to attack the Alamo at five o'clock that morning.

March 6, 1836, turned out to be bitterly cold and, until dawn, an overcast morning. It was so dark that seeing one's hand in front of one's face was nearly impossible. Many of the older men behind the walls of the mission were ill, having come down with pneumonia. Others struggled to sleep in the intense cold as numbed hands gripped rifles.

Travis could not sleep. He carefully shaved and dressed in his best uniform. Then he knelt down and prayed. What he prayed for is unknown but to God.

Santa Anna slept well and awakened refreshed at three o'clock in the morning. After a quiet breakfast, he dressed in his finest uniform, complete with decorations, and ordered his horse saddled and brought around to the front of the house where he and his new bride were staying.

“The cavalry is ready to mount, sir,” an aide told him.

“Good, good,” the general replied. “The infantry?”

“In place and ready, sir. They are all within rifle shot of the Alamo.”

“Excellent. The bands?”

“Ready to play, sir.”

“At my orders, I want them to play the Degüello.” The Fire and Death song.

“Yes, sir.”

“General Cos?”

“Ready, sir.”

Santa Anna shivered. “Get my coat. Damn this weather!”

With his warm coat around him, Santa Anna smiled, anxious for the Degüello to begin. He loved it. He'd loved the tune since he'd first heard its somber notes. The Degüello came from the Spanish word
degollar,
which means “to slash the throat” or “to behead.” To Santa Anna, the tune brought out the ancient beast in him. It hottened the blood. It was stirring.

Travis had ordered several men to stand watch outside the walls, and several men to keep the fires going inside the walls. Those men outside the walls were never heard from or seen by their comrades again; or by anyone else for that matter. Hand-picked men from the Mexican Army had crept forward in the darkness and sliced their throats.

Travis had grown increasingly restless. He had not taken his rifle, but a double-barreled shotgun, heavily loaded with rusty nails and whatever else the armorer could find, and mounted the parapet to stand by a cannon. He had consulted his timepiece before blowing out the candle in his room. It was four-thirty on the bitterly cold morning of March 6, 1836. Colonel William Barrett Travis had just about ninety minutes to live.

Miles away, Jamie Ian MacCallister slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted.

Jim Bowie stirred on his cot and suddenly became wide awake. “Sam?” he called.

“I'm right here by your side, sir.”

“Make sure those pistols are ready, Sam. All four of them, and put them by my side. Two to my right, two to my left.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Jim. Is the Mexicans comin?' ”

“They're here. Unsheathe my blade, Sam.”

“Yes, sir. Now you be careful, Mr. Jim. That there blade is mighty sharp.”

Bowie chuckled in the darkness. “Careful? An old pirate like me? Pour us both a drink, Sam. And make them good ones, now, you hear.”

“You wants me to drink with you, sir?”

“That's what I said, Sam.” He took the cup, brimming full of whiskey. “Thank you, Sam. Drink up. It'll be your last time to drink with me before I meet the devil.”

Before Bowie's startled eyes, Sam, a man that Bowie felt almost never touched a drop, emptied the cup, smacked his lips, and said, “Ahhh! Mighty fine drinkin' whiskey, Mr. Jim. Mighty fine.”

Bowie had to laugh at Sam. “Is there any more in that jug, Sam?”

“Not narely a drop, sir.”

Bowie downed his cup. “Well, Sam, like the lady told me one time, years ago: Get off me, boy. You done got all you paid for.”

Sam and Jim Bowie shared a chuckle in the quiet darkness of predawn.

Jim said, “Now go over there in the far corner and sit down, Sam. When the soldiers bust through that door, you have your hands in the air just as high as you can stretch. Don't make any attempt to help me. I want your promise on that.”

“I done served you for years, Jim Bowie. I can't make no promise like...”

“Sam!”

“All right, Mr. Jim. You gots my promise.”

“I mean it, Sam.”

“I knows you do. I'll do what you say.”

The time was twenty minutes until five.

Davy Crockett tossed his blankets from him and rose, stretching the cold kinks out of his muscles. He picked up Ol' Betsy and climbed stiffly up to the parapet, to stand staring out into the darkness.

“She's a quiet one, Davy,” one of his men said. “Too damn quiet.”

“Ol' Santy Anny's a-comin' this mornin'. That's why she's so quiet. As soon as his bands start tootin' on the bugles and beatin' the drums, they'll be hell to pay, all right. Get the boys up and ready.”

Four forty-five.

Crockett left the platform and began rousing the men. “She's due to come any minute now, boys. I feel it in my bones.”

“You feel it, too, Davy?” Travis called from his post.

“I damn shore do, Billy-Boy,” Davy replied with a grin, knowing how Travis hated to be called that.

But Travis only laughed this time. “We'll make them pay in blood, Davy.”

“Damn right, Colonel!” Crockett's strong voice boomed across the cold and windswept plaza.

Ten minutes to five.

Bowie lay on his cot, the blankets pulled up to his neck, but his hands were free. He thought fondly of his dead wife and children. “Just let me see them once more, Lord,” he whispered. “And then you can send me to Hell. Just once more.”

“You ain't goin' to hell, Jim Bowie,” Sam whispered. “Ever'body knows God loves His warriors.”

If Bowie heard him, he made no comment.

Almeron Dickerson kissed his wife on the lips, held her close for a moment, and then ran to his artillery battery.

“Return to me, Almeron!” she called.

“If it's God's will, Susanna!” he called over his shoulder.

It was not to be.

Five minutes to five.

Santa Anna rode his horse slowly through the silent streets to the house where he planned on observing the battle. He dismounted and entered the warmth of the building, accepting a cup of coffee from an aide. The coffee had not been sweetened. Santa Anna haughtily ordered the aide to sweeten his coffee and not to make that same mistake again.

Then, in an uncharacteristic burst of charity, he apologized to the young aide. Santa Anna stood by an open window, sipping coffee and humming his favorite tune: the Degüello.