Paxton and the Lone Star (54 page)

Chapter XXXVIII

“The hell you say,” True snapped.

“That's right. The hell I say. Just after midnight,” Travis barked in return. He circled the date on the hand-drawn calendar on his desk top. March third. The siege had been going on for nine days, counting from Santa Anna's arrival on the twenty-third of February. New units of the Mexican Army had been arriving daily, with more to come, according to the reports of the scouts who made it through the lines. The defenders were tired. Most of them had been wounded at least once. They were running short of food and the aqueduct that supplied them with water had been cut. “You wanted out and now you're getting your wish.”

“That was before,” True said, stepping out of the shadows and leaning toward Travis.

Cannons roared in the distance, followed by the concussion of iron shot falling into the Alamo. Chunks of adobe wall flew high into the night air. Men found holes into which to crawl or corners to crouch behind or remnants of walls to press against. The room shook. Dust settled like a brown snowfall on lamp, maps, desk, chairs, and the four men in the room: Colonel William Barrett Travis, Captain Dickinson, Lieutenant Andrew Paxton, and True.

“What's changed your mind?” Travis asked.

“My brother is here, my friends are here. I'll stand by them.”

“Fine. You'll do that best by obeying my orders. With the extra thirty-two men who came in Tuesday night, we have over a hundred eighty men. Even if Fannin can't send help from Goliad, that should give us enough to hold.
If
we can find Houston and convince him to take some of the pressure off.”

“It makes sense, True,” Andrew said. “Even if Houston can only bring a couple hundred, their harassing Santa Anna every time he turns around would make all the difference in the world. You'd be more help than if you stayed. It's your rifle or Houston's army. And as good a shot as you are, we'll take the army. Let's face it. Firetail's the fastest horse in the compound, and no one can ride him but you.”

“No one thinks you're getting off easy,” Captain Dickinson added. Dickinson was a younger man with a clear, honest face topped by a blood-soaked bandage covering a wound made by a wood splinter. Only his wife had refused to leave when Santa Anna had allowed the other women and children to escape unmolested from the fortress mission, and because of this he was paid great respéct by the men. “Look at it this way. If you make it past the sentries you'll only have an army of five or six thousand men to fight your way through. We're not doing you any favor.”

“Since you put it that way, how can I refuse?” True grumbled.

“Good,” Travis said. He handed True a leather dispatch pouch. “Another man, John Smith, will be going out on foot ten minutes ahead of you. He'll try to make it down the ravine east of here, so I want you to ride a little to the south of that. Your horse's speed gives you an edge, but the ruckus and diversion you create gives him an edge. Between you, one ought to get through. You are, by the way, carrying identical letters.”

True took the pouch, slung it over his shoulder, and shook Travis's hand. “I don't like you, Colonel. Haven't since the day I met you. But I'm willing to say that maybe it's not you so much as it is the times. You do have my respect.”

“Which I value, sir,” Travis said, somewhat formally. “And if we've been at odds, I respect you too, and wish you the best of luck and Godspeed.”

Andrew accompanied True. Together they paused at the top of the steps, from where they could see the courtyard and, beyond the walls, the campfires of the besiegers. The Alamo was a motley conglomerate of night-shaded shapes made ghostly by the flat light of the moon, dark houses in which exhausted men slept soundly in spite of the cold. The last of a herd of cattle had stampeded through the Mexican lines and through the main gates five days earlier. They saw the moving shadow of a man on an errand, the silhouettes of sentries. Low battlements stood battered and precarious, along with walls made of dirt, stones, and overturned wagons, carts, and barrels. It was said that some of the cannons were loaded with crucifixes from the mission; brass crucifixes made excellent grapeshot to fire into massed ranks of attackers. Ironically, it was inside these same walls that General Cos and his men had holed up only three short months ago before being driven out of San Antonio by the aroused Texians. Ironically too, the Mexicans had been allowed to leave with their lives: Santa Anna was not so generous. He had promised no quarter—death to the last man for the Texian defenders.

The two brothers descended the steps and walked quickly to the stable. Inside it was warmer, and they found Firetail already saddled and ready. Kevin Thatche, Nels Matlan, Dennis Campbell, and Buckland Kania stepped out of the dark interior into the lantern light. “Heard you were going out,” Matlan said.

Andrew shrugged innocently. “I had faith in Travis's persuasiveness,” he replied to True's angry stare.

“We wanted to say … well … God bless you,” Kania said, holding out a rifle.

True took it, checked his pistols and the saber scabbarded on Firetail's saddle.

“And don't forget to duck,” Kevin added, forcing a grin.

A cannon boomed in the distance. Seconds later, fragments of adobe pattered like hail against the stable walls. “Close,” Dennis said. “Wish Mack was here.”

True glanced at his brother. They were a long way from the Carolinas. “Travis talks a good fight, but it looks like you've found your time and place, little brother.”

“I'm not ready to give up yet,” Andrew replied grimly. “But if so, I've got no complaints.”

Forcing all emotion from their expressions, sensing the frightening finality of this parting, the brothers embraced. When they stepped back from each other, True looked at each of the faces around him. Nels Matlan, a kindly, simple man of education who found himself in a situation where the pen was not mightier than the sword, and had unhesitatingly buckled on the figurative armor of battle. Kevin Thatche, young father, now young patriot. Dennis Campbell, who had looked for a fight for eight hundred miles and two years, and finally found the granddaddy of them all. Reverend Buckland Kania, the Lord's shepherd who, in his faith, did not fear the shadow of the valley of death. They were etched in True's memory, as were the others. Three wives, two children, both sons.

“If Eustacia were here she'd give you a farewell kiss,” Nels said, as if reading True's mind.

“Mildred too, I reckon,” Kevin added.

True knew that was as close as they would come to mentioning their wives or children. He looked to Kania and saw the same concern. Silently, he swore he would find their families. And tell them of their husbands' and fathers' love and bravery, and help them get a new start. Not to embarass anyone with words, he nodded to show he understood. “A handshake will do from you boys,” he said, taking their hands one by one. The tension seemed to lighten.

“Paxton!” a voice hissed from the doorway. “Smith's gone. Time for you.”

“Right.” True wrapped one arm around Andrew's neck, pulled him briefly to him. “That's it then, I guess. See you …”

Andrew led the way through the moonlight to a narrow gate. “Pass the word,” he called out softly to the sentries. “Hold your fire. Man going out.”

True listened, could hear the message repeated three times before the sound faded. The air reeked of powder smoke and sulfur. The night lay heavy on the land. The stars were bright—too bright—and the moon was only three days from being full. He would have to ride low and fast, and count heavily on surprise and luck. Dickinson had been right. They were doing him no favor. He shivered and hoped it was from the cold. “Hard to believe March is the month of spring,” he said through chattering teeth.

“Let's just hope they're busy trying to keep warm instead of watching,” Andrew said, swinging open the gate. “Take care, True.”

True checked the cinch and saddle one last time, shifted the dispatch pouch so it hung on the back of his hip, then walked Firetail through the gate. When he looked around to say a final word to Andrew, the gate was already shut.

There hadn't been anything more to say. Nothing important, anyway. He stared at the dark ground, at the winking campfires in the distance, slowly mounted, and adjusted the reins. The temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees with the knowledge that he was in the open and alone. His hand moved to his chest. The pressure of the gold amulet against his skin gave him courage. He leaned forward to pat Firetail's neck. “One more race, boy,” he whispered. “Just remember. Nothing out there but a whole goddamned army.”

One more race. Only one more, and the prize—death or glory. Campfires, twinkling, drew closer, deadly jewels in the darkness. The shapes around them looked like wraiths of doom but became men, more dangerous than specters. Circling the Alamo, Santa Anna's army was a vast encampment of soldiers in fighting prime, men of conquest, used to victory. The Alamo seemed so small and beleaguered in comparison, but behind those battered, crumbling walls stood Texians—men from a dozen countries but now all Texians—with a cause and willing to barter their lives for the blood of their enemies.

Firetail had been born ugly, but fast enough to race the wind. The blood of pirates and warriors pounded in True's veins. Only an army? A vision of his father on a red-stained deck with his cutlass crimson to the hilt filled True's head. What? Only
one
army? Thomas Gunn Paxton's back was to the sea. He was besieged yet fighting on and reveling in the desperate odds he faced. So be it! Wild glee surged through True's breast and a demonic yell ripped from his throat as he fired at the nearest man and threw the rifle at a tent, then whipped the saber from its scabbard and guided Firetail straight toward the nearest campfire.

“Madre!”
a voice shrieked as the unexpected horse and rider flew over the fire.

Bodies rose from the darkness. True leaned close to Firetail's neck. Gunfire erupted all around him as he galloped through the heart of the camp. Soldiers believing a whole troop of Texas riders was in their midst staggered from their tents and fired blindly into their equally startled companions who, seeing the muzzle blasts and hearing the whirr of musket balls, returned the fire. Among them, one man rode low, hard, and fast, straight at a wall of men armed with muskets directly in his path.
“Amigo!”
True shouted.
“Amigos!”

Uncertain, the men held their fire and waited for the horseman to rein in. Seconds later, Firetail exploded through their ranks and there was time enough only for the men to dodge as they could from the hooves and slashing blade.

The saber struck something, stuck, and was jerked from his hand. True leaned dangerously far to his right and, feeling no pain as the flames blackened his hand, snatched a torch from one of the soldiers. A musket ball creased his thigh and jarred Firetail as it slammed into the saddle. True shifted his weight and dragged the flaming brand across the surface of a nearby tent, then another and another before he lost the brand, too.

Amid the fire, the noise, the shouts and screams of the wounded, Firetail balked, reared, and pivoted just in time for True to see the lancers. He didn't bother to try to count them. One would have been too many. Fighting Firetail, he brought the half-crazed stallion under a semblance of control and turned to his left, away from the merciless iron weapons, and then found himself in the air as one of the burning tents exploded.

Firetail went down. True sprawled in the dirt, rolled to his knees and fell backward as a second explosion rent the air. The lancers, just opposite the tents where black powder had been stored, took the full brunt of the explosion. Earth and wood and armor and flesh filled the air with grisly shrapnel. Ears ringing, vision doubling and shifting, True staggered to his feet and ran to Firetail in time to grab him as he heaved himself off the ground.

They had been forgotten, or lost momentarily, in the pandemonium. “Easy, boy, easy,” True croaked, quickly checking the frightened beast. He was standing on all four legs, so no bones were broken. There was a small cut on his left front leg, a larger one on his withers, but neither was dangerous. More important was fear. A horse exposed to battle could never be fully trusted. Gingerly, True mounted, turned Firetail away from the gruesome carnage behind them, and gave him the chance to do what he did best: run.

Cool night air washed around him. Firetail swerved around a small clump of scrub cedar, and headed up a long, gentle slope. Behind them, the fires and commotion faded. The stinging scent of black powder eddied away. Every nerve alert, True could feel the sweat evaporating from his clothes, feel the driving power of Firetail's legs, smell the churned soil where an army had marched, hear the sound of hoof beats.… He looked over his shoulder, saw what looked like a whole company of dragoons angling toward him. Behind the dragoons he could see the fires where the ammunition tents had gone up and behind them, a dark squat shape beneath the canopy of stars, the Alamo.

The Alamo! And the men who surely peered into the darkness and wished him through the flames. Each one of them. Andrew and Buckland and Kevin. Each grief and triumph, each hope, each past, each future. They were with him, him and the man named Smith who had gone out on foot. Identical messages. The diversion might have helped, but there was no way to know with certainty. True had to get through. Had to. Wishing he had the light racing tack he'd used so often in the past, he leaned forward. “Come on, Firetail. This is it, boy. Run!”

The hammerhead's ear flattened and his stride lengthened. It wasn't even a race.

The ground sloped down again and dark tree shapes along a creek bed loomed out of the starlight. The dragoons had given up and slowed their beaten mounts minutes ago. True had quit looking over his shoulder. He was not running to escape now, but out of a sense of urgency. As hopeless as the Alamo's predicament seemed, the men there might still have a chance if he could get to Houston and return with help.