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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: The Red Ripper
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“ … LIBERTY AND FREEDOM … OF WHAT USE ARE SUCH NOTIONS TO THE PEONS?”
General Cos didn't need any more bad news. He damn near had an insurrection on his hands as it was. The populace of San Antonio continued to think of his troops as an occupying force, placed in the town to suppress their freedoms. Santa Anna expected the general to govern with a firm hand, and to that end he had outlawed political dissent; anyone expressing dissatisfaction with President Santa Anna was subject to arrest.
Meanwhile the garrison had to be supported, and that meant sacrifice on the part of the townspeople and the local
haciendados.
These Texicans were nothing but rabble-rousers who avoided paying their taxes whenever possible—miscreants, all of them ungrateful to a fault.
The general glared at his visitor, John Bradburn, the alcalde, who had abandoned Anahuac. “Haven't my troops driven off the Comanche and Kiowa?” Bradburn remained silent, allowing the general to vent his anger before confronting the man. “That I choose not to extend the patrols is my business. At least the town itself is safe from depredations. If only Indians were the worst of my problems.”
Trouble was brewing in the backstreets, behind barred doors, in the shadows of night. Their resentment clouded the air, thick as smoke from a signal fire. Cos understood the warning. A shouted insult from the safety of a darkened
alley or shuttered window might soon become a hurled dagger or brandished club. Unless he received reinforcements, it was only a matter of time before the Texicans began to openly defy him. All they needed was a catalyst, a spark of civil disobedience, to ignite the fuse of rebellion.
And here was John Bradburn. The foolish Englishman had allowed an act of sedition to go unpunished and placed them all at risk.
“Now you bring me news this
norte americano,
Big Foot Wallace, and a mob of Texicans, none of whom you can identify, have emptied your warehouse, stolen property belonging to … me!” Bradburn cringed before the smaller man.
Cos paced his office like a strutting rooster, a self-righteous little officer who had achieved his governorship by virtue of a distant kinship with the president. Cos had the authority to have Bradburn imprisoned or even hung for his recent failure. So the former alcalde stood contrite, with head bowed, and accepted the tongue-lashing without uttering a word in his own defense.
What was the use? Cos was beyond reasoning with, perhaps because he shared the same fears His command was fragile at best. Bradburn knew the governor's entreaties for reinforcements had not been answered. Perhaps it was time to cut bait and run to fight another day. Things were getting out of hand. It might take Santa Anna himself to set things aright.
“These Texicans are growing bolder by the day. And the
norte americanos
are the worst. They poison the minds of our own people with words like
liberty
and
freedom …
of what use are such notions to the peons?” Cos said, sweat spilling down his cheeks like tears. The interior of his headquarters in the Alamo Mission was becoming unbearable, in part due to his exertions. Rivulets
trickled down along the side of his neck; moisture glistened in the silver thickness of his sideburns. Despite the heat and his own discomfort, he remained in full uniform, determined to maintain his appearance. A governor must always look and act the part.
Behind him on the wall was a map of Coahuila y Texas that had been hand-drawn and copied by the good Franciscan friars who had crisscrossed the area on foot, baptizing the local mestizos and seeing to their needs, spreading out from San Antonio like the spokes of a wheel from the hub. Below the map he kept an assortment of books—lives of the saints, writings in English, French, and Spanish, tomes he would never read.
“Give me a hundred men and I will return to San Felipe and close down every cantina and store,” Bradburn interjected, sucking in his belly and hitching up his pants.
“A hundred men? With another hundred horses, no doubt? I cannot afford to lose a hundred horses. And besides, I dare not weaken my own command. I am already outnumbered.” Cos brushed past Bradburn and walked to the door of his headquarters, a room that had once housed a priest, before the mission had been abandoned and occupied by Cos and his troops. The sentries outside the door snapped to attention as Cos emerged into the sunlight. Heat waves danced in the courtyard. Other sentries paced the outer walls, heads bowed, muskets held in the crooks of their arms.
Why was he discussing his problems with Bradburn? Granted the alcalde's mother had been Mexican and Santa Anna found some use in a man who could pass for one of the
norte americanos,
but Cos did not trust him. The man had no sense of honor. He was an adventurer who would no doubt sell all of them out if given the chance to realize a profit.
Cos proceeded to march across the yard, through the
dust and the glare and the strength-sapping heat. He could feel the soldiers watching him, the pitiful column Bradburn had brought down from Anahuac and his own men, those who weren't out on patrol or drunk in the bordellos. He continued on to the entrance of the mission. The gates opened as he approached. He stood beneath the north wall, his imagination fueling his fears with images of fire and plunder, armed mobs of Texicans sweeping through the streets and surging toward the Alamo, wave after wave of crazed rebels, crashing against these crumbling battlements and engulfing all of Texas in fire and blood.
Even as the general experienced his premonition, several horsemen materialized in the distance. It was an unruly collection of individuals, coming on at an easy gait, confident, unhurried. Forty men, maybe a few more. Were they buffalo hunters? Perhaps they were just passing through on their way west. On the other hand, these strangers might have come to start trouble. It wouldn't be the first time.
The general studied the men as they drew closer. The drum of their horses' hooves sounded like a cavalry charge. The ground shook beneath his feet. The horsemen cut across the brush country and intersected the mission road, passing close enough for Cos to make out a few phrases of their banter. The men were obviously in high spirits and anxious to enjoy the pleasures of the town. He overheard a few names called out as the Texicans swept beneath the shadow of the north wall and guided their well-lathered mounts onto the San Antonio Road. They pointed the animals toward the town.
Cos eyed them with suspicion. More recruits for the coming insurrection. Suspect everyone; be surprised by no one. “If
el presidente
wants Texas held, he will have to do it himself. I do not intend to leave my bones in
this damn place,” he muttered. No valiant, hopeless struggle to the death for him.
Cos promised himself, then and there, at the first sign of trouble he would lead his command south. Maybe that would get the attention of the government in Mexico City. Something had to. When it came to Texas, Santa Anna and his officials were blind. But General Cos intended to make them see.
“ … A HARD CHOICE.”
Summer passed.
Weeks of endless blue skies with only a suggestion of clouds, faint brush strokes from the hand of God, diaphanous wisps, barely glimpsed by shaded eyes. From time to time men chanced a glance toward heaven and prayed where they toiled beneath the merciless sun. A few showers fell, just enough to save the crops, though there wouldn't be abundant yields, barely enough to hope for better days next year. The long days wore on, ever the topic of conversation being the heat.
“It's never been this hot.”
“If it doesn't rain soon, we'll lose the crops.”
“Ain't never seen the Brazos so low.”
“I don't know about you, but I feel like a loaf of bread left too long in the oven, burned hard and hardly fit for sopping.”
In Texas, in the summer of 1835, dry bread and thirsty men would have to do.
About the time colonists from San Felipe to Nacogdoches to Washington-on-the-Brazos and all of East Texas began to doubt it would ever rain again, September ushered in a change. The wind shifted; a storm whirled in from the gulf and flooded Anahuac, washed away the streets, blew in through the unshuttered windows of the abandoned barracks, and howled through
the open empty warehouse. A high tide even threatened the house on the strand, but John Bradburn was no longer there to care. Folk rightly assumed the alcalde had abandoned his dreams and his whores and departed for San Antonio, where General Cos kept a worried command.
The storm swept inward, clouds roiling like a witch's brew, gray thunderheads piling one upon the other, billowing over the horizon, and drenching the parched pines of the Big Thicket. The rain was a blessing. But what followed it into San Felipe was anything but a godsend. A friend returned, cloaked in a mantle of war, and many who saw him would not live to see another spring.
 
Thunder woke him, booming like a broadside and rousing the Butcher of Barbados from dreams of sea battles and pillaging. He was Capt. Mad Jack Flambeau aboard the
Sea Swift,
ringed with fire and smoke and the clash of cutlasses. “Fire one last broadside; rake her hull; clear her decks, Mr. Smalley!” he shouted. And the gunner did as he was ordered, priming the last of the nine-pounders and ordering the surviving members of his gun crew to discharge their weapons.
Karaboom!
Chain shot cut a swath across the maindeck of the San
Ignatius,
ripping through the mass of soldiers surging toward the side rails of the pirate ship. Spanish blood and chunks of flesh flowed in rivers along the gunwales and spilled into the sea. Bonechucker drank its fill of the unlucky musketeers who had the misfortune of being in the first wave to charge over the gangplanks and engage the brethren of the black flag at sword's point. Spanish musketeers died as fire engulfed their ship and explosions tore holes through the hull.
“Bring us clear!” Flambeau shouted. A bullet creased his right ear. He fired off a shot from the pistol in his
left hand. Though his shot went wide, his intended victim, in darting from harm's way, impaled himself on a freebooter's blade.
“Hard to port. Cut away those lines, damn you, or the blasted Spaniards will drag us under.” Even as Mad Jack barked his orders, a second explosion rocked the deck of the prize ship, hurling its Castilian captain into kingdom come.
“Heave to. Heave to!” He sat upright in bed and the thunder rattled the shuttered windows.
Hanneke woke and caught his arm, her round face pale from surprise. She patted his shoulder and whispered his name. Flambeau wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced wildly about the room, taking in his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time, as if he had somehow only this instant been transported from the violent waterways of the Caribbean to the bedroom above the tavern.
“You're safe,” Hanneke said.
“What? What are you saying, woman?”
“You're safe.”
“Safe,” he repeated as if the word were new to him, something the old sea dog had no knowledge of. “Yes,” he added, patting her hand.
“It's just the storm,” Hanneke said. “It woke me as well.” She leaned over and kissed his grizzled cheek. “But as long as we are both awake, maybe we can think of some way to pass the time.” She ran her fingernail down his arm and then under the sheet and blanket. Her naked thigh eased over his bony knee.
“You are a saucy little cauliflower.” Mad Jack grinned, rising to the occasion. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
Hanneke caught hold of his erect flesh. “Hmmm. Let me think. That's a hard choice.”
Lightning shimmered beyond the shuttered windows,
this time followed by a hammering on the tavern door below. It was well after midnight. Flambeau glanced at the woman as she lowered her bodice, revealing her ample bosom, ripe for the kissing. Again the summons from below. The late-night visitor was persistent and would not be denied. “By God, who would be out on a night like this?”
“You could stay here?” Hanneke suggested. “Let them find drink elsewhere.”
Not hardly. The noise below continued unabated. It was obvious no one else would do. And perhaps it wasn't a thirsty patron after all. Maybe someone was injured. There were any number of reasons to spread an alarm.
“I'd best see to it,” Mad Jack growled, swinging his legs out from under the covers. He stood in his stocking feet and pulled on his nankeen trousers, slipped a linsey-woolsey shirt over his head, and started toward the stairs. “All right! All right! You've ruined my sleep, and there had better be a good reason!” he shouted downstairs. He lit an oil lamp near the washbasin and then, with a reassuring wink toward his paramour, descended the stairs.
Hanneke rolled onto her ample derriere and sighed. She stared up at the hand-dyed canopy over the four-poster bed. The print was faded now. She could barely make out the swirls of color in the weave. The bed had belonged to her grandmother and been part of Hanneke's trousseau. It was a comfortably familiar piece of furniture, one that endured like the woman herself. Grief was a part of life, but it wasn't all of life. She had lost one husband and found another and loved them both, but in different ways. She yawned and closed her eyes. “Come on, monsieur buccaneer.”
 
Hanneke woke with a start. Oh dear, she hadn't meant to fall asleep. How long? Too long. She rose up on an
elbow to apologize to her lover and found the covers still turned down, just as he had left them. She glanced at the Seth Thomas clock on the hearth across the room. More than an hour had passed. And Mad Jack had yet to return. She climbed out of bed and covered herself with a dressing gown and walked to the head of the stairs. She hesitated, listening for voices. She could hear the wind howl and the front door bang against the side wall in reply.
“Captain Jack!” she called out. Nothing. Hanneke frowned. Unsettled now, she crossed the bedroom and retrieved a short-barreled blunderbuss from its rack above the hearth and then headed for the stairs. Anything amiss and there would be hell to pay. The gun she carried was loaded with nails.
The interior of the Flying Jib was empty, devoid of any sign of life. The tables were blank black shadows, the casks behind the bar squat battlements. Lightning flashed and filled the open doorway with its lurid brilliance, and in the glare she could make out the oil lamp in the mud, its chimney shattered where it had been dropped.
Hanneke hurried to the doorway, her heart in her throat, and peered out into the black night and the driving downpour that stung her cheeks. “Captain Jack! Monsieur Flambeau!” But the wind gusts stole her voice as sure as her beloved, for the darkness had swallowed him up without a trace
“He should have closed the door,” a ragged voice said from behind her. Hanneke gasped and spun about on her heels and nearly lost her balance. A reed-thin man clothed in a tattered, sodden coat and threadbare trousers, his sandy hair plastered to his skull, slumped forward onto a table where he sat, resting, too weak to move or even make an effort to feed himself. Hanneke gathered her courage and cautiously approached this derelict.
“I have summoned many of the others. They must hear what I have to say … while I still have the strength.”
Now she knew him. Even as the wind moaned through the room like a portent of doom, her lips framed his name: “Stephen Austin.”
 
The news of Austin's return spread through San Felipe. During a lull in the storms, riders fanned out from the settlement along the roads and back trails to alert the outlying farms and ranches. Bill Travis made a special trip to Briarwood bearing word that Austin was waiting at the Flying Jib and wanted to speak with William Wallace.
That was all the big man needed to hear. In the time it took for Roberto Zavala to saddle fresh horses, William Wallace had rubbed the sleep from his eyes, dressed, and armed himself and was ready to ride. Travis suggested they wait out the storm, for it had renewed in intensity and become a full-fledged gullywasher. “You're welcome to wait out the downpour,” said Wallace, “but I have business elsewhere.”
 
Bill Travis took pride in being an excellent horseman, but he was hard pressed to keep up with Wallace on the road to San Felipe. The Texican rode like a Comanche, as if man and beast were a single entity with an uncanny sense of the earth underfoot.
Lightning crashed and split the predawn sky and thunder rolled as the elements unleashed their fury, seeking to dissuade the horsemen from their course. Wallace took the lead and charged down the road, the folds of his serape flapping like the wings of a hawk, red hair streaming, eyes like slivered emeralds. He looked the tempest in the eye and never wavered.
Stop me if you can.
During that desperate ride, Wallace relived the events of the summer; the raid on Anahuac, the growing tensions in San Antonio, days and nights of speculation, and the absence of news from Mexico City. Three months was a long time to be in Santa Anna's company. William doubted
el presidente
was any sort of decent host.
Trees arched in the wind, their branches like talons clawing the air, dry leaves plucked away by the storm. Gray sky, gray forest, deep shadows behind a curtain of rain, ghosts in the mist, all of them a blur. He didn't have time to stop and contest the past.
An hour passed. When the storm couldn't break him, the downpour subsided in defeat. Wallace realized he was alone on the road and glanced over his shoulder. Travis was about thirty yards back, clinging to his mount for all he was worth. He waved Wallace on and promised himself never again to undertake such a perilous ride.
The unruly collection of shops, stores, and cabins clustered along the banks of the Brazos was a welcome sight in those early-morning hours as the sun slipped a gray smear through a rent in the overcast sky and gave them all a brief respite from the deluge. The unsettled clouds promised more of the same. It was only a matter of time.
Wallace and the lawyer made a sodden, mud-spattered pair of pilgrims as they tethered their mounts before the longhouse that served as the town's meeting hall. But they weren't the only ones. Several of the colonists had made the journey into town, including Don Murillo Saldevar and his
segundo,
Chuy Montoya. William could not resist searching the crowd for Esperanza, but alas, she was nowhere to be found. He recognized just about everyone, and word of his arrival spread through the gathering. Big Foot Wallace was here, a man
of few words who cast a long shadow. Ranchers, farmers, townsmen,
norte americanos,
and Mexicans continued to drift into the town hall for the better part of the hour.
Sam Houston “held court” in the center of the hall. When it came to speechifying, the Tennessean was a natural. He harangued the crowd with opinion after opinion and peppered his oration with a salty story or two just to keep his audience listening. Wallace had to admire a man who could talk so long and hard. Several times he was invited to the center of the room, to address the crowd. Each time he cordially declined. Until they heard from Austin, he had nothing to say.
Jim Bowie was notably absent, having left for San Antonio a few weeks back in the company of several of his fellow Louisianans who had come to Texas in search of fortune and adventure and were about to find both. Rumors were already circulating that General Cos had failed in his attempts to tighten control of San Antonio and the outlying ranches and was practically besieged in the town. For too long he had feathered his nest with unjust taxes; now the “chickens had come home to roost”—people simply refused to obey his decrees. The more he tried to enforce his will, the greater the resistance. Wallace didn't envy Cos if the general had managed to antagonize Jim Bowie. The knife fighter was still on the prod and had no use for dragoons, lancers, or any other men in uniform who tried to tell him what to do.
The room was becoming too crowded for Wallace's liking, and when the moment was right he slipped outside for a breath of air. On a whim he started across the muddy plaza and headed for the Flying Jib, drawn by his thirst and desire to see Austin before the crowd got a hold of him.

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