Young Ole Devil (2 page)

Although many of the Texians
who would be compelled to
abandon their homes had seen the wisdom of
withdrawing, realizing that
el Presidente
would show them no mercy if he laid hands
on them, not all had done so. Four hundred men, under the command
of Colonel Fannin, had declared that they would not retreat and
intended to hold the town of Goliad.

There was, however, another and
more serious threat to the unity of what remained of
Houston
’s
army. Eager for fame, acclaim and glory, Colonel Frank Johnson was
planning to invade Mexico along the Gulf Coast route and was
willing to go to any lengths to make his scheme succeed.

‘
I
don’t doubt Sam Houston’s courage, or his integrity,’ Stanforth
Duke stated, after one of the men who had accompanied him to San
Antonio and was mingling with the other customers, acting as a
stranger, had asked for his views on the current situation. Since
entering the Little Sisters
Cantina,
he had spent much money buying drinks and had made
himself so popular that he felt sure that the crowd would be
willing to listen to him. Knowing that there would be some present
who held the Commanding General of the Republic of Texas’s army in
high esteem, he did not want to antagonize them by too blatant a
criticism of their hero. ‘But I do question his judgment when he
talks of burning homes and crops,
^iv
then running away from the Mexicans.
Don’t get me wrong, though, I’ve no stake in this personally. I
live up north near Shelbyville. But if my home was down in this
part of the country, I’d be damned if I’d be willing to put a torch
to it, up stakes and run. Especially as we’ve licked the greasers
every time we’ve locked horns with ’em.’

‘
It
ain’t right for you to be talking that ways, stranger,’ protested a
second member of Duke’s party, who was sitting at a table some
distance away from the first man. ‘You know the General figures
that’s the right thing to do.’

‘
With
respect sir, I don’t agree that I shouldn’t be saying Sam Houston’s
wrong in how he wants to handle things,’ Duke answered. The
interruption had been made to anticipate any similar protest from
genuine supporters of the General. ‘The way I figure it, the
Republic of Texas’s a free country where a man’s entitled to speak
his mind about anything, or
anybody,
no matter how important they be. That’s one of the
reasons we’ve taken up arms against Santa Anna.’

Having delivered the comment,
the burly, well-dressed man paused so as to study the response to
it. Clearly nobody suspected that he and the lanky, buckskin-clad
protestor were working together. There was a brief, yet general
rumble of agreement. Satisfied that he had made his point and would
be allowed to continue without interruption, he swept his gaze
around the crowded
barroom.

The customers who had assembled
at the Little Sisters
Cantina
shortly after noon on February 18, 1836, were a
cross-section of the male Texian population who had gathered at San
Antonio in answer to Houston’s summons. Some of them had on
homespun garments of the style common among the poorer communities
of the United States. There were others clad in buckskins, after
the fashion of the mountain men. Several wore clothing derived from
the working attire of the Mexican
vaqueros
which was in the process of evolving into
the traditional dress of the Texas cowhands. A few, such as Duke,
sported broadcloth or cheaper styles of town suits. Scattered among
them were a number of soldiers whose fatigue uniforms—black
leather,
kepi-
like
forage caps which could be folded flat for packing;
waist-length dark blue tunics that had high, stiff stand-up collars
but lacked the pipe-clayed white cross belts; lighter blue trousers
decorated by stripes along the outer seams of the legs; black boots
with spurs on the heels—had been copied, with minor variations,
from the United States’ Regiment of Dragoons by Colonel William
Barrett Travis and supplied to the members of his
command.

Although only
Travis
’s men
wore recognizable uniforms, Duke knew that there were
representatives of every regiment in the vicinity present. So he
had an audience which was ideally suited for his purposes. He had
come to San Antonio with the dual purpose of recruiting men for the
force with which Colonel Frank Johnson was planning to invade
Mexico, and to persuade those who remained to compel Houston to
make a stand instead of withdrawing. If the latter could be
achieved, the attention of the whole of the Mexican army would be
directed against Houston and it would greatly increase Johnson’s
chances of success. Neither Johnson nor Duke were over concerned
with the adverse effect such a stand might, probably would, have
upon the General’s outnumbered force.

‘
What’d you-all reckon we should do, mister?’ asked a stocky
man in a cheap town suit, from another part of the room.

‘
Attack the greasers before they can even cross the Rio
Grande,’ Duke replied, accepting the cue which had been fed by the
third of his associates. ‘That way, there’ll be no call for you to
leave the homes you’ve worked so hard to build. You’ll stop the
greasers before they can get near to them.’

‘
By
cracky, that’s right!’ enthused the stocky man and there was
another mutter of fairly general approval.

Standing behind the bar,
William Cord listened to the conversation with considerable
misgivings as he guessed what it was leading up to. It was probably
the last opportunity that Cord would have to do business for some
time and he had benefited by the amount of money which Duke had
spent. For all that, he wished the burly man had stayed away from
his
cantina.
Being whole-heartedly in favor of Houston’s strategy, even
though following it would mean that he must abandon his hitherto
lucrative place of business, he did not approve of what he guessed
was a carefully organized attempt to change it.

However, after the clever way
in which Duke had established his right to freedom of expression,
Cord could not see any way of preventing him from airing his views.
For the
cantina’s
owner—a known supporter of Houston’s policies—to attempt
any kind of intervention would, he realized, evoke protests which
might erupt into open conflict between those who were in favor of
the General’s strategy and those who opposed it. Cord suspected
that the men who had supplied the various comments were in cahoots
with Duke. He had a good idea that there were at least two more of
the agitator’s companions in the room, although as yet they had not
spoken. Big, burly, unshaven, dressed in poor quality town suits
with grubby, collarless white shirts, they had a strong family
resemblance which suggested they might be brothers. Like the other
customers who were lining the bar almost elbow-to-elbow, they were
standing with their backs to Cord. However, instead of looking at
Duke, they were watching the crowd,

Turning his gaze in the
pair
’s
direction, Cord noticed a man
coming through the batwing doors. Approaching the
counter, the newcomer moved with a Gascon swagger which reminded
the owner of the arrogant, over-proud, French-Creole dandies he had
seen in New Orleans. Although he was not French, the man exuded a
similar cocky self-importance and—assurance. His clothing was clean
and he had a well-scrubbed look.

Bareheaded
, with his wide-brimmed,
low-crowned black hat dangling by its fancy
barbiquejo
chinstrap on to his back, the
young man—he would be in his mid-twenties—was six foot in height
and had a straight-backed, whipcord lean frame which was set off to
its best advantage by his well-tailored garments. He had a
thinly-rolled silk bandana which was a glorious riot of brilliant,
if clashing, colors knotted about his throat so that its long ends
trailed over the breast of his open-necked fringed buckskin shirt.
His tight-fitting fawn riding breeches ended in the tops of highly
polished Hessian boots. The belt into which he had hooked his
thumbs carried a long-bladed, clip-pointed knife—of the type made
by James Black, the Arkansas master-cutler, which had already
become known as a ‘bowie’, in honor of the man who had designed the
original—in a decorative Indian sheath at the left side. There was
a slanting, two-inch broad leather loop attached to the right side
of the belt. Into this was thrust the barrel of a good quality
pistol so that the butt was pointing forward and would be available
to the grasp of either hand.

However, it was the
newcomer
’s
face which attracted Cord’s main attention. The black hair was
taken back in a way which made the sides above his temples protrude
and look like short horns. That combined with the brows of his coal
black eyes that were shaped like inverted
^C
V Y, an aquiline nose, a neatly trimmed moustache
and short chin beard gave his features an almost Satanic
expression.

Coming to a halt on
spread-apart feet, the newcomer studied the crowded front of the
bar. Then his eyes came to rest upon the two men whom Cord
suspected of being members of the agitator
’s party. Becoming aware of the
scrutiny, the pair turned their eyes towards the man who was
looking at them.

‘
Would
you
gentlemen
mind moving so that
I
can get through to the bar?’ the young dandy inquired, his
voice that of a well-educated Southron.

Seeing the pair stiffen as if
somebody had laid a quirt across their rumps, Cord could tell that
they did not care for the
manner in which they were being addressed.
Politely worded enough the appeal had been, the speaker’s tone and
attitude were more suitable to the deliverance of a demand which he
believed he had every right to make. Everything about him suggested
that he felt he was dealing with unimportant social
inferiors.

A shrewd judge of character,
Cord concluded that the newcomer
’s behavior was more liable to rouse the
two men’s wrath than to lead them into compliance with his
wishes.

‘
Come
on now!’ the young dandy continued impatiently, raising his voice
and causing it to sound even more autocratically commanding. ‘Step
out of the way there and let me through!’

Such was not, Cord could have warned the
newcomer, the wisest way in which to speak to two obvious bullies
and roughnecks. They were certain to take exception to his
assumption of superiority and would be most unlikely to treat him
with the servile deference that he clearly considered he should
receive.

‘
Can’t
rightly see no reason why we should,’ the slightly taller and older
of the pair stated, conscious of the glances being darted at them
by their immediate neighbors along the bar. ‘Can you, Brother
Basil?’

‘
I
ain’t got no better eye-sight ‘n you-all, Brother Cyril,’ the
second man answered, scowling balefully at the dandy. ‘Which being
so, I’d say you should try it on some other place, fancy pants. We
ain’t a-fixing to move.’

The brothers had loud, harsh
voices which they made no attempt to modulate. So their words were
spreading beyond the person at whom they were being directed.
Several pairs of eyes swung away from Duke as he was starting to
explain how Johnson
’s proposed invasion of Mexico would benefit the Republic
of Texas.

‘
Now
look here, you two!’ the dandy said coldly, also raising his voice
to a level which was louder than necessary. ‘While the likes of you
have been propping up a bar, I’ve been out scouting against the
Mexicans. So move aside and let me through.’

Glancing around as he heard the
voices and noticed that he was losing the attention of his
audience, Duke located the cause of the disturbance. The discovery
caused him mingled annoyance and anxiety. He had spent a fair sum
of money, buying drinks to ingratiate himself with the crowd and
make them
more receptive to his agitation, so he did not want
anything distract them. From what he could see and hear, there
might b a serious distraction developing. Of all the men in the
room, the arrogant young dandy could hardly have selected two more
dangerous than the Winglow brothers upon whom to try and impose his
imperious wishes.

Being aware of the delicate
nature of his assignment, Duke had tried to impress upon all his
escort the need to avoid trouble if possible. He had repeated his
reminder at Shelby
’s Livery Barn where they had left their horses before
coming separately to the
cantina.
Clearly Cyril Winglow, who was always a
bad-tempered bully, had forgotten his instructions.

‘
He’s
sure dressed fancy for a feller’s done all that there scouting,
ain’t he Brother Basil?’ Cyril asked, looking the young man over
from head to foot.

‘
Don’t
let the way I look fool you,
hombre,’
the dandy advised, his Mephistophelian features
growing even more sardonic and mocking as he returned the scrutiny.
‘I’ve done plenty of fighting in this war. So I don’t need to go
around hawg-filthy to try to make folks think I have.’