Young Ole Devil (7 page)

‘
If
his behavior since arriving in San Antonio is anything to go by,’
Travis replied, looking straight to the front and ignoring the man
who was sitting at his left, ‘he’s reckless, irresponsible and
can’t—or won’t—avoid getting involved in fights no matter what duty
he’s supposed to be carrying out.’

‘
You
know young Hardin, Jim,’ Houston remarked, looking at the third
occupant of the room. ‘What do you say?’

‘
I
can’t deny that Devil gets into fights, Sam,’ James Bowie admitted.
‘He’s a fighting man from soda to hock —’
^viii

‘
That’s as maybe, Colonel,’ Travis interrupted. ‘But an
ability to get involved in brawls isn’t what I’d regard as a
desirable quality for the man the General needs. He has to take on
a mission of vital importance.’

‘
I’m
not gainsaying that,’ Bowie answered, glancing with asperity at the
other colonel. ‘Devil might get into fights, but I’ve never known
him to start one without good cause.’

‘
That
depends on how you interpret good cause,’ Travis countered coldly.
‘From what I’ve been told, he became involved in the one at
the
cantina
because he insisted that two men made room for him at the
bar. In addition, not content with disabling them, he got himself
into another fight, even though his man had come to tell him that
the General wanted to see Mm.’

‘
Way I
heard it,’ Bowie objected, ‘those fellers didn’t give him any
choice but to fight.’

‘
He
started the one at the
cantina?’
Travis insisted. ‘According to Sergeant
Brill, he walked in and deliberately provoked those two
men—
’

‘
If he
did, he must have had a damned sight better reason than just
wanting to get through to the bar,’ Bowie declared. ‘And, as far as
I know, ‘nobody’s got around to letting him tell his side of it as
yet’

Watching the two officers
glowering at each other
, Houston felt perturbed. He wondered if it would
be wise to leave them together in San Antonio after the rest of the
army had withdrawn to the east. Each in his own way was an
excellent fighting man and a capable leader, but they had outlooks
and natures which might prove to be incompatible. Their differences
could easily damage the effectiveness with which they carried out
their duty of defending the Alamo and, if possible, delaying Santa
Anna for long enough to let Houston reorganize his forces ready to
meet the Mexicans in battle.

‘
Suppose we ask him now, gentlemen?’ Houston suggested,
acting as peace-maker as he had had to do many times when there had
been clashes of will or personalities between the leaders of his
various regiments. ‘Will you ask him to come in, Jim?’

‘
Sure,’ Bowie answered, coming to his feet and crossing the
room.

Despite knowing that he had
successfully completed a difficult and dangerous scouting mission,
delivering much useful
information about the Mexican army’s strength and
progress, Ole Devil Hardin felt distinctly uneasy when Bowie opened
the door of the study and passed on the General’s
summons.

Colonel Travis had been
anything but pleased by the discovery that Hardin and his cousin,
Mannen Blaze, had become involved in a second brawl and had
rendered more members of the Republic of Texas
’ army unfit for duty. Nor had
he been in any mood to listen to explanations, particularly when he
had learned what had brought Tommy Okasi to the livery barn.;
Instead, Travis had suggested icily that the cousins would be
advised to pay greater attention to their military duties and
should reserve any further inclination for fighting for use against
the Mexicans. Accepting the comments without argument, and not
permitting Blaze—who was seething with indignation over what he
regarded as Travis’ unjust treatment—to speak up in his defense,
Hardin had once again tidied himself up ready to report to
Houston.

On Hardin
’s arrival at headquarters, he
had been told that the General could not see him straight away. A
messenger had brought in dispatches of considerable importance
which required Houston’s immediate attention. Before hurrying away,
the General’s aide—a harassed-looking young captain—requested that
Hardin should remain in the hall until he was sent for. Returning
with Bowie and Travis, the aide had taken them into the office.
Taking note of Travis’s cold scowl as he went by, Hardin could
guess at the report which would be made regarding his activities.
So he had misgivings when he was finally called in by
Bowie.

Little of
Hardin
’s
perturbation showed as he went by Bowie, into the room and came
under the scrutiny of the two senior officers. However, he was not
as composed as he forced himself to appear. In fact, by the time he
came to a halt
in
front of the desk he felt downright ill-at-ease, even
though he was managing to conceal it. Standing at a stiff military
brace which Travis would probably have approved of under other
circumstances, he looked straight ahead. For all that he was
conscious of Houston studying his bruised left cheek and swollen
top lip.

After what seemed to the young
man to be a very long time, Houston said in flat tones which told
little of his feelings.
‘I hear you’ve been in trouble this afternoon,
Captain Hardin.’

‘
Yes,
sir,’ Hardin answered, allowing his gaze to drop to the speaker’s
tanned and expressionless face.

‘
On
two
occasions,’ Houston went on, still giving no indication of
how he felt about such conduct.

‘
Yes,
sir,’ Hardin agreed.

‘
Do
you make a habit of picking fights?’ Houston inquired.

‘
When
it’s necessary, sir,’ Hardin replied respectfully.

‘
And
you considered that it was necessary this afternoon?’

‘
Yes,
sir.’

‘
Why?’
Houston asked, glancing from Travis to Bowie who had returned and
was standing alongside the straight-backed young man. ‘You’re at
ease, captain.’

Relaxing slightly, Hardin
explained how he had found the
Chicano
boy
at the livery barn. Learning who had administered
the beating and why, he had made his way to the
cantina
to investigate. Before going
in, he had listened to the agitator answering questions and had
taken notice of who was asking them.

Recognizing the threat to
Houston
’s
military strategy, Hardin had decided to intervene. However, he had
known that to attempt anything in his official capacity would avail
him nothing. Enlisted men in the Republic of Texas’s army, being
volunteers, were generally not so well disciplined that they would
obey orders given by an officer who did not belong to their own
respective regiments. What was more, his clan were known to be
supporters of the General’s policies. So the agitator and his
assistants would know why he was interfering and would have
resisted his attempts which could have caused fighting to break out
between the rest of the customers.

With those thoughts in mind,
Hardin had formulated a plan which he had believed might serve his
purpose. Identifying the
Chicano
boy’s assailants and making an accurate assessment
of their natures, he had approached them in a manner that was
calculated to make them angry. He had been gambling that the rest
of the customers would prefer to watch a fight than to sit
listening to the agitator talking.,

‘
I’d
heard that Bill Cord always made anybody who was spoiling for a
fight take it outside,’ Hardin concluded. ‘And I figured that when
he did, pretty near the whole of the crowd would follow
us.’

There was a brief silence as
the young man came to the end of his explanation. All the time he
was talking, he was also watching the General. Not that the
scrutiny had produced any result Houston
’s leathery features had remained as
impassive as if he had been one of the Cherokee Indians with whom
he had lived for several years. However, Hardin had heard Bowie
grunt appreciatively on two occasions and figured that there was at
least one person in the room on his side. He had not attempted to
look at Travis. Nor had he heard anything to indicate how the
bow-necked colonel was responding to his story.

‘
You
figured it right,’ Bowie declared in a hearty and satisfied voice,
turning his gaze to Travis. ‘And I reckon we can be thankful that
you did.’ Then, seeing that the comment was puzzling Hardin, he
continued, ‘The other boy’s daddy came to tell us what they’d
heard, Devil, which’s why Colonel Travis and I were headed for
the
cantina.
Had an idea it might be as well to get the fellers out and
away, only I reckoned we could have trouble in getting them to
leave; especially the ones who weren’t in our regiments and had
been drinking. You getting them outside that way helped us do it,
wouldn’t
you
say, Colonel Travis?’

‘
It
helped us,’ Travis conceded almost grudgingly. ‘But there was still
the second fight.’

‘
There
was no way we could have avoided it, sir,’ Hardin stated politely.
‘They were the agitator’s men, the ones who’d helped him get the
conversation going the way he wanted at the
cantina.
I recognized two of them and
figured they weren’t exactly coming to thank me.’

‘
What
happened, Devil?’ Bowie inquired, determined that the young man
should be completely exonerated and that Travis should admit he was
wrong.

‘
They
pretended to think they’d caught us robbing the barn,’ Hardin
replied. ‘Then the one who looked like an undertaker threw down on
us with a pistol and made us shed our weapons—’

‘
You
let them
disarm
you, knowing what they were going to do?’ Travis
asked.

‘
I
thought that it was for the best, sir,’ Hardin answered, without
showing any resentment over the interruption. ‘Way we’d been
acting, particularly cousin Mannen, they didn’t have any notion
that we knew who they really were and putting off our weapons
clinched it. They were sure that we didn’t suspect them. We were
gambling on them not wanting to do any shooting as it would bring
folks to see what was happening when what they wanted was to work
us over with their fists.’

‘
There
were still six of them against the two of you,’ Travis pointed out,
but there was a subtle change in his voice and it had become
slightly less critical. ‘I’d say they were very stiff odds, even
without shooting.’

‘
Yes,
sir,’ Hardin conceded. ‘But we’d lulled their suspicions and, with
Cousin Mannen acting scared, they were likely to be over confident.
Besides—’

‘
Go
on,’ Houston prompted, having observed the change in Travis’
tone.

‘
I’d
seen Tommy Okasi coming, sir,’ Hardin obliged, wondering if he was
winning the General over. There was nothing in his attitude to
supply a clue, although Travis appeared to be softening a little.
‘He could tell there was something wrong, so he made sure they
didn’t hear him until he was ready to let them. When he saw us
dropping our weapons, he guessed what was going on and left his
swords outside so that they would think he was harmless.’ Try as he
might, Hardin could not restrain a faint smile over the thought of
how Stone, having fallen into the little Oriental’s trap, was
disillusioned. ‘Which they did and that evened the odds up
considerably.’

‘
There’s others have made the mistake of thinking that
little feller is harmless and come to regret it,’ Bowie confirmed
with a broad grin. ‘You’ve never seen anything like the way he can
fight, Sam. Fact being, those yahoos are lucky they didn’t get hurt
worse than they did.’

‘
Is
that all, Captain Hardin?’ Houston inquired, displaying no emotion
at all. His face could have been a figure drawn upon a wooden
fence.

‘
Yes,
sir,’ the young man replied, stiffening slightly as he realized
that judgment would soon be upon him, ‘I apologize for the delay in
reporting to you—’

‘
Think
nothing of it,’ the General boomed, and he smiled broadly. ‘I
couldn’t have seen you straight away if you had come and it sure as
Sam Hill wasn’t your fault that you got delayed.’ His eyes swung to
the seated colonel and he went on, ‘He could have spent his time in
worse ways, don’t you think, Bill?’

‘
Well,
sir,’ Travis answered, his sense of fair play having caused him to
revise his opinion of Hardin so that he eyed the young man with
approbation. ‘I don’t approve officers being involved in brawls
with the enlisted men, but I’m satisfied that it was justified on
this occasion.’