Jim laughed, then broke into a fit of violent coughing. He hawked up phlegm and spat on the ground. Jamie noticed there was blood in the phlegm.
“Damn whiskey’s going to kill me yet,” Jim joked, then walked off, shouting and laughing to his men.
Jamie walked the nearly three-acre compound, noting the walls, which were twelve feet high and three feet thick. Makeshift platforms had been hurriedly erected for riflemen to stand on, but there were not enough of them. The Mexicans had left behind plenty of cannon, but even though the defenders had been working hard, many of the cannon would never be used effectively because there would not be enough cannon slits cut in the thick walls to use them. The mission church was very nearly a ruin, only the stone walls and part of the roof still intact. Log and plank cannon mounts had been built around the high walls.
On the hurriedly reinforced roof of the mission church, three twelve-pounder cannons faced due east. On the south side, mounted on a log platform, were four four-pounders. Eighteen-pounders were at each end of the west wall, and one in the center. Two eight-pounders were mounted on the north wall, just to the west of the earthen barricade that had been thrown up across a seventy-five-foot gap in the wall. There were light cannon set up on several roofs, and in the courtyard a small battery of eight-pounders pointing due south.
Once those gates are closed for good, Jamie thought, there will be no escape, for the horses were pastured, incredibly, Jamie felt, nearly five miles away along Saldo Creek. Jamie had stabled his horses in the cattle pen, just west of the irrigation ditch, easily accessible to him. After taking a look at Jamie, no one questioned him about it.
Courage was one thing. Foolishness was quite another matter.
A thousand men would be hard-pressed to defend this place, Jamie felt, strolling along, speaking politely to men he scarcely knew, and tallying the number of defenders as he walked. When he finished, he was depressed, and leaned against the outer wall of the long barracks, near what would soon be the hospital entrance.
“Grim, isn’t it, lad?” Travis asked.
Travis sometimes irritated Jamie if for no other reason than to have a man several years away from being thirty years old call him “lad.” But he concealed his slight irritation. “Yes, sir. It is.”
“We’ll soon have reinforcements,” Travis said confidently. “Our supporters won’t let us down. You’ll see.”
Jamie nodded his head and Travis said, “I want you to ride south, Jamie. After you’ve rested a bit,” he quickly added. He showed Jamie a map. “Down here,” he pointed. “Toward the Rio Grande. Bowie seems to think Santa Anna will march his men across the barren area. I tend to doubt it. But I want you to check it out and report back to me.”
“Only if he wishes to do that,” Bowie said, walking up. “Jamie is a volunteer, not one of your regulars, William. What say you, Jamie?”
“I’m here to help in any way I can,” Jamie replied quickly, noticing the flush that reddened Travis’s face upon Bowie’s interference.
“There is little water for miles in some stretches,” Bowie told him. “And damn little forage for your horse. Ride with care, Jamie.”
But before Jamie could give any reply, a shout came from a sentry in the bell tower. “Riders coming in!” he called.
Davy Crockett and his Tennessee volunteers had arrived much sooner than Jamie had expected. He turned and walked to the cattle pen and saddled a fresh mount. With a packet of food and two canteens, Jamie rode south. It was bitterly cold on the afternoon of the 9th of February, 1836.
Twenty-eight
Jamie rode back into the Alamo days later. His horse had been shot out from under him by a war party of Kiowa and he had been afoot for several days. Jamie finally killed a scout from Santa Anna’s forward unit and took his horse. It was the 20th of February. He dismounted stiffly, slapping the cold dust from his buckskins. Travis, Bowie, and Crockett rushed to meet him.
Their mouths dropped open when Jamie said, “They’ll be here in three days. They’re camped along the Rio Hondo.” He told them why he’d been gone so long.
“The Rio Hondo!” Travis exclaimed. “That’s only fifty miles away.”
“How many?” Crockett asked, putting a cooler tongue into the situation.
“Between five and seven thousand.”
Travis and Crockett said nothing, letting their expressions mutely state their inner feelings. Jamie could sense that Travis did not believe him. Bowie said, “May God have mercy on our souls.” Then he took a drink of whiskey from a small flask and bent over double in a fit of coughing. He spat blood onto the ground.
Crockett and Travis appeared not to notice. “Get some food into you, Jamie” Bowie said. “And rest for a time. I’m sending you out again in a few hours with a message for Fannin. If this won’t move him into action, then nothing else will — except perhaps a direct command from God.”
* * *
Fannin, some ninety-five miles away, had renamed the Goliad mission Fort Defiance. He had received several earlier messages from Travis and Bowie, each of them urging him to mount his men and come at once. He had ignored them. He would later claim that he had sent messages back to the Alamo. No one knows for sure.
But Fannin felt he had more pressing matters to attend to than to concern himself with rumors and myths about a huge Mexican army about to attack the Alamo. On February 13th, acting governor Robinson had instructed Fannin to fortify and defend Goliad and do battle with enemy forces should they appear. Robinson had also taken over Sam Houston’s title and now declared himself acting governor and commander-in-chief of the Army of Texas. He furthermore wrote Fannin and told him to ignore any orders he may have previously received from Houston.
In the days past, Fannin had received many commu-niqués from Travis and Bowie. Sometimes, when they were penned by Bowie’s hand, they were quite blunt and to the point. These were not ignored, they just weren’t acted on. But Fannin wasn’t sure what to do. He would receive a message from the Alamo. He would write a letter to the advisory committee asking for orders. They would issue none.
As Santa Anna’s troops neared the Alamo, the fate of the men and the few women and children now at the Alamo was sealed.
* * *
“Goddamn the man!” Bowie raged, when Jamie returned empty-handed, with no firm commitment from Fannin.
“I don’t believe Fannin knows what to do,” Jamie said to Travis, Bowie, and several more officers gathered around. “But I know from talking to the men that his supplies are very nearly gone. And he is really quite fearful of being attacked by General Urrea.”
“General Urrea has about a thousand men and we’re looking at six to seven thousand,” the commander of the Alamo’s cannon, Almeron Dickerson said. He shook his head and walked away. Dickerson and his men had worked like demons for days getting the cannon ready.
Travis looked at Jim. “Any suggestions, Bowie?”
“Yeah,” Bowie said, winking at Jamie. “Get drunk!”
Travis glared daggers at Jim Bowie’s back. He grew even angrier when he turned back to Jamie and he was smiling. “You find this amusing?” he demanded.
Jamie put a big hand on the commander’s shoulder. “Loosen up, sir. I reckon we all have to deal with this in our own way.”
Jamie turned and walked away. Travis watched him go, a slow smile spreading over his face. “Yes,” he whispered. “I reckon we do, at that.”
* * *
Several hundred miles to the north, in what was known as Indian Territory, snow had sprinkled the ground and it was very cold. A Shawnee scout entered the central lodge and faced Tall Bull.