Jamie shook his head, wondering if Travis and Bowie would ever get along, even should they be admitted together through the gates of Heaven?
The answer was no.
Hell, either.
Part Three
The Siege
Do not go gently into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas
Twenty-nine
The First Day
Santa Anna’s first real battle and his first encounter with Americans had been back in 1813, when he was a young man in the army of General Arredondo and sent to this very town to put down a civil insurrection by a bunch of Anglos trying to form a Republic of Texas. What nonsense, Santa Anna thought. His general had put everyone involved into a wild rout. Then came the punishments. Santa Anna enjoyed that immensely. Santa Anna felt nothing but scorn for Americans. Cowards, all of them.
He shifted in his saddle. He had been afflicted with disentería — in cruder terms, the shits — on the long march north, and he was not quite over it. That did nothing to improve his cruel temper.
It was time to enter the town. He had dressed in his finest uniform, with his chest filled with all the medals he’d won over the years of battles. His horse had been washed and groomed, his saddle, studded with silver, had been rubbed and polished.
Santa Anna had plans in mind for the residents of San Antonio, too. Dark savage plans. For he hated them. All of them. Years back he had been humiliated here, over a minor game of chance. And a not so minor incident of forgery — on his part. He had lied his way clear of any charges with his superiors, but he had never forgotten the laughter from the citizens of this wretched town. They would pay. Dearly.
And to further show how lightly Santa Anna treated the defenders at the Alamo... he planned to be married during the siege. To a lovely girl he had met only a few hours ago!
Santa Anna obviously did not believe in long courtships.
* * *
“Messenger comin’ under a white flag, Jim,” a lookout called from his post.
“They’ll be wanting us to surrender,” Bowie said, climbing up and standing beside a charged cannon.
The Mexican officer, all decked out in a fancy-colored uniform, called for the commanding officer. Bowie grinned and looked around for Travis. He was, as usual, in his office, writing reports.
“That’s me, Amigo,” Bowie replied cheerfully, in perfect Spanish. “Jim Bowie at your service. Que haces?”
“Your surrender, senor Bowie. General Santa Anna demands an unconditional surrender.”
“I can but assume he’s watching all this?” Bowie asked.
“Si, senor.”
“Run up the flag!” Bowie ordered.
Watching through a glass, Santa Anna’s face reddened in rage as the red, white, and green Mexican flag, with some additions added, was hoisted up the flagpole inside the mission. Santa Anna cursed. The numbers 1824 were clearly visible, serving to remind him of the Texas constitution drafted in 1824.
Santa Anna told his aide, “The flag of no quarter. Now!”
The red flag was hoisted on the Mexican side, and every defender watching from the walls in the Alamo knew what it meant: a fight to the death.
Santa Anna issued another order and his cannon roared. They missed their target.
“Fire!” Bowie ordered, and the eighteen-pounder thundered out the Alamo’s defiant reply.
Travis rushed from his quarters, furious. Bowie had not told him of his plans to do this. From the parapets, Bowie smiled down at him.
“Jim’s little surprise for Colonel Travis,” Jamie muttered to Davy Crockett.
“I ’spect it did get ever’body’s attention,” Crockett drawled. “Damn shore got mine!”
“I wish a word with you, Bowie!” Travis yelled.
“Later,” Bowie said, half turning his back to the man. “They’ve shown a man with a white flag. They want to parlay, and I got a man all ready to do that.”
“I forbid it!” Travis yelled, his voice nearly a scream.
“Too late,” Bowie said, then completely turned his back to the man.
Travis was outraged. He had suspected all along that Bowie had a plan to sell them all out. For to Travis, Bowie was a Mexican-lover.
He was right on one point: Bowie did love the Mexican people, he had married a beautiful Mexican girl. Then, too, Bowie knew the Mexican mind; how they thought. Travis was quite vocal in saying, often, that he doubted any Mexican even had a mind.
The Mexican artillery batteries continued to boom, but they were so far out of range, if they weren’t careful, Bowie noted, the rounds just might fall on their own troops.
Jameson rode back. “Unconditional surrender,” he shouted to Bowie.
Bowie gave his reply. He personally touched the flame to the hole of the cannon and let the freshly charged eighteen-pounder roar. Then he leaned over the wall and gave the clearly startled Mexican officer under a flag of truce a message for Santa Anna.
The Mexican officer’s face paled and he shook his head. “No, señor Bowie. I cannot tell that to my general.”
What Bowie had said was that, remembering that it loses something in the translation, Santa Anna’s mother was a burro and his father was a vulture, and also that Santa Anna had sex with whores because he was so ugly no decent woman would have anything to do with him.
“Madre Dios!” the officer gasped. “I cannot say that, either!”
“Then tell him that Jim Bowie said a besar cabo grosso!”
The Mexican officer threw down the white flag and galloped away. He’d think of something to say to the general. He knew he’d better; he certainly could not repeat any of what Bowie had just said. Santa Anna would have him flogged. Or shot.
“What did you say to that officer?” Travis yelled, standing beside Bowie.
But Bowie only shook his head. “Just that we would, under no conditions, surrender unconditionally.”
Travis didn’t believe him, of course. But knowing that Bowie had his blood running hot for battle now, he had enough sense not to call him a liar. For had he done that, the Alamo would have lost one of its two commanders. And Travis knew it. Travis was no coward; far from it. He was a very brave man. He just had, on occasion, uncommon good sense.
“We are not going to surrender under any circumstances!” Travis informed Bowie.
Bowie shrugged his total indifference. But Jamie, watching from a reasonably safe distance, knew what the shrug meant: the idea of surrender had never entered Bowie’s mind. He was ready to fight to the death. That was why he had so insulted the courier from Santa Anna.
Travis, still furious, climbed down from the parapet and lined up the men under his personal command. He gave them a rousing, if somewhat profane speech, and all agreed to never surrender. Then he stalked off to his quarters.
“I never thought the tin soldier had it in him,” Bowie said to no one in particular, after listening to Travis’s speech. “Maybe I’ll change my opinion of him.”
Jamie thought that highly unlikely.
* * *
After listening to his courier’s report, Santa Anna was so angry his dysentery returned and he had to rush to the outhouse for a time. When he returned, the courier had wisely disappeared, not wanting to repeat his lies for fear he could not remember all that he had said.
But he had told a junior officer what Bowie had really said. The young officer, seeking to appear favorable in his general’s eyes, told Santa Anna all that Bowie had said.