Reaching the rear of the Alamo, on the east side, near the cattle and horse pen, he called, “MacCallister. Coming over.”
“Come on, Jamie,” the sentry said. “How was it over yonder?”
“Busy,” Jamie said with a smile, towering over the man.
“What that a-hangin’ from your belt, son?”
“Scalps,” Jamie told him, and walked on.
The man shuddered and muttered, “Travis ain’t gonna like that a-tall.”
Jamie told Crockett and Bowie what he’d done with the cannon and both men guffawed and slapped their knees in high humor. “Land sakes, boy,” Crockett said. “You done fixed it so’s we’uns can have quite a show this night.”
Jamie wondered about Crockett’s speech; wondered just how much of it was affectation and how much was real? No matter, though. Davy was a fearless fighting man and a dead shot.
“My God, boy!” Bowie said, stepping back. “What have you got hanging from your belt?”
“Half a dozen scalps. I thought I’d give them to Travis as souvenirs.” Actually, Jamie had no intention of doing that.
Bowie grinned. “No, lad. Let me have the honors.” Before Jamie could stop him, he jerked the bloody scalps from Jamie’s belt.
“What’s going on up there?” Travis suddenly appeared in the night and called from the plaza. “Oh. It’s you, MacCallister. What did you accomplish among the enemy this evening?”
“Killed half a dozen and fixed two of their cannon so when they fire, it’ll surely backfire on them.”
Travis climbed up onto the parapet and faced Jamie. “Report,” he said.
Jamie told all that he’d seen and done — almost.
“Yeah, you want these, Bill?” Bowie asked innocently, then held out the bloody scalps.
Travis recoiled as if being handed a writhing poisonous snake. “What in God’s name are those?” he demanded.
Crockett and his men — all skilled Indian fighters who had certainly taken more than their share of scalps over the years — could barely contain themselves. One swallowed his chewing tobacco trying to stifle his laughter.
“Scalps, Colonel,” Bowie replied calmly. “Jamie took them. He thought you might want to keep them as souvenirs.”
Travis drew himself up to his full height, which was eye to eye with Bowie, and smiled. “Why, yes,” he said. “I certainly would. Thank you, Scout MacCallister. I am sure I shall treasure them always.” He took the scalps and tucked them behind his own belt.
Crockett leaned close and whispered hoarsely, “He beat you on that one, Jimmy my boy.” Then he burst out laughing.
Soon all the men along the parapet were howling at Travis having put one over on Bowie. But Jim was good humored and he soon joined in the merriment.
When the laughter had died down, Bowie stuck out his hand toward Travis. “Colonel, would you be so kind as to join me in my quarters and we’ll have coffee and discuss, together and mutually, the defending of this bastion of liberty?”
Travis smiled and shook the hand of the older man. “It would be my pleasure, Colonel Bowie. My great pleasure indeed.” He chuckled, a rare thing for Travis. “Perhaps then, Jim, you can tell me what you really told that emissary from General Santa Anna this afternoon.”
“Oh, that’s easy, William. I just told him to tell Santa Anna to kiss my ass!”
Travis was startled silent for a moment. He blinked, then slowly started chuckling. Soon he was roaring with laughter and wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. Once again, the men along the parapet were howling with laughter.
From the Mexican battery of artillery, there suddenly came a mighty roar and a huge shower of flame and shredded metal and hardened mud. The flames touched off two more cannon and they blew apart. The blast from the first explosions knocked the two other cannons out of alignment and the cannonballs fell far short of their target and the scene was one of confusion and screaming and mortally wounded men.
Travis patted Jamie on the shoulder. “Good work, Scout MacCallister. Very good work. Colonel Bowie, shall we retire to your quarters to map out the battle plans?”
“After you... amigo.”
So it was a truce. But would it have lasted had Bowie not been terribly hurt in an accident the very next day?
No one knows.
Thirty
The Second Day
February 24, 1836
The Mexican artillery had kept up their bombardment all during the night, causing most of the defenders of the Alamo to sleep lightly at best, at their posts. This was to be the case for the next twelve days. A few of the men had managed to get a few hours good rest despite the bombardment: Bowie, Crockett, Jamie, and several others awakened rested. Most of the others had slept only fitfully.
Over coffee and beef and beans, which for the most part, was what the defenders would live on for the next twelve days, Jamie studied the one hundred and fifty or so men. The discussion that morning was not of the thousands of Mexican troops just outside the old church, but of the letter, drafted and signed by both William Travis and Jim Bowie, that a courier had taken to Governor Smith of Texas before dawn. That letter stated that Travis and Bowie would, from that date on, share command of the Alamo and orders to the men would be mutually agreed upon. That had come as a real shock to men loyal to each faction. But even though all considered it a good sign, most of the defenders’ loyalty still went with Jim Bowie.
Most of the defenders still clung to the belief that reinforcements would come, and together they would whip the Mexican Army. It was a false hope, but it was all they had to keep them going. They had food enough for about three weeks, simple fare, but enough to keep them alive. They were low on powder and shot. But they had plenty of spirit, and that was something that Bowie and Travis had spoken of long into the shell-shot night.
“You know it’s hopeless,” Bowie had told Travis.
“I do not know of any such thing, Bowie.”
“Bill, we’re a hundred and fifty against six or seven thousand.”
“Fannin will come.”
“Only with his wife or a whore,” Bowie said with a smile. “Fannin will do nothing without orders, and the advisory committee will never issue those orders. We’re being sacrificed. But that’s not without merit. What we’re doing here is buying time. Precious time. Time for Houston to get his army ready and in place.”
Travis dropped his eyes to the grounds in his cup and was silent for a moment. “The men?”
“I think they know. The chaplain does.”
Travis sighed heavily. “I have started writing a letter.”
“So, too, have I.”
“Mine is not yet finished.”
Bowie poured them both fresh coffee. “Nor is mine.”
“I expect to have mine finished by tomorrow...” He consulted his timepiece. “... This afternoon. I have asked Captain Martin to stand by to ride.”
“I have not yet started committing mine to paper.” He tapped the side of his head. “But I have it here. I shall start this evening. By then I should have time.”
He wasn’t aware of it, but he would have lots of time to write until the bloody, awful end, still some week and a half away.
“If I might make a suggestion... ?”
“By all means.”
“Jamie MacCallister could take your message from these fortified walls.”
Bowie smiled. “That’s the lad I had in mind.”
“Good! Good! The men tell me he’s like a ghost in the night.” Travis smiled at the knife fighter across the rough table. “I have some brandy...”
Bowie returned the smile. “I don’t recall ever turning down a drink, Bill.”