Travis gripped his hand. “May God be with you this day, Jamie MacCallister.”
“And with you, sir.”
Travis drew himself up to full height and saluted Jamie. Jamie did his best to properly return the salute and then was gone, waving at the men as he headed for the irrigation ditch that ran under the walls.
The defenders of the Alamo watched him go and silently wished him Godspeed as the bitterly cold winds howled furiously and the swirling dust reduced visibility to nearly nothing.
Jamie had spent hours on the parapets studying the placement of troops, and knew where the Mexican army was the strongest, and where they were the weakest. It was really no big trick to slip through the lines. Outside of town, he alternately ran and walked to the Ruiz ranch. Some of Ruiz’s vaqueros spotted him and escorted him to the sprawling home.
Senor Ruiz greeted him warmly and took him to the fireplace. Over coffee, Ruiz asked, “The Alamo?”
“It’s still standing. Colonel Travis thinks the main attack will come this night.”
“The men?”
“They’re in good spirits. They know they’re going to die and have resigned themselves to it. Bowie is very sick. When I left his side, only hours ago, he had a brace of loaded pistols and his knife at hand. He’ll not go into death quietly.”
Ruiz shook his head and sighed. “A waste. Such a waste.”
“They don’t think so, senor. The men at the mission are prepared to die for what they believe in.”
“You will rest here for the night?”
“No. But thank you. I must be on my way.” He tapped the pouch. “These messages must reach their proper destinations.”
“I understand. Bowie’s horse has been well taken care of and is ready for the trail. I will have him saddled while you eat and relax.”
“Gracias, senor.”
Ruiz did not ask where Jamie would ride first, and Jamie knew that was deliberate on his part. One cannot tell what one does not know.
But the food and the warm fire and the glass of wine took their toll on the weary young man. For days Jamie and the men from the Alamo had been battling intense cold and not enough food; they had been subjected to many hours of brutal cannon fire. Jamie’s buckskins were filthy and he needed a bath in the worst way. He did not want to stretch out on Ruiz’s couch, so he decided he’d nap for a few minutes on the rug; just for a few minutes only. Just for a few minutes. No more than...
Senor Ruiz returned and looked at the sleeping man with a knowing smile. He gently covered him with a blanket. So deep was Jamie’s exhausted sleep that he did not stir at the blanket’s warm touch. Ruiz ordered his servants not to disturb him. “Your messages can wait, young man,” Ruiz whispered. “Nothing you have in that pouch can change what is certainly going to happen to those brave men at the Alamo.”
He ordered the doors to the room closed and Bowie’s horse to be unsaddled and returned to its warm stall. “Sleep, young man,” he said. “Sleep.”
Forty-one
The Last Farewell Ninety Minutes of Glory
March 6, 1836
Santa Anna ordered his cannons to cease firing just before midnight and the men of the Alamo wrapped up in their ragged blankets and tried to get some desperately needed sleep.
Travis had counted his defenders. One hundred and eighty-two men. Two slaves, Sam and Joe. Eight women, and a handful of children. Travis ordered the brewing of the last of their coffee; actually more than half of it was chicory. Crockett jokingly said if they could find some, a few rattlesnake heads would give it some flavor, and if they could spare it, some gunpowder might help, too.
The women, just as exhausted as the men, cooked up the last of the food and the men ate and drank and then tried to sleep.
Less than three hundred yards away, the Mexican army had received orders to attack the Alamo at five o’clock that morning.
March 6, 1836, turned out to be bitterly cold and, until dawn, an overcast morning. It was so dark that seeing one’s hand in front of one’s face was nearly impossible. Many of the older men behind the walls of the mission were ill, having come down with pneumonia. Others struggled to sleep in the intense cold as numbed hands gripped rifles.
Travis could not sleep. He carefully shaved and dressed in his best uniform. Then he knelt down and prayed. What he prayed for is unknown but to God.
Santa Anna slept well and awakened refreshed at three o’clock in the morning. After a quiet breakfast, he dressed in his finest uniform, complete with decorations, and ordered his horse saddled and brought around to the front of the house where he and his new bride were staying.
“The cavalry is ready to mount, sir,” an aide told him.
“Good, good,” the general replied. “The infantry?”
“In place and ready, sir. They are all within rifle shot of the Alamo.”
“Excellent. The bands?”
“Ready to play, sir.”
“At my orders, I want them to play the Degüello.” The Fire and Death song.
“Yes, sir.”
“General Cos?”
“Ready, sir.”
Santa Anna shivered. “Get my coat. Damn this weather!”
With his warm coat around him, Santa Anna smiled, anxious for the Degüello to begin. He loved it. He’d loved the tune since he’d first heard its somber notes. The Degüello came from the Spanish word degollar, which means “to slash the throat” or “to behead.” To Santa Anna, the tune brought out the ancient beast in him. It hottened the blood. It was stirring.
Travis had ordered several men to stand watch outside the walls, and several men to keep the fires going inside the walls. Those men outside the walls were never heard from or seen by their comrades again; or by anyone else for that matter. Hand-picked men from the Mexican Army had crept forward in the darkness and sliced their throats.
Travis had grown increasingly restless. He had not taken his rifle, but a double-barreled shotgun, heavily loaded with rusty nails and whatever else the armorer could find, and mounted the parapet to stand by a cannon. He had consulted his timepiece before blowing out the candle in his room. It was four-thirty on the bitterly cold morning of March 6, 1836. Colonel William Barrett Travis had just about ninety minutes to live.
Miles away, Jamie Ian MacCallister slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted.
Jim Bowie stirred on his cot and suddenly became wide awake. “Sam?” he called.
“I’m right here by your side, sir.”
“Make sure those pistols are ready, Sam. All four of them, and put them by my side. Two to my right, two to my left.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Jim. Is the Mexicans comin?’ ”
“They’re here. Unsheathe my blade, Sam.”
“Yes, sir. Now you be careful, Mr. Jim. That there blade is mighty sharp.”
Bowie chuckled in the darkness. “Careful? An old pirate like me? Pour us both a drink, Sam. And make them good ones, now, you hear.”
“You wants me to drink with you, sir?”
“That’s what I said, Sam.” He took the cup, brimming full of whiskey. “Thank you, Sam. Drink up. It’ll be your last time to drink with me before I meet the devil.”
Before Bowie’s startled eyes, Sam, a man that Bowie felt almost never touched a drop, emptied the cup, smacked his lips, and said, “Ahhh! Mighty fine drinkin’ whiskey, Mr. Jim. Mighty fine.”
Bowie had to laugh at Sam. “Is there any more in that jug, Sam?”
“Not narely a drop, sir.”
Bowie downed his cup. “Well, Sam, like the lady told me one time, years ago: Get off me, boy. You done got all you paid for.”
Sam and Jim Bowie shared a chuckle in the quiet darkness of predawn.