Michener, James A. (71 page)

The two men were so far distant that Galba believed it impossible for Crockett to reach them, but he watched as the expert leveled his gun, firmed it against the edge of the rampart, and with breathless care pulled back his trigger finger. Poof! Not much of a crackle, for this was a good tight gun, but down went the man in front.

'Quick!' Davy whispered, as if the other man could hear, and before the latter could seek refuge, a second bullet sped across the river, dipped under the trees on the far side, and splatted into its target.

Insolently, Crockett rose from behind the protective wall, pushed back his coonskin cap, and reloaded his two rifles, daring Santa Anna's men to fire at him with their outdated smooth-bore English muskets that could not carry half that distance.

'How far was that?' Galba asked, as if the dead men had been squirrels.

Crockett said with equal indifference: 'Maybe two hundred and

fifty yards,' but quickly added: 'You know, you couldn't do it at that range, not unless you could prop your gun.'

'Could I fight with you, at the palisade?'

Crockett said: 'It's gonna be easy to hold that spot, what with the men I got. A good shot like you, you're needed wherever Travis puts you.'

That night Galba Fuqua lost his heart all over again to Davy Crockett, for the famous bear hunter astounded everyone by producing a fiddle that he'd brought into the Alamo with him, and for two hours he entertained the fighters with scraping squeals of mountain music so ingratiating that even Zave Campbell danced in the moonlight.

When Colonel Travis was assigning the Gonzales men to their defensive positions, Zave volunteered for one of the more exposed locations. He chose that long western wall, knowing it would be vulnerable if the Mexican foot soldiers were brave enough to bring their scaling ladders there. To Fuqua, who volunteered to stand with him, he said: 'What we must do, Galb, is run back and forth and change our positions. Confuse 'em.'

'Will there be lots of them?'

'Lots.' And he pointed out to the boy where the danger spots would be: 'That gully gives them protection. They'll come up from there and hit us about here. We'll be waitin'. You keep your eye on those trees—not many of them, but they'll interrupt our fire. They're sure to come at us from those trees. So you're to guard this point, and never allow them to place even one ladder.'

'What am I to do?'

'The minute they place a ladder, you run there with this forked pole and push it down.'

The boy looked at the trees, saw the pitiful distance that separated them from the wall, and for the first time since he left Gonzales, realized that within a few days men were going to be killed, in great number: 'Will many be killed, Mr. Campbell?'

'Lots,' Zave said. Then, appreciating the boy's fear, he took Galba by the hand and said: 'That's what a battle is, son. The killing of men.'

'Does the red flag over there really mean no surrender?'

'It's them or us, son. Come battle day, it's purely them or us.'

At first Campbell had not liked Colonel Travis, whom he saw as an austere man with a lawyer's finicky attitude toward duty and no sense of humor: 'He talks too big, Galb.' The boy repeated what he had heard many of the men say: 'Bowie ought to be our commander,' but out of respect for the sick man's wishes Zave

quieted such talk: Travis is our leader now. Bowie said so. And you better do what he says.'

By Wednesday, 2 March, Campbell was developing a much different opinion of Travis: 'He knows what he's doing. He knows how to defend a position. And look how he puts his finger on the weak spots.' Zave liked especially the manner in which Travis disposed his men, never carelessly, never arbitrarily, but always with an eye on firepower.

'You know, Galb, he has every weak man down there caring for the cattle and things. All the good men are up here on the ramparts.'

'You count me a good man?'

'I sure do, and so does Travis.'

But not even after Zave had granted Travis every concession did he like the man the way he admired Bowie and Crockett: 'It's the way he's always tidyin' up his clothes, Galb. When a man does that, he's apt to be prissy. Damnit, Travis ought to be commandin' a cavalry post in Carolina and attendin' afternoon teas with the ladies. He may be a fightin' man, but he sure as hell ain't a frontiersman.'

'You prefer the way Bowie dresses?'

'I sure do,' but as he said this he saw Travis standing atop the fortress corner at the north, surveying the land across which the Mexican attack would come, and his slim figure, so taut, so tense, seemed so extraordinarily military that even Zave had to confess: 'He knows what he's doing, that one.' And when Travis next inspected the rooftops, Zave saluted.

On Thursday, 3 March, at about a quarter to eleven, Colonel Travis and everyone within hearing of Galba Fuqua's voice were startled to hear the lad cry: 'Man comin' on horseback!' And when they looked toward the sun high in the sky they did indeed see a lone horseman making a wild effort to cut directly through the heart of the enemy lines.

'It's Bonham!' men began to shout. 'Go it, Bonham!'

They did more than shout. Two men limbered up a field piece and tossed cannon shells at Mexican soldiers who were trying to catch the fleeting messenger, while others grabbed their rifles to pick off individual men who sought to attack him.

'Zave!' Fuqua shouted, proudly aware that his warning cry had helped this incredibly brave rider by alerting the riflemen on the walls. 'He's going to make it!'

'Break open those gates!' Travis shouted, and men eagerly leaped to do so, just in time to bring the dodging, darting Bonham

into the protection of the Alamo. Twice out to safety, twice back to his post of duty, he had ridden alone and had four times penetrated heavy enemy concentrations.

His message was brief and terrifying: 'Colonel Fannin refuses to leave Goliad. Gonzales has no more men to send us. No relief is on the way. You already have all the men you'll ever have. There'll be no more.'

Friday, 4 March, was a solemn day within the Alamo, for additional Mexican reinforcements streamed north from the Rio Grande to increase Santa Anna's superiority, so that even the most hopeful Texicans had to confront the fact that within a few hours the mighty attack would begin, and it could have only one outcome.

Each of the doomed men spent this fateful day as his personality dictated: Jim Bowie almost wept at his inability to rise from his cot and help; Davy Crockett entertained his men at the palisade with outrageous stories of his confrontations with his Tennessee constituents and especially with President Andrew Jackson, whom he despised: 'All show and bluster. Calls hisself a friend of the common man, but the only people he really befriends are the rich. If we had a real man in the White House, we'd have three thousand American troops in this building right now, and God knows how many cannon.' He refused to allow any talk of odds or dangers or the likelihood of annihilation. He was in another tight spot and he would as always do his best.

James Bonham was exhausted and reflective. He could not understand Fannin; he simply could not understand. 'Obviously,' he told Travis, 'he could have marched here fifteen days ago. I broke through yesterday and so could he, with all the men he had. I fear a great disaster is going to overtake that poor man.' He slept most of the afternoon.

Zave Campbell, as a good Scotsman, had sought out a kinsman, John McGregor, who he found had brought with him into the Alamo a set of fine bagpipes. So later in the afternoon Campbell, Fuqua and McGregor gathered in the northwest corner of the big field, and there McGregor marched back and forth as if he were in some royal castle on the Firth of Tay, piping the stirring reels and strathspeys of his youth.

Then, without announcement, he switched to a most enchanting tune, not military at all, and when Campbell said: 'I don't know that one,' the piper explained: 'We call it "The Flooers of Embry," which means "The Flowers of Edinburgh." A grand tune.' He played this sad, sweet music for some time, then once more without warning he altered his music; with head tilted back

as if he were looking for omens in the sky, he offered the near-empty field one of the grand compositions of Scotland, and now Campbell knew well what it was, the great 'McCrimmon's Lament,' that historic threnody for brave men dead in battle, and as he marched back and forth, men in various parts of the Alamo seemed to sense that he was playing some notable piece of music for them, and they began to appear from odd corners.

But this haunting moment lasted only briefly, for Davy Crockett bellowed from the palisade: 'Damn that stuff! Fetch me my fiddle!' And when this was done he took it and ran the length of the field to meet with McGregor, and for about an hour as day waned the two men gave a wild and raucous concert of wailing pipes and screeching fiddle, and for a rowdy while the hundred and eighty-three men in the Alamo forgot their predicament.

Ominously, on Saturday, 5 March, the daily bombardment by the Mexicans—thirteen days of barrage without killing one Texican—ceased, and Marr predicted to those about him: 'Santa Anna's redeploying his troops. Tomorrow he'll come at us.'

Colonel Travis, reaching the same conclusion, experienced an overpowering sense of doom, and as he realistically surveyed the situation of his troops and the few women and children who had remained with them in the Alamo, he realized that to hope for any further miracles was futile. His aides reported: 'Santa Anna's army increases daily. He's moving up his big guns. The final attack cannot be delayed much longer.'

Everything Travis saw confirmed this gloom. No matter how he disposed his men along the walls, there were empty spaces which the enemy would be sure to spot. And his ammunition was limited. Unlimited was the willingness of his men to fight, but as their leader, he felt obligated to give each man one last chance to escape the certain death which faced them all. That afternoon he assembled his force near the plaza leading to the chapel, and there, with the women and children listening and even Jim Bowie on his cot, which had been hauled into the open, he told them the facts: 'The red flag still flies, and Santa Anna means it. No prisoners. His army is fifteen times ours, and he has more cannon, too. 1 suspect the attack will come tomorrow—that's Sunday, isn't it? I want to offer every man here one last chance to retire if he should wish to.'

What happened next would be forever debated; some, basing their accounts on those of certain women who escaped the carnage, say that Travis drew a line in the sand with the tip of his sword and indicated that those wishing to take their chances fighting beside him step over it; others laugh at the suggestion of

such flamboyance but grant that he may have indicated some kind of line as he scuffed his left foot across the plaza. At any rate, he certainly warned his men that death was imminent and gave them a choice of either staying and fighting a hopeless battle with him or kiting over the wall to such escape as each man could maneuver for himself.

First over the line was white-haired Mordecai Marr, who mumbled to the two who followed: 'I'm American and Mexican, loyal to both, but it seems like the first one wins/ Jim Bowie, without question, asked that his cot be moved to where his onetime adversary' was standing, and Travis welcomed him. Davy Crockett shuffled over, and of course James Bonham moved to accept the death which he had known three weeks ago to be inevitable. Zave Campbell looked down at Galba Fuqua, shrugged his shoulders, and said unheroically: 'We've come this far, Galb. Do you want to go all the way?' Without hesitation the boy took Zave's hand as they joined the patriots.

When Travis made his remarkable and moving speech, one hundred and eighty-two men and boys faced him. Of that number, all but one crossed to die with him. The one man who did not— and his reasoning for preferring shameful life to heroic death was startling to the men who heard him voice it—was Louis Rose, fifty-one years old, born in France and entitled to wear the Legion of Honor as a distinguished veteran of Napoleon's campaigns in the kingdom of Naples and in Russia. He had come to Texas as early as 1826, when he changed his first name to Moses, believing it to sound more American. At first he had served as a day laborer in Nacogdoches, then as a teamster, and finally as a self-trained butcher. Loving the soldier's life, as soon as trouble threatened he mortgaged all his holdings and went off to join the fighting at San Antonio, where he had helped defeat General Cos in 1835.

Rose was by far the most experienced soldier in the group, and it pained Jim Bowie to see such a man reluctant to stay for the fight. Forcing himself upright in his cot, Bowie chided the Frenchman: 'You seem unwilling to die with us, Mose.'

'I came to America to live a new life, not to die needlessly,' the old campaigner said. 'Only fools and amateurs would try to defend this place.'

Davy Crockett said with a touch of levity: 'Mose, you may as well die with us, because you'll never get through them Mexican lines.'

'I speak Spanish,' Rose said, and he bundled up his clothes, climbed the wall to the very spot where Galba Fuqua would stand guard, and hesitated for a moment as if reconsidering. Looking

back at his friends, he half nodded, then turned and abruptly leaped to the ground, where he quickly lost himself among the trees.

At three-thirty in the cold morning of Sunday, 6 March, Galba Fuqua reached over and nudged his friend Zave Campbell as they stood watch atop the long barracks: 'I think they're coming.'

Zave rubbed his eyes and peered into the darkness, seeing for himself that there was much movement among the trees to the west: i think you're right, Galb— Hey, where you goin'?'

'I gotta pee.'

'You stay here.'

'But I gotta pee.'

'So do I. When men face danger, like a fistfight or a hurricane or a battle like this . . . they often have to pee. Even the bravest. I do too. But up where I'm needed, not down there.'

So the man and the boy urinated against the adobes which they were about to defend, and as they finished, Zave said something that would encourage the boy mightily in the frenzied hours ahead: 'Galb, it's gonna be a tough fight, that's sure. If you see me showin' any signs of cowardice . . .'