Crockett of Tennessee Read online

  At the moment, the seige was focused on the northern portion of the enclosure, where columns of troops under General Martin Perfecto de Cos and Colonel Francisco Duque attempted to swarm the Alamo like ants. But the level of fire they encountered from the defenders was proving unexpectedly effective. Mexicans fell in appalling numbers, and their onslaughts withered. So far, the few Mexicans who had reached the walls with ladders and pikes had been killed or driven back, and two major thrusts had been turned away. But now the Mexican troops were being helped by their very own disorder. Columns of their troops mixed and surged forward together, an incredible mass of humanity, so many men that all the Alamo’s guns firing accurately together would leave the vast majority still alive and charging.

  They passed through the field of cannon fire, many falling, pierced by rifle balls and grapeshot, and then swarmed in close to the walls. But now that they were here, they were in a sense prisoners of their own success. Though the cannon could no longer harm them, the Texans could pick them off easily with rifles, and they were so cramped together that they could barely move, much less pick up the ladders that the Texans had pushed away from the wall after the first failed onslaught. Milling like cattle, they died in piles, sometimes unwittingly killing one another by their own wild and careless cross-firing.

  Meanwhile, David Crockett took his bearings. At the moment, the battle remained centered at the north end, but already he could see Mexican troops beginning to sweep out in new directions. His assignment had been the defense of the palisaded southern wall, in front of the chapel. His troops gathered around him, checking their weapons, and then all made for that area. As he ran, David thought how odd a thing it was to be racing for the very spot where he would almost certainly stand his last on the earth. Everything around him took on a surreal aspect, like one of his disconcerting malarial dreams.

  He stopped in his tracks, turning his head. Music … trumpeted and somehow frightening, like the music that had unsettled him so during the fever that Uncle Jimmy had pulled him through that time back at John Crockett’s tavern.

  “It’s the Deguello,” a Texan nearby him said. “The Mexes play it when there is to be no mercy given.”

  For a couple of moments David felt frozen in place, but he shook it off. “No mercy … no mercy given by us!” he declared. “Men, we’re going to turn this ground red with Mex blood long before we spill our own!”

  “Amen, Davy,” a voice nearby him said, and David turned and looked into the grim but smiling face of Persius Tarr. David grinned back, taking courage from the mere presence of his old friend.

  Before long the fight came to them in the form of a column of troops under a Mexican colonel named Morales. With yells and cheers they charged in, and David barked the order for the first volley. Rifles cracked and Mexican troops fell. David heard Persius laugh loudly, triumphantly, then give way to a fit of terrible coughing while he grabbed a new rifle and shoved his empty one to a young man assigned to reloading.

  The defensive fire proved very effective. Morales’s troops continued to shove toward the flimsy-looking palisades, but a second volley killed even more of them. On it went, assault and response, advance and retreat, until finally the Mexicans gave up and moved their attack to the southwest corner and the area swept by Travis’s prized eighteen-pounder cannon.

  Elsewhere, the inevitable had already begun. In the glow of morning, Mexican troops had swarmed up the walls, mounting the wooden redoubt built over a wall breach and clambering up the northern postern. Desperately, the Texans fought to hold back the flood, but a flood it was, and it could not be checked. The Mexicans paid a dear price for their success, but at last the way was cleared and they swarmed in easily, eager for blood.

  And from then on it was all different. No longer was this a fight to keep an enemy outside the walls. That purpose was lost. Now it was hand-to-hand combat, men looking into the very eyes of other men they did not know but were trying desperately to kill.

  Persius Tarr fired off a shot and then looked toward the southeastern corner. The Mexicans were over the wall there too, and even as he watched, they killed the last of the men manning the eighteen-pounder and took possession. Persius swore, picked up another rifle, and fired toward the closest of the Mexicans. He swore again when he missed.

  At the north wall, the Mexicans had driven back the last of the defenders and came pouring in, bayonets flashing silver, lancing downward, then flashing red. The screams of the dying were terrible on all sides. Persius coughed hard and blood flowed down his chin. He wiped it with his sleeve and paid it no heed.

  David, meanwhile, was the image of calm. He lifted his rifle, fired, watched a Mexican fall. Handing off the rifle for reloading, he raised a fresh rifle, fired again, and again took a life. The young man doing the reloading reached for the spent weapon, but took a ball through the temple and died on the spot. David glanced down, shook his head regretfully, and reloaded the rifle himself.

  The Mexicans seemed to be everywhere now. Persius grabbed a fresh rifle, took a loaded pistol from the belt of a fallen companion, and waded into the thick of the fight. He fired off the rifle at point-blank range, sending a ball through the neck of a soldier who raced toward David with his bayonet ready. Another soldier came toward Persius himself, swinging a saber. Persius lifted the pistol and fired it into the man’s face. He fell with a grunt and died.

  But there were many more after him. They came at Persius with teeth gritted and bayonets aimed. Persius swung his rifle like a club and brought down one, then two of them. Turning, he ran to the side and missed being pierced. Now he fled wildly toward the barracks, as across the clearing other defenders did the same. This had been the plan all along, and the barracks had been strengthened for a final stand. But then Persius stopped and looked back. David was still fighting, swinging his rifle like a club, bringing down every soldier who charged him. They literally lay piled around him.

  Persius knew he could not go to the barracks. His place was beside David Crockett, fighting to the last with the man who had been more a friend to him than any other human being except for the young wife he had loved so dearly. With a triumphant shout, Persius darted toward David, blind to all the carnage around him, blind to bayonets, sabers, rifles, blind to death that could come in a dozen different ways. He did not expect to live now. All he asked was to be at David Crockett’s side when the end came.

  Then a form loomed before him. A big Mexican soldier, grinning and ugly, his saber uplifted. Persius screamed at him to get out of the way, damn his soul, so he could reach David, but then the saber swung down and Persius felt his face laid open from eye to neck. He jerked back, feeling hot blood stream down his chest. The saber swung again and Persius’s throat gave him a sting. He tried to shout again and found his voice was gone. Mild as the sting had felt, his groping fingers found a wet and gaping wound. Passing out, he fell in a heap.

  The next thing he was aware of was crawling, mindlessly crawling, moving with no more speed than a worm toward David, who even now still fought with his shattered rifle, still alive despite all odds against him. Something caught at Persius’s outer shirt—the tip of a musket bayonet sticking out from beneath the body of a fallen Mexican soldier. It had snagged Persius’s clothing. He pushed himself up long enough to rip away the outer shirt, exposing the cotton Mexican shirt beneath it. He fell and crawled some more. He was nearly to David now, and astounded that he had made it so far.

  Davy … He had forgotten he could not speak. He moved his mouth but no sound came out. Davy, I’m here now … I’ll stand by you, Davy.…

  Then a crushing mass fell atop him, heavy and deadweight and fleshy. His breath was cut off. He found himself staring into the bloody face of a dead Mexican soldier. He struggled to push the body off himself, but yet another fell atop the first, putting him at the bottom of a heap of dead men. Straining for air, he managed to turn his body just enough to make breathing possible. Davy, don’t bury me beneath your dead … I’m h
ere, Davy.…

  And then he passed out.

  When he was next aware of his own existence, Persius thought he was back in Fort Mims at the massacre. He was buried in bodies and slick with blood. He opened his eyes and looked out through a red stain. The face of the dead Mexican soldier still looked into his from inches away. It was already turning black.

  He remembered now that he was not at Fort Mims, but the Alamo. Listening for sounds of battle, he heard none. Just tramping feet, moans, voices talking in Spanish. The fight was over—and he was still alive.

  He pushed his way out from beneath the corpses, a process that took several minutes. He lost his trousers in the process, literally squeezed out of them, so when he came out from under the pile at last, he was wearing only the cotton Mexican clothing he had taken from Rosa’s cabinet. It was no longer white, but rusty with mud and drying blood. Exhaustion, loss of blood, and a burst of cool wind chilled him. He wrapped his arms around his torso, shivering, then reached down and removed a bloodied coat from a dead Mexican soldier at his feet. He threw it across his own shoulders. He didn’t have the wits about him at that moment to realize what a providential circumstance it was that he now looked just like the Mexicans all around him.

  There was activity some distance across the clearing. Stumbling around the heap of corpses, Persius blinked away more blood from his eyes. There was Santa Anna himself, standing haughtily in the midst of a circle of officers. Facing him were a handful of Alamo defenders—five, six of them. Persius couldn’t tell. One of them turned his head exposing his face.

  David! You lived, David! You made it through!

  He tried to move forward but his feet gave way beneath him and he fell on his face. Slowly he pushed his way up again. If David had been captured, he would be captured too. They would go through it all together, like they always had, and if they came out alive or wound up dead, they would do that together too.

  A Mexican in a general’s uniform was talking fervently to Santa Anna. Persius couldn’t understand the words, but he gathered the subject was the handful of prisoners.

  David, look at me! I’m here, Davy! Here!

  He was unable to shout, and it would have been foolish to do so even if he could. In the back of his mind he began to think how curious it was that he, one of the rebel defenders, was not being bothered. Suddenly he realized why. In the clothing he now wore, with his swarthy half-breed’s skin, he was mistaken for one of the Mexican soldiers! It was so ironic he might have laughed. He was moving freely in the midst of men he had been doing his best to kill only a little while ago, and they didn’t even notice him!

  David turned; his eyes locked on Persius. He looked shocked, and Persius wondered why. Then he realized that his clothing and laid-open face must have made him unrecognizable. David peered at him more closely, trying to see if maybe …

  Yes, Davy, it’s me, it’s Persius! I’ll help you, David, somehow or another I’ll get you away from here.…

  Santa Anna turned his back. Moments later a group of soldiers advanced upon the little band of prisoners. David was still looking toward Persius, who tried to scream, tried to warn him, but could produce no voice except the one that raged inside his head, vainly wanting to get out.

  Look out Davy—oh watch out, they have bayonets.…

  He sank to his knees, beginning to pass out again. The image before him swam and wavered—David, pierced again and again by bayonets, taking the assault without an outcry, claimed by his destiny, going to his glory-time like the bravest of soldiers.

  “Davy …” A whisper. It was all Persius could manage. He pitched forward, only dimly aware of the final gory image of David’s corpse being lifted on the points of several bayonets.

  Farewell, David Crockett. I’m glad I’ve knowed you, mighty glad I’ve knowed you.

  Then darkness came and Persius Tarr knew nothing else.

  He awakened with bandages on his face and neck, and a Mexican leaning into the window of vision his one uncovered eye provided. Words in Spanish chattered at him. He closed his eyes and slept.

  When he awakened again, he sat up. He was inside a big room, filled with wounded, moaning, and, in some cases, dying Mexican soldiers. My God, they still think I’m one of them. He rose, dizzy, and walked out.

  He was in San Antonio; he recognized the street. Like a walking dead man, he staggered out into the thoroughfare. Someone cursed at him and yanked a wagon to a halt to avoid running him over. Without even looking at the man, Persius went on by.

  He found Rosa’s cantina and climbed painfully up the stairs. The room was empty, standing just as he had left it, though it appeared that perhaps some soldiers, probably officers, had taken up quarters here during the siege, because the bed had been moved and the cabinet door closed. Persius fell into the bed, and did not rise again for days except to rid his body of its wastes. No one found him. He was not disturbed at all. His bandages became stinking and foul, so he pulled them away and tossed them into the cabinet, and disinfected his wounds with a half bottle of whiskey he found tucked behind a shelf. The pain of the alcohol on his wounds made him want to scream—which he couldn’t do—and so he drank the rest of the whiskey and slept when the sting finally died away.

  For a long time he was sick, aching, and every time he coughed, his saber wound stung and hurt. He sensed that his life was in his own hands; with an act of will, he was sure he could yield himself up to death. But he didn’t do it. There was one task yet before Persius Tarr was ready to leave the world behind.

  One more task, for Davy.

  Chapter 61

  Near the Crockett Cabin in Tennessee, Early June, 1836

  Despite the warm day, the dusk was cool enough to make Elizabeth Crockett throw a shawl across her shoulders before beginning her evening walk. These solitary outings had become her regular habit of late; the time alone was pleasant and gave her moments to contemplate, to cry on the bad days, to laugh at some happy memory on the good ones. Time to heal, or try to, from the wound of loss.

  Perhaps she was making progress, because tonight she hummed to herself. It was the first time she had felt any impulse toward music since that news from Texas had reached her. The tune was that of a peppy march written a year before, but she hummed it slow as a dirge to keep pace with her unhurried steps. Oddly, she had never much liked the melody before. It had been a favorite of David’s, however, for natural enough reason: The title was “Go Ahead; a March Dedicated to Colonel Crockett.” A New York music publisher had brought it outright about the time of David’s triumphant tour, when he was last running for reelection to Congress.

  The irony still stung her when she recalled how secretly happy she had been when he had lost that last race. She had believed it would keep him home with her; she hadn’t known he would go chase a dream to Texas. She hadn’t known that he would turn soldier and in the company of scores face down an army of thousands, and then … but no matter now. Yesterday was gone, and neither she nor her lost Davy could ever live it again.

  She stopped, catching her breath. The exertion of her walk had gotten to her. Since her Davy was gone, she felt older. Not nearly as vigorous and strong as before. She wondered if her children ever noticed.

  Digging into a pocket on the apron she wore, she pulled out a gold watch to check the time. Then she flipped it over and examined the engraving on the back: D. Crockett. David’s watch, the very one he had taken toward Texas. A Mr. Isaac Jones of Lost Prairie, Arkansas, had recently sent it to her along with a letter telling how David had passed through his home area on the Red River, and had traded the watch with him for a cheaper timepiece, plus thirty dollars. Remarkably kind, Elizabeth thought, that Jones had sent it back. Not many would have been so thoughtful. Such a memento of the famed Colonel Crockett would be of great monetary value, but Jones had unselfishly surrendered it.

  She slipped the watch back into her pocket and looked up. Approaching through the gathering dusk was a rider, slumped in the saddle and wearin
g a blanket across his shoulders. Strange, she thought. The evening hardly seemed cool enough to justify such a heavy covering. Stepping to the side of the road to allow him room to pass her, she examined him closely. His hat was pulled so low it almost covered his eyes. He coughed suddenly, a rattling, painful-sounding cough, and Elizabeth realized why he bundled himself so. He was ill.

  He pulled his horse to a stop near her. Lifting his face, he looked at her with weary, watery eyes, the eyes of one whose health is nearly gone. A long, fresh scar ran down his left cheek, into his beard, and across his throat.

  “Good evening, ma’am.” His voice was deep and very soft, so soft she had to strain to hear it, just as he seemingly strained to produce it.

  “Good evening, sir.”

  “Ma’am, I’m wondering if you might be acquainted with the wife of the late Colonel Crockett. I know her house is yonder, but there is no light in it and I fear she might be gone.”

  “I am Elizabeth Crockett.”

  He sat up a little straighter; his brows lifted over those weak-looking dark eyes. For a time he said nothing more at all. Then he reached up and removed his hat, and nodded respectfully at her. “I’m truly honored to meet you, Mrs. Crockett.”

  “Is there something I can do for you, Mister …”

  “No ma’am, except to accept a thing I’ve brung to you. It’s a small thing, but I believe you’ll want to have it.” He dug beneath the blanket and brought out something in his hand. He held it out to her. “Take it, ma’am. It should be yours from now on.”

  It was a small box, the size of a ring case, wrapped crudely but tightly in brown paper with twine all around it. She was puzzled.