Eyes of Eagles (22 page)

“I know,” Jamie said. “Egg told me.”

“He
told
you?” another blurted.

“What did he say?” yet another man asked.

“Later, Ralph,” Stoddlemire said, dismounting. “Come on, Jamie. Let's get some hot food in you and some coffee. Then we'll ride back with you.” He looked over at Jamie, a twinkle in his eyes. “I was going to say that the next time you're in trouble, all you have to do is holler, and we'll come runnin'. But you're a regular one-man army.”

“Yes,” Bonham said. “You can bet that the story of this fight will spread all over the land.”

He was right. When Jim Bowie heard the story of how one man, Jamie Ian MacCallister, successfully fought more than fifty men, and killed more than half of them, he startled the diners in the elegant restaurant by shouting, “By God, boys. That's a man. I want to meet this young fellow.”

When the news reached Davy Crockett, way up in Tennessee, he whooped, “Thar's a man's man, boys. I hope I get to meet this grizzly bar someday.”

Bowie and Crockett would get their wish, in just about four years. During a cold winter in early 1836 at a crumbling old church built by Franciscan friars and named the Mission of San Antonio de Valero, where some one hundred and eighty-two men would withstand nearly two weeks of siege and ninety blood-drenched minutes on the final day... at The Alamo.

Twenty
-
three

Jamie put the fight behind him and concentrated on living. He told Sam and Sarah, Swede and Hannah, Moses and Liza, Wells and Sally, and of course, Kate, what had happened, once, and then he would speak no more of it. He learned that three of those taken to the doctor at Nacogdoches had died, one before reaching there, and that Hart Olmstead and sons were gone back to Louisiana, Waymore Newby with them.

Jamie put all that out of his mind and settled down to the chores of everyday living on a rapidly growing farm. Young as he was, Jamie had to sit down to stop the dizziness in his head when Liza and Hannah and Sarah and Sally came out onto the newly built porch one day with the news. Jamie was the father of triplets. Matthew, Megan, and Morgan.

“Boy,” Moses said, putting an arm around Jamie's shoulders. “This has got to stop!”

Jamie numbly nodded his head.

“What are you, twenty-one or twenty-two years old and already the father of
seven?”

“Seven,” Jamie said, his voice weak. “
Seven?
”

“Son,” Sam said. “When Kate allows you close to her again, which I hope won't be for a couple of years, and you feel amorous, go jump in the creek, will you?”

“Bayou,” Jamie automatically corrected.

“Whatever!” Sam said.

“Maybe separate bedrooms?” Wells mused aloud.

Jamie gave him a dirty look.

“Or a bundlin' board,” Moses suggested.

Jamie sighed and took the good-natured ribbing.

“Hell, he'd just climb over it,” Swede said.

“He won't for a long time,” Sarah said, joining the men. “These were hard birthings for her, Jamie. She'll be all right. But she's got to rest and rest plenty.”

“But she'll be all right?” Jamie asked, anxiety in the question.

“Yes. I'm as sure of that as I can be.”

“I had a dog once,” Swede said. “She gave birth to nine puppies. All of them lived. And her with only eight teats. You should have seen her moving those pups around from teat to teat. I guess Kate will have to...” He caught himself and fell silent, glancing up at Sarah. The look she gave him would have withered a cactus.

Swede covered his mouth with a big hand and blushed from his nose to his toes.

Jamie stood up. “Can I see Kate and the babies?”

“Oh, yes,” Sarah said. “But only for a brief time.” As Jamie walked toward the house, Sarah sat down beside her husband and he put an arm around her shoulders.

“Was it bad, love?” he asked.

“Very bad. I don't think she should have any more children. And Hannah and Liza agree.”

“What does Kate say?”

Sarah shook her head. “She says that's nonsense. She says she wants nine children, and nine children she will have. Sam, Jamie and Kate are not much more than children themselves! What are they going to do?”

Sam looked at all the little MacCallisters running around, in the front yard. They all looked alike: fair-skinned, blond hair, and blue eyes. “Kate is as hardheaded as Jamie. And in her own way, just as strong.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

Sam smiled. “Oh, they'll probably have nine kids.”

“You're not much help,” Sarah said dryly.

“What do you want me to do, sleep between them?”

After the laughter had faded and the conversation shifted to other, less important matters, Sam looked at Roscoe and Anne, playing with the other children in the yard. Although their mother had been half white — he'd been told the whole sordid story — the twins were as lily white as the MacCallister kids.

Heartbreak and grief plays yonder, Sam thought. In here, in this cocoon, they are isolated and protected from the cruel and cold outside world. But as they grow older, they are going to be slapped hard by reality. If they are truthful about their heritage, they will not be totally admitted into either world. I feel sorry for them.

The twins, now either eight or nine, no one knew for sure, not even Wells, were lovely children. Roscoe would surely turn into a handsome man, and Anne into a beautiful woman. But both twins had developed a sneaky and sly streak. They weren't always truthful and sometimes they “borrowed” things without telling the owner. When confronted about it, they both would become tearful and claim complete innocence.

Sam felt eyes on him and he looked up into the eyes of Moses. Moses arched one eyebrow, as if knowing what Sam had been thinking. Then he slowly and minutely nodded his head, as if silently confirming Sam's suspicions. Then Moses stood up and walked away.

Sam watched as Anne looked quickly around her to see if any of the other children were watching, and then picked up a ribbon that had fallen from the hair of Ellen Kathleen and slipped it into the side pocket of her dress. She went right back to playing hopscotch as if nothing had happened.

* * *

After dozens of meetings, over the next eighteen months, with some of the men from the village of San Augustine, Jamie elected to ride south, down to Smith's Trading Post. Both Smith and Fontaine had sent word that they wanted to see him. Almost two years before, Mexico's Centralist government, under the cruel and dictatorial Anastacio Bustamante, had moved to crush any rebellion the free-spirited Texans might be dreaming up. Bustamante passed a law that ordered the military occupation of Texas with convict soldiers, who were to remain on the land when their 'enlistment' was up, and the law also stopped any further immigration of Americans into Texas.

It was June 25, 1832, when Jamie stepped down from his horse in front of Smith's General Store, as it was now called. Jamie was twenty-two years old, and a man grown. He was almost six feet, four inches tall, and weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, with shoulders packed with muscle and arms so huge that it was a good thing Kate made his homespuns — when he elected to get out of buckskins — for no store-bought shirt would fit him. He walked through the store, and every eye turned to look at the tall young man with the long blond hair, tanned face, and cold blue eyes. He picked out a few things he would buy, for Kate and the children, and then adjourned to the bar for a drink. Jamie rarely tasted whiskey, but he did enjoy a drink now and then. He preferred wine — a glass or two before supper — and made gallons of it from wild berries every year, as did the others in the small community in the thicket.

Smith and Fontaine joined Jamie at the bar. “Revolution is in the air, Jamie,” Fontaine said, speaking in low tones. “Both here and down in Mexico. Santa Anna is preparing to oust Bustamante, and some think the man is less a monster than Bustamante, and will listen to our grievances. I'm not so sure. But we have problems closer to home. Have you ever heard of John Bradburn?”

Jamie shook his head and sipped his whiskey.

“Well, he's an American mercenary colonel in the Mexican Army. He took over the garrison in Anahuac, not far from here. Now he's about to abolish the town of Liberty and seize the American settlers' land. When he does, all hell is going to break loose.”

“What is he, a fool?” Jamie asked.

“Yes. And an arrogant one, at that. We are well known to him, but you are not. We would like for you to ride to Liberty and assess the situation. Will you do that?”

Jamie nodded his head. His crops were all in and looking good. He had just worked his fields and could take time off. “Yes. Tell me what you want me to do.”

“We'll talk about it over supper this evening, and come the morning, you can ride out fresh. Don't worry; I'm not being watched. I'm certain of that.”

But Fontaine and Smith had been a few days late in calling on Jamie to ride in and assess the situation. Before Jamie could even get started on his trip to Liberty, Fontaine received word that about a hundred and fifty Texas colonists were on the march toward Liberty to rescue the settlers that Colonel Bradburn had jailed. A battle ensued between Texas colonists and Mexican troops near the mouth of the Brazos River. Both sides took casualties but the colonists emerged the clear victors when the Mexicans threw away their weapons and ran for their lives.

“It's started,” Smith said. “There is no stopping us now, lad.”

“That depends on whether Wharton or Austin prevails at the self-government convention we've called for in October.” Fontaine's words dashed cold water on Smith's hopes.

Jamie fixed the man with a blank look.

“Austin is the cooler head,” Fontaine explained. “He prefers to take it one step at a time. President Jackson agrees with that. Wharton is somewhat of a hothead, albeit a good and loyal man. Wharton is demanding total independence from Mexico. It's too soon for that.” He patted Jamie on the shoulder. “Well, let us older heads continue to fight the war of words, lad. As for you, keep your powder dry.”

Jamie rode back to his cabin in the thicket. He was not a politician; he had absolutely no interest in great flowery speeches — either in making them or listening to them. He was a farmer. Nothing more. So he thought. Jamie got along well with the Mexicans who lived close by — ten miles away meant a close neighbor — and he had learned Spanish and spoke it well. But as far as he was concerned, Texas belonged to America, not Mexico, and so did most of the Mexicans who lived nearby. And if ever Mexican soldiers tried to seize his land, or put Jamie Ian MacCallister in jail, they'd have a fight on their hands.

Kate was delighted to see him return so quickly. “I thought you'd be gone for weeks,” she said.

“So did I.” He explained to her, and to the rest of his immediate neighbors, what he had been told by Smith and Fontaine.

“So this means war?” Sam asked, a worried look on his face.

Jamie shrugged. “Maybe. Fontaine and Smith seem to think that this Santa Anna person will be easier to get along with than Bustamante. I guess only time will tell about that.”

* * *

Jamie and his neighbors worked their fields and lived in peace for two years, gathering their crops and enjoying life. Kate had a child early in '34. A girl they named Joleen. Jamie and Sam and Swede occasionally rode into San Augustine for news — Moses and Wells never left the thicket — and sometimes Kate and Sarah and Hannah piled into wagons and accompanied the men into the village, just for a break in the routine and to talk to other people.

Back in October of 1832, a group of Texans held a convention in San Felipe on the Brazos. It was to be the first of many on the march for independence. The firebrand, William Wharton, delivered a stormy speech, demanding absolute independence from Mexico. He tried to get elected president of the convention, but Austin, a cooler head, defeated him. The delegates wrote a petition and approved its delivery to Mexico. The petition's main points demanded separation from the state of Coahuila and full Mexican statehood for Texas.

But the petition, for whatever reasons, never reached Mexico City, probably due to the bitter civil war raging in that country.

Those living in the thicket knew nothing of this, for the winters were bitter those years and most stayed close to hearth and home. They did not know until several months after it happened that in January of 1833, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna succeeded in driving Anastacio Bustamante from the office of president of Mexico. The Texans were excited at the news and immediately called for a new convention to be held in San Felipe in April of '33.

Neither did those in the Big Thicket country know that it was during this time of struggle that Sam Houston crossed the Red River and rode some one hundred and seventy-odd miles south to Nacogdoches, then the most populated and largest American town in Texas. Houston met with two old friends of earlier days, Adolphus Sterne and Henry Raguet, and they told him of the young warrior called Man Who Is Not Afraid, Jamie Ian MacCallister. Later, after Houston had left Nacogdoches and ridden down to San Felipe and rejoined an old drinking pal of his, Jim Bowie, Houston told Bowie of MacCallister.

Bowie, who had settled in Texas a few years earlier, after marrying Maria Ursula de Veramendi, the daughter of the most prominent family in Coahuila y Texas, nodded his head.

“I keep hearing the name. I want to meet this man. He is my kind of man, and we'll need men like him when we make our move for independence, and that is surely coming.”

Houston explained to Bowie his real reason for coming to Texas: to meet, at President Jackson's request, with the Comanches in an effort to bring peace between them and the white settlers.

It would turn out to be only a token gesture that would accomplish nothing. And when Mexico learned of the meeting, they drafted a formal letter of protest to Washington, stating they resented the interference from the American president. The president never received it.

After Houston met with several chiefs of the Comanches, he returned to San Felipe and spent a day, in private, with Stephen Austin. While the two men were not best of friends, neither were they enemies — they were just different. Austin was a quiet sort, much given to introspection, quite the diplomat, and very idealistic. Houston, on the other hand, was quite vocal, extremely aggressive, dashing and lively in dress, and somewhat of an adventurer.

But they both put any differences aside and placed their minds together to map out the future of Texas.

When Houston returned to Nacogdoches, he found that the citizens there had placed his name in nomination to be their delegate at the upcoming convention in April, in San Felipe. He accepted and helped draft the first constitution for the state, and the delegates asked Stephen Austin to take the petition and the new constitution to Mexico and meet with Santa Anna. Austin, although still a relatively young man of thirty-nine, was not in good health, but he agreed to go. That trip got him arrested in Mexico and cost him eight months in a Mexican calaboose. After three months in solitary confinement, he was moved to better quarters and could write letters, telling his friends and family where he was and pleading for the Texans to remain calm, and take no violent action. The Texans agreed to that. Austin would not return home for nearly two years; no longer under arrest after eight months, but not allowed to leave Mexico.