The Red Ripper (28 page)

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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: The Red Ripper
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“TELL GUADIZ I WILL BE WAITING FOR HIM.”
It was the twentieth of April, and the man watching Santa Anna lead his army into Buffalo Bayou was no stranger to the land. William Wallace had prowled these marshes many times. He knew where the ground was firm and made a good campsite, where the land was treacherous and quicksand waited to consume the unwary.
Mad Jack Flambeau had no use for the place. He cursed the oppressive air, the snakes, and gnats and mosquitoes. He slapped the back of his neck and with a scarf wiped the blood of whatever had bitten him from the palm of his hand. His loose gray shirt was patched with moisture. But the checkered bandanna covering his smooth hairless skull kept the sweat from stinging his good eye.
“Why don't you just go down there and tell those lancers where we are?” Wallace muttered. He had healed slow and steady since riding into San Felipe, more dead than alive and bearing the last letter from the Alamo. His recovery had been nothing short of miraculous. But then, he'd been tended by a ministering angel, in the person of Senora Saldevar.
Throughout the long weeks following the deaths of so many friends and loved ones—Don Murillo, Bill Travis, Jim Bowie, and the rest of the gallant defenders—it
cheered the Texicans to see Big Foot Wallace up and about. If Santa Anna's whole army couldn't kill him, then there might yet be hope. The band of volunteers, under the command of Sam Houston, regrouped and prepared themselves for the final battle that would win them “victory or death.”
William swept his spyglass across the faces of the infantry. The soldiers looked more than a little weary from the rigors of the campaign. They were apprehensive, too. The infantry obviously preferred the dry hills of West Texas to splashing through hedges of spike moss that might conceal an alligator or sloshing across shallow pools of stagnant, snake-infested waters whose flat green surfaces were choked with mosquito fern, spangles, and lily pads.
Wallace had learned the value of patience. He ignored the mosquitoes and gnats that made life miserable for the Mexican troops. He was leaner now, his eyes harder, his flesh seared and scarred like his soul. War had marked him, marked them all. Maybe there would come a day for softness, if Santa Anna didn't kill them first. And it wasn't for the general's lack of trying. But each and every time
el presidente
tried to close with Houston's force, the Texicans would retreat deeper and deeper into the bayous. Who could blame Houston for “this runaway scrape”? Though Santa Anna had lost a third of his army during the assault on the Alamo, his troops still outnumbered Houston's force two to one.
“Oh hell, they can't hear nothing,” Mad Jack said. “And I don't need none of your sass,
mon ami.
Don't you forget who taught you everything you know, eh.”
Wallace tossed the old sea dog a twist of tobacco. “Chew on that instead of my ears,” he muttered.
The freebooter looked incensed. But a good plug of tobacco was worth the trouble. He shrugged and bit a chunk off the twist and tucked the rest in his pocket. He
decided to keep his opinions to himself. It was the younger man's loss.
“Look over yonder,” William said, pointing and passing the spyglass over to Mad Jack. “Can you see?”
“Of course. I told you my good light's cleared up. I can see fine now,” said the freebooter. He used the spyglass. “What am I looking at?”
“The cannons. Santa Anna's artillery,” Wallace replied.
Mad Jack surveyed the columns of men and horses laboring in the humid air. “But there aren't any.”
“That's what I mean!” Wallace quietly exclaimed. “The ground's too soft. Santa Anna has abandoned his cannons. Houston will want to hear that. Now maybe we can stand and fight for a change.” William noticed that several patrols of dragoons were ranging ahead of the column. Santa Anna wanted no surprises like the one he had experienced crossing the Rio Grande. The big man grinned. He could use this. Four lancers were riding directly toward the grove of cedars where William and Mad Jack had concealed themselves. The trail was narrow past these trees, bordered by marsh. The men would have to cut through right where he knelt and continue on beneath a stand of old-growth willows whose moss-draped branches provided just the concealment he required.
The two men crept back to their horses; Wallace returned the spyglass to a leather case hung from the saddle horn. He swung aboard a hammerhead roan, while Mad Jack favored an even-tempered mare with a sweet disposition.
“Head on back to camp. I'll catch up.”
“Roberto warned me about you.” Mad Jack scowled. “Santa Anna is beyond your reach.” He glared disapprovingly at the big man. But William Wallace was immune to his old friend's stare. He removed the cartridge
belt slung across his chest. He glanced over at the tree he intended to climb and then lost his shirt as well. There was no sense in tearing up his clothes. His bronze torso was leaner than usual, but long-limbed and still powerful. His dark brown woolen pants would blend in with the foliage. His belly was hard. A jagged line of scar tissue ran along his side, above the wide leather belt that held his knives and a brace of pistols.
“Santa Anna can wait. My concern is with another.”
Mad Jack shook his head. “I will not leave without you. Look what happened the last time I let you go off on your lonesome.” He indicated the furrowed flesh that ran along William's scalp line and formed a scar behind his right ear where the ridged flesh disappeared beneath his shaggy red mane. “No. Someone's got to stay around to sew you up.”
 
Four lancers rode two abreast along a faintly discernible deer trail that cut through the marshland. Cedar, live oak, sweet gum, and willow trees overshadowed the trail, forming a canopy of intersecting branches thick with vines and Spanish moss. Leafy ferns and the spongy soil underfoot served to muffle the sound and lent an eerie quality to the scene. With the advancing army screened from sight by the foliage, the men of the patrol felt quite alone. The dragoons rode on through the emerald gloom, sweating and uncomfortable in their green coats and tight breeches, their brass helmets like miniature ovens. They were anxious to be out of bayou country and East Texas. With every twist and turn in the trail the soldiers scoured the terrain, watching the overgrown path for alligators and water moccasins. The scouts never knew they were in danger until it was too late.
Wallace dropped from the branches of a moss-draped cottonwood and landed on the rump of one horse, knocked the rider senseless with the flat of Bonechucker's
blade, tossed the unconscious man aside where he rolled into a patch of spike moss. Wallace's left hand shot out, and he plunged Old Butch into the side of the lancer next to him on the path. The slender blade slid under the soldier's ribs. The man groaned and dropped his lance, slid from the saddle, and, clutching his side, started running down the path, back toward the safety of the main column.
A few yards up the trail, the other two lancers heard the commotion and turned their mounts in an attempt to face their attacker. Mad Jack waited until their backs were turned, then came riding at a gallop along the trail and, swinging his rifle like a club, dropped one of the two remaining soldiers with a well-timed hit.
Wallace spurred his stolen mount forward and leaped from the saddle as the remaining lancer grabbed for a saddle pistol and tried to fire off a warning shot. Wallace batted the firearm from the soldier's hand and dragged him from horseback and flung the man to the ground. Then Wallace lunged forward and landed on the man's chest, pinning his shoulders. The lancer was young and stared with eyes wide as he beheld his death in the form of a wild red-maned giant with a pair of knives made for bloodletting. But the killing blow never fell.
“Is Colonel Guadiz with you?”
“I will never give you the satisfaction of an answer.”
“Then I will give you the satisfaction of dying for your principles.” Wallace raised the short sword and prepared to plunge it into the soldier's throat.
“Wait!” The soldier winced and struggled in vain to free himself. “Colonel Guadiz leads us. He is a very brave man.”
“Give him this message,” Wallace said. He twirled the heavy weapon and then, at the last second, before it flew from his grasp, plunged it into the mud inches from the lancer's head. The young soldier gave a startled yelp,
closed his eyes, then realized he was still alive. The weight left his chest. By the time the lancer struggled to his feet Wallace was astride the roan.
“What message?”
“Tell him what you have seen. Tell Guadiz I will be waiting for him.”
“Who are you?” the lancer gasped.
“A ghost,” Wallace said, red hair streaming on the fetid breeze as he galloped into the heart of the bayou.
“YOU GO TO HELL!”
Night came to Buffalo Bayou, hung the sky with robes of royal purple clouds, tinged them with gold, then seeded their domain with deeper hues of burnished copper, cobalt, black. Night settled softly, velvet smooth, over the marshes and shrouded the trees. Fireflies danced and flirted with the dark. Out beyond the firelight, eyes like copper coins nudged above the surface of the water as gators drifted past, blank and cold and ruthlessly efficient.
Wallace, standing alongside Sam Houston at the earthenworks the Texicans had thrown together over the course of a couple of days, folded his hands together and rested his chin on his forearms. With the bayou on three sides, the Texicans were trapped.
“Well, Sam, I reckon we won't run away from this fight.”
The two men stood watching the Mexican troops bivouac for the night. The soldiers had begun filing in late in the afternoon, a slow-moving force guarded against an attack by the steady movement of the dragoons and lancers patrolling the perimeter.
“I suppose this looks familiar to you,” Houston remarked. He was a large man, but he had to look up to William, who towered over him by several inches.
“Too familiar,” Wallace replied. The similarities were
unsettling. With Austin on the coast, this was the last stand for the fledgling republic. The hour was at hand.
“Walk among the troops, let me know how they are feeling?”
“Hell, Sam, I can tell you right now. The boys are tired of running away, tired of being told they can't measure up to ‘regular' troops. They're madder 'n a June bug on a match.”
“Good,” Sam replied.
“And there sure as the devil is only one way out of this predicament and that's straight through Santa Anna.”
“Yep,” Houston chuckled. “We're trapped.”
William glanced aside at the general. “So are the women and children.” Almost a thousand men, many with their families, were encamped behind this line of makeshift earthworks and overturned freight wagons. It was hardly a sight to strike fear in the heart of Santa Anna or any of his troops. But perhaps that was to the good.
“A man will fight even harder when his family's in danger,” Houston said.
“General Houston, you're a hard man.”
“So I've been told.”
 
William Wallace was too restless to sleep. With the Mexican army besieging them, and the chance of dying soon, each moment was precious to him. So he walked throughout the encampment, and every few hundred feet or so he heard someone call out, “Big Foot Wallace!” as he passed, and children in homespun clothes would run up to him and take his hand and walk with him for a spell until he sent them back to their parents.
He passed the Zavalas' campsite and paused to pass a few minutes with Jesus and thank him once again for his help. Valentina embraced him and called him her
other son, which brought a grin to Roberto's face.
“Be careful, Will; now there will be someone else to help around the forge.”
“Gladly,” William grinned.
He continued his rounds, and while he walked he took a whetstone to the blade of his knife and honed the edge. The grind of the stone on steel made an ominous sound as he walked.
William gingerly approached Esperanza's campfire and found it tended by Dorotea. Don Murillo's sister had lost much of her “vinegar” nature.
“Will you have some coffee, Mr. Wallace?” she asked, tapping a pot near a stack of freshly baked tortillas. “Stay and eat.”
“I'm not hungry for much. But Mad Jack might be along later.” He glanced around the immediate vicinity.
“She's down by the bayou,” Dorotea told him.
“Thank you,” William said. He turned to leave, then looked around at the old woman. “Señora, your brother was a fine man. It was an honor to know him. I shall never forget his kindness and generosity … and his sacrifice.”
She nodded. “My brother was also a fine judge of character, a quality I was too vain to appreciate until now.” She sighed. “Murillo prided himself on recognizing the good in a man. He thought highly of you and valued your friendship. I hope you will allow me to do the same.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Wallace said with a bow. He left the circle of light and ambled down to the water's edge, where the moon cast its silver reflection upon the still waters, a floating silver disk upon a somber sea. Esperanza was there, her widow's mantle concealing her features. She turned as Wallace approached.
“If you'd rather be alone—”
“Stay,” she said. “No one would rather be alone. They
just are and make the best of it with self-deception and mirrors.”
Wallace stood alongside her, behind them a crescent of campfires, families bedding down for the evening, gathering their children, worrying about the future, quarreling, making up, speculating on what the morrow would bring. Memories of disaster and tragedy manifested in the mighty army confronting them. It was a chorus of life, of an age-old struggle for freedom. It was a fight he was born to from his forebears who had driven the English out of Scotland and battled them again in the New World when Thirteen Colonies defied the Crown and won their independence. And now it was his turn to carry the mantle. Cry, “liberty!” and a Wallace had to answer the call.
“He knew I loved you,” she said. Esperanza glanced down at the Bible in her hands. “And he forgave me.” She shook her head. “Poor silly man … noble fool. He deserved better than a servant girl who married him to escape her servitude.”
“No,” Wallace told her. “He deserved you, because you made him happy. Because loving you made him whole again.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “I was dying and you told me to live. You brought me back, healed me.” He reached down and stroked her long black hair, found a silken strand beneath the black lace veil, like gossamer to his touch. His movements were uncommonly tender for one of such size and power. “You are good and true and I have loved you from the moment I first saw you, in the governor's garden. Fate brought us together and placed another man between us.”
“He is still between us.”
“And it may always be so,” Wallace said. “But my life is richer for the love in my heart. And so was your husband's.” He lifted her hand and brought it to his lips,
tenderly kissed it, then lowered it to her side. And took his leave.
 
“Paloma! Paloma! Where are you?” Juan Diego bolted upright in his tent. He thrashed about as something glided toward him from the shadows. He recognized his sister by her touch, heard her soothing voice, her fingers massaging the pain from his temple.
“There … there,
mi hermano.
Be still. The men must not hear you.”
“Who is he? Why doesn't he die?” Juan Diego was covered with sweat, his nightshirt stuck to his chest.
The tent flap opened and Cayetano Obregon shoved his head inside. “You all right, Colonel?”
“Yes, he is fine!” Paloma snapped. “My brother is tired, like all the others. He needs to rest. A good day's rest. Leave us alone.”
The sergeant did not like taking orders from a woman, but he was not about to argue with this one. He disappeared, allowing the flap to drop into place.
“He was here, right here in the tent.”
“A dream,” said Paloma. “Nothing more. I warned you about the tequila.”
“Give me more.”
“Juan … no.”
He shoved her aside and felt around in the darkness until he found the bottle. He raised it, sloshed the contents.
“The answer isn't there,” Paloma said. “But across the meadow. He's waiting for you.”
Juan Diego cursed and tossed the bottle aside. He ran a hand though his hair. He was dripping with sweat. “Why doesn't he die? What kind of man is he?”
“The kind you must kill yourself,” Paloma replied, still on her knees.
“Yes,” Juan Diego replied. It made sense. No man
was his equal with the blade. Let the redhaired
norte americano
perish by the sword. Guadiz liked that. He sat back on his camp bed. Paloma resumed her ministrations; the throbbing in his skull began to ease. “What would I do without you?” He made a purring sound deep in his throat like a big cat. He leaned against Paloma's breast, felt the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. He closed his eyes while she drew the pain out of his body.
Paloma replied, “Without me, you would be—”
“Lost,” her brother finished. Before long he was asleep. Paloma gently eased him down onto his bed and then returned to her own side of the partitioned tent.
It galled her. She had the courage and the cleverness. But she lived in a man's world. And a woman, even one as resourceful as herself, could only hope to stand in the shadows. Juan Diego was a colonel, the dashing leader of his troops. And with her to guide him, her brother was certain to rise in Santa Anna's government. Why, there was even talk of a governorship after this campaign. She longed for a world where she might achieve power on her own, without having to rely on the whims of a man. But no such place existed for her. So she must rely on her brother and the influence she wielded.
She closed her eyes and soon drifted into sleep, a woman without worries, confident her star was in ascendance and never suspecting there could be a fall from grace.
 
“His troops must have scouted us. Santa Anna probably knows how many of us he's got to fight,” Mad Jack grumbled, nursing a cup of coffee Henneke had prepared for him. “Woman, you forgot the salt.” He shook his head in dismay. “How many times have I told you to add a pinch of salt? It cuts the bitterness.”
The woman ignored him and finished scraping the last
of the food into the fire. When she had cleaned the plates and stacked them away, Henneke yawned and made a show of being tired. She eventually became disgusted with the Frenchman's seeming indifference and retired to their tent near the fire. Lucky bestirred himself from the shadows and stretched out across the entrance. In Wallace's absence the hound had adopted the tavern keeper, knowing full well he could always count on Henneke for the best table scraps in town.
The freebooter shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. A storm was brewing. He glanced toward the Mexican encampment. Sacre bleu! What a storm. He looked across the fire at Wallace. The big man knelt near the coals and sat back on his heels while he honed the blades of his knives. Old Butch and Bonechucker had a job to do. The hour was at hand.
“It took Santa Anna most of the day to bring his troops up.”
“They'll rest tonight, sleep late tomorrow maybe,” Wallace said.
“I wish Austin were here,” Mad Jack stated. “But I reckon it's important he stays out of harm's way and sets up the provisions of government in case we all don't get killed mañana.”
“I wish a lot of people were here,” Wallace said, remembering Don Murillo, Chuy, Travis, Bowie, even Crockett, whom he had barely known. Good men, all, and heaven's worthy allies. He hoped there was some kind of Valhalla for heroes such as these.
Mad Jack circled the fire and squatted down alongside Wallace. He took the dirk and checked the blade. It was honed to a razor's edge. He ran the blade along his forearm and shaved it clean.
“You wear them well, lad.”
“Listen, you old pirate, perhaps when the fighting starts you ought to keep clear. No matter what you say,
I think your lights aren't what they used to be.”
Mad Jack reddened at the suggestion he should remain with the women. “You go to, hell!” he blurted out. The Frenchman rounded the fire and returned to his tent. He paused at the flap before ducking inside and looking back at the man he loved like a son, adding, “And I'll see
you
there.”

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