Eyes of Eagles

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.

Jim said, “Now go over there in the far corner and sit down, Sam. When the soldiers bust through that door, you have your hands in the air just as high as you can stretch. Don’t make any attempt to help me. I want your promise on that.”

“I done served you for years, Jim Bowie. I can’t make no promise like...”

“Sam!”

“All right, Mr. Jim. You gots my promise.”

“I mean it, Sam.”

“I knows you do. I’ll do what you say.”

The time was twenty minutes until five.

Davy Crockett tossed his blankets from him and rose, stretching the cold kinks out of his muscles. He picked up Ol’ Betsy and climbed stiffly up to the parapet, to stand staring out into the darkness.

“She’s a quiet one, Davy,” one of his men said. “Too damn quiet.”

“Ol’ Santy Anny’s a-comin’ this mornin’. That’s why she’s so quiet. As soon as his bands start tootin’ on the bugles and beatin’ the drums, they’ll be hell to pay, all right. Get the boys up and ready.”

Four forty-five.

Crockett left the platform and began rousing the men. “She’s due to come any minute now, boys. I feel it in my bones.”

“You feel it, too, Davy?” Travis called from his post.

“I damn shore do, Billy-Boy,” Davy replied with a grin, knowing how Travis hated to be called that.

But Travis only laughed this time. “We’ll make them pay in blood, Davy.”

“Damn right, Colonel!” Crockett’s strong voice boomed across the cold and windswept plaza.

Ten minutes to five.

Bowie lay on his cot, the blankets pulled up to his neck, but his hands were free. He thought fondly of his dead wife and children. “Just let me see them once more, Lord,” he whispered. “And then you can send me to Hell. Just once more.”

“You ain’t goin’ to hell, Jim Bowie,” Sam whispered. “Ever’body knows God loves His warriors.”

If Bowie heard him, he made no comment.

Almeron Dickerson kissed his wife on the lips, held her close for a moment, and then ran to his artillery battery.

“Return to me, Almeron!” she called.

“If it’s God’s will, Susanna!” he called over his shoulder.

It was not to be.

Five minutes to five.

Santa Anna rode his horse slowly through the silent streets to the house where he planned on observing the battle. He dismounted and entered the warmth of the building, accepting a cup of coffee from an aide. The coffee had not been sweetened. Santa Anna haughtily ordered the aide to sweeten his coffee and not to make that same mistake again.

Then, in an uncharacteristic burst of charity, he apologized to the young aide. Santa Anna stood by an open window, sipping coffee and humming his favorite tune: the Degüello.