Free The Black Jacks by Jason Manning Page B

holding out against a vastly superior Mexican army. The defenders of the Alamo had stood their ground and perished like the Spartans at Thermopylae. A charred ruin now, the mission was still, and always would be, a shrine for Texans, for in those thirteen days Sam Houston had gathered together a force sufficient to defeat Santa Anna a few weeks later and win independence for Texas.
    Yancey Torrance had preceded them to San Antonio, and there were rooms reserved for them at a hotel near the main aqueduct, just off Calle Dolorosa, the Street of Sorrow, and an arrow's flight from the Plaza de Armes, near which stood the old governor's palace and the Council House.
    Tension was running high in San Antonio, reported Yancey. Expecting the Comanches to bring in their white captives, dozens of people from all along the frontier who believed their loved ones had been carried off in a raid were flocking to town. They were full of hope as well as anger.
    "I talked to the town sheriff," said Yancey. "Asked him if he was taking on any extra help, just in case. He said he wasn't. No need, since there was going to be two companies of Rangers here to keep the peace."
    "The fool," said Tice, chewing on the tip of his corncob pipe. "Keeping the peace is not what Rangers do."
    McAllen spent nearly every daylight hour roaming the streets, with Joshua his constant shadow, imprinting the layout of the town on his mind, for he had visited San Antonio only once before, and then briefly, and was not familiar with it. He prowled from the Santo Campo Cemetery at the western end of town to the La Villita in the east, and all the way north to the Old Mill. The Ranger company commanded by Henry Karnes was already in place, and McAllen ran into Rangers at every turn. He was well known, and before long Colonel Karnes had tracked him down. In asking what had brought him to San Antonio, Karnes was cordial enough, and McAllen gave him a straight answer.
    "Sam Houston sent me."
    Karnes nodded. "Thanks for being honest with me. Captain Wingate sent word to keep an eye peeled for you and your crew."
    "I'm just here to help."
    Karnes had the look of a man who hadn't slept in a week. "I feel like a feller tied to a keg of black powder in the middle of a burning house, Captain," he admitted.
    "Any chance of me getting into the Council House?"
    "I doubt it. Morris and Wingate will be running the show for the president, and they just flat out don't like you. I'll see what I can do, but don't expect miracles."
    The next morning, news of the Comanche arrival spread like wildfire. McAllen saddled Escatawpa and rode north to see for himself. Overnight, a hundred tepees had sprung up a mile along the river from the Old Mill. Though he did not venture too near, the Comanches spotted him. But they did not ride out to challenge him.
    Returning to the hotel, he told the anxious Dr. Tice and Yancey what he had seen. "Just one band," he said. "Maybe three hundred, with the women and children included. I think they're Quohadis."
    "Way those first riders sounded, you'd have thought the whole Comanche nation was out yonder," said Yancey.
    "Well," Tice said with a sigh, "all I can say is, God help us all if this goes awry."
    That same afternoon, John Morris arrived from Austin with Captain Wingate's company of Texas Rangers. Another large group of Comanches had appeared by this time, but McAllen could not now go see for himself, as Karnes had thrown a cordon of Rangers across the north end of San Antonio. It wasn't the Comanches that worried the colonel; he was afraid some Texas hotspurs might try to ride out to the Indian encampment and start a scrape.
    The Comanches sent three runners into town to confer with John Morris. A mestizo who had himself been a captive of the Comanches for a dozen years and who was attached to Karnes's Ranger company, acted as interpreter. Morris learned that only the Tanawas and the Quohadis had arrived, but the Comanche envoys were confident that other