The Texian Prisoners

A fictional memoir that questions everything you thought you knew about Texas, New Mexico, and the boundary between them.

They called themselves Texians. In Fall 1841, a band of roughly 300 Texans straggled out of the Staked Plains into New Mexico. They had intended to claim everything east of the Rio Grande for Texas. Instead, they were captured and sent south to El Paso del Norte, then on to Mexico City. The largest group of prisoners, which included journalist George Wilkins Kendall, was escorted to El Paso by Captain Damasio Salazar. Five prisoners died on that trek. Kendall would later write a book describing the experience, a book which accused Salazar of food deprivation, mutilation, and murder, and fed the glowing coals that would become the Mexican-American War.

But what really happened on the way to El Paso? The Texian Prisoners tells the story through the eyes of Kendall’s friend George Van Ness, a lawyer burdened with the ability to see his enemy’s point of view, and asks us to consider the possibility that Kendall’s report was not unbiased.

A historically accurate retelling of Larry McMurtry’s Dead Man’s Walk, this fictional memoir will make you question everything you thought you knew about Texas, New Mexico, and the boundary between them.

Available in ebook and paperback at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers, including Bookshop.org.

PREFACE

They called themselves “Texians.” In Fall 1841, a ragged and malnourished band of roughly three hundred men straggled into New Mexico after a grueling crossing from Austin, most of it on foot. They had intended to assert the Texan Republic’s claim to everything east of the Rio Grande. Instead, they found themselves captured by New Mexican militia and sent south to Mexico City.

The first leg of this journey took the Texians from eastern New Mexico to El Paso del Norte, today’s Ciudad Juárez. The largest group, which included New Orleans journalist George Wilkins Kendall, was escorted by militia Captain Damasio Salazar. Five prisoners died on the way.

Kendall was released from Mexican prison in April 1842 and back in New Orleans the following month. He immediately began writing a book that accused Salazar of food deprivation, mutilation, and murder, and expressed contempt for Mexicans in general and the Mexican Army in particular, calling them weak and poorly armed. The resulting Narrative of an Expedition Across the Great Southwestern Prairies, from Texas to Santa Fe was a best seller in the U.S. and did much to rally support for the 1846-47 aggression now known as the Mexican-American War.

The Texian Prisoners is a carefully researched biographical fictional account of the twenty-day journey Salazar and his prisoners made from eastern New Mexico to El Paso del Norte. It explores both what did and what is likely to have occurred as they traveled through New Mexico’s pueblos and settlements, then across the barren plains known regionally as El Jornada del Muerto, or The Journey of Death.

CHAPTER 1
Saturday, October 16, 1841
San Miguel del Bado, New Mexico

The guard outside the open-air window stirred sleepily as Fitzgerald, Kendall, and I peered through its carved wooden bars. Above San Miguel del Bado’s flat adobe roofs, the sky was just beginning to brighten toward sunrise. At the lower end of the plaza, General McLeod moved wearily to a cluster of horses. A Mexican soldier gave him a leg up. A handful of other Texian officers appeared and were assisted onto their mounts. Then the soldiers closed in. Bridles jingled as they moved up the plaza and past our cell. No one acknowledged us.

“Damnation!” Kendall muttered. “Without McLeod, the Texian Expedition is leaderless.”I nodded absently. The General and his guard angled away from us toward the square bell towers of the village church and the road beyond. The one that connected to the route south to Mexico City and retribution. The silver on their high-pommeled saddles was a dull gray. No one looked back.

I straightened and turned to our unpainted adobe walls and little corner fireplace. “To think we came all this way only to be captured and imprisoned. Texians defeated by Mexicans, and without a shot being fired.”

“It is difficult to grasp,” Fitzgerald said as he leaned forward to study the plaza. “That being said, I’m not sure how to define ‘Texian.’ Many of our company were American. And as an Englishman born in Ireland and educated in France, I don’t feel I truly have a country to call my own.”

“A Texian is anyone who has declared himself to be one,” Kendall said. “A statement which I personally have not made.” He pushed away from the window, slapped the wall and limped toward the fireplace, hands on his hips. “I’m an American tourist! I informed that damnable Damasio Salazar of my status when he captured us. And Governor Armijo as well, when he condescended to favor us with his presence!”

He wheeled toward me. “And Van Ness, you vouched for my statements! They know it’s true!” He waved his hands in the air, repeating what he’d been saying for the last month. “Yet here I am. Incarcerated!”

“I did vouch for you,” I said. “However, the fact remains that you accompanied an Expedition to claim the lands east of the Río Grande for Texas.”

“Spoken like a lawyer,” he sniffed.

Fitzgerald grinned at me, then gave Kendall a grave look. “Our visitors yesterday did say you were to be released.”

Kendall nodded reluctantly and ran his fingers through his wavy shoulder-length brown hair. “True, my friend. Very true.” Then his face changed. “I pray to God it is so. That I will never again hear these damned Mexican guards calling ‘¡Centinela, alerta!’ every thirty minutes throughout the night!”

Fitzgerald laughed and Kendall’s expression soured again. “‘Alert, sentinel’ indeed. As if they could have stopped us from escaping if we’d known where McLeod and the others were.” His chin went up. “As co-owner and editor of the New Orleans Picayune, I intend to begin agitating for the General’s safe return immediately upon my return home.”

Fitzgerald’s hazel eyes glinted with amusement. “Ours as well, I hope.”

“Certainly.” The newsman flexed his fingers. “It will be a relief to write again, to smell the ink-wet sheets, to see my thoughts in print.” He shook his head. “It’s mid-October already. When I left New Orleans in May, I thought I’d be in Mexico City by now. I haven’t even seen Santa Fe yet!”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do you still plan to visit it?”

He shrugged. “If Governor Armijo extends me the courtesy to which I’m entitled, I expect that I shall. We’re late in the season for a return East via the Santa Fe Trail. All the American merchants who plan to do so will surely be well on their way by now.” He pushed his hair away from his face. “I certainly don’t plan to return the way we came.”

Fitzgerald chuckled at this, but Kendall ignored him. “It would undoubtedly be best to continue west and then south, at least to Chihuahua. From there, I can head for the Mexican coast and ship home to New Orleans.” As if the thought of the upcoming journey reminded him of the time, he tugged at the gold chain draped across his chest, pulled out the gold-cased watch attached to it, and began carefully winding it.

I moved back to the window and bent down to look out. The square was waking into activity. Personally, if I were released I would find my back to San Antonio as quickly as possible. Back to where I had some right to be.

We’d called ourselves the Santa Fe Pioneers when we’d left Austin in June, three hundred strong. We’d had such high hopes and expectations—the glory of creating a new route to Santa Fe, the riches that would come as a result. However, the journey had disintegrated into a series of misadventures, hunger, and thirst. Then, in the eastern reaches of New Mexico, our real troubles began.

We three, sent ahead to find supplies, had been quickly captured and locked up in an adobe-walled room on San Miguel’s plaza. We’d spent almost a month in suspense before the remaining Expedition members had been rounded up. A good third, including our leader Hugh McLeod, were now on their way to Mexico City and the tender mercies of President Santa Anna, a man known for his hatred of rebel Texians. The 340 men captured at Goliad in 1836 had experienced the penultimate effect of that hatred. He’d had all of them executed.

It was possible that we would face a similar fate. The remaining Santa Fe Expeditionaries had arrived in San Miguel four days ago and been shut up on the other side of the plaza in the big building with the tall walls and narrow gate. None of the villagers or guards seemed to know what was going to happen next, although Kendall had been assured by our higher-ranking visitors that he’d be released.

Perhaps Governor Armijo was taking the newsman’s status as a tourist seriously. But then, given the Picayune’s support of Texian independence, Armijo might feel a little antagonistic toward Kendall, and not inclined to treat him gently. There was also the matter of the news piece last January that described the governor’s wife as shaped like a tobacco hogshead and waltzing like an elephant dancing.

I shook my head, pushed away from the window, and went to investigate the various earthenware pots of food the village women had brought us. Kendall was now sitting on his bedroll. He’d laid his money out on the floor and was calculating how much it might cost him to continue south.

“I’ll need to find a mount, of course,” he said. He glanced at his right foot. “Walking any distance would be nigh unto impossible. My ankle hasn’t been the same since I took that fall outside Austin just before we left.”

Fitzgerald turned from the window, ran his hands through his shoulder-length black hair, and grinned at the newsman. “I never have understood how you managed that.”

“It was dark and I was in a hurry.”

“That’s clear enough. I have some experience myself of the way a bank edge can appear at one’s feet on moonless nights. What I don’t understand is how you managed to fall hard enough to break your ankle. Most people would merely slide to a stop. You seem to have gone end over end.”

“The slope was rather precipitous.” Kendall flexed his foot. “It’s healed quite well since then, but it still twinges. I wouldn’t want to have to walk a full day’s journey on it.” He began placing his coins into neat stacks. “I wonder where my horse is. Salazar undoubtedly passed him on to one of Governor Armijo’s relatives. Even if I can locate him, I’ll almost certainly be compelled to buy him back.” His mouth twisted. “Not that I should be required to do so, since the animal was stolen from me, along with my papers.”

“You’d be better off with a mule,” I said, heading off another diatribe about his missing papers and passport. “An animal like your Molly would do nicely.”

Kendall shook his head. “She’s big and sturdy, but she’s a pack mule. That sideways gait of hers would make sitting astride her back mighty uncomfortable.” He shrugged. “That being said, I have no idea where she is. I’ll undoubtedly find it necessary to purchase a mount, while doing my best not to get cheated too outrageously.” He turned back to contemplating his resources.

He was at it again when I woke the next morning and lifted my straw-colored head. He’d stowed the coins and placed his bedroll, walking stick, water gourd, and tin cup in a neat pile against the wall, and was now contemplating his various pieces of jewelry, including the ornate silver breastpin he was particularly fond of. He moved the pieces here and there thoughtfully, then fastened the pin inside his waistband, separated the watch and chain, and distributed them and the other items into his deepest pockets.

When he noticed me watching, he gave a little shrug. “I won’t be wearing any of these until I get home. There’s simply too much risk.” He tapped the pocket that held his watch. “This timepiece was the first item of jewelry I purchased when I began to earn a professional income. I managed to hide it from Salazar when he captured us and I’m damned if I’m going to let some other Mexican purloin it from me.”

Before I could point out that the captain had confiscated only our paperwork, Kendall touched his bare throat. “There’s no point in keeping the breastpin out, anyway, since my cravats are all scattered between here and Austin.”

His eyes went to my upper chest. My one remaining cravat, badly wrinkled but relatively clean, was knotted securely around my long throat, protecting it against the morning chill. “You look very much the lawyer,” he said lightly.

I grinned and pushed my blanket aside. “One who sleeps in his clothes.”

Kendall chuckled and turned to the fireplace, where Fitzgerald was carefully warming the tortillas and beans the village shoemaker’s wife had brought us the day before.

The newsman patted his pockets, as if making sure everything was secure, then grabbed his tin cup, crouched down beside the mica-flecked bean pot, and lifted the lid. “More hot chiles,” he grumbled. “I’ll certainly be glad to see the last of those.” He shook his head as he ladled food into his cup, then reached for a tortilla.

There was a knock at the door and the guard entered. Kendall tossed his tortilla to one side and jumped to his feet. “Give me just one moment and I’ll be ready to go,” he said, moving toward his gear.

The guard turned to me. “Todos ustedes,” he said. He waved a hand, indicating we were to bring our belongings with us.

Kendall put his hands on his hips and gave me a questioning look. “All of us,” I translated.

Kendall blinked, then clapped his hands. “That’s undoubtedly as it should be! Yes, let us be freed together!”

The guard raised an eyebrow at him, then turned studiously away to wait on the threshold while we gathered our things. As we filed past and outside, I gave him a quizzical look, but his gaze was fixed firmly on a knot in the wooden door frame.

We paused on the covered porch, breathing in fresh air and the smoke of morning fires. Although the sun was well hidden behind our building, the village leader’s low-slung house on the other side of the plaza was well lit. The guard moved toward it. We followed hopefully.

“I suppose the old man has something to say to us before we depart,” Kendall murmured. “Is it too much to hope that he’ll apologize for his testy attitude while we’ve been in residence?”

But then our guard veered left, toward the building beside the alcalde’s house where our compatriots were incarcerated. Two men, one tall, one short, stood in front of its battered gate, lances held across their bodies.

“No guns, as usual,” Kendall muttered. The rest of us ignored him. Our guard halted ten feet from the gate and we lined up beside him. The men with the lances looked us over, then the shorter one turned his head and barked a single word at the gate.

For a long moment, nothing happened. I glanced around the plaza. A small boy with his arms full of firewood stood near the well, studying us. When he saw me looking, he ducked his head, turned, and scampered out of sight.

The gate hinges squealed. Board scraped across dirt. The men with the lances stepped aside and our fellow Expeditionaries streamed into the sunlight. They also had their gear hung about them and blanket rolls over their shoulders.

Kendall turned toward me. “Surely we aren’t all going to be freed.”

I didn’t have time to respond. The newcomers surrounded us. Men I barely knew greeted me joyfully, pushing straggling hair away from deeply tanned bearded faces, and grabbing my hands with delight in their tired eyes.

“Van Ness!” a British voice said from behind me. “And Kendall and Fitzgerald too! How are you?”
“Falconer!” Kendall exclaimed. “How scrawny you are!”

The rangy, sandy-haired British lawyer turned to me. “Van Ness! My fellow lawyer!” He grinned at Kendall. “I’m not as thin as he is, and our guards told us you’ve been here a whole month!”
Kendall laughed. “Van Ness is always thin!”

I opened my mouth to protest but was interrupted by another voice, this one a good fifteen years younger than Falconer’s. “Herr Van Ness!”

I turned to find nineteen-year-old Cayton Erhard. He was small for his age and his pale blond hair stuck out at odd angles, giving his thin face a waifish look and somehow emphasizing his orphan state. “Erhard!” I said.

As we shook hands, Felix Ernest appeared. He was a short, narrow-chested man with a patient air about him. “Good mornin’,” he said in his soft Tennessee accent. “Certainly is good t’see all ya’ll’s friendly faces.”

“And yours!” I looked from him to the boy. “How are you both? How do you fare?”

Ernest shrugged and showed me the back of his hands. They were covered with weeping sores. “Well enough.”

Cayton’s mouth drooped. “Bread only to eat.”

Ernest’s eyes twinkled. “The Mexicans give us mutton meat twice after we surrendered, and a deal of soup, but it’s mostly been bread since.” He grinned at Erhard, then me. “The young uns is always the hungriest.”

Cayton’s hand went to his stomach. “Hungrig most times,” he said gloomily.

Falconer reappeared at my side. “The guards told us General McLeod was sent south yesterday.” He combed his fingers through his hair and beard, the way he tended to do when he was agitated. “Are we to follow? Do you know?”

“I—”

“Not all of us,” Kendall said. “I am a tourist with an American passport, I am to be freed.”

Falconer’s face fell for an instant, then he said heartily, “Let me congratulate you!”

“I’ll do my best to get word to your families, of course,” the newsman told him. “And agitate for your release.”

The British lawyer nodded. “Yes, I expect that will be useful.”

“Are there any injured among you?” I asked.

“Amos Golpin and Edward Griffith. Governor Armijo allowed the jersey sick wagon to remain with us, so they haven’t been forced to walk.”

“I’m pleased to hear it. In what way were they hurt?”

“Kiowa,” Anton Erhard said, coming up just then. Cayton’s younger but sturdier cousin, he also had thin fair hair, but a wider face. There were open sores on the back of his hands, too, but he hid them when he saw me looking.

Falconer nodded, confirming his words. “The Indians harassed us a good deal. They shot Griffith in the right thigh.”

I winced. “What about Golpin? I know his withered right hand was giving him difficulty within a day of our leaving Austin. Was he further injured?”

Falconer shook his head. “No, but he has been severely worn down by our experiences. We’ve had a truly frightful time of it.” He glanced at the German boys, eyes flicking to Anton’s hands. “As can be seen by how thin these young men have become.”

Kendall laughed. “Yes, they’re even thinner than you!”

“Or me,” a reedy voice said from behind him. Thomas Gates, a small, thin-chested man with a narrow nose, smiled at us benignly and extended his hand.

As I shook it, a voice at the edge of the crowd shouted “¡Poneos en fila!”

The others looked at me.

“Line up,” I translated.

We began forming into straggling rows that faced the gate, but each new rearrangement brought someone else I hadn’t spoken to in many weeks, and stopped my movement forward. There was Hornsby in his blue lieutenant’s coat, its brass buttons as shiny as ever, a neatly rolled red blanket slung over a broad shoulder. And black-haired John McAllister, thirty years old, as tall as I was, and still favoring his left ankle, weakened in a childhood accident.

And then our two invalids, the narrow-shouldered Griffith, and Golpin, the Mississippian who wasn’t much taller than Cayton Erhard. He gripped my forearm with his good hand and looked into my face. “We done thought you all was dead,” he said. “It sure is a relief to find our conclusions untrue.”

I grinned. “It’s a relief to us as well.”

“¡Poneos en línea!” the voice bellowed again.

Golpin chuckled. “He sounds a mite aggravated.”

We began to form up in earnest now, but then another group of Texians entered the plaza. “Curtis!”

Anton Erhard yelped as Golpin exclaimed “Old Paint!”

“Is it true?” Kendall asked from behind me. I craned my head over the crowd and then nodded. The newcomers did include thirteen-year-old Curtis Caldwell, the youngest member of our Expedition, and his father Matthew, the grizzled Indian fighter otherwise known as “Old Paint”.

Kendall shoved past me, eager to greet them, and we all followed. As we crowded around the newcomers, we also found other Expeditionaries we hadn’t spoken to yet. The voices of the Erhard boys and Curtis were high with excitement even as they tried to maintain a more manly demeanor.

Things were just starting to settle again when more Texians arrived. These were accompanied by the man they’d been billeted with. A pretty, brown-haired young woman rode pillion behind him. As the prisoners moved to join us, the girl slipped off and ran after them, wrapping her arms around the waist of the tallest and blondest of the men.

The Texian’s face reddened, but he gave her a tender kiss and turned her gently toward the man on the horse. “Go to your brother, querida.”

She shook her head, dark curly hair wild, but when he kissed her again, she went quietly enough, cheeks wet with tears. Her brother reached down to swing her up behind him, then sat studying the crowd. I caught his eye and he nodded somberly.

A hush fell, quiet enough to hear the girl’s weeping and Kendall saying, “I am a tourist! I am to be freed!”

Then the door to the alcalde’s house opened. Governor Armijo appeared, followed by his host and a small group of officers. Silence fell.

Armijo was a tall man, taller than me, and he towered over those around him. He paused on the porch to tuck his hand into his jacket, Napoleon style. He was in full uniform, with shining brass buttons and epaulettes that made his shoulders seem even broader than they were. The white feather on his bicorne hat brushed the underside of the porch roof. As he looked us over, a smile flicked his lips. Then his gaze reached Kendall, in the center of the front line, and his handsome face turned to stone.

The people of the village had come out of their houses while we Texians greeted each other. They stood on the porches that circled the plaza, watching silently. Armijo turned slowly, taking them in, then returned to us Texians. And Kendall.

The man could be an irritating bastard, but he was still one of us. I edged forward, thinking he might need my help with the language. Falconer stood next to him, with Fitzgerald just beyond. They moved aside as I reached them and Fitzgerald gave me a grateful look. We both knew his Spanish was too thin for any extensive interchange between Kendall and the governor.

But Armijo’s gaze had moved on. He motioned to a man who’d been leaning against a post at the end of the porch and fingering the thick-handled Spanish pistol at his waist.

“Sargento!” the governor snapped. This was apparently a prearranged signal, because the man straightened, snapped off a salute, then began moving between the rows of prisoners, counting loudly as he came to each of us.

When he finished, he returned to the porch and saluted again. “¡Ciento ochenta y siete prisioneros rebeldes!” he reported.

Kendall looked at me.

“One hundred eighty-seven rebel prisoners,” I translated.

He frowned. “But he counted me as well. I am an American tourist and am to be released.”

I put on my blankest lawyerly face, the one I used for clients when the judge had ruled against us. “That’s what he said.”

Kendall frowned and looked toward the house. “There must be a mistake.”

I followed his gaze. Armijo was staring straight at him with a small, triumphant smile.

“So it was all lies, after all. I am not to be a tourist, but a prisoner.” Kendall’s face hardened. “He will pay for this. The entire world will know of his perfidy.”

Falconer glanced at him. “Had he told you that you would be freed?”

“He didn’t condescend to inform me himself, but others did, and on more than one occasion,” Kendall said without turning. “Men who are said to be close to him. He undoubtedly bade them to tell me lies.” His eyes narrowed as his fists went to his hips. “He will pay.”

On the porch, the governor’s smile deepened. Then he turned, eyes roving the plaza. He frowned impatiently and said something to the sergeant who’d counted us. The man nodded and hurried out of the square.

A few minutes later, he returned, still on foot, with Damasio Salazar, in a blue cloak and a hand on his sword hilt, riding close behind. An older man with a thin, irritable face trailed after them on a small black mule.

The captain’s mount was a tall block-headed chestnut mule whose muzzle jerked to one side as she walked. Kendall’s breath hissed between his teeth when he saw her.

Falconer gave him a quizzical look. “Do you know them?”

“I know both the men and the mount,” the newsman said bitterly. “The men are the bastards who captured Van Ness, Fitzgerald, and me. The one with the sword is Captain Damasio Salazar and he’s riding my molly mule, damn him. The other man is called Don Jesús.”

Falconer’s eyebrows went up at the name, but there was no time for further discussion. The two riders had reached the porch.

The governor acknowledged them with a nod, tucked his right hand further into his jacket and turned to us prisoners again. His head turned from side to side as he studied us with an expression that was equal parts contempt, triumph, and relief.

Finally, he took a step forward and flourished his free hand toward Salazar, as if introducing him to us. “Señores, este hombre los acompañará hasta El Paso.”

Kendall and Falconer glanced sideways at me. “Gentlemen, this man will escort you as far as El Paso,” I translated softly.

“That bastard?” Kendall growled.

The governor gestured toward Don Jesús. “Y también alférez Jesús Lucero.”

“And also Ensign Jesús Lucero,” I added.

Falconer’s brows contracted. “Yaysus?” he muttered. “Truly? As in Jesus?”

Kendall chuckled. “Truly. Although one look at his dark-visaged face makes it quite clear that he is indisputably un-Christlike.”

But Armijo had started talking again, explaining at length and with a satisfied smirk that from El Paso we would be taken to Mexico City, capitol of the great republic of the United Mexican States. There, His Excellency President Santa Anna de López would determine what was to be done with us.

There was a hiss, not from us but from the villagers. A movement on the far side of the plaza caught my eye. It was the thick-shouldered man who’d acted as our purchasing agent in San Miguel. His arms were crossed over his broad chest and his dark eyes held an anxious expression.

Kendall saw him too. “Even Bustamante looks anxious for us, and not only for the loss of our money.” Then he seemed to realize the implications of what he’d said. His shoulders drooped. “Anxious for all of us.”

On the porch, Governor Armijo took another step forward and spoke to Captain Salazar. Something about a translator.

Irritation flashed across the other man’s face and was quickly replaced by a courteous blandness. “Si, señor.”

Armijo gave him an irritated look, then turned to the alcalde. He said something in a low voice. The village leader pointed begrudgingly in my direction. Armijo nodded, looked at Salazar, and indicated me with a jerk of the chin.

Again the captain said, “Si, señor,” but it was clear that he didn’t think a translator would be necessary.

Armijo’s face tightened, then he shrugged, made a dismissive gesture, and turned back to the alcalde.

Captain Salazar’s chin jerked, then he turned Kendall’s mule and began riding slowly past our front ranks, looking us over with a sour expression. When he’d surveyed us all, he trotted the big mule back to the porch and wheeled to face us.

Armijo had fallen silent and he and his companions were watching. Captain Armijo’s shoulders snapped back and his chin surged forward, transforming his face into a mask of fierce determination. “¡Prisioneros!” he proclaimed. “¡El invierno está cerca! ¡Debemos marchar rápidamente!”

I muttered a translation out of the side of my mouth. “Prisoners, winter is at hand! We must march rapidly!”

Kendall sniffed. “The weather has been clear and dry for the last month. I’m from Vermont. Now those are winters.”

Salazar had turned to Armijo, who nodded. The captain swung back to us. “¡Cualquiera que se demore será fusilado!”

I stiffened. Kendall glanced at me. “Any who delay will be shot,” I said reluctantly.

But Salazar was continuing. “¡Si alguno intenta escapar, morirá!”

I frowned. But then, we were prisoners. It was probably not an unreasonable statement. “If any try to escape, they will die,” I added.

Kendall huffed in irritation. Armijo’s eyes swept toward him, his left hand tapping against his leg. Then the governor stepped forward and said something to Salazar that I couldn’t catch.

The captain’s head jerked toward the porch. He gave the governor a long look, then nodded and turned back to us. “Si mueres, te cortarán las orejas para demostrar que es así,” he said flatly.

I blinked. Surely I hadn’t heard that correctly. But Kendall was jogging my elbow. I glanced at him, then slowly translated. “If you die, your ears will be cut off to prove it is so.”

Kendall’s breath hissed between his teeth.

Falconer and Fitzgerald looked at each other. “That’s certainly the most hyperbolic statement I’ve ever heard,” the lawyer said.

I looked toward the porch. Armijo was deep in conversation with the alcalde. Captain Salazar’s mule moved impatiently, but her rider’s face was impassive.

“I believe the captain’s statement is an exaggeration designed to capture our attention,” I told my companions.

Kendall shook his head. “He undoubtedly means every word.” He jerked his chin toward Armijo. “After all, the order came from the devil himself.”

This seemed a little extreme, even for Kendall, but before I could formulate a response, the air was filled with the sound of bawling oxen. We all turned toward the plaza’s southern entrance.

The animals were making a great deal of noise for such a small herd. Widespread horns tossed in the sunlight as they trotted into the square, a handful of Mexican men on horseback riding alongside.

“This is all that remains of our three hundred draft animals,” Falconer said quietly. “These eighteen.”The little herd moved closer. A cluster of loose mules followed them, then three wagons. Two were schooner types drawn by oxen, while the third was the high-wheeled mule-drawn one we’d used since Texas to convey the sick. Its white canvas cover was tattered and streaked with dirt.

“My old companion,” Kendall muttered. “How many weeks did I lay within it while my ankle healed?” He shook his head. “I’m surprised that it’s still functional.”

Fitzgerald turned to Amos Golpin, who was just behind him and to his right. “Shouldn’t you be riding in that?”

Golpin shook his head. “These last few days of no marchin’ have rested me right up. I’ll be walkin’ alongside the rest o’ you, long as I can. It’s my hand that’s ruined, not my feet.”

“Good man!” Falconer said heartily.

Kendall flexed his ankle as he stared at the cart. “I wonder how long it will be before I’m forced to ride in it.”

Golpin glanced at him. “You’ll hafta ask the Cap’n for the privilege.”

“The captain?”

“Salazar, yes. Anyone wantin’ to ride has t’ ask his permission.”

Kendall sniffed in disgust. I was about to point out that this had been the case under McLeod, when more Mexican men rode into the square. They stopped abruptly, blocking the way south. What I could see of the road beyond was crowded with them. “Militia,” Kendall muttered.

I nodded. The newcomers positively bristled with bows, arrows, lances, and muzzle loaders. They sat looking us over until Don Jesús stood in his saddle and bellowed a command that overrode the bawling cattle and milling mules. The men in charge of the animals opened a corridor through the herd, and the newcomers spurred across to us and snapped into formation at our sides and back, three and four men deep.

Fitzgerald looked at them uneasily. “There must be a hundred fifty of them.”

“Armed with muzzle loaders,” Kendall jeered under his breath. “They’re truly not much of a match for Texians.”

The rest of us ignored him and watched Don Jesús, who stood in his stirrups, glaring at his men. Finally, he dropped back into the saddle and snapped a salute to Salazar, who turned and saluted the governor. Armijo nodded, wheeled, and disappeared inside, the alcalde and others trailing behind.

The captain gazed at the house for a long moment, then his face changed, hardening, and his shoulders straightened. He wheeled his mount. “¡Vámonos!” he shouted.

“Let’s go,’” I translated.

Falconer grinned. “Yes, we’ve already become well acquainted with the term.”

As we shared a companionable chuckle, a young man on a small brown mule trotted up and positioned himself beside the captain. He lifted a shiny but battered trumpet and blasted a series of notes. The guards moved forward, us with them.

We wheeled right and moved around the church, then stopped abruptly. The long lines we’d been standing in needed to break into smaller rows of three or four men each if we were to fit onto the westward road.

Our formation broke down completely while we waited for the men ahead to sort themselves out. The villagers who’d been watching from the plaza’s edges took the opportunity to slip into our ranks, the women pressing food into our hands, the men speaking politely into Texian ears.

The man who’d provided us with meat and firewood while we were incarcerated came up to me. “¡Tomás!” I said as we exchanged the customary sideways Mexican hug of greeting or farewell. “Thank you for all your help.”

He grinned at me and rubbed his forefinger against his thumb. “You pay well.” Then his smile was replaced with a look of warning. “Salazar es un hombre difícil. Se frustra fácilmente.”

Salazar hadn’t been easy to deal with when he’d captured Kendall, Fitzgerald, and I a month before. “Yes, he does seem easily frustrated,” I said.

The shoemaker’s young wife came up just then. She nodded in agreement, her eyes searching mine. “Ten cuidado de hacer lo que dice.”

I smiled at her. She’d been giving me advice since the day we met. “Yes, I will be careful to do as he says.”

I could see from her answering smile that she didn’t need this turned into Spanish. She stretched herself up to kiss my cheek. “Dios le guarde.” She gave me another long look, then turned and slipped away.

“Ah Van Ness, you devil,” Fitzgerald teased. “And her another man’s wife.”

I touched my cheek, sealing in the kiss. “Mexican girls are the sweetest of all women.”

“They’re the one redeeming feature in this benighted land,” Kendall muttered. “It strains credulity that Armijo didn’t release me.”

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