(Deep in the Heart will continue the story begun in Daughter of Texas. During the tumultuous years of the Repiblic of Texas, the widowed Margaret Becker Vining is trying to raise her four sons by keeping a boarding house in frontier Austin, the now-and-again capitol of the Republic. Deep in the Heart will be available by December 2011, from Watercress Press. )

Chapter 9 – Forted Up

The events of which Dr. Williamson had written were confirmed within days by accounts in the newspapers which arrived from across Texas. Morag wept a little when Margaret told them of what Dr. Wiliamson’s letter conveyed. So did Hetty, but then she dried her eyes and said, “Our old Mam would have said he was born to trouble as sparks fly upwards. But he made a brave end of it, did he? And in a state of grace, as well. A blessing, I’d say – there’s many dies worse that deserves better, and many deserving worse who die well.” She dabbed at her eyes again and blew her nose. “An’ he did well by his kinfolk an’ those he called friends. Ever so grateful I am that he brought us here.”
“I wish he had drawn life from that dreadful jar,” Margaret replied, and she felt a little teary in the face of Hetty’s stoicism. “I had hoped to expand the house again, someday – and I had trusted in him to be the one to build it! Now, I am sure I can find another carpenter . . . but where do you find another cousin?”
“Oh, aye – we had cousins a’plenty in Wexford!” Hetty answered robustly, and then her eyes moistened again. “No’ many like Seamus though! We shall miss him too, Marm, miss him something awful. Now – Morag, darlin’ – if the baby is a boy, you should name him after Seamus, no matter what your man says. Aye, that’s what you should do!”
“But what if the baby is a girl?” Morag asked, laughing a little through her tears, “What then, Marm?”
“Jemima,” Margaret suggested. “Close enough to James, I think.” They talked a little over a name for Morag’s babe if it should be a girl, Margaret all the time thinking how much she would have loved to have a daughter. Not that she loved her sons any the less, or would have wished them to be anything more or less than they were – bumptious and growing boys in all their glory . . . but a daughter, to be able to share those womanly mysteries with, to talk and laugh with, as she had done with her mother, and with Oma Katerina! Boys became men – just as her dear little baby Brother Carl had grown first into a boy . . . and then departed into the world of men. Doubtless her sons would do the same and very soon, too – depart on their own errands – and if not into the Llano like Carl and his Ranger comrades, then into a world of which she would ever only know a portion.

In the end, Morag and Daniel’s baby arrived quite swiftly, several weeks after Margaret had received Dr. Williamson’s letter. Morag had shuffled into the kitchen at mid-morning, heavy and off-balance with the weight of the child, taking up a dish-towel to dry the breakfast dishes that her sister was washing. Morag had been sleeping badly at night in these last few weeks, and resting frequently with her feet up – such were the discomforts of imminent child-bearing. Standing close to the warmth of the stove, Margaret was carefully stirring a kettle of milk-curds, watching the heavy masses of curds separate from the clear whey. Her sons were out with Papa, working in the garden-plot under Papa’s eyes, and although they were close enough to the house, Papa still had a loaded rifle leaning against the nearest tree.
“Och, Morag dear, you should be stayin’ off your feet!” Hetty exclaimed, and Margaret turned around, echoing the sentiments as soon as she saw Morag’s face, pale with strain and particularly bruised-looking around her eyes.
“No – there’s an ache in my legs and in my back – truly it feels better to be walking around – oh!” she gasped, half-doubling over. “Mother Mary an’ Joseph!”
“What is the matter!” Both Mary and Hetty exclaimed. Margaret dropped the long spoon into the curds and Hetty abandoned the dish-pan, to come to her side.
“It . . . hurts . . .” Morag answered, between clenched teeth. “A sudden pain . . . as if . . . oh!” She held on to Hetty with both hands, her own face crimson with embarrassment. “Hetty . . . I’ve gone an’ pissed meself . . . Marm, I’m terrible sorry…”
“Not to mind,” Margaret answered calmly, as the floor at Morag’s feet became suddenly dark with liquid, which soaked into the planks or swiftly drained between. “The pain was that of the waters breaking. The baby is coming.”
“Is that what ‘tis?” Morag gasped again, and her face screwed up as another pain took hold. “Och, another one – not so bad…”
“How close together?” Margaret demanded, “And how long have you been feeling them?”
“Since last night – and a no more than a minute or two between,” Morag answered, while Hetty replied comfortably, “Just like our Mam, then.” She looked across Morag’s bowed head to Margaret. “Mam always had hers fast. Two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Mam always said. Wi’ our youngest brother, she was brought to bed after the morning milking, birthed him by the time the church clock struck ten of the hour, and was bringing supper to the reapers in the field at noon.”
“How . . . energetic of her,” Margaret said, thinking that Hetty was most likely saying so to cheer and encourage Morag, who was clinging onto Margaret’s hand with such a grip that Margaret’s fingers were practically numb.
“Well, Mam was married when she was only a bit of a girl,” Hetty answered, “And she bore twenty-three babes, an’ all but four born alive and well – with th’ youngest of us, all the midwife need do was sit at the bottom of the bed an’ hold out her hands to catch – if there was time to go an’ find her. Morag, me darlin’ it may take a little longer for your first, but I swear to you, for Mam it always went easy.”
“I want to lie down now,” Morag demanded, her face suddenly sheened with perspiration. They had arranged a bed in the old parlor for a lying in and Margaret shook her head,
“In a little while, Morag dear – if you walk now, it will bring it on easily.” She looked across at Hetty, who seemed quite calm. “Do you want me to send one of the boys for a doctor?” she asked, and Hetty shook her head.
“No need, no need, Marm.” She answered. None the less, she slipped out to the garden while Hetty helped Morag remove her dress and petticoats, and quietly asked Papa to keep the boys in the garden, or set them to work in the stable for as long as possible. Papa looked grimly pleased at that, while the boys looked disappointed at having to work all the day, instead of lessons in the afternoon.
Miraculously to Margaret, there was no need to send for the doctor or any of the women in town known to be skilled as a mid-wife – at least more skilled than Hetty –for Morag’s baby came as easily as a kitten to a mother cat, a crumpled pink shape – a comical crown of dark hair on it’s elongated little head – slipping easily from between Morag’s pale thighs. Morag cried out, almost involuntarily, a cry that was half a moan of relief and triumph mixed together. Hetty, behind Morag’s shoulders and bracing her into a sitting position on the bed, commanded,
“Now, push one more time . . . och, you’ve a grand wee daughter for Danny. He’ll want a son the next time, I’ll be bound. Is the little one all there, Marm – all of her lovely little fingers and toes?”
“She is,” Margaret answered, around a lump in her throat. Morag groaned again, as the red spongy mass of the afterbirth came away. While Hetty dealt capably with it, Margaret swathed the little form in a towel that had been warming by the hearth, gently rubbing the birth-matter from it’s tiny limbs and from the fluff of dark hair – how small was a new-born, how compact from being sheltered in the safe refuge of a mother’s womb. The baby’s flesh was pale pink with health, it drew in an astonished breath, and Margaret hastily wrapped it in the towel and put Morag’s daughter into her arms, while Hetty beamed with happiness and satisfaction upon them all.
“Father Odin, he is away, but he left me wi’ a vial of holy water so that I could baptize the wee mite myself. What name d’ye wish to call her by? Jemima for Seamus, o’course, and perhaps Marm can gi’ her another name, for luck.”
“Mary,” Margaret answered, so moved that she could barely speak. “Mary for my own mother: I’d wished to name a daughter of mine for her.”
“And for the Blessed Mother,” Hetty cooed, “That will do very well, Marm – Jemima Mary Fritchie it is, then. Look you – she smiled – I think she likes her names.”
“She has a little pain in her middle,” Margaret answered. “It only looks like she is smiling.”
“No, she is truly smiling, Marm.” Morag insisted, and her own face was split by a yawn. “Oh – begging your pardon – I did no’ think to be so tired…”
“Try and nurse the little one at little, before you go to sleep,” Margaret suggested, “So that she may become accustomed to suck, and your milk will come the sooner.” Impulsively, she bent down and kissed Morag’s forehead, and kissed the baby’s downy little head. “Rest now – this will be the last good rest you will see for years.”

Jemima-Mary was a good baby, placid and not particularly colicky. The boys – especially Peter and Jamie were entranced – and deeply disappointed that she would not be a ready playmate for a good few years. The baby took no interest at all in the boy-treasures that they brought for her from the woods and creek-banks – flowers and water-tumbled stones, and flint arrowheads, although Morag smilingly promised to keep them safe for her, until she was a little older. A week after her birth, Morag and her sister and Margaret were invited by Mary Bullock to bring Jemima-Mary to a gathering of the town’s women for afternoon tea.
“To welcome our newest little settler,” explained Mrs. Eberly, who bore the message, stumping fearlessly up the hill. “And she is quite the picture of an angel, isn’t she?” Mrs. Eberly cooed at baby, who was awake and examining the world immediately over her head and shaking her tiny boneless fists at it, laying in the cradle that Papa had made. “A love, she is – and will her eyes stay so blue? Just the color of buffalo clover – and the very image of her mama, I am sure.”
“I hope so, Marm Eberly.” Morag was pink with embarrassment and pride, at being with her baby the center of so much attention. “I hope so indade.”
“And Mr. Fritchie,” Mrs. Eberly continued, “locked up in that wretched Perote place, never laying eyes on the little mite. Well, never you fear, Mrs. Fritchie – we’ll see that you’ll be looked after, just as one of our own.”
“Thank you, Marm,” and Morag blushed even deeper, as Mrs. Eberly straightened her bonnet and prepared to take her leave.
“We will see you the day after tomorrow, then – in the china parlor at Bullocks.”
“A party,” Hetty exclaimed. “Och, and isna that what we need for a cheering-up? To see the other ladies for a bit, and to show off Jemima-Mary . . . what shall we bring, then – some ginger-cakes? Although,” and she looked as if she was having a second thought. “No, the good white flour is all but gone.”
“Apple-butter,” Margaret said. “We have plenty to share.”

There were about thirty women and older girls still living in Austin; Margaret tallied them up thoughtfully – most of them married – and on good terms with each other as much as they had to be. Mrs. Eberly was about the oldest, the grand dame of such little society as they had. Margaret reckoned herself as the only young widow who had maintained that state for more than a year, for there were ever more men in Austin – young and daring men – than there were women to court them. It took a strong-minded and resolute woman to maintain a single state for very long. Of families, there were enough with children that Race Vining might have opened a school; it distressed Margaret to know that one of the reasons – besides having no schoolmaster – for not having such was that the older boys and girls were taken up with the work that needed to be done, and the danger of Indians kept the smaller ones close to their mothers. But for the sake of the community of women, it was a rare week when there was not a gathering of women at one house or another, for a round of quilting, or to talk together as they sewed or knitted, while their children played outside in the afternoon. Today, Margaret resolved to take the older boys, Horace and Johnny with her. Otherwise, Papa would have put them to work, and today would be a bit of a holiday.
“This is Jemima-Mary’s debut into society,” She told her sons, as they walked down the rise from Papa’s house, towards the scatterings of shanties and log-houses clustered around Constitution and Pecan. Morag and Hetty laughed, as Jamie asked,
“What’s a day-boo, Mama?”
“Back in the East,” she answered, “It’s when a young lady puts up her hair and her Mama and Papa have a party for all of their friends and her friends, to let everyone know she is of an age to be courted in marriage.”
“It sounds silly,” Horace said gravely, “Can’t they all just tell by looking?”
The three women laughed together, their voices mingling pleasantly in the glade of oak trees that the path towards town meandered through, while Jamie and Peter squabbled pleasantly over which one of them would court Jemima-Mary when she was a young lady. Morag drew Jemima-Mary closer to her with one arm, and picked up the trailing hem of her skirt with the other. Hetty answered, still laughing,
“I’ll tell ye how ye can tell when you’re of an age to begin courting, laddie – it’s when you finally get your growth and ye are taller than the one ye like!” Horace blushed – he had just turned twelve, and to his horror, the two girls nearest his age in Austin both towered over him by at least half a head. Margaret saw this discomfiture and put her arm around his shoulders, whispering,
“It’s only a matter of time, dear one.” She nearly slipped and called him ‘little one.’ “Girls always get their growth first, and then the boys catch up. You’ll not be as tall as Uncle Carl, but you will be as tall as your Papa, and I liked him very much as he was.”

Within the far-scattering of houses on the outskirts of town, but still short of the Bullocks’, they were startled by the swift urgent rattle of the alarm-drum sounding. Margaret’s heart chilled like a lump of ice within her breast – what was this? A man shouted, then another – Comanche! She turned and looked over her shoulder towards the steep ridge thrust up into the blue summer sky to the north of town, a height which offered a superb view of all of Austin and the outlaying houses, all the way down to the riverbank. Horror rooted her feet to the ground; the green and oak-wooded height was not green any more, but patched with seething color, of men on horseback, brilliantly painted horses and men accoutered in bright red blankets that the Comanche favored, carrying long bows and javelins adorned with ribbons and feather. Queerly, her first impulse was to turn and run back the refuge of Papa’s house, but just as sense prevailed, a man on horseback pounded past them, and reined in his horse in an uprush of dust and dancing hooves.
“To the Bullock’s fort – now!” He shouted, and she recognized Captain Coleman, of the local Ranger Company. He lived a little farther away, up the valley and farmed near Shoal Creek. Now, he held his horses’ reins in one fist, a long repeating revolver in the other, the barrel pointed upwards. Margaret gathered up the four-year old Peter in her arms, and commanded, breathlessly,
“Morag, Hetty – run! Don’t stop to look behind. Horace, take Jamie’s hand! Do it – Jamie, run now!” for Jamie clamored to be allowed to go back to the house and load for Opa so he could fight the Indians.” Hetty already had Johnny by one hand, and her other on Morag’s shoulder. Margaret looked back again, and at once wished that she hadn’t and was glad that she had, for the Indians on their gaily caparisoned horses were already spilling down through the trees – but Captain Coleman was between them and the Indians, his horse dancing impatiently to and fro – as he kept the reins tightly gathered. He turned his horse every few moments – himself always between the Indians pouring through the trees, and Margaret and Hetty, the children and Morag with the baby as they ran. Margaret’s heart pounded painfully under the bodice of her best black dress, and the corsets that she had laced so tightly. Morag ran strongly, but she was already gasping, easily tired after the work of recent childbed and the weight of that precious child in her arms. Hetty ran as like a man; her skirts pulled with indecent efficiency past her knobby knees and tucked into the waistband of her apron, her face set and her grip on Johnny and her sister like that of iron and rawhide. She was pulling them after her, an undaunted force. Margaret redoubled her efforts, spurred by the memory of every horror she had ever heard of the fate of women, of babies and children – save those of a particular age – in the brutal hands of the Comanche. There were other women with their children, running from their own houses, in town and in the outlaying ones, from the Harrell’s old compound, near the river and the confluence with Shoal Creek. They were close, close and closer still to the Bullock’s – the tall house on pilings, where the lower part had been walled in to make the dining room at ground-level for their inn, the stout log building ramble which had become a block-house and refuge. Now that so many had left Austin, Bullock’s place could shelter all that remained in an emergency, at least for hours, possibly even days.
Gasping for breath, Margaret and her sons, and Hetty with her sister and the baby gained the front door of Bullock’s, almost blinded in the sudden dimness after the bright sunlight outside. The shutters had all been hastily drawn and bolted shut; those interconnecting rooms now as dark as a cave and filled with the murmurs of frightened men and women, save when the door opened to admit another person seeking shelter at Bullock’s. Before her eyes adjusted, Margaret blundered into something hard, something solid and more oddly-shaped than a table. Already, much of the heavier furniture in the taproom and public parlor were being moved and propped up against the walls to strengthen the shutters. She put out her hand to steady herself, squinting in the dimness; it seemed that someone had now thought to bring a single cannon from the armory. How the men had ever managed to roll it inside – and when they had done this – she couldn’t think. Morag and the boys had already gone ahead, through the dark hallways to the Mary Bullock’s china parlor, which sat in the very heart of Bullocks’ establishment, the safest and most secure, and where the women and children were accustomed to take refuge upon hearing any alarm.
“Mrs. Vining?” in the confusion, someone caught at her arm – Captain Coleman, his expression urgent, as much as she could see in the darkness. “Is everyone from your household here?”
“All but my father,” she answered, and Captain Coleman’s lips made a thin line across his face. “Damn stubborn Dutchman,” he muttered, “I guess he has decided to hole up at his place. Just when we need every man-jack who can handle a weapon here!”
“What is the matter?” Margaret demanded, and stayed him by the arm as he would have turned away. She could see better now or perhaps someone had lit a few more lanterns. “Are we so few that we are in danger, even all gathered at Bullock’s?”
Captain Coleman looked as if he would rather not have answered; he was a wiry, weathered man, somewhere in his thirties; one of the many unmarried men in Austin. He still limped from a wound taken a month or two ago, which had made him unfit to ride out with his company. Margaret knew of him only that her brother spoke of him as a good Ranger and reputed to be the best poker player between Austin and Hornsby’s Bend – maybe even as far as Mina.
“Yes, damn the luck – sorry, Miz Vining. There are twenty good men out on a long scout with the Ranging Company, five more that I know – including Ed Waller – went to Houston on the stage last week for business, and another three or four are away with a wagon-load of timber yesterday to the saw-mill at Beeson’s Landing. There must be at least another dozen like your father caught by surprise and holed up in their places. I’m only here, ‘cause I’m still healing.”
“How many are here?” Margaret drew in her breath, and Captain Coleman didn’t bother to lower his voice.
“I count mebbe a few more than twenty men and some boys who are fitten’ to carry weapons.” Margaret was appalled – this few men of fit age in Austin and the district around? She had seen many times that number of Indians, in that fleeting glance over her shoulder. Was it the Penateka Comanche, who came down like a wolf on the fold, out of the Llano with a thousand warriors? Two years ago, they had terrorized the valley of the Guadalupe, pillaging their way down to Linnville, while all the folk who lived there took refuge on boats in the harbor. The Comanche were defeated in open battle only when all the Ranger companies had time to gather and ambush them at Plum Creek, upon their return journey to their customary hunting grounds in the untamed and un-peopled Llano country. But that victory was weeks in coming. It had taken no little time to assemble the volunteers, the mounted militia of all the settlements in Texas – and in the meantime, Linnville had burned, and the Penateka had taken, tortured and murdered many white captives. There were no boats, no sea refuge here, only the stout walls of Bullock’s Inn . . . and only if there were enough men to defend it.
“But don’t ye go discounting the women, if it would serve,” Hetty spoke up, at Margaret’s side. Mrs. Eberly – barely seen as a blur of pale face, in her widow-black – echoed, “I’ll take up a musket, if you’ll need . . . and some of the boys, too. If they are not old enough to aim a weapon, they are old enough to re-load.”
“So will I.” Margaret averred. She thought of her sons, of Morag and the baby, huddled in the parlor, and those other mothers and children – no, the brutal Comanche must not be allowed exercise their cruel whims upon them. Margaret would do whatever was needed, to keep them safe and alive. “Give us each a musket, Captain Coleman – or a pistol – a knife even, if that is all there is at hand.”
“Do you know how to use a musket?” he asked, skeptically. “Aim and cock – and are you sure you can kill a man with it? It’ud be no use if you, having a weapon if they can just take it away from you. ”
“A Comanche threatening my child – I’d kill with my bare hands.” Margaret answered, firmly. “I can load, and aim – I’ve watched my father, my husband – even my brothers do so, since the day we came to Texas.”
“What about you, ladies?” Captain Coleman turned to Mrs. Eberly and Hetty. “Can you load and aim, shoot to kill?”
“It’s not like there is a choice in the matter,” Mrs. Eberly answered with frank honesty, and Hetty said, “Aye well – its’ the narrow end pointed at them as you want to do the damage upon, isn’t it?” Captain Coleman chuckled, in sour amusement, but his face sobered at once. “A good thing we’re not in need of sharp-shooters, Miss Moran – but that’s the general notion. When we parcel out the town arsenal, I’ll see that you’re supplied – I reckon that now that I’m in charge, with Bullock my second. Now – go on into the parlor, so’s I’ll know where you are.”
He turned away, as the main door opened and shut. Margaret saw in the brief light which came in with the person admitted, that two men had already taken up a sentry-position on either side of it – and that Mr. Ware the Land Commissioner, who walked on a peg-leg and had his right coat-sleeve pinned up – was directing some of the older boys in adjusting the barrel of the cannon so that it pointed directly at the front door.
“Aye, there’s always a warm welcome for guests at Bullocks Inn,” Hetty observed, and Mrs. Eberly laughed in genuine amusement. Margaret thought; Angelina Eberly must have seen nearly everything in her time – I truly think there must be nothing on earth capable of shocking her. The china parlor was down a short corridor, past the door to the Bullock’s own private quarters, and a stairway which gave access to the upper floors. The parlor, as dark now as the rest of the Inn, was crammed with women and children. With no fresh air from the opened windows and the crush within, it was stiflingly warm inside; the odor of human bodies and dirty diapers was overlaid with the stink of fear. Margaret didn’t think she could endure very much time within. She was certain the war-band of Comanche she had glimpsed over her shoulder was by far the largest body of them that she had ever seen in her life. She could think of no good reason why so many would come to the valley of the Colorado all at once, unless it was to attack and overwhelm the folk of Austin, or Hornsby’s Bend, or even Mina. Most Comanche raids, they were on outlaying houses, an ambush of a few travelers, or a sudden attack upon men working in the fields. Sometimes the raiders were after horses: Papa had always kept his stable padlocked at night for that reason. In the early days, he and her brothers had ploughed the cornfield with a rifle over their shoulders; of late he had taken to doing so again. And what about Papa, now? He must have heard the alarm, and taken refuge in his own house, as he always stubbornly insisted that he would, rather than risk being caught out in the open and making a run for Bullock’s . . . surely he must be safe, if he had time to bar the doors . . . Margaret could hardly bear thinking about this.
Perhaps the Indians had been watching them all this time, observing how few men were around, noting with calculating eyes how many families were left living like ghosts among the decaying frame buildings, their horses, food stores and valuables – their scalps and their human flesh too – all ready for the taking by any raiding party able to reach out and just pluck them, like a ripe apple from one of Papa’s trees.
Morag sat in a corner of the parlor, with Jemima-Mary in her arms, and Margaret’s sons clustered with her, like chicks under a hen’s wings. She had been telling them a story of old Erin; of Cuchulain and his magical shield and sword. As always when she told them one of these tales, the Irish in her voice came out – musical and lilting, much more so than in every-day speech. Even some of the other women and children setting near her were quiet, hanging on every word as if she wove a gold-brocade spell – a spell which could magically take them away to another world.
“For it was at the place that was called Emain-Macha, Macha-of-the-Spears they called it – so they did – that Conchubar the High King held the Assembly House of the lords of Ulster, and it was there was the chief of his palaces. Oh, and a fine place it was, having the three parts to it – the House of the Royals, the Speckled House . . . and finally, the House of the Red Branch. Och, and it was truly a marvel; in the House of the Royals which had three-times-fifty rooms, the walls were of red cedar-wood with copper nails. The High King Conchubar’s own chamber was on the first level, the walls paneled with bronze below and silver above, adorned with golden birds, their eyes were set with shining jewels – there were nine divisions of it from the fireplace to the wall at the end, and each one of them being thirty feet tall! There was a silver scepter always before Conchubar, a silver scepter with three golden apples mounted upon it, as of bells – and when he took up that rod and made the golden apples ring, all the folk in the house would be silent, wherever they were upon hearing it . . . ”
“Well, we were intending to have a party,” Mrs. Eberly remarked, “Here, laddie-buck, let me have that chair. I’m too old to go charging around like this in the heat . . . when young Morag there is finished with her story we’ll have a sing-along, won’t we? And Mary can play the pianner.” She sounded so normal – as if the party which had been planned was going on exactly as expected – that Margaret thought at least some of the younger women and the children were reassured. “We’ll be out from underfoot, while Captain Coleman decides what’s best. Go on with the story, girl – silver on the walls and golden birds with jewels for their eyes . . . seems quite a place, I must say.”
Morag shifted Jemima-Mary in her arms, and resumed the tale, “Now, in the House of the Red Branch, they kept the weapons of the enemies which they had defeated – and their heads, as well – and the Speckled House was for the swords and shields and spears of the heroes of Ulster. It was called so for the colors of the hilts of their swords, and the brightness of the spears, for they were trimmed and bound around with rings and bands of gold and silver; so were the bosses of the shields and the rims of them. The drinking cups and were likewise trimmed with silver and gold. And it was the custom of the Men of the Red Branch, upon one of them being insulted; he would demand satisfaction at that very moment, even in the middle of the feasting hall . . .”
“Sounds a familiar sort,” Margaret whispered to Mrs. Eberly, who chuckled and answered, “Oh, the times I’ve had to speak up and tell them to settle it – afore they commenced to break up the furniture!”
“And Cuchulain’s sword hung with his shield – and the name of it was called Cruaidin Cailidcheann. The sword had a hilt of gold, ornamented with silver, and if the point of it was bent back, even as far as the hilt, it would spring back straight at once. Indeed, it was so sharp that it could cut a hair floating in the water, a hair from the head of a man without touching the skin – and if it cut a man in two, each half would not miss the other for some considerable time . . .”
Margaret leaned her back against the doorway – there were no more chairs, and she did not want to sit on the floor with the children, as the minutes and hours trickled away. It would be sundown, soon – very likely they would be spending the night here. She turned at a step in the corridor, to note Richard Bullock coming down the stairs, with his arms full of muskets and rifles. He also had a grey jacket, trimmed with martial braid over one arm and a peaked cap askew upon his head, a hat that looked as if it belonged to a smaller man. His son Frank followed him, similarly burdened with powder-flasks and several small haversacks over his shoulder.
“Marm Eberly, Miz Vining?” He said in a low voice, “Capn’ Coleman said you wished to be armed, since there were too few men. Are there any other ladies who can handle a rifle, or load one? Boys, too – we have enough weapons that everyone may have two at hand. Here . . .” he dealt out two each to Margaret, Hetty and Mrs. Eberly, as well as to several other ladies who stepped quietly out of the press in the china parlor. Horace and Johnny came forward as well, Horace saying gravely,
“Me an’ Johnny can load for you and Miss Hetty, Mama.”
“Good boys,” Margaret answered, her heart swelling with pride and fear for her sons as Horace and Johnny took two powder-flasks and a single haversack from Bullock’s son. “Where should we take our place, Mr. Bullock?”
“I reckon you should stay downstairs,” Mr. Bullock answered, “For I don’t believe the upstairs will stop a bullet. There’s some shooting holes in the outside walls here, Frank here will show you where. If’n you stand on benches, you should ought to be able to cover the back. An’ ma’am – don’t fire wild. We got plenty of lead, but not if you go wasting it.”
His arms empty of weapons, he was shrugging into the grey coat. It also did not seem to be his, for it did not fit him well. Someone called his name from the front of the Inn – a man’s voice, urgent but not alarmed. Margaret wondered briefly why he was bothering with such an ill-fitting coat, but then Frank Bullock hopped down from a bench, halfway along the corridor from the door that led into the china parlor. He had a small block of wood in his hand; a square of light pierced the roughly plastered log wall, light which had the golden tint of late afternoon. Outside, the tree-shadows lay long, stretching across.
“See, ma’am – each one of the shooting holes is blocked with one o’these, three or four at the same height; all the way along . . . I guess Pa thinks you each take one.”
“I think that a good idea,” Margaret answered sedately, and Mrs. Eberly snorted.
“May as well teach your grandmother to knit, laddie-buck. Load for me then, and help me up onto the bench, I’m not as nimble as I used to be.”
Silently, Frank and the other boys began loading rifles and muskets. Margaret gingerly accepted one, and stepped up onto the bench. She set her face to the shooting hole – about four inches wide, and half as tall – a space between logs deliberately left un-chinked. Papa had done the same with his house. This one looked out at the back of Bullock’s – she could see a little of Congress Avenue, but mostly the sides of other buildings, and various trees all robed in green leaves. The little wedge of sky that she could see was blue and cloudless, tinged with the golden-red of a sunset – but she could hear no bird-song. That very silence seemed heavy with menace.
“What’s happening, Mama?” Horace asked; he was loading a musket, with careful attention, as if it were a penmanship exercise. “What do you see?”
“Nothing,” she answered, and then her eye caught a movement: three men, one in advance flanked by two others – they were dark shapes and at a distance, against the dazzle of sunshine. They moved along Congress Avenue, pacing slowly. “Oh, my.”
“What did you see?” Horace asked again, echoed by Hetty and Mrs. Eberly.
“I saw Captain Coleman,” Margaret answered, “And he was carrying a white flag.”

The 175 anniversary of the war for Texas independence is being observed this year, I’ve been to commemorative events at the Alamo, and at Presidio La Bahia. With the price of a gallon of gas already reaching towards $3.50, I had to give a miss to driving to Houston for the reenactment event there. The war was fast, furious and relatively brief; barely six months from the start of open hostilities at the ‘Come-and-Take-it Fight” in a watermelon field outside of Gonzales, to the shattering of the Mexican forces under the command of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, in a grassy meadow by Buffalo Bayou, in 18 minutes of pitched battle. Kind of fitting, actually – as went the war, so went the final decisive battle.

So, most of the major events have their commemoration – but not so much the event that hit the Texian settlers the hardest – the terrifying Runaway Scrape. The San Jacinto reenactment touched on it a little, which is only suitable, but it would be difficult for a day-long event to do the experience justice. It was a pell-mell evacuation of all the Anglo settler families, first from all settlements and farms west of the Colorado – and then, as Santa Anna’s three columns kept advancing east, it seemed as if there would be no safety anywhere on the Texas side of the Sabine.

Fear drove the settler families, fear of the implacable Santa Anna, who had put down similar federalist-inspired rebellions in other Mexican states with considerable brutality. Upon defeating the federalist militia of Zacatecas, Santa Anna had allowed his victorious army to pillage, loot and otherwise abuse the citizens of the defeated town for two days. What happened in Zacatecas would have been well-known, among the Texian rebels; the executions of the Alamo and La Bahia garrisons were just proof that Santa Anna was running true to established form.

The direct orders of Sam Houston also provided a motivation, as if any more were needed. He had barely arrived in Gonzales on March 11, with the intent of rallying an army to him to relieve the Alamo, when word arrived that it was too late. Within hours, Houston gave orders for his army to retreat east, back to hold a strong line along the Colorado River. He also ordered that civilians evacuate as well . . . and that the town be burnt. It was a cruel plan, but one with a purpose. Santa Anna’s supply lines were stretched to the breaking point as it was. Failing necessary supplies arriving from Mexico, they could manage in the short term by forage and local requisition, but Houston’s plan was to leave a scorched earth as he retreated back and back again. Gonzales burned, so did the fledgling settlement of Bastrop, and San Felipe de Austin, although there is controversy as to who actually fired San Felipe. Refugio, Richmond, Washington-on-the Brazos – all emptied of the Anglo-American settlers and their families. Santa Anna burned Harrisburg, possibly out of frustration at not being able to catch members of the Texian government. All the way through March and into April, settler families straggled east. Some had only a bare few minutes to gather their belongings and leave. Many families buried those things they valued, intending to return when they could. It was the rainiest spring in years, which put many of the rivers at flood-stage and bogged down the Mexican army . . . but added to the sufferings of the refugees. Disease broke out, especially those intensified by cold, hunger and bad sanitation. The dead were hastily buried where they died, and their kin moved on, seeking any safety they could.

And then, on April 21st, it was all over, although it took some few weeks for word to get out, and for the refugees to believe . . . and even longer to rebuild.
(Daughter of Texas touches on this, in several key chapters – of the sufferings of women and their children, who had to leave their homes and make their way east alone – either their men were with Houston’s Army … or already dead in the fighting.)

Well, the first reviews are out and posted – a lovely one from David at ChicagoBoyz and Photon Courier, and on Amazon, one from John Willingham, whose book about James Fannin and Goliad that I reviewed. The first of many (fingers crosssed) I hope!

All righty then – I pounded out a couple of chapters of Deep in the Heart – the book after the next, while in California and undistracted by the internet. The release of Daughter of Texas is coming along nicely, BTW. I have a couple of events coming up in the next few months which will hopfully goose my royalty checks to seriously meaningful levels. Previous chapter of Deep in the Heart is here…

Chapter 4 – The Ranger from Bexar

Around mid-morning on a day in the second week of September, Hetty was just finishing the breakfast dishes, while Margaret was rolling out piecrust; the early apples were ripe for the harvest. Papa and the boys had brought in the first of several baskets, overflowing with them, and the two women were discussing what to do with them once Margaret had made three or four pies pies.

“Apple-butter, I think,” Margaret had just said, and Hetty agreed. “We’ll start today, for there will be more by tomorrow.” There came a pounding upon the door, and Margaret took her hands from the rolling pin, and dusted flour from her hands on her apron. “Oh, why doesn’t whoever just open it and come in – it’s unlatched. Jamie! Peter!” she called, “Can you see who it is at the door?” She cast a glance out of the long window at the end of the kitchen, which looked out upon the farmyard and the apple trees beyond. Her father and the two oldest boys were at work there. There was no sign of her younger sons. Just as the person outside pounded again on the door, Margaret heard Jamie’s voice in the hallway, and the door opening. Within a moment, Jamie appeared in the kitchen, wide-eyed with awe,

“It’s Uncle Carl,” he said and Margaret gasped. So it was indeed – her younger brother, filling up the doorway behind her son; a tall young man with the wheat-pale fair hair that was the mark of the Becker kin; Saxon-square to the bone. His rough work trousers and leather hunting coat were covered in trail-dust, and the lines of weariness in his face made him appear older than his twenty-two years.

“H’lo, M’grete,” he said only. His eyes were the same calm and placid blue that they had been when he was a child; the only feature of him which had remained unchanged.

“Carlchen!” Margaret cried and flew to him, flinging her arms about him in a joyous embrace. “Oh, my – you have gotten so thin! Where have you come from this time – from Bexar? Will you stay at home with us for a bit? At least remain for supper. Hetty and I are making pies from the first of the apples – now fortunate that is your favorite!”

“I can’t, M’grete,” he answered, and the gravity of his expression drew her attention. “Jack sent me. I rode through the night to raise the alarm. I must go, as soon as Ward has raised enough volunteers, and guide them to our camp. The Mexes have invaded again, and their army holds all of Bexar. ”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” Hetty gasped; her face was ashen, the freckles on it standing out as stark as paint-splatters. A tin plate dropped from nerveless fingers and fell with a clatter to the floor. Jamie stared, his eyes as round as a baby owlets’ – part hero-worship of his uncle, part distress at the reaction of the adults to this dreadful news. Margaret stepped back, gasping. “How has this happened?” She demanded, “When – and how did you come to escape? You and your Ranger company, you were garrisoned in Bexar, weren’t you?”

“So we were,” he yawned hugely, and pulled a chair aside from the table, slumping into it as if he were tired to his very bones – which he would be, if he had ridden the eighty or so miles from Bexar. “Might I have something to eat, M’grete? I haven’t eaten for two days.” Hetty was turning the dish-towel into knots, between her hands, the plate still on the floor at her feet where she had dropped it.

“An’ what of them as were there for the court?” she asked, and Margaret’s own memory seemed to leap like a started hare. “Yes, what of the district court in session,” Margaret asked, urgently. “For one of our boarders, Dr. Williamson – he was in Bexar to have a civil suit heard. He left last week.”

“Then he’s still there.” Her brother answered in short sentences, as if he were too exhausted to do any more. “They surrounded the town. Took every white man as a prisoner; judge, district attorney . . . lawyers, witnesses and the lot. Lawyer Maverick – he was caught as well. John-Will Smith – the mayor – he escaped, the only one. His wife’s family helped him. He saw everything from the roof of his father-in-law’s house. It’s an army, right enough. Not bandits and Comancheros. They even brought a band with them. Came straight into town at dawn under cover of thick fog, set up cannon in Military Square, and fired a shot. Woke up the whole town all at once, so John-Will said.” Looking at his eyes, Margaret saw that it was true. Carlchen had never lied to her. Her own anger began to smolder into open flames; anger that Lopez de Santa Anna – that vile, treacherous butcher – would dare send his armies into Texas once again. He would dare send his gold-braided officers and his convict armies into Texas, to pillage and murder, then accept parole and sue for peace . . . and six years later to dare do it again.

“What do they intend? Are they coming here?” Carl shook his head.

“I don’t know, M’grete – and not if Cap’n Jack has anything to say, and General Sam, too.” He yawned again, and Margaret abruptly returned to that matter which she could do something about. She set a plate before him, with a fork and spoon to one side of it, fetched half a loaf of bread from the pie-safe, and began cutting slices from it. There was a quarter-wheel of cheese, some fresh butter from the churning of yesterday’s cream, and of course, plenty of apples. Jamie brought two from the nearest basket, with the air of a page doing service to his sworn liege lord. He lingered at Carl’s elbow, a worshipful expression on his face.

“Hetty – bacon and eggs; the fire is hot enough, surely? Ham . . . Papa has just begun smoking the hams, but I am sure we can find some cured sausage, if you would like.”

“Whatever you have in a hurry. I’m too hungry to be particular.” Her brother was already wolfing bread and cheese. Margaret spared a covert look at him, as she busied herself about the kitchen. No – he was no longer the soft-spoken boy that he had been once; a boy reserved to the point of silence when in the presence of strangers. He had risen to the rank of sergeant more than a year ago; he seemed surer of himself, confident and capable, but still quiet about it. Now he took a small knife from the top of his boot to slice another piece of cheese with – not that wicked-sharp brass-backed hunting knife, which hung from a belt around his waist, along with a brace of long-barreled pistols. With his mouth full, he added, “I turned m’horse out in the paddock with old Bucephalus. The boys promised they’d rub him down, and bring him some corn. He needs a rest more’n I do.” Hetty was busying herself about the stove, where bacon was already sizzling briskly in the pan. Margaret finished crimping the top of the first piecrust, and her brother added, “Can I have some of that, when it’s baked, M’grete?”

“You may have all of it, if you like,” she answered, “If you are staying long enough.” Unbidden, Hetty opened the oven door, so that Margaret could slide in the first pie. Rolling out another round of dough, Margaret continued, “Then tell us – how did you escape the Mexicans, Carlchen?” She waited for the answer: her brother would not willingly submit to being a prisoner of the Mexicans ever again. By a merest chance and the action of their brother Rudi in stepping before the Mexican’s guns, Carl had survived the massacre of Texian prisoners at the Goliad. If Margaret knew anything in the world with more certainty, it was that her brother would not endure captivity or confinement for a second time.

“We didn’t escape from town, if that’s what you mean.” He swallowed a mouthful of cheese and bread. “We had never been caught there to start with. There were rumors. Seemed that there were fewer of them than usual – but everyone who had heard and passed them on . . . they weren’t the usual rumor-passing sort. Jack thought that was strange. He was asked to go on a scout – took me and four of the fellows. Some of us went along the Old Spanish road – half a day’s ride, both directions, the same with the Sabine Road and the Gonzales Road. No sign of anything out of the ordinary, no one we spoke to had seen anything strange, either. But when we returned – there were Mex soldiers at every way into town. They had not come by a known road, M’grete. They made their own, so as to come around from the west without being seen. We have a camp of our own, on Salado Creek, just north of town. Sometimes we don’t want prying eyes to see where we are headed, what we are doing. So we went there and John-Will met us at mid-morning, told us what had happened. The general in charge is a Frenchie soldier of fortune. A hard case, but decent enough. He has two thousand men, John-Will said. Pioneers. Cavalry. And artillery – I don’t know how many pieces. We didn’t stick around long enough to take a count. There weren’t but about fifty of our men in town; they came for court, not for a fight. Some of them put up one at first, but it wasn’t any good. They were outnumbered, and the Mexes could have leveled the place with their cannon anyway. General Woll agreed to treat them as prisoners.”

“Treat them to a Santa Anna quarter, no doubt!” Margaret felt sick at the thought of Dr. Williamson as a prisoner, sick with helpless fury, He was so kind, so gentle and absent-minded; surely they would spare a doctor from execution! “Why are they doing this to us, Carlchen? Why?”

“Because they can,” her brother answered, calmly biting off another mouthful of bread and cheese. His eyes were as blue and unclouded as the skies outside the kitchen window. “And what they can do, they will, sooner or later. It’s like the Comanche. They talk peace when it suits and when it gets them something. I reckon they mean it sincere at the time. And when it suits them and gets what they want by going on the warpath, why, they’ll do that without thinking twice. Don’t mean nothing, what they said last week, or last year.” Carl appeared quite unruffled by this fresh Mexican treachery, of naked war and invasion brought down upon them once again by the vile dictator Santa Anna. That very serenity was bracing to Margaret.

“Of the gods we believe, and of men we know – that what they can do, they will,” Margaret quoted from her husband’s copy of Thucydides. “So, little brother – they have done it now. What happens next?”

Carl smiled, reassuringly. “Don’t worry, M’grete; Jack and General Sam will sort them out, once they get to hear of it. Jack sent us flying in all directions with messages. It’ll be like the Plum Creek fight all over again.”

“Yes, but in the meantime the Comanches sacked Victoria and burned Linnville to the ground even before the ranging companies gathered!” Margaret answered, “And what will happen this time? This is a proper army, not a war party of Comanche!”

“Well, the Penateka haven’t come back, have they?” Carl answered, reasonably. “They learned a hard lesson – and mebbe it’s time to teach Santy Anna another. Or remind him again. Really, M’grete, he’s awful forgetful.”

“No, I think he remembers well enough,” Margaret answered her voice bitter with anger and memory. Lopez de Santa Anna’s last incursion into Texas had cost her a home, the lives of her mother and dear friends, as well as a certain peace of mind. “This time he sent a flunky rather than risk his own precious skin!”

“True enough,” Carl’s good-natured expression dimmed slightly. “I don’t reckon he would be let live, if we captured him in his drawers again. He and the nearest tree and a coil of good rope would meet up – no matter what General Sam might say.” He yawned again, just as Hetty brought a clean plate and the pan of eggs and bacon, still sizzling and popping with fat. Hetty tipped them onto the plate and set it before her brother; Carl caught up a piece of bacon in his fingers, and then dropped it. “That’s hot!”

“Straight from the stove,” Margaret answered, “At my table, most use a fork to eat.” Just at that moment, Papa came in the door, a carrying-yoke over his shoulders and a bushel-basket of apples hanging from each end. Horace and Johnny followed, lugging another basket between them. Margaret’s breath caught in her throat, anticipating a dreadful scene, something like the last time Carl had come home and encountered Papa; but Papa merely dropped the baskets with a groan and a grunt. He glanced at his youngest son and then looked away without a change of expression. It was as if Carl were not there at all. For his own part, Carl took up the fork that lay next to the plate and took a bite of scrambled eggs.

“Papa, the Mexicans have invaded and taken Bexar,” Margaret said, her heart in her very throat. “Carlchen has brought a message from his captain.”

“What’s it to me?” Alois Becker grumbled, in German “They’re all Mexicans in Bexar anyway – let them have the joy of entertaining those fatherless sons of whores. Tell me when they cross Shoal Creek – then maybe I’ll give a damn. Come along, lads. There’s work to be done, not stand around gawking at this wastrel son of mine.” He gestured to the boys to follow him and stumped out of the room; Margaret heard the door fall closed behind them. It cost her some effort to look towards her little brother. Papa’s words still had the ability to hurt, like the slash of a knife. Margaret had long willed herself to move past feeling them, to think of them as nothing more than a human sort of lightening and thunder, a cold blue Norther, or a spring-time flood. His words had no more effect on her, but she was certain that it was Papa’s words and the careless cruelty in them which had first driven Carlchen away – and what had kept him away ever since. She need not have worried. From the untroubled manner in which her brother was still forking up mouthfuls of eggs and bacon, it was clear that he had also moved to that point, sometime in the last six years that he had spent as a ranger. He only smiled, very slightly and answered softly in the same language,

“The old man hasn’t changed a bit, has he, M’grete. Nice to know that some things remain always the same.”

“He is not ‘the old man,’” Margaret insisted. “You should speak of him with respect, Carlchen. He is our father . . . and he is not a bad man.” Her brother chewed thoughtfully, as he shook his head, and swallowed another mouthful before answering.

“No? And a pool of water poisoned with alkali is not good to drink from, although it still looks like water. He got us all – you, me, Rudi – on the body of Mama, but he was no more a real father to you and me than a wild mustang is a real father to the foals he sires on any handy mare.”

“But he is still our father,” Margaret was shocked out of countenance, and glad that this very improper conversation was being carried on in German, that Hetty was uncomprehending, as she gathered up the clean dishes and began putting them away. “We owe him all respect for that.” Carl shrugged indifferently.

“You respect him then, M’grete. To my way of thinking, your husband was more a father to me than the old man. So was Jacob Harrell, who taught Rudi and me how to hunt. Trap Tallmadge – the ranger sergeant in my first company – he took more pains over me than the old man ever did. He’s poison, M’grete, like an alkali spring. If your boys were mine, I’d keep him far from them.”

“You would have no need to worry about Papa’s influence on my sons, if you came home a little oftener, gave up rangering. Perhaps if you took up a trade and settled down . . .” Margaret suggested, stung by his words. She had long believed that the company of her sons might soften Papa a little, bring him to take an interest in a younger generation, and now to have Carlchen suggest that such an influence would do them harm! In all the travails of the past few years, Carl had not been there; he did not have any idea of what she had to face, every day and every hour.

But now he was already shaking his head. “No, M’grete . . . I could not. Rangering what I am best fit for, and I like it . . . out there. It’s not complicated. Other people make things complicated.”

“Ah. I see – get on your horse and ride away into the wilderness, where everything is simple. Leave someone else to raise the children, nurse the sick and dying, bake bread, build houses and look after the wellbeing of families . . . which makes things all so very, very complicated. Well, you have that luxury, little brother, but I do not. I must cope with the complications.” Carl shrugged, apparently little affected by her words.

“And someone must fight the Indians . . . and now the Mexes, while you bake bread and darn Papa’s shirts. May as well be me, M’grete. I’m good at it.” He calmly scraped up the last of the scrambled eggs, but then his voice turned grave with sympathy. “Lawyer Maverick – he told me last year that Race died. Consumption, he said it was. Someone told him. A friend, I guess. He had friends all over, didn’t he? Race, I mean. I’m sorry about that, M’grete. I heard so late, didn’t make any sense to come home, then. Anyway, I’m sorry that you lost him. He was a good man, where it counted.”

“Yes, he was,” Margaret answered. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell her brother about the other matter, of Race’s Boston marriage, and of the settlement from his family. Someone ought to know, she thought – someone of her blood, but immediately she also recalled General Sam’s advice about scandal and of the matter being no ones’ business but hers and Races.’ Instead she said, “Do you want anything more, Carlchen. The pie will not be done for another hour, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll wait,” He still had that sweet half-smile from his childhood, converted into another yawn. “I’m sorry, M’grete. I rode through the night. Is there a place where I might sleep for a few hours, until the volunteers are ready to ride out?”

“In the front parlor,” Margaret answered, “On the day-bed.” He rose from the table, still yawning, and by the time Margaret brought a blanket from her bedroom, he was already fast asleep, sprawled on the daybed without even having taken off his boots, although he had taken off the belt that held his holstered weapons, and hung it close at hand over the back of the day-bed.

“What are we to do then?” Hetty asked, when she returned to the kitchen, and began rolling out pie dough. Margaret deftly turned the rolled-out crust around the rolling pin, and draped it over the next pie-pan. She began cutting the edges with a pastry-knife, before she answered,

“Begin making apple butter, I think. Oh, you mean – what do we do if the Mexicans come? I won’t leave here, Hetty. I expect that we shall have to bury the valuables, and hide the horses. Papa may also take his musket and find a place in the woods to hide, if he does not want to go with the fighting militia. Surely, you are not frightened of them, Hetty?”

“No Marm – I am not,” Hetty answered, sturdily.

“Good,” Margaret piled the piecrust full of peeled apple quarters, and emptied a measure of coarse sugar over it all, with a pinch of cinnamon and a twist of nutmeg. She rolled out another round of crust, before continuing. “They are eighty miles away. Before very much longer, our men will be taking up a place between us and them, among the woods and the hills and behind a river. Two thousand soldiers is not very many.” She draped the top crust over the rolling pin, using that as a wand to carry and lay the tender crust over the mounded-up apples. “Besides,” she added, “I am resolved never to leave my home again, Hetty. I would rather face them down, than take to the roads and live like a beggar in all weather. I do not think they would scruple to harm us – for any insult given will be repaid in blood. I believe Lopez de Santa Anna knows this well, or if he does not, his soldiers will learn.”

The making of apple butter that afternoon was often disrupted, for there was a constant stream of men and women coming to the house. Margaret finally tasked Jamie and Peter with sitting on the front steps and to fetch her from the kitchen whenever they saw someone coming up the hill, rather than have the noise of their knocking on the door waken her sleeping brother. She need not have bothered, for he slept as deeply as one nearly dead for hours, in spite of the footsteps of people coming and going, of hushed voices and Papa tramping back and forth with baskets of apples, who couldn’t be bothered to pay any mind to her admonitions.

Of course, Mrs. Eberly was one of the first – the storm-crow, as Margaret had privately named her; wherever there was trouble brewing, there was Angelina Eberly, flapping her black wings. She came with a basket of fresh-baked hard-tack biscuits over her elbow, puffing as she climbed the hill. Margaret, already rattled because of the news her brother had brought, had showed her into the kitchen and settled her into Hetty’s rocking chair. Kettles of apple and molasses slowly bubbled away on the stove. Fortunately, Mrs. Eberly was amiable about this omission of conventional courtesy. “I’ve heard already,” she announced, “And brought bread for them as are going. I must say, it sounds bad. I had two more boarders leave today, and Mr. Bullock’s place will be near empty in the next week. And it’s not that they are going south to fight the Meskins, either – they are just plumb running scairt, and running back east with their tails between their legs.” She cast an expert eye around the kitchen, warm and redolent of cooking apples and spices, every one of the copper pots polished until it gleamed like gold. “I can tell, Miz Vining, you ain’t one of them. I know you’ve said so, often enough – but the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it. Or in the packing of the wagon.”

“I have confidence in the men of our army,” Margaret said, firmly. “Whereas before we were a state in rebellion, and many of our people were in disarray and disagreement – now we are a sovereign nation. And not one to be violated lightly, and in defiance of the laws which rule the conduct of nations – even such a villain as Lopez de Santa Anna must take notice of those laws now and again, lest Mexico become a pariah among nations. For we are united, this time, under brave and determined commanders!” Mrs. Eberly clapped her hands, “Oh, my dear – bravely said! And I am heartened, Miz Vining, truly I am! My family and I, we will remain, as well. There are a few of us, happy and proud to stand fast in this dark time…”

“ ‘That he which hath no stomach to this fight,’” Margaret quoted from that play of Shakespeare’s which her husband had come to love the best of all, “‘Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse; We would not die in that man’s company, That fears his fellowship to die with us . . . ”

“Oh, dear, I hope that it won’t come to that!” Mrs. Eberly’s cheer suddenly turned to apprehension.

“It won’t,” Margaret’s brother said, confidently; he appeared in the kitchen door, walking as silently as a ghost. He had seemingly been refreshed by the brief hours that he had slept. “For Captain Jack leads us, and he is the boldest and canniest of all. Better than that, he will never surrender. And best of all, many of us have these at our side.” He unshipped one of the long pistols from the holster on his belt, a matte-metal thing with a long and slender barrel, but which had an oddly large cylindrical attachment where the trigger and flintlock should have been. Margaret, Hetty and Mrs. Eberly looked at it with puzzled, yet curious expressions, and Carl continued with the slightly exasperated air of a man explaining something to women which he would have assumed did not need explanation. “It’s a Colt repeating pistol – five shots without needing to reload. We fight from horseback. The State bought them for the Navy, but they work very much better for us, you see.” He stowed the long pistol away, and continued his explanation. “Jack – that is, Captain Hays – he trained us to fight as the Comanche do. Like the Mex lancers did, only better. To scout and harry and ambush the enemy, to go a long way without being seen. The Mexes, and the Comanche, they still think this land is theirs. They’re wrong – we own it now, day and night, plain, river and forest. They just need reminding, now and again.”

“Well, I am very glad to hear of that!” Mrs. Eberly exclaimed, and Hetty looked gratified. Margaret’s spirits rose, fractionally. Perhaps there was hope after all, that the prisoners would be freed, and the Mexican troops sent fleeing back over the Nueces.

Carl and the assembled militiamen departed without ceremony, late that afternoon; grim and purposeful men, their saddlebags bulging with food and ammunition, their saddle-holsters bristling with arms. Margaret watched, as her brother moved among them, unhurried and quietly authoritative. They were moving light and fast, with two pack-mules laden with even more supplies; her brother planned that they should be at the Salado camp within three days. Margaret’s heart was wrung – she had seen this so many times before! The only solace she might take in this prospect was that there were no young boys among the riders this time, only men and many of them battle-hardened and wily, veterans of the first fight for Bexar, back in the beginning, of the mad scramble to withdraw from the west, after the fall of the Alamo, veterans of San Jacinto, of Plum Creek and a thousand small skirmishes with Mexicans soldiers and Indians alike. And General Sam – he would not let this insult pass, indeed he would not. And with that, Margaret would have to be content.

It was little more than a week before Margaret and those still remaining in Austin received certain news of what had happened at Bexar. The Mexicans had withdrawn – that was the best of it. The Texian companies from the lower Colorado settlements, to include Captain Hays’ Rangers, had lured a large portion of the Mexican force out of Bexar, lured them into a trap among the sandy creek-beds and thickets of mesquite and scrub oaks north of the town. There they fought a sharp skirmish, and sent the Mexicans reeling back . . . but a company of fifty or so volunteers from La Grange, led by Captain Mosby Dawson, had just arrived, and hearing the distant sounds of the fight had advanced to the aid of their comrades. They were overrun by the Mexican cavalry, before they could join the main Texian companies, safely entrenched along Salado Creek. All but fifteen or so were captured alive, the rest being killed in the fight, or upon surrendering. Within days, the Mexican general Woll and his columns of marching men, of cavalry and the heavy cannons had withdrawn from Bexar, retreating slowly back towards the Rio Grande. But he took hostages with him, those men captured in Bexar, and in the skirmishing along Salado Creek. Nonetheless, this invasion had been stopped, and Margaret and her household rejoiced, until a tear-stained letter from Morag arrived; Daniel Fritchie was one of Dawson’s men captured at Salado, and his brother killed.

Worse yet emerged in the next weeks; those prisoners taken in Bexar, those men who had been at the meeting of the district court were not released on the banks of the Rio Grande, as they had been promised by General Woll. Dr. Williamson’s captivity would be of longer duration than merely a few weeks; Margaret fumed when she read of this new treachery in the newspapers, and Hetty wept when she re-read Morag’s piteous letter.

“Oh, Marm – what will she do, then?” she cried, and Margaret answered, practically. “She writes that she is become ill very often, and she cannot rest . . .”

“She must come home to us, of course. It’s the heat,” Margaret had her own suspicious about what was making Morag ill.

“And I will go to fetch her, o’ course,” Seamus O’Doyle looked immediately more cheerful. He had made some adjustment to Morag’s marriage in the past months; Margaret thought that perhaps Hetty had spoken to him bluntly on the subject.

The final blow, when it fell was not completely unexpected: citing the constant danger of hostile incursions from Mexico and from the Indians, General Sam called the Legislature to meet at Washington-on-the-Brazos . . . not at Austin. Margaret was philosophical, at least more so than Mrs. Eberly, who predictably enough was furious. She stumped up the hill to consult with Margaret – or at least, to complain angrily while Margaret listened.

“Who does General Sam think he is?” the Widow Eberly shouted, “And who to those lily-livered men think they are – afraid to come to this place, to do the business required of the nation…”

“They may rightfully fear such, seeing how the men who attended district court were dragged from Bexar as prisoners,” Margaret began; a temporizing statement which was entirely wasted on Mrs. Eberly.

“Fear of a Meskin sojer jumping out of a bush has gelded every one of them!” Mrs. Eberly stormed on, “That drunken old lecher may as well have taken a knife and done it wholesale – I’ll lay any roads that he has gone around, talking up how dangerous it is to all! This will be the ruination of our business, Miz Vining, the ruination of it all!”

“This was a passing emergency, Mrs. Eberly, a passing emergency,” Margaret said, “They were defeated, and have withdrawn over the Rio Grande…”

“Aye, and thanks to our men, men like your brother – and no thanks to General Sam this time! Leave it to our best to take up a musket and defend our homes – what has it come to, that our own leader will not take up his duty here – where we had established our city!”

“I am sure that the legislature will meet here, next time,” Margaret was about to give up being soothing, as it seemed to have little effect upon Mrs. Eberly.

“They had better so,” Mrs. Eberly replied, “For all the offices are here, and the archives safe-guarded in the land office. How can you conduct the business of the country, without the records of matters? Tell me that, Miz Vining!”

“I am sure they cannot,” Margaret sighed. “Truth to tell, Mrs. Eberly – I am not so disappointed in this matter. Poor Dr. Williamson! We shall miss him so dreadfully. Morag is with child, you see – and Daniel Fritchie is a prisoner also. Mr. O’Doyle has gone to Mina with a wagon, to bring her back to stay with us. We hope every day that Daniel will be freed, but she is so young and alone, and they had not been married all that long.”

“Hard times,” Mrs. Eberly said, with a grim expression, “And even harder, for it is our own leader making it harder for us. Aye well – it’s lads like that brother of yours that stand guard for us; aye, I can sleep at night, knowing it’s he and Captain Jack Hays and Captain Caldwell and all . . . what have we done to deserve that devotion, Mrs. Vining?”

“I do not know,” Margaret confessed, “But I think they feel it to be their duty, whether we be open in our gratitude or not.”

“Well, if and when your brother and any of his comrades come to Austin again,” Mrs. Eberly patted her knee fondly, “And you have not the space for them all, I’ll gladly make room – and not charge a bit. It’s the least we can do for our lads, isn’t it?”

“The very least,” Margaret answered, and left unspoken the question – would Carlchen ever return to the family home, when business or war did not take him?

Morag did return, and with tears of mingled joy and distress, as Seamus O’Doyle came around and handed her carefully down from the wagon seat. It was October; the days were drawing shorter, with grey-clouded skies and a chill wind from the north. She ran lightly to Hetty’s embrace; there was no sign outwardly that she was with child, save for the sudden sharpness of the cheekbones in her face. There is a difference in the face of a woman who is bearing, or has born a child, Margaret thought; something elemental, no matter how young she may be herself. She had observed it in the faces of those friends of her girlhood in Gonzales, seen it in her own features – and now it was in Morag’s face, when she turned from her sister to Margaret.

“Dear little girl,” Margaret whispered – what it might have been to have had a younger sister of her own, or a daughter! “I think you have some news to tell us.”

“You knew!” Morag’s face fell, and then her expression danced into laughter, as she hugged Margaret. “But of course, Marm – you know everything!”

“Know of what?” Hetty looked from one to another, slightly baffled, and Margaret marveled at how she and Morag were now united in a sisterhood, despite the years between the two of them, and her long friendship with Hetty – the bond of sisterhood between the mothers of children.

“That I will have a child to console me!” Morag embraced her sister again, “That Danny will return, an’ I will have his son to show him! He knew, o’ course. That was why he went w’ Captain Dawson! ‘Meggie, he said to me – I must do what I must to keep us safe, now more than ever – for th’ matter is most urgent!’ An’ I kissed him an’ said that he must do what he must . . . an’ oh, Marm – what was I thinkin’? For now I want him worse than I have iver wanted him, t’ be at my side . . . “and she dissolved into tears on Margaret’s shoulder. “Moods,” she said over Morag’s shoulder to the much-puzzled Hetty. “It comes with the country of children. That you will have moods and your children alike, and hope that your kin and friends may forgive you for being considerably out of sorts with the world, whilst you are in the process of bearing them.”

“Oh, me ain darlin’!” Hetty cried, with sudden comprehension grown doubly fond. “Come and lay down within! This is happy news, so ‘tis!” She embraced her sister, and walked to the house with her arm around her waist. Meanwhile, Seamus O’Doyle had lifted down the little trunk, which was all that Morag had brought with her.

“It was a good thought, to have her come home to stay with us,” Margaret said to him, “And thank you for bringing her.”

“Aye well, she’s as dear as kin,” Seamus O’Doyle replied. “And Danny is a foine lad – we’ll just see about getting him back, won’t we, Marm? They say in Mina that there’s news that General Sam is raising a large army, to strike at Mexico in hopes of freeing our boys. Is it true, now?”

“It has been in several newspapers,” Margaret answered, “So I think it must be. But I would have known so, even if I had not read of it. I don’t believe we would tamely submit to such a provocation as the taking of Bexar, and the kidnapping of our own citizens.”

“No, we would not,” Seamus O’Doyle agreed, and he had such a thoughtful expression on his face, that Margaret knew he must have already begun thinking about this. “No, we would not, indade.”