Chapter 18
Renegades and Runaways
I have never witnessed such scenes of human suffering…their clothes were scant, and with no means of shelter from the frequent drenching rains and bitter winds, they traveled on through the long days in wet and bedraggled apparel, finding even at night little relief from their suffering, since the wet earth and angry sky offered no relief.
-Creed Taylor
Near Goliad-Late March, 1836
An elderly Tejano man came rushing into the followers’ camp on a burro. A crowd gathered around him, everyone asking questions all at once. Dismounting hurriedly, he held up his hands, signaling the crowd to silence. “My fellow Texans,” he said reluctantly, “This is a very sad day for Texas.” He paused a moment and, wiping sweat from his brow, he announced sadly, “The Mexican Army has executed the prisoners at Goliad.”
People up close to him were stunned, but those farther back could not quite hear what was being said. As a result, an uproar broke out as, “What did he say?” was heard from several quarters.
Someone in the crowd yelled vehemently, “The sons-of-bitches killed them all!”
The effect – stunned silence - was instantaneous. Someone then inquired stridently, “who killed who?”
At this someone shouted, “The Mexican Army done killed every darned last Texian, that’s who done got killed!”
Grabbing the old man, a fellow asked, “Was they all kilt?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” the old man replied morosely.
Clearly out of control, a Texian grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him to the ground. He began kicking him repeatedly. Others joined in, at which point another man jumped into the foray and screamed, “Stop it. This man is my friend! He didn’t hurt anyone! He came here to tell us. Stop this, you fools!”
Yet another man grabbed the pleading man and struck him, and although a few punches were thrown, in the end folks began to realize that they didn’t want to fight with each other. The ones they needed to fight were somewhere else. As a result, the fighting dwindled rapidly to a halt.
Julie understood all too well exactly what had transpired. Hank, if he was still at Goliad, was now dead. Part of her wanted to rush to the mission and find his body, to take him home to rest in peace. But another part was terrified, not for herself, but for her son and her unborn baby. The Army of Mexico, camped not more than two miles away, was close enough that their guns could be heard. Julie realized that the time had come to make a hasty retreat.
There was now a general surge to escape from Goliad ahead of the Mexican Army. Nobody knew where to go, but they all knew one thing – safety was to the east rather than the west. And if they didn’t get out of there immediately, they would be captured by the oncoming Army of Mexico.
East of Gonzales
General Houston was midstream, crossing the Colorado on horseback, when a messenger rode up and saluted. “Yes, what is it?” Houston exclaimed crossly.
“Sir, I have news. A rider has just come in on the road from Goliad. The Mexican Army killed them. They executed Fannin’s entire army, sir!”
Houston didn’t say a word. Staring incredulously at the soldier, he simply squinted furiously with that hard look that he was famous for. His initial reaction was to blame Fannin. That man had found a way to avoid following every order that Houston had ever given him. He inquired with evident bluntness, “And Colonel Fannin, is he dead, too?”
“Yes, sir, at least that’s what I was told by the man who rode in with the news.”
Struggling to control his emotions, Houston pondered the stark reality that the entire Army of Texas had been completely wiped out in the space of three weeks. This was simply too much to bear.
Houston was overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation. He was now the commander of a non-existent army in a non-existent nation. “Get me that man, soldier,” he exclaimed, “I want to question him further,” but it was only a feint. In reality, he had no earthly idea what to do next. He had predicted for months that this would happen, but no one had listened. And now here it was - exactly what he had feared had actually come to pass. For months no one had followed his orders, and now there was no one left to follow his orders.
San Antonio
General Santa Anna welcomed the entire staff into his private chamber. He had taken the occasion to open a bottle of his finest porto, and his aide now poured a glass for each of the officers. All were dressed in their finest uniforms. There was Cos, restored from ignominy to prominence, as well as so many others who had followed him these many years. “Gentlemen,” the commanding general began, “Word has just come of the destruction of Colonel Fannin’s entire army at Goliad. I am proud to inform you that all semblance of organized resistance in Texas has come to an end. We have successfully dispatched the traitorous Texian forces, as well as the pirates, those agents of the United States of America, from the country of Mexico.” Amidst the silence, he raised his glass, announcing, “Gentlemen, a toast – Viva Mexico!”
“Viva Mexico!” was the unified and proud response.
“Gentlemen,” Santa Anna now announced affably, “What remains is now little more than a mopping-up exercise. We leave tomorrow for Gonzales, where my informants tell me that the Commanding General Sam Houston is now – if I may be so bold - in charge of a nonexistent army. We shall roll up the remaining insurgents in a pincher movement, with five columns pressing eastward, driving all who do not swear allegiance to Mexico before them, and we shall continue until we have driven them all the way across the Sabine, back to where they came from!”
“Hooray! Viva El Presidente! Viva Mexico!” burst forth from the assembled group.
East of Gonzales
The morning sun already well into the sky, the somewhat dilapidated little town was bathed in broiling heat. Nothing moved except a single skeletal dog lying in the middle of the street. Periodically, his head rising to yip at an invading fly, he subsequently flopped back down. Otherwise, all was silent and motionless.
Suddenly, the dog stood up, growled, and yelped a single time. A man dressed in an apron, broom in hand, immediately stepped out of a doorway and peered off to the east. The dog, by now pointing in the opposite direction, had the better of it. A low rumble was coming from the west. A dust cloud had begun to form, and now it was possible to hear the sound of horses. Seconds later a column came into view, slowly advancing into the center of town. The man in the apron ran into the saloon, a muffled cry bursting from within immediately thereafter. Several people now came running out onto the street, wondering at the approaching throng.
“Why, it’s the whole dang Texas Army,” cried one of them in disbelief.
Sam Houston was at the head of the column, his tall and rigid demeanor evident even in the saddle.
Somehow blissfully unaware that this was not proper etiquette, a youngster inquired vapidly, “Where you headed, General?”
Ignoring his question, Houston rode onward, the entire army trailing behind him in full retreat. It was indeed a pitiful sight to see.
Near the Head of the Retreating Army
Hawk trailed behind the general. Events had moved along rapidly after Susannah Dickinson had met them on the road to Bexar. Mrs. Dickinson had said in no uncertain terms that Santa Anna’s army was directly behind her. Hawk had doubted that, given the magnitude of the battle she had described, but he had not been in a position to question her assertions at the time.
Captain Seguin had suggested that the best course of action was to return to Gonzales as quickly as possible and report to General Houston. This they had done, arriving the following day to a stunned and terrified populace. In fact, the locals had been so incredulous as to disregard Mrs. Dickinson’s account. The poor woman had been exhausted by repeated inquiries regarding this and that, but mostly regarding how their loved ones had perished.
General Houston, who had been despondent, had nevertheless someh
ow managed to rally and restore order to the rapidly degenerating situation in Gonzales. Making plans to immediately evacuate Gonzales, he had sunk the cannons in the river before departing with his army.
Two days later they had marched eastward from Gonzales. The town burned to the ground that night. Some folks said it was General Houston that had ordered it. Others believed it was Santa Anna’s advance guard. In either case, it was but a precursor of things to come.
From now on, there was no going back. The Republic of Texas would either go down in history as a figment in the imaginations of a few unfortunate rebels, or…well, the truth was, Hawk couldn’t think of another alternative. That, of course, was why he was no leader. He hoped that Houston was a smarter man than he appeared to be, that he had conceived of a visionary scheme that would somehow save the day.
During the crossing of the Colorado, word had arrived of the defeat of Fannin’s army, and Houston had fallen into a second fit of despair, and on this occasion he had gotten falling-down drunk. But he had rallied yet again, at which point Hawk was obliged to admit great admiration for the way the general had recovered his composure.
On hearing that Fannin’s troops had been defeated, Hawk had been deeply concerned for Hank. Now in full retreat with Houston’s rather small force, he had even gone so far as to suggest that he be allowed to ride down to La Bahia to see what he could do, but Houston had denied his request. Although General Houston had been correct in the military sense, that had been wholly unrelated to Hawk’s motivation.
Then the unbelievable news had come that Fannin’s entire army was lost – executed by Santa Anna’s oncoming army. Hawk was despondent. First he’d lost Antonia, and now Hank. Whiskey and mescal had become his best friends, and it really hadn’t mattered which he came upon first.
Houston, sensing that Hawk was worth saving, had dragged him out of his stupor and ordered him to drill the troops. What a joke that was, but at least it had kept him busy. There were only maybe three hundred and fifty men, half of them with weapons incapable of shooting a snapping turtle from ten feet. But Hawk knew there was method in Houston’s insanity – he was simply keeping everyone busy.
Hawk was now a regular officer in the Army of Texas, Sam Houston having promoted him to Captain. Hawk had to laugh to himself, although it really wasn’t a laughing matter. The fact was, this was no army at all. It was instead a mob, and all of them intent on the same thing - escaping the oncoming Army of Mexico. Overnight, Hawk had been appointed an unpaid officer in a highly irregular regular army of a nonexistent country.
It developed that while Hawk and his now deceased buddies had been surrounded at the Alamo, a new government had been formed at San Felipe. Those despicable lawyers and land speculators had been sitting on their backsides throughout the entire conflict, and now, when they were needed most of all on the front lines, they had been sitting more than a hundred miles to the east politicking! The upshot was that they had all signed a Declaration of Independence from Mexico not a week before the Alamo had fallen. Then they had elected David Burnet as interim president of the Republic of Texas, and Sam Houston as Commander in Chief of all of the Armies of Texas, including the volunteers.
To Hawk’s thinking these actions were too little too late. There was now in Texas an Army of Mexico that numbered several thousand combatants, and there was no Army of Texas to speak of. Instead, the Republic of Texas was composed entirely of a lumbering horde of refugees, all doing their best to escape to the Sabine as fast as humanly possible. Hawk, realizing he’d been fighting for nothing at all, decided his only defense against sheer despondence was laughter.
That evening Hawk went foraging for food and came upon a group of soldiers that were raiding a Tejano farm. They had killed the man and his son, subsequently attacking the woman and her two daughters. Hawk fired off his musket, aimed his rifle at the lot of them, and ordered them back to camp. Having dispensed with the lot of them, he tended to the women as best he could and, revolted by the behavior of his fellow soldiers, he stumbled from the villa courtyard and headed back to camp.
“This isn’t why we are fighting for Texas,” he thought sadly to himself. That night he was unable to sleep, playing over the horrible images in his mind. Somehow, the war had gone terribly wrong. What had started as a fight for freedom had now degenerated into something else, something despicable. He drifted into a semi-delirious dream state, somehow mixing the images of the Tejano women with dreams of Antonia. Near sunrise, he awoke in a cold sweat and, unable to go back to sleep, he arose and attempted to gird himself for further dismay.
East of Goliad
Pacing himself eastward as fast as he could possibly move, Hank avoided following any of the main roads for fear that General Urrea had sent out soldiers in search of any Texians who might have escaped. Instead, repeatedly crossing fields with waist-high grass, he made a desperate attempt to put as many miles as possible between Goliad and himself.
That night he slept under a large tree adjacent to a creek. He wasn’t certain, but he suspected that it was Coleto Creek, the same creek where he and his comrades had suffered defeat only a week earlier. All he knew was that he was headed east, and since he had not taken the main road, he had no idea where he was. As he pondered his situation, he realized that nearly everyone he knew was now dead.
The following morning Hank awoke to the sound of a whinnying horse. Fearful that the enemy might be hot on his trail, he immediately ducked down along the bank of the creek. He peered off in the direction of the noise, and there, not a hundred yards upstream, he observed a woman with a horse-drawn wagon attempting to make her way across the stream. Hank weighed his options. He was hungry, he had no firearm with which to hunt, and he had no money. Everything of value had been taken from him.
He decided on the spur of the moment to see if he could catch up with the woman before she got on down the trail. Sensing that she might be willing to help him to get away in exchange for his protection, he jumped up from the creek bank and went tearing along through the tall grass in the field adjacent to the creek. He took what seemed like a lifetime to make his way to where she was, but he needn’t have been concerned, for when he finally reached her wagon, he realized that she hadn’t budged an inch.
“Ma’am! Hey there,” Hank yelled from a safe distance. He waived to her, attempting to demonstrate that he posed no threat. Seeing him, the woman quickly reached for a rifle in her wagon. Fearing something untoward, Hank halted and raised his hands in the air in submission.
He called politely, “Please, ma’am, I mean you no harm. And I am unarmed. I see that you are having some difficulty crossing the creek. Might I be of some assistance to you?” At this the woman looked doubtful, but it was clear that she was flustered and exhausted by her present demise.
Raising her rifle, she shouted forcefully, “Mister, you walk this way, and don’t you be trying nothin’ suspicious!”
Hank complied, and as he came closer, he could see that she was perhaps a few years older than him. She was frowning fiercely at him, a look that appeared to be a mixture of rage and trepidation. Continuing to point her weapon, she inquired doubtfully, “What you doin’ there, Mister? Where you goin’ off to here in the middle of nowhere?” And don’t go givin’ me no sass, you hear me!”
At this Hank responded respectfully, “Shucks, ma’am, I ain’t out for nothin’ bad, no sir, I mean ma’am. Fact is, I’m in bad trouble. I can see you are, too, and I was hopin’ we might join forces so as to get somethin’ positive goin’ out here on the prairie,” but, fearing that he had perhaps said too much too quickly, he suddenly hushed.
Peering at him momentarily, the woman abruptly volunteered, “Name’s Betsy Wilkerson. Lost my husband in the war, I did. And you sir, what’s your trouble?”
“I’ve been fightin’ in the Army of Texas. Been at the Alamo, then Goliad. Got captured there, and they done shot the whole dar
n Texas Army.” Suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of his disclosure, he fell to his knees, put his hands to his face, and began sobbing uncontrollably.
At this revelation the woman climbed down from the wagon, came over to him and grasped him within a matronly embrace. She whispered comfortingly, “There, there now, you just let it all out. Sometimes that’s the best. Clean all that dark rain out so as to make room for the sunlight, that’s what I always say.” Presently, his breakdown discernibly abated, she volunteered, “You’ve had some powerful bad times, I expect, mister…, what did you say your name was, sir?”
Wiping his face on his sleeve, Hank responded woefully, “Hank, Hank MacElrae. I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know what came over me. Such behavior is not like me at all.”
“Sign of the times, Mr. Hank MacElrae, sign of the times. Whereabouts you from, Mr. Hank?”
“Bastrop. Been farmin’ up yonder way with my wife Julie and my son Auggey these two years. Well, at least up until six months ago, when I got that darn fool notion to up and join the Volunteer Army of Texas!”
“Where are your wife and son now, sir?”
“No idea, absolutely no idea at all, Mrs. Wilkerson.”
“Please, sir, call me Betsy.”
“Why, thank you, ma’am. And you call me Hank, if you don’t mind.”
“Hank it is. Well, Hank, supposin’ we get this wagon across this here Coleto Crick and head off east before General Santa Anna and the Army of Mexico catch up to us.”
“My thoughts exactly, Betsy. And while we’re at it, would you be having anything to eat?”
“Yes, sir, reach in that there bag and you will find some bread cooked just yesterday. You chew on that, and as soon as we cross this here crick, perhaps you will be so kind as to tell me exactly what happened back there at La Bahia yesterday mornin’.”
Within minutes, the pair had somehow formed a pact of convenience, and off they went, heading eastward, along with most of the population of Texas. As they drove eastward, Hank thought on Julie and Auggey. He wondered where they were now. He wished he had written them, but he knew it would not have made any difference. The war had stopped all forms of communication.
The enemy now held nearly all of the land in Texas west of the Brazos. Julie and Auggey would surely have fled east along with everyone else in Texas. Where would they be now? He wondered if they were already in Louisiana. His face suddenly turning pale, a terrifying thought struck him - would he ever see his wife and son again?
Near the Brazos River-Three Days Later
Hawk headed off into some scrub brush, intent on relieving himself. The Army of Texas, such as it was, made camp in a grove of trees just west of the Brazos River.
Doing his business turned out to be more of a challenge than he had expected, and he ended up having to search around for a healthy supply of leaves to clean himself with after he’d completed his business. He pulled up his pants and, hearing a rustling off to his left, he grabbed for his rifle. Never knew what you’d find out in the wild these days. Could be a wild boar, or it might even be a squad of Mexican soldiers.
He lowered himself down to await the charging mass, whatever it might be, but nothing untoward happened. He waited a full minute, which under the circumstances seemed like an eternity. But then he heard a bird chirping sound, a sound that was familiar to him. A voice called out, “That you, Hawk?” There was a pause, and then it came again, “Hawk Banks?”
Hawk popped up within the thicket, head poking right out of a bush, and called, “Hank?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Banks, you done got that right!” Hank responded.
The two sort of eyed each other from a distance, both sorely attempting to insure their eyes weren’t tricking them.
Coming forward through the underbrush, Hawk exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be horsewhipped! Am I seeing the vision of a ghost?”
“No, sir,” replied Hank affably, “No more than I am, I reckon.”
Hawk strode up and darn near knocked Hank over with a bear hug that would have crushed a sizable coyote.
Hank coughed a bit and grunted, “No sir, no sir, ain’t possible that’s a hug from a ghost. I reckon you’re as real as I am, Hawk Banks!”
“What in the name of thunder are you doing here, Hank? Why aren’t you dead? You should have been dead twice by now, the way I figure it!”
At this Hank scratched his head and retorted, “Well, sir, that is one good question. I suppose I’m trying to do the same thing as everyone else in Texas these days, and that is to survive one more day. Can’t say I’m doin’ much of a job of it, though. Anyway, it wasn’t no problem findin’ General Houston’s army, and when I got here this afternoon, Juan Seguin told me you was alive and somewhere round about here, so I set off to find you and say hello.”
Hearing this Hawk slapped his knee, chuckled a bit, and true to form, hawked and spat. “Aren’t we just the pair. Me certain you died at Goliad, and you assuming God knows what, and here we are, both alive and still in this godawful runaway army. I declare, I don’t know that I have ever in my life been so happy to see someone as I am to see you, Hank, you rascal!”
Hank grinned, and Hawk asked, “How’d you get away from the Alamo, sir?”
“Got sent to Goliad with Major Bonham to get reinforcements. He went back to Bexar, but I stayed at La Bahia. Didn’t think it wise to go back to the Alamo.”
“You got that right!” Hawk replied. “And how, pray tell, did you manage to escape from Goliad?”
“I ain’t too sure of that myself. All I know is when the shootin’ started, I sprinted like a jack rabbit that smelled a coyote. Ain’t never run so far so fast in my entire life. Unfortunately, I ran so far I done run right into General Houston’s army a couple of hours ago. I ain’t no volunteer like you. This time I got conscripted. And here I am, out in the middle of nowhere, which, as it turns out, is exactly the right place to be if you’re searchin’ for one Hawk Banks!”
Hawk grinned big as day, and hawked again, right on cue. “We were both born under a lucky star, Hank MacElrae, I’ll tell you that for sure. Doubt there’s two other men on earth that’ve been through what we’ve been through these last six months, and both of us still alive to tell about it.” Hawk paused and, kicking the dirt, he posited, “All of a sudden I have a good feeling, Hank. I’m thinking we just might make it through this whole sad affair, you and me.”
Hank grinned and, awarding Hawk another hug, he suggested, “Well, I’ve no idea who’s pulling the strings up there, but I don’t know I’ve ever been so happy to see someone in my life, ‘ceptin’ maybe Julie.”
Nodding in agreement, Hank grinned and responded, “This will do, won’t it. We may have to run halfway to Tennessee with this blasted army, but we’ll be doing it together from now on, you and me.”