Chapter Fifteen

Coles Settlement, October 1835
JOHN’S STORY

 

Faced with hiding behind a woman’s dress, and possibly seeing her molested or killed, I decided there was only one course to take. While the men and mistress of the acreage lined up by the fence, I went to the house and donned my familiar, old clothes, then snuck off to the stables. There, I hurriedly saddled the stolen horse, mounted, and rode out the north side gate. I did not do that to flee. I did it to surrender.

I was thinking, as I rode, that I would be sitting on this horse another few minutes before the Mexicans looped a rope around my neck and strung me from the largest tree outside the grounds—a solitary oak that must have been planted when the world was young. The fence had took a detour around it. I later heard from Mrs. Coles that her husband felt it too proud a thing to be caged; odd from a man who kept humans as slaves.

Anyway, I suspected that that was where my life would end, and I thought of Nathan Hale meeting his fate at a far younger age than I. It had been a full life, and I found myself thinking of two things as I circled round the spread: God and Astoria Laveau, the lady I loved. One I was soon to meet, the other I was never to see again. Not that I expected to; but I don’t think you ever quite give up hope. Unless you’re about to be hanged.

But I had a plan, one which began to formulate when I mounted the agent’s horse.

The only sound was my breathing hard and the dancing of the regimental colors in the wind. Mrs. Coles had been alarmed to see me come round the fence, though she said nothing. She must’ve figured I was doing exactly what I was doing: the only action I could take short of running or causing needless bloodshed.

I stopped perpendicular to the lieutenant. The agent was near the front of the column, behind the officer, pointing at the horse and jabbering. He spit in my direction, and it landed on the man behind him. The lieutenant ordered him to the rear of the line. Then he motioned for two men to ride to either side of me.

“Your name, sir?”

“John Apple,” I told him.

“How did you come by the pinto you are riding?”

“Me and Jim Bowie took it from the fella you brought,” I said.

“You also took papers,” the man said.

“Bowie has those,” I said. “And also the guns.”

The lieutenant regarded me. “I have the authority to hang you as an admitted horse thief.”

“I know,” I said. “You also have the power to grant me a pardon if I take you to your papers and your rifles.”

“John!” Mrs. Coles screamed.

I saw her hand tense on the rifle. I think she had it in mind to shoot me. She didn’t know I was putting on an act; that cry was real and hot, and it hurt me to hear it. But unless I wanted to be buried beside her orchard, with apple trees all around me, I had to buy time. She also knew I had protected the actual whereabouts of the documents in the satchel. That helped stay her hand, trusting that I knew what I was doing.

The lieutenant looked from me to Mrs. Coles to the settlement. “Your husband has not yet returned from fishing,” he observed.

“The lieutenant has a keen eye.”

“And a patient one,” he remarked. He bowed his head but had not removed his hat.

With a little bit of ceremony—overstated movements, searching where they need not have—the two Mexicans seized my weapons. Of course, if I’d had it in mind to use them I would have done so before now. But it was a sensible precaution on their part. They also bound my hands in front of me, which allowed me to hold the reins but not assault anyone with my fists—or my fingernails, which were at that point getting somewhat long. I found, being in the wild, such was useful for debugging, mostly. Everything from pulling worms from apples to mites from the skin or scalp. Then, with me still between them, we lined up beside the lieutenant—the column now resembling a capital L, its foot stomping across the scrub.

My mind was still chewing on the last few days and this one in particular. By going to the settlement I had not only put myself in danger, I had jeopardized the entire family. I began to wonder about the wisdom of having blindly followed Bowie’s orders. On the other hand, a revolution was like taking a horse down a steep hill: once you start, you can only pick up speed.

“Where are we headed?” the lieutenant asked.

I assumed, since he knew about the apple cores, there was no sense telling him that we had interred the guns in a grave. I had a better idea.

“Southwest,” I said.

“Toward Gonzales?”

“Not precisely,” I replied. “Lieutenant—this is the only string I got, my only tether to life, so forgive me if I play it out.”

“I promise you, Señor Apple, there are worse things by far than a merciful death, should you mislead us.”

I did not have to tell him I had seen such as that. It was my fervent hope he would soon see it himself.

We rode till dusk and then we camped. The horses were tied to a line stretched between two trees. I was pushed to the ground beside one of those trees. My hands were freed only to be tied around the trunk. A sentry stood nearby, watchful and occasionally talking to his horse.

The rough bark was to be my pillow, I figgered. Or maybe it was the plan to keep me tired so I couldn’t run away or concoct lies. Back in Ohio, I thought it was tough to understand the mind of a woman. Out here, I was finding it a challenge to predict the thought process of anyone.

With one happy exception, it turned out.

It was the dark of night, with a campfire stupidly burning and two sentries awake. I say “stupidly” because they obviously weighed the benefit of keeping nighttime carnivores away versus letting any two-legged predator know they were here.

This lieutenant looked like he must have seen a few years on horseback. I put him in his mid-thirties, and he certainly knew how to ride the pitted prairie. His men jumped when he spoke in his softish way. But I reckoned, too, he was naïve as to the ways of the natives who wasn’t Texians. Specifically, the Indians. More specifically, the Comanche. Hell, until I had seen their devilish ceremony, until Mr. Coles had spoke of their habits, I didn’t know much about them. But I knew enough that if I put horses in their midst, the redskins would know it.

I heard the snoring of the men and the occasional crunch of dry grass and whinny from the corral. I heard the frequent, bored sigh of the sentry, the sound of his boots on pebbles as he walked to and fro now and then, the clop of his military shako when he bumped it into a low-hanging limb. There were occasional overhead scratches from night birds in the tree and field mice burrowing below. All must have felt safe around the fire, since they were occasionally brazen in their movements.

Not so the Comanche, who came not from the corral but from the plain.

I had been expecting them since we entered the territory where I had first seen them. I knew they had arrived when I noticed grasses move in a way that was not the direction of the wind. That was not the route I had expected them to take, but it made sense. Why excite the horses and have to deal with an aroused militia when you could overcome the soldiers first and then just ride off?

I felt poorly for the sleeping Mexicans and their duty-doing leader. But I was more worried about me. I was glad to be bound so the hostiles would know I did not represent danger. On the other hand, if they was of a mind to gut me, there was nothing I could do about it.

I wondered, briefly, if I should alert the lieutenant and hope for clemency. I don’t like making fast decisions, especially those my life might depend on. Standing with the Texians at Gonzales, I was one of many and in the back row. Here, I had to choose between standing with Mexican enemies or Comanche enemies. I wished I could do like the mice and just bury myself somewhere. But I could not.

I elected to play my hand with the Indians. I felt a twinge of sadness at having walked the unit into a kind of trap, but no one told them to come after me. That was their overconfident choice.

The Indians came at the encampment in a crescent moon formation, leaving no area of escape except toward the horses. It was a good tactic: the horses were to the rear, which meant the Mexicans would turn their backs to retreat. Moreover, men who were fussing with ropes and reins were men who weren’t shooting or bayoneting.

I once saw a South American bird in a cage. It was bright colored, with a big beak and a loud voice. The moment before they struck, these redskins seemed like that bird—except with the cage door suddenly opened.

The firelight briefly lit faces that were covered with war paint, the bright “beak” of their knives in front. And they flew, too, from a belly-down position to a run in a single leap. And they squawked at the same time, rousing their quarry to confused wakefulness.

The suddenly alerted sentries were the first to respond and the first to die. No sooner had they shouldered their guns at the main force than the edges of the crescent came up behind them and cut their throats in a single, deep slash. The two plunked to their knees and reached for their necks. It was ghastly hearing them drown, a loud gurgle accompanying each wet breath. Their tunics were quickly coated in red and they flopped forward on their faces, moving weakly without particular purpose and still gasping.

The lieutenant died third. He had been spotted and targeted by two Comanche who were seeking to decapitate the force. One took him down around the knees and, as he hit the ground hard, on his spine, the other put a knife in his gut and tore upward. I saw his intestines unfurl through the slit, like a freed snake. He expired whilst trying to push them back in.

There were screams aplenty, as much from the fired-up Indians as from the dying Mexicans. With the dancing red light of the fire it looked like the depiction of Satan’s minions at work I’d seen in some religious books. The ferocity of the Comanche was such that not a single one of them was injured, save by their own enthusiasm causing two men to cut themselves and another to run through the campfire, burning his bare heel.

When it was done, three of them gathered near me. One of them touched his heart with one hand, touched his eyes with three middle fingertips on each, placed a palm on his head and pointed to the heavens with the other, then clasped both hands in front of his belly. Because they didn’t kill me, but cut me loose, I interpreted that as: I had seen their ceremony involving the other brave, which was sacred, and as such I was an honorary member of the tribe. Or something like that. All I know is that when it was over and they had collected the horses, they gave me back my own and motioned that I should join them. I can’t say I was honored or touched, since they was following tradition. But I was grateful to the Lord for sparing me.

“What about these bodies?” I asked, sweeping a hand across the dead soldiers.

Well, it turns out they weren’t through. I had expected a repeat of the unhearting I had witnessed the other day but that was not what they had in mind. Using ropes some and whips some of the men carried, they were tied feet-first and on their backs to the tails of the horses. When we set out, they were drug behind their own animals. The Indians did not drive their new horses but walked them slowly, so as not to harm them. I expected there wouldn’t be nothing but bloody pulp by the time they returned to their own camp.