Clay expected to hear the cannons in the distance. He did not expect to hear gunfire so close. Reining in his mount, he rounded the corner to see a young Mexican soldier standing over someone on the ground. In his hand was a basket of some sort. He seemed to be digging through it for something.

At the sight of Clay’s approach, the soldier tossed the basket aside and drew his weapon. Clay quickly assessed the situation. It appeared the soldier was a scout sent out alone. Or perhaps his companion had fled at the sight of a Texian soldier.

In either case, the man had been caught in the middle of robbing a person already dead or had been the one who pulled the trigger. The second being the more likely scenario, Clay decided, when the soldier tossed the basket away and sighted his weapon.

“I will let you live if you walk away now,” he told the soldier. “Just go.”

His ability to speak Spanish had failed him this time, or the soldier had no care for Clay’s warning. He continued to stand there as if his next act would be to dispatch Clay just as he had obviously done with this civilian.

“Go,” Clay repeated.

The man set the sight against his eye, the barrel of the rifle now aimed directly at him. Then, from nowhere, a noise crackled through the air. The Mexican soldier crumpled.

Clay jumped off his horse and ran, closing the distance to remove the soldier’s weapon. Then he turned to see if he could identify the civilian.

“Ellis.”

Black rage mixed with fear flooded him as he gathered her into his arms. Blood stained his jacket, but still he held her against him.

“Clay,” she whispered, and he nearly cried out with joy. She was alive. Ellis was alive. But there was so much blood.

“Ellis, I love you. Do not die,” he said as he took off his jacket and held it against the source of the blood.

From somewhere behind him he heard footsteps. Heard yelling and words and names being shouted but there was nothing, there was no one, just him and Ellis and all the blood and the anger that flowed as red as that blood.

Then someone wrenched her from his arms. Clay came up swinging.

The world tilted and then Thomas Valmont stepped in front of the men who held his arms back. “Stand down, soldier,” he told him. “We’re taking her to Pollard at the hospital.”

The rest of the night and following day was spent in a haze of white-hot fear and blood-red anger. Clay paced, he prayed, and then he paced some more. Finally in the middle of the next afternoon, Amos Pollard lifted the ban on visitors in his hospital and allowed Clay inside.

He stepped into the room where Ellis lay—not the sickroom where the soldiers were kept, but a smaller and more comfortable chamber that Clay had been told was the doctor’s own quarters. The walls here were painted in the bright color that was common in Mexican homes, and the bedposts had been carved with flowers of all sorts.

Ellis lay still and quiet, white as the linen that wrapped her up to her chin with her flame-red hair spread out on her pillow. Clay froze.

Though he had determined he would neither cry nor allow Ellis to see how terrified he was at the prospect of losing her, Clay did both the moment he fell on his knees beside her bed. How long he knelt there, he had no idea. When a hand touched his shoulder, he jumped to his feet.

“I didn’t mean to surprise you.” The man stuck out his hand. “Name’s Amos Pollard. I understand you found her.”

Clay managed a nod. Anything further seemed impossible.

“She’s lucky,” he said. “Either the man who shot her had terrible aim or she surprised him.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” he said, thinking back to Thomas Valmont’s take on that subject. “The Lord takes care of us in His own way. If we manage to have something go our way, we figure it’s because it is His way.”

Pollard smiled. “Well then, I will rephrase my statement. The Lord has taken care of this young lady, and I believe with care she will be just fine.”

“With care?”

He shrugged. “If she were my daughter—and I have one, you know—I wouldn’t allow her to stay here. You see for yourself what is outside these gates. I don’t think it will be long before they’ll make a try for us.”

“Then I will take her to safety.”

“That is wise,” he said, “though she won’t be fit to travel far. I suggest you move her to the mission at San Jose. She should be safe there for now.”

Thomas Valmont appeared in the doorway. “Consider it done.”

“No,” Clay snapped. “She will not be safe there.”

Pollard shrugged. “You two decide. I’ve got somewhere else to be, but please do not tarry in making your choice. It won’t be long before no one will come or go from this place.”

When the surgeon was gone, Clay let out a long breath. “I cannot trust her safety at the mission because there are people there who mean her harm. A woman tried to lure her out of the mission with the promise of seeing you. She said you’d been taken by the Mexicans and were marching to the border but she could facilitate your escape. It was a lie, of course, because you were here all along.”

Thomas laughed, and it was all Clay could do not to punch him. “Was her name Rose?”

“Maybe,” Clay said slowly. “Why?”

He shook his head. “Because I’d been told that my sister was looking for me by one of the sentries.”

“Yes,” Clay said. “I did inquire about you when I first arrived here. When I saw the conditions, I knew I couldn’t allow Ellis to stay, so I took her with me to Mission San Jose.”

“Rose meant her no harm, I promise.”

“How could you know?” he demanded. “She lied.”

“To protect me,” Thomas said. “Rose and I are, well … we are acquainted. I hope someday to make an offer of marriage to her. But that will be after this war is over—if we survive it.”

Clay shook his head. “She was going to lure Ellis out into the night. She told her to be prepared to go at a moment’s notice.”

“Because she would be taking her to me.” Thomas shrugged. “I had to make arrangements. It took time. And I certainly couldn’t meet her at the mission, considering …”

“Considering what?”

“Considering Rose’s father does not approve of me. I’ve been ordered to stay away.” He nodded toward the exit. “If you think the men out there have it in for us, that is nothing compared to how Rose’s family feels about me. Not that it’ll matter when the time comes. We will marry one way or another.”

“I see.”

“However, I think an exception could be made for my sister,” he said. “My suggestion is we move her to Mission San Jose, and then we leave her in Rose’s care. When she can travel further, Rose will get her to safety.”

Clay managed a nod of agreement but nothing else. Thomas clapped his hand on Clay’s shoulder. “She will live to torment us both again. I promise.”

At this, he did manage a smile.

Ellis opened her eyes to a room filled with color. And flowers. Were they real? She narrowed her eyes and tried to focus. Perhaps. Or perhaps they were merely carved into the surface of the wood. They moved, swirling in and out until she had to close her eyes to make them stop.

The air was cold, but beneath the blankets she felt warm. Her arms were filled with lead, or so it seemed, and she was completely unable to do anything other than hold her eyes open for a few brief moments. Until the flowers began swirling again.

The next time she opened her eyes, the room looked completely different. The walls were white, and the sun blazed down upon a quilt that she had seen before. Somewhere. A lifetime ago.

A crucifix hung on the wall just beyond her. She looked into the face of Jesus and closed her eyes. Feathers. Something about feathers.

“Ellis?”

Someone called her from far away. She opened her mouth to respond but could not. Instead she fell into the silence and dreamed about feathers. Lots of feathers. And then just two of them.

“I think we should stop giving her that sleeping potion,” someone said.

“It’s helping her,” another voice argued.

“Yes, but she has to wake up sometime.”

Feathers. Two feathers.

“Wake up, Ellis.”

The words were insistent almost to the point of rudeness. She opened her eyes to say so but found her mouth so dry she could barely form a sound.

Water found its way to her lips and she drank. A woman stood nearby. “Not too much, Marianna. She’s only just coming out of her sleep.”

Rose. Yes, she remembered her. The other woman, younger and rounder of face, came into view holding a brightly colored pitcher. Marianna, yes.

“Your daughter, how is she?”

Rose translated as Marianna grinned. “She is good,” the young woman said in heavily accented English.

“How did I come to be back at Mission San Jose?” she asked as she struggled to sit up until an overwhelming pain forced her to allow Rose to help.

The women exchanged looks and then Marianna slipped from the room with a worried expression. Rose moved a chair near the bed and sat down.

“You were shot,” she told her. “Do you remember any of it?”

“Shot? No,” she said, although she did recall an afternoon when she strayed too far while gathering herbs. But too far from where?

“The Alamo,” Rose was saying, and then she began to cry.

“Am I that bad off?” Ellis said. “It seems as though I will recover.”

Rose nodded and reached for the handkerchief she kept in her pocket. Once she dabbed her eyes dry, she began again.

“The surgeon was able to clean your wound. He insisted you be moved here and not be disturbed until the healing was successful. Marianna and I have been using your herbal medications the way you taught us and seeing to you since …” Tears sprang fresh, and this time the handkerchief could not contain them. “Oh Ellis …”

“What is it?” Ellis demanded. “If it is not me, then what?” She paused as a feeling of dread coursed through her. “Then who?”

“All of them,” she managed. “He took all of them.”

She leaned forward, ignoring the pain that it caused her. Grasping Rose’s hand, she shook it. “What are you talking about? Please tell me.”

Through the tears, she gasped a cry and then shook her head. “The Alamo. They let the women and children live, but they killed the rest.”

Ellis shook her head as the words swirled around in her mind. They formed and then scattered, refusing to become a clear thought.

Finally the idea of what she’d heard took hold. “The Alamo has fallen?” At Rose’s nod, she felt the breath in her lungs freeze. “When?”

“Nearly two weeks ago now. Sixth of March, it was.”

“Thomas?” she managed.

“Gone. Clay too. And your papa. Thomas had only just written of his arrival and now this.”

Ellis wailed then, giving vent to what she could no longer say. She closed her eyes. Feathers. Two feathers.