For the next few weeks, the prisoners huddled under guard in the old fort, gloomily waiting for the orders from Chihuahua. “I wish we had something to do,” Ellis said. “Anything. Choppin’ firewood would be better than this. We’ve got too much time to think.” The others gazed at him and nodded their heads.
“I hope they’re not goin’ to let us rot here for another six months,” Tom House said. He stood up, stretched, and began to pace up and down. “It was bad enough before those men escaped. Damn them to hell.”
“That honest woman I married must be worried sick,” freckled Joel Pierce said to Ephraim Blackburn. “She probably imagines that all sorts of awful things have happened to me. She knows I’d never desert her. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.” His voice quavered and he buried his scarred face in his hands, stifling his sobs. Embarrassed, the others turned their backs. Blackburn patted his shoulder.
“Have faith,” he said. “Surely we’ll see our loved ones again.”
One morning, they heard the hoofbeats of many horses. It sounded like a cavalry troop, and the prisoners expectantly rose to their feet. The big wooden door swung open and Captain Músquiz entered, with a letter in his hand and Samuel Davenport by his side. The prisoners glanced at one another, wondering what this meant. Musquiz frowned and Davenport appeared worried. It was clear they wouldn’t be sent home. Ellis suddenly felt chilled.
“This is from the comandante at Béxar,” Músquiz said, holding up the letter while Davenport translated. “He is furious at me for trusting you and letting some of you escape. He doesn’t intend for that to happen again. He orders me to send the rest of you to Bexar in chains. You leave immediately.”
“I’m sorry, men,” Davenport told them. “It’s not fair to punish you for what others did. But....”He shrugged and left.
“Those men who escaped sure played hell with the rest of us,” Ellis said. “Maybe we should have made a run for it while we had the chance. The farther we get from Natchez, the harder it’ll be.”
A blacksmith riveted rough, iron shackles connected by short, heavy chains around their wrists. The edges of the iron bands hadn’t been smoothed, and when Ellis raised his hands, he winced as the rough iron sawed into his skin. He mounted a horse with difficulty, cutting his wrists until they bled.
When all were mounted, twenty cavalrymen herded them onto the Camino Real for the long ride to San Antonio. For a day they rode through pine woods before coming to the open prairies. The Royal Road was nothing but a trail traveled by pack trains, couriers, and occasionally by two-wheeled Mexican carts drawn by oxen.
A week later, they forded the San Antonio River and stopped at the Presidio of Bexar, a large stone building in San Antonio’s Military Plaza. Towering over the village of stone and adobe houses was San Fernando church. The prisoners were ordered into the guardhouse for the night. Ellis heard the heavy bolt slam shut, barring the door.
They were allowed to lounge around the plaza during the day, but were locked up at night. Ellis and Duncan walked slowly around the plaza, kicking at dried horse droppings and trying to keep the flies out of the wounds on their wrists. They passed Ephraim Blackburn and Joel Pierce sitting disconsolately on a bench. “I’d be willing to stay here five years if they’d let those two go,” Ellis said. He looked at his raw wrists. “That is, if they’d take these shackles off.”
Three months passed, when orders arrived to take them to Mexico City. “I wonder what they can do to us there they can’t do here,” Ellis said.
Day after day they rode south across deserts and through mountain passes. Ellis gingerly held up his wrists and blew away the flies. Most of the cuts had formed thick ugly scars, but a few places had little chance to heal. His muscles ached from the hours in the saddle; it seemed as if they were traveling to the end of the world and would never reach it. “I wonder if they’ll ever let us go,” he said somberly. “And if they do, if we can make it all the way back.”
“Nolan told us to fight to the death or they’d make us prisoners for life,” Duncan replied. “It sure looks like surrendering was a mistake.” He brushed the shoulder-length blond hair out of his tanned face with his manacled hands. His wrists were also scarred and raw.
Finally they saw San Luis Potosí below them in the distance, surrounded by lush green fields and orchards. Shining white churches towered over the largest city Ellis had ever seen. He gazed in awe at the splendid buildings, forgetting for a few moments the oozing wounds on his wrists. He had little time to admire the city, for the cavalry stopped by a massive stone building and the sergeant ordered them to dismount.
They were herded into the dark interior and turned over to sullen guards. The foul stench of urine, offal, and rotting food that struck his nostrils like a slap in the face told Ellis this was a dungeon. The guards led them down to the dimly lit lower floor, then divided them. Ellis, Duncan, Blackburn, Pierce, Luciano, and Danlin were shoved into a room that received a little light and air from a small grated window high in the stone wall. Fero, Cooley, Stephen Richards, Reed, House, and Waters were ushered into a similar room. Both rooms had heavy iron doors with small openings through which the guards handed them bowls of food and jugs of water. In one comer was a pile of dung left by previous prisoners. The stench was almost unbearable. “Thank God we’ll be here just one night,” Danlin said to Ellis.
In the morning, Ellis watched impatiently for the door to open, but the guards merely handed them bowls of tepid water with a small piece of boiled chicken floating in each one. No soldiers came to take them on to Mexico City. Surely we’ll go on tomorrow, Ellis thought. They can’t just leave us here and forget us.
On the third day, when the guard brought the food, Ellis asked in Spanish, “When do they take us to Mexico City?”
“Mexico City?” The guard snorted and laughed. “When you’re dead, maybe. No one ever leaves this place alive.”
Ellis felt suddenly weak and his hands trembled. For foolishly accompanying Nolan, they had been condemned to die a slow death—it might take years. In a voice as unsteady as his legs, he told the others what the guard had said. In the dim light he saw their faces register shock, then despair. Without feeling hunger or being aware of what he was doing, he ate the little piece of boiled chicken, then lifted the bowl to his mouth and drank the water in which it had been cooked.
Although the others looked ready to lie down and stop breathing, Blackburn’s wrinkled face seemed to glow in the dim light. “We are not going to give up hope of deliverance,” he said in a firm voice. “We are going to keep our senses, because one day we will leave this place alive.” He recited from memory a verse from the Bible. Ellis didn’t recognize it or any of the others Blackburn recited each morning thereafter. When he had gone through all of the verses he remembered, he started over. He’s keeping us all from going mad, Ellis thought, but he resigned himself to dying in the stinking dungeon.
One morning, more than a year later, they were ordered out of the dungeon and herded onto the street. Shielding his eyes from the unaccustomed sunlight, Ellis saw saddled horses and a cavalry troop awaiting them. Still in chains, they were ordered to mount and weakly climbed on. They were escorted out of the city on the same road they’d followed when they arrived.
“They’re taking us north,” Ellis said quietly to Duncan. “I wonder what that means.” Duncan didn’t reply, for the officer, a short man with a waxed mustache, was glaring at them.
“Where are we going?” Ellis later asked a soldier who rode near him. The man glanced around to see if the officer was watching before replying.
“We’re taking you to Saltillo,” he said. “I think from there you go to Chihuahua.”
The officer in charge of the escort apparently regarded the prisoners as criminals who deserved no consideration at all, for he showed them none. One morning, Joel Pierce was too sick to rise. “Put him on his horse,” the officer ordered. “If he wants to die he can do it in the saddle as well as in bed.” Two soldiers roughly shoved the gaunt youth onto his horse’s back. Duncan and Ellis rode on opposite sides of him ready to catch him if he started to fall. Somehow he survived, and he was able to ride by himself by the time they reached Saltillo.
When they stopped in the plaza at Saltillo, the people crowded around as usual to stare at the bearded, ragged, dirty prisoners. What was left of Ellis’ homespun shirt and pants was barely enough to cover him. The old women, in black dresses, brought them bread and fruit, although they obviously had little to spare. One gave Ellis a white cotton shirt, then wrung her hands when she realized he couldn’t put it on because of his shackles.
The cavalry troop that brought them to Saltillo turned them over to another. Ellis looked at the new officer, a clean-shaven young Spaniard with sparkling black eyes. When he inspected the prisoners, he frowned at the sight of their scarred wrists and called to his sergeant. “Send a man for the blacksmith and remove those chains,” he ordered. “I don’t care what they did—they don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
When the shackles were removed, Ellis tore off what was left of his ragged shirt and put on the one the woman had given him. His arms had been shackled so long he could hardly move them.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” the officer asked in Spanish, and smiled.
“Muchas gracias,'’ Ellis replied.
“I thought all Spaniards were mean as hell,” Ellis remarked.”Can’t say that about the lieutenant.”
“Or the townspeople,” Duncan added, ‘‘although they look more Indian than Spanish.”
At every village on the long ride to Chihuahua, the people took pity on the prisoners and brought them food and clothing. One wrinkled old woman with gray braids that reached nearly to her waist stopped by Duncan to admire his long blond hair. She called to her daughter, and both exclaimed over the color, and fingered Duncan’s matted locks. Before the cavalry rode on, the daughter brought Duncan a white cotton shirt.
After thanking her, he said to Ellis, “We’ve both got shirts. Now maybe someone will give us each a pair of pants.”
They reached Chihuahua in the spring of 1803, two years after their capture. Stem-faced General Nemesio de Salcedo, who had recently arrived, was commandant general of all the Interior Provinces. “When General Salcedo learned that you were in a dungeon at San Luis Potosí,” the commander of the escort told them, “he ordered you brought here.”
Because escaping from Chihuahua and crossing the desert on foot was almost impossible, Salcedo gave them the freedom of the city during the days, but they had to return to the barracks at night. Each was given a little money every day to buy food, but nothing to replace the rags they wore.
One night when they returned to the barracks to be counted, an officer beckoned to Stephen Richards to follow him. Stephen didn’t return that night; in the morning when Ellis saw him in a Spanish uniform, he seemed embarrassed. “They let me out to join the army,” he mumbled. “I’m leaving for Nacogdoches in a few days.”
“How come?” Ellis asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t expect it,” he replied, not looking Ellis in the face.
“I know why they did it, and he knows,” Ellis said to Duncan later. “It’s the reward for his father telling them where to find us. It’s not Stephen’s doing, but I don’t blame him for not wanting to see us.”
Duncan and Ellis wandered about Chihuahua, grateful for at least this much freedom. The city, mostly adobe houses with flat roofs, had a population of about seven thousand. In the public plaza stood the principal church, which dwarfed the royal treasury building and the shops. The prisoners found the people friendly.
The upper classes ate well, lived in comfortable houses of adobe bricks, and amused themselves by playing cards and betting on cock fights. The poor lived in one-room jacalos of sticks and mud and ate scrawny chickens, cheap beef,frijoles, and tortillas.
Every evening the upper class families gathered at the public walks on the south side of the city under three rows of trees. At each end of the walks were circular seats where people played guitars and sang songs in Spanish and French. Ellis and Duncan greatly admired the sparkling-eyed young ladies, who wore short jackets, petticoats, and shoes with high heels. Over their dresses, unmarried girls always wore a silk shawl, and when men were near, modestly drew it across their faces, leaving only one eye exposed. “With that thing over their faces, you can’t tell if they’re smilin’ or frownin’ at you,” Ellis remarked. “Don’t seem fair.” At nine each night the paseo ended and everyone went home, for after that hour soldiers stopped anyone found on the streets.
Several of the prisoners, including David Fero, Joel Pierce, and Zalmon Cooley, received permission to move to San Carlos or other towns. Brawny Thomas House, who worked as a blacksmith in Chihuahua, exchanged letters with Fero and Cooley on plans for escaping. House warned the others not to trust Jonah Waters, for he remembered Waters repeating his remarks to Nolan. Waters worked as a hatter in Chihuahua.
“We’ve got to find a way to earn some money or we’ll soon be naked,” Ellis said one morning as they accompanied Luciano to the plaza. “They give us barely enough to keep from starving. If Luciano didn’t bargain for us, we’d likely starve anyway.” Men in sandals, white cotton shirts, and trousers, and women in black dresses were already bringing chickens, fruit, and bread to sell.
“I wonder if there’s any work for a gunsmith here,” Duncan said. “My father taught me to repair guns, and all you Beans are gunsmiths. Of course, we’d have to have tools.” Luciano listened but said nothing.
“I’ve repaired plenty of guns,” Ellis observed. “I’d rather make hats, or something like that, but I don’t know how.” They bought some bread and fruit, then sat on a low stone wall and watched the girls. Luciano left them.
He returned at noon. “I’ve been talking to some merchants,” he said. “Rafael Nunez will sell you the tools you need on credit,” he told Duncan. “Manuel Moreno will supply you with material for making hats,” he said to Ellis, who shrugged. “He also knows two good hatters who’d like to work for an Americano.” Ellis smiled.
Both got to work right away. With a vise, hammer, files, and other tools, Duncan soon had all the business he could handle. Ellis’ hats were soon in demand—none but the Americano’s sombreros would do. They bought clothing, ate well, and soon repaid their debts. When Ellis made the last payment, Moreno invited him to his home for dinner.
The Morenos lived in a spacious, well-furnished house of adobe, with a patio and large yard filled with fruit trees and grape vines. Moreno served wine, then his wife and two young daughters joined them for dinner. Ellis admired the attractive Señora Moreno but didn’t know how to behave in the presence of ladies of her class. He tried to remain silent, but she wouldn’t allow it. “Tell me how you came to be in Texas,” she said, and little by little drew from him the story of their misadventures. “You are all innocent!” she exclaimed indignantly. “They have no right to hold you!”
When they had finished dinner, she and the girls—Ellis guessed them to be ten and twelve—withdrew, while Ellis and Moreno smoked cigars and talked.
“Spanish officials are slow to act on matters of this sort,” Moreno told him. “You could be here the rest of your life. You already speak Spanish well. I advise you to join the church, marry, and settle down. You won’t become rich, but you can live comfortably.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Ellis replied. “I figured one day they’ll get tired of holding us and let us go.”
“That’s possible but unlikely. Everyone believed Nolan was invading Texas, and some still think he was. I’m afraid you’ll be here for a long time. Better think about what I said.”
“I will,” Ellis assured him. He and Duncan, along with House and Danlin, soon began the process of preparing themselves for entering the church. None of them was ready to abandon hope of being freed one day, so they declined to consider marriage.
“We need to save as much money as we can,” Ellis told Duncan.“One day we’ll surely have a chance to leave here, but we won’t get far without dinero. ” That’s not what we did in Tennessee, he thought. No one ever tried to save money. We spent it as fast as we made it and didn’t worry about tomorrow. But now it’s different.
Late one day in January 1804, Fero, Cooley, Pierce, and the others who’d moved to San Carlos or elsewhere appeared at the barracks in Chihuahua, escorted by soldiers. “Does anyone know what this is all about?” Cooley asked. No one did.
At mid-morning the next day, an officer and a few soldiers marched the whole group into the city. “Can you tell us where we’re going?” Ellis asked him in Spanish.
“Certainly. You’re on the way to the juzgado to stand trial for entering Spanish territory illegally. It’s high time they took some action.”
In the courthouse they saw dignified, stem-looking Judge Pedro Galindo de Navarro, a handsome, gray-haired Spaniard leafing through a stack of papers on his desk. “That’s the evidence against you,” the officer told them. “It’s taken Judge Galindo a month to read it all. But now he’s ready to announce his decision.”
The prisoners stood with hats in hands. It reminded Ellis of waiting for a teacher to decide whether or not to whip him. Don José Díaz de Bustamante, the prosecutor, solemnly entered the room and stood to the right of the judge, who had risen to his feet. Don Pedro Ramón de Verea, the prisoners’ counsel, entered and stood at the judge’s left, his face relaxed, almost smiling. I guess he figures he did all he could for us and is glad it’s over, Ellis thought. He wasn’t prepared for what followed.
“I order all charges against the accused dismissed,” the judge said, “and I recommend their immediate release.”
The prisoners appeared at first unable to comprehend the verdict. Then it seemed as if heavy chains had been miraculously removed and they were floating on air. Ellis’ legs felt suddenly weak, but he smiled broadly. Freedom! He recommends that we be released! He glanced at Ephraim Blackburn and Joel Pierce, and saw tears streaming down their faces.
“I never had much confidence in Spanish justice,” Cooley exclaimed. “It’s slow, but I can’t complain now.”
“Thank God, thank God,” Blackburn said hoarsely. “I feared I’d never see my loved ones again.”
“I doubt if my wife will even recognize me,” Joel Pierce said sadly. ‘‘They waited too lon” Ellis looked at him and had to agree. He’d never fully recovered his health and was gaunt-faced and pallid, obviously in bad shape. The scar on his pale cheek was an ugly purple line.
“I hope they’ll furnish us horses for the ride home,” Duncan said. “I’ll walk if I have to, but they took our horses in Nacogdoches, so they owe us some.”
All of the prisoners remained at the barracks nights, for there was no reason that Fero and the others should return to San Carlos. All of them went from store to store during the days, buying a few extra garments for the journey home. Ellis felt like running around shouting, “We’re free! We’re free!” but managed to restrain himself. He saw Ephraim Blackburn, his thick hair white, looking more solemn than usual. Ellis smiled. “I thought you’d be celebrating like the rest of us,” he said.
“I’d like to,” Blackburn replied, “and I would if I could stop thinking about Joel. He’s not well enough to travel, but he’s determined to go. I’m afraid the trip will kill him, but we can’t go off and leave him here alone.” Ellis’ smile faded. He’d forgotten about Joel.
The next morning, a captain who had always been sympathetic to the prisoners called them together, and Ellis knew from his expression that he wasn’t bringing good news. He cleared his throat.
“I regret to tell you that General Salcedo did not agree with Judge Galindo’s ruling and suspended it. He is sending the records to Spain and requesting the king to make a ruling.” Ellis listened but couldn’t believe what he heard.
“Good God!” Zalmon Cooley exclaimed.
“The Lord is my Shepherd,” Ephraim Blackburn intoned.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Fero shouted. Ellis’ lips moved numbly, but no words came. If they want to torture us to death as painfully as possible, they’re doing a good job of it, he thought. Despondently, he and Duncan went back to making hats and repairing guns. It’ll take years to hear from Spain, Ellis brooded. By then I’ll be an old man. Why don’t they just shoot us?
Months passed and rumors floated about, but nothing happened. Some said that Salcedo hadn’t sent the papers to Spain, and they’d never be freed; that was easy to believe. Duncan was called to the village of Aldama to repair the weapons of a detachment of troops stationed there, a task that would take several months. Fero and House again exchanged letters about a plan for escaping. “William Danlin and I are thinking of trying to get away,” House told Ellis.
“Me too,” Ellis replied. He got permission to go to San Carlos, where he made escape plans for Duncan, House, and himself. Between them, Ellis and Duncan had purchased, through Mexican friends, four horses and three guns.
Before attempting to escape, House and the other prisoners in Chihuahua decided to petition Salcedo to release them. An obliging priest wrote in Spanish a lengthy explanation of how they’d come to accompany Nolan to Texas, explaining that he had assured them he had permission and a passport, and that he had been allowed to enter Texas a number of times before. They had no reason to doubt his word until they met a Spanish patrol searching for them, and then it was too late to back out. While waiting to learn Salcedo’s response, Fero and Cooley again wrote House concerning escape plans. From San Carlos, Ellis wrote to Duncan in Aldama and to House in Chihuahua that he had the preparations nearly complete, and that two soldiers had agreed to desert and accompany them. They were to meet at an old church when the day came, and from there set out on their journey. He entrusted the letters to a villager, who delivered Duncan’s at Aldama before continuing on to Chihuahua with the letter to House. Duncan hurried his work along so he could return to Chihuahua in time to join the escape party.
Tom House was sick and stretched out on a mat in the adobe house that served as his blacksmith shop, when a sergeant and squad of soldiers entered. “Stay where you are,” the sergeant ordered in Spanish, and gathered up the letters on a little table that served as a desk.
“What’s goin’ on?” House asked in broken Spanish.
“I shouldn’t tell you, perhaps,” the sergeant replied, “but one of your countrymen—the one with a nose like a hawk—took General Salcedo a letter from Señor Bean to you. The General ordered us to see what we could find here and arrest you. That’s all I know.”
“Nose like a hawk,” House muttered. “That can only be that son-of-a-bitch Waters. I’ll cut off his balls for this, if he has any.” The soldiers escorted him to the guardhouse.
At Aldama, Duncan learned that Ellis, Cooley, and Fero had been arrested in San Carlos, and hastily burned the letter from Ellis. If they force him to talk about our escape plans, they’ll come for me next, Duncan thought. Every time he saw soldiers he expected to be arrested, but he was allowed to finish his work and return to Chihuahua, where he found House in the hospital, in bad shape.
One day, Ellis’ cell door opened and a guard helped Joel Pierce through it and lowered him to the floor, for he was too weak to stand alone. Ellis recoiled in horror at the sight.
“I’m dying, Ellis,” Joel gasped as he lay on the floor. “I’ll never see my wife again. I didn’t expect to find you a prisoner, but at least I’ll die in the company of a friend and a countryman.”
Ellis had a little money in his pocket, and he persuaded the guard to buy some wine and bread. After Joel drank a little wine and ate some bread, he was able to sit up. Ellis gazed at him sadly—he was little more than a skeleton; there was no doubt that he hadn’t long to live.
“You should go to the house of my friends the Romeros,” Ellis told him. “They’ll care for you like you were their own son and nurse you back to health. I can do little for you here.”
“No. I can’t possibly recover. I prefer to die here with you.”
At that moment the cell door opened again and the guards pushed a big man with Indian features and shackled arms into the room. “Why is he here?” Ellis asked the guard.
“He killed a man.”
The prisoner took a jew’s-harp from his pocket, held it to his mouth, and twanged on it continuously until Joel was writhing in agony, holding his head with both hands.
“He’s sick. See what you’re doing to him,” Ellis said. “Why don’t you stop?”
The man stopped twanging while he answered. “I’ll play whenever I want to,” he said.
Enraged, Ellis snatched the little instrument from his hand and tore out the tongue. The man arose and attempted to grasp Ellis by the throat. Ellis raised his shackled arms and brought both fists down hard on the man’s head so that the irons around his wrists struck his skull. He went down hard and lay on the floor moaning. Joel tried to rise, but fell limply back on his mat. Two days later he died, and Ellis mournfully watched the guards carry his wasted body away for burial. He thought of Joel’s wife. She must have given up hope of ever seeing him again long ago, he thought. It’s better if she lost hope and forgot him.
Three months passed, when Ellis was released without explanation and allowed to return to Chihuahua. “I knew you were in prison,” Duncan told him, “and I’d have come to see what I could do for you, but Tom House is in bad shape. I was sure he’d die if I left him.”
“The first thing I aim to do is see if Jonah isn’t too yellow to fight me with pistols,” Ellis growled. “He doesn’t deserve to live.” They found him the next morning.
“You sorry son-of-a-bitch,” Ellis greeted him, “get a pistol and meet me outside of town. Then you kill me, or I’ll sure as hell kill you.” The shifty-eyed Waters turned pale and ran.
Knowing a house that Waters frequently visited, Ellis got a stout club and waited for him. When Waters came out, Ellis stepped from around the comer and blocked the way back to the house. “If you won’t fight me with guns, I’ll get my satisfaction another way,” he growled.
“Please don’t hit me,” Waters begged in a quavering voice. “I didn’t mean you any harm.”
“Liar!” Ellis laid on with the club until Waters lay badly bruised and whimpering on the ground.
Ellis and Duncan went to the paseo most nights to admire the young ladies. “That one’s makin’ eyes at you,” Duncan said, as a fancily dressed girl walked by with her chaperone, probably an aunt. Ellis watched them walk on—the girl turned her head and looked hard at him with the one eye that was exposed.
One night Ellis went alone to the paseo while Duncan took food to House. The young lady was there, as usual, and somehow she slipped away from her chaperone and hurried to where Ellis stood under a tree. She shamelessly pulled the shawl from her face.
“What’s your name, señor?' she asked. “Mine’s Elena,” she said before he could reply. Just then the chaperone charged up like a buffalo bull after a wolf, crossing herself when she saw the breach of moral conduct. She dragged the girl away and informed her father, who was a colonel under Salcedo. The next day he sent a soldier to Ellis with a note.
“You have compromised my daughter’s honor,” it said. “You must marry her at once.”
“Be damned if I will,” Ellis told Duncan. “After I saw her face she didn’t look all that great to me. And all we did was talk. I didn’t get in her pants. I didn’t even kiss her.” Two soldiers arrived.
“You must come with us,” they told him.
“Where?” Ellis asked.
“To the cuartel at San Jerónimo.” The barracks were a dozen miles from Chihuahua.
Early in 1807, twenty-two ragged American soldiers were marched into the cuartel in Chihuahua, but the guard refused to allow Nolan’s men to talk with them. “Who are they?” Duncan asked a Spanish officer who had been friendly ever since Duncan had repaired his weapons.
“They were with a Lieutenant Pike on the Rio Bravo above Sante Fe, in Spanish territory,” he answered. “They were arrested and brought here so General Salcedo could question them.”
“Where is Lieutenant Pike?”
“He and a Dr. Robinson are at the house of Juan Pedro Walker, but don’t toy to see them. The General forbade it.” Walker, an American, was commandant of the military academy, and Nolan’s slave, Caesar, lived with him as a servant.
Lieutenant Pike came to the plaza one morning to buy a straw hat, and stopped by Ellis, who had a stack of hats of all sizes. “You must be Lieutenant Pike,” Ellis said. “I’m Ellis Bean, one of the Nolan men. They wouldn’t allow us to talk to you.” Pike looked around to see if any soldiers were watching.
“I know,” he replied. “But one of your men managed to slip away and see me. David Fero. He was a lieutenant in my father’s battalion. He begged me with tears in his eyes to get him out of here. I promised to do all I could for the lot of you. I’m going to send the Natchez Herald the information he gave me on all of the prisoners, so their families will know they’re alive.” He paused and looked around again. “I told General Salcedo the circumstances of your being with Nolan, that you were all innocent of wrong-doing and should be set free. He said he rescued you from a dungeon and has given you all the freedom it is in his power to give. Now it’s up to the king.”
Late in April, Pike and a few of his men, along with Dr. Robinson, were escorted to San Antonio on the way to Natchitoches. A month later, Ellis’ friend Moreno stopped in the plaza, as he often did. He shook hands without smiling. “I just learned that the viceroy has reprimanded General Salcedo for releasing Pike,” he said. “It doesn’t sound good for the rest of you.” He went on his way, shaking his head.
Ellis pondered his words. The only news we ever get is bad, he thought, feeling sick. They’ll never let us go. We’ll all die here without ever seeing our families again.
One day early the following November, a soldier summoned Duncan to the cuartel, where he saw Joseph Reed, William Danlin, and Jonah Waters. Without explanation, they were locked in a room in the barracks. A few days later, Ellis, Ephraim Blackburn, David Fero, Zalmon Cooley, and Luciano Garcia were brought from San Carlos and San Jeronimo and placed in the same room.
“Does anyone know why we’re here?” Fero asked.
“Maybe at last they’re going to set us free,” Blackburn answered hopefully. “It’s high time they let us go.”
Wondering if that could be true, the prisoners waited, trying to recall their nearly forgotten homes and families. The next morning, Ellis turned pale when three black-robed priests solemnly entered the room to hear their confessions, for he knew that was what the Spaniards always did when men were about to be executed. Most were afraid to inquire about their fate, but Fero asked, “Does this mean we’ll be put to death?”
“We don’t know, señor," a priest answered. “They haven’t told us. Perhaps some of you may be.”
“I guess I’m the one they’re after,” Ellis said gloomily, and some of the others nodded in agreement. “But if they’ve decided to shoot me, I hope they’ll let the rest of you go.”
“If they were only after you, they wouldn’t have rounded up the rest of us. It looks to me like we’re all under the gun,” Duncan said.
Blackburn cleared his throat and ran his bony fingers through his shaggy white hair, his wrinkled face solemn. “Most of you are young and have your lives ahead of you,” he said hoarsely. “If justice is done....” Ellis interrupted him.
“If justice is done and they shoot the worst scoundrel among us, it’s got to be Waters,” he growled. “He should have been shot years ago.” There were grunts of approval from the others. Waters wiped the sweat from his sharp nose and sighed deeply, but said nothing.
The next morning, the door swung open again, and Ellis shivered when dignified Antonio Garía Tejado, adjutant inspector of the Interior Provinces, solemnly entered the room holding a paper in his hand. With him were prosecutor Díaz de Bustamante and the prisoners’s counsel, Verea. All three wore black cloaks, and their faces were expressionless. Verea motioned to the prisoners to kneel. They’ve come to pronounce sentence, Ellis thought; at least they’ve got bad news. He dreaded to hear it.
“This is His Majesty’s decree,” Garcia de Tejado intoned. “One man in every five who entered Texas with Nolan and who fired on royal troops must die.” Ellis heard gasps around him, followed by heavy breathing, while his own thoughts were racing. How will they decide who to execute? he wondered.
García de Tejado cleared his throat and continued. “Because your man Pierce is dead and only nine of you are left, only one must die.” He looked as if it pained him to deliver the order, but since it came from the king, he had no choice.
The Spanish troops had attacked them; they had merely defended themselves, Ellis thought bitterly, but there was little time to contemplate the cruel sentence. A soldier immediately entered the hushed room and placed a big drum on the floor, while another set a crystal cup containing a pair of dice on the drumhead.
“You must all throw the dice while blindfolded,” García de Tejado informed them. “The unfortunate one who casts the lowest number must die.” The pale prisoners stood as far away from the drum as they could, staring open-eyed at the dice as if they were rattlesnakes poised to strike. Garcia de Tejado cleared his throat again, but no one stepped forward to test his luck.
“Let’s throw in the order of our ages,” Fero said, his voice hollow. “The oldest first.” The others all glanced at Ephraim Blackburn. Ellis thought of all the dangers they’d faced before. Nothing equalled staking their lives on one throw of the dice while blindfolded.
Ephraim Blackburn knelt prayerfully beside the dram. A soldier tied a blindfold around his head and placed the crystal cup in his trembling hands. He shouldn’t have to do this, Ellis thought. He came with Nolan, but didn’t even fire on Spanish troops. All eyes were on the drumhead as Blackburn cast the dice. He immediately arose and lifted the blindfold, wincing when he saw he’d thrown a four. Swallowing hard, a look of resignation on his ashen face, he stepped back to make room for Luciano, who took his place by the drum. Ellis watched Luciano roll a seven and exhale deeply. Joseph Reed cast an eleven and involuntarily smiled. When he glanced around and saw Blackburn’s somber face the smile vanished.
Fero threw an eight, Cooley an eleven, Jonah Waters a seven. Ellis wiped his moist palms on his trousers and knelt while the soldier fixed the blindfold. He cast the dice and arose, almost afraid to look. He’d rolled a five. Duncan followed with a six. The last was William Danlin, who cast a seven.
Solemn, black-robed priests immediately swarmed around Blackburn, clucking sympathetically and muttering Latin phrases. He gazed at his companions, his white hair crowning his somber face. “It’s better this way, my friends,” he said in a firm voice. “My death should buy your freedom.” He started to go with the priests, but stopped and turned. “If any of you ever get to Natchez,” he said, “tell my wife that I died, but don’t tell her the circumstances.” Then he was gone. Ellis felt a lump rise in his throat.
Two days later, the prisoners were ordered to the Plaza de los Urangos, where a large crowd had already gathered. Ellis caught his breath as he saw the newly built gallows, with the hangman’s noose swaying in the light breeze. His face was sweating, but he suddenly felt cold when he saw Blackburn calmly mount the scaffold and stand under the noose. A soldier blindfolded him, then placed the halter over his head and tightened it around his neck. Ellis felt his skin crawl when he heard the roll of drums and Blackburn shot through the trap. A knot settled in Ellis’ stomach, while he brushed away tears that streamed down his cheeks.
Three days later, Fero, Cooley, Ellis, and Danlin, the ones who’d been implicated in the plot to escape, were brought to the plaza. Tom House was too sick to move from his bed. Duncan saw a crowd gathering, and went to see what was happening. As he arrived, merchant Manuel Moreno was talking to Ellis.
“I have influential friends in Mexico City, my friend,” he said. “I’m certain they can secure your release once you get there. I will write them immediately.”
“Mexico City?” Duncan exclaimed. “Who’s goin’ there?”
Ellis nodded his head toward the other three prisoners. “The bad boys,” he said. “The troublemakers.”
The four prisoners were shackled and ordered to mount horses, then twenty-five cavalrymen surrounded them and they trotted away on the road to far-off Mexico City. Ellis glanced back at Duncan, wondering if they’d ever meet again.