The Texan Star: The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty by Joseph A. Altsheler (the beach read txt) 📖

in the door of the house, and were inside before the astonished Mexicans could open an accurate fire upon them. Here they at once secured themselves and their bullets began to rake the plaza. The Mexicans were forced to throw up more and higher intrenchments.

Again the combat became intermittent. There were bursts of rifle fire, and occasional shots from the cannon, and, now and then, short periods of almost complete silence. Night came on and Ned, watching from the window, saw Colonel Milam, their leader, pass down the trench and enter the courtyard of the Veramendi house. He stood there a moment, looking at the Mexican position. A musket cracked and the Texan, throwing up his arms, fell. He was dead by the time he touched the ground. The ball had struck him in the center of the forehead.

Ned uttered a cry of grief, and it was taken up by all the Texans who had seen their leader fall. A half dozen men rushed forward and dragged away his body, but that night they buried it in the patio. His death only incited them to new efforts. As soon as his burial was finished they rushed another house in their slow advance, one belonging to Antonio Navarro, a solid structure only one block from the great plaza. They also stormed and carried a redoubt which the Mexicans had erected in the street beside the house. It now being midnight they concluded to rest until the morrow. Meanwhile, they had elected Johnson their leader.

Ned was in the new attack and with Obed and the Ring Tailed Panther he was in the Navarro house. It was the fourth that he had occupied since the attack on San Antonio. He felt less excitement than on the night before. It seemed to him that he was becoming hardened to everything. He looked at his comrades and laughed. They were no longer in the semblance of white men. Their faces were so blackened with smoke, dirt and burned gunpowder that they might have passed for negroes.

"You needn't laugh, Ned," said Obed. "You're just as black as we are. This thing of changing your boarding house every night by violence and the use of firearms doesn't lead to neatness. If fine feathers make fine birds then we three are about the poorest flock that ever flew."

"But when we go for a house we always get it," said the Ring Tailed Panther. "You notice that. This place belongs to Antonio Navarro. I've met him in San Antonio, an' I don't like him, but I'm willin' to take his roof an' bed."

Ned took the roof but not the bed. He could not sleep that night, and it was found a little later that none would have a chance to sleep. The Mexicans, advancing over the other houses, the walls of all of which joined, cut loopholes in the roof of the Navarro house and opened fire upon the Texans below. The Texans, with surer aim, cleared the Mexicans away from the loopholes, then climbed to the roof and drove them off entirely.

But no one dared to sleep after this attack, and Ned watched all through the dark hours. Certainly they were having action enough now, and he was wondering what the fourth day would bring forth. From an upper window he watched the chilly sun creep over the horizon once more, and the dawn brought with it the usual stray rifle and musket shots. Both Texan and Mexican sharpshooters were watching at every loophole, and whenever they saw a head they fired at it. But this was only the beginning, the crackling prelude to the event that was to come.

"Come down, Ned," said Obed, "and get your breakfast. We've got coffee and warm corn cakes and we'll need 'em, as we're already tired of this boarding house and we intend to find another."

"Can't stay more than one night in a place while we're in San Antonio," said the Ring Tailed Panther, growling pleasantly. "A restless lot we are an' it's time to move on again."

Ned ate and drank in silence. His nerves were quite steady, and he had become so used to battle that he awaited whatever they were going to attempt, almost without curiosity.

"Ain't you wantin' to know what we're goin' to do, Ned?" asked the Ring Tailed Panther.

"I'm thinking that I'll find out pretty quick," replied Ned.

"Now this boy is shorely makin' a fine soldier," said the Panther to Obed. "He don't ask nothin' about what he's goin' to do, but just eats an' waits orders."

Ned smiled and ate another corn cake.

"Maybe," said Obed, "we'll meet our friend Urrea in the attack we're going to make. If so, I'll take a shot at him, and I won't have any remorse about it, either, if I hit him."

They did not wait long. A strong body of the Texans gathered on the lower floor, many carrying, in addition to their weapons, heavy iron crowbars. The doors were suddenly thrown open and they rushed out into the cool morning air, making for a series of stone houses called the Zambrano Row, the farthest of which opened upon the main plaza, where the Mexicans were fortified so strongly. Scattering shots from muskets and rifles greeted them, but as usual, when any sudden movement occurred, the Mexicans fired wildly, and the Texans broke into the first of the houses, before they could take good aim.

Ned was one of the last inside. He had lingered with the others to repel any rush that the Mexicans might make. He was watching the Mexican barricade, and he saw heads rise above it. One rose higher than the rest and he recognized Urrea. The Mexican saw Ned also, and the eyes of the two met. Urrea's were full of anger and malice, and raising his rifle he fired straight at the boy. Ned felt the bullet graze his cheek, and instantly he fired in reply. But Urrea had quickly dropped down behind the barricade and the bullet missed. Then Ned rushed into the house.

The boy was blazing with indignation. He had spared Urrea's life, and yet the Mexican had sought at the first opportunity to kill him. He could not understand a soul of such caliber. But the incident passed from his mind, for the time being, in the strenuous work that they began now to do.

They broke through partition wall after wall with their powerful picks and crowbars. Stones fell about them. Plaster and dust rained down, but the men relieving one another, the work with the heavy tools was never stopped until they penetrated the interior of the last house in the row. Then the Texans uttered a grim cry of exultation. They looked from the narrow windows directly over the main plaza and their rifles covered the Mexican barricades. The Mexicans tried to drive them out of the houses with the guns, but the solid stone walls resisted balls and shells, and the Texan rifles shot down the gunners.

Then ensued another silence, broken by distant firing, caused by another attack upon the Texan camp outside the town. It was driven off quickly and the Texans in the houses lay quiet until evening. Then they heard a great shouting, the occasion of which they did not know until later. Ugartchea with six hundred men had arrived from the Rio Grande to help Cos. But it would not have made any difference with the Texans had they known. They were determined to take San Antonio, and all the time they were pressing harder on Cos.

That night, the Texans, Ned with them, seized another large building called the Priests' House, which looked directly over the plaza, and now their command of the Mexican situation was complete. Nothing could live in the square under their fire, and in the night Ned saw the Mexicans withdrawing, leaving their cannon behind.

Exhaustion compelled the boy to sleep from midnight until day, when he was roused by Obed.

"The Mexicans have all gone across the river to the Alamo," said the Maine man. "San Antonio is ours."

Ned went forth with his comrades. Obed had told the truth. The great seat of the Mexican power in the north was theirs. Three hundred daring men, not strongly supported by those whom they had left behind, had penetrated to the very heart of the city through house after house, and had driven out the defenders who were five to their one.

The plaza and Soledad Street presented a somber aspect. The Mexican dead, abandoned by their comrades, lay everywhere. The Texan rifles had done deadly work. The city itself was silent and deserted.

"Most of the population has gone with the Mexican army to the Alamo," said Obed. "I suppose we'll have to attack that, too."

But Cos, the haughty and vindictive general, did not have the heart for a new battle with the Texans. He sent a white flag to Burleson and surrendered. Ned was present when the flag came, and the leader of the little party that brought it was Urrea. The young Mexican had lost none of his assurance.

"You have won now," he said to Ned, "but bear in mind that we will come again. You have yet to hear from Mexico and Santa Anna."

"When Santa Anna comes he will find us here ready to meet him," replied Ned.

The Texans in the hour of their great and marvelous victory behaved with humanity and moderation. Cos and his army, which still doubled in numbers both the Texans who had been inside and outside San Antonio, were permitted to retire on parole beyond the Rio Grande. They left in the hands of the Texans twenty-one cannon and great quantities of ammunition. Rarely has such a victory been won by so small a force and in reality with the rifle alone. All the Texans felt that it was a splendid culmination to a perilous campaign.

Ned, Obed and the Ring Tailed Panther, seated on their horses, watched the captured army of Cos march away.

"Well, Texas is free," said the Ring Tailed Panther.

"And San Antonio is ours," said Obed.

"But Santa Anna will come," said Ned, remembering the words of Urrea.