"But you still came into the mission."

"Because of you. Your illness. And-well, there's no getting around it, and I don't mean to sound overly sentimental. But I am an American, just like most of the settlers in this part of the country. I've kept track of what's happened these past couple of years. I happen to think the settlers are right, asking for reinstatement of the constitution they lived under when they first came out here. If it comes to fighting and I have to choose sides, why would I choose any side but my own?"

A moment's silence. Bowie closed his weak hand around hers. "You're a strong woman, Mandy. Some would just give up and let it go at that."

She smiled. "The people in my family may get scared to death, but one thing they don't do is give up easily-"

She heard the slave Sam, mumbling fearfully to himself. She tried to offer some words for his benefit. "But I really think that red flag must be a bluff."

"Wouldn't count on it."

"Aren't there any rules in warfare? I mean about sparing noncombatants? The nigras? The children-?"

" 'Course there are. Santa Anna knows the military customs. But he won't offer terms. There's been an open rebellion. His country stands to lose all of Texas. He means to prevent that-and punish us. Hard. If some innocent people are hurt, he'll shrug and look the other way. That's the kind of unprincipled son of a bitch he is-"

A series of loud sounds brought Bowie's drowsy eyes fully open. Sam yelped in alarm. Amanda jumped up, ran to the door of the baptistry- Out in the darkened chapel, a woman was wailing. Boots hammered on the ramp leading up to the cannon platform. She heard Almeron Dickinson shout, "They're coming! From all quarters. The foot-the cavalry too. They're coming!"

iv

At last Amanda heard it for herself: the low, tumultuous drumming of men-a great many men-running over hard ground beyond the walls. The noise flooded into the roofless chapel from all directions.

On the gun platform, Captain Dickinson was cursing someone, demanding that he wake up, pronto. Amanda realized her original guess had been correct-silence to allow the defenders to doze off must have been part of Santa Anna's strategy. Dickinson's oaths and yells proved the Texans were less than ready for the assault- A squirrel gun banged from the other side of the closed chapel doors. Then, above the steadily increasing pound of running feet, a bugle pierced the night. It was joined by another, then by all the brass in the Mexican regimental bands.

The bugles and the fast-cadenced drums were playing an unfamiliar tune. Yet the wild, almost savage music started Amanda trembling as she stood in the baptistry door.

Abruptly, the sky over the chapel burst alight. By the reddish glow of the Mexican rockets, Amanda watched men scurrying into position along the cannon rampart. The wild, pealing music grew louder.

Behind her, Bowie said, "I know that call they're playing. It's the deguello."

Struck by the rawness of his voice, Amanda spun. Bowie's emaciated hands closed around the butts of his pistols.

"Comes from an old Spanish word, degollar-" He licked his lips. "It means to slit the throat. There'll be no terms. No mercy-"

Grimacing, he wrenched his shoulders higher against the wall, then gestured with the pistol in his right hand. "Go back to the other women and the children, Mandy. Maybe you'll have a chance that way."

"Jim, I won't leave-"

The cocks of his pistols rasped as he thumbed them back.

"Yes, you will. I'm one of those they want most."

He waved a gun, a furious arc in the air. "You get out-you hear me?"

"Better do what he say, Miz Mandy," Sam told her. "I look after the colonel from here on-"

Amanda whispered to Bowie, "God keep you, Jim."

"And you. Now get!"

She whirled and rushed into the darkness of the chapel. The rockets sprayed fire across the heavens. Long matches were glowing on the gun rampart. The night resounded with the sudden blast of cannons, the howls of the Mexican foot soldiers rushing toward the walk-and the drums and bugles blaring that melody which meant no quarter.

Chapter II.

The Massacre

i

AMANDA HAD SELDOM BEEN dissatisfied with the sex conferred on her by the accident of birth. Occasionally, she'd even found her femininity to be a decided advantage. But she didn't feel that way as she huddled in the sacristy, surrounded by frightened women and children. This morning, she wished she were a man.

The dimness of the room seemed to heighten her sense of helplessness. She would have preferred to be in the main plaza, where the fighting was taking place. But a few moments after she'd left Bowie, Travis had sent a man to the chapel with explicit orders. The women and children were to stay hidden.

The noise of the battle had already become an uninterrupted, unnerving din. Beyond the door of the sacristy, men ran back and forth between the cannon ramp and the powder magazine, a room in the north wall. On the gun platform, Susannah Dickinson's husband bawled, "Fire in the hole!" every minute or so, and one of the twelve-pounders roared, filling the chapel with a brief glare of ruddy light. From the main plaza, there was a continual crash of musketry, screams and curses in English and Spanish-and the boom of Mexican artillery bombarding the walls.

Surrounded by her four children-three boys and a girl-Seora Esparza prayed aloud in her own tongue.

Most of the other women were quiet, too terrified to speak or move.

All at once little Angelina Dickinson began to struggle in Susannah's arms. Amanda stopped her pacing, held out her hands to the child's mother. "Let me take her a while."

Her face pale and streaked with dirt, Susannah Dickinson lifted the little girl. Amanda bent from the waist, picking Angelina up and closing her in a soothing embrace. The roofless chapel glared red again. Seated on a stone, Susannah began to sway, twisting her hands in her lap as she fought hysteria.

The child pushed against Amanda's shoulder, whimpering. Amanda said softly, "Be still, Angelina. Put your head down. Close your eyes."

But the words had small effect. Only the strength of Amanda's arms kept the little girl from wrenching away.

Amanda concentrated on holding Angelina, and murmuring to her. Somehow that relieved her own anxiety and frustration. The yelling and the gunfire grew steadily louder- How long had it been going on? Half an hour? An hour? She was losing track. The sacristy had grown stifling. The odor of human sweat mingled with the reek of burned powder.

Angelina finally realized Amanda wouldn't release her. Her body went limp against Amanda's breast. Amanda squeezed the child's waist reassuringly, felt the small head droop to rest on her shoulder. The sound of firing lessened suddenly.

A lean shadow loped past the doorway. Susannah jumped up, ran forward. "Almeron?"

"Don't come out!" Dickinson warned. "I'm going to the barracks to see what's happening-"

A moment later, Amanda and the others heard the squeak of hinges. The great chapel doors had not yet been barred from within.

Susannah Dickinson turned back to Amanda. She ran a hand over her daughter's hair, her voice panicky. "We've lost everything. Even if the men can hold out, we've lost our homes, our-"

"Don't talk like that!" Amanda exclaimed. "We're still alive. Nothing else matters."

She wished she believed it. She was falling prey to the same despair that made Susannah tremble. Everything was gone. Her reasonably settled life in Bexar was over. God alone knew what would become of them- Renewed firing, more shouts brought Amanda's head up. One of the Mexican women cried out as someone lurched through the door. Amanda recognized the Fuqua boy, one of those who had ridden in from Gonzales. He was only sixteen. He'd been hit in the face by a musket ball.

The left side of the boy's jaw was a glistening ruin of blood and bone. Weaving on his feet, he tried to speak to Susannah. His mouth produced only grotesque gurgling noises.

The harder the boy tried to speak, the more pathetic his attempts became. His lips kept moving, blood oozing from one corner- "Galba, what is it?" Susannah Dickinson pleaded. "What are you trying to say?"

The boy's jaws worked frantically. He grunted like an animal. Blood ran down to the point of his chin. All at once his eyes filled with tears.

"I can't understand you!" Susannah cried.

Obviously in great pain, Galba Fuqua clamped hands on his lower jaw, as if he hoped to force the ruined bones to articulate properly. The result was the same as before-gibberish. With a sob and an angry shake of his head, he fled back into the smoke that now filled the chapel.

Amanda and Dickinson's wife exchanged glances, both stricken silent by the boy's suffering. Then Amanda looked out at the sky above the chapel walls. Light was brightening behind the smoke. Dawn- The Mexican cannon rumbled again. Shrieks and shots and throaty Spanish yells came from every direction. How many assault columns had the Mexicans hurled against the mission? From the sound of it, many more than one.

Haggard and out of breath, Almeron Dickinson appeared. He swiped the back of his hand across his powder-blackened face as his wife ran to his side.

"Great God, Sue-" he panted. "The-the Mexicans are inside the walls!" Seora Esparza covered her face.

"Travis is dead on the north rampart," Dickinson went on. "They're coming over with ladders-climbing over their own dead-hundreds of them-my God, there's no stopping them, Sue-get back inside and stay there!"

He shoved her, hard. Then he spun and vanished in the smoke. Moments later, one of the twelve-pounders thundered.

Several Mexican women besides Seora Esparza had understood Dickinson's English. Two of them were on their knees, hands clasped in prayer. Susannah walked slowly back to Amanda, took her daughter from the other woman. Silent tears shone on Susannah's face.

Susannah was clearly ashamed of her inability to contain her fear. Amanda glanced away, staring down at her own filthy, work-toughened hands. No matter how she struggled to fix her mind on something else, one thought asserted itself- The Mexicans were inside the walls.

The shouts and gunfire in the main plaza seemed closer than ever. Bugles blared. Amanda closed her eyes, recognizing the notes of the deguello- No quarter.

ii

The Alamo plaza fell first, then the individual rooms of the long barracks where some of the remaining defenders had barricaded themselves. The chapel doors, barred at last, shook and splintered under heavy cannon fire. Finally they crashed open.

The smoky chapel filled with Mexican infantry. The soldiers wore blue cotton jackets with shoulder-knots of blue and green, dirt-stained white trousers and white cross-belts. Their headgear-tall felt shakos with pompoms-showed their commander's preoccupation with things Napoleonic.

Daylight had come, though the thick smoke weakened and diffused the brilliant sun. Some of the running infantrymen were little more than blurs. But Amanda could still see the bayonets jutting from their muskets- Hunched over, a man hurled himself into the sacristy. Weeping, Sam hunted a familiar face. He stumbled forward, clutching Amanda's arm. "The colonel's dead, Miz Mandy-"

"Oh, God, Sam, no!"

"A whole bunch come after him soon's they busted the doors. He killed about half a dozen 'fore they grabbed his knife away. I begged 'em to kill me too but they jus' laughed-"

The crying slave grew incoherent. On the verge of tears herself, Amanda ran a hand back and forth over Sam's black hair. She felt him trembling against her arm. She spoke as calmly as she could.

"Sam? Sam, you must answer me. Do you know what's happened in the plaza and the barracks?"

"Dead, they-all dead. Colonel Crockett wen' down with ten, maybe twenty on top of him. Santy Anny's soldiers, they gone crazy. After our boys fall, the soldiers jus' stand there shootin' at the bodies. Shootin' dead men an' cuttin' them with the bayonets-I swear I never seen anything like-like-oh, Jesus, Miz Mandy, Jesus-"

He flung his arms around Amanda's neck and buried his wet face against her shoulder.

At Amanda's side, Susannah whispered, "Almeron's dead. I know he's dead."

"Stop that! We can't be sure about-"

"But there's no more cannonfire. Don't you hear? The cannons haven't fired for at least a minute. Almeron's dead!"

Screaming it, she flung herself toward the door. Amanda wrenched away from the grieving slave, dashed after the younger woman, caught her and pulled her back from the entrance. As she did, she glimpsed a ghastly sight. Above the milling Mexican infantrymen, bodies were sprawled across the silent twelve-pounders on the rampart. She thought she recognized Jim Bonham. And Seora Esparza's husband. She didn't see Dickinson.

She pushed the half-hysterical Susannah back into the center of the sacristy, then glanced outside again. A man came lurching down the ramp from the platform, his clothing tattered, his skin blackened by powder. In his right fist Major Evans clutched a flaring torch.

Amanda put a hand to her throat. She knew what Evans intended to do with the torch.

Ignite the remaining powder. Blow them all up- He never had a chance. Before he reached the bottom of the ramp, kneeling Mexican infantrymen fired a volley. Evans literally flew upward, smashed by balls that pierced his forehead, blew out one eye, opened bloody holes in his belly before he fell.

Several soldiers charged the corpse. A moment later, Evans' body was being tossed in the air, jabbed and kept aloft by dozens of bayonets. The Mexicans cried one word over and over: "Diablo! Diablo!"

Devil was one of their favorite epithets for Texans. Now they were yelling it as a joke. But Evans wasn't the only victim of the barbarity. A quick glance toward the baptistry showed Amanda another group engaged in the same sport. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth, averted her head.

The body being lifted and stabbed was Jim Bowie's- Wild with grief, Susannah Dickinson tried to rush by. Amanda grabbed her.

"You mustn't, Susannah! Stay here. Don't let them see you-"

What a pathetic plea, she thought then. As she manhandled the younger woman back into the sacristy for a second time, she knew discovery was inevitable.

iii