The Savage Breed. Randy Denmon

they were still surrounded, trapped. Like his comrades, he was lathered with sweat and grit, his throat burning with thirst. He had finished off his canteen hours earlier. Without water, they were as good as dead. And without rescue, most of the injured would perish. The Mexicans used copper bullets, extremely deadly, spattering the flesh and leaving metal scattered through body.

      He looked again at the Mexicans and the darkness beginning to envelope the savanna. It would be a long, frightful night, and they had traveled only six or seven miles on this protracted, vile day. Would tomorrow be worse?

      The night was cloudy, but not completely dark. Somewhere overhead, the moon was out, tinting the clouds but giving no hint to its location. Travis stood, his reins in his hands. It was almost midnight. Around him, the wounded were suffering, begging for water to quench their terrible thirst, their moans filling the murky air. But more than three hundred men still remained at the ready, lying around the wagons, some sleeping, others keeping a watchful eye on the prairie.

      A man appeared out of the darkness, only an image. He handed Travis a leather satchel. “Maybe you can get through. If you do, get this to Victoria. There may be some troops there. Find somebody. If we don’t get some water or reinforcements, we’ll all die.”

      Travis recognized the voice. It was Colonel Fannin. He put the pouch’s strap over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, sir. I understand the predicament. You won’t see me back here. If I don’t get through, it’s because I’m dead or captured. Don’t give me any cover. I’ll have a better chance to sneak out, but if you hear firing, empty into their ranks. It may distract them.”

      Travis reached over to check the tightness of the girth strap on his horse, then put a foot in his stirrup and felt for his pommel, lifting himself into the saddle. He trotted to the edge of the lines, then quietly rode into the no-man’s-land. In only seconds, he turned to look behind. There was only darkness. Ahead, the ground lay open; visibility was only a dozen paces. Travis sensed his horse’s pace to make sure it was sturdy, and counted to himself. It was about a two-and-a-half-minute ride to cover the distance between the forces. At about a hundred seconds, he would charge into the darkness, putting his fate in God’s hands. The night was silent; only his heart thumping rapidly, his horse’s gentle steps, and the mumbling of his counting disturbed the quiet.

      As his count approached the magic number, Travis leaned forward over his mount’s neck, securing his boots in the stirrups. He tugged back on the reins and listened—nothing. He spurred the horse and stormed into the darkness. Ten seconds, then five more, he continued to goad the horse with his heels, the night still a peculiar quiet. Travis galloped on for another five minutes until his surroundings started to darken more. He jerked back on his reins. His horse was panting heavily. Overhead, a canopy of sparse trees blocked the sky. Travis dismounted and walked another thirty paces until he found the creek bank. Feeling his way, he led his mare down to the creek, where the horse plunged her mouth into the water. Travis filled two canteens and transferred the water to his dehydrated body. He instantly felt some of his strength return.

      Travis slowly sat, leaning back against the cool, damp embankment. He looked at the other side of the shallow creek. Where was he going? He looked up. There were no stars to guide the way. He had learned many times, painstakingly, that the prairie could not be navigated without getting his bearings. He could mosey around all night, only to end up where he started—or worse, in the Mexican lines. He did notice that the clouds were on the move, probably coming up from the gulf. These moving clouds would lead him. But first he needed to let his horse rest a couple of hours, freshen up in case he had to make a running escape.

      By daylight, Travis had traveled in an easterly direction another fifteen miles. The progress was slow. He had to dismount and lead his timid steed across a creek or draw every mile or so. With the blue of morning, his pace would increase. He might make Victoria in only a few hours, and he would have the rising sun to lead him. But daylight also brought other obstacles: he was visible for miles on the open grassland. Even more troublesome, he was riding directly into the sun, illuminating his horse’s tack and all his metal like a lantern, the horizontal rays refracting, reflecting, and magnifying his movement for anybody ahead to see for miles.

      An hour after daylight, Travis spotted a ranch house in a small meadow. He made a cautious approach, scanning the house carefully with his field glasses from more than a mile away before riding ahead. The large ranch house was deserted, and surrounded by unfinished earthworks. Travis’s gut was full of hunger pangs, and his mount grew less hearty by the hour. As he arrived on the grounds, he made a beeline for a wood-planked barn beside the house, where he found stores of hay and oats. He left his horse to feed, and walked to the house. Inside, the rough prairie residence was in disorder, the residents surely having fled in recent days. Travis found some molded bread and a strip of dried meat that he quickly gobbled down.

      After the thirty-minute respite, Travis was again in the saddle, riding off from the ranch. There was a nice wagon trail leading to the east, but he decided to veer off and ride parallel to the road a few hundred yards. But just as he entered the large meadow encompassing the ranch, he saw a dozen horses coming up the road. He smoothly pulled back on his reins, freezing in the saddle. His insides rumbled. Since he was looking into the sun, the images were difficult to see. He put a hand above his eyes. The bright red saddle blankets of the Mexican cavalry became visible. Travis looked around. The ground was open, but to his left, maybe a quarter mile away, was a wood line, probably a creek or dry gully. He heard the screams from down the road, announcing he was spotted. He spurred his mare so hard that she bellowed, and reared her around toward the tree line.

      In less than a minute, he arrived at the cover. He urged his horse into the concealment of a deep, dry gully. In the ditch bottom, he saw only brown earth and scrub. He continued to push his mount and raced down the gulch. Clumps of thorny sage ripped at Travis’s shirt and skin as he held on. The horse leaped over holes and bucked like a bronc as Travis watched the earth and brush rush by, bouncing in all directions. Over the commotion, he heard nothing. He came to a fork in the ditch and never slowed, charging down the right fork. A few hundred more paces, and the sage cleared and the trees overhead disappeared. Travis jerked back on his reins. He wanted to ride up the bank and peek into the prairie, but the sides were too steep.

      He jumped off his horse, intending to crawl up and see if he had lost the cavalry. As he hit the ground, he heard the ghastly sounds, metallic clicks, one after another, like dominoes falling. He froze and looked up. On both banks, staring down on him, were four horses, their riders’ pistols locked on his chest. A few more horses appeared, riding up to the ditch, their riders looking down at him under the brims of their hats. Travis felt a sense of doom come over him. He was breathing hard; a drop of cold sweat fell from his nose onto his mouth. He tasted the salinity.

      Chapter 5

      Day was ending. The long shadows of the iron bars covering the musty cell’s lone window had made their way across the floor and were now disappearing, merging with the darkening stone floor. Travis sat on the ground, his back against the wall. On the other side of the cell, another man lay on the floor, sleeping. He was also a Texas soldier, a Red Rover, another volunteer unit from Alabama, who had been detained here two days earlier.

      It had been a week since Travis’s capture. He had been taken that day to this cell in La Vaca, a small settlement on Matagorda Bay. He was familiar with his quarters. The two-room jail in the ten-structure town had often been used by the Rangers to hold prisoners. But he had always looked at his current confinement area from the other side of the bars.

      The day after his arrival, his guards, a pair of obstinate Mexican cavalrymen, had informed him that Colonel Fannin had surrendered his entire command the morning after his departure, about the time of his own submission. Travis had doubted the news, either not believing it or not wanting to believe it. But the arrival of his new cell mate two days earlier had confirmed the story. More than three hundred of the men who had fought so gallantly beside him on the prairie were now being held at Fort Defiance.

      The Mexicans had managed to take the fort by way of defeating its defenders, not by storming the ramparts, but by capitulation on the open prairie—gross incompetence. The