The Black Jacks

McAllen instinctively reached for his Colt, cradling the papoose in his left hand. In a split second he changed his mind. He had killed one Comanche today, and that was one too many. The senseless carnage unfolding around him made him ashamed of his own kind. So he left the Colt in his belt and raised the papoose over his head.

At the last moment, as he reached McAllen, Gray Wolf dropped the war club and plucked the papoose which carried his infant son from the white man's hands. His pony thundered on, and he looked back once, to see a Texas Ranger stumble, bleeding, from his own tepee. He saw McAllen turn and hurl the Ranger to the ground, his face twisted with rage and hate. Then Gray Wolf understood. One white man had killed his beloved Snow Dancer. She would not have allowed herself to be separated from the papoose. He did not need to see her body to know the truth. And yet another white man had saved his son's life.

Grieving and confused, Gray Wolf rode north out of the encampment, the fleet mustang carrying him and his motherless child to safety.

Chapter Nine

Sam Houston stood at the window of his room in the Lafayette Hotel in Marion, Alabama. Had anyone been present to study his face they would have thought him on the verge of exploding into a towering rage. John Henry McAllen's letter had arrived today. It was crumpled in Houston's white-knuckled fist.

The Council House fight had occurred five weeks ago, and McAllen's letter was not the first Houston had heard of the affair. But McAllen had provided a great deal more information than the sketchy newspaper items previously available to him. Papers east of the Mississippi did not think much of the whole business—just another scrape between settlers and hostiles on the untamed Texas frontier. But Houston knew how much was at stake. The future of Texas hung in the balance. By the eternal, Mirabeau Lamar ought to be drawn and quartered! What a debacle!

By the eternal. Houston smiled. How many times had he heard his mentor, his idol, and his friend, Andrew Jackson, roar those words when riled? Old Hickory had gone into retirement at his plantation near Nashville, Te

These United States? Houston shook his head. A mental slip. Despite his best effort, Texas remained an independent republic. A

A magnificent destiny had aligned Sam Houston's life with Jackson's, and as he stood there gazing down at the street from his hotel window, Houston reminisced. Virginia-born forty-seven years ago, he had moved to Te

Then, in 1813, Regular Army recruiters had come to Maryville, Te

With the rank of ensign, Houston had distinguished himself at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Twice wounded, once by arrow, the second time by musket ball, his heroics came to the attention of General Jackson himself. The shoulder wound was still a ru

Following military service, Houston had become a lawyer and entered Te

But then he married Eliza Allen. He was thirty-five, she nineteen and unsure of her feelings. Emotionally still a child, and terribly naive, Eliza was woefully unprepared for the role of a wife, and three months after their marriage the Houstons separated.

Frowning, Sam Houston turned from the window and proceeded to pace the room. Those days had been the most bleak and bitter of his life. He had resigned the governorship and sought refuge among his old friends the Cherokees, forsaking a promising future. Sic transit gloria mundi! Fame was indeed fleeting. A thousand rumors were circulated; his political enemies claimed he had acted in an ungentlemanly fashion toward poor Eliza, and when he refused to answer these charges they "posted" him as a coward, after a custom of the day. He did, however, chivalrously defend Eliza: "If any wretch ever dares to utter a word against the purity of Mrs. Houston I will come back and write the libel in his heart's blood!"

Everyone acquainted with Sam Houston knew this was no idle threat.

Aboard the steamboat Red River, bound for the mighty Mississippi by way of the Cumberland River, he had been standing on deck one day, giving serious thought to hurling himself into the sparkling blue waters below, when he saw an eagle soaring against the blazing yellow orb of a setting sun. The eagle swooped low over his head and screamed defiantly. Suddenly he had known, with a pure conviction, that his destiny lay to the west. A few days later he made the acquaintance of Jim Bowie, the legendary knife fighter and adventurer. Bowie's tales of Texas had filled Houston with wonder and excitement.

Billy Carroll, his political foe, who replaced him as Te

But recently it had seemed as though his star was on the wane yet again. Shakespeare was right—there most certainly was a tide in the affairs of men. And his tide had ebbed. He had served his term as president; Texas law forbade him to serve two consecutive terms. Now, God forbid, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar held the reins of state in his completely inadequate grasp. And Houston, nearly destitute, had resorted to the practice of law in a country burdened with a surfeit of "cornstalk lawyers." Finally, and worst of all, his beloved Texas was in dire straits. The Panic of 1837 which had ravaged the economy of the United States was now having a doleful effect on Texas. Currency was worthless, land could scarcely be bought and sold, and debts remained unpaid. The republic was threatened by Mexican aggression. Now, on top of everything else, Texas would be locked in a terrible struggle with the Comanche nation!