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[Continuing chapter 12]
“Halt and identify yourselves.”
Reynolds tried to hide his disappointment on seeing the guard at the armory gate. Lieutenant Alexander was supposed to have placed himself at the gate this morning, to facilitate the patriots’ entry and give them an added appearance of authority once inside. Instead, this stolid-looking private—a recent immigrant from backward Prussia, to judge by his square, blond head and thick accent—blocked their way. He won’t even recognize me, Reynolds thought.
He pulled the scroll from his coat pocket, hoping the official appearance of the paper would help persuade the guard. “I am Senator Thomas Reynolds,” he announced. “These men”—he turned and gestured to encompass the politicians, bureaucrats and Rangers behind him—”are with me. We are here to speak with your officers about a matter of utmost urgency. This”—here he thrust the scroll at the guard, but not so close as to let him read it, assuming the man could read—“is an authorization to enter, signed by the president himself.” That the president who had signed was the president-to-be—Reynolds himself—he did not add.
The scroll, and Reynolds’s commanding presence, worked as he’d thought they would. The guard flushed and stammered, finally asking in a guttural voice for the “chentlemen” to please wait just a moment. Then he ducked through the small door cut into one of the armory gates.
A minute later, the guard returned—and, praise God, Alexander was with him, accompanied by another lieutenant. “Good work, soldier,” Alexander said to the guard when they emerged through the door. “These men will be coming in with me. You are to stay here. Under no circumstances is anyone else to come in. Anyone, do you understand me? Not even another soldier comes through these gates until I or this man”—Alexander pointed to Reynolds—”tells you otherwise.” The guard, distinctly nervous now, nodded agreement. Alexander and his companion escorted Reynolds and his men inside the armory.
“Who in the world is that?” Reynolds asked softly, nodding at the other officer, “and where were you?”
“That,” Alexander whispered, “is the reason why I was late. His name is Parsons, he was sent here last week from the west, and I made the mistake of letting him overhear me while making plans with Sergeant Wilson. Now he wants to join us.” Alexander looked at Parsons. “I’m not sure he’s fully right in the head.”
“Does he have the facility of command?” Reynolds asked. “Will the soldiers here follow him?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s good enough. I need all the officers I can muster,” Reynolds said, “especially during these first few hours. It’s crucial that we swing as many men as possible to our side, as quickly as possible.” He turned to Parsons, extending his right hand. “Lieutenant Parsons,” he said, “Thomas Reynolds. Glad to have you with us.”
“Glad to join you, sir,” said Parsons. “It’s about time Texans took back what was theirs.”
“Our feelings exactly,” Reynolds said.
Alexander stopped them before a heavy, iron-reinforced, door. “Rifles and pistols in there,” he said, unlocking and opening the door, “with balls, caps and powder. Help yourselves, gentlemen.”
Reynolds and the others, working slowly and clumsily in what little light came through the doorway, obtained weapons. Most of the guns in the locker were muzzle-loading, single-shot weapons: pistols, muskets, a few rifles. Many private citizens were better-armed than the militia. There were, though, some of the new revolving pistols. Cooper and his Rangers, Reynolds noted, went straight for these, each taking a brace of the massive forty-four caliber Colt revolvers designed specifically for the Texan dragoons by the late General Walker. Reynolds himself went for a smaller vest-pocket model; you had to have strong wrists and arms to deal with the recoil of the huge Walker Colt. When he emerged from the gloom into the light of the main hall, he noted with satisfaction that the pistol he’d taken bore engravings marking it as a gift to General Beauregard.
After allowing the others five minutes to search for weapons, Reynolds shooed them back into the armory’s vast main hall rather than let them load and prime their new possessions in the dimly lit locker. “Alexander,” he said to the lieutenant, “are you and your men ready to take on your first assignment for the new government?”
“The general’s as good as arrested,” Alexander said. “Wilson, gather the men and let’s go.” A half-dozen soldiers, bearing muskets, left with Alexander and the sergeant; General Beauregard, the generalissimo of the army, slept in his official residence next door. Placing him under arrest was the second task, after securing the armory. So far, all was going extremely well.
“All right, Cooper,” Reynolds said to the Ranger captain. “Let’s get these men awake and aware of the situation.”
Cooper, his Rangers, and the dozen or so soldiers remaining of Alexander’s cadre set off up the stairs to the second floor of the building, where the remainder of Washington’s small garrison were barracked. Their boot-steps echoed weirdly through the cavernous hall.
Reynolds couldn’t contain himself. Rather than look at his fellow-patriots shifting nervously and staring at one another, he paced back and forth at the opposite end of the hall, by the staircase. At each turn, he looked at his watch. It was a good thing that Texans were mostly Southerners by birth, and thus prone to getting up later than their Yankee cousins. That happy indolence would give him the time he needed to place his men in the most important government buildings before their occupants had arrived for work.
Shouting began upstairs. The words indistinguishable, the timbre and volume of the voices told Reynolds all he needed to know. Cooper had a certain facility with invective and blasphemy that gave his commands additional weight; before five minutes had passed, some fifty soldiers were lined up in the main hall of the armory, facing Reynolds with expressions that ranged from eager attention to sullen disbelief. Now it was his turn to exercise command. He walked partway up the staircase at the end of the hall, the better to be seen by the soldiers—and the better to make them look up to him.
“I apologize for waking you so early,” he began, and his supporters laughed, joined after a second by a few of the soldiers. “I’ve come before you men on a mission of the utmost of importance. It concerns the very future of our country.”
Reynolds looked at the men. Hit them at once, he thought. Don’t give them time to think about any of this.
“I have come into possession of information,” he said, “that proves beyond a doubt that certain high-ranking members of the government and army intend to sell this country out to the British.” A couple of the soldiers swore derisively, but most looked shocked, or at least more attentive than they had a moment ago. “Think about it,” Reynolds said. “Haven’t you been late in being paid? Aren’t you chronically short of equipment? And this in a country that many have called the most blessed by God in the entire world?” At this, the soldiers grumbled agreement more or less as one. Got you, Reynolds thought.
“I don’t see our president suffering, though, nor some of our generals. And that’s not right. It’s just not right.” Reynolds made sure his voice caught on the repetition, so there could be no doubt about his sincerity. “So those of us who are patriots, true Texicans, have determined not to let this great land be sold to the British.”
Now it was time for the clincher. “Accordingly, we patriots have taken it upon ourselves to charge certain individuals with high treason. In order that these individuals be tried properly, it is important that public order be maintained. And it is your responsibility, as soldiers of the Republic of Texas, to see that order is maintained. I am asking you now if you will stand with us. Your hearts will tell you that you should.”
For a moment, the soldiers just stood. One or two looked at one another. Damned immigrants, Reynolds thought. They know nothing of politics, they feel nothing for this place. All they care about is their pay, three meals a day and whiskey whenever they can get it. We should have more true Texans in this army.
“You gonna arrest the president?” one soldier finally asked.
“How about General Beauregard?” asked another.
That was the plan. How, Reynolds wondered, will they take this? I had hoped to have them on my side before ordering them to take Lamar and Travis. “I am saddened to have to report,” he said, “that President Lamar and Secretary of State Travis seem to have been the ringleaders in this plot to bring in the British. So yes, they will have to be charged and tried.”
“Will we get new uniforms?” one asked. “More pay?” asked another.
I have them, Reynolds thought, and he smiled. “Of course,” he said. “You have been treated shabbily. Stand up for your rights, and join us, and I promise you that you will be honored as heroes of the second Texican revolution!”
At this the men cheered—or most of them, anyway. “That’s the spirit,” Reynolds said. “Those of you who want to serve the true Texas will form up behind your sergeants.” He looked at one of the men who had refrained from cheering, and who stood, arms crossed, glaring at him. “Those of you who do not wish to join us will not be harmed. For the sake of public order, however, you will not be allowed to leave this building. I trust that as soldiers you will do your duty and—”
The heavy outside gate banged open.
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Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve
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