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[Continuing chapter 12; this is another long one, and concludes this week]
“It’s not that there are so many of them,” Travis said, stretching his legs. “It’s that there are so few of us.”
“But how many?” Cleburne asked. “If you can just give us a number—”
“We’ll know how hard it’s going to be to re-take the city,” McCulloch finished.
“All I can say for certain is that there can’t be all that many of them,” Travis told them. McCulloch and his companions had joined Travis and Russell under the largest of the trees; as their horses grazed, the five men sat and talked about the alarming news each group had given the other. They look beaten, McCulloch thought about Travis and Russell. Their voices are dull, and they don’t seem to care about anything. Look at the way Travis just picks at the grass. Then the secretary of state looked at McCulloch, and there was still fire in his eyes. Maybe we’re not done yet, McCulloch thought. “They managed to keep what they were doing a secret,” Travis said, “and that’s almost impossible to do if you’ve got more than a handful of men involved.”
“But the soldiers,” McCulloch said.
“Most of them just following orders, I’ll wager,” said Russell, the newspaper man. “They’re most of them fresh off the boat, and they’ve been taught with the lash to do what they’re told.” Cleburne nodded, and McCulloch wondered if the Irishman had been on the delivering or receiving end of a whip in his soldiering days. He wasn’t quite sure how to take the Irishman. The man seemed brave enough. But the memory of Irishmen deserting from the army during the revolution to join their fellow-Catholic Mexicans, taking up the Mexican offer of land and gold in return for betraying the Texans, was still with McCulloch.
“My guess,” Russell continued, “is that you’ll be able to swing most of them to you if you can just find a way of dealing with the bad officers.”
“Any good officers in town, you reckon?” McCulloch asked Travis.
“There must be some,” Travis said. “I can’t believe that everyone in the garrison is that venal or traitorous.”
“Then they’re either hiding or in prison. Either way, you got to get them out of wherever they’re being held,” McCulloch said. “That’s how you get the soldiers to come around to you.”
“I detect a vicious cycle forming,” Russell said. “We need soldiers to defeat the coup. But in order to obtain their services we have to first defeat them in order to free the captive officers we need to lead them.”
“Which brings us back to the few of us against the uncertain—but surely superior—number of them,” Travis said. “I know in my heart that most Texans won’t support this Walker person if they’re given the choice. But I seem to be the only member of the cabinet not in custody. Do I dare risk appearing in Washington to make my case?” Don’t let him talk himself out of trying something, McCulloch thought. Trying anything, and failing, is still better than just giving up.
“Seems to me you don’t have a choice, sir,” Patton said. “You stay in hiding, this Reynolds fellow can say anything he wants about you. The more you repeat a lie, the more likely it is to be believed,” the Virginian added. “You have to go back.” McCulloch nodded agreement, glad that the others weren’t going to let Travis give up either.
Russell leapt to his feet, scattering dust as he did so. “Who’s to say,” he said excitedly, “that we have to go charging back in there by ourselves? Why can’t we build our own force as we go back?”
“I don’t understand you,” Travis said.
“The militia,” Russell said. “Why don’t you call up the militia? As the senior representative of the government, you’re not just allowed to muster the militia, you’re bloody well required to do it. Every farmer out here, every man hiding in his house in Washington, is a member of the militia.”
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Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve
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