29 MAY 1851
It was too much to hope, Stewart thought, that the bastards would give up without some kind of a fight. Just don’t take too many of these fellows with you when you go, he thought to the men barricaded in the late General Beauregard’s bedroom. We don’t have too many to spare as it is.
Already one of Miller’s men had dragged himself away and down the stairs with a ball embedded in his hip or leg; too many more casualties and Travis would have no one to stand with him against Walker’s filibuster when it arrived. Stewart looked around as the smoke from the shooting thinned, and saw four—no, five—militiamen edging closer to the stairs. They’re scared, he realized, because they can’t see the enemy. Then it occurred to him that the reverse might also be true, and could work in his favor.
He walked down the hall to the stairs and the men gathered there, winking at them to show that he, at least, was not worried about anything. “You two”—he pointed to a couple of the larger men—“start pulling heavy furniture in front of that door. They want to stay in there? We’ll let them. Make as much noise as you can—I want those people to know they’re trapped.”
“Why don’t we just burn ‘em out?” one of the men asked.
“I’d just as soon not destroy this building for the sake of a couple of fools,” Stewart said. “They’re no threat to us, locked up in there.”
“’Less they start shootin’ through the door,” a furniture-mover pointed out.
“Get a wardrobe or chest of drawers in front of it and you’ll stop any ball from a pistol,” Stewart told him. This is not exactly like planning a battle, he thought. Or even a skirmish or setting an ambuscade. That gave him another idea. “Hold on,” he said. “Don’t start moving anything until you get my signal. And remember to make a lot of noise.” He started down the stairs, signaling the rest of the men to follow him. “We’re going to find a ladder,” he told them.
Outside the commandant’s house, chaos seemed to be the order of the day: men milled about the fort’s small courtyard in various stages of dress while Miller and the recently released officers shouted orders or imprecations. To the east, the sky was beginning to go lavender-gray, and Stewart realized with a start that it must have been thirty hours or more since he last slept.
After he’d stood on the porch of the house for a moment, waiting for the ladder to be brought to him, Stewart came to the conclusion that the situation here was not as chaotic as it looked. The semi-dressed soldiers were forming up into ranks in response to the shouting of the officers Travis had released from the armory; Stewart could see one grim-faced group of men in the pale blue and red of the artillery—the uniforms looked lavender and black in the half-light—guarding a half-dozen frightened-looking junior officers and NCOs who were pressed up against the stone outer walls of the armory. Travis, Russell, Cleburne and Marshal McCulloch stood, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold. As usual, Russell continued to scribble with his stubby pencil into the notebook he carried.
Stewart walked over to them. “Marshal McCulloch,” he said to the lawman, “would you like to do something potentially dangerous and probably really stupid with me?”
“I’m your man, captain,” McCulloch said with a sour grin. “I been thinkin’ this had gone a little too easy. And I do want occupation, to be sure.”
“What’s going on, Captain Stewart?” Travis asked.
“There are a couple of men barricaded in the bedroom,” Stewart said. “I haven’t asked them who they are yet, but I would imagine they’re the senior officers on the rebel side.”
“That would be Lieutenant Alexander, then,” Travis said. “Seconded from the Second Infantry to General Beauregard’s staff. Major Ruyckens of the engineers tells me that he seems to have been working with Reynolds since the beginning of this plot. However far back that goes.” Travis looked to Stewart to be in shock, the sort that he had seen affecting some of the soldiers—on both sides—who’d taken part in the Kentucky fighting. Perhaps that was what discovering the true depths of a betrayal did to you. “What,” Travis asked him, “are you planning to do that’s so dangerous and probably really stupid?”
At that moment Stewart’s militiamen reappeared with a rough ladder, and McCulloch’s face broke into a broad, saturnine smile. He pulled his Colt from its holster, checked the cylinder to see that all of the nipples were capped, and said, “Do you go up first or do I?”
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