[Continuing chapter seventeen]
That’s a lot of men, God damn it. Ben McCulloch didn’t bother to count them; they were more than two hundred, and that was depressing enough. Probably closer to four hundred, he thought as he thumped down the rise to his horse. If we’re lucky, Travis has a third that number.
And you still have to get past their scouts if you’re going to get this information back to Travis, he reminded himself as he mounted.
He was out here because this was where he’d felt he could do the most good. Organizing posses he could do if the situation required it, but armies were another matter entirely, requiring a level of skill and understanding that was beyond his experience. He might have learned something watching Travis, Captain Stewart and the Irishman, Cleburne, at work, he knew. But somebody had to locate Walker’s approaching force, and there were few people in Texas who were better scouts and trackers than himself. That wasn’t bragging, which was unseemly behavior. It was just the truth, and truth should always be admitted to, even if it does place you in a better light.
Besides, this was something real to do. Watching the clumsy attempts to assemble and drill a fighting force out of the dregs of the Washington garrison and what militia could be raised from the local plantations and farms would have driven him mad. He didn’t much like cities, either; he preferred being out on the land, where there was nothing but the trees to interrupt your view of the horizon. He had once tried to come to terms with cities; he had allowed himself to be elected to the first post-revolutionary Congress. But he’d quickly discovered that there were limits to the extent to which he was able to exercise leadership. He’d been more than willing to accept appointment to one of the new marshal positions created by the Department of the Interior, and even the closed-in forests of East Texas had been less uncomfortable to him than the noisy, smoke-filled Congress.
It occurred to him as he guided his horse southward through the woods flanking the Brazos River that he might be taking part in one of those important moments—epochal, some called them—that shape the future of nations. What, he wondered, will the future of this nation be? And will I have any place in it?
Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter TwelveThat’s a lot of men, God damn it. Ben McCulloch didn’t bother to count them; they were more than two hundred, and that was depressing enough. Probably closer to four hundred, he thought as he thumped down the rise to his horse. If we’re lucky, Travis has a third that number.
And you still have to get past their scouts if you’re going to get this information back to Travis, he reminded himself as he mounted.
He was out here because this was where he’d felt he could do the most good. Organizing posses he could do if the situation required it, but armies were another matter entirely, requiring a level of skill and understanding that was beyond his experience. He might have learned something watching Travis, Captain Stewart and the Irishman, Cleburne, at work, he knew. But somebody had to locate Walker’s approaching force, and there were few people in Texas who were better scouts and trackers than himself. That wasn’t bragging, which was unseemly behavior. It was just the truth, and truth should always be admitted to, even if it does place you in a better light.
Besides, this was something real to do. Watching the clumsy attempts to assemble and drill a fighting force out of the dregs of the Washington garrison and what militia could be raised from the local plantations and farms would have driven him mad. He didn’t much like cities, either; he preferred being out on the land, where there was nothing but the trees to interrupt your view of the horizon. He had once tried to come to terms with cities; he had allowed himself to be elected to the first post-revolutionary Congress. But he’d quickly discovered that there were limits to the extent to which he was able to exercise leadership. He’d been more than willing to accept appointment to one of the new marshal positions created by the Department of the Interior, and even the closed-in forests of East Texas had been less uncomfortable to him than the noisy, smoke-filled Congress.
It occurred to him as he guided his horse southward through the woods flanking the Brazos River that he might be taking part in one of those important moments—epochal, some called them—that shape the future of nations. What, he wondered, will the future of this nation be? And will I have any place in it?
Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen
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