The Black Jacks Read Online Free Page A

Comanches. Only then, they believed, would Texas be safe. You couldn't make peace with a savage, because a savage had no concept of honor, and would not keep his word. This was their thinking. And President Lamar's, too. So McAllen kept coming back to the same old question.
    Why the peace overtures?
    Two months ago, three Penateka Comanche chiefs had ridden boldly into San Antonio and, in a conference with Ranger Henry Karnes, stated that a tribal council had agreed to ask the Texans for a treaty. Colonel Karnes had replied that no treaty was possible until the Indians gave up all their white captives. The Comanches agreed to this condition, and the talks were scheduled for March 19.
    There would be trouble. McAllen could feel it in his bones. The Comanches were not gentle with their captives. If they did bring in their white prisoners, Texas would be able to see all the suffering those poor souls had endured, and bad feeling would run at high tide.
    But what could he do?
    Scowling, John Henry McAllen shook his head. It didn't really matter what he thought he could or couldn't do. Sam Houston had entrusted him with this task, and by God he would get it done or die trying.

Chapter Three
    Saying farewell to Ashbel Smith in the bar room of Floyd's Hotel, McAllen took three days to travel the distance between the booming town of Houston and the Brazos River. The rains had swollen the creeks and rivers, and the crossings slowed him down. He arrived at the Grand Cane plantation late in the afternoon of the third day.
    In spite of his problems with Leah, McAllen was glad to see his home. He was proud of Grand Cane, and anyone acquainted with the plantation would have said he had a right to be.
    Five years ago, John Henry McAllen had come to Texas, like so many other adventurous Americans eager to strike a blow for liberty. He came from Mississippi, a lawyer by trade and a militia officer who had seen action in the Second Seminole War with Zach "Old Rough and Ready" Taylor. With McAllen came twenty-eight stalwart men, all of whom had served with McAllen in the Florida campaigns. The women of Warren County had presented them with black roundabouts adorned with red piping and brass buttons, and thanks to these distinctive shell jackets McAllen and his men rode boldly into Texas legend as the Black Jacks.
    They were not the only such group to risk all for Texas independence. There were John Shackleford's Red Rovers from down Alabama way, and the New Orleans Grays, too. But as far as Sam Houston was concerned, Captain McAllen and his Black Jacks were the best and bravest of the lot. He had seen them in action—their gallant assault on Santa Anna's left flank at San Jacinto was a scene Houston would never forget. The Black Jacks had met and vanquished a much larger force of veteran lancers. And then, while the rest of Houston's little army became a wild mob embarked on a killing frenzy as the Mexican troops broke and ran, McAllen and his boys had kept good order and protected their suddenly vulnerable commander, who lay wounded in his camp on Buffalo Bayou.
    That he had lost control of his army at San Jacinto, and that they had shot, clubbed, and stabbed hundreds of Mexican soldiers who had thrown down their weapons and tried to surrender, shamed Sam Houston to this day, even while he understood that the massacre of brave Texans at Goliad and the Alamo had spawned this irresistible thirst for vengeance. At least the actions of the Black Jacks gave him leave to claim that he had not lost complete control of affairs on that fateful spring day in 1836.
    After San Jacinto, a grateful Republic of Texas had awarded John Henry McAllen with six leagues of land—about twenty-five thousand acres. It was prime land along the Brazos River, a few miles south of San Felipe de Austin. As president, Sam Houston had been delighted to put his name to the grant. Texas needed to keep men like McAllen, and all she had to entice them with was land.
    McAllen