Zaragosa made a small smile. “A good son.” He turned back to Isaac. “You are a bachelor, I believe. You do not know what it is to have a son.”

Isaac looked away, swallowing. “I reckon not.” He had tried not to think too much about the boy. He had especially tried not to dwell on what would become of young Cyrus without Isaac there to guide him and only Finis and Luke to model after. If he were now to jump and run from this place, to save himself, it would be to spare the boy that fate.

Zaragosa said, “Perhaps God will smile. Perhaps Santa Anna will turn back from these walls when he sees we are ready.” But the tone of his voice did not inspire belief.

Isaac saw a rider spurring hard from the direction of town. He was a Mexican civilian, a man whose face had become familiar to Isaac though he did not know his name. His excited manner brought Isaac to full attention, and automatically his gaze went to the southern horizon, searching.

He heard the distant ringing of the bell in the tower of San Fernando. It was not the time of day for mass, he thought, then wondered why he knew. He had never been to mass. He had seldom been to any kind of church service.

He saw frenzied movement in the distant streets. Men on horseback were hurrying toward the fortress: Texans and volunteers from the United States who had been sleeping in town instead of inside the crowded post. Shortly, a group of Mexican civilian horsemen came pushing a herd of cattle toward the walls, beef to withstand a siege.

Zaragosa said, “It is Juan Seguín and his men. I must go to help them.” He turned hurriedly, then paused. “You know what this means. The enemy is upon us.”

The cold, damp wind gave Isaac a chill that seemed to go all the way to his boots. “And the grass ain’t even up yet.”

LIEUTENANT DíAZ had expected to return someday to San Antonio de Bexar, but he had not thought it would be with such a grand army as this one. At least, it had seemed a grand army when it had gathered at the Rio Grande. The steady march into a cold, wet Texas winter had been a grievous ordeal for men afoot and for the horses. There had been little grass from Laredo north, partly because of the dormant winter season and partly because Texan scouts had done the best they could to burn off the old, dead grass that at least would have filled the horses’ bellies even if its nutrients had been sparse. Rain had put a stop to the burning, but the grass was brown and empty, and the animals had grown thin.

The presidente had gone into a rage over the condition of the horses, almost as terrible as the one in which he had indulged upon learning of General Cós’s disgraceful surrender of troops at Bexar in December. The men should have fought to the death, he had shrilled, rather than surrender to such an unholy band of pirates as these accursed americanos who would wrest Texas from the bosom of its mother Mexico. But he would show the foreign invaders the power of the Napoleon of the West. They would feel the sting of good Mexican steel. He would put them to the sword, every last misbegotten son of a goat.