“Not Michael. He’s a fighter.”

For a moment James wondered if he was going to have to fist-fight Shipman. They had come close to it more than once but had always managed to back away from the edge just in time. One of these days he was going to have to find a more congenial working partner or maybe just do for himself. He didn’t really need a partner, anyway.

Shipman got down from his horse, looking as if he contemplated trying to stop James. “I hate to see you get killed before you even have a chance to grow up.”

“I’m twenty-one. That’s grown.”

“Your body may be, but your head is still about sixteen. I owe it to your family to knock some sense into it.”

“I’m ready any time you figure you’re big enough.” James knotted his fists in preparation.

Shipman took a couple of steps toward him, then stopped, shrugging. “Go ahead, if you’re bound and determined. I done right well for myself before you ever come along to aggravate my life. I’d probably be better off if they was to blow a hole through you and get you out of my misery.”

James remembered the way Shipman had run off the time Sergeant Díaz’s troops were closing in. In effect, he was running now, James thought. “You never did have stomach for a fight.”

“I’ve had my share. Maybe it’s just as well you go ahead and get this out of your system. If you live through it, you might even come out a little smarter—which I doubt.”

James mounted his horse. “Wish me luck?”

“I wish you some sense. I hope you come back with more than you’re showin’ now—if you come back.”

“I’ll be back. Don’t you be runnin’ away with our mules.” James spurred off into the dust left by the riders on their way to confront the garrison at Velasco.

XIV

IN LATER times it would be said that the first shots fired at Velasco the night of June 25, 1832 were the opening salvo of the Texas revolution against Mexico, though the full-blown revolution was yet more than three years away. There had been individual confrontations before between settlers and soldiers, but Velasco, where the Brazos River emptied its muddy brown waters into the blue brine of the Gulf, below Galveston Island, was the site of the first pitched battle.

The Mexican fortress was built of logs and sand in a circular configuration, its cannon atop an earthen embankment in the center, trained toward the Gulf but capable of swinging in any direction. Around the outside of the wall a deep ditch was intended to slow or stop any attack from land, though it had always been anticipated that any serious confrontation would come from warships in the Gulf. The Texan forces were under the divided command of John Austin—no relation to Stephen F.—and Henry Brown.

Shortly after James and the others arrived to reinforce the considerable number of fighting men already gathered beyond range of the fortress and shouting for a fight, a “committee of invitation” was sent to the commander of the fort, Colonel de Ugartechea, suggesting that he surrender the garrison. His curiosity much aroused, James took it upon himself to go along with this group under a white flag of truce. Though he did not understand Ugartechea’s words until a translation was made, the colonel’s grim visage told him the suggestion was refused.