Ghosts and Guardians

a Laramie Halloween story

by Sevenstars

SUMMARY: Jess reveals a bit of his past that none of his family has known of up to now. Set during Third Season, in Mike's first autumn at Shermans', soon after the events of "Roundup Day" (also at this site). Thanks to Noelle, as always, for everything.

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"Jess? D'you believe in ghosts?"

Jess looked up from the horsehair halter-line he was braiding, his brows pulling together quizzically. He glanced quickly from Mike's questioning face to Daisy, whose expression might best have been described as neutrally uncertain, and at last to Slim, whose handsome features had settled into a half-frown. The Texan tried to think whether he and his best friend had ever had occasion to talk about their opinions on matters occult, and decided it had never come up—which, on reflection, didn't surprise him. Slim was much too practical, too down-to-earth, to believe—or at least to admit to belief—in something so, well, so not-of-earth as ghosts.

"How come you t'ask, Tiger?" he temporized.

"We've been readin' a poem of Mr. Longfellow's at school," Mike explained, "about 'The Skeleton in Armor.' I guess that would be a ghost—it came back after it was dead, to tell its story." A pause, then: "Do you?"

Jess drew a careful breath and looked again at Slim. We made us a bargain, his eyes said, that we'd answer him as true as we could, always. You don't want me to lie, do you? "I was raised up on the Bible, same's I reckon you was, Tiger," he said slowly then. "It kinda makes believin' in ghosts—and in witches too—an article of faith, don't it? After all, old King Saul went and consulted that Witch of Endor, and she raised up Samuel's ghost for him to talk to."

"I guess so," Mike agreed thoughtfully, and Jess let out the breath he'd been holding. He hated skirmishing around the truth, especially with either of the boys who'd become his little brothers, but still…

Then Mike said: "Did you ever see a ghost, Jess?"

Jess hesitated. "I ain't rightly sure, Tiger. There's a plenty of stories told about 'em, out on the range, and I reckon I've heard a fair few, driftin' like I done all them years… but seein' one? I don't… maybe, but…" Help me out here, hardcase, he thought to Slim.

"Go ahead, Jess," Slim encouraged unexpectedly. "Maybe if you tell about it, you'll be able to get a handle on what it really was—if anything."

Jess put the coils of horsehair down on the floor between his feet and stared thoughtfully into the fire. "You know anythin' about the Alamo, Tiger?"

"That's what Slim calls his horse," the boy said.

"Yeah, that's so, but the horse is named after a place in Texas. Y'see, a long time ago—back before even Slim and me was born—Texas didn't belong to the United States; she was part of Mexico. There was some Mexican ranches and missions down south of Santone—that's what Texans call San Antonio; I told you about that, Daisy, you recollect?—but not too much settlement anywheres else, 'cept up by Goliad and Nacogdoches. The Mexicans wasn't too good at fightin' Indians, and the Comanches kinda figured all of Texas belonged to them. So come a time, a man name of Moses Austin got a notion in his head to try settlin' Americans in all that country the Mexicans wasn't makin' use of. He got a feller they called the Baron deBastrop to talk for him to th'authorities, and the Baron said there was more Mexican citizens goin' out of Texas than into it—which was true—and th'Indian danger'd likely never be ended till the country between Bexar and the Sabine was colonized. Even now, he said, the Comanches thought of Santone as 'their' town, rode into it whenever they pleased and acted like they owned it. Americans'd always had them a reputation as Indian fighters, and maybe they'd be able to protect the Mexican settlers from the redskins better'n the Mexicans could protect themselves, he said. Well, the Mexican government chewed on that some, and decided maybe he was right, and they started lettin' Americans in—Austin's Old Three Hundred first, then more families fetched in by other men like him, and even one lady, Jane Storm, her name was, partnered up with her pa and her brother. Come 1835, twelve-thirteen years later, there was maybe 30,000 American settlers in Texas and only about 7500 Mexicans. Well, you can see how the Mexicans'd get to feelin' some outnumbered."

"Uh-huh," Mike agreed, "but what's that got to do with ghosts?"

"Gi'me time, Tiger, I'll get to it," Jess promised, much of his former unease having evaporated in the warmth of the yarn he was spinning. "Anyhow, there was a lot of little troubles between the American settlers and the Mexican government, and the Texians—that's what they called themselves back then—them havin' all come over from the States, they got to thinkin' about the revolution that'd happened sixty years before, and that maybe they'd be better off if they cut themselves free of Mexico and got joined up to their old home country. And then a general name of Santa Anna got himself made President of Mexico, and he decided that lettin' 'em in'd been a mistake. So he put an army together and marched over the Rio Grande for Santone, which was the nearest big settlement to the border.

"Well, in Santone there was an old mission church called the Alamo—it means 'poplar' in Spanish, there was a mess of them trees thereabouts when it was built—that had a good stout wall around it, like most of them old missions. Stephen Austin—he was old Moses's son—and th'other men that'd been runnin' Texas sent a company of men there to try and hold Santa Anna's army off till Sam Houston could get more troops gathered up and whipped into shape. There wasn't more'n a couple hundred of 'em even at the start; maybe you've heard some of their names. There was Jim Bowie, that the knife's named after, and Davy Crockett, and a Texian officer named William Barrett Travis, and a lot of others not so well-known; one of 'em wasn't but fifteen. They was all of 'em volunteers—some Texian settlers, some Tejanos—that's Texan Mexicans—that didn't like Santa Anna, some Scots and English, and a bunch that'd come across the Sabine from the States, Crockett first amongst 'em.

"Santa Anna fetched his army up and laid siege to the place for twelve days. Colonel Travis and his outfit could'a' got away any time they wanted to—the surround was fuller of holes than a fish net, horseback couriers was comin' and goin' right up to the end—but they'd made up their minds to stick. You ask your teacher if she knows about the letter Travis sent to 'the people of Texas and all Americans in the world.'

"Come the thirteenth day, the Mexicans started an assault. The mission walls'd only been made to keep out hostile Indians, not an army with cannon, but the defenders was behind them walls with long rifles, and they made the Mexicans work for it. They started firin' when th'enemy was three hundred yards off—three times what the Mexicans' guns could hit at—and they didn't miss. They knew to shoot at braid, too—at officers—and they killed a mighty share of 'em. It took three tries for Santa Anna to knock enough of 'em off the walls that there was holes in the defense. There was a hundred and eighty-nine of them boys in the Alamo, and before they was done—and every last one of 'em died, then or right soon after—they killed somethin' like sixteen hundred of Santa Anna's army, two men out of every five he had, not countin' five hundred more that was so bad wounded he had to leave 'em behind when th'army moved on north, or the ones that wasn't hurt so bad they couldn't march. Texans've thought of the Alamo as a shrine, ever since that day, and there's a plenty of us that's named after men that fell there, 'specially Bowie and Crockett and Travis.

"Some other time maybe I'll tell you about how the Texians won their war; that happened at a place called San Jacinto, and Sam Houston took a price for them boys that'd been killed in Santone. But before he moved on Santa Anna done somethin' Texas could never forgive him for, somethin' so mean-spirited that if there'd been any Texians that didn't want independence before, there wasn't none after: he refused the Alamo dead proper burial. He had their bodies piled up and burned, and the remains was dumped into a common grave, just where nobody knows for sure."

He paused to take a breath and order his thoughts. "They say one of the things that's likest to make a ghost haunt is lack of a proper grave, so you can see how them boys might've hung on, after what was done to 'em. When Houston took Santa Anna prisoner, and Santa Anna saw Texas was lost, he sent word to the thousand or so of his men he'd left to hold Santone, and told 'em to destroy the Alamo, burn it flat; just plumb mean-spiritedness again, I reckon. Well, they tried. An officer named Colonel Sanchez took a detachment of troops with torches into the compound and started toward th'old church, but before they could get near enough to do any damage, six spirits with blazin' sabers suddenly appeared in front of the doors, yellin', 'Don't touch the Alamo, don't touch these walls!' The Mexicans was scared about out of their skins. They ran for their lives and wouldn't go back, no matter what threats their officers made against 'em.

"Colonel Sanchez told his commander, General Andrade, about the spirits, but Andrade thought he was spinnin' a windy, and he gathered up another detachment of men and went in again, plannin' to burn the Long House Barracks. As they got near, another spirit—just one this time—rose up out of the roof, holdin' a ball of fire in each of its hands. It didn't say anything, but the Mexicans figured it didn't have to. They fell on their knees and covered their eyes—even Andrade—and then turned tail and run just like the first lot. There's some that say that when the bodies of the defenders was burned, the energy that was released from the flames was enough for that spirit to pull itself together and scare the Mexicans off."

"Gosh," Mike whispered in awe.

"Ten years went by," Jess continued, "and th'Alamo stood abandoned, crumblin' away under the sun and the rain. In '41 the Republic give it back to the Catholic Church, but the Church didn't do nothin' about it, I dunno why, and by '45, when Texas was annexed, there was weeds and grass coverin' a lot of the place and a colony of bats'd took up residence. Then th'Army took it over and started fixin' it up, patchin' the roofs, shorin' up the walls and such. They made the old convent into offices and storerooms, but the chapel stayed empty, with Washington and the Church and the Santone city government bickerin' over who owned it. In '55 the Texas Supreme Court found for the Church, but it still didn't do much of anythin' for another ten years, when it asked th'Occupation troops to move out so it could use the chapel for worship services for the German Catholics thereabouts. The troops didn't go, and the Church quit tryin' to get possession. Th'Army uses the place to this day; they got a supply depot there, offices, storage rooms, a blacksmith shop, and stables. They put a new roof on the chapel—it was burned in '61—and cut new windows into it, on the upper level and on the other three sides.

"It hadn't took too long for the soldiers doin' the work to get the notion they wasn't alone. The ghosts never offered 'em harm, like they'd done the Mexicans; I reckon they knew that these was Americans, friends, just tryin' to spruce the old place up some. But they still wanted proper burial, maybe, so they kept on makin' themselves known. And bein' as how this was a post plumb in the middle of one of the few real cities Texas had at that time—th'only other'ns was Galveston, Houston, New Braunfels, and Marshall; even Austin didn't have but about six hundred folks livin' there at the time, though it was the state capital—you couldn't rightly keep the word from spreadin'; the soldiers'd go off duty to the bars and cantinas and such, and they'd get a talkin' load on and start tellin' about things they'd seen and heard.

"Then, early in '59, the Menger Hotel was opened just over the street from the Alamo. From the start it was the finest place to stay in the Southwest. The furnishings was hauled in from the coast and cost $16,000 for purchase and freight. Army officers, California travellers, hacendados up from Mexico and big ranchmen like Richard King bathed and dined and drank in solid splendor. But they wasn't th'only guests the place had. Often heavy footsteps and kickin' was heard, and guests and staff got glimpses of old military boots. Seemed like some of them that died in the battle had took to comin' by. Never troubled nobody, just sometimes stared at folks for a little while.

"Well, over the winter of '68 and '69 I was in Arizona, and 'round about February I headed for Santone, figurin' to join up with a trail drive north. Most of the drives start there, and even them that don't, no matter if they ain't gone no more'n ten miles before they roll in, they always stop, so it's a good place for a man to wait around and hit up trail bosses for work.

"That time of year's good to travel across the way I done; the Comanches and Apaches are tucked up in their camps out of the weather, and the Border ain't so oven-hot as it gets later on. Took me just about three weeks to make the trip, goin' by way of Tucson and El Paso, and time I got there I'd kinda lost track of the days. I had some money put by, so I checked into the Menger, and first thing I done after I dropped my gear in my room was go get me a bath.

"I stepped out of the bathin' room feelin' warm and clean and good, and there wasn't nobody in the hallway—and then there was. A man in gray pants and a buckskin jacket, and I swear, he hadn't been there ten seconds before. He didn't look at me, didn't even seem to notice I was there. Seemed like he was talkin' to somebody else, somebody I couldn't see or hear. 'Are you gonna stay,' he said, 'or are you gonna go?' Three times he said it, and then he disappeared into thin air."

"Weren't you scared?" Mike inquired.

"Tiger, right about that time in my life, I didn't see much need to be scared," Jess told him. "I'd already lost just about everything that'd ever meant anythin' to me, and I hadn't found this place yet; that didn't come till more'n a year later.

"I will say, though, it shook me up some. I went down to the bar and had a drink, and listened to some of the talk, and that's where I begun to hear about the ghosts folks had been seein' and hearin' about the place the last ten years. I give some thought to checkin' out, but then I figured, well, they ain't hurt nobody yet, why do I got to worry? So I stayed, and sat in on a poker game. Done okay, too, though there was one feller didn't seem too happy about it.

"I'd got used to clean air, out on the trail, and of course the bar was kinda smoky, so after the game broke up I went out to get a breath or two. I could see th'Alamo just over the street, and I thought about the stories my pa and my uncle had told about the fight, and I found myself walkin' that way, not rightly knowin' why.

"It was a beautiful night, clear like we get here in the winter, only warmer, maybe about fifty degrees or so. I crossed over and stood lookin' at th'old place in the starlight, and then I saw somethin' move out of the side of my eye, and looked real quick, with my hand down by my gun, just in case. There was a man-shape standin' in the gardens alongside the mission, wearin' a black duster and a Texas-style hat, and I give you my oath he was drippin' wet, like he'd just rode through a thunderstorm.

"I stared, not sure I believed what I was seein', wonderin' if maybe somebody'd put somethin' in my drink. And then out of nowhere I heard a voice shout, 'Jesse, look out!'

"Well, ain't nobody much ever called me Jesse 'cept my ma when I was in trouble, but I was so plumb startled—what with lookin' at that man standin' there drippin' on a clear night—that I spun and dropped, and a bullet went over my head. I could see the gunflash right by the corner of the old baptistry, not more'n twenty foot away, and I shot back and heard a yell and a thump, like somethin' heavy fallin'. I rolled off to the side so he'd miss me if he tried again, but he didn't, and then four or five men come runnin' from the west, and come to find out, the feller who hadn't liked my luck had made up his mind to do somethin' about it. I hadn't seen him clear, but at that distance a man can't hardly miss, and he was dead.

"I kept lookin' for that feller in the black duster, figurin' him bein' right there he'd be sure to come and say what he'd seen, but he didn't. It took a spell, but I had witnesses, and it got straightened out, and the law figured I'd fired in self-defense and let me go. I asked around, tryin' to find out who'd warned me, figurin' it had to be somebody who'd known me in the war, or somebody I'd rode with sometime, but nobody around admitted to knowin' me, 'cept the clerk who'd checked me in, and of course he called me 'Mr. Harper.'

"Well, you can see that I was some flummoxed. But then I went back to the bar to steady my nerves some, and it bein' late there was just me and the bartender, and I got talkin' to him and told him what'd happened and about the feller in the duster. And he said, 'Oh, that one. Folks been seein' him 'round there for years. There's some say he's one of the couriers Colonel Travis sent out before the last assault—there was more'n twenty of 'em, first to last, you know.'

"I said, 'No, I didn't know—are you tellin' me I seen a ghost?' And he said, 'I don't rightly know what else you'd call it, friend.'

"I don't know where the thought come from, but I asked him, where could a man go to learn the names of all them that died in the fightin'? And he sent me to the office of the Daily Herald, said the editor there was workin' on a history of the fight on the side.

"First thing next mornin' I went, and he was right helpful, looked through his papers and said, 'There was two men at the Alamo named Jesse that we know about. One was Jesse B. Badgett; he was born in North Carolina but was livin' in Arkansas at the time the trouble started. Him and his brother William signed up with the Texas Army in Lou'siana in November, crossed over the Sabine the next month, and by the first of February Jesse had joined Travis's command. The garrison elected him a delegate to the Convention of '36, and he went, and signed the Declaration of Independence, so he wasn't here when the rest was killed. Th'other one was Jesse McCoy; he was in the Gonzales Mounted Ranger Company, and he didn't make it.' And then he said, 'Funny thing is, durin' the siege—it must've been right around last night's date—McCoy was workin' on the defenses, and somebody up above on the wall was shiftin' cannonballs and lost his grip, and he yelled to McCoy to look out. McCoy jumped, and the cannonball slammed into the ground where he'd been.' "

Mike's eyes were saucer-sized. "Is that what you heard? That man, from all those years ago, yellin' to his friend?"

"I dunno, Tiger," Jess admitted. "It don't rightly seem possible, but I couldn't come to no other notion—certain sure I couldn't find nobody around there who'd have warned me by name like that." He slid a glance at Slim out of the corner of his eye. His friend looked skeptical still, but not as if he thought Jess was making the tale up out of the whole cloth.

"What did you do then?" Mike asked.

"Well, you need to keep in mind, by this time I knew what day it was—the twenty-third of February, which was the day Santa Anna's army got to Santone. That night, after I'd had supper, I went over the street again and stood where I'd been before, watchin' for the feller in the duster. He didn't show up, but after a bit I could hear voices echoin' from one of the buildings, even though I knew there was nobody else around. I couldn't make out the words at first, but they got louder and louder, and then I heard one of 'em say, right plain, 'It's too late!' After that there was nothin'."

"Was it one of—them? The men who were there when the Mexicans came?"

"I didn't see nobody, but lookin' back I reckon so," Jess agreed. "I left, but the next night I went back. Seemed like the place drew me somehow, maybe 'cause I'm born Texan and was fetched up on the stories, like I already told you. At first it was quiet, and then I begun hearin' voices again. But not like the ones before. These seemed to be fightin' the battle over again. I heard 'em say things like 'Fire!' and 'He's dead' and 'Here they come.'

"Well, now I was gettin' confused, 'cause there hadn't oughtta been nobody sayin' that till the mornin' of the fifth, which was when Santa Anna ordered the first charge, and up till now it'd seemed like whatever was there was relivin' things on the days they'd happened. And then it come to me maybe time ain't the same for the dead; Ma always said that once you're in eternity, it don't pass the way livin' folks know it. Maybe, I got to thinkin', 'specially around this time of year when it's so close to when they died, it kinda doubles back like a twisty river, and them that's relivin' the past see it out of its right order.

"Sudden-like it was all quiet again, but then I heard somethin' creak, and I looked and saw the main door, maybe forty foot from where I was, swingin' open on its hinges. I thought on what I'd seen and heard so far, and what that editor had told me, and I says to myself, It's real, Harper, you know it's real, and you done come this far, you might just as well go all the way—they been only helpin' you up to now. And I walked over to that door and stepped inside.

"Off to my right was another door, standin' open like the one I'd come through. No sign of sentries or nothin', even though the place was Army property and th'Occupation was still on—Texas wasn't let back into the Union till the next year. I felt like I was asleep, only not exactly—like maybe I wasn't quite there; and it was quiet, so quiet you might'a' heard a mouse sneeze.

"That door seemed to be pullin' at me, and I went to it and looked through. I could see right off this was the old chapel, and there was a man standin' up toward the back of it, about where the altar must've been in th'old days. He was dressed in old-fashioned clothes—double-breasted frock coat down to the calves, waistcoat with a notched collar, way tighter through the waist than what you see nowadays, high-standin' collar with a cravat wrapped around, trousers with a strap under the instep. And a big old cloak thrown around his shoulders, hangin' open, with big billowy sleeves down to the wrists, and frog fasteners down the front. Then I realized I could see through him, right to the wall at the back.

"I looked at him, and he looked at me, and it was like everythin' in the world stopped movin' and breathin'. Then he says to me, 'Are you a Texan patriot?'

" 'Yes, sir,' I says, 'born and bred in the Panhandle, and fought for my state in the war just recent.'

" 'The Panhandle,' he says, kinda thoughtful-like. 'Has it been so long since my time? Back then the Panhandle belonged to the Comanches.'

" 'It does still, sir,' I says, 'but it don't stop Texans.'

"He sort of smiled, like I'd said somethin' that was true and funny at the same time, and then he says, 'Do you know who I am?'

"I thought on it a minute, and said, 'I reckon I do, sir. I reckon maybe you're Colonel Bill Travis.'

"He made a sort of bow and said, 'Your servant, sir,' but I could hear the smile in his voice. And then he says, 'What brings you here so late at night?'

"I says, 'I reckon, sir, I'm lookin' for answers.' And I told him about the voice I'd heard that called my name, and what the editor at the Herald had told me.

" 'Jesse,' he says. 'That's you?'

" 'It's how I was wrote up in the family Bible,' I says. 'My right name's Jesse Devlin, but I go by Jess, mostly.' And in the back of my head I'm thinkin', Ain't nobody gonna ever believe this, Harper, you standin' here talkin' to a man that's been dead these thirty years and more."

"I believe it," Mike whispered.

Jess went on as if he hadn't heard. "Travis kinda tipped his head, lookin' at me ponderin' like. 'I think,' he says, 'that your editor friend got it right. I remember that day and how close McCoy came.' And then he must'a' seen somethin' change in my face, 'cause he said, 'You wish it was otherwise.'

"I tried to get my thoughts in order, and after a bit I said, 'I reckon maybe I was hopin', you-all not bein' bound by time no more, you could… see ahead, kinda. I reckon maybe I thought it'd been somebody callin' to me, wantin' me to live so's I could—' " He hesitated, sliding a look at Daisy, who knew about the Bannisters. " '—So's I could finish some old business I got hangin' fire.'

"He give me one of them thinkin' looks again, and shook his head. 'No,' he says, 'I know what you mean, but we can't see the future, only the past. The future don't exist, you see, till the physical time of matter catches up with it and fills it in. There's things that's likely to happen, and things not so likely, and things not hardly likely at all, and those we can see—but which of 'em it'll be, that I don't know no better'n you do.'

"I thought on that a minute, and said, 'So I reckon you can't give me no notion what to do next.'

"He says, 'You're figurin' to go north, ain't you? With one of them cattle herds?' And without waitin' for me to answer, he says, 'We're allowed to give advice; maybe you recollect a story in the Bible about that,' and I knew he had to be meanin' that Witch-of-Endor story I mentioned before. And he shut his eyes a minute and put his head back and took a—well, on a livin' man it'd be a deep breath—and then he looked at me and said, 'There'll be a boss goin' to Dodge City. Wait for him.' "

" 'Why Dodge, sir?' I asks. 'That story you spoke of was plumb particular about what was gonna happen to Saul.'

" 'But I ain't Samuel,' he says. 'Prophets go by different rules. Just you trust me, young Jesse, and hold in mind what I tell you.' And then I looked again, and he wasn't there no more."

Mike said nothing for a minute. "Did you do what he said, Jess?" he asked then, his voice hushed.

"Yeah, I did," Jess agreed. "There wasn't much cattle trade to Dodge then, it didn't have the railroad—that didn't come till later that summer. But sure enough, after I'd been waitin' 'round town maybe three weeks, here come a drive headin' that way, stocker cattle for the northern ranges. I reckoned it had to be the one Travis had told me to watch for, and I signed up."

"Did it make a difference?" asked Daisy, unexpectedly.

Jess looked over to Slim and smiled. "More'n you know, Daisy. That drive was where I met a feller name of Pete Morgan, and we rode together for better'n a year, till he clouted me one over the head and robbed me. And it was chasin' after him that fetched me here, so I reckon bein' on that one particular drive was what got me hired. If I hadn't been, I'd'a' maybe never found what I got on this place. I reckon maybe that's why Travis wanted me to do that. Like he said, there's things that's likely to happen, and things not so likely, and things not hardly likely at all. He was goin' by what he could see was likeliest, I reckon, only he didn't want to give me no details, even if he was allowed to, 'cause who'd want to do somethin' knowin' it'd get him his head busted?"

"It made a certain dream come out, too," said Slim quietly.

"The one Wolf Sleepin' had, that's right," Jess agreed, remembering the long night in the barn just a few months earlier when he'd finally told the rancher about his time with the Blackfeet. "I dunno if Travis knew about that, though if he could see the past like he said, it wouldn't surprise me none." Then: "You believe all this I been sayin', pard?"

"I believe that you believe it," Slim answered slowly. "Wolf spoke of 'his guardians.' Maybe you have a few yourself." And with a wry grin: "There are times I think that's the only thing that's kept you alive these twenty-seven years."

"I reckon," Jess said softly, "that a man could do worse than have one of his oldest heroes watchin' over him." Then he stood. "C'mon, Tiger. It's past time you was in the sack."

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Note: The stories of the ghosts that haunt the Alamo and the Menger Hotel were taken from the "Ghosts of the Alamo" page at the Legends of America website and from Matt Chandler's book, Ghosts of the Alamo and Other Hauntings of the South.