Remember The Alamo

Mid-morning had broken and it was finally getting warm after the long winter. Jeff walked out onto his porch and he could feel the beads of sweat beginning to form on the top of his forehead; the first in months, due to weather. The wind was blowing but it was a cold, very humid wind.

He sat down on the stairs leading up to his front doorway. He had his boots in his hands and as he shoved his feet into them he looked over his land. The sky had a few clouds, but there probably wouldn't be any rain today. There hadn't been rain in a couple weeks, but somehow his little ranch in the middle of the hill country felt as humid as ever.

The 1500 acres were acquired in a cattle deal in Fort Worth shortly after the Mexican land deal in 1824. He used to be quite the savvy business man but as he stood up from the steps and felt the aches in his knees and back, he wondered if he really got the better end of that deal.

He traversed the fence line to the barn where he kept his horses. He wasn't a cowboy in the typical sense, but despite his city upbringing he was quite the designer when it came to fence-work. The land had a small tributary of the Colorado river flowing through it. Mesquite ran rampant along the creek and in the early years of the ranch became quite a burden. Learning the ideal way to turn a gnarly weed like the mesquite tree into fence line was difficult but he enjoyed the task and now had fence line that could stand up to anything the brutal Texas weather could muster.

As he opened the barn door he caught eye on a rider coming up the road very quickly. Swinging open the barn door, Jeff grabbed his rifle from the wall mount and jumped on his paint Anita. They hustled out to meet the rider.

The rider was a large cowboy and from the look of the dried mud on the back legs of his horse, he had been riding for quite some time.

"Woh there rider, what's your name? What's your business in these parts?"

"Name's, Jack McKinney, I come to rally the Texans in the Hill Country. Santa Ana has massacred over 300 in San Antonio at the Alamo. We held him for days but we lost Travis, Bowie and Crockett. Word is that neither Fannin nor Houston would come to Travis' aid but that Houston is planning a massive assault against the Mexicans. We need all soldiers we can to stand up for our independence."