“Enough torture,” he said after the frontiersman finished the first verse. “Time to head back to our cabin. Me an’ Socrates and Mason share a place. There’s plenty of room. You want to stay with us?”
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“Others won’t mind?” asked Crockett. “Don’t want to impose none.”
“It’s fine with me,” said Mason, wandering over and hearing the question. He shook Crockett’s hand. A short, stocky man with light-blond hair, he was dwarfed by both of the six-foot Westerners. “I taught history back on Earth. Getting to talk with people like you is a dream come true.”
“I also have no objection,” added Socrates. He smiled. A sturdily built man with small face and round eyes, he was grotesquely ugly. “Our home is yours.”
“Mighty kind of you fellas,” said Crockett. He smiled and nodded at an attractive woman walking past. “No women problems or stuff like that?”
“I’ve been seeing a few ladies,” said Bowie, his blue eyes twinkling, “but nothing serious. I don’t like being tied down. Same applies to Bill. Socrates is on the run from his wife.”
“All men should marry,” declared the philosopher solemnly. “If you get a good wife, you become happy and content. If you get a bad one, you become a philosopher.” Ruefully, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “I am a notorious philosopher.”
Crockett chuckled. “I’m convinced. Your place easy to find?”
“It’s up the slope about a hundred yards from town,” answered Bowie. “Why? Where you going?”
“That little lady over there has been givin’ me the eye while you gents have been jawing away,” said Crockett, scooping up his grail and towels. “Thought I’d spend a little time getting to know her better. I’ll be around by evenin’.”
Then, for an instant, all of the good humor departed
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from his face and his voice grew ice cold. “That’s when we’ll talk about the Alamo, Jim. And our buddy, Santy Anna.”
Five men gathered around a roaring campfire late that night. Crockett had shown up at Bowie’s cabin at sundown, grinning broadly but refusing to say anything about his day’s activities. “I’m too much of a gentleman to do any bragging,” he replied to their questions.
None of the others saw any reason to mention to the frontiersman that his lady fair was Clio of Athens, notorious in the community for her voracious sexual appetites. He would learn soon enough, as had both Bowie and Mason. And many others.
The fifth member of their group was a soft-spoken man who answered to the name of Isaac. A tall, well-built man with distinguished features and dark-brown hair, he had the saddest eyes Bowie had ever seen. Solitary by nature, he lived by himself at the edge of the forest. Though not a dreamgum addict, he was haunted by terrible nightmares that he refused to discuss with anyone. Oftentimes, in the midnight hours, his screams would drift down into the village, causing all those who heard them to shiver in fear. Many of the Greeks considered him cursed by the gods.
A few nights each week, Isaac would drift over to Bowie’s cabin to sit silently at their fire. Though he was fluent in Latin, Greek and Esperanto, the man rarely spoke unless addressed directly, and even then his an-
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swers were short and to the point. Socrates theorized that Isaac hungered for the warmth of human companionship but not the responsibilities of friendship. Bowie, who had encountered similar men on the frontier, always made their visitor welcome.
“Do you remember dying?” asked Crockett, casually stirring the raging fire with a bamboo stick. “Not here and now, but the first time. On Earth?”
Though he addressed them all, he obviously aimed the question at Bowie. And the Texan was the one who answered.
“I was pretty well gone by the time the Mexicans came huntin’ me. What with pneumonia and my broken ribs and all, my cards were laid out on the table. Not that it mattered much to those troopers. They had blood in their eyes, if you know what I mean.” Bowie paused, as if sorting out details in his mind. “Propped myself up against the back wall when I heard them coming. Better than dyin’ in bed, I figured. When they finally stumbled on me, I shot the lead man in the chest, then gutted a second with my knife. That’s when my legs gave out and I crashed to the floor. I must’ve died right then, ’cause the next thing I remember is waking up naked on the grass down by the River, like everyone else, four years ago.”