Jackson's own men fled by night as their enlistments ended. Even the dispatch from his ally Governor Blount said he could not change the enlistment policy in Tennessee or the [U.S.] War Department. Its last line read, "You are advised to abandon Ft. Strother and retreat to the Tennessee Frontier."

On December 29, 1813 Jackson wrote Governor Blount: "Is this campaign ended?... Was yr dispatch written on the orders of the Sec'y of War or the whims of a peticoat populace?... Regardless of the whimpers of fireside patriots,... fawning sycophants or cowering poltroons, I shall not retreat -- though in finality, I man this post alone.... It is yr duty as governor to maintain 3,500 men in the field until the Creeks are exterminated or conqueored. The Creeks are wavering.... Arouse from yr lethargy. Ignore the vile reptiles who would have England retake our blood-won soil! ... Popularity be damned. Save yr country, Sir.... If nothing else, send someone out here to bury me."

Wolfskill snapped. "Ewing's been reading bout guns all winter. Took us one whole mule to carry the books he borrowed in Missouri."

Ewing squatted beside Billy. "Starts with 13th Century Franciscan Friar Roger Bacon -- an alchemist. Bacon wrote the first known European formula for gunpowder listing measures of saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur. Gunpowder use spread across Europe, mostly in barrel-sized cannon, spawning our term gun barrel.

"That would be in the 1200s?" Joe verified.

Ewing nodded. "Used hundredweight stones to batter castles. Exploding cannons killed more cannoneers than castle dwellers, but people thought it was the devil."

"Cannons are the devil," Walker muttered recalling flying arms, legs and guts from his boyhood soldier days.

"In the 14th Century somebody designed a miniature cannon on a long stick to protect the gunner from being blown up. A pikesman applied lighted punk to the touch hole to fire this hand cannon. Lucky shot occasionally punched through a breastplate, causing knights to die at the hands of infantrymen they once chased like chickens. Just before 1500, the matchlock was invented -- a stock-mounted tube fired from the shoulder with a chance of actually hitting somebody."

"How'd that work?" Billy asked.

"Powder was poured down the smooth tube's muzzle. Ball was rodded in. Gunner stuck a smoldering rope soaked in saltpeter into the gun's lock. Pulling the trigger dropped the burning rope into a gunpowder pan on the barrel. Pan's explosion blew through a hole in the side of the barrel, setting off the main charge shooting the ball down the tube toward the target -- now in real danger if closer than 50 yards."

"Musta taken a lotta time lighting that rope before every shot," Joe observed.

"Rope matches were lit before battle and stuck between fingers, into hat bands or left smoldering in the gun's lock. Smoked by day, glowed by night and stunk enough to give away the shooter. Fizzled in snow or rain. Worse, soldiers wore powder charges and balls in bandoleers and often blew themselves all over the battlefield."

"Why'd they use the matchlocks?" Billy asked.

"They terrified knights. Smiths doubled armor's thickness. Knights wouldn't buy armor without a dent to show it'd turned a bullet. Made armor so heavy neither man nor horse could outmove cold molasses. Changed the balance of military power in Europe. Training bowmen took years. But a hayseed peasant trained on a matchlock in two weeks could kill a knight that had honed sword and lance skills since before he shaved."

Joe Walker tossed pine knots on the fire. "Why is man's history always tied to killing?"

"Man's real enemy is man," Ewing retorted. "Had enough guns, Joe?"

"Go ahead. I'm sure to learn something."

"Gun wounds were beyond doctors' skills, so priests went into battle as Chaplains to serve beyond medicine's meager realm. Matchlocks allowed armies to maim each other in good weather and remained popular into the 1600s. Then gun designers devised the wheellock. With 50 working parts, the shooter wound his gun with a key. He loaded it like the matchlock and fired it with his trigger, rain or shine."

Joe grinned, "Sounds like shooting with your watch. How'd they do that?"

"Pulling the trigger spun a spring loaded wheel so the hammer holding a piece of iron pyrites fell against it, knocking sparks off the softer pyrites. Sparks ignited the powder in a sheltered pan, firing the main charge down the gun barrel."

"So why don't we shoot wheellocks now, Ewing?" Joe asked.

"Cost a fortune. Economics govern how men are killed. Took a watchmaker to fix one, and keys got lost in battle. Besides, the flintlock made it a relic. About 1615 Dutch chicken thieves, who didn't want farmers alerted by the matchlock's glow or his dog by its smell, replaced the expensive wheellock's 50 parts with a simple sear. The trigger released a spring-loaded hammer that rammed its clutched flint against the steel wall leading to the pan. Sparks hit the pan's gunpowder igniting the main charge through a hole in the side of the barrel. Hammer reminded these rooster snatchers of the pecking action of their prey -- the cock -- hence they cocked the gun when pulling the hammer back. Others say a Frenchman invented the flintlock."

"What's the difference between the rooster baggers' gun and ours?" Billy asked.

"That is what we have, but not for long," Ewing replied.

"Why?" Walker inquired eagerly.

"Brainchild of a frustrated Scottish Vicar's on the way."

"First the Franciscan Friar. Now a Vicar. What ever happened to Christian charity?" Joe groaned.

"Guns sell better than Bibles," Billy cracked.

"Maybe, but this started with ducks."

"Ducks?" Billy repeated.

"Reverend Alexander Forsythe is a duck hunter. Bothered him that every time he pulled his flintlock's trigger, the exploding powder in the pan put his duck to flight before the main charge fired bird shot down the barrel. He found that fulminate of mercury exploded the instant it's struck. In 1807 he patented his gunlock with a metal nipple on top of its barrel. A copper cap loaded with fulminate of mercury is slipped over the nipple with a fine hole leading down into the barrel. The main charge in the barrel detonates the instant the hammer hits the cap. The Vicar's percussion cap eliminates the need for a powder pan. By the time the Vicar's duck hears the shot, he's dead -- rain or shine."

"Why don't we have those?" Billy asked, amazed this miracle had bypassed America for 16 years.

"Economics," Ewing replied. "When the Vicar's guns are made cheap enough, everybody'll have guns with his caplock. But I won't give up Sweet Lips for anything."

It was Joe's first chance to explore Independence. She was shaping into quite a boisterous lady. She lay on a high bluff overlooking the Missouri with a strong stand of log houses surrounding half a dozen stores, several warehouses and tippling taverns. Steamers bypassed Lexington and Franklin to tie-up at her wharves that still had the bark on. She'd come of age, though she was inexperienced. She was already the outfitter for Rocky Mountain fur traders, Santa Fe traders and Indians who hated White settlements too much to venture east of her.

The greasy, bathless men of the pack trains returning from the mountains would stop to the west of her and ring the welkin with rifle fire to let the merchants know they were coming. Once in town with their spavin legged mules and old wagons with rawhide wrapped spokes, these savage men prowled her streets and taverns whooping and shooting into the air, giving her high carnival whether she wanted it or not.

Joe Walker would step out of the shadows, a brawny smiling giant with his hand out to shake theirs. He said much the same to all, "Friends, Independence's glad to have you. Want you to have a good time, eat plenty and enjoy being in business with us."

After Joe's bone-crumpling handshake, most would ask, "Who might you be?"

"I'm the Sheriff, and I need your help."

"What?"

"Gunfire in town makes our babies cry. I know you don't want that."

"Plumb right about that. That all?"

"I'm asking you to treat this town just like she's your mother."

Most were stumped and said something like, "Not used to Sheriffs askin' fer anythin', but glad to oblige."

Joe Walker didn't meet the man, however wild or sodden in galore of drink, who wanted to make babies cry or to rough up their mother.

"No one you'd know."

"Well isn't he someone you've -- known?"

"I was mortified when you locked me in this pathetic room because of your insane jealousy. You're demented! I'm leaving you, Governor!"

"Not mid-campaign! You'll kill me surely as using a pistol -- perhaps bar me from Presidency of the United States!"

"You wanted a thing to flaunt on your arm. Use a bottle. That's what you love!"

Unimpressed that she was changing the course of American history, on April 9, 1829 Eliza left Sam Houston and flounced home to her horrified parents.

Quite drunk, Sam penned a letter to John Allen hours after Eliza fled. The maudlin letter mentioned Sam's unhappiness and his former belief in Eliza's virtue. He swore not to pursue that issue, adding "I would have perished first & if mortal man had dared to charge my wife or say ought against her virtue, I would have slain him. That I have & do love Eliza none can doubt -- that she is the only earthly object dear to me God will witness." Houston went on to say disjointedly that all must pretend no rupture in relations had occurred and keep the world ignorant of these things, adding "She was cold to me & I thought did not love me.... that Mrs. Allen & you may rest assured that nothing on my part shall be wanting to restore our lost peace. Let me know what is to be done."

As if nothing had happened Houston thrashed Billy Carroll in their April 11, 1829 gubernatorial debate.

The following day Sam Houston had a wrathful meeting with the outraged John Allen. He saw Eliza briefly, begging her on bended knee to return to Nashville, but she refused with fire flashing from her eyes.

Sam thundered back to Nashville, nearly killing his dapple gray, while the Allen family made public announcements that their chaste daughter had been wronged.

Tennesseans could tolerate glaring faults in their public officials, but dishonoring marriage was not one of them. Sam Houston was burned in effigy by a mob in Gallatin. When Nashville mobs threatened to horsewhip Houston in the square, he called out the militia to restore order. Sam's cronies, Sheriff Willoughby Williams and Dr. John Shelby, barricaded themselves in his rooms at the Inn and drank themselves incoherent.

Houston awoke convinced he must resign as Governor. They burnt his personal papers in the fireplace, relegating Sam Houston's history to the ghosts of the flue.

On April 16, 1829 Sam Houston how badly he felt about resigning as Governor because of "private afflictions ... & ... sudden calamities that kept him from serving the people and the state." Sheriff Williams delivered it.

Disguised as an Indian, Sam Houston departed the Nashville Inn on April 23rd with the Sheriff and Dr. Shelby. At the Nashville levee, Houston hugged his friends then boarded the steamer Red Rover for the frontier.

Two burly men claiming to be Eliza's relatives boarded Red Rover at Clarksville. They came to Houston's compartment with the Captain. One demanded, "You will give us a written statement that Eliza had no guilt in this matter."

Nearly sober, Sam retorted, "You may publish in the Nashville newspapers that if anyone dares utter a word against the purity of Mrs. Houston, I will return and write the denial of such libel in my heart's blood. However, I shall give you no written statement and but two minutes to clear this boat before I fling your flabby carcasses in the Cumberland River!"

[White Savage] Ewing Young and William Wolfskill operated their store in Taos, New Mexico as partners, selling U.S. goods along with "Taos Lightning" and local produce. It was also headquarters for their "quiet" trapping operations.

Unable to get a Mexican trapping license after his imprisonment in Santa Fe, Ewing Young was left to subterfuge. His 40 man party, with Kit Carson and two others on their first hunt, left Taos in August 1829. They headed north for 50 miles. Once certain they'd eluded the Mexican constabulary, Ewing's outfit swung southwest through Navajo, then Zuni country to trap tributaries of the Gila River in Sonora [Arizona].

Discovering about 80 Apaches that had decimated a Young and Wolfskill party earlier in the year, Ewing told his men, "All but five of you crawl under packs and blankets or hide in the brush."

Unable to resist the five hated white invaders, Apaches attacked. Nineteen year old Kit Carson and his cohorts leaped from cover blasting, tomahawking and knifing 20 astounded Apaches to death before the surviving attackers scattered.

Ewing told Kit, "You've a demon in you! I thought you mild mannered till this"

"Man fights his enemies, not his friends," Kit muttered.

Ewing grinned, "Glad to be your friend."

In the days following, they trapped down the Salt River to the San Francisco River with Indians occasionally stealing stock or traps by stealth.

The frantic man bursting into camp with Wolfskill's message that Bent's party was under Indian attack on the Santa Fe Trail faced half a dozen cocked rifles.

Ewing and his 40 men thundered through the mountains to rescue the Bent party. The Bent caravan's wagons lay in a square corralling their horses, mules and cattle with provisions piled in the gaps. Ewing said to Kit, "Bent's smart. See how he drove his stock around his wagons to flatten the dry grass, so these Indians couldn't burn him out?"

"When we gonna run nem Injuns off?"

"Kit, there's close to 2,000 Indians seiging those wagons. I'm sending a rider to Taos for reinforcements. You want that job?"

"Sure don't!" Kit Carson growled, "Charles Bent's down nere gittin' whupped. Bent give me a job with his outfit in '26 when nobody else would. I'm goin' down nere."

Seeing he couldn't restrain the small man's rage, Ewing said, "Go down there and lie low till we attack."

"Lie low hell! Coulda done nat here. Goin' down nere and stomp ever Injun I kin." Kit sprinted to his horse.

Before nightfall 55 grim-faced Taos trappers led by short, wiry, gray-eyed William Bent arrived in Ewing's camp.

Heading near a hundred horsemen, Ewing strung them out in a great single rank, so they could shoot without hitting each other and seem five times their number to the Indians. Standing in his stirrups mid-rank, Ewing Young shouted, "Charge!" unleashing them as a vast thundering spectacle with booming rifles.

Though the Indians outnumbered the oncoming trappers, they fled these mad devil spirits and left their dead sprawled in the desert for the buzzards.

Ewing Young was surprised, but not surprised, to find Kit Carson crawling from under Charles Bent's wagon with his rifle so hot its wooden stock was smoking.

Short, husky Charles Bent and his men yelled "Huzzahs" for their rescuers. Glad to see his wild brother William unharmed, Charles told Ewing Young, "We're astounded that a force half our size put near 2,000 Indians to flight."

"Beside the fact that they already faced your 200, we had the advantage of surprise," Ewing replied quietly.

Charles countered, "But we had Kit Carson making us more like 300!"

Kit just kept spitting on his rifle barrel to see when it was cool enough to clean. Already sunburnt, Kit blushed scarlet when both Bent brothers hugged him. Clearly Kit Carson was better at battling than being hugged.

Ewing led Bent's caravan into Taos, where they reprovisioned with his partner Billy Wolfskill's help.

As Bent's wagons headed south for Santa Fe next day, Ewing Young and Kit Carson doffed their hats to the Bent brothers, then waved the dust from their faces.

Still plagued by memories of earnest young James Ohio Pattie and the beckoning of the phantom Old Spanish Trail, Ewing said, "Santa Fe's today. California's tomorrow. Wanta see it?"

Kit grinned, "Shoulda left yesterday."