Moses Rose

William Rainbolt

Description

Moses Rose is fiction based on a legend, a novel which when first published in 1996 was called "intriguing" by The Dallas Morning News . . . an "imaginative tale in which Rose must deal with many different meanings of heroism, survival, loneliness, and love."Even now, some 180 years after the fall of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, scholars, Alamo buffs, and Texans in general continue to debate whether Louis Rose actually existed, and if he did, whether he stayed at the Alamo to die (or disappear after the attack), or whether he was the only defender to decide to leave on the night before the Mexican Army's final assault, when Colonel William Barret Travis drew his famous "line in the sand." This work of historical fiction imagines a life for Louis Rose, called "Moses" by other Alamo defenders because as one of the oldest men in the fortress, he was a veteran of Napoleon's Grand Army and its disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. In Moses Rose, he chooses to leave knowing the consequences of his fateful decision: facing the rest of his life trying to cope with hatred, suspicion, and death threats (and attempts) because of his decision. He does not know that he is destined to meet Mary Kimbro. Mary's husband chose to accept a certain death at the Alamo, leaving behind Mary and their hopes for a long life on the Texas frontier, as well as their wishes for a large family to help create an expanding America. She is embittered, and survives only with the emotional and physical protection of her friends, freed slaves Martha and Elvin. Louis and Mary travel separate paths during the months after the fall of the Alamo, each enduring physical dangers and moral crises during the rain-soaked Runaway Scrape that flooded much of frontier Texas in the Spring of 1836. But their paths eventually meet, and both Louis and Mary will be profoundly changed - by deaths that continue to strike the pioneers struggling to create a new Republic of Texas; by attempts to kill Moses; by the individual memories of Moses and Mary, and the collective memories they begin to create together; and by the their struggling chances of redemption, of love, and of the future.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: First Edition Design Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781506902470
• Langue: English

Extrait

MOSES ROSE
By
William Rainbolt
Moses Rose
Copyright ©2016 William Rainbolt

ISBN 978-1506-902-47-0 EBOOK

June 2016

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means ─ electronic, mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or any other ─ except brief quotation in reviews, without the prior permission of the author or publisher.
This book is dedicated to:

Angela, Sophia, Kaylee
Pam
Mike and Carol
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The 1996 edition of this novel could not have been published without the generous support of: William and Mary Celentano, Cheryl and Bill Celentano, Mabel Cox, Mike and Linda Donovan, Grace Forster, Lillian and Guido Giangrossi, Lucille Hesson, Fred LeBrun, Nina and Joe McDonald, Claudia Ricci, Bill and Connie Rowley, Harry and Helen Staley, Karla Taylor and Mike McNamee, and Steve and Julie Warshany. That edition could not have been conceived, written, or finished without the encouragement and guidance of Robert Miner.


For the 2016 edition, great thanks go to Deborah Benner of Goose River Press.
"Does a human being have a right to happiness? Does everyone have this right? Does one person have it while another does not?"
Emilia in the film A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984), written and directed by Krzysztof Zanussi



"Who is right and who is wrong? No one. But while you're alive – live: tomorrow you die, as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth tormenting oneself when one has only a moment to live in comparison with eternity?"
Pierre Bezukhov, after duel in which he nearly killed Dolokhov, in War and Peace (1865-69), by Leo Tolstoy
PROLOGUE

Late afternoon, December 2, 1805

Henri the sergeant stopped suddenly, as if he had run into a wall of ice among the frozen trees lining the brook. His hands gripped his face, blood streaming through his fingers, his body quivering, and then he fell backward into the snow, several paces in front of Corporal Louis Rose and a dozen other marksmen from Thirty-Six Platoon of the French Grand Army. Louis Rose crawled to Henri, who had done hilarious imitations of perfumed generals and had shared L'Encyclopedie with Louis. Henri lay gurgling, his eyes wide as if he were watching a boulder plummet toward him.
The sergeant raised a thick hand toward his young friend. "Duty," he gasped through bubbling blood, "honor." He tried to say more but suddenly he slumped, dead in Louis's arms.
Louis gripped the man's hand and whispered, "For you, we'll do it for you." Louis vibrated with a vivid energy, like a fresh horse pulling hard against tight reins, he felt the cold air pulsating, and he feared that even another fifty years would not be enough for him to do everything and see every place and feel all that he wanted, though he was only twenty now.
He grabbed Henri's gleaming saber and stood, shouting for his platoon to run forward. He believed that the shot of any Russian marksman would stray far wide even though he was such an easy target at six-feet tall, his arms waving, his black hair wild.
A crowd of mounted officers galloped into a clearing nearby. Some of them stood in stirrups to peer across the icy stream into the woods.
Above them musket balls and grapeshot crashed through the trees. Louis could see that about fifty paces away at the curving brook the green-coated
Russians had broken ranks and were lunging through the white woods. French marksmen in crisp blue coats and white breeches knelt, fired, then rose and ran forward , some of them splashing through the parts of the frozen stream that had broken under the onslaught of frenzied Russian soldiers and horses running from the sudden charge of the French infantry from the rise outside t he woods . Artillery rumbled north of the woods , beyond Skolnitz Castle and toward the Heights of Pratzen , where Louis assumed Napoleon was surveying the battle. For most of the day the battle had been a pulsing chaos of men and horses and cannons swaying across the farmland and streams near the village of Austerlitz .
"You men!" a panting officer yelled from behind Louis and the rest of his platoon. "All of you, come with me!"
Louis and a dozen more marksmen scurried behind the officer's horse. At the bend in Goldbach Brook they joined other soldiers crouching among the trees, firing at the muddy slope beyond . Louis t r embled with pride to be part of such an extraordinary attack: he had been among the 8,000 of Davout's Corps who had marched eighty miles from Vienna in just over two days and on two hours sleep and had arrived ne a r Goldbach Brook as the battle had started that morning about nine . They had heard immediately that Napoleon had committed nearly 70 , 000 soldiers to the battle, and still that was not as many as the Russians and Austrians had amassed. The enemy had been supremely confident seven hours earlier.
But now General Buxhowden ' s troops were fleeing southeast toward the frozen marshes, streams, and lakes between Goldbach Brook and the Littawa River a half mile away.
The officer in front of Louis's men scanned the trees and the slope, ordered groups of soldiers across the brook , and then rose in his stirrups and pointed. "There! A general!" he shouted excitedly.
Louis squinted in the blue dusk and saw a Russian general rocking on a black horse that struggled up the slope in front of what must have been two hundred soldiers spread through the woods below; many of the Russians ran hatless, only a few held muskets. One tall, young soldier stopped on the side of the slope , balanced himself and then turned shouting to the men, waving a sword in a bandaged right hand. The horse stumbled onto the road at the top of the dike where the general stopped to urge the men behind to follow. The Russians clawed their way up the slope and disappeared over the top .
The French officer stood again in his stirrups . "You men there —“
A shot cracked from across the stream, the air whistled near Louis and the officer screamed, tumbling off his horse. His tall helmet shattered. For an instant the French soldiers stared at the young officer's ashen face and the red stain widening across his chest, and then they began crouching behind trees or flinging themselves to the ground.
"They're coming back!" someone yelled .
But Louis did not believe it ; Henri would have been deaf to such panic , he would have scorned it . Louis knew that at this point of the brook the Russians had indeed outnumbered the French soldiers who had followed the riding officer, but he al so believed that the Russians now wanted only to survive, and men who want nothing but to survive will either fight like mad dogs or run. The Russians were running.
"No!" he shouted, jumping up. He ran to the dead officer and picked up a bloodied map, then reached for the hanging reins of the officer's panicked horse. He missed once, but grabbed them the second time and pulled the horse to him – “Hoa! Hoa!" he commanded – and swung quickly into the saddle.
"Louis! Don't!" his friend Michel yelled .
"Over the stream!" Louis ordered, kicking the horse.
Some of the Russians had stopped to shoot at the French, and as the horse splashed through the wide stream Louis leaned forward, his face next to the horse's straining, sweating neck . A shot shrieked over him. He glanced behind and saw a blur of blue coats and white breeches, saw French soldiers yelling, firing their muskets. His horse plod through the mud on the other side of the brook , then broke into a gallop that made Louis duck again as they wove around trees and leapt over Russian bodies, some still, som e trying to crawl . He led a throng of French soldiers up the slope, and when the gasping horse reach e d the top Louis stopped just as a French cavalry officer cantered to them.
"We've cut the bastards in half!" exclaimed the mustachioed officer . "Forget the ones between here and the Goldbach!"
The officer took a deep breath, collecting himself and his horse, then noticed the corporal's chevrons on Louis' blue sleeves.
"A corporal?” he yelled, but they ducked as a French cannonball flew over them and exploded fifty paces to their right along the dam . Though the dam curved at that point, Louis could see in the rising smoke hordes of men in green coats trudging ahead.
"Sir, the lieutenant's dead," Rose explained, pointing behind him. "The sergeant , too . "
"That was a brave charge! Who are you?"
"Corporal Louis Rose. T hir ty-Si x p la to on . " Louis wondered how h i s name would sound : Sergea n t R ose.
The officer s mil e d br oa dl y, t h e n pus h e d h i s ho r se t h r oug h t h e thr o n g of soldiers t hat had now jo ined Lo u i s . "Go af ter th e Ru ssi a ns sou t h of h ere , down this dike ," the officer ordere d , point i ng t o the r i ght. "T h ey wo n' t fight now . Make th em s u rre nd e r. Tho u sa n ds a lr eady have, no r t h , up by t he Heights . It ' s over!"
Lou i s t ur ned th e h o r se . T h ey s lo gg ed alo n g th e muddie d d ike, t he F r e n c h soldiers steppi n g over Russ i a n bod i es st r ew n to the side a nd across t h e thir t y - foot-wide dam . To hi s l ef t L ou i s saw a frozen l ake spread in g t oward a t hi ck forest severa l h und r e d ya r ds a way, and b eyo n d th at, p a st u res a n d sma ll h il ls with blocks of t r oops un d erneath drifti n g smoke.
He h eard shouti n g and nu d ge d the ho r se i nt o a tro t, but he pu l le d up as they rounded th e be n d, a n d n o w he fel t spent . Scores of bew i lde r e d Russ i ans were only thir t y paces in f r ont of t h em on t h e d i ke : some of them stood as still as bloodied statues, o th e r s trampe d ahead th r ough t h e m ud, a fe w off i cers shout e d f