Remember the Alamo? Too vividly.

Kelli: ...remembers the Alamo.

Miles: I remember the Alamo. In fact, it's the last thing I remember.

Jack: Which side were you on?

Miles: The inside.

Jack: How was the view:?

Miles: Gory. Glorious. Terrifying. Intoxicating. Right up til the endless wave of Mexican soldiers came over the wall, flogged hard by the death of their comrades and Santy Anna's frothing like a rabid dog. Then it looked like death, like shiny, cold, hard steel, like hot lead, like blood and brains and guts and pain. Might have been our finest hour, but definitely not our best day. My last actual thoughts were, "Where the hell is Houston?" and "Poor Mrs. Dickinson".

What else, what else...

February. Cool and cloudy, the moon playing hide and seek like my kids I realized I'd never see again. Ground still muddy from rain the week before. Never thought about dying in mud. Kind of ignominious.

Wind was blowing the clouds about and away. Got to see some of that glorious, blue, Texas sky I loved so much while laying in that blasted, cold mud. Suddenly a couple of Mexican soldiers eclipsed the sky, bayonet and sword whipping down. Then I was soaring through the sky toward the brightest sunrise I ever saw. No more mud and blood and guts... From gory to glory in a flash of steel. Those last cuts, made in anger, were the greatest favors anyone ever did for me.