"Amazing Stories" Retro Recap: "Alamo Jobe"

Written by Scotty

Being able to follow through with an assigned task seems to have become a thing of the past.  It seems like if the task does not benefit the person doing it, they will put it in their back pocket for a rainy day to complete, rather than just getting it done then and there.  With some people’s attention spans becoming nonexistent these days, it is easy to see why so many things are not completed in a timely manner.  There are some people that are the ‘go to’ ones that you will give any task to that needs to get done right away, but that is a breed of person that is soon to become extinct. 

Young Jobe is fighting among his friends and fellow volunteers at the Alamo to save Texas from being sent back to Mexico.  Doing his best, Jobe moves from person to person when told to and helps by reloading muskets and calling out what is happening during the battle.  When seeing his friend Davy Crockett get shot in the arm, the reality of the situation comes to light as he is ordered to tear off a dead man’s shirt and patch up the fighter.  But Jobe is not only seeing the Mexican Army making it inside of the fort, but people in strange clothes walking around the grounds like there is nothing going on.

After watching a tour group enter the Alamo behind his opponent, Jobe fears that his eyes are playing tricks on him and asks Colonel Travis who these strange onlookers are.  Not knowing what the boy is talking about, Travis sends Jobe on an errand to get a letter to General Lefferts before the fighters succumb to the enemy.  Hearing from the tour guide that everyone in the Alamo dies, Jobe moves quickly through the fort until he is cornered by the enemy.  Knowing that his time is up, Jobe closes his eyes, but is surprised to feel a hand pull him out of harm’s way.  Being escorted out of the Alamo by a guard, Jobe is thrown into present day, but this does not keep him from what he has been ordered to do as he starts to venture around the city to find General Lefferts. 

As he starts to move around the city, he notices how strange the time he is in really is.  With nobody seeming to care about the battle that is raging on at the Alamo, Jobe is all alone on his venture.  Meeting a young boy who tries to help the buckskinned teen, Jobe has no ideas of how to get around, much less what all the commotion around him is.  Pulling his musket to stop a van from hitting him, the police are now in hot pursuit of the boy.  Finding an old antique shop that has Lefferts name attached, Jobe hands the letter off to the General’s great grandson and hopes that it will help before the Alamo is overrun by Santa Anna’s men. 

This is a fun episode as you get to see how strange our time looks to someone that comes from the past. I really like Jobe as he is never persuaded from competing the task that has been put in front of him, not even a shift in time that should leave him out of sorts. Finding out what is about to happen at the Alamo from the tour guides and curious onlookers, Jobe will continue to fight for what he knows is right and there is nothing that can stop him.  I must admit, if I were to find out my future and knew I was going to die doing something, I would probably refrain from doing it, but it was just right for Jobe as he will die for what he knows is right.  Remember, there is always something more to see, as long as you know how to focus.

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