In the Rogue Blood (24 page)

One afternoon Colonel Truman Cross, the army’s popular quartermaster, went out riding in the chaparral and did not return. There had been reports of Mexican guerrilla bands prowling on the north side of the river and now rumors flew through the camp that they had killed Cross. Some in the local populace told the American authorities that most of these guerrilla troops, whom they called rancheros, were nothing more than savage bandits who had for years terrorized the borderland, gangs of robbers, killers, renegades, rustlers and scalphunters. The two most notorious ranchero bands were led by Ramón Falcón and the infamous Antonio Canales, once president of the short-lived and violent República del Rio Grande. Both men were long-time and bitterly despised enemies of Texans. They had been young officers under Santa Ana at the Alamo and had both been at Mier. Each with his own band had raided Texas throughout its ten years as a republic. The locals warned Taylor that in addition to robbing and killing Mexicans as they always had, the rancheros
would now also plunder U. S. supply trains and freely murder Americans in the name of defending the fatherland. Testifying to this view of the rancheros as bloody marauders unworthy of military respect were the Texas Rangers now serving with Taylor. Under command of Colonel Samuel Walker they were the first volunteers Old Zack had accepted into his army, and they had countless tales to tell of ranchero barbarities. Those familiar with the Lone Star way of warfare knew that many such tales could be told about the Texans as well. Indeed, Taylor had accepted the Texas volunteers in the belief that the best way to fight a band of savages was with his own band of savages. Still, some who heard the Texans’ stories did not believe the larger portion of them. They attributed the Rangers’ gruesome narrative excesses to their well-known hatred of all things Mexican.

And then the ten-man patrol that had been sent out in search of Colonel Cross came back on five foundered beasts and none of their own good horses. Came back two men per horse and every manjack of them naked and tied belly-down over the animal. Two of the corpses were altogether headless and the rest dripping blood and gore from their scalped crowns and the raw wounds between their legs wherefrom the genitals had been severed. Some bore the detached privates in their mouths and some lacked hands and some had been docked of their ears or noses and some were eyeless. Many of the young Americans who looked upon them had never seen such things before except perhaps in nightmares or in imaginings roused by the vile tales of drunken old Indianfighters. And no man among them did now disbelieve the Texans’ stories of ranchero cruelty.

Shortly afterward the body of Colonel Cross was found in the chaparral and it too had been mutilated.

The Yankees seethed with yearning for revenge.

The first handbill urging Americans to desert was soon followed by others, each more detailed and explicit in its arguments and inducements than the one before. The fliers pointed out that, unlike the U. S., Mexico was a devoutly Catholic country where slavery was outlawed. They asked why Yankee Catholics or any men who truly believed in liberty and justice for all should make war against one another. They argued that the Irish, especially, had stronger bonds with Mexicans in their common religious
faith than they did with American Protestant soldiers. They pledged that any Yankee who chose to fight in defense of Mexico and the Holy Mother Church would be well rewarded for his honorable action. They promised an enlistment bonus to every American who joined the Mexican side. They promised that every man would be given a rank commensurate with his training and experience but in no case would he hold a rank lower than that which he had in the American army and in all cases he would be better paid. And they promised land. Every man who came over to the Mexican side would receive a minimum of 200 square acres of arable land with at least another 100 acres added for every year of service.

On a clear evening shortly after the most recent bunch of these leaflets had as mysteriously as always found its way across the river and into the Yankee camp, the three friends sat on the bluff and looked across at the brightly lighted town where a fiesta was taking place. Taylor had now posted sentries every few yards along the bank as much to keep his own soldiers from absconding to the other side as to defend against infiltrators. The guards were under order to shoot any man who set foot in the water.

The sounds of music and laughter carried to them from the fiesta. The aromas of spicy Mexican foods mingled with the ripe smells of the surrounding countryside. Fireflies flared greenly yellow on the soft night air.

Lucas Malone was scooping handfuls of dirt and sifting it through his fingers. His gaze was vague and far away.

“I was talking to this Mexie fellow today over by the corral who everybody thinks is a muleskinner but he’s not,” Riley said, speaking barely above a whisper and looking off across the river. “He’s from the other side, dont you know. Name’s Mauricio. He speaks good English and he’s been talking to lots of the fellas, he has. Other harps mostly, but to the Germans too. Says there’s forty or more of us already over there.”

John looked at him but said nothing. Lucas looked at the dirt slipping through his fingers.

“He says I’d be made an officer,” Riley said, still not looking at them. “Says Ampudia will know me for the soldier I am.”

No one spoke. Then Riley said: “How else are you ever to get that piece of land ye claim to want so dearly?”

Lucas looked at him sharply.

“I dont believe they can lose the war,” Riley said in a whisper. “There’s too many of them. Hell, the country itself will beat this army. Have you seen the maps? It’s all mountains from one end to the other.”

He turned to them now. “It’s not everybody gets a chance for the thing he most wants. It’s the chance for me to be the soldier I am, to have the rank I deserve. You, Lucas Malone, I know what ye want. This is your chance too, it is. And you, Johnny, what is it ye be wanting above all else? Is it your own plot of ground, like Lucas here? I’ve seen the look in your eye when he talks of it, but I’ve never heard ye say.”

John looked from one to the other. What he wanted was unsayable. No way is there for a man to explain what he cannot put in words to himself, what he knows only in the pulsing of his blood. How might he tell that he wanted an end to the dreams of Daddyjack and Maggie? An end to waking in the night with his heart wild in his throat, choking on his own fear, feeling hunted by some dire nemesis drawing closer with every bloody sundown?

“Without a place to call his own,” he said, “a man aint but a feather in the wind, now aint he?”

He favored waiting another few days until the moon waned out of sight—or at least until a cloudy night gave them better cover—but Riley and Lucas were set on crossing that very night. And so shortly after midnight they slipped out of the tent and worked their stealthy way through the Cottonwood shadows upriver for a quarter-mile and then scanned the near bank from cover of the trees. They spotted a lone sentry singing softly to himself and strolling in the pale light of the cresent moon blazing brightly in a starry sky. No other guard close by. John attracted his attention by lightly rustling the brush and the guard warily approached with his longarm ready at the hip. As the sentry passed by him Riley stepped out from behind a tree and drove the heel of his riflebutt into the back of his head with a wet crunch. He and Lucas quickly relieved him of his rifle and pouch and the few dollars he had in his pocket and then joined John in the riverbrush. John asked if the sentry was killed and Riley whispered that he was not but he might have a bit of trouble walking a straight line ever again.

They stripped naked and bundled their clothes tightly and tied the bundles to their rifle barrels. They eased down the bank which was steeper here than it was down by the town and pushed through reeds that cut them like little razors and slipped into the moonlit water. The river tasted
of mud and rot. They held their rifles and bundles above their heads and swam one-handed but the river was running faster and deeper than they had thought and they found themselves being carried swiftly downstream.

“Christ,” Lucas gasped as he pulled for the other bank, “we’ll be in front of the camp in hardly a damn minute.”

But they were all three strong swimmers and made an angled headway across the river. They were within twenty feet of the opposite bank when a voice cried, “
You there!
There in the water! Turn back
now
or we’ll shoot!”

They stroked with furious desperation now, John in the lead as they reached the cattails and a rifle flashed and cracked on the far bank and the ball smacked the water a foot to his right. He wished the moon would die and go dark. His feet now touched a bottom of soft mud and his breath came hard as he grabbed at the cattails to pull himself to the sloping bank. He felt the reeds cutting his hands but did not feel pain. He flung his rifle and bundle up on the high ground as more rifleshots sounded and a ball buzzed past his ear and smacked the mudbank. He heard Lucas Malone grunt and curse softly behind him and he turned and looked but Lucas was not there. But here came Riley drifting fast alongside and John caught hold of the rifle barrel Handsome Jack extended to him and pulled him into the reeds. Riley slung his sopping things up on the bank and scrambled past him up through the cattails and crawled away into the dark.

As he followed Riley up the bank a half-dozen rifles discharged almost simultaneously and he felt a sharp blow to his lower leg and then a burning and he cursed and squirmed his way up through the reeds. He tumbled up on the bank and pushed his rifle and clothes ahead of him as he crawled into the brush and more shots sounded and rounds hissed through the scrub

He lay low in the thick scrub brush and looked to his left and saw the pale naked form of Lucas Malone crawling awkwardly into the darkness of a willow stand.

The shots were hitting scattered now and John knew the sentries had lost sight of them. The shooting continued for another minute before it finally ceased. He stayed put in case the shooters were simply waiting for him to give some sign of his position. His lower leg was throbbing and he felt of his shin and sucked a hissing breath when his fingers found the wound. He did not move from his hiding place for some time and then a passing cloud momentarily dimmed the moon and he crawled out of
the brush and across an open stretch of ground and into the trees. And there found Riley dressed and waiting for him. Riley helped him to his feet and John quickly put on his muddy clothes. When he pulled on his left boot a white flare of pain behind his eyes made him momentarily dizzy. As they moved downstream through the shadows he felt the inside of his boot slickening with blood.

They came upon Lucas Malone sitting with his back against a tree. He’d been shot in the side and was bleeding freely but he could stand and walk. He’d lost his rifle and clothes and was naked in the world. John and Riley gave him their shirts and Lucas wore one in the regular manner and the other tied round his waist in the form of a skirt. “You fuckers laugh,” he hissed, “I’ll put my fist in your goddamn teeth.” Riley and John grinned at him and Lucas Malone cursed them softly for sons of bitches.

They made their way through the trees and inland from the river and shortly came upon a sandy trace and followed it through the blue cast of the moonlight to the edge of town. John’s boot was now heavy with blood.

A pair of sentries stepped out of the shadows with rifles pointed from the hip and challenged, “Quién vive?”

“Friends,” Riley said. “Amigos.”

And now an officer and two more soldiers and a man in civilian clothes came rushing from down the street and Riley again called out, “Amigos, we’re amigos.”

The Mexican in civilian dress said, “Está bien, Nacho. Son irlandeses.” He pointed at Riley. “Yo conozco este grandote.”

“Mauricio!” Riley said. “I didn’t bloody recognize ye.”

Mauricio laughed and he and Riley hugged and patted each other in a rough abrazo.

The officer put up his pistol and grinned at them and said, “Bienvenidos, amigos. You are welcome.”

The officer was Lieutenant Saturnino O’Leary by name, who took great delight in their faces when he told it to them. His father was an Irishman who’d come to Mexico by way of the United States some twenty-five years before and traveled all around the country before settling in Durango
and marrying a Mexican woman of good breeding. Saturnino had grown up fluent in the tongues of both parents.

He had John and Lucas assisted into a muledrawn ammunition cart and then escorted them all to the main garrison on the other side of town. On the way to the main post they passed many smaller encampments and it was obvious that the Mexican ranks had been greatly reinforced since the American arrival on the north bank. With these troops had come hundreds of camp followers—wives and sweethearts, chiefly, but a goodly number of whores, as well—and their fires and makeshift settlements were everywhere. Riley and the lieutenant walked together and conversed in low voices but with much gesticulation. At the main garrison they went off while John and Lucas were helped into a large lamplit infirmary tent where they were received by several Mexican nurses. The women giggled and rolled their eyes at each other on seeing Lucas Malone’s manner of dress. They laughed too at the men’s acute embarrassment at being stripped of their wet clothes. The Americans were examined by a Mexican surgeon named Dr. Alonzo who spoke no English but was assisted by a muscular young man named Arturo who possessed a passable pidgin. One end of the tent served as Dr. Alonzo’s work area and included a brazier full of live coals in which were propped a number of iron pokers. The rest of the spacious tent held some three dozen cots, only a half-dozen of which were currently filled, one by a man who looked to be dead.

The doctor treated Lucas first, permitting him several large swallows from a bottle of tequila to gird himself. Lucas pronounced it damn fine stuff. He was made to lie back and Arturo gave him a folded piece of leather to bite on and pressed down hard on his upper arms to hold him in place while the doctor probed the wound for the rifleball. A nurse held a lamp close by and moths fluttered and bumped against its sooty fire-bright glass and some flew too near the top of the lamp glass and fell withering upon Lucas and the doctor flicked them away as he worked. Lucas bared his teeth and cursed through the leather and the muscles stood in his neck like cords. Then Alonzo had the ball and held it up in the forceps for all to see before dropping it with a clank in a tin bowl. He now went to the brazier and withdrew a poker whose tip glowed orange and he told Lucas to bite hard once again. The muscles swelled along Arturo’s arms as he once more pinned Lucas to the table. Lúeas roared through his teeth as the iron sizzled into the wound and then it was over and the sweet waxy smell of seared flesh hung in the tent.

As he was being bandaged Lucas asked in a thick voice if he might have another drop of that fine Mexican spirit. Dr. Alonzo proffered the bottle and let him drink deeply that he might sleep soundly. Lucas was singing “Molly Malone” as a pair of soldiers carried him to a cot where a plump Mexican nurse covered him with a blanket and dried the pain-sweat off his face with a wet cloth and cooed to him as he drifted to sleep.

John’s wound took longer to treat for the fact of the lead ball having glanced the shinbone and burst into fragments. The doctor pronounced that the bone was not fractured, though it was well bruised, and he was an hour picking pieces of lead from the torn flesh. He stared at John’s fresh facial scar and pursed his lips but made no remark on it. As Alonzo tended to him John finished the tequila. Now Arturo held his leg fast as Dr. Alonzo pressed a glowing poker into the wound and again the tent filled with the smell of burning flesh and John shrilled into the leather he bit upon. And in that moment he remembered vividly a time somewhere in Alabama when he had cauterized his brother’s shoulder with a redhot ramrod.

He let the leather fall from his mouth and gasped, “Edward.”

“Qué?” the doctor asked. He looked at his assistant. “Qué dijo?”

“Egg word?” Arturo shrugged. “Quién sabe?”