Afterlands (39 page)

But, Señor …

Please strip and dress, Sergeant Tyson, we leave immediately.

What about the bitch?

The dog?

She
must
come with me, Kruger says in a rush. She was our ship’s mascot, Señor—a reminder of my former comrades. On the ship. Many of them now dead.

Pensively Luz strokes the neck of his mare.

I see no reason why you should not keep the bitch.

A flagstaff propped heavily across his collarbone, he leads his scarecrow platoon of eighteen men, both grizzled and young, mestizo and
indio
, north across the sunburned
páramo
toward Purificación. The dog trots beside him with her tail high and her milky brown eyes flicking up at his, so delighted by all the new company, and her packed belly, that she doesn’t sense his darkening mood.
I’ll never wear another uniform
, he hears his younger voice telling Jacinta. The wind keeps catching at the banner and jerking the staff, as if he’s struggling with a kite. Aside from one dusty Mexican tricolour borne by a
lancero
up at the front, the banners are all the same: on a white ground a stylized lamp with a long sword-like yellow flame, and to its right a black cross which, on closer inspection, is composed of two cross-hatched lines, like railroads intersecting on a map. It seems that this army is not so much a Mexican army as it is Luz’s army. Or is it the railroad’s? Kruger and his men shuffle along in a ragged procession of maybe three hundred infantry and a hundred
lanceros
.

From behind come the clattering anapests of a horse galloping. He glances back. The men and boys of his platoon stare round-eyed at him—a foreign stranger—for reassurance. Luz, the Padre, the Colonel,
El Capitán
, this leader of many names but one immobile face, reins in beside Kruger, then walks his mare at Kruger’s speed. The snorting mare swings her head low and hard to the left, against the reins, as if to spook Perra back, or else dazzle Kruger with the diamond blaze on her face. Luz murmurs something to calm her. Her smell is fresh and pleasant, clean-curried, unlike the smells of the cowering dog, the platoon, and Kruger himself.

Sergeant Tyson, Luz says—and for a moment the name is a shock to Kruger. How are you managing so far? This in English.

Kruger tries to look up at Luz but the sun is over the man’s shoulder.

Well enough … though I believe these men need more to drink.

No reaction to his failure to say Sir or Colonel, which Kruger can’t seem to bring himself to do. Luz says, We will reach the Upper Purificación soon enough. These men are used to such lacks. However, I am pleased to hear of your concern with their welfare.

This is sarcastic, Kruger assumes; but then Luz adds, For a good leader is like a, what is the word, a stepfather to his men. Stern, but solicitous. And every soldier is a kind of orphan.

I thought soldiers were more in the business of creating orphans
, he thinks, but setting his teeth he says nothing.

Most of these men I have redeemed from peonage, Luz goes on. A corrupt and antiquated institution which I intend soon to eliminate in this state, along with many other remnants of the past.

But first these peons will have to die? This time Kruger has thought and spoken at once.

Not peons. These are now paid men. And Sergeant, understand that I would never send a new volunteer like you, or your platoon, to fight professional troops. The Indians are ill-armed and ill-organized. Our casualties will be light. It is a pleasure, Sergeant, to have occasion to speak another tongue with someone. And a tongue of the future, I feel. Here one speaks only Spanish and the Indian tongues. You seem a man of some intelligence—something of a linguist.

Kruger is repelled, but he’s also intrigued by Luz’s cleverness and eloquence. Also puzzled by his indulgence. The Indian tongues must be difficult, he says.

The temporal modes are highly complex.

Some of these men appear to be pure Indian, Kruger says. Are you not uneasy, asking them to attack an Indian village? Maybe it would be better—

Most of our Indian volunteers are Pehues, or Nahuas. Our local tribes mainly despise one another on an ancient footing. In fact, they would have exterminated one another long ago, had they but possessed the proper arms.

The modern world brings them great benefits, then.

Kruger can feel the man’s eyes on him.

I should have thought an American would have more understanding of our campaign. Did your Indians not try to prevent your own railroads into the West?

I suppose so. But this is Mexico, and I’m not Mexican.

This campaign, Luz says, entails a principle that sweeps across national borders—indeed, makes national borders all but irrelevant. Everyone’s allegiance is to one side or the other. It is a matter, quite simply, of the future being locked in battle with the past.

And if one is for the present?

Kindly explain your meaning, Sergeant. The man sounds not irritated but intrigued.

What if one’s allegiance is to the present—the moment as it lives?

The Padre chuckles evenly. A solid rank of white teeth in the shadow of his hatbrim. Very good, Sergeant Tyson. So you’re a, what is the English term, a hedonite by nature. And something of a Jesuit in debate. Only be sure to be a sergeant in battle. Lieutenant Ortiz will be instructing you today, and overseeing you and your platoon tomorrow. Afterward, if all is well, I may make you an adjutant in some capacity, if only to have the pleasure of speaking English more often, and with a thoughtful man. Or perhaps German next time, Herr Tyson?

I could try, Señor.

Very good. Luz slips a pocket watch from a fob in his green tunic and glances down. With a slight, concise tug on the reins he veers his mare away from Kruger, then spurs and gallops on along the ranks toward the front.

In early afternoon the army reaches the broad lonely mesa to the south of Purificación. They swing around it to the east, and finding a fringe of shade under the mesa’s steep flank they halt and throw themselves down among the pokeberry and sage and creosote brush. Kruger, unused to the pace, his feet in the tiny sandals blistered raw, wants only to close his eyes, but he has to think matters through. Purificación is less than half a day’s march from here. He could try to slip away during the siesta, to warn the village—but surely the dirt clouds produced by such a body of men will be visible for miles, and the Sinas will have been expecting Luz anyway. And his
lanceros
would ride Kruger down long before he could reach the village. He ransacks his baked, throbbing brain for an idea, some way to avert war, as he and Tukulito in unconscious alliance helped to do on the ice.

On top of the mesa, etched against a hot zinc sky, the Padre in his hat holds what looks like a pair of opera glasses to his face with a gloved hand.

As Kruger re-scours his plate with a fifth tortilla, Lieutenant Ortiz arrives on foot in a festive jingle of spurs. Stripped to a white blouse, snug lightning-rod pants and high boots, he advances with a rolling, randy strut, bowlegged as if having to provide more room in the crotch of his pants. He’s hatless, a polished-bald young dandy, skin bronzed, big sideburns running down from his fringe of hair, eyes black and flashing. His moustache is waxed upward at the tips like a permanent smirk cartooned on his face.

In Spanish: If you wouldn’t mind obliging me by just stepping this way, Sargento Tyson?

Si, mi teniente!
Kruger’s instincts urge instant courtesy. Maybe they’re the instincts of a spy after all. Tossing the rest of the tortilla to Perra he leaps up stiffly, saluting, and Ortiz looks pleased, the older
yanqui
according him due respect.

Now, I understand you have a certain young person in your platoon—that one, just over there. Ortiz nods at a boy unconscious on his back, hands folded over the dome of the straw sombrero resting on his chest. His hair is a coarse and rumpled pelt, black with red highlights. His skin
café con leche
. Black down shows above the corners of his lips.

I haven’t quite learned all the names yet,
mi teniente
. It’s Marco?

Mateo, in true fact. Now I’d ask you to keep a careful vigil on him tonight, and for tomorrow as well—he’s a Sina.

A Sina! Kruger’s surprise is genuine.

He did execute his orders sufficiently well on Friday, Ortiz says in his dandified Spanish. His blue-shaved chin juts as he inhales through flared nostrils. His lips are disturbingly red.
My
orders, in fact. I was conducting the siege of a Pehues village, near the mouth of the
barrancas
. They were quite numerous, these Pehues, and sufficiently well armed, now that I consider it.

Kruger fakes an attitude of admiring curiosity. And did the village fall, sir?

I took this village by storm, after a thorough siege, and I inflicted severe casualties upon the insurgents before they dispersed!

This is excellent news, sir.

Your accent doesn’t sound especially American, Ortiz says with a slight frown, drawing a cigarillo from his shirt pocket and inserting it, just under that smiley moustache.

And your own losses, sir? Kruger is thinking of how he considered adding to them.

Ortiz lights the tip with a lucifer and takes a flamboyant pull. He says, Apart from one deserter, a Pehues youth, I suffered only five killed, and them all infantry, of which three, now I consider the matter, were Sinas. So that only this one here, this Mateo, remains. I ordered the Sinas to proceed first, you understand, because I was aware of the fact that we were destined here next, and I much preferred not to have to rely on them against their own people, if you receive my meaning.

Exhaling smoke through his nostrils he eyes Kruger with the expectancy of a vain man who requires the periodic reinflation of praise—from anyone.

Brilliant idea, sir.

Nonetheless, our casualties tomorrow may be somewhat more substantial. Purificación is a larger town, and well protected on three sides by the river, although fortunately, or so I understand, they’re insufficiently supplied with provisions. With a little encouragement they may well disperse, like the Pehues. Nevertheless it’s a certainty that we shall have to launch some kind of assault, and naturally your platoon will perform a role. So, do watch Mateo. In all likelihood he will perform his duty, but he
was
recruited from this vicinity—possibly he could try turning coat, it’s a risk with all the recruits who weren’t peons.

He hauls on his cigarillo, retains the smoke, slowly exhales, theatrically solemn; it is now his duty to have to say something unpleasant, but say it he certainly will, for he,
Teniente
Ortiz, is not the sort of man to shirk a difficult duty.

Be certain that you order this young person to proceed first to the assault. If he disobeys, naturally you’ll be required to shoot him, but I very much doubt that he will, he has seen what happens. Order him in, and he’ll either block a bullet for us or the Sinas will recognize him and hold their fire, which naturally would assist us even further.

Another splendid idea, sir.

At this latest ovation Ortiz can’t restrain a little cherry-lipped smile—a smug mischievous schoolboy smile just under his smirking moustache.

Yes … and Sargento, tonight you yourself are to keep vigil on him, if you would. So he doesn’t slip away.
Muy bien?

Claro, mi teniente
.

Ortiz offers him a smoke. His fingernails are trimmed and clean. He wears only one ring, a gold wedding band with a small ruby. Kruger snatches the cigarillo as if it’s edible. In a changed tone—joking, sociable—Ortiz says, I’ve heard that men your age don’t really require as much sleep anyway!

We have less physical beauty to maintain, sir.

A second’s hesitation; then Ortiz helplessly smiles. He says, But now that I consider it, Sargento, you do look a little fatigued. Go now, try to take some rest.

They camp that night on the banks of the Purificación, about a mile above the town. Kruger remembers this bend in the river, and so, it seems, does Perra, who is sleepless and agitated, turning in tight circles and lying down, getting up, sniffing the air, peering at him expectantly. After the meal, Kruger limps around behind the perimeter of men’s backs ringing the fire and sets his hand on Mateo’s small shoulder. It’s trembling.

May I have a word with you?

The boy looks up anxiously.
Conmigo?

Por favor
.

Si, mi sargento!

He leads the boy into the dark interval between the fire and a neighbouring one—a larger, cheerier fire where there’s singing in Spanish, the softly plosive strumming of a guitar. Beneath the sentimental
corrida
runs the bass droning of the river.

You are Sina? Kruger asks.

Si, mi sargento
.

Firelight from either side shows the bones of his face in chiaroscuro. Yes, I see it now, Kruger thinks. His mother’s bones. And the age is right.