In the Rogue Blood (25 page)

They were confined to the infirmary tent for the next two weeks with little knowledge of what was happening in the world except what they could gather from reports delivered by Arturo in his malformed English. He told them that Riley had come by to see how they were just hours after the doctor had tended to them, but they’d both been sleeping and Alonzo would not have them wakened. In the days since, Riley had been busy training with the garrison artillery batteries. Arturo referred to him as “temente Riley.” They found out too that General Ampudia had been replaced by General Mariano Arista who had recently arrived with additional troops and sent General Torrejón and his cavalry across the river at a point upstream where they’d fought and defeated a detachment of American dragoons. “Arista es el mejor general, the best most general,” Arturo said fervently. A few days after Torrejón’s victory a band of rancheros had ambushed a troop of Texas Rangers and killed ten of
them. “Rinches chingados! Los rancheros they kill good the focking rinches, they kill them focking good!”

After their first few days in the hospital Alonzo permitted Lucas to get out of bed and walk around in the tent, but it was more than a week before he let John start getting about on a crutch. One day Arturo excitedly reported that Taylor had struck his tents and gone to Point Isabel on the Gulf with all his men and wagons save one regiment left behind to defend Fort Texas. The Americans were in bad need of supplies and Taylor knew it would take most of his force to protect the loaded wagons on the way back from the port. Now General Arista had taken the larger portion of his troops and headed downstream of Matamoros where he would cross the river in hopes of trapping Taylor between Fort Texas and Point Isabel.

“Arista he is kill Taylor,” Arturo said gleefully.

Several mornings later they were wakened by the blasting of artillery fire. Though war had not been declared by either side, the Mexicans were bombarding Fort Texas. Except for the curfew cannon back in New Orleans these were the first artillery pieces John had heard in his life and his heart jumped at every thunderous discharge. He grabbed up his crutch and joined Lucas Malone at the tent’s entrance flap where a guard was posted to ensure they kept to the hospital as Alonzo had ordered. The camp was in high excitement and hazy with gunsmoke. They saw a battery set up some forty yards away and spotted Handsome Jack Riley directing the gunners as a Mexican officer looked on.

“Whoooeee!” Lucas hooted. “Jack’s got them boys shootin that gun like it’s a goddamn revolver, they shootin so fast. I hope to hell Kaufmann’s still over there and one of them rounds hits him square in the ass! Blast them, Jack! Blast that fucken Kaufmann to hell and gone!”

The bombardment went on until sundown. The last round lofted across the river was followed by a great cheering from the Mexican troops and their raucous threats to the Yankees on the other bank of more to come.

Shortly after dark that evening Jack Riley came to see them. He wore a Mexican artilleryman’s uniform with its collar insignia depicting an exploding bomb and was grinning whitely through his powder-sooted face. He sat at the foot of John’s bed and heaved a tired sigh and rubbed his face hard. Then cursed them both for lazy bastards and asked when they’d be ready to fight with the San Patricios.

“San Patricios?” John said. “What’s that?”

“The Company of Saint Patrick,” Riley said. “I formed her meself.
Taylor’s had a lot more deserters than he’s let on, you see. I found the Matamoros cantinas full of them. Plenty of them said they’d be willing to join the Mexies in exchange for some land of their own, dont ye know—and on condition that they can serve in the same outfit. So I had me an idea and soon enough found meself explaining it to General Arista face to face. And, lads, he liked the notion and gave it his blessing, he did! It’s a company of soldiers all from the other side, almost all Micks, most of them run off from Taylor but a few come down here on their own. Some born in the States but most from the olde sod, by Jesus. We got some German in the bunch, naturally—there’s not an army in the world dont have its Germans, now is there?” John had never seen Handsome Jack so excited. “There’s a few bloody Englishmen with us, and some Scots, and a fella from Canada, dont you know. But like I say, it’s mostly harps like us. Forty-two in the outfit already and I expect we’ll get plenty more as the lads get their fill of being nothing to the Yanks but Irish dogs to kick and decide no more, by Jesus, no more!

“Now the San Patricios aint official yet, you understand, but we soon enough will be. Arista told me so. A matter of paperwork is all. Meanwhile we’re the San Patricios just the bloody same. We wear the Mexie artillery uniform but we’ll have our own banner, we will. Know what the Mexies are calling us? Colorados. The Reds. Because there’s so many redhead Irish in the bunch. Aint it a hoot?”

He paused and looked at them narrowly. “I aint heard neither you fellers say what ye think of me insignia here.” He touched the officer’s brass pinned to his collar above the artillery insignia.

“What’s it mean, Jack?” John asked with a wink at Lucas Malone.

“It means you’ll damned well have to salute me is what it means,” Riley said with a huge smile. “It’s
Lieutenant
Riley to both you now, and a lieutenant always rates a salute from mere sergeants.” He beamed at them.

John and Lucas exchanged looks.

“That’s right, lads, I said sergeants,” Riley said. “The CO’s a Mexie, of course, but he’s a good fella and a damn fine soldier and he’s let me pick me own non-coms. Now I’m needing you boys at the ready, so ye’ll have to quit your malingering, the both of ye. Doc Alonzo says he’ll turn you loose tomorrow. He says ye’ll be needing a cane still, Johnny, but me and Captain Moreno—he’s the CO—we reckon it’s better to have ye gimping about and learning how to shoot the big guns than leave you to laying on your lazy arse in here any longer.”

He stood up and grinned from one to the other of them. “You’ve been too polite to ask, so I’ll tell you: your pay will sixteen dollars a month, and dont that beat to hell the seven dollars ye were getting as buck privates for old Taylor? And that aint all. Ye’ll be getting title to four hundred acres of land, each of ye. That’s right, lads, I said four hundred. Pray the war lasts a year and ye’ll get another 200 acres besides. This is it, buckos, the chance to fight for something worth fighting for—your own selves, your own land. Ye’ll be men of property, ye will, when all the shooting’s done.”

He withdrew a pair of forms from his tunic pocket and spread them on the bed next to John. “All you got to do is just sign these.”

John picked one up and saw that it was in Spanish.

“Arturo,” Riley called, “bring the doc’s pen and ink there on the table.” The orderly retrieved the implements and Riley dipped the pen and handed it to John.

John hesitated. He looked up from the form and held Jack Riley’s gaze. Handsome Jack’s smile tightened. His blue eyes were hard and bright. “It’s yay or nay, Johnny boy,” he said softly. “A simple yay or nay.”

John flattened the form on the bed and signed it and handed back the pen. Riley dipped it again and passed it to Lucas Malone and Lucas signed too.

Riley blotted the signatures with his sleeve and folded the papers into his pocket. He grinned at them and took a flask from his tunic and uncorked it and raised it in a toast. “To them of us who know the true brotherhood.” He drank and passed the flask to Lucas Malone who turned it up and then passed it to John who raised it to each of the others in turn and drank.

Riley tucked the flask away and said, “See you at reveille, lads—I mean …
sergeants
.”

He was to the tent door when Lucas called out, “Say now …
lieutenant
. I got a question. What if we hadn’t signed on?” Malone was smiling but his look was intent. “What would’ve become of us, do ye think?”

Riley looked at them both and grinned. “Why, what else, man? Ye would have stood against a wall in the morning and got shot for spies.” He went out laughing.

They got the brunt of their artillery training during the daily bombardment of Fort Texas. They learned how to move an artillery piece from one position to another, how to unlimber the gun and charge it and set its elevation, how to swab out the piece with a sponge rod and how to cool the barrel with water every so often during firings. John was impressed by Handsome Jack’s smooth proficiency with the big guns. Riley took them to the barricade overlooking the river and gave them a brass telescope and schooled them in the arts of the forward observer. The fort was holding well under the steady barrage and Lucas Malone said, “Christ, we really built that thing, didn’t we?”

Several times a day the crews broke off the shelling to take a rest or eat a meal. During these respites the fort’s acting commander, Major Jacob Brown, would take a turn along the fort’s front walls to inspect for damage. During a break on a windy afternoon when they sat at the emplacements eating a lunch of tacos and beans and watching Brown make his inspection, Riley suddenly said, “The cheek of the son of a bitch.”

He set down his plate and ordered a pair of gun crews to charge two of the pieces with high explosive shell. The Mexican artillery was still using chiefly solid shot ammunition and Riley was daily petitioning Captain Moreno for explosive shell, arguing that their artillery would be no match for the Yankee guns without it. Moreno agreed but his requisitions to the high command in Mexico City were routinely denied without explanation or simply ignored. What little high explosive ammunition they had was precious but at the moment Riley didn’t care. He was set on killing Brown and shell was the sure way to do it. He positioned himself at one of the guns and posted a skilled gunner named Octavo at the other. He determined the elevation of the guns by eye and called it out to Octavo. As Brown strolled slowly before the wall and made his careful scrutiny Riley aimed his gun at a point directly behind him and had the Mexican gunner aim about fifteen yards ahead of the Yankee. Now he and the Mexican each lighted a cigar and puffed vigorously and then blew the ash off the tips and then held them down close to the touch-hole. The soldados made bets and jokes and looked on intently. When Brown arrived at the spot Riley judged to be midway between the two target points he said, “Ya!” and he and Octavo touched the cigar tips to the vents and the guns boomed almost simultaneously.

Brown whirled at the sound of the guns and started to run back the
way he had come and it was as though a deer in full stride had been led perfectly by the hunter’s gunsights: He took perhaps three strides before the Mexican’s shell exploded well behind him at the same instant that Riley’s round landed at his feet and the blast threw him high and twirling in the air like a doll coming apart at its seams and flinging blood and losing limbs in every direction and he fell back to the earth in pieces.

The Mexican troops and the San Patricios cheered lustily as the smoky dust cleared from across the river and the figures of other Americans warily emerged from the fort to gather Brown’s scattered remains. And now a large solitary figure came stalking forth to the very edge of the river and stood there brandishing a bowie knife and hollering imprecations only faintly heard at the Mexican emplacement yet clear enough to be understood as directed at Jack Riley and John Little. It was the Great Western cursing them for traitorous murdering bastards and vowing to shoot them dead and shed them of their manly parts besides. As she carried on in this way, Riley called John forward and gestured for a rifleman to give him his weapon and said, “Give her a recognition, Johnny, with that hawkeye of yours.” John assumed a prone position and braced the rifle on a large rock before him and ripped up a few weed strands and tossed them in the air to gauge the wind. He adjusted his sights for Tennessee windage and Kentucky elevation and took a deep breath and released half of it and aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger. The Borginnis woman’s high-crowned hat jumped off her head and described an upriver arc in the breeze and bounded along the riverbank and a dog ran it down and caught it and shook it from side to side like a hare.

Riley whooped. “That’ll give her something to think about besides cutting off our peckers, by Jesus! Nice shooting, Johnny!”

The Great Western put her hand to her bare head and turned to see the dog worrying her hat some yards upstream. She looked back across the river and even at this distance they could see her white grin. She cupped her hands round her mouth and bellowed, “
I
won’t miss
you …
you
bastards
!’’

A few days later Taylor would issue a general order renaming the place Fort Brown. But for months after, the Mexican Army of the North would be talking of the round the Irishman Riley put in the Yankee officer’s pocket on the Rio Bravo.

They’d been shelling the fort for a week when late one morning they heard the thumping of distant artillery and spied dust on the horizon to the north and knew the two armies had engaged. They judged the fight to be about ten miles removed and centered near the Palo Alto pond. By late afternoon there was thick white smoke on the sky which they would come to learn was from grassfires ignited by burning powder wads of American artillery. Mexican wounded would burn to death as the fires spread through the chaparral. Riley cursed Arista’s stupidity in having taken only round shot for his guns. “The Yanks are using explosive shell and he’s shooting at them with iron balls. Jesus! Why not throw stones at them for all the good of round shot?” Captain Moreno took him aside and suggested he keep such insubordinate opinions to himself. Yet they soon enough heard of how the Yankees laughed at the solid shot and made a game of sidestepping it as it rolled past and was chased after by the dogs.

The battlesounds ceased at sunset but the grassfires continued to burn and the northern sky flickered redly through the night. Speculation was rampant in the garrison and wholly uninformed. The fighting resumed at dawn the next day at but half the distance, the crackling of small arms now audible between bursts of artillery. “Moreno believes they be roundabouts a dry riverbed called Resaca de la Palma,” Riley told John and Lucas. “Says the chaparral’s thick as Moses’ beard out there.”

Dust and smoke rose densely from that direction. And now they heard other sounds mingled with the booming of the field guns and the crack and pop of rifles. Heard the shrill of horses, heard war cries and screams of fury and fear and agony. And now they spied a scattering of lancers riding pell-mell for the river and every man of them clearly desperate for greater speed as they lashed at their mounts and dug rowels into the animals’ bloody flanks and the lathered horses came hard with their eyes white with terror. Behind them came more riders and behind the horsemen came the greater mass of the broken and terrified Mexican infantry running headlong, some with their rifles still in hand, many devoid of all weapons, running as if from the devil himself. Never had John seen fear on such scale as this nor heard such a collective wail of despair. The Mexicans ran wildeyed into the river and some spilled headlong in the shallows and were trampled by those behind and in some places men
drowned in less than a foot of water. They splashed frantically for the south bank and some floundered and sank from sight in mid-river and none alongside or behind these drowning comrades thought to save them, caught up in their own frenzy to escape the Yankee demons on their heels. And those demons now hove into sight and came shrieking with bloodlust and ready bayonets and they skewered every fallen Mexican they came upon.

Thus did Arista’s troops come back from their first full engagement with the Americans. Moreno and Riley had already resumed shelling the fort to hold at bay the troops within and keep them from joining in the slaughter.

John had cast aside his cane and was working with one of Riley’s gun crews. And even as they fired round after round on Fort Texas across the way they caught each other’s eyes, he and Riley and Lucas Malone, and all three knew the war had truly begun and the dice of their future days were tossed and tumbling.

Over the next nights Matamoros lay awake amid the moans of the dead and dying, the howls of encroaching wolves. The heat of day hummed with hordes of fat green flies. The walls of Fort Texas and the Matamoros rooftops were crowded with buzzards looking like solemn red-cowled priests attending a mass funeral.

Burial parties on both sides of the river worked round the clock to put the dead in the ground. But the going was slow and at night the lobos could be heard snapping and growling and tearing at the corpses.

Reporters traveling with Taylor’s army claimed the wolves preferred to feed on American dead rather than on the degenerate enspiced flesh of the Mexicans.

Four days later the United States declared war on Mexico.