A Ballad of Love and Glory(104)
At one point, Twiggs pretended to have lost count and nine long lashes went by before he began to count again.
“Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three…”
Then, before his eyes, Riley saw Nelly. She was white, thin as mist, and she held out her arms to him. I’ve been waitin’ for you, John…
He shook the apparition away and felt the pain again, so excruciating he struggled to breathe, to not succumb to the solemn darkness. He opened his eyes and saw the crowd around him, and then there she was, Ximena, standing next to the priests clustered nearby. Was she real? Was he imagining her as well?
“Forty-nine… fifty!” General Twiggs shouted. Riley sagged against the tree, gulping for air. There was a roaring in his ears, and he struggled to stay conscious. Wasting no time, Twiggs gave the order to continue and seven soldiers approached the prisoners, each carrying a branding iron heated a fiery red and glowing with the letter D. They held them inches away from the prisoners’ faces, and Riley could smell the smoke, feel the intense heat.
“Hold them down!” Twiggs said.
“Mercy, have mercy!” Ximena yelled, her shawl flapping in the wind like wings, and Riley thought he was seeing an angel, just as the left side of his face was pushed against the rough bark of the tree and a soldier pressed the hissing hot iron into his right cheek. When it entered his flesh, a searing pain, like a jolt of lightning, made his body jerk, his muscles clenching in agony.
“Aaaaghhhhh!” The smell of burnt flesh, his own flesh. Riley wished he could bash his head against the tree trunk and put an end to his agony.
“Please, enough. ?Basta!” said the priests as they rushed over to his side.
“Wait a minute,” Twiggs said as he dismounted from his horse. He approached Riley and ordered his sergeant to reheat the iron. “The D is upside down,” Twiggs said. “Do it again and do it right this time, even if you have to burn his damn head off!”
“The man has suffered enough,” padre Sebastián beseeched him. “Please, have mercy.”
“Let him go!” Riley heard Ximena say. “His punishment has been carried out. Let it be enough, I beg you.”
“I’ve been ordered to brand this traitor with a letter D—not an upside-down letter—and by God I will do it!” Twiggs said. “Now, bring the iron and do it right, man!”
Riley was unable to speak. The Yankees grabbed him and pushed his burnt right cheek into the bark of the tree, and when the red hot iron was pressed into his other cheek, he bellowed in anguish until darkness finally overtook him.
* * *
When he came to, Riley realized he’d been dragged across the square with the six others and made to stand in front of the gallows. He was dripping wet, and a Yankee stood above him holding an empty pail. “Wake up, sleepyhead. Wake up,” he said.
Riley didn’t shake off the water. He sighed in relief as the cold water soothed the burning on his face for a few precious seconds before it came back again in full force, the pain radiating from his cheeks, pulsing throughout his entire body and soul. The odor of burnt flesh drifted in the wind, and his face felt as if it were melting. He wanted to tear off his skin with his own hands, but he was back in chains and couldn’t move.
As his face swelled, his vision blurred, and he could scarcely make out the figures of the men at the gallows, standing two by two on wagons. The mules in front of each wagon jerked side to side, and the men almost lost their balance. Soldiers climbed up on each wagon and placed white hoods around the prisoners’ heads. The nooses were secured on their necks just as the priests finished moving down the wagons offering the last rites to the unfortunate souls whose fate was to die so far from home.
Suddenly, Riley yelled, “Erin Go Bragh!”
“Erin Go Bragh!” the condemned men repeated.
Twiggs gave the order, and the mules pulled the wagons forward, leaving the sixteen men swinging violently in the air, their bodies twitching and jerking. Since there was no trapdoor, the fall hadn’t broken the men’s necks, denying them a quick death. One by one they became still, all but Patrick Dalton, who continued to convulse for several minutes longer. Riley couldn’t unfix his gaze from his friend as he choked to death. At last, Dalton stopped quivering and was still. The silence of surrender, of death, hung over the plaza.
Forgive me, Pat. Riley broke forth in tears, which stung his burned, swollen flesh. I’m sorry to the heart, I am, that your life should end with such little dignity.
He could barely see as one by one the bodies were taken down. Seven of them, including Dalton’s, were loaded into a wagon for the priests to bear them away and give them a proper burial. The other nine of his men were to be buried there, under the gallows, and Riley and the six other whipped and branded men were forced to dig their graves.
Some of the Mexican men demanded that Twiggs allow them to do the digging, that the prisoners had suffered enough. But Twiggs wouldn’t listen. He could scarcely stand, but Riley dug fast and hard. He was the reason his men were dead. From the moment he had put out the call to his countrymen and the other foreign-born soldiers, he had sentenced them to their fate. Now his soul was stained by their blood. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
To humiliate them further, the pipers on the opposite side of the square began to play “The Rogue’s March” as Riley and the others were dragged back into the jail with an iron collar around their necks. He heard his name being called. Turning around, he saw Ximena only a few paces back, trying to get past the soldiers. He couldn’t make her out, for his face had swelled so much that his eyes were closing up on him. But he would recognize her voice anywhere. She was here. He hadn’t just imagined her.