A Ballad of Love and Glory(112)

“But first things first,” Gibson said. He motioned to his men to step forward. They grabbed the prisoners, and Riley struggled to break free from their hold. “Get your filthy Yankee hands off me!” Riley said, his hands clenched in fists.

Gibson pulled out a razor and said, “Not yet. We wouldn’t want you going out there looking like apes, would we?”

Riley was about to protest, but he didn’t want to sabotage his men’s chance to get out of the cells, and so he held his tongue and swallowed his pride. They pushed him down onto a stool and took scissors to his hair. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground and watched as his hair fell to the floor. There was no hiding behind it now. The first thing Ximena would see would be his branded cheeks, his marred face.

Gibson was deliberately brutal with the razor, and Riley bit his tongue when the razor nicked his scalp. “Well, what do you think, boys? Did I miss my calling as a barber?”

The Yankees laughed.

Riley glanced at James Mills, and by the expression on his face, he knew what he looked like. He rubbed his head, felt the sharp stubble, saw the streaks of blood on his palm. As if it wasn’t enough that his face had been destroyed. Now he had to go out into the city with a bloody scalp. And Ximena, how could he go before her looking like this?

“Next!” Gibson yelled, pushing Riley off the stool after he finished shaving off his beard.

After getting unchained, the prisoners were escorted out of the cell, down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the bright sunlight. Outside the citadel, the American soldiers yelled and protested the prisoners’ release. Riley squinted in the bright light as he and his men stumbled out of the fortress. The Yankee band played “The Rogue’s March,” which felt like a slap in the face as he was shamefully drummed out of service.


Poor old soldier, poor old soldier,

He’ll be tarred and feathered and sent to Hell,

Because he wouldn’t soldier well.



There were Mexicans everywhere crying and cheering for them. The Catholic priests stood in a line. “Come with us, Colorados,” they said to the prisoners. “We will take care of you. Vengan.” Then there she was with their daughter in her arms, standing next to padre Sebastián.

“John!”

He turned to look at her. He wanted, more than anything, to run to her side, scoop her up in his arms. Instead, Riley drew away from the priests and his men, away from the woman and the daughter he loved—for he was a stain upon them now.

“John!” Ximena said again, and he turned once more to see her pushing her way through the throng. “Where are you going, mi amor?” she said as she caught up to him.

“You deserve more,” he said. He had felt hideous in the dark, and he knew he was even more so in the bright light of day.

“All I want is you, John Riley, and nothing that has happened will change that. Now come, let me take you home.”



* * *



The priests took in his men to give them shelter and food, and Riley allowed Ximena to take him to the small house where she’d lived alone during his time in prison. When Riley crossed the threshold, he scanned the room, not saying a word. It was a simple one-room adobe house with unplastered walls and a hard-packed earthen floor, a curtain hanging from the rafters that separated the bed from the rest of the house. A small kitchen table with two chairs was in a corner, next to a crude stove and a bucket filled with water. A small altar was tucked into a corner, with a bowl of water, flowers, and two candles burning feebly against the soot-stained wall. She had once been the proud owner of a ranch. Now she was barely surviving in the slums of this city where he had left her to fend for herself.

“Why don’t you wash up while I make you dinner?” she said, handing him the bucket of water. The babe had fallen asleep, and she placed her in a crate that was padded with a blanket. “You must be hungry.”

As he washed the grime off himself with a cloth, he watched as she lit the coals in the brazier and set a clay pot full of beans to reheat. From a basket she took out a small ball of corn dough she’d prepared earlier and set out to make tortillas. He saw her knead the dough and form it into small balls, then pick them up one by one and shape them into disks with her hands, slap-slap-slapping them into perfect circles, before placing them on the hot griddle. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a freshly made tortilla.

When he sat at the table, she placed a steaming bowl of beans and a basket full of piping-hot tortillas in front of him. Then she cut a chunk of cheese and pieces of pork cracklings and served him those as well.

“Eat,” she said.

He tore a piece of tortilla and used it as a spoon to scoop up his beans. She smiled and set out to eat her food. He was grateful that she didn’t ask him a million questions, that she let him be, that she respected his need for silence. But every time she looked at him, his cheeks burned, as if he were being branded all over again. Did she think him hideous? No, he didn’t see disgust in her face. Compassion, yes. But not disgust. Still, the tortilla got stuck in his throat, and he could no longer take another bite. He looked around for a looking glass and saw there was none. Had she removed it so that he couldn’t see his hideousness? Sensing his sudden loss of appetite, Ximena stood up and came to him. She took his hand, pulled the curtain aside, and forced him to sit on the small straw mattress where she’d slept alone all these months. When he sat, her humble bed sank under his weight. She kissed his forehead, the tip of his nose, his eyelids, his mouth, and then she placed a kiss on each of his disfigured cheeks. He turned away. “Don’t soil yourself touchin’ my face with your lips, lass.”