A Ballad of Love and Glory(36)

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“Mi ni?a, there’s someone here to see our patient,” Nana Hortencia said the next afternoon as she came into the room trailed by the tall, broad-shouldered Irishman. The light streaming in through the open window made his eyes glow like a field of blue lupines.

Ximena moved aside to let him see the sleeping patient. “I’m sorry we no send for you before, teniente Riley, but he had fever and…” She pointed to her head, trying to get him to understand his friend had been too delirious, but she couldn’t think of the words in English. She wished she could speak the language better. The words got stuck in her mouth. It had been so long since she’d practiced with her tutor. Still, it was better than nothing. “His fever is now away. He wake before. Eat a little soup.”

“Will he live?”

Upon hearing his voice, Maloney woke up. “Riley, is it you, lad?” His voice was a mere whisper, and Ximena leaned closer, taking the old man’s hand in hers. It was limp, but his pulse was much stronger than the day before and his color had improved. She was sure he was going to pull through. She watched the shock on the lieutenant’s face turn into utter felicity.

“You’re awake! I’m here, Jimmy, a chara. How do you find yourself?”

“I thought I’d never see the blessed light of Heaven again,” he whispered. “But I was saved by Saint Patrick himself! A miracle if I ever saw one.”

“A miracle?”

“A fallen tree. Put there by Saint Patrick. It caught me in its limbs.”

“You sit with your friend? I come back later,” Ximena said, pulling up a chair for him.

Teniente Riley nodded. “Much obliged, lass.”

“I come with a little chicken broth for you,” she told Maloney.

“God reward you, jewel,” Maloney said.

“I’ll see you out,” teniente Riley said. At the doorway, he added, “A thousand thanks for what you’ve done for my friend.”

“It was noth—”

“No, it means a lot to me. Truly, it does.”

The guilt in his voice told her he was still berating himself for what had happened.

“He fight with you now, for my country, ?sí?”

He smiled at her and nodded, then went back inside the room. Ximena stood in the doorway for a moment.

“?’Tis good to see you alive, Jimmy,” he said. “I need you on the battlefield with me. Welcome to the Mexican Army of the North.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the old man said with pride. “?’Tis an honor to fight by your side.”



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That afternoon, Ximena watched, along with the townspeople and the troops, as General Torrejón and his lancers made their way into Matamoros escorting the Yanqui soldiers they’d captured in the altercation upriver at Rancho de Carricitos with a party of Taylor’s cavalry. They’d killed eleven Yanquis and injured many. The crowd cheered at the sight of the prisoners, and everyone knew full well what it meant.

The war had begun.



* * *



A few days later, at Ximena’s request, Cheno brought a uniform for her patient, who insisted he was well enough to join his friends in the barracks.

“How do I look, lassie?” Maloney said as he came out of the room, dressed in his new Mexican artillery uniform.

After his near-death experience, the man had become as skinny as cattle after a winter’s blight, but his eyes looked alive again and shone with the deep gray-green of moss-coated rocks. She smiled and said, “?Como un soldado valiente! Like a valiant soldier.”

In the morning, she took him in the carriage to the outskirts of the town, where teniente Riley and his artillery crew were practicing their drills. Maloney wanted to surprise them. Seeing him, they all rushed to embrace him, picking him up onto their shoulders and cheering for him. Maloney laughed and burst into an Irish song. “óró, sé do bheatha bhaile. óró, sé do bheatha bhaile. óró, sé do bheatha bhaile. Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh…” His comrades joined him and soon all their voices rose in unison, everyone except teniente Riley, who stood removed from the group. Guilt and shame seemed to be permanently etched on his amiable face. He needed a good spiritual cleansing like the ones Nana Hortencia had given Jimmy Maloney to rid him of all that tormented him. He caught her watching him and touched the visor of his black officer’s shako in salutation, then called his crew to attention in order to resume the drills.

She seated herself in the carriage but did not yet leave, remaining with the other onlookers, mostly local boys who’d come out to watch the foreign gunners manning the Mexican cannons. It was arduous work, the sun beating down on them relentlessly. Teniente Riley had separated the men into crews, and Maloney now joined one of them. She worried the old man was not yet strong enough to perform his duties. The lieutenant seemed to have known this as well, because he gave Maloney one of the least strenuous jobs—lighting the charge with a long match, except they weren’t firing for real yet, but rather going through the steps, too many steps for her to keep up with. And she wasn’t the only one struggling. The gunners were clearly beyond fatigued from having to push the heavy pieces into position and haul the ammunition. Teniente Riley shouted the orders as he walked the crews through each of the steps involved. Aligning, swabbing, loading, pricking, priming, and finally firing.