A Ballad of Love and Glory(56)
“Who’s next?” they yelled. “Who wants to try to stop us?”
The crowd fled, and Riley took advantage of the chaos to try to turn his horse around before the Rangers spotted him. Suddenly, Ximena was there. Seeing Maloney slain on the ground, she screamed. She pushed her way through the crowd, hastening to where he lay, but Riley rushed to intercept her. The Rangers would kill her. He knew it, and when he blocked her path and she looked up at him, she seemed to know it, too, for she reached for his hand. He pulled her up onto his horse and together they galloped away.
When they reached the Río Santa Catarina, they dismounted and she broke down, sobbing.
“Whist, lass, whist. We’ll make them pay for this. I swear it.”
They sat by the riverbank and leaned against a boulder; the Sierra Madre range towered over them. Riley realized he no longer wished to live in this city, never wanted to return. Ximena stopped crying but wouldn’t utter a word. She stared at the river in dreary stillness and scarcely seemed to breathe. It affrighted him so much that he cupped her chin and turned her face to his.
“Look at me, lass,” he said. “I know you loved the ould fella. He loved you as well, and he wouldn’t be happy to see you fallin’ asunder on account of him. He’d want you to be strong, to carry on. You hear me?”
She nodded gently. He pulled her into his arms, and it was as if he were gathering an armful of wild lavender and other fragrant herbs, for her delicate aroma was a healing balm on his spirit. They sat there by the river watching the current swirl and glide past them. A crane swooped overhead and fluttered over the surface of the water, and Riley felt the gust of its flapping wings stirring the air. They beheld its flight as it ascended, weaving through the clouds tinged in gold from the afternoon sun until it was just a speck in the sky.
“We will lose the war now, yes? The land is lost. And my husband and grandmother are gone, and now Jimmy is gone too.”
“Nay. We’ve lost a battle, not the war. We will carry on, keep fightin’ in their honor.”
She turned to face him, and he took out his handkerchief and wiped the lingering tears on her face. Her eyes red with sorrow. Her hair disheveled. And yet, she shone with a fierce beauty that overwhelmed him.
She cupped his face, her fingers caressing his cheeks, tracing the outline of his bottom lip. With a groan, his mouth fell on hers, and she responded with the same ardor. He could taste the salt in her tears, the bitterness of her grief, then it all faded into the honeyed sweetness of her desire for him.
He tore away from her, suddenly gasping for breath. “Arrah! We mustn’t. ’Tis wrong—”
She took off the red rosary beads she wore around her neck and put her fingers over them, her voice serene and comforting, like a warm embrace. “Creo en Dios, Padre todopoderoso, creador del cielo y de la tierra…”
He leaned his forehead against hers and took her hands and the beads into his. “Et in Iesum Christum, Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum, qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine…”
They held each other in mutual sorrow, whispering their prayers over the rosary, until they could feel Maloney’s spirit take flight. A peace settled over them. He held her in his arms a little longer until finally they found the strength to get up and bury their dead.
21
September 1846
Monterrey, Nuevo León
The following day, Riley joined the two-hundred-plus gunners lining up in columns at the rear of General Ampudia’s 1st Brigade as they prepared to leave the city. Over the course of the next few days, a division would march out of the city to San Luis Potosí, three hundred miles distant, where they would meet their new commander—General Antonio López de Santa Anna. News had reached them that the former president of the republic had returned from exile and taken command of the army. Ampudia was to assemble what remained of his troops and join Santa Anna. Once again, Ampudia had been demoted, and this time, Riley had no doubt that he deserved it.
Riley was desperate to get away from the citadel and from the sight of the Yankee flag flying over it, from the graveyard where they’d buried Maloney rolled up in nothing but a blanket for want of a coffin, from the plains still littered with rotting corpses of humans and animals, from the shattered homes and ruined cathedral. He walked past the columns and took his place on one of the horse-drawn caissons carrying the six cannons they were allowed to take with them. They were leaving behind twenty-five field pieces to the Yanks. Thinking about Ximena in the rear of the columns among the surgeons’ wagons, Riley wished she was here by his side so that he could watch over her.
As the artillery waited for their turn to move out, Riley looked at the main plaza and the rooftops where thousands of civilians stood to see them off. They had lost their homes and possessions, their loved ones and their city. What cruel indignities would Taylor’s troops commit upon them, especially when those devils, the Texas Rangers, would be free to roam wild in the city and murder and plunder as they pleased? He could sense the fear of the wretched inhabitants, or perhaps it was his own fear at the thought of the Yankees lined up outside the walls of Monterrey to watch the defeated Mexican troops withdraw from the city.
The bugles sounded the advance, and the infantry and the cavalry moved out. Then, finally the artillery rolled out down the cobblestoned street to the rhythm of drums and the blaring of bugles. Riley kept his eyes looking forward and tried not to look at the people as they wept and waved goodbye. “?Adios, Colorados! God be with you,” they said as they waved their handkerchiefs at Riley and his men. Los Colorados, the red ones, was what the civilians had called them ever since Matamoros due to the men’s hair and ruddy complexion.