A Ballad of Love and Glory(57)
As they approached the outer edge of the city, the Yanks came into view. Riley held himself erect and kept his eyes glued on the sierras up ahead. But from the corner of his eye, he could see them. On either side of the road, the Yanks stood, watching as the artillery columns marched past. At least half of the Mexican artillery was composed of deserters from the US Army, and Riley heard the Yanks hissing insults at him and his countrymen. Fear gripped him. If the Yankees offered them some violence, would he be able to protect his men?
Riley did his best to ignore their reproaches. As he took in the Yanks’ disheveled appearance, their dirty, tattered uniforms, the fatigue and shock in their eyes, he cursed General Ampudia’s rash decision to give up the city. They could have beaten the Yanks, he was sure of it. And now, here they were in full retreat. There was nothing he could do about the insults being hurled at him as the Yanks realized that he—John Riley, a deserter—had been behind the cannons pouring grape and shell on them from the citadel.
“You goddamn traitors!”
“Damn you, turncoats!”
“Irish sons of bitches!”
He recognized some soldiers from his old unit, Captain Merrill standing beside them. Riley looked away then, not wanting to make eye contact with his former commanding officer. But he heard someone, perhaps even the captain himself, yell, “I’m gonna shoot this cowardly cur!”
He fought the impulse to lower his face and hide his eyes beneath the brim of his shako. Instead, he thought of Ximena, her soft lips, her warm breath on his face. He clung to her image even more when, on the other side of the road, Braxton Bragg, James Duncan, and the other artillery officers stood by. From the looks they were now giving him, and the way they gripped the hilt of their swords, Riley knew that they would gladly bury the blade into his heart if given the chance. He thought it was unfortunate that during the battle, Bragg’s crew had been fighting within the city, too far from the citadel and Riley’s guns. He would have loved to have had another shot at the pompous Yankee.
Bragg spat toward Riley, “I should have run you through when I had the chance back in Matamoros, Mick!”
And I you, Riley thought as the columns left the Yanks and their maledictions behind in a cloud of dust.
* * *
The interminable days passed, one after the other, as they toiled along through dry country to San Luis Potosí, half-dead from starvation and exhaustion, ravaged by illness and despair. Vultures circled above them. Soldiers fainted beneath the weight of their weapons and knapsacks, falling out of the marching columns to be left behind on the roadside. Some tossed aside their arms and cartridge boxes, discarded their useless equipment, their clothing. Cases of ammunition and supplies were abandoned when one by one the pack mules and the oxen pulling the carts broke down from the rigors of the miserable march. The road was littered with dead or dying soldiers, ruined horses and mules. But the worst sight was of the women and children accompanying the men. They remained on the ground where they collapsed, and Riley could hear their wails of sorrow and despair, see their hands reaching out as the artillery marched past them, their features distorted in a painful surrender to death. He willed himself not to look at their woebegone expressions, their tongues, blackened and swollen. He’d wished they’d stayed home, that they hadn’t followed their husbands only to suffer a miserable fate. But by now he’d learned that Mexican women—mothers, wives, daughters—accompanied their men whithersoever they went, even if it meant dying of sunstroke, hunger, or thirst alongside them.
Choking on dust and grit, he kept his mind fixed on the road ahead and the city that lay beyond, as his fair skin blistered under the unforgiving sun. They trudged past dry arroyos and uncultivated land, arid landscapes lacking pasturage for the animals. With dust devils swirling around them in the hot wind, Riley searched for a patch of greenery to rest the eye upon, something to break the dreary sameness. His mind tormented him with images of raindrops sliding down blades of clover, morning dew quivering on cabbage leaves, ice glittering on yew boughs.
At about sundown, bugles sounded the halt and the exhausted columns dispersed and settled in for the night off the side of the road. Riley went in search of Ximena at the rear, where the wounded and the weak struggled to keep up. He wished he could have spared her the march through this parched desolation. He found her wrapping cactus pads sliced in half on the wounds of those being carried in the wagons, but they were too numerous, dying by the dozen each day from lack of medicine and from other privations. Some, driven by desperation, had committed suicide, but most were succumbing to hunger and thirst. She had neither food nor water to give them. None of them did. And his canteen was empty by now.
When he saw Ximena, his concern grew. Despite her large straw hat, her face was dusty and begrimed, her eyes red and sunken, her lips parched and blistered. He could see the remnants of a trail of dried tears on both cheeks.
“?’Tis no point in cryin’,” he said as he untied the buckskin strings and removed her hat. Then he gently wiped her face with his handkerchief. “Water is a precious commodity at the moment, and you shouldn’t give your tears to the desert.”
She wrapped her rebozo around her, and the anger and defiance he usually saw in her eyes had been replaced with resignation. He carefully folded her into his arms. She was so thin now, he was afraid he might break her. He wished he had something to give her that would erase the haunted look in her eyes.