A Ballad of Love and Glory(66)
“You know, they call me the butcher of the Alamo, but it was the troublemakers themselves who chose their fates. I gave those malcontents the opportunity to surrender—seven times, in fact. They made their choice.”
She turned back around to look at him. How had he known what she was thinking? Had he noticed the accusation in her eyes?
He smiled at seeing the surprise on her face. “You’re not the only Tejana I’ve met. Juan Seguín has looked at me the same way you just did, as if I were a bloodthirsty, barbarous villain and not a president-general fulfilling his duty by suppressing the rebellion of those foreigners who were intent on taking Texas from us. You blame me for the way the ungrateful Texians have treated Tejanos ever since. After the revolt—which too many of you supported—you became second-class citizens in your own homeland. So much unnecessary bloodshed, isn’t that what you accuse me of? But as I said, I gave the wretched adventurers the opportunity to surrender, and they didn’t, at least, not until it was too late. Now they are venerated as martyrs. Travis, Bowie, Crockett… Those lucky scoundrels. But it is only those Yanquis who will be remembered and beloved—not the native sons of Texas who were in the fort with them. Only the white defenders will go down through the ages as the heroes of Texas Independence, whereas their Tejano allies, like Juan Seguín, were run out of the new republic in shame and disgrace. That’s Yanqui gratitude for you.”
She remembered the moving eulogy Seguín had delivered at the funeral service of those who were killed at the Alamo. Burying the ashes from the pyres, he’d lauded the heroism of the defenders. “Yes, my friends, they preferred to die a thousand times rather than submit themselves to the tyrant’s yoke.” He’d called them valiant heroes and worthy companions. Her father had wept as he listened to Seguín’s moving speech.
“And what about Goliad?”
Santa Anna shrugged. “I was merely upholding our existing laws. Our government had decreed that foreigners bearing arms in Mexican territory were to be treated and tried as pirates, which, as you may know, is punishable by death. The law was unjust, but the law commands, and who am I to violate it?”
So that was how he justified having almost four hundred prisoners shot in cold blood.
“They weren’t all foreigners,” she said, realizing she was entering dangerous territory. “Some were Mexican citizens.”
His skin turned redder and his feverish eyes flashed with anger. “When you Tejanos took up arms against the motherland, you forfeited your rights as Mexican citizens! You committed treason against your own people. How else should I have treated the rebels who dared betray our nation?”
His accusation hovered in the room like a swarm of screeching grackles darkening the sky. She turned away from his anger, her hands shaking. The mortar and pestle were suddenly too heavy, and she set them down on the table. She wished she could simply leave instead of tending the wounds of this man whose actions were responsible for so much bloodshed and for the plight of the Tejanos. If instead of brutality he had shown mercy and treated his prisoners in an honorable way, maybe then in the eyes of the Texians, not everyone of Mexican descent would be looked upon as an enemy.
She breathed deeply, letting the aromatic oils of the crushed plants calm her. Then she took a rag from the pot, squeezed it out, and began to wash his stump vigorously. Hearing him wince, she stopped and willed herself to be gentler. He was, above all, her patient right now. She couldn’t let her personal feelings and bad energy get in the way of her healing.
Suddenly, he grabbed her arm and said, “I’m not angry at you, se?ora Ximena. Your family might have betrayed me once to ally yourselves with the Yanquis, and you paid for your disloyalty. But now here you are, fighting alongside me. Instead of trying to kill me, you’re here trying to heal me so that I can do what I was put on this earth to do—bring honor to Mexico.”
He released her and let her continue working. She patted his skin dry, lathered the poultice on a clean bandage, and applied it to his stump, saying nothing. But she felt his eyes still on her. The anger was gone, replaced by something else. His gaze roamed her body, as if undressing her. She glanced at her rebozo on the back of the chair and wished she could wrap herself with it.
“You’re a beautiful woman. I can see why teniente Riley is so bewitched by you.” His voice was deeper now, overtly sensual. And she realized that she preferred his anger.
His eyes were lingering on her breasts, so she cleared her throat and to distract him asked, “How did you get this injury?”
“Have you heard of la Guerra de los Pasteles?”
She shook her head. Her plan had worked. She did, in fact, remember the Pastry War of 1838. She’d been seventeen when the French invaded Mexico and set up a blockade of the ports. Santa Anna, reclining on his pillow, began recounting for her the dispute between the French and Mexicans that began over a bakery owned by a Frenchman that had been looted and destroyed by Mexican soldiers. France, demanding reparations for that and other debts owed to its citizens, had attacked Vera Cruz. When Santa Anna rushed to defend his home state, the French fired a cannon loaded with grape, killing Santa Anna’s horse, two of his officers, and some of his troops, and shattering his left leg.
“It cost me dearly,” he said. “But it was worth the price. Ah, you should have seen us charging the enemy with our bayonets, driving them back into the sea. Our country’s flag remained in its place, flying triumphantly over Mexican soil. That day, I brought victory to la República Mexicana. And I will do so again, with the Yanquis.”