Chapter 9

9

April 1846

Rancho Los Mesteños, Río Bravo

Even as a young girl learning the healing arts from her grandmother, the sight of blood had never troubled Ximena. But now, inside the healing room, as she washed the wound on her husband’s chest with lavender-scented water and watched the red rivulets running down his torso, she had to control the queasiness in her stomach. This was Joaquín’s blood. This cavity in his esh was where his life had seeped out.

A few months before, while returning from a day of shing at the river, they’d been overtaken by a sudden thunderstorm. The crashing got louder and lightning struck nearer as they held on to their horses, spurring them hard across the elds. Moments later, lightning struck in front of Joaquín with such force it knocked him o his saddle, and he fel to the ground. In the ickering lightning, she saw him lying there, unmoving, and she thought that he’d left her to the mercy of the world. But then, il uminated by another ash above her, she saw him open his eyes and smile at her. He was unhurt, just slightly stunned and disoriented.

Now, as she gazed at him lying motionless on the table, she wil ed him to move, to open his eyes and smile at her once more.

“Let me do it, mijita,” Nana Hortencia said, placing a warm hand over Ximena’s. “I can nish.”

Ximena shook her head. “Gracias, Nana. I want to do this.” She took a deep breath and plunged the bloody towel into the warm water. Watching the blood swirl in the bucket, she began to have trouble breathing, as though she were

sinking under an unbearable weight that would crush her. She resolved to remain strong, to not al ow the mounting pressure inside her to prevent her from performing this sacred act. She squeezed the towel and continued washing her husband’s body, then she gently patted him dry. Nana Hortencia had washed, mended, and pressed his bloodied shirt and now handed it to her. His body was sti ening, and it was di cult to put clothes on him. She wished she could have dressed him in his favorite out t—buckskin pantaloons and a jacket embroidered with silk thread and ornamented with silver buttons. She would have tied the silk bow around his neck in the shape of a butter y, just as she’d done the day he’d married her in that suit. But it was ashes now. Only the blackened limestone and adobe wal s and the caved-in roof of the main house remained.

When they were done, Nana Hortencia gathered the soiled towels and the bucket of tainted water and then excused herself. Ximena was alone now with Joaquín to sit vigil beside him until he was buried out in the consecrated plot in the grove of pecans, next to their son. She was grateful for the time she could spend with him, to honor his body, to pray for his spirit. Here, she could let the tears she had been holding back ow freely. But they didn’t come.

She placed a pil ow under his head and ran her ngers through his wavy hair.

She caressed his cold cheek and leaned over him, resting her head on his unmoving chest.

“Do you remember that yearling calf after the gulf storm swept across the prairie?” she asked him. “Remember how she fel into a mudhole and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get out?”

The animal’s bel owing could be heard al the way to the house, and Joaquín and the vaqueros had spent an entire day freeing her.

“Now I know how that calf felt,” she said. Alone, frightened, trapped. And the more she struggled, the more her grief sucked her into its su ocating darkness.

There was a knock on the door and Juan Cortina came in, out of breath. “I came as soon as I got your message. I’m so sorry, Ximena.”

At the sight of Cortina, her grief turned to anger. He’d gotten Joaquín into this mess, turned him into a murderer. Gotten him kil ed. Cortina tried to

comfort her, but she turned away. Then, she heard his sobs and saw his body convulsing with his own sorrow.

“¡Maldita sea!” he said. “¡Esos malditos diablos! God damn their souls! I’l make them pay for this!”

She motioned for him to come closer so that he could pay his respects to Joaquín. He stood beside his friend’s body and shook his head. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have encouraged him to join us.”

Hearing him echo her thoughts, Ximena wondered if she was wrong to blame him. She thought of what Nana Hortencia had repeatedly said to her, and she nal y understood. “No, Cheno. Joaquín did what he felt was his duty, to defend his home and country against the invaders. He knew the risks.”

Cortina was silent, contemplating her words. He nodded and said, “He was a good son of the frontier who o ered his country his blood, and it wil not be in vain.” Then he turned to her and added: “But we have to think about you now.

Come with me to Matamoros. I hear Joaquín’s sister wil be leaving in a few days for Saltil o, away from the impending battle. It’l be safe there for you too.”

“I won’t leave, Cheno,” Ximena said. “This is where Joaquín would want to be buried.”

“And here he wil remain, but not you. Not now.”

As she looked at her dead husband lying on the table, she felt a dul ache in her heart, and she felt tired, so tired. She wanted to curl up against Joaquín and go to sleep. “I wish they’d kil ed me too,” she whispered, realizing too late that she’d spoken aloud. She’d not meant to confess to Cortina the yearning of her soul. To admit that it hurt too much to live.

“No digas eso. No, never think that. When the battle is over and we have won, you can return to your home and begin a new life. In the meantime, I promise I’l do my best to protect you—”

“The way you protected my husband?” The accusation was out of her mouth before she could stop it. Her anger returned and swirled inside her, and she wanted to let it grow, let it turn dark and menacing, like the howling blue norte that lays waste to everything in its path. The hailstones that beat the tal grasses into the ground. The raging wind that strips the bark o the mesquites and

leaves them naked and exposed. The lightning whose fury gouges holes in the earth. She wanted to hurt something. Someone.

She took a deep breath, looked at Cortina, and said, “I don’t need your protection. But I do want one thing from you. That you tel the Yanqui general where to nd his dead men.”

His eyes were on Joaquín, not on her when he said, “I don’t know where he left Lieutenant Porter, but I do know where Falcón left Colonel Cross.”

“I don’t want them left to putrefy in the chaparral, Cheno,” she said. “If their souls are left to wander, so might Joaquín’s. Wil you promise, then?”

“Sí. Te lo prometo.”

At daybreak the next morning, they rode out from the rancho in silence.

Cortina and his men up front, Ramiro and the few remaining ranch hands in the rear behind their families riding in the wagons. Ximena was seated on the extra horse Cheno had brought and did not speak to any of them. They respected her need for silence, even Nana Hortencia, who secluded herself in the carriage with the house servants, leaving Ximena to her thoughts. She kept her eyes looking ahead and did not turn back to see the smoke and ruin behind her.

The route to Matamoros was a wel -traveled and hard-packed dirt road. As they traversed the open plains, the road was wide and the sights were beautiful—

the prairie alive with the swaying of luxuriant grasses as the wind whispered through the blue-green blades, salvias and lupine, golden Zizia, Herbertia, and globe mal ow pulsing in a wave of colors under the sun, the air radiant with butter ies. In other times, Ximena would have wanted to stop and immerse herself in the beauty around her, to say a prayer of gratitude to the earth for its blessed gifts, but now, neither the wild owers, nor the singing of the green jays from the thicket of blooming huisaches, nor the clamorous cal s of the whooping cranes wading in the water holes could lift her spirits. A smal herd of wild mustangs roamed in the distance, and she thought of Joaquín, of how if he’d been here, he would have given them chase. But now he was gone. As was their house. What would become of her and her grandmother?

As they neared the river, the chaparral began to take over the prairie, becoming thicker and thicker as they continued on the road. A family of javelinas wal owed in a shal ow resaca, grunting in contentment. Ximena could hear the chip-chip-chip of the quail feasting on the red berries of a desertthorn.

The ground cuckoos nesting within the thick spiny shrubs greeted them cheerful y with their cuc-cuc-cuc. How could these birds nd any joy living among thorns? But then she latched on to another sound. A solitary Inca dove perched on a drooping paloverde branch cal ed to her, its melancholy coos echoing the mourning of her soul . No hope, no hope, no hope.

They came upon General Antonio Canales and his guerril eros, who were also on their way to the ferry crossing. “We heard what happened to Joaquín Treviño,” Canales said to Cheno after the men greeted each other. He turned to Ximena and said, “Lo siento, señora.”

She nodded but didn’t feel like conversing with the guerril eros Joaquín had become involved with. A few years earlier, Canales had persuaded more than ve hundred rancheros to join him in rebel ing against the Mexican government to establish the Republic of the Río Grande, carved out of the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. But unlike the Texas Rebel ion, his insurrection had been squashed by the Mexican forces, and now here he was, serving as a spy for the Mexican general. Ximena had even heard rumors that while Taylor was camped in Corpus Christi, Canales o ered his services to him in exchange for help in making his dream of the Republic of the Río Grande into reality. Taylor had refused his o er, or at least that was what the rumors said.

She glanced at Canales and wondered if he was double-crossing the Mexicans.

If so, he was in for a big surprise. The Yanquis cared only about their own dream. In helping the enemy win the war, Canales would only ensure his own displacement. The same had happened to her father. Just like Juan Seguín and other Tejanos, he’d made friends with some of the norteamericanos who’d settled in Texas. He’d admired their industry and advanced machinery, and with awe had watched as San Felipe de Austin and other Anglo settlements ourished while San Antonio stagnated. As young as Ximena was at the time, she had understood something her father had not—that the economic success of the white vil ages was thanks to enslaved labor. She, unlike her father, had no

admiration for the Anglo colonists. But her father had even hired a tutor to teach his children and him English, though Ximena turned out to be the best pupil. In the end, her father’s admiration and friendliness to the norteamericanos would prove his undoing.

They traversed the dense chaparral in silence, squeezing through the narrow, winding passage in single le until it eventual y widened as they neared the Paso Real crossing, where the ferry would take them to Matamoros. They could see the perimeter of the Yanqui encampment at a bend on the northern shore, and the cannons pointed directly at Matamoros. But even more menacing than the cannons was the ag of stars and stripes rising over the newly built fort, a blatant proclamation of possession and ownership of a land that was not theirs to claim.

Cheno pul ed up alongside Ximena to observe the enemy’s ag. “They’re here to provoke a war,” he said. “And if it’s a war they want, then it’s war they’l get.”“Didn’t we learn anything from Texas?” she said, incensed. “Mexico lost Texas long before its rebel ion, from the time our government rst al owed them to immigrate to the region. And now here we are again, conceding another Yanqui invasion.”

“We should have red at them the moment they came in sight,” Cheno said.

As they waited at the ferry crossing, Ximena looked at the US ag waving on one bank and the Mexican ag on the other, with the Río Bravo/Río Grande rushing wildly between them. This restless river with its twisting course would soon run a vivid red, like a gash across the heart of the land. Would it become a festering wound that never healed?

As if reading her thoughts, General Canales said, “This battle wil last but a day. General Arista and his troops are on their way now. With them plus the two thousand men General Ampudia brought with him, we’l have the Yanqui trespassers wishing they’d never set foot on our land.”

They boarded the ferry, and when it docked in Matamoros, the ranch hands and their families dispersed, some to nd work at Cheno’s mother’s ranch, nine miles upriver, others to join relatives living in the south, as far from the Yanquis as they could get. After their sad farewel s, and as she watched the men, women,

and children who were like family to her disperse like dandelion seeds, Ximena felt that the disintegration of her home was nal.

With reluctance, she and Nana Hortencia continued on to the house of her sister-in-law, Carmen. Up and down the street, she saw families packing their belongings and loading them onto their carriages. Feeling the tense atmosphere in the city, and sensing the people’s fear, Ximena’s anger returned. Why were the Yanquis being al owed to occupy their territory and y their ag in de ance while innocent families were being displaced from their homes?

The fol owing morning, the locals and the Mexican troops celebrated the arrival of General Arista in Matamoros. The church bel s rang joyously, and the people lined the streets, crowded their balconies, and climbed onto their rooftops to cheer for the newly arrived general. From the balcony of Carmen’s house, Ximena had a good view of the troops gathered in the plaza.

General Arista addressed his men from atop his horse. She was too far away to hear him clearly, but by the sound of the cheers, she knew the general’s words had everyone’s approval. “¡Viva el general Arista!” the people shouted as the band broke into another lively tune.

Carmen came out to the balcony to join her. The day before, she had not wanted to talk about Joaquín’s death with Ximena. She’d simply said that Joaquín had brought it upon himself by taking matters into his own hands instead of letting real soldiers handle the Yanquis. Ximena had no wish to antagonize her sister-in-law and had kept her thoughts to herself. The two of them had little in common, but since she was Joaquín’s older sister, Ximena had always treated her with respect.

“It’s a relief to see General Arista here,” Carmen said, fanning herself with a Spanish fan decorated with mother-of-pearl and lace. Her husband was a successful merchant and always brought her expensive gifts from his trips.

“Arista is the best general we have. When we heard that Ampudia had been named general-in-chief and was on his way to Matamoros, everyone dreaded his

arrival. The man is unbearable. Thank God that President Paredes replaced him with Arista.”

Ximena had heard of General Ampudia’s excesses, such as what he did to a former governor of the state of Tabasco, who’d been sentenced to death for treason. It hadn’t been enough to execute the man. Ampudia had had him decapitated, fried his head to preserve it, and displayed it in the town’s central plaza to serve as a warning to the tabasqueños and prevent another insurrection.

“With General Arista in charge, we wil defeat our enemy,” Carmen said. “My brother’s death shal be avenged. And life wil be safer for us al once the Yanqui invaders are gone.”

As Ximena scanned the troops, she didn’t feel as con dent as Carmen. As was usual in the army, most of the generals and o cers were criol os, of

“untainted” Spanish blood, but the foot soldiers were Indian or mixed-blood conscripts, poor peasants who knew nothing about soldiering. They were haggard and grimy, their brown faces showing the tol of the brutal march to Matamoros. As they stood in formation near Carmen’s balcony, Ximena could see their old and unkempt uniforms. Some didn’t even have uniforms but wore the typical peasants’ attire: coarse white trousers rol ed up to the knees, colorful sarapes, and wide sombreros. Many didn’t have proper army shoes either, wearing leather huaraches instead. But what most surprised her was that many carried only a machete or rawhide slingshot. Where were the muskets, the pistols, the ri es, the bayonets that would be needed to defeat the enemy? The only ones who looked wel prepared were the mounted soldiers of the cavalry, the ower of the Mexican Army composed of criol os and a few mestizos who were clad in brightly colored uniforms and had long owing plumes sticking out of their helmets.

She noticed a group of soldiers who were neither Indian nor mestizo. In fact, they didn’t look Mexican at al . The troops were too far away for her to make out their faces clearly, but she could see that most of them had fair skin and ery hair that reminded her of the red feathers on the heads of cactus woodpeckers.

“Are there foreign soldiers in our ranks?” Ximena asked.

“Yes, the Irish, of course,” Carmen said. “And some Germans and Poles.

They’ve been deserting the enemy’s ranks to join us. Do you see the lieutenant

there with dark hair? That’s their leader, teniente John Riley.”

Ximena looked at where Carmen pointed. She saw a tal man—tal er than most—with a con dent stance, a hand on the hilt of his o cer’s sword. He was dressed in a dark blue uniform, the trousers trimmed with a scarlet stripe running down the sides, and the coat with a scarlet col ar and cu s and a row of brass buttons down the breast. On his head he wore a black leather shako with a red pom-pom. “And what would happen to them, if they’re caught by the Yanquis?”

“They would be executed, I assume,” Carmen said.

As she fol owed Carmen back into the house, Ximena turned to glance at the plaza once more, wondering about those foreign soldiers who were wil ing to risk their lives to help defend her country.