Chapter 16

16

May 1846

Matamoros, Río Bravo

Everyone was gone by the fol owing day. Al the troops, al the camp fol owers, and almost a thousand residents of the town had disappeared into the cloud of dust the army had left in its wake. Ximena and Nana Hortencia lay on their cots listening to the whispers of the men. “They wil kil us,” they said. “The enemy wil show no mercy.” Their fear was palpable. Many of the wounded had died in their sleep, as if they had preferred the certainty of death over the uncertainty of the Yanqui occupation.

But when Taylor appeared and the local authorities informed him of the army’s evacuation, there was no bloodshed. He honored the promise he’d made to Arista. Stil , the pain of watching the Mexican ag, which ew over Fort Paredes, being lowered and replaced by the enemy’s banner felt like a bayonet piercing Ximena’s heart. And perhaps she shouldn’t have been so shocked when the citizens of Matamoros welcomed the Yanquis into the city, lining up to o er food and liquor to the enemy, gladly taking their money. When Taylor removed the Mexican governor and put Colonel Twiggs in his place, the possession of Matamoros was complete.

Ximena and Nana Hortencia stayed in the hospital tents as much as possible, the safest place for them to be. To her surprise, Taylor ordered his own medical team to help with the Mexican in rm, and there was soon a makeshift hospital on every street. Ximena was relieved to see that the Yanqui surgeons and their sta

didn’t mistreat her wounded compatriots, as she’d feared. She and Nana Hortencia worked side by side with the Yanquis, and although Ximena pleaded with her grandmother to slow down, that there was plenty of help, she refused to leave their side. Luckily, when the soldiers realized they weren’t going to be kil ed while lying helpless on their cots, their morale improved, and with that, their wil to live.

In the meantime, Taylor had the balance of his troops ferried across the river to the city. His o cers occupied private residences, and most of his soldiers set up their canvas tents in the outskirts. Wasting no time, the whiskey merchants, gamblers, and harlots who’d been fol owing Taylor’s army descended upon the city, and places of il repute sprang up—gambling hal s, saloons, and dance hal s.

The norteamericanos roamed Matamoros as if they owned it, especial y the Texas Rangers swaggering about with their pistol belts and bowie knives, their wild eyes hidden under slouched hats, their untrimmed dirty beards and mustaches hanging from their faces like Spanish moss. Everyone knew they couldn’t be control ed, not even by the Yanqui general or the new governor.

They were either drinking, playing monte and gambling, or out in the streets raping, beating, or murdering the townspeople. There wasn’t a day when a murder or theft was not reported, especial y after more Yanqui volunteers—

including more Texians—began arriving to reinforce Taylor’s troops.

At the end of May, Ximena heard the news that the US government had o cial y declared war against Mexico, claiming that “American blood had been shed on American soil.” Ximena seethed with rage at the baseless claim. The land between the Río Nueces and the Río Bravo was not American soil. Their war was based on a false premise, and the Yanqui soldiers pouring into the city were there to defend that lie.

Soon, steamboats were brought up the river, and the inhabitants of Matamoros lined the banks to watch them going back and forth with their pu s of black smoke, transporting Taylor’s troops and supplies. It was such a novelty to see those vessels, one of which was named Colonel Cross, even Nana Hortencia liked to watch them go by, scattering the birds with their shril whistles. Then one day the remains of Lieutenant Porter were found. The Yanqui whom Joaquín had kil ed two months before had been eaten by wolves, so it hadn’t

been easy to identify him. After she watched his funeral service, Ximena asked padre Felipe to say a mass for the murdered Yanqui, hoping that his soul would now rest in peace.

The summer rains began and with them, the river swel ed until its waters over owed its banks, turning the area into a swamp. The rains also brought swarms of mosquitoes, and sickness soon spread through the city. If that wasn’t enough, the new Yanqui recruits were carrying diseases, such as measles, from up north. The pestilence spread through their regiments and through the region.

Hundreds of Taylor’s men had fal en sick and were being tended to in the makeshift hospitals in the city. The death march played al day long as the Yanquis buried their dead. Soon, an outbreak of measles took the lives of many of the local children. After long days and nights ministering to them, Nana Hortencia eventual y contracted the disease as wel . The battles had taken a heavy tol on her. She’d given so much of herself that her body had no strength left to ght.

Ximena tended to her grandmother, who seemed to be withering before her eyes. She prayed for divine intervention to stop the approach of death, to give her, just this once, miraculous healing powers so that with a simple touch, she could rid her grandmother of the fever ravaging her body, the infection in her lungs, the rash that had spread from her face to her feet, as if consuming her one piece at a time.

“You wil feel better soon, Nana,” Ximena said as she placed a chamomile compress on the old woman’s in amed eyes.

Nana Hortencia coughed and shook her head. “Let me go, child,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and feeble. “The Creator is cal ing my spirit to Him.”

“You can’t leave me, Nana. What wil I do without you?”

The old woman removed the rag from her reddened eyes to look at Ximena.

She took her hand and smiled weakly. “You won’t be alone, mijita. Have faith.”

But how could Ximena hold on to faith when God seemed intent on taking away everyone she cared about? And what good was her healing gift when it couldn’t keep alive the only person left on earth who loved her?

The next day, Nana Hortencia told Ximena that she wanted to depart this world under the canopy of the sky. Knowing that her grandmother would be unable to bear the brightness of the day, Ximena wheeled her out of the makeshift hospital that evening on a borrowed wheelbarrow. In the twilight glow, she took her nana to the river’s sandy banks, where she could listen to the night songs of the birds. Through the treetops, they watched the moon climb, Ximena sitting on the damp ground beside the wheelbarrow where her grandmother lay wrapped in a woven blanket, lul ed by the gurgling of the free-owing waters of the Río Bravo. Toward midnight, when the moon was approaching its highest point, the old woman’s soul entered the spirit world.

Her last ragged breath of life became part of the breath of the wind stirring along the river and whispering through the moonlit trees. Ximena stayed there with her grandmother until morning’s rst light. She beheld Nana Hortencia’s face, noble and serene, al traces of the rash gone. Her eyes, as clear as moonlight, raised to the sky.

After she buried her grandmother, Ximena felt like a tumbleweed, defenseless against the whim of the high winds rol ing her across the plains. She had nothing to hold on to now. No one to cling to.

These thoughts were weighing on her as she walked to church for evening vespers a week after Nana Hortencia’s burial. She passed by a vendor sel ing fruit outside the plaza and would have kept walking if he hadn’t stopped her. It took her a moment to realize it was Juan Cortina. He was wearing a sarape and a palmetto hat and sel ing cantaloupes out of a smal cart pul ed by a donkey.

“Cheno, what—?”

“Pretend you don’t know me,” he said, picking up a cantaloupe and o ering it to her. “Here, señorita, please, taste this delicious melón straight from my farm,” he continued. “I’l meet you in the church,” he whispered, and then turned to the crowd and shouted, “Melones, melones, get your melones, ladies and gentlemen!”

She walked across the plaza to the church, careful not to look suspicious.

There were Yanqui soldiers patrol ing the area, and she knew Cheno would be in trouble if they suspected him. She had no doubt he was here to spy on the Yanquis. Every so often, Taylor’s men captured spies and imprisoned them at the fort across from Matamoros, which had been renamed Fort Brown in honor of their fal en major. Another spy, Jerónimo Valdez, was locked up there now.

She sat on one of the pews and waited for Cheno. Mass was beginning, and as she listened to the priest, Ximena couldn’t stop looking at the shattered wal s of the church with its statues and cruci x missing. The stench of horse dung infected the air. The Rangers had desecrated the church, robbed it, and even used it as a stable before Taylor forced them out. Then they turned to looting and destroying private property instead, burning ranches, especial y preying on the vulnerable peasants living in jacales on the outskirts of the city where Taylor had no surveil ance.

Cheno nal y appeared toward the end of the service. Taking a seat next to her, he said, “I was very sad to hear of your grandmother’s passing. I’m sorry, Ximena.”

After the priest nished mass, they left the church together. It was sundown, and the Yanqui soldiers were wandering the town looking for dinner. Cheno helped her onto his cart, and the two of them rode outside the city, where they hid among a cluster of gnarled mesquites. The sweltering heat radiated o the ground, and the humid air vibrated with the songs of the cicadas. The canícula, the dog days of summer, would soon be upon them.

“I’m sneaking out of here tonight to deliver intel igence and catch up to our troops,” Cheno said, con rming her suspicions that he was in town to spy on Taylor. “They’re on their way to Monterrey. Come with me, Ximena. Taylor is leaving Matamoros soon to confront our forces. We need you at our next battle.

The rancho wil stil be here waiting for you.”

She thought of her home. Now that the enemy—especial y the Rangers—

were leaving the area, she could return there, rebuild it, and do her best to coax the land to yield a new life for her. But for what? She was al alone, and she had lost her spiritual guide. She felt so empty, like the husk the cicada leaves behind.

Emptiness was the worst kind of sickness, her grandmother had often said. But

how could she replenish her spirit when there was no laughter, no joy, no love left in her life?

A screeching in the sky made them look up. Two eagles were quarreling in midair, chasing each other across the ery sky. As their threatening screams cut through the humid evening, Ximena saw something swirling down. She got o the cart and ran after it.

“Careful!” Cheno said as she forced her way through the thorny shrubs.

The spines on the twigs of a lime prickly ash clawed at her, but she managed to reach the fal en object on the branch where it had landed.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A feather,” she said, “from a golden eagle.”

In the afterglow of the setting sun, she could barely see the blood that covered the feather. Ximena thought of her grandmother. Nana had told her to look for the sign. She held the bloody golden eagle’s feather and wondered if it was a portent of wounds yet to be in icted upon the sacred soul of Mexico.

Was the eagle that once devoured the serpent now being itself devoured?