Chapter 25

25

December 1846

San Luis Potosí

A week later, the city was abuzz with news of the latest presidential elections—

once again, Santa Anna was president of the republic. Cannons red a salute from the Palacio de Gobierno, rockets were launched into the air, and the people cheered from the streets and terraces. Even Ximena celebrated, but for a di erent reason—she hoped this meant Santa Anna would head to the capital and leave the army to be led by a di erent commander.

But it was not to be.

Santa Anna proclaimed that his duty was to defend Mexico’s honor, and so he designated his new vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías, to hold the reins of the government during his absence from the capital and serve as acting president. Meanwhile, he was staying put in San Luis Potosí to continue preparing for battle.

Just as she had expected, he sent his servant to fetch her again. It would be the third time she tended him, and she hoped it would be the last. As she and the servant arrived at his private quarters, Santa Anna was preparing to go out, immaculately groomed as always. “Ah, there you are. Come with me,” he said, grabbing his golden cane.

“Where to?”

“Mi gal inero. I haven’t been out to visit my gamecocks. I’m organizing a cock ght to celebrate the great news.”

“I need to inspect your leg, make sure it’s healing properly.”

He waved her words away. “I’m feeling ne. In fact, I’ve never felt better. I think your treatment is working. Now, come.” He held out his arm for her.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, your Excel ency, but I have other patients to tend to. May I take a look at your leg and take my leave? I won’t be long.”

In response, he grabbed his hat and walked past her. “Leave your basket,” he ordered.

They made their way to the pens he’d built for his prize game fowl. He winced as he limped along but assured her it was only a minor discomfort. He refused to spend another day in bed, he said. And there was much to be done.

As usual, he’d bathed himself in too much plumeria perfume, but out in the open air, the scent was not so su ocating. When they arrived, she noticed the familiar smel s of dry hay, feathers, and rooster droppings, and she thought of home. For a moment she could almost feel herself back at the rancho, listening to the roosters crowing, the mules hee-hawing, the dogs barking. The chatter and laughter of the ranch hands’ families. She shook those memories away and looked at Santa Anna’s gamecocks. The trainers were busy trimming around their cockscombs, shaping the tails, clipping the wing feathers to give them a straight edge.

“The wings need to be done very precisely,” Santa Anna said. “They have to be trimmed exactly alike, otherwise the gal o wil be out of balance when he engages in battle with his opponent.”

He ordered the trainers to bring his favorite. Taking a seat on a bench, he clasped the rooster close to his chest. “This gal o is my pride and joy. His name is Libertador. Isn’t he magni cent?”

She tried to not rol her eyes. She wondered if his other roosters were named the Savior of the Motherland, the Soldier of the People, and the Napoleon of the West.

Santa Anna gently spoke to Libertador. He rubbed oil on its beak, cockscomb, and sharp spurs, then massaged more of it into its red and green feathers and long owing tail. “The oil keeps the beak and spurs from getting brittle,” he said as he wiped down the rooster with a rag. She thought of Joaquín and remembered him brushing his horses with sweeping strokes and patiently

detangling their manes and tails with a comb. How was it possible this vile man could have something in common with her beloved husband?

When Santa Anna was done, the cock’s plumage was gleaming in the light.

She was struck by the beauty of the creature.

“People think they’re pets that I pamper too much,” he said. “And that I waste my time with cock ghting. But to me, these gal os are combatants, warriors. A ghting cock doesn’t retreat, doesn’t surrender. The instinct to ee has been bred out of them, and if they ee, they don’t deserve to live. Many a bird has ended up on my dinner table.”

Ximena sat on the bench next to him and watched as the sparring began, starting with the lightest cocks and so on to the heaviest. It was like a dance, the birds leaping into the air, turning, kicking, pecking, at times in perfect synchronization, feathers oating down like autumn leaves. In the sparring, she was glad to see that the birds didn’t use sharp razors. Instead, their spurs were covered with pads.

“Right now, it’s not a matter of kil ing or being kil ed. It’s about improving one’s stamina and getting stronger. Quicker. Better!”

She marveled at how focused Santa Anna was on every move the game fowl made, his eyes so alive and alert, careful y assessing and missing nothing. “Each gal o has his own particular way of ghting, can you tel ? See how the red one likes to attack by ying high, and the brown one attacks from the ground?”

To her, the cocks’ movements seemed a blur, too complex to take it al in. But as he walked her through it, she began to notice the individual ways each bird attacked.

“Is it strange that they make no noises?” she asked, thinking of her roosters back at the rancho, who’d certainly always had plenty to say.

“No. The only time they’l make a sound is if they are losing. God help you if your cock emits a squawk. Because they rarely make sounds, you have to learn how to judge the damage your cock is making and receiving through keen observation. And you have to know the rules thoroughly, so that you can break them or abide by them, depending on what is most advantageous to you.”

“Like in Goliad?” she asked and immediately regretted it. But it was true.

He’d used the absurd Mexican laws against foreigners with arms and piracy to

justify the massacre. That was certainly an occasion when abiding by the rule of law had been advantageous to him.

He laughed but didn’t take his eyes o the roosters. “Sí. Exactamente, querida.”

The birds were al owed to spar for no more than ve minutes and separated before they caused any serious injury to each other. Libertador went last. Had the metal blade been attached to his spur, he would’ve kil ed his opponent within seconds. Instead, he pecked out its eye. The unlucky opponent let out a squawk and tried to ee, but the pit was enclosed with hay bales and wooden boards, so there was nowhere to run.

“Get that pinche runner out of my sight!” Santa Anna said, waving his cane around. “Send it to the kitchen!”

He turned to her and the rage in his eyes was immediately replaced by a smile.

His shifting moods discom ted her.

“Didn’t Libertador do wel ? He turned his opponent into a squawking sissy!”

When the sparring was over, Santa Anna took his winning rooster back from the trainers to tend to him, checking for injuries, especial y on his neck. He took a sip of water and sprayed some mist on the bird to cool it down, speaking sweetly to it, then pressed it against his face to relax it and slow its heart rate down. Again, Ximena found herself amazed at Santa Anna’s tenderness, at the way he stroked the bird before handing it back to the trainers.

“You forgot to kiss it goodbye,” she joked, as she’d often teased Joaquín about his horses. Too late, she realized she’d forgotten whom she was speaking to.

Santa Anna looked at her, surprised, and then laughed. “Gal os can’t be trusted, querida. They aren’t loyal creatures. You can’t let your guard down around them.” He pointed to a smal scar near his eye and said, “This one bit me once. He was aiming for my eye. He likes to peck eyes out, as you’ve noticed.

When I look at the scar, I remember to be careful about whom to trust. Too many people around me are like my gal os—they won’t hesitate to hurt me, no matter how wel I treat them. That’s one of the many lessons they’ve taught me.”

The trainers took the birds in to bathe and retire them for the day, each in their own enclosed pen with dividing wooden wal s to keep them from seeing one another. The general got up, and she fol owed him back to his quarters.

“Do they have to be kept separated?” she asked.

“Yes, otherwise they wil kil each other. When I rst got into cock ghting, my favorite gal o kil ed himself.”

“How?”

“He saw his own re ection in the water trough and attacked it, thinking it was another gal o. The fool was so intent on kil ing his opponent, he drowned himself.”

“Wel , he succeeded then, didn’t he?” She stopped and turned to him. “He was his own enemy.”

He smiled and made as if to kiss her. When she took a step back, he grabbed her hand and kissed it instead. “So you think I’m my own worst enemy, is that it?

Quizá tenga razón, señora Ximena.”

When they got back into his private chambers, he served himself a glass of brandy from a crystal decanter and o ered her one, which she declined. He sat on the chair by the window and watched her rol up his pant leg, detach the wooden leg, and remove the soiled bandages. His stump was bleeding slightly again, though at least the infection and swel ing had mostly subsided.

She glanced at him and shook her head. “You must take care not to overuse it.

Stay o the leg as much as you can for another day or two. Give it time to ful y heal.”

“This thing wil never heal. But I shal abide by your recommendations. I would hate to lose the rest of my leg.”

“Wel , you could have a glorious funeral for it, bury it in that magni cent monument where the other part of your leg is interred.”

Her sarcasm made his smile vanish, and in his eyes appeared the familiar ash of rage and indignation. But then, to her surprise, a certain sadness registered on his face. It was so unexpected—his naked sorrow—that she forced herself to apologize to him. He said nothing, and she thought that perhaps he hadn’t heard her apology. His eyes had a faraway look to them, lost in a bitter memory.

As she dressed his wound, he watched her in silence, and she wondered if her words had upset him. Losing a limb was a deeply traumatic experience, she knew, and she reprimanded herself for her rude remark. Her grandmother would have been disappointed in her behavior. This was no way for a healer to behave. This man brings out the worst in me, Nana.

“My leg is no longer interred,” Santa Anna said at last.

She looked up at him. “Where is it?”

“Vanished. Right before I was forced to go into exile in Cuba, the mob in the capital took it out of its tomb, dragged it through the city streets in protest.

Imagine, having the limb I lost so gloriously in service to my country treated in that manner. And it wasn’t just my leg that received such treatment, but my statue, my theater, robbed and de led, my portraits burned! They would’ve pecked my eyes out, had I let them.”

Two years before, after he’d made a mess of the country, he had been overthrown. Joaquín had talked about it for weeks, asking Ximena to read to him every newspaper article that covered the revolt in the capital. Santa Anna had tried to regain control of the government, but it was too late. The revolt couldn’t be stopped. The people, fed up with the oppressive conditions he had them living under, protested and rioted in the streets, not just in the capital but in other cities, including in his home state of Vera Cruz. The president-general was captured while trying to escape and thrown in prison for months before being exiled.

“Wel , it doesn’t matter now. Fortune turned its back on me in ’44, but it has smiled upon me again,” he said, his somber mood suddenly lifting. “The people have thrown the city gates open to me once more and have hailed me as their savior. My return to the capital was a day of celebration. I wish that you’d been there to witness how the people entrusted the destiny of Mexico to me, how they saluted me again with the title of Soldier of the People! And look at me now—

señora Ximena—I have been reelected as president of this great republic!”

Yes, he was back in power. Somehow, he’d gone from being the most hated man in Mexico, deposed and exiled, to being president again and the commander-in-chief of the Army of Liberation. She wondered how he had pul ed that o . How did he get past the blockades the Yanquis set up in Vera

Cruz? How did he take back the reins of the Mexican government, with the support of the same political and military rivals that had imprisoned and exiled him? How did he get the masses that had so gleeful y dragged his limb across the public streets to hail him once again as their liberator and president? Could the rumors of his secret dealings with the Yanquis possibly be true?

Ximena knew he could see the questions in her eyes, but he didn’t answer them. He pu ed up his chest and gloated instead. For a second, she almost expected him to crow.