Chapter 28

28

March 1847

On the road to San Luis Potosí

The dispirited troops broke camp and undertook the inglorious retreat to Agua Nueva, thence to San Luis Potosí. The weak and the wounded were soon left to the buzzards. As the days progressed, Riley was disheartened to see that they were taking further losses. Soon the bulk of their dead consisted not of those who had fal en in action, but of those who had col apsed on the road and were left to blacken in the sun, or who crawled into the thicket to die alone. He trudged along with the crippled battalions, many of them shoeless and their clothes in tatters, trying not to walk over the bodies of the fal en or trample upon those who had yet to take their last breaths. He turned his eyes from these images, which only increased his feelings of helplessness. He regretted bitterly once again that they had not been al owed to die honorably on the battle eld and had instead abandoned it to the enemy. By committing the fol y of this tragic retreat, Santa Anna had compromised the national honor he had sworn to defend and undermined the morale of his army, increasing its misery and hardship.

Without a drop of rain to swal ow the choking dust, the camp women left the columns to make fruitless forays into the brush to locate fresh water. The best that could be found was stagnant and foul-smel ing, and if it hadn’t been for Ximena, Riley might not have been able to resist. Those too thirsty to care had thrown themselves into the puddles to drink, only to col apse from dysentery hours later, convulsing horrendously in pain. Ximena had l ed his water gourd, thrown a chopped nopal into it, and waited hours until the water

had been puri ed before al owing him a drink of it. Several times, he went with her into the brush, and she managed to nd enough food to keep them alive for one more day—a smal barrel-shaped cactus she careful y peeled and sliced before feeding him the green pulp inside, chia sage seeds she shook o the plant, which he licked right o the palm of her hand, roots she pried from the stingy soil and he nibbled on with relish. Another time, he lifted her high onto his shoulders so she could reach the owering stalk of a towering yucca plant.

He devoured the precious creamy-white ower petals she handed him. They weren’t enough to appease the hunger consuming them. “Perhaps tomorrow, we wil nd somethin’ more… If tomorrow comes,” he said, savoring the last of the owers. He looked at the vast barren land in resignation, imagining his unmarked grave in this lone desert, a coyote howling over it. “We’re goin’ to die here, aren’t we?” The utter defeat in his own voice a righted him.

She heard it, too, and she wrapped her arms around him. He crushed her against him. “Don’t give up on me, you hear?” he pleaded. “Don’t leave me to the buzzards.”

“¡Nunca! I wil not leave you behind, soldier.” She stood on her toes and reached for him, nibbled on his earlobe as delicately as she’d nibbled on the yucca owers, and the bolt of desire that ran through his body jolted his heart, made it palpitate with renewed strength, breathed life back into him.

“I want you, Ximena,” he growled, pul ing her against him. “May God in Heaven pity me, but if I’m goin’ to die, then let it be in your arms.” He lowered her onto the ground and pul ed up her skirt, and she tugged at his trousers. She clung to him with al her strength, matching his rhythm, both of them consumed by another kind of hunger.

For two weeks, half-dead with fatigue, he and Ximena trudged on, along with the remnants of Santa Anna’s army, braving hunger and thirst, freezing rain and scorching sun, sickness and despair, but each night, they found solace in each other’s arms, their lovemaking urgent and desperate, as if it were their last day on earth. But mostly they simply held each other, making sure they were both stil

breathing come dawn. Final y, the city of San Luis Potosí came into view. With barely enough strength to stand, on the verge of desperation, Riley looked upon the beautiful domes of the Templo del Carmen in the distance. For a moment he al owed himself to rejoice, but his elation turned to fear. Was his mind playing tricks on him again? Was he seeing a mirage? The scorching sun beat down on him. His brain was a potato crisping on a gridiron. His tongue was swol en, and he could no longer spit. He scarcely knew what to think—was he alive or burning in hel , paying for his in delity? As he squinted at the bright light, the city blurred and the ground opened beneath his feet. He heard Ximena cal ing his name, but his tongue was too heavy to speak. The last thing he remembered was the sound of the cathedral bel s and the sight of pigeons taking ight. He wanted to fol ow them, let his spirit soar into the clouds above…

When he woke up, he didn’t know where he was. He was lying on a cot in a corridor, amid rows of other cots and straw mats l ed with the living skeletons of Santa Anna’s troops. They were coughing and moaning, crying and praying.

Ximena was sitting by his side, dozing on a chair. She seemed utterly fatigued, her skin sunburned, her lips parched.

“Ximena?” he whispered, hating to wake her. She opened her eyes. They were swol en, her cheeks pale and hol ow.

“How do you feel, John?” She reached to grab his hands. Hers were cal oused and rough to the touch, but he clung to them, let the warmth of her skin seep into his. He felt faint and had a pain in his head.

“Where am I?” he said, rubbing his eyes, struggling to recover his senses.

“In the convent.” She handed him a cup of tea, and he sipped from it.

Between the march, the battle, and the retreat, fteen thousand men had perished or vanished, she told him, and the nuns had taken in what remained of Santa Anna’s army.

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days.”

“How—?”

“We barely made it to the city. You were very deshidratado, cariño,” Ximena said, brushing his hair back. “But you’re better now.”

He looked at her and the memories came rushing back, the two of them intertwined, clinging to each other out in the merciless desert. What had he done? She bent over him to give him another sip of tea, and when her breath fanned his brow, his body became as taut as the strings of a ddle, and he knew he could never have enough of her.

“What news is stirrin’?” he asked.

“Santa Anna is leaving for Mexico City. There is a civil war in the capital. Can you believe it, John? While we were ghting for our lives, the caudil os began another insurrección. Blood is spil ing on the streets of the capital, the moderados against the radicales. What madness is this? Even now, instead of uniting to ght our enemy, we are ghting each other!”

“And unite now you must,” Patrick Dalton said as he walked down the corridor toward them.

Riley couldn’t believe how happy he was to see his friend. “Pat, you are wel !

And the men?”

Dalton came to stand beside the cot. “We lost many, but you are alive, and so is the Saint Patrick’s Battalion.”

Riley peeled the blanket o and made to get up.

“You should rest,” Ximena said.

“No, there’s no time,” Dalton said, helping Riley up. “The commander has cal ed a council of war. Things have taken another turn. The Yankee general Win eld Scott has landed on the shores of Vera Cruz with nine thousand soldiers and is about to besiege the port city.”

“Perhaps we deserve to lose,” Ximena said. “Since our own leaders are incapable of creating peace, only disturbios, they deserve to have no country left to rule!”

“Whist, lass. Don’t say such things,” Riley said as he put on his uniform jacket. “Mexico is a young nation and not yet used to its newborn freedom.

Twenty- ve years of independence isn’t su cient time for your leaders to gure out the best way to govern. One day they’l realize that they must stand together, and that the blood of the Mexican people should ow only on the battle eld repel in’ invaders, not takin’ up arms against each other.”

He made his way down the corridor, stopping to check on the twelve men who had spent the night in there with him. “They wil be ne in a day or two,”

Ximena reassured him. She looked at the cot farther down the corridor and shook her head. “Cheno is there ghting for his life.”

Even from where he stood, Riley saw plain enough that the sergeant’s condition was grave. It was a miracle he hadn’t perished during the retreat, considering his already weakened state after the battle. His comrades had managed to carry him on a makeshift litter, sometimes even on their shoulders, until they made it to the city. Juan Cortina was a erce ghter and as loyal and dependable as Mexican sunshine.

“Go mind your friend, lass,” Riley said. “And I shal see you tonight.”

He and Dalton left the convent. The brightness of the day hurt his eyes, and it wasn’t long before his head was splitting. When Dalton urged him to stop and rest, Riley refused. No, he needed to be strong. He needed to be a leader. Dalton insisted and pushed him onto a bench in the public square.

“I’m grand, Pat,” Riley said. “Let us go to the barracks. I must change and take this beard o me. See to the men.”

“In a minute,” Dalton said. He pul ed out an envelope and handed it to Riley. “Tidin’s arrived for you whilst we were away. The priest at the cathedral asked me to deliver it to you. ’Twas sent to him by another priest in Matamoros, he said.”

Riley looked at the cathedral on the other side of the plaza. His hands shook as he took the letter. Dalton patted his shoulder and stood up. “I’l leave you to it, then. Give me a hol er if you need anythin’, my friend.”

With trembling hands, Riley opened the letter. He recognized the hand immediately. It was from his parish priest.

30, Oct’ 1846

Dear John,

It is with a heavy heart that I must be the bearer of bad tidings. The typhus fever visited your family and came upon Nelly and her parents quite sudden and violent. God took pity on the afflicted and took them to His side without letting them linger in their suffering. God, in his benevolence, has spared Johnny. Let your mind be easy in knowing that I am looking after your boy and will do my best to help him survive this hunger and pestilence scourging the land. He will remain with me until you deem ready for him to embark on the voyage to Mexico, if that is still your desire. The state of the country is such that I do not recommend you return yet awhile. My condolences to you, my son. I imagine your heart must be torn in pieces, but do not despair. Put your trust in our Lord.

I send you my blessings,

Rev. Peter

Riley stumbled into the cathedral with barely enough strength to make it to the nearest pew. He sat in the cool, dim interior surrounded by candles and wanted to cry, but no tears would come, as if the arid landscape he had barely survived had gotten inside him, and his dreams, his hopes, his very being had dried up and withered. Jesus hanging on his cruci x looked down upon him, and Riley wished to be punished for his betrayal of the most sacred oath he had ever made—to care for his wife. He’d nothing to give her when they married but an uncertain future. And now, Nel y was dead; she’d been dead for more than ve months. And if Father Peter hadn’t taken in Johnny, the lad would probably be dead by now too.

He had never felt so alone. So far from his homeland. So far from its gentle rain and rol ing mists. So far from the son he’d left to seek his fortune on the other side of the Atlantic. He ought never to have left. Now he found himself adrift, a stranger in a strange country, without a way home. He’d failed his wife and now he was a man with the burden of another broken oath upon him. He fel to his knees and shook with violent grief.