A Sinister Splendor

by Mike Blakely

  “Hasta luego!” Abbot said to the home owners in a singsong voice as he vacated their beleaguered abode.

  Grant ran to the corner but stopped short of the street leading to the plaza. Abbot slid to a halt behind him.

  “We’ll draw a volley,” Grant said. “You run across first. I’ll go after you.”

  Abbot smirked. “Sir, you needn’t always take the most dangerous job.”

  “I’m giving you an order. Go!”

  Abbot backed up a few steps to get a running start and ran across the street guarded by the cannon a few blocks away. The sergeant made the crossing without drawing cannon fire. Grant waited a few seconds, then sprinted into the shooting lane. Just before he reached the safety of the other side, the inspiration struck him to look over his shoulder and wave the next soldier on behind him, though he had no other men under his command at this intersection.

  “Nice acting, sir,” Abbot said.

  “When they fire, we’ve got to run directly at the cannon for one block, then take a right.”

  “I don’t think they’re going to buy your theatrical—”

  The last words of the sergeant’s sentence were obliterated by the blast from the Mexican twelve-pounder as hailstones of lead screamed by down the street.

  “Run!” Grant led the way into the cloud of smoke that he hoped would hide him and Abbot for the hundred-yard race. He hoped the enemy would reload slowly. He hoped they didn’t have a second gun ready to fire. He hoped and hoped until he hurtled around the corner to the safer cross street. Here, he found six Americans from the Third Infantry who had apparently been pinned down by the sniper Sergeant Abbot had killed just minutes ago.

  Beyond them he saw dead men laid out in the street and wounded soldiers sitting on the cobblestones, leaning against the walls.

  “Sir, what do we do?” a corporal said. “Our officers are all shot or dead.”

  Grant looked at the weary fighters, their hands, faces, and uniforms stained with blood and powder burns. Except for the corporal, they were all privates.

  “How are you boys fixed for ammunition?” Grant asked.

  “Sir, we’re all down to a few rounds.” The corporal opened his near-empty ammunition pouch to bolster his claim.

  Grant knew the scattered men of his own company were in the same fix, one or two blocks farther back. He turned to Sergeant Abbot and pointed to the sandbags above, where the sniper had died. “Sarge, take these men and hold that rooftop, but do not advance closer to the plaza. I’ll do my best to get you some more ammunition. In the meantime, choose your targets well and don’t miss.”

  Abbot nodded and kicked in the door to the house. As the privates streamed in behind Abbot, Grant caught the corporal by the sleeve.

  “Do you have any idea where Colonel Garland is?”

  The corporal pointed down the side street, to the south. “Sir, you’d have to cross that goddamned street again, with them cannons waiting for you.”

  “Where is the general?” he demanded.

  “If you make the crossing alive, there’s an alley to the left. It will lead you to the general’s headquarters in an abandoned store. But there’s snipers everywhere, sir.”

  Grant nodded. “Hold that rooftop!” he ordered, pointing to the door Abbot had kicked in.

  The corporal swallowed hard and charged into the house.

  “Sir, look out below,” Sergeant Abbot’s voice warned from above.

  Grant looked up to see his first sergeant at the sandbagged corner formerly held by the enemy sniper. Abbot held a fistful of the dead sniper’s uniform as he muscled the corpse over the parapet. Grant leaped aside as the dead man’s body slammed into cobblestones and lay in a twisted heap. Half the man’s head had been blown away by Abbot’s rifle ball. The horrific spectacle made Grant yearn to put some distance between himself and the corpse, even if it meant sprinting again into the path of Mexican ordnance.

  Grant turned south, took a breath, and ran across the street as fast as he could. The Mexicans were becoming more vigilant, and they loosed a round that just missed his heels. He found the alley to the left and trotted to the next block, where he located General Garland’s field headquarters in a haberdashery guarded by a handful of enlisted men. Half a dozen horses were tied nearby. Grant ordered the guards aside and entered the store.

  “Lieutenant Grant reporting, sir,” he said with a salute.

  Two captains and a major turned to scowl at Grant, as if he had upset their tea party or something. His regimental commander, Colonel John Garland, looked up from the chair where he sat. A map of Monterrey lay spread on a table in front of him. He threw himself back in his chair and sighed.

  “Report, Grant.” Garland brushed his fingers against his brow in an irritated salute that seemed more like a swat at a mosquito.

  “Sir, my company is two blocks from the plaza, with one advance platoon at one block away and holding a rooftop there. Sir, we need ammunition.”

  Garland stood and paced across the store, rubbing his brow. His long, thin strands of dark hair snaking over his pale scalp made him look quite mad to Lieutenant Grant. He seemed beleaguered by the stress and losses of the past two days. He looked back at his staff.

  “Gentlemen, we must find a volunteer to ride back to General Twiggs. We need ammunition soon or we will have to withdraw.”

  Grant stepped forward. “I volunteer, sir.”

  Garland returned to his map on the table and tapped it with his index finger. “You’ll have to ride past several streets guarded by enemy artillery.”

  Grant nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll need a mount.”

  “Take Major Barbour’s horse. Barbour’s dead.”

  Grant thought about Major Phillip Barbour, killed in the prime of his life. “Yes, sir. Which horse might that be, sir?”

  “It’s the sorrel, Sam,” said Captain Ben Alvord, of the Fourth. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Grant walked outside with Alvord.

  “This was Barbour’s mount,” Alvord said.

  Grant looked at the lean sorrel with approval. “What happened to Major Barbour?” he asked as he pulled the cinch tight on the saddle.

  “Musket ball got him. Just around the corner there, in the street.”

  Grant grabbed the pommel and threw a long right leg over the cantle without using the stirrup.

  “You’ll get through, Sam. You can ride.”

  “I’ve been watching the Texans. Learning.”

  Alvord smiled. “I know. I’ve seen you training.”

  Colonel Garland stepped out with a note, which he handed up to Grant. “If General Twiggs can’t help with the ammunition, ride all the way back to General Taylor’s headquarters.”

  “Yes, sir,” Grant said, saluting.

  “Godspeed,” Alvord said.

  Grant looked north and thought about the Texas Rangers he had witnessed. From watching them, he had learned to position himself on the side of a mount—to use the horse as a shield. He spurred and turned the sorrel several times in the street, first to the left, then to the right. This horse would have to know who was in charge from the get-go.

  Grant spurred to a full gallop and slid to the right side of the running beast. His right hand held mane and reins. His left elbow hooked the pommel. His right foot was in the stirrup, but his left leg bent at the knee around the cantle. By the time he crossed the first street guarded by Mexican guns, only his left shin and forearm were exposed to enemy fire.

  The gun fired at him after he was two full lengths onto safe ground. Now, on came the next intersection. The cobblestones passed under him in a blur as horseshoes clacked a staccato rhythm. Again, the cannon shot was far too late to cause him harm. He crossed a third street, then pulled himself up onto the saddle and reined the sorrel to a stop. Ahead, he saw American gunners reloading a six-pounder that had two ropes tied to its trail. This reloading was taking place in the safety of the cross street, in Grant’s pathway.

  What the devil are
they doing? Grant thought.

  He rode closer, letting the sorrel gelding catch some wind. He recognized Captain Samuel French giving the orders to reload. One of the ropes tied to the cannon’s trail ran across the street to three gunners, who waited at the other end of the rope. A sergeant used a linstock to light a fuse at the breech of the cannon.

  “Heave!” Captain French yelled to the men across the street.

  The artillerymen pulled their rope, causing the loaded howitzer, fuse burning, to trail into the street, but its muzzle turned back toward Grant as it lumbered into the intersection. Grant quickly dismounted and stood behind his horse. Once in place in the middle of the street, French ordered the men on his side of the intersection to pull their rope, which turned the muzzle of the gun toward its intended target—a Mexican barricade a few blocks away.

  The six-pounder and a Mexican gun fired at each other simultaneously, filling the street with deafening blasts, clattering projectiles, and blinding smoke. Grant quickly mounted and rode forward to speak to Captain French.

  “Where’s the rest of your crew?” Grant asked, as the men pulled the cannon back into the side street for reloading.

  French looked up at him, his face blackened, his eyes wide and white. “Dead or wounded. Where are you going?”

  “I’m riding to request ammunition.”

  “Good. We’re running out fast.”

  “Smart thinking with the ropes,” Grant said. He glanced at the gunners as they rammed the next load of grape down the tube, and he knew the Mexicans would be almost reloaded by now as well. “I’d better ride.”

  French nodded and turned to his crew. “Sergeant! The fuse!”

  Grant rode back the way he had come for a few yards, then turned about, spurred his mount, and slid to the right side of the horse, clinging to cantle and pommel. The enemy did not bother to fire after he cleared the intersection. He figured they were probably awaiting another chance to disable French’s gun.

  He galloped on past the next crossing, and the next, blasts whirring behind his sorrel’s flaxen tail. Now he pulled himself up onto the saddle again, knowing that he was beyond the streets guarded by Mexican ordnance. He let his pony slow to a trot and noticed a sentry standing guard in front of a captured house.

  “What’s this, Private?” he asked.

  “Wounded men, sir.”

  Grant dismounted and tied his horse to an iron ring embedded in the stone wall for just that purpose. He loosened the saddle cinch to let the animal breathe deeply. He entered the makeshift hospital. Immediately the odors of urine, feces, and vomit assailed his nostrils, yet he forced himself to take stock so he could report the situation to his superiors.

  Looking across the room, he saw men lying about on the floor with all manner of injuries to their limbs, heads, and torsos.

  “Sam,” a voice said.

  He looked and found the familiar face of Lieutenant John C. Territt. As his eyes swept down the man’s body, he saw Territt’s hands trying to hold in his bowels, which were protruding from a belly wound. Grant’s legs grew weak and he dropped to one knee beside Territt, his head swimming and his stomach turning.

  “I’m riding to report to General Twiggs, John.” He focused on Territt’s eyes so he wouldn’t faint from the sight of the ghastly wound. “I will tell him you’re here.”

  Territt nodded. “Is it bad, Sam?”

  Grant wasn’t sure if Territt even knew what he was saying. “I will send help, John.” He forced himself to stand on shaking legs. “I must go quickly.”

  Outside, Grant tightened his cinch, mounted, and left at a lope for General Twiggs’s headquarters.

  Shall I report that place as a makeshift hospital or a morgue? Why am I riding high, unscratched, while men like Territt writhe in their pain and delirium? Why did we come here? Why did we not stop at the Rio Bravo?

  Questions haunted him as he searched the rooftops for snipers, the streets for artillery, and the cornfields for lancers.

  Colonel

  JOHN COFFEE HAYS

  Independence Hill

  September 23, 1846

  Colonel Jack Hays walked out of the Bishop’s Palace and pulled his captured sombrero down low over his eyes. His second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Sam Walker, strode through the stone archway beside him. From this vantage, they could look down over the streets of Monterrey from a perspective usually reserved for things with feathers.

  Colonel Jack Hays grabbed Walker’s sleeve and swept his hand across the urban terrain below. “Sam, this is better than looking at General Worth’s map. You know this town better than I do. How would you lead this attack?”

  With his stubbled chin, Walker pointed southwest. “You see the Saltillo road?”

  “Clearly.”

  “Once inside the city, its name changes to Calle de Monterrey. If you look close, you’ll see that it forks a couple of blocks into town. That left fork is Iturbide Street.”

  Hays squinted at the buildings and thoroughfares a few hundred feet below and a half mile away. “Iturbide leads to the north end of the plaza, and Calle de Monterrey leads to the south end.”

  “Right,” Walker said. “The houses on those streets don’t stand alone. They all run together, each house sharing a wall with the neighbor.”

  “That will make them harder to take.”

  “We’ll have to go through those walls inside the houses.”

  Hays could tell Walker had been thinking hard about this. More than just a border warrior now, Walker had stepped into his role as Lieutenant Colonel of the Texas Mounted Volunteers.

  “I don’t reckon it’ll be easy, Sam, but those are our orders. We clear those city blocks between those two streets and we’ll carve a path to Ampudia’s headquarters at the plaza.” He waited for Walker’s reply, but none came. “You take Calle de Monterrey and I’ll take Iturbide.”

  “Colonel Hays, if you please…”

  Walker’s tone surprised Hays, for his friend rarely spoke to him with such military formality. “What is it, Sam?”

  “I request Iturbide Street.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They marched me down that street in leg irons four years ago. I aim to return with shootin’ irons today.”

  Hays smiled. “You may have your choice of streets, Colonel. You take Iturbide. I will take Calle de Monterrey.”

  This morning, they had heard faraway gunfire and knew that General Taylor had renewed the attack on the eastern end of Monterrey. About noon, Hays had received orders from General Worth to report to the Bishop’s Palace, where Worth had established his new headquarters. He and Walker had ridden immediately up Independence Hill to the palace, where they found General Worth strutting about like a king in his new castle. Worth had ordered them to dismount four hundred Rangers and advance into western Monterrey on foot. The fighting would be house to house, hand to hand.

  Now he and Walker mounted their horses for the ride back to the Ranger camp to assemble their storming parties. They would be supported by Worth’s artillery battalion and troops from the Seventh and Eighth infantries. But the Rangers would serve as the tip of the bayonet for the thrust toward the plaza.

  “I wasn’t at Mier, Sam, but today’s fight will be a lot like the rooftop battle there.”

  The two Rangers let their horses walk down the slope.

  “I was in the advance guard that got captured the day before Mier. I could only listen to the fight from the calaboose.”

  “Well, there are a few other boys in the outfit who were there. Bigfoot Wallace, for one. I’ve heard him tell the story so many times that I feel like I was almost there.”

  “That and a thousand other stories,” Walker said.

  Hays chuckled. “Bigfoot’s been known to spin a yarn.”

  “And stretch the blanket.”

  Their mounts plodded down the grade.

  “We have one advantage here that they didn’t have at Mier,” Walker said.

  “What
’s that?”

  “Artillery.”

  “Well, yeah, Sam, but it won’t do us much good today in those narrow streets.”

  “I’m not talking about the guns. I’m talking about the shells.”

  Hays looked at his second-in-command and narrowed his gaze. “I don’t follow you, Sam.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Well, do tell.”

  Lieutenant Colonel

  SAM WALKER

  West Monterrey, Mexico

  September 23, 1846

  He ran forward in the darkened house and slammed his shoulder against a wooden door to the next room. The door cracked and flew open. Lieutenant Colonel Sam Walker charged in and noticed light streaming in from the trapdoor to the roof. A musket fired from behind an overturned table, its bullet creasing Walker’s scalp. The Mexican foot soldier leaped over the table and advanced with a bayonet, but Walker fired with his Colt revolver until the enemy defender fell dead in the middle of the room.

  Another fighter, dressed in the white cotton clothes of a peasant, tried to climb the ladder to the roof, until Walker’s bullets brought him tumbling down.

  “Take the roof, Jake,” he ordered the Ranger behind him. “Take three men with you.”

  The Ranger named Jake climbed the ladder. “Come on, Henry! You, too, Lem, and bring that kid, Cooper.”

  Outside, small arms cracked in an irregular cadence, punctuated by the boom of a Mexican twelve-pounder. For hours, now, Walker had led his two hundred men up Iturbide Street. He had storming parties in the houses, in the streets, on the roofs, and in the small backyards behind the houses along Iturbide Street. The progress had been slow, for the stubborn Mexicans would not retreat until hard pressed. But, by signaling back and forth to Hays’s battalion on Calle de Monterrey, the two spearheads could support each other with cross fire or flanking maneuvers. They had now advanced to within a few blocks of the plaza.