The captain kept quarters in a hotel on a plaza where there were trees and a small green gazebo with benches. An iron gate at the hotel front opened into a passageway with a courtyard at the rear. The walls were whitewashed and set with little ornate colored tiles. The captain’s man wore carved boots with tall heels that rang smartly on the tiles and on the stairs ascending from the courtyard to the rooms above. In the courtyard there were green plants growing and they were freshly watered and steaming. The captain’s man strode down the long balcony and rapped sharply at the door at the end. A voice said for them to come in.
He sat at a wickerwork desk writing letters, the captain. They stood attending, the captain’s man with his black hat in his hands. The captain wrote on nor did he look up. Outside the kid could hear a woman speaking in spanish. Other than that there was just the scratching of the captain’s pen.
When he had done he laid down the pen and looked up. He looked at his man and then he looked at the kid and then he bent his head to read what he’d written. He nodded to himself and dusted the letter with sand from a little onyx box and folded it. Taking a match from a box of them on the desk he lit it and held it to a stick of sealingwax until a small red medallion had pooled onto the paper. He shook out the match, blew briefly at the paper and knuckled the seal with his ring. Then he stood the letter between two books on his desk and leaned back in his chair and looked at the kid again. He nodded gravely. Take seats, he said.
They eased themselves into a kind of settle made from some dark wood. The captain’s man had a large revolver at his belt and as he sat he hitched the belt around so that the piece lay cradled between his thighs. He put his hat over it and leaned back. The kid folded his busted boots one behind the other and sat upright.
The captain pushed his chair back and rose and came around to the front of the desk. He stood there for a measured minute and then he hitched himself up on the desk and sat with his boots dangling. He had gray in his hair and in the sweeping moustaches that he wore but he was not old. So you’re the man, he said.
What man? said the kid.
What man sir, said the captain’s man.
How old are you, son?
Nineteen.
The captain nodded his head. He was looking the kid over. What happened to you?
What?
Say sir, said the recruiter.
Sir?
I said what happened to you.
The kid looked at the man sitting next to him. He looked down at himself and he looked at the captain again. I was fell on by robbers, he said.
Robbers, said the captain.
Took everthing I had. Took my watch and everthing.
Have you got a rifle?
Not no more I aint.
Where was it you were robbed.
I dont know. They wasnt no name to it. It was just a wilderness.
Where were you coming from?
I was comin from Naca, Naca …
Nacogdoches?
Yeah.
Yessir.
Yessir.
How many were there?
The kid stared at him.
Robbers. How many robbers.
Seven or eight, I reckon. I got busted in the head with a scantlin.
The captain squinted one eye at him. Were they Mexicans?
Some. Mexicans and niggers. They was a white or two with em. They had a bunch of cattle they’d stole. Only thing they left me with was a old piece of knife I had in my boot.
The captain nodded. He folded his hands between his knees. What do you think of the treaty? he said.
The kid looked at the man on the settle next to him. He had his eyes shut. He looked down at his thumbs. I dont know nothin about it, he said.
I’m afraid that’s the case with a lot of Americans, said the captain. Where are you from, son?
Tennessee.
You werent with the Volunteers at Monterrey were you?
No sir.
Bravest bunch of men under fire I believe I ever saw. I suppose more men from Tennessee bled and died on the field in northern Mexico than from any other state. Did you know that?
No sir.
They were sold out. Fought and died down there in that desert and then they were sold out by their own country.
The kid sat silent.
The captain leaned forward. We fought for it. Lost friends and brothers down there. And then by God if we didnt give it back. Back to a bunch of barbarians that even the most biased in their favor will admit have no least notion in God’s earth of honor or justice or the meaning of republican government. A people so cowardly they’ve paid tribute a hundred years to tribes of naked savages. Given up their crops and livestock. Mines shut down. Whole villages abandoned. While a heathen horde rides over the land looting and killing with total impunity. Not a hand raised against them. What kind of people are these? The Apaches wont even shoot them. Did you know that? They kill them with rocks. The captain shook his head. He seemed made sad by what he had to tell.
Did you know that when Colonel Doniphan took Chihuahua City he inflicted over a thousand casualties on the enemy and lost only one man and him all but a suicide? With an army of unpaid irregulars that called him Bill, were half naked, and had walked to the battlefield from Missouri?
No sir.
The captain leaned back and folded his arms. What we are dealing with, he said, is a race of degenerates. A mongrel race, little better than niggers. And maybe no better. There is no government in Mexico. Hell, there’s no God in Mexico. Never will be. We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.
There are already some fourteen thousand French colonists in the state of Sonora. They’re being given free land to settle. They’re being given tools and livestock. Enlightened Mexicans encourage this. Paredes is already calling for secession from the Mexican government. They’d rather be ruled by toadeaters than thieves and imbeciles. Colonel Carrasco is asking for American intervention. And he’s going to get it.
Right now they are forming in Washington a commission to come out here and draw up the boundary lines between our country and Mexico. I dont think there’s any question that ultimately Sonora will become a United States territory. Guaymas a US port. Americans will be able to get to California without having to pass through our benighted sister republic and our citizens will be protected at last from the notorious packs of cutthroats presently infesting the routes which they are obliged to travel.
The captain was watching the kid. The kid looked uneasy. Son, said the captain. We are to be the instruments of liberation in a dark and troubled land. That’s right. We are to spearhead the drive. We have the tacit support of Governor Burnett of California.
He leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. And we will be the ones who will divide the spoils. There will be a section of land for every man in my company. Fine grassland. Some of the finest in the world. A land rich in minerals, in gold and silver I would say beyond the wildest speculation. You’re young. But I dont misread you. I’m seldom mistaken in a man. I think you mean to make your mark in this world. Am I wrong?
No sir.
No. And I don’t think you’re the sort of chap to abandon a land that Americans fought and died for to a foreign power. And mark my word. Unless Americans act, people like you and me who take their country seriously while those mollycoddles in Washington sit on their hindsides, unless we act, Mexico—and I mean the whole of the country—will one day fly a European flag. Monroe Doctrine or no.
The captain’s voice had become soft and intense. He tilted his head to one side and regarded the kid with a sort of benevolence. The kid rubbed the palms of his hands on the knees of his filthy jeans. He glanced at the man beside him but he seemed to be asleep.
What about a saddle? he said.
Saddle?
Yessir.
You dont have a sa
ddle?
No sir.
I thought you had a horse.
A mule.
I see.
I got a old hull on the mule but they aint much left of it. Aint a whole lot left of the mule. He said I was to get a horse and a rifle.
Sergeant Trammel did?
I never promised him no saddle, said the sergeant.
We’ll get you a saddle.
I did tell him we might find him some clothes, Captain.
Right. We may be irregulars but we dont want to look like bobtails, do we?
No sir.
We aint got no more broke horses neither, said the sergeant.
Well break one.
That old boy that was so good about breakin em is out of commission.
I know that. Get somebody else.
Yessir. Maybe this man can break horses. You ever break horses?
No sir.
Aint no need to sir me.
Yessir.
Sergeant, said the captain, easing himself down from the desk.
Yessir.
Sign this man up.
The camp was upriver at the edge of the town. A tent patched up from old wagon canvas, a few wickiups made of brush and beyond them a corral in the form of a figure eight likewise made from brush where a few small painted ponies stood sulking in the sun.
Corporal, called the sergeant.
He aint here.
He dismounted and strode toward the tent and threw back the fly. The kid sat on the mule. Three men were lying in the shade of a tree and they studied him. Howdy, said one.
Howdy.
You a new man?
I reckon.
Captain say when we leavin this pesthole?
He never said.
The sergeant came from the tent. Where’s he at? he said.
Gone to town.
Gone to town, said the sergeant. Come here.
The man rose from the ground and ambled over to the tent and stood with his hands resting in the small of his back.
This here man aint got no outfit, said the sergeant.
The man nodded.
The captain give him a shirt and some money to get his boots mended. We need to get him somethin he can ride and we need to get him a saddle.
A saddle.
Ought to be able to sell that mule for enough to get him one of some kind.
The man looked at the mule and turned back and squinted at the sergeant. He leaned and spat. That there mule wont bring ten dollars.
What it brings it brings.
They done killed another beef.
I dont want to hear about it.
I caint do nothin with em.
I aint tellin the captain. He’ll roll them eyes around till they come unscrewed and fall out in the ground.
The man spat again. Well, that’s the gods truth anyway.
See to this man now. I got to get.
Well.
Aint nobody sick is they?
No.
Thank God for that.
He stood up into the saddle and touched the horse’s neck lightly with the reins. He looked back and shook his head.
In the evening the kid and two other recruits went into town. He’d bathed and shaved himself and he wore a pair of blue cord trousers and the cotton shirt the captain had given him and save for the boots he looked a new man altogether. His friends rode small and colorful horses that forty days ago had been wild animals on the plain and they shied and skittered and snapped like turtles.
Wait till you get you one of these, said the second corporal. You aint never had no fun.
These horses is all right, said the other.
There’s one or two in there yet that might make ye a horse.
The kid looked down at them from his mule. They rode either side like escorts and the mule trotted with its head up, its eyes shifting nervously. They’ll all stick ye head in the ground, said the second corporal.
They rode through a plaza thronged with wagons and stock. With immigrants and Texans and Mexicans and with slaves and Lipan indians and deputations of Karankawas tall and austere, their faces dyed blue and their hands locked about the shafts of their sixfoot spears, all but naked savages who with their painted skins and their whispered taste for human flesh seemed outrageous presences even in that fabled company. The recruits rode with their animals close reined and they turned up past the courthouse and along the high walls of the cárcel with the broken glass imbedded in the topmost course. In the Main Plaza a band had assembled and were at tuning their instruments. The riders turned down Salinas Street past small gaminghouses and coffeestands and there were in this street a number of Mexican harnessmakers and traders and keepers of gamechickens and cobblers and bootmakers in little stalls or shops of mud. The second corporal was from Texas and spoke a little spanish and he meant to trade the mule. The other boy was from Missouri. They were in good spirits, scrubbed and combed, clean shirts all. Each foreseeing a night of drink, perhaps of love. How many youths have come home cold and dead from just such nights and just such plans.
They traded the mule accoutred as it was for a Texas stock saddle, bare tree with rawhide cover, not new but sound. For a bridle and bit that was new. For a woven wool blanket from Saltillo that was dusty new or not. And lastly for a two and a half dollar gold piece. The Texan looked at this small coin in the kid’s palm and demanded more money but the harnessmaker shook his head and held up his hands in utter finality.
What about my boots? said the kid.
Y sus botas, said the Texan.
Botas?
Sí. He made sewing motions.
The harnessmaker looked down at the boots. He cupped his fingers in a little gesture of impatience and the kid took off the boots and stood barefoot in the dust.
When all was done they stood in the street and looked at one another. The kid had his new tack slung up on his shoulder. The second corporal looked at the boy from Missouri. You got any money, Earl?
Not a copper cent.
Well I aint neither. We might’s well get our asses back on out to that hole of misery.
The kid shifted the weight of the gear on his shoulder. We got this quarter eagle to drink up yet, he said.
Already it is twilight down in the Laredito. Bats fly forth from their roostings in courthouse and tower and circle the quarter. The air is full of the smell of burning charcoal. Children and dogs squat by the mud stoops and gamecocks flap and settle in the branches of the fruit trees. They go afoot, these comrades, down along a bare adobe wall. Band music carries dimly from the square. They pass a watercart in the street and they pass a hole in the wall where by the light of a small forgefire an old man beats out shapes of metal. They pass in a doorway a young girl whose beauty becomes the flowers about.
They arrive at last before a wooden door. It is hinged into a larger door or gate and all must step over the foot-high sill where a thousand boots have scuffed away the wood, where fools in their hundreds have tripped or fallen or tottered drunkenly into the street. They pass along a ramada in a courtyard by an old grape arbor where small fowl nod in the dusk among the gnarled and barren vines and they enter a cantina where the lamps are lit and they cross stooping under a low beam to a bar and belly up one two three.
There is an old disordered Mennonite in this place and he turns to study them. A thin man in a leather weskit, a black and straightbrim hat set square on his head, a thin rim of whiskers. The recruits order glasses of whiskey and drink them down and order more. There are monte games at tables by the wall and there are whores at another table who look the recruits over. The recruits stand sideways along the bar with their thumbs in their belts and watch the room. They talk among themselves of the expedition in loud voices and the old Mennonite shakes a rueful head and sips his drink and mutters.
They’ll stop you at the river, he says.
The second corporal looks past his comrades. Are you talkin to me?
At the river. Be told. They’ll jail you to a man.
Who will?
The United States Army. General Worth.
The hell they will.
Pray that they will.
He looks at his comrades. He leans toward the Mennonite. What does that mean, old man?
Do ye cross that river with yon filibuster armed ye’ll not cross it back.
Dont aim to cross it back. We goin to Sonora.
What’s it to you, old man?
The Mennonite watches the enshadowed dark before them as it is reflected to him in the mirror over the bar. He turns to them. His eyes are wet, he speaks slowly. The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman’s making onto a foreign land. Ye’ll wake more than the dogs.
But they berated the old man and swore at him until he moved off down the bar muttering, and how else could it be?
How these things end. In confusion and curses and blood. They drank on and the wind blew in the streets and the stars that had been overhead lay low in the west and these young men fell afoul of others and words were said that could not be put right again and in the dawn the kid and the second corporal knelt over the boy from Missouri who had been named Earl and they spoke his name but he never spoke back. He lay on his side in the dust of the courtyard. The men were gone, the whores were gone. An old man swept the clay floor within the cantina. The boy lay with his skull broken in a pool of blood, none knew by whom. A third one came to be with them in the courtyard. It was the Mennonite. A warm wind was blowing and the east held a gray light. The fowls roosting among the grapevines had begun to stir and call.
There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto, said the Mennonite. He had been holding his hat in his hands and now he set it upon his head again and turned and went out the gate.
IV
Setting forth with the filibusters – On alien ground – Shooting antelope – Pursued by cholera – Wolves – Wagon repairs – A desert waste – Night storms – The ghost manada – A prayer for rain – A desert homestead – The old man – New country – An abandoned village – Herdsmen on the plain – Attacked by Comanches.
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (Vintage International) Page 4
