A Sinister Splendor

by Mike Blakely

  Taylor nodded at Bliss. The indefatigable young captain sometimes forgot that normal men needed sleep now and then.

  “Yes, we’ll take this up again after breakfast, Bill. Good night.”

  Bliss reached for his lantern and had begun to leave the commander’s tent, when General Worth appeared.

  “I saw your lamp still burning, Zach.”

  “The general was just turning in,” Bliss protested.

  “It’s okay, Bill. You may leave us. What is it, General?”

  Worth sneered at Bliss as he left the tent. “Our spy has returned from Matamoros,” he said.

  “Do tell? Bring him in.”

  Taylor saw Private Singer step into the lantern light, shivering in a soaking wet Mexican officer’s uniform. The intrepid soldier saluted.

  “Capitan Singer reporting, sir!”

  Taylor grinned appreciatively, realizing that he hadn’t felt a smile cross his face all day, until now. He saluted the spy. “I see they granted you a commission, Singer.”

  “Shortest military career in Mexican history, sir.”

  Taylor handed the man a blanket to wrap around his shoulders and invited him to sit. “Tell me about your adventure.”

  Singer went on about his capture, meeting Captain Huerta, dining on beef and incredibly hot peppers, attending a fandango. This morning, he had met General Mejia, had been granted his commission, and had been promised 320 acres of farmland after the war. His translator, Captain Huerta, had then taken him on a riding tour of the military camp outside of Matamoras.

  “They have about three thousand five hundred troops,” Singer reported, “and I heard rumors that more were coming from the south. About five hundred of the troops I saw were cavalry and looked like right smart fighting men. They carry lances, sabers, and escopetas. Sawed-off muskets, sir.”

  “I’m familiar with the term, Singer. Continue.”

  “Most of the men were infantry. The regular army infantry wear sharp blue uniforms and look capable. But there are thousands of conscripted troops. Peasants and Indians with old Brown Bess muskets. Dressed in white cotton tongs and shirts that hardly pass for uniforms. Some wore sandals or even went barefoot.”

  “Artillery?” Taylor asked.

  “I saw about twenty guns, none larger than a twelve-pounder. I gathered that they don’t have much in the way of ammunition to ram down the barrels, other than solid cannonballs and grapeshot consisting of busted-up iron. But I saw a couple of mortars that could do some damage.”

  “What was Mejia’s idea in making you a captain? Captain of what?”

  “Well, sir, he intended for me to raise my own company.”

  Taylor scratched at his chin stubble. “Of what?”

  “Deserters. He thinks the Catholic immigrants are going to swim over in droves.”

  Taylor looked at Worth and read the grim concern in his face that Mejia’s thinking might have some validity. “You’ve done well, Private Singer. You’re dismissed.”

  Singer rose from his seat. “Begging the general’s pardon, sir, but don’t you mean Corporal Singer?” The likable spy gave him a grin.

  “Of course. General Worth will see to your promotion. It’s a far cry from captain, but you’ve earned it.”

  “Sir, I’d rather be a corporal in this army than president of Mexico.” Singer saluted.

  “Wise choice, soldier. Presidents of Mexico usually don’t last as long as American corporals.” He returned the salute.

  Singer, Worth, and Bliss left his tent. General Taylor twisted the wick wheel on his lantern and lay down in the dark on his cot, fully dressed. He thought he would go to sleep quickly, but he lay there for some time thinking of politics, supplies, spies, religion, old battles fought, and the war to come. Finally, he drifted away to Cypress Grove and fell asleep to the imagined music of crickets in the cotton fields.

  Private

  JOHN RILEY

  Fort Texas

  April 11, 1846

  He put the weight of his shoulders on the handle of the shovel, adding the muscle of his left leg on the back edge of the blade to drive the steel deep into the loamy river-bottom soil. Private John Riley scooped up pounds of earth from what had been a farmer’s cornfield to deposit in the wooden bucket he had been issued. All around him, hundreds of soldiers—perhaps a thousand or more—were engaged in a common task: building a massive fort made almost completely of dirt.

  Like most of the laborers, Riley had volunteered for this extra duty for the gill of whiskey promised to every man willing to dig and haul soil. He drank very little liquor himself, but he knew the lads in his company would not let it go to waste. Most of the diggers employed a shovel and a bucket. Others used picks, wheelbarrows, carts drawn by donkeys or oxen, and even their bare hands to scoop up soil loosened by others.

  War was increasingly likely on this disputed border, any day now. Across the Rio Grande, Riley could see artillery moving into place behind the Mexicans’ own earthworks. On this side of the river, General Taylor apparently intended to be prepared for the worst, should the cannonade begin.

  The engineers had surveyed and staked the fort just four days ago and already the walls were higher than Riley’s head. The design was simple enough: a six-sided structure with artillery to be placed on round battlements protruding outward from each angle of the hexagon. Because of the shape, some called it a star fort.

  “I bet it’s still cold up in Michigan,” said one of his fellow infantrymen as he used his sleeve to mop the sweat from his brow. “This valley is a paradise.”

  “It won’t be when the cannon begin to fire.”

  “What do you know of it?”

  Riley glared. “I was a sergeant major in the British Army against the Afghans. A regimental pioneer in the Forty-Fifth Queen’s Foot.”

  “Pioneer?” the Michigander said. “Queen’s Foot? What the hell does that mean?”

  “I was an advance scout. I would enter enemy territory to prepare lines of march for the regiment. And I was a gunner. An artilleryman. I’ve killed a hundred enemy, lad, and more. I’ve seen men standing as nigh as you and I torn to shreds by a single blast. This fort will be bloody hell when those cannon across the river begin to bark.”

  The green Michigan boy blanched and moved away from Riley to continue his digging.

  What little timber could be obtained in the valley had been used to fashion small rooms around the inside of the fort walls. These would be covered with several feet of dirt, supposedly making them bombproof. The bases of the fort walls were fifteen feet thick, angling in toward the top. Around the outside of the wall, a dry moat had been created by all the digging. Riley estimated the diameter of the hexagon at some 250 paces. This was a sorry substitute for the medieval castles of stone he had admired in his native Ireland as a lad. It was nothing more than a temporary redoubt upon which to mount the two eighteen-pounders and the smaller guns in Taylor’s arsenal.

  The gill of whiskey notwithstanding, Riley felt deeply troubled to be engaged in the building of Fort Texas, as it was being called. Those were Catholic souls abiding across the river in the town of Matamoros. One day soon, shells and mortars would arch gracefully from these dirt walls and rain down on the citizens and soldiery there. Not even the cathedral would be spared. He felt he had been duped into waging a holy war upon people of his own religion.

  A rumor among the ranks held that some Texas Rangers had ridden into the Mexican town at Point Isabel, at the mouth of the Rio Grande. The little village, called El Fronton, had been set on fire. Even the chapel had burned. In his head rang echoes of stories his parents and grandparents had told of the awful days of English invasion in 1798, before his time. These self-satisfied Protestant Anglos were forever burning Catholics out of their homes and cathedrals. And now, he, John Riley, had allowed himself to become a pawn of the Protestant war machine.

  How have I come to this?

  Another rumor maintained that General Taylor planned to divide his fo
rces soon and take most of the army to Point Isabel to receive supplies. This idea concerned the war-wise Riley. Though he knew supplies were needed, he could also see that the Mexican ranks across the river were growing daily. Earlier today, among much ringing of chapel bells and ceremonial cannon fire, General Ampudia and several thousand troops had arrived at Matamoros. Plumes of campfire smoke now ringed the little Mexican town. And Taylor planned to divide his forces?

  Though he sympathized with the Mexican soldiers across the river, he had no desire to be overrun, shot, and bayoneted by them.

  At Kinney’s Ranch, Riley had developed a high opinion of General Zachary Taylor. That favorable view had recently come to an abrupt end. A fortnight ago, Taylor had sent a spy across the river to pose as a deserter. That man had returned, telling tales of lavish Mexican hospitality. He said the Mexicans had made him a captain! In addition, two dragoons, captured earlier, had been released, and both had related treatment that far surpassed common courtesy. These accounts had spurred a new trend. Men—especially Catholic immigrant soldiers—had begun to desert in ever larger numbers.

  To discourage the practice, General Taylor had ordered sentinels to shoot any man swimming the river to Matamoros. Yes, deserters were often executed in times of war. There was just one problem here. There was no declared war. Not yet, anyway. To Riley, this practice amounted to legalized murder. It was a blatant violation of the Articles of War. Taylor was a military commander, not a king!

  Dozens of men had deserted in spite of the shoot-to-kill order. Only two were shot to death, though four others had drowned in the swift currents.

  Then, new leaflets had begun to appear in the American camp. The author of the flyer, General Pedro de Ampudia, encouraged all foreigners among the Americans—especially Catholics—to desert and join the Mexicans. While collecting firewood, Riley had found one of the printed circulars blown into a thicket. He had secreted himself in the brush to read it.

  The Commander-in-Chief of the Mexican Army to the Irish, Germans, French, Poles, and individuals of other nations under orders of the American General Taylor:

  Know ye: That the Government of the United States is committing repeated acts of barbarous aggression against the magnanimous Mexican nation; that the Government that exists under the flag of the stars is unworthy of the designation of Christian.

  Now then, come with all confidence to the Mexican ranks, and I guarantee to you, upon my honor, good treatment, and that all of your expense shall be defrayed until your arrival in the beautiful capital of Mexico.

  Separate yourselves from the Yankees, and do not defend a robbery and usurpation which, be assured, the civilized nations of Europe look upon with utmost indignation. Come, therefore, and array yourselves under the tri-colored flag, in confidence that the God of Armies protects it, and will protect you.

  Though he had burned a similar flyer back at Corpus Christi, he’d slipped this one inside his shirt and gone about the task of gathering wood.

  “I’ll carry that bucket, John,” said one of his messmates—another Irishman who had enlisted at Fort Mackinac. “Here’s an empty one you can fill.”

  “You’re welcome to dig awhile, lad,” Riley said, the sarcasm thick in his Irish brogue.

  “That I will, then. With the next empty bucket I bring.”

  “Mind you don’t get lost.”

  He prepared to dig up a shovelful for the empty bucket, when the chimes of a cathedral bell across the river caught his attention. He straightened and pushed his hand against the muscles in the small of his back. Gazing across the river, he caught sight of a procession of holy men blessing a cannon hitched behind six black horses. Even from this distance he could see wisps of burning incense trailing from swinging braziers and the motions of the priest’s arm as he cast holy water upon the cannon. It all served to stir his Catholic soul. How wonderful it would be to live in a land where he could attend mass openly with his wife and his son. Someday … Maybe someday—

  “You!”

  The voice jolted him back to Fort Texas. He turned to see a familiar officer stalking toward him down the slope of the unfinished earthen wall. It was Lieutenant Braxton Bragg, Third Artillery. He had been looking over the fort’s gun emplacements and had spotted Riley gazing across the river.

  “Sir!” Riley said, standing at attention. Being a big man was sometimes a curse. He could not help being noticed in a crowd. There were weak men in the world who resented a larger man simply for standing tall. This was particularly true in military life, where a man of smaller stature could hide behind his superior rank in order to abuse a soldier larger than himself. Right now, John Riley was the larger man of lower rank.

  “I know you, you lazy Irish bum!” Bragg came close enough to spit the words up at Riley’s face. “Dig, you stupid mick!”

  Riley renewed his assault on the moat.

  “This is the second time I have suffered your insolence, Private! The third will get you bucked and gagged in view of those idolatrous priests you’ve been gazing at.” He leaned closer. “And I will catch you a third time, so help me God. It is only a matter of time.” The lieutenant picked up the bucket and threw its contents in Riley’s face.

  “Lieutenant Bragg!” The shout came from one of the ranking engineers atop the earthen wall. “If you please! We haven’t the time!”

  Riley was grateful when the lieutenant stomped away, for he had already taken a new grip on the handle of the shovel—one with which to use the tool as a weapon to brain the abusive officer in front of the whole army. Braxton Bragg had no idea how near he had come to death. But Riley knew how close he himself had come to hanging for murder.

  Now the artillerymen across the river began to drill with their newly blessed fieldpiece, whipping the horses to a trot, galloping across the open bank. They unlimbered the piece and prepared to fire at a distant practice target. Though he continued to dig, Riley could not resist casting glances across the river at the Mexican artillerymen.

  “Ignore that bastard,” said one of Riley’s fellow soldiers from the Fifth. “Such is the lot of an infantryman. It’s a soldier’s life.”

  “This life,” Riley growled, as he stabbed his shovel into the dirt, “is not fit for a convict.”

  Across the river, the artillery fired. Spectators on the railed balconies of Matamoros cheered the marksmanship.

  “That…” the Irishman said, pointing his shovel briefly toward the Mexican gunners, “that is the life of a soldier.”

  * * *

  Riley woke the next morning to the rhythm of raindrops pattering against his tent canvas. He had gone to sleep in full uniform. He had only to grab his shako hat before he crawled out into the mist. This was Sunday. Riley had no assigned duties today, and he did not intend to volunteer for more dirt work on Fort Texas. He marched through the mud to the tent of Captain Moses Merrill, the commander of Company K of the Fifth Infantry.

  “Sir!” he shouted outside the officer’s wall tent. “Private John Riley, asking a moment of your time.”

  “Step in, Riley.”

  He found the captain at a small wooden writing desk designed to fold up for travel. “Sir! Requesting a pass to leave the camp.”

  Merrill looked up from his paperwork. “For what purpose, Riley?”

  “I have been seized with a desire to go to church, sir. A priest is holding mass at a farm north of camp.”

  “So I’ve heard. You’re the first to request a pass, though.”

  “Sir, the war might begin any day. I’d like to go to confession.” He kept his eyes on the canvas wall over the captain’s head, but Riley knew the officer was studying his face. He knew Merrill as a good officer and a fair man.

  “You know Colonel Cross disappeared outside of camp two days ago, don’t you?” his commander asked.

  Riley saw his commander reach for the pass with his left hand as he dipped his pen into the inkwell with his right.

  “Aye, that I do, sir.” Colonel Trueman Cross w
as General Taylor’s quartermaster. He had gone for a ride, alone, outside of camp, and had failed to return.

  “Odds are he was captured by the Mexican Army or waylaid by rancheros. See that you don’t suffer the same fate, Private Riley. Attend your mass and return with haste.” He held the pass out for Riley to take.

  Riley took the pass and saluted. “Thank you, Captain.” He turned and stomped through a puddle outside the tent. At the edge of camp, a sentry hailed him. Riley presented his pass and was allowed to walk.

  It was true that a rumor had been going around about a mass at an abandoned farm to the north. It was also true that Riley himself had started the rumor. He had no intention of confessing to a priest on this side of the Rio Grande. He continued walking north, with the river to his left. He heard the cathedral bells ringing in Matamoros. He had made his decision and felt no regrets.

  As the rainfall increased to a downpour, shielding his movements from the eyes of sentries back at camp, Riley slipped into the brush and slid down a muddy arroyo to the banks of the Rio Grande. He would hide here for hours. The only men to have been shot in the river had attempted to desert in daylight. Riley would wait for dark.

  * * *

  A Mexican patrol found him in Matamoros with his leaflet from General Ampudia. He had heard the stories of Private Singer’s fake desertion and expected to be brought before a captain. Instead, he was hauled into the office of General Ampudia himself. An English-born Mexican Army soldier, a Captain Furlock, translated. At first, Ampudia was interested only in gathering intelligence about the U.S. Army, and Riley gave up all he knew, truthfully.

  Next, the general pried into Riley’s background, particularly his military experience. As he answered through the translator, Riley studied the features of the general. In his forties, Ampudia was no match for Riley’s size, but he was of similar build, his barrel chest and muscled arms straining at his blue tunic adorned with medals. His goatee was immaculately trimmed, belying a continental polish. His full head of black hair swept over the top of his head in a thick wave. Riley knew that, as an artillery officer under Santa Anna, this man had laid waste to the walls of the Alamo a decade ago.