‘Aren’t you afraid your record will follow you?’ Otto asked, and Panther replied: ‘And when Scott sees it, he’s gonna shout: “That’s just the son-of-a-bitch I want.” He may even make me an officer.’
When their warship delivered them to the steaming port of Vera Cruz, the Rangers lining the rail of the tender that brought them ashore let out a wild yell of joy, for awaiting them stood the austere, primly dressed figure of their old commander, Persifer Cobb, breveted to full colonel for his bravery. ‘We’re back!’ Komax shouted exuberantly, and when the South Carolinian realized that this incorrigible was being returned to his command, he blanched. ‘Oh, no!’ he cried to no one. ‘That I will not tolerate!’ But when the reunion was completed, Colonel Cobb outlined the Rangers’ new mission.
‘We’re trying to do what no major army in recent history has ever attempted, so far as I know. With only a handful of men, cut off from reinforcements, we’re trying to conquer and pacify an entire nation. We’re Hernando Cortés in the nineteenth century, and we’re in just as much danger.’
He traced the perilous route to the capital: ‘Guerrilleros molest every column we send over these hills. Our job is to stop them. To exterminate them. Without quarter.’
Stern disciplinarian that he was, Persifer Cobb took pride in being as strict with himself as with his underlings, so he firmed his jaw and tried once more to bring some sort of order to the Texans. But he failed. Despite orders, the Rangers drank whatever water they pleased, and soon they were stricken with violent cases of dysentery, which immobilized them for about a week; they were too sick to stand, let alone march. And even when the tougher men like Macnab and Komax revived, they found that their captain remained terribly sick, not only with dysentery but also with the more threatening El Vomito.
Practiced hands advised Colonel Cobb to send Garner back to a homeward-bound ship, but the fighting Ranger would not allow this, so on a litter he made the painful progress to the upland town of Jalapa. In that beautiful spot, where the rigors of Vera Cruz vanished amid flowers, beautiful homes and literally acres of fresh fruit and fields full of cattle, Garner recovered, and it was believed later that had he been in full health and therefore better able to command his men, the tragedy at Avila might not have happened, but Colonel Cobb did not agree: ‘All Texans are murderers whenever a Mexican is involved, and had Captain Garner been his usual self, I’m sure he would have led the disgraceful affair.’
La Desolación de Avila they called it in the steamy rain forests leading to the altiplano, and it was the result of the daring action of the guerrilla leader Benito Garza, who waited in the jungle until Captain Garner’s detachment was well strung out, then struck with fury at the vulnerable midpoint. The sudden attack caught the still-weakened Garner unawares, and before his startled men could protect him, he was impaled by three swords. Summoning all his frail strength, he straightened in the saddle, tried to catch up with his men, then toppled forward over his horse’s neck.
His men, seeing him fall, lashed out at any Mexican they could find, and in their blind rage came upon the innocent village of Avila, in which one of Garza’s men had taken refuge.
Galloping into the central plaza, they began shooting any Mexicans they saw, whereupon the guerrilla took aim and struck the man riding next to Komax square in the forehead, dropping him like a bird; he did not bleed profusely, but the bullet hole was so conspicuous on his fever-blanched skin that every Ranger who leaped over his dead body could see it.
No person inside the sniper’s hiding place survived the Rangers’ revenge, not even the three children. Methodically the Texans then swept through the half-dozen adobes that lined the square, and by evil luck Komax and Macnab found themselves dashing from the last house directly at the open door of the village church. Without stopping, they burst into the church, killed three old men who had taken refuge there, and proceeded to wreck the place, scattering holy implements here and there in the roadway outside. As they withdrew, they killed six cows in a final surge of fury.
When a great outcry rose from Avila and surrounding towns, with the bishop himself protesting, Colonel Cobb summoned his offending Rangers.
‘We were fired on by irregulars,’ Komax explained.
‘Is that true, Macnab?’ Cobb asked.
‘From the house with the brown door.’
‘Were guerrillas found inside? When you finished, that is?’
‘There were,’ Macnab said.
‘What about the church?’ Cobb asked. ‘The desecration of the church?’
‘Three guerrillas ran in there,’ Komax said.
‘Did you see them run in?’ Cobb asked Macnab.
‘I did.’
‘And what did you do?’ Cobb asked.
‘I stood guard in the street. I figured Panther and his men, they could handle it.’
‘Did you see the guerrillas? You, yourself?’
‘Twice. When they ran in. When they were dead.’
Colonel Cobb turned to the bishop and the other protesters: ‘Gentlemen, I’m sure you have copies of General Scott’s orders concerning the suppression of guerrillas. They’re to be eliminated, for your safety as well as ours.’
‘But the children …’ the bishop pleaded.
‘Our men cannot check in advance, at peril to their lives.’
‘And the church? The holy vestments, the altar?’
‘Major Wells will give you a signed statement attesting to the fact that known guerrillas unfortunately ran into the church, and that in pursuit, some minor damage proved unavoidable. There will be compensation.’
Some time later, after the dead Ranger was buried, and the graves of the villagers decked with flowers and the church restored, Cobb asked Komax and Macnab: ‘Were there guerrillas in the church?’
‘There could of been,’ said Panther.
Riding with the Rangers was a civilian from New York named Harry Saxon, twenty-two years old, red-headed and encumbered by an extraordinary amount of gear which he protected with a horse pistol. At first Cobb’s men thought he must be a medical man, but when Saxon ignored the fallen and trembled whenever he saw blood, they knew that guess was wrong. Finally Komax, catching the newcomer staring at him offensively, roared: ‘Son, who in hell are you?’
‘Harry Saxon, New York Dispatch.’
‘Newspaperman?’
‘Yep.’
‘And what is all that stuff?’
‘I’m a photographer.’
‘And what in hell is that?’
Patting his gear, he explained: ‘I make pictures. They’re called daguerreotypes.’
These words were new to the Rangers, who crowded about to see the miracle of photography. Unwittingly, Harry Saxon occupied a unique place in world military history: he was taking the first-ever photographs of an army engaged in battle, and it was the photograph he took this sunny afternoon, with the desolated buildings of Avila in the background, which made him famous and which would last as long as men cherished visual records of their exploits.
This daguerreotype, remarkably clear and evocative, showed the ruined church, a tethered donkey and, in the foreground, two savage, scowling Texas Rangers: a towering Panther Komax, bearded, unkempt, with his coonskin over his left ear; and a small, smooth-faced Otto Macnab, linen duster covering his toes and a hardened stare which warned: ‘Don’t touch me!’ It was a summarizing picture of the newly fledged Texas state at war, seeking revenge for past insults, and to look at its subjects was to share their seething rage.
But it was Saxon’s written account of how the victorious Texans entered Mexico City in their crusade of pacification that was of the greater significance to the new state. Unfamiliar with the insolent behavior of Rangers, he could not comprehend what he had witnessed, and when wood-engravers in New York translated his word-pictures into newspaper illustrations, citizens across the nation asked, also in disbelief: ‘My God, is that Texas? Have we taken men like that into our Union?’
Hearing
that the Texans were about to approach the capital, I left Mexico City and rode east toward the little village of Avila, hoping to intercept them as they came up out of the jungle. I arrived on a fateful morning and had breakfast with their captain, Sam Garner, a scarecrow, gaunt from prolonged dysentery, who told me: ‘We teach them that you can’t stop a man who knows he’s right and keeps coming, especially if he has two Colts .44 and you don’t.’ An hour later weakened Captain Garner was killed by a Mexican guerrilla.
Deprived of their captain, the Rangers were in an ugly mood when we entered Mexico City this morning, but no one could have guessed how they would express their rage. At the outskirts of the capital a big, hairy Ranger called Panther Komax shouted in a loud voice: ‘Men, let’s remind these b———s who’s in charge.’
I supposed they were going to gallop in, firing their Colts, but no, they had a true Texan gesture up their sleeves, one that I could never have imagined. What they did was clothe themselves in their most outrageous garments, no two alike, fluff out their beards, stow their Colts so they were always visible, don their big hats, and then take every imaginable position astride their horses, some riding fallen forward as if asleep, others facing sideways and ignoring their horses as they glared at the Mexicans crowding the sides of the streets. Eight or nine, including Panther with red flowers in his hair, sat backwards, facing the tails of their horses and looking very serious, as if that was the way they always rode.
No Ranger spoke. They just came into the city, announcing with their brazen behavior that they were now in Mexico City and that the town was under their control. Los tejanos sangrientes, the local people who have heard of their exploits call them, and one incident during the entry gave support to this name. A daring pickpocket, believing backward-riding Panther to be asleep, which he feigned to be, deftly reached up and filched the colorful handkerchief that some Rangers wear about their necks. Without making any protest, or even moving unusually, Panther unlimbered his Colts, shot the thief in the back, rode over, leaned way down, recovered his neckerchief, retied it about his throat, and rode on. Believe me, the streets cleared. The Texans were in town.
Colonel Cobb did not write his brother about the dreadful incident of 13 February 1848, nor did Harry Saxon report it to New York, for it was too disgraceful to record; indeed, it was later characterized as one of the least explicable of American military exploits. On that afternoon a gang of knife-wielding thieves caught a Ranger named Adam Allsens alone in an unsavory corner of the city. He apparently did nothing to provoke them, and even when they began to assault him he allowed them to have his neckerchief and his hat, for he realized that he could not fight his way clear from so large a mob. Encouraged by their initial success, they began to stab at him so viciously that he fell to the street, almost dead.
When Otto Macnab and two others came to his rescue, they found him in pitiful shape, one deep cut across his chest having exposed his heart, which beat visibly while they carried his failing body to headquarters. Eighteen or nineteen Rangers watched him die; they actually saw his heart begin to falter and then stop. At supper that night Macnab had to leave the table.
Toward ten the next night, when the streets of the capital were crowded, Panther Komax began quietly circulating among the Rangers, and with no one speaking or making any kind of commitment, men like Macnab, acting individually, started leaving the mess hall. A short time later, Harry Saxon entered the hall and asked: ‘Where’s everyone?’ but no one offered a sensible answer. He therefore reported to Colonel Cobb: ‘I think something’s amiss. Your men were extremely silent at supper.’
‘They feel the loss of Allsens,’ Cobb said, offering Saxon both a cigar and a shot of whiskey. The two men were talking amiably about the favorable terms of the peace treaty when Saxon thought he heard distant gunfire. ‘Could that be any of your men firing?’
‘Certainly not,’ Cobb said warily. ‘They would not be firing at night.’
At about eleven the firing increased in volume and sound, and now Saxon cried: ‘That could come only from Colts!’ but Cobb assured him: ‘It’s that company of Horse Marines, practicing.’
‘Why would they practice at night?’
‘You never know.’
But now the firing drew so close that any military man would have to know it came from repeating revolvers, and both Cobb and Saxon ran out into the night, but at this point the shooting had stopped.
At breakfast no Ranger said anything about the night firing, but at about midmorning Harry Saxon visited the Mexican police, who showed him the wooden litters on which it was their custom to collect dead bodies found in alleyways at dawn, and on a dozen of them were piled some fifty corpses. When Saxon inquired what had happened, an officer explained: ‘The Rangers took their revenge,’ and fifty-three bodies were counted out for him—pimps, pickpockets, paid murderers, scoundrels, plain citizens, all shot at random—and some had apparently taken three or four shots right in the face, for the big Colts bullets had blown their heads apart.
All day Saxon tried to piece together what had happened, but no one would tell him that a band of some dozen Rangers, led by Panther Komax, had roamed quietly through the back alleyways of the city, through the slums and the red-light districts, and had carefully executed anyone who even looked as if he might have wielded a knife on Adam Allsens.
In the late afternoon Saxon went to the morgue, where he saw an additional eighty dead Mexicans, and he noticed that in the capital the Rangers were molested no more.
Photographer Harry Saxon took two more daguerreotypes of historic interest. One showed three fighting men, unposed and beautifully positioned against the background of Popocatepetl: Colonel Cobb—stiff, proper in his most imposing uniform—talking with Komax and Macnab, who were dressed like a pair of complete degenerates.
The other picture was more carefully posed, for it had been taken only after sustained negotiation. It depicted the leadership of the Mexican side, General Antonio López de Santa Anna in full regalia with at least eight big medals, accompanied by his guerrilla leader Benito Garza, jungle-thin and glaring behind his huge mustaches. The text that Saxon submitted to accompany his two splendid pictures explained how they were related and summarized the ending of this strange war:
Your correspondent was privileged to participate in the final stages of the Mexican War. Hearing that General Santa Anna, a major cause of the war and a principal agent of its loss, was being sent into exile in disgrace, I dogged the Mexican headquarters for an opportunity to capture a picture of this colorful man.
Returning to the Texas Rangers, whom I had accompanied in their campaign against the guerrillas, I found their leader and two of their most colorful members in deep conversation, and I took a chance that they would remain relatively stationary and allow me to use my camera. They did, but at the same time they talked loud enough for me to hear their conversation, which I report faithfully:
COBB: ‘It’s true. Santa Anna passes through our lines tomorrow at eight.’
KOMAX: ‘Let’s shoot him.’
COBB: ‘None of that! He has a safe-conduct from General Scott.’
KOMAX: ‘Santy Anny is a butcher. Let’s give him a taste of butcherin’.’
COBB: ‘Macnab, can you reason with this wild man?’
KOMAX: ‘You ain’t never drawed a bean outen a clay pot. You ain’t never seen your father speared down in cold blood, while he was a honorable prisoner.’
COBB: ‘Gentlemen of Texas, we’ve been through a great deal together …’
KOMAX: ‘You had me given “The Rogue’s March.” ’
COBB: ‘And I’d do it again tomorrow, but here in the south I’ve learned what a heroic group of men you are. I have never served with better. I would ride anywhere on earth, up to the face of any cannon …’ (At this point his voice broke and for almost a minute he stared at the ground.) ‘Men, do not sully a splendid reputation. If you assault your defeated enemy …’ (His voice broke again and, angry at h
imself, he spoke rapidly.) ‘Hell, he’s your prisoner. He’s unarmed. Do you want to be regarded by all the civilized world as lacking in honor? What are you, anyway, a bunch of miserable bastards? Do you really want to befoul the fair name of Texas? Do you want to stand in shame before the world?’
KOMAX: ‘We’ll think about that.’
Unable to extract a promise, Cobb drew himself to full height, saluted, and left his men for what I believe was the last time. His final words to Macnab and Komax which I heard as he passed me were: ‘Don’t be a pair of Texas sons-a-bitches.’ He left us, head high, eyes straight ahead, his beautiful uniform without one misplaced seam.
It was a bright morning when General Antonio López de Santa Anna prepared to ride through the gauntlet of American soldiers.
In the open carriage, pulled by four horses and managed by two drivers fore and two uniformed outriders standing aft, the newly wedded general and his child bride would ride, accompanied by Benito Garza and Lucha López. As Garza stepped into the carriage he blurted out: ‘Excellency, the heart of Mexico goes with you into exile.’
Hands clasped about his bejeweled sword to mask their trembling, Santa Anna gave the order ‘Forward!’—then stared straight ahead. Silently he passed between the double file of Rangers standing less than five feet from him on each side. He glanced at none of them, because he knew that they had sworn to kill him and he could not guess at what signal they would strike.
Each Ranger looked hard at him, each conveyed the bitterness of this extraordinary moment, but none looked with more strangled emotions than their liaison-colonel, Persifer Cobb: God, let this moment pass. Let them keep their big mouths shut.
Otto Macnab stared at Santa Anna as if to engrave the Mexican’s features on his memory, then, turning his head, stiffened with shock when he saw who was sitting opposite the general. It was Benito Garza, and for a long moment the two old friends, the two perpetual adversaries, looked into each other’s eyes—Garza’s ebony-black, Macnab’s cerulean-blue—and the respect, the hatred and the confusion glowed. Neither man made a gesture of recognition. For some reason the carriage hesitated, and the moment of meeting was agonizingly prolonged.
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