All God's Children

by Aaron Gwyn

“I have thought and thought about it,” he told me, his voice grim, precise. “Sometimes it is all I think.”

  I said, “Juan, I hate what happened bad as anyone. But I still don’t think this is the end of things for you. I can’t believe the good Lord brought you back from the brink just for the torment of it.”

  “Por qué no?” he said.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Why would He not? And why would you believe He would not, Captain.” He shook his head. “Especially you.”

  I did not like the path our conversation was turning down, but there was nothing about the conversation to like.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said. “Especially me.”

  He sat there, staring into the dark. After a while he said, “I know men like you before, Captain. This not new to me. No es asunto mío. The consul has a similar anhelo. A similar deseo.”

  I didn’t quite catch his meaning and didn’t exactly want to. What desire did he speak of? And what consul?

  Then I recalled the story of his time among the Turks.

  “The Swede?” I said. “In Istanbul?”

  “Si. Señor Nilsson. From the time of mi llegada he will come to me in the night, in the room he has for me. I am fifteen and he is very large. A very large man. Night after night after night. How will I fight a man this size? I am just a boy, Captain.”

  Well, his meaning was pretty hard to miss now.

  “You offend me, Juan. I am not some pederast to lie with children. I have never in all my—”

  “No,” he said, holding his palms up in surrender. “Not a pederasta. It is the deseo itself I speak of—to lie with another man. Do you not think it is a cruel God who put this deseo in you and place you among those who will kill you for it?”

  My hands started shaking. I stood up.

  “Good night to you, Juan. We can talk tomorrow. And when we do, you won’t mention any of this to me. Nor anyone else. Tomorrow or ever.”

  “Yes, Captain,” he said, resignedly. “Of course.”

  “Night,” I told him, and taking up my bottle, left him sitting there on that shelf of sandstone with the crickets and his cruel God for company.

  * * *

  We caught up with Ben McCullough and his men at Matamoros on May 23rd. Of the various ranger captains under the command of Jack Hays, McCullough was accounted the most accomplished—some would give that prize to Sam Walker, and I suppose they would make a respectable case. Truth be told, every ranger thought his captain the wisest and most gallant, and whether McCullough was any braver than Walker or Bigfoot Wallace, I cannot say.

  McCullough was about as cool a head as I ever saw in a scrape. The man’s blue eyes regarded the heat of battle the way most men look at a feather bed: he was utterly at home with rifle balls whistling by and the sound of booming cannon. We camped there at Matamoros for several weeks and then on June 12th General Taylor ordered McCullough to pick forty men and ride out to reconnoiter the area between Fort Brown and Monterrey—a Mexican town Taylor had decided to capture, his confidence bolstered by his victories at Palo Alto and the Resaca de la Palma the previous month.

  On Saturday, September 20th we hove up before the white-walled city of Monterrey. I noted the date in the little journal I’d started keeping, thinking I would document our trip south of the border. All my life, I’d dreamed of participating in some big adventure in a faraway land and now, nearing the age of forty, my eyes beginning to falter, fresh aches in some different joint each morning, I knew this campaign would be the last I’d see and Mexico the farthest land I’d ever get myself to. I meant to set down everything that happened to us. Of course, I’ve yet to meet the trooper who didn’t daydream about writing up his experiences for folks to read—I’ve known some who weren’t even lettered and indulged the fantasy.

  Ben McCullough’s rangers formed up on the broad plain in front of the fortress town we aimed to sack, its high walls backed by blue mountains. I sat my horse and stared up at the city; it looked like a castle out of some legend. I was proud to count myself a member of McCullough’s company and I wished that father might’ve seen me. I wondered if all the things I’d done would’ve changed his opinion. But look at me—nearly forty years old and whenever I thought of Pap I felt like a sniveling boy. It made me ashamed and angry. I hated Pap and I loved him; I did not give a fig for what he thought and still desired his approval; I wished the old man dead and lay awake some nights, fearing he might be.

  A great commotion started me from my reverie: General Taylor and his army were approaching and each of the rangers sat his horse a little straighter, knowing we would be Old Rough and Ready’s cavalry.

  Directly, the men began to remark a ball streaking across the sky. Then came the boom of the cannon that’d launched it. It was like the Battle of Concepcion, more than twenty years before. The cannon ball struck the earth well wide of its mark and once we realized no more accurate missiles were in route, we gave a great cheer. A feeling we would take the city with very little resistance blew through us like a breeze and then another hurrah went up; men pointed and clapped. One of the rangers had spurred his horse forward and was galloping toward the city, daring its sharpshooters and cannon, taunting the Mexicans. He leaned low against the neck of his blue gelding. I realized it was Juan.

  He rode in an arc, travelling close under the very walls of the city. We saw puffs of smoke atop the battlements as the Mexican rifleman touched off their pieces, then the crackling of gunfire reached us. Juan kept charging and I saw there was no way he’d be touched. It was a brave display, but also very foolish, and one by one other rangers began to follow suit, each riding a little closer, daring the Mexican guns. Puffs of smoke would rise, the crack of rifles rang out, and then the rider would complete his circuit and make it back to the company where his comrades greeted him as if he’d just won a battle.

  It was high entertainment for the boys and General Taylor let it go on a while—far too long for my liking. When Juan came trotting back down the line, men leaned out to slap his back and congratulate his courage. I thought about the day he’d charged those Comanche to rescue McClusky, but that was very different from this spectacle, and I felt fairly certain he’d never make it back to Texas alive.

  That evening, we made our encampment beside a spring at Walnut Grove, a picnic ground for the nearby city. Taylor summoned Colonel Hays and General Worth to his tent for a counsel of war while the rest of us—rangers and U.S. Army regulars—made campfires and swapped stories. Against the general’s orders, McClusky set out in search of liquor. I ought to have reprimanded him, but as my own tendency to drink would’ve made me hypocrite on the subject, I just sat and watched as he and Juan stalked off past the flickering fires where soldiers saw to their weapons, expecting to see some sport in the morning.

  I realized as I sat there that a young Army lieutenant with brown hair and calm blue eyes was watching McClusky as well. The lieutenant stood about a dozen feet away from me and I wondered if he’d divined McClusky’s intentions and was contemplating whether or not to report him.

  I glanced over at the young man in his blue uniform at the same moment he glanced at me. He nodded rather shyly.

  “Evening,” I said. Though rangers had been mustered into Federal service, we wore no uniform and were not expected to behave as regular soldiers with the salutes and ceremony, but out of respect, I stood, walked over, and offered the young officer my hand.

  “Duncan Lammons,” I said as we shook.

  “Lieutenant Grant,” he said.

  He gestured toward McClusky. The Irishman had made his way to the other side of camp and was conversing with a group of men around their fire.

  “Are you that man’s superior?”

  “I was,” I told him. “He’s been in my ranging company for several years now. I suppose the only superior officer that really matters among us Texans is
Colonel Hays.”

  We talked for a while. He was soft-spoken, and despite the epaulets on either side of his jacket—ornaments that made many men strut about like bantam roosters—carried himself with great humility. And yet, I sensed a tremendous reserve of strength in him, the nature of which was beyond my experience.

  We shook hands again, and then he went off to see to his duties—I’d later learn he was quartermaster for General Taylor’s army. I bedded down and tried to put thoughts of the coming combat from my mind.

  * * *

  They say Monterrey is a beautiful city—the gem of northern Mexico—but on the September afternoon that General Worth ordered us inside its walls, the air was choked by dark clouds of rifle-smoke and the breeze smelled like a rotting sewer—the townspeople had been cooped up inside the city, unable to make forays to the river or provision their commissary. Rangers dismounted their horses and filed in with U.S. regulars, Juan, McClusky, and myself among the ranks, waiting for word to move inside the walls.

  I noticed a lost-looking boy making his way down the ranks. The young soldier couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty: a slender, handsome youth with a thatch of blond hair and bright gray eyes. You could tell he’d barely begun to shave yet; there was a pale fur on his ruddy cheeks.

  Something in him reached out to you. Even to McClusky, who when the boy passed us, turned and called to him: “You there, lad!”

  The young man walked over. His name was Ned Hirsh, a Pennsylvania boy. He told us that he’d fallen out of step with his troop and was looking for a company to join.

  “You can go with us,” McClusky said. Then he glanced me. “That all right, Cap’n?”

  I nodded at the Mississippi rifle young Ned carried.

  “Can you use that piece? Do you have ball and powder?”

  Ned touched the horn hanging on its leather strap around his neck and then the shot pouch on his hip.

  “Have you taken fire?” I asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s no need to sir me,” I said, though, in truth, I appreciated his manners. He was a fine young man, if he was a little green. Of course, I must’ve looked mighty green myself to Colonel DeWitt when I’d strolled into his colony at a similar age.

  I told him he could join us for the time being, but when we met with his company, I couldn’t promise his officers wouldn’t discipline him for falling out of the column.

  “We’re in the Federal service,” I explained, “but we have no say over regulars.”

  “You all are the Texans,” he said, and I saw the light in his eyes. U.S. troops held the Rangers in high regard and I’d be lying to say it didn’t thrill me to see it.

  McClusky said, “When we tell you to do something, laddie, we mean for you to do it.”

  “I’ll not hold you back,” the boy said. “That’s my word on it.”

  The ranks were now moving once again and we began to file toward the city gates, passing under the arch and into Monterrey.

  The streets were deserted, the windows boarded up or shuttered. Our boots echoed down the cobblestone alleys.

  “Have they abandoned it then?” McClusky said.

  “I reckon it’s a possibility,” I said, but a few minutes later we heard the crack of rifles several streets over and I told the men to look lively, we’d see some sport directly. I felt my mouth going dry as it always did before a fight. I pulled my pistol from my belt and checked to see the nipples were capped. Juan and McClusky were doing the same.

  Ned watched us. He gave a soft whistle.

  “Those are a sight,” he said. “Can you get good range with them?”

  “Fifty yards,” I said. “Enough at these quarters. We depend on rifles any farther out.”

  He was still eyeing the pistol.

  “Could I hold it?” he said.

  That tickled me some. I’d become so used to the guns, I forgot their rarity. I put the hammer at half-cock and handed it to Ned.

  He received it like it was Arthur’s sword—the forefinger of one hand under the barrel, his other palm cradling the grips. He studied the cylinder and the long octagonal barrel. He handed it back to me, shaking his head and smiling.

  “Five shots?” he said.

  “Five,” I told him.

  He opened his mouth to say something else and the adobe wall behind him went wet and red and he collapsed to the cobblestones, a hole beneath his right eye, white smoke curling out of it. The sound of the rifle shot followed close.

  “Jaysus!” McClusky said.

  Juan had been crouched just to one side of the boy and there were bright drops of blood spattering his face. My heart was in my throat. I glanced up at the rooftop opposite our position and thought I saw the man who’d shot poor Ned, but he disappeared before I could point my pistol.

  There were rifle shots from roofs of other buildings, and I realized we were in a bad way; the Mexican soldiers had gulled us into a turkey shoot. Juan realized this too. He stood up and glanced around, then told us to follow him. I hadn’t the least notion what he was about, but with bullets sparking off the streets, I wasn’t about to argue.

  There is a murderous hatred that boils up inside your breast the instant an enemy discharges a gun at you. It’s surprising how quickly the feeling comes, how powerfully it seizes your faculties. I’d experienced the same sensation numerous times in our campaigns against the Indians.

  But I found this day that such loathing is compounded when the person firing at you is a sharpshooter operating from cover. The unfairness of it turns your stomach.

  McClusky and I followed Juan as rifle balls cracked the air, the three of us moving toward the door of an adobe house—it doesn’t quite seem accurate to call them houses as the city was so closely populated that the citizens’ homes shared walls with each other; one family’s bedroom abutted another family’s kitchen. I saw now that Juan intended to get us off the streets and out of the sights of Mexican marksmen. As we neared the residence, Juan sped up, battering the door with his shoulder and sending it flying back on its hinges. He disappeared inside with McClusky and myself following.

  We found ourselves in a low-ceilinged room that smelled of spoiled flowers—a vase of withered dahlias sat on a three-legged stool. I closed the door behind me and we stood there several moments recovering our wind. The muffled sounds of gunshots came from outside. I saw there were no windows in the room, no windows in the other room where two cowhide bedframes sat against either wall, no mattresses or bedding, the former residents having taken these, likely, when they fled the city.

  There was the noise of men shouting, American voices, and the three of us seemed to share a common thought: there was no way we could hide out in the safety while our comrades were fighting in the streets.

  Juan squinted at the walls, seeming to examine them for something. He walked over, placed his palms against the adobe, then turned his head and put his ear to it.

  “What do you hear?” McClusky asked.

  Juan shushed him. He listened a moment more, then looked at me.

  “An axe,” he said.

  “A what?” I asked, but McClusky was already overturning tables and rifling through the meager belongings. I watched the Irishman a minute, then turned back to Juan.

  “We don’t get ourselves back in the fight, we’re liable to get hauled up in front of General Worth. Or Jack Hays will hang us for cowards.”

  “Juan,” called McClusky, holding up a little hatchet.

  “Give it,” Juan said. He tucked his pistol in his belt, took the hatchet, and walked over to the wall across from the doorway. Then he reared back and buried the hatchet in the wall.

  “Juan,” I said, but he’d already worked the hand-axe free of the crumbling adobe and given the wall another chop.

  I stood there watching. In a minute or so he’d made a gap
you could stick your head through—it gave onto a chamber on the other side of the wall much like the one in which we stood. He paused in his labor and turned to look at me and McClusky.

  “Be ready,” he told us, then started back at it with the hatchet. In several more minutes, he carved out a rough doorway, just wide enough for him to squeeze through.

  And squeeze through it he did, McClusky and myself following, emerging into the room on the far side, also a residence, also deserted, but this one had a pane-less window, covered with heavy white oak shutters. Juan and I took up a post on either end of it and he unlatched a little bar and pulled the shutter back. He gave a quick peek and then moved back to cover. Several gunshots rang out, none directed at our position. I stepped over and peeked out myself.

  The window looked onto a broad avenue where the bodies of U.S. soldiers in their blue uniforms lay sprawled. Clouds of black smoke drifted in the air.

  A guilty feeling overtook me for being forted up indoors while our countrymen were being butchered. I glanced at the roof across from us and saw a number of Mexican soldiers in a nest built of sand bags; most were presently occupied with recharging muskets that seemed to be some version of the old Brown Bess that British redcoats had carried in the Revolution.

  Then I looked toward the square off to my right where companies of American troops were hunkered a few blocks from the central plaza. They had a few furlongs to go before claiming the very heart of the city, but here Mexican resistance was stiffest and a constant chattering of gun-fire crackled. Our boys looked to’ve found decent cover, but they couldn’t take a step without exposing themselves to a shower of musket balls or grapeshot from the soldados on the roofs, a hail of lethal hickory nuts sparking off the cobblestones.

  Then a magnificent steel-gray horse trotted round the corner and came down the street at a gallop, coming our direction. It wore an American saddle on its back and my first thought was that the animal had gotten free of its owner and bolted for safety. But as the horse came closer, I saw it carried a rider in blue uniform, though I suppose rider misses the mark. The soldier had only one boot in the stirrup, squatting alongside the horse with his arm draped over its neck and his other leg wrapped round and wedged under the cantle. He was pushing the gray full-chisel, using it for both carriage and cover, and whenever they came to a cross street where the Mexicans had their fortifications, the soldados would open fire. I expected the daring horseman and his beautiful mount to be shot down any moment, but the Mexican sharpshooters could hardly discharge their weapons before the rider had blown past and was screened by buildings once again.