‘We’ll get started at once, sir,’ Jed said.
‘No other questions, lieutenant?’
Jed looked at Jonah, who shook his head. ‘No, sir.’
‘Very well,’ Lee said. ‘Good luck, and may the Lord watch over you all.’
They set out from San Antonio the following morning, with the regimental band playing. They made good time across the undulating plains. Jed sent right and left-flankers a long way ahead; he was in Comanche country and the Comanch’ were as treacherous as they were cunning. It transpired, however, that it was not the Indians who attacked them, but the weather. Towards noon it began to rain and the rain turned rapidly to hail that struck them in furious gusts. The men lurched in their saddles as the storm turned the ground to sucking mud. The column slept wet that night and rose sour and sullen in the hostile morning.
They moved steadily south. The rain had swollen the rivers. The Frio and the Nueces were running bank-full. Clouds of mosquitoes, quick-born in the soaking midday heat, swarmed feasting upon them, driving the horses frantic. They cursed their way through hordes of buffalo gnats, slapping at them ineffectually, grabbing for a hold as the horses suddenly jump-kicked or sunfished. Two troopers were thrown, one of whom broke his arm. He was put in one of the ambulances and they pushed on.
‘Goddamn weather!’ Harvey shouted through the bitter wind. ‘This country reminds me of what Cromwell said about Ireland: “Not enough water to drown a man, not enough trees to hang a man, and not enough earth to bury a man!”.’
The rain grew colder and turned to sleet. The cooks had trouble lighting their fires and the men slouched grouchily in their tents.
‘This is a Hell of a life, Jedediah,’ Harvey said as he hunkered down in their tent. The canvas flapped like the sail of a boat, a brittle, cracking sound. Their coffee was only lukewarm, but it was welcome.
‘It’ll get worse,’ Jed grinned, ‘If Father Abraham really frees the slaves.’
‘You think he will, Jed?’
‘I think he will.’
‘And if he does?’
‘We’re soldiers, Jonah.’
‘You’re a Southerner.’
‘I know it.’
‘But you’d fight for the Union?’
‘I don’t know, Jonah. How about you?’
‘I’m from Ohio,’ Harvey said.
So your choice is made for you, Jed thought. He did not know whether that made Jonah lucky or stupid. If war were to come a man ought to have a choice as to which side he would fight on. He knew he would be torn between duty to the army in which he had already served six years, and loyalty to his own people. How could he take up arms against Virginia? There seemed little doubt that the state would secede, but the thought of looking down the barrel of a gun at his friends and neighbors sickened Jed. By the same token, this army had in it many men whom he admired and who were also his friends. If he fought for the South, he might well have to look along the line of a saber at some of them. Men like Jonah, he thought, looking across at his fellow lieutenant. Well, no way to decide it now. He unfolded his maps and concentrated on the route to Ringgold Barracks instead.
They traveled in an arc that went from San Antonio to Fort McIntosh and from there to Ringgold, making the 350 mile journey in something under twelve days, a good average. The weather improved and the spirits of the men revived with it.
Ringgold Barracks lay in the center of a flat plain alongside the Rio Grande and covered in all about a thousand square yards. Into that area were packed quarters for four companies, with a gimcrack clutter of other buildings scattered around the parade ground: brush sheds for cavalry mounts, stables with a small corral, officers’ quarters, a small guardhouse. Between the buildings they could see the glint of the river. Beneath their ramadas Jed saw infantry officers watching his troopers ride by.
The commandant of Ringgold was Major Samuel Heintzelman. He looked about sixty, but Jed guessed he was younger than that. He had the eyes of a man who takes a lot of surprising.
‘Well, lieutenant,’ he said, when Jed reported to his office. ‘I’m glad to have you down here. That bandit has killed a lot of people between here and Brownsville. The whole damned country is in a ferment.’
He told Jed that the citizens of Brownsville had got up a vigilante party called The Brownsville Tigers and sallied forth against El Gato. He “ran” across the river and they thought they had him.
‘What they had, lieutenant, was a tiger by the tail, and a damned sharp-toothed tiger to boot. He cut them to pieces. Damned rout. They ran like rabbits. Now they want the military to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.’
‘That’s nothing new, sir,’ Jed observed.
‘That’s why I asked for cavalry,’ Heintzelman said.
‘How many men has El Gato got with him, sir?’
‘Reports vary,’ Heintzelman replied, stroking his moustache. ‘More than a hundred, less than two hundred and fifty.’
Jed let out a long, low whistle of surprise. ‘That many?’
Heintzelman smiled. ‘Bother you, lieutenant?’ he said.
‘Only if I think about it, sir,’ Jed responded.
‘That’s the spirit,’ Heintzelman said, still smiling. ‘You’ll dine with my wife and I this evening? You and Lieutenant …?’
‘Harvey, sir,’ Jonah supplied. ‘We’d be delighted.’
‘Seven sharp, then,’ Heintzelman said.
They saluted and left the stuffy headquarters building. It was even worse outside. The air was so humid that just walking across the parade ground drowned them in sweat. There was no wind; the fronds of the banana palms were as motionless as the flag hanging limply from the pole in the center of the square.
‘Welcome to Ringgold Barracks,’ Jonah muttered. He looked ill at ease and Jed wondered why.
‘Something bothering you, Jonah?’ he asked his friend.
‘No!’ Jonah said sharply. ‘Why should anything be bothering me?’
There was a snap in his voice that brought a frown to Jed’s forehead. Harvey was usually the more relaxed of them, happy to leave all the executive decisions to Jed, happy, as far as Jed had been able to discover, to be a lieutenant without a scrap of ambition.
Jonah was from Columbus, a little town in western Ohio. His father was a hardware merchant who had moved there shortly after the opening of the Erie Canal. Jonah was a country boy. He had a sweetheart back home named Henrietta. He picked wild flowers and all the different kinds of grass, pressing them in his Bible before sending them to her. He drew little sketches of prairie dogs and snakes, anything he encountered that he thought might interest her. He once told Jed that he’d always wanted to be a botanist, but that he’d never got the right grades at school. Jed had told him about his grandfather, who had been with Lewis and Clark in 1803, and his uncle Sam, who had been on one of General Frémont’s expeditions.
‘If only I’d been alive then,’ Jonah would glower. ‘Didn’t need a piece of paper to say you were a good scholar in those days. Just up and went. It was all fresh, everything new. There’s nothing left for people like you and me to discover, Jed. They’ve already invented everything, mapped everything. It’s all been done. Frémont, Pike, Whipple; we’re a whole damned generation too late.’
They learned at dinner that after the Seminole War, Major Heintzelman had served for twenty years on the team surveying of the Tennessee River. His anecdotes rekindled all of Jonah’s boyish enthusiasms, and they talked animatedly while they ate.
‘How long have you been at Ringgold, sir?’ Jed asked.
‘Posted here in ’55, when I got my majority,’ Heintzelman answered. ‘Likely this will be the last frontier posting for me. There’s a war brewing, gentlemen, a dirty, nasty war. And we’ll all be in it.’
‘Now, Sam,’ Mrs. Heintzelman said gently. ‘No war talk. You promised. You give these boys one of your good cigars and some of that whiskey you keep locked away in the sideboard.’
‘I was going to, d
ammit!’ Heintzelman said, not all of his exasperation simulated. His wife smiled at him as if he had agreed with her and bustled out of the room. He watched her go with aggrieved affection.
They went out on to the porch to smoke their cigars. The sun was sliding into long, low banks of red herringbone cloud lying on the eastern hills beyond the Rio Grande. The fast-flowing river slid past like molten gold. The smoke of their cigars kept most of the bugs at bay. Big moths blundered noisily against the lamp lit windows and out again into the deepening darkness. At about ten Jonah Harvey excused himself, said his good nights, and left Jed alone with Heintzelman to talk of the morrow.
‘Old Rough-and-Ready built Fort Brown when he occupied this country back in ’46,’ the old soldier told Jed. ‘Tapped the Rio to make a lagoon with an island in the middle, so that the only approach to the Fort on the Texas side was over a strip of land maybe five hundred feet wide. You’ll have to go in that way: there is no other.’ The lagoon, he said, lay in a long, pear-shaped ring, east-west in the arms of the looping river. Beyond the fort, marshy ground stretched half a mile to the bottom of the loop.
‘Well,’ Jed said, ‘I’ll talk it over with Colonel Gallehawk, sir. When he arrives.’
‘You know him?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Hm,’ Heintzelman said. ‘Word in your ear, then. Don’t sass him any.’
‘Touchy, is he?’
‘Let me put it this way; he’s seen a lot of young lieutenants come and go. Many of them were the kind who talked a good fight.’
Jed grinned. He was prepared to bet Sam Heintzelman was speaking as much for himself as for the Texas Ranger.
‘I’ll try not to – talk too much, then, sir,’ he said, getting up. Heintzelman looked at him for a long time, as though assessing how he felt about Jed. Then he stuck out a gnarled hand. ‘Good luck, boy,’ he said.
‘Thank you, sir,’ Jed replied. He went in to say good night to Mrs. Heintzelman, then walked across the parade ground to his quarters. The lamp was still lit, although the curtains were drawn. As Jed opened the door he caught the unmistakable whiff of alcohol.
Jonah was sitting in one of the wicker chairs, suspenders dangling, boots off, feet on the commode. He was very, very drunk.
He wasn’t drunk in the way a man will sometimes get if he’s got the blues and is a long way from home. He wasn’t drunk in the way a man gets if his sweetheart sends a letter of good-bye, or even drunk the way a soldier gets when he wants to forget for one lousy evening that he’s stuck in the goddamned army and there’s no goddamned way he can get out of it. This was something else entirely: Harvey was drunker than a Kiowa who’s found a barrel of coal oil. And he was going to be sicker, Jed thought.
‘Leef pleess smitheth uss,’ Jonah said.
‘Well, Jonah,’ Jed said, picking up the empty aguardiente bottle. ‘You didn’t even save one for me.’
‘Onna shable,’ Jonah mumbled.
‘Thanks,’ Jed said drily. He uncorked the second bottle. It smelled like horse liniment and he decided not to bother.
‘Leef pleess—’ Jonah began.
‘Sure, sure,’ Jed said. ‘You’re sober as a judge.’ The traditional regiment test of a man’s ability to take another drink was to recite the phrase ‘The Leith police dismisseth us.’
‘Shoberjudgzh’ Harvey repeated. ‘Havnother.’
‘No, Jonah,’ Jed said. ‘That’s enough.’
‘Perfly awright,’ Jonah said. ‘Havnother.’
‘What’s wrong, Jonah?’
‘Nosh-nothing ’samatter!’ Jonah said, pulling himself upright and blinking owlishly. ‘Makes you think anything ’samatter?’
Jed held up the empty bottle. ‘This,’ he said.
Jonah frowned as though trying to remember where he had seen the bottle before. ‘Jed?’ he said weakly.
Jed got an arm over his shoulder and helped Jonah out of their quarters and around to the rear. He got him there just in time. Jonah bent over the hitching rail, emptying his belly in a coughing, retching explosion of vomit.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ he groaned, tears streaming from his eyes as he hung on to the rail, legs trembling. ‘Oh sweet Jesus Christ.’ He heaved a few more times, but he was done. Jed got an arm around him and started to help him back to their room. Jonah pulled himself away and got himself upright. He was still very drunk; he staggered and nearly fell.
‘You want to talk about this, Jonah?’ Jed said. ‘You want to tell me what it’s all about?’
‘Wouldnerstand,’ Jonah mumbled.
‘Try me.’
‘Tomorrow,’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, Jesus.’
‘Come on,’ Jed said. ‘Drink some water and then get your head down. You’re going to feel pretty bad in the morning.’
‘Worse than this?’ Harvey groaned. ‘Oh, Jesus!’
Brownsville was a cheap border town, full of liquor joints, brothels and deadfalls. The streets were thronged with itinerant Tejanos and Mexicans wearing flared trousers and cartwheel sombreros. Yellow dogs scampered away from the horses’ hoofs. Rats foraged in the littered alleyways between the adobe houses.
The Texas Rangers were waiting for Jed’s column in the plaza. They were hard-eyed men with the lean bodies of horsemen. All carried a formidable complement of weapons, with the ubiquitous bowie knife stuck in either belt scabbard or boot top. They looked villainous enough to eat raw horse, and Jed was reminded of the remark made by the Duke of Wellington when he inspected his troops before the battle of Waterloo: ‘I don’t know what effect they’ll have on the enemy, but by God, sir, they frighten me!’
Colonel John Gallehawk was a strongly-built man of about Jed’s height, but he was a good ten years older. He had a long, handlebar moustache that gave his face a lugubrious expression, and deep squint lines around his eyes. His skin was tanned the color of saddle leather. He wore a faded blue shirt, dark pants and cowboy boots. A fleece-lined coat was rolled up in the soogan behind his saddle. Around his middle, like all of his men, he wore a heavy cartridge belt and holster. Jed noticed that nearly all of the Rangers had Sharps rifles in their saddle scabbards. They’re better armed than we are, he thought.
‘Colonel,’ Jed said, saluting.
Gallehawk nodded in acknowledgement. His eyes were the color of frozen water. He favored the troopers with a sour look. ‘You know how many men that Messican sumbitch has got down there in that fort, so’jer boy?’ he drawled.
‘I’ll bet you’re going to tell me,’ Jed said.
‘Somethin’ over two hunnert,’ Gallehawk went on.
‘Well,’ Jed grinned, ‘I’ve heard that one Texas Ranger is a match for ten ordinary men. Looks to me like we’ve got them outnumbered.’
Gallehawk grinned: on, off, just like that. ‘I like your style, sonny.’
‘I’ll treasure the thought,’ Jed said. ‘Let’s get down to business, shall we?’
Gallehawk looked at Jed for a long moment, brows drawn together in what Jed realized was a typical expression.
‘You a fan of Clausewitz, so’jer boy?’ he asked.
Jed could not conceal his surprise; the question was just about the last one in the world he would have expected from this monosyllabic Texan. Gallehawk saw Jed’s reaction and permitted himself a sour grin.
‘We ain’t all shitkickers, son,’ he said. ‘Some of us can even read ’thout movin’ our lips.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jed said, and he was. ‘It isn’t every day you meet up with a Texas Ranger who’s read Clausewitz.’ Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general and writer on military theory and tactics, notably in his epoch-making On Warfare, had been required reading at West Point. It was something else to hear the name quoted on a heat-baked chaparral in southeastern Texas.
‘Ain’t every day you meet a Texas Ranger who had a German general for a grandfather, either,’ Gallehawk retorted. ‘But you’re doin’ it today.’
‘So, what about Clausewitz?’
‘I’m gettin’ goo
d an’ goddamn tired o’ this Messican sumbitch we got down here,’ Gallehawk answered. ‘Tired o’ chasin’ him back across the river and watchin’ him thumb his nose at us from the other side, ’cause we can’t go over the border after him. I’d kinda like to put him outa action permanent, like.’
‘You thinking what I think you’re thinking, Gallehawk?’
‘Bet yore ass I am, so’jer boy,’ the Ranger grinned.
‘You want me to chase him out or lay the ambush?’
‘You West Point?’ Gallehawk asked abruptly.
‘Class of ’54,’ Jed said. ‘Why?’
‘Fust one I come across had any damned brains at all,’ Gallehawk responded. ‘You take your Bluebellies and chase that sumbitch outa there for me, so’jer boy. Me an’ my boys’ll take care o’ the proceedings from that point on.’
‘You won’t mind if we watch?’ Jed asked innocently.
‘Go to Hell,’ Gallehawk said conversationally. He wheeled his horse around and cantered over to where his Rangers were waiting, their impatient expressions unchanged. Jaw, jaw, jaw, their faces said; let’s get on with this.
‘All right, lieutenant,’ Jed said to Jonah Harvey. ‘We’ll move out now. Company “A” to take the eastern bastions, and “B” the west. Have you any preferences?’ Jonah shook his head. ‘I’ll take the left.’
‘Very well,’ Jed said. ‘Move them out!’
The blue-clad lines of cavalry moved four abreast through the town in the wake of the Rangers. Slouched in the shadow of saloon ramadas, unkempt men watched them with hooded eyes. Children ran alongside asking for pennies.
‘Will yez look at the bastids!’ Trooper Burke commented as they swung along the main street. ‘Sure and they’d slit our t’roats as soon as look. And us goin’ out there to get our balls shot off to save them!’
‘Man wants applause!’ Aspinall said, so that his fellow-troopers could hear him but Sergeant Rafferty, up front, could not. ‘Where’ll he find it?’
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