The Texas Front: Salient

by Jonathan Cresswell

  “If I may add to the general’s fine logic?” said Ambassador Creel. Huerta nodded to him. “France has given us invaluable support and a secure base here in Veracruz. But America – specifically, the state of Texas – has kept us from starvation with their beef shipments. It is true that the United States is a nation of tremendous military strength, but that strength is concentrated in their eastern seaboard, and Texas is sorely pressed. France is willing to offer assistance in defeating this invasion, and Mexico is honor-bound to do likewise. With our army victorious, we can then advance southward back into our own country and present the Martians with a threat of their own, while restoring proper governance to provinces which have known only anarchy and violence for three long years!”

  Many nodded approval at that. Henri had doubts about the logistics involved in sweeping an army hundreds of miles through a devastated province, but certainly a defeat of the Martians north of the border would have a great impact on them in the south as well...

  “By moving along sea lanes, we will avoid the logistical demands of the difficult terrain in Nuevo Leon and be secure from Martian attacks. Admiral Favereau assures me that French and American warships will guard both ports as they are used. It may seem like a great distance, but modern technology can accomplish remarkable things.

  “We will earn American gratitude. And by accomplishing this, Mexico will take her place among the leading nations of the world in defending it against these invaders!”

  Henri suppressed a smile of his own. Creel meant that the current – and weakened – government of Mexico would take that place, conferring legitimacy that it badly needed.

  The murmured approval that Creel basked in fell silent a moment later; he turned, then quickly sat down. At the table’s far end, President Diaz rose slowly to his feet. “It may seem strange to some of you that we should travel so far to fight the Martians. It does not seem so to me. This is an opportunity to carry out a pan-American strike against the creatures that attack us all, and we will not shirk it. As my senior general said, the army needs to be blooded. I trust him to do so in a manner which will reflect to our honor, and inspire his men to liberate all of Mexico from the Martians, and bring it under proper order. Give him all assistance that you may. Thank you all.” He turned and shuffled from the table, passing through the door to what Henri assumed were his private chambers. Creel and Huerta quickly followed; the rest began to disperse.

  Mangin took Henri aside as the men milled about. “Gamelin, tell me something,” he said quietly. “If Paris were in the hands of the Martians, and you had even a fragment of an army, would you do anything else but take it back?”

  Henri shook his head. “It would be impossible not to try.”

  “I am not sure I believe their reasons. Or not entirely. You’ve told me there are fighters in Mexico City not affiliated with this government...”

  “They are in open rebellion against it, I believe.”

  “Just so. I wish to know more about them. If I am to fight alongside these Mexicans, I want to know what their objectives are – and I do not think they are telling me all of them. How soon can you get away?”

  “Within the week, General.”

  “Then do so.” Mangin nodded in what might have been approval and turned away.

  April 1912, IX Corps HQ, Alice, Texas

  General Funston hopped down from the delivery truck he’d commandeered at the train stop. “Drop the boxes and trunks around the side,” he ordered the driver.

  Lang climbed down more carefully, one arm wrapped around a satchel bursting with paperwork he didn’t trust to others. Moving a full general’s location was no easy task; moving one in a tearing hurry...

  Alice’s town hall had been converted into a temporary headquarters for IX Corps by the simple expedient of adding tents on all sides of the building. Driveways, garages, and stables lined the sides further away to accommodate vehicles and horses; telegraph wires were neatly bundled along poles; men flowed in and out.

  Funston had noticed Lang taking this in. “Neat work, isn’t it? Jim Wade’s a hell of an administrator. This is not going to be easy... Well, let’s get it over with.” He strode toward the nearest entrance; Lang followed.

  They found Lieutenant-General James Wade in the main building, seated at a long table. Rows of desks to each side of the room were occupied by junior officers and clerks, but Wade’s area was clear except for a map of Texas.

  Wade looked startled to see them. “General Funston!” he said. He shoved back his chair and rose, leaning on one hand until he was upright. He was nearly bald, with a scrim of white hair and mustache. “I’d had no word you were coming–”

  “It’s not an inspection tour, General.” Funston forced a smile. “May we speak privately?”

  “Of course.” Wade gestured. “Please clear the room, everyone.”

  The clerks filed out briskly, a few glancing back. Funston snagged a chair and sat at the main table; Lang did the same. Wade settled back into his own seat. Lang knew he’d been brought out of retirement after the mandatory age of sixty-four was waived, as one of the very small number of officers with experience as a lieutenant-general. He’d fought with the Buffalo Soldiers; he’d fought in the Spanish-American War...

  He’d fought in the Civil War.

  “General Wade, I am taking over command of IX Corps around Hebbronville. I want to attack that base by the end of this month. I’m going to need your help, and your deputy’s as well – what I mean to say is, this is not intended to relieve you of command of the corps. I am simply going to take control of this particular operation.”

  Wade’s mouth worked. “General... if...”

  Funston plowed on. “I would appreciate if you could call your divisional generals in for me to meet with. I have some specific tactical recommendations for them. Also, my staff will need to coordinate with yours on railroad scheduling – there are at least three more tank battalions being transferred in by rail the day after tomorrow. I know it’s short notice, Jim, but I’m confident that you have fully prepared the corps.”

  “Oh,” said Wade dully. “Oh, yes. Although we were expecting five weeks more training time. And with the news about that offer from the French and Mexican governments, well – another three or four divisions would add much to our strength for the assault.”

  “We don’t have five weeks. And those... phantom divisions, they might take months to get here and be no good when they did! No, Jim, we’ll fight with what we have right now. I understand that the 3rd Volunteer took losses; they aren’t suited for a heavy assault in any case, so they can hold around Laredo. But I need to get the other four divisions into an assault formation immediately and concentrate them upon Hebbronville. We’re going to destroy that base before it gets any stronger!”

  Wade sat stiffly upright in his chair; he looked terribly old in that moment. “General, if you wish my resignation, I will tender it at once–”

  “Hellfire, Jim! I don’t!”

  “Perhaps we do need a more energetic presence. I remember you in the Philippines, when you captured the President with those Filipino scouts. Inspiring, yes, inspiring, and not even a regular army man. New blood...” He sighed. “I’m a cavalryman, General; always have been. I’m proud of what I’ve done, but when there are creatures from another world invading America, one can understand that things have changed a very great deal from my time.”

  “Of course I don’t want your resignation. You can stay on in IX Corps to...” Funston trailed off at Wade’s expression.

  “General, the weapons have changed, but men have not. You know quite well that will not work.”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.” Funston clasped his hands. “General Wade, I relieve you of command of IX Corps in order to personally direct this assault. My staff will do their best to find you a billet back at Washington, and I will be recommending you for promotion to full general.”

  That was a meaningless sop when there were few position
s available at that rank, and Wade – the sixty-nine year old Wade – knew that. “Thank you, General. I am turning over command of IX Corps to you, effective immediately. I wish you the very best of luck.”

  He rose stiffly; the other two did as well and returned his salute. He walked slowly from the room.

  “I’m afraid I did not handle that well,” muttered Funston.

  I’m afraid you made an enemy, thought Lang; then he lifted the satchel to the tabletop and snapped open the clasps. There was a great deal of work to be done.

  April 1912, Duval County, Texas

  Ronald Gorman nudged his sleeping subordinate with the toe of his boot. “Saberhagen, wake up! Where is de Gama?”

  “How would I know?” mumbled the blond-haired man. He turned over in the improvised cot. The rail car held half a dozen of them, most strewn with filthy blankets. This was a long way down from Gorman’s private car, and de Gama was not in either, nor the third between them.

  Gorman cursed. He had no idea where the mad priest had gone; anywhere outside these rail cars meant death if a Master saw him. And de Gama was irreplaceable. He walked quickly back through both lesser cars to his own. Queen Idar was reading a book from the extensive library; she ignored his entrance pointedly. That would change in time...

  Beside the car’s vestibule, a large case of matte-grey metal was mounted to the wall. Gorman unlocked and slid open the panel, took down one of the heavy pendants within, draped it around his neck. It clasped itself together and contracted like a snake eating its own tail, shrinking, until it settled around his throat with a finger’s gap remaining. As always, he felt the irrational dread that it might simply not stop until it decapitated him. There was little of the Masters that was ordinary.

  Thus protected, he opened the car’s door and stepped out onto the tiny platform, scanning the surroundings. The high berm raised by the Masters blocked most of the flat horizon. Only a small gap through which the rail line passed gave a further view. Bright sunlight beat down; a warm day, but de Gama was unlikely to die of heat or thirst out there. Well, heat, perhaps – just a little more quickly than the sun could inflict.

  Gorman jumped down from the platform and headed toward the spring a quarter-mile distant that was their only water source. As he drew near, he checked the water level. Still trickling, and reasonably clean... but if it were to dry up, he doubted the Masters would trouble to find another source. He had his own supply hidden, but even that would only last a week or two at most.

  No sign of de Gama. Gorman shouted for him a few times to be sure and then walked south. As he approached the train again, a machine appeared above one of the hopper cars, clutching a large container in its limbs. It inverted the container to spill a load of yellowish ore into the car with a pounding rumble that seemed to shake the ground. Pale dust drifted downwind in clouds, then settled.

  Whatever it was that the Masters had begun digging out of the ground here, they had filled nearly two of the cars with it in the past few days.

  Despite his pendant, Gorman waited until the machine had left his sight before he climbed between two of the cars to the other side. The machine was striding quickly southward, back to the main center of activity within the berm, where other, larger machines burrowed into the ground. Slag heaps grew larger every day; the pale dust billowed. A hive of activity, power, industry. If de Gama had strayed into there, he would be crushed like an insect.

  There was one other activity the Masters undertook from time to time; Gorman walked in that direction. The ground rose slightly and crumpled into age-worn, dusty runnels with clumps of scrub fighting to colonize between them. Next to one of these bushes, a man was digging a hole; several objects lay on the ground nearby.

  Gorman sighed and walked on, coming up to within a few feet, then stopped. “Enrique. Leave this be. It doesn’t matter.”

  The priest turned, lowering his shovel. His arms were painfully thin; he’d barely made an impression on the ground, although he panted with effort. His dark eyes were pits of infinite depth, infinite madness.

  “Enrique, please. It is dangerous for you to be out here. Come back.”

  “No,” gasped de Gama. “They have become the flesh of the Masters. Nourished them. There should be tombs – great, hallowed barrows for them. Why do they come here to do this? There must be a reason. The ground, then, the ground – it is sacred. They belong within it.”

  Gorman wrinkled his nose at the five leathery skeletons. So little flesh had remained after consumption that even the local scavengers had scarcely bothered with them. “I don’t know why the Masters feed at this place. I cannot guess at their thinking.”

  “Perhaps it reminds them of their desert world. I have seen... glimpses. Dried and furrowed...” de Gama gazed over the corpses. “Dried and furrowed, yes. Help me, Gorman. They belong in the ground.”

  “This is nonsense. Come.” Gorman took de Gama’s arm; the priest tore it away with sudden strength.

  “They belong in the ground!”

  If the task was not completed, de Gama would undoubtedly risk his life again to do so. Gorman sighed. “Very well, my friend. Give me the shovel.” He took over de Gama’s work; the dry soil dug easily and sifted loosely whenever he slung a spadeful over his shoulder, but chopping the scrub roots took time.

  “Your queen is very beautiful,” said de Gama from where he crouched.

  “You had better be a real priest around her,” grunted Gorman.

  “Not the body, the soul. So fortunate to live in this time. To be cleansed, like all of us.”

  “But not in any hurry. No more than I am in.” Gorman straightened. “Is this deep enough?”

  The priest cocked his head. “They’ll be safe. What the angels have not consumed will be risen by God. Inter them. Thank you, Gorman.”

  Gorman climbed from the grave, hooked a boot under one of the corpses, and rolled it into the cavity. “You are my priest and my friend. How could I do any less?”

  He began to regret his generosity once the sun and work had wrung a sweat from him, but it did not take long to finish the mass grave. He wondered if de Gama would say anything over the scuffed dirt, but the priest merely began to walk back toward the train, unspeaking. Gorman hefted the shovel and caught up to him.

  “So you have seen their world? How do they rule it? Are there machines like these everywhere?”

  “What I have seen, you cannot grasp.” de Gama smiled sadly toward him. For a moment, he seemed quite sane. “No more than I could have when I was a student. They have made me into... into an intermediary, and nothing can ever be the same. Is it not wonderful?”

  With de Gama so calm – spent – an idea occurred to Gorman. “Enrique, my priest. Would you wait upon my queen?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  They returned to the train without incident; Gorman stowed the shovel away. He splashed water over his face from the trough and combed his hair. A monarch should not appear to have performed physical labor, after all. Even de Gama straightened his torn shirt; then they entered the private car.

  “Good afternoon, my queen. Have you met our priest formally? Enrique de Gama. He speaks with the Masters and tells us their will.”

  Idar closed and laid aside her book – as she had not done for him – and studied de Gama. “I have seen him before. I fear whatever they do has driven him mad.”

  “Only a little.” Gorman sat and gestured de Gama to do the same. “The Pope calls it the ‘Martian Heresy’. They told us when I was still in that jail in Torreon, as though it were important. Pious fools. Then when the Masters came and the jail began to burn, the guards released us – not knowing we would serve them one day. Now the Pope thinks we are all heretics and we will burn in any case! But what does he know? He has never spoken with one of them as Enrique has.”

  “At least this man has an excuse for what he does.”

  “Serving the greatest creatures of God’s creation?” asked Gorman.

 
; “Murdering those the ‘greatest’ only came here to destroy.”

  Gorman shrugged. “I take no pleasure in it. But the Masters must feed, and better upon them than upon you and I.”

  “There were older ways, once,” offered de Gama. His gaze cut toward and away from the woman like the beat of a bird’s wing. “There were so few of us left at Zacatecas. There would soon have been no one... to see the light. We brought sacrifices to them instead – sacred bulls. Golden calfs. They served well enough.”

  Her face lit. “Then there is another way!”

  Gorman gestured about. “There are no animals here.”

  “Not here. But close by. I know this country, Dr. Gorman. If those creatures truly allow you to act for them...”

  He scowled. “They know my worth! Not like some!”

  “Then take the other way.”

  He looked quizzically at de Gama. “There is plenty of time,” said the priest. “For all to be brought to the light. Your queen is humane, Gorman. It would please her to do so.”

  Gorman turned, leaned forward. “Would it?”

  She looked down, then abruptly back to him. “Is that what you wish to hear? Yes. It would please me.”

  “Then I shall seek their will in the matter,” said de Gama.

  “That has a cost, you know,” said Gorman. “Communing with the Masters. If he does so, he will be madder still the next time that you see him.”

  It was fascinating to see the play of expression on her face for a moment – the balancing of de Gama’s suffering against the lives of strangers. There could be levers here. He often forgot how little others meant to him in comparison to most people.

  “Then pay it,” she said flatly. “If you truly are my priest as you say.”