The Diezmo by Rick Bass (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

was a lonely place, built of stone in the middle of a small barren valley, between the foothills—beyond which stretched the cold blue mountains of the Sierra de la Paila—and as we gained the upper hand, the two hundred or more villagers began abandoning it, fleeing into the surrounding countryside.

We were fighting amid a hail of bullets, and the air was filled with flashing swords and knives and bayonets. Runaway horses were knocking us to the ground, and men were astraddle one another, pounding their brains out with stones and boulders.

In little more than ten minutes we took the fort, and then immediately became divided amongst ourselves. There were those of us who wanted to strike out for home, but there was another faction who wanted to loot and plunder first. The homelanders, as I had come to think of those of us who preferred Green’s command, sought to gather the frightened mules and horses, while the renegades roamed the stone fortress, routing those terrified villagers who crouched in hiding, commandeering all they could find of worth in that barren desert city. By the time they were done, they had gathered 160 muskets and carbines, a dozen jeweled swords and as many pistols, and $1,400 worth of silver, as well as three mule-loads of ammo: and once again, we were an army.

There were five dead among our number, and twenty dead Mexicans. Included among our dead were Richard Brenham, who had been tormented days earlier by the pre monitions of his death, and the veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, Archibald Fitzgerald: a particular tragedy, we were to find out later, as there had already been a letter en route to Mexico City that stated his release had been secured, as he had been hoping, by the British consul.

Up in the hills, we were to find out later, the cavalry that was escorting Green and Fisher on their morning ride heard all the gun- and cannon-fire and looked down arid saw the women and children fleeing Hacienda del Salado, and then the soldiers themselves fleeing—and in their fury, they wanted to return the betrayal by killing Green and Fisher right then and there, and to ride to the defense of the fort.

But Green argued passionately that Colonel Barragan’s orders were to transport him and Fisher to Mexico City for trial, and that the order to execute them could not take precedence over these other orders, which had been given by a general. Even Ampudia and Canales relented in the face of that argument, and so after some discussion they left ten of the cavalry up in the hills with Green and Fisher while the remainder rode back down into Hacienda del Salado to join the fray.

We were just leaving when Barragan and his little group rode up and tried to block our exit. Colonel Barragan dismounted and walked up to Ewen Cameron, and with all one hundred and fifty Texas muskets aimed at him, Barragan ordered Cameron to surrender.

Cameron laughed and declined—we all began to laugh—and with that, he pushed past Barragan, as did Bigfoot Wallace, walking stride for stride next to him, and the rest of us followed, with our ragged assemblage of booty, some of us on horseback and others walking or leading pack mules burdened with silver or ammunition.

We forgot to take water. We did not think about water. We did not know the countryside.

Colonel Barragan and his men followed us, good soldiers that they were. They remained always at a distance—too far for us to shoot—but always on our tracks.

We took turns walking and trotting and riding the mules and horses, and covered nearly ninety miles in those first twenty-four hours. Only three more days like that, and we would be home. I, for one, believed we were going to make it.

By the end of that first twenty-four hours, we were desperate, for water and not a little inconvenienced for food. We had been traveling down the center of the dusty road that led due north—our plan was to pass through La Encarnación and then veer west of Monterrey, through the rougher country of Venadito and Boca de los Tres Rios.

Just outside of La Encarnación, we decided to approach a home, all hundred and fifty of us, and request food and water. But the windows fairly bristled with guns at our approach. We noted that there were a few horses hitched outside belonging to Mexican soldiers and cavalry, and so we rode around that home. As we rode past, cries and calls went up, “Soldados desgraciados!” and though we tried to stay out of their range, they lobbed some distant shots at us anyway, one of which struck a young irregular, Herbert Garner, in the head, felling him instantly.

We did not have time to bury him, and instead trotted on, leaving him behind for Barragan’s men, who were still trailing us, to bury. Now there was one more open space available on the back of a horse, though we knew our stock could not keep up the pace we had set for them that first twenty-four hours, that already we had almost ridden them into the ground.

As the pangs of hunger and thirst worked on us we began to squabble and unravel yet again, and rather than simply dividing in two groups, as had been our earlier tendency—one man choosing Green’s leadership, and another Fisher’s—we began to separate in what seemed like infinite directions, as if our differences were now no longer simply oppositional but as diffuse as gusts of wind.

That afternoon we met an Englishman heading in the opposite direction, riding a tall old gray mule and dressed in a long formal coat, carrying a parasol to protect his balding head from the cold but brilliant winter sun. He hailed us and visited with Cameron and Wallace for some time, informing them that he was traveling the wilderness for his own edification—and when we asked about the route ahead of us, he said that