Michener, James A. (97 page)

But Lucha Lopez was not an easy woman to dismiss, and during a six-week interval before open warfare began, he courted her, at first tentatively, then with growing ardor. Once as he left her reluctantly, he thought: She weaves a web about me, as a spider traps a fly. And I like being trapped.

Their cautious relationship did not follow customary patterns, for on those occasions when they managed to escape her duena they often discussed military matters, is it true,' she asked one afternoon, 'that General Taylor has ten thousand troops?'

'I've been north twice to see, and I doubt he has ten thousand. But many . . . many.'

'Then war is inevitable?'

'Surely.'

'Will it involve Matamoros?'

i don't see how you can escape.'

'Can we win 7 '

Since Benito had been pondering this difficult question for some months, he should have been able to respond quickly, but he did not. Very carefully he said: if we had not driven Santa Anna into exile, if he were here instead of languishing in Cuba, we'd have a splendid chance of recapturing Tejas.'

is Santa Anna so good a general?'

'He's wonderful at collecting a rabble of men and forging them into a grand army. If only we had him now . . .'

'Father thinks highly of General Arista.'

'And so do I. He'll give a good account of himself. . .' His voice trailed off.

'But he's no Santa Anna?'

'In all the world there's only one Santa Anna. And he wastes away in Cuba.'

'You will fight the norteamericanos?'

'Until I die.'

She kissed him fervently: 'Benito, I feel the same way "The Colossus of the North" someone called them the other day. They press down upon us. We can never live with them . . . never.'

'How did your man die?'

'They came upon him, gathering his cattle. He had taken them across the river in April, as always, and they hanged him in July. No questions, no charges. He was mexicano, and that was enough to hang him.'

The hatred in her voice echoed Garza's own, and in this mutual rage against an oppressor their love deepened. But still Benito shied away from any commitment, when to his astonishment Lucha said: in this great battle ... it will last our lifetimes, Benito, I want to share it with you. Marriage, home, a garden in peace, we'll not know them. They're concerns for people like my mother . . .'

He placed his fingers across her lips: it would have to be marriage, Lucha. I've seen how the norteamericanos ridicule us because of some of our women . . . the soidaderas they don't marry. With a respectable woman like you, it must be marriage.'

'I am not a respectable woman,' Lucha said harshly, i'm a woman of the new Mexico, the Mexico that's going to be free.'

'And I'm a man of the new Mexico too, the Mexico that's going to demand respect among nations. We marry, or we part now.'

Lucha's parents, prominent citizens of Matamoros with their own good home and land in the country on which Lopez had raised most of the cattle whose meat he sold, strongly opposed the match, for as Lopez pointed out: 'He's forty years old. He could be your father,' and as Senora Lopez warned: 'He's a bandit, a good one, I'll admit, and on our side, but a roving bandit nevertheless. What kind of home life could you expect?'

'What kind of home life will you expect, if the Rinches keep coming over the Rio Grande?' she asked.

When her parents realized that she was stubbornly prepared to accompany Garza, married or not, they were appalled, and now they became strong advocates of immediate marriage, though not necessarily with Garza: 'A girl as pretty as you, you could have any

man you wanted. How about that major on General Arista's staff 7 He keeps making eyes at you.'

'Aren't a major and a bandit pretty much alike?'

'That I wouldn't know,' Senora Lopez granted, 'but this I do know. A soldadera who follows the troops is no better than a puta.'

The impasse among the four troubled Mexicans was resolved in a bizarre way. Within the body of patriotic Mexicans prepared to make extreme sacrifices for their country was a renegade priest, born in Spain, who was known only as Padre Jesus. For some years, in moral desperation and with incredible courage, he had fought for Mexican freedom, a gaunt, determined man, a natural-born ascetic, who wore clerical garb and who opposed corruption and injustice wherever he found them, in the church, in politics, in the army or in the general society.

Padre Jesus no longer bothered to report his comings and goings to his conservative religious superiors, and now, with a threat of war menacing the northern boundaries of his adopted nation, he had come without authorization to the Rio Grande to do what he could to help, and the troops had a deep affection for his efforts.

When Padre Jesus heard of the conflicts within the Lopez family he proposed a simple solution: 'Senor Lopez, you have a daughter who is a gem of purest category. You are correct in wanting to see her safely married to a safe man. But she is like me, a child of the revolution that must sweep Mexico. It is proper for her to marry Benito Garza, for he is the new xMexican, the honorable man. They will never have a home like yours, a garden and six children. But they will live in the heart of the real Mexico, as I do. Let them marry.'

When the elder Lopezes refused to accept this advice, Benito and Lucha faced a dilemma, for ancient Spanish custom, now hardened into a law which Mexico honored, held a female to be her father's ward until the age of twenty-five, and without his consent she could not marry; if she did, the marriage could be annulled or she could be disowned. And when Lucha pleaded for her parents to relent, they cited this law and their opposition stiffened.

But if Padre Jesus was correct in proclaiming Benito a new Mexican, he could have continued that 'I, Jesus, am the new Catholic priest,' for when he learned that Lucha's parents were obdurate, he broke the deadlock simply: 'Come with me to the rallying field,' and here, where irregulars like himself had gathered, a confused rabble of adventurers and patriots prepared to support the formal army when hostilities began, he married this ill-"matched pair: the groom, more than twice the age of the bride and a son of revolution and disarray; the bride, a daughter of middle-

class respectability who should have married a rich landowner.

Just as the impromptu ceremony concluded, a messenger splashed across the Rio Grande: 'Norteamericano soldiers! Not ten miles from the river!' At this exciting news the new husband kissed his wife, then rode hard to General Arista's headquarters, where a team of skilled frontier fighters was assembling. 'Let me ride with them as scout,' Garza pleaded, and the request was granted, for among the troops, regular or irregular, no one was better at operating in the chaparral of the Nueces Strip.

'We must be very quiet, very wily,' he warned the regular cavalry as they crossed the river. 'If, as they say, the norteamericanos have Rinches as their scouts . . . they will be watchful.'

The oncoming Americans, more than sixty in noisy number, did not have Rangers as scouts, but they were led by two able captains, one a West Point graduate. However, the captains were not cautious men, for their big horses raised clouds of dust and their men engaged in careless chatter, which betrayed their advance.

Garza, slipping silently ahead of the Mexican force, watched the approach of the norteamericanos in disbelief: Where do they think they're going? Why don't they have any scouts out ahead? And after a long inspection: Good God! They don't have any Rinches, none at all!

Unable to believe that the enemy were behaving so unprofes-sionally, he trailed them for more than half an hour, expecting that at any moment some knowing scout, perhaps even Otto Macnab, would come upon him suddenly from the rear, but in time he satisfied himself that his first impressions were correct: No scouts. No Rinches.

As silently as a rattlesnake slipping through the grass, Garza made his dusty way back to the Mexican cavalry and helped its commander set a trap for the unsuspecting norteamericanos, who were now less than two miles from the river. Placing riders at various points, the Mexican leader kept his formidable lancers, those daring fighters with steel-tipped poles as sharp as needles, in reserve, and in this disposition his men awaited the bumbling arrival of the enemy.

Garza, well forward of the secluded Mexicans, was accompanied by ten of the best and most daring irregulars, who moved their horses about so that the norteamericanos must detect them, and when this happened, there was a flurry of shots and much galloping, but Benito and his men knew how to avoid that first fierce charge. With great skill they rode this way and that, confusing the norteamericanos and leading them into the well-laid trap.

The battle was harsh and brief. Just as the American cavalry was

about to overtake Garza, who fled in apparent terror, he flashed a signal, whereupon General Arista's best lancers swung into action, and before the hard-riding dragoons from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri knew what was happening, they were surrounded and captured, all sixty-three of them.

By lucky accident, sixteen of the intruders were killed or badly wounded; by design, one of the wounded was set free to inform General Taylor of the humiliating loss. He was outraged that troops of his could be so inefficient in the field, but pleased that at last the Mexicans had come across the Rio Grande and actually killed American troops. To President Polk he was able to send the message that those who sought war with Mexico had awaited: Today Mexican troops have invaded American soil and killed American troops. Hostilities may now be considered as commenced.' The war with Mexico had begun.

Taylor's army had three weaknesses, and he was now painfully aware of them: his horses, though big and sturdy, were not accustomed to operations in an extreme southern climate like the Strip's; he had few scouts experienced in such terrain; but most important of all, his enlisted men were an untested collection whose officers could only speculate on 'how they will perform in battle.' Therefore, when the state of Texas offered to provide a group of Rangers well versed in chaparral fighting, he faced a dilemma: as a strict disciplinarian, he did not relish accepting a group of unruly Texans into his orderly ranks, but as a general responsible for the safety of a large army in a strange land, he knew he must have sharp eyes out front, and these he lacked. With great reluctance and after a painful delay, he grudgingly announced: 'We must have reliable scouts. We'll take the Texans.'

However, West Point men like Lieutenant Colonel Cobb warned of the dangers: 'The Texans may be fine horsemen, but the word you just used doesn't apply to them.' 'What word?' Taylor growled. 1 Re liable.'

\ 'They won their independence, didn't they?' 'On their peculiar terms.'

1 'Damned effective terms they were,' Old Rough-and-Ready snapped. 'Kill Mexicans.' Then he added, in gentler tones: 'Before

: we took them into the Union they had half the nations of Europe

t invitin' them to join their empires, didn't they?'

'Granted, but now we're talking about bringing them into the

s regular army, and frankly, sir, I don't think they'd fit.'

'Why not? If we swear them in and place reliable officers over them, like yourself, Cobb, they'll do fine.'

'But their clothes! They're a rabble.'

'Cobb, haven't you noticed? I often go without a military uniform.'

'Please, sir! Don't encourage the Texans. They think they're still a free nation. They're dickering with us on the terms under which they will provide us with men.'

'They're what?'

'The state government wants to negotiate.'

'What in hell do you mean?' Taylor thundered, and Cobb explained: 'It says it may be willing to let you have two full regiments, but only on its own conditions.' He summarized the limiting conditions under which all volunteers joined the regular army, plus a few galling things which Texas had added: 'Variable terms of enlistment. Their own rate of pay. It's just as if Prussia were offering us units, on Prussian terms.'

'We'll have none of that!'

'Then you'll have no Texans.'

'You mean that at the end of three months, maybe, they could go home?'

'They'd insist upon it. That's the way they've always served.'

A colonel from Mississippi explained: 'They're farmers. They like to get back home to tend the crops. Of course, they'll come back to the army when the crops are in . . . if they feel like it.'

Cobb added: 'Nor do they wish to wear our uniform. Or use our horses. Or use our rifles. Each Texan feels he knows more about fighting than any man from New York possibly could, and he insists upon doing it his way, dressed in whatever makes him feel comfortable.'

Taylor grew impatient with the wrangling: 'Don't you suppose I know they'll be troublesome?' For some minutes, which he would in months to come remember ruefully, he toyed with the idea of rejecting them as ungovernable, but in the end he growled: 'We'll take the two regiments,' and then he added words which Cobb would also remember with bitterness: 'And since you seem to know so much about them, Persifer, you can serve as my liaison.'

It was under these slippery conditions that thirty-six Rangers of Captain Garner's Company M joined General Taylor's army of regulars, and their arrival caused Persifer Cobb only grief.

In these years the United States Army roster listed many, soldiers bearing the unusual first name of Persifor, also spelled Persifer, and what accounted for its sudden popularity, or even its

genesis, no one could say, but there was General Persifor Smith and Colonel Persifer Carrick and a smattering of Major Persifors This and Captain Persifers That. Ordinary privates bearing the name have not been recorded.

The Persifer Cobb serving under General Taylor came from a noble cotton plantation which comprised most of Edisto Island off the coast of South Carolina. He had been a tense, proper young gentleman of twenty when his father announced: 'Any self-respecting Southern family ought to have a son in the army. Persifer, off to West Point!' In that austere environment he had conducted himself honorably, and upon graduation into the regular service he strove to exemplify in thought and action the best of Southern tradition. He spoke with an excessive drawl and defended in both mess and field the highest traditions of Southern chivalry. But now, on the dusty fields of Texas, he was not a happy man.