Ever man gets a horse and his ammunition. I reckon we might find some clothes in your case.
I aint got no rifle.
We’ll find ye one.
What about wages?
Hell fire son, you wont need no wages. You get to keep everthing you can raise. We goin to Mexico. Spoils of war. Aint a man in the company wont come out a big landowner. How much land you own now?
I dont know nothin about soldierin.
The man eyed him. He took the unlit cigar from his teeth and turned his head and spat and put it back again. Where ye from? he said.
Tennessee.
Tennessee. Well I dont misdoubt but what you can shoot a rifle.
The kid squatted in the grass. He looked at the man’s horse. The horse was fitted out in tooled leather with worked silver trim. It had a white blaze on its face and four white stockings and it was cropping up great teethfuls of the rich grass. Where you from, said the kid.
I been in Texas since thirty-eight. If I’d not run up on Captain White I dont know where I’d be this day. I was a sorrier sight even than what you are and he come along and raised me up like Lazarus. Set my feet in the path of righteousness. I’d done took to drinkin and whorin till hell wouldnt have me. He seen somethin in me worth savin and I see it in you. What do ye say?
I dont know.
Just come with me and meet the captain.
The boy pulled at the halms of grass. He looked at the horse again. Well, he said. Dont reckon it’d hurt nothin.
They rode through the town with the recruiter splendid on the stockingfooted horse and the kid behind him on the mule like something he’d captured. They rode through narrow lanes where the wattled huts steamed in the heat. Grass and prickly pear grew on the roofs and goats walked about on them and somewhere off in that squalid kingdom of mud the sound of the little deathbells tolled thinly. They turned up Commerce Street through the Main Plaza among rafts of wagons and they crossed another plaza where boys were selling grapes and figs from little trundlecarts. A few bony dogs slank off before them. They rode through the Military Plaza and they passed the little street where the boy and the mule had drunk the night before and there were clusters of women and girls at the well and many shapes of wickercovered clay jars standing about. They passed a little house where women inside were wailing and the little hearsecart stood at the door with the horses patient and motionless in the heat and the flies.
The captain kept quarters in a hotel on a plaza where there were trees and a small green gazebo with benches. An iron gate at the hotel front opened into a passageway with a courtyard at the rear. The walls were whitewashed and set with little ornate colored tiles. The captain’s man wore carved boots with tall heels that rang smartly on the tiles and on the stairs ascending from the courtyard to the rooms above. In the courtyard there were green plants growing and they were freshly watered and steaming. The captain’s man strode down the long balcony and rapped sharply at the door at the end. A voice said for them to come in.
He sat at a wickerwork desk writing letters, the captain. They stood attending, the captain’s man with his black hat in his hands. The captain wrote on nor did he look up. Outside the kid could hear a woman speaking in Spanish. Other than that there was just the scratching of the captain’s pen.
When he had done he laid down the pen and looked up. He looked at his man and then he looked at the kid and then he bent his head to read what he’d written. He nodded to himself and dusted the letter with sand from a little onyx box and folded it. Taking a match from a box of them on the desk he lit it and held it to a stick of sealing wax until a small red medallion had pooled onto the paper. He shook out the match, blew briefly at the paper and knuckled the seal with his ring. Then he stood the letter between two books on his desk and leaned back in his chair and looked at the kid again. He nodded gravely. Take seats, he said.
They eased themselves into a kind of settle made from some dark wood. The captain’s man had a large revolver at his belt and as he sat he hitched the belt around so that the piece lay cradled between his thighs. He put his hat over it and leaned back. The kid folded his busted boots one behind the other and sat upright.
The captain pushed his chair back and rose and came around to the front of the desk. He stood there for a measured minute and then he hitched himself up on the desk and sat with his boots dangling. He had gray in his hair and in the sweeping moustaches that he wore but he was not old. So you’re the man, he said.
What man? said the kid.
What man sir, said the captain’s man.
How old are you, son?
Nineteen.
The captain nodded his head. He was looking the kid over. What happened to you?
What?
Say sir, said the recruiter.
Sir?
I said what happened to you.
The kid looked at the man sitting next to him. He looked down at himself and he looked at the captain again. I was fell on by robbers, he said.
Robbers, said the captain.
Took everthing I had. Took my watch and everthing.
Have you got a rifle?
Not no more I aint.
Where was it you were robbed.
I dont know. They wasnt no name to it. It was just a wilderness.
Where were you coming from?
I was comin from Naca, Naca …
Nacogdoches?
Yeah.
Yessir.
Yessir.
How many were there?
The kid stared at him.
Robbers. How many robbers.
Seven or eight, I reckon. I got busted in the head with a scantlin.
The captain squinted one eye at him. Were they Mexicans?
Some. Mexicans and niggers. They was a white or two with em. They had a bunch of cattle they’d stole. Only thing they left me with was a old piece of knife I had in my boot.
The captain nodded. He folded his hands between his knees. What do you think of the treaty? he said.
The kid looked at the man on the settle next to him. He had his eyes shut. He looked down at his thumbs. I dont know nothin about it, he said.
I’m afraid that’s the case with a lot of Americans, said the captain. Where are you from, son?
Tennessee.
You werent with the Volunteers at Monterrey were you?
No sir.
Bravest bunch of men under fire I believe I ever saw. I suppose more men from Tennessee bled and died on the field in northern Mexico than from any other state. Did you know that?
No sir.
They were sold out. Fought and died down there in that desert and then they were sold out by their own country.
The kid sat silent.
The captain leaned forward. We fought for it. Lost friends and brothers down there. And then by God if we didnt give it back. Back to a bunch of barbarians that even the most biased in their favor will admit have no least notion in God’s earth of honor or justice or the meaning of republican government. A people so cowardly they’ve
