Chris Adrian - The Best American Mystery Stories 2007

In this way, I came to know the people somewhat. I learned a few words of their language and took the odd meal with them now and again, finding them a warm, outgoing people. Now and again I visited a rancho, where I was a quick study of Mexican farming practices. Black cattle were the stock of choice in all the places I visited. The need for water — something that had vexed my own efforts at farming — was satisfied with a system by which a hoodwinked mule was made to turn a shaft that connected ingeniously to a configuration of drum and buckets, bringing a constant supply of fresh water from underground to a reservoir on the surface. The mule, being blindfolded, loses all of its mulishness and turns the shaft until another is hitched in its place. In this way, one man may tend a small herd. I must say they were so skilled at disguising their savagery that the Mexicans seemed as civilized as the best of us. In short, I began to suspect they did not deserve the lot they had drawn.

There came a day, after two months, when my hunger was so great that I could not bear to part with the pecans I had collected, not even if it meant I would forego the purchase of the musket ball that would save my life. There was almost no meat to be had, fresh or jerked. Some men set snares for jacks, but I could not bring myself to eat the stringy-looking creature. Eventually, the men were hard put to find even a jack and subsisted on naught but pecans and acorns. So when General Somervell ordered us to move farther west, to a place where game was more plentiful, not a man grumbled but made the move and gladly.

We ate well for the first time in two months — deer, mostly. And we were grateful for the chance to ease them of their jackets, with which we made breeches that helped us endure the unseasonable cold. There were so many skins lying about that our camp resembled a tanyard. Yet full bellies could not chase the thought each man feared to put into words — that our brave campaign for glory and treasure was now no more than a distant memory. To the naked eye, we were little more than a straggling band of idlers.

At last General Somervell gave the order to march on Laredo. Once on the main road, we were ordered to make a left-oblique into the chaparral in order to confuse Santa Anna’s spies. But it was we who found ourselves confused, losing our way in the heavy rains and losing whatever good spirits remained to us. We foundered in a place called Atascosa, a post-oak bog and very like hell. The ground was solid enough under a man’s tread, but a beast could not move forward by ten feet without sinking to the haunches in the morass. We pulled the animals out of one bog hole — three to five men per beast — only to mire it in another. We found that the muck was so deep that at times we had to roll the animals through it until they could find purchase on drier ground. Men carried the burdens mules once bore. Our progress was measured in feet per hour. After a time some of the animals refused to be moved and had to be shot where they stood, the muck so thick that they could not fall down but stood there in a grisly parody of life, blood streaming down their lowered heads.

Hip-deep in oozing mud, we slaughtered the last of the beeves we had taken from the residents of San Antonio, thinking that it would be easier to carry the meat derived than to drive the beasts through the bog. But soon it was clear that we had merely traded one horror for another.

And yet, despite the horror, I felt strangely content. Atascosa, ludicrous beyond all power of description, was no more than we deserved. I would have been happy without measure at the sight of Joe, his cohorts, and I myself sinking forever into the brutal bog. I had to settle for the sight of their booty dislodged and made worthless, like so many of our supplies, when it was ground into the mud under flailing, desperate hooves.

At length we found more secure footing that allowed for better progress, and we shifted our thoughts to other matters than mud. Hunger, for one. There was little to eat but a small portion of meat, a bit of jerky, and some panola, corn meal that we would moisten and mold into balls, eating them like apples. “Mexican musket balls,” we called them. Somehow, there seemed never enough to serve Joe and his cohorts. They were reduced to eating tubers they’d dig up from the roadside, producing so powerful a tumult in their stomachs that, once, Blaine prayed every man who looked in his direction to blow his head off and put him out of his misery.

In another few days, we reached the Nueces, the border to Mexico and a peaceable stream during good weather. The rains, however, had turned it into a torrent so broad that it prompted some men to think we had marched all the way to the Gulf. Somehow our advanced guard had constructed a passable bridge and we were able to cross. There was talk of Mexican soldiers to the west. Owing to our ordeal in Atascosa and the certainty of impending battle, General Somervell authorized a two-day rest, after which we would at last have our try for glory.

Joe Sprague, resourceful to a fault, brought a freshly killed three-hundred-pound bear back to camp, causing shouts of joy to spring from the men. But Joe made plain that he would share not of his bounty, except with his friends, whom I was surprised to find he counted me among. For the rest, dark looks were the fare of the day.

With the help of McKendrick and Blaine, Joe dragged the carcass a little way from our camp and dug a pit in which to cook it. I took part, so as not to offend him, and at the insistence of my hunger, but I feared for my reputation among my comrades.

“Do you not think, Joe,” I said, “that we might share our bounty with our fellow soldiers?”

“General Sprague chooses not to share his vittles with no man!” His pick fell viciously to earth. After some time, we finished the pit and dressed-out the bear, and soon the smell of roasting meat carried over the camp. Men gathered, but at a distance, like frightened animals around a clearing. With no way to change his mind, I fell to the bear meat at the end of my stick and ate with gusto. Before long our appetites ran aground, our bellies full, our faces raised to the sky.

It was then that we heard the shots, first one, then two more. “Indians!” came a distant cry. And then another rifle report split the air. A search party was assembled and it seemed like the grossest injustice that we of the bear feast had to take part. In the general tumult I lost track of Joe, busying myself with the hunt under every bit of brush and in every cat hole. I began to suspect something when I realized my comrades gave all manner of commands but did precious little searching themselves. I returned to camp only to find that Joe had never left. He stood guard over his bear, a smoking rifle in his hand. Nearby, a man sat on the ground glowering up at him and clutching a bloody arm. Joe had shot him in the act of stealing our meat. It turned out that the entire alarm was a sham inspired by the taste for bear. Joe had singlehandedly turned us into a band of conniving chancers. But later on, when one of our comrades shot another bear, enough to feed the rest of the men, tempers cooled considerable.

On the third morning, having oiled our muskets and made ready to meet the enemy as best we could, we set off in a most cutting north wind toward the town of Laredo. I was now grateful for the foresight that led me to collect upon my own hook upwards of fifty musket balls and powder to add to the meager ration we were given. We marched for all the world like a real army. So many men were clad in deerskin breeches that we even seemed to be in uniform. My blood drummed with war-fever, and I steadied my nerves by reading the bloody mottoes on my fellow soldiers’ caps — Liberty or Death, Patriae Infelici Fidealis, No Quarter. For one mad moment I thought of trading some of my ammunition for one of the caps, they made my heart swell so, but sanity prevailed and I kept my mind on the march.