Intervention by Margaret P.
(With thanks to my beta, Terri Derr)
Chapter Nine (Words: 2,671)
"Squad halt!" Sergeant Lopez shouted for his men to stop marching almost as soon as Johnny and the others re-joined their troop. Sergeant Moya did the same with his squad further up the line. "Those that need it have ten minutes to get a drink and take a piss. The rest of you stay put. Fall out."
The men who witnessed Gonzalez's punishment hurried to take advantage of the order amongst scrubby bushes on either side of the trail. Most of the infantrymen hunkered down to wait, watching as the rest of the company continued south without them, and knowing they would have to march faster to catch up.
Among the last to return to the line, Perez spat into the dirt. "The bastards have promised Morales a day's leave when we get where we're going." He took his place next to Rodriguez. "I overheard him telling Diaz."
Cervantes frowned. "It doesn't seem right to reward a man for killing a fella on your own side."
"Gets the message across though, don't it?" Johnny took a bite of hardtack and tried to blink the image of Gonzalez's severed arm out of his head so he could swallow without puking. He needed something besides water inside him. God knows, even without breakfast, his normally unfillable stomach wasn't hungry.
"Sí, Madrid, you are right. Soldado Morales has done what Sargento Lopez promised." For once Leon wasn't laughing. He sounded as bitter as Perez. "El capítan must be pleased—only a fool would desert now."
"And who says we're on the same side anyway?" Perez nodded towards men giving them a wide berth as they walked past. Under orders from Sergeant Lopez, regular soldiers were moving to the rear. The convict-recruits were usually hemmed in by the others, but the dirty looks and the muttering was something new. "Haven't you noticed: our fellow Juaristas aren't looking too friendly?"
As if to prove the point, Corporal Estrada appeared out of nowhere with Private Rivera at his heels. "Empty your knapsacks."
"Why?"
Estrada grabbed Leon by the neck. "Because, you no-good piece of shit, I said so. Shut the hell up and do as you're told." He shoved him staggering back, and Leon started unpacking in a hurry.
Shocked, the others followed suit. Further up the line, Moya's ex-prisoners were getting the same treatment. The enlisted men in between seemed to approve. What was going on?
Estrada and Rivera made them empty their knapsacks and haversacks, and untie their bedrolls. They even had them turn out their pockets and open their ammunition pouches.
"Now you've searched our stuff, are you going to tell us what this is all about?" Rodriguez fastened the last strap on his knapsack. "I hate this goddamn army. So Gonzalez deserted. What difference does it make to the rest of you?" He stood up and heaved the pack onto his back. "Fucking Capitán Flores; he's as big a son of a bitch as …"
Estrada punched Rodriguez in the jaw, sending him into the dirt. "Capitán Flores offered you bastards a chance to fight for your country with honour instead of rotting in a hell hole. And how did your friend, Gonzalez, repay him?" Estrada glared down at Rodriguez, fists at his side and breathing heavily. "By murdering one of his best men."
Shit! Johnny and the others looked at Estrada in stunned silence.
Eventually Perez spoke for all of them. "Gonzalez had no friends. Who did he kill?"
Estrada didn't seem to hear him.
Glancing at the corporal, Rivera gave Johnny back his haversack. "Private Alvarado." The second guard for the horses. "Sergeant Moya found him in the bushes with a horseshoe nail rammed into his throat. Gonzalez's leg irons were nearby."
It didn't take much working out. The company farrier must have dropped the nail when he replaced a horseshoe. Being on the lookout for something long enough to pick a lock from day one, Gonzalez would have snapped it up as soon as he saw it.
"Moya says there were signs…." Rivera trailed off. Even he was upset, and Johnny had an idea why. "Alvarado must have surprised Gonzalez just as he got free." Rivera put his hand on Estrada's shoulder. "Go, amigo. I will finish here."
Corporal Estrada stepped back from Rodriguez and let him get to his feet. He blinked up at the sky and seemed to say a silent prayer. The steam had gone out of him. "Get back into line, all of you."
He walked away, leaving them to Rivera as Sergeant Lopez shouted the order to march.
The route took the troop past a mesquite tree, on the outer edge of the oasis where it merged into cacti-strewn desert. Beneath the tree was a mound of freshly dug earth and rocks. A cross made of wood from an old crate stood at its head with what looked like a St Christopher wound around the crossbar. The infantrymen saluted the grave and marched on.
By evening, they were dog-tired, but the troop had recovered some of its good-humour. They had reached pleasanter land, and Corporal Estrada seemed more his old self. After supper he joined Johnny, Manuel and Perez by one of the campfires.
"We're sorry about Private Alvarado, cabo," Johnny said, noticing the chain Estrada normally wore around his neck was gone. He poured him some coffee. "Was he a friend?"
"Sí, we joined up together. He was a good man."
"Searching our things makes sense now. I guess the other men won't trust any of us for a while."
"That scum didn't even have the decency to kill him quick." Estrada spat out the words and then clamped his mouth shut, glowering into the fire. He held his coffee mug like he was trying to crush it.
Johnny looked at Manuel; neither knew what to say.
Perez coughed. He poked at the fire with a lump of wood and then tossed it on top. "A hole in the throat is a bad way to die."
Johnny didn't even want to think about it. He had seen a man shot in the throat once; the gunhawk would have suffocated, except that he'd drowned in his own blood first.
"Now you understand why Capitán Flores did not show mercy." Estrada still sounded tense, but more sad now than angry. "Private Alvarado was a man of honour. Every soldier here wanted his death avenged. If I had known at the time, I would have made that bastard, Gonzalez, suffer even more."
Johnny wasn't sure that was possible.
"He took Alvarado's rifle. The lieutenant picked it up." Manuel gaped at Johnny. So much passed him by, but now it seemed even he was working out the full story. "The bayonet—it was clean."
"Sí, amigo." Johnny bowed his head. The recruits had bayonet practice almost every day; stabbing sacks of horse feed didn't waste bullets. Hell, Private Alvarado himself had shown them how to end a man's suffering quickly and silently, and yet Gonzalez had left him gasping for air. Who knew how long it took him to die?
Corporal Estrada sipped his coffee and stared into the flames. Then he sighed. "I do not expect anyone to admit they knew of Gonzalez's plans, but I would be grateful if no more of you tried to desert. Even without the loss of a friend, it upsets my digestion."
"You're going soft, cabo." Perez gave Estrada a friendly nudge, and the corporal smiled weakly. "Tell us more about the road ahead."
Johnny wasn't surprised Perez wanted to change the subject; odds were he had known Gonzalez was going to run. They had worked for the same bandit chief; they tolerated each other and shared an understanding, but they weren't friends. Johnny would lay money on it Perez had refused to go with Gonzalez; that's why they had argued. Just as Johnny had, Perez had refused to be Gonzalez's decoy.
A small fire burned in Johnny's chest. He realized now why Gonzalez invited a stranger to desert with him. It was a similar tactic to one Thurstan Cole used as soon as Johnny was old enough to sit on a horse. If things got nasty at the card table, the gambler would hand him a gun to hold on angry players while he pocketed his winnings; then they'd make their escape together. Cole would mount a horse Mama had saddled and waiting outside, hauling Johnny up onto its back behind him. Lying flat, he could use Johnny as a shield.
His gamble usually paid off. Only a few men were riled up enough to shoot at a child.
The situation with Gonzalez and Perez was different but the same; what mattered most was that Perez refused to go. As a result Morales had only one target to aim at. He was a top marksman. He could hardly miss.
Less than two weeks later, just inside the state of Durango, there were more targets to aim a rifle at than Johnny could count. They were still a long way off, but as the company joined the rest of the battalion, Morales and the other old hands plotted revenge for a defeat they had suffered months earlier.
"This time the emperor's army will retreat—not us." Private Garza glared across the plain towards foothills dotted with imperial flags: French as well as Mexican. He pointed out republican forces scattered along the ridge, boasting about their skill, and then left the new recruits to join his friends.
Stirred up for battle, Johnny and the others aped Garza's confidence for most of the afternoon, but then they learned Monterrey had fallen to the enemy at the end of August, and Matamoros on the east coast was under threat.
"I visited those towns when I was a kid." Johnny sat beside Manuel on an outcrop at the top of the ridge, legs dangling, watching the opposing armies. He had misty memories of Matamoros, playing in the sand by the sea and sitting in a taberna being fed buñuelos by a señora he didn't know. "I hope none of the people I met get hurt."
"Look there." Manuel scrambled to his feet, pointing along the hillside as cannon fired and smoke blasted from behind trees. Others ran up to join them. An iron ball soared through the air towards the river on the nearside of the plain. It smashed into the opposite bank, narrowly missing a band of horsemen. The enemy spurred their horses and rode out of range.
"Imperial cavalry scouting the river." Private Diaz shaded his eyes with his hand. "It was just a warning shot."
"No, look west. The artillery is trying to drive the Imperialists into a trap," Cervantes shouted excitedly.
Republican cavalry rode out from a grove of trees. When the Imperialists spotted them, they veered south and galloped back towards their own lines; for a minute or two it looked like they wouldn't make it.
Then suddenly, more imperial cavalrymen rode out of a hidden valley to join them, and the original band turned to fight. The two groups clashed on the plain, fast and furious, before parting. A man and his horse were left on the ground.
"One of theirs. Take that, you mongrels." Diaz punched the air and grinned with satisfaction.
It was a small victory, but one that cheered the members of the Third Company. Even better was the news that they were allowed to rest a day or two, pending new orders. Morales, Diaz, Rivera, Estrada and some men from other troops were granted twenty-four hours leave in a village three miles north east of the line.
They departed together at noon the following day, and the men left behind were put to work reorganizing wagons.
"A layer of ammunition in each one, muchachos, and then pile the ordinary supplies on top." Sergeant Moya checked his list. He was in charge of both squads that day; Sergeant Lopez had also been given leave.
Johnny and Manuel worked alongside Private Duran and another ex-prisoner called Quiroz.
"We will be expected to fight soon, muchachos. Do you have family to mourn your loss?" Quiroz took one end of a crate of Minié balls that Johnny had pushed to the rear of the wagon. Manuel took the other end, and they carried it to a second wagon standing alongside. They lifted the crate onto the tailgate and Duran pushed it into place.
"No. Do you, Señor Quiroz?"
"Señor Quiroz? I like that Ruiz. You and me are going to get on fine." He reached up and clapped Manuel on the shoulder, and they grinned at each other. Johnny said nothing; a gut-feeling told him Quiroz wasn't a hombre he wanted to get along with. "Duran is alone. His papi was shot when we were arrested two months ago. I have a brother."
Johnny threw Duran a look of sympathy. "You were bandidos?"
The boy blinked at him like an owl. Hollow eyed and edgy, he had barely spoken a word since they started work.
Quiroz filled in the silence. "We rode with El Lobo."
Johnny had heard of El Lobo. The bandit chief had been around even longer than Valdez, but Chihuahua was full of bandits, and Johnny didn't want to give the idea he was interested in the profession. He changed the subject to horses, and they continued to haul crates, sacks and barrels until Sergeant Moya ordered them to gather firewood instead.
Johnny and Manuel parted company with Quiroz and Duran at suppertime, but later when Johnny went for a piss, he came across Duran on his own, gazing out over the plain. Shoot, the kid was jumpy. A twig cracked under Johnny's boot, and Duran swung around crouched and ready to fight like he was being bushwhacked.
When he saw Johnny, he didn't speak or laugh it off; he just straightened up and turned to face the lanterns of the enemy army again. Legs slightly apart and hands in his pockets, he stood like a statue in the moonlight while Johnny watered a creosote bush.
"Does it hurt to be shot, do you think, Madrid?" The question came out of nothing.
Johnny shook himself dry and did up his fly. "Yep."
"I mean if you're shot dead."
Ambling over, Johnny stopped beside Duran, matching his stance. The river crossing the plain below them sparkled blue-white against the darkness. "A clean shot to the heart or head, and you probably wouldn't know what hit you."
"You know about guns?"
"Some. Handguns mostly, but I've used rifles before. Haven't you?"
Duran shrugged. "My father and I were only bandidos for a week before…I've never been shot."
"Most bullets hurt like hell, but they don't make much of a mess. Minié balls are something else though."
"Imperialists carry Minié." Duran shuddered. "I wouldn't want to die like Gonzalez. Better to face lots of guns at one time so there is no chance of staying alive, even for a short time."
"Better to avoid being shot at all if you ask me." Johnny grinned, but Duran didn't smile back. He was a strange one, no mistake. "You okay?"
Duran stared at him. "How old are you?"
"Eighteen." It didn't pay to admit your real age when you were only fifteen; some fellas treated it as an invitation to take advantage.
"Same as me. You get on okay with the other men in your squad?"
"Well enough. Didn't like Gonzalez much, but he's gone. You?"
Duran turned away from the ridge. "Buenas noches, Madrid."
Johnny watched him disappear into bushes. He wasn't sure what was up with him, but if Duran was only going to talk in riddles there wasn't anything Johnny could do. With a final glance towards the imperial army's distant campfires, he wandered back to his own. Damn, it was good to be able to walk instead of shuffle. The best thing about joining the battalion was Lopez keeping another promise: no more leg irons at night.
Notes:
1. This story is the sequel to Hate. Like Hate, it has its roots in The Beginning and From Highlands to Homecoming. All of these stories are back stories for characters created by Samuel A. Peeples for the TV series Lancer.
5. For more information about the French Intervention in Mexico, 1861-1867, see wiki/French_intervention_in_Mexico and for a list of battles see wiki/List_of_battles_of_the_French_intervention_in_Mexico
6. For more information on the Minié rifle and the Minié ball see wiki/Mini%C3%A9_rifle and watch?v=spvI-95Goe0 and watch?v=dBjJS42VnyE
7. In this story the soldiers of the Republic of Mexico are referred to as 'Republicans' and 'Juaristas'. The term 'Juarista' means a follower of Benito Juárez, President of Mexico, during the period of resistance to the French occupation of Mexico.