Intervention by Margaret P.
(With thanks to my beta, Terri Derr)
Chapter Twelve (Words: 3,797)
In the morning Johnny was moved to the hospital wagon. He went under his own steam, attended by Manuel and Corporal Luna. He didn't see Tomás.
"You get to ride with the wounded today, Madrid, but your injuries are superficial. You can march tomorrow." Luna frowned as he lifted the dressing on an injured soldier's leg. Johnny glimpsed yellow and black. Poor devil—odds were he would lose the leg today and still probably die.
Johnny's stomach clenched. His bruises and abrasions were nothing compared to the injuries suffered by other men in the ambush of the French transport, but he balked at the idea of re-joining his troop. If the outcome had been different, could he have ended up like Duran? He didn't want to think so, but maybe. As it was, once his body and mind started to work together again and he truly slept, all he felt was anger. He didn't know how he could bear to see Sergeant Lopez without taking his rifle and shooting the bastard right between the eyes.
"You will not get the chance, amigo," Manuel said the following morning over breakfast. "Sargento Lopez is now with Teniente Garcia's troop."
"How come?"
"One of Garcia's sergeants was killed in the battle. Capitán Flores told Teniente Herrera that he was replacing him with Sargento Lopez."
Johnny mulled over the information. "I could still do it."
"Please, Johnny, stay away from him. Capitán Flores would have you shot."
And Manuel might draw stake-out duty afterwards. Not exactly how Johnny envisaged dying and maybe not the best way to thank his friend or cousin. Johnny chewed on a stick and mulled it over. "So Moya is in charge of both squads now?"
"No, Madrid. Hasn't Ruiz told you?" Coming from behind, Estrada clapped Johnny on the shoulder and sat down. "You have a new sargento. And let me introduce your new corporal."
Standing nearby, Diaz swept a bow. "El capitán has had too much sun. Never have I been good at taking orders, and now I must dish them out too."
Johnny laughed. He had an idea Diaz would do just fine.
But it was Lopez's re-assignment and Estrada's promotion to sergeant that boosted him most. As the transport continued its journey, he considered telling Tomás the truth, but the more he thought about it, the more those two changes convinced him his cousin already knew. Tomás had a company to run and a war to fight. He needed experienced sergeants, and the fact was these things happened among men when there were no señoritas available. Johnny wasn't wet-behind-the-ears; he knew some men gave comfort to each other, and there were always a few who took their pleasure or relief without asking. The night of the ambush he was sleeping alone, and he didn't have a gun or a knife by his side to ward them off. Tomás had done what he could to protect him from being attacked like that again. Best not appear ungrateful.
His spirits rose with every day. Sergeant Estrada ran the squad very differently from Lopez, and even though Johnny's face looked like a horse had trampled on it, and he had more bruises than he could count, he began to enjoy life again.
"Have you ever been to Sinaloa before, Madrid?" Estrada asked as he marched alongside Johnny and Manuel. They were emerging from the pass, and fields and orchards spread out in front of them, all the way to the horizon.
"Not that I remember. I've been to Sonora."
"We cannot see it, but where the sky meets the land will be the sea."
"Do we go there?" Manuel stretched his neck as if he could see further by doing so. "I've never seen the sea."
"Maybe but not yet. We turn north at a place called Concordia."
The road from Concordia took them through foothills, and then they turned west. They zigzagged on back roads, north then west then north again until they had by-passed the city and port of Mazatlán. Then they marched north along the main road towards the capital of Culiacán. It had taken a week to come through the pass and it took them another to reach their destination, south of the city. The last day or two Johnny and the others knew their progress was being watched, but messengers came and went; the eyes were friendly.
Eventually, the transport entered an encampment almost as large as the one in Durango, but cavalry and artillery outnumbered infantry.
"Make camp in the orange grove, muchachos. This will be home for a while." Estrada waved his squad towards trees laden with ripening fruit as the wagons trundled on to a depot.
"Where's el capitán going?" Perez asked as he lowered his pack to the ground.
"Off to see the man in charge," Estrada replied examining the fruit. Another couple of weeks, and the grove would provide them with a feast. "Let's hope Colonel Rosales knows what he's doing."
The colonel's orders were good as far as Johnny was concerned—no more marching. After helping to unload the remaining cargo and the French gold, the Third Company took a share of duty watching the main road between Mazatlán and Culiacán, checking those who came or went and preventing any communication between imperial sympathizers and the Emperor Maximilian. It was routine guard duty, broken up by drills and rifle practise; just what the doctor ordered to begin with, and before anyone got too bored, the officers started issuing forty-eight hour passes to the regular soldiers. Even the ex-convicts were rewarded for their efforts; they didn't get leave, but they were given permission to smoke.
The soldiers still serving sentences were fewer in number now. Manuel was the only one to have done his time. Gonzalez, Quiroz, Duran and Rodriguez were dead. Cervantes was much improved, but still unfit for soldiering. Corporal Luna wangled for him to assist with the hospital wagon instead.
Under Sergeant Estrada that left Johnny, Perez and Leon to do small jobs as needed when the rest of their squad was on leave: they scavenged parts from one broken gun to fix another, fed horses, mended or cleaned clothes and equipment, helped with food preparation, collected firewood or hauled supplies. In their spare time they maintained their own gear, talked and enjoyed fruit picked straight from the trees.
"I wonder how the big fella is getting on," Perez chuckled, nudging Johnny in the ribs, as the three men repaired tack under an orange tree. "You remember your first time, kid?"
"Maybe." Johnny smirked. He'd been bedded at fourteen. The vaqueros and gunhawks he'd been working with at the time had ponied up and paid for a night with the lovely Carlotta as a birthday present. Now it was Manuel's turn. When the other men had discovered he hadn't done it yet, they'd all put in a coin, and Sergeant Estrada undertook to arrange things. "I hope Estrada finds him a gal as pretty."
"Pretty be damned. What he wants is a señorita with meat on her bones and good hands." Leon's eyes gleamed as he took another puff of his cigarillo.
"And good other parts." Perez pretended to lift a pair of big breasts.
They all laughed, but soon went quiet. To a man they fidgeted where they sat and changed the subject. Johnny only had a month to go, but the other two had been sentenced to a year. They still had seven months of doing without ahead of them.
"It ain't natural," grumbled Leon later. "I don't know how them padres survive."
"Me neither." Johnny sure as hell would never become a priest. He'd been hot to play the game ever since he was introduced to it. Up until now, he had made do for short periods when there was no other choice, but shoot it had been nearly four months. He hadn't visited a brothel for at least two weeks before leaving Santa Fe, because he'd been saving for his Deringer. He'd had no money when he'd reached El Paso del Norte, and then he'd ended up serving time in the army. But now he had a few coins in his pocket. "I know what I'm doin' as soon as I get out of here."
That happy event was drawing nearer and nearer. Johnny had lost count of the number of days he had served, but he knew his time would be up before Nochebuena. When the posadas began in the village nearby, he was hopeful every day he'd be summoned to the captain's tent, but before that happened things began to get exciting again.
"Fall in," Sergeant Estrada and Sergeant Moya hollered, almost in unison. The men stopped what they were doing and ran to take their positions. Then they were marched to join the rest of the company.
"Prepare for battle." Tomás stood in front of them with a look of pride on his face. "Domingo Cortés, commander of the empire's military, has reached Navolato to the west of here. He is trying to get to Culiacán so he can take control of Sinaloa. Our job is to stop him. The Imperialists will attempt to cross the Humaya River in the morning, and we shall be ready for them."
The Third Company spent the late afternoon and evening fortifying the front houses of the village of San Pedro just outside the city. It was already home to cavalry that had harassed the rear guard of the enemy earlier in the day, and then retreated. The company worked hard to ensure streets were blocked with carts and barrels, houses boarded up and the villagers evacuated. Two pieces of artillery were installed on the south side of the village. Word was Colonel Rosales had ordered a half battalion and four more artillery pieces to stand in reserve within the walls of Culiacán, and in between his work Johnny saw cavalry take their positions behind the city's hedges.
Then the infantrymen waited, catching what sleep they could with the prospect of a battle filling their thoughts.
"Just my luck if I'm killed now when I've nearly done my time," Johnny half-joked as he settled down between Manuel and Perez.
"Look on the bright side, amigo. It would be very easy to take revenge on someone in the heat of battle and not get caught." Perez nodded in the direction of a building where Sergeant Lopez and his men had been setting up defences.
At first Johnny just grunted. He didn't bother asking Perez how he knew the truth. Manuel swore he had never told anyone, but several men in the squad seemed to have worked it out. Nothing was ever said, but during the weeks following the attack, they did all they could to keep Johnny and Lopez apart. Gradually Johnny's hunger for revenge lessened. He was damn sure now he wasn't going to blow his chances of getting out of the army alive for the sake of hunting down that scum. "Maybe the Frenchies will do the job for me."
The Imperialists crossed the river and launched their assault early the next morning. The cannon blasts were deafening, and for the first time Johnny and the other new men really put their shooting practise to good use. It was firing and reloading and firing again, two to three times a minute; sometimes he couldn't even see what he was shooting at the smoke was so thick.
"Protect the guns. They're after the guns!" Estrada yelled at the top of his voice as the enemy swarmed towards the cannons, ignoring the bullets coming from the village buildings in their eagerness to take control of the artillery.
The Republicans kept up a constant barrage of bullets, but it was no use; the cannons were captured and turned against them at short range. The first balls blasted through the adobe walls protecting Johnny and his comrades, spraying mortar and timber. The eight men in the great room of the mayor's house with Johnny dived for cover, and only six got up again.
Manuel was injured. A jagged piece of broken wood stuck out of his leg. "I'll be okay."
"Lean on me." Johnny got him to a recess behind the staircase seconds before enemy soldiers began scrambling over the broken wall. "Reload and sit tight."
Johnny ran back to join the fighting. Smoke and dust hung in the air like the thickest fog. It was hand to hand combat now, bayonet, knife or handgun. There was no time to reload a musket-rifle after the first shot was fired.
But then, gracias a Dios, he heard the fusillade and the bugles. The republican reserve force attacked. Within minutes no more imperial soldiers came over the damaged walls, and he had time to catch his breath.
"The Third to me!"
He heard the shout in the distance. Checking first to see if Manuel was still okay, Johnny ran towards the voice. Others were ahead of him, but he couldn't see who.
Then he tripped.
He came down hard. Looking back to see what had caused him to fall, he wished he hadn't. His stomach rolled like the ocean, and he threw up in the rubble.
"Kill…me, Madrid." The words gurgled out of Sergeant Lopez in bubbles of blood. Propped up against a pillar, he looked down at his own guts, surrounded by pulverized flesh; they spewed from a gaping hole in his belly like huge red and white maggots, blanketed in dust. "Mer—cy."
Johnny spat and swallowed. Getting to his feet, his eyes locked on the gore. His nerves drummed. A direct hit by a Minié ball—maybe some artillery fire as well. Lopez had gotten what he deserved. The bullet and the shock hadn't killed him outright so now he would die real slow like Gonzalez. Suffer, you bastard.
Backing away, Johnny stumbled on a fallen beam. When he got up, he forced himself to face the other direction and gulped air as he clambered over it.
"Worth…try," Lopez wheezed. "I'd do…"
Johnny couldn't believe it: the devil was laughing.
"Same."
Johnny stopped cold.
Chest cramped and a strange buzzing between his ears, he fought the urge to piss and slowly turned around.
Lopez's face was white, twisted in pain—bloodless except for black-red trickles draining from his scalp.
Cabrón! Johnny clung to his hate, every muscle pulled tight. The bastard tried to rape me.
But as if they had a will of their own, his fingers wrapped around the LeMat. Taking it from his belt, he weighed the revolver in his hand; the lever on the hammer was down.
The bastard tried to rape me. He would have stuck that oversized prick up my ass and raped me. He deserves to die hard. He deserves it.
Smashing a tear with the heel of his hand, Johnny heaved air into his lungs.
"Lopez!"
The sergeant strained his neck to look at him.
"I'm not like you."
The sound of cannon fire masked mercy, but Johnny heard none of it. For a full minute he just stared at the hole in Lopez's forehead.
"The Third to me!"
Snapping back to life, he holstered his gun. The pressure building up inside him had gone, and he ran to answer the call.
He found Tomás and about thirty other men gathered together in ruins on the edge of the village. Estrada, Rivera, Diaz, Perez and Morales were among them. Two more soldiers from another troop joined the group as Johnny arrived. Was this all that was left of more than one hundred men?
He could see the same question in Tomás' eyes, but the fighting was on-going, artillery was blaring. The rest could be anywhere in this ruckus.
"Follow me." With two rifles slung over his shoulder and a sword in hand, Tomás led his men wide of the fighting through groves of trees. They crossed open fields to the river and then ran along its banks to the bridge. "Take your positions. The enemy will try to retreat via this road and bridge. You will not let them. Viva la República!"
"Viva la República!" Johnny yelled with the rest, and then ran to line up in front. The infantrymen filled the width of the stone bridge, three deep, and waited.
They didn't have to wait long. Soon the Republican cavalry had the Imperialists on the run, and they ran straight for the bridge.
"Hold," Tomás cautioned. "Wait for the command. One line at a time now. Hold…hold…FIRE!"
The first line fired and dropped to their knees. The second line aimed and fired, and then the third. By the time they dropped, the front line had reloaded and was on its feet again. Johnny saw Tomás join the back line; his cousin shot and reloaded like the best of them. Who knows how long the barrage lasted, but the enemy got the message. The Imperialists veered off left and right looking for other ways to cross the river.
Sergeant Estrada jumped to his feet. Tapping the best marksmen on the shoulder, he sent them to the sides. As desperate men attempted to swim the river, Johnny picked them off one by one. Out of range he saw a large group trying to retreat across a shallow ford, but it only got them as far as an island in the centre of the Humaya. There they were trapped by the pursuing cavalry.
"You should have seen it, amigo," Johnny said later as he helped Manuel sit down by the campfire. "When the Frenchmen surrendered, we all cheered."
Manuel rested his crutch against the empty crate Johnny had scavenged for him to sit on. His leg was firmly bound and splinted; Corporal Luna was confident it would mend. "I wish I had been there. I'm glad the enemy soldiers were taken prisoner."
Johnny had spent most of the afternoon rounding them up, and by the time he got back to where he had left Manuel, his friend was gone. Others had rescued him along with Lieutenant Herrera and a few more injured men from their troop.
The Republicans had lost men of course. Sadly, Leon was among the dead to join Sergeant Lopez in the large communal grave.
"I was telling him about my Juanita. Then all hell let loose." Diaz bowed his head, and Johnny looked away while the corporal got the dust out of his eyes. "That crazy bandido took a bullet for me."
Johnny focused his mind on Leon and the other good men he had fought alongside as Colonel Rosales himself read the eulogy. At least their friend had died honourably—Leon would have thought that was hilarious.
He would have approved of what followed too. After paying their respects to fallen comrades, most of the Juaristas were too drunk with their success to grieve for long. Guards were posted, and the rest were allowed to celebrate long into the night. Two battles elsewhere the previous month had ended in defeat. The Battle of San Pedro was a much needed victory.
The next morning, many of the regulars awoke bleary eyed, their heads aching.
"Shush." Rivera winced as the coffee pot clinked against his mug.
"Should have shared the tequila last night, pendejo," Perez scoffed with a grin. "The kid and me earned a mouthful at least."
"If it was up to me, amigo, but you know it is not." Rivera shrugged and sipped his coffee. The surrounding orange grove was littered with empty glass bottles and earthenware jugs.
"Madrid, front and centre!" Estrada strode towards them.
"What's up?" Johnny got to his feet, expecting Estrada to tell him, but instead the sergeant walked away, signalling for Johnny to follow.
Once they were out of earshot, Estrada turned and offered his hand. "I think the time has come, amigo. If I don't get another chance, it's been good knowing you. Capitán Flores wants to see you."
Johnny shook hands with a grin. "I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye."
He headed towards Tomás's tent, breaking into a jog when he thought Estrada had stopped watching. But he had to wait when he reached it.
Tomás emerged with officers Johnny didn't recognize, laughing and joking, and seeing them on their way. Winning the battle had raised everybody's spirits. "Go on in, Madrid."
Tomás accepted a light from an artillery major and had a word with the sentry before following, closing the tent flap behind him. A bottle of tequila was on his desk with several glasses. He gave one of them a quick wipe with a cloth and pour out two good measures. "Will you toast our victory, Johnny, now that you have served your time and are free to go?"
"Don't mind if I do." Johnny accepted the tequila and raised his glass before taking a decent swig. The alcohol hit his stomach like a bullet, and he gasped, eyes watering. "Out of practice."
Tomás laughed. "My mother would say you're too young to drink hard liquor anyway."
"I won't let her see me." Johnny winked.
"That would be easy if you stayed in the army." Tomás picked up slices of tomato, chorizo and cheese from a platter on the desk and sandwiched them together. He pointed Johnny to do the same. "Enlist, Johnny. It's not such a bad life."
"I'm no good at taking orders, Tomás. You know that."
"From what I hear, you've improved."
"Well, it depends on who gives them, don't it? And if they make sense. All that marching and saluting—it ain't for me. Besides I've got a good horse in El Paso del Norte if your pa hasn't sold him."
"And a growing reputation."
"Yep, that too. But is that so bad? I aim to get real good at my trade. In another year or two, I'll shave regular and look the part, and then no man will mess with me."
"I wouldn't count on that, but if you've made up your mind, I wish you luck."
"Thanks." Johnny shook Tomás' hand, and felt a piece of paper pressed into his palm. "What's this?"
"Instructions where to find a Señor Mendoza. He is travelling from Culiacán to El Paso del Norte the day after Navidad, and he wants a guard." Tomás put an arm around Johnny's shoulder and escorted him to the opening of the tent. "I have also written down the address of a local establishment. A señorita is waiting for you, cousin. My treat."
"Yeah?" Johnny's eyes brightened.
Tomás laughed. "Your release date kept ringing bells with me. Damned if I could work out why. Then three days ago I saw some kids break open a piñata." He pulled back the tent flap. "Happy birthday, Johnny."
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.
2. El Paso del Norte is the old name for Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
3. Several Spanish swear words appear in this story. You will recognize them from their context, but for those who want to know their precise meaning, here is a list in no particular order: cállate (shut up); pendejo (coward/dickhead/idiot); lárgate/lárguense (fuck off); mierda (fuck/shit); cabrón/bastardo (bastard/asshole); maldita sea (damn).
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.
9. For more information about the LeMat revolver see wiki/LeMat_Revolver and watch?v=P5M-QQIOc5k
11. For more information about the Battle of San Pedro see wiki/Battle_of_San_Pedro