52

Almost Dog Food

Artillery speaks its own language and a soldier quickly learns it. Angel had heard the cries of wounded men and the agonies of dying horses. She was familiar with the pop-pop-pop of rifles and the bone-vibrating pulse of machine guns.

She knew the crack of breaking bones and the sucking sound an abdomen made when sliced open by a machete. She was used to the keening of widows and orphans, and to the abrupt racket of grenades followed by the sigh of falling sand and the rattle of airborne rocks and debris. The only noise that could unnerve her was the screech of an artillery shell headed straight at her.

A shell posted to her most current address had a different volume and pitch than one destined to land on one side of her or the other. By the sound, Angel could gauge how far and in which direction she had to run to avoid it.

As this one whistled toward her she waved her men to scatter and spurred her horse toward a boulder. She leaned along the mare’s neck and pulled her serape over her own head and the horse’s. The mare flinched as the shell exploded, and Angel murmured in her ear to calm her.

When the blanket had absorbed the thump of the last falling rock, Angel spurred the mare into the open and surveyed the rock-strewn landscape for signs of her command.

“Vengan, muchachos,” she shouted. “Come out, boys.”

Plinio rode toward her, but the others must have had their doubts. She could see the straw-colored peaks of sombreros here and there among the rocks and trees and the occasional horse’s rump, but no one left what ever cover they had found.

“The boys are not used to artillery.” Plinio had a wry way with the obvious.

“Soon those guns will be ours.”

Angel looked back toward the distant roofs of Berta’s village. It had become Zapata’s headquarters for this assault on el gobierno’s barracks at Tres Marías, and the sixty pack mules of the government’s supply train milled about in a corral there. Their escort of federal soldiers had handed them over to Zapata and reined their own mounts in among his men. At least half of the mules had carried ammunition.

“The federales must be almost out of bullets,” Angel said.

Plinio shrugged. “Almost out of bullets is not the same as out of bullets.”

Angel cupped her hands around her mouth. “El gobierno no tiene bolas,” she shouted. “The government has no balls.”

Laughter bounced among the rocks as the rebel troop emerged, their horses’ hoofs clattering on the stony ground. Once her company had assembled Angel looked for Antonio. Her own men’s welfare came first, but she did not feel at ease unless she knew where he was.

Another lieutenant had been killed this morning and Antonio had accepted command of his company. Now he rode along the rim of the deep ravine that separated him from her, but no matter. He and Angel shared the rare gift of being together in spirit even when they were apart.

A wave would be seen by their men as a signal to charge, so Antonio touched the brim of his hat with two fingers. Angel returned the salute. She braced the staff of her company’s guidon on her thigh, held the reins lightly in her other hand, and waited for her men to assemble behind her.

The rattle of their spurs and rifles and the creak of their saddles as they shifted their weight for the charge were music to her. When she raised the flag the wind caught it. Fluttering and snapping, it came alive like a horse eager to start a race he knew he could win. She turned to stare at Zapata sitting astride his white horse on a rise overlooking the mountainous terrain.

His arm swept forward in the signal to charge. Angel raised the flag as high as her arm would reach.

“Adelante, mis guachos,” she shouted. “Forward, my orphans.”

With a cry of “Land and liberty,” she spurred the mare into a gallop. All she heard was the thunder of hooves and her own voice, but she knew her men were shouting, too. The charge became a series of skirmishes. Angel fired as she rode, chasing the federales through thorny underbrush, into canyons, and among rock falls.

The thrill of it intoxicated her. By mid afternoon the government soldiers had fled helter-skelter toward Cuernavaca. Coated with dust, bleeding from cuts and scratches, soaked in sweat, and grinning, Angel rounded up as many of her men as she could find. Together they rode back to Tres Marías. The barracks, the train station, and the village were theirs.

She watered and rubbed down her mare and tethered her in a patch of grass. Then she went to the makeshift hospital under a canvas awning. She found all three of her missing men there, and after she made sure that their wounds weren’t serious, she sauntered to the camp to compare stories with Antonio.

She didn’t find him. She didn’t find him in the thatched shelter that served as a kitchen, or in the market near the train station. He wasn’t tending to the horses. He wasn’t at the periphery of the officers in conference with General Zapata. By late afternoon all of Antonio’s men had returned and no one had seen him. When his horse walked in, reins dragging, Angel tried not to panic.

She stuffed bandages into her knapsack and filled one canteen with water and another with tequila. She found José and the two of them separated so they could cover more area in the search for him. She rode slowly over the broken ground, calling his name.

She saw plenty of corpses. Almost all of them wore government uniforms, but her breath caught in her throat anyway until she made sure none of them was Antonio. She hadn’t time for prayers, but she made the sign of the cross over each one, barely slowing her mare before moving on.

She cursed the sun as it slid closer to the western peaks, gathering its light to take with it. She cursed herself for not having thought to bring a torch. By the time the rocks loomed like ghosts in the deepening twilight, she had strayed several miles from Tres Marías. Every hundred yards or so she reined the mare to a stop, cupped her hands around her mouth, and called Antonio’s name

When his reply came, Angel thought it might be a bird or animal. She froze, listening as if her own life depended on it. The cry came again and this time she recognized the voice.

“Mierda.”

She laughed. “¿’Tonio, donde estás?”

All she heard was, “Malditos perros.” Damned dogs. And she barely heard that.

She walked to the edge of the ravine and saw him lying half covered by rocks at the bottom. A fallen boulder stopped just short of crushing him, but it had wedged over his chest, making movement impossible. A pack of gaunt dogs with a lot of wolf in them were eyeing him from about ten yards away. Angel pitched rocks at them, but that didn’t impress them. They continued staring at Antonio.

Angel wished she could lob a grenade in among them, but that might have harmed Antonio. Besides, she had used her last grenade to blow up a machine gun emplacement. Firing her last two rounds finally convinced the dogs to leave the larder.

She shouted for José, then walked along the rim until she found a slope gradual enough for her mare. The two of them slid down it in a riot of gravel and dust. Climbing back up would be difficult, but as Antonio often observed about her, she would blow up that bridge when she came to it.

Rocks covered Antonio’s legs. He must have dislodged them when he fell off his horse and slid down the side of the ravine. Blood from a gash on his temple ran down his cheek and soaked his collar. His face was ashen, probably from loss of blood, but he managed to wink at her.

Angel wanted to sob with relief. Instead, she put her hands on her hips and shook her head as though the sad state of his uniform had failed an inspection. The disappointed wolves-in-dogs’-clothing howled not far away.

“Now you have a new nickname, Ugly.”

“What, Brat?” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Dog Food.”

She started pulling off the rocks and pitching them. Most of them weren’t much bigger than a loaf of bread, but they made quite a heap. Another hour or two and they would have been his cairn. If Angel hadn’t found him before nightfall he would not have lived to see the sun rise.

José appeared at the rim of the ravine. “I wondered who was making so much racket.”

He helped Angel roll the boulder off Antonio and down a slight slope. It scattered the dogs who went off in search of easier pickings. They would find plenty to eat today.

Angel allowed herself a few tears as she poured tequila on the gash on his face. It was a deep one that just missed his eye. She bound it with strips of cloth from the bottom of some soldadera’s skirt, and then helped José clear away the last of the rocks.

José probed along his son’s legs and feet. “I think the ankle is broken.”

Angel sat behind Antonio and pulled him into a half-sitting position so his back rested against her chest. She gave him a long drink of tequila from the canteen, then took one herself before pushing the cork back into it. She put her arms around him, laid her cheek against his, and held him while José pulled on his foot to straighten the ankle bone.

She kept holding him while José cut a branch from a pine tree, shaved it flat with his machete, divided it in two, and shaped it into splints. Angel folded rags to cushion the leg and José bound the splints tightly in place. They helped him stand and mount the mare.

Angel had plenty of time to think in the corpse-strewn darkness as she led the mare back to camp with Antonio lying along the horse’s neck. She thought about how panicked she had been when he didn’t return today. She felt the icy wind that commenced howling around her heart every time she imagined burying his lifeless body. She tried not to think about how unbearable life would be without him.

At the army’s sprawling encampment at Tres Marías she wrapped her serape around her and sat by his mat while he tossed and moaned in his sleep. She murmured reassurances and covered him when his blanket slipped off. She gave him sips of water when he woke up. She laid wet cloths on his forehead to ease his fever. She dozed a little, but most of the night she stared into his face, pale in the moonlight.

The sun had been up an hour when Antonio awoke. Only after he attempted a smile and asked for breakfast would Angel believe the exhausted medico when he said Antonio would survive. She shared her tortillas, beans, and roast pork with him.

“You look like you’ll live, Ugly.”

“I’m ready to ride.”

“That’s good, because General Zapata says we’ll be galloping into Cuernavaca soon.”