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 paid tribute a hundred years to tribes of naked savages. Given up their crops and livestock. Mines shut down. Whole villages abandoned. While a heathen horde rides over the land looting and killing with total impunity. Not a hand raised against them. What kind of people are these? The Apaches wont even shoot them. Did you know that? They kill them with rocks. The captain shook his head. He seemed made sad by what he had to tell.
Did you know that when Colonel Doniphan took Chihuahua City he inflicted over a thousand casualties on the enemy and lost only one man and him all but a suicide? With an army of unpaid irregulars that called him Bill, were half naked, and had walked to the battlefield from Missouri?
No sir.
The captain leaned back and folded his arms. What we are dealing with, he said, is a race of degenerates. A mongrel race, little better than niggers. And maybe no better. There is no government in Mexico. Hell, there’s no God in Mexico. Never will be. We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.
There are already some fourteen thousand French colonists in the state of Sonora. They’re being given free land to settle. They’re being given tools and livestock. Enlightened Mexicans encourage this. Paredes is already calling for secession from the Mexican government. They’d rather be ruled by toadeaters than thieves and imbeciles. Colonel Carrasco is asking for American intervention. And he’s going to get it.
Right now they are forming in Washington a commission to come out here and draw up the boundary lines between our country and Mexico. I dont think there’s any question that ultimately Sonora will become a United States territory. Guaymas a U S port. Americans will be able to get to California without having to pass through our benighted sister republic and our citizens will be protected at last from the notorious packs of cutthroats presently infesting the routes which they are obliged to travel.
The captain was watching the kid. The kid looked uneasy. Son, said the captain. We are to be the instruments of liberation in a dark and troubled land. That’s right. We are to spearhead the drive. We have the tacit support of Governor Burnett of California.
He leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. And we will be the ones who will divide the spoils. There will be a section of land for every man in my company. Fine grassland. Some of the finest in the world. A land rich in minerals, in gold and silver I would say beyond the wildest speculation. You’re young. But I dont misread you. I’m seldom mistaken in a man. I think you mean to make your mark in this world. Am I wrong?
No sir.
No. And I don’t think you’re the sort of chap to abandon a land that Americans fought and died for to a foreign power. And mark my word. Unless Americans act, people like you and me who take their country seriously while those mollycoddles in Washington sit on their hindsides, unless we act, Mexico—and I mean the whole of the country—will one day fly a European flag. Monroe Doctrine or no.
The captain’s voice had become soft and intense. He tilted his head to one side and regarded the kid with a sort of benevolence. The kid rubbed the palms of his hands on the knees of his filthy jeans. He glanced at the man beside him but he seemed to be asleep.
What about a saddle? he said.
Saddle?
Yessir.
You dont have a saddle?
No sir.
I thought you had a horse.
A mule.
I see.
I got a old hull on the mule but they aint much left of it. Aint a whole lot left of the mule. He said I was to get a horse and a rifle.
Sergeant Trammel did?
I never promised him no saddle, said the sergeant.
We’ll get you a saddle.
I did tell him we might find him some clothes, Captain.
Right. We may be irregulars but we dont want to look like bobtails, do we?
No sir.
We aint got no more broke horses neither, said the sergeant.
Well break one.
That old boy that was so good about breakin em is out of commission.
I know that. Get somebody else.
Yessir. Maybe this man can break horses. You ever break horses?
No sir.
Aint no need to sir me.
Yessir.
Sergeant, said the captain, easing himself down from the desk.
Yessir.
Sign this man up.
The camp was upriver at the edge of the town. A tent patched up from old wagon canvas, a few wickiups made of brush and beyond them a corral in the form of a figure eight likewise made from brush where a few small painted ponies stood sulking in the sun.
Corporal, called the sergeant.
He aint here.
He dismounted and strode toward the tent and threw back the fly. The kid sat on the mule. Three men were lying in the shade of a tree and they studied him. Howdy, said one.
Howdy.
You a new man?
I reckon.
Captain say when we leavin this pesthole?
He never said.
The sergeant came from the tent. Where’s he at? he said.