THE PASS OF ANGOSTURA
It was almost midwinter now in Mexico, and here, in the northern part of
the republic, on the great plateau, it was cold. Phil more than once
had seen the snow flying, and far away it lay in white sheets on the
peaks of the Sierra Madre. He had obtained a heavy blanket coat or
overcoat from the stores, and he was glad enough now to pull it closely
around him and turn its collar up about his neck, as he walked back and
forth in the chilly blasts. At each end of his beat he met another
sentinel, a young Kentuckian like himself, and, for the sake of company,
they would exchange a friendly word or two before they parted.
The night was dark, and, with the icy winds cutting him, Phil, after the
other sentinel had turned away, felt more lonesome in this far strange
land than he had ever been before in his life. Everything about him was
unfriendly, the hard volcanic soil upon which he trod, the shapeless
figures of the adobe huts on the outskirts of the town, and the moaning
winds from the Sierra Madre, which seemed to be more hostile and
penetrating than those of his own country. It was largely imagination,
the effect of his position, but it contained something of reality, also.
It certainly was not fancy alone that peopled the country about with
enemies. An invader is seldom loved, and it was not fancy at all that
created the night and the cold.
Phil's beat was at the edge of open country, and he could see a little
distance upon a plain. He thought, at times, that shadowy figures with
soundless tread passed there, but he was never sure. He spoke about it
to the sentinel on his right, and then to the sentinel on his left. Each
in turn watched with him, but then the shadows did not pass, and he
concluded that his fancy was playing him tricks. Yet he was troubled,
and he resolved to watch with the utmost vigilance. His beat covered a
path leading into the town, while to right and left of him was very
difficult country. It occurred to him that anybody who wanted to pass
would come his way, and he was resolved that nobody should pass. He
examined every shadow, even if it might be that of a tree moved by the
wind, and he listened to every sound, although it might be made by some
strange Mexican animal.
Thus the time passed, and the fleeting shadows resolved themselves into
a figure that had substance and that remained. It took the shape of a
man in conical hat and long Mexican serape. He also carried a large
basket on one arm, and he approached with an appearance of timidity and
hesitation. Phil stepped forward at once, held up his rifle, and
called: "Halt!" The man obeyed promptly and pointed to the basket,
saying something in Spanish. When Phil looked, he pulled back the cover
and disclosed eggs and dressed chickens.
"To sell to the soldiers?" asked the boy.
The man nodded. Phil could not see his face, which was hidden by the
broad brim of his hat and the folds of his serape, drawn up around his
chin, evidently to fend off the cold. His surmise was likely enough.
The Americans had made a good market at Saltillo, and the peons were
ready to sell. But he did not like the hour or the man's stealthy
approach.
"No come in," he said, trying to use the simplest words of his language
to a foreigner. "Orders! Orders must be obeyed!"
The man pointed again to his basket, as if, being in doubt, he would
urge the value of a welcome.
"No come in," repeated Phil. "Go back," and he pointed toward the woods
from which the Mexican had come.
The man hesitated, but he did not go. He turned again toward Phil, and
at that moment the wind lifted a segment of his wide hat-brim. Phil
sprang back in amazement. Despite the dark, he recognized the features
of de Armijo, who could have come there for no good, who must have come
as a spy or worse.
"De Armijo!" he cried, and sprang for him. But the Mexican was as quick
as lightning. He leaped backward, dropped his basket, and the long
blade of a knife flashed in the air. It cut through the sleeve of
Phil's coat, and the sharp point, with a touch like fire, ran along his
arm. It was well for him that he had put on the heavy blanket coat that
night, or the blade would have grated on the bone.
The pain did not keep Phil from throwing up his rifle, and de Armijo,
seeing that his stroke had not disabled the boy, wheeled and ran. Phil
fired instantly, and saw de Armijo stagger a little. But in a moment
the Mexican recovered himself and quickly disappeared in the darkness,
although Phil rushed after him. He would have followed across the
plain, but he knew it was his duty to go no farther, and he came back to
meet the other sentinels, who were running toward him at the sound of
the shot. Phil quickly explained what had occurred, telling the
identity of the man, and adding that he was crafty and dangerous.
"A Mexican officer," said one of them. "No doubt he was trying to enter
the town in order to get more complete information about us and our
plans than they have yet obtained. He would have remained hidden by day
in some house, and he would have slipped out again at night when he had
learned all that he wanted. You did a good job, Bedford, when you
stopped him."
"You did more than stop him," said another, who had brought a small
lantern. "You nicked him before he got away. See, here's a drop of
blood, and here's another, and there's another."
They followed the trail of the drops, but it did not lead far.
Evidently the effusion of blood had not been great. Then one of the
men, glancing at Phil rather curiously, said:
"He seems to have touched you up, Bedford. Do you know that a little
stream of blood is running down your left sleeve?"
Phil was not conscious until then that something moist and warm was
dripping upon his hand. In the excitement of the moment he had
forgotten all about the slash of the knife, but, now that he remembered
it, he felt a sudden weakness. But he hid it from the others, and it
passed in a minute or so.
The chief of the patrol ordered him to go back and report to an officer,
and this officer happened to be Middleton, who was sitting with
Edgeworth in one of the open camps before a small fire. Phil's arm
meanwhile had been bound up, although he found that the cut was not
deep, and would not incapacitate him. Phil saluted in the new military
style that he was acquiring, and of which he was very proud, and said,
in reply to Middleton's look of inquiry:
"I have the honor to report, sir, that a spy, a Mexican officer, tried
to pass our lines at the point where I was stationed. He was disguised
as a peon, coming to sell provisions in our camp. When I stopped him he
slashed at me with his knife, although the wound he inflicted was but
slight, and I, in return, fired at him as he ran. I hit him, as drops of
blood on the ground showed, although I think his wound, like mine, was
slight."
Captain Middleton smiled.
"Come, Phil," he said, "you've done a good deed, so hop down off your
high horse, and tell it in your old, easy way. Remember that we are
still comrades of the plains."
Phil smiled, too. The official manner was rather hard and stiff, and it
was easier to do as Middleton suggested.
"Captain," he said, "I recognized the man, and it was one that we've met
more than once. It was de Armijo."
"Ah, de Armijo!" exclaimed the Captain. "He was trying to spy upon us.
He is high in the Mexican councils, and his coming here means much. It
is lucky, Phil, that you were the one to stop him, and that you
recognized him. But he did not love you much before, and he will not
love you any more, since you have spilled some of his blood with a
bullet."
"I know it," replied Phil confidently, "but I feel able to take care of
myself as far as de Armijo is concerned."
"You go to your tent and sleep," said Middleton, "and I'll put another
man in your place. You must not get too much stiffness and soreness in
that arm of yours. You will be likely to need it soon--also, every other
arm that you have."
Phil, not loth, returned to his tent, which he shared with Breakstone
and two or three others. Bill awoke, and, after listening to a
narrative of the occurrence, dressed and rebound the arm carefully.
"I agree with the Captain that things are coming to a head," he said.
"When you see a storm bird like de Armijo around, the storm itself can't
be far behind. I'm glad he didn't get a good whack at you, Phil, but,
as it is, you're so young and so healthy, and your blood is so pure that
it won't give you any trouble. I'll dress it again to-morrow, and in a
few days it will be well."
Bill Breakstone's prediction was a good one. In three or four days
Phil's wound was entirely healed, and two or three days later he could
use his arm as well as ever. The boy, meanwhile, was getting better
acquainted with the troops, and, like his comrades, was becoming
thoroughly a member of the little army. It was reduced now, by the
steady drains to strengthen Scott, to 4,610 men, of whom less than five
hundred were regular troops. But the volunteers, nearly all from the
west and south, little trained though they might be, were young, hardy,
used to life in the open air, and full of zeal. They had all the fire
and courage of youth, and they did not fear any number of Mexicans.
But the New Year had come, January in its turn had passed, and the news
drifting in from a thousand sources, like dust from the desert, grew
more alarming. The army organized by Santa Anna at San Luis Potosi was
the largest that had ever been gathered in Mexico, with powerful
artillery and a numerous cavalry. Santa Anna himself was at his best,
drilling, planning, and filling his officers with his own enthusiasm.
In Saltillo itself the people grew bolder. They openly said that it was
time for the Americans to run if they would save themselves from the
invincible Mexican commander and president. It seemed to many of the
Americans even that it would be wise to retreat all the way to the Rio
Grande, but the old general, his heart full of bitterness, gave no such
order. He had begun the campaign in victorious fashion, and then he had
been ordered to stop. He had asked to be allowed to serve as second to
Scott in the great campaign that would go forward from Vera Cruz, and
that had been refused. Then he had asked that more of his troops,
especially the regulars, be left to him, and that, too, had been
refused. He was expected to yield the ground that he had gained, and
retreat in the face of an overwhelming enemy.
Phil saw General Taylor many times in those days. Any one could see him
as he passed about the city and camp, a gray, silent man, with little
military form, a product of the West and the frontier, to which Phil
himself belonged. It was for that reason, perhaps, that Phil could
enter so thoroughly into the feelings of the general, a simple,
straightforward soldier who believed himself the victim of politics, a
man who felt within him not the facility for easy and graceful speech
and manners, but the rugged power to do great things. He was very
gentle and kind to his men in these days. The soldier who had spent a
lifetime on the frontier, fighting Indians and dealing with the roughest
of his kind, was now more like the head of a great family, a band
knitted all the more closely together because they were in a foreign
land confronted by a great danger.
Phil was picking up Spanish fast, and his youth, perhaps, caused the
people about the city to make more hints, or maybe threats, to him than
they would have made to an older man. Santa Anna had with him the whole
might of Mexico. He would be before Saltillo in three days, in two
days, to-morrow perhaps. The very air seemed to the boy to be charged
with gunpowder, and he had his moments of despondency. But he had been
through too much danger already to despair, and he allowed no one to
think that at any time he was apprehensive.
Bill Breakstone was, for the present, the best man in the army. No
other made acquaintances so fast, no other had such a wonderful flow of
cheering words, and he was--or had been--an actor. To many of these
youths who had never seen a play he must certainly have been the
greatest actor in the world. Nor was he like a prima donna, to be
coaxed, and then to refuse four times out of five. He recited nearly
every evening in front of his tent, and he did more than any other man
to keep the army in good heart. General Taylor and his second, General
Wool, said nothing, but the younger officers commented openly and
favorably. Thus the last days of January went by, and they were deep
into February. The menacing reports still came out of the south, and
now it was known definitely that Washington expected Taylor to fall
back. Gloom overspread the young volunteers. They had not fought their
way so far merely to go back, but orders were orders, and they must be
obeyed.
Early in the evening Bill Breakstone was reciting again in front of his
tent, and at least two hundred stood about listening. This time he was
reciting with great fire and vigor his favorite: "Once more unto the
breach, dear friends," and, when he had said it once, there was a
vigorous call for it again. Obligingly he began the repetition, but
when he was midway in it Middleton strode into the circle and held up
his hand. His attitude was so tense, and his air and manner showed so
much suppressed excitement that every one turned at once from Breakstone
to him. Breakstone himself stopped so short that his mouth was left
wide open, and he, too, gazed at Middleton.
"My lads," said Middleton, "an order, an important order has just been
issued by the commander-in-chief. You are to prepare at once for
breaking camp, and you are to march at daylight in the morning."
Some one uttered a groan, and a bold voice spoke up:
"Do we retreat all the way to the Rio Grande, or do we hide somewhere on
the way?"
The speaker could not be seen from the place where Middleton stood, nor
would the comrades around him have betrayed him. But Middleton looked
in the direction of the voice, and his figure seemed to swell. Phil,
who was standing near, thought he saw his eyes flicker with light.
"My lads," said Middleton, and his voice was full and thrilling, "we do
not retreat all the way to the Rio Grande, nor do we hide on the way.
We do not retreat at all. We march forward, southward, through the
mountains to meet the enemy."
A cheer, sudden, tremendous, and straight from the heart, burst forth,
and it was joined with other cheers that came from other points in the
camp.
"Now make it three times three for old Rough and Ready!" cried Phil in
his enthusiasm, and they did it with zeal and powerful vocal organs.
Middleton smiled and walked on. Immediately everything was haste and
excitement. The men began to pack. Arms and ammunition were made ready
for the march. Youth looked forward only to victory, thinking little of
the risks and dangers. Breakstone smiled to himself and said under his
breath the words:
"We would not seek a battle as we are,
Nor as we are, we say we will not shun it.
So tell your master.
"Old Rough and Ready perhaps does not seek a battle, but he is willing
to go forward and meet it. Ah! these brave boys! these brave boys!"
Then he turned to Phil and Arenberg, who were among his tent-mates.
"We three must stick together through everything," he said. "We've lost
Middleton for the time, because he's got to return to his duties as an
officer."
"What you say iss good," said Arenberg.
"It's a bargain," said Phil.
They looked to the horses--they were in the cavalry--and at midnight
went to sleep. But they were up before dawn, still full of energy and
enthusiasm. As the sun cast its first rays on the cold peaks of the
Sierra Madre, they mounted, fully armed and equipped, and marched out of
Saltillo, although Taylor left a strong guard in the city, wishing to
preserve it as a base.
Phil rode knee to knee with Arenberg and Breakstone, and the thrill that
he had felt the night before, when Middleton told the news, he felt
again this morning. Horse, foot, and artillery, they were only between
four and five thousand men, but the whole seemed a great army to the
boy. He had never seen so many men under arms before. Breakstone saw
his eye kindling.
"They are stained by travel and tanned by weather, but it's fine crowd,
just as you think it is, Sir Philip of Saltillo. Don't you agree with
me, Hans, Duke of the Sierra Madre?"
"It can fight," said Arenberg briefly.
"And that's what it has come out to do."
Phil saw the people of Saltillo watching them as the army left the
suburbs and moved on toward the mountains. But the spectators seemed to
be silent. Even the children had little to say. Phil wondered what
they thought in their hearts. He did not doubt that most of them were
sure that this army, or what was left of it, would come back prisoners
of Santa Anna. He was glad when they left them behind, and henceforth
he looked toward the mountains, which upreared cold peaks in the chilly
sunshine of winter. But the air was dazzlingly clear and crisp. Pure
and fresh, it filled all on that high plateau with life, and Phil's mood
was one that expected only the best.
"We are not going to ride straight over those mountains, are we?" he
said to Bill Breakstone.
"No," replied Bill, "we feel pretty nearly good enough for anything, but
we will not try any such high jumping as that. There's a pass. You
can't see it from here, because it's a sort of knife-cut going down deep
into the mountains, and they call it the Pass of Angostura. We'll be
there soon."
There was much noise as the army began its march, friend calling to
friend, the exchange of joke and comment, wagon drivers and cannon
drivers shouting to their horses, and the clanking of arms. But they
soon settled down into a steady sound, all noises fusing into one made
by an army that continued to march but that had ceased to talk.
Phil studied the mountains as they came nearer. They were dark and
somber. Their outlines were jagged, and they had but little forest or
verdure. The peaks seemed to him volcanic, presenting a multitude of
sharp edges.
As the sun rose higher, the day grew somewhat warmer, but it was still
full of chill. The horses blew smoke from their nostrils. Scouts
coming out of the passes met them and repeated that Santa Anna was now
advancing from San Luis Potosi. Nor had rumor exaggerated his forces.
He outnumbered the American army at least five to one, and his front was
covered by a great body of cavalry under General Minon, one of the best
Mexican leaders.
This news quickly traveled through the columns, and Phil and his friends
were among the first to hear it. Breakstone gazed anxiously at the
peaks.
"They don't know just how far Santa Anna has come," he said, "but it's
mighty important for us going to the south to get through that pass
before he, coming to the north, can get through it."
"We'll make it," said Phil, with the sanguine faith of youth. "I don't
believe that Santa Anna is yet near enough to dispute the pass with us."
"Likely you are right, Sir Philip of the Brave Heart and the Cheerful
Countenance," replied Bill Breakstone. "But we shall soon see for
certain. In another hour we will enter the defiles."
Phil said nothing, but rode on with his comrades. The city had now
dropped behind them and was far out of sight. On their flanks rode
scouts who would be skirmishers if need be. They marched on a level and
good road, and about six miles from Saltillo they passed a hacienda and
tiny village.
"What village is that?" asked Phil of some one.
"Buena Vista," was the reply.
Phil heard it almost without noticing, although it was a reply to his
own question. Yet it was a name that he was destined soon to recall and
never to forget. How often for years and years afterward that name came
back to him at night, syllable by syllable and letter by letter! Now he
rode on, taking no thought of it, and the little village and hacienda
lay behind him, sleeping peacefully in the sun. His attention was for
the mountains, because they were now entering the defile, the pass of
Angostura, which cuts through the spur thrown out by the Sierra Madre.
This is lofty, and the way narrowed fast. Nor did the sunlight fall so
plentifully there, and the winds grew colder as they whistled through
the pass. After the brilliant opalescent air of the plain, they seemed
to be riding in a sort of twilight, and Phil felt his spirits droop.
Deeper and deeper they went into the cut. Above him loomed the
mountains, dark and menacing. Shrub and dwarfed plants clung here and
there in the crannies, but the range was bare, and often it was
distorted into strange shapes, sometimes like that of the human
countenance. The sky showed in a ribbon above, but it had turned gray,
and was somber and depressing. Behind came the long line of the army,
the wheels of the artillery clanking over the stones.
Once or twice Phil thought he saw figures in sombreros and serapes far
up the mountainside, watching them. Mexicans, no doubt, ready to report
to Santa Anna the advance of the American army. He expected that some
stray shots might be fired down into the pass by these spies or
guerillas, but evidently they had other business than merely to annoy,
and no bullets came.
Phil's horse stumbled, and the boy saved him from a fall with a quick
pull. Arenberg's horse stumbled, also, and Phil noticed that his own
was now walking gingerly over a path of solid but dark stone, corrugated
and broken into sharp edges. Well might a horse, even one steel-shod,
be careful here! Phil knew it was volcanic rock, lava that had flowed
down ages ago from the crests of the peaks about them, once volcanoes
but extinct long since.
His horse stumbled again, but recovered himself quickly. It certainly
was dangerous rock, sometimes sharp almost like a knifeblade, and the
shoes of the infantry would be cut badly. Cut badly! A sudden thought
sprang up in his brain and refused to be dislodged. It was one of those
lightning ideas, based on little things, that carry conviction with them
through their very force and swiftness. His free hand went up to the
breast of his coat and clutched the spot beneath which his brother's
letter lay. He had read a hundred times the words of the captive,
telling how his feet had beer cut by the sharp stone. Lava might be
found at many places in Mexico, but it was along these trails in
Northern Mexico that the fighting bands of Mexicans and Texans passed.
He reasoned with himself for a few moments, saying that he was foolish,
and hoping that he was not, but the idea remained in his head, and he
knew that it was fixed there. He leaned over and said, in a husky
whisper to Bill Breakstone:
"Bill, have you noticed it! The rock! The lava! How it cuts! How it
would quickly slice the sole from the shoe of a captive who had marched
far! Bill! Bill, I say, have you noticed it?"
Bill Breakstone looked in astonishment at his young comrade, but he was
a man of uncommonly quick perceptions, and in a moment he comprehended.
"I understand," he said. "Your brother's letter and the passage in
which he tells of his shoes being cut by the sharp stone while he was
led along blindfolded. He may have passed along this very road, Phil.
It may be. It may be. I won't say you are wrong."
"What if we are near him now!" continued Phil. "I've often heard you
quote those lines, Bill, saying there are more things in heaven and
earth than we dream of in our philosophy. I told you before that if the
letter could reach me so far away in Kentucky it could also bring mo to
the place where it was written! I believed it then, Bill, and I believe
it now. What if John is here in these mountains, within forty or fifty
miles of us, or maybe twenty!"
"Steady, boy, steady!" said Bill Breakstone soothingly. "Your guess may
be right. God knows I'm not the one to deny it, but we've got to fight
a battle first. At least, I think so, and for the present we must put
our minds on it."
Phil was silent, but his idea possessed him. Often we dwell upon things
so long and we seek so hard to have them happen in a certain way that
the slightest indication becomes proof. He could not think now of
Taylor or Santa Anna, or of a coming battle, but only of his brother
between four narrow stone walls, sitting at a narrow window that looked
out upon a bleak mountainside. His horse no longer felt the guiding hand
upon the bridle rein, but guided himself. Breakstone noticed that the
boy's mind was far away, and, his heart full of sympathy, he said
nothing for a long time.
They passed after awhile into a narrow valley, down the center of which
ran a dry arroyo, fully twenty feet deep, with perpendicular banks. The
rest of the valley was crisscrossed with countless gullies worn by
winter storms and floods, and the army was compelled to march in a
slender file in the bed of the arroyo. Here many of the cavalrymen
dismounted and led their horses. The cannon wheels clanked louder than
ever.
"I'll be glad when we're through this," said Bill Breakstone. "Seems to
me the place was built for a trap, and it's mighty lucky for us that
there's nobody here to spring it. Look out, Phil, you'd better watch
your horse now! Some of these turnings are pretty rough, and you don't
want a thousand pounds or so of horseflesh tumbling down upon you."
Phil came back from his visions and devoted himself to the task before
them, one that required the full attention of every man. An entire
battery became stuck in a gully that intersected the arroyo. He and
other cavalrymen hitched their horses to the guns and helped pull them
out. The whole army was now stumbling and struggling over the fearful
ground. Every effort was made to save artillery and horses alike from
injury. But as they approached its lower end the Pass of Angostura
became still more difficult. The gullies increased in number, and many
of the deep intersecting ravines ran far back into the mountains. A
swarm of sure-footed skirmishers on either flank could have done great
damage here to the Americans, but the peaks and the lava slopes on
either side presented only silence and desolation.
It was a long journey, difficult in the extreme, and attended by
thousands of falls, cuts, and bruises, but the army came through the
Pass of Angostura at last, marching out upon a series of promontories or
ridges, each about a mile long and perhaps a third of a mile across.
From these the exhausted troops looked back at the frowning mountains
and the deep defile through which they had come.
"That was certainly a job," said Bill Breakstone.
"Yes," said Middleton, who stood near, "but what a place for a defense,
the plateau and these promontories running out from it, and all the
ravine and gullies behind!"
It is a matter of chronicle that at least fifty officers were saying the
same words at almost the same time, and even Phil, without military
training, could see the truth of it. Taylor pushed on to Agua Neva,
arriving there in the evening. But the next morning the reports of
Santa Anna's advance in overwhelming force became so numerous that he
fell back with the main army to the mouth of the Pass of Angostura,
leaving Marshall with his brave Kentuckians as a rear guard at Agua
Neva, and with instructions to make the utmost resistance if they were
attacked.
The next night came on somber and cold. It was the evening of February
21, 1847, and the next day would be the birthday of the great
Washington, a fact not forgotten by these young volunteers so far from
the states in which they were born. This was a land totally unlike
their own. Cold black peaks showed in the growing twilight. Around
them were the gullies, the ravines, and the arroyos, with the sheets of
the ancient black lava. It was like a region that belonged in the far
beginning of time.
A great force under Wool, the second in command, was throwing up
intrenchments of earth and rock and fortifying the heads of the ravines.
Lieutenant Washington, with five heavy guns, was planted in the roadway,
or rather trail, in front of all. Other guns were placed on the plateau
and promontories, and behind guns and parapets the army went into camp
for the night.
"This doesn't look much like Kentucky and the Bluegrass, does it, Phil?"
said Grayson, as they drank their coffee.
Phil glanced at the mountains, the crests of which were now hidden in
the darkness, and listened to the cold wind moaning through the narrow
pass by which they had come. Then he replied:
"It doesn't, by a long sight, and I can tell you that I'm mighty glad
I've lots of company here. If I were alone, I'd feel that the ghosts of
the old Aztecs and Toltecs were surrounding me in the darkness. It's
good to see the fires."
Many fires had been lighted, mostly in the ravines, where they were
sheltered from the wind, but Phil had no doubt that the scouts of Santa
Anna saw points of light at the mouth of the pass. After his supper he
stood upon one of the promontories and strove to pierce the darkness to
the south. But he could see nothing. The night hung an opaque veil
over the lower country.