THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
Phil was still in a daze. He and those around him, exhausted by such
long and desperate efforts, such a continuous roar in their ears, and
such a variation of intense emotions from the highest to the lowest,
were scarcely conscious that the battle was over. They knew, indeed,
that night was falling on the mountains and the pass, that the Mexicans
had withdrawn from the field, that their flags and lances were fading in
the twilight, but it was all, for a little while, dim and vague to them.
The night and the silence coming together contained a great awe. Phil
felt the blood pounding in his ears, and he looked around with wonder.
It was Breakstone who first came to himself.
"We've won! We've won!" he cried. "As sure as there is a sun behind
those mountains, we've beat all Mexico!"
Then Phil, too, saw, and he had to believe.
"The victory is ours!" he cried.
"It is ours, but harm has been done," said Arenberg in a low voice.
Then he sank forward softly on his face. Phil and Breakstone quickly
raised him up. He had fainted from loss of blood, but as his wounds
were only of the flesh he was soon revived. Breakstone had three slight
wounds of his own, and these were bound up, also. Phil, meanwhile, was
hunting in the gorge for other friends. Grayson was alive and well, but
some that he had known were gone. He was weak, mind and body alike,
with the relaxation from the long battle and all those terrible
emotions, but he helped with the wounded. Below them lay the army of
Santa Anna, its lights shining again in the darkness, and, for all Phil
knew, it might attack again on the morrow, but he gave little attention
to it now. His whole concern was for his comrades. The victory had
been won, but they had been compelled to purchase it at a great price.
The losses were heavy. Twenty-eight officers of rank were among the
killed, regiments were decimated, and even the unhurt were so exhausted
that they could scarcely stand.
Phil sat down at the edge of the gorge. He was yet faint and dizzy. It
seemed to him that he would never be able to exert himself again.
Everything swam before him in a sort of confused glare. He was
conscious that his clothing was stained red in two or three places, but
when he looked, in a mechanical way, at the wounds, he saw they were
scratches, closed already by the processes of nature. Then his
attention wandered again to the field. He was full of the joy of
victory, but it was a vague, uncertain feeling, not attaching itself to
any particular thing.
The twilight had already sunk into the night, and the black wind, heavy
with chill, moaned in the Pass of Angostura. It was a veritable dirge
for the dead. Phil felt it all through his relaxed frame, and shivered
both with cold and with awe. Smoke and vapor from so much firing still
floated about the plateau, the pass, and the slopes, but there was a
burning touch on his face which he knew did not come from any of them.
It was the dust of the desert again stinging him after the battle as it
had done before it. He obeyed its call, summoned anew all his strength,
both of body and mind, and climbed out of the gorge, where friend and
foe still lay in hundreds, mingled and peaceful in death.
He found more light and cheer on the plateau and in the pass. Here the
unhurt and those hurt slightly were building fires, and they had begun
to cook food and boil coffee. Phil suddenly perceived that he was
hungry. He had not tasted food since morning. He joined one of the
groups, ate and drank, and more vigor returned. Then he thought of the
horse which he had left tethered in an alcove, and which he had not used
at all that day. The horse was there unharmed, although a large
cannon-ball lay near his feet. It was evidently a spent ball which had
rolled down the side of the mountain, as it was not buried at all.
The horse recognized Phil and neighed. Phil put his hand upon his mane
and stroked it. He was very glad that this comrade of his had escaped
unhurt. He wondered in a dim way what his terror must have been tied in
one place, while the battle raged all day about him. "Poor old horse,"
he said, stroking his mane again. Then he led him away, gave him food
and water, and returned to his comrades and the field. He knew that his
duty lay there, as the Mexican army was still at hand. Many thought that
it would attack again in the morning, and disposition for defense must
be made. He did not see either Breakstone or Arenberg, but he met
Middleton, to whom he reported.
"Scout down at the mouth of the pass and along the mountain slopes,
Phil," he said, and the boy, replenishing his ammunition, obeyed. It
was not quite dark, and the wind was exceedingly cold. The mercury that
night went below the freezing point, and the sufferings of the wounded
were intense. Phil kept well among the ravines and crags. He believed
that the Mexican lancers would be prowling in front of their camp, and
he would not have much chance if he were attacked by a group of them.
Moreover, he was tired of fighting. He did not wish to hurt anybody.
Never had his soul inclined more fervently to peace.
He passed again into the gorge which had witnessed the climax and
deadliest part of the battle. Here he saw dark-robed figures passing
back and forth among the wounded. He looked more closely and saw that
they were Mexican nuns from a convent near Buena Vista, helping the
wounded, Americans and Mexicans alike. Something rose in his throat, but
he went on, crossing the pass and climbing the slopes of the Sierra
Madre. Here there was yet smoke lingering in the nooks and crannies, but
all the riflemen seemed to have gone.
He climbed higher. The wind there was very cold, but the moonlight was
brighter. He saw the peaks and ridges of the Sierra Madre, like a
confused sea, and he looked down upon the two camps, the small American
one on the plateau and in the pass and the larger, still far larger,
Mexican one below. He could trace it by the lights in the Mexican camp,
forming a great half circle, and he would have given much to know what
was going on there. If Santa Anna and his men possessed the courage and
tenacity of the defenders, they would attack again on the morrow.
He moved forward a little to get a better view, and then sank down
behind an outcropping of rock. A Mexican, a tall man, rifle on
shoulder, was passing. He, too, was looking down at the two camps, and
Phil believed that he was a scout like himself. The Mexican, not
suspecting the presence of an enemy, was only a dozen feet away, and
Phil could easily have shot him without danger to himself, but every
impulse was against the deed. He could not fire from ambush, and he had
seen enough of death. The Mexican was going toward his own camp, and
presently, he went on, disappearing behind a curve of the mountain, and
leaving Phil without a shadow of remorse. But he soon followed,
creeping on down the mountainside toward the camp of Santa Anna.
The rocks and gullies enabled him to come so near that he could see
within the range of light. He beheld figures as they passed now and
then, dark shadows before the blaze, but the camp of Santa Anna did not
show the life and animation that he had witnessed in it when he spied
upon it once before. No bugles were blowing, no bodies of lancers, with
the firelight shining on glittering steel, rode forth to prepare for the
morrow and victory. Everything was slack and relaxed. He even saw men
lying in hundreds upon the ground, fast asleep from exhaustion. As far
as he could determine, no scouting parties of large size were abroad,
and he inferred from what he saw that the Mexican army was worn out.
He could not go among those men, but the general effect produced upon
him at the distance was of gloom and despair among them. An army
preparing for battle in the morning would be awake and active. The
longer he looked, the greater became his own hope and confidence, and
then he slowly made his way back to his own camp with his report.
Lights still burned there, but it was very silent. After he passed the
ring of sentinels he saw nothing but men stretched out, almost as still
as the dead around them. They slept deeply, heavily, a sleep so intense
that a blow would not arouse. Many had lain down where they were
standing when the battle ceased, and would lie there in dreamless
slumber until the next morning. Phil stepped over them, and near one of
the fires he saw Breakstone and Arenberg, each with his head on his arm,
deep in slumber.
He made his report to Middleton, describing with vivid detail everything
that he had seen.
"It agrees with the reports of the other scouts," said Middleton. "I
think the enemy is so shattered that he cannot move upon us again, and
now, Phil, you must rest. It will be midnight in an hour, and you have
passed through much."
"It was a great battle!" said Phil, with a look of pride.
"And a great victory!" said Middleton, he, too, although older, feeling
that flash of pride.
Phil was glad enough now to seek sleep. The nervous excitement that
kept him awake and alert was all gone. He remembered the fire beside
which Bill Breakstone and Arenberg slept, and made his way back there.
Neither had moved a particle. They still lay with their heads on their
elbows, and they drew long, deep breaths with such steadiness and
regularity that apparently they had made up their minds to sleep for
years to come. Four other men lay near them in the same happy
condition.
"Six," said Phil. "Well, the fable tells of the Seven Sleepers, so I
might as well complete the number."
He chose the best place that was left, secured his blanket from his
saddlebow, wrapped himself thoroughly in it, and lay down with his feet
to the fire. How glorious it felt! It was certainly very cold in the
Pass of Angostura. Ice was forming, and the wind cut, but there was the
fire at his feet and the thick blanket around him. His body felt warm
through and through, and the hard earth was like down after such a day.
Now victory came, too, with its pleasantest aroma. Lying there under
the stars, he could realize, in its great sense, all that they had done.
And he had borne his manly part in it. He was a boy, and he had reason
for pride.
Phil stared up for a little while at the cold stars which danced in the
sky, myriads of miles away, but after awhile his glance turned again
toward the earth. The other six of the seven sleepers slept on, not
stirring at all, save for the rising and falling of their chests, and
Phil decided that he was neglecting his duty by failing to join them at
once in that vague and delightful land to which they had gone.
He shut his eyes, opened them once a minute or two later, but found the
task of holding up the lids too heavy. They shut down again, stayed
down, and in two minutes the six sleepers had become the seven.
Phil slept the remainder of the night as heavily as if he had been
steeped in some eastern drug. He, too, neither moved hand nor foot
after he had once gone to oblivion. The fire burned out, but he did not
awake. He was warm in his blanket, and sleep was bringing back the
strength that body and mind had wasted in the day. It was quiet, too, on
the battlefield. The surgeons still worked with the wounded, but they
had been taken back in the shelter of the pass, and the sounds did not
come to those on the plateau. Only the wind moaned incessantly, and the
cold was raw and bitter.
About half way between midnight and morning Bill Breakstone awoke. He
merely opened his eyes, not moving his body, but he stared about him in
a dim wonder. His awakening had interrupted a most extraordinary dream.
He had been dreaming that he was in a battle that had lasted at least a
month, and was not yet finished. Red strife and its fierce emotions
were still before him when he awoke. Now he gazed all around, and saw
only blackness, with a few points of light here and there.
His eyes, growing used to the darkness, came back, and he saw six stiff
figures stretched on the ground in a row, three on each side of him. He
looked at them fixedly and saw that they were the figures of human
beings. Moreover, he recognized two of them, and they were his best
friends. Then he remembered all about the battle, the great struggle,
how the terrible crisis came again and again, how the victory finally
was won, and he was glad that these two friends of his were alive,
though they seemed to be sleeping as men never slept before.
Breakstone sat up and looked at the six sleepers. The blankets of two
of them had shifted a little, and he pulled them back around their
necks. Then he glanced down the valley where the lights of Santa Anna's
army flickered, and it all seemed wonderful, unbelievable to him. Yet it
was true. They had beaten off an army of more than twenty thousand men,
and had inflicted upon Santa Anna a loss far greater than their own. He
murmured very softly:
"Dreadful was the fight,
Welcome is the night;
Fiercely came the foe,
Many we laid low;
Backward he is sent,
But we, too, are spent.
I believe that's about as true a poem as I ever composed," he said,
"whatever others may think about the rhyme and meter, and to be true is
to be right. That work well done, I'll go back to sleep again."
He lay down once more and, within a minute, he kept his word. Phil and
his comrades were awakened just at the break of day by Middleton. Only
a narrow streak of light was to be seen over the eastern ridges, but the
Captain explained that he wanted them to go on a little scout toward the
Mexican army. They joined him with willingness and went down the
southern edge of the plateau. A few lights could be seen at the points
that Phil had marked during the night, and they approached very
cautiously. But they saw no signs of life. There were no patrols, no
cavalry, none of the stir of a great army, nothing to indicate any human
presence, until they came upon wounded men, abandoned upon the rugged
ground where they lay. When Phil and his comrades, belief turned into
certainty, rushed forward, Santa Anna and his whole army were gone,
leaving behind them their dead and desperately wounded. Tents,
supplies, and some arms were abandoned in the swift retreat, but the
army itself had already disappeared under the southern horizon, leaving
the field of Buena Vista to the victors.
They hurried back with the news. It spread like fire through the army.
Every man who could stand was on his feet. A mighty cheer rolled
through the Pass of Angostura, and the dark gorges and ravines of the
Sierra Madre gave it back in many echoes.
The victory, purchased at so great a price, was complete. Mounted
scouts, sent out, returned in the course of the day with the information
that Santa Anna had not stopped at Agua Neva. He was marching southward
as fast as he could, and there was no doubt that he would not stop until
he reached the City of Mexico, where he would prepare to meet the army
of Scott, which was to come by the way of Vera Cruz. The greatness of
their victory did not dawn upon the Americans until then. Not only had
they beaten back a force that outnumbered them manifold, but all
Northern Mexico lay at the feet of Taylor. The war there was ended, and
it was for Scott to finish it in the Valley of Mexico.
The following night the fires were built high on the plateau and in the
Pass of Angostura. Nearly everybody rested except the surgeons, who
still worked. Hundreds of the Mexican wounded had been left on the
field, and they received the same attention that was bestowed upon the
Americans. Nevertheless, the boy soldiers were cheerful. They knew
that the news of their wonderful victory was speeding north, and they
felt that they had served their country well.
Phil did not know until long afterward that at home the army of Taylor
had been given up as lost. News that Santa Anna was in front of him
with an overwhelming force had filtered through, and then had come the
long blank. Nothing was heard. It was supposed that Taylor had been
destroyed or captured. It was known that his force was composed almost
wholly of young volunteers, boys, and no chance of escape seemed
possible.
In the West and South, in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, and
Mississippi, the anxiety was most tense and painful. There, nearly
every district had sent some one to Buena Vista, and they sought in vain
for news. There were dark memories of the Alamo and Goliad, especially
in the Southwest, and these people thought of the disaster as in early
days they thought of a defeat by the Indians, when there were no wounded
or prisoners, only slain.
But even the nearest states were separated from Mexico by a vast
wilderness, and, as time passed and nothing came, belief settled into
certainty. The force of Taylor had been destroyed. Then the messenger
arrived literally from the black depths with the news of the
unbelievable victory. Taylor was not destroyed. He had beaten an army
that outnumbered him five to one. The little American force held the
Pass of Angostura, and Santa Anna, with his shattered army, was flying
southward. At first it was not believed. It was incredible, but other
messengers came with the same news, and then one could doubt no longer.
The victory struck so powerfully upon the imagination of the American
people that it carried Taylor into the White House.
Meanwhile, Phil, in the Pass of Angostura, sitting by a great fire on
the second night after the battle, was thinking little of his native
land. After the tremendous interruption of Buena Vista, his mind turned
again to the object of his search. He read and reread his letter. He
thought often of the lava that had cut his brother's feet and his own.
John was sure that they had gone through a pass, and he knew that a
woman at a well had given him water. The belief that they were on the
trail of those forlorn prisoners was strong within him. And Bill
Breakstone and Arenberg believed it, too.
"Our army, I understand, will go into quarters in this region," he said,
"and will make no further advance by land into Mexico. We enlisted only
for this campaign, and I am free to depart. I mean to go at once,
boys."
"We go with you, of course," said Bill Breakstone. "Good old Hans and I
here have already talked it over. There will be no more campaigning in
Northern Mexico, and we've done our duty. Besides, we've got quests of
our own that do not lead toward the valley of Mexico."
Phil grasped a hand of each and gave it a strong squeeze.
"I knew that you would go with me, as I'll go with you when the time
comes," he said.
They received their discharge the next morning, and were thanked by
General Taylor himself for bravery in battle. Old Rough and Ready put
his hand affectionately on Phil's shoulder.
"May good fortune follow you wherever you may be going," he said. "It
was such boys as you who won this battle."
He also caused them to be furnished with large supplies of ammunition.
Middleton could go no farther. He and some other officers were to hurry
to Tampico and join Scott for the invasion of Mexico by the way of Vera
Cruz.
"But boys," he said, "we may meet again. We've been good comrades, I
think, and circumstances may bring us together a second time when this
war is over."
"It rests upon the knees of the gods," said Arenberg.
"I know it will come true," said the more sanguine Breakstone.
"So do I," said Phil.
Middleton rode away with his brother officers and a small body of
regulars, and Phil, Arenberg, and Breakstone rode southward to Agua
Neva. When they had gone some distance they stopped and looked back at
the plateau and the pass.
"How did we ever do it?" said Phil.
"By refusing to stay whipped," replied Arenberg.
"By making up our minds to die rather than give up," replied Bill
Breakstone.
They rode on to the little Mexican town, where Phil had an errand to do.
He had talked it over with the other two, and the three had agreed that
it was of the utmost importance. All the time a sentence from the
letter was running in Phil's head. Some one murmuring words of pity in
Mexican had given him water to drink, and the voice was that of a woman.
"It must have been from a well," said Phil, "this is a dry country with
water mostly from wells, and around these wells villages usually grow.
Bill, we must be on the right track. I can't believe that we're going
wrong."
"The signs certainly point the way we're thinking," said Bill
Breakstone. "The lava, the dust, and the water. We've passed the lava
and the dust, and we know that the water is before us."
They came presently to Agua Neva, a somber little town, now reoccupied
by a detachment from Taylor's army. The people were singularly quiet
and subdued. The defeat of Santa Anna by so small a force and his
precipitate flight made an immense impression upon them, and, as they
suffered no ill treatment from the conquerors, they did not seek to make
trouble. There was no sharpshooting in the dark, no waylaying of a few
horsemen by guerillas, and the three could pursue without hesitation the
inquiry upon which they were bent.
Wells! Wells! Of course there were wells in Agua Neva. Several of
them, and the water was very fine. Would the senors taste it? They
would, and they passed from one well to another until they drank from
them all. Breakstone could speak Spanish, and its Mexican variations,
and he began to ask questions--chance ones at first, something about the
town and its age, and the things that he had seen. Doubtless in the
long guerilla war between Texas and Mexico, captives, the fierce Texans,
had passed through there on their way to strong prisons in the south.
Such men had passed more than once, but the people of Agua Neva did not
remember any particular one among them. They spent a day thus in vain,
and Phil, gloomy and discouraged, rode back to the quarters of the
American detachment.
"Don't be downhearted, Phil," said Breakstone. "In a little place like
this one must soon pick up the trail. It will not be hard to get at the
gossip. We'll try again to-morrow."
They did not go horseback the next morning, not wishing to attract too
much attention, but strolled about the wells again, Breakstone talking
to the women in the most ingratiating manner. He was a handsome fellow,
this Breakstone, and he had a smile that women liked. They did not
frown upon him at Agua Neva because he belonged to the enemy, but
exchanged a gay word or two with him, Spanish or Mexican banter as he
passed on.
They came to a well at which three women were drawing water for the
large jars that they carried on their heads, and these were somewhat
unlike the others. They were undoubtedly of Indian blood, Aztec
perhaps, or more likely Toltec. They were tall for Mexican women, and
it seemed to Phil that they bore themselves with a certain erectness and
pride. Their faces were noble and good.
Phil and his comrades drew near. He saw the women glance at them, and
he saw the youngest of them look at him several times. She stared with
a vague sort of wonder in her eyes, and Phil's heart suddenly began to
pound so hard that he grew dizzy. Since the letter, coming out of the
unknown and traveling such a vast distance, had found him in the little
town of Paris, Kentucky, he had felt at times the power of intuition.
Truths burst suddenly upon him, and for the moment he had the conviction
that this was the woman. Moreover, she was still looking at him.
"Speak to her, Bill! Speak to her!" he exclaimed. "Don't let her go
until you ask her."
But Breakstone had already noticed the curious glances the woman was
casting at Phil, and in the Spanish patois of the region he bade them a
light and courteous good morning. Here all the charm of Breakstone's
manner showed at its very best. No one could take offense at it, and
the three women, smiling, replied in a similar vein. Breakstone
understood Phil's agitation. The boy might be right, but he did not
intend to be too headlong. He must fence and approach the subject
gradually. So he spoke of the little things that make conversation, but
presently he said to the youngest of the women:
"I see that you notice my comrade, the one who is not yet a man in
years, though a man in size. Does it chance that you have seen some one
like him?"
"I do not know," replied the woman. "I am looking into my memory that I
may see."
"Perhaps," said Breakstone smoothly, "it was one of the Texan prisoners
whom they brought through here two or three years ago. A boy, tall and
fair like this boy, but dusty with the march, bent with weariness, his
feet cut and bleeding by the lava over which he had been forced to
march, stood here at this well. He was blindfolded that he might not
see which way he had come, but you, the Holy Virgin filling your heart
with pity, took the cup of cool water and gave it to him to drink."
Comprehension filled the eyes of the woman, and she gazed at Breakstone
with growing wonder.
"It is so!" she exclaimed. "I remember now. It was three years ago.
There was a band of prisoners, twelve or fifteen, maybe, but he was the
youngest of them all, and so worn, so weak! I could not see his eyes,
but he had the figure and manner of the youth who stands there! It was
why I looked, and then looked again, the resemblance that I could not
remember."
"It is his brother who is with me," said Breakstone. "Can you tell where
these prisoners were taken?"
"I do not know, but I have heard that they were carried into the
mountains to the south and west, where they were to be held until Texas
was brought back to Mexico, or to be put to death as outlaws."
"What prisons lie in these mountains to the south and west?"
"I do not know how many, but we have heard most of the Castle of
Montevideo. Some of our own people have gone there, never to come
back."
She and her companions shuddered at the name of the Castle of
Montevideo. It seemed to have some vague, mysterious terror for them.
It was now Bill Breakstone who had the intuition. The Castle of
Montevideo was the place. It was there that they had taken John
Bedford. He translated clearly for Phil, who became very pale.
"It is the place, Phil," he said. "We must go to the Castle of
Montevideo to find him."
He drew from his pocket a large octagonal gold piece, worth fifty
dollars, then coined by the United States.
"Give this to her, Bill," he said, "and tell her it is for the drink of
water that she gave to the blindfolded boy three years ago."
Bill Breakstone translated literally, and he added:
"You must take it. It comes from his heart. It is not only worth much
money, but it will be a bringer of luck to you."
She took it, hesitated a moment, then hid it under her red reboso, and,
the jars being filled, she and her two companions walked away, balancing
the great weights beautifully on their heads.
"To-night," said Phil, "we ride for the Castle of Montevideo."