As they started down the st eps, Ximena noticed the Irish lieutenant leaving the church behind them. He seemed de eply preoccupied. When he glanced up at her and their eyes met for a second, she could feel a negative energy in him, his troubled aura. Inside the church, she’d seen him lighting a candle to Saint Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases. Now, as he hurried past them with urgent st eps in the direction of the river, Ximena wondered what was distressing his soul. They followed a group of peasant women carrying empty earthen jars to collect water. Despite the enemy’s encampment directly across, the river was busy. Several women were washing clothes and bathing themselves or their children. Ximena observed the Yanqui soldiers up in their fort, gaping at the young women splashing playfully in the water, naked to the waist. The soldiers whistled and called out to them, “Little bonitas! Beautiful señoritas! Can we be friends?” As she guided Nana Hortencia along the banks, they admired the willows and t epehuajes, which threw their shadows upon the river. Then the old woman pointed out the clear amber sap on the honey mesquite trees, warmed by the sun, and lamented not having a po t to collect it. “The trees look as if they’re crying,” Ximena said. Nana Hortencia patted her shoulder and said, “There’s no shame in crying, mi niña. Even the trees know that.” Ximena wanted to tell her grandmother that it wasn’t that she was ashamed to cry. It was that she couldn’t, as if her tears had hardened inside her. “You can’t let your suffering overwhelm you, mijita. Nor your anger. Don’t let them darken your soul. Release them through your tears, your prayers. It is true that the path God has chosen for you is one full of thorns. But to despair is to turn your back on Him.” From the banks, they observed a patrol of Mexican mounted militia boarding the ferry from the opposite shore to cross to the southern bank. When the vessel approached, Ximena looked at the men’s faces, wondering if Cheno might be among them. Instead, she r ecognized another face. “Nana, is that who I think it is?” “It’s Juan Seguín,” her grandmother r eplied. The man on the ferry was the commander who had once convinced her father to take up arms against Mexico during the Texas Rebellion. She remembered how, six years later, in March 1842, when the Mexican Army tried to retake San Antonio de Béxar, the attack f anned the distrust the Texians felt for anyone of Mexican descent, and r eprisals against defenseless Tejano families
soon followed. Even Juan Seguín — the town’s mayor and a hero of Texas Ind ependence — was a victim of a conspiracy to ruin him. After being physically attacked, he had no choice but to flee south to Laredo for fear of his life after being accused of disloyalty . But he was captured by Mexico and forced to join the Mexican cause so as not to be executed as a traitor to the motherland. This is why, in S eptember 1842, when the Mexican Army attempted to reclaim San Antonio once again, among their commanders was none other than Juan Seguín. At the sight of him, Ximena’s father had said, “The Anglos see us as traitors, but so do the Mexicans. So where does that leave the Tejano? Mark my words, Ximena, as soon as the Mexican troops leave, the Anglos will come for us seeking revenge. But we won’ t be here when that happens.” And so, when the occupation of San Antonio ended, Ximena, her father, and Nana Hortencia, along with two hundred other families, loaded what possessions they could into carts and followed Seguín and the Mexican troops south to the Río Bravo. Ximena had once resented him for pulling her father into the rebellion and allying himself with the Texians, but her father was gone now and this Tejano was her one connection to her past in San Antonio de Béxar. So when the ferry finished the crossing, an d the steersman jumped off at the landing to tie the ropes and allow the riders to disembark, Ximena rushed to interc ept the group. He was the last one off the ferry, and as he was paying the ferryman, she called out his name. “¡Don Juan!” He turned to look at her, his face registering surprise. “Ximena, ¡pero qué sorpresa!” He dismounted and told his men, “I’ll meet you at the cantina.” “You’re still serving the Mexican government, I see,” she said. “It’s the only choice I have, for now.” A scream startled them both, and they turned toward the riverbank, Seguín’s hand on his escopeta. Yanqui soldiers had plunged into the river to bathe under the watchful eyes of the sentries, and they and the Mexican women were splashing water at each other , shouting and squealing in delight. Ximena’s concern turned to relief and then anger. How could those women be playing and flirting with the enemy? Couldn’t they see the Yanqui cannons pointing straight at their homes? To es cape the commotion, she and Juan Seguín began to walk away, farther down the riverbank where Nana Hortencia had gone ahead, until the only noise they could hear was the raucous chattering of the green parakeets in the trees. Ximena had last seen Seguí n two years earlier when he’d come to pay his respects at her father’s funeral.
“Do you think you’ll ever return home?” she asked. Seguín sighed. “I will serve Mexico loyally and faithfully, but one day, I will return to the land of my birth to reclaim my property and clear my name or die trying. And you, have you been happy here with your husband and the ranch? Have you made a good l ife for yourself?” Attempting to disguise her pain, she fixed her gaze on a nearby buttonbush where swallowtails fluttered over its white pincushion - shaped flowers. But it was no use. She gazed back at him and said, “My husband is dead, don Juan. The Rangers who came down wi th Taylor murdered him, burned our house, plundered our stables. I’m not sure what I will do, but I know this much — I can never return to Béxar. There’s nothing for me there. Just like there may be nothing for me here.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, Ximena, I’m sorry to see you suffering. I wish I could help you, but I’m as destitute as you are at the moment. Still, as long as we have hope, then all is not lost. War is about to commence, and r ight now, all we can do is survive it.” “Don’t you think we fought on the wrong side, don Juan? Could this war have been prevented if Texas hadn’t rebelled against Mexico, if we Tejanos hadn’t helped the Texians win? Could this war allow Texas to return to the Mexican nation? To us?” He smiled and shook his head but didn’t answer her questions. He stared off into the distance, and Ximena began to feel foolish for speaking with such naïveté. But she desperately wanted to believe that the opportunity to take back Texas from the Yanquis h adn’t yet passed. The thought of her homeland being turned into a slave state sickened her. “Don’t torment yourself with such thoughts, Ximena. What’s done is done,” Seguín said at last. “It’s true, once the smoke cleared after the rebellion, we Tejanos became foreigners in our own land, and I, like your father, had to leave Texas and abandon all I had fought for to become a wanderer. But you know as well as I that the Mexican central government has never had our best interests at heart. With one political uprising after another in the capital, there has never been stability or progress, especiall y here in the northern frontier. Then that vile caudillo, Santa Anna, rose to power and threatened our rights of selfgovernment, and what else could we Tejanos do, Ximena, but to defend our homeland from his tyrannical government?” He stopped walking, and grasping her shoulders firmly, he turned her to face him. “You wish to return to that? No, querida amiga, no. Béxar — all of Texas — deserved its freedom, and I shall never regret playing a part in its ind ependence. Even if by doing so, I — we — paid the price for its liberty.” He released her and kissed her hand tender ly, then mounted his horse. “I’ll
be scouting for General Arista, so you might not see much of me. But if you need me, send word with my tocayo, Juan Cortina. You know him, I assume?” She nodded and bid him farewell. “We’ll get through this,” he said. “And when I’m back in Béxar, if you wish to return home, know that you’ll have a friend there.” She watched him ride away, thinking about his words, more certain than ever that she could not return to San Antonio de Béxar. But she was Joaquín’s sole legatee and had a full claim to his rancho here in this beautiful river delta. Though the Rangers migh t have destroyed their house and stables, the land was unharmed, and as long as it was alive, Ximena and Nana Hortencia could survive, even if their home was a humble jacal made of carrizo cane and thatched with palm leaves. She refused to let those vile m en prevent her from seeing the sun rise over her land, from beholding the changing colors of the prairie through the seasons, from tasting the wind sweetened by wildflowers. But if Mexico lost the war, would history r epeat itself? Would she once again find herself dispossessed? She quickened her pace to catch up to Nana Hortencia, who was picking and eating the berries of an anacua tree. Ximena joined her and reached to pull down a branch. Just then, something blue caught her eye. At first, she thought it was the iridescent wings of the bluewing butterflies puddling in the mud. But as she peered through the shrubs and reeds at the water’s edge, she could see a soldier in a blue uniform tangled up in the branches of an uprooted tree at the edge of the bank. “Nana, can you see that man or am I imagining him?” “I see him, but I’m not sure if I am looking at a dead man or a live one,” her grandmother r eplied. He was wearing a Yanqui uniform, and Ximena wondered if he might be one of the foreign soldiers in Taylor’s ranks who were deserting. Had this poor man died crossing over to join her country’s army? “Nana, go find help! Pronto, ¡por el amor de Dios!” While Nana Hortencia hurried away, Ximena made her way down the sloping bank, sending the hundreds of bluewings fluttering into the heavens like a shimmering prayer. Please, God. Please . She waded into the water, holding on to a tree limb as she got de eper. Battling the current, she managed to reach the soldier whose hand was clutching a branch. He had pulled himself halfway onto the tree trunk, and his head and torso rested on it, but h is lower body was still
immersed in the cold water. On his forehead, she could make out two letters: HD . Who had branded this poor old man and why? His hand felt cold and limp, and she wasn’t able to find a pulse. She grabbed him by his collar and shook him, already fearing the worst. “Hello? Can you hear me?” she said in English as she shook him harder. “Hello?” Finally, the man coughed faintly. She heard a sudden splashing behind her and turned to see the Irish lieutenant swimming toward her. “Is he alive?” he yelled. “Tell me, does he live?” “Yes! Hurry, please. Hurry!” April 1846 Matamoros, Río Bravo Together, they pulled the man from the river and transported him to Carmen’s house. She begrudgingly allowed them the use of a room, where Ximena and her grandmother immediately took over his care. The lieutenant seemed to know the man and refused to leave his side. “Will he recover?” he asked when Nana Hortencia left the room to gather her supplies. Ximena wanted to reassure him without giving false hope. The old man had now begun to thrash in the bed, and she turned to soothe him. He was burning up with fever. “Riley, don’t let go of me,” he cried. “Help me, lad! Help me!” “Shhh. We are here,” Ximena said in English. “You are safe. Shhh.” “ ’Tis my fault,” teniente Riley said. “I was aidin’ him in crossin’ the river to brin’ him over to our ranks, and I, well, as you can see, my folly endangered his life.” “Is why you go to the river this morning?” He nodded. “I was hopin’ against hope...” She looked at him, wishing to put a comforting hand on his arm, but it wouldn’t be appropriate. “My grandmother, she will cure him. No worry.” She touched the patient’s forehead, tracing a finger over the letters HD . “Who did this?” “The Yanks. Punishin’ my countrymen is a favorite amusement of theirs.”