“They pay one day for this!” she said, and saw the same anger blazing in his blue eyes.
“Aye, we’ll make them regret it,” he said. “Dile que se retire,” Nana Hortencia said as she returned with the needed items. “Please, we must work now,” Ximena told him. “I’ll go,” he said, “but pray do send for me at the barracks as soon as he wakes.” As she escorted him out of the room, he turned to her and said, “I beg your pardon, but I do not know your name...” His voice trailed off, and the color in his cheeks de epened. He towered over her by a head, but for some reason, he didn’t make her feel small . “My name is Ximena Salomé Benítez y Catalán, widow of Treviño.” He coughed at hearing her long name, and she felt her lips twitch with suppressed laughter. “But please, call me Ximena.” “Hee - meh - na,” he r epeated, drawing out each syllable as if tasting her name on his tongue. “I’m teniente John Riley. And that there is James Maloney.” She nodded. “I see you tomorrow, teniente Riley.” After treating the fever with white willow bark, Nana Hortencia lit the copal incense in her sahumador and asked God for his presence. She was about to perform a limpia on their patient to rid him of the susto from the trauma of nearly drowning. As Ximena watched her grandmother swe ep their patient’s body with her sacred eagle feather and then with fresh sage, she knew retrieving the piece of his soul that had remained in the river would require several spiritual cleansings. Her grandmother wouldn’t give up until she persuaded that lost piece of soul to return to his body, and so she whispered his name in his ear and called him three times. When Nana Hortencia was finished with the ceremony, Ximena sat vigil through the night. The man would say words in the Irish tongue, and when he woke, he would grab her hand and call her by a name she couldn’t understand. “ A ghrá! A ghrá! ” She knew he was calling for his wife. And she knew, without being told, that his wife was dead. Each time he cried out in his fevered delirium and insisted on going home, Ximena saw his pale, sorrowful countenance contorted by the visions of his fevered brain. Suddenly, she felt something loosen inside her, and her own tears finally gushed forth. She found herself crying along with him for the loved ones they’d both lost. For the home neither of them would ever see again. “Mi niña, there’s someone here to see our patient,” Nana Hortencia said the next afternoon as she came into the room trailed by the tall, broad - shouldered Irishman. The light streaming in through the open window made his eyes glow like a field of blue lupi nes. Ximena moved aside to let him see the sle eping patient. “I’m sorry we no send for you before, teniente Riley, but he had fever and...” She pointed to her head, trying to get him to understand
his friend had been too delirious, but she couldn’t think of the words in English. She wished she could speak the language better. The words got stuck in her mouth. It had been so long since she’d practiced with her tutor. Still, it was better than nothing . “His fever is now away. He wake before. Eat a little soup.” “Will he live?” Upon hearing his voice, Maloney woke up. “Riley, is it you, lad?” His voice was a mere whisper, and Ximena leaned closer, taking the old man’s hand in hers. It was limp, but his pulse was much stronger than the day before and his color had improved. She wa s sure he was going to pull through. She watched the shock on the lieutenant’s face turn into utter felicity. “You’re awake! I’m here, Jimmy, a chara . How do you find yourself?” “I thought I’d never see the blessed light of Heaven again,” he whispered. “But I was saved by Saint Patrick himself! A miracle if I ever saw one.” “A miracle?” “A fallen tree. Put there by Saint Patrick. It caught me in its limbs.” “You sit with your friend? I come back later,” Ximena said, pulling up a chair for him. Teniente Riley nodded. “Much obliged, lass.” “I come with a little chicken broth for you,” she told Maloney. “God reward you, jewel,” Maloney said. “I’ll see you out,” teniente Riley said. At the doorway, he added, “A thousand thanks for what you’ve done for my friend.” “It was noth — ” “No, it means a lot to me. Truly, it does.” The guilt in his voice told her he was still berating himself for what had happened. “He fight with you now, for my country, ¿sí?” He smiled at her and nodded, then went back inside the room. Ximena stood in the doorway for a moment. “ ’Tis good to see you alive, Jimmy,” he said. “I need you on the battlefield with me. Welcome to the Mexican Army of the North.” “Thank you, Lieutenant,” the old man said with pride. “ ’Tis an honor to fight by your side.”
That afternoon, Ximena watched, along with the townspeople and the troops, as General Torrejón and his lancers made their way into Matamoros escorting the Yanqui soldiers they’d captured in the altercation upriver at Rancho de Carricitos with a party of Ta ylor’s cavalry. They’d killed eleven Yanquis and injured many. The crowd cheered at the sight of the prisoners, and everyone knew full well what it meant. The war had begun. A few days later, at Ximena’s request, Cheno brought a uniform for her patient, who insisted he was well enough to join his friends in the barracks. “How do I look, lassie?” Maloney said as he came out of the room, dressed in his new Mexican artillery uniform. After his near - death experience, the man had become as skinny as cattle after a winter’s blight, but his eyes looked alive again and shone with the de ep gray green of moss - coated rocks. She smiled and said, “¡Como un soldado valiente! Like a valiant soldier.” In the morning, she took him in the carriage to the outskirts of the town, where teniente Riley and his artillery crew were practicing their drills. Maloney wanted to surprise them. Seeing him, they all rushed to embrace him, picking him up onto their shou lders and cheering for him. Maloney laughed and burst into an Irish song. “ Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile. Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile. Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile. Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh ...” His comrades joined him and soon all their voices rose in unison, everyone exc ept teniente Riley, who stood removed from the group. Guilt and shame seemed to be permanently etched on his amiable face. He needed a good spiritual cleansing like the ones N ana Hortencia had given Jimmy Maloney to rid him of all that tormented him. He caught her watching him and touched the visor of his black officer’s shako in salutation, then called his crew to attention in order to resume the drills. She seated herself in the carriage but did not yet leave, remaining with the other onlookers, mostly local boys who’d come out to watch the foreign gunners manning the Mexican cannons. It was arduous work, the sun beating down on them relentlessly. Tenient e Riley had s eparated the men into crews, and Maloney now joined one of them. She worried the old man was not yet strong enough to perform his duties. The lieutenant seemed to have known this as well, because he gave Maloney one of the least strenuous jobs — lighting the charge with a long match, exc ept they weren’t firing for real yet, but rather going through the st eps, too many st eps for her to ke ep up with. And she wasn’t the only one struggling. The gunners were clearly beyond fatigued from having to pus h the heavy pieces into position and haul the ammunition. Teniente Riley shouted the orders as he walked the crews through each of the st eps in volved. Aligning, swabbing, loading, pricking, priming, and finally firing.
“¡Fuego!” the spectators shouted along with teniente Riley. But when the cannons remained silent, the local boys shook their heads in disappointment. “Why won’t they fire for real?” they asked. “Because first they have to learn the st eps so well they can do it with their eyes closed,” she told them. “And gunpowder is expensive and cannot be wasted blasting away the shrubs.” Finally, in the last drill before the crews were dismissed, the boys’ patience was rewarded when the cannons roared to life and spewed fire out of their mouths. Ximena covered her ears as the shots boomed. The diabolical sound made her tremble, but the boy s cheered and clapped, clamoring for more. “Fair play, fellas!” she heard teniente Riley say. The smoke hovered over the crews, and the stench of burnt gunpowder permeated the air. Through the haze, Ximena looked at the foreign soldiers, at Maloney and teniente Riley, and gave an in voluntary shudde r. She thought of the atrocities she’d witnessed firsthand during the rebellion in Texas. She remembered the Battle of the Alamo, the cannons blasting, limbs strewn about, the rubble and chaos. This is what awaits these Irishmen , she thought. Carnage and bloodshed, mutilation and suffering, all for fighting a war that isn’t even theirs to fight . If only this despicable war could be avoided. But how? The Yanquis were already there, right across the river. And the conflict had begun. The boundary line was already being drawn with blood and gunpowder. Juan Seguín was right. The only thing they could do now was to try to survive it, and she couldn’t do it while wallowing in grief. But she couldn’t give in to her anger, either. So she had to turn to the only thing she knew would give her comfort and solac e — her God - given gift of healing. Ever since she was a little girl, this is what she had wanted to be, a curandera like her grandmother. She would act upon the sacred calling to help the suffering. And by doing so, perhaps it would help her ease her own. This time, Ximena would make sure not to be on the wrong side of the war. This time — to honor Joaquín’s courage and to absolve her father — she would stand with Mexico. “Surely you must have lost your senses,” Carmen said that evening when Ximena told her what she had decided to do. All around them, the servants were rushing to finish packing up the house. “Have you told Cheno about this?” “He was the one who told me the army has hardly any medical staff. He agrees I should help.” Ximena thought of the soldaderas — the soldiers’ wives,
mothers, and daughters who had followed the men to battle to provide an invaluable service to them as laundresses, cooks, nurses, and sometimes, when the need arose, even took up arms with the men. “He also suggested I could train the soldaderas to make he rbal remedies and better care for the troops.” Carmen scoffed, shaking her head again, waving Ximena’s words away. “This is madness. A battle is no place for us women.” Ximena looked across the table at Carmen. She knew Joaquín’s sister wouldn’t understand her desire to stay in Matamoros and contribute to the war effort. In her sister - in - law’s condescending attitude, Ximena saw her own mother, the way she’d objected to Na na Hortencia teaching Ximena the healing arts. She’d accused the old woman of filling her little girl’s head with talk of plants and spirits, rituals and ceremonies. And how could her daughter one day be a desirable young lady if she was running around the countryside digging up roots with her bare hands? “We have no medical facilities, no medication and supplies, no experienced nurses,” Ximena explained to Carmen. “My grandmother and I can help with that.” “And what about Saltillo?” Carmen asked. Ximena couldn’t bear the thought of going to Saltillo and sitting with Carmen in her parlor, sipping hot chocolate and eating buñuelos while her country was under attack. She couldn’t do it. She looked down at her hands. They weren’t meant to be wrapped in white - laced gloves while fanning herself with expensive fans from Spain. Her hands were meant to heal. “The war is here and the soldiers need us,” she insisted. “How can we run away?” “A woman does not belong in a field hospital,” Carmen r epeated. “At least not any woman of our station. My children, my husband, and I will leave for Saltillo tomorrow. You do what you want. Become a soldadera if that is what you wish. But if my brother we re here — ” “He would give me his blessing,” Ximena said. “Joaquín didn’t run from the storm, and neither will I.” May 1846 Matamoros, Río Grande 15, Feb’ 1846 Beloved husband, I received your letter and remitance. It soothes the hurt in my heart to know you are in good health. God continue to bless and presarve you, a stór. It has been sich a hard winter here in Clifden. Since the blight killed almost half of our lumpers from la st year, we had no choice but to eat our seed potatoes. I’m afeard there isn’t much left to plant. But we’ll soon put in the ground what remains and pray that the rot will not return again this year. Otherwise, we’ll be slaving at
the spade for naught. Some of our nabours who have the means have had enough and spake of going out to America. But most of our parish are too poor for that, as you well know. I’m afeard there will be hungry months until the next harvest, but we have survi ved bitther bad times in the past and with the grace of God things will improve. Johnny, Mammy, and Daddy all send you their blessings. You would be proud of our Johnny. He is a strong boy and he loves the horses like yourself. We are lo oking forward to t he time we can make the crossing to be with you. I know you’re working hard for us. Pray send us word of how you are ke eping.