12 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:

“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 a 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 pasts 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 knife blade, 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 been 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 me 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 oui 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 Blue-grass, 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.

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