15 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 They knew, indeed, that night was falling on the mountains and the pass, that the Mexicans had withdrawn from the field, that their flags and lances were fading in the twilight, but it was all, for a little while, dim and vague to them.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:

“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 sharp-shooting 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 señors 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 goto 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.”

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