We let the Yankee come over to spy on our ships. I would even sit down with the Yankee. I would help to count the masts. We were far away from the war, all of us. The ships came in to take our cotton off from Texas and bring it to Liverpool. We had great piles of cotton around the fort and town. The cowboys and darkies brought whole wagonloads piled high and pulled by eight mules. The ships could not come in. There was no harbor. The ships drew too much water, so the crews came ashore in longboats. We sent the bales out to them on the rafts that we kept in a flat pile in front of the fort. The Yankee was always there, sitting on the wall. I would sit with him under our flag. I had my legs around the barrel of our Columbiad gun. I would tell him to count the ships. The officers were cordial with him and treated him well , even Sergeant Driscoll, who had one arm.

Out in the bay, beyond the breakers, there would be a hundred or more ships, some that you could not see except for their masts, on the horizon. There were those that were even out of reach for as good a gun as our Columbiad. The low town was behind us. We were protecting it and the cotton from any bombardment that might come. The town was made of mud- wall buildings. There were no people left. There were just the cowboys and darkies who would stay some nights and then get back on their wagons-and Pipo, an old man who took care of the whiskey and lived in a shed. The town was quiet except when the cowboys and darkies would take to fighting, and we would have to drag the Columbiad over to the other side of the fort and shoot a green ball of fire to calm the cowboys and darkies from stabbing each other. The Yankee and I would watch the town from the fort if there was not anything going on out in the bay. 'We might as well not have been there, the Yankee included. We had low walls on our fort. We did not need high walls. Sand piled itself up to the tops on the wind- ward side. The Yankee's scrawny cows strayed across the mud- flats at night and lost themselves in the dark, falling over the fort's walls to us on the other side. The cows broke their legs in the fall and we ate them the next day. We did not tell the Yankee a thing. Some of us had taken to sleeping out under the stars around the Hagpole since the night it stormed, when a good-sized heifer came tumbling through the thatch of the barracks, bringing the rain down on us, too.

I would sit with the Yankee, who looked everywhere through a spyglass. He said he knew which type of ship it was that he was seeing just by looking at the rigging-sloops, merchantmen, or packets. The Yankee tried to teach me the names. I just pretended to listen. I do not like the big water, even though it reminds me of the part of Texas where I am from. It is the openness of big water and the sky above that reminds me. Being in the saddle on the plains might be like being on a ship at sea-everything falls away under your feet. I do not really want to find out. We lost most of our horses and I was wanting them back. I wanted a whole herd running around; not just the six we had left. The Yankee kept a ledger of the kinds and numbers of ships that anchored in the bay. He would let Captain Arbuckle take a look at the numbers.

"You have had one hundred fifty merchantmen, a barque, and twenty-three Indian canoes through here the last three weeks," the Yankee would say to the captain.

"Lordy," the captain would say. Sometimes he would spit, but we didn't notice.

The canoes were important. The Indians paddling them were cannibals. We would find big bones in old campfires out in the dunes: Sergeant Driscoll even dug up some arm bones with teeth marks on them. We all had a laugh about it.

***

We used to be cavalry.

We were out of horses except for a few grays which you cannot use anyway-the enemy will see them in the dark when you go raiding. I used to watch the men drill and charge in battle. I wanted very much to be with them, boot-to-boot in the stirrups, hollering, waving pistols. I was the squadron groom and caretaker. The horses we rode all came off my father's farm: Captain Arbuckle came riding by one day and bought us out. My father threw me in with the deal. He was too old to go with us, having fought the Mexicans and the Comanches. He sent me in place of him, I think.

They say the Yankee ingenuity will win it for them.

Let me tell you about this.

Inferior armament and inferior brains are on their side. I tell you, we only used our pistols when we got up close. We never got out the sabres. Those are only for the ladies to look at: The Yankee cavalry we came against in Tennessee had no concept of this. They had pikes with streamers flying from them. As they rode closer, we could all see that they wore armor around their chests. When they were close enough, the men got out their pistols and shot through the armor. Many of the Yankees fell out of the saddle not even shot. Most could not ride well in any circumstance, I think. Later the men watered the horses, using the popped-open breastplates as troughs, the ones that did not have bullet holes in them.

***

What I will never forget is Sergeant Driscoll losing his arm. I was holding reins. He and the men were out in the fields as skirmishers in front. Sergeant Driscoll twirled his gun by the trigger guard, showing off: A cannonball came over the hill , taking his arm with the chevrons and the pistol, spinning it off his body. He did not fall. He stood there.

The artillery began to give us hell, so Captain Arbuckle called the men back to form up a charge. Sergeant Driscoll plodded on. He was bashful. I do not think he was hurting yet. Captain Arbuckle shook his head.

"You are dying," said the captain.

"No," said Sergeant Driscoll.

"You are relieved," the captain said.

"No," Sergeant Driscoll said.

"You cannot hold the weapon," the captain said.

"No," said the sergeant.

But he rode the charge and survived without his weapon. The cannister got most of us. All the horses were dead.

Later, some general wanted to send us out on foot. We were horsemen. We would not have any talk like this. We got sent to Texas to look for more horses. But there were not any. Another general sent us here, to the fort on the Mexican border to guard the cotton.

Sergeant Driscoll had ideas of making me a drummer boy. I was issued a drum, which I still have. I am glad we were sent back to Texas. I am glad I got out of playing a drum and standing around in the mud.

We do have some horses now. The captain ordered them from England. They came over on the cotton ships. I swear, the captain finds a way for us, no matter what. I hope we can all go mounted again, go back to the war somewhere else. Next year Sergeant Driscoll says I will be old enough to carry the pistol and ride the charges.

***

The Yankee, outside of knowing his ships, was of no practical bent. His cows strayed all over the place. I would swim my new English horse over the river to the Mexican side to help him round them up. I would help him, ride through the grass to find the Yankee's cows lying down. He would repair his stick fence while I was out in the grass.

It was a sorry place, the Yankee's, and he had built it himself. It was a shed with a tin roof and thatch sides. Rats and spiders were in the palm-leaf walls. This land by the sea, across the mudflats from our fort, was all that the Mexicans would give him to live on.

I doubt my father would have approved of him. First, his fear of horseflesh. Whenever a hoof would shift, he looked for a fence to climb. Second, his shed. Father would have found a way to build a house that could stand up to Mexico. Also, the Yankee wore both a belt and suspenders. Last, the Yankee told me all about Europe, where he was educated. Father would have not liked this.

For me, I have not decided for or against Europe.

We did not talk to the Yankee about some things.

***

The ships stopped coming in any numbers. The cow- boys and darkies kept bringing their wagons. They piled the bales all around the town, lining the streets until the streets turned into walled alleys. You could not hear men or horses walking through them because the cotton took up the noise. The Yankee still came over to spy out the bay. I quit sitting with him. I did not think he needed any help counting up to one or two or four. I was spending my time with Sergeant Driscoll. He was teaching me to swim out by the breakers.

We stood on a raft out in the bay. We were near the deep water, so Sergeant Driscoll tied a line around my waist. He was getting good with using his other hand. He even had his pistol- shooting back.

I could not swim.

I sank.

I shut my eyes against the saltiness. He reeled me in and whupped my back with his stump to get the water out. I liked it when he whupped me. I was down there and felt the rope begin to pull me up. Then I got whupped. Sergeant Driscoll kept whupping me with his stump.

I learned to paddle.

Sometimes I let myself sink. I liked to lose track of where I was. I was nothing in the sea. The sea was so big that it touched England as well as me. It touched where the Yankee was from.

There were no ships for us. Not any. The Yankee came down and said to the captain, "You only got one sloop in through here."

"Nuts to you," Captain Arbuckle said.

So the cotton was not going out. We would go dancing in the town. The Yankee waded across from Mexico in his good clothes. He danced with us, too. It was empty where they sold the whiskey. Some bottles would be laid out by old Pipo, who was never around. The officers took the back room to dance among themselves. We stayed in the front and pulled back the chairs to clear the floor. I would think about Father.

I did not mind being there with all the men. We did not think it sissy, dancing with ourselves. There were no women around, not even a whore up from Mexico. All we had was us.

What started the fight, I guess, was the Yankee wanting to go back to the officers again. Sergeant Driscoll and the rest of us would not have him. The Yankee looked to me, but I was with the men. They came out yelling at each other, Captain Arbuckle and the Yankee.

The Yankee cutting in on his dance with Lieutenant Finns broke the captain's good nature down, I think. The Yankee had his thumbs hooked in his suspenders. He asked about weapons. "Everything," said Captain Arbuckle.

***

They had us drawn up in an infantry line out on the mudflats near the water. We had our uniforms. Sergeant Driscoll gave me one of the pistols, saying, "Here, boy, take this." I did not want it, but I put it in my sash and played the drum a little. We were in a line so we could root for Captain Arbuckle and shoot the Yankee down if any funny business happened. Horse pistols and carbines were all over in the mud, having already been fired. They went at it for a good while.

Captain Arbuckle was already shot through the cheeks. Blood was in his beard. They were on horseback, the Yankee gripping to the horn of the Mexican saddle. We put the saddle on one of the cotton mules for him. The captain had his English charger, named Hat in Hand.

That Yankee, he was a good shot. He shot the captain's sabre blade as the captain was drawing it. The captain threw his blade to the sea and charged. He charged with no weapon because they had been at it too long, shooting and cursing. Maybe he knew we were thinking of why he drew it in the first place, the sabre not being a valid weapon. Now the captain was his own weapon. He was bleeding. I think that he wanted to put an end to the matter.

Hat in Hand was snorting. The Yankee saw what was coming. He spurred his mule, trying to make a break for Mexico, I suppose. Sergeant Driscoll stepped out of line and shot the Yankee's hand off to make him drop the reins.

The captain rode into them.

The Yankee's big saddle flipped under the mule and pitched him into the mud. Captain Arbuckle flew into the mud, too. He stood up and spit out some teeth from the side-holes in his cheeks.

The Yankee was weeping, under dead Hat in Hand and the little mule with its feet in the air. I saw a crab sneak out from the surf and drag the Yankee's hand back into the sea.

We just left him out there.

The tide was coming in.

We left.

I wonder why Sergeant Driscoll gave me the gun since he was going to step out of line and take care of everything like he did. It was not sporting or Christian. I guess he wanted me to be a part of it, carrying that gun. But, I tell you, all I did was play the drum.

***

Captain Arbuckle says that the war is not over. He says that instead of fighting the Federal cavalry coming down here to take, possession of the fort, he is going to lead us into Mexico. He says we could fight for the Emperor, who is having a revolution. He says we could find some game. He says that the decision to go is strictly volunteer. But I can tell he wants all his men around him, even me. He does not talk so well with all the bandages and holes in his face.

"I'll keep the Federals off," I said. "You can get away scot-free," I said. We all rode out to the riverside, towing the Columbiad with the rope. You remember--the big sea gun? The men charged it for me and faced it down the same road from which the cotton used to come and from which the dust would rise in a little while, meaning that the Federals were here. Captain Arbuckle had our battle flag in his hands. He wrapped it around a boulder Lieutenant Finns found for him. Then he sank it in a deep bend of the river. A prayer was said. The men began crossing the horses. I sat down with my legs around the barrel of the gun. I lit a stick of punk for the touch-hole for when the time came.

I looked north up the road.

I listened for the men going away behind me.

And I waited to feel the pull.