The Furies by John Jakes

pool of it.
    Mexican soldiers searched for souvenirs among the heaped bodies. But near the wall, she noted an unusually large mound of corpses that the human scavengers seemed to be avoiding. Most of the dead appeared to be Mexicans, but she recognized one American among them. He lay on his back, his face a patchwork of bayonet cuts. At least two dozen other wounds had torn his hunting shirt and trousers.
    Pacing at her side as he had since they left the chapel, Cordoba noticed her stare. “That man in the fur cap—is he the one called Crockett?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m told it took a score or more to bring him down.”
    “That doesn’t surprise me.”
    “You can see the soldiers fear to go near him even now—”
    The sight of Crockett’s stabbed body unleashed new rage within her. It found a ready target in Cordoba’s continuing presence. “I don’t need your personal attention, Major. In fact I resent it.”
    “Understandably.” Cordoba nodded. His brown eyes kept moving back and forth from one group of soldiers to another. Some of the soldiers watched the prisoners with sullen fury. “However, you must accept it until we are safely outside. I want no incidents—”
    “What sort of incidents?”
    “Noncombatants are to be spared—that was His Excellency’s order. But it won’t be obeyed voluntarily. I really think you still fail to understand the importance of this engagement, señora.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Just this. Your General Houston has boasted too often that, with five hundred men, the province of Texas could be liberated from Mexico. His Excellency had to win this battle—at any price. To do so, he inflamed the passions of his men—”
    Cordoba inclined his head toward a pair of soldiers busily plying knives. One soldier was sawing through the bone of a Texan’s ring finger in order to claim an emerald signet. His sweaty-faced companion had a different purpose. While Amanda watched, the soldier whacked off the ear of a dead man she recognized as one of Crockett’s twelve from Tennessee. With a gruff shout, the soldier displayed the souvenir to other Mexicans nearby. They laughed and applauded. Grinning, the soldier tucked the ear into his pocket.
    “Indeed, señora, the very spirit with which your people resisted only heightened the desire for revenge. That’s why looting must be permitted. And why the faces are being cleaned—”
    He pointed to other soldiers using rags to wipe the dirt from the fallen, Mexican and American alike.
    Amanda shook her head, not understanding. Cordoba explained in a somber voice, “His Excellency wishes no mistakes made about the identity of each body. As I informed you, our soldiers will be buried. Your people will be burned.”
    “Scum,” she breathed. “Murdering scum, that’s all you are—”
    “Alas, señora, war is seldom an ethical business.”
    “There could have been terms! Honorable surrender—”
    “No. An example was needed. Besides, would your people have accepted terms?”
    She pushed back a stray lock of dirty hair from her forehead, unable to reply. Thank God the gate was only a short distance away. Susannah Dickinson, accompanying the litter on which her daughter rested, had already reached the body-strewn ground between the mission and the river. Two black men were just following her out the gate. One was Sam, who had come from the sacristy. The other was Travis’ slave, Joe, captured in the long barracks. Both men were crying.
    “Well, señora?” Cordoba prodded. “ Would the Texans have accepted terms of any kind?”
    She turned her head, gazing at the disheveled major. He was still something of an enigma. He had the erect bearing and outward flintiness of a professional. Yet there was a certain softness in his eyes that suggested another, more elusive man behind the façade. For the first time she noticed his tunic. It bulged noticeably; his belly was growing fat. And he looked tired.
    Less angry, she answered, “I