three letters.
He fanned them out like cards. They were all from Magdalena, his wife. He opened the one with the oldest postmark first. She wrote in the English-flavored Spanish middle-aged people in Sonora and Chihuahua commonly used. His children’s generation, further removed from the Empire of Mexico, spoke and wrote a Spanish-flavored English. Another couple of generations might see the older language disappear altogether.
But that thought flickered through Rodriguez’s mind and was lost. He needed the news from Baroyeca. He hadn’t been back since he joined the Confederate Veterans’ Brigades, and he might not get home till the war was over.
Magdalena had heard from the Confederate Red Cross: Pedro was a POW in the United States. Hipolito Rodriguez let out a sigh of relief. His youngest son was alive. He would come home one of these days. He’d done everything he could against the USA, and he was safe. No one could ask for more, especially since the news out of Ohio, where he’d fought, was so bad.
From what Rodriguez’s wife wrote, his two older sons, Miguel and Jorge, were also well. By an irony of fate, Pedro had gone into the Army ahead of them. He was in the first class after the CSA reintroduced conscription, where his older brothers missed out till it was extended to them. Miguel was in Virginia now, while Jorge fought in the sputtering war on Sonora’s northern border, trying to reclaim what the damnyankees annexed after the Great War.
Compared to that news, nothing else mattered much. Magdalena also talked about the farm. The farm was doing all right—not spectacularly, because it wasn’t spectacular land and she had trouble keeping things going by herself, but all right. The family had no money problems. With her getting allotments from her husband and three sons, they probably had more in the way of cash than they’d ever had before.
Robert Quinn was wearing the uniform. That rocked Rodriguez back on his heels. Quinn had run the Freedom Party in Baroyeca since not long after the Great War. He’d put down as many roots as anyone who wasn’t born in the village could hope to do. And now he was gone? The war was longer and harder than anyone imagined it could be.
Carlos Ruiz’s son was wounded. The doctors said he would get better. That he would was good news. That he’d been hurt in the first place wasn’t. Rodriguez and Ruiz had been friends…forever. They grew up side by side, in each other’s pockets.
I have to write him,
Rodriguez thought.
And a couple of women were sleeping with men who weren’t their husbands since the men who were their husbands went to the front. Rodriguez sighed. That kind of gossip was as old as time, however much you wished it weren’t. Back in the Great War, Jefferson Pinkard, the man who was
comandante
at Camp Determination, had had the same kind of woman trouble.
Other guards read their letters from home as avidly as Rodriguez tore through his. Letters reminded you what was real, what was important. They reminded you why you put on the uniform in the first place. Helping the country was too big and too abstract for most people most of the time. Helping your home town and your family…Anybody could understand that.
Not all the news was good. One guard crumpled a letter and stormed away, his face working, his hands clenched into fists. A couple of his friends hurried after him. “Can we help, Josh?” one of them said.
“That goddamn, no good, two-timing bitch!” Josh said, which told the world exactly what his trouble was. Rodriguez wondered if the letter was from his wife telling him she’d found someone new, or from a friend—or an enemy?—telling him she was running around. What difference did it make? Something he’d thought fireproof was going up in flames.
Rodriguez crossed himself, hoping he never got a letter like that. He didn’t think he would; what he and Magdalena had built over the years seemed solid. But Josh didn’t expect
He fanned them out like cards. They were all from Magdalena, his wife. He opened the one with the oldest postmark first. She wrote in the English-flavored Spanish middle-aged people in Sonora and Chihuahua commonly used. His children’s generation, further removed from the Empire of Mexico, spoke and wrote a Spanish-flavored English. Another couple of generations might see the older language disappear altogether.
But that thought flickered through Rodriguez’s mind and was lost. He needed the news from Baroyeca. He hadn’t been back since he joined the Confederate Veterans’ Brigades, and he might not get home till the war was over.
Magdalena had heard from the Confederate Red Cross: Pedro was a POW in the United States. Hipolito Rodriguez let out a sigh of relief. His youngest son was alive. He would come home one of these days. He’d done everything he could against the USA, and he was safe. No one could ask for more, especially since the news out of Ohio, where he’d fought, was so bad.
From what Rodriguez’s wife wrote, his two older sons, Miguel and Jorge, were also well. By an irony of fate, Pedro had gone into the Army ahead of them. He was in the first class after the CSA reintroduced conscription, where his older brothers missed out till it was extended to them. Miguel was in Virginia now, while Jorge fought in the sputtering war on Sonora’s northern border, trying to reclaim what the damnyankees annexed after the Great War.
Compared to that news, nothing else mattered much. Magdalena also talked about the farm. The farm was doing all right—not spectacularly, because it wasn’t spectacular land and she had trouble keeping things going by herself, but all right. The family had no money problems. With her getting allotments from her husband and three sons, they probably had more in the way of cash than they’d ever had before.
Robert Quinn was wearing the uniform. That rocked Rodriguez back on his heels. Quinn had run the Freedom Party in Baroyeca since not long after the Great War. He’d put down as many roots as anyone who wasn’t born in the village could hope to do. And now he was gone? The war was longer and harder than anyone imagined it could be.
Carlos Ruiz’s son was wounded. The doctors said he would get better. That he would was good news. That he’d been hurt in the first place wasn’t. Rodriguez and Ruiz had been friends…forever. They grew up side by side, in each other’s pockets.
I have to write him,
Rodriguez thought.
And a couple of women were sleeping with men who weren’t their husbands since the men who were their husbands went to the front. Rodriguez sighed. That kind of gossip was as old as time, however much you wished it weren’t. Back in the Great War, Jefferson Pinkard, the man who was
comandante
at Camp Determination, had had the same kind of woman trouble.
Other guards read their letters from home as avidly as Rodriguez tore through his. Letters reminded you what was real, what was important. They reminded you why you put on the uniform in the first place. Helping the country was too big and too abstract for most people most of the time. Helping your home town and your family…Anybody could understand that.
Not all the news was good. One guard crumpled a letter and stormed away, his face working, his hands clenched into fists. A couple of his friends hurried after him. “Can we help, Josh?” one of them said.
“That goddamn, no good, two-timing bitch!” Josh said, which told the world exactly what his trouble was. Rodriguez wondered if the letter was from his wife telling him she’d found someone new, or from a friend—or an enemy?—telling him she was running around. What difference did it make? Something he’d thought fireproof was going up in flames.
Rodriguez crossed himself, hoping he never got a letter like that. He didn’t think he would; what he and Magdalena had built over the years seemed solid. But Josh didn’t expect
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