1
Mercy Cameron waited by the softly lit church of Santa Lucia, growing more anxious by the moment. Twilight was changing to night. No unchaperoned woman should be standing about on street corners at that hour, an impropriety edged with danger, for she and her husband had only that day arrived in MĂ©rida after a jolting carriage ride from the little port of Sisal. To make a foreign city and language even stranger, this capital of YucatĂĄn was celebrating the lifting of a fifty-day siege at a place to the south called Tihosuco. An English-speaking merchant who had shared their carriage from the port thirty miles away had tried to explain the tumultuous relief and joy, but all Mercy was sure of was that rebel Mayas had been repulsed and that a war she had never even heard of had been going on in YucatĂĄn since 1848 and still continued, though the government had officially declared it over in 1855, eleven years ago.
Thunderstruck at the news, Philip had deluged the merchant with indignant questions that had put the portly moustachioed Creole very much on his honor as a Yucatecan.
âI marvel,â he said stiffly, âat how those who have lost a war are eager to advise men who have at least protected their home.â
Philipâs eyes flashed and he leaned forward. âBy God, sir âŠâ
Mercy tugged at his arm. âPhilip! Please! Remember, we are guests of the empire.â
She invoked that name deliberately. It was their last hope. After the long journey across Texas and Mexico to Vera Cruz, last week they had reached the much-heralded colony of Carlota, named for the empress of Mexico. Since the defeat of the South a year and a half ago, Confederates had made their way to Mexico, some hoping to fight for Maximilianâs empire and, with its triumph, reclaim their home country, others simply wishing to start over on lands offered free or at little cost.
Governors, generals, common soldiers, those who had lost everything in the war or who couldnât accept the grinding humiliation of Reconstruction, adventurers, rascals, and honorable menâall flocked south of the Rio Grande, expecting a promised land of ease, sunshine, and lush, effortlessly grown crops where lost fortunes could be recouped and the Confederacy could live again, even in exile.
But during the eleven-day stage trip from Monterrey to Mexico City, the Camerons heard disturbing rumors. Though the crown of Mexico had been offered to Archduke Maximilian of Austria in 1863, along with the assurance that the Mexicans ardently desired a monarch to save them from revolutions and military coups, it was really the French Army that kept the well-meaning but deluded emperor in power.
When the Civil War ended, United States Secretary of State Seward demanded the withdrawal of EuĆopean troops from Mexico and that the U.S. begin to supply weapons and ammunition to JuĂĄrez, the Indian president of Mexico whose followers had been fighting the Imperialists since French intervention.
Napoleon III had hoped to have his puppet firmly in power before the United States would have time or strength to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. In April of that year, 1866, he had announced a gradual withdrawal of French troops. Carlota, Maximilianâs darkly beautiful Belgian princess wife, had gone to France to plead with Napoleon to keep his promises and had arrived the first week in August to find that Austria (and her brother-in-law, Emperor Franz Joseph) had just lost a seven-week war to Prussia, and that the trans-Atlantic cable was now in regular service, meaning she could quickly inform Maximilian of her progress with Napoleon.
She had no good news to send her embattled husband. After delays and evasions, Napoleon told her he could not help, and toward the end of August he wrote Maximilian that he would supply neither another franc nor soldier. Carlota went on to Rome to plead for aid from the pope, was again refused, and on October 18, Maximilian had cables telling of his wifeâs illness. A few days later he started for Orizaba, apparently to abdicate.
That was the last development the Camerons heard of when they reached Vera Cruz late in October, but they had traveled on to Carlota to find mango trees swaying lacy-green above the almost deserted plaza and most of the thatched bamboo huts empty.
Courtly white-haired General Sterling Price invited them to a meal in his large thatched house and told them how the rush of Confederates into this Cordoba valley had led to a brief boom that collapsed as would-be colonizers could find no way of supporting themselves till crops grew, discovered that hard work would be necessary, encountered yellow fever and typhoid, and were frightened at the way JuĂĄristas had raided an outlying settlement and taken its men captive. The men had been released, but JuĂĄrez was undoubtedly winning the war. He wouldnât be sympathetic to foreigners whoâd accepted land from an Austrian interloper and sworn allegiance to him. Southerners were returning as quickly as they could to the United States.
âAll for nothing!â Philip cried. His thin, well-formed lips twitched as he glanced away from the handsome old general.
Mercy stiffened with dread. She knew what would come later, when they were alone: accusations and stormings that if she hadnât tried to persuade him to stay in Texas, theyâd have been snugly settled on a Mexican estate by now and able to ride out a change in governments. As if sensing some undercurrents of Philipâs despair, General Price sighed.
âYucatĂĄn is as loyal to the empire as that strife-ridden place can ever be. The empress visited both Campeche and MĂ©rida a year ago, awarded many honors, and aroused wild enthusiasm. Thereâs talk of reestablishing the empire in YucatĂĄn with a view of expanding south.â
âThen weâll go to YucatĂĄn!â Philip had vowed, brightening. âIâd rather die than go back to Reconstruction!â
The weary old general looked sorrowful but wished them good fortune. Mercyâs urgings that they return to Texas only increased Philipâs stubborn determination. They spent their remaining money to travel by steamship across the Gulf of Mexico to the port of Sisal, and then on to MĂ©rida.
Their driver brought them to a small, clean inn, but Philip left immediately to scout the city for âprospects.â He had promised to meet Mercy at a nearby church so that they could have a stroll before dusk and find a respectable place to eat.
It was more than dusk. Mercy felt tired, hungry, and forlorn. Philip hadnât been able to settle down after the Southâs defeat. Heâd stayed out later and later, drinking and reliving won battles while trying to forget a lost war. Painfully, Mercy thought back to the year before. Lee had surrendered April 9, and on April 14 Lincoln was assassinated. With him went the chance of generous and healing treatment for the conquered secessionists.
Some Confederate leaders had met in Marshall, Texas, about twenty miles from Mercyâs home, before their troops were demobilized. General William Preston of Kentucky was there and so was General Jo Shelby of Missouri, who would later bury his unsurrendered flag in the Rio Grande as he crossed into Mexico. They planned, with other generals, colonels, and leaders assembled there, to send troops to Maximilian in the hope that when his empire was secured, heâd help them free the South from Northern dominion.
But the generals offered this command werenât free yet to leave their posts, and while officers debated, their exhausted men decided the war was over and went home without being formally discharged. Philip had ridden in from Marshall, his blue eyes bright with anger and excitement.
âWeâve lost the big chance. But Jo Shelbyâs heading south with five hundred men! That many seasoned troops could make the whole difference to Maximilian. We can help him steady his throne and then he can loan armies to free the South!â
Mercy looked up from plucking the tough old rooster Madge Evans had brought her for nursing the frail new Evans baby through a wracking croup. âMore fighting? Oh, Philip, no! Itâll take years now for the South to heal and be a good place to live. The sooner we start, the better.â
âUnder Yankees and traitors?â
âIf we work and forget about the Yankees, theyâll go away in time.â Mercy dried her hands, stretching them out to her husband, but he avoided them with a glance of disgust at the scrawny rooster with its scalded feathers, soggy and odorous.
He was so touchy and difficult. Of course, heâd only been home a month. And his knee still pained him from the wound heâd received at Gettysburg, where her father had been killed. Philip had been sent home then to convalesce. Sheâd often visited her dashing, long-worshipped second cousin, reading to him and, in easing his recovery, finding some surcease from the ache of learning that her father was dead. In normal days it would have been unthinkable to marry at such a time, but no one raised eyebrows when the cousins were married a few days before Philip rejoined his command.
Sheâd been so thankful when the war ended with him still alive; she had been so overjoyed to look up one day from mixing ointment to see him in the doorway. Now, sheâd thought, running to him, embracing him, touching his thin face, theyâd put the war, loss, and defeat behind them, start fresh. Together, they could endure anything. She was so tired of being alone, of trying to fill her fatherâs place with the sick.
Wonderful, wonderful, to have the war over. Wonderful to have a man at home!
But in these few weeks, she was having to secretly admit that it had been easier alone. At least sheâd had hopeâhope that when Philip came back, things would be better, that heâd take much of the load from her. Insteadâthe thought burst through in spite of her efforts to deny itâhe was another burden, the heaviest of all, for he was the man sheâd married, to whom her fate was joined. He seemed absolutely unable and unwilling to settle into everyday life, to make the best of what must be in the South for the next years.
Mercy turned back to her task, concealing hurt at the way heâd evaded her gesture of appeal. âPhilip, your knee still pains you when you ride or walk a long time. Youâre not in any condition to ride hundreds of miles with Jo Shelby, much less fight.â
His well-shaped mouth curved downward. âYou seem to think Iâm in condition to plow!â
âIâd help. And you could take as long as you need and rest when youâre tired.â
âIâm not a field hand, damn it!â She didnât answer, averting her face to hide tears that would only make him angrier. âIâm not cut out to farm,â he growled. âThereâs no use in trying to make me do it!â
âWell, what is it that you intend?â
His eyes narrowed. âOh, so youâre throwing it in my face that weâre eating what you grub out of that ugly little garden and what people give you for sitting up with them all nightâwhen they bother to pay at all. That new doctor in town gets cash, jewelry, or something worthwhile for his trouble.â
âItâs worthwhile if I can help. People give what they can.â
âThe way they paid your father? If heâd charged the way he shouldâve, heâd have left you pretty well off.â
âHe did. Remembering the kind of man he was is worth more than lots of money.â
Philip groaned. âMy God! Youâre talking about his goodnessâhonor, wisdom, all that rot?â
Whirling, Mercy trembled. âTalk that way about Father,â she said in a shaking voice, âand Iâll bar the door to you!â
He stared. This was the first time sheâd lost her temper with him. When she met his eyes unflinchingly, he reddened and shrugged. âIâm sorry, honey. Uncle Elkanah was a saint, but itâs too bad he didnât look after you a little better.â
âWe always had enough. And Iâm sure he didnât expect to be killed at forty-five.â
âItâs still a shameââPhilip grinned ruefully, using the charm that could still twist her heartââespecially since youâve got a husband who doesnât know how to do anything but soldier.â
âYou planned once to go into law.â
âNo money for that now, sugar.â
âIf itâs what you want, weâll manage. I can sell vegetables and âŠâ
âYouâd give them to people who donât eat right,â teased Philip, leaning against the side of the house, which needed painting. He started across the garden toward the pastures and the thickly wooded creek. âDarling, I canât just forget we lost a war, go back to where I was when it started. Even if we had the money, I donât think I could endure the grind of studying, hours in a classroom, when Iâm used to wondering if each day will be my last.â
Coming to where she stood by a plank work table shaded by a big oak, he closed his arms around her from behind, his hands cupping her breasts.
She didnât know why exactly, but she hated that, to be grasped when she felt exposed and helpless, because her hands were busy with the smelly, wet feathers. Philipâs moments of affection were few. If she complained of this unwelcome show, heâd sulk for days and would never turn to her in the night, as he did now only occasionally.
When theyâd married, Mercy had been startled at the hurried brutal way heâd breached her, but she had believed his wound and nervousness made him rough. It wasnât much better now. When she wanted simple affection, or when she tried to prolong the kissing and caressing, he ignored her unspoken wishes, either moving away or taking her with neither delight nor tenderness.
Mercy had no woman to consult about this problem. Philipâs parents had been dead for years, and his brotherâs wife, though pleasant, lived three days distant. Mercy hadnât seen her or her brother-in-law since the day sheâd married Philip. From what she sensed about Madge Evans and the other married women sheâd treated, Mercy concluded their lots were equally disappointing, if not worse, but their husbands werenât young and handsome like Philip; and Mercy, though not vain, knew she was infinitely more desirable than most of the women sheâd seen partially unclothed.
When she glimpsed her slim figure in the mirror, firmly rounded breasts and thighs, flawless skin, she wondered what it would be like to have Philip watch her, admire her with his hands, tell her she was pretty.
Her father had never talked directly to her about physical love, but once sheâd heard him chiding a man for ârolling on and rolling off.â âIf youâd pleasure your woman in bed, sheâd have fewer headaches, backaches, and doctor bills,â heâd growled. âYouâve got the medicine, she needs! Think about her and youâll both b...