Rio Ranger Quotes

What do you want in a woman, in life?' I thought a moment...'The Rangers...we began to describe one another in a few simple words: El es muy bueno para cabalgar el rio. Meaning, 'He'll do to ride the river with.' In Texan, it means, 'I'd trust him with my life.' I scratched my head. 'I want someone to ride the river with.

A Isto chamam a vida. A este vazio. A este não saber que fazer das mãos quando, enfim, da máquina (da prostituição) as mãos se libertaram. A esta mesquinha oscilação entre nada e coisa nenhuma chamam vida. Enquanto nos comem a carne. A vida, no meu caso, António Almeida, de um funcionário exemplar. Dias cautelosos, anos silenciosos de obediência, cursivo distinto, camisa no fio mas limpa, como tem passado Vossa Excelêncía, etc. E a boca seca. E um cordão de císco na garganta, a palavra sempre adiada. A isto, ao meu barro domesticado, a esta voz dócil, ajoelhada, chamam vida; dócil, e na terra derramada. Aqui estou pois sentado na vida. Impotente. Como quem se senta num túmulo. Os braços, as pernas paralisadas. A cabeça cheia de fórmulas sem sentido — cheia de pedras. Pedras de cenário. O sangue parado nas veias, apodrecido por um dique (o Chefe impera do alto da sua própria solidão e sussurra entre dentes, içando lentamente os olhos por cima dos óculos: «um bom funcionário jamais se apaixona, rapazes; lembrai a eficiência das máquinas; das formigas»); o sangue gelado, contido em seus vasos e controlado pelas conveniências — que palavra (de vidro mas não transparente): conveniências. E que dizer do sexo? Dos rios logo ressequidos que um dia iluminaram o meu sexo? Minha mulher que o diga, ela também apodrecida. Se ao menos eu pudesse correr, blasfemar, trepar às montanhas — eu que tenho medo e não sei fazer revoluções, nem falar delas; correr durante cinco anos e durante outros tantos esconder-me numa toca. Mas de que serve queixar-me? Comigo falo. De que te serve, companheiro, ranger os dentes? E nada resolve correr ou ser dócil ou sentar-me junto ao fogo. E da violência? Que dizer dessa cabra? A morte continua do ventre ao túmulo — e chamam-lhe (sem ironia!) vida. Através deste caminho obscuro tomo nas mãos as contradições da vida, essa que, ao mesmo tempo, é, deveria ser, truculenta festa da carne, tumultuosa festa do espírito. É, deveria ser, uma cerimónia da qual sempre saíssemos feridos, amputados, refeitos — e mais velhos, e mais cansados, e mais humildes — mas sem este sabor na boca, este sabor que posso apenas situar entre nada e coisa nenhuma. Nem cúmplices da terra somos; nem quase já linguagem tem o nosso corpo… As Férias ou o Tema do Funcionário Cansado, 1967, incluído na recolha Contos da Morte Eufórica, (Dom Quixote, 1984)

The enemy won some points at the very beginning. On both of the two days preceding his remarks about Worth, Hitchcock notes that American deserters had been shot while crossing the Rio Grande. Probably they were just bored with army rations but there was some thought that they might be responding to a proclamation of General Ampudia’s which spies had been able to circulate in camp. Noting the number of Irish, French, and Polish immigrants in the American force, Ampudia had summoned them to assert a common Catholicism, come across the river, cease “to defend a robbery and usurpation which, be assured, the civilized nations of Europe look upon with the utmost indignation,” and settle down on a generous land bounty. Some of them did so, and the St. Patrick Battalion of American deserters was eventually formed, fought splendidly throughout the war, and was decimated in the campaign for Mexico City — after which its survivors were executed in daily batches.… This earliest shooting of deserters as they swam the Rio Grande, an unwelcome reminder that war has ugly aspects, at once produced an agitation. As soon as word of it reached Washington, the National Intelligencer led the Whig press into a sustained howl about tyranny. In the House J. Q. Adams rose to resolve the court-martial of every officer or soldier who should order the killing of a soldier without trial and an inquiry into the reasons for desertion. He was voted down but thereafter there were deserters in every Whig speech on the conduct of the war, and Calm Observer wrote to all party papers that such brutality would make discipline impossible. But a struggling magazine which had been founded the previous September in the interest of sports got on a sound financial footing at last. The National Police Gazette began to publish lists of deserters from the army, and the War Department bought up big editions to distribute among the troops. Taylor sat in his field works writing prose. Ampudia’s patrols reconnoitered the camp and occasionally perpetrated an annoyance. Taylor badly needed the Texas Rangers, a mobile force formed for frontier service in the Texas War of Independence and celebrated ever since. It was not yet available to him, however, and he was content to send out a few scouts now and then. So Colonel Truman Cross, the assistant quartermaster general, did not return from one of his daily rides. He was still absent twelve days later, and Lieutenant Porter, who went looking for him with ten men, ran into some Mexican foragers and got killed.