My companions on that expedition with William Walker:
Achilles Kewen, the aristocrat, who fell fighting at Rivas;
Chris Lilly, the boxer,
his throat cut while drunk one night beside a shining lagoon;
William Stoker (Bill), with his pirate’s face — and a good man —
who got married there afterwards and lived by Lake Managua
(and I ate once at his house);
and Crocker, the pretty-boy,
who died gasping for breath at Rivas,
with his dirty, blond beard heavy with blood,
and one arm dangling and a half-empty revolver in the other;
Skelter, the braggart, who died of cholera;
and Dixie, the newsboy — the bugler —
who on the night Colonel Jack broke through the lines
was better than the Scottish bagpipes at Lucknow
playing his bugle.
De Brissot, Dolan, Henry, Bob Gray;
the bandit, the doubting Thomas, the bum, the treasure hunter;
the ones who were hanged from trees and left swinging
beneath the stinking black vultures and the moon
or sprawled on the plains with a lone coyote and the moon,
their rifle beside them;
or in the hot, cobbled streets filled with shouts,
or white like shells on the seashore
where the tides are always covering and uncovering them.
The ones who survived all those dangers and are even still alive.
The ones who stayed there afterwards to get married
and to live in peace in that land
and who this afternoon probably sit remembering
(thinking about how one day they might pen their memories),
and their wife who is from that land, and their grandchildren playing …
The ones who deserted with Turley, inland, toward the gold mines
and were surrounded by natives and perished.
The man who while sleeping fell from a boat into the water
— dreaming perhaps of battles —
and not a soul heard his cries in the darkness,
if he did cry out.
The ones who were shot by Walker against a grey church.
And later, Walker himself, shot …
–E.C., trans. Jonathan Cohen
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 