Chapter 22
Guerrero saw his first action in the Battle of La Monojera near Guadalajara. It was a fierce two-day battle in which two thousand of Lerdo's troops opposed some six thousand poorly armed peasants, so-called campesinos.
Guerrero found that he loved battle. He fired and killed at least two dozen campesinos that first day, and he loved reaching out and sending a deadly bullet into the chest of the farmers. Almost like shooting ducks.
On the second day of the battle, a bullet plunged into Guerrero's left shoulder, and he found himself dragged to the rear where he was treated for his wound in a crude battlefield shelter.
He was in a fog of unmitigated pain for days.
The wound festered and sent the boy soldier into a delirium of fever that lasted for weeks.
Eventually, he recovered, but he was mustered out of the Army because he'd lost almost all the feeling and strength in his left arm, shoulder and fingers.
He returned to Vega and worked as a blacksmith at first, all the time wishing he were in the thick of battle.
During those years, he struggled each day to regain the strength in his left shoulder and arm, lifting the huge hammers his job required and heavy bags of horseshoes and the steel needed to hammer out things needed at the rancho.
In 1876, when Porfirio Diaz was raising an army to challenge Lerdo, Guerrero, then eighteen years old, left Vega's hacienda and signed up, and distinguished himself as a francotirador, a sniper who could kill virtually any man. By 1880, he'd drawn the attention of President Diaz.
* * * * *
The train did not stop at the station in Chihuahua City. Instead, it hissed to a halt two miles south in the dark, skeletal expanse of the high desert, its iron boiler venting steam like a dying beast.
Guerrero stepped out of the second-class passenger car, his canvas gear bag slung over one shoulder, his right hand instinctively steadying the long, canvas-wrapped weight of his rifle.
He did not look like an elite soldier. He wore the dusty, salt-stained linen shirt of a ranch hand and a wide-brimmed straw sombrero pulled low.
But his eyes, sharp and calculating under the brim, missed nothing.
Two men in the dark blue, immaculate uniforms of the Rurales stepped out from the shadow of the water tower. They didn't draw their sidearms. They simply gestured toward a private, heavily curtained luxury car at the rear of the train.
"He's waiting," one whispered.
Guerrero climbed the iron steps. Inside, the dry heat of the desert was replaced by the rich, heavy scent of imported French tobacco and polished mahogany.
Sitting behind a small desk covered in military maps was General Porfirio Díaz.
His mustache was neatly trimmed, his uniform bristling with medals, his dark eyes carrying the cold weight of a man who had conquered Mexico by force of will.
"Sit down, Guerrero," Díaz said. His voice was low, gravelly, and entirely devoid of warmth.
Guerrero remained standing, placing his canvas bag on the floor. "I prefer to stand, Mi General."
Díaz offered a thin, razor-sharp smile. "The Cazadores battalion spoke highly of you after the siege of Tecoac. They said you killed three enemy artillery officers from four hundred yards out. With iron sights. No scope."
"The wind was in my favor," Guerrero replied evenly.
"Humility is a fine trait for a soldier, but useless for what I need," Díaz said, sliding a photograph across the mahogany desk.
"This is General Ignacio Valverde. He has built a small fortress in the canyon country outside Creel.
He is buying Winchester repeaters smuggled across the border from Tejas, and he is whispering to the Terrazas family about starting an uprising against our administration. "
Guerrero looked at the photograph. Valverde was a heavy-set man with a thick beard and arrogant eyes. "You want him arrested?"
Díaz chuckled, a dry sound like boots on gravel. "Arresting him makes him a martyr. A martyr starts a revolution. No. I want the mountain air to take him."
Díaz stood up, walking to the window to look out at the moonlit Chihuahuan desert.
"Valverde reviews his irregular troops, all armed with Winchesters, every Thursday at noon on the stone terrace of his hacienda.
He believes the surrounding cliffs are too steep for any conventional soldier to climb. He believes he is safe."
Díaz turned back to face Guerrero, his eyes locking onto the marksman.
"You will go into the Sierra Tarahumara.
You will climb those cliffs. You will use that heavy Remington Rolling Block of yours.
One shot. Let the rebels think it was an act of God, or an Apache raider, or a stray bullet.
But Valverde must die before he can sign a pact with the northern rebels. "
Guerrero looked at the photograph one last time, memorizing the line of the man's jaw. He picked up his canvas bag and nodded. "Consider it done, Mi General."
"Do not fail me, Guerrero," Díaz said, turning his back to signify the end of the meeting. "In Mexico, we have bread for those who obey, and the stick for those who do not. Bring me Valverde's death, and your bread will be served on a silver plate."
Guerrero stepped back out into the cold desert night. The train began to chug forward again, disappearing into the dark, leaving the francotirador alone with his rifle and a death warrant signed by the most powerful man in Mexico.
The dry mountain air of the Sierra Tarahumara was ice-cold at dawn, but by noon, the Chihuahua sun beat down like a hammer against the canyon walls.
Guerrero lay prone on a narrow, jagged shelf of red sandstone, six hundred feet above the valley floor.
He had spent the last fourteen hours climbing mostly in the dark, scaling a cliff face the rebels deemed impossible to conquer.
His fingers were raw, and his linen shirt was dirty and torn, but his hands were steady.
Below him lay the hacienda of General Ignacio Valverde, a fortified compound of thick adobe walls and heavy timber.
Guerrero slowly unwrapped the canvas from his rifle, a heavy-barreled Remington Rolling Block chambered in .
43 Spanish. He slid a single, long brass cartridge into the breech.
The heavy lead bullet was paper-patched, meticulously lubricated to cut through the mountain wind.
He closed the rolling block with a solid, metallic clack that was swallowed instantly by the vast canyon.
There were no telescopic sights, not for a soldier like him. He'd heard that such sights had been developed in the north, but he relied on a fine brass ladder sight flipped up near the stock.
He rested the heavy barrel on his rolled-up canvas bag to absorb the vibration. Through the rear notch, he looked down at the hacienda's stone terrace. A dozen rebel guards stood in the courtyard, their smuggled Winchester repeaters gleaming in the sun.
At exactly noon, the heavy oak doors of the hacienda swung open.
General Valverde stepped onto the terrace. He wore a lavishly embroidered charro jacket, a silver-trimmed sombrero, and a gold pocket watch chain that caught the midday glare. He stood at the stone railing, looking down at his men with the supreme confidence of a warlord untouched by the law.
Guerrero didn't breathe. He didn't blink.
He factored in the steep downward angle, which would cause the bullet to strike high if he didn't compensate.
He adjusted his aim, dropping the front sight post down to the center of Valverde's silver belt buckle.
Then, he checked the dust in the canyon floor below.
The wind was a gentle eddy, pushing slightly from the east. He nudged his barrel a hair to the left.
The world shrank to the width of a front sight post. Guerrero exhaled halfway, holding the empty space in his lungs. His index finger squeezed the trigger.
BOOM.
The Remington roared, a thunderous crack that echoed violently off the canyon walls. A thick cloud of white black-powder smoke erupted from the muzzle, momentarily blinding Guerrero's view. The heavy rifle kicked brutally into his shoulder, a familiar, bruising bite.
Six hundred feet below, the heavy lead projectile arrived before the sound of the shot did.
The .43 caliber bullet struck Valverde squarely in the chest, tearing through his lungs and spine.
The force of the impact violently slammed the General backward against the adobe wall of his hacienda.
He slid down the plaster, leaving a brilliant smear of crimson, his silver-trimmed sombrero rolling across the stone tiles.
For three seconds, the courtyard below was completely paralyzed. The rebels looked at their fallen leader, then up at the sky, utterly bewildered.
Then, the delayed roar of the rifle shot finally bounced down into the canyon.
"?Emboscada! ?Francotirador!" shouts erupted. Chaos shattered the courtyard. Men scrambled for cover, firing blindly into the surrounding peaks, their Winchesters popping harmlessly against the massive stone cliffs.
Guerrero didn't watch the panic. He didn't celebrate. He flicked the rolling block open, the spent brass cartridge casing ejecting into the dirt. He didn't load another.
He wrapped the warm rifle back into its canvas shroud, slung his bag, and began his retreat into the labyrinth of the red rocks. General Valverde was dead. Now it was time to collect his bread from Porfirio Díaz.
After that one assassination, there had been others, and each time El Presidente had rewarded Guerrero handsomely.
He was widely regarded in the Army and among those who knew about him as the finest francotirador in all of Mexico.
Los campesinos had a name they whispered about Guerrero.
They called him El Silencioso, the quiet one who quieted others at the request of the President.
And of course, Don Rodrigo had heard all the rumors about Guerrero and his feats. Occasionally, Guerrero visited his mother and father at the Vega hacienda, and he shared the rewards that Diaz had given him with his family.
When Vega stumbled back to his hacienda, humiliated, disgraced and utterly tired after he'd been made to sign the document saying he'd personally sent Del Cole on a false charge, his only thought was revenge.
He was a close friend of El Presidente, and no norteamericanos could treat him with such contempt.
When Diaz asked for money, Vega gave it willingly, so he felt he was almost indispensable to Diaz's government.
So he sent for Guerrero and when he came, Vega asked him to sit down.
"I'd rather stand, Don Rodrigo."
Looking at him gave Don Rodrigo a shiver down his spine, though he looked like a simple campesino with his tattered shirt and straw hat that had seen better days.
Vega smiled and hoped it seemed genuine.
"I'd like to hire your services," he said.
And he had proceeded to tell him what he wanted done.
Guerrero said, "It will be costly, traveling into Tejas and trying to stay hidden. Getting the job done and coming back alive will be difficult, but not impossible. I'll have to think about how I want to proceed, but I'll need a thousand dollars for now."
"When you return, I'll pay you another two thousand," Don Rodrigo said.
"Five," Guerrero said.
Don Rodrigo stared at the young asesino and realized he couldn't refuse.
"If that's what it costs, it will be worth it," Vega said.
He sent a letter to his friend and Mexican President Porfirio Diaz and Guerrero was put on leave from his Army duties for two months so that he could perform personal services for his patrón.