Killing Che

by Chuck Pfarrer

  Across the river, Rulon walked from the cobbles and boulders at the river’s edge and turned his attention toward the forest. It was obvious he’d heard something, though the noise did not carry across the water. The farmer took off his hat and waved it. Hoyle turned his head slightly; hidden a few feet away, Salinas had seen Rulon wave as well. The captain seemed to sink down slightly, flattening behind his rifle. Hoyle again looked across the river: He saw two men, and then a third, appear from the forest next to Rulon. They were dressed in muddy fatigue uniforms. Each carried a backpack and a rifle. Their clothing showed hard use and was stained with sweat and reddish dirt. One of the guerrillas stood under the apron and looked across the river. Hoyle could feel his heart beating steadily as he watched the men over the top of his rifle.

  Hoyle tried not to focus on a single one of them but to watch them all equally. He marked out his field of fire, two trees between which his targets stood, and he looked about on the riverbank for places they would likely take cover when the ambush commenced. He would shoot first at the men who were visible and then spray the places of refuge. Thirty bullets were in the magazine of the weapon, and he carried five more magazines in his vest.

  Hoyle could hear snatches of conversation over the murmur of the river. He could not discern any words, but he could hear plainly the clatter of human language. If these were the scouts, why didn’t they cross?

  The three guerrillas talked in a group, and Rulon stood slightly apart from them. Hoyle inched the front sight ramp slowly until it was centered under the three bearded men. Two more guerrillas came out of the forest, and then two men approached, carrying a poncho strung between long poles. Hoyle realized it was a stretcher. The guerrillas lowered it to the ground. They were carrying a man in a dirty shirt and dark green trousers. Hoyle counted the men visible across the river: six, then eight. He noticed that the stretcher bearers did not carry weapons.

  It was a spellbinding thing to see the enemy this close. Most of Hoyle’s business was conducted at night; it was the very first part of dusk, and he could see the men on the other bank clearly. He could make out their features. He could tell that some were tall and some were short, and then a large man came through the assembled group, and from the way he looked at the river, Hoyle guessed that this was the commander. He watched as the tall man shook hands with Honradez Rulon. Some of the men across the river took off their packs and knelt to scoop handfuls of water into their mouths. A few lit cigarettes, and others, having none, cadged puffs from their friends.

  Hoyle felt sweat run off his temple and down the length of his cheek. His heartbeat had steadied, and he felt wet through his shirt where his elbows and chest rested on the damp earth. Across the river, the guerrillas stood indifferently, some looking upstream and others straight across the river. Not one of them seemed concerned to be standing about in the open, and Hoyle watched as the leader signaled back into the woods and another set of stretcher bearers trundled forward and lowered their load to the ground.

  JOAQUIN STOOD IN the small patch of sun at the crossing place and looked across the river. The water was smooth and moved sluggishly, and he was pleased with the ford. They had not broken camp until after sunrise, and although he’d sent scouts forward, the crossing place had been under observation for only the last three hours. Joaquin himself had watched Rulon come and had seen him bathe his horse and wade in the river. As the stretcher cases were brought up, Joaquin thanked Rulon. The cover on both sides of the river was satisfactory, Joaquin thought.

  Joaquin asked, “How deep is it?”

  “As deep as my chest,” Rulon said. “Your feet will be on the bottom the entire crossing. No one will have to swim.”

  “The crossing is straight?”

  “Yes, straight across,” Rulon answered. He looked at the other bank, where the rocks came down, and then he looked into the forest for a rather long time.

  “You will lead us across,” Joaquin said to the farmer.

  The words struck Rulon like hailstones. The peasant was gripped by dread, but he made his face show nothing. Joaquin watched the farmer closely. Rulon knew that somewhere across the bank, the army was waiting; his life now depended on his ability to act like it was not.

  “But sir, I do not swim well,” Rulon said.

  “You just told me it is not necessary to swim,” Joaquin answered.

  “It is shallow enough to walk,” Rulon said.

  “Then show us.”

  The guerrillas looked at Rulon without sympathy. The farmer swallowed hard and waded into the water directly. Around him, the jungle hummed expectantly, chirps and twitters and squeaks; Rulon heard them all keenly. The noise seemed like fire crackling in his ears. There was nothing else for him to do, so he walked out slowly, feeling along with his feet, and as the river came up around his waist, he felt it pulling at him, swirling colder than he had expected.

  Joaquin watched from the shore, and the others lowered their packs, some unlacing their boots. Out in the river, Rulon waded steadily toward the other bank. Every step took him into a grasping sort of dread: Jesus, don’t let them shoot me. I am not armed. The soldiers must see that. Rulon put his hands over his head as he waded toward the far bank, and he prayed as he raised his palms to the sky. Please, God, protect me from the bullets.

  Rulon was most of the way across when Joaquin turned to Marcos. “Go on. I don’t want him running away on the other side.”

  Marcos and three comrades waddled into the river, holding their backpacks in front of them and balancing their rifles on the floating packs. Rulon was in the middle of the stream now, moving in fits and starts, his hands still raised above his head like a priest rendering a blessing. The current swept around Marcos’s chest, pushing him slightly to the left as he approached the far shore.

  Now it was time to get the sick across. On the bank, Joaquin nodded down at the litters. “Help them up, and use the stretcher poles to put under their arms,” he said.

  The comrades helped Tania and Moises to their feet. The two remaining rejects, Chingolo and Eusebio, guided the invalids across the rocks and to the edge of the water. The stretcher poles were placed on either side of them like railings. Tania and Moises clutched them under their arms and stepped tentatively across the rocks and into the water.

  Joaquin slung his weapon across his shoulders and waded in. When he was waist-deep, he unhitched his pack and floated it. Now that it was started, Joaquin wanted the crossing to go quickly, and he did not like it that the column was spread across the water. He watched the men trudging through the river, some pushing their packs, some dragging them; all the combatants held their rifles as high as they could, and it struck Joaquin as odd that Rulon kept his arms raised as he waded near the far bank.

  It was as though he had a fear of getting his hands wet.

  HOYLE WATCHED THE guerrillas come down to the river in a gaggle, mobbed together, with not one sent up-or downstream to provide cover. Hoyle had thought that scouts would be sent over before the main body attempted to cross, but several men entered the water at once. They were all in the river now, thirteen souls, counting the one who had betrayed. As they waded toward him, Hoyle saw Tania staggering into the current. He did not recognize her face at first; he did not even discern her as female. She stood out principally because she was so thin. A walking skeleton.

  Hoyle pressed the fingers of his left hand against the safety lever. He could see the face of the farmer. Two guerrillas were drawing up to the bank, one of them directly in front of Hoyle.

  What had made them forget the way rivers are crossed?

  The guerrilla nearest to Hoyle came on, staring directly into the brush, with water sloshing off his shirt and trousers. He walked barefoot up the bank, his boots tied together and draped over his shoulders. Hoyle was under ten feet away.

  Marcos took a quick step backward, and the rocks shifted under his feet. Hoyle kept the rifle steady over the top of the log, the muzzle laid so exactly that he did not hav
e to move it. His mind had gone to that place where adrenaline stretches time. The seconds unfolded like hours passed in a dream, and Hoyle thought very calmly, He’s seen me.

  Hoyle pulled the trigger and held it back. The AK-47 bucked up, and Hoyle pushed his left hand down onto the hand guard in front of the receiver. In one second, the weapon barked five times. Marcos felt the pressure wave and the heat of the muzzle blast in his face. The concussion of the weapon was so close that it snapped his wet trousers back against the flesh of his thighs. Three bullets struck Marcos above his belt buckle, and two more hit him in the chest.

  Hoyle watched as the guerrilla in front of him folded at the waist, his knees locked together. The first bullets smashed through his body and kicked up long splashes behind him in the river. A sixth bullet hit Marcos in his face, and he jerked as though he had been touched by an electric current. He staggered back into the water, and in that instant, the entire Ranger detachment opened fire.

  The explosions of thirty rifles deafened Hoyle. The noise was too furious to be comprehended, and the rest of the ambush seemed to unfold without sound. Slender geysers were ripped from the surface of the water, and along the far shore, bullets could be seen chipping bark from the trees. Leaves spilled down from the canopy and fell quivering onto the surface of the water. Hoyle aimed at two men close to the far bank and pulled the trigger—a burst of fire exploded from the muzzle, and lead jabbed the men floundering with their packs. They were beaten down by Hoyle’s bullets and a dozen others. Across the river, Rulon’s horse reared and bucked. The old nag jerked its bridle free of the branch and reared as bullets cuffed into her flanks. Roaring and screaming, the horse went down. Hoyle could feel the banging of the rifles through his skin; the air quivered with lead. Tracers skipped off the water and wobbled off through the forest. Everywhere Hoyle looked was swept by gunfire, a perfect hurricane of lead.

  JOAQUIN CAME ACROSS the rocks that hemmed in the river, and he held Tania’s elbow as she took the stretcher poles under her arms. The resacas maneuvered the poles into the water awkwardly, as they did most of their assigned tasks, and the two sick people tottered cautiously over the rocks and then past the slippery stones underfoot at the edge of the water.

  “Can you make it?” Joaquin said to Tania.

  She did not answer but nodded and scuffed forward. He watched as the water came up around her and the resacas held on. As they advanced into the stream, Joaquin waded into the water to his knees. The river was greenish brown, and when he looked down, he could just see the tops of his boots blurred in tea-colored water. In this place, the river was about three hundred feet across, horizontal and smooth, deceptively so, because even standing in the shallows, Joaquin could feel the cool, steady pull of the current against his legs. The far bank was the mirror of the one on which he stood. Rocks and boulders were scattered close by the water. Slightly above, there was a band of red-yellow dirt and then a nearly vertical wall of jungle, verdant where the slanting sun fell and dark between the trees. He could see the comrades wading in an uneven line, pulling their rucksacks after them and holding aloft their rifles.

  Joaquin noticed that Rulon had turned slightly in the center of the river. The farmer still held his hands overhead, but he also crouched down into the water. Joaquin saw that the farmer’s eyes were screwed shut and that his face was twisted into a grimace.

  Joaquin immediately sensed disaster.

  A crashing sound broke over the surface of the water, wham wham wham wham, and Joaquin saw Marcos flinch backward, and then his head bowed and his legs went stiff. Joaquin heard a tearing sound, a sort of crashing; this second noise was louder and seemed to come from everywhere at once. He could not make sense of it for a moment, as its rhythm was complex and very rapid. Joaquin unconsciously lifted his rifle and sprayed bullets into the forest. He could see nothing through the jungle, not even the muzzle flashes of his attackers. Joaquin saw the water exploding around the comrades, and he saw the stretcher bearers dump the poles from their shoulders and then tumble into the shallows. Joaquin continued to shoot. His was now the only weapon returning fire, and his mind raced with the absurdity of it. In the river, the others were being flailed with bullets. Then Joaquin felt the rocks under his feet, and he turned and scrambled back onto the bank. The riverbank went white, as though struck by lightning. Joaquin stumbled and fell, then got up again. His sight became suddenly clear; he saw every stone laid flawlessly, every tree and branch, every leaf. He’d been hit, though he felt no pain, only a throbbing sort of numbness. Around his feet rocks shattered, and dust blossomed up from dry stones as bullets struck them, and just as he fell behind a boulder, he knew that every rifle on the far bank was tracking him. He felt a hot breath in his face, and he scrambled down behind the boulder. He could not believe that this was happening. We have been ambushed, and this is how it will end, here behind this rock.

  Joaquin was sick at heart. He’d been betrayed, duped, but he had also failed as a commander. Behind the boulder, his hand automatically went to his ammunition belt for a fresh magazine, and his fingers closed over something warm and soft where there should have been metal. He realized that he was slick with blood. Bullets smashed into the front of the boulder, and the entire world seemed to vibrate. Shit, I will really die here, he thought. No one else was moving on the bank. A body lay in front of him, facedown on the gravel, and there was one behind, one of the cowards, the resacas who had run with the opening shots for the jungle. Again Joaquin’s sight cleared. He felt no pain, and though he waited for fear to come upon him, it did not. He drew a breath and wondered, if he let it out, would he die at once? Then there was a scratching noise on either side of the stone, long bursts of machine-gun fire, and gravel spat up at him with a noise like rain makes falling on cobblestones; the small stones were being kicked up from the bank, and they were striking him, and Joaquin thought that he must not die cowering. He stood and fired at the jungle across the river.

  He had been a singularly unlucky commander. They all had been unlucky. These were the last thoughts Joaquin registered. The rest was a howling, empty void.

  HOYLE SCANNED THE river and kept firing, pointing his weapon unconsciously, aiming without thought at anything that moved, five-round bursts on full automatic. The AK-47 chugged in his hands; when it clicked empty, he rolled onto his back, peeled away the long black magazine, and inserted a new one. Hoyle came to his knees but did not fire. On the other side of the river, the tall man who looked like the leader fell into cover behind a boulder, and one of the machine guns trained on him. The gunner walked the fire in on the man behind the boulder, and a long burst tore sparks away from the rocks. Hoyle could see that this man was the last person moving. Every one of the Rangers’ weapons was aimed now at him, and dust and sparks and tracers all kicked up around him. Consumed in a roiling cloud of dust and shattered rock, the big man stood defiantly, fired a dozen aimed shots, and then toppled on his back.

  In a dying spasm, his rifle was held straight out above his chest. Lead, fire, and ricochets swarmed around, and the fusillade tore him to pieces.

  Through this all the farmer, Rulon, stood trembling in waist-deep water, turned sideways with his eyes shut and his hands held high in the air. Not a single bullet came anywhere near him.

  Salinas stood and blew a long blast on his whistle. “Pare fuego,” he yelled. The command was repeated down the line.

  Ears ringing, Hoyle stood behind the log and tried to spit but found his mouth was like dirt. The barrel of his weapon had gone gray-white with heat, and he noticed that his hands were twitching. Hoyle stepped forward out of the brush and slid down the bank onto the rocks close to the river. The bend in the river was like a mirage. Everything seemed iridescent and out of focus. One of Salinas’s platoon leaders had directed Rangers to either side of the ambush site and warned them to be ready to repulse a counterattack. None came.

  Hoyle looked down onto the rocks in front of him and saw the bodies of Marcos and Braulio, their
skulls ruptured by bullets and their faces made lopsided; the bridges of their noses had been smashed, and their eyes rolled right and left, like cubist portraits rendered in blood. Hoyle was struck by how silent the forest had become. The river glided silently, and the wind stirred the trees but did not murmur; it was as though the earth had been rendered mute.

  Honradez Rulon stumbled out of the river and collapsed on his hands and knees. Ignoring him, Rangers dragged bodies from the river and laid them on the rocks. Rulon crawled forward and wrapped his arms around the waist of Captain Salinas and blubbered something. Hoyle could not hear it, and the captain simply pushed the man away.

  Rulon lifted his eyes to Hoyle and cried out, “Excellency! Excellency! You remember me!”

  Hoyle felt a jolt of disgust. Rulon sat half in the water and took off his hat and clutched it in his hands. Hoyle walked past him and said nothing. Rulon blinked around at the bodies and began to sob.

  Hoyle waded to the far bank, and the sound of Rulon’s bawling seemed to echo down a metal tube. In the middle of the stream, Hoyle passed by a body just underwater. Streaks of blood spun like rainbows on the surface, and a face showed yellow below it. The man’s eyes were open, and his cheeks seemed puffed, as though he were holding his breath. A Ranger splashed in front of Hoyle, grabbed the corpse by the hair, and dragged it toward the shore.

  On the far bank, Hoyle approached Joaquin’s body. One leg was angled back under his thigh, and his fist was still closed upon his rifle. He had been shot through more than a dozen times, and his blood puddled the gravel around him. The corpse of another guerrilla lay facedown behind Joaquin, the back of his head lopped off. Directed by a lieutenant, a dozen Rangers dragged the bodies down to the river and laid them together in a line. The backpacks were piled together as well. Salinas and his men exultantly counted coup.

  Gustavo Merán walked up to Hoyle and stood surveying the carnage. “They fucked up,” he said.