Killing Che

by Chuck Pfarrer

  As the comrades dispersed into their hides, Guevara felt suddenly exhausted, and his chin drooped against the front of his fatigue shirt. As the comrades stole away, he did not watch them leave but sat in silence, weighing again the tactical situation. He thought if the column could evade contact until the afternoon, they stood a chance. They could fight until the light was gone, and in darkness the advantage was still theirs. But if they were discovered early, if the Rangers found them and began the battle in the morning, it would not be likely that they could hold out. Guevara wrapped his arms around his rifle, cradling it, and slumped against a tree. The last of the food had gone away when the mules were set loose, and his stomach grumbled. He contented himself with a slow pull of water from his canteen and tried to put out of mind the consequences of failure.

  The morning passed quietly, and the damp cold went out of Guevara’s bones a little. The sun came down almost vertically into the canyon, and the clouds scudded away from it. Huddled in a band of trees that offered concealment but little cover, Guevara listened to the wind rolling downslope and another airplane passing lazily overhead. When the wind shifted slightly to the south, all he could hear was a series of shouted commands coming from the ridges—the Rangers had arrived.

  Willy and El Chino looked carefully at the comandante, but his face betrayed nothing. The comrades around him took some courage from this, and Guevara removed a notepad from his pack and wrote several dozen lines in black ink. He then tore the page from the notebook, rolled the paper into a tube, and inserted it into the frame of his pack.

  They were under decent cover now, all of the column, and the Rangers did not seem eager to descend the ravine. Perhaps they would pass the day without being discovered. A hundred outcomes rolled through Guevara’s head, and he looked up the slope to a long green belt of trees about halfway up the east side of the ravine. It was steepest just below the top of the ridge; there was a short, vertical section of cliff maybe five or six feet tall, and then the trees stretched all the way to the top of the ridge and over it. The rocks seemed to surround a small hollowed-out place overlooking the canyon. It looked like a bit of an abandoned castle. Guevara recognized this spot as a key position of defense, and he cursed himself for not placing some men there. The small band of cliffs could not be seen until after sunrise, and now there was too much light and not enough cover. The comrades would have to stay as they were.

  Guevara got onto his elbows and stretched his legs out behind him, aiming his rifle up the canyon. On the ridges, the Rangers could be seen moving around in squad-sized groups. They moved quickly between bands of trees and did not spend much time in the open. The enemy had the high ground, and Guevara knew that if the Rangers showed initiative, combat would be opened.

  As the morning widened, Inti went to replace Begnino in his observation spot on the western slope. The night had passed as an agony to Begnino; the wound in his shoulder had become infected and seared him with pain. It had not hurt badly when he was first shot, but now it ached greatly, and he decided not to move back with the other invalids by the listening place and lay down on the ground. Begnino did not think he would live the day, and if contact came, he was not sure even if he could move. In his mind, he made preparations to die. For an hour, there had been no sound from the ridges, no noise or movement, and Guevara thought it safe to relieve the sentries. He sent one of the most able Bolivian comrades, Inti, toward Pombo’s position on the opposite slope. Inti and Aniceto tried to slip across an open space back down into the bottom of the canyon. They were seen by a squad of Rangers.

  There was a crashing of gunfire, first a dozen then twenty rifles firing from the ridgeline and both sides of the ravine. Bullets smashed down into the bottom of the canyon, knocking the bark from trees, setting leaves spinning into the air, and raining down a shower of broken twigs and splintered branches. Bullets spanged off the rocks and kicked up spherical clouds of dust across the open places. Aniceto was cut down by a pair of bullets; one entered his back between his shoulder blades, and an instant later, another struck him under his breastbone as he pitched forward. He landed on his face, his carbine still clutched in his hands and his eyes pinned open in astonishment.

  As Aniceto fell, there were shouts from the hillside, the Rangers exultant. A machine gun opened up from a position behind Guevara, the soldiers firing blindly, though effectively, into the brush at the bottom of the ravine. Tracers exploded off the rocks and caromed into the sky, and Guevara’s group returned fire, spraying bullets back up the ridges. Their barrage did little—Guevara and the others were below their enemies, and what shots they managed to aim passed harmlessly over the Rangers’ heads. The column was surrounded on three sides, west, east, and north, and the sun was showing hard on the wide barren hill that closed off the canyon.

  Pombo and Urbano had gone to cover behind a boulder and were taken under nearly continuous fire. They could not retreat; they had watched Aniceto fall and knew that if they tried to cross the open space, they would be killed. A grenade was thrown down at them—it exploded first in a ball of orange and black shot through with sparks, then the concussion shook the slope and brought up a thick swirl of dust. Pombo and Urbano used the cloud to run from their obvious cover. Expecting any second to be shot down, they sprinted desperately toward the place Inti had found refuge. They made it. Urbano and then Pombo jumped into the small hollow, and for a few moments, the shooting on both sides lulled slightly.

  In the bottom of the ravine, Guevara ordered the sick to fall back.

  “We’ll do better to stay together,” Moro said.

  “You’re in charge,” Guevara told him. “Head for the thickest part of the trees.”

  Moro hesitated, and Guevara’s expression darkened. “Get going.”

  “I’ll see you on the other side of the hill,” Moro said. It sounded like a wish.

  Moro and El Chino helped each other up and ran crouched back up the canyon. As they left, Guevara trained his binoculars again on the patch of wood halfway up the eastern slope. The short cliff below would allow him to fire straight across the ravine and command both slopes. It could not be fired upon even from directly above. Guevara slipped his arms out of the pack straps and filled his pockets with extra magazines. He did this without speaking.

  Finally, he said, “I’m going to try to get to that cliff. You can stay here if you want.”

  “Fuck that,” Willy said.

  Guevara stood, and though Willy felt a whirling sensation in his stomach, he dropped his pack and took up the extra ammunition. They moved down the ravine and then started to climb. They moved upslope, crawling on hands and knees where the hillside was steep, and they scrambled through brush and under several squat, bushy trees. They made it undetected to a position slightly under the short cliff, and as they settled down behind some boulders, there came the sound of voices slightly below them and across the canyon. An officer was leading a group of peasant militia off the ridge and into the canyon. He had them arrayed in line, like beaters, and he was driving them toward the belt of trees where Moro had fallen back with the sick.

  Guevara peered around one of the boulders, his head low and his face nearly pressed in the dirt. He was able to observe the movement of the troops without being seen, and as the officer ordered a second squad to form a line, Guevara and Willy opened fire. Their shots scattered the attackers and dropped the officer and two of the militiamen onto the dusty incline. The officer’s corpse slid down the hill, rolling and sinking, all loose-boned, and a curl of dust smoldered up after it. The body wedged up against a rock, and the other militia scattered away as fast as they could run. A regular sergeant yelled for them to take cover, realizing that the fire was being directed at them from across the ravine. Shouting and cursing, he grouped the militiamen, and they opened a determined fire across the canyon.

  Guevara felt a sensation of heat, then sudden numbness, and recognized that two bullets had struck the rock in front of his face. He flinched backward, and
as he did, he lifted the muzzle of his weapon. A third bullet passed close to him; this time Guevara solidly felt an impact in his shoulder. He thought at first he had been shot. A red tracer bullet smashed into the barrel of his rifle, showering sparks, driving the butt stock into his arm and twisting the carbine violently from his hands. His weapon spun through the air and tumbled end over end away from him.

  There was a moment of silence, and then a second burst of fire split the air. Guevara was back on his haunches and no longer under cover; the top half of his body was visible, and the militia availed themselves of this target. The reflex was now Willy’s, and without a thought, he threw himself on top of the comandante. A bullet punched into Guevara’s calf; a second round took the beret from his head, and in the spattering dust, the pair moved back, Willy dragging Guevara uphill and into the spreading shade of a wide thicket.

  They collapsed into the cover of the small cliff bastion, and Guevara pulled his leg around with two hands to inspect the wound. A neat black hole had been put through the muscle above his heel, but he did not think the bone was broken. The wound was not excruciating, not yet, but he could not bear weight on it, and he sat cursing. They were in a small depression about six feet deep and ten feet across. Bullets snapped overhead and broke off pieces of rock and cast them up into the air. Guevara was soaked with sweat, and when he checked his pistol, he was astounded to find that the magazine had fallen from it. His rifle was fifty meters away somewhere downslope; he was without a functional weapon.

  They were safe only temporarily. Above them, the trees were dense, and the cover was abundant. The other comrades were out of sight, below them in a strip of trees that ran along the watercourse at the extreme south end of the canyon. The rifles of the enemy commanded the open space; it would not be possible to link up with the rest of the column until nightfall. They needed to find cover.

  “Shit,” Guevara said, “I can still move. We should try for the ridge.”

  Willy again felt the swirling sensation; he knew it was fear, terror even, but he made himself stand. He slung his rifle and helped Guevara up by lifting him under the armpit. Guevara wrapped his arm around Willy’s shoulder, and together they hobbled uphill, twice skittering and falling when the gravel below them gave way. But they made steady progress, staying under a few short trees, and the firing went on below them.

  Guevara looked back down the rocky slope; he felt exhausted and hollow, and there was the taste of vomit in his mouth. He swallowed this down and looked at the ridge above, where he could see a skyline. Willy saw this place and started to guide the comandante toward it.

  “We’ve gotten out of worse than this, Comandante.”

  “Really?” Guevara said. “When was that?” And they both laughed.

  They were nearly to the stand of trees on the ridgeline, and the shade of the place beckoned to them. Guevara tumbled a third time, and Willy bore him up, lifting him by the shirtfront, holding on to him to keep his leg steady. They came finally under the trees, and Guevara could feel his heart pounding in his chest. The exertion of climbing had brought the wet pain to his lungs, and he gulped air through clenched teeth.

  They shoved themselves up a small, rocky ledge just below the trees. When they were bringing their feet under them, a squad of soldiers burst out of the brush. A sergeant pointed a rifle at them and yelled, “Drop your weapons and raise your hands!”

  For a moment time stopped like a broken clock, the troops aiming down on them and the two guerrillas standing at mercy. These soldiers were Rangers, the first Guevara had seen up close; their faces were painted, and their eyes were wild. They looked to him like carnival devils.

  Time passed—twinklings, instants, not even whole seconds—time gaped open. All of them felt it, the Rangers, too, split seconds that poised somewhere between present and future. In this glimmering was the uncertainty of whether the sergeant would shoot, and the question of whether his men would fire if he did not. Willy still carried his rifle, though it was slung over his shoulder and not in his hands.

  Guevara had never in his life been so close under the weapons of an enemy; he stood three feet from the muzzle of the sergeant’s rifle and could see a feral sort of joy in the man’s eyes. Death yawned in front of him, and he wondered why it did not take him into its maw. There was a flicker of blame—it was stupid to have climbed this ridge.

  Then the expanding seconds became normal seconds. Guevara felt the wind blowing on him, and strangely, he heard the sergeant’s heavy breath rattling. He separated slightly from Willy. Willy’s fingers moved toward his rifle strap, but Guevara’s hand met his and he pulled the sling off his companion’s shoulder. The weapon clattered to the dirt. One of the Rangers stepped forward and grabbed Guevara by the shirt, jerking him off his wounded leg. Guevara pitched over, and Willy set about the soldier, shoving him away.

  “Shit,” Willy spat, “this is Comandante Guevara, and he deserves some respect.”

  The word “Guevara” seemed to electrify the soldiers. There was a struggle, Willy shoving, and a Ranger struck him with a rifle butt.

  “Shoot the fuckers!” one of the Rangers shouted.

  The sergeant regained possession of himself and kicked Willy’s ankles out from under him. Guevara and Willy were both on their knees, looking like filthy communicants kneeling at the altar in a church.

  The sergeant jabbed his rifle directly into Guevara’s face. “Say your name.”

  Guevara looked at the sergeant and said very calmly, “We are worth more to you alive than dead.”

  A soldier came forward and snatched Guevara’s pistol from his holster. One of the painted faces shouted again: “Kill them!”

  “One last time, capullo,” the sergeant bellowed. “What is your name?”

  Guevara knew in this instant that his life was as cheap as a beast’s, and the words in his mouth felt like ashes.

  “I am Che Guevara.”

  58

  LA HIGUERA HAD been transformed from nowhere to a place of military significance, as much as a desperate, shabby place can be made important for anything. Troops came and went from the open ridge above the town, and more than a hundred soldiers were in its streets, setting up tents, digging rifle pits, marching away into the ravine and back. Almost four hundred more had taken up positions around the ridges, and helicopters were landing on the tops of the lower hills, placing squads of soldiers between the Yuro ravine and the Mizque River.

  Valdéz had spent a quiet night in the home of the corregidor, and after a breakfast of api and a cold empanada, he had reason to smoke another cigar. The mood of the troops was euphoric. The bodies of three guerrillas had been brought up the steep track from the ravine in the morning, and then three prisoners, one of them important.

  Valdéz was asked by Captain Cespedes to identify the captured man called Guevara, and he came forward to take a look as the wounded prisoner was led into town on the back of a mule. The man’s hair was dirty and matted and his beard unkempt. Guevara’s hands were tied with thick rope, and there was a bloody wound on his calf. With an air of resigned gallantry, he sat on the mule and ignored the jeers of the soldiers. Valdéz had never in his life laid eyes on Che Guevara; he had seen only photographs of the man, but these he had studied with great attention and hatred. Valdéz told Captain Cespedes that he was quite sure the prisoner was Che Guevara. Both men transmitted coded messages to their superiors.

  Guevara was pulled down from the back of the mule, and two Rangers hobbled him across the small dusty square to a lopsided adobe building that served as La Higuera’s small school. Guevara was shoved through the door and down several small steps onto dirt. The floor was somewhat lower than the level of the street; the room was cold, and an unhealthy damp held about the place. One of the Rangers stood and put a boot down on Guevara’s waist, pinning him into the corner while his legs were bound together.

  Light came through the open door, and Guevara stirred against his fetters but did not struggle. The feel
ing had long ago gone out of his hands, and his leg pounded after the ride up from the ravine. After he was bound, soldiers dragged in two bodies; Guevara could not see the faces. Heads drooped at the end of languid, flaccid necks, and then the corpses were dumped like garbage on the floor next to him: Antonio and Arturo. They had been on the west side of the ravine, the slope opposite from where Guevara was captured, and he looked down at their motionless, blood-smeared faces and could only wonder how much more of the column would be brought up and delivered into this room. It did not bode well that Arturo’s arms were tied behind his back. He had almost certainly been captured and then executed. Their uniforms were ripped and spattered with blood, sweat, and splashes of red mud. Both of their faces were turned toward him, with dark hair tousled across their eyes. It was loneliness he felt now; he was alone, completely so, and separated from his command, his comrades, and the desperate fight in the canyon.

  Guevara’s watch had been taken from him, and he tried to make himself remember how many hours had gone by since his capture. He could not hear shooting anymore; the ravine was several kilometers distant, and anyway, the wind blew down it and away from La Higuera. It was now up to Inti and Pombo. Unless they got out of the canyon and over the mountains in the next twelve hours, the trap would close on them, and it would be the end. Perhaps it was the end now.

  Guevara thought, It would have been better, quicker, if I had kept fighting down in the bottom of the ravine. So much less trouble.