“Follow me. We will then go around them, ahead of them — ambush them when they come back down the trail.” They both had breech-loading, repeating rifles. Twenty shots fired from the darkness would kill the first men and send the rest panicking back into the jungle. They had done it before.
Ignacio was at home in the jungle. He led the way down unseen trails, occasionally taking O’Higgins’s hand to place it on a branch he had pulled aside so they could pass.
“Good here,” he finally said, levering a cartridge into the breech of his gun. He rested it on the forked crotch of a tree, the thick trunk sheltering his body. “They come soon from there.” The wave of his hand unseen in the night.
The insects hummed in the darkness and O’Higgins fought to remain motionless under their relentless attack. When he had almost despaired of the ambush he heard the enemy soldiers approaching. The breaking of a twig: the brushing of leaves pushed aside. He held his fire, waiting for Ignacio to shoot first. He actually saw them, moving shapes in the darkness, the pale lapels of their uniforms.
Ignacio’s gun went off by his ear and he began firing as fast as he could. Load and fire, load and fire. There were screams of pain, cries of terror. A single shot was fired in reply, then the enemy was retreating nosily back through the jungle. Ignacio handed O’Higgins hi
s heated rifle, pulled free his machete and slipped forward. They did not take prisoners.
In a minute he was back carrying an epaulette from one the soldiers. He wiped his machete on it and handed it to O’Higgins; they would use it to identify the regiment.
“Five dead. Rest gone,” he said with professional satisfaction. He turned and O’Higgins followed him back to their encampment by a fresh-water stream. It was after dawn when they approached it; Ignacio stopped and raised his head, sniffing the air.
“Horses. And my people.” He moved quickly ahead, calling out in the dialect of his village. He was answered by a friendly shout as he went forward to join the circle of men around the fire. He joined them, squatting on his heels as they did, sipping from the aguardiente gourd they passed him. A saddled horse was quietly chewing at the undergrowth, its rider seated on a log close by. It was Porfirio Diáz.
“Still working for the gringos, Don Ambrosio?”
“Some scouting, yes.”
“Better you than me. I had very little success, and lost good men, testing the strength of the British here. I am very glad that this little war is over for my soldiers. Let the Yankees from the cold north and the invaders from across the sea fight with each other. It is no longer my battle.”
“They invade your country and occupy Mexican soil.”
“This does not bother me. We shall let the gringos do our fighting for us here in the jungle. They have big guns and many troops. I encourage their enthusiasm. But I think that they are not doing that well. Is that true?”
True or not, O’Higgins would not permit himself to agree. “The General Grant is a mighty warrior. He has the guns — and the soldiers — to fight with. He has never been beaten.”
Diáz shrugged noncommittally and pushed a twig into the fire, then lit his black Orizaba cigar from its flame before he continued. “I have been called to the District Federal. President Juarez is assembling a new cabinet and he has honored me by his request to aid him in this great endeavor. We must rebuild this war-shattered country. He has such great plans! There will be elections soon, real ones, not corrupt public displays, the sort of thing that the French did when they elected Maximilian.”
“May what you say come true,” O’Higgins said with feeling. “I only pray that it does.” He did not mention the cruel men who would want to usurp power once again, the combined powers of the landlords and the church that had hung like a dead weight from the tired neck of Mexico for centuries. Perhaps this was a new start, a fresh beginning. May it only be so.
“I am off to join President Juarez,” Diáz said, swinging up into the saddle. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“Perhaps, later. I would dearly love to be a part of the new Mexico. Meanwhile I must bring my report to the general.”
They would go on in the morning — but first a little rest was very much in order. In the morning he paid Ignacio the promised American silver and watched him disappear into the jungle with his tribesmen one last time. There was no point in any more scouting — and he would tell Grant that. The defenses were there and, for all important purposes, impregnable. What the Americans would do now, he had no idea.
At noon he came to the first of the army encampments and asked to see the commanding officer, a one-eyed veteran named Colonel Riker.
“Been looking at their lines, have you, O’Higgins?”
“I have been doing just that, sir, and mighty impressive they are.”
“They are indeed,” Riker sighed. “I’ll have a runner take you to the general.”
There was a mighty army camped here upon the Mexican plain. Rows of tents and batteries of cannon. There was a steady parade of wagons bringing supplies, vast encampments of soldiers in both blue and gray. It seemed impossible that anything constructed by man could not be destroyed by these powerful warriors. But O’Higgins had seen the defenses that they were facing. Even the most determined soldiers, the most powerful shells of massed cannon, would not prevail against the British lines. It was a sad and unhappy truth, but it was one that he was duty-bound to tell General Grant. He was stopped by an officer before he could reach the large headquarters’ tent.
“The general is meeting with his staff now. You’ll have to wait.”
“Can you at least tell him that I am here? I have the most valuable of reports to give to him.”
The lieutenant rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Well, mebbe. I have to give these messages to his staff. I’ll tell them that you are here.”
“I appreciate the aid.”
He did not have long to wait. A few minutes later a sergeant popped out of the tent, looked around — then waved him over.