When the machine gun started stuttering, the Mexicans toppled like tenpins. They were close enough to let Moss hear their cries of fear and dismay and agony. Some of them tried to charge the machine-gun position. That was brave, but it didn’t work. The gun itself might have held them at bay. In case it didn’t, other blacks with rifles were there to help protect it.

Realizing they’d run into a trap helped break the Mexicans. When they took heavy casualties without taking the machine gun, they fled east, back toward Plains. Some of them threw away their weapons to run faster. The guerrillas galled them with gunfire till they got out of range.

After the Negroes emerged from cover, they methodically finished off the wounded Mexicans. Some of the guerrillas carried shotguns or small-caliber hunting rifles. They replaced them with bolt-action Tredegars taken from Francisco Jose’s men. A handful of the Mexicans carried submachine guns. Those also went into the blacks’ arsenal. None of the dead men had the automatic rifles that gave Confederate soldiers so much firepower. Moss wasn’t much surprised; the Confederates didn’t have enough of those potent weapons for all their own front-line troops.

Nick Cantarella went up to Spartacus, who was pulling clips of ammunition from the equipment pouches on a dead man’s belt. “We better haul ass outa here, and I mean now,” the U.S. officer said. “Those greasers’ll be back, either by themselves or with the local Freedom Party stalwarts. Ain’t gonna make the same trick work twice, not here.”

“You don’t reckon so?” The guerrilla leader didn’t sound convinced. “Them Mexicans ain’t smart, an’ the ofays who yell, ‘Freedom!’ all the goddamn time, they’s dumber.”

“Quickest way to end up dead is to think the guy you’re fighting is a damn fool,” Cantarella said. “Second quickest way is to get greedy. You try both at once, you’re askin’ for it, you hear what I’m sayin’?”