Menoyo had already decided: He wasn’t going to take his column. He wasn’t going to take his full complement of bodyguards. He wasn’t going to call on Morgan or the other comandantes. He would meet with Che Guevara alone.
One word, one crossed look, and it could all end. The two sides already hated each other, and the situation was getting worse. If he didn’t reach some sort of an agreement with Guevara, a civil war would form between the two largest rebels groups of the revolution.
Too much was at stake.
With a personal guard of two men, Menoyo walked east down the long hill from the camp toward El Pedrero. He felt the fate of the revolution on his shoulders. He had hoped to have seized enough weapons and ammo at Trinidad to arm all the rebels, but that didn’t happen. He had hoped to have pulled the soldiers into the upper mountains, but that didn’t happen either.
He had tried to stop the bombings, but now Batista was sending even more planes over the eastern mountains. Then there was Guevara, skulking in the background like a moonlight shadow.
Menoyo got word from the guajiros near Sancti Spiritus that Che had been going from village to village, trashing the Second Front, telling the farmers that he represented the one, true rebel unit. Guevara even found a way to drive a wedge between the Second Front and the Directorio by signing an agreement with the latter group on December 1, declaring that they were now joining military forces.
He was also making waves on other fronts. He had disrupted the national elections in Las Villas Province weeks earlier by mobilizing his column and blocking access to voting booths in key areas.
Now, he wanted the Second Front.
After trudging across the tree-shrouded mountain near Pedrero, Menoyo could see the camp just over the hill. At the top stood the wood farmhouse covered with palm branches that had served as Guevara’s Escambray headquarters. He had launched a rebel newspaper from the house, the Minuteman, setting off a propaganda machine with one goal: Pull the region under Fidel’s control.
Menoyo nodded to the sentries as he passed, yanked on the straps of his M3 submachine gun, and inched closer to the house.
Both sides were eyeballing each other already. Guevara appeared in the doorway, standing next to his men. The two rebel leaders shook hands, sizing each other up like gunslingers in a Western. Then they ducked into the dark bohío.
They immediately went to opposite sides of the table. It was obvious that neither man liked the other. It didn’t help that Guevara began by ripping into Jesús Carreras and the shabby treatment that he had shown Guevara and his men.
“He’s one of my comandantes,” Menoyo responded with a shrug. “You were coming into our territory. He had a right to challenge you.”
Guevara’s eyes narrowed. “No,” he fired back.
Guevara represented Castro. They had launched this revolution. They had every right to be in the Escambray, and they didn’t need Carreras’s approval.
Che had called this meeting, he reminded Menoyo. He wanted to cover important ground and had waited for this moment. First, Che spoke of his sojourn across the mountains near Sancti Spiritus all the way to the Las Villas border. He had two words: land reform. The land in the Escambray needed to return to the guajiros. They toiled on the plantations, but they weren’t getting anything back—barely subsisting. The plantation owners were drinking the blood of the peasants.
Guevara wanted Menoyo to implement a plan to carve up the land and divide it among the workers. Only then would there be a true revolution. No one would own one thousand acres anymore, as it was now with many estates scattered across the mountains.
“No,” Menoyo said, shaking his head and pushing back from the table.
Menoyo had long thought about what was best for Cuba, and in his mind, the landowners were far from the worst people. Some of the biggest landowners in the mountains had supported the revolution. They had supplied food and guns. They had fought for their independence generations earlier against Spain. Menoyo suspected Guevara of Communism—it was that simple—and he despised all forms of Communism.
“I cannot do that—and I will not,” said Menoyo.
Neither man was going to back down.
Menoyo had slept in countless dirt-floor bohíos across the Escambray. He had broken bread with its families. He knew their struggles better than this interloper. Menoyo reminded Guevara that when the Second Front was driving out the soldiers at Charco Azul and Rio Negro—paying with their own blood—the 26th of July Movement was off in another mountain chain. Menoyo and his men had fought this war on their own.
Che looked up, frowning. If Menoyo persisted in opposing him, it was going to mean war. The enemy was in Havana, Che insisted, and it was critical that all rebel groups fall under one roof. The revolution had reached a point at which all the rebels needed to go on the offensive—in the Escambray. This is where the revolution will be won, he said. This is the time to strike, he added.
“I know that,” Menoyo shot back. That’s why the Second Front had staked their claim in the heart of Cuba, not at the far end of the island. “This is our territory.”
Before Menoyo could finish, Che lit into the Second Front. Within seconds, both men were ready to go for their guns. No one moved. This was exactly what Menoyo feared would happen. Even he couldn’t control himself. Both men stared at each other, each one waiting.
Guevara broke the stalemate. If Menoyo wasn’t willing to agree to everything that Che was proposing, it was important that the groups reach a military accord. If they could move on Batista now, they could move him out. But they had to do it now. Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán, one of Castro’s trusted column leaders, would take the northern part of Las Villas Province. Guevara would sweep across the center to Santa Clara. The Second Front would take the southern end, including the city of Cienfuegos.
“We need everyone,” Guevara said.
Menoyo listened. He knew his men could march to Cienfuegos. They could take the army fort at Topes de Collantes. He thought for a moment about what his men had endured. This plan offered them a chance to finish the fight in their own territory.
He nodded. “You have an agreement,” Menoyo said.
Guevara presented a document that he had prepared in advance. They wouldn’t sign the agreement for land reform, but they would settle on the military pact.
Menoyo read the document and signed it. Guevara countersigned and handed it back to Menoyo. His signature at the bottom read simply: “Che.”
Menoyo looked up. “What’s this?”
Guevara replied that it was his favored name.
Menoyo angrily crossed out his name and wrote above it “Gallego,” his own nickname, which meant Galician.
Even in the agreement, the two men had disagreed. Both sides knew that each man would lead his unit into battle—but it was just a matter of time before they turned their guns on each other.