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literally, the fugitive law. Several days later, Abraham González, just appointed governor of Chihuahua, was also murdered.
     The man he had recruited, Pancho Villa, remained at large.
    With the assassination of Francisco Madero, the first, relatively bloodless phase of the revolution was over. Mexico was now
     poised to embark on a second phase that would be longer and much more violent.

2
A Diverting Brute
    V ICTORIANO H UERTA often studied the newspaper photos of President Wilson while nursing a brandy at one of Mexico City’s bustling
     cafés. With his gray hair, colorless skin, and long coat flapping over his knees, the American president seemed to personify
     wintry El Norte. Huerta had dubbed Wilson the “Puritan of the North,” a nickname that captured the physical appearance of
     the newly inaugurated president, as well as something of his zealous character and religious background. (Wilson’s father
     had, in fact, been a Presbyterian minister in Augusta, Georgia, during the Civil War.) Soon the Mexico City newspapers embellished
     upon the nickname, referring to Wilson as the “Wicked Puritan with Sorry Horse Teeth.” The sobriquet was no more complimentary
     in the Spanish.
    Wilson was sworn into office two weeks after Francisco Madero and his vice president were murdered and was deeply affected
     by the assassinations. In Madero, he saw a like-minded reformer and detested Huerta for his alleged role in the killings.
     Still, Wilson was not blind to the usurper’s cunning charm and at times confessed to having a grudging admiration for him.
     “Our friend Huerta is a diverting brute! He is always so perfectly in character; so false, so sly, so full of bravado (the
     bravado of ignorance, chiefly) and yet so courageous, too, and determined—such a mixture of weak and strong, of ridiculous
     and respectable! One moment you long for his blood, and the next you find yourself entertaining a sneaking admiration for
     his nerve. He will not let go till he pulls the whole house down with him. . . . What an indomitable fighter he is for his
     own hand!”
    Wilson was determined to help the Mexican people rid themselves of the new despot and stubbornly refused to recognize Huerta
     as the president of Mexico. “I will not recognize a government of butchers,” he fumed. Sixteen nations had done otherwise,
     including Great Britain, whose Royal Navy was receiving most of its oil from Mexico. Numerous business leaders in the United
     States, who had substantial investments in Mexico, were also in favor of recognizing Huerta’s government, as was Ambassador
     Wilson, who sent harried telegrams to Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan and to President Wilson, outlining all the
     reasons why Huerta should be recognized. “By hesitating too long,” he wrote, “we might contribute to the weakening and possible
     demolition of the present Government and re-invoke movements of disorder and anarchy.” The U.S. president believed the ambassador
     had played an “evil part” in the assassination, and within a few short months he was recalled from his post.
    Absent the diplomat, the relations between the Mexican government and the United States devolved to the chargé d’affaires
     at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and presidential representatives. By now—superficially at least—Huerta had succeeded in
     remaking himself as a gentleman. He wore a frock coat, top hat, and spectacles thick as aquarium glass behind which his two
     eyes swam warily. He was married to a handsome, graceful woman, doted on his eleven children, and gave oddly appealing speeches:
“Yo soy indio”
—“I am an Indian,” he declared to a group of Englishmen. “My people are young compared to your Anglo-Saxon race, but in our
     veins there are the same red corpuscles as in yours.” In another speech, he asserted that Theodore Roosevelt was “the Zapata”
     of the United States.
    Huerta preferred his small bungalow to the marble