Cuba Libre

"If I'd known you before," Tyler said, "I never would've agreed to sell you the string. I don't do business with tin horns But since I have, I expect you to pay what you owe, forty-five hundred."

"Your horses were taken by the Spanish Army."

"You mean. your horses."

"In any case," Boudreaux said, gesturing with open hands, "they're not here."

"You still owe me," Tyler said. "You buy horses, you have to pay for them. It's how it works in business."

Boudreaux kept staring at him until, out of nowhere, he said, "And where's my dear friend Amelia Brown?"

It caught Tyler by surprise. He said, "I came here to talk about your debt and that's all."

"Where is she?"

"She isn't any of my business."

"No, you're wrong," Boudreaux said. "If you don't tell me where she is, my men will hand you over to the Guardia and you'll have to tell them. Else they'll break some of your bones, cut off your hands… " Boudreaux gave a little shrug in his neat hunting suit. "They're mean boys."

The smug son of a bitch.

The smug wavy-haired son of a bitch.

Tyler stepped up to the table wanting to hit him, but would have to go over it to reach him sitting back in his chair. He leaned over it, planting his hands on the polished surface to get as close to Boudreaux as he could.

"You're go

"How, write you a check? Say you put a gun to my head to make me. Where're you going to find a bank to cash the check? You're going back to Havana? No, our business is finished. I'll get to the people holding Amelia. Your purpose now-you walked in here, let's see if you can walk out." In that quiet, reasonable tone of voice.

Tyler pushed up from the table, nothing left to say that wouldn't sound dumb, a wasted threat. He turned and walked off, got to the doorway before he looked back. There was a fact he ought to mention.

"You call your dogs, somebody'll get killed." Boudreaux said, "I imagine that's so." The son of a bitch.

Tyler went down the staircase. The three soldiers were no longer at the table. And their horses, he saw from the doorway, were gone from the tie rail. His horse was there, the dun's reins tied to the saddle horn. Maybe with luck… But in that moment heard Boudreaux's voice, Boudreaux yelling "Get him!" from the upstairs veranda. And saw the three soldiers then, off past the back of the house, walking their horses toward the rows of living quarters, those stone houses back there, the three of them coming around at the sound of Boudreaux's voice. Tyler mounted and got out of there, leading the dun.

The Krag was heavier than the Mauser carbine, weighed nine pounds and had a kick, but felt good, Virgil's cheek to the stock, and had that clean smell of oil. He had spotted riders way off at the edge of cane, four hundred yards, who appeared military the way they rode single file, seven of them. They didn't look this way, which was a good thing, as he'd tried with no luck to get his horse to lie down.

Once Tyler had crossed from the mill to the house Virgil kept his front sight on it, watching from behind the Krag balanced on the side of the tipped ox cart He watched the three fellas in uniform come out and look at the horse Tyler had taken the saddle from. Having a discussion in their fairly smart gray uniforms. Virgil said, "And look at you in your old hand-me-downs." The blue officer pants and pair of sandals coming apart he'd got from the camp stores. The three looked up at the second floor of the house, but then must've decided the bareback horse wasn't any of their business. They mounted and moved off toward the back of the house.

It wasn't half a minute later a man in a light-colored suit, maybe a uniform, appeared on the veranda up there and began yelling Get himt. Now Tyler was back outside and in a hurry to mount and leave whatever kind of rumpus he'd started.

Virgil sighted on Tyler coming this way, Tyler and the bareback horse ru

Tyler was standing there watching, not saying a word as Virgil came ru

They rode hard following the train tracks till they came to the dip in the hills lying to the west, the way back to Islero's camp. Tyler reined in and said to Virgil, "War's been declared; it's official."

Virgil would've jumped up in the air if he wasn't mounted, excited, but still wanting to be sure. "How do you know?"

"Take my word," Tyler said, "it's finally happened. Go on back and tell them. I'm go

"I have to go to the bank."

EIGHTEEN

Tvalera would leave Havana for Matanzas on the twenty-sixth with a picked squad of men. Boudreaux's rustic bodyguard, Novis Crowe,. would leave the next day with the bundle of money. Guardias in plainclothes would be aboard the train to keep an eye on him, see he didn't get off somewhere along the line.

That was the plan.

But then orders were received: Take the 2d Corps to tanz as on the twenty-sixth. Yes? That part was all right. To reinforce the 12^ th Battalion de Asuntas at San Severino, the old fortress. That part was not all right, but had to be. Ships of the American fleet were lying six miles off the coast and our troops were working night and day to build earthworks along the Punta, the high ground, for the placement of artillery out side the fortress. Inside the historic walls were sixty-nine can non, nearly all from an earlier period, big cumbersome pieces. Tavalera wanted to say to his commandant, "We're cavalry, not artillery. How are we expected to man those relics?" But of course he didn't. Tavalera never questioned his orders.

The problem it presented: How could he be at the station to greet Novis, and confiscate the bundle of money, if he was at San Severino, under fire from American ships? With war declared they were sure to attack.

Virgil returned to Islero's camp leading Tyler's dun. Barely off his horse, there was Amelia Brown looking scared to death seeing him alone.

"I left him he was alive and full of spunk," Virgil said, to put her mind at ease. "But the man wouldn't pay him, so Tyler went to Matanzas."

It only settled her a little. She said, "Oh, my God, he's go