Cuba Libre

All he'd heard was the one voice call out to Osma, coming from over on his left, which was east, the voice coming just the one time and getting no answer or encouragement. There could be more than one Guardia over there, or they could be spread out. But Lionel only came with five and had four left.

He'd keep at least a couple for himself, wouldn't he, to back him up? And send Osma out here with the other two to lie dog go and kill him unawares.

Tyler thought about it as he checked his. 44s, the one and then the other, spi

It helped sometimes not to know too much, how things would come out-Tyler thinking this as he whistled a quick sharp note, nudged the dun and they took off in a hurry up a narrow space through the tree rows, covered about the length of a square acre when he nudged the dun again, laid the reins across her and she answered, cutting left to go brushing through those big leaves, nudged her again and the dun swerved at the touch, cut back north stretching to run and there was one of them right in front of him raising up with a carbine at his shoulder, firing, but in too much of a hurry and was throwing the bolt as the dun came past, Tyler putting his44 on the Guardia and barn, took the man's hat off with a good part of his skull. Tyler kept on straight ahead, the dun digging in, and a carbine discharged behind him, the report singing off in the air to let Tyler know there was another one. He got the dun to cut left, the tree fronds whipping him, and left again, bringing him back to mid-grove-Tyler telling himself the live Guardia right now would be checking on the dead Guardia, occupied. Tyler came around in a tight circle through the trees, back to where he hoped to see the dead one and, sure enough, there was the live one stooped over him-live for a few more seconds as Tyler came down on the Guardia bringing up his carbine, Tyler pointing a. 44 at the carbine pointing at him, fired and fired again and fired again and saw the carbine fly up in the air. This time Tyler kept going all the way to the road before he pulled up, took time now to breathe and reload.

He saw the horses in cottonwood shade, four of them at the porch rail, tails shooing flies, and Lourdes there in the deeper shade of the porch. She raised her arm, motioning for him to come and he walked the dun out of the grove, trusting the woman, all the way to the house.

Tyler stepped off the dun and let the reins trail on the ground. Coming up on the porch then he saw the board floor wet, drying in places, and a mop sticking out of a bucket of pale-pink dirty water, the handle leaned against the wall by the window. He4ooked in to see Miss Janes seated at the table staring-not at him, he realized-at nothing. He turned to Lourdes.

"Amelia?"

"I tell you about her," Lourdes said, and motioned him to come with her. H took her arm as she started into the house.

"The Guardias Civiles."

She said, with an accent like Victor's, "Two of them are in hell as we speak," pointing a finger straight down. She said then, "Come with me," and he followed her inside, pausing to look at Miss Janes again.

"She saw terrible things happen she not use to," Lourdes said. "She saw the officer shoot my husband and she saw the two Guardias Civiles put to death."

"Where are they?"

"You don't have to know. Or be concern about this woman. I get some whiskey for her, she be all right. Come, please."

He followed her through the kitchen and across the yard to the stone house where he had lived with Amelia during the past two months. He didn't want to see her lying on the cot again. There had been six horses and two were gone… He didn't know what to expect. Lourdes entered and then Tyler.

He didn't look at the cot. The first thing he saw was the hammock lying open on the floor, empty. His first thought: it was the one he'd been sleeping in. But then looked up and saw where the thatch had been torn open. Lourdes had begun speaking as they entered. Telling him, "The one who kill my husband, the officer of the Guardias Civiles, he say to Amelia he going to take her to Havana with him. I like to send him to hell with the two soldiers, but he took out his pistol when he saw me here and there was no way I have to go near him. You understand? He hears the guns and then he don't hear nothing. He call to his men and still he don't hear nothing. Then he seem to want to leave, not stay here longer but go right away."

"And he took Amelia."

"Yes, he tell Amelia he going to give her back to a man mI think his name is Rollie. Amelia, she don't want to go, so he use the rope from the hama ca to tie her, and then pull her with the rope to go with him."

Tyler listened, seeing Amelia with Lionel Tavalera. He was taking her back… But something didn't make sense and he wanted to be sure he had heard it right.

"He's taking Amelia and the money to Havana, to give to Rollie." Lourdes shook her head. "No money. He is taking Amelia only."

"But it was in the hammock. What happened to it?" Lourdes. said, "Oh, you talking about that money. No, your friend Victor took that money. Yes, in those saddlebags he bring to put it in. Was this morning and then he left. You don't know that? Sure, your friend Victor. I know him a long time ago when I, and also two other women here, we were amazon as during the time of Paulina Gonzales. It was when we were with Gomez, before our affliction and we have to come here."

"He tell you where he was going?"

"Victor? I ask him. He say, "Oh, someplace I can grow bananas." He say he give me a hundred dollars if I put the hama ca up there again, make it look like nobody ever touch it. I say, "You mean it, a hundred dollars?" He say, "Sure, why not? I got a lot of money." " Lourdes smiled. "That Victor, uh?"

TWENTY-FIVE

Once it was decided Guantfinamo Bay would make a dandy coaling station, Huntington's marines were sent in to secure the area. The battalion boarded the steamer Panther in Key West and arrived off Guantfinamo June 10, their objective: occupy a Spanish blockhouse that sat on a round, green-covered hill on the east side of the bay inlet.

Corporal Virgil Webster stood at the rail of the Panther looking at the hill, which did not appear to be much of a climb, only about a hundred and fifty feet, but that green cover was a dense growth of brush and dwarf trees. This time Virgil didn't have a career marine who happened to be the captain's orderly to ask what in the hell are we doing here, so he asked Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington himself, who seemed to admire Virgil for having been blown off the Maine and could be spoken to as a man.

"Why here? Why that hill? Virgil, you know the difficulty of laying a collier alongside a battleship in the open sea?"

Yes, he did; it was always a tricky maneuver.

And especially difficult, Huntington said, on this south coast of Cuba with its easterly winds. What they needed was a coaling station in a sheltered area not far from Santiago, where they had the Spanish fleet blockaded, and even closer to where American troops would come ashore to engage the enemy, and Guantfinamo Bay filled the bill. There were six thousand Spanish troops fifteen miles away in the city of Guantfinamo, but insurgents were up there keeping them busy. They also had a fort up the bay at Caimanera; but the Marblehead and the Texas would cruise up there and pound it to hell. So once the high ground around here was secured they'd have a coaling station: the reason for starting the war here.