Cuba Libre

  Chapter Twenty.

  OSMA WATCHED THE ATTACK ON the train from a high vantage, an outcropping of limestone in the hills north of the railroad tracks. Osma, who used to hunt runaway slaves, watched through a pair of binoculars Tavalera had given him to aid in the hunting of mambis.

  These were attacking from trees on the other side of the open land, shooting as they came, wanting something that was on that train, willing to die for it, two of the horses with out riders, two of the infantry also on the ground, dead or wounded. In this part of the province they would be men of Islero.

  What was it the old bandit wanted that Tavalera also wanted?

  This morning Osma had waited for Tavalera to leave his sister's house. As soon as he was gone, Osma went in again and asked his sister what this was about. What was on the train? She said she didn't know. He hit her in the stomach with his fist, but she still didn't know.

  Tavalera had said follow the railroad tracks to look for this ambush. The easy part. When he came to the cannon firing on the Guanabana blockhouse, Osma couldn't see a good reason for it, so he believed it was only to draw the Spanish if they were near. He asked himself, Where would you stop a train around here? At a bridge, of course, the one near Benavides. Islero with his dynamite would think of that. Blow it up. Unless he was paid by the railroad not to destroy its bridges. If that was the case he would think of a good place not far from the bridge. Right here, where Osma had been waiting. And the ones out there--they must be Islero's men, his macheteros.

  He had to think now of what else Tavalera had said.

  Look for an American, a cowboy?

  That's what he said, a cowboy. And perhaps a woman... But now horses were coming out of the stock car, six of them, with saddles but no riders: horses jumping out of the train, smart ones, uh, not wanting to be shot. Now a rider, already mounted, came out of the car. A woman. And now another horse. And another one with a rider who could be a cowboy. That was what he looked like. Osma had seen pictures of American cowboys. Now he listened to Tavalera's words again in his mind. Look for a cowboy, an American, and perhaps a woman and there she was, a blue scarf covering her hair. They were on this side of the train and he could see them clearly through the binoculars, trailing a horse as they rode past the coaches, the cowboy so close to the train he could touch it; stopping now. What was he doing? Receiving something through the window, a bundle?

  Look for something, Tavalera said, in a hammock, and that could be a hammock, white canvas rolled up. It was, it was a hammock tied up with rope, the cowboy carrying it across his pommel. Now a figure in white appeared, coming out the door of the coach, hurrying to mount the horse the woman held for him.

  And Osma remembered Tavalera saying, "And perhaps Victor Fuentes," Tavalera knowing more than he realized. If this one was Fuentes.

  The three were coming away from the train now in this direction, giving Osma the opportunity to see their faces and the one in the white suit, yes, was Victor Fuentes, the old patriot. Tavalera must have remembered from some other time that Osma knew him and would recognize him if he was here. Years ago between wars Osma had said to Fuentes, "It was good you ran away before I became a hunter, or I would have caught you and sliced your legs." Like his brother's. But now...

  Why was Fuentes running from his brother's men if they were sympathetic to each other? But that's what he and the two Americans looked like they were doing, running for their lives.

  Look--being chased by three of the horsemen who had come around to this side of the train. To get that hammock? To get whatever was in it, Osma thinking it would have to be something of great value. There were four men of Islero on the ground who appeared to be dead and perhaps more dead inside the train. No more white puffs of smoke or the popping sounds of gunfire. Mambis were entering the coaches.

  And now Fuentes and the cowboy and the woman were approaching the wooded slope, several hundred feet below Osma, where he squatted with his glasses on a shelf of rock. He wondered if they knew where they were going or only running away.

  There were trails through these hills that used to be roads, if you knew how to find them: a road that led north to Matanzas, and a road that went northeast in the direction of Cfirdenas. Osma didn't believe Fuentes and his companions would be heading for Matanzas, a war going on there this morning, the city full of Spanish soldiers. No, they would have to go more to the east.

  He believed the three men of Islero, approaching the trees now, riding hard, would catch up to them and kill them for whatever was inside the hammock.

  Money. It would have to be money.

  Osma lowered the glasses and half-closed his eyes in the hot glare of the sky. He was bareheaded on this rock shelf, squatting, arms resting on his heavy round thighs. He thought of times he used to watch for runaways like this, from high ground. Or wait by water. Easier than tracking through maniguas, the thickets they would find to hide in. He was thinking now, Would it be easier to take the valuable hammock from the mambis, after they got hold of it, or from Fuentes and his companions? That was an easy one to decide.

  Fuentes and his companions might not even be armed.

  So he knew what to do.

  Osma rase from his perch, made his way through rocks and brush to where his horse waited, his panama resting on the saddle horn.

  Tyler stopped them. He said, "Hold it," and pulled up in the pines to look back along the ruts of the narrow road. He listened but didn't hear a sound until Fuentes told him to come on.

  "Y'all keep going. I'll wait for them."

  "To do what," Fuentes said, "shoot them? They our friends."

  "I can stop them and take their horses, run 'em off." "You think, with what Islero knows we have, only those three are coming? Wait, you only waste time. We have to keep going, but not to Varadero, the trail north is too slow. So we change the plan and go east, it's better. Leave these hills soon and ride as fast as we can, get some distance on them. All right? So quit looking back."

  "Ben doesn't like people chasing him," Amelia said. "What do you call it when you're on the dodge? Riding the owl hoot trail?"

  Tyler looked at her, wondering how she knew that, and saw a smile in her eyes, having time for him in a spot like this. He said to her, "I'll ride with you anywhere. But I'd like to know what's east."

  "More of Cuba," Fuentes said. "You be good, I'll show you."

  Osma moved through timber and now a scattering of rock formations along the spine of the ridge, not bothering to watch below. The ruts of the trail east were down there out of view, but clear in his memory and wouldn't change. He lived in this country since the days of slaves; he knew where he was going and where he would see Fuentes and his companions again. If he didn't see them, then they were foolish and had gone north over the hills toward Matanzas. But he didn't think Victor Fuentes, in his old age, had become a fool. Osma came to the place where he would expect to see them and looked down through a wide gash in the trees, an arroyo strewn with rocks and dead foliage, young trees that had been uprooted, the wash dry this time of year. Down there where it became as wide as the Imperial Road, that was the place where the trail crossed. If he was wrong he would have to go north and find them.

  But in only a few minutes learned he wasn't wrong. There they were--Osma put his glasses on them--Fuentes and his companions crossing the arroyo east, the old man taking them--where? It was something Osma would find out in time.

  Now he had to wait again, but not long. He heard the three peasant soldiers, the macbeteros, coming before he saw them, calling to each other.

  The first one appeared in the arroyo.

  Then the other two, twenty meters or so down the chute. They came up to join the first one and Osma put his glasses on them.

  Boys, grown ones but still boys. Excited. Look at their faces. Up the other side now to follow the trail.

  Osma gave them time to move off and set their minds on what they were doing, concentrate, look for those hoofprints in the road ruts, look for fr
esh manure, Osma wanting the horses of Fuentes and his companions to have been fed and watered some' lime today. He nudged his horse, a buckskin gelding, and took the animal carefully down through the rocks and debris scattered over the wash. He pictured the three mambis coming in a short time to a glen, a clearing in the trees. Osma wanted to come on them as they reached the clearing, not bumping into each other on the trail, but where they would have room to turn and face him when he called.

  There they were, the three in white, crossed belts of bullets, machetes hanging from their saddles, hurrying. They didn't hear him coming behind them. Osma pulled his Colt revolver and kicked the buckskin.

  They were in the clearing now.

  He called out to them, "Wait! Wait for me!"

  And they did. Good boys. They reined their horses to see who this was coming, this stout man with a beard. They sat motionless waiting, Osma close enough to see their young faces, their open, curious expressions as he rode up and shot each one of them once, emptying their saddles. He shot two of them again where they lay on the ground, reloaded his revolver and shot the third one looking up at him.

  What did the old bandit teach these boys? Nothing?

  They paused hearing the gunfire, its echoes singing off the high reaches, Tyler looking up, listening. Five shots... and then another one. Too far away to be meant for them. Pistol shots, he believed all from the same gun, and told them so. Fired by a man who carried an empty chamber. Tyler said he believed the three mambis chasing them could be dead. It was a feeling he had.

  Fuentes shrugged at the idea. "So we have nothing to worry about?" He said they could talk about it when they were out of these hills.

  "Don't you want to know," Tyler said, "who's following us?"

  "I want to stay alive," Fuentes said. "That's all I know. And to stay alive we have to run as fast as we can."

  Amelia put her hand on Tyler's arm but didn't say anything. She looked worn-out. Nobody so far had mentioned opening the hammock, even just to take a peek, see if they had the money. Tyler imagined Amelia and Fuentes were thinking about it the same as he was. Were they staking their lives on a pile of money being inside? Or a note in there from Rollie saying, in so many words, "You want her? Keep her."

  They came out of the hills--by Fuentes's reckoning---eight miles southeast of Matanzas and rode past cultivated fields and rows of royal palms; they came to a banana plantation and followed aisles through the thick leaves brushing them, the grove opening onto graze, an empty pasture turning to scrub; they crossed shallow streams choked with lily pads, came to a mill that had been destroyed and saw stone houses in the near distance: a water tower, a train station with a loading platform, double tracks curving toward it from the north.

  "Ibarra," Fuentes said. "A stop on the Matanzas Railroad line, but no trains this time of day."

  They moved to high ground with tree cover, a ridge that was only a short run from the station. From here, Fuentes said, they could look back to see if anybody was coming and decide what to do.

  Tyler kept watch, staring in late afternoon light in the direction of the mill, what was left of it. He heard Amelia: "Let's open it."

  And Fuents say, "If you wish."

  Tyler was about to turn to them, but kept staring at the mill, over there across empty fields. He thought for a minute it was still burning. Then realized, no, the smoke was from a train, still off beyond the mill but coming this way toward the Ibarra station. He could hear it. And so could Fuentes, the old man next to him now, looking off at the smoke coming closer. He said, "But there is no train at this time."

  "Maybe," Tyler said, "it's a troop train; they don't run on a schedule. Except if it is, it's going the wrong way. Matanzas is where all the soldiers are."

  "We still have people following us. Stay here and keep watching," Fuentes said, "while I have a look at this train." He paused to say, "It's slowing down," then moved off through the trees to where the roadbed cut through the ridge. There, he could look down at the double tracks from no more than twenty feet and wait for the train to pass.

  Tyler glanced around at Amelia, expecting to see her untying the hammock. No, she was stretched out on the ground staring at the sky, using the hammock as a pillow. "What's wrong?" "I don't feel good."

  He wanted to go over to her, but stayed where he was, the sound of the train getting louder.

  "You have the trots?"

  "Neely would call it indelicate to ask me that."

  "Do you?"

  "Not so far. I feel kind of dizzy, like I might have a temperature."

  Now all Tyler could see of the train was thick smoke filling the sky close to them, the engine and cars going past below the ridge, making that braking sound, slowing to a crawl as it approached the station.

  Fuentes was back, hunching down next to Tyler.

  "The train's empty, not a person in any of the cars. I think it deliver soldiers and now is going back to get some more." "Going back where?"

  "Las Villas, in the next province. The reason it stop here must be to take on coal or water, the Matanzas yard too busy. I think what we have to do is get on that train."

  They both looked over as Amelia said, "Ben?" On her hands and knees now. "Help me, will you?"

  Osma had reached the blackened shell of the mill in time to see them cross the open ground to the ridge. He watched through his glasses, noticing the woman acting strange, holding on to her saddle horn, letting her head bounce with the horse's gait. Not used to this travel, or was she sick, wanting the ride to be over?

  "I'll help you end your trip," Osma said to her. Now they were in the trees up on that ridge. "You feel safe, uh?"

  He waited for them to come out and continue toward the station. But they remained in the trees. They liked feeling safe. They would watch now to see who was coming. Like little animals peeking out of burrows. Osma was becoming more certain they didn't have weapons. Or maybe only Fuentes.

  Osma was aware of the train approaching from behind him; he could hear it and knew what the train was: the one that arrived from Las Villas today with soldiers for San Severino, to fight the Americans if they landed there. The train, he believed, was returning empty to gather more soldiers. When the war came he would sit back and watch it; it wasn't his war. This business, though, was different. With signs that it was something he should do.

  Was it luck that put him here? Or his god, Change, smiling at him, saying, Here, let me help you. Change, or St. Barbara interceding. Either one. He would kill these people in their honor, offering them to the god and the saint for giving him the valuable hammock.

  And for sending the train that would give him a way to cross the open ground without being seen. As it rolled by he would wait for the last car to pass, then ride the buckskin along the off side of the train, staying close to the coaches, out of sight of Fuentes and his companions, and be at Ibarra waiting for them.

  On the train.

  Osma certain they saw it as their escape.

  There were stock cars for horses on the tail end of a half dozen coaches. Tyler got busy loading their mounts while Fuentes put Amelia aboard and tried to make her comfortable. She looked to be in agony coming here, her face flushed, her forehead hot to the touch. There was no stationmaster about, so Fuentes spoke to the engineer, told him they had a sick woman who needed to get home to Las Villas. It made little difference to the engineer; he said they would leave in a few minutes, as soon as they topped off the boiler.

  Tyler came in with their saddlebags. He dropped them across the aisle and turned to Amelia and Fuentes, in seats facing each other, Amelia with her eyes closed. She was holding the blue bandanna, touching her face with it. Tyler saw her hair damp and mussed, sticking to her scalp. Without opening her eyes she said to him, "Please don't look at me." Then opened them partway in a painful expression. "I look awful, don't I?"

  "You look sick, that's all."

  "My hair," she said, touching it. "I'm a mess. I think I have yellow fever."


  Fuentes, sitting with the rolled hammock on his lap, said, "Don't talk like that."

  "Well, I have something terrible, I know. Look at me." She said, "No, don't," and closed her eyes again. "I brought a bottle of quinine. It's with all my earthly possessions stuffed in saddlebags. Quinine and a bottle of Ayer's pills I've had over a year, Lorraine told me to bring."

  "Your bags are right here," Fuentes said, and motioned with his head.

  Tyler went through one and then the other, feeling what he believed was silk underwear among items of clothing he couldn't identify but didn't believe he should look at. He found hand towels, soap, bath powder, baking soda, a toothbrush, nail files, safety pins, matches, Sweet Caporal cigarettes, bottles of Ayer's pills, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, Sherman's Papillary Oil, and a half pint of quinine. He turned as he heard Amelia.

  "I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

  Fuentes was shaking his head. "No, you not going to die. We won't let you."

  "But I might," Amelia said. "While I'm still here on this earth I'd like to know if Rollie cared enough to pay the ransom. Open the hammock, Victor, if you would, please."

  Tyler had the feeling she was making the most of being sick. She seemed to like putting on acts. Which was fine with him, he liked at ching her. He couldn't look at Amelia without wanting to touch her so gently she would barely feel it. He said, "Here, take a swig of your medicine," handing Amelia the bottle.