Cuba Libre

NINETEEN

Islerowas given the krupp fieldpiece in Oriente, August of last year, for aiding Garcia in the assault on Victoria de las Tunas. This was a major engagement against a heavily fortified city defended by eight hundred Spanish regulars. With them were forty-seven loyalist Volunteers who for the past year had been raiding insurgent hospital camps and murdering the wounded. For artillery they had a pair of German-made Krupp fieldpieces, old ones-a puff of white smoke, Islero said, and you could see the projectile coming; but since it was in no hurry there was time to move out of the way. The city's outer strong points were connected by a system of trenches banked with sandbags and protected in front by a tangle of barbed wire.

To make sure there would be no relief columns from either Bayamo or Holguin, both Spanish strongholds, Garcia sealed off each road with two thousand troops. For once, he was in a position to outgun. the dons, and he attacked Las Tunas with another two thousand veteran troops and a battery of artillery; Hotchkiss 12-pounders and a Sims-Dudley dynamite gun, these directed by an American artillerist named Frederick Funston.

Islero loved that dynamite gun-oh, the explosions it made were something to hear, firing a brass cylinder loaded with five pounds of nitroglycerine. It wasn't so effective against heavy fortifications, thick walls, but tore trench lines to pieces, the sound of its eruptions enough to shatter the nerves of defenders. The cannoneers under the American gunner knocked out the buildings and blockhouses along the edge of Las Tunas and the insurrectos stormed into the city to attack fortified barracks of both infantry and cavalry. When the soldiers inside these places refused to surrender, one of the Hotchkiss 12-pounders and the dynamite gun were moved to within a few yards of the front doors. The American artillerist, Funston, walked out in the open, stood before these strongholds and called for the Spanish soldiers to come out and give themselves up. The Spanish regulars were allowed to surrender with honor and leave the city. The loyalist Volunteers who came out were hacked to death with machetes, their due, where they stood in the road.

For his part in the taking of Las Tunas, and despite his fondness for the dynamite gun, Islero was rewarded with one of the Krupp fieldpieces.

The gun that now, from twelve hundred meters, was trained on the Spanish blockhouse guarding the approach to Guanabana. The train from Havana would pass this point at approximately 3:00 P.M. Islero's gunners were instructed to open fire on the blockhouse at 2:45; the purpose, to draw whatever Spanish troops might be in the neighborhood, keep them away from where Islero, several miles to the west, had planted his dynamite charges. The site: Near a small bridge the Havana train would approach shortly after leaving the station at Benavides.

It wasn't much of a bridge, made entirely of wood planks and beams to span a dry wash that came down from the hills above Matanzas; it would be nothing to blow up the bridge. What prevented him was Islero's agreement with the railroad company. Ferro Carriles Unidos paid him not to destroy their bridges; they paid him considerably less than it would cost to restore a bridge, but it was enough to satisfy Islero and Ferro Carriles accepted it as an operating expense.

So Islero planted his charges in the crushed-rock ballast of the roadbed some two hundred meters from the bridge, and let out his spool of electric wire across open ground and into the trees below his camp. They would wait here until the train was in sight and press the electrical connection to explode the charge. Once the train came to a stop, Islero would attack.

Fuentes returned from his scout of Benavides to the yard of the deserted farmhouse where Tyler and Amelia waited in the trees. He had learned at the station that the train from Havana would be as much as an hour late. Amelia said, "After we break our necks to get here." They had no choice but to remain where they were, not approach the station until they saw the train pulling in. What they would do after that had finally been discussed, argued about and decided.

Fuentes would board the train, Fuentes the only one of the three who would draw little notice: an old Cuban in a limp white suit and panama. With two pistols beneath his coat he would enter at the rear of the first-class coach and wait there. Once the train was rolling he would have maybe two minutes to locate Novis and whatever Guardias or Volunteers were aboard. Tyler and Amelia would be in the stock car with the horses.

"Picture it," Fuentes said. "The explosion, the train comes to a stop. Islero's horsemen attack, surely coming from the trees to the side of the train facing them. You come out of the stock car with the horses on the opposite side and ride up to the first-class coach, where I'm inside. The guards have their backs to me, shooting at the horsemen coming toward them. What is Novis doing? I don't know. I take whatever he's carrying and throw it out the window to you. I deal with Novis.

Maybe with others if I have to and leave the train." Amelia said, "You deal with the others?"

"I don't know what I have to do," Fuentes said, "until I'm there. We leave the train. As we leave, we keep the train between us and Islero's people. It means we ride straight north from there into the hills above Matanzas. Maybe we have time then to look around, see if anyone is coming. We stay in the hills, as you did," he said to Tyler, "when you went to find the bank. Then we move east to go around the city." He said to Amelia, "You know that way, how Mr. Boudreaux's own railroad goes up, to Varadero and that finger of land sticking out into the sea. Matanzas on one side, Cfrdenas on the other. You go up that way to the summerhouse, six miles. You remember? Don't worry, you find it. You go to the summerhouse and wait for me there. I go to Cfirdenas and find a man has a coastal boat and wants to be rich: a dollar for every mile on the way to Key West, or, one hundred American dollars." Amelia said, "If we have the money."

Fuentes said, "Yes, and if we make it that far. Tonight I come from Cfirdenas in the boat. You look for a signal, I swing a lantern back and forth. If you don't see me… well, you better go away from there quick."

When it was time, a train with six cars waiting at the station, the locomotive hissing, sounding anxious to leave, they left the tree shade and crossed a street of stone houses to the back end of the train standing by a water tower. The doors on both sides of the stock car were open. Tyler and Fuentes dismounted to pull the ramp out of the car and Tyler brought their horses aboard. He watched Amelia give Fuentes a kiss on the cheek. They both watched her lead her mount up the ramp; she was good with horses, Tyler believing she could walk down mustangs. Once they were aboard, he lifted the inside edge of the ramp, heavier'n hell, gave it a shove and let it fall to the cinders. Fuentes looked up at them for a moment, not giving any kind of sign, turned and moved off.

There were six horses besides their own in the stock car, the six tethered to ropes that extended from one side of the car to the other: the six horses, pretty fair looking, already saddled.

"We go down a slight grade," Amelia said, "the train will pick up speed and be roaring by the time it gets near the bridge." She looked at the horses. "And who do you suppose they belong to?"

She knew as well as he did.

Tyler said, "When we leave, they do too."

Fuentes waited as he said he would at the rear of the first-class coach; he saw cane seats and the backs of heads and shoulders, most of the heads covered. All men, no women aboard, at least not in first class. They were businessmen and some who could be businessmen, though Fuentes was sure these men were something else, together in pairs along the right side of the aisle, six of them. Maybe there were more, but at least six to go with the six horses in the stock car with Amelia and Ben Tyler. Yes, and there was Novis, the back of his reddish hair, only a short way up on the left side of the aisle, where most of the passengers sat, out of the sun. The six on the other side didn't care about the sun, their business was to keep looking out the windows. Fuentes had to stoop to look out-shutters covering the top half of the windows-to see open land and the wooded slope a few hundred meters beyond. They were coming to it now. He stood holding on to the back of an empty seat with one hand. No sitting down with only a minute or so left. He could feel the revolvers beneath his coat,. 44s of the kind Tyler preferred and recommended, stuck in the waist of his trousers and pressing hard against his groin. There would be the explosion of dynamite. Not loud, the engineer would see the smoke in time to begin stopping the train. Fuentes was ready, holding on tight so he wouldn't be thrown down in the aisle with the jolt of the train braking and the scream of metal scraping metal. He wished he could see what Novis had on his lap, Novis sitting against the window, alone, Novis's hand going to the seat in front of him and now he was turning to look this way along the aisle, over his shoulder. Why? Who knows-but that's what he was doing, and now they were looking at each other, Novis's face showing dumb surprise, and Fuentes had no choice but to move up the aisle, quick, and slide in next to him, Novis scowling.

"How'n the hell'd you get here?"

As stupid as ever-thank God.

Fuentes used his right hand to draw a revolver and stick the barrel into Novis's side, Novis saying, "Ow," as he looked down and saw the gun. The hammock was on his lap, rolled and tied with rope. The tag fixed to it, cut out of cardboard, was blank. Or the writing was on the other side. Fuentes raised his left hand to turn it over and saw in block letters:

AMELIA BROWN FOR CUBA LIBRE

"As soon as I tell you," Fuentes said, "pick that up and throw it out the window."

Novis said, "Are you crazy?" his eyes moving, head turning to the pairs of men in seats across the aisle and up a ways, Novis not knowing what to do.

Fuentes jabbed him again with the revolver. "Don't speak. Don't look over there. Pull your gun and drop it out the window."

The stock car was like a cattle pen with a roof, the sides made of rails spaced a good foot apart; it was airy in here, a steady wind blowing through to stir the rich odor of manure. Tyler would look out through the rails, turn and see Amelia, close by, looking at him. He'd catch her like that and she'd smile, her teeth so white and perfect Tyler was embarrassed to open his mouth.

She said, "I haven't asked, what did Rollie have to say?"

They hadn't spoken about it since Tyler got back, not in any detail.

"The gist of it-he says he isn't gonna pay me."

"You expected him to?"

"Not after you told me he wouldn't, you and Victor, but I had to hear the tinhorn say it."

"Did he mention me?"

"He asked where you were."

"That's all?"

Tyler paused, looking away then, listening.

"Did you hear it?" He saw her shake her head, told her, "Hang on," and the jolt and the sound of couplings banging together came almost as he said it, throwing Amelia against him. He held on to her as the train continued to make a racket, steam hissing, wheels screeching, and now the horses were starting a commotion, pulling on the lines holding them.

By the time the train ground to a stop Tyler had the six horses free and was crowding them toward the left-side doorway, talking to them, swatting their rumps, the horses forcing each other out through the opening to jump for it and skid down the gravel pitch of the roadbed, none of them liking it, but all were out there running now, on their own and heading for the hills.

Tyler asked Amelia if she was ready. She didn't look it, but nodded her head, got her reins in her hand and mounted the sorrel she'd ben riding. Tyler used his reins to swat her horse and she was out the door, nothing to it, reined a tight turn in the scrub and pulled up to sit waiting for him in that blue bandanna. Now he sent out Fuentes's horse and watched Amelia go after it, reach down and catch it by the reins.

Tyler said in the dun's ear, "Mind how you land. Don't make me look dumb in front of this girl." He heard gunfire off on the yon side of the train as he and the dun went flying out the door.

When the shooting began it took the passengers a few moments to realize bullets were breaking windows, coming through the coach. There they were, all those heads and hats in front of Fuentes and then gone, the passengers flat on the floor by their seats now, some facedown in the aisle. Only the six Guardias or whoever they were in their business suits were in view, firing revolvers, two with rifles, firing out the windows at the horsemen coming across the open landmnot many of them, maybe ten or so mounted-with horses scarce, don't waste themmbut a swarm of mambis afoot coming behind, firing as they appeared out of the trees. Fuentes felt Novis pressing against him, Novis trying to hunch himself in a ball around the rolled hammock. Fuentes said, "Here, get up." Novis wouldn't do it, so Fuentes took a handful of red hair, raised his face and saw the terror in his eyes, this yanqui who would tell you how he fought a hundred times in the prize ring and beat up strikers with a pick handle.

"Man, throw the bundle out the window. Do it!"

The window was open. Fuentes looked out and there was Amelia riding up, leading his horse, and Ben Tyler, the cowboy coming close to the train, his hand reaching out. Fuentes's hand, still clutching red hair, turned Novis's face to the window, saying, "Give it to him," and Novis shoved the bundle through the opening. Fuentes didn't see if Tyler received it, but heard him shout "Come on! Run!" and Fuentes let go of the red hair, feeling his hand sticky, and rose from the seat, the revolver still in his right hand.

It was the heft of it, and the feel of the second revolver digging into his groin, that caused Fuentes to pause and look toward the six Guardias firing out the windows, none aware of him standing in the aisle, or that he was pointing a. 44 at them now, moving it to the ones farthest up the aisle, Fuentes seeing his chance to shoot Guardias and that was what he did, opened fire, shooting as fast as he could, in a hurry and not making sure, seeing only one of them go down as he emptied the gun. But now the nearest one was aware of him. Fuentes saw the nearest one turn and extend his revolver; Fuentes saw the man's face with no expression, saw the face and the muzzle of the revolver, saw the Guardia's hand squeeze the trigger. And heard the click. In all that gunfire heard it again, the click, and again, the Guardia not wanting his gun to be empty, still holding it extended as Fuentes dropped the. 44 in his hand and pulled the one digging into his groin. He said, "Thank you, God," believing in Him again, promising to always believe in Him, and shot the Guardia twice through his business suit.