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.