In the darka man was sitting his horse as though asleep, his back bent, head lowered, hands resting on the horn in front of him. She recognized the buckskin gelding and called in a low voice, "Osma?" She had to help him down and into the house. In the light of the lamp she saw his clothes, his face, his hands covered with blood. The sight lifted her spirit and she smiled.
Now she helped him into the bedroom, bringing the lamp and placed it on a stand next to Tavalera sitting up in bed asleep. She blew her breath in his face and he opened his eyes.
It took him several moments to recognize the man standing by the bed. He said, "Osma?"
Osma's head came up. He said, "They went to Las Villas."
They kept their voices low, barely above a whisper, while Amelia slept, lulled by the sound and sway of the train. Tyler had removed her boots and stockings and held her warm bare feet in his hands. He wanted to know if the quinine was working yet. Fuentes said it would take time. If she had yellow fever they would give her citrate of magnesia, castor oil in lime juice and the milk of green coconuts.
He said, "Is strange, but where we going the people don't get yellow fever. Perhaps because the city is on higher land than along the coast, and the air and the soil are dry." He said, "They suffer, of course, from consumption, malaria, dysentery, as people everywhere do, but not yellow fever. Or is because the water is clean. So we lucky to be going there-if that's what she has." He said, "The province is name Santa Clara and the city is Santa Clara, but everyone calls it Villa Clara or Las Villas."
Fuentes said this leaning toward Tyler in the seat across from him.
"Have you heard it call that?"
Tyler said, "Victor? Why don't you tell me where exactly we're going?"
"I just told you, Las Villas."
"We get off the trainmwhat if there're soldiers around?" "We come there it's still dark. Nobody see us."
"We're in Las Villas," Tyler said, "then where do we go?" "We take Amelia to see this doctor."
Jesus Christ. "Why didn't you say so? He's a friend of yours?"
"I don't know him, but I have an old friend there, a woman name Lourdes. She can take care of Amelia and make her better." He said then, "Listen, you know what Las Villas is known for? Two things especially: its wide streets for one, and its beautiful women. You may not have interest in that, but is true." He said, "Why do you think it happens, one place having more beautiful women than another?"
"When we get there," Tyler said, "we leave the train, I get the horses-"
"Yes, I'm sure we come to Las Villas before the sunrise. It's dark by the railroad station, nobody sees us. You bring the horses for us, we ride a short distance on the Imperial Road and we there."
"You're sure," Tyler said, "this place'll be safe." Fuentes reached over to pat Tyler's knee. "I swear it."
Approaching Las Villas they passed through an open gate in the barbed wire enclosing the city, a remnant of reconcentration, and rolle[into the rail yard Tyler said to Fuentes, "Still dark, huh? I wonder what that is lighting up the sky over there."
All Fuentes could do was act like it didn't matter, daylight about to expose them to a few hundred Spanish soldiers up there by the station, where troops and supplies were loading. But what all the activity did, it held up their train while tracks were cleared; it allowed them to get off a good distance from the station.
"You have to trust me," Fuentes said, taking credit for the traffic.
He was right about how far they would travel from here. No more than a mile up the road they came to an open gate with a decorative wood-carved arch over it. They entered and walked their horses along a lane that cut through acres of banana trees. The lane brought them to a wide one-story house made of stone, weathered and crumbling in places, with a porch across the front and a red tile roof with hardly any pitch to it. Cottonwoods shaded the house; the inside, through the windows, looked dark. They dismounted at the porch, no one around. Fuentes told Tyler to wait, keep an eye on the road, while he took Amelia inside.
She seemed worse than she was yesterday, with barely the strength to move. From the porch she looked at Tyler with the saddest eyes he'd ever seen.
"Will you stay here with me?"
"You know I will."
She said, "Guard the money with your life." Then, with a vague look: "No, not with your life. But guard it." She went inside with Fuentes.
Tyler got one of her Sweet Caps from the saddlebag and stood smoking in the shade, looking at clusters of green bananas. He turned, hearing the screen door. A woman with a clean white apron over her shirtwaist and gray skirt, and a straw sun hat low on her head, stood facing him on the porch. She said, "You're with that darling girl?"
The woman was American, at most only a few years older than Amelia, and very pretty. Tyler said yes, he was, thinking it strange to see a woman wearing an apron with a sun hat, just the edge of the straw brim turned up in front.
The woman said, "Hello, I'm Mary Lou Janes. I assist Dr. Henriquez. He's with her now."
"Amelia thinks she has yellow fever."
The woman looked surprised. "She does?"
"Or some kind of fever."
"Why on earth did you bring her here? San Lfizaro is a home for lepers."
TWENTY-ONE
Early two weeks passed before Novis got up the nerve to report to Mr. Boudreau, expecting to be cursed up and down and fired before he opened his mouth.
But that wasn't the man's way, was it? To act like a normal person. No, he was calm as could be, upstairs on the veranda in his starched white Cuban shirt, a guayabara he wore once in a while when he was in the country. A pistol that looked like a Mauser and a pair of binoculars lay on the porch railing. No doubt the man had watched him coming.
What he did first was talk about himself, telling where he was at in this situation, how he didn't hear a word until one of his guerrillas rode up from Benavides and told him about the attack on the train.
"He said three Guardias aboard at the time were killed. I said well, there must have been more than just three on the train. What happened to the others? He said he didn't know. I asked if he had seen my bodyguard."
"I went back to Havana."
Mr. Boudreaux stared and Novis stopped right there.
"I asked if he had seen you. He said no, he had not. I asked if anything had been taken from the train. He said he didn't know. He said he believed the mambis destroyed the tracks to get money from the railroad, not to stop the train." Mr. Boudreaux paused. "My hunch, Novis-no, my conviction-is that a number of individuals know exactly what happened but are reluctant to come forth. Why is that?"
"Sir, you want me to tell you what happened?"
"Is there a conspiracy? All of you in cahoots to steal the ransom money?"
"Sir, I went back to Havana 'cause I thought that's where you were at."
"But I told you I'd be here."
"You did?"
"Do you think I'm lying?"
Shit. Calm as swamp water.
"No sir, I don't think that at all. I musta forgot your telling me. So I hung around waiting to see if you'd show up." "You're saying it was my fault I wasn't there?" Jesus Christ.
"No sir, I'm not saying that. I got shot at coming here to tell you what happened on that train and you won't let me."
Whether he liked it or not it seemed to satis him. Mr.
Boudreaux nodded like he was giving his blessing.
"All right, Novis, tell me what happened."
He told about the dynamite going off, the mambis coming out of the trees shooting and the guards on the train shooting back, six of them.
Mr. Boudreaux stared, not saying a word.
Novis told about Fuentes being on the train, appearing nowhere and thought Mr. Boudreaux would jump on that. No, he just kept staring.
He told how Fuentes put a gun on him and made him throw the hammock out the window. And how the cowboy, Tyler, was there to get it.