Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard

Author:Elmore Leonard
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Historical - General, Historical, Cuba, Historical Fiction, Americans - Cuba, Illegal arms transfers, Fiction, Literary, Fiction - Historical, 1895-1898, Suspense, Adventure stories, Thrillers, Americans, 1898, General, Spanish-American War, Cuba - History - Revolution
ISBN: 9780060084042
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2002-07-11T05:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

FUENTES BROUGHT THEM TO THE caves near San Antonio de los Bafios: caves, he told them, that were like being inside a cathedral they were so big. Full of bats, of course, millions of them, and dung beetles eating the guano and newborn bats that sometimes fell from the ceiling. So the caves were not a good place to stay, to make camp. They rode past the black openings in the hillsides to a farmhouse sitting at the mouth of an arroyo, a house made of boards and adobe, wooden bars on the open windows, a thatched roof, a chicken pen in the yard but no chickens, or people living here, the house empty. Fuentes said the family, to their misfortune, were pacificos; they tried to be neutral and that was impossible. A scouting party from Islero's army had raided the farm and taken food, and when the Volunteers in San Antonio de los Bafios learned of it, they came and killed the family for giving aid to the enemy. Shot the father, his younger brother, his mother, his wife and his four children. “All the way here,” Fuentes said, “you see what General Weyler left before he went home. Nothing. Like your General Sherman when he marched across Georgia to the sea. Listen, battles are fought over the capture of food, the hope that to win will mean something to eat.”

They found field corn they could roast, squash and plantains. Fuentes had brought candles to light the house when it was dark. Now he'd ride into San Antonio, see what he could buy, maybe have chicken for supper. Then when he returned they could discuss this business of who was leaving and who was staying. He said to Amelia, “Imagine being a hostage and think what to write to Mr. Boudreaux, how hungry you are, how sure you believe they going to kill you if he refuse to send the money. Find out, uh, how much he loves you.”

He was their leader and could speak to her this way if he wanted.

The two policemen were no longer on this trip. Rudi, less than a mile from Atars and leading Yaro, had gone off in the direction of Cerro, on the edge of Havana, Yaro needing a doctor before he bled to death.

Virgil walked the perimeter of the farmyard with a Mauser cradled in his arm, the marine peering through the dusk at silent hills and pastures, came back to the house and sat on the door stoop t8 eat plantains.

Tyler put the horses out to graze, their forelegs hobbled. Amelia strolled out, the sky dark now. She said she had never seen so many empty homes, all the poor people killed or imprisoned in those camps. She asked Tyler where his family had lived in New Orleans and they talked a little about the city he had left as a boy, polite with each other, Tyler sensing that they were both holding back, alone for the first time and feeling what it was like.

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