Rudi frowned again. "What did Evangelina Cisneros do? Nothing. The newspapers did it."

"She lived, as they say, 'in Death's Shadow," confined to a dungeon in Recogidas. She became 'the daughter of the revolution' and touched people's hearts when she escaped from the prison. Don't forget that."

"Evangelina was there," Rudi said, "so they used her. But she was never a revolutionist. How many women are there who take up arms and fight?"

"There were the Amazons of the Ten Years War." "Yes, you're right, those women."

"Paulina Gonzales," Fuentes said, "in this war. Her passion was to carry the flag in battle and lead machete charges. I saw her with my own eyes kill Volunteers, this young woman twenty-one years old. I met her when I was with Gomez in Santa Clara."

"But Paulina Gonzales," Rudi said, "is the only woman I know of who's made a name for herself."

"There were amazon as during her time and I believe Amelia Brown will be another one," Fuentes said. "Listen, we go riding, she sits astride the horse wearing trousers beneath a skirt only to her knees. I said to her, "That's a good idea." You know what she said? "Yes, it's the way Paulina Gonzales dressed." How does she know that? The correspondent, her friend Neely Tucker, told her. She knows about the war and she knows how to shoot with the pistol or the rifle. I watched her, at the mill."

"Yes," Rudi said, "but what does she want?" "She wants to be famous." "Is that enough?"

"For us, I think yes. It costs us nothing and she knows fame isn't given to you unless you earn it, risk your life."

"And sometimes doesn't come until you're dead," Rudi said. "Does she know that?"

In the carriage on the way back to the hotel Amelia said, "You spoke to Rudi?"

"He say it's up to you."

"But he doesn't like the idea."

Fuentes shook his head. "No, he's not going to judge you.

He knows you have intelligence But did you tell your friend Lorraine?"

"You didn't even hint you could be risking your life?" "She wouldn't understand if I told her," Amelia said, "and there wasn't time to explain. All she's thinking about now is leaving."

"You could too."

"Yes, I have a choice." She looked at the sky losing its light, the sun fading behind them, shod hooves on paving stones the only sound. "I want you to tell me the truth," Amelia said, "when I ask you a question. Will you?"

"I promise. What is it?"

"Do you think Rollie loves me?"

"What a question. Of course he does."

"Do you think he loves me enough, that if I were held as a hostage " She saw Fuentes begin to smile. "He'd pay fifty thousand dollars to get me back?"

Watching Fuentes smiling, Amelia began to smile.

Easter Sunday evening Amelia and Rollie dined in their suite on the top floor of the three-story Grand Hotel Inglaterra. Rollie began: "Did you have an interesting day?"

"It was all right."

"You go to church?"

"I changed my mind."

"Oh? Where were you all afternoon?"

"Saying good-bye to Lorraine. Remember?"

"Is she sad she's leaving?"

"In some ways."

"She'll miss Andres, won't she?"

"She'll miss the servants."

"When you leave, will you miss me?"

"I suppose."

"What do you mean, you suppose?"

"I was kidding."

"Why did you say I've lived a sheltered life?"

"Have you ever been to prison?"

"Is that a criterion?"

"Have you?"

"Of course not."

"Have you ever not had enough to eat?"

"The portions here aren't exactly generous."

"You know what I mean."

"It's strictly American, the cooking here." "Northern American. Have you ever killed anyone?" "If I haven't, I've lived a sheltered life?" "Have you? Ever killed anyone?" "I've never had to." "What does that mean?" "People do what I want." "I'm going riding tomorrow." "Take Novis with you."

"He doesn't know how to ride."

"Teach him."

"Rollie, do you love me?" "Of course I do." "Victor's going with me."

"And Novis," Rollie said. "Tell Victor to find him a gentle horse."

TWELVE

Virgilsaid what if they were hauled around town a few times in the wagon and brought right back to El Morro? And that's why they put the sacks over their heads.

Tyler believed this place smelled different and wasn't as close to the open sea, though it was damp and moldy and had more spiders and rats than the Morro because, Tyler believed, there weren't as many prisoners here. He had the feeling they might be the only ones. He asked Virgil if he'd heard voices last night, any screams. They had been placed in separate cells, but now were together with one water bucket and one waste bucket between them. It was as if the Guardia were saying to them: You can talk and scheme all you want, you aren't going anyplace. Look at it another way, together they'd be easier to mind.

Virgil said what was there to scheme about? They were in a cell with big goddamn iron rings on the stone walls they could be chained to and iron bars crisscrossing the door. Virgil was talkative this morning.

He said he hoped to God this was a different place and not the Morro. The day war was declared the whole goddamn Atlantic Squadron would be out there. You'd have the Indiana and the Massachusetts, first-class twin-screw battle wagons with four 13-inch guns each. You'd have the Iowa with her four 12-inchers, the Texas, the Montgomery and the New York, an armored cruiser that could go twenty-one knots. And you'd have the Terror, a double-turret twin-screw monitor, like a raft with four 10-inch rifles on her. Virgil told Tyler the Maine was a second-class battleship, but had twelve inches of armor around her hull and eight to twelve inches protecting her turrets and barbettes. If the Maine had been unarmored the explosion would've crushed her like an eggshell and probably everybody aboard would have been killed.

Anyway, Virgil said, if they were still in the Morro and there was a war, they'd be goners. The squadron could sit out in the stream, turn their batteries on this old place. Shit, a couple of salvos and it would be gone, a pile of rubble.

Something else he told Tyler: "I said I'd never been in jail before? It's 'cause I never got caught." The horse his stepfather the preacher took from him and sold? Virgil stole back. Then, he told Tyler, there were some men from Fort Gibson had insulted his mother, saying she was a whore and offering her twenty-five cents each to luck them. Virgil stole a pistol from the place where he worked, then right after he got his horse back, he held up these men who'd insulted his mother as they were playing poker in the back room of the feed store in Fort Gibson, a bandanna hiding his face. Robbed them and hit 'em over the head with his gun barrel, the dirty-mouth sons of bitches. The funds got him clear to Port Tampa, where he went to bed with a whore the first time in his life, sixteen years old, and lied about his age to join the United States Marines.

Tyler had mentioned the forty-five hundred dollars he had coming from Boudreaux. Virgil said he believed you could live a long time on forty-five hundred, Jesus, years and years. He said to Tyler it was too bad he didn't have it on him, he could bribe his way out of here. Tyler said if he'd had it he sure wouldn't have it now.

"This is a country of banditry," he told Virgil, "or for anyone bent on scala waggery He had learned from Fuentes that bandits here put up signs on the road that said MONEY OR MUTILATION. Take your pick. He said to Virgil there seemed to be mostly road agents in Cuba, highwaymen, Fuentes called them, something Tyler said he didn't understand, banks being so easy to rob.

Lionel Tavalera entered the cell unarmed. A guard came in behind him to place a canvas chair on the dirt floor for the major, and now he sat facing Tyler and Virgil, the two sitting on the ground with their legs stretched out, their backs against the old scarred stone blocks of the wall. They were together in the cell this morning so he could address them at the same time. He began by saying he was going to the captain-general's palace, where they were having a meeting about the war he believed would be declared any day now. They would discuss America's ability to raise an army. How long would that take, a few months? It was thirty-three years since Americans had the war among themselves. Then when the army was ready they would board the troop ships in Port Tampa and perhaps Key West and sail here to Cuba.