"No, they riding to scout to find cane fields to burn, ones as close as ten miles from Havana, so people in the city see smoke in the sky." He said, "Girl, you want to cook for them? Maybe in two days when we visit the general." He turned to speak to the men of Islero, finally raised his hand to them and waved as they reined their horses and rode out. Amelia was waiting for him. "Are you expecting me to cook?"

"I was thinking. of chicken fricassee," Fuentes said, "and a nice plantain soup? Or, if you rather, you can pluck the chickens."

Amelia stared at him in silence.

Virgil said, "Hell, gimme the birds. Boil some water to stick 'em in and we'll get her done."

"I don't cook," Amelia said to Fuentes. "Let's understand that right now." She turned and was in the house. Fuentes shrugged, acting innocent. Now Tyler went inside. "Amelia?"

It was the first time he'd said her name aloud. She had laid the Mauser on the table and stood with her back to him. "He was kidding with you."

She turned now and seemed tired, nodding her head, not looking directly at him. "I know, I just… I felt he was making fun of me."

Now Tyler nodded, as though he understood, and said, "You don't ever cook, huh?" and saw her eyes flash, looking right at him.

"Don't you start."

They could hear a pump working around back, Virgil drawing water, the only sound.

Later on, Fuentes gave Amelia the pencil stub and sheets of tablet paper he'd brought folded in his suit pocket. Amelia, at the table, a candle burning, got ready to write and looked up. "Should I say Dear Rollie or just Rollie?" "Either one," Fuentes said.

"But if I'm being forced to write this and I'm petrified, would I think to call him Dear?"

"Is how you start a letter," Fuentes said. "You don't think, you write it the way you write a letter to anyone, from the habit of it. You say Dear or you say My Dear, My Dear Rollie No, what you say is My Dearest Rollie, so he knows you have affection for him and it moves his heart to have you back in his bed."

Amelia made a face, frowning, and looked up at Tyler, watching her. "What do you think?"

He thought a moment. "I'd say, "Dear Rollie, you wavy haired tinhorn son of a bitch, send eighty thousand dollars quick or these boys are gonna put me under."

Amelia didn't smile.

Fuentes didn't either, but was nodding. "Yes, something like that; but we have to think some more about the amount we ask for. Listen, to me you worth a million dollars if I had it. But Mr. Boudreaux is a businessman, very practical, also not a generous man. We want his heart to tell him, make the payment, and his business mind to look at the amount and say, yes, I can do that to save the life of my sweetheart." Amelia tapped the pencil on the table. "Get to the point, Victor. How much?"

"Let me think a minute. Maybe you write down figures and we see how they look."

"Have you thought of the way he delivers it?"

"I have an idea for that," Fuentes said, "but we need Islero to help. I have to speak to him."

"He gets the money?" Amelia said, and looked at Tyler. "Islero is the one receive the guns and bullets this man brought. He's going to attack Matanzas, blow up the fort and free the city. But to do it he needs money for his soldiers, four thousand in his army. They been in the field more than a year, no pay to give their families."

Tyler said, "You trust him?"

"Islero? Yes, of course. He's my little brother."

That stopped Amelia for a moment. "But he's Negro." "Yes, and half of me is also," Fuentes said. "We have the same mother, but different fathers sired us. Listen, if you accept me, then I know you going to like Islero, a true patriot. He lives only to see freedom for our people."

Amelia said, "And that's why he's called the Black Plague?"

Fuentes shrugged. "What does that mean, a name the panchos gave him, the Spanish? He was a slave, he ran away and was a cimarron. When he was caught they cut the tendons in his legs so he can't run no more." Fuentes paused, "Oh, when you see him, don't say nothing as how he walks… So they bring him back and make him a cook in a regiment of the Spanish army. This was in the Ten Years War. He always cooks very good," Fuentes said to Amelia, smiling a little. "So good that pretty soon he was made the cook in the home of a general name Alvarez. He cook for him I think maybe a year. Until one night the general invite his staff and some good friend, all officers, to dinner, Alvarez telling them, "Wait until you taste the yany6," like a very spicy gumbo. It so spicy they eating they don't taste the snake poison Islero put in it. Pretty soon they can't move, they paralyzed from the venom. Then, all of them at ching him, he took a butcher knife and cut the throat of each one. Someone said, to see the bodies, it was like a plague had enter the room as they dined. A black one. Islero himself thinks of it as the Last Supper." Fuentes looked from Amelia to Tyler and back again, his old, brown-stained eyes gleaming. He said, "Now, how much do we ask of Mr. Boudreaux?"

FIFTEEN

Uardias had been watching the doctor's home in Cerro, the doctor a Creole, on the side of the insurrection. They came in while the doctor was examining Yaro Ruiz's gunshot wound. They shot the doctor and took Yaro, bleeding, by this time unconscious, and Rudi Calvo to the old prison, Recogidas, where they questioned Rudi.

"Who was with you at Ataros this morning?"

"I wasn't there."

They broke his right leg beneath the knee with a baseball bat.

"Who was with you at Atars this morning?"

"I wasn't there."

They broke his left leg the same way.

Rudi listened to them talking. One of them saying, "Yaro Ruiz is of no use to us, he's close to death." And another one said, "Leave him."

The next part was very painful, riding in the military ambulance and trying not to scream, loaded and unloaded and dragged between two Guardias into a building that smelled like a hospital, then seeing enough of it to know it was, it was San Ambrosio. Rudi was brought to a room and heaved onto a cot. A doctor came in, he looked at Rudi and asked if he had suffered an accident. One of the Guardia said yes, he fell down. The Guardia told the doctor not to be concerned with this one, he would be cared for.

A man was brought into the room and dropped on another cot. After a little while the Guardias left. Rudi heard the man groaning, turned his head and saw it was Lieutenant Molina from the Morro, his face and clothes covered with blood. Rudi asked what they did to him. Lieutenant Molina said they came in his cell to question him about the cowboy and the marine: Who was it helped them escape, the ones who visited them in the Morro? What was their plan? Where did they go? Questions he could not answer since he didn't know, so they beat him with chains. He said when he spoke it was very hard to breathe. He said, "They bring me here to mend my broken bones so they can send me to Africa. I'm sure of it."

Rudi said, "I don't think I'm going anywhere."

The Guardias who brought them here returned with Lionel Tavaler. He approached Rudi Calvo drawing his saber and touched Rudi's right leg with the point. Rudi gasped.

"Oh, does that hurt? It must be gangrene has already set in." He poked the left leg with the saber and when Rudi cried out, Tavalera said, "Oh, in that leg too. I think both your legs will have to be amputated."

As he was touching Rudi's legs and saying this, two doctors in white coats came in the room, the one who was here before and another doctor, this one with an air of authority as he said to Tavalera, "Excuse me, are you a doctor? What are you talking about, amputate the legs? Anyone can see the legs are fractured and need to be set."