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.

The man kept on staring, Jesus, like he was casting a spell, hypnotizing him so he'd tell the truth. And he had, everything he said was the way it happened. But then hesitated about Amelia being with them-something Novis could hardly believe himself. He waited too long and Mr. Boudreaux finally spoke.

"There's something you're not telling me."

You bet, and the reason was that fucking pistol sitting there on the rail. Boudreaux blamed him anyway for Amelia being taken. If he told she was with them, either Boudreaux would say he was lying or it would set him off and Novis saw himself getting shot between the eyes. What he said was, "Fuentes shot one of the guards." Like that was the thing he didn't want to tell. "Him and Tyler rode off with the hammock. The guards stayed with the train and I spent the night at Benavides to get on the Havana train the next day." "You didn't want to tell me about this, did you?" "No sir, I wasn't anxious to."

"So you wasted precious time in Havana. What did you do, visit your whores?"

"Tell you the truth, I didn't see none around. People in Havana are going crazy, scared of the U.S. Army coming."

Mr. Boudreaux waited now, giving Novis his famous stare. "During the attack on the train, did you fire your gun?"

"I forgot to mention, Victor made me drop it out the window."

"You say he and Tyler rode off."

"Yes, sir, with some mambises coming behind."

"You mean chasing them?"

Novis had to stop and think. "My recollection, the mambises were bringing up the rear."

Now he was getting the stare again. "Novis, are you part of this scheme?" "No, sir, I'll swear to it."

Without a pause Mr. Boudreaux said, "Do you know where the Philippines are?"

"Sir?"

"I asked, Do you know where the Philippines are? That's a fairly simple question, isn't it?"