“Were you writing your Paris book when we barged in?”
“Twenty-six words today,” he said. “Twenty-six.”
“It’s only noon,” Quinn said.
“I got up at six. I should be fishing by now, but I can’t do that either.”
“Here’s something that’ll cheer you up,” Quinn said, and he handed him Cooney’s letter.
Hemingway put on his glasses and Quinn and Renata watched him read. He finished, took off the glasses and squinted at Quinn.
“The Baltimore thrush is a throwback, and I’m a bum. It’s a publicity stunt. What’s this stuff about medals?”
“He was a Marine. He got a Silver Star in the Pacific.”
“Silver Star. We should never underestimate thrushes.”
“Cooney blames you for his friend’s death. He said his head injury from that left hook was why they were still in their hotel room when the soldiers shot at them.”
“Screw that, every inch of it,” Hemingway said, and his exuberance was back. He sat upright and his face tightened. “Am I supposed to get weepy over these tourists who don’t know when to duck? A duel? How about five rounds bareknuckle?”
“Bareknuckle. Are you serious?”
“How do you get serious about the Cooneys of this world?”
“I’m not sure, but he says he’s going public with this.”
“And you’re writing about it.”
“Only if you take him up on it.”
“I couldn’t win a duel with him, even if I killed him.”
“You’ve been challenged to a duel before?”
“Half my life. Cooney says I’m a coward. I spent years facing that one down. But the question is, Doctor Hemingstein, are you afraid to face down a Marine war hero? It’s the cliché of the western. ’Hey, Wild Bill, they say you’re a fast draw. Go for your gun.’ If I back out I was always yellow and I only shoot guns to get it up. I’m very brave when I shoot unarmed ducks. But the truth is everybody’s yellow till they get over it. They’re going to shoot you or shell you or bomb you, so you organize your coward maneuvers and you go AWOL the night before battle, or you run the other way when they start shooting, or you shoot yourself in the foot and they send you on sick call. You know how to get rid of a yellow streak? Stop thinking about what’s next. Think about right now and that you aren’t dead and probably won’t be. You got your weapon. They’re not shooting at you this minute and if they start they may not hit you. If they hit you you’re dead. But who gives a goddamn at that point? Not you. You’re dead. Fuck it. Fuck death. It’s just another goddamn thing you can’t do anything about. Have a drink, climb a tree, shoot a duck, fuck somebody. Don’t worry about it. You’re dead or you’re not, and either way it’s not up to you. Stroke your weapon.”
“Will you duel with Mr. Cooney?” Renata asked him.
“What do you think I should do?”
“I think you shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s beneath you.”
“Thank you. What about you, Mr. Quinn?”
“I like five rounds of bareknuckle. I think you’d take him in three.”
“Two.”
“Then again, maybe one. He does have a glass jaw.”
“Challenge him with a song,” Renata said.
“I’d lose. He’d sing the Marine Hymn.”
“What shall I tell him?” Quinn asked.
“Tell him I’ll pay his doctor bills and buy him a round-trip ticket to Paris. Tell him to stay out of the Floridita. Tell him to watch out for slivers in his ass. Tell him to fuck off, and that I really liked his song.”
“Never apologize, never explain,” Quinn said.
“John Wayne said that, a hell of a writer.”
“What if Cooney won’t go away?”
“Tell him if I wanted to die I wouldn’t let him do it, I’d do it myself. This is a suicidal country, does he know that?”
“I’ll try to send your message.”
“Tell him I don’t want to kill anybody. Tell him my dog died.”
Quinn wanted to see Demajagua, where Céspedes rang the bell and freed his slaves, but there was no time. He had to get to Santiago, settle Renata in at the Casa Granda where she’d stay until she made contact with Felipe Holtz, and then he’d board an army plane ferrying newsmen to the press conference at El Macho, a temporary army base on the south coast. Some forty reporters and photographers would be converging there for this theatrical army venture that had been in the works for weeks, its focus La Plata — the army outpost that Fidel, risen from the dead, had attacked in January. Fidel’s death was old news. His look-alike corpse, which the army took credit for, had been on front pages in December after the disastrous landing of his boat Granma—less a landing than a shipwreck — in a swamp at Playa de Las Coloradas near Niquero. The eighty-two seasick invaders made their way to Alegría de Pío, where the army cornered and killed two-thirds of them, even after surrender, and the survivors fled in chaos into the Sierra Maestra. Silence followed.
Then came dead Fidel and other photogenic corpses.
Then came La Plata, a new army outpost on the Magdalena River near the sea. Two new barracks were being built on a vast estate owned by the Domech family (bordering the Holtz family estate). The barracks were built next to the living quarters of three Mayorales — overseers who as a cadre policed most of the major estates in Oriente (not the Holtz estate), and whose main job was to drive off the Precarista peasants who perennially squatted on the estates. War was perpetual between the Mayorales and Precaristas.
Fifteen soldiers had been assigned to La Plata to track the ragtag Castro rebels, wherever they might be in the Sierra. But the rebels moved first, proving to the world and Batista that they were not dead, attacking the barracks January 16. The army said two soldiers and eight rebels were killed. Six weeks later the army said well, actually, forty rebels died, twenty were taken prisoner, and twelve of our soldiers died.
Now at El Macho Quinn listened as Colonel Pedro Barreras, the commander in Oriente, told reporters that the seriously final count at La Plata was five soldiers killed with knives while they slept, three wounded and left for dead, and three who escaped the rebel knifing. No rebels died. Castro led the attack, so he obviously didn’t die in December, and we think after Niquero he joined a gang of Precaristas in the Sierra, the murderous outlaws who have lived up there for decades, a law unto themselves. They even keep harems, five to ten women for each man.
The army, the Colonel said, now has 566 troops in the Sierra plus 250 intelligence agents in disguise among the peasants. There is no doubt whatever that Castro is no longer in these mountains. Our patrols and planes are covering an area eighteen by nine by nine miles, from Las Mercedes to Manacal to Aji de Guani, “the critical triangle” where Castro has been operating. We have seen no movement and are certain he’s not there. His famous interview with Matthews of The New York Times may have taken place in Cuba but not in the Sierra. And the photo of him holding a rifle with a telescopic sight while Matthews takes notes is obviously a fake.
Quinn asked the Coloneclass="underline" Who are those outlaws with harems?
Julio Guerrero, said Barreras. Chichi Mendoza, Sergio and Manuel Acuna, and Arsenio Zamora.
Arsenio.
Barreras announced that the army would fly reporters over the critical triangle to prove how serene and rebel-free it was. They would also drive everybody to La Plata. Quinn, with triple credentials—The Havana Post, Time magazine, and The Miami Herald—rode in the second jeep with a Lieutenant Cordero, behind the jeep of Colonel Barreras, who guided the tour over steep and narrow mountain roads. The forest was so dense with an overgrowth of leaves, hanging flora, and a waist-high undergrowth of plants and vines, that sunlight could never reach the ground; so what pilot could see a nest of dug-in rebels through such natural cover?