The Arrow Keeper’s Song (13 page)

It had been over thirty years since Americans had died in war, littering the battlefields of North and South with the bones of gallant men. Here was an opportunity for the nation to rise together as a whole, setting aside animosities and prejudices and the legacy of old grievances to aid the Cuban people in that most noble of causes: Liberty. So the nation watched and waited, tensions mounting, the clamor to intercede on behalf of the Cubans continuing to swell while the few remaining moderates tried to stem the tide of intervention, only too aware that the war hawks would need only a spark to ignite the threat of total commitment. Fate was the flint.

Cuba, February 15, 1898

At nine-forty in the evening the battleship U.S.S.
Maine
exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, maiming and killing 252 American seamen. About six hundred miles from the scene of this tragic destruction, a smaller blast, but one no less important to the Cuban resistance, occurred in the town of Santiago on the southeast tip of the island. A warehouse on the waterfront, loaded with a precious supply of gunpowder destined to resupply the Spanish navy, exploded with a thunderous boom and shot a ball of fire into the air that lit the docks and woke the residents of the port.

The warehouse, located at the end of the long, wide pier, was instantly reduced to rubble. Jagged shards of timber were strewn across the placid surface of the bay along with the grisly remains of four Spanish guards, members of Captain Diego Zuloaga's own De León Brigade, who were killed out-right. The men of the Lion Brigade considered themselves more than a match for any rebels. This was their boast. But Cuban insurrectionists led by Antonio Celestial proved the Spaniards wrong. They entered the city, avoided armed patrols, and destroyed the warehouse along with the startled sentries charged with securing the munitions. Several of the other buildings along the waterfront suffered damage. Windows were blown out, signs toppled, and several small fires were started by flaming debris.

Antonio Celestial vaulted into the saddle and waved for his men to follow him as he headed back through the heart of the settlement. Time was working against them now. The explosion would have alerted Captain Diego Zuloaga, and by now he'd be mobilizing his troops. The element of surprise may have brought the rebels this far, but only speed would carry them to safety. Celestial reminded his companions not to stop until they reached the edge of town. It was understood that any wounded man unable to ride was to be left behind to find sanctuary among the townspeople, most of whom were sympathetic to the rebel cause.

The rebel leader cut a dashing figure in his loose white shirt, tight brown canvas pants, and knee-high black boots. But Celestial's most striking feature was his shoulder-length white hair. It fluttered like a banner in the wind as he finished his harangue and pointed his charger inland. To a man, the rebels turned their backs on the bay and followed their enigmatic leader away from the leaping flames. Celestial chose the most direct route through town, retracing the relatively clear course they had followed into Santiago. But fickle fortune now turned her back on the guerrillas, who managed to cover only a couple of blocks before riding straight into the arms of the enemy.

Fourteen Spanish sailors, rival gun crews from the Spanish battleship
Reina Mercedes
lying at anchor in Santiago Bay, were returning from a night of revelry when the explosion rocked the waterfront and staggered the crewmen, even knocking a couple of the Spaniards off their feet. Dropped rum bottles shattered on the cobblestone pavement; loaves of crusty bread and sacks of melons destined for lockers aboard the Spanish battleship spilled onto the Alameda. Then the sound of approaching horsemen, the clatter of hooves on cobblestone, and a chorus of wild rebel cries filled the night. The gun crews struggled to reassemble their ranks. More than one seaman recognized the Cuban guerrillas and their fiery, white-haired leader on horseback, bearing down on them.

“It's him!” a burly gunner shouted. “A purse of gold for the head of Antonio Celestial!” He unslung his Mauser carbine and worked the bolt, feeding a round into the breech. Outlined against the leaping flames, the Cubans were a fearsome and unnerving sight as they charged the disoriented seamen. The gunner sensed the flagging courage of his shipmates and held his ground, bellowing defiance. His companions, as if feeding on his strength, gathered around him and brought their weapons to bear.

“Viva Celestial!” cried the rebels, and opened fire with their Colt revolvers. The Spanish sailors returned fire with their bolt-action carbines. One of the Cubans lost the top of his head and pitched from horseback, dead before he hit the street. A seven-millimeter slug fanned Celestial's cheek and caused him to wince. Off to his left he saw another rebel, young Felipé, his cousin, grab his side and sag forward over the neck of his mount. Felipe clutched at the mane whipping his neck and managed to remain in the saddle.

The Spaniards outnumbered the Cubans, but they'd been caught off guard. As a series of lesser explosions shook the night, the seamen struggled to contain the guerrillas and put up a proper defense, but their bolt-action carbines had a slower rate of fire than the double-action Colt revolvers Celestial had brought back with him from the United States. The rebels emptied their pistols at a murderous rate and cut a path through the ranks of the sailors. Celestial snapped off his shots with methodical precision. Muzzle blasts blossomed all around him. Suddenly the Spanish gunner leaped out of the throng and, swinging his carbine like a club, delivered a vicious blow to Celestial's lower back, nearly knocking the rebel leader from his mount.

“Now I have you!” the gunner roared as he tried to drag Celestial from horseback. It wasn't every day a common seaman had a chance at a purse of gold, and the Spaniard was bound and determined to keep this opportunity from slipping through his fingers. He tossed his carbine aside and drew a scaling knife from his belt.

Celestial dropped his reins and caught his attacker's knife hand as the gunner attempted to plunge the blade into the rebel's chest. The Cuban guerrilla winced as the blade gashed his flesh, opening a ragged wound. Celestial worked his revolver free, jabbed it into the gunner's throat, and pulled the trigger. The Spaniard was flung backward through an arc of his own blood. He hit the street only to be trampled beneath the hooves of the horses.

The melee lasted a minute and left four sailors dead and another three sprawled in agony, their life's fluids staining the cobblestones crimson. The remaining seamen dived for cover behind a pair of abandoned market stalls and cowered there until the last of the guerrillas galloped off toward the center of town. Then, as the dust settled, the survivors gathered their wounded comrades and invented a story that the crews had been set upon by no fewer than fifty Cuban rebels and, after a brutal battle, had driven them off.

On the outskirts of Santiago, Doctor Joanna Cooper paced back and forth, wearing a path among the peasant's huts,
bohíos
, clustered along a meandering little spring-fed creek that flowed from the side of a nearby hill. The owners of the palm-bark shacks were nowhere to be seen. Here was another enclave of the poor where men, women, and children had been driven off by Captain Zuloaga's soldiers and herded into concentration camps garrisoned by Spanish troops. One such camp lay inland about three miles, just beyond San Juan Hill. The place was unassailable by rebel forces, who had neither the numbers nor the equipment to mount a direct assault against a heavily entrenched army. Mass graves dotting the valleys offered mute testimony to the barbaric conditions under which suspected rebels and their sympathizers were forced to exist within those cruel confines.

Joanna Cooper had talked her way into the camps on more than one occasion, hoping to alleviate some of the suffering. The task had proved overwhelming. As relations with the United States soured, so her freedom of movement within the city became curtailed. Captain Zuloaga continually dispatched his underlings to spy on the woman. And yet, despite the captain's efforts, Joanna had spent the past few months tending not only the poor of Santiago, but many wounded rebels as well. Sometimes even Antonio Celestial himself had spirited the American physician out of the port and into the mountains to tend to his comrades and their families.

“My God, he's pulled it off.” Bernard Marmillon, another idealistic doctor and fellow classmate of Joanna's, emerged from the shadows of the palms and stood at her side there on the hilltop. Behind them cooling winds flowed down from the rugged heights of the Sierra Maestra, a range of mountains that blocked the western horizon. The breezes, ripe with the scent of cedar and mahogany and the duskier aroma of lush vegetation, set the branches of the royal palms in motion, black fronds swaying against the stars.

Joanna mopped her brow with a bandanna and then used the cloth to tie back her auburn tresses. She focused on the glow lighting the sky above the waterfront. The daughter of Robert Cooper III was thinner now, and the lines of her face more severe than when she had sat down to Christmas dinner at her father's table in New Orleans almost a year and a half ago. That warm, safe, pampered existence seemed a lifetime away, so far removed from her that it might have been a dream.

“There … you've had your wish. We waited to see if Antonio succeeded,” said the handsome young physician at her side. “And he has. Now, let's get the hell out of here before Zuloaga comes looking for us. He knows damn well where our sympathies lie.” Bernard Marmillon started toward the carriage they had driven out of town to keep their vigil there among the silent hovels. Back at the docks a dutch merchant ship waited for the two doctors to come aboard. With Captain Zuloaga's growing resentment toward the Americans, it had become much too risky to remain on the island.

Marmillon was halfway to the carriage before he realized the woman hadn't budged. He hesitated, backtracked a few steps, then waited, undecided, watching the woman. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, chronically indecisive, whose hair was beginning to thin on top while the pecan-colored beard covering the lower half of his face continued to flourish. He and Joanna were the last of the original five newly graduated physicians who had journeyed to Cuba to aid in the struggle for freedom by bringing much-needed medical services to the populace. Three of the doctors had not lasted the year, returning home within months of their arrival.

“Dammit, Joanna, are you listening to me? We cannot stay. You know Zuloaga is a man of his word. He told us to leave or suffer the consequences. I'm as brave as the next man, but I won't do anybody any good by dying.”

Joanna turned to look at her companion. He was handsome and powerfully built, with sweet ways, and for a time Joanna had even fancied a relationship with him. But the seriousness of their work and the immensity of the suffering she had seen had hardened her emotions and left her no time for romantic notions.

“Now, don't you go looking at me like that, Joanna Cooper. We both agreed it was time to go home. We've done our share. And more, if you ask me.” Marmillon kicked at the dirt and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. He began to walk in tight circles, as he always did before taking direct action. It was his way of building up momentum. “Joanna? Goddamn it!”

“Stop cursing, Bernard,” the woman said. “We have plenty of time. I want to say good-bye to Antonio.”

“Christ almighty! She wants to say good-bye.” Marmillon tossed up his hands in despair. He threw his short-brimmed hat onto the ground and kicked it toward the carriage. “What if he doesn't come this way? What if he's dead?”

“He'll be along,” Joanna confidently replied. She patted the dust from the hem of the coarsely woven cotton dress that one of her patients had presented to her as a way of thanking the woman for her dedication. The darkness muted the fabric's colorful bands of red, blue, purple, and white. A simple blouse and sandals completed her attire. On casual observation she could pass for one of Santiago's local inhabitants.

“You cannot know that for certain. And don't fool yourself into thinking the Dutchman will wait forever. There are some men who are immune to your charms, shocking as it must be to hear.”

“If you are worried, then perhaps you should go on,” the woman snapped.

“Oh, fine. And leave you. How should I explain that to your father?”

“He'll understand. You both are so much alike. Why, his middle name is even Bernard, so you'll already have much in common.”

“That's not fair,” Bernard protested, his cheeks reddening.

“I agree. But it's where we are. Cuba. And there is nothing fair about the things we have seen.” The atrocities that occurred in this civil war were permanently etched in her memory.

The hilltop permitted a view of the pouch-shaped bay, three miles across at its widest part and ringed with the foot-hills of the Sierra Maestra. Other than the Dutch freighter, the remaining ships in the harbor—a battleship, two destroyers, and a gunboat—flew the Spanish flag.

The town itself, a sprawling cluster of single and two-story red-tiled houses, bustled with activity, aroused from its evening lethargy by the explosion on the docks. Joanna glanced aside at Bernard. He had outlasted all the others, save herself.

“Tell me the truth. You never wanted to come here in the first place. Isn't that correct?”

Marmillon retrieved his hat, dusted it off, and smoothed out the brim, then settled it on his head, taking care to cock it at a rakish angle.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“My God, then why?”

“I wanted to sleep with you,” Bernard sighed, amazed at his own honesty. “After all, I had never met anyone quite like you. I doubt I ever will again. Your passionate convictions—your naïveté—made you all the more attractive.”

“Well, then, was it worth all this?”