Where There's Smoke
Page 16
Abandoned by the Coast Guard and the police, its devastation having yielded all the clues they could gather, the orphaned remnants of the Don Salazario continued to drift, its master now the sea.
The first of the gaunt, browned men on makeshift rafts spotted the feeding birds from two miles away. The swells of southerly current lifted them toward the birds as it carried them from Cuba, to Florida and sanctuary in the United States.
“Amigos!” the leader shouted to his comrades. “Food!”
He leaned from the ragtag collection of oil drums and wooden crates that had been his home for eight days and in amazement, swept up an orange and a small box of cereal wrapped in cellophane. Then he spotted something else, bobbing just below the surface. His brown arm dipped into the water a second time, and he brought up a bundle of bills. He suppressed a second call to his companions. They will each, he thought, in turn, encounter this strange welcome from their new homeland.
Eighty miles south of the Don Salazario’s splintered remains, a new group of rafters awakened to the perils of their voyage. Eleven skinny young men, seasick and frightened, watched the great sharks cruise closer as a new storm formed in the northeast and began to bear down on them. Panicked, they struggled to cluster together, their sad eyes filled with parting for those who would not see the next sunrise.
The leader straightened, his attention drawn to a speck on the darkening horizon. It grew, its shape changing and eluding him as the distance closed. Then, as the shape danced across the whitecaps, he heard the bee’s buzz of a small outboard motor. An inflatable boat! Coming straight toward them! Was it Castro’s police?
“Amigos!” he called. “Over there!”
Eleven pairs of eyes now strained to make out the craft bearing down on them.
“It is too small to be the police!” called one of them. “There is only one man.”
Seizing respite from the dark seas rolling under them, the young voyagers stared toward the intruder. Then the leader started to laugh. “He is smoking a cigar! A very grand cigar!”
The rest joined in his laughter, their plight on the swelling ocean now minimized. This madman careening toward them in a rubber boat smoking a huge cigar had made the moment a circus.
“Amigos!” called Raul, slowing and maneuvering the inflatable dinghy through the sorry flotilla. “You must postpone your journey! There is a storm coming. You will only feed the sharks!”
“We cannot go back!” called the leader. “Castro freed us from jail to leave. We will rot in prison or be shot if we go back. Without jobs, we are garbage to him.”
Raul continued to circle among the tubes, his eyes scanning each occupant. Then he cut the motor to an idle.
“Here!” he shouted, passing a line over the side of the inflatable, as it trailed through the group.
“There are jobs for you at my new restaurant or at the clinic my Rosa will build. Castro and Cuba need us now more than ever. Those who wish to return, grab the rope and come with me.”
With each hand that grasped the line, Raul felt Rosa and Cuba reaching across the water, drawing him home. Finally, the added burden of his motley convey in tow, he twisted the outboard’s throttle and slowly took up the slack. Unable to make his previous speed, he surveyed the approaching storm and gauged his now impeded progress.
Satisfied they would make landfall ahead of the weather, Raul opened the waterproof container that filled the center of his craft. Resting on top of the bundles of bills was a large cedar box embossed with the name, EL ROSARIO-FABRICA DE TABACO. He lit a fresh Don Salazario and passed it to the leader.
“We will touch the beach well ahead of the storm!” he said, as the skinny, dark man accepted the great cigar. “Smoke this carefully and give me what you find inside. It will be your gift to Rosa and her children.” Laughing at the man’s confusion, Raul patted his buttoned shirt pocket, cradling three diamonds already freed on his voyage south.
“El Balsero!” Raul shouted, suddenly inspired. A perfect name for his new restaurant. But, who knows, he thought, maybe Castro will have something to say about that. “La Rosa,” he said to himself, savoring the way her name slipped from his tongue. Now there’s a name. He gave the squall to the north a last look and turned to face the land and the woman he loved.
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE. Copyright © 1999 by Mel McKinney. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
ISBN 0-312-20623-2
eISBN 9781429977814
First eBook Edition : June 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKinney, Mel.
Where there’s smoke / Mel McKinney.—1st ed.
p. cm
“Thomas Dunne books.”
1. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald). 1917-1963—Assassination Fiction. 2.Cuba—history—1959-Fiction. 3.Cuban Americans
Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.C38169W47
813’.54—dc21
99-35875
CIP
First Edition: October 1999