Cuba Libre

Elmore Leonard has a long track record of creating memorable characters--enough to bring life to many movies, the two most notable being Get Shorty and Jackie Brown (based on Leonard's Rum Punch ). Both are pretty good movies, but the novels are much better. Today Leonard writes mostly "crime" novels, labeled as such because his characters struggle to be good in a world so full of temptation that some kind of crime is always involved. Cuba Libre finds Leonard reaching for a broader audience than those which appreciated either his crime novels or the westerns he once wrote, which he accomplishes by combining elements of both. Ben Tyler is a cowboy who robs banks, but only those that contain money of people who owe but won't pay him--he only takes what they owe. Charlie Burke is a businessman who buys horses cheap in the west, then sells them to exporters, while heroine Amelia Brown is the mistress of one of the truly bad men in the novel and struggles with dilemmas similar to those endured by other cast members. Begining around the time that the Maine is sunk in Havana Harbor and ending when Teddy and others storm San Juan Hill, the story is at its best when its colorful characters are turned loose in one of the novel's colorful settings. If you like Leonard, you'll love Cuba Libre , and if--for some reason--you haven't yet discovered the author, prepare for a real treat. From School Library Journal YA-This book has something to interest almost everyone. Set against the rich and compelling backdrop of Cuba during its struggle for independence, the story includes bank robbery, cattle rustling, love, suspense, and action-packed adventure. Realistic, memorable characters come to life in the scheming twists and turns of a complex plot. Leonard writes in an easy-to-follow style; his bad guys are truly BAD, and readers find themselves rooting for the hero and heroine as they hide, the Spanish Civil guards in hot pursuit. The plot is larded with history, beginning with the sinking of the USS Maine in the harbor of Havana, and ending with Roosevelt and his Rough Riders's charge up San Juan Hill. A rare glimpse of the Spanish-American War and the fight for Cuban independence. Anita Short, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal The prolific Leonard (Out of Sight, LJ 6/15/96) has written genre Westerns and a long string of successful crime thrillers that transcended genre writing; now, he pulls off a wonderful historical novel, due to be published at the centenary of the onset of the Spanish-American War. Ben Tyler, a cowboy cum bank robber, is recruited by an old partner to assist in a scheme to run guns to insurgent Cubans, under cover of horse trading. When they arrive, they find the U.S.S. Maine's wreckage in the harbor at Havana, and Tyler his partner must cope with a rapidly developing chain of events. Leonard characteristically dispenses with long descriptive passages, but his 1898 Cuba is richly evoked via dialog and action, and the irony of the coming war between the two great powers for custody of this small island is lost neither upon the author nor his characters. Happy to have read such a fine story, one comes away curious to know more about the period and its events. Highly recommended for all collections. -?David Dodd, Santa Cruz Cty. Lib. Sys., Cal. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Leonard goes back to his roots, and modern America's, in this rollicking Cuban western/suspenser, to be published on the 100th anniverary of the U.S.S. Maine's explosion. All Ben Tyler is looking for is to make a few fast dollars. Cowpunching in Arizona hasn't worked, or robbing banks either, so he agrees to join his friend Charlie Burke in exporting a string of horses to Cuba, though he just can't see how they stand to make any money on the deal. Unfortunately, Ben and Charlie have picked a historically bad moment for their tropical excursion: They make port just in time to remember the Maine indeed, and suddenly there are more complications than just paying prohibitive import duties, bribing officials and go-betweens, and holding their buyer--impassive, treacherous, polo-playing sugar baron Roland Boudreaux--to the price he's promised them. The US is determined to free Cuba from Spanish rule, but not so completely that the island will be independent--only enough so that American capitalists can step into the breach. In other words, the three-cornered conflict--which Ben & Co. waste no time adding more corners to--is nothing more than a classic Leonard scam writ large, the perfect background for the easygoing hero's lesser chicanery. Before Ben can begin to finger the goodies, though, a little disagreement between him and a Spanish hussar with easily inflamed honor lands him in prison along with a Marine casualty of the Maine who's been spirited out of the hospital, it seems, for the express purpose of rotting in jail. All would be lost if it weren't for Rollie Boudreaux's wide-awake courtesan Amelia Brown, who's got the world's best motive for breaking Ben out of stir. Carbines blazing, horses snorting, battles raging, the heroes drive the villains to a stalemate--and then prepare to battle each other. Top entertainment from the pro's pro (Out of Sight, 1996, etc.): a million greedy schemes with time-outs for war and sex. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection; QPB; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "Explosive...exciting...keeps the reader glued to the pages."-- Chicago Sun-Times "There is so much good storytelling in this novel...there are few writers who can match Leonard when it comes to narrative moves, none who write dialogues that say so little and mean so much."-- San Francisco Chronicle "Elmore Leonard's most exciting book in years."-- The Wall Street Journal The New York Times Bestseller From the Trade Paperback edition. From the Inside Flap ve of the Spanish-American War, Elmore Leonard's electrifying novel takes off like a shot.xa0xa0A spellbinding journey into the heart and soul of the Cuban revolution of a hundred years ago, Cuba Libre is an explosive mix of high adventure, history brought to life, and a honey of a love story--all with the dead-on dialogue and unforgettable characters that mark Elmore Leonard as an American original.Just three days after the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor, Ben Tyler arrives with a string of horses to sell--cover for a boatload of guns he's running to Cuban insurgents, risking a firing squad if he's caught.This cowboy's first day ashore sets the pace for a wild ride to come.xa0xa0He sells the horses to an American planter, Roland Boudreaux, who's making a killing in Cuba...meets the man's sparkly New Orleans-born mistress, Amelia Brown, and falls in love...makes an enemy of a terrorizing Guardia Civil officer named Tavalera, and a f Elmore Leonard has written thirty-five novels, including such bestsellers as Be Cool , Out of Sight , Rum Punch , Get Shorty , and Maximum Bob , as well as numerous screenplays. He and his wife, Christine, live in a suburb of Detroit. From the Trade Paperback edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Tyler arrived with the horses February eighteenth, three days after the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor.xa0xa0He saw buzzards floating in the sky the way they do but couldn't make out what they were after.xa0xa0This was off Morro Castle, the cattle boat streaming black smoke as it came through the narrows.But then pretty soon he saw a ship's mast and a tangle of metal sticking out of the water, gulls resting on it.xa0xa0One of the Mexican deckhands called to the pilot tug bringing them in, wanting to know what the wreckage was.xa0xa0The pilot yelled back it was the Maine. Yeah?xa0xa0The main what?xa0xa0Tyler's border Spanish failed to serve, trying to make out voices raised against the wind.xa0xa0The deckhand told him it was a buque de guerra, a warship.Earlier that month he had left Sweetmary in the Arizona Territory by rail: loaded thirty-one mares aboard Southern Pacific stock cars and rode them all the way to Galveston on the Gulf of Mexico.xa0xa0Here he was met by his partner in this deal, Charlie Burke, Tyler's foreman at one time, years ago.xa0xa0Charlie Burke introduced him to a little Cuban mulatto--"Ben Tyler, Victor Fuentes"--the man appearing to be a good sixty years old, though it was hard to tell, his skin the color of mahogany.Fuentes inspected the mares, none more than six years old or bigger than fifteen hands, checked each one's conformation and teeth, Fuentes wiping his hands on the pants of his white suit, picked twenty-five out of the bunch, all bays, browns and sorrels, and said he was sure they could sell the rest for the same money, one hundred fifty dollars each.xa0xa0He said Mr.xa0xa0Boudreaux was going to like these girls and would give them a check for thirty-seven hundred fifty dollars drawn on the Banco de Comercio before they left Havana.xa0xa0Fuentes said he would expect only five hundred of it for his services.Tyler said to Charlie Burke, later, the deal sounded different than the way he'd originally explained it.Charlie Burke said the way you did business in Cuba was the same as it worked in Mexico, everybody getting their cut.xa0xa0Tyler said, what he meant, he thought they were going directly from here to Matanzas, where Boudreaux's sugar estate was located.xa0xa0Charlie Burke said he thought so too; but Boudreaux happened to be in Havana this week and next.xa0xa0It meant they'd take the string off the boat, put the horses in stock pens for the man to look at, reload them and go on to Matanzas.xa0xa0What Tyler wanted to know, and Charlie Burke didn't have the answer: "Who pays for stopping in Havana?"That evening Charlie Burke and Mr.xa0xa0Fuentes left on a Ward Line steamer bound for Havana.It was late the next day Tyler watched his mares brought aboard the cattle boat, the name Vamoose barely readable on its rusted hull.xa0xa0Next came bales of hay and some oats, one of the stock handlers saying you didn't want a horse to eat much out at sea.xa0xa0Tyler stepped aboard with his saddle and gear to mind the animals himself.xa0xa0That was fine with the stock handlers; they had the cattle to tend.xa0xa0They said the trip would take five days.It was back toward the end of December Charlie Burke had wired: FOUND WAY TO GET RICH WITH HORSES.He came out on the train from East Texas and was waiting for Tyler the first day of the new year, 1898, on the porch of the Congress Hotel in Sweetmary, a town named for a copper mine, LaSalle Street empty going on 10:00 a.m., the mine shut down and the town sleeping off last night.Charlie Burke came out of the rocking chair to watch Tyler walking his dun mare this way past the Gold Dollar, past I.S.xa0xa0Weiss Mercantile, past the Maricopa Bank--Charlie Burke watching him looking hard at the bank as he came along.xa0xa0Tyler brought the dun up to the porch railing and said, "You know what horses are going for in Kansas City?""Tell me," Charlie Burke said."Twenty-five cents a head."They hadn't seen each other in almost four years.Charlie Burke said, "Then we don't want to go to Kansas City, do we?"He watched Tyler chew on that as he stepped down from the dun and came up on the porch.xa0xa0They took time now to hug each other, Charlie Burke's mind going back to the boy who'd come out here dying to work for a cattle outfit and ride horses for pay.xa0xa0Ben Tyler, sixteen years old and done with school, St.xa0xa0Simeon something or other for Boys, in New Orleans, this one quicker than the farm kids who wandered out from Missouri and Tennessee.xa0xa0Charlie Burke, foreman of the Circle-Eye at the time, as many as thirty riders under him spring through fall, put the boy to work chasing mustangs and company stock that had quit the bunch, and watched this kid gentle the green ones with a patience you didn't find in most hands.xa0xa0Watched him trail-boss herds they brought down in Old Mexico and drove to graze.xa0xa0Watched him quit the big spread after seven years to work for a mustanger named Dana Moon, supplying horses to mine companies and stage lines and remounts to the U.S.xa0xa0cavalry.xa0xa0Watched him take over the business after Moon was made Indian agent at White Tanks, a Mimbreno Apache subagency north of town.xa0xa0The next thing he saw of Ben Tyler was his face on a wanted poster above the notice: $500 REWARD DEAD OR ALIVEWhat happened, Tyler's business fell on hard times and he took to robbing banks.xa0xa0So then the next time Charlie Burke actually saw him was out in the far reaches of the territory at Yuma Prison: convicts and their visitors sitting across from one another at tables placed end to end down the center of the mess hall.xa0xa0Mothers, wives, sweethearts all wondering how their loved ones would fare in this stone prison known as the Hell Hole on the Bluff; Charlie Burke wondering why, if Tyler had made up his mind to rob banks, he chose the Maricopa branch in Sweetmary, where he was known.He said on account of it was the closest one.Charlie Burke said, "I come all the way out here to watch you stare past me at the wall?"So then Tyler said, all right, because it was where LaSalle Mining did their banking and LaSalle Mining owed him nine hundred dollars.xa0xa0"Four times I went up the hill to collect," Tyler said in his prison stripes and haircut, looking hard and half starved.xa0xa0"Try and find anybody in charge can cut a check.xa0xa0I went to the Maricopa Bank, showed the teller a .44 and withdrew the nine hundred from the mine company's account.""That's how you do business, huh?""Hatch and Hodges owed me twelve hundred the day they shut down their line.xa0xa0They said don't worry, you'll get your money.xa0xa0I waited another four months, the same as I did with LaSalle, and drew it out of their bank over in Benson.""Who else owed you money?""Nobody.""But you robbed another bank.""Yeah, well, once we had the hang of it...I'm kidding.xa0xa0It wasn't like Red and I got drunk and went out and robbed a bank.xa0xa0Red worked for Dana Moon before he came with me, had all that experience, so I offered him a share, but he'd only work for wages.xa0xa0After we did the two banks I paid Red what he had coming and he bought a suit of clothes cost him ten dollars, and wanted to put the rest in the bank.xa0xa0We're in St.xa0xa0David at the time.xa0xa0We go to the bank to open a savings account and the bank refused him.xa0xa0I asked the manager, was it on account of Red being Warm Springs Apache?xa0xa0The manager become snotty and one thing led to another....""You robbed the bank to teach him manners.""Red was about to shoot him.""Speaking of shooting people," Charlie Burke said, prompting his friend the convict."We were on the dodge by then," Tyler said, "wanted posters out on us.xa0xa0To some people that five hundred reward looked like a year's wages.xa0xa0These fellas I know were horse thieves--they ran my stock more than once--they got after us for the reward, followed our tracks all the way to Nogales and threw down on us in a cantina--smoky place, had a real low ceiling.""The story going around," Charlie Burke said, "they pulled, Ben Tyler pulled and shot all three of them dead.""Maybe, though I doubt it.xa0xa0All the guns going off in there and the smoke, it was hard to tell.xa0xa0We came back across the border, the deputies were waiting there to run us down.""Have you learned anything?""Always have fresh horses with you.""You've become a smart aleck, huh?""Not around here.xa0xa0They put you in leg irons.""What do you need I can get you?""Some books, magazines.xa0xa0Dana Moon sends me the Chicago Times he gets from some fella he knows.""You don't seem to be doing too bad.""Considering I live in a cell with five hot-headed morons and bust rocks into gravel all day.xa0xa0I've started teaching Mr.xa0xa0Rinning's children how to ride the horsey and they like me.xa0xa0Mr.xa0xa0Rinning's the superintendent; he says to me, 'You're no outlaw, you're just stupid--a big educated fella like you robbing banks?'xa0xa0He says if I'm done being stupid I'll be out as soon as I do three years."Charlie Burke said to him that day in the Yuma mess hall, "Are you done?""I was mad is all, those people owing me money I'd worked hard for.... 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