"Head of insurgents. How would I like to run guns for the rebels? But as a business, without taking sides or contributing to the cause. There's no outlay of money either. This delivery coming up will cost the insurgents about twelve thousand. So what they can do, they send a message to one of the sugar planters: "Give us twelve thousand pesos or see your mill burned to the ground." The peso being worth ninety-two cents on the dollar right now. They raise the money that way or get it from people supporting the movement-Cuban cigar rollers in Tampa and Key West. Two-thirds of the money goes for the purchase of weapons, covers expenses and pays the crew of the cattle boat, the Vamoose; and the rest we get for risking our necks. It's against the law; yeah, you can go to jail, but that ain't as bad as if the dons catch you. You either get stood against a wall or they use the garrote on you: strangle you to death."

Tyler watched him rub the back of his neck, like he was feeling to see if he needed a haircut.

"Half the crew of the Vamoose are Mexicans and half are Cubans, the kind of fellas you don't have to worry about.

They load the weapons aboard off a lighter and come up to Galveston for the cows and horses. There isn't much of a duty on beef, they're so glad to get it, so we ship fifty or so head and make a few dollars there. By the time the Vamoose gets to Matanzas the guns are underneath a deck covered with manure. We bring the horses and cows ashore, the Cuban custom inspector takes a quick look below and leaves with a few pesos but without getting anything on his shoes. So now the Vamoose heads east along the coast to where it's been arranged to drop the weapons. A Spanish gunboat stops them beforehand, they can show they've been inspected and cleared customs."

"You've done this already," Tyler said.

"One trip with guns. The next one after this, the fella in Mexico is lining up a Hotchkiss 12-pounder and that Sims Dudley dynamite gun. Artillery's what the insurgents want more'n anything. Or machine guns. Get your hands on some machine guns, you can ask anything you want."