As Charlie Burke reached him Tyler said, "You can't miss those fellas, can you?"

Charlie Burke glanced back at them but didn't say anything.

"They come off that ship. I guess visiting, 'cause they look army to me, cavalry."

"The ship's the Alfonso XII," Charlie Burke said.

He kept staring at it while Tyler waited for him to say something about the horses, still a little wobbly but all were safe and sound; or to tell him he looked like a grub-line rider and ask how come he hadn't bought any town clothes. But it didn't seem to be on his mind.

No, as his gaze moved he said, "That steamship yonder's the City of Washington. And that pile of scrap out there-you know what it is?"

"I was told a warship," Tyler said.

Charlie Burke looked at him now. "You don't know, do you? You were at sea. That's the USS Maine."

"One of ours?"

"What's left of her. Three nights ago, nine-forty on the dot," Charlie Burke said, "she blew up."

Tyler said, "Jesus," staring at the twisted metal sticking out of the water. "What about the crew?"

"Over two hundred fifty dead so far, out of three hundred seventy officers and men."

"What caused it, a fire?"

"That's what every American by now wants to know.

What or who caused it, if you get my meaning."

"You were here when it happened?"

"We got in about six on the fifteenth, checked into the hotel. Nine-thirty that evening we went to suppermpeople here don't eat till it's time to go to bed. There was two explosions, actually, one and then a pause and then another one. The glass doors of the cafe blew in, the lights went out-I think every light in the city. Everybody in the place ran outside. It's pitch-dark in the street, but the sky's all lit up and you could hear explosions out there and see what looked like fireworks, Roman candles going off." Charlie Burke shook his head, more solemn than Tyler had ever seen him.