Menoyo split the men into smaller units—roughly ten to a team—and ordered them to set up satellite camps, each a couple of miles away. The largest lay in the center under Menoyo’s command, and an intricate network of peasant runners linked the units.
The rebels were putting their stamp on the mountains, creating their own revolutionary village. It was the best way to take on Batista’s larger, well-armed units. Menoyo was creating strike teams, fast and able to move through the mountains more quickly than the soldiers.
Olga had run into one of the satellite camps with her escorts and was coming close to the main camp. Menoyo had gotten word from the runners that Olga was coming, and he had agreed: She could stay, but she had to bunk in a nearby farmhouse.
The sun was setting over Veguitas as the men gathered, some breaking down their rifles to clean, others stringing up their hammocks. The sentries made for their posts on the outskirts of camp.
Olga had never seen so many men with guns. Most were young and dark-eyed, dressed in olive fatigues.
Menoyo was standing in a circle with several others when he spotted the visitor. He already knew about Olga’s brush with the secret police and her escape from the soldiers. As he walked over to her, he could sense she was nervous. But he assured her: She was among friends. This would be her home.
“You’re with us now,” he said in a calm, reassuring voice.
One by one, the men approached her and extended a hand. Some, like Armando Fleites, had come from Santa Clara, and others had been in the student directorio network. At least she didn’t feel like a total stranger.
Roger Redondo was unlike many of the others. Though he came from a hotbed of rebellion, Sancti Spiritus, his parents didn’t approve of him joining the cause. The movement was breaking up families. They wanted him home. But he couldn’t just watch as his friends fled to the mountains to fight, knowing they could die. “I had to go, too,” he said.
Roger Redondo, lead intelligence officer with the Second Front Courtesy of Ramiro Lorenzo
Across the camp, a tall figure in a group of men had his back to her. The group broke out in laughter, and one of the rebels motioned to the central figure and said, “Be careful, we have a lady among us now.”
The man with wide shoulders and thick arms turned around to face her. He had blond hair and rugged features, and when she looked into his eyes, all she could see was blue.
Morgan extended his hand to her and said something in broken Spanish, but she could barely understand him. She felt her head go light as she stood and stared into the stranger’s eyes. She had never seen anyone like him.
Morgan smiled. “I am very pleased to meet you.” He let go of her hand and stepped back.
Olga tried to act as though nothing had happened. She nodded and walked across the camp with her escorts, but after several minutes, she found herself looking over her shoulder and searching for the stranger.
Near the Veguitas camp, a young couple with children agreed to give Olga a cot in their home. It was a simple farmhouse with a wood-burning stove, small windows, and a wood floor.
As she lay down to sleep, Olga kept thinking about her own family. Whatever problems they experienced, they could always depend on one another.
The next morning, the young mother saw her guest’s sadness. “¿Qué pasa? ” she asked. What’s wrong?
Olga looked around the farmhouse and could see that the woman was like her own mother. The clothes for the children hung on a line strung in the corner. The pot on the stove was brewing coffee. Flowers stood in a simple vase.
Olga told her about her life in Santa Clara, the police hunting her down, the other students arrested and tortured. But as they talked, Olga realized that the people in the mountains were even more vulnerable.
Her own problems paled in comparison to what the campesinos in the Escambray had been enduring. City life offered some protections. In Havana, revolutionaries could seek shelter in foreign embassies, and the more sophisticated among them could turn to the press corps. Here in the mountains, there were no safe havens. The Rural Guard could get away with anything. Some of them pulled locals from their homes and beat them senseless in the middle of the night. Until Menoyo and the other rebels showed up, the peasants had no advocates.
“Thank God they are here,” the young mother said.
Olga watched the children playing with dominoes, the tiny wood pieces crashing to the floor and then the shrieks of laughter. No one could guarantee this family that it would survive.
As the sun began to crawl down over the mountains, Olga walked outside. The peaks of the Escambray rose above the trees, creating a cavern of raw nature and elegance that made time stand still. She had never realized how beautiful her country was until now. It made no sense to her that so many bad things were going on in Cuba when places like this, the Sierra del Escambray, were so divine.
As she peered across the open field, she could see someone on a large white horse riding in the distance. As he came closer, she recognized the rider as the stranger she met at the camp, the man she later learned was an Americano. He was the last person she expected to see.
As he dismounted, he was whistling the “Colonel Bogey March,” better known as the tune whistled in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai.
“Hola,” he said. “How are you doing, Olgo?”
Olga held her tongue for a moment. “I am fine, Commander, but my name is not Olgo. It’s Olga—feminine.”
Morgan smiled and stepped back for a moment. “Forgive me, I am still trying to learn Spanish.”
Morgan had finished training the young recruits for the day in target practice and had been thinking about the woman he had met the night before. He didn’t know how to break it to Menoyo, but he asked for permission to go out riding. Several of the farmers had made their horses available to the rebels, so when Morgan showed up at the makeshift stable, he picked the only white mare.
As Morgan and Olga stood outside, the woman came out of the farmhouse. She had recognized the Americano, his presence already known in the close-knit villages around the camp.
The woman had been cooking a meal of roast pork with beans and rice. “Tienes hambre? ” she asked.
Morgan looked puzzlingly at Olga, making it clear that he didn’t understand.
Olga motioned to him as if eating.
Morgan smiled. “Si,” he said.
Some of the peasants feared the rebels coming too close because of the Rural Guard, but the family hosting Olga had long believed in the revolution. They knew Morgan as one of the leaders. They talked about the fighting and the hardships coming to the mountains. Olga stopped to explain to Morgan in what English she knew what they were saying. The greater the rebel forces grew, the stronger Batista’s retaliations against the peasants. The wrath of his soldiers was growing.
Between bites of food, Olga and Morgan kept staring across the table at each other, shifting uneasily in their chairs. Olga had never seen an Americano other than in photographs. The men were usually cowboys with guns, the women decked out in fashionable dresses on the covers of magazines. She was intrigued with Morgan but knew very little about him.
After dinner, over a cup of café con leche, Morgan leaned against the wall in a taburete—a small armless chair used by Cuban farmers—and pulled out a cigarette. Every few minutes, he stopped talking and looked at Olga.
Olga had wanted to see him again, but now she didn’t know what to say. They were in the midst of a revolution, and no one knew where they would be a month from now, or even a week. She followed him outside into the cool night air, the stars looming large and bright.
The rebels were heading out on a mission the next morning, and it could be a while before he returned. The revolution was taking on a new course. What had started as a cat-and-mouse conflict had now become a war.
Morgan lifted his hat, then turned around and faced her. “It’s yours,” he said, surprising her as he placed it on her head. “I’m giving it to you.”
Again, she didn’t know what to say.
Morgan leaned in—as though to kiss her—and smiled. “I will see you. Take care of yourself.”
He mounted his horse and waved good-bye. Olga watched him ride over a steep hill and wondered whether she would see him again.