“This one’s mine for taking the time to help you.” Flashing tobacco-stained teeth in a cockeyed grin, he pocketed the coin. “This fisherman, he’ll take you for the other two dollars. That will leave you with no money in Havana. Unless you have more, hidden away maybe?”

“No, Señor Balbontín. Está es todos.”

Tío Enrique pulled a thin, twisted brown cheroot from his shirt pocket and lit it. Will looked hungrily at the glowing tip, the smoke.

“Quiere un cigarro?”

“Very much,” said Will, trying, without success, not to sound too desperate.

The cheroot was the tobacco equivalent of moonshine whiskey, and Will gagged when he drew the smoke into his lungs.

“Ohe! You do not inhale these like they are cigarettes,” Tío Enrique said, laughing.

“Can I get cigarettes around here? American cigarettes? Duke’s?”

“I will see. But that will cost you something. Here, take these to last you. My favor to our yanqui guests.”

He gave Will half a dozen cheroots, then planted his hands on his knees and stood up.

“All right. Who are the two injured ones? Rosaria has something for you. You will be good as new in no time. She knows her stuff.”

Will asked for a moment to explain what was happening to his friends. When he was done, he and Eliot followed Tío Enrique outside into the gathering twilight, the sky a velvety purple in the west, candle- or lamplight slivering through the cracks in the shutters of the bohíos, palm fronds rattling in the breeze.

“I ain’t drinking any hag’s potion,” Eliot grumbled as they entered a hut.