Conquistadora (61 page)

The stars cast a gray light over a landscape punctuated by the orange and yellow flickers of torches and candlelight, but below in front of Miguel were blue, angry flames.

“The Los Gemelos fields are on fire,” the soldier said. “That’s unusual at night. I don’t see any men down there, but who knows—it’s dark as a wolf’s mouth tonight.”

Miguel’s attention was drawn to lights and barely discernible buildings beyond the burning canebrakes. “Is that the house?”

“No. The house is El Destino, up there.” The soldier pointed to a yellow flicker in the upper distance. “What you’re seeing, where you
see lights? That’s what they call the lower
batey
, with the old
casona
and doña Ana’s infirmary.”

“Do you think she has any idea that the
cañaveral
is on fire?”

“She’s sure to have seen the flames from El Destino but … I’m guessing … in an emergency she’d be in the infirmary.” He sensed that he might have said too much. “But don’t worry,
señor
, don Severo probably has men on the fires already. He doesn’t miss much.”

Miguel held up his hand to quiet him. “Voices.”

The soldier listened. “You’re right. As I said, don Severo doesn’t miss much.” He slapped a mosquito from his neck and adjusted his hat. He squinted into the darkness and decided he needed more orders. “Maybe I better let the lieutenant know.”

“I’m going down there,” Miguel said. “Is it to the right, when I get to the bottom of the hill?”

“Yes, but if you wait, someone will accompany you.”

“All right,” Miguel said.

“It will take a few minutes.”

Miguel was alone on the overlook, mesmerized by the colors, by the constantly changing patterns of blue, red, yellow, and orange flames against the velvety countryside. Men’s voices rose above the clatter and snap of cane and fire. Every once in a while smoke floated toward him that smelled of burned sweetness. He watched, dazzled by the shapes and fluctuating edges as fire crept in different directions.
“Thank you, Mother Forest, for orange and red.…”
An immense sadness tightened his chest. He couldn’t understand why, when he looked at the glimmering lights, he had the sense that Nana Flora was there, that Nana Inés was there, that Siña Damita was there, and Nena, and his father, dressed in white, just like he was now, waiting for him in the
batey
. His mother was down there, too, but Miguel couldn’t conjure an image of her as he could with the others. She was an elusive phantom. What he knew about her were thousands of words inked upon fine paper, steadfast majuscules curled at the ends, resolute crossbars on
t
’s, adamant tildes over
n
’s, uncompromising dots over
i
’s. She has no idea who I am. His chest felt tighter, and he knew it was the sorrow he’d carried for years. Was it true that she’d traded him for this vast darkness before him? An advancing line of fire danced and crackled in the cane as if in celebration of his return. He had to see her. He had to ask the question he’d never
dared ask in the hundreds of letters he’d so grudgingly written over the last sixteen years.

He could no longer wait for the others. He guided the horse down the slope toward the valley. He wasn’t thinking about the fire now, only that he wanted to reach the
batey
, to see Ana’s expression when she saw him. Would she recognize him? He knew that if he saw her eyes, he’d know the truth.

At the bottom of the path were the flatlands. He went right, as the soldier had indicated. He’d never been in the
cañaveral
, not even as a boy. The horse sensed his uncertainty, but Miguel urged him along the hard-packed dirt, reassuring them both that they were on a well-traveled road. He couldn’t see beyond a few yards, but in a field to his far left, flames rose into the sky and he smelled and felt the sweet, itchy smoke of burning cane. So long as he stayed on the road, he’d avoid the fields.

Soon he heard grunting, urging, pounding, cutting, calling and answering, men cursing. The soldier was right: people were trying to control the spread of the flames. He reined the horse to a halt in the middle of the road to hear better. The workers were closer than he first thought. To his right, the cane sighed and rustled, and Miguel listened, expecting secrets. The unfamiliar horse nickered, resisting the bit, and Miguel shortened the reins. He swept the darkness. A sliver of moon broke through streaks of clouds, and Miguel saw three distinct sources of light. To his right on a low hill was the glow around the mill with its chimney. High over the horizon before him, lights flickered in what he thought was El Destino. To his left, the road stretched between rows of cane, and if he sat up on the horse, he could make out lights in the
casona
where he was born. He spurred the horse toward the lower
batey
, galloping upon the hard earth toward his mother.

As a child he’d tried to avoid reading her letters. As a young man, he rarely answered them. He’d come across the ocean reluctantly, resentfully, to see her, and even before he reached her, he had plans to leave as soon and gracefully as he could. His memory of her was of a stern woman in black clothes who, for reasons he didn’t understand, scared him. Now self-reproach galvanized him. She was his mother, his last blood relative, and he had to see her.

He turned left at the next turn and came upon two men carrying
torches. One of them seemed to recognize him, but the moment Miguel opened his mouth to speak, the men dropped the torches and ran back into the cane.

“Wait,” Miguel called.

Just then a huge cloud of gray smoke enveloped him. The horse whinnied, turned, sprinted into the cane, turned again, bucked, indignantly threw Miguel head over heels, and jounced into the
cañaveral
.

When he regained consciousness, he wasn’t sure where he was. His ears buzzed, and his head felt heavy. He had no memory. No future. He was floating in darkness and space. He didn’t want to awaken, but as he rested on the ground, his senses returned, and he discovered anew that he could feel. The earth beneath him was moist and he clutched handfuls of the sandy soil. He was in the rustling cane.

Miguel recalled falling hard, the sudden puff of smoke and ash that made it impossible to breathe. His eyes hurt, as if needles were prickling him, so he closed them tight. Who were those men, and why did one of them know him? He had to see. When he opened his eyes again, the purple night was speckled with ten thousand blinking, aggrieved eyes. If I die, the slaves will be free. He felt peaceful, noble; the ten thousand eyes blinked. As he watched them watching him, a veil drew across the sky. Creatures scurried past him, and he jerked with a start and a groan. He was now fully awake and aware, the canebrakes towering over him. He ached all over, but every limb, finger, and toe moved and wiggled. There were voices nearby calling his name, dogs barking. He stood but couldn’t see over the cane.

“¡Auxilio!”

He was buffeted by a hot swirl and sparks that enveloped him and struck him down. He crawled upright then stumbled, unable to breathe, to see through the oppressive smoke. He pushed himself up again, called again. Flames surrounded him. The heat was intolerable. He smelled molasses and singeing hair. My own? His mouth filled with sugary burning ash that seared his throat, constricted his lungs. Hot pressure scorched his face. He squeezed his eyes against the smoke and fire, flailed, and cried, and knew he was dying in the
cañaveral
.

But no, I must get out. I don’t want to die.

Coughing, tugging at his burning clothes, his hair, he crawled in circles trying to find a way from the flames.

“¡Auxilio!”

I want to live. I can’t die now, not here. Not even if my death means freedom—

“¡Mamá! ¡Mamá, ayúdame!”

Above the sizzle, the snapping flames, he heard his name. He pushed himself to his knees, “Help me.” He struggled to open eyes boiling in their sockets. Dogs were howling around him, and he was sure he’d arrived at the gates of Hades. I don’t deserve to die. I wanted to free them, but they wouldn’t let me. He heard his name again, turned toward the voice, and forced his scalded eyes to open. The last thing he saw was a golden-haired man running toward him, as if the flames of hell itself couldn’t touch him.

Ana waited on the
casona
porch, gripping the stair rail. Below, the slaves chorused the Lord’s prayer and the Ave Maria she’d taught them. She repeated the familiar words mechanically as she peered into the night and resisted her greatest fear. In the intervals between breaths, she begged a God she rarely appealed to. “Please, Lord.

Please spare Severo Fuentes.”

Fulfilling her request, he hurtled from the cane carrying a pile of rags, followed by Conciencia, Efraín, Indio, horses, dogs. Severo raced past the huddle at the bottom of the stairs toward the infirmary. The bundle in his arms didn’t seem real, but Ana discerned the contours of a body. A foreman, Ana thought, a
jornalero
. She followed them. Severo laid the man on a pallet, and Conciencia hurriedly scissored his clothes. He was so limp and still that Ana was certain he was dead.

“I’m so sorry,” Severo said, putting his arm around her. His face was smeared, and he smelled of embers and charred hair. “He got lost in the cane.”

“Who?”

Efraín hooked an oil lamp on a beam above the pallet so that Conciencia could see better. And although she hadn’t seen her son in nearly sixteen years, Ana recognized Miguel.

“No! No! No! No!”

Severo held her as she looked over his shoulder at her son, his face charred, his hands bleeding. In his dirty white clothes, with his long hair and gaunt face, Miguel looked like Ramón in his last days.

“He’s alive, Ana.” Severo pressed her into his chest, as if to give her some of his strength. Then he let her go. She ran to her son.

“Hijo,”
she said so tenderly that she surprised herself.

He tried to open his eyes. A breathy croak came through swollen lips, unrecognizable as a word.

“No,
hijo
, don’t speak. Let me help you.”

She splashed water over his face, his shoulders, arms, legs. He was a small man, she saw, only a few inches taller than she, which made him look younger than nineteen. He was on a pallet where many slaves had lain, where many had died. She should move him. But where?

“What was he doing in the
cañaveral
?”

Severo shook his head. “Apparently, he thought you were in danger.”

She looked at Severo’s exhausted face, stained with ash, smoke, and dirt. There had never been anyone she could depend on more than Severo Fuentes. He loved her, and she loved him to the roots of her being. As if he’d heard her, he placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you for finding him. And bringing him to me—alive.” Her voice cracked.

“I’ve sent Efraín to Guares for the doctor.”

She nodded and gently poured more water over Miguel’s arms, legs.

“If you don’t need me here, I’ll check on the fields.”

She didn’t want him to leave. “The runaways? Are we—”

“They’ve all been accounted for. Miguel ran into Jacobo and Yayo on the road and spooked them. The lieutenant found them cowering in a ditch. He left a couple of soldiers here for the night.”

She looked at Miguel. With soothing waters, she’d pour everything she’d learned about medicine and healing in two decades over her son’s scalded, torn, and broken skin, and through his cracked lips. She remembered how Meri had fought her, as if she didn’t want Ana to touch her. Unlike her, Miguel lay terrifyingly still even as she and Conciencia poured liquids and daubed unguents over him. She covered the worst burns on his face, ears, neck, arms, and right leg with shredded-potato poultices. With her pocketknife, she snipped the spines along the edges of the largest aloe leaves, sliced them open, and placed them facedown on his limbs until he looked like a bizarre half-man, half-plant creature.

“I’m washing your hands now,” she said. He lay immobile, hardly
complaining even though she was sure he was in terrible pain, but at last he responded to her voice. She’d keep talking to him until he was healed, if she needed to. “The aloe will feel cool,” she said as she adjusted the leaves on his leg, his foot.

He moaned as if in the midst of an anxious dream. His lashes and brows had been singed to the skin. “Don’t try to open your eyes now,
mi niño
,” she said. “I’m covering them with this cloth to keep them moist.”

Conciencia brought a tisane with lavender and cane juice. It had been effective when Meri’s throat swelled from crying. Ana now had to insert a finger into Miguel’s mouth to separate his lips enough to dribble in the liquid drop by drop.

Conciencia hung a curtain to isolate Miguel from the other patients. Lamplight quivered along the outer reaches of the wall. Ana dropped more tisane into Miguel’s mouth and spoke to her son. If she was silent, he dropped into lifelessness. Only her voice roused him.

“Drink,
hijo.
” He swallowed the sweet potion. “You’re home,
hijo mío
. Drink the
guarapo, te lo ruego, por amor a Dios
.”

She wanted to keep her voice strong and confident but heard her desperation, the fear that all her skill with brews and concoctions might be useless. “Help me, Lord,” she said. “Help him, sweet Virgin. Help us, dear Jesus.”

Until earlier that night, she hadn’t spoken to God with such conviction in a long time. She couldn’t count how many sins she’d committed over her lifetime. Of one thing she was sure, though. Twenty years on Hacienda los Gemelos had whittled away her faith until she didn’t trust God.

“I’m washing your feet now,” she said to Miguel.

Just as she’d stripped her body of frills and fripperies in two decades in Puerto Rico, she’d shed religious belief in much the same way the conquistadores did, for expedience. They arrived in the New World with priests and incantations, but the history of the conquest was strewn with their atrocities, their false promises, rape, their bastards, plunder, and murder. They lost their moral center, compromised their faith in the New World. They then erected gold-encrusted cathedrals in the Old World to turn humanity’s eyes toward beauty and away from their sins.