Taino (40 page)

“Vasco was not.”

“He was a ram, a mounting ram,” I said.

We both laughed. In fact, Vasco Porcallo did look like a ram, with irascible, curling sideburns and a compact head and neck. He even walked fast, with head lowered.

I was very happy that Barrionuevo liked me and could share a joke with me. He has his tender part, this Barrionuevo, but he is also an old soldier, one of the old guard, conquistador, capable of complete impunity.

Barrionuevo has said, in my presence: “I am instructed to make peace with Enriquillo, but lacking that, upon my word, the wrath of the monarch himself, ruler of the greatest power on this earth, will be mobilized against him, and then the two hundred or so men I bring, and the authorization that I also bring to enlist into my brigades two hundred more men right here, these numbers will only be as one-tenth the number that I can without reserve count upon from the royal guard, the best of our lion-hearted, whom I will deputize and enlist, and I will myself lead this war to this fugitive
cacique
, and I will burn all of the mountains if need be.”

So today I told him stories all afternoon, and I laughed with Barrionuevo about the characters in the old days, the lion-hearted of whom he speaks that are as heroic and comical to him as they are despicable to me.

May 23, 1533

One hundred ninety-one.
Continuing to work with Barrionuevo.

Rodrigo, too, helps me. He dines with the knight captain each evening, a function to which I am disallowed, as they discuss logistical and potential military needs. But I know he speaks of me to Barrionuevo and dissuades doubt the captain may carry yet about my sincerity. I had some thought of this most intimate of missions as I boarded on ship, but now it is obvious. Barrionuevo is the man to be near, and I am in the right place, by Rodrigo's grace, to feel his
goeiz
.

Today, in the afternoon, as Barrionuevo scanned the coast by long glass, I lay in a hammock and watched, face hidden behind the lace of the net. He searched the coast with his glass in a concentrated stance but saw nothing of what he sought—no sign of smoke or light or movement of any kind that could point to contact with the rebel camps. I watched and watched him then quit watching but felt my gut and chest move in his direction, taking measure of his time so I knew exactly when he was about to quit, anticipating the moment when he took down the long glass and looked my way. My head I lifted at that very second, looking to the coast in my own concentration. This brought him over.

“The search for this
cacique
of yours could be tedious,” he said.

“He seeks not yet for us, my captain,” I said. “After I disembark at Port Yaquimo, I will initiate various messages to Enriquillo's camp.”

“I will find him on the coast, and I will deliver the queen's message to him,” he said, and I was silent. Barrionuevo was not interested in my participation at the negotiations; he merely liked my information.

After a while, he said, “The thing of the ram made me laugh.”

Barrionuevo likes joviality, which is the way to reach him. Barrionuevo was making obvious his enjoyment of my tongue. Vasco Porcallo, whom I served for nearly two years in the Camagüey region, was indeed a comical (and despicable) apparition.

“He was every bit a ram,” I said “He even hopped rapidly about, from one place to the next.” To humor his mood, I told Barrionuevo how Porcallo would take the Cuban girls, one after another, sometimes as many as eight or ten in a single day.

“Most often he did it from behind, like a ram,” I teased. “And sometimes standing up against a post.”

This got a boistorous laugh out of Barrionuevo, who said: “Dieguillo Colón, you nasty old-timer. You are a rascal to remember these things!”

One hundred ninety-two.
Opening the path.

My tongue not only humors but measures Barrionuevo. Today, in his light-hearted nostalgia, I found a path to his mood and put in my pitch. Since in a few days I will leave him to travel ahead by land to the hills of the Bahuruku, I am glad to reach him.

One hundred ninety-three.
Making connection, the change of heart.

As he formally left me, Barrionuevo patted my back. “You have survived a great deal, Dieguillo,” he said. Immediately, I sought and captured his eyes. “So have you, my captain,” I responded, and he nodded. I said then: “And so has the Enriquillo, who is a decent and brave man, a man who wants nothing more than the peace of the land for his relatives and other Indians.”

“Is this totally so?” he inquired, and, yes, I felt trust for my answer in his interrogation.

“Totally, my captain. Show this
cacique
but few soldiers, yet go to his lair. He is a fair man and will not attack an offer to parley. Then, do not threaten violence but show him the monarch's message and capitulate with him in clear language. Pardon issued, he would settle in a quiet farm somewhere, and your Indian war will be over forever on this island.”

I looked into his eyes without fear or bashfulness, and I knew at that moment that peace was possible with this man, a real peace for our remaining free Taínos, with a settlement on land, pride, and authority, and even a community for Enriquillo and Mencia's people. “By the love of the baby Jesus, by the purity of the Holy Mother Mary,” I ventured. “A great war captain could by an act of peace redeem the years of horror on this island with a measure of just finality.”

“I will do my best,” Barrionuevo said, and I believe he means it.

May 25, 1533

One hundred ninety-four.
Cruelties of Vasco Porcallo.

This afternoon Barrionuevo and Rodrigo Gallego talk alone. I am very lucky to have Rodrigo here at this important moment.

I will write about my time with Vasco Porcallo, the man-ram of our joking, who put my remaining son and me to work mining gold at the swampy rivulets near the new town of Sancti Spiritus. Those days in Cuba repeated the events in Española but much more quickly. This time the Castilians arrived in larger numbers, always well stocked and with clear strategy to subjugate our people quickly. In their attacks and raids to take slaves, they chased them from their villages and
conucos
all over eastern Cuba, so that two and more planting seasons were entirely missed. Famine ensued among the Cuban Taíno.

Vasco, a young man of twenty then, but regal in his manner, was granted a huge estate, spawning cattle and sheep and pigs and many planted fields. His foremen organized gangs of gold panners and rakers into regular squads, working long, long days with little food and the constant sting of the whip and the whap of the
planazo
, a blow with the flat of the cutlass or machete that easily turned bloody. Vasco ran his
encomienda
severely. As his raiders took many men prisoners, he would feed them not, but worked them for weeks until they dropped. Sometimes, a few were allowed to go after fruit, when in season. Once several men made a pact to assuage their desperate hunger pangs by copiously eating dirt. They knew, of course, that this would kill them. Vasco was personally insulted. He rescued the men by forcing large quantities of oil and water down their throats, then tied them to posts. If they could eat dirt, he said, perhaps they could eat something else. Then, he cut the testicles off three men and made each eat his own. The act was so horrifying to the people that suicides stopped. For actions such as that, Velazquez hailed Porcallo a “great
encomienda
administrator.”

The obdurate Porcallo was among the most emulated of the conquistador class. And, yes, he was an untiring fornicator who day after day for thirty years passed over our women and spawned hundreds of mestizos. Porcallo was not without plan, however, as he conceived of peopling the region with his new race, the power from his own loins adapted to the land as the offspring of the indigenous woman. He had an accomplice and even a teacher in the old
cacique
of the savanna—Camagüeybax, who arranged many of these couplings and provided young maidens for the man-ram. Once, I tried to scold the old
cacique,
but he refused to be admonished. “War is useless against war-driven people. To pacify them with their own desires is our only protection and our only survival,” he told me. Porcallo put up women who gave him children in their own
bohíos
, and he kept going back to them. Later, he went on to import artisan and even noble families from Spain to marry his first generations.

I hated it, all the fornicating and begetting without lineage, without any sort of guidance from the elder mothers. But having lived another twenty years, I know now that mere survival is our only possible victory. And wonder I do now that Camagüeybax maybe was right. The region of Camagüey is today peopled by our mixed race, and
guaxiro
is a term oft-employed to describe our survival in the loins of Taíno women, seeded by Castilian men. What matters, Camagüeybax would say, is that our old people's eyes and ears, our expressions survive in the generations and not just die away.

Some people say that every mestizo means one less Indian. I agree now with Camagüeybax that inside each mestizo an Indian survives to come through.

May 26, 1533

One hundred ninety-five. Caimán
-hunting days.

My boy and I were fortunate, saved from the killing hunger by the extra food provided through the meat of
caimán
, whose danger I was after some weeks assigned to eradicate by hunting. I was given an old harquebus, dagger, and lance and fashioned for myself several long
bejuco
ropes. Heart of Earth was not allowed to hunt with me but stayed in the gold panning. I fed him much
caimán
that year, and he lived on it. Oils from the
caimán
also I used on him, to rub his water-wrinkled skin that turned to blackened leather on his arms and shoulders. Thus I saved my boy from the open sores that killed many of our miners.

Las Casas I met also at that time. His own
encomienda
was not far away, on the Arimao River, and I was borrowed by his partner to eliminate a reptile on that waterway, a giant beast that had taken a servant boy as he filled casks with water.

I hunted that monster on canoe, by the light of the moon, and saw him one night leave the water to stalk a young calf. Knowing his hunting area, I cleared all animals away, but a young calf we tied in a field not far from the river. With eight men, I waited six nights, and then the giant
caimán
left the water. We surrounded the beast and a long pole we stuck into his snapping mouth. Killing him was easy after that. Las Casas was quite happy, and that night we conversed until the early hours. He was changing his mind about then on the keeping of our people as slaves and not much later gave up his own
encomienda
to take up the campaign for our freedom, a cause he has never relinquished.

I hunted large
caimán
by the dozen for nearly a year and was never hurt. Then, once, while bathing in a quiet little pool, clear as glass and with nothing in sight, a puny
caimán
not three feet long snuck in on me and bit my leg. He was so small, I walked out with him hanging from my thigh and ran him through with a knife, but the damage was done. His long tooth pierced me to the bone just above the knee, the wound festering to high fever until I lost track of all time. It was Las Casas who nursed me, upon hearing the case, and even in my sickness worried twice was I, as Heart of Earth took sick himself from the constant panning in cold, dirty water, and I was certain he would die.

I recovered first. Las Casas, who was still friendly with Velazquez, obtained my son for me. I nursed Heart of Earth myself, feeding him honey paste and fruits, rubbing him down with
caimán
oil and wet
digo
compresses and smoothing out the ridges in his now scaly skin.

Around that time, Ponce de León, who resided in Borikén, heard the tales of the Fountain of Youth, said to be found at Bimini or on the coast of La Florida. He would mount an expedition to find it. Word of this was heard all around, even in Cuba, where a group of volunteers agreed to join. A complex tradition among my people was this story of the Fountain of Youth, referring as it did to our own Taíno movement to the smaller islands (my own Guanahaní among them) and the settlement of new villages. Thus the youthfulness it promised referred to the founding of new communities and the rekindling of sacred
cemis
, not the rejuvenation of old men. But the Castilians took it as enchantment and set out to find an actual fountain.

Heart of Earth, who had recovered, thanks to the good friar, wanted to go along in Ponce's expedition. A young man of fourteen years, he would leave for the port of San German with the Castilian volunteers and reasoned thus to me: “Father of my days,” he said. “Let us go, if allowed. No life is there for us here. I would go and see our days before us. With luck, we might see our people at Guanahaní and maybe find a spot of earth and a people of our copper color who will uphold us.”

I myself applied to the expedition but Velazquez would not permit my going; the young man, yes, he said, after all, he offered everything I could, plus youth. Reluctant was I to see to see my son go, but no true argument against it came to me. Thus, he embarked with Ponce, and I know from later testimony he did land at Guanahaní, where he might have seen my people, and onward they sailed to Bimini and La Florida. On a Florida beach, Heart of Earth one day went out to chop a palm tree, I was later informed, and disappeared. I hope, I pray he walks among our own Taíno people, who previously settled in those parts.

May 27, 1533

One hundred ninety-six.
One
areito
remembered.