The Empty Hammock (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was sunny outside, when Ana woke up. She was lying on the ground with cloths thrown over her. Oh no, what did she do with Guani? She couldn’t remember anything after waking up and talking to her mother and brother.

Orocobix was standing at the other end of the hut, his expression harsh. His insides clenched with anger and for the first time in his life he felt like killing a man. Tanama was standing beside him, smiling smugly.

“Ana,” Orocobix’s voice grated in the silence of the morning, “tell me it’s not true.”

Ana squinted in the sun-dappled interior of the hut and saw the fierce anger in his expression.

“It’s not true,” she repeated dutifully.

What is not true?

She fell asleep wondering if she was mentally challenged and woke up with an angry chief looming over her like a mountain.

“I saw them,” Tanama hissed somewhere over her head. “He was putting her to bed covering her body with the cloth. His hands were gently caressing her and he was telling her that he loved her.”

Ana inhaled deeply, she couldn’t remember doing anything with Guani, except seeing his spiky lashes close to hers and hearing his impassioned declaration; then she woke up in the future. In that vortex of time she had no idea what happened. Then again, she must have fallen asleep after that hotly charged episode which would mean that they did not do anything.

Her heart felt lighter, she must have fallen asleep and Guani tucked her in. Who knew what the balance was between dream and reality. She was beginning to hate this dream, it took too much emotion. She was conversing with a people who no longer existed and she did not have the energy for petty jealousies and angry spouses.

Orocobix was clenching and unclenching his fist, his face contorted with pain. Despite herself, Ana felt guilty, she had encouraged Guani last night, she did feel a reluctant attraction toward him, but mostly she was curious to know if he would have acted on that attraction. Call it a scientific evaluation of whether there was adultery in the Taino culture.

“I am going to kill him,” Orocobix said quietly. His back was ramrod straight and his eyes accusatory as he stared at his woman. He did not expect her to betray him, and with a much younger man at that.

“No,” Ana gasped, “you would not do that, you are a people who know no violence.”

Tanama smirked, “kill her too, she encouraged him.”

Orocobix hung his head and looked through the door of his hut, the people were gathered outside, their faces curious. He would have to prove that he was in charge of his household. He had danced in the rain last night and then went to the Behique’s for a long time, to talk—too keyed up to sleep; he must have fallen asleep there. Tanama woke him up when the dawn light was barely touching the sky, frantically telling him that she just saw Guani leaving his house.

He felt the tight bands of pain around his heart again. He looked at Ana; her hair tumbled around her face, bewilderment in her eyes.

Why would she betray him?

He was the Chief. Guani was just the son of a chief from another village.

“Listen to me,” Ana jumped up from the ground and faced him. “I did not sleep with Guani, don’t listen to her,” she pointed at Tanama, “she just wants to poison our relationship.”

Orocobix snorted and stalked from the hut.

Tanama smirked at her, “you will be going at the bottom of the hill soon, sister. As second wife, I will make sure that the rest of the village knows that you are just a mad dreamer.”

Ana rolled her eyes and watched as Tanama stalked off.

Tanama walked some distance from the Chief’s hut and smiled to herself. That was easy, next thing would be to marry Orocobix and then ensure that the villagers turned against Ana. That would not be too hard, with her dreaming and foolish talk of being from the future. She looked behind her to see if Ana was following and slumped beside a cotton tree.

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” Guani said some distance from her, “nothing happened. We were hugging and she fell asleep on my shoulders, just like that, she was out. She didn’t respond to my voice.”

Tanama nodded and then got up. “Who cares? The Chief might kill you. After all, you touched his woman. He probably should kill her too. I’m going to help the women to repair the damage to the yam vines.”

******

The days blended into the smooth placidity of an era where there was no hurry, food was abundant, and people were happy.

Ana tried to teach them that they had organs inside their bodies that could be injured through certain practices. They only looked at her wide-eyed, not comprehending most of the terms she used. They bathed at least four times a day; they were constantly in the sea or in the river or engaging in some water sports.

They washed everything in the sea; it was thought that the sea god would cleanse everything. The water and the salt must have been good purifiers because they were rarely sick.

Ana laughed when she remembered the decree that Queen Isabella had sent after the Spanish had set up shop in the new world. The decree stated that they were to discourage the natives from bathing so much because it was bad for their health.

She tried to teach them of other lands across the sea, but there were not many words in their language that she could use to impart these burning geography lessons. After teaching them the basics of the Spanish language they lost interest, there were always other things to learn.

Guani went back to Maima the day after her showdown with Orocobix. He did not tell her goodbye, he looked at her sadly, his eyes filled with tears. His brother, Macu, and their servants hurried him along. At least Orocobix did not kill him as promised. She was relieved for that. The matter was laid to rest, no one mentioned it and the only reminder was the stony silence that Orocobix maintained toward her.

Basila tried to teach her how to cook using their crude tools, so Ana spent many days at her hut. She was reluctant to go home because Orocobix refused to acknowledge her presence.

She was feeling lonely and strangely depressed. Orocobix was the reason she loved this time and he began to spend more time away from her, sometimes looking at her with pain in his eyes. There was no reasoning with him, and after a time, the urge to do so evaporated.

She was lying in the hammock under the palm trees when she felt a shadow over her; she glanced up slowly and looked in Tanama’s pretty face.

“What?” Ana snapped impatiently.

“I am going to be joined to the Cacique,” Tanama squealed happily. “He just told me.”

“Great,” Ana said laconically. Her heart was beating hard and she felt the pinprick of tears at her eyes.

Tanama smirked; “I always wanted to be his wife.”

Ana got up, and walked toward the end of the village, so this is it. She wished she could wake up from the dream now, she was not sure she could take it any longer.

She sat down hard in the grass and howled. She wanted her old life back, and damn the fifteenth century, and discoveries, and people who could not appreciate her warnings.

Orocobix watched her from the thickset trees around the river. Who was she really, this woman that he knew since he was a child? What was it about Guani that she had found so fascinating, enough to put their love in jeopardy? He grabbed the trunk of the tree and tried to harden his heart against her, he had to take another wife anyhow. Why was it upsetting her so much? It was the way of the people.

Besides, her predictions of strange men had not come to pass and perhaps, it never would. With the elapsing of time he was considering Ana’s talk as just a tale. Many moons had passed, and life was just going as it should.

He faced the unpleasant thought that he might have to put her at the bottom of the hill. The villagers were murmuring about her strange ways.

He heaved a sigh of frustration and walked back to camp, away from the miserable visage of the woman he loved.

******

April 24, 1494. They woke up after the storm to a bright sunny day and found Francesco lying face down in the mud. He was dead. No one spoke about his demise, they just quietly buried him in a copse of trees near the settlement and put a crude cross on the mound where his body laid.

Colón was the only sad one in the group, he kept blaming the Indians for their boldness and he looked disheartened. No one else pointed out that the ex-monk was killed with a sword, a weapon that the natives were unfamiliar with.  Dr. Chanca was furiously writing about the incident, how the Indians had revolted and killed a man of God.

The natives certainly looked happy when they saw who it was that was being buried. This probably lent credulity to what Chanca thought. No one spoke openly against the mad monk. Each man in the hut that night was wondering who had the guts to put an end to such a miserable human being.

Juan and Pablo followed Colón from the camp to the ships, they steered their ship after the Admiral’s and waited patiently while he named a lush looking island, Juana. They set up camp with a group of natives, who were still bright-eyed and trusting. They searched for gold but found none. The natives grew masses of pineapple and they ate to their hearts content.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The date was May 5 when they arrived near the island that the natives on Juana said had gold. When he looked out at sea, he saw a gathering of their boats; there were many men, the scowling expressions on their faces horrific. They had what appeared to be long sticks clutched in their hands as they watched the approaching ships.

The island was the most beautiful one he had yet seen. The water nearing the coast had varying shades of blue, the breezes gentle and he could see flowers hugging the hillsides, there were blue-tinged mountains in the distance, and their peaks towered over the coastal region.

They had to avoid the hostile Indians on the sea; their number was far too great for the Spanish to overcome them in battle. Instead, they stopped at a harbor, which was hugged by trees. The horseshoe shaped harbor with the prehistoric rock formation, did not have fresh water. Nobody bothered to anchor and mindful of the savage looking Indians out at sea they went to another harbor.

The place was breathtakingly beautiful, even his most cynical men were speechless. They docked at a place that had a stream running into the sea; the place had crystal clear water gushing from the side of rocks. Colón had tears in his eyes. “This I will call Santiago, it must be the most beautiful place on earth.”

Juan could feel the emotion and he left the ship with his men and joined Colón on the shore. If this place had gold, he could see himself living here forever.

“This I will call Rio Bueno,” Colón pointed to the green snaking water that started at a waterfall and lifted his hands to the heavens, “now I know a piece of what Adam and Eve felt in the glorious garden.” 

Juan sensed the premonition, that had come over him in Cádiz, once more. His heart was beating heavily and his whole body felt alive.

They were surprised when out of nowhere; men with sticks and stones appeared and ran towards them screeching at the top of their lungs.

“Quick Pablo, the dogs,” Juan released the dogs they had on board the ship and the angry Indians sprang back alarmed.

A female came out of the group of men and told them something, they hung back behind her looking scared. She looked them over, her gaze rested on Colón knowingly and then her eyes sought his.

She was beautiful. She was taller than even some of the men around her, her hair reached her mid-back and she had shells and a feather attached at the end. His eyes roamed over her skirted figure. This he realized meant that she was married. She looked at them defiantly her eyes glittering with defiance.

This is it, Juan thought, a drumming in his head. This was the reason for him to have come to the new world.

******

Ana could hardly believe that they were finally here.

One minute she was about to go into the canoe with Cuyo and Farisa and the next the Spanish were here.

She expected drum roll or lightning from heaven or a voice intoning, ‘this is the beginning of the end.’ She drank in the scene avidly; Cuyo was bleeding profusely from the dog bite on his legs. The snarling dogs were bristling with energy. The man who ordered the attack on the natives was staring at her intently as if she was his last meal. She counted at least thirty of them and she could see more men on the ship.

So that is how the ships of old looked. There were four ships; two of them looked like the old pictures of the Pinta and the Niña in her history books. The others were much larger than she had imagined. The man who was staring at her intently had come out of that one and the shorter man at his side had come from the other.

Orocobix stood at her side and he gave her a long look of awe before he turned to the strange men. They were pale and they had on many cloths, even some on their heads and feet. Ana had been right, so this was it then, the end she had been telling them about for days now. He shuddered as he remembered the graphic description of his people’s demise that she had regaled them with.