Conquistadora (10 page)

Four men and two hounds waited on the sand. Ana recognized Severo Fuentes, whom she’d seen on the dock with Eugenio that first day in San Juan. His hat shaded his face, but she remembered his powerful build. Two black men splashed into the water to pull the dinghy to the beach. They were tall, broad, and naked to the
waist but had rolled their pants legs to the knees. When they turned around to pull the boat to shore, the scars on their backs, shoulders, and calves glistened accusingly. Ana averted her face.

As they neared the beach, the two dogs bounded toward them. The terrified men pressed against the dinghy, pushing it toward the larger boat, almost upending it as the hounds swam in their direction. Severo Fuentes whistled. Reluctantly, the dogs backed up, growling and showing their teeth. The other man, who was shorter, caramel-skinned, barefoot, pulled the dogs to shore by their rope collars. Once on the beach, he tied them to a tree. Severo patted their heads, scratched the undersides of their muzzles, said a few words, and turned his back on them as he moved toward the tide line. The dogs paced restlessly, their eager eyes following his figure as he signaled to the men to pull the dinghy to the beach.

Ramón jumped into the giving sand, followed by Inocente’s more cautious step. The black men were about to help Ana, but Inocente motioned them aside. “We’ll help her.”

“Let me carry you”—Ramón reached his arms to Ana—“so that you won’t get your feet wet.”

Severo Fuentes watched with the attitude of someone about to spring into action if needed. Ana was self-conscious about being the only woman among all those men, but she was especially aware of Severo’s expectant posture. She sensed that he was evaluating her, that he’d judge what kind of woman she was by whether or not she’d be carried to the shore.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can manage.” She stepped quickly to the bow of the dinghy and leaped to the sand. In a few quick steps she was on dry land.

“¡Olé!”
Ramón clapped.

“Well done!” Inocente said.

Ana couldn’t see Severo’s eyes but was sure he would have caught her if she fell, and noticed his slight, admiring smile when she didn’t.

With one hand, Ana held down her skirts against the breeze, while with the other, she pressed her hat against her head and mock curtsied.

“Very impressive.” Inocente laughed. “Come, meet the
mayordomo
.”

Severo Fuentes removed his flat-brimmed
cordobés
hat and bowed ceremoniously, unused to such gestures. His hair was a startling
golden color. Ana saw his eyes for the first time, flinty green, behind long, feminine lashes and arched eyebrows the same color as his hair. He had full lips and a clean-shaven face. He was centimeters shorter than Ramón or Inocente, but more sturdily built, with long arms and legs, a muscular torso. He’d obviously taken care to dress for the occasion with a starched white shirt, a light blue sash, a blue
chaquetilla
and pants, and cordovan leather riding boots. He could almost pass for a gentleman, Ana thought, were it not for his hands. They were coarse and tanned, making the hair on them, and on his wrists, shimmer like gold thread in the sun.

Their saddles had been sent ahead with their trunks, but the horses on the beach looked old and shabby. Ana’s resplendent new saddle, a wedding gift from Abuelo Cubillas, now graced the back of a tawny mare with a dull, placid face. It looked as gaudy on the old horse as a tiara on a wrinkled
dueña
.

“
Lamentablemente, señores y señora
, your plantation does not yet boast horses like what I am sure you are used to,” Severo said with a pained expression. Ana pulled down her veil to hide her smile against Severo’s forced effort to erase his peasant’s accent.

“How long is the ride to the house?” asked Inocente, briskly adjusting the cinch on one of the horses.

“A couple of hours,” Severo said. “The paths are overgrown. We’ve cleared some, but now that we’ve begun the
zafra
it’s necessary to keep the workers in the cane.”

As they talked, Pepe, the foreman, directed the slaves to unload the valises and deliver two bunches of plantains and one of bananas, a crate full of fruit, and a couple of casks to the dinghy. The sailors rowed away.

Before Ramón could help her, Ana was on her mount. He shook his head at her agility.

“A woman who rides astride like a man,” Ramón laughed, “is a woman not to be trifled with.”

Again she was drawn to Severo’s reaction, but he’d just turned to mount.

He led them into a trail invisible until they were under its high canopy of thick-trunked, broad-leaved trees. Ana was grateful for her veil; as they entered the path, insects unable to fly on the windy beach began attacking in swarms. Ramón and Inocente flailed and
slapped at their necks, their faces, at the naked skin between cuffs and gloves. But Severo seemed impervious, as secure on his horse as on the ground.

Farther in, the trail widened, but brambles and vines choked the vegetation along both sides. Ana had read that Puerto Rico didn’t have the large four-legged predators one would expect in a jungle. But that was hard to believe given the thick forest and the rustling, screeching, grunting sounds that came from it. When they made a turn, a bright green parrot, the undersides of its wings a startling turquoise, flew across the path, shrieking wildly, spooking the horses and causing the hounds to bark angrily. Farther along, Ana saw a huge snake coiled on a hummock of red dirt, its diamond-shaped head draped daintily over its body.

They rode single file through portions of the trail, Ramón and Inocente managing to keep Ana between them. The dogs stayed on either side of Severo’s horse, their eyes scanning the vegetation, barking at unseen threats. Every once in a while one of them started into the bush, but a whistle from Severo brought him back, as docile, Ana thought, as Jesusa’s pugs.

Pepe and the two slaves, Alejo and Curro, brought up the rear. Pepe rode a mule, but the men carrying the valises and parcels walked on bare feet over the pebbly, uneven terrain. Within a few minutes of entering the forest, the three were far behind. Pepe urged Alejo and Curro to walk faster, his voice growing fainter until eventually it was swallowed into the rustling of leaves and the screech of parrots.

One minute they were in the forest and the next they emerged into an open valley in many shades of green, from pale, almost yellow to olive. Grayish lavender tassels rippled over some fields.

“That’s the
guajana
,” Severo said, “the cane flower that indicates when the stalks are ready for harvest.”

In the far distance, soft-edged mountains stretched west to east. What land wasn’t under cultivation was forested. Scattered over the valley, smokestacks pointed to the sky from the surrounding green.

“Why is there smoke over some and not over others?”

“On those plantations the cane is not ready, or there aren’t enough workers to bring it in, or owners have given up, and left the land and everything on it.”

“They just abandon it?” Inocente asked.

“Some do,” Severo said. “A stack with no smoke during the
zafra
means bad news for the owners.”

“That won’t happen to us,” Ramón said. “Our chimneys will be smoking day and night.…”

They laughed, but the tension didn’t lift until Severo pointed toward a group of buildings to their left. “The windmill over there crushes your cane, and as you can see, your chimney is working.”

“That’s it?” Ramón asked. Severo nodded.

“Hacienda los Gemelos,” Inocente said.

Ana’s throat tightened. On a rise, there was the windmill, and next to it, a chimney spouting thick smoke into the azure sky. To the left of the windmill, a fenced pasture held cattle. Beyond it, there were roofs and the living center of the plantation, still some leagues away.

She’d been moving toward this destination not knowing exactly where it was, what it looked like, but now Hacienda los Gemelos was spread below her, calling to her. She wanted to be on the ground, to feel its rich earth, to smell it, taste it even. Long before she reached it, she knew she’d love this land, would love it as long as she lived. She was eighteen years old, had arrived at the end of a journey that was also a beginning, one that she’d already decided was final. I’m here, she said to herself. I’m here, she told the breeze that rippled the
guajana
. I’m here, she said, to the clear and vast sky, to the winking water on puddles along the path, to the birds in formation overhead. I’m here, she said to herself again and again and was overcome by dread at what lay before her. She shook her head to banish fear, crossed herself, and mouthed a prayer of thanks and a request for courage and strength as she followed Ramón, Inocente, and Severo down the hill into the canebrakes.

The mature sugarcane stalks were over two meters high, so once they dropped into the valley, they couldn’t see over the
guajana
.

“This field,” Severo called back, “is ready to cut. Less than half the potential fields were planted, but we’re still shorthanded. The
macheteros
should reach here by tomorrow afternoon.”

It was midmorning, but the air in the valley was already hot and humid, giving off ripples of heat into the clear sky. Wind whistled
through the sharp leaves of the cane, followed by a clacking sound. Every so often scurrying creatures, like giant rats, crossed the path and frightened the horses. The air smelled of green, wet earth, smoke, and a pervading sweetness.

Swish, thwack, thwack, thump. Swish, thwack, thwack, thump
.

Ana heard the rhythm of the cutters before they reached them.

Swish, thwack, thwack, thump
.

They came to a field where men severed the long stalks close to the ground with one slice of the machete. They removed the long leaves, then stacked the stem nearby. Women and older children bundled and carried the stalks onto the wood-planked beds of cattle-driven carts, the thuds diminishing as the cane grew higher. Bells jangled every time the bullocks moved their heads. Workers grunted. An overseer yelled. Wheels squeaked. But it was the
swish
and
thwack
of the machete against the cane that got under Ana’s skin, the rhythmic cutting as the
macheteros
moved through the fields.

“You can see that several acres are already cleared,” Severo said. “The
macheteros
leave a couple of inches of the stalk from which another crop grows.”

As they passed, the mounted foremen tipped their hats, but if a worker slowed to take a look, a curse, a threat, a shove, and sharp words kept the rhythm going.

Ramón and Severo rode ahead, with Ana and Inocente behind. Severo was explaining things to Ramón, and though Ana could hear only part of what he said, she gleaned the rest. It impressed her how much land was required not only for the cultivation of cane but also for the operations to turn it into sugar.

She’d read chronicles by travelers in the West Indies like George Flinter, whose book so impressed Ramón, Inocente, and don Eugenio. She’d taken notes along the margins of accounts by plantation owners in the Spanish and British isles. She studied their methods and how they managed their land. But looking around the great expanse from her saddle, she realized that little of it had prepared her for her new life. Every one of her senses was alive, and she now understood how abstract her reading had been in Spain. The actual experience was at once familiar but utterly, overwhelmingly foreign.

They reached the main yard before noon. The
batey
was hectic with the comings and goings of women, men, carts, cattle, mules,
children, horses, dogs, stray pigs, goats, and chickens. Leaves and chunks of cane littered the ground. Swarms of flies followed the carts loaded with stalks, and buzzed in bothersome clouds around humans and animals alike. The air was infused with the cloyingly sweet aroma of boiling syrup. Fine gray ash from the chimney covered everything, including the busy workers, the equipment, and the animals, and formed a gray scum over the pond that fed the cattle troughs and provided drinking water for the slaves.

The activity in the
batey
seemed chaotic, but Ana recalled from her reading that there was a strict order to how things were done, and that there was urgency in crushing the cane and boiling its juice as soon as possible after it was cut because the stalks decayed quickly.

“That must be the
trapiche
,” Ramón said as they neared the windmill.

“
Sí, señor
, that’s where the stalks are pressed, with wind power supplemented by cattle. Those big wooden rollers extract the juice.”

“And that’s the bagasse, is that right?” Ana said.

Severo looked back at her. “
Sí, señora
. The by-product is the bagasse. We feed it to the cattle, and also use it for mulch.”

Now that he knew she was listening, he spoke louder and turned his head to make sure that Ana and Inocente could hear him. “Next to the
trapiche
is the boiling house where the juice is reduced into crystals in that series of copper kettles.” He stopped, as if he’d forgotten something. “I’m sorry. Perhaps this is too much now, after your long journey?”

“No, it’s fascinating, isn’t it, Inocente?”

“Very interesting,” Inocente said. “Please go on.”

Severo nodded and continued. “Next to the boiling house is the purgery. Those long trays cool the crystals and allow the syrup to drain into barrels. When the sugar is dry enough, it’s formed and packed into one-thousand-pound hogsheads for market.”

“As I understand it,” Ramón said, “the molasses is used for the production of spirits.”

“Yes. Most
hacendados
keep some to make liquor for their own consumption, but most of it’s sold to distilleries with the equipment to process quantities for market.”

The plantation had been neglected for years; its machinery was ancient. The windmill was on a low rise, its enormous blades in need of repair. The boiling house, purgery, barns, and outbuildings
were patched haphazardly, with huge gaps where the boards were either not long enough or rotted. They rode past the
cuarteles
of the unmarried slaves, two rectangular buildings separated by a dusty courtyard where hens picked at the ground. Behind the barracks, several small, thatch-roofed shacks housed married couples and their children. Behind and around the quarters, random gardens were tended by children too young to work in the
campo
, and by old men and women too feeble to do much else.