Taino (35 page)

One hundred fifty-nine.
Message of the
cohoba
, a way to guard the survival.

I sat with Enriquillo and the
behike
for two days. I fed on bits of
cassabe
and dried fish and drank the juice of
guayaba
and other fruits of our trees. Everything of my
cohoba
they would know and interpret, and I told them everything I could.

“The ones who would murder you,” I said to Enriquillo, after hearing Guarionex's message. “We should guide them to the gold. A few bars of the bullion that you have left we can put in their path, with which to knock them into our trap.”

This was agreeable as the method has worked before, though the details remained shadowy. I mentioned Valenzuela and Pero Lopez as likely culprits, among others. And I prepared a written message for Lopez, an invitation for him and Valenzuela, the offer to meet and exchange gold bullion for a pardon and good terms for Enriquillo. I suggested the use of the good friar as a go-between, to confirm the gold exchange and the manner of the pardon. This, too, was agreeable.

The message I wrote with the point of a fishing hook on leaves of the
copei
tree. This broad leaf will maintain such an inscription forever. I saw it used by Captain Hojeda early on in the conquest, and he would fool our people often by sending messages to others in ways that appeared divination to us.

With Doña Mencia I talked about Catalina Diaz and her daughter Julia, who work on the Valenzuela estate. If the would-be murderers can be diverted and a real peace is possible, I promised that it would be Julia who would deliver the message.

Enriquillo himself took me to my horse, crossing the lake accompanied by eight canoes. I felt very connected to the young
cacique
and loved everything about him. We found my poor mare, Cariblanca, quite molested by red ants during my absence. She was a bit wild, and it took me an hour to calm her down. “The good friar gets full of ants like that,” Enriquillo commented. Then he instructed me with great certainty: “I do not want him near the peace negotiations. Later, to guarantee the safe passage to our new community, yes. Then he would be useful. But not now, not for this mission of peace pact, when calm must be at the center of our discussions.”

I took this as an order from him.

Cacique
that he is, Enriquillo then listed for me the core of his negotiating conditions: “I must have these four things: One, the embassy must come from the king himself. No one from the island will I speak through. Two, the king must guarantee full pardons and freemen status for all our people here. Three, he must guarantee land and our own community. And lastly, the law should deputize my captains to guard the peace and manage the arrest of future runaways. Thus we will keep our weapons and our power to travel the roads.”

One hundred sixty.
I conduct a strange ceremony.

I did the old peace-pact orations with the captains during my final days at Enriquillo's camp. I offered this to follow the instructions in the
cohoba
, to cleanse the warriors of so much violence. Our pine tree resin the
behike
had shaped in candles for me, and the altar I set up as Guarionex had shown me. Then I called on the fiercest warriors to come into my discipline that I carry from those times.

Tamayo was the hardest, but even he believed in me when I knelt him down facing the fire of the resin and its smoke and I asked him to feel it in his chest. I implored him then to open up the throat, the ears, try to use the eyes, deliciously, to love the world again, what he might see or sense of being alive.

Tamayo's mother had been disemboweled, his father burned alive. In reprisal, these past few years, he had killed much. “I have liked it,” he said, his voice quavering. I asked him to cry if he must and he did. He cried vigorously. Tamayo has been very hurt. “You've made me cry, uncle,” he said after the ceremony. “I hope peace is truly our new way. Because war will be harder now.”

I worked on young Cao, who, to my dismay, had killed almost a dozen times. Of all of them it was young Cao surprised me the most, as he truly had killed without bother and had no remorse to clear away.

Astin the Lucumí, a veteran from the rebellion of enslaved Africans at Don Diego Columbus's sugar mills in 1522, was another hard one. He helped hang many whites during that rebellion, even one or two who were friends. “Ever since, I have killed Castilians,” he said. “By myself, more than twenty men.”

So much hatred came quickly out of the men that I became concerned lest they surrender their fighting spirit too soon. One plan I could not get out of my mind: the capture and just punishment of Valenzuela and the monster Pero Lopez. Tamayo it was, I felt, that must set the trap for Valenzuela and Pero Lopez. In the midst of my doings with them, I was suddenly certain, in a darkening of heart, that I wanted Tamayo and his most experienced killers to do that job. Tamayo and Cao and the Lucumí, I knew, would kill Valenzuela, would kill Pero Lopez, if given the chance.

I enlisted Tamayo for the ambush of Valenzuela and Lopez then, and on his own he picked Cao and Astin and three others to go along. I would lure the men to their trap, where they expected gold. The rest was left open, though Tamayo hated Valenzuela immensely, and I knew, in my revengeful heart, survival was not likely for our former masters. A strange ending such talk provided to a cleansing ceremony, and Enriquillo avoided having to approve the plan. I did feel twisted, behind my eyes, and I noticed later the
behike
disappeared to the woods without saying good-bye.

One hundred sixty-one.
At the convent, Las Casas returns.

Las Casas is back. He returned quietly, day before yesterday, on a busy morning when four other ships came in. From my high window, I saw him enter the convent, hiding under a cape. The next evening, Fray Remigio came for me. “The good friar wants to see you.”

In his main room we met, Fray Remigio quietly withdrawing after ushering me in. Las Casas sat in darkness by the window. “Do not look upon me,” he said. “I may or may not be here yet.”

He would go out this evening, and he intended the next day to come in overland, as if from La Plata, he said, to dissimulate his comings and goings. “That way, maybe I was in Spain, maybe I was not, but on the mainland or in Cuba.”

“I am happy not to see you again,” I said, following his logic. The logic was not strange considering that assassins have tried to kill the good friar. He ignored my remark.

“I have had your letter,” I informed him. “The news of Barrionuevo has reached the baby boy, who is willing to entertain a real peace.”

“Excellent,” Las Casas said. “It is of great importance that I carry word of the rebellious
cacique
myself. I must have an exact idea of his demands when Captain Barrionuevo arrives.”

“Enriquillo has formulated his own plan on this,” I said, feeling guarded about the priest's willingness to command the negotiations with Enriquillo.

“The final crisis for Enriquillo is upon us,” he pressed on. “Barrionuevo arrives in days. I have things set up so that the results of Enriquillo's treaty with Barrionuevo will be taken immediately to Spain, where several orders are ready to carry our demand.”

“What demand, Father?”

“The abolishment of the
encomienda
, of course.”

I was quiet and decided not to oppose him. The good friar is like that; once a goal enters his mind, he does not deviate. I was glad for the clarity of Enriquillo's final instruction to me. I love the good friar, but at that moment I decided myself how to deviate him, by subterfuge, from attending the negotiations. This I write with some shame: at that moment I decided to enlist him in the trap set for Valenzuela and Pero Lopez. In the midst of a peace-pact mission, I cannot get out of my mind and heart the face of Pero Lopez the day he took my son and sold him, and I cannot get out of my mind my joy at the sight of his face when Tamayo corners him. I thirst for the justice coming toward me in this arrangement.

“Enriquillo has communicated this to me,” I said. “Two negotiations he would conduct, good friar. One is with the king's ambassador, Captain Barrionuevo. The other one is with Valenzuela, his former
encomendero
. The second one is the dangerous one.”

“Valenzuela will have to adapt to the king's capitulation, of course.”

“There is danger he would destroy the negotiations, by killing or capturing Enriquillo himself. Such an occurrence, remember, would save the king the embarrassment of making a treaty with the Indian bandit, as Oviedo calls the
cacique
.”

Las Casas said immediately, “How can we shield the
cacique
?”

“A message must be carried to Valenzuela, from Enriquillo, just as Enriquillo makes contact with Barrionuevo. The message will call Valenzuela and his men in a deviant chase, away from the real negotiations.”

“At any time, whatever Enriquillo needs, I will do,” Las Casas offered. “This message I will deliver, if need be, before I leave for the negotiations.”

“I am certain it will soon be time to do so,” I said. Then I cleared my throat, taking my time.

“I have some notes for you,” I said, still clearing my throat. I gave him a stack of written pages. “They are about the early days of Bartolomé Columbus and Guarionex.”

“The Battle of la Vega?”

“It's in there.”

“And Pané?”

“He, too, is in there, how he went to live with Guarionex.”

“I have his little book,” the friar said. “I got it in Seville. Martyr de Angleria had a copy made by Pané himself. It is a wonderful recollection of your people's old tales. I am certainly glad he noted all that.”

“He didn't learn that much,” I said. “Though he always had his nose in somebody's armpit.”

The good friar laughed. He was happy to be back and to get the pages. I slipped away before he could deliver me with instructions. I know for certain now he would attempt to represent Enriquillo and believes he is empowered to do so. That could wreck everything. I need time to lay out my plan and have things ready for when Barrionuevo arrives.

One hundred sixty-two.
I ask Catalina to help me.

Today I sought Catalina. For the fourth day, on awakening, she was in my mind's eye. A message I sent her to meet at the back of the church. I reached from the bench behind her and put a bundle next to her. It was
cohoba
and tobacco. “The baby boy is well,” I whispered. She grunted lightly.

“I must visit the old place where the Ceiba is resting. I must talk with her, in the
cohoba
.”

“I can help you,” Catalina answered. “I will say a birth has come up.”

“I am afraid I would stay in the other side if there's no one to remind me.”

“Yes, I will excuse myself and go with you.”

One hundred sixty-three.
In the woods with Catalina…

We went by way of deep woods, walking north for four days. We wanted to see no one, and we talked little. Mostly she walked ahead of me and set a brisk pace. At night she rubbed my thigh forcefully for a long time with her liniment and strong, thin fingers. Then, in silence, she made her own sleep in her own hammock. Twice I hunted
hutía
, which we roasted at night and ate with
cassabe
torts carried in
macoutís
looped to our foreheads. On the way, we gathered fruit and other things to eat. In 1533, I can write that it is still possible to find the old orchards and even old
conucos
where the herbs and nut crops planted by Taíno farmers forty and fifty years ago still come up and can be harvested.

One hundred sixty-four.
At my old
yukaieke
in the lower Magua country.

Our third morning out I stood in the place where once I chopped wood with a Spanish ax. It was my first time back. The clearing was mostly overgrown, but I did find my old ax handle, and I found the center post to our old
bohío
. Catalina found things, too, which she bundled and put away without showing me.

I propped the old post up between two low, parted branches on a huge
ceiba
tree then lay my back against it. Catalina prepared the
cohoba
and made fire. In this ceremony she would also take the
cohoba
snuff, but only to thank her spirit helpers and Attabei, Great Birthing Mother of Waters, with whom, as a midwife, she is particularly related. Catalina had a double
cacimba,
which she loaded. It went both ways, placing the snuffers into both of our nostrils at once, so we could blow each other's load at the same time. “I have not much powder in mine, so I will come out first,” she said. “Do what you must and return—set your mind to return. Listen for my song, and I will bring you out.”

One hundred sixty-five.
With
cohoba
again, with Ceiba.

That is how we did it, two days ago. And it worked for me just as I hoped. We sat in darkness a good while. The night was early, warm, and dry. We blew together, then separated. Once again I took the trail, only this time I got there on my own. This time, too, the doglike
cemi
walked at my side. “Beloved son,” he told me with his mind as he trotted. “This will not be hard.”

We came to a plateau again. Then it was not a plateau but my old little valley, and I was walking near the brook. Near the water, on a rock I remembered, Ceiba was sitting. She looked only at the water but her body was happy to see me. We had no need for greetings.