The Empty Hammock (16 page)

He remembered the day his father was killed, right here in Maima, by the piercing arrow of a Carib—the time they had captured Yuisa. He was busy building a canoe at the other end of the settlement. He had just chopped a tree, the silk cotton was strong and sturdy and he had known it would have made a good canoe; he wanted to sail as far as to the island with the two horned mountains. The island where he had found Agita washed up from the sea.

The Lucayanos had taught him how to build a canoe with the fire. He was so absorbed that day, with building the canoe, that he had not heard the cry for help to defend his household as the first son. He had reached his father’s house too late. He always regretted that day and had vowed to always protect his family, and his people.

The words of Ana kept coming back to him, ‘peace will kill you all’. He shuddered and then jumped as a hand clasped his shoulder.

“It’s a heavy burden to bear,” Orocobix said seriously beside him.

Oromico’s eyes were wet, and he turned to the younger man, his emotions in his eyes. “It’s not the death I am afraid of, it’s the change.”

He spread his hands wide, “look at this place.” Orocobix turned around to look at the rolling hills, the thick trees and the sea. “Our forefather’s found it, they built villages, and they tended the earth. They found it first.”

“I came to tell you Oromico, that I will be going back to Bieke and I will be taking Ana.”

Oromico nodded his face sad. “What will you do to prepare for the time ahead?”

“Ana told me that the strangers would land at Bieke first. I will have to get myself ready, get some stones together, and sharpen some sticks and make some new bows and arrows. I don’t want the change either. What will you do?”

I will gather as many canoes as possible and we will meet them at sea, ensure that they never put down roots on Maima. Probably we can scare them from Bieke. Probably we can scare them to go home.

Oromico’s eyes watered and they stood in silence for a long time. They both tried to imagine the invasion of their land. They both tried to fight the bleak thoughts in their minds.

******

“Ana.” Orocobix caught her, as she swung from a Mammee apple tree limb. “This is not a fruit to eat.”

He took the apple from her hand and threw it to the ground. “The spirits of dead men reside in them and will haunt you in the night.”

Yuisa was sitting at the base of the tree plaiting her hair with shells and feathers. “I told her, but she would not listen.”

Ana snorted and grabbed another apple; the brown fruit had a rough exterior and she bit into it. “I don’t believe that sort of thing and neither should you,” she screwed up her face as if in pain and howled, “Noooooo.”

Orocobix grabbed her in fright. “I told you not to eat from this tree.” His voice was hoarse.

Ana laughed. “There is nothing wrong with the fruit. I was just playing.”

“What brings you from the council house so soon after my big announcement?”

“We will be leaving tomorrow,” Orocobix said, frowning. “We’ll be going back to Bieke to prepare for the arrival of the strangers.”

“They are called guamikena - white men. I am eager to get back to Bieke. I was getting kind of tired of Maima anyway. Women work all day, and there is not enough playing in the sea. Paradise is to be enjoyed.”

“I’ll tell the rest of the servants.” Orocobix headed toward the village to his servants who were playing a ball game. There were fifteen people to each side and they were trying to kick the ball inside a designated square.

“He is so handsome,” Ana said dreamily as Orocobix walked off, his shoulders broad and his bottom firm. His straight black hair tied with a cotton cloth and a feather stuck into its jet-black roots.

Yuisa grinned and paused while putting in a shell at the end of her plait. “I always wondered if Tanama would get him first but you did,” she said and smiled at Ana guilelessly. “She won’t be a good second wife.”

“He is not marrying anyone else,” Ana said angrily, “he promised. Besides, there might not be time enough for all of that.”

“Why?” Yuisa asked, as she finished her hair and leaned back on a tree root. “Why did the council look so afraid to hear that the gods were here? Why do you say not enough time?”

Ana sighed. “I can see things, Yuisa, and the men who are on Bohio are not gods. One day they will kill us all.”

Yuisa laughed. “I see things too,” she said and looked over at Ana. “And there will never be a day when we will all die.”

Ana snorted. “History says that you will all die.”

“Ana,” Yuisa looked solemn, “I hear things. I know about you claiming to come from a different time. I can’t understand it, but you understand this, we will always live. Our blood will not be totally wiped out. No one can completely destroy our people. We are the people of the earth; the Great Spirit will not completely let us go.”

Ana looked at the certainty in Yuisa’s eyes and heard the conviction in her tones. “I never believed history anyway,” she looked at her friend. “You are probably right.”

“I want to come with you to Bieke,” Guani said, panting, as he approached the tree, shattering the spell of the moment.

“You can’t travel far,” Yuisa said, looking at the youngster. He was beginning to fill out and apart from his un-flattened forehead he was looking better every day.

“I want to go with Ana.” Love and longing dripped from his voice. “I asked my mother and she said I could go if I take Macu. I have not had the sickness for a long time.”

Ana glanced at him out of the fringes of her lashes and she felt a reluctant attraction. Eager, young male, extremely handsome could not bear for her to be out of his sight. She sighed; this did not happen to her, in real life.

“I am coming with you Ana,” Guani said earnestly.

“You mean you are coming with Orocobix and his entourage,” Ana said, looking hard at him.

He looked down at his feet self-consciously and then stiffened his spine.

“I have never traveled outside of Maima before. My father has traveled as far as the island with the two-horned mountain and I have not even gotten the chance to go to another tribe. I am coming.”

Ana shrugged, and then gasped, the two horned mountains was the island of Montserrat, where the Caribs and the Arawaks managed to co-exist.

“Do you know what I hate most about this time?” Ana asked out loud. “I am stuck in one place. I want to travel. I want to know what historians failed to put down. I want to feel the sea beneath my canoe. I want to discover lands.” She was getting excited, “meet the people of Taino fame, Caonabo, his wife Anacaona, and probably Guacanagari.”

Yuisa rolled her eyes heavenward and Guani looked thoughtful.

******

Juan went into the interior where they had last seen Guacanagari. They took six of their men this time. The Arawak guides were not to be trusted, especially now, that they were virtual slaves.

They found the village but it was empty. There were no signs of life; the ever-present hammocks were gone. Even their dogs had disappeared. The Spanish men had started to eat them and said it tasted like goat meat. No wonder the people had removed their pets from the site; if they left them behind they would be someone’s dinner.

Juan sighed. It was probably wise for the old man to leave.

He looked about him at the dense greenery that surrounded the small settlement and mentally thanked the Chief for giving him the gold he had.

Pablo had a subdued look on his face, he too was not pleased with the rest of the men and the way they handled the natives, “do you realize that this is turning into a nightmare?” he turned sad eyes to Juan. “They are good people.”

Juan shrugged; he was still shaken up after the incident with the pregnant native and her sobbing, she had looked at him so gratefully when he had rescued her from Dante. Gold was more important than people right now and the men were hungry for it. If he was to be honest, so were he and Pablo. If Guacanagari had not supplied them with gold, they would probably be just as bad.

“Guacanagari is gone.” Pablo said a fatalistic tone to his voice.

“But we have found gold!” Gianni, one of his sailors, shouted enthusiastically. He pointed to a cave in the side of a hill that was concealed by bushes. There was a thick gold vein and they hadn’t even gone into the interior.

Juan and Pablo smiled for the men’s benefit and watched as they hurried back to the base at Isabella, completely forgetting that they were supposed to stay together for protection.

The trees started rustling unnaturally, and Juan felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand up. He took out his knife and he and Pablo stood back to back.

Some painted men jumped from the trees, screeching at the top of their lungs, they gathered round them in a group and looked at the duo suspiciously.

Juan could hardly count them; they were so many. They seemed to be identical in appearance and he swallowed hard. Could these be the people eating ones? He felt ridiculous holding up the knife with so many of them around him. Pablo was wheezing slightly as if he had run a marathon and was longwinded.

So this was what it was going to come to; death on an obscure island, for the love of gold.

Juan slumped his shoulders. The men seemed to be hissing between their teeth. They circled them and sniffed the air. Not one face seemed amused, all the dark faces before him looked fierce and unsmiling.

A short man clapped from the back of the dense pack and they parted to allow him to come through. He was short and slightly fat, his hair was long and plaited with shells and gold pieces.

A chief, Juan thought fearfully. Only the chiefs wore so much gold.

He spoke in the sometimes guttural, sometimes singsong voice of their language and the men backed away from him and Pablo, their faces becoming more relaxed.

The Chief held out his hand to Juan and he reluctantly took it.
Suppose the man was about to grab him or start to eat him from his hand up?

“I am Caonabo,” he said in halting Spanish. “You saved the life of my sister five moons ago.”

He bowed before Juan and summoned one of his men who carried a perfect chunk of gold. He handed it to Juan and said, “I …been…watching you… for long while… to thank you. You are not like the others, you are Taino.”

Juan bowed before Chief Caonabo and when he looked up they were gone. There lithe bodies disappearing as suddenly as they appeared.

Pablo tremblingly sat on the grass. “He called you ‘tay...no,’ it means the good people.”

Juan laughed shakily. “I thought that was going to be the end of me. I didn’t think helping that woman would have saved our lives.”

Pablo looked thoughtful, “I hate it here. The place is getting too crowded. Things will not go well for them and I’ll hate to see it… Juan?” He looked over at his friend; “we have enough gold, why should we stay in this confusing environment?”

“I heard Colón say he was going exploring in a few days, we could go with him,” he clutched the chunk of gold in his hands. There was that ridiculous urge again that he got when he had first decided to come to the new world. He couldn’t go home to Spain unless he found out why he had this feeling.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They woke up early the next morning; the bleak gray of the horizon shrouded a choppy-looking sea in the distance.

“I am cold,” Ana shivered, in the early morning air; Orocobix threw a cloth over her shoulders.

Guani and Macu were already waiting for them in front of Oromico’s hut, along with the three attendants that Orocobix had brought to Maima.

Guani’s mother stood displeased in the shadows. She was afraid to let Guani go on the trip but his father, the Chief, had spoken. If the boy was to become a man, she had to stop babying him.

The attendants had baskets of food; rolled cassava cakes tied in cloths, dried iguana meat, and even dried fish.

“Gifts for the people of Bieke,” Orocobix said to Ana, as she looked in the basket puzzled.

Oromico came outside from his hut; he blinked in the dim light of the pre-dawn and whistled. “So you leave us again.” He clasped Orocobix by the shoulders and then turned to Ana. “My men will be at sea from now on, keeping watch. Your sayings will not be ignored. Go in peace.”

He stood outside his home, his back straight; looking like the chief that he was—he then spoilt the effect by grinning. “Make sure you bring her back to us soon Orocobix.”

He turned and went back into his hut and Ana looked over at Maima again. She had no idea when she would return, if she ever would. They were heading downhill when Yuisa ran behind them and placed a big bar of soap in Ana’s hand. The scent of jasmine wafted up to her and she nodded her thanks.

Yuisa had tears in her eyes. “I’ve always hated farewells, give my love to the family.” she ran back up the hill her black hair swinging behind her.

They were half a mile down the hill from Oromico’s house. Ana was desperately trying to get her bearings to compare Jamaica now to the future. She was also trying to ignore her aching feet as her delicate soles were pinched and prodded by stones and other unidentifiable brush.