The Empty Hammock (20 page)

She was right.

She was not going to the bottom of the hill.

He forced himself to move forward and approach the man who was standing at the front of the others. They smelled funny, like wet ducks, as Bajari had said. He glanced fearfully at the animals that two of the men held, they made a growling noise and had long teeth.

“Are these the cows you accused us of being?” He looked over his shoulder at Ana and pointed at the dogs.

Ana shook her head in a no gesture.

Orocobix turned back to the man and bowed slightly. He was going to be hospitable; the creatures looked like they would eat him on the spot if he made a wrong move.

Ana had said that these men of the many cloths and the wet duck smell would not harm them for many moons to come. By that time, his tribe would be long gone, farther inland where no one would harm them.

Ana’s gaze riveted to the man who she instinctively knew was Cristobal Colón. He was a large man, neither fat or thin, his face was long and his cheek bones high, his eyes were light gray and his hair white, his skin had a reddish pallor and he had several mosquito bites on his arms and face.

He was hand gesturing to Orocobix, putting his hand to his head in a drinking motion.

Orocobix nodded and gestured for the men to follow him to the village. They had plenty of fresh water there. He pointed to the little hill.

Colón nodded and indicated to his men to follow him.

“They are not the only hostile Indians we have come upon so far,” Juan said to Colón. “How can we be sure that this is not a trap? That they are not the man eating ones or related to the ones that tried to attack us at sea.”

Ana spun around and stared at him. The Spanish was slightly different from modern Spanish, the inflexion on some of the words was odd and pronunciation of certain vowels was quaint. So Oromico had done what he promised; sent his men in canoes to guard the sea.

Juan glanced at the girl, the one with the expressive eyes; he felt as if she understood what he just said.  How could that be? She was a native. He frowned and Pablo touched his hand.

“Remember that we have swords and guns. We could easily overpower them.”

Colón nodded and said, “Besides, we are thirsty and our first stop a few yards from here had no fresh water.”

Ana gasped. Discovery Bay. That’s where they stopped first.

Orocobix stood in all his pagan glory and patiently waited, the Spanish men followed him.

They looked hungrily about, their eyes mesmerized at the beauty of the land. When they reached the settlement, the villagers were anxiously waiting. They stared at the men in awe.

The villagers were smiling stupidly, Ana thought. Didn’t they remember anything she told them?

They ran for food and water and brought out their best gifts. A couple of days could not change the nature of a people Ana realized. Even Orocobix who was privy to most of her speeches about the evil men was sitting with them in a circle under the cotton tree. He directed the villagers to make the men comfortable.

The man called Juan was staring at her again.

Orocobix sensed the tension in the man as he stared at his wife and he stiffened.

“Ana,” he called.

Ana jumped slightly, she was busily looking at the men and their mode of dress. It was as if she was transported on the set of an old historical movie. They had on way too much clothes and the men were in stockings. Their thick stockings were mismatched, their sleeves were puffy and the buttons on the tunics were crude. Not quite circles.

A few of them had on just britches and a light shirt along with stockings and shoes. The one called Juan and his companion Pablo were not as ridiculously dressed, he had on only a shirt and britches.

“Ana,” Orocobix called again, slightly irritated.

Ana walked to his side self-consciously, the Spanish men were ogling her breasts. “This is my wife Ana,” Orocobix told the men, He pointed to himself, “I am Orocobix.”

The men nodded uncertainly.

“I don’t understand what he is saying,” Juan said quietly to Pablo, “but it seems as if he is saying that the woman is his and her name is Ana.”

Colón pointed to himself after bowing slightly to a serving girl, “I am Cristóbal Colón, Viceroy of the Indies.” He pointed to Juan, “that’s Vizconde Juan Perez; he owns one of the ships that just came to the island.” He continued with his introduction.

Juan realized that the girl called Ana was not looking as blank as the rest of the natives. There was something about her that indicated that she was not like them. The others looked excited and anxious, even the Cacique was a little anxious. But she was assessing them.

He sat up straighter; this was no docile native with a tender spirit.

Maybe the islands communicated with each other and they found out what the men from Fort Navidad had done to their people. That would probably explain her dormant hostility.

“Hola. ¿Cómo estás?” The Chief said out of the blue. All the Spanish men stopped speaking and stared at Orocobix as if he had two heads.

Ana covered her mouth and her body shook with laughter.

Colón was staring intently at Orocobix. “He learns quickly,” he said to his men. “Who knew that he would pick that up so fast?”

The Spanish men nodded. Some of them were looking at the Chief amazed.

“Muy bien gracias,” Colón replied to Orocobix. “Y tu.”

Orocobix looked at Ana and smiled. “Bien también,” he replied.

Juan sat up straighter, something was not right. No one had that conversation in the few minutes they were on the island.

Unless other Spanish sailors had been here.

“Wow,” Colón said, standing up. The Chief stood up with him, “you people would make good slaves, you learn quickly.”

“And they follow commands readily,” Diego Cruz one of the sailors said remembering his native mistress, “without much fuss.”

Colón nodded, “I will write this down in my journal. I am going to send some of them back to Spain.”

“Not from here,” Juan said quickly, the girl Ana was following their lips and he had that uncanny sensation that she understood them. “Take them from those man-eating tribes.”

Colón grunted. “We’ll decide when we go back to Española. I am sure there is much more land to explore. Where can I get that?” He pointed to the gold around Orocobix’s  neck.

Orocobix took off his necklace, misunderstanding the Spanish man, and gave it to him.

Colón took it in his fist and smiled. “The source?” he asked Orocobix.

Orocobix looked blank, what was the strange pale man saying. Suddenly, the wet duck scent and the intense way the men were looking at his village and casting lustful looks on the women irritated him.

He pointed across the sea.

The men, their pale faces gleaming, seemed excited.

“I knew it,” Colón was saying. “It’s the same thing the other natives said, the island we call Juana has gold.”

Juan shrugged, not really interested, his treasure chest was already full; he could go back to Spain and live comfortably for the rest of his life. His smaller chest, which he used to house his letters and his writing material, was on his ship. He would have to write about this beautiful island while he was here. He would describe the natives, especially the girl named Ana.

He walked away from Colón and his disjointed conversation with the Chief. He walked through the village. It was a small settlement; he counted fifty people including the girl Ana. There were more women in the village than men. There were about twenty men, most of them young.

The oldest man was very wrinkled and gray; he sat in the corner of the village where the trees thickened, staring at him incuriously. This was indeed a strange place, Juan thought, the people were not in awe of them as the other natives they had encountered. This man was downright hostile. He spat on the ground near Juan and then continued smoking his pipe nonchalantly. Smoke curling from his nostrils.

That was one discovery he was not willing to try. Smoke should not be coming from ones body like that. He stopped near the man and in a bid to win the native, he pointed to himself, “I am Juan Perez.”

The man ignored him and stared into space.

“Aren’t you supposed to offer me food and drink and help to make me feel comfortable?” Juan asked exasperated at the man’s lack of response.

He heard a snicker behind him and when he spun around there was the girl Ana.

She took a stick and wrote in the ground, Mayo 5, 1494.

Juan gasped. Surely he was seeing things. How could she even know that that was today’s date?

Before he could react, she rubbed out the date, tears in her eyes and walked away.

CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE

“I tell you, Pablo, I am not going crazy. The girl wrote the date on the ground.”

“Can’t be,” Pablo said, laughing.

“They can’t even count. How would she know that today is even Mayo, much less the year? It is the first time that they are seeing people like us. How could she even tell the date?”

Juan shook himself. Maybe the traveling was getting to him and he had picked up some kind of island bug.

The girl wrote the date and she had tears in her eyes. The Chief of the village knew basic Spanish greetings and one of the villagers ignored him completely.

“They knew we were coming,” Juan said to his friend heavily.

“You can’t take the reaction of one group of villagers and assume that.” Pablo replied as he settled into the hammock on the deck of the ship. The stars were bright and the air fresh. He felt rejuvenated since coming to this island. He thought of the ladies in the village and sighed, unfortunately the Chief did not allow his women to be used. He had gotten downright hostile when Diego had touched a girl this evening. The girl had shrieked in horror and the whole village had surrounded Diego, staring intently at him until he had to drop his hands guiltily.

“They must have communicated with each other,” Juan said shifting in the swaying bed, “someone must have told them that there were men from other lands.”

“But what about the Spanish language?” Pablo asked sleepily. “The Cacique seemed to know the basic greeting, as if he was preparing to meet us.”

“The men who were at Navidad must have taught the natives the greeting, and they spread it from island to island.”

Pablo snorted. “But only this island learnt it?”

Juan mulled this over, until he closed his eyes. Ana’s tears were on his mind. First thing tomorrow, he was going to talk to her.

He smiled in the darkness, if she actually spoke Spanish he would be spooked enough to return to Spain.

******

Ana huddled in the Cacique’s house with Tanama in the corner. The girl was whimpering like a frightened animal. The Spanish man had grabbed her roughly, his foul breath had fanned her face and she had screamed with fright. She had still not recovered, her whole body trembling at the ordeal she had been through.

Ana hugged the girl, who until recently had passionately hated her. The men had decided to wait until dark to make their move on the female populace. Orocobix had made angry hand gestures and a harassed looking Colón had apologized for his men and said it would not happen again.

One man had grunted and asked, “how was it that the other tribes had been willing to give themselves to the gods and yet these are so resistant?”

Colón had pacified them, and some of them had said they would leave for Española, first thing tomorrow. Ana was glad that the man called Juan was not among the groping fiends; he seemed different somehow: definitely better looking than the rest, he was taller, better complexioned and had beautiful piercing green eyes. He was not pockmarked as some of the men and he had all of his teeth. His black hair was very thick and cropped short. She was surprised that the men were beardless; sailors were always depicted as having beards and swashbuckling cutlasses.

She hugged Tanama closer and the girl howled even louder in Ana’s ear.

“I should have believed you,” Tanama whispered brokenly.

“Shhh,” Ana hushed her, “a certain amount of skepticism is good.” Orocobix came into the house and sat down beside them. His heart was heavy and he had the insane notion to howl on Ana’s shoulders, as Tanama was doing.

“The man called Colón said I was intelligent. What does that mean?” He asked Ana.

“It means that you are good with your head.” Ana whispered, stroking his hand.

“They smell,” Orocobix said, wiping his nose, “they do not wash much.”

Ana giggled.

“They are ugly,” Tanama said, wincing. “They have holes in their skin and I can see green and purple lines under their pale flesh.”

Ana smothered another giggle. Who was it that got the idea that the Arawaks thought the Spanish as gods? That must have been for a very brief time. These people were not overly impressed by the strange creatures in their midst.

“They have on too much cloth,” Orocobix said grimacing, “and the giant beasts that growl at us ate much more than I did for dinner.”