The Empty Hammock

by Barrett, Brenda

  “It does not matter if you like it,” Ana said, clearing her throat. “It will happen. This world, as you know it, is coming swiftly to an end. History records that you greeted these men with joy and peace. Well, I’m asking you to go against your nature and arm yourselves. Do not make it easy for them. Kill them when they come here.”

  There was a collective gasp in the hut.

  “We are the good people,” one elder said, Ana recognized him as Guam, the husband of Agita the foreigner.

  “The good people are the dead people,” Ana said forcefully, “this will be a war that cannot be solved by offering food. This is a war that has to be fought with weapons, like bows and arrows and poison in the food.”

  I am a revolutionist, Ana thought, like Joan of Arc she felt her head getting bigger as she watched the expressions of the men in the circle; she would have an impact on history. When she woke up, her name would be splashed in history books as the woman that led the Tainos to defeat the Spanish.

  “We do not have many weapons Ana.” Oromico said sighing. “We always uphold the way of peace.”

  The lack of weapons could pose a problem to her world dominance plans. “Well you have to gather everything you have, all your bows and arrows; the time will be upon us soon. Have you heard of Guacanagari’s vision?”

  The elders nodded, “every Taino has heard of this vision.”

  “Well it is true, and it will come to pass. The evil men will first arrive at Bahamas and then sail for Cubanakan and finally to Bohio. They will be shipwrecked and forty men will be left on Bohio to keep a fort. There the evil will begin, they will try to steal women and they will anger the people.”

  Orocobix had a pained expression on his face when Ana glanced at him. The rest of the elders sat stone faced, one had a look of fear in his eyes, the Behique’s hands were trembling and he shuffled his feet and folded his arms.

  “Go on,” Oromico said and gestured with his hand, he was eagerly waiting for the next installment of the story, his eyes looked excited.

  Was he crazy? Didn’t he realize the danger ahead?

  “Well, your people, the Tainos, will peacefully accept these men but Caonabo, the half-Carib and his clan, will kill these evil men. The outrage of what they did became too much for him. They will rape the women, keep as many as four per man, and ill-treat the men, sometimes setting them afire, just to see them burn.”

  “Yes.” There was fire in Guam’s eyes and Ana realized what she was doing, she was unnecessarily stirring up these peaceful men about events that were probably not hers to reveal.

  “On May fourth 1494 they will come here. They will come near Oromico’ village first, but will land at Bieke; modern Jamaicans will call it Rio Bueno. That’s at your spot Orocobix,” she closed her eyes, if history was accurate any at all, what she said would be true. She always preferred her father’s version that they landed first at Rio Bueno which would mean Bieke in this time.

  “The evil men will be stranded here at Maima, nine summers later. Here they will spend a year. They are not to be trusted. They only want gold, and they will do anything for it.”

  Ana sat rigidly and breathed out deeply. She was about to say something else, when Yuisa ran up to the door of the Council house. A short man was behind her, his face was heavily scarred with tattoos.

  “Oromico.” Yuisa was excited, her eyes shining. “Bajari has brought great news from Bohio.”

  Oromico nodded and then he turned and looked at Ana, his eyes blazing. Ana could see the stark fear in his eyes. He had finally realized she was not a storyteller or weaving a fable for entertainment. He felt in his bones that the news would not be good.

  “What is it Bajari?” Oromico’s voice was harsh.

  The elders were still; the excited Bajari sensed their tension and his broad smile slipped a little.

  “There were strangers, many of them. They came to us many moons ago.”

  She was in the middle of the making of history. This really happened; it was not just book talk. It really happened. She felt excited…overwhelmed. Then she glanced over at Orocobix and saw the dread on his face and she sobered up a bit.

  “Tell us about them.” Oromico said, his voice sounding raspy.

  Nobody replied and Ana looked up from her reverie and realized everyone was looking at her, including Yuisa, who had no idea of what was going on.

  “Might be he should tell you,” Ana gestured to Bajari, who looked disappointed, that his news was met with such pessimism. “I too would like to know.”

  “They were tall men of great girth,” Bajari enthused, “they had on yards and yards of cloth. Their skin was as pale as the froth on the sea. They came in huge canoes with cotton cloths attached to them. They have different hair colors and eye colors, some were as green as the grass, others as blue as the sky.”

  Guam gasped his eyes opened wide. “Agita,” he whispered, “they are her people.”

  “Their giant ship sunk and they stayed on our land,” Bajari gushed on. “Chief Guacanagari greeted the white haired leader with a hug. They spoke a funny language and they smell like wet ducks. My mother says that’s the smell of the gods.”

  Ana snickered behind her hand and Bajari looked sharply at her.

  “What happened to them?” Orocobix asked.

  “Some moons ago, Chief Caonabo cut off their heads and put them on sticks.”

  Everyone gasped and Ana tightened her hands in her lap.

  “They were mean; they were not the good gods. They used the women and they cast a curse on the men. Some of the men are itching uncontrollably and little spots are coming up on them.”

  “Have you been in contact with these men?” Ana asked alarmed. It sounded like small pox had descended.

  “No,” Bajari said earnestly. “But I came to tell you that many of their large canoes with wings are now at Bohio. There are many men there now, with strange creatures. One animal is huge,” he expanded his hand and hopped about. “And it makes a sound like this,” Bajari imitated the moo of a cow.

  “Thank you for telling us,” Oromico said to the excited Bajari. “Yuisa could you give him something to eat please, he must have been traveling for many moons to bring the news.”

  Yuisa nodded and led Bajari out of the council house.

  Everyone was solemn and they somberly looked at Ana. Orocobix was the first one to speak in the heavy silence. “How long do we have left Ana?”

  “You have around six months before you are discovered.” Ana said solemnly. “Many moons,” she repeated, as they looked at her blankly. They measured time by the moon.

  If this was Columbus’ second voyage, then that means he would have landed on Bohio on November 28. That means they were probably in the month of December. No wonder it was so chilly in the morning.

  Not one elder’s eye was dry. The assembly looked as if they had received a mortal blow. Oromico sat down and his paunch seemed extremely large to Ana. His limp hair hung across his chest and his even limper penis swung between his legs. He suddenly looked like an old man.

  “How long will they stay, these gods?” He snared

  “For the first time they will stay only nine moons or days.”

  “Tell us again what will happen, great seer.” The Behique looked humbled and Ana felt sorry for him. She was now a great seer.

  She repeated her story and then said quietly, “be thankful Yamaye will not be occupied by these men for many years to come, not until fifteen years after the first arrival. There is time to hide, time to plan.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Juan sat under a tree and watched as Colón demanded that the natives work for the men.

  The naked, dark-skinned men, some of them looking ill, stood in silence. They seemed as if they understood the commands and were bewildered. There was one who was coughing non-stop, his eyes were watery and he clutched the hands of a child as they obediently listened to the man who was pacing in front of them.

  As he had thought,
the gold discovery was not going as planned. The men were unable to work because of mysterious illnesses and the noble men who were well, refused to sully their hands, the euphoria had evaporated quickly.

  Colón decided to use the natives to mine for gold .He outlined a law that all those above fourteen years of age had to find a certain quota of gold, which would be signified by a token placed around their necks. Those who failed to reach their quota would have their hands chopped off.

  The natives were weak and some of them ill. Juan spent most of his time on his ship because he did not want to be susceptible to what ailed them.

  The village that was closest to the settlement had many sick people. It tugged at his heart to see the misery on the once trusting, healthy faces of the natives.

  They were getting more hostile; he could see it in their body language and the way the smiles disappeared when they walked near. Some of the Spanish men were sleeping with the women who were already married and the young women would drown themselves in groups. It made for a depressing scene.

  Juan thought it unnecessary to demand that the natives should work so hard and to put so many restrictions on them, but he was no bleeding heart, and though he was a titled gentleman, the King and Queen had put Colón in charge of the expedition.

  He was mostly a spectator and it seemed, so was Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca, the Queen’s doctor. The man went around with quill and ink and was constantly scribbling on a parchment.

  “You could help them you know,” Juan said and pointed to the native who was sneezing and holding his head. “You are a doctor.”

  “I was commissioned to write about this journey and that’s what I’m doing.” Chanca said rudely. He resented the young nobles and their sniveling over everything that was not to their liking and he was not about to take instructions from one of their kind. His level of frustration had risen with Colón’s inability to control the men.

  “Are you going to write that they are ill and that Colón threatened to chop off their hands if they don’t fulfill this ridiculous quota?”

  “I will do so,” Chanca said stiffly, “why should anyone care about this information? They are heathens who know nothing about Christianity. They walk around naked and unashamed, defying God. They are going to hell anyway.”

  “What kind of argument is that?” Juan looked at Chanca, who was short and thin and had on a soft hat, a padded undercoat with puffed upper sleeves, a shirt and shorts underneath, a pleated overcoat, and a tight hose of different colors that was tied to the doublet, and soft shoes.

  He had a cloak on top of it all. He looked horribly hot to Juan, who had ditched as much clothes as possible and found it refreshing to bathe as frequently as the natives in this tropical climate.

  “You are too taken up with the natives, visiting Guacanagari for days and eating with him. We have conquered this island; it’s the way of life that the conquered has to work for the conquerors not befriend them.”

  Juan held up his hands, “I am just suggesting that since they are ill, they will not produce as much in that condition,” he watched as one pregnant native fell down in the line that Colón had asked them to form.

  Dante, one of Colón’s men, kicked her to get up. She started whimpering and stayed down, clutching her stomach. He kicked her again, aiming for her belly.

  “Stop it,” Juan yelled, the bustle in the settlement seemed to halt with his bellow.

  Colón stopped pacing and looked at Juan reprovingly.

  “What is the matter with you Vizconde?”

  “She’s pregnant and ill. You can’t let them treat her like an animal.”

  He picked up the shaking woman, her bare bottom feeling firm beneath his hands and carried her to a shade.

  She was gasping for air, her eyes rolled back in her head. She was trying to say something, her mouth working up and down. Juan kneeled over her and whispered that everything would be fine.

  Tears squeezed past her eyelids, as she sobbed quietly. Her face had on a curious paint mixture that he had discovered earlier, warded off the dreadful stings of mosquitoes.

  Juan felt a tug on his heartstrings; he was getting tired of being the conqueror.

  He glared at Dante who had followed them under the tree.

  “What are you looking at Vizconde?” Dante snared, “I bet you love the Moors that we just kicked from Spain too.” He spat on the ground in disgust near the pregnant girl and stalked away.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “She should have something to eat,” Clara said, looking over at Carey. “I should just wake her up.”

  They were in the basement, sorting through piles and piles of papers.

  Carey grunted. He was too absorbed in his task to really hear his mother. The amount of information that his father garnered over the years was unbelievable. Either his father had an uncanny imagination, or he was a time traveler.

  “Ma, listen to this,” Carey snorted disbelievingly, “history states that the Tainos on the island of Jamaica were hostile when they greeted the Spanish.”

  Carey sneezed and then continued, “How could they be hostile when they were supposedly the good people? Yes, communication was developed among the islanders but what would make the Jamaican Tainos, the only group, to launch a war at sea with these strangers. Why was it, that when Columbus finally landed, the chief was deemed to be an intelligent man? Could it be these people were privy to information that was before their time?”

  Carey grabbed a roll of tissue and blew his nose loudly, “these papers are dusty,” he looked across at his mother, “What do you think? Dad had a point.”

  Clara nodded thoughtfully, “it’s surprising that they were hostile. They were the only Taino group recorded as hostile when the Spanish came. Even the people in Haiti who were oppressed by the first batch of men were not recorded as being hostile when the Spanish returned the second time.”

  Carey pushed the papers inside a box already stuffed with papers and moaned. “Maybe you should save these things on a computer. You never can tell when you’ll find use for them.”

  “I could hire somebody to type them up for me, or ask Ana to do them.”

  “Leave her be,” Carey said, heading for a large wooden box in the corner, “she already has to recover from the punishment that she has given her body all these months. Do not ask her to do a thing while she is here. She is so exhausted; she is sleeping through the morning. Could you help me with this please?” Carey asked as he indicated the wooden box. It stood in the corner and was too heavy for him to lift alone.

  Clara went over and they both brought it to the middle of the room. The box contained many ugly and crudely crafted wooden pieces.

  “The old zemis,” Clara said, laughing, “and stone pieces,” she took up some odd bits of stone. “No wonder the box was so heavy.” She held up an especially large flat stone. Its exterior was a smoothly gray and mixed with blue.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  Carey sneezed and shook his head.

  “This is a thunder ball,” she placed the cold stone in Carey’s palm.

  “Oh, the ones that fall from the sky when the lightning strikes,” Carey held it up to the light. “This is from outer space?”

  Clara sat down on the floor and began to laugh. “Old wives tale, Dr. Méndez. These are stones, which the Tainos shaped. Sometimes when it rains the earth reveals one or two buried ones.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Carey sat down on his haunches, and shook his head. “In primary school we always knew that thunder balls fell from the sky and it was placed in water to keep it cool.”

  “Now you know better, Doc.” Clara got up and looked into the box. “We can throw away these, or give them to a museum.”

  “Museum…I think.” Carey drew out a shell-covered string that was wrapped around a zemis neck and gasped. “This is real gold,” he said pointing to the crude chunks of yellow metal interspersed between the shells. He read the paper attached to it, Arawak join
ing necklace.

  “What was Dad doing with this?”

  “He found that, not far from here, at the bottom of the property near to where the Harvey-Blacks are building. When they first dug up the place, he spotted it.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Carey caressed the shells, which had not been dulled with time. The chunks of gold on the string were still gleaming dully in their metallic glory.

  “This we could sell to a museum and make a fortune, this is real gold.” Carey got excited and started sneezing again.

  “Okay that’s it. Doc, get out of this dusty place before you make yourself ill.”

  “But, this is interesting.”

  “I have my degree in motherhood; I am pulling rank, get up. I think we have done enough for today. I am going to check on Ana.”

  Carey took a while to get to his feet. His nose was stuffy and he felt miserable but surely this was the best discovery. This was gold, pure gold.

  He looked at the necklace again and decided to carry it up stairs. Ana would be interested to see it. They had gold already without looking into the treasure chest. His heart sped up with anticipation to see just what was in the treasure chest.

  He had not been this excited since his father took him and Ana on a road trip across the island, pointing out where the Taino settlements used to be and giving them a glorified history on each; he had made history come alive.

  Those days were the best; he often told his wife that he wanted to be the kind of father to his future children that his father was to him. He crawled up the stairs sneezing and blowing his nose.

  Clara was standing at Ana’s doorway with a tray in her hand.

  “I don’t care what you say Doc, my girl needs to eat.”

  “When her body needs sustenance, she will get up for it.” Carey said peeping into the room. Ana was laying on her side, her feet drawn up in a fetal like position. He could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest under the oversized t-shirt his mother had put on her.