One in five of the native warriors carried a ladder while his cohorts continued firing arrows from their long bows while charging forward.
“Hold your fire,” Hastelloy bellowed to his nervous subordinates. “Hold. Hold . . . fire!”
A wall of white and gray smoke belched forth from the fortress along three sides. Dozens of natives dropped on all sides, but the rest continued undeterred.
“Second volley . . . fire!”
Only seven shots rang out per side, but the result was almost as good with the shorter distance and better-trained operator combining for superior accuracy. Still the natives charged.
“Target the ladder bearers,” Hastelloy ordered. “Fire!”
By the third round of musket fire, the natives had recognized the soft spot in the fortress’ defense, not a difficult task given the lack of smoke from that entire wall line. Hastelloy looked on with satisfaction as a few ladders reached the three guarded walls while the bulk of the natives assembled along the northern wall.
“You four man the cannon. You six make ready to open the gate,” Hastelloy ordered as he relocated to the northern wall, where he lit a torch, picked up his own bow, and notched an arrow with a tip that he lit by touching it to the torch.
Outside the north wall, he saw ten natives grab hold of a particularly stout-looking ladder, five to a side. They stepped toward the door and used the ladder as a battering ram against the fortress gate. Two more groups of ten followed their lead and charged the door with their own battering ram. The repeated strikes had little effect at first, but soon the gate began to splinter, and the hinges groaned and screeched under the assault.
More and more natives filed in from the other sides and clustered a hundred feet from the gate awaiting their chance to storm the fortress and dispense some well-deserved vengeance. Hastelloy, however, had something else in mind.
“Open the gate,” Hastelloy ordered.
The six soldiers lifted the crossbar holding the double doors closed. A moment later, a battering ram strike blew both doors wide open.
“Fire!” Hastelloy shouted before taking careful aim with his flaming arrow and fired at the army of natives about to charge through the breached doorway.
The cannon, loaded with a canister round, blasted out hundreds of tiny bullets that hit the natives wielding the battering rams like a swarm of lead hornets.
To the three hundred warriors waiting outside the cannon’s effective range it must have looked like a dragon breathing fire toward them. It was full of fire, sound, and fury, but ultimately did little damage other than leveling the thirty natives who were banging on the gate. Then Hastelloy’s arrow hit its mark.
He aimed for a small earthen mound. On impact, the tip pushed into the loose dirt until it reached the exterior of a small wooden barrel of gunpowder. The keg erupted in a fireball that in turn set off fifteen other geysers of fire and death, sending dead bodies into the air and the lucky survivors running for the trees.
While everyone else stood in awe of the firepower unleashed to repel the native’s assault, Hastelloy issued one final order to his temporary command, “Close the gates and do not open them again until the remnants of our forces return.”
Hastelloy walked over to where Governor Ovando still cowered behind an overturned cart, “You may have your command back, now that the scary part’s over. I trust you’ll let this lowly accountant know if I can be of any further value to you in such matters.”
He thought about saying more, but he had made his point. Hastelloy had value to the governor as his notary but was now invaluable to him with a military command behind him. Saying more on the subject would only serve to humiliate the governor and do more harm than good.
Chapter 30: New Beginnings
AS JUAN WATCHED his guards search the approaching man, he felt a surge of guilt attack his already conflicted mind-set. On the one hand, this was Vasco. They fought in the Moorish Wars together. They trapped and imprisoned the devil’s servant back in Spain together. Vasco was returning from an assignment Juan entrusted him with for Christ’s sake, yet there was doubt.
Ever since learning of the navigator’s escape, Juan had doubts about everyone and everything around him. The demon could be anywhere and be almost anyone. The creature could return from the dead and perhaps even read minds. It was not much of a stretch to envision him using that same witchcraft to turn the minds of those around him to do his bidding; thus the frisking by the guards of his trusted friend Vasco.
“It’s him,” Vasco reported once the guards let him through. “He looks quite different with a short beard, but those eyes, his words, actions, and the way his mind works. There is no doubt that Governor Ovando’s most trusted man named Hernán is the demon we face.”
Even though Juan sat on his porch in the warm sun overlooking his fields, he felt a shiver run through the length of his body. He took a long drink from his glass of wine to calm his nerves, but there was no relief. Vasco had just confirmed his worst fear.
Sensing his friend’s hesitation, Vasco pressed the conversation. “We know who and where he is now. How do you want to proceed?”
“I don’t suppose all those years spent in captivity could have made him forget my name or face?” Juan asked with mock hope.
Vasco let a snorted chuckle escape his nostrils before pointing out, “If stabbing him in the back and then drowning him did not make an obsessed enemy out of him, then locking the creature away in tortured solitude for years certainly finished the job. He is coming for you. The only question now is what do you intend to do about it?”
“Since we haven’t found the source of his power yet, all I can think to do to stay alive is wrap myself in a cocoon of security and pray nothing gets through,” Juan offered.
Vasco glowered down at his friend with disapproval, “If all you want to do is stay alive, then the smartest course of action is to disappear. This new world is a huge place. You could easily melt away into the vastness of it all and never be found.”
“I can’t do that,” Juan snapped back out of instinct more than consideration.
“You mean you won’t,” Vasco countered as he reached down to take the half-empty wine glass from Juan’s hand. “You like all of this too much: the land, the wine, the slaves, the wealth, and the prestige that comes with your influence over this new world. You won’t leave all this.”
Juan wanted to grab a sword and run his friend through, but he also knew deep down that Vasco was right. For the first time in his life, Juan had something to lose. Even though it made Juan a stationary target for his terrifying enemy to find, he could not bring himself to give up his seat of power.
“This is not the Juan Ponce de León I admired back in the Moorish wars. That brash young man knew exactly what he wanted in life and demolished anything or anyone who got in his way. I’d follow that reckless and driven man any day over the frightened coward I see before me now,” Vasco declared.
Juan sprung to his feet and delivered a hard right hook to Vasco’s nose. “I will not sit here and be insulted in my own villa.”
“Then get off your ass and do something that demands reverence, not insult,” Vasco shot back with his eyes and grin revealing that Juan’s violent outburst was exactly the response he wanted to see. “You beat this creature before with far fewer resources than you have now, we will defeat him again.”
“I had God’s favor back then, I don’t anymore,” Juan declared while staring down his friend. There might have been another blow struck, but a commotion off in the distant field caught his eye. “Oh by god, that will not happen under my watch.”
“Come with me,” Juan ordered of Vasco before throwing caution to the wind as he jumped down into the field below and broke into a full sprint.
Not only did Juan leave the safety of his security detail behind on the balcony, but he now walked among his slaves who wished him dead every day of their lives. The natives he passed on the way to the distant clearing were smart en
ough to avert their eyes when Juan approached, but he could feel their menacing stares wishing him harm once he had passed.
He did not blame them for their hatred. The Cacicazgo, as they called themselves, and the Spanish enjoyed years of mutually beneficial trade before he had arrived. A few weeks later, through no fault of his own, Juan was labeled the Butcher of Higüey.
The incident leading to the collapse of friendly relations was of such striking stupidity and thoughtlessness that Juan was hard pressed to find its equal in all recorded history.
It happened during a routine trade visit to the Cacicazgo. The natives loaded their casabe bread into the landing skiffs that were then in successive trips ferried to the main caravel anchored in the bay. The process ran like clockwork under the chieftain’s supervision. The native leader directed his men with the scepter of his office in hand.
Unfortunately, the captain of Juan’s landing party had an attack dog on a chain that became highly agitated by the chieftain’s gestures with the scepter. As the story goes, the captain restrained his dog with great difficulty and commented to a companion, “Wouldn’t it be something if we set him loose on him.”
The other man, quite drunk at the time, then shouted the command, “Take him!”
The dog immediately lunged for the chieftain, dragging the captain with him until he let go. Moments later, the Cacicazgo were left to carry their disemboweled chieftain for funeral rites while the Spaniards collected their dog and left with a caravel full of bread. Then it was left to Juan to put down the ensuing uprising, which he did with perhaps a little too much vigor. Thinking back, Juan found it almost laughable that his greatest mistake of trusting his captain to behave himself led to his greatest achievement, which formed the foundation of his esteemed standing here in the New World.
Back in the present, Juan and Vasco reached the clearing that featured the central granary for the farm. The natives approached the granary at a snail’s pace to deliver armfuls of maize to be ground into flour to make bread. They then shuffled their way back to the fields for another load.
The captain of labor was very much at fault for the slow pace of work taking place. The slaves would work just hard enough and fast enough to avoid a flogging by the overseers. No less, but certainly no more. It was the captain’s job to press the pace, but he was not moving them along because there were other thoughts occupying his mind.
The male slaves drew no attention from the captain. However, a shapely native woman was another matter. Juan observed from his balcony as the woman delivered her armful to the storage bin like all the others, but when she tried to move on to gather another from the fields, the captain obstructed her path.
Everyone in the clearing, or even an onlooker from a quarter mile away could see the look in his eye and knew what was coming next. She looked away without flinching as the captain caressed her curves and fondled her breasts; this was not the first time such a violation had occurred at the hands of this captain of labor.
The man untied the knots on each of her shoulders to drop the thin cloth garment to the ground. He then grabbed her by the arm, flung her forward to leave her bent over a pull cart, and began unfastening his trousers.
At that point, Juan burst into the clearing. He grew up in a whorehouse, where he had to watch countless men have their way with his mother against her will. He was not about to have such evil take place on his lands, not even to slaves.
“You son of a bitch. You vile, disgusting son of a bitch!” Juan shouted as he rapidly closed the distance between him and the flustered captain.
The man turned around in time to see Juan’s fist smash into his nose. The impact sent him stumbling backward, and he might have kept his balance had his pants not been around his ankles. The captain went down in a cloud of dust and remained there until Juan drew his sword and barked a command, “Get on your feet.”
While the captain attempted to comply, Juan turned his head to the naked woman. She did not move a muscle as five men under Juan’s employ rushed toward the confrontation. The woman had no idea what to do with the Butcher of Higüey standing in front of her with a sword drawn.
Juan knew she would not understand his words. Instead, he moved his eyes down to her clothing on the ground, and motioned his head toward the garment. He did not need to ask twice.
While the native woman got dressed once more, Juan looked back to his captain of labor who was in the process of pulling up his pants. “I told her to get dressed, not you,” Juan said as he raised the tip of his blade to point it at the man’s chest. The captain released his pants to stand at attention with his erection looking quite inadequate compared to Juan’s sword.
“Is there an interpreter?” Juan asked of no one in particular.
“I speak . . . a little,” a shaky male voice belonging to one of the natives answered with understandable apprehension.
“Good,” Juan responded and beckoned the native to come forward and stand on his left side. This completed a square configuration with Juan facing the captain and the native interpreter to his left facing the now clothed woman on his right.
Juan placed the handle of his sword in the woman’s hand and looked to the interpreter. “Tell her she gets one swing,” he said while raising his left index finger to emphasize the number.
When he released his grip on the weapon, he saw a flash of empowerment transform the woman. Her defeated posture straightened to bring her body to full height as the interpreter relayed the message. The question now was would she use that one swing to strike down her attacker or the perceived butcher of her people?
This was the test. God would either guide her hand and cut Juan down, or she would kill the captain and prove to Juan once more that he carried God’s favor. He left it all in the hands of the Almighty.
The woman seemed to consider swinging in Juan’s direction for a few moments. Next, she appeared to contemplate if this was some sort of trick. She either concluded that it was not or decided she did not care. In any case, she grasped the sword with two hands, raised it above her head, and swung down along the captain’s abdomen with all the rage she bore the vile man.
The captain’s body shuddered for a moment before his eyes looked down to find her blow had lopped off his penis and cut a wide gash down to the bone across his left thigh. Upon seeing the damage, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out falling backward to bleed out on the ground.
Juan wasted no time retrieving his blade from the woman before she could raise it in anger toward him. He brushed the stunned woman aside and stepped to his closest man. “You are now my captain of labor. Congratulations. I trust that you understand what I consider appropriate behavior of the men under my employ?”
Juan then glanced back at his friend Vasco with a renewed spirit and strengthened faith behind his eyes. He had feared death for a moment but no longer. “Come now; let’s see about cutting out the other great evil in our lives.”
Chapter 31: Subjugation
FROM THE MOMENT Hastelloy arrived at the scene, he could see why his men were having so much difficulty taking the enemy position. The natives had constructed a waist-high row of wooden barricades on top of a hillside. This added to the range of their arrows, which on even ground were already more accurate at a distance than the muskets of Hastelloy’s men.
His soldiers were spread all over the modestly steep hillside, seeking shelter behind any tree or rock they could find. There were random plumes of smoke from discharged muskets that sent a cloud of white and gray smoke wafting up the hillside toward the native’s elevated defensive position, but nothing organized or remotely effective.
Thirty men either dead or dying lay strewn about the hillside with multiple wooden shafts sticking out of their chests and backs. What meager gains the men had accomplished up the hillside had come at a heavy price, and Hastelloy was loath to give it up, but he could see no other way. They would take the hill by a concentrated charge, not individual movements.
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br /> “Bring them back and form a line with the reserves at the base of the hill along the tree line,” Hastelloy ordered his infantry captain. He then looked at the mounted officer to his left. “Muster your cavalry behind the infantry.”
“We only have fifty men on horse. They have several hundred archers up there. Even at a full charge, that few against so many is doomed to fail,” the man cautioned.
Hastelloy placed a reassuring hand on the young officer’s shoulder. “They can’t hit what they can’t see. Now do as I’ve ordered.”
The cavalry leader cast a skeptical eye toward Hastelloy but eventually moved off to climb atop his mount. “A man on a horse is pretty hard not to see,” he mumbled under his breath as he rode away.
Twenty minutes later, Hastelloy walked among three hundred soldiers armed with muskets and fifty horsemen assembled behind them. A few arrows continued to fall from the hilltop, but the natives seemed content to spare their ammunition for the main event.
“Ready muskets,” Hastelloy ordered, and heard a chorus of flintlock hammers pulled back into firing position. “Fire!”
An instant later a wall of thick white smoke belched forth from the line of muskets. At best, one in ten of the lead projectiles reached the wooden barricade to send some harmless splinters flying, but that was not Hastelloy’s real purpose. The heavy, humid air kept the cloud together as the westerly winds carried it up the hillside.
“Reload,” Hastelloy ordered, and twenty seconds later another wall of smoke was dispatched. Four more volleys left the hillside blanketed with a thick fog that limited visibility to less than twenty feet.
“Cavalry, charge,” Hastelloy ordered. Once the horse had galloped past his row of infantry, he sent the foot soldiers up the hill at a full charge as well.
Origins: Discovery Page 20