Hammer of Witches

by Shana Mlawski

  Our lessons were at night because during the day she was on a mission. She would leave at dawn with a gourd full of water and the fruit I had given her the previous night. Then she would disappear into the forest, on the hunt for information. Her goals, in order of importance, were finding a route to Cathay, finding a sign of Colón’s ships and Jinniyah, and finding Amir al-Katib. But every day she returned having found nothing except for a few Taíno villages, rainstorms, and jungle.

  Then one morning weeks or months since we had washed up on this island, I woke up to the sound of Catalina throwing herself out of her hammock. Her whole body, it seemed, was pink from sunburn and mosquitoes, and her hair had tangled beyond recovery. She scratched at the pink fly bites on her face and hands as if trying to rip off her own skin.

  “I’ve had it,” she said. “I’ve had it with the bugs, and I’ve had it with this heat. I refuse to stay on this island for a moment longer. I’m going to ask Guacanagarí if I can borrow one of his canoes, and I’m not going to stop paddling until I find the Santa María or Cathay.”

  Over the past few days she had gathered a pile of fruits in one corner; now she shoved them in a cotton bag Arabuko had given her and slung the bag over her shoulder.

  I scrambled out of my hammock. No, she couldn’t leave! She was the last link I had to Europe. As much as I enjoyed living with the Taíno, I wasn’t ready to spend the rest of my life without hearing words like “Burgos” or “our Lord and Savior” come out of someone else’s mouth. “Wait!” I cried. “Wait. I’ll come with you. Just let me say good-bye to Arabuko.”

  It was odd that Arabuko wasn’t in our house so early in the morning, and there seemed to be no one outside to tell me where to find him. Finally I found a girl and a boy around my age standing near a small house at the edge of the village. “Have you seen Arabuko?” I asked them.

  The two of them turned toward me slowly. The girl’s eyes were serious, and the boy’s eyes full of hatred. He spat on the ground and ran off into the forest. The girl slowly turned back toward the house in front of her.

  “Don’t mind my brother,” she said with no emotion. “He doesn’t like foreigners.” The girl’s eyes were large and very black, and she wore a braided red cotton circlet around her forehead. Referring to the small house in front of us she said, “Arabuko is in there.”

  “Thanks.” I took a step toward the house, but the girl caught my hand.

  “You can’t go inside. He’s performing a ceremony.”

  “Oh.” I remained standing beside the girl, a respectful distance from the house. Though I couldn’t see through the doorway — someone had covered it with a cloth — I could hear a sound like a rattle inside, and Arabuko singing a flat, mournful melody.

  “He’s trying to cure my mother,” the girl explained. “She was injured not long before you came here, and she’s not been awake since.”

  I had heard of this woman. Once, when I was helping Arabuko with his chores, I had heard some men whispering about an attack and an injured woman. When I tried to get close and hear more of their story, the men noticed me and fell silent.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to the girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Mimeri.”

  “I’m Baltasar.”

  “I know.”

  At last the cloth door to the house swept aside, and Arabuko emerged, his face smeared with black dye. Mimeri ran inside to see her mother. Arabuko walked past her with a faraway look in his eyes, seeming not to notice her at all.

  “Arabuko,” I said. “Catalina and I are leaving. I wanted to say good-bye before we go.”

  But the shaman didn’t seem to hear me. Finally he said, “Come with me to the river. I must wash.”

  When we arrived at the river, Arabuko walked straight into the water without even a pause. I didn’t know what to make of it. I asked, “What will happen to that woman? Mimeri’s mother.”

  “I have done all I can for her. There is nothing more to do now but wait. The gods will give us a sign when the time comes. By nightfall she will either return to the land of the living, or she will descend into the caverns of the dead.”

  I nodded at his answer, but I didn’t understand, not really.

  The cold water must have broken whatever trance Arabuko was in, because he looked up at me more alertly and changed the subject. “So you are leaving.” He rubbed the dye off his face and splashed it with some water. “Then I suppose it is time for me to be honest with you.” He smiled. “Surely you have noticed I’ve not been entirely forthcoming. You see, before you came to this island, I called upon the great spirit Yucahú, who can foresee all that will come to pass. He told me that a great power was coming from the east —”

  I was in awe. “That will destroy the world as we know it!”

  “So you have heard the prophecy too. Well, not long after I spoke with Yucahú, a strange man washed up on our shores, not far from where my cousins and I found you. It was a bearded man, a shaman wearing heavy black clothes, and a black demon followed him wherever he went.”

  “Amir al-Katib!” I cried. “Where? Where is he?”

  Arabuko waded backward and tipped himself back in the water. “When he arrived on Ayití the bearded man was very ill. He was rarely awake, and the few words he said were nonsense. Guacanagarí feared this man was the great power Yucahú spoke of, the one who would destroy all things. But I did not want to make assumptions, so I said we should wait and see.”

  Arabuko shook his head sadly at the water. “That was a mistake. The next morning the bearded man summoned three mighty demons. I think in his illness he thought we had imprisoned him, and he used these demons to escape. I have heard tales of shamans calling upon multiple spirits at once, but never have I seen such power. The demons rampaged through the village, injuring Mimeri’s mother. We’ve done all we can to treat her injuries, but every day she seems to worsen. Anyway, when the demons were done the bearded man and his bird fled southeast, in the direction of Guacanagarí’s rivals, the cacique Caonabó and his wife Anacaona.”

  I sat on a flat stone near the edge of the river and looked up at the canopy of the forest. Beyond the mesh of vines and leaves above us, I could see wispy clouds blowing across the sky. One day soon I would see the hameh streak across those clouds, darkening the sky with a black rain of feathers.

  “Arabuko, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  The shaman dunked himself in the river and shook out his hair with his fingers. “Do you remember the day my cousins and I found you and Catalina?”

  “Yes. You looked at us and laughed.”

  “I did. Because the gods can be sneaky. They tell prophecies, but they never come true in the way that you expect. Yucahú had warned me that a mighty being would be coming to this island. And when the bearded man summoned those three demons, I was certain he was the evil Yucahú had warned us of. But then you and Catalina arrived. It was as if the gods were playing with me. I told Guacanagarí, and we agreed we would keep you here until we uncovered your intentions. We wanted to make sure you were not the great evil, and that you were not in league with the bearded man.”

  “We’re not,” I said firmly. “I’ve come here to find that man and stop him.”

  “Then it appears we are on the same side. Guacanagarí fears more than anything that the bearded man will ally with his rivals to the south. With the bearded man on his side Caonabó will be unstoppable.”

  “Then take me to him!” I jumped up from my seat. “If you know where Amir is, take me to him now, and we’ll stop him together!”

  Arabuko splashed up in the water and smiled. “Stop him? How do you plan to stop him?”

  I hesitated and sat back on my rock. “I thought I could talk to him, convince him to stop attacking everyone.” I remembered what Catalina told me and said, “But maybe that’s stupid.”

  Arabuko came dripping out of the water and sat on the rock beside me. With a thumb he pulled one of the beaded necklaces he wore away from
his collarbone. The beads tinked softly as they rearranged themselves under the light of the forest.

  “You see these beads?” Arabuko said. “It is an honor to wear them. They serve as protection from illness and evil spirits.”

  Out of courtesy I said, “They’re very nice.”

  “I would not use this word to describe them. The red ones represent the men I have killed in battle.”

  The answer jolted me to my toes. Killed? Arabuko? This Arabuko, with the gentle voice who sang silly songs and taught children? Quickly I glanced down at his necklace so he wouldn’t see me counting. The red beads . . . There must have been twenty of them in that pattern! Twenty at least!

  “We Taíno are a bartering people,” Arabuko said. “Everything we take from the earth belongs to us all. To steal a thing from another is a terrible wrong. But to take a person? To be taken is worse than death. They took my wife, you see. A group of men from another island. But I got my revenge. I did not wish to kill them, but when the time came I found these men and delivered justice unto them.” I heard those last few words in the voice of my uncle, and when I looked into Arabuko’s black eyes, they seemed to ripple like the pool of hameh’s blood.

  Arabuko said, “To talk is good, in times of peace. But I fear this time it will not be enough.” The shaman sat in thought for a moment. Then he stood from his rock with purpose, letting drops of water fall from his hair. “But I shall be hopeful like you, Baltasar. Perhaps we can stop the bearded man without bloodshed. I have decided to come with you and Catalina Terreros. Tomorrow I will lead you to Maguana, and hopefully we will find the bearded man before Caonabó does. Then, if the gods will it, we will stop the bearded man once and for all, and the world will not be destroyed.”

  “Thank you,” I told him, and a cloud of bats billowed across the sky. Arabuko looked up at them sadly.

  “There is our sign,” the shaman said. “The bats carry the souls of the dead with them. Now they carry Mimeri’s mother to Coaybay.”

  As the bats flapped by us, I thought of Mimeri. And I wondered if the bats carried the souls of others Amir al-Katib had killed, and if any carried the souls of my aunt and uncle.

  Arabuko and I went off to find Catalina, but as it happened Catalina found us first. “They’re here!” the girl said, running over to us. “Colón and the others are in the bay north of the village.”

  So Catalina, Arabuko, and I joined a small greeting party led by Guacanagarí to the island’s northern shore, which surrounded a wide, gleaming bay overrun with brown waterbirds with chalky blue and yellow beaks. On the far end of the cove where the coral-darkened waters began to lighten, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María waited for us. Guacanagarí directed his men to drag into the waters dugout canoes painted with reds and greens and blues. Before long Catalina and I sat in one and were rowing our way back to our floating home.

  Not long later I climbed up the Santa Marías ladder and onto the deck, and a lithe figure swooshed into my arms. It was Jinniyah, still in the form of Juan, the servant boy. “Oh, Bal!” she cried. “Thanks be to Allah. You’re alive!” She clung to my neck as she explained what the rest of the crew had gone through.

  “I told the admiral to take the rowboats and find you, but he said that it was a waste of time because you were dead. And the crew was so angry because you had summoned that dragon, and they said our mission was cursed because Colón had brought witches with him. But a couple of days later we spotted land — this island that Colón called San Salvador. And then we found another island and another, and all these strange people that don’t wear any clothes! But the whole time I knew I’d find you. I knew it! I knew you couldn’t be dead.”

  “I’m all right,” I said, overcome with relief that Jinniyah was too. The feeling was so intense that it took me a moment to notice that the rest of the crew had surrounded Catalina, looking at her with murder in their faces.

  “I don’t see what we’re waitin’ for,” Pérez said to the other members of the crew. Antonio de Cuellar stood behind him, avoiding my gaze. “Luis and that girl — Pedro — they’re witches. It’s about time we string ’em up by their throats!”

  Thankfully Colón placed himself between them. “I had rather dwell with a lion or a dragon than a wicked woman — or a witch,” he said to Catalina. “But we’ve been sailing around these islands for weeks now without a translator. Luis and the girl will remain here as our interpreters.”

  But Pérez insisted, “Because of them we were attacked by demons! And don’t forget that dragon —”

  “All in the past,” Martín Pinzón said as he climbed up from a rowboat onto the Santa María. “Remember we are here for trade first and foremost, and these witches of ours can help us do it. Tell me, Señor Pérez, you like gold, don’t you?”

  Pérez’s mouth hung open under his snub nose. “Yes.”

  “Wonderful! Then let us trade.”

  And that is exactly what we did. After introducing himself to the admiral, Guacanagarí sent his men back to Marién to fetch whatever trade-goods they could carry. Before long, necklaces, flapping parrots, and balls of cotton the size of a man’s head were being offered up in exchange for hawks’ bells, glass beads, and anything else Colón’s men could dig up from the hold. Catalina and I scurried back and forth across the deck of the Santa María translating for Spaniard and Taíno alike. Arabuko hung back, chewing gravely on his thumbnail. When I had a free moment, Jinni and I went over to him to ask him what was wrong.

  “The way your man Colón looks at us,” he said. “I heard him muttering something earlier about servants, and something about your god. I couldn’t hear him well over all this chatter. But he frightens me.”

  What Arabuko said gave me pause, but I said, “He was probably praying. The admiral’s a very religious man.”

  “It’s true,” Jinni added. “The admiral prays all the time. He was probably thanking God for allowing us, his simple servants, to find you!”

  Arabuko put a hand on Jinni’s shoulder and exhaled, relieved. “I’ll take your word for it. You know him better than I do.”

  “Did you think Colón is the evil being in the prophecy?” I asked him.

  “Who knows? My cacique remains certain it is the bearded man.”

  Guacanagarí was currently eying a pile of swords the crew had lugged out from the hold. We went over and he asked me, “What do you think we would need to offer to acquire some of these weapons?”

  I translated the question for Martín Pinzón, who answered, “Spices. Or gold.”

  But the spices Guacanagarí offered were of no interest to Martín, and when the cacique offered his gold nose ring Martín refused to touch it. “De Torres, please inform these heathens that when I say ‘gold,’ I do not mean those piddling bits of wire that they pierce through their extremities. I mean this.”

  Martín tossed a large pouch onto the deck by the cacique’s feet, where it landed with a jangling thud. Nearby Spanish sailors clustered around it to get a better look at what was inside.

  What was inside was a heap of coins — all gold.

  Guacanagarí scooped up a handful of the coins, some of which cascaded back into the pouch. “There is some gold on Ayití,” the man said, “but I have never seen so much as this before.”

  “There is always Babeque,” Arabuko said. “In the stories it is a land ruled by men with dogs’ heads and tails. The dog-men of Babeque are so rich, they wear gold in their ears, in their noses, around their arms like this.” He cupped his hand around his upper arm in illustration.

  Martín’s eyes turned hungry as I translated, but Colón came over and said, “I do not put much stock in stories.”

  Martín shot a bitter glance in my direction. “Oh, don’t you? I may not be admiral, but I’ve sailed for longer than you’ve been alive, and I know this: Every story is made of truth. Myth or no, there is truth in that story, and I, for one, want a piece of it. If you remember, we once thought sorcerers were myth, didn’t we? Yet you c
ast your lot in with them.”

  “The queen sent us to find spices and the Khan of Cathay,” Colón said through his teeth. “She did not send us in search of fairy tales. After we’ve finished trading with these Indians, we will make for the continent. Cathay is our destination, not this Babeque. I do not wish to hear of it again.”

  I expected Martín to argue as usual. But he walked off, saying, “As you wish, Admiral.”

  It was only when the sun began to dip into the western horizon that the trading finally ended, and Guacanagarí prepared another feast that the Taíno brought on board the Santa María. This time he arranged for Marién’s best poets to regale us with Taíno songs. The drumming and singing seemed to put the once-angry crew into a good mood for once, and their mood only brightened as Guacanagarí’s wives came on board. Soon Vicente was dancing with one and Antonio de Cuellar with two others, and Jinniyah clapped for them from the audience. Guacanagarí and Colón stood off to one side, talking to each other as Catalina translated.

  I was about to ask Jinni to dance when I heard a voice behind me. “May I have a word, de Torres?”

  Martín Pinzón was resting against the ship’s rail. The way he stood there, holding his elbows, the man appeared more at peace than I’d ever seen him.

  “I come with a proposition,” he said. “I would have you on my ship as a translator.”

  For a second I didn’t understand. And when I realized what he was saying, I was shocked by the audacity of it.

  “You’re planning on sailing to that mythical island, to search for Babeque against orders,” I accused.

  “Yes,” Martín said, “and I’m sure you realize your powers of translation would be of use to me. And I would be of use to you, as well. Colón’s patience with you and the girl is growing thin. He was not as happy to see you as he may appear, no matter how he needs a translator. I, however, have no compunctions about traveling with sorcerers. If you help me find gold, you can be the Devil himself for all I care.”

  I have to admit I was tempted. I could stay on Ayití with Arabuko, find and finally confront my father. Or I could go with Pinzón and run.