Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [152]
Once the zafra at Hacienda los Gemelos began, Ana and Conciencia rode to the batey daily, carrying baskets of bandages and remedies. Ana had ordered the old barracks repaired and windows cut into the walls to create an infirmary. She was determined to keep the air moving and clean in every building to avoid the miasmic disaster of the previous year.
The frenetic pace of the zafra only slowed at the end, after every stalk had been processed. But in early 1857 there was desperation from the first as Ana and Severo tried to recoup their losses by bringing in a complete harvest with fewer workers before the rains of May began.
Severo managed to buy twelve more men, seven women, and four children from a bankrupt hacienda. He reminded four landowners that the terms of their loans were imminent but that they could repay him with slaves. In addition to land, four more men and four women erased the hacendados’ obligations to Severo Fuentes. Neighbors unable to manage their estates were forced to liquidate assets at auction. Don Eugenio and Mr. Worthy agreed that the opportunities couldn’t be passed up. With Eugenio’s investment, Severo was able to buy more land and another five men for the hacienda.
One morning two weeks before the harvest began, Ana and Severo were in her study organizing the work.
“I’ve doubled the food rations for the survivors,” Ana said. “Here’s the list of those still recovering. Assign them easier jobs.”
“I can’t promise that. We need every brazo, from the youngest to the oldest, in the fields.”
“Many of them are weak—”
“They’ll be fine by the time the zafra starts. Don’t be too easy on them or they’ll take advantage of you.”
“They’re not. But some are still too sick—”
“We have four hundred cuerdas to harvest, Ana.”
“I know how many cuerdas are ready,” she snapped before she realized how rare it was for them to argue. “If we expect them to be alive by the end, we have to take better care of them.”
“You might have noticed,” he said through taut lips, “that I know how to manage a workforce.”
“Of course I do—”
“Let me take care of that, then. May I see the supply lists, please?”
Chastened, she handed over the papers. The room was stifling all of a sudden, and while he read and marked up the pages, she walked to the balcón for some air. On the ground below, a rooster and his harem pecked at the ground. Unexpectedly, he flew up on the rail and strutted from one end to the other. He crowed three times, full throated and defiant, then dropped to the ground again. Yes, she thought, the cock has to crow.
“Did you say something?” Severo was in the same chair by her desk.
“No,” she said.
He looked at her for a few moments, as if reading her mind, then returned to the lists.
In early February, Severo led the macheteros into the canebrakes before sunrise and kept them there until sundown. With fewer brazos, even artisans like José went into the fields, and children as young as five had jobs. Boys led the unyoked bulls to pasture, tied them to stakes, and moved them frequently to avoid overgrazing. Girls peeled ñames, plantains, and yautías for the workers’ meals, boiled in huge vats.
After the cholera funeral pyres, Conciencia’s visions came more frequently, but she was too young to interpret most of what she saw and depended on Ana to help her. Severo scoffed at the notion that Conciencia could look into the future.
“Ask her where I can find ten more jornaleros, then.”
“It doesn’t work that way. She doesn’t do tricks. She has a true gift, but she’s a child and doesn’t understand what she sees.”
A few days later, Conciencia told Ana that she’d envisioned a crazy bull butting his head against a fence until he broke through. Ana told Severo, and although skeptical, he alerted the men in charge of the cattle to be watchful. But Conciencia’s visions didn’t come with a specific date and time when something would happen. Three weeks passed and the vigilance over the most aggressive bulls waned, if not vanished. Sure enough, one afternoon, Coloso, the biggest