Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [154]
Severo helped Ana dismount. He could tell she was upset, but before he could ask, the bell tolled, and as the first clang echoed across the fields, the workers dropped their tools in front of their foremen and rushed to the trestle tables where two cooks were setting up the meal. Two lines formed, slaves on the left, free people on the right.
“If they were as fast in the fields as to the food line,” Severo said, trying to lighten her mood, “we’d have finished the zafra by now.”
He was interrupted by a scuffle.
“Don’t touch me!” Moncho, a new day laborer, shoved Jacobo, who shoved Moncho back, and the two men wrestled to the ground. The others backed into their own groups, pushing the women behind the line while they urged the fighters with insults and curses.
“Go to the house,” Severo said to Ana as he uncoiled his whip and bolted toward the men. “Efraín, the patrona’s horse,” he called to the boy.
Ana had never seen Severo’s whip fully extended. The moment it unfurled, the two lines of workers backed even farther away from Jacobo and Moncho. The whip snapped into precise arcs, once across Jacobo’s legs, then Moncho’s, Jacobo’s again, then Moncho’s, and a third time as the men scrabbled from it and each other.
“I didn’t do anything, patrón!” Jacobo called, and another arc formed and fell across his thighs, then almost immediately, across Moncho’s calves.
“That whip is for slaves,” Moncho yelled. “I’m a free man and a blanco!”
He lunged at Severo, swinging fists, spitting threats. Ana would never forget the silence when Moncho dared to attack Severo, as every man, woman, and child held their breath. Moncho was a smallish man, thin, sinewy, and before he could strike more than a couple of ineffective punches, Severo heaved him off the ground and threw him several feet.
Moncho crashed against the raised fogón, toppling its contents. A sizzle. A shriek. Ana didn’t think. She sprinted toward the voice behind the raised fogón where the skillet filled with fatback had overturned. On the ground was a little girl, one of the cholera orphans, her left side shimmering with boiling lard.
Her name was Meri. Severo had brought her and her older sister, Gloria, from a bankrupt hacienda. Ana had hardly noticed her before, her attention focused on the adults who did the brunt of the work. She ripped the child’s clothes off her body and used her own skirts to absorb the hot grease from Meri’s arm, shoulder, and back.
“Bring some water,” Ana said.
The women surrounded Ana and Meri, holding full gourds. Ana poured water on Meri’s arm and shoulder to cool her skin. Meri’s stick-thin limbs jerked with every touch. A woman appeared with aloe leaves, her hands scratched and bleeding because she’d pulled the spiky leaves from the ground with her bare fingers, and split them open with her nails. Ana scooped the gel from the leaves and slid it over the burns. Once she’d covered every burn with the aloe, she carried Meri down the aisle dividing enslaved from free laborers to where Severo held her horse.
She moved as if in a trance, detached from her actions but exquisitely aware of every step, every breath. Another death the engines clacked and banged. Another death the cattle snuffled and stomped. Another death the bells around their necks jangled. Another death bare feet dragged across the littered ground as workers backed away. Each sound was distinct from the others but dull, as if her ears were stuffed with cotton. She saw no bodies, just huge eyes following her progress toward Marigalante. Another death black, brown, blue pupils bored into her as sharp as needles. She walked upon dry cane leaves and stalks, carrying a burden too heavy yet much too light. Another death. She handed Meri to Severo while she mounted,