Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [200]
He could no longer wait for the others. He guided the horse down the slope toward the valley. He wasn’t thinking about the fire now, only that he wanted to reach the batey, to see Ana’s expression when she saw him. Would she recognize him? He knew that if he saw her eyes, he’d know the truth.
At the bottom of the path were the flatlands. He went right, as the soldier had indicated. He’d never been in the cañaveral, not even as a boy. The horse sensed his uncertainty, but Miguel urged him along the hard-packed dirt, reassuring them both that they were on a well-traveled road. He couldn’t see beyond a few yards, but in a field to his far left, flames rose into the sky and he smelled and felt the sweet, itchy smoke of burning cane. So long as he stayed on the road, he’d avoid the fields.
Soon he heard grunting, urging, pounding, cutting, calling and answering, men cursing. The soldier was right: people were trying to control the spread of the flames. He reined the horse to a halt in the middle of the road to hear better. The workers were closer than he first thought. To his right, the cane sighed and rustled, and Miguel listened, expecting secrets. The unfamiliar horse nickered, resisting the bit, and Miguel shortened the reins. He swept the darkness. A sliver of moon broke through streaks of clouds, and Miguel saw three distinct sources of light. To his right on a low hill was the glow around the mill with its chimney. High over the horizon before him, lights flickered in what he thought was El Destino. To his left, the road stretched between rows of cane, and if he sat up on the horse, he could make out lights in the casona where he was born. He spurred the horse toward the lower batey, galloping upon the hard earth toward his mother.
As a child he’d tried to avoid reading her letters. As a young man, he rarely answered them. He’d come across the ocean reluctantly, resentfully, to see her, and even before he reached her, he had plans to leave as soon and gracefully as he could. His memory of her was of a stern woman in black clothes who, for reasons he didn’t understand, scared him. Now self-reproach galvanized him. She was his mother, his last blood relative, and he had to see her.
He turned left at the next turn and came upon two men carrying torches. One of them seemed to recognize him, but the moment Miguel opened his mouth to speak, the men dropped the torches and ran back into the cane.
“Wait,” Miguel called.
Just then a huge cloud of gray smoke enveloped him. The horse whinnied, turned, sprinted into the cane, turned again, bucked, indignantly threw Miguel head over heels, and jounced into the cañaveral.
When he regained consciousness, he wasn’t sure where he was. His ears buzzed, and his head felt heavy. He had no memory. No future. He was floating in darkness and space. He didn’t want to awaken, but as he rested on the ground, his senses returned, and he discovered anew that he could feel. The earth beneath him was moist and he clutched handfuls of the sandy soil. He was in the rustling cane.
Miguel recalled falling hard, the sudden puff of smoke and ash that made it impossible to breathe. His eyes hurt, as if needles were prickling him, so he closed them tight. Who were those men, and why did one of them know him? He had to see. When he opened his eyes again, the purple night was speckled with ten thousand blinking, aggrieved eyes. If I die, the slaves will be free. He felt peaceful, noble; the ten thousand eyes blinked. As he watched them watching him, a veil drew across the sky. Creatures scurried past him, and he jerked with a start and a groan. He was now fully awake and aware, the canebrakes