Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [30]
“A couple of hours,” Severo said. “The paths are overgrown. We’ve cleared some, but now that we’ve begun the zafra it’s necessary to keep the workers in the cane.”
As they talked, Pepe, the foreman, directed the slaves to unload the valises and deliver two bunches of plantains and one of bananas, a crate full of fruit, and a couple of casks to the dinghy. The sailors rowed away.
Before Ramón could help her, Ana was on her mount. He shook his head at her agility.
“A woman who rides astride like a man,” Ramón laughed, “is a woman not to be trifled with.”
Again she was drawn to Severo’s reaction, but he’d just turned to mount.
He led them into a trail invisible until they were under its high canopy of thick-trunked, broad-leaved trees. Ana was grateful for her veil; as they entered the path, insects unable to fly on the windy beach began attacking in swarms. Ramón and Inocente flailed and slapped at their necks, their faces, at the naked skin between cuffs and gloves. But Severo seemed impervious, as secure on his horse as on the ground.
Farther in, the trail widened, but brambles and vines choked the vegetation along both sides. Ana had read that Puerto Rico didn’t have the large four-legged predators one would expect in a jungle. But that was hard to believe given the thick forest and the rustling, screeching, grunting sounds that came from it. When they made a turn, a bright green parrot, the undersides of its wings a startling turquoise, flew across the path, shrieking wildly, spooking the horses and causing the hounds to bark angrily. Farther along, Ana saw a huge snake coiled on a hummock of red dirt, its diamond-shaped head draped daintily over its body.
They rode single file through portions of the trail, Ramón and Inocente managing to keep Ana between them. The dogs stayed on either side of Severo’s horse, their eyes scanning the vegetation, barking at unseen threats. Every once in a while one of them started into the bush, but a whistle from Severo brought him back, as docile, Ana thought, as Jesusa’s pugs.
Pepe and the two slaves, Alejo and Curro, brought up the rear. Pepe rode a mule, but the men carrying the valises and parcels walked on bare feet over the pebbly, uneven terrain. Within a few minutes of entering the forest, the three were far behind. Pepe urged Alejo and Curro to walk faster, his voice growing fainter until eventually it was swallowed into the rustling of leaves and the screech of parrots.
One minute they were in the forest and the next they emerged into an open valley in many shades of green, from pale, almost yellow to olive. Grayish lavender tassels rippled over some fields.
“That’s the guajana,” Severo said, “the cane flower that indicates when the stalks are ready for harvest.”
In the far distance, soft-edged mountains stretched west to east. What land wasn’t under cultivation was forested. Scattered over the valley, smokestacks pointed to the sky from the surrounding green.
“Why is there smoke over some and not over others?”
“On those plantations the cane is not ready, or there aren’t enough workers to bring it in, or owners have given up, and left the land and everything on it.”
“They just abandon it?” Inocente asked.
“Some do,” Severo said. “A stack with no smoke during the zafra means bad news for the owners.”
“That won’t happen to us,” Ramón said. “Our chimneys will be smoking day and night.…”
They laughed, but the tension didn’t lift until Severo pointed toward a group of buildings to their left. “The windmill over there crushes your cane, and as you can see, your chimney is working.”
“That’s it?” Ramón asked. Severo nodded.
“Hacienda los Gemelos,” Inocente said.
Ana’s throat tightened. On a rise, there was the windmill, and next to it, a chimney spouting thick smoke into the azure sky. To the left of the windmill, a fenced pasture held cattle. Beyond it, there were roofs and the living center of the plantation, still some leagues away.
She’d been moving toward this destination not knowing exactly where it was, what it looked like, but now Hacienda