Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [73]
Severo had joined the lieutenant and two soldiers on the search for Alejo and Curro. Severo’s hounds flushed them from a cave with the other three cimarrones three days’ ride from Los Gemelos. Severo and the soldiers flayed them, then marched them to the ceiba tree. Severo hog-tied and hanged the five men from the same branches they used for Inocente and Pepe, but lower. He let his hounds play with them until the men begged for forgiveness for their deeds. He made them say the Lord’s prayer, then slit each of their throats. The lieutenant went into the bushes to vomit because, he said, he’d never seen so much blood.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU
One morning three weeks after the news of Inocente’s murder, Ramón delivered the hacienda books and two bulging portfolios to Ana. He was sheepish, as if he’d been forced to turn them over against his will.
“I can’t do this. Inocente was in charge and I can’t make sense of any of it.” He stood like a boy expecting a scolding.
Ana frowned over the portfolios but didn’t open them. She skimmed the ledgers. The figures were in a neat, clerkish hand. “This is not Inocente’s handwriting,” she said.
“Severo,” Ramón said.
Thank goodness, Ana thought. “I see. Would you like me to take care of this from now on, as I used to?”
Ramón grimaced, then: “Please.”
“Is there anything I need to know that is not here? Papers. Invoices. Loans.”
“Everything should be there.” He was uncomfortable, as if by relinquishing the materials, he was divulging more than the financial necessaries of the business.
“Muy bien,” she said.
“If you have any questions, Severo can probably explain.”
She almost laughed. “I’ll see him later”—she pressed the portfolios and ledgers to her bosom—“after I go through these.”
She spent the better part of that Saturday comparing paid from unpaid invoices, bills of lading, balances on customs and tax demands, deeds for the purchased lands, promissory notes from don Luis and from don Eugenio. The figures showed her what her husband had been unwilling to share: that they now owned almost six hundred cuerdas, mostly woods and forest that at least paid lower taxes than cultivated fields. There were three farmhouses, excluding the one by the river that Ramón had given Severo. Sixteen of the seventy-one slaves in the hacienda belonged to Severo, even though they lived in the cuarteles and were treated the same as the de Argosos’. In the slave log the ones who belonged to Severo were entered with their first name followed by “de Fuentes.” The most surprising item in the portfolios, however, was that another four hundred cuerdas contiguous to the southern boundary of Los Gemelos, including the cove, belonged to Severo. Ana had no idea he had the resources to own so much land and so many slaves. Contraband, she concluded, was more lucrative than agriculture.
Over the next months following Inocente’s murder, Ramón’s eyes lost even more of their brightness; his features slackened as joy faded from them. He was often in a doddering confusion more appropriate for someone far older than his twenty-seven years. He stumbled frequently, as if he’d lost the connection between intention and action. He carried Miguel around as if the boy shouldn’t touch the ground, while Inés and Flora followed close behind. He constantly caressed and kissed Miguel, but seemed irritated if Ana touched him or stood too close when they were alone. She had the impression that her presence was painful to him. Ramón had condemned her for their sexual situation. Did he also blame her for Inocente’s death? She didn’t know how to broach the subject without sounding defensive or accusatory.
Doña Leonor’s letters became longer and more frequent after Inocente’s death, and left no doubt whom she blamed for her son’s murder. “I begged Ana,” she wrote to her one remaining son, “not to put romantic notions