Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [91]
Another year passed. Ramón reported that Miguel was a healthy little boy interested in everything around him. His letters, however, seldom mentioned Ana, and Leonor noticed that correspondence to Elena from Los Gemelos was more and more infrequent. She interpreted this as a sign that Ana’s influence over her son was diminishing, but still she couldn’t understand why they didn’t come.
Leonor and Eugenio had often discussed a trip to Los Gemelos, but when they wrote to their sons, and later to Ramón, there was always a reason why it wasn’t the right time. At first, it was because the trip via merchant ship followed by a long ride on horseback was arduous, especially for Elena, who was not as accomplished a horsewoman as Leonor. The land route required traversing a mountain range where many of the roads were little more than paths cut through the vegetation with machetes.
The specter of an ambush further advised against land travel during the spring and summer of 1848, when San Juan was in a state of high alert as news about uprisings in nearby islands poured into the capital. The Bando Negro was instituted. Volunteer militias were formed to supplement the professional soldiers in El Morro. Rumors about trouble in Puerto Rico circulated at every economic and social level.
Eugenio, who’d tried the life of the gentleman landowner with mixed results, responded when the Field Marshal, the Conde de Reus himself, asked him to lead the volunteer militia sworn to protect the capital against possible uprisings.
“But you’re retired, Eugenio,” Leonor protested.
“I’m only fifty-seven,” he said, “still young and strong enough to protect you and Elena from arsonists and murderers. Don’t be so alarmed, my dear. Trust the courage of our Spanish soldiers, and the leadership of our Field Marshal. Besides, you know by now that I can’t resist the call of the bugle.”
He took command of the militia and spent the next six months in training exercises and early morning musters. Leonor admitted that Eugenio seemed happier and more settled now that he again wore gold epaulets and his hands found reassurance in the ornate pommel and hilt of his sword.
Leonor’s worries intensified as events in the interior of the island further unnerved the capital’s residents. In July, a slave conspiracy was discovered in the southern city of Ponce—fifty kilometers from Hacienda los Gemelos. The slaves planned to ransack and burn their estates and kill their owners. The leaders were found and shot. Two others who knew about the conspiracy but didn’t alert the authorities were sentenced to ten years in prison. Others known to be a part of the plot were punished by one hundred lashes each.
A month later, a slave in Vega Baja, closer to the capital, alerted his master that a group was scheming to revolt and escape to Santo Domingo. The leader was arrested and executed and two others were imprisoned.
The news and rumors magnified Leonor’s disquiet. Nightmares about her sons, murdered in the jungle, broke her fitful sleep. In San Juan, surrounded by soldiers and Eugenio, she and Elena were protected. But who was watching for the safety of her remaining son? Who was protecting her grandson? They could all be dead already, and the news, like Inocente’s, might arrive weeks after she could see them one last time.
In November 1848, the Conde de Reus was replaced by a new governor, Juan de la Pezuela, who abolished the Bando Negro but established other restrictions, such as forbidding the machete by slaves who weren’t actively using them at work.
As unrest subsided, life returned to normal but Leonor’s nightmares increased. A racing heart that she knew was caused by forebodings over her son and grandson plagued her.
“Another year, Leonor,” Eugenio said when she asked for the umpteenth time when she’d see Ramón again and meet Miguel. “The commitment was for five years, remember? One more year and we can all return to Spain.”
“I can’t wait another year! I wish to see my surviving son and my grandson. I want to place flowers on my dead son’s grave.