Tag: s-america-natives

Arrows

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

I managed to push him off and he sauntered away,
seemingly satisfied he had not only taught Tamanoa a lesson, but
me as well.
I looked at Tamanoa’s mutilated face. He was choking on his
blood. turned and threw the nose at my feet, then disappeared into
the night, whistling. I helped Tamanoa up and tried to guide him by
the shoulders, hoping perhaps to take him to see Pedro Montes, but
he shook me off and refused to speak to me as he walked towards
the river. And who could blame him? I was a Spaniard after all. It
was for me to prove that Spaniards were not all the same.
I found where Josefa had been sleeping. Gregorio had found her,
too. They were seated near one another, but not talking. Gregorio
drew shapes in the dirt with a long stick and glanced furtively at her
and me. I wanted to tell them both what Pánfilo had done, but I
knew it would not make any difference if they knew. Nobody cared
about the half-breeds.
It was dusk and pleasantly cool in the mountains. Wesat around a
fire. Josefa’s eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, a sign of the depth of
her weariness. The experienced conquistadors had ignored Josefa,
but now that she was widowed, Losada came by to offer his
sympathy and put himself at her disposal to arrange her return to El
Tocuyo once it was safe to do so, if that was her wish.
Infante followed, bowing deeply and kissing her hands. He
expressed his concern about her delicate situation and asked her
permission to inquire after her welfare, so that he might be at her
service in the future.
Gabriel de Ávila, Camacho and others, although modestly, also
showed interest in her that night. Josefa received them graciously,
while Gregorio watched in sullen annoyance. I hoped she might find
a husband among all these men.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

“Leave me alone, will you?” he scowled.
But I wanted to make peace with him.
“I mean it, Gregorio. You need a bleeding to drain all those bad
humours and grudges. Hombre! I saw you in battle; if I hadn’t been
so busy running, I would have stayed put to watch you. What
shooting and fighting! You are a born conquistador. From now on, it
will be quite comforting to have you around.”
I uncorked a flask of marigold oil. Gregorio chortled at last. He
took a gulp from the mug he was holding.
“I saw you, too,” he said, “running like a hare.”
“Little wonder! I have never been so frightened in my life!”
Gregorio and Benjamin laughed. Perhaps I was more useful to
them as feckless character, someone to jeer at.
“Why, you don’t want to go to heaven, Friar?” Benjamin taunted.
“I know I am but a sinner,” I smiled. “But I could use a bit more
time before God blows out my candle. I’m hoping to find some way
to skip purgatory.”
“Trying to become a saint, are you?” Gregorio said. “Become a
martyr, then. That will do, won’t it?”
“That would be an improvement, no doubt. I’ve been thinking
about it. Perhaps one of these days someone will favour my
aspirations.”
Gregorio swatted at a hornet that came too close. “We’re going to
make it, I think,” Gregorio said. “Losada knows what he is doing.
You can see it in his face. I’m convinced he knows how the bastards
think. He has lots of experience. But, if you ask me, Francisco Infante
is the better of the two.”
Losada struck me as a man of principle whereas Francisco Infante
impressed me as a schemer, someone who would rather run things
for himself, so I decided not to respond to the bait. It was odd for me
to sometimes feel so close to Gregorio and Benjamin, and yet at the
same time I sensed their camaraderie was fickle, transitory. For
them, the New World was strictly a land of opportunity, and the
state of their souls was a distant second.
Were they ever my friends? Or did they even want to be?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

Through the smoke I made out the hem of her dress some distance
away. She was kneeling beside an inert body, which was pierced by
an arrow through the thigh and another in the chest. It was her
husband.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a near-naked man running. The
smoke partially hid him, but I saw he was tall, with strands of black
hair pasted to his chest by sweat and speed and others floating over
his shoulders. Funny, I thought, I have not seen that kind of long
loincloth before.
Then I realized he was charging toward Josefa. He bore a
belligerent expression, and there was blood on his naked chest
under his quiver’s band. A pang of fear hit me like a bucket of cold
water. Surely he wouldn’t kill a woman, would he?
We were both closing in on Josefa and her dead husband but from
different directions. I was closer than he was. Josefa looked up at the
Indian, open-mouthed and white as the ghost she was in danger of
becoming. I sprinted toward her, heart throbbing, and tore the
buckler from her dead husband’s grasp. There was a serviceable
harquebus lying at his side and the sheathed dagger at his belt but I
didn’t want to use any potentially lethal weapon.
I squared my shoulders and braced myself for whatever might
come. It was God’s choice to see us through or not. I raised the small
shield on my forearm as I had seen others do. His bare feet landed
underneath the buckler, and he delivered a savage blow that
shocked its way up my arm, pushing me back, the clang resonating
in my ears.
He held his arm high, ready to deliver another blow. I was
crouching, peering over the buckler. Josefa yelped. I charged and
overthrew him, grunting like a beast. He fell but was on his feet
before I knew it, the hellish macana still in his grasp. His eyes leered
at me from his horribly painted face. I could feel his anger, his pride,
his hate, but there was a fortitude that sent a chill down my spine.
He turned and swung at my belly, but I leapt backwards as the
macana came within inches. “Run!” I shouted.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

Fresh tears filled her downcast eyes and rolled over her cheeks as
she blinked.
“How did you come to be here, Pepa?”
“I was one of five daughters. The last one,” she said softly.
I glanced at her husband, who had stirred in his sleep and
mumbled noisily before resuming his snoring. I knew exactly what
she meant. A daughter could mean the opportunity for a good
alliance or a financial burden on her father. In a household of five
daughters, the father would be happy to find anyone to take them.
Without a dowry, a girl would likely never be able to marry, or to be
choosy about it. Pepa told me her husband had agreed to marry her
without a dowry, despite her knowing how to read.
Gregorio awakened at the sound of her voice. He was listening. I
couldn’t help that. In her town, she said, everyone thought her
strange because she could read. It had been a relief to accompany her
husband in his quest for fortune in the Indies.Her mother had tried to
convince him to leave her in a convent, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
Gregorio kept watching her, sympathetically. He might have
consoled her himself had her husband not awakened at that instant.
Gregorio narrowed his eyes and shot him a loathsome look from
head to toe. “I’ll have something brought for you, señora,” Gregorio
said. “You’ll need your strength.”
“Gregorio is right, you should eat,” I said.
This unexpected attention seemed to perk her spirits. “I can read
something to you all, if you like,” she said, eyes lowered.
“Of course,” I said, breaking the silence. “What do you have
there?”
“It’s the Lazarillo de Tormes,” she said, taking a small book out
from under the folds of her skirt. The corners of her mouth trembled
as she tried to smile. She must have been protecting that book like an
amulet.
“This is a story about a rascal who is a blind man’s guide. Do you
know it? Here, listen: Fainting and dying of hunger, I staggered along the
street, and while passing by the Barley Square I found an old praying
woman with more tooth than a wild boar . . .”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

In the general direction of the enemy, Indian servants placed
forked poles to hold the muzzles of the heavy harquebuses. The
horses whinnied and stamped their hoofs, rustling the foliage as
they tugged at their halters. Somewhere farther away, I could hear
sheep bleating; closer the squealing of pigs.
Losada had mounted his black horse and was now whirling in
circles and bellowing orders, sword raised high over his head. I
glimpsed an Indian woman scampering into the bush with a toddler
on her back, suspended on a thick band hanging from her head. The
Indian servants scurried about, grabbing whatever they could and
herding the animals. All the riders mounted, and the dust cloud
thickened, forcing me to hold my breath. Gregorio ran past me,
balancing a harquebus in his hand.
“Don’t just stand there, hide!” he bellowed, his voice almost
drowned out by the racket.
“Where is she?” I yelled back.
But he was gone to join the harquebusiers gathering behind the
riders. I hunched into myself, rosary tight in my right hand. I came
upon the fire, blinking to clear the smoke from my eyes, and found
the last place I’d seen her. I stumbled over a basket and nearly fell. In
the name of all saints, I didn’t even know her name!
The servants had disappeared. I was the only idiot awaiting the
arrows. At the sound of grunting, I looked down to see a pig
careering into the heart-shaped leaves of a huge philodendron. I
followed the pig.
It took a moment for my eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness
in the jungle. I could discern crouching human silhouettes. Indian
women were huddled together on the ground, some crying, others
staring vacantly while frightened children clutched at them, some
finding oblivion at their mothers’ breasts. I made hushing sounds
and touched a shoulder here, another there, gesturing toward the
trunk of a big mahogany tree and mimicking the arrows falling

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522