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In memory of my Cuban Indian ancestors
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Caliban
from The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Bernardino de Talavera was deeply in debt, like so many Spaniards who worked their Indians to death, yet could not prosper. He assembled a group of seventy characters in rags for debts and other unpunished crimes, and together they stole a ship.…
Bartolomé de las Casas
Historia de las Indias
HISTORICAL SETTING
Spanish ships reached the western Caribbean Sea in 1492, searching for Asia and spices. Instead, the explorers found peaceful islanders, and enslaved them.
By 1510, the Bahamas, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica had been conquered. Only Cuba, the largest Caribbean isle, was still free.
It was a time of hurricanes on an island of hope.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Quebrado (keh-BRAH-doe): A young ship’s slave of Taíno Indian and Spanish ancestry
Bernardino de Talavera
(ber-nar-DEE-no deh tah-lah-VEH-rah): The first pirate of the Caribbean Sea
Alonso de Ojeda (ah-LON-so de oh-HEH-dah): The pirate’s hostage, a brutal conquistador
Naridó (nah-ree-DOE): A young Ciboney Indian fisherman
Caucubú (kow-koo-BOO): The young daughter of a Ciboney chieftain
Caciques (kah-SEE-kehs): Chieftains
Behiques (beh-EE-kehs): Shamans
Ciboney and Taíno Indian tribesmen, women, and children
Spanish sailors
Spirits
Ghosts
Part One
Wild Sea
Quebrado
I listen
to the song
of creaking planks,
the roll and sway
of clouds in sky,
wild music
and thunder,
the groans
of wood,
a mourning moan
as this old ship
remembers
her true self,
her tree self,
rooted
and growing,
alive,
on shore.
Quebrado
One glance is enough to show me
the pirate’s mood.
There are days when he treats me
like an invisible wisp of night,
and days when he crushes me
like a cockroach on his table.
I try to slip away
each time I see
his coiled fist,
even though
on a ship
there is no place
to hide.
Quebrado
The sailors call me el quebrado,
“the broken one,” a child of two
shattered worlds, half islander
and half outsider.
My mother was a natural, a “native”
of the island called cu ba, “Big Friend,”
home of my first few wild
hurricane seasons.
My father was a man of the sea,
a Spanish army deserter.
When my mother’s people
found him on horseback,
starving in the forest,
they fed him, and taught him
how to live like a natural.
To become a peaceful Taíno,
he traded his soldier-name
for Gua Iro, “Land Man.”
He and my mother
were happy together,
until a plague took the village,
and none were left
but my wandering father,
who roamed far away,
leaving me alone
with his copper-hued horse
in an unnatural village
of bat-winged spirits
and guava-eating ghosts.
Sailors call me a boy
of broken dreams,
but I think of myself
as a place—a strange place
dreamed by the sea,
belonging nowhere,
half floating island
and half
wandering wind.
Quebrado
I survived alone in the ghostly village,
with only my father’s abandoned horse
to console me, until a moonlit night
when I was seized by rough seafarers,
wild men who beat me
and taught me how to sail,
and how to lose hope.
I was traded from ship to ship as a slave,
until I ended up in the service
of Bernardino de Talavera,
the pirate captain of this stolen vessel.
The pirate finds me useful
because I know two tongues,
my mother’s flutelike Taíno,
and my father’s drumlike Spanish.
Together, my two languages
sound like music.
Quebrado
How can a father abandon a son
in such a dangerous world?
Why did he leave me alone
in that village of ghosts
with only his red horse
for company?
What kind of horseman
abandons his steed?
A sorrowful man,
that is the answer.
I have spent all my years
accepting sad truths.
Bernardino de Talavera
I once owned a vast land grant
with hundreds of naturales,
Indian slaves who perished
from toil, hunger, and plagues.
Crops withered, mines failed.
All my dreams of wealth vanished.
Soldiers soon gave chase,
trying to send me to debtors’ prison,
so I captured this ship and seized
a valuable hostage, Alonso de Ojeda,
Governor of Venezuela,
an immense, jungled province
on the South American mainland,
where he is known
as the most ruthless
conqueror of tribes.
When I heard that Ojeda
had been wounded by a warrior’s
frog-poisoned arrow,
I offered help, assuring the Governor
that my ship would gladly carry him
to any port with Spanish doctors.
I offered the illusion of mercy,
and Ojeda was desperate enough
to believe me.
Quebrado
The pirate demands a ransom,
but the hostage insists
he has nothing to give,
so while they argue,
I lean over the creaking ship’s
splintered rail,
watching with wonder
&nb
sp; as blue dolphins
leap and soar
like winged spirits.
My mother believed dolphins
can change their shape, turning
into men who come ashore
to sing and dance during storms.
If legless creatures
can be transformed,
maybe someday
I will change too.
Bernardino de Talavera
I catch the broken boy,
and it takes only a few quick blows
to convince Ojeda
of my strength.
When the prisoner sees my power
over a slave boy, he understands
that I would show even less mercy
to a grown man.
Knights who have lost
their guns and swords
are remarkably easy
to frighten.
Alonso de Ojeda
All my life, I have been triumphant.
On the isle of Hispaniola, I tricked
a chieftain by offering him a ride on my horse,
then trapping him in handcuffs.
I sent him away in the hold of a ship,
to be sold as a curiosity in Spain,
but a hurricane sank the vessel
while the chief was still shackled.
Expecting rebellion, I slaughtered
his queen and all her people,
to keep them from seeking revenge.
There were days when my sword
killed ten thousand.
Now, all those dead spirits haunt me,
and I am the one on a ship
in chains.
Quebrado
The life of a ship’s slave
is hard labor and fists,
or deep water and sharks.
When I sleep, I belong to the land.
In dreams, I work in a field,
In dreams, I feel like a spirit of the air,
riding my father’s leaping horse.
In dreams, I feel free,
until the sun rises and my eyes open,
and once again I must struggle
beneath the weight
of flapping sails
and heavy ropes.
Quebrado
My mother loved the green parrots
and red macaws that made the sky
above our village look so cheerful.
She always had at least one raucous bird
perched on her shoulder.
As if by magic, the clever birds
learned to speak two languages.
My first words of Taíno and Spanish
were mastered by listening to songs
recited by feathered creatures
of the air.
Now, each time I think of home,
I remember that the world
is big enough to offer more
than sorrow.
Quebrado
The sea is wild today.
The sails look like wings.
Sailors chant tales while they work—
sweet songs about the Island of Mermaids,
and scary ones about the Isle of Giants,
with green jungles where huge women
turn into monsters, clasping sailors
in their talons.
The sea is wild tonight.
The roaring wind
sounds hungry.
Alonso de Ojeda
Shackled to a rotting wall
in the ship’s stinking hold,
I feel as helpless as a turtle
flipped on its back,
awaiting the cook’s
probing knife.
I clench my fists
and struggle
to fight my way
out of the handcuffs,
while ghosts
gather around me,
watching
and waiting.…
Bernardino de Talavera
The hostage begs for mercy,
but I have enough trouble
just trying to figure out
how to steer
the stubborn ship
in this devil wind,
and how to reach land,
and where to await
fair weather.
In a storm, the only decision
that really matters
is direction.
Quebrado
The sky is alive with cloud dragons
and wind spirits.
When a sailor is almost swept overboard,
I wish that I had a gold ring in my ear,
like the one the pirate wears for luck.
His red shirt is meant to ward away
evil winds, and he ties a green cloth
around his head for protection.
The rest of us are dressed in rags,
except for the shackled hostage,
who wears armor and an amulet
with the painted face of a wistful saint.
I wonder if the saint looks so sad
because she knows how many people
Ojeda has killed.
Quebrado
I carry a brass bell
that clangs
with each step,
hoping to soothe
the angry wind
by ringing out
a festive melody.
If only my own
rising fear
of this howling storm
and the pirate’s fury
and Ojeda’s screams
could be calmed
by a remedy
as simple
as music.
Alonso de Ojeda
I am a short man, but strong and agile.
I was daring enough to lead
the bold expedition that named
this entire New World.
Amerigo Vespucci was just a merchant
on one of my ships, and even though
the foolish mapmaker chose his name
instead of mine, the true honor
of claiming this vast wilderness
still rightfully belongs to me.
Someday, all maps and charts
will proclaim the Alonsos,
not the Americas!
The ship groans,
wind shrieks,
and I feel the storm
breathing
all around me
like an enormous
creature
in a nightmare
where beasts
growl
and chase.…
On a ship
there is no place
to run away.
Bernardino de Talavera
I am not a man of prayer,
but every hurricane earns its name
by falling on the feast day
of a saint who has the power
to calm wild winds
and spare fragile ships,
so even though I have no calendar,
and I am just guessing at today’s date,
I roar the name of Santiago,
patron of my homeland,
Spain’s armored warrior-saint,
galloping on his ghostly
white stallion
of clouds.…
Quebrado
Brigantines are slow ships,
sailing no more than five knots,
a mere crawl in the face
of hurricane winds.
The foremast is square-rigged
and massive like a thundercloud,
and the aft mast is rounded
like a graceful bird’s wing,
but the pirate is not a real captain.
He’s merely a failed farmer,
unable to steer accurately
in such a fierce gale.
Sailors cry out for help
from the only skilled mariner
on this vessel—the hostage.
Shou
ld we free him?
Can he save us?
Quebrado
The sky is a fiery waterfall.
Rain and lightning pummel the deck
from above, while giant waves
hurl us from side to side,
and fierce currents tug
from below.
Every force of nature grasps
at shards of worm-eaten
ship’s wood.
While sailors call out
in anguish,
I cling to the rail,
expecting
to die.
Bernardino de Talavera
A good sailor should be able to smell
the spice of land while a ship is still far
from shore, so I sniff the wild air,
hoping for ginger, vanilla, and orchids,
but all I inhale is sulfur—lightning—
the storm dragon’s breath,
a zigzag flame.
There is no terror greater
than the danger of fire on a ship.
With sailors demanding that the hostage
be set free to help steer,
I relent.
Even the worst enemies
can seem like friends
when storm winds
unite us.
Quebrado
The iron key
feels like a wing
in my hand
as it floats down
toward shackles
to save the life
of a captive,
even though
I know he is
a killer
who would never
free me.
Alonso de Ojeda
Murky waters rise,
flooding the hold
so that I barely
escape.
I used to be powerful,
but now I am useless,
so weak that I have to lean
on the slave boy’s
bony shoulder.
I limp up the ladder,
out of watery darkness,
into a fiery storm.
Quebrado
Burning masts
plummet and crash,