Лиза Марклунд: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011

I burst out into a small clearing and stopped short. On the ground I beheld Cabrera engaged in a brutal assault on a naked Indian maiden, who writhed and bucked beneath him, clearly an unwilling participant in the proceedings. He laughed as he forced her down. The girl was slight of frame, easy for Cabrera to overpower in spite of his short stature. When I caught a glimpse of her face, I realized she was young, perhaps no older than my twelve-year-old sister Rachel. Her screams grew louder. As I gazed in horror, he silenced her, first with a punch that shattered her jaw, then by seizing her about the neck and choking her until she slumped and fell back against the earth.

To my shame, I failed to act until too late. By the time the paralysis that seized me at the sight let go its hold, the girl was dead.

“Stop!” I croaked, starting forward, though I knew my tardy protest served no purpose.

As he rose from the ground, Cabrera drew a musket from his sash and pointed it at my chest.

“It’s the Admiral’s pet,” Cabrera said with an evil grin that bared his rotting teeth. “Well, boy, are you dog enough to take this bitch? You can have my leavings — before I kill you.”

“You can’t kill me,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice from shaking. “As you said, the Admiral will miss me. Besides, a musket shot will bring many running and disclose your crime.”

“What crime?” he sneered, kicking the girl’s body with a booted foot. “This is but a savage.”

“As the cacique Guancanabarí is a savage?” I inquired. “The Admiral won’t thank you if you turn the Indians against us and ruin our chance to find the gold of Cibao.”

Cabrera snarled, acknowledging the justice of my point. He shrugged and tucked the unfired musket back into his sash.

“This but delays your death,” he said. “Call this moment yet another score we have to settle, you and I.”

I held back, for fear of provoking him beyond reason, the words that sprang to my tongue: What is to stop me from reporting this crime? He read them in my eyes.

“You’ll say nothing,” he declared. “Or I will report your greater crime, which will send you to the Inquisition and a shameful death.”

I had forgotten I still wore my t’fillin, with the prayer shawl fluttering around my neck and chest. I drew a wavering breath.

“It seems we are at a stand,” I said. “What now?”

“First, you help me bury this.” He indicated the body with a careless nod. “Then we return to the camp. And we say nothing.”

“We say nothing,” I repeated. Sick with shame and horror more than fear, I folded my tallit carefully and laid it on a bank of moss beneath a tree, the t’fillin placed within its folds. Then I turned to help him with the burial.

It took us four more days to complete the building of La Navidad. The fort’s walls were made of the Santa Maria’s timbers and its cellars stuffed with stores the men would need, including seed. For if we found the mine, their majesties would want to establish a settlement. Conquest is for soldiers, not that we had thus far needed arms to cow the Taino. But a settlement requires farmers.

As I worked, the sun beating on my bare back and arms and turning them browner than ever, I had always an uneasy sense of Cabrera’s presence. He watched me constantly, alert for me to make some mistake or seek a seclusion that would allow him to kill me with impunity. Knowing this, I stayed close to my fellows at all times, especially Fernando. I did not tell him what was wrong, although he asked me several times. The knowledge I bore was burden enough for me without loading it on another’s shoulders. As for Hutia, having seen one of his people so wronged, I could hardly bear to meet his eyes.

The remaining days flew by, yet in my darker moments, they seemed unendurably long. When it came time to choose the forty men who would remain at La Navidad when the rest departed, I was tense and nervous. My palms were damp with sweat and my teeth had a tendency to chatter, despite the scorching tropical heat. I hardly knew what to hope for. Being left behind with Cabrera would prove a certain death sentence. But further voyaging under even more cramped conditions than before would provide opportunities for him to do me harm as well. To my relief, the Admiral chose Cabrera and his cronies to man the fort, separating them from the treacherous Juan de la Cosa, whom he naturally wanted to keep under his eye. He said nothing of me, so I would sail on with the Niña .

Once the men were chosen, Admiral Columbus entered into negotiations with the cacique for interpreters who spoke the local dialect. The chosen Indians bore little in the way of gear or possessions as they climbed into the ship’s boat, in which we would row out to the Niña . It seemed to me that in some respects they embodied Christian principles far better than the Spanish Christians. But I reminded myself that I must not criticize, for I was not free of fault myself. Thinking of how I had concealed a murder, however good the reason, I thanked Ha’shem that I did not believe in the Christians’ hell.

The new fort’s whole garrison and every soul in the village came down to the beach to see the Niña sail. I felt both glad and sorry to be leaving as I boarded the boat myself and took an oar. I paid little attention to the Indians until Hutia came running down to the boat. He called out, “Baba! baba!” One of our new interpreters, evidently Hutia’s father, stood up and held out his hands, which Hutia grasped. Speaking rapidly in Taino, they embraced. Their hands clung and then parted. Hutia stepped back onto the shore.

In the forefront of the crowd, I could see Cabrera with his arm around a woman. He clutched at her naked body as he leered at me. Still holding her, he raised a gourd of chicha, or perhaps a stronger spirit made from the plant that they called yuca . He waved it at me in a jeering salute, then poured the liquor down his throat.

Beside me, Hutia’s father called out, “Anacaona?”

“Itá,” Hutia replied. I don’t know.

The father sighed deeply. Hutia looked grave and sad, with no trace of the twinkle that usually lurked in his black eyes.

I looked from Hutia to his father and then at Cabrera on the shore. I leaped to my feet, thrusting my oar at Fernando on the bench beside me.

“Don’t let them leave without me!” I said.

I splashed through the shallows to the beach, where Hutia, looking puzzled, came down to meet me where the water met the sand. Cabrera, a quick glance told me, was paying no attention. Another woman had joined the first, and he was busily engaged in nuzzling them both. Ordinarily, this lewd behavior would have caught the Admiral’s eye and been stopped at once. But in the excitement of our departure, Cabrera clearly thought he was safe from interference.

I grasped Hutia’s shoulders with some urgency.

“Anacaona,” I said. “Is she missing? Guaibá? ”

“Itá.”

“Ocama!” I said. Listen! “I know what happened to her.”

I turned him toward Cabrera, to direct his attention to the man without drawing anyone else’s notice as I racked my brain for Taino words to convey my meaning.

“Anacaona! That man killed her!” I could not bring myself to mime the rape, but Hutia’s face darkened as I demonstrated with my own hands and body the blow to the jaw and the squeezing of her throat.

“Anki!” I said. Evil person. “Akani!” Enemy. He had taught me these words while telling me about the fierce Caribe, who preyed on the Taino and were said to be cannibals.

“Bara?” he said. She is dead?