VOYAGE OF STRANGERS Read Free

and t’fillin , intending to perform my daily prayers. I had already bound the t’fillin around my arm and brow when I heard screams of distress coming from some distance away. I crashed through the underbrush, seeking the source of the disturbance. The raucous cry of parrots disturbed by my headlong progress mingled with the human screams, which now held a note of terror.
    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 Guacanagarí 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