Free The Empty Hammock by Brenda Barrett Page B

Could she rewrite history?
    She was in a time that she always heard about, and yet she was stuck to the confines of her surroundings. Jamaica was now a deep tropical jungle: everywhere she looked there were trees, unrelenting undergrowth, and thick patches of bush. The place looked untamed with its faint dirt tracks and its stark purple mountains in the distance.
    It was all good and well to think up grand schemes of rescue, but what could she do?
    Only Basila believed a word she said, and even, then she only understood what she had told her about Guacanagari’s dream.
    The man lived on Haiti, she couldn’t call him and tell him what his dream meant, neither could she call the Lucayanos in Bahamas and tell them to kill the pale men that will approach them in the three ships. Nor did she know if Columbus had already landed on Bohio.
    She searched her mind for fifteenth century history. It had to be the fifteenth century because Guacanagari is alive and currently the chief. He would be a friend to Columbus, so chances are the time of the Tainos was rapidly drawing to an end.
    She barely knew fifteenth century history, except that the war between the French and the English was soon to end, and that purity of religion was now the order of the day, with the Roman Catholic Church dominating the world. This would be the century when war was fought for religious purity and people were dying for their faith. 
    “What are you thinking so hard about?” Orocobix whispered close to her ear.
    “Fifteenth century history.”
    “What is that?” he asked curiously, determined to listen to every word she said.
    “The time we are now in,” Ana got up on her elbow and looked down at him. “Time is measured before and after the death of Christ and we are in the fifteenth century after his death.”
    “Why would someone want to measure before and after the dead?”
    “Because he was special.” Ana rubbed her hand across his jaw. It was prickly with a day’s growth of beard.
    “He is the son of Yocahu.” She told him in terms he could understand. Yocahu was, after all, their chief God. The one who controlled all other gods, according to their religion.
    Orocobix nodded. “Yocahu has many children.”
    “Yes he does, but this son is special and so when he died for the sins of the world, he rose again, and then went to live in Coyaba with Yocahu. He will come again, for all who were faithful to him.”
    “I know that,” Orocobix said, surprising Ana.
    “Is that a Taino teaching?”
    Orocobix nodded, “our people have always known that Yocahu will send his sons and we all live as one, even with the evil Caribs, in a place that is even better than here. It's called Coyaba.”
    “And they call you guys heathens,” Ana trembled slightly. “I wonder where you got that spin off from Christianity from.”
    “Our fathers…fathers…fathers, we tell stories so that we can remember them.” Orocobix pulled her on top of him. She laid her head on his chest and felt the steady thumping of his heart.
    “If I had a ship, or there were airplanes I would go to Europe and intercept Columbus on his way here.”
    “You speak in riddles again.” Orocobix sifted his hand through her hair. “Let us bathe in the stream and I will tell my servants to prepare us for our trip.”
    “Where are we going?” Ana asked, excited at the prospect of exploration.
    “We are going to Maima, to spend time with our families there and then we will come back here and go to Bohio with the elders.”
     
    ******
     
    They went bathing upstream, away from the village. The water was cool on Ana’s heated skin and she splashed around and played with Orocobix.
    “They laid on the bank together while the water splashed over their legs.”
    The people of the village made themselves absent from the area, to give the newly joined couple some privacy.
    “Ana,” Orocobix’s voice was husky, “tell me more about your visions for our time.”
    “You mean about