Part 57 (1/2)
Give me the words, Mighty Ogun. Tell me the words that will make the _branco_ slaves join us.
But the prayer pa.s.sed unanswered. He watched in dismay as the women began, one by one, to back away, to retreat toward their huts in awe and dread.
Still, they had done nothing to try and halt the flames. So perhaps there still was hope. If they were afraid to join the
rebellion, neither would they raise a hand to save the wealth of their _branco _master.
Also, these were but women. Women did not fight. Women tended the compounds of warriors. When the men returned, the rebellion would begin. They would seize their chance to kill the _branco _master who enslaved them. He signaled the other Yoruba, who moved on quickly toward the curing house, where the pots of white sugar waited.
The sky had taken on a deep red glow, as the low-lying clouds racing past reflected back the ochre hue of flames from fields in the south.
Across the island, the men of the Yoruba had honored their vows. They had risen up.
Atiba noticed the savor of victory in his mouth, that hardening of muscle when the foe is being driven before your sword, fleeing the field. It was a strong taste, dry and cutting, a taste he had known before. Something entered your blood at a moment like this, something more powerful, more commanding, than your own self.
As they pushed through the low shrubs leading toward the sugarworks, he raised his hand and absently touched the three clan marks down his cheek, their shallow furrows reminding him once again of his people.
Tonight, he told himself, all the men of Ife would be proud.
”Atiba, son of Balogun, I must tell you my thoughts.” Old Tahajo had moved forward, ahead of the others. ”I do not think it is good, this thing you would have us do now.”
”What do you mean?” Atiba eased his own pace slightly, as though to signify deference.
”A Yoruba may set fires in the forest, to drive out a cowardly foe. It is all part of war. But we do not fire his compounds, the compounds that shelter his women.”
”The curing house where sugar is kept is not the compound of the _branco's _women.” Atiba quickened his stride again, to rea.s.sert his leaders.h.i.+p, and to prevent the other men from hearing Tahajo's censure, however misguided. ”It's a part of his fields. Together they nourish him, like palm oil and salt. Together they must be destroyed.”
”But that is not warfare, Atiba. That is vengeance.” The old man persisted. ”I have set a torch to the fields of an enemy--before you were born the Fulani once forced such a course upon us, by breaking the sacred truce during the harvest festival--but no Yoruba would deliberately burn the seed yams in his enemy's barn.”
”This barn does not hold his yams; it holds the fruits of our unjust slavery. The two are not the same.”
”Atiba, you are like that large rooster in my eldest wife's compound, who would not suffer the smaller ones to crow. My words are no more than summer wind to you.” The old man sighed. ”You would scorn the justice Shango demands. This is a fearsome thing you would have us do now.”
”Then I will bear Shango's wrath on my own head. Ogun would have us do this, and he is the G.o.d we honor tonight. It is our duty to him.” He moved on ahead, leaving Tahajo to follow in silence. The thatched roof of the curing house was ahead in the dark, a jagged outline against the rosy sky beyond.
Without pausing he opened the door and led the way. All the men knew the room well; standing before them were long rows of wooden molds, containers they had carried there themselves, while a _branco _overseer with a whip stood by.
”These were placed here with our own hands. Those same hands will now destroy them.” He looked up. ”What better justice could there be?” He sparked the flint off his machete, against one of the straw bundles, and watched the blaze a moment in silence. This flame, he told himself, would exact the perfect revenge.
Revenge. The word had come, unbidden. Yes, truly it was
revenge. But this act was also justice. He recalled the proverb: ”One day's rain makes up for many days' drought.” Tonight one torch would make up for many weeks of whippings, starvation, humiliation.
”Mark me well.” Atiba held the burning straw aloft and turned to address the men. ”These pots are the last sugar you will ever see on this island. This, and the cane from which it was made, all will be gone, never to return. The forests of the Orisa will thrive here once more.”
He held the flaming bundle above his head a moment longer, while he intoned a verse in praise of Ogun, and then flung it against the thatched wall behind him, where it splayed against a post and disintegrated. They all watched as the dry-reed wall smoldered in the half-darkness, then blossomed with small tongues of fire.
Quickly he led them out again, through the narrow doorway and into the cool night. The west wind whipped the palm trees now, growing ever fresher. Already the flame had scaled the reed walls of the curing house, and now it burst through the thatched roof like the opening of a lush tropical flower.