The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar by Kevin Baldeosingh Page B

himself with the things of this world. But this was how it was in España and the nobles grew fat and wore many cloths and lived in bohios that could have held almost an entire village.
    Caon was very happy in España. The rest of us wanted to go home, especially when the winds blew from the west where the mountains rose like a dim wall up to the sky. We smelled our small lands on that wind, and our longing clutched at our hearts like a closed fist. But Caon was too busy exploring the wonders of the land – from the weavers’ bohios where they spun their rich cloths to the foundry where they turned metal to gleaming water and, of course, the artisans’ bohios  where dyes were mixed and barks painted. He learned much in the months we stayed in España and, when Colón was ready to sail back to Ciguayo, Caon said he would stay.
    I was not surprised. In España he had the tools to make the things in his head real. But, if it had been that alone, he would not have stayed, he would have returned with the tools. But in his travels through the city he had seen men who did nothing but make beautiful things and who were respected for doing so. They were not his people, yet in some way I did not – could not – understand, Caon felt himself to be one of them. So, when the air in that land grew so cool that our very bones ached, we left with Colón to return to our small lands. There were seventeen ships with fifteen hundred men on them. Caon, dressed in the bright cloths of the Españols, looked a lonely figure on the crowded and shouting docks as we drew away over the grey sea. But I understood that those visions in his head were like commands from Yúcahu.
    Five hundred years passed before I found out what happened to Caon. He died only a few years after we left. I returned there for the first time in centuries three years ago. In some of the architectural designs of the smaller palaces, and in some of the faces of the church sculptures, I thought I saw traces of Caon’s work. But no doubt this was just my imagination.

VIII
    There was a steady wind so we made good time leaving España. We stopped at some small lands to pick up strange animals. There were squawking, silly-faced birds named chickens which could not fly, and fat round-nosed beasts like our quenks, and huge beasts such as horses and cattle. We had not seen much of such animals, except for the horses and the cattle, while we were in España and I now began to understand at least one secret of the Españols’ power. With such beasts to work their fields and to be killed for their meat, they did not need to hunt. They had more time to create their clever devices. But I was not jealous – with all their power, I did not think that they were a happy people.
    There were several priests on board Colón’s ship. One of these priests talked with me often. His name was Ramón Pané and all the Españols called him ‘father’, although his god had forbidden him to sex with women. Pané wanted to know everything about how Tainos worshipped Yúcahu and Atabey. This surprised me, for I knew the Españols believed only their god was a real god. But he was a kind man, and even taught me how to make the marks of words on the long journey back to our small lands. Colón hardly spoke to me any more, although I now carried the name of his son. I often saw him looking at the other fourteen ships with an expression of both pride and worry.
    We had told him of a shorter way to reach the small lands, for on his first trip he had not realized how far across the ocean they spread. Colón was pleased at this, but the first question he asked was whether these small lands had gold. We did not know, but he followed the path we set. There was a very clever Español who used the compass and the needles and the hourglass to make a drawing on paper-cloth of the path the ships sailed. Within two moons we landed on the