Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom

Margarita Engle

Henry Holt and Company

New York

For Curtis, Victor, and Nicole, with love

AND

in memory of my maternal great-grandparents, Cuban

guajiros who survived the turmoil described in this book:

PEDRO EULOGIO SALUSTIANO URÍA Y TRUJILLO

(1859–1915)

ANA DOMINGA DE LA PEÑA Y MARRERO

DE TRUJILLO

(1872–1965)

Henry Holt and Company, LLC

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Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Copyright © 2008 by Margarita Engle

All rights reserved.

Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Engle, Margarita.

The surrender tree / Margarita Engle.

p.        cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8674-4

ISBN-10: 0-8050-8674-9

1. Cuba—History—1810–1899—Juvenile poetry.   2.  Children’s poetry, American.   I.  Title.

PS3555.N4254S87 2008   8II'.54—dc22    2007027591

First Edition—2008

Book designed by Lilian Rosenstreich

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. ∞

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

a handful of Cuban plantation owners freed their slaves and declared independence from Spain. Throughout the next three decades of war, nurses hid in jungle caves, healing the wounded with medicines made from wild plants.

On February 16, 1896, Cuban peasants were ordered to leave their farms and villages. They were given eight days to reach “reconcentration camps”near fortified cities. Anyone found in the countryside after eight days would be killed.

My great-grandparents were two of the refugees.

Yo sé los nombres extraños

De las yerbas y las flores,

Y de mortales engaños,

Y de sublimes dolores.

I know the strange names

Of the herbs and the flowers,

And deadly betrayals,

And sacred sorrows.

—JOSÉ MARTÍ,

from Versos Sencillos

(Simple Verses), 1891

PART ONE       The Names of the Flowers

1850–51

PART TWO       The Ten Years’ War

1868–78

PART THREE   The Little War

1878–80

PART FOUR     The War of Independence

1895–98

PART FIVE      The Surrender Tree

1898–99

AUTHOR’S NOTE

HISTORICAL NOTE

CHRONOLOGY

SELECTED REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Names of the Flowers

1850–51

Rosa

Some people call me a child-witch,

but I’m just a girl who likes to watch

the hands of the women

as they gather wild herbs and flowers

to heal the sick.

I am learning the names of the cures

and how much to use,

and which part of the plant,

petal or stem, root, leaf, pollen, nectar.

Sometimes I feel like a bee making honey—

a bee, feared by all, even though the wild bees

of these mountains in Cuba

are stingless, harmless, the source

of nothing but sweet, golden food.

Rosa

We call them wolves,

but they’re just wild dogs,

howling mournfully—

lonely runaways,

like cimarrones,

the runaway slaves who survive

in deep forest, in caves of sparkling crystal

hidden behind waterfalls,

and in secret villages

protected by magic

protected by words—

tales of guardian angels,

mermaids, witches,

giants, ghosts.

Rosa

When the slavehunter brings back

runaways he captures,

he receives seventeen silver pesos

per cimarrón,

unless the runaway is dead.

Four pesos is the price of an ear,

shown as proof that the runaway slave

died fighting, resisting capture.

The sick and injured

are brought to us, to the women,

for healing.

When a runaway is well again,

he will either choose to go back to work

in the coffee groves and sugarcane fields,

or run away again

secretly, silently, alone.

Lieutenant Death

My father keeps a diary.

It is required

by the Holy Brotherhood of Planters,

who hire him to catch runaway slaves.

I watch my father write the numbers

and nicknames of slaves he captures.

He does not know their real names.

When the girl-witch heals a wounded runaway,

the cimarrón is punished, and sent back to work.

Even then, many run away again,

or kill themselves.

But then my father chops each body

into four pieces, and locks each piece in a cage,

and hangs the four cages on four branches

of the same tree.

That way, my father tells me, the other slaves

will be afraid to kill themselves.

He says they believe

a chopped, caged spirit cannot fly away

to a better place.

Rosa

I love the sounds

of the jungle at night.

When the barracoon

where we sleep

has been locked,

I hear the music

of crickets, tree frogs, owls,

and the whir of wings

as night birds fly,

and the song of un sinsonte,

a Cuban mockingbird,

the magical creature

who knows how to sing

many songs all at once,

sad and happy,

captive and free…

songs that help me sleep

without nightmares,

without dreams.

Rosa

The names of the villages where runaways hide

are Mira-Cielo, Look-at-the-Sky

and Silencio, Silence

Soledad, Loneliness

La Bruja, The Witch….

I watch the slavehunter as he writes his numbers,

while his son,

the boy we secretly call Lieutenant Death,

helps him make up big lies.

The slavehunter and his boy agree to exaggerate,

in order to make their work

sound more challenging,

so they will seem like heroes

who fight against armies with guns,

instead of just a few frightened, feverish, hungry,

escaped slaves,

armed only with wooden spears,

and secret hopes.

Lieutenant Death

When I call the little witch

a witch-girl, my father corrects me—

Just little witch is enough, he says, don’t add girl,

or she’ll think she’s human, like us.

A pile of ears sits on the ground,

waiting to be counted.

This boy has a wound,

my father tells the witch.

Heal him.

The little witch stares at my arm, torn by wolves,

and I grin,

not because I have to be healed by a slave-witch,

but because it is comforting to know

that wild dogs

can be called wolves,

to make them sound

more dangerous,

making me seem

truly brave.

Rosa

The slavehunter and his son

both stay away during the rains,

which last six months, from May

through October.

In November he returns with his boy,

whose scars have faded.

This time they have their own pack of dogs,

huge ones,

taught to follow only the scent

of a barefoot track,

the scent of bare skin from a slave

who eats cornmeal and yams,

never the scent of a rich man on horseback,

after his huge meal of meat, fowl, fruit,

coffee, chocolate, and cream.

Lieutenant Death

We bring wanted posters from the cities,

with pictures drawn by artists,

pictures of men with filed teeth

and women with tribal scars,

new slaves

who somehow managed to run away

soon after escaping from ships

that landed secretly, at night,

on hidden beaches.

I look at the pictures

and wonder

how all these slaves

from faraway places

find their way

to this wilderness

of caves and cliffs,

wild mountains, green forest, little witches.

Rosa

After Christmas, on January 6,

the Festival of Three Kings Day,

we line up and walk, one by one,

to the thrones where our owner and his wife

are seated, like a king and queen

from a story.

They give us small gifts of food.

We bow down, and bless them,

our gift of words freely given

on this day of hope,

when we feel like we have

nothing to lose.

Rosa

The nicknames of runaways

keep us busy at night,

in the barracoons, where we whisper.

All the other young girls agree with me

that Domingo is a fine nickname,

because it means Sunday, our only half day of rest,

and Dios Da is even better,

because it means God Gives,

and El Médico is wonderful—

who would not be proud

to be known as The Doctor?

La Madre is the nickname

that fascinates us most—

The Mother—a woman, and not just a runaway,

but the leader of her own secret village,

free, independent, uncaptured—

for thirty-seven

magical years!

Lieutenant Death

My father captures some who pretend

they don’t know their owners’ names,

or the names of the plantations

where they belong.

They must want to be sold

to someone new.

They must hope that if they are sold here,

near the steamy, jungled wilderness,

they will be close to the caves,

and the waterfalls,

and witches.

My father brings the same runaways back,

over and over.

I don’t understand why they never give up!

Why don’t they lose hope?

Rosa

People imagine that all slaves are dark,

but the indentured Chinese slaves run away too,

into the mangrove swamps,

where they can fish, and spear frogs,

and hunt crocodiles by placing a hat on a stick

to make it look like a man.

The crocodile jumps straight up,

out of the gloomy water,

and snatches the hat,

while a noose of rope made from vines

tightens around the beast’s green, leathery neck.

I would be afraid to live in the swamps.

People say there are güijes,

small, wrinkled, green mermaids

with long, red hair and golden combs…

mermaids who would lure me

down into the swamp depths…

mermaids who would drag me into watery caves,

where they would turn me into a mermaid too…

frog-green, and tricky.

Rosa

The slavehunter comes

with an offer.

He wants to buy me

so I can travel

with his horsemen

and his huge dogs

and his strange son

into the wild places

where wounded captives

can be healed

so they won’t die.

The price

of a healed man

is much higher

than the price

of an ear.

Rosa

My owner refuses.

He needs me to cure

sick slaves

in the barracoons.

After each hurricane season

there are fevers, cholera, smallpox, plague.

Some of the sick can be saved.

Some are lost.

I picture their spirits

flying away.

I sigh, so relieved that I will not

have to travel with slavehunters

and the spies they keep to help them,

the captives who reveal the secret locations

of villages where runaways sneak back and forth,

trading wild guavas for wild yams,

or bananas for boar meat,

spears for vine rope,

or mangos for palm hearts, flower medicines,

herbs….

Lieutenant Death

The weapons of runaways are homemade,

just sharpened branches, not real spears,

and carved wooden guns, which, I have to admit,

from a distance look real!

We catch cimarrones with stolen cane knives too,

all three kinds,

the tapered, silver-handled ones used by free men,

with engraved scallop-shell designs,

and the bone-handled, short, leaflike ones,

given to children,

and the fan-shaped, blunt ones,

used by slaves

for cutting sugarcane

to sweeten the chocolate and coffee

of rich men.

Rosa

Secretly, I hide and weep

when I learn that my owner

has agreed to loan me

to the slavehunter,

who brings his hunter-in-training,

his son, the boy with dangerous eyes,

Teniente Muerte,

Lieutenant Death.

Rosa

Spears and stones rain down on us

from high above

as we climb rough stairs

chopped into the wall of a cliff

somewhere out in the wilderness,

in a place I have never seen.

Sharp rocks slice my face and hands.

I will be useless—without healthy fingers,

how can I heal wounds

and fevers?

When the raid is over, many cimarrones are dead.

I try to escape, but Lieutenant Death forces me

to watch as he helps his father

collect the ears

of runaways.

Some of the ears come from people

whose names and faces

I know.

Lieutenant Death

I hate to think

what my father would say

if he knew that I am scared

of dogs, both wild and tame,

and ghost stories,

real and imaginary,

and witches,

even the little ones,

and the ears of captives,

still warm….

Rosa

After the raid,

I tend the wounds

of slavehunters

and captives.

Some look at me with fear,

others with hope.

I tend the wounds of a wild dog,

and the slavehunters’ huge dogs.

All of them treat me like a nurse,

not a witch.

The grateful dogs make me smile,

even the mean ones, trained to follow the tracks

of barefoot men.

They don’t seem to hate

barefoot girls.

Hatred must be

a hard thing to learn.

The Ten Years’ War

1868–78

Rosa

Gathering the green, heart-shaped leaves

of sheltering herbs in a giant forest,

I forget that I am grown now,

with daydreams of my own,

in this place where time

does not seem to exist

in the ordinary way,

and every leaf is a heart-shaped

moment of peace.

Rosa

In the month of October,

when hurricanes loom,

a few plantation owners

burn their fields, and free their slaves,

declaring independence

from Spanish rule.

Slavery all day,

and then, suddenly, by nightfall—freedom!

Can it be true,

as my former owner explains,

with apologies for all the bad years—

Can it be true that freedom only exists

when it is a treasure,

shared by all?

Rosa

Farms and mansions

are burning!

Flames turn to smoke—

the smoke leaps, then fades

and vanishes…

making the world

seem invisible.

I am one of the few

free women blessed

with healing skills.

Should I fight with weapons,

or flowers and leaves?

Each choice leads to another—

I stand at a crossroads in my mind,

deciding to serve as a nurse,

armed with fragrant herbs,

fighting a wilderness battle, my own private war

against death.

Rosa

Side by side, former owners and freed slaves

torch the elegant old city of Bayamo.

A song is written by a horseman,

a love song about fighting for freedom

from Spain.

The song is called “La Bayamesa,”

for a woman from the burning city of Bayamo,

a place so close to my birthplace, my home….

Soon I am called La Bayamesa too,

as if I have somehow been transformed

into music, a melody, the rhythm of words….

I watch the flames, feel the heat,

inhale the scent of torched sugar

and scorched coffee….

I listen to voices,

burning a song in the smoky sky.

The old life is gone, my days are new,

but time is still a mystery

of wishes, and this sad, confusing fragrance.

Rosa

The Spanish Empire refuses to honor

liberty for any slave who was freed by a rebel,

so even though the planters

who used to own us

no longer want to own humans,

slavehunters still roam

the forest, searching, capturing, punishing…

so we flee

to the villages

where runaways hide…

just like before.

Rosa

In October,

people walk in long chains of strength,

arm in arm, to keep from blowing away.

The wildness of wind, forest, sea

brings storms that move

like serpents,

sweeping trees and cattle

up into the sky.

During hurricanes, even the wealthy

wander like beggars,

seeking shelter,

arm in arm with the poor.

Rosa

War and storms make me feel old,

even though I am still young enough

to fall in love.

I meet a man, José Francisco Varona,

a freed slave,

in the runaway slave village we call Manteca,

because we have plenty of lard to use as cooking oil,

the lard we get

by hunting wild pigs.

We travel through the forest together,

trading lard for the fruit, corn, and yams

grown by freed slaves and runaways,

who live together in other hidden towns

deep in the forest, and in dark caves.

José and I agree to marry.

Together, we will serve as nurses,

healing the wounds of slavery,

and the wounds of war.

Rosa

The forest is a land of natural music—

tree frogs, nightingales, wind,

and the winglets of hummingbirds

no bigger than my thumbnail—

hummingbirds the size of bees

in a forest the size of Eden.

José and I travel together,

walking through mud, thorns,

clouds of wasps, mosquitoes, gnats,

and the mist that hides

graceful palm trees,

and the smoke that hides burning huts,

flaming fields, orchards, villages, forts—

anything left standing by Spain

is soon torched by the rebels.

José carries weapons,

his horn-handled machete,

and an old gun of wood and metal,

moldy and rusted,

our only protection against an ambush.

The Spanish soldiers dress in bright uniforms,

like parakeets.

They march in columns, announcing

their movements

with trumpets and drums.

We move silently, secretly.

We are invisible.

Rosa

A Spanish guard calls, ¡Alto!Halt!

¿Quién vive? Who lives?

He wants us to stop, but we slip away.

He shouts: mambí savages,

and even though mambí is not a real word,

we imagine he chooses it

because he thinks it sounds Cuban, Taíno Indian,

or African, or mixed—a word from the language

of an enslaved tribe—

Congo, Arará,Carabalí,Bibí, or Gangá.

Mambí,

we catch the rhythmic word,

and make it our own,

a name for our newly invented warrior tribe

made up of freed slaves fighting side by side

with former owners,

all of us fighting together,

against ownership of Cuba

by the Empire of Spain,

a ruler who refuses

to admit that slaves

can ever be free.

José

Dark wings, a dim moonglow,

the darting of bats,

not the big ones that suck blood

and eat insects,

but tiny ones, butterfly-sized,

the kind of bat

that whisks out of caves to sip nectar

from night-blooming blossoms,

the fragrant white flowers my Rosa calls

Cinderella,

because they last only half a night.

Rosa leads the bats away from our hut.

They follow her light, as she holds up a gourd

filled with fireflies, blinking.

I laugh, because our lives, here in the forest,

feel reversed—

we build a palm-thatched house to use

as a hospital,

but everything wild that belongs outdoors

keeps moving inside,

and our patients, the wounded, feverish

mambí rebels,

who should stay in their hammocks resting—

they keep getting up,

to go outside,

to watch Rosa, with her hands of light,

leading the bats far away.

Lieutenant Death

They think they’re free.

I know they’re slaves.

I used to work for the Holy Brotherhood

of plantation owners, but now I work

for the Crown of Spain.

Swamps, mountains, jungle, caves…

I search without resting, I seek the reward

I will surely collect, just as soon as I kill

the healer they call Rosa la Bayamesa,

a witch who cures wild mambí rebels

so they can survive

to fight again.

Lieutenant-General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau,

Marquis of Tenerife, Empire of Spain

When the witch is dead,

and the rebels are defeated,

I will rest my sore arms and tired legs

in the healing hot springs on this island of fever

and ghostly, bat-infested caves.

If the slavehunter fails,

I will catch her myself.

I will kill the witch, and keep her ear in a jar,

as proof that owners cannot free their slaves

without Spain’s approval

and as proof

that all rebels in Cuba

are doomed.

Rosa

Rumors make me short of breath,

anxious, fearful, desperate.

People call me brave, but the truth is:

Rumors of slavehunters terrify me!

Who could have guessed that after all these years,

the boy I called Lieutenant Death

when we were both children

would still be out here, in the forest,

chasing me, now,

hunting me, haunting me….

Who would have imagined

such stubborn dedication?…

If only he would change sides

and become one of us, a stubborn,

determined, weary nurse,

fighting this daily war

against death!

José

Rosa’s fame as a healer brings danger.

She cannot leave our hut,

where the patients need her,

so I travel alone to a field of pineapples

where a young Spanish soldier lies wounded

in his bright uniform,

his head resting between mounds

of freshly harvested fruit.

The leaves of the pineapple plants

are gray and sharp, like machetes

the tips of the leaves cut my arms,

but I do my best to treat the boy’s wounds.

I do this for Rosa, who wants to heal all.

I do it for Rosa, but the boy-soldier thanks me,

and after I feed him and give him water,

he tells me he wants to change sides.

He says he will be Cuban now, a mambí rebel.

He tells me he was just a young boy

who was taken

from his family in Spain,

a child who was put on a ship,

forced to sail to this island, forced to fight.

He tells me he loves Cuba’s green hills,

and hopes to stay, survive, be a farmer,

find a place to plant crops….

Together, we agree to try

to heal the wounds between our countries.

I help him take off his uniform.

I give him mine.

Rosa

We experiment

like scientists.

One flower cures

only certain fevers.

We try another.

We fail, then try a root, leaf,

moss, or fern….

One petal fails.

Another succeeds.

José and I are both learning

how to learn.

Lieutenant Death

The witch

can be heard

singing in treetops.

The witch

can be seen—

a shadow

in caves.

I search,

and I search.

She vanishes,

just like the maddening

morning mists

and the wild

mambí rebels.

They attack.

We retreat.

They hide.

We seek.

Rosa

Itchy guao leaves,

biting mosquitoes,

and invisible, no-see-um chinches,

burrowing ticks, worms, and fungus,

growing in the flesh of the feet.

Gangrene, leprosy, amputations,

I never give myself permission

to look or sound horrified…

until I’m alone

at the end of the day,

alone, with the music

of nightingales.

José

We have seventeen patients

in our thatched hut

hidden by forest

and protected by guards,

dogs, traps, and tales of ghosts.

Seventeen feverish, bleeding, burning,

broken men, with bayonet wounds,

and women in childbirth,

and newborn babies…

seventeen helpless people,

all depending on us,

seventeen lives, blessings, burdens.

How can we heal them?

We are so weary!

Who will heal us?

Rosa

Grateful families give us chickens,

guinea hens and coconuts,

sweet potatoes,

cornmeal,

a hat, a knife,

a kettle,

a kerchief.

New mothers name their sons José

and their daughters Rosa.

Orphans stay with us,

working alongside the young Spaniard,

who chose to change sides,

and become Cuban.

True healers never charge any money for cures.

The magic hidden inside flowers and trees

is created by the fragrant breath of God—

who are we to claim payment

for miracles?

Who are we to imagine

that the forest belongs to us?

Now, if only God who made the petals

and roots

will grant me one more gift—

a peaceful mind,

escape from the rumors that haunt me,

tales of prowling slavehunters,

warnings about Lieutenant Death.

We move all our patients into a cave,

a cathedral of stone,

where Rosa hopes to feel safe.

Crystals glow in the light

of palm-leaf torches

and living fireflies.

The stones seem to move like clouds,

forming bridges, pillars, fountains….

Rosa tells me she feels like one of those statues

that hold up the roofs of old buildings.

I picture the two of us, carved and polished,

motionless, yet alive,

holding up our roof of hope.

Rosa

Hiding in this cave makes me remember

the secret village where runaway slaves

and freed slaves all hid together

during the early months

of this endless war.

The houses were made of reeds and palms,

green houses that looked just like forest.

We built them in a circle,

and at the center, hidden,

we built a church of reeds,

where we would have loved to sing

if we did not always have to be hiding

and silent.

Now, in the cave, I hum quietly.

My voice echoes, and grows.

I sound so much braver and stronger

than I feel.

José

I dream of a farm

with one cow, one horse,

oxen for plowing,

chickens and guinea hens

for Holy Day meals,

and a small grove of trees,

coffee and cacao

shaded by mangos.

I dream of cornfields,

sweet potatoes, bananas,

and a palm-bark house

with a palm-thatch roof,

and a floor of earth,

a porch,

two rocking chairs,

and a view of green wilderness

stretching, like time….

Rosa

Cave of Nightmares,

Cave of Pirates, Cave of Neptune,

Cave of the Generals,

Lagoon of Fish,

Rosa’s Cave.

How many names

can one place have?

How many tales

of frightened people hiding,

and blind creatures thriving,

tales of mermaids, sea serpents,

giants, and ghosts….

I leave my handprint on glittering crystal

beside cave paintings made in ancient times—

circles, moons, suns, stars;

my palm, the fingers,

star-shaped too….

Ten years of war.

How many battles

can one island lose?

Lieutenant-General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau,

Marquis of Tenerife, Empire of Spain

We call Cuba our Ever-Faithful Isle,

yet these wild mambí rebels are loyal

only to the jungle, and their illusions

of freedom.

We leave the land smoking—

each farm and town turns to ash.

The barracoons where slaves

should be sleeping are empty.

The flames look like scars

on the red, sticky clay

of this maddening island

ruled by mud and mosquitoes.

Rosa

In order to talk to my patients I learn

a few words from each of many languages,

the words of African and native

Cuban Indian tribes,

and all the dialects of the provinces of Spain.

I even invent my own secret codes,

but the ones taught by birds are the best,

especially when mixed

with the music of conch-shell trumpets,

bamboo flutes, rattles, drums,

and the Canary Islanders’

language of Silbo,

a mystery of whistles.

Animals and plants help me learn

how to understand all these ways of knowing

what people are trying to say.

The ears of a horse show anger, or fear.

The eyes of oxen tell of weariness.

Voices of birds chant borders around nests.

Yellow acacia flowers whisper secrets of love.

Green reeds play a wild, windy music.

Pink oleanders are a poisonous message

that warns:

¡Cuidado!Beware!

Fragrant blue rosemary speaks of memory.

White poppies mean sleep.

White yarrow foretells war.

José

The most famous of our mambí generals

are called the Fox and the Lion.

Máximo Gómez is the Fox, slender and pale,

a foreigner from the island of Hispaniola.

First he was a Spanish soldier,

then a rebel,

and now we think of him as Cuban.

The Lion is Antonio Maceo, our friend since birth,

a local man of mixed race.

Some call him the Bronze Titan,

because he is powerful, and calm.

The Fox loves to quote philosophers, poets,

and the Proverbs of King Solomon.

He tells Rosa that those who save lives are wise,

like trees that bear life-giving fruit.

The Lion adds that kindness to animals

and children

is a part of Rosa’s natural gift,

but healing the wounds of enemy soldiers

is a strange mercy that floats down

from heaven.

Rosa

The Lion and the Fox

visit our hospital huts and caves.

We have many now.

We travel from one to another,

carrying medicines, and hope.

I wear an ammunition belt,

and an old gun, a carbine,

to make José happy, because he insists

that I must learn to defend myself

against spies.

Lieutenant Death

I watch

from a treetop,

looking down

at the top

of her head.

So simple.

Her hair

in a kerchief.

Her gun,

rusty, useless…

She is not

what I expected

of someone so famous

for miracles.

I take aim,

then wait,

searching….

How did she do it…?

Is she a real witch…?

How does she make herself

vanish?

Rosa

A man is carried into the hospital, wounded—

he fell from a tree.

I know his face, and I can tell that he

recognizes me.

We were children, we were enemies…

Now he is my patient,

but why should I cure him,

wasting precious medicines

on a spy who must have been sent

to kill me?

Each choice leads to another.

I am a nurse.

I must heal the wounded.

How well the Lion knows me! Didn’t he say

that curing the enemies

is not my own skill, but a mercy from God?

Each choice leads to another.

I am a nurse.

I must heal.

Lieutenant Death

I sneak away,

my arm splinted,

my head bandaged.

Now I know

where Rosa la Bayamesa,

the cave nurse from Bayamo,

hides her patients—

in a hospital

of secrets,

surrounded by jungle,

walls of tree trunks,

fences of thorns—

now I know,

and I can sell

this information

for many smooth

round coins

of gold!

Rosa

The parakeet-bright Spanish soldiers

come marching

with torches, and Mausers, and trumpets.

We are forced to escape, move our patients, hide,

find a new home, new hope, a new cave…

although clearly, this one too is ancient—

every wall and spire of crystal

bears the marks of other fugitives,

people who hid here

long ago—

people who left

their handprints on stone.

Will I ever feel safe?

Can I continue?

When will I rest,

if my sleep

always turns

into whirlwinds,

this spiral

of nightmares?…

José

One more escape.

We are safe.

We whisper.

We hide.

We hope.

We explore

our new home,

this vast, glittering cavern

of crystals, darkness, silence….

Rosa

The caves, this stench, the bat dung, urine,

frogs, fish, lizards, majá snakes,

all so pale and ghostly, some eyeless, all blind…

and the crystals, these archways and statues,

these flowers of stone…

shadows, pottery, bones…

the skeletons of those who hid here

so long ago, when I was a child,

when I was a slave…

Rosa

We send messages to the Fox and the Lion.

No one else knows where we are.

We learn to live in darkness,

without so many lanterns and torches,

fireflies, and candles

made from the wax

of wild bees.

We drink wild honey

instead of sugarcane syrup.

We are far from any farms or towns.

We eat the blind lizards and ghost-fish.

We know how to live

with the stench of black vomit,

yellow fever in its final stage….

Rosa

The fevers and wounds of war are deadly,

yet somehow

many of our patients survive to go back out,

and fight again.

Our former owners have been healed here.

They treat us like brothers and sisters, not slaves.

The Fox and the Lion keep our location secret.

We are not found on their maps,

or in their diaries.

Everyone here knows the truth—

I am a nurse, not a sorceress.

I am just a woman of weary, wild hopes—

not a magician, not a witch.

José

Rosa remembers the names

of all who pass through her hands,

the patients who survive, and those who rise,

breath vanishing into the sky….

It’s all she can offer,

just forest medicines,

and her memory, reciting the names of people

along with the names of the flowers.

Rosa

Ten years of war are over.

A treaty. Peace.

So many lives were lost.

Was anything gained?

The Spanish Empire still owns

this suffering island,

and most of the planters

still own slaves.

Only a few of us were set free

by rebels who have been defeated.

Spanish law still calls me a slave.

Lieutenant Death has not lost

his power.

The Little War

1878–80

Rosa

Too soon,

the battles

begin again.

Mercifully,

this new war

is brief.

Tragically,

this new war

is futile.

Sometimes, war feels

like just one more

form of slavery.

José

We heal the wounded

just like before.

We hide in the jungle

just like before.

We are older.

Are we wiser?

Sometimes war feels

like a lonely child’s game,

one that explodes

out of control.

Rosa

Between wars,

José and I were just

a man and his wife.

We were free

to stay together.

José never had to leave me

to scout, or hunt,

or fight.

Between wars,

life was heavenly,

except when the slavehunters

were near,

with our names

on a list.

José

Mothers come to us

with tales of children

lost in the chaos.

They must imagine

that we know how to find

little ones who hide in barns,

and teenagers armed with anger.

If we knew how to find

the lost, we would know

how to rediscover

the parts of our minds

left behind

in battle.

Rosa

This is how you heal a wound:

Clean the flesh.

Sew the skin.

Pray for the soul.

Wait.

A wounded child tells me

he has never seen a grown man

who was proud to be a nurse.

Women’s work, he mocks,

but I smile—what could be

more manly than knowing

the strange names and magical uses

of sturdy medicinal trees

with powerful,

hidden roots?

Lieutenant Death

I feel old,

but I am young enough

and strong enough

to know that one battle

leads to another.

As this Little War ends,

I ask myself

how many years will pass

before I finally have my chance

to kill Rosa the Witch,

and her husband, José,

and the rebels they heal,

year after year,

like legends kept alive

with nothing more magical

than words?

Rosa

The Little War?

How can there be

a little war?

Are some deaths

smaller than others,

leaving mothers

who weep

a little less?

José is hopeful that soon

there will be another chance

to gain independence from Spain,

and freedom for slaves,

but all I see is death, always the same,

always enormous, never little,

no matter how many women come to help me,

asking to be trained in the art of learning

the names of forest flowers

and the names of brave people.

The War of Independence

1895–98

Rosa

This new war begins with rhymes,

the Simple Verses of Martí,

Cuba’s most beloved poet.

José Martí,

who leads with words

not just swords.

He is the one who inspires

the Fox and the Lion to fight again,

even though Martí was just a child-poet

during the other wars,

a teenager arrested

for writing about Cuba’s longing

for independence from Spain

and freedom from slavery.

Martí is the son of a Spaniard.

He writes of love for his Spanish father,

and he writes of the need for peace—

yet he fights.

He tells me the forest comforts him

more deeply than the musical waves

of the most beautiful beach.

Martí soon loses his life

in battle.

I cannot save the poet

from bullets.

José

Once again, the Fox and the Lion gallop

across our green mountains and farms,

burning the sugar fields and coffee groves,

the tobacco plantations, scented smoke rising

like a wild storm

of hope….

Once again, I guard Rosa’s hospitals

while she nurses the sick and wounded

in secret places, thatched huts,

and glittering caves….

Once again, we travel invisibly,

slipping through lines of Spanish forts and troops

on moonless nights,

puffing cigars to make our movements

look like the blinking dance

of fireflies….

Lieutenant Death

Once again, light men and dark

fight side by side,

as if there had never been slavery….

I shake my head, still unable to believe

that slavery ended in 1886—

all the skills of my long life,

all the arts of slavehunting

will be lost….

At least I do not feel useless—

there are still indentured Canary Islanders,

white slaves, citizens of Spain.

When they run, I chase them, just like before—

just like the old days,

when there were Africans of every tribe,

and the indentured Chinese, and the Irish,

and Mayan Indians from Yucatán….

Nothing makes sense now.

I long to retire, on a farm with a view

of the sunset,

and a porch with a rocking chair…

just as soon as I kill

the old witch….

Captain-General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau,

Marquis of Tenerife, Empire of Spain

This new rebellion must end swiftly—

I have promised victory

within thirty days.

I will send out a proclamation

ordering all peasants to report immediately

to cities where they cannot grow crops

for feeding rebels,

their cousins,

their brothers….

I will give the peasants eight days

to reach them,

these campamentos de reconcentración,

a name of my own invention—

reconcentration camps,

a brilliant new concept,

the only strategy that can ensure

absolute control of all the land

while being portrayed

as a way of keeping peasants guarded

for their own safety.

When eight days have passed,

any man, woman, or child

found in the countryside

will be shot.

Rosa

Eight days?

Eight days.

Weyler is a madman.

How can he expect

so many to travel so far

so quickly?

Eight days.

Impossible.

Thousands of families

will not even hear

about the order

to reconcentrate

in camps

within eight days.

Silvia

I am eleven years old, and my life is this farm.

My father is dead,

and my mother is sick.

My life is planting, harvesting,

and caring for my twin brothers.

Only eight days…

impossible to believe.

I do not pack our things right away.

First I wait to see if this strange rumor

is true.

Then, brightly uniformed troops

burn our house,

swooping across our farm like hungry birds,

stealing the wagon and oxen, horses, mules,

even the chickens,

and the cow we need

for milk to feed the twins,

my baby brothers—

will they starve?

Nothing is left to pack, not even clothes,

so I walk away from the farm,

leading my mother,

and carrying the babies,

while my eyes watch the mountains,

and my thoughts turn

toward tales of healers

the legend of Rosa….

Silvia

Long ago, my grandma

was one of Rosa’s patients

in a hospital cave—

all my life, I’ve heard wonderful

tales of healing.

When this new war started,

my grandma told me

how to flee to the caves.

Finding Rosa now seems as likely

as convincing her that I am old enough

to help treat the wounded

by learning the art of mending bones,

using nothing more magical

than the flowers

of jungle trees.

At least I know the names of the flowers—

that much, my grandma taught me.

Rosa

I climb a palm tree

and watch the madness

from my hidden perch.

Soldiers herd peasants

into a camp, fenced and guarded,

surrounded by trenches and forts.

I see no houses or tents, no hospital….

All I can do is watch with silent tears

as wounded men, pregnant women,

and helpless children are herded

into the camp—

just another name

for prison.

Silvia

My mother is weak,

so I have to be strong.

Obediently, I shuffle into the Spanish Army’s

strange camp, this reconcentration camp

where I do not know what to expect.

I clutch my little brothers tightly

in my arms,

secretly wondering if the armed guards can tell

that I am thinking of Rosa’s miraculous flowers

in caves of crystal,

deep caverns

of hidden peace.

Rosa

When night falls,

I climb down from the palm tree

and slip away, back to the forest,

wishing I could take them all with me,

all the refugees flocking like birds

lost in a storm, flying to the mountains

to find trees that look like sturdy guardians

with leafy branches that whisper

soft lullabies of comfort.

A few refugees find us.

Some are the children

of women who helped me

nurse the wounded

long ago….

I teach the granddaughters

of women whose lives I saved

and men whose lives were lost.

José

We try to help the refugees

who find us.

Rosa entertains frightened children,

pretending to be a magical dentist,

as she reaches into the mouth of a man

whose throbbing tooth must come out

if he is going to survive.

She seems to be pulling the tooth

with her bare fingers.

I am the only one who knows

that she hides a tiny key

in her hand, a simple tool

to ease the man’s suffering.

When the tooth is out,

he whispers thanks,

and he tries to laugh a little bit,

making his pain seem to vanish,

a comfort to the startled,

giggling children.

I am the only one

who sees Rosa’s sorrow,

the only one who knows

how hard it is to start again,

another war of fever and wounds,

the exhaustion created

by endless hope…

Silvia

Hunger, fever,

my mother’s moans,

my brothers’shrieks,

the madness, cruelty, or kindness

from each new neighbor,

all these weeping strangers

huddled into makeshift houses

of leaf and twig, palm frond and mud.

Patience, impatience, hopelessness, hope…

I stare at the forts

with holes in the wood

that look like eyes—

holes for the guns

of soldiers

who watch us

day and night.

Rosa

The numbers are impossible.

I cannot heal so many.

Women come as volunteers.

I teach them simple cures.

Garlic for parasites, indigo for lice,

wild ginger to soothe a cough,

jasmine for calming jittery nerves,

guava to settle the stomach,

aloe for burns.

Is there at least one wild,

fragrant remedy

for healing sorrow

and curing fear?

Silvia

Beyond the fence there is a special tree

for hanging those who try

to escape.

Corridors of shacks built from mud and sticks,

babies too weak to eat or cry,

yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, tetanus,

malaria, dysentery, starvation,

my mother’s feverish, distant eyes…

this camp is the ash and soot

of human shame.

José

Rage, fury, no time for fear,

no room for sadness.

We like to joke

about Spanish soldiers owning

only the small, foot-shaped parts of Cuba

beneath their own feet.

We like to say that we have learned

how to appear to obey the Spanish Empire’s laws

without actually obeying.

Our lives are caves

filled with secrets.

Silvia

Today I am twelve.

My mother is in heaven.

I feel twelve thousand.

An oxcart took her.

The driver is dark, with a kind smile.

I ask him why he does this work,

and he explains that he is a volunteer

from the Brothers of Charity and Faith,

a church group of black men who tend the sick

and bury the dead, even executed criminals

abandoned by their own families.

I ask him if he knows

how I can find Rosa la Bayamesa,

the Cave Nurse of Cuba.

He looks surprised, but he answers quietly:

First you will have to cross the fence—

first you will have to escape.

Silvia

The oxcart comes every afternoon,

People call it the death-cart.

But I think of it as a chariot

driven by my friend, an angel,

a Brother of Charity and Faith.

The angel-man brings me

tiny bits of smuggled food,

but there is never enough,

and my brothers are turning

into shadows.

I feed them

imaginary meals

of air.

Rosa

The wind

is an evil wind.

I make rope from strips of hibiscus wood,

and splints of palm bark,

my only hope for mending bones.

My greatest fear is of being useless,

so I pierce and drain infected wounds

with the thorns of bitter orange trees,

and I treat the sores of smallpox

with the juice of boiled yams.

I use the perfumed leaves

of bay rum trees

to mask the scent

of death.

José

General Máximo Gómez, the Fox,

asks Rosa to choose twelve trustworthy men

who can help us build a bigger hospital,

so sturdy and so well-hidden

that it will never be found

or attacked.

My wife says two trustworthy men

will be enough.

She tells the Fox that she is strong.

She wants to help chop the wood

for building our new home.

Silvia

Concentrate. Reconcentrate.

Mass, cluster, bunch, and heap.

Weyler’s camp makes my arms and legs

so skinny that even my mind feels hungry.

Concentrate. Reconcentrate.

Plan, pay attention, focus, think.

I am alone now. My brothers

are with my mother.

The oxcart comes and goes.

The Brother of Charity and Faith

sees my hopelessness.

He lets me ride with him,

hiding in the oxcart.

I am leaving.

Where will I go?

Silvia

The wagon creaks,

wheels sing…

the night is moonless,

my body feels ancient,

my mind feels new.

The driver turns and smiles.

He hands me his cigar, a blinking light.

He shows me how to pretend

that I am a firefly.

He points to a hole in the fence,

puts his finger to his lips,

then draws a map in the sky—

a picture of the way

to find Rosa.

Silvia

I dance through the hole in my fenced life,

moving the make-believe firefly with my hand,

not my mouth, because I am afraid I would not

be able to stop coughing.

The tiny light rises, dips, flits,

just a foul-scented cigar

pretending to fly,

but it carries a memory

of the oxcart driver’s hand,

showing me how to find the woman

who once saved my grandma’s life.

Rosa’s cave is the only place I long to be

now that my family is in heaven.

Silvia

Tree frogs, screech owls, the dancing leaves

of feathery ferns, the fragrant petals

of wild orchids.

Night wings, crickets,

imagining secrets,

wondering which flowers

might save a life,

and which could be dangerous,

if I don’t learn quickly, if I feed a patient

just a little too much…

Will Rosa teach me?

Is Rosa real, or just one more

of those comforting tales

the old folks tell

at bedtime?

Silvia

Moonless thunder, silent lightning, the tracks

of mountain ponies.

Mambí birdcalls, a stream, tall reeds, the song

of a waterfall, my own tumbling, exhausted,

singing wild hopes.

A trail, more hoofprints, a woman in blue

with long, loose black hair just like my own.

The whistle of a Canary Islander,

speaking the secret language of Silbo.

My bare, bony feet running, following,

racing toward Rosa….

José

All night I stand guard, singing silently

inside my mind, to keep myself awake.

In daylight I sleep, while others watch.

A whistle reaches into my dream…

the face of a pale, skeletal child,

two eyes, deep green pools

of fear….

Silvia

Does the old man in the forest

know that he sings in his sleep?

I stare, he stares,

then we both smile.

Rosa, I hear myself chant the name

over and over,

begging for a flower-woman

who will teach me how to save lives.

I tell the old man that I already know

the names of the blossoms, all I need is a chance

to learn their magic.

With a sigh, he says,

Yes of course, one more child

is always welcome,

follow me….

Rosa

The new girl is so thin and pale

that I cannot let her help me

until she has learned

how to heal herself.

I make her eat, sleep, rest.

She resists.

I see a story in her eyes.

She thinks she has no right to eat

while so many others starve.

Silvia

Rosa is a bully.

I thought she would be sweet and kind,

but she forces me to sip my soup,

and she stitches a cut on my forehead,

just a scratch from a thorn in the forest,

but she studies it the way I studied the forts

at the camp, with the holes for guns

that look like eyes.

The needle hurts, the thread itches.

Maybe I don’t want to be a nurse after all.

Speed, Rosa tells me, is the best painkiller,

so she stitches my skin quickly, calmly,

her expression as mysterious as a book

written in some foreign alphabet

from a faraway land.

She looks at my tongue,

puts her finger on my wrist,

explains that she is counting my pulse.

She tells me I do not have leprosy or plague,

measles, tetanus, scarlet fever,

jaundice, or diptheria.

By now, she adds, you must be immune

to yellow fever,

and malaria, well, that is an illness most Cubans

will carry around

all our lives.

I picture myself lugging a suitcase loaded

with heavy diseases….

I daydream a ship, an escape route, the ocean….

Rosa

The girl is well enough to learn.

I show her one cure at a time.

A poultice of okra for swelling.

Arrowroot to draw poison out of a wound.

Cactus fruit for soothing a cough.

Hibiscus juice for thirst.

Honey for healing.

I show her the workshop where saddles are made

with leather tanned by pomegranate juice,

and I show her the workshop

where hats are woven

from the dry, supple fiber of palm fronds,

and the place where candles

of beeswax are shaped

to light the rare books

from which cave children learn

how to read comforting Psalms,

and the Simple Verses of José Martí,

our poet of memory,

our memory of hope….

Rosa

Young people are like the wood of a balsa tree,

light and airy—they can float, like rafts,

like boats….

José and I are the rock-hard wood

of a guayacán tree,

the one shipbuilders call Tree of Life

because it is so dense

and heavy with resin

that it sinks,

making the best propeller shafts—

the wood will never rot,

but it cannot float….

Young people drift on airy daydreams.

Old folks help hold them in place.

Silvia

Rosa helps me see the caves

in her own way.

I gaze around at the forest,

where she has been free,

so alive in this wonder,

where trees grow like castle towers,

with windows opening

onto rooms of sunlight.

I can no longer imagine

living anywhere else,

without this garden of orchids

and bright macaws.

I think of all I know

about tales of castles.

There is always a dungeon,

and a chapel,

bells of hope….

Rosa

Silvia tells me that she used to visit

her grandparents in town.

They kept caged birds,

and in the evenings they walked,

carrying the cages up a hill

to watch the sunset.

Inside each cage, the captive birds

sang and fluttered, wings dancing.

Silvia admits that she always wondered

whether the birds imagined they were flying,

or maybe they understood the limitations

of bamboo bars, the walls of each tiny cage.

Now I ask myself about my own limitations,

trying to serve as mother and grandmother

to a child who has lost

everyone she ever loved.

Rosa

The Fox has named me

the first woman Captain

of Military Health,

the first Cuban rebel army nurse

who will be remembered

by name.

I think of all the others

who went before me

in all three wars,

curing the wounded, healing the sick,

nameless women, forgotten now,

their voices and hands

just part of the forest,

whispering like pale yagruma leaves

in a breeze.

On hot days, even the shade

from a yagruma leaf

offers soothing medicine,

the magic of one quiet moment

of peace.

José

Warnings fly from every direction.

Lieutenant Death, the old slavehunter,

never gives up.

He is seen far too often, tracking, stalking,

hunting his prey.

The price for Rosa’s ear grows—

her ear, the proof of her death.

I climb a towering palm tree,

to watch the movements of shadows below.

I wait, studying the shapes to see

which might be wounded rebels,

coming to Rosa for help,

and which could be Death,

bringing his nickname,

even though Rosa healed his flesh

so long ago.

She did not know

how to heal

his soul.

Lieutenant Death

Strangler fig, candle tree, dragon’s blood.

The names of forest plants lead me

toward Rosa the Witch.

I can never let anyone learn my real name,

or there will be rebel vengeance, after I kill her.

She is a madwoman—just yesterday, I heard

that she cleaned and bandaged the wounds

of forty Spanish soldiers,

and that Gómez the Fox let them all go,

seizing only their horses, saddles, and weapons,

leaving them enough food to survive.

No wonder so many young Spanish boys

are switching sides, joining the rebels,

becoming Cubans.

She must be stopped.

It makes no sense, healing her enemies

so they will turn into friends.

Rosa

When I travel

between two hospitals,

I listen to trees that speak

with the movement of leaves.

The horse I ride

sings to me

by twitching his ears,

telling me how much

he hates

the flames of war.

I stroke his mane

to let him know

that I will keep him safe.

I hope it is true….

Lieutenant Death

I camp beneath

a shelf of rock,

almost a cave,

I must be close….

I crush a flower bud,

popping it

to squirt the juice

that would have turned

into a blossom

with nectar

for honeybees.

Silvia

How long have Rosa and I roamed

these green, musical hills?

Each step my little mountain pony takes

has a rhythm, the music of movement,

a way to make the most of every chance

to heal a wound, cure a fever, save a life….

We ride through dark night,

surrounded by the beauty of owl songs,

tree frogs, cicada melodies,

the whoosh of bat wings

and leaves in a breeze,

all of it teaching me

how to sing without being discovered

by soldiers who would find us and kill us

if my song turned into words….

Rosa

The scars of fear burn so intensely

that I no longer ride my horse

with a metal bit in his soft, sensitive mouth.

I do not use a bridle of rope

or a saddle of leather

or spurs of sharp metal.

I’ve learned how to guide the smooth gait

of my Paso Fino mountain horse

by shifting my weight and my gaze

ever so slightly,

just enough to tell him

where I want to go.

I’ve learned how to choose a direction

with my knees, and my hands,

and my hopes….

Lieutenant Death

I wear a red tassel on my hat

to protect me against Rosa’s evil eye.

The caves are endless.

If I never find Rosa,

will the cave serpents

find me?

Breathless, I race

back out, into sunlight,

where small blue lizards

and huge green iguanas

bob their heads

as if they are mocking me

with wicked, silent laughter….

Has the witch cursed me?

Am I mad to think of such things

when I should be hunting, tracking,

hard at work?

Silvia

Before the war, a funeral meant bells,

trumpets, drums,

white flowers, and black horses

wearing black tassels.

Now we just kneel, then rise to our feet,

wondering why there are no priests

out here in the forest…

no tombstones or gravediggers with shovels,

just children with machetes tied to poles

for digging, and hardly any weeping

or singing, or flowers….

I wonder what the king of Spain

would think if he could see us.

He’s just a boy, around my age.

I’ve seen his picture, with sad eyes

and no smile—does he understand anything

about this war?

Lieutenant Death

I march beside an army of land crabs,

their orange claws clacking like drums.

Crocodiles leap from the swamps,

while tree rats stare down at them, haunted.

Green parrots swoop

above the swollen trunks

of potbellied palm trees.

Vultures nest in tunnels of mud.

A hummingbird hovers beside my ear.

Pink flamingos flock past me, cackling.

At night, a bat sips nectar

from white flowers

the size of my fist.

Fever seizes my mind.

Panic, anger, then fear again…

So many years in this jungle,

and now, here I am,

alone…lost…alone….

José

We no longer have enough food

for so many patients.

Silvia and I go out to gather

wild yams and honey.

The child tells me her grandmother

showed her how to cure sadness

by sucking the juice of an orange,

while standing on a beach.

Toss the peels onto a wave.

Watch the sadness float away.

Rosa

One night, a hole appears in the thatch

of our biggest hospital’s roof.

A woman’s face.

A child.

The boy descends

as if floating.

He is sick. Heal him,

his mother pleads.

I look around, and realize

that she came through the roof

because the door was too crowded

with families weeping, rebels moaning,

women begging….

This war is a serpent,

growing, stretching….

Silvia

In wild swamps,

I clean and bandage

the gunshot wounds

of Spanish soldiers.

The youngest are children,

boys of eleven, twelve, thirteen….

Those who survive thank me

with words and smiles,

even when the only medicines I have

are bits of lemon juice and ash.

Silvia

Sometimes we are so hungry

that we sing about making an ajiaco stew,

the kind where a kettle is filled with all sorts

of meats and vegetables.

It takes many cooks to make an ajiaco.

Each person brings only one slice of meat

or one potato, one malanga tuber or onion,

or salt from the sea.

When the stew is ready, everyone dances.

At the beach, kickfighting swimmers show off

the methods they’ve learned

for battling sharks.

Even though my ajiaco is an imaginary one,

I end up feeling that

something special has happened.

I fall asleep dreaming of music and friends,

not food.

I fall asleep with my whole family

all around me, still alive….

Captain-General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau,

Marquis of Tenerife, Empire of Spain

In a palace in Havana,

I practice the art of the lance game,

riding a wooden horse around and around

on a carousel pushed by a slave.

Each time I complete the circle,

I stab my narrow sword

through a wooden ring.

When this war is over

and I have won,

I will buy one of those fancy

new mechanical carousels

with many painted horses

and a golden ring.

Silvia

Today the most amazing thing happened!

A man came from far away, to present the Fox

with a jeweled ceremonial sword

made by Tiffany,

someone very famous in New York,

the city where this visitor works

for a newspaper called the Journal,

a foreign name I can never

hope to pronounce.

When I asked Rosa why a newspaper

would care so much about our island,

I found her answer troubling.

She said tales of suffering sell newspapers

that make readers feel safe,

because they are so far away

from the horror….

Silvia

More and more young people come to join us.

El Grillo, the Cricket, is small, dark, and lively.

His nickname is earned by chattering.

He is only eleven, but his job is important.

He helps the Spanish deserter

who cooks for the Fox.

How odd it must feel to work as a kitchen boy

in this forest, without a real kitchen,

especially on days when there is no food.

Some of the officers are only fourteen.

The Flag Captain is a girl my age.

When Spanish soldiers see her, they hesitate.

They are not accustomed

to shooting girls.

The Sisters of Shade weave hats

to bring relief from the sun.

They show me how to sew

a padded amulet of cloth

to wear over my heart, as protection

against bullets.

José

Each rebel has a nickname.

El Indio Bravo wears his black hair long,

like his native Taíno Indian ancestors.

Los Inglesitos have light hair,

so we call them the Englishmen,

even though they speak only Spanish.

Los Pacíficos are the Peaceful Ones.

They grow crops to feed their little ones,

instead of choosing sides in the war.

Nicknames of all sorts are worn proudly,

except for majá, which means cave boa,

like the snake that hides in darkness,

waiting for bats—

majá is the name we call cowards

who choose to ride the slowest horses

into battle, so they can be the first

to turn back, and survive

if a retreat is called.

José

War is like the game

of gallina ciega, blind hen.

We hide. They seek.

One shot from my old carbine,

and Spanish troops return fire

with thousands of Mauser balls,

cannons, explosives….

So I hide, shoot, and wait

for them to waste ammunition,

firing back at me,

into the forest,

hitting nothing but trees.

Silvia

The wounded are sacred.

We never leave them.

When everyone else

flees the battlefield,

nurses are the ones

who rush to carry

the wounded

to Rosa.

I am learning

how to stay

far too busy

for worries

about dying.

Rosa

Today the children saved us,

our patients, the nurses, my husband, my life.

Spanish soldiers came marching

to the music of trumpets and drums.

Silvia, Cricket, and the Sisters of Shade

ran and grabbed beehives.

I was so weary, I was dreaming.

I had no idea that we were in danger.

I slept through the drumming and buzzing,

cries of fear, shouts of surprise….

Our hives fooled the troops

into fleeing—they do not know

that these bees are stingless.

Now, we feast on wild honey.

We light a candle, and take turns reading

the Simple Verses of José Martí.

My favorite is the one about knowing

the strange names of flowers.

José

How strange and sudden

are changes in wartime.

Soon after the victory of beehives,

we suffer a dreadful defeat.

A spy has betrayed the Lion,

revealing his position.

He was ambushed.

He is gone.

The Fox is alone now, only one leader…

so many dreams.

Silvia

Our Lion is dead,

but Weyler the Butcher

has been sent back to Spain,

humiliated by his failure

to defeat mambí rebels….

How can I decide

whether to weep for the Lion

or celebrate an end to Cuba’s

reconcentration?

The camp where my family starved,

and shivered with fever—

the camp is open now—

the guards are gone.

Survivors can leave

if they have

the strength.

The Surrender Tree

1898–99

Rosa

No one understands

why a U.S.battleship

has been anchored

in Havana Harbor.

We do not know

how the ship explodes,

killing hundreds of American sailors,

who must have felt so safe

aboard their sturdy warship.

Who can be blamed

for the bomb?

José

After the U.S.battleship Maine

explodes in Havana Harbor,

Spain’s soldiers in Cuba

are no longer paid or fed

by their own country’s

troubled army.

Deserters flee into the mountains

by the hundreds, then by thousands,

coming to us for mercy,

begging to switch sides

and become mambí rebels

because we know how to find

roots and wildflowers

to keep ourselves alive.

How swiftly old enemies

turn into friends.

Silvia

Foreign newspaper reporters

flood our valleys and mountains,

journeying to Cuba

from distant places

with strange names.

Some come with cameras,

others with sketchbooks.

Rosa poses calmly.

I smile.

Cricket laughs,

because even though some of the artists

are amazing,

others are sneaky—

one reporter sketches the fat cook,

making him look thin and handsome,

to flatter him

before begging for extra food.

Only José refuses to be photographed

or sketched—he claims he once

knew a man

who posed, and was harmed by the camera,

and has never been the same.

I do not believe that José is afraid.

He just wants to keep our faces

and our hospitals

safely hidden.

Rosa

The countryside is a ghostland

of burned farms and the ashes of houses,

skeletal trees blackened by smoke.

Rumors blossom

and wither like orchids.

Some say the U.S.Cavalry

is here to help us.

Others insist that the Americans

must have bombed

their own warship

just to have an excuse

for fighting in Cuba

so close to the end

of our three wars

for independence.

Silvia

The U.S. Cavalrymen

call themselves Rough Riders

but José calls them Weary Walkers

because fever makes them so weak

that they have to dismount

and lead their horses

through Cuba’s swamps.

Some of the northerners

who come to our hospitals with fever

are dark men who laugh

when they call themselves

the Immunes.

They say they were promised

that if they volunteered to fight in Cuba

they would remain healthy—

apparently, in northern lands,

dark people were thought to be safe

from tropical fevers

until Cuba started teaching

northern doctors

the truth.

Rosa

I smile as Silvia tries to learn English

from our new patients, some light, some dark,

all speaking the same odd, birdlike language.

I can’t understand

why dark northern soldiers

and light ones

are separated

into different brigades.

The dead are all buried together

in hasty mass graves,

bones touching.

José

I serve as a guide for the Rough Riders,

some of them Cherokee and Chippewa,

others old bear hunters and gold miners,

cattlemen, gamblers, college students,

and doctors.

Rosa will not allow the foreign doctors

to leech blood from feverish men

who are already weak,

or to cover their wounds with a paste

of poisonous mercury and chlorine,

so most of the Rough Riders

are taken away

to their own hospital ships,

where they can be treated

without the help

of my stubborn wife,

even though

she is right….

Rosa

Gómez is truly a clever Fox.

He writes in his diary,

keeping track of every battle,

every movement, every Cuban guide

hired to help the Americans

find their way in our jungle,

as they chase bands of desperate

Spanish soldiers.

I am pleased to see the Fox

writing columns of numbers.

He records each debt, no matter how small.

He promises that every Pacífico,

every Peaceful One,

every hardworking farmer will be paid

for each grain of corn, each pig, each hen.

I thank God that some peasants

did not move to the camps.

We survive with food raised

by those who stayed hidden

in remote valleys,

planting by the moon,

and harvesting in sunlight.

Silvia

I watch as foreign soldiers

write letters home

to their families.

Cricket is fascinated too—

he has never been to school.

He can barely write.

One of the Rough Riders tells us

that he is writing to his wife

about us,

and about Rosa,

the way she treats everyone the same,

without taking payment,

or choosing favorites.

Rosa

I travel down to the remnants of camps,

where skeletal people now come and go freely,

walking like ghosts, wandering, grieving.

American nurses hand out food

to those who line up early,

while there is enough.

The nurses wear white-winged hats, like angels.

I meet Clara Barton, with her angel-wing hat.

The famous Red Cross nurse

tells me she is sorry she could not help sooner,

when there was no food

in the camps, and no medicine.

Now she can help,

but for so many, help comes too late.

She gives me a hat

with white wings, a blood-red cross,

the colors of jasmine

and roses.

Silvia

Some of the U.S.Army nurses

are young Lakota Sioux nuns

who have come here to help us

even though their own tribe in the north

has suffered so much, for so long,

starving and dying

in their own distant wars.

One of the nuns

is called Josefina Two Bears.

She promises to take care

of all the orphans

from the camps.

Rosa

In the caves, our pillows were stones

and our beds were moss.

Water trickled from crystal ceilings

with a sound like quiet music.

It was easy to imagine

a peaceful future,

a peaceful past….

Now I sleep in a real bed, dreaming

that I am seated on a green, sunny roadside,

selling flowers—cup-of-gold vine, orange trumpet,

coral vine, flame tree, ghost orchid, roses….

I dream that I am able to sell all these flowers

because it is peacetime,

and blossoms are treasured

for beauty and fragrance,

not potions, not cures….

José

How will I deliver such strange news

to my wife, who has labored so hard

for so long, that even her sleep is not sleep,

but just dreams….

How can I tell her that suddenly

this third war has ended?

If only I could tell her

that we won.

Instead, I must whisper a truth

that seems impossible—

Spain has been defeated,

but Cuba is not victorious.

The Americans have seized power.

Once again, we are the subjects

of a foreign tyrant.

Rosa

We helped them win

their strange victory

against Spain.

We imagined they were here

to help us gain the freedom

we’ve craved for so long.

We were inspired by their wars

for freedom from England

and freedom for slaves.

We helped them win

this strange victory

over us.

José

They choose a majestic tree,

a ceiba, the kapok tree

revered by Cubans,

a sturdy tree with powerful roots.

They choose the shade of spreading branches.

We have to watch from far away.

Even General Gómez,

after thirty years of leading our rebels,

even he is not invited

to the ceremonial surrender.

Spain cedes power before our eyes.

We can only watch from far away

as the Spanish flag is lowered

and the American flag glides upward.

Our Cuban flag

is still forbidden.

Rosa

Silvia has decided

to help the Sioux nuns

build an orphanage

for children

from the camps.

José and I must continue

doing what we can

to heal the wounded

and cure the sick.

Peace will not be paradise,

but at least we can hope

that children like Silvia

and the other orphans

will have their chance

to dream

of new ways

to feel free….

Silvia

I feel like a child again.

I don’t know how to behave.

The war is over—

should I dance,

am I free to sing out loud,

free to grow up,

fall in love?

I am free to smile

while the orphans sleep.

I admit that I feel impatient,

so eager to write in a journal,

like the Fox,

writing a record

of all that I have seen….

Peace is not the paradise

I imagined, but it is a chance

to dream….

Author’s Note

My grandmother used to speak of a time when her parents had to leave their farm in central Cuba and “go to another place.” I had no idea what she meant, until I grew up and read historical accounts of Weyler’s reconcentration camps.

My grandmother was born on a farm in central Cuba in 1902. She described Cuba’s countryside as so barren from the destruction of war that once, when her whole family was hungry, her father rode off into the wilderness and came back with a river turtle. That one turtle was cause for celebration, enough meat to keep a family alive and hopeful.

One of my grandmother’s uncles was a Pacífico (a Peaceful One), who kept farming in order to feed his little brother. Another uncle was a blond man of primarily Spanish descent who married the daughter of a Congolese slave. My mother remembers seeing this couple coming into town with wild mountain flowers to sell. She says they were two of the happiest people she had ever seen. I like to picture them in love with each other, and with the beauty of their homeland, free of hatred, and free of war—free, in every sense of that short, powerful word. During a recent trip to Cuba, I met my mother’s cousin Milagros, one of their descendants, whose name means “Miracles.”

I feel privileged to have known my grandmother, who pressed wet sage leaves against her forehead whenever she had a headache, and my great-grandmother, who was young during Cuba’s wars for independence from Spain, and Milagros, whose children are young and hopeful now.

Historical Note

In this story, Silvia and the oxcart driver are the only completely fictional characters. Their experiences are based on composites of accounts by various survivors of Weyler’s reconcentration camps.

All the other characters are historical figures, including Rosario Castellanos Castellanos, known in Cuba as Rosa la Bayamesa, and her husband, José Francisco Varona, who helped establish and protect Rosa’s hospitals. Some of the hospitals were mobile units, moving with the rebel mambí army. Others were thatched huts, hidden in the forest. Some were caves.

So little is known about the daily routines of Rosa and José that I have taken great liberties in imagining their actions, feelings, and thoughts.

Like many traditional Latin American healers, Rosa regarded healing as a gift from God and never accepted payment for her work as a nurse. Her medicines were made from wild plants. Many of these herbal remedies are still used in Cuba, where they are called la medicina verde (the green medicine).

Various accounts show Rosa’s birth year as either 1834 or 1840. When she died on September 25, 1907, she was buried with full military honors. Her funeral was attended by a colonel of the U.S. Infantry’s 17th Regiment.

There really was a slavehunter known as Lieutenant Death, but there is no evidence that he was the key figure in Spanish military operations designed to pursue and kill Rosa.

Other characters, such as El Grillo (The Cricket), El Jóven (The Young One),and Las Hermanas de la Sombra

(The Sisters of Shade), are based on descriptions in the diaries of soldiers and war correspondents. The first modern, systematic use of concentration camps as a way of controlling rural civilian populations was ordered by Imperial Spain’s Captain-General Weyler in Cuba in 1896.No provisions were made for shelter, food, medicine, or sanitation. Estimates of the number of Cuban guajiros (peasants) who died in Weyler’s “reconcentration camps” range from 170,000 to half a million, or approximately 10 to 30 percent of the island’s total population. In some areas, up to 96 percent of the farms were destroyed.

After Spain ceded Cuba to the United States, Captain-General Weyler was promoted to Minister of War.

Within a few years, the ruthless military use of concentration camps was repeated during South Africa’s Boer Wars. Adolf Hitler carried the genocidal concept to its extreme during World War II, when millions of European Jews, Catholics, gypsies, pacifists, and other minority groups were killed in Nazi Germany’s extermination camps. Since then, armed powers all over the world have herded huge numbers of civilians into prison camps on the basis of religion, race, national origin, ideology, sexual orientation, style of dress, listening to rock music (Cuba’s roqueros),or simply to seize territory, preventing farmers from growing crops that might strengthen an opposing army.

Cuba’s third War of Independence from Spain is known in the United States as the Spanish-American War, and in Spain as El Desastre (The Disaster). Historians generally regard it as the first jungle guerrilla war, the first modern trench warfare, and the first time women were formally recognized as military nurses, both in the Cuban Army of Liberation and in the U.S. Army.

It is also known as the “journalist’s war,” because reporters working for American newspapers wrote stories promoting U.S. intervention. In 1897, when the renowned artist Frederic Remington requested permission to leave Cuba because he found the situation near Havana reasonably quiet and unworthy of constant news coverage, his employer, William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Morning Journal, sent him an urgent telegram: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war.”

Chronology

EARLY INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS

1810. Cuba’s first separatist movement is suppressed by colonial Spain.

1812. A slave rebellion is suppressed.

1823. Soles y Rayos de Bolívar (Suns and Rays of Bolívar) movement is suppressed, during a time when most other Spanish colonies have recently gained independence under the leadership of Simón Bolívar and other freedom fighters.

1836-55. Various separatist movements are suppressed.

1858-59. U.S.President James Buchanan makes offers to buy Cuba. Spain refuses.

1868. On October 10, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and other landowners near the city of Bayamo in eastern Cuba burn their plantations and free their slaves, launching the first of three wars for independence from Spain.

1868-78. Cuba engages in its Ten Years’ War for independence from Spain.

1878-80. Cuba fights its Little War for independence from Spain.

1880-86. Gradual abolition of slavery occurs throughout Cuba.

CUBA’S FINAL WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM SPAIN

1895. Rebellion in eastern Cuba begins. Poet José Martí is killed in his first battle.

1896. War spreads. Captain-General Weyler announces the reconcentration camp order.

1897. The Constitutional Assembly convenes.

1898. U.S.battleship Maine explodes in Havana Harbor. The United States makes its final offer to buy Cuba. U.S.military intervenes and Spanish troops surrender to U.S.troops. Cuban generals are not permitted to attend the ceremonies.

POSTWAR EVENTS

1899. Spain cedes rule of Cuba to the United States.

1902. The United States grants autonomy to Cuba, on the condition that U.S.troops retain the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and that Cuba allows a portion of the eastern province of Guantánamo to become a U.S.Navy base.

Selected References

ALLEN, DOUGLAS. Frederic Remington and the Spanish-American War. New York:Crown, 1971.

BARBOUR, THOMAS. A Naturalist in Cuba. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946.

CORZO, GABINO DE LA ROSA. Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba. Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

GARCÍA, FAUSTINO. La Mujer Cubana en la Revolución. La Habana:Bohemia, February 24, 1950.

GARCÍA, LUIS NAVARRO. La Independencia de Cuba. Madrid:Editorial MAPFRE, 1992.

GOLDSTEIN, DONALD M., AND KATHERINE V. DILLON. The Spanish-American War—The Story and Photographs. Washington, D.C.,and London: Brassey’s, 2000.

GÓMEZ, MÁXIMO. Diario de Campaña del Mayor General Máximo Gómez. La Habana:Comisión del Archivo de Máximo Gómez; Talleres del Centro Superior Tecnológico Ceiba del Agua, 1940.

MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Poesía Completa. La Habana:Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1993.

PRADOS-TERREIRA, TERESA. Mambisas: Rebel Women in Nineteenth-Century Cuba.Gainesville:University Press of Florida, 2005.

ROIG, JUAN TOMÁS. Plantas Medicinales, Aromáticas o Venenosas de Cuba. La Habana:Editorial Científico-Técnica, 1988.

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. The Rough Riders. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899.

TONE, JOHN LAWRENCE. War and Genocide in Cuba—1895 –1898. Chapel Hill:The University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

VILLAVERDE, CIRILO. Diario del Rancheador. La Habana:Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to God and my family for the time and peace of mind to write.

For help with research, I am thankful to all the hardworking, anonymous interlibrary loan specialists from numerous libraries, including the Hispanic Reference Team at the Library of Congress.

A heartfelt thanks to my editor, Reka Simonsen, and to everyone else at Henry Holt and Company, especially Robin Tordini, Timothy Jones, my copy editor Marlene Tungseth and designer Lilian Rosenstreich.

For encouragement, I am grateful to Angelica Carpenter and Denise Sciandra at the Arne Nixon Center for Children’s Literature, California State University, Fresno, and to Alma Flor Ada, Nancy Osa, Teresa Dovalpage, Juan Felipe Herrera, Anilú Bernardo, Cindy Wathen, Esmeralda Santiago, Midori Snyder, and Ellen Olinger.