Seas of Fortune(4)

It took a bit of time to find a suitable Indian village. At last they found one which, according to his scouts, was in the throes of a festival. The kind that involved imbibing large quantities of fermented drink laced with hallucinogens.

Bento watched as one villager after another collapsed to the ground. At last he waved his men forward. Their first target was the place where the Indians had stacked their bows. They cut the bow strings and threw the weapons into the fire. Then they started shooting. The snores were replaced by screams.

Bento nodded approvingly. “Kill the fathers first, enjoy the virgins afterward,” he reminded his band. They didn’t need the reminder; and half their work was done already. They laughed as they chased down the women.

* * *

The da Costa family had helped finance some of the sugar mills in Bahia, and it made arrangements for the sugar boats, en route to Lisbon, to stop in Belém and see if Henrique had any rubber for pickup. Those ships came up the coast monthly . . . assuming they weren’t picked off by Dutch privateers near Recife. And the captains didn’t mind the stopover too much; it wasn’t out of their way and they could take on food and water.

The visits had increased Henrique’s popularity in Belém. The town mostly exported tobacco, cotton, and dye wood, but not enough to warrant regular contact. There was some sugarcane grown in the area, but it was used locally to make liquor. So Belém was a backwater compared to Recife. Before rubber tapping began, a whole year could go by without a vessel coming into port.

Henrique was under orders to expand production, but to do that he needed to find more rubber trees, and more Indians to milk them. He hoped that the town leaders, who were mostly plantation owners, would help him now. They had looked down on him for years as a mateiro, a woodsman, and a small-time merchant. The stuttering hadn’t helped, either.

* * *

“Henrique, I am astonished,” said Francisco de Sousa. He was the president of the Municipal Chamber of Belém. “I never would have expected a bachelor, in Belém no less, to have such an elegant dinner presentation.”

“Th-th-thank you, Cavaleiro Francisco. It is in large part my late m-m-mother’s legacy.”

“I particularly like your centerpiece,” his wife added.

“It is a family . . . heirloom.” The piece in question was a massive flowerpot.

Henrique had hired extra servants for the occasion. They brought in one serving after another. First came a mingau porridge, followed by a farinha-sprinkled pirarucu, caught earlier that day. There were Brazil nuts, palm hearts, and mangoes, too. The meal ended with a sweet tapioca tortilha.

“So what are you doing with those Indians?”

Henrique had known this question would come, and had rehearsed his answer with Maurício, to make sure he could deliver it smoothly.

“There is a tree that produces a milky sap. They tap the tree, a bit as you would a pine tree to collect turpentine. The sap hardens into a substance which is waterproof, and can stretch and . . . bounce.” Grrr, Henrique thought. I almost made it through my spiel. I hate B’s.

“Bounce?”

“Wait.” He left, and returned with a rubber ball. He dropped it, and it returned to his waiting hand, much to their amazement.

“So, there’s a market for this?”

“Somewhat. The rubber can be used to make hats and b-b-boots to protect you from the rain. And I understand that it can be applied in some way to ordinary cloth so that the fabric stays dry, but I don’t how that’s done.

“I could produce and sell more, if only I had enough tappers.”

“Perhaps I can help you there. I can demand labor from the Indians at the aldeia of Cameta. We just need to agree on a price.”

* * *

“What are you doing here, B-B-Bento?” Henrique had seen the slaver, followed by several of his buddies, saunter into the village clearing. Henrique kept his hand near the hilt of his facão.

“Just paying a friendly visit to these Indian friends of yours, H-H-Henrique,” Bento said, imitating Henrique’s stutter as usual.

“You’ve been making life difficult for folks, Henrique. I hear you’re paying your tappers ten varas of cloth a month. It’s making it tough to get Indians to do real work.”

“Ten varas isn’t much, Bento.” A vara was about thirty-three inches. The largesse had not entirely been of Henrique’s choosing, although he was known to be sympathetic to the Indians; he had specific instructions about wages from Lisbon.

“It is when the Indians are accustomed to working for four. Or three. Or two.”

“Or none, in your case.”