SYNOPSIS:

During the frenzy of a raid in which Spanish soldiers attack the hacienda of a coffee plantation because the landowner has not been giving his tithing to the Spanish Crown, Chabelis, age 4, ends up in the saddlebag of Cooley Valdez, one of the cimarrones—wild men who live in the hills and who help the slaves escape at the call of the drum. The horse runs off with a gunshot, bloody Cooley hanging over its saddle and Chabelis still in the saddlebag. She is raised in the cave dwelling of the cimarrones, where she learns how to shoot a rifle to hunt and defend herself against the perils of nature. She is, however, marked for life from having witnessed her mother's brutal slaughter by one of the Spanish soldiers, General Valeriano. She is determined to seek revenge as soon as they cross paths. When she is 12, one of the cimarrones loses his senses due to a high fever caused by syphilis and tries to rape Chabelis. Knowing how to defend herself without remorse, she accidently kills him in the face of danger. Cooley realizes that the cave is no longer the place for a pubescent girl, so he takes her to a Spanish mission, where she will be taught by the nuns how to read, write, sew, and act like a lady. At the mission, she meets an unlikely lover, Roberto, a 16-year-old Spanish soldier boy who falls in love with Chabelis at firstsight. In comes Rebecca, a bubbly, Sephardic socialite from Havana, who also happens to be an unwed, pregnant 16- year-old. Chabelis and Rebecca become best friends. So, Chabelis feels compelled to help Rebecca find Ernesto, her beloved, so he can help Rebecca escape the mission's maternity ward and they can raise their baby together. This is until Chabelis realizes that the orphanage is being used as a front for soldier artillery. She is then determined to find a way to lead the orphans to a safer home outside of the fortress walls. Once Chabelis escapes the mission herself, she is confronted with the dismal future a mulatta faces in her society, even as a free woman. She uses her education to attain a respectable position as a lector in a tobacco rolling shop, but even that ends up getting her into dire straits.