Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (20 page)

After the first frenzy of victory
. That was the dangerous time when tempers and actions were out of control. It did not bear thinking of.

Pierre cleared his throat. His lips tightened as if he would not speak, then he said, “There is another story that came to me. There was a boy of six or seven, a fine lad, who was taken by an Indian family of the Sun class as a playmate for their son. The boys became friends, within days were inseparable. Then the Indian boy caught the measles from the French child. He died. It was decided that the French boy must be sacrificed in order that he continue as playmate to the Sun child in the afterlife.”

Madame Doucet cried out, her face a mask of sorrow. She rocked back and forth with her arms clasped over her chest as if she feared her heart would burst from her if she did not hold it in. Elise moved to lean over her, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulders, though she felt helpless before such grief.

Pascal swore. St. Amant set down his wineglass with fingers that shook. “Something must be done. They must be rescued.”

“Indeed,” Pierre Broussard said. “Governor Perier has sent a dispatch to France entreating the crown and the West India Company for reinforcements to put down the uprising. In the meantime, he has called for volunteers to join the militia and sent the Sieur de Lery as an emissary to the Choctaws.”

“The Choctaws?” Pascal demanded. “There was talk, before the attack, that they were to join with the Natchez against us.”

“The rumors were true in part, I think. It was to be a massive bloodletting, one planned in secret councils through the past summer and carefully timed, with every chief receiving a bundle of reeds of equal number, one of which was to be withdrawn at every dawn until the day of the attack. The reeds of the Natchez were tampered with and so they fell on the French early. The Yazoos, who with the Tensas were allies of the Natchez, massacred the French at the small fort in their country also, and in New Orleans there was a revolt of the slaves that is said to have been a part of the conspiracy. But the Choctaws were infuriated that the Natchez acted to remove the element of surprise from their own raids and that they have since refused to share the booty from Fort Rosalie. So the Choctaws will in all likelihood ally themselves with the French against the Natchez. At least that is the purpose of de Lery’s expedition.”

“So we sent Indians to conquer Indians.”

“It seems wise,” Pierre said dryly. “It is doubtful that Perier will be able to put more than a few hundred men in the field, and it is estimated that the Natchez have nearly a thousand warriors even without their allies. We need the Choctaws.”

“The Choctaws are not the equal of the Natchez,” Pascal said morosely.

“But there are more of them.”

There was a short silence broken only by the moaning of Madame Doucet. She drew in a ragged breath, then, with a vast effort, forced coherent words from her throat. “Please, m’sieu, have you been to the village of Natchez? Have you seen perhaps a young woman with long blond hair and blue eyes in a sweet face? And a boy of six years, a beautiful child, so husky, so quick?”

Pierre shook his head. “I am sorry, madame. I could not go to the Natchez village, for though I lived with them a dozen years and more and can call them by name, I am a Frenchman and am looked on now as an enemy.”

Reynaud had been standing in the shadows as if setting himself apart from the conversation. Now he spoke. “The revolt of the slaves in New Orleans. It was serious?”

“It caused a great deal of fright but few casualties. It’s left a bad taste in the mouths of many, however. Our fine Governor Perier, aghast that such a tragedy should happen during his period in office and feeling himself surrounded by enemies, decided to use the incident to ensure that such an alliance of Indians and slaves never occurs again. He first hanged several of the ringleaders of the revolt, then he armed a contingent of slaves and forced them to attack a village of perfectly harmless Chouachas. They put to death seven or eight of their number and burned the village to the ground.”

“The fool,” Reynaud said, his tone grating.

“Even so.”

The moans of Madame Doucet had turned to sobs. Elise thought she had heard more than enough. Gently she urged the older woman to her feet and led her away. It was a relief to leave the room. She had also heard as much as she wanted to hear, as much as she could bear for one evening.

She did not go into the dining room for dinner. Instead, she made her way to the kitchen where she asked that a tray be prepared for herself and Madame Doucet. Neither ate a great deal. The older woman rambled, talking of happier days, of the charming things her grandson had said and done, of the unruly way his hair had grown and the tooth he had been going to lose, speaking of him as of one dead. She worried about her daughter, of how she would endure being a slave, of her weakness caused by her injuries, of her spirit that might lead her to defy her Indian mistress. She was troubled that they might not have enough to eat, that they were cold or unprotected from the weather. When Elise tried to reason with her, saying how unlikely were her fears, she only nodded, then went on monotonously in the same vein. Finally Elise brought her a glass of warm milk laced with cognac. Soothed by the potent drink, worn out by her own fears, she slept at last.

So weary was Elise by then that she wanted nothing more than her own bed. Once there, however, she could not sleep. The words Pierre had spoken echoed in her mind, bringing to vivid life once more the day of the massacre and all that had happened afterward. She lay staring into the darkness, thinking of Reynaud as he had been that day in the woods when he had demanded that she share his bed furs, of him standing naked, bathed in cold rain, of the moonlight on his body as he rose from the bayou.

He was half Natchez, with half the blood of the killers of her friends and neighbors, the men who had struck them down in the mellow light of a cool fall morning and torn the scalps from their heads. He had stood listening to that recital of horrors this evening and his face had shown nothing. Not anger, not disgust, not pity — nothing.

What kind of man was he? This afternoon he had dared to try to explain away the torture of men, had actually compared the exploits in the wars of Europe and the Far East with this dastardly murder of her countrymen. It was sickening.

Yes, sickening. But Governor Perier, a man of breeding and birth, had turned armed slaves loose on a village of innocent people simply because they were of Indian blood and he had a point to make. Ah, God, what horrors men were capable of committing. Turning her face into the pillow, she lay still, trying not to think.

Reynaud did not come to bed. She heard the sounds she had come to recognize as the others going to their bedchambers, readying for bed. Perhaps he and his friend had required some time alone to conduct whatever business it was that brought Pierre — if there was any business at all, which she doubted. There was no way to guess how long they might sit over their wine and discussion. In any case, it did not matter. Resolutely she closed her eyes.

Her slumber was fitful, filled with dreams. Once she woke from a nightmare with her heart pounding and her hair damp with perspiration as if she had been running for miles. She could not quite catch the sense of the dream, nor did she try. She reached out her hand to touch the other side of the bed. It was still empty. She slept again.

When she awakened next, there was daylight in the room, seeping around the curtains with the pale yellow glow that meant that the sun had risen. Elise stretched, then remembered and turned her head. Reynaud lay beside her on his stomach with his head on one arm and the other resting, relaxed, on the mattress. She eased a little higher in the bed, pushing her pillow behind her head, and lay watching him.

His breathing was deep and even. His face was closed in, self-contained, its dark copper-bronze a startling contrast to the white of the embroidered pillowcase. There were fine lines at the corners of his eyes and deeper indentations at the corners of his mouth. His lashes lay thick and black, but somehow ragged in their different lengths, on his cheeks. His hair had loosened from its queue, the dark strands roughened, falling in a deep wave onto his temple. His muscles were relaxed so that the line of his arm and shoulder was smoother than normal.

Slowly she grew aware of the need to touch him. She wanted to trace his brows and the turn of his jaw with her finger, to smooth back his hair, and to lean over to press her lips to the pulse that throbbed in the column of his neck. She would like to push the coverlet aside and run her palm over his shoulder and down his spine, to the small of his back and lower to where the lean contours of his hips rose. The longing inside her was intense, coupled with a tingling fullness in her loins and a swelling in her breasts. She bit her bottom lip and curled her fingers one by one into her fist as if to prevent temptation.

How long had it been since she had done these things? She was not quite sure. He had only requested it of her twice since they had reached his home and even then had stopped her almost before she had begun. At first she had been relieved, but then she had begun to miss that closeness, to yearn for it. It was stupid of her. She had castigated herself, telling herself that it was the reaction of one of those daughters of joy that she had once suspected might have visited him here. It had done no good.

He stirred. Her heart lurched as if it would leap into her throat. She drew back as stealthily as possible and closed her eyes. She must not be caught hanging over him like some lovesick idiot. If he found her so, he would have every right to think she would welcome his advances. Just the thought of such a misunderstanding was enough to bring hectic color to her face. She lay quietly, fiercely concentrating on her breathing in the hope of making it fade.

Then came the rustle of the bedclothes, the creak of the mattress ropes as Reynaud sat up. He was still for a moment and she wondered if he were staring down at her. She realized abruptly that her nightgown was twisted around her, the neckline pulled awkwardly across her chest. So cool was the flesh of her left breast that she had a grim foreboding that it was exposed in its entirety. She dared not move, however.

Reynaud sat, looking down at her. She was so lovely with the flush of sleep on her cheeks, her slender white arms emerging from the lace sleeves of her gown, and the delicate mound of one breast, gently rounded and coral-rose-tipped, revealed where the neckline was awry. He inclined his head, irresistibly drawn to that sweet globe. Then, with neck-wrenching effect, he drew back. No. If she awoke with the sick terror in her eyes that he had seen there once before, he would never be able to forgive himself. He must wait. It was too important to do otherwise. And yet time was growing short.

He eased from the bed and gathered up his clothes. Moving to the door, he let himself out and closed it quietly behind him.

Elise heard him go and for some reason she felt like crying.

She could not sleep again. She got up and dressed in a gown of yellow-and-white-striped challis with a fichu and apron of lace-edged dimity and a small, matching cap to cover her hair. In the dining room she discovered that Reynaud and Pierre had gone riding and the others were not yet up. She drank a cup of chocolate and crumbled a roll in her plate; then, thinking Reynaud and his friend might return before she was finished, she accepted more fresh chocolate. Henri emerged, greeting her with a subdued air, but with every sign of pleasure. She managed to engage him in a discussion of the merits of the life of a trader and even won a smile or two from him, but his heart was not in it.

“What will you do when you reach Fort Saint Jean Baptiste?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he burst out. “That’s the problem. I have no family, nothing. I know no trade since I was apprenticed so short a time at the cooperage. What am I to do.”

“There will be employment of some kind for you. Perhaps someone else will accept you as an apprentice.”

“Maybe. I can think of no trade that I would like, though, and some I would hate.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, the tanning of hides, for one.”

“Not too pleasant,” she agreed.

“It smells,” he said with simple truth.

“What about as a cobbler or a baker?”

He shook his head. “I like to work out of doors; that much I discovered. If I could get to New Orleans, there would be more opportunities.”

“Perhaps you can do that then,” Elise said, smiling in an attempt to cheer him.

His expression did not lighten, however.

The direction of Henri’s thoughts was caused by his assumption that Pierre was the friend for whom Reynaud had been waiting and that they could now proceed on their journey. After his meeting with Reynaud that she had witnessed, the trader had done nothing to disabuse anyone of the idea. She discovered when she went to visit Madame Doucet that she, too, was laboring under the same conception.

“I don’t know if I can go on with the rest of you,” the older woman announced.

Her voice was stronger this morning, but her color was still far too white and pasty. She was not alone. Reynaud’s cousin Madeleine was with her. His housekeeper and Madame Doucet had struck up a firm friendship, perhaps because the first recognized in the older woman a weaker character, one who was not in any sense a rival. It may also have been, to give the woman her due, that she was drawn to Marie Doucet because she was in need of bolstering and had no self-consciousness about showing it.