by Frank Yerby
At Maspero’s, Andre stood in the middle of the barroom and told his story. When he left, every man in the place filed silently out behind him; for there were not many there whom Stephen had not befriended in some way. And they dispersed to their homes, to rejoin the procession later armed with sabres, clochemardes, rapiers, fowling pieces, and every sort of pistol made. Andre rode alone into the Swamp.
He rode from den to den and entered them boldly. The fierce riverboatmen looked at him curiously. The footpads appraised his fine dress, but the butts of his great pistols, protruding in plain sight from his belt, were ample discouragement to those who would do him violence. The painted slatterns smiled at the plump young man with the grim face, but he paid them no attention, entering very quietly, looking around each of the combination gambling house-saloon-bordelloes, and leaving just as quietly.
Finally at Mother Colby’s Sure Enuf Hotel his quest was rewarded. There, before the dealer’s box in a Faro game, half sunk in a drunken stupor, Mike Farrel sat. Andre crossed to him at once.
Mike looked up with his one good eye and grinned broadly. “Out for a night of sport, lad?” he asked. “Sit yez down and join me. ‘Tis Buckin’ the Tiger I am, but me luck is terrible. Waiter, two whiskeys!”
“There is no need for that, Mike,” Andre told him. “We have need of you at Harrow.”
“Yez be making sport with an old man? ‘Tis nothing I kin do for so fine a broth of a lad as Stevie.”
“But there is,” Andre said. “This night Tom Warren shot Stephen without just cause, and I fear for his life.”
Mike was on his feet then, his horny hand gripping Andre by his beruffled shirt front.
“Don’t lie to me, lad!” he roared.
Mildly, Andre pushed his hand away.
“Why should I lie?” he demanded. “ ‘Tis the truth, Mike. I saw it happen.”
“Maw!” Mike bellowed.
“Yes, son?” Mother Colby said.
“What have yez here that will shoot or chop or rip out a man’s guts?”
The old harridan grinned. Then she went behind her counter and came out with an ancient flintlock pistol as big as a small musket, various types of slung shot, sand bags, and blackjacks, and an enormous Bowie knife whose edge had been honed to razor keenness.
Mike picked up the pistol and stuck it in his belt. Then he ran a horny thumb along the blade of the knife.
“Awright, lad,” he growled. “Lead me to him!”
When they reached the edge of the bayou, the whole road was crowded with horsemen. They sat very quietly on their mounts and waited. Here and there a horse whinnied, or a hoof came down on the road with a heavy clop, but most of the time the stillness was broken only by the heavy breathing of the tired horses, or the clink of a weapon.
The moon rode in over the cypress trees and the road was silver. Andre and Mike rode up to the waiting men, shifting black shadows against the blacker shadows of the trees. The horses broke abruptly, and the crowd milled about in a semicircle around the newcomers.
“We’d best dismount,” Andre said. “ ‘Tis no fit footing for horses. He was headed this way when I saw him last. We’ll need lights, I think.”
Instantly two riders started up the road at a gallop. In a few minutes they were back, bearing pine knots. They lighted them and passed them out to the riders. Then all the men moved very quietly into the marshland, the flaring torches edging the darkness with dancing light.
At once Mike took the lead, murmuring to himself in a throaty bellow. They went on in through the underbrush, scattering in a dozen different directions, so that the diverging lights danced like great fireflies in the woodland. Then Mike was bending close to the earth, the rumblings in his throat deeper, until they had the sound of a trailing animal.
Then there was a place where the underbrush was broken down as though a heavy form had fallen through; and beyond that the saw grass was trampled. Here was a clump of palmettoes bent aside; the thin tendrils of a vine lay tangled on the trail where they had been torn down when they interfered with a man’s passage. The men were silent, and their breaths came out loud in the stillness.
Then the ground was no longer firm under their feet, but a green ooze that sucked audibly with every step. Here where they were, the cypress trees bulged at the roots until the trunks resembled gigantic ninepins. And the water was black and fetid. But they went on, with the trailing streamers of Spanish moss brushing like damp wings against their faces.
“Damn,” an American said. “He had his guts to come in here!” The waters of the bayou itself were ahead now, black with an utter lightless blackness. They stood on the oozy, infirm banks and stared out over the water. Then Mike was lifting his hand for silence. They bent over, listening. The sound came riding in over the bayou, far away and faint, but very clear. Someone was walking in the shallows. They raced along the bank, their feet sticking with every step in the gumlike mud, until at last they saw him, walking with his head down, holding his wounded wrist around which a white cloth showed.
With a roar like a bull mastiff, Mike was in the water. Where he went in, the blackness was broken, and the water rose up like white wings around his heavy thighs. Then he was racing forward, churning the water into a foam, his great bellow echoing.
Tom Warren turned, holding the pistol in his left hand. He fired, and the orange yellow flame split the night open. There, where the branches of the trees roofed the narrow arm of the bayou, the crash of the pistol was deafening. Mike made no gestures toward the weapons in his own belt, but came on forward. Three times more Tom Warren fired, but Mike plunged on in, shaking his massive head and roaring. Then his big hairy paws were gripping Tom’s shoulders and the two of them went down into the bayou. The black water boiled, hiding the two men. . . .
On the bank, all the men held their fire. Then the boiling ceased, and Mike’s head rose above the waters, but his arms were still beneath it, the muscles tense with strain. Again the water was thrashed into whiteness, but Mike held on, the big veins on his forehead standing out and throbbing in the glare of the pine torches. But now, at last, the water was still. Mike stood up and walked slowly through the trailing waters. Heavily, be climbed the bank.
The men crowded around him. Leaning forward, Andre saw the bloodstains on his shirt front.
“You’re hurt!” he said.
“Fleabites,” Mike growled, then looked out over the still waters. “Let the bayou have him,” he said. He turned away from the bayou and started back the way they had come. And one by one, without saying anything, the men followed him.
On the road again, they mounted their horses and turned them toward their various homes. But Mike headed toward Harrow.
“You’re hurt, Mike,” Andre said; “badly hurt. You have need of a doctor!”
“Hold your tongue, lad,” Mike said. “First I’m gonna see after Stevie. These little pinks kin wait. Are yez coming?”
“Yes,” Andre said; “yes, I’m coming.”
Up at Harrow, the lights blazed from every window. All the field hands stood around the big house, staring open-mouthed at the door. Some of the Negroes were weeping.
As Andre and Mike turned their tired horses into the alley of oaks before Harrow, a sleek black mare shot past them at a gallop. Leaning forward Andre saw that the rider was a woman, mounted sidesaddle, her long hair loose and blowing behind her. He kicked at his horse’s sides, but there was no more speed left in the animal. The girl drew her mount up before the great stairs, sawing at its mouth so savagely that it reared, almost unseating her. Grimly she fought for control of the excited animal.
But Andre had reached her now, and was pulling on the reins with all his weight. Slowly the mare quieted.
“Aurore!” Andre whispered.
The girl swung down from the saddle, pushing her chestnut hair out of her eyes.
“How is he, Andre?” she demanded. “Don’t tell me he’s . . . Oh, no, Andre! Don’t tell me that!”
“
Softly, Aurore,” Andre said. “Your sister’s husband is neither dead nor dying. Come, I’ll take you inside.”
Aurore smiled at him, but her eyes were bright with tears. “My sister’s husband,” she murmured. “Thank you, Andre. I needed reminding, didn’t I?”
Silently Andre offered her his arm, and they started up the stairs together. But there was a noise behind them, and they whirled, looking downward.
Mike Farrel hung half over the balustrade, shaking his head back and forth. Instantly, Andre released Aurore and ran back down the stairs to the big man.
“I’m a trifle spent, me lad,” Mike said. “ ‘Tis nothing, yez go ahead with the lass.”
But Andre had one arm around the big man’s waist and was beginning to help him up the stairs. Aurore came down at once, and put her small arm around him from the other side. Together they helped Mike up the stairs. When they were inside, Andre called slaves and had Mike carried to his old rooms, ordering them to dress his wounds at once.
Then he and Aurore went to the master bed chamber. Outside the door Little Inch stood guard, his eyes red with weeping. Beside him, in the big chair, ‘Tienne sat, his blue eyes fixed cold and unmoving on the closed door. Gently Andre pushed it open, and the two of them entered. The room was plunged in semidarkness, and Odalie was kneeling beside the bed, her face burrowed in the linen, her whole body shaken with sobbing. Aurore’s fingers were ice brands, biting into Andre’s arm.
On the other side of the room, Caleen stood. Her face was a grotesque death mask out of Africa. Andre turned toward her, his eyebrows rising.
“Maître worse,” she said simply. “Docteur say him die soon.” Aurore turned to Andre and buried her face against his shoulder. He put up his hand and stroked her lovely head. Then she lifted her face, until her lips were almost touching his throat.
“If he dies,” she whispered, “if he dies . . .” She pillowed her face against his throat. Where her tears touched, they scalded him.
But Caleen was speaking again.
“Docteur great fool,” she said. “Caleen kin cure him, yes! I make him better in one hour, me.”
“Then for God’s sake, do it!” Aurore cried.
“All right,” Caleen said, “you leave the chamber—you an’ Monsieur Andre and maîtresse. Leave nobody here but me and maître. Then I cure him, me.”
“What sort of wickedness is this, Caleen?” Andre demanded.
“Oh, Andre,” Aurore said. “Let her try it, please let her try it!”
“All right,” Andre said reluctantly. “But no witchcraft, Caleen!”
Caleen smiled blandly, and bent down to lift the half-dazed form of Odalie from the bed. Andre and Aurore supported her between them, and the three of them went through the doorway.
When they had gone, Caleen closed the door behind them and crossed to the great canopied bed. Then she crossed herself and bent over the still form of her master.
“Maître,” she crooned in a slow, singsong voice. “You not happy—Caleen knows. But sometime you be happy, yes. Don’t die, maître—sometime you be happy. Easy to die, maître, don’t take no heart for that, no. Easy to die; but hard to live, yes. Hard to live when life ain’t no good, and no joy in it. But you got son, maître—you got strong fine son, you. Live for him. Make him strong like you, brave like you. Make man out of him, yes. Cowards die; cowards give up, run away. Brave men don’t die, them; they live, yes!”
Over and over she talked to him, whispering the words very low, stringing out the intonations until she was half singing them, watching his face. Then slowly, the grey tide was stealing out of his cheeks, and the faint flushes of color stealing in. While she talked, his breathing evened; but she kept it up, repeating the words over and over again:
“Don’t die, maître; you can’t die you! You got too many lives in the hollow of your hand. Don’t die, maître, don’t!”
Then Stephen was breathing very steadily, and something very like a smile played about the corner of his lips. Caleen tiptoed to the door and opened it. Odalie, Aurore and Andre trooped in, walking over to the bed. They looked at Stephen, then with a single motion they turned and faced Caleen.
“You old witch!” Andre said. “You blessed old witch!”
Afterwards, Stephen’s recovery was steady; but it was many weeks before he could leave his bed. While he lay there, fretting against his inactivity, Andre ran both Harrow and La Place. Aurore moved into Harrow and assisted Odalie in the nursing of Stephen and Mike Farrel, who had three bullets in his gigantic chest. The big man was an easy patient, following Aurore’s every move with his worshipful eyes. But Odalie’s voice was often cold, speaking to her sister, and in her eyes was a little look of puzzled hostility.
The crops that year were good, so that despite the unsettled condition of the country’s finances, Harrow made money. Andre was able with the help of Stephen’s note to obtain extensions from his creditors, and by fall La Place was paying off its debts. But the city recovered slowly from the panic; most of the banks remained closed, and many ambitious projects started in the early part of the year had to be curtailed or abandoned.
By the time that the great clouds of smoke were billowing up from the tall stack of the sugar house, Stephen was on his feet again, moving restlessly about the plantation like a pale ghost. His thinness was painful to behold. His eyes were very deep and ringed with blue circles and his gait was halting and slow. But Andre, watching him, was conscious of something else—a thin, brittle edge of bitterness that shone through every word he spoke, every gesture he made.
The words were few enough, God knows. He retired for hours upon end into his study, where he summoned Little Inch to read to him. The slightest effort, even reading, fatigued him unduly, so that the small slave boy found himself possessed of an unbelievably rich world of knowledge. Together they went through Plato’s Republic. Stephen stopped the boy for long minutes at a time while he weighed this or that principle of the philosopher against the happenings of the day.
For the battle against the annexation of Texas was being fought in Congress with ever-mounting bitterness. Here it was that slave owner and free soiler had at last crossed swords, and the intensity of the debate was casting ominous shadows against the skies of the dawning day.
“One of us will have to give in,” Stephen said to Andre. “ ‘Tis we or they. They cannot permit the power of slavery to spread; and we cannot permit them to abolish it.”
“Then there will be two nations in this hemisphere,” Andre declared. “We shall go our way, and let them go theirs.”
“ ‘Tis an absurdity, Andre. Two weak nations eternally at war instead of one great one at peace. Don’t ye see, lad, that nothing could compel them to return our runaways were they a separate nation? Nor could we count on their trade, despite their nearness to us. The only thing that we could count upon would be their eternal hostility, their eternal determination to destroy us.”
“You’re morbid,” Andre laughed. “What you need is a change.”
“That I do not doubt,” Stephen said.
Throughout the winter, Stephen continued to gain strength. By spring he was riding over his lands again, leaping his horse over the barriers with a hard, studied recklessness. He fairly lived on Royal Street in the palatial gaming houses. He lost princely sums to the wicked dealers’ boxes of faro, and the spinning wheels of roulette; but at the gaming tables, with the cards in his hands, he was invulnerable. He seemed incapable of losing, no matter bow carelessly he played. Andre watched him with growing concern. Something must be done about this, he decided, and that right soon.
“Stephen,” he said one evening as they rode toward La Place. “How would you like to attend a ball?”
Stephen looked at him with a grimace of acute disgust.
“This from ye!” he snorted.
“I mean no ordinary ball,” Andre said slyly.
Stephen raised one fair brow.
“Have you never heard of the Bals du Gordon Bleu?�
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“So that’s the way the wind lies!” Stephen laughed. “Ye propose to obtain me a mulatto wench? What a wickedness!”
“I propose to let you see them—that’s all. Any objections?” Stephen looked at him, one corner of his mouth curving into a smile.
“No,” he said; “no objections.”
XVI
NEXT to the Théâtre D’Orleans on Orleans Street between Bourbon and Royal stood the Orleans Ballroom. As Andre and Stephen rode up to it on a spring night early in 1838, it was ablaze with light, and the sound of music and laughing voices floated downward into the street. Stephen sat for a moment on his horse, looking at the low, ugly two-storied building.
“ ‘Tis not much to look at,” he remarked.
“Wait until you see the interior,” Andre said. “Come now, we’d better hurry.”
“Why?” Stephen demanded.
Andre laughed.
“You’ll find three quarters of the gentry of New Orleans inside,” he said. “Last year, the Cordon Bleu conflicted with one of our own balls. I spent the entire night dancing—at Melia’s suggestion—with various deserted females. The men were all here.”
Stephen swung down from the horse.
“I don’t share your eagerness,” he smiled. “Your mixed-strain wenches don’t seem particularly remarkable to me.”
“We shall see,” Andre said. “Come!”
They went in through the low wide façade. In the vestibule, they surrendered their hats, cloaks, and gloves; and Andre paid the admission fee of two dollars apiece. Then they went up the stairs into the ballroom. Stephen stopped just inside the door and looked around him. Above his head, the gigantic crystal chandeliers, almost as costly as the ones at Harrow, swung low over the dance floor. In niches around the walls stood statues which would not have disgraced a hall at Versailles, and paintings which Stephen’s practiced eye recognized at once as being originals. The walls were paneled with fine woods, and inlaid with even costlier ones.
On the magnificent dance floor, constructed, Andre had told Stephen, of three thicknesses of cypress topped by a layer of quarter-sawed oak, the young, and not so young, gentlemen of New Orleans were dancing. Half a glance told Stephen that almost everyone he knew, and many men unknown to him, were here; then his gaze traveled on to their partners. He stopped, frowning.
