The Emerald Storm eg-5

by William Dietrich

  “No woman alone. But I did see a woman more pushed than escorted, a man’s hand on one arm and a child in his other.”

  “A child! A boy?”

  “Perhaps. It wasn’t evident if he was forcing her somewhere or she was demanding they leave. She glanced back, several times. They were heading for the harbor.”

  Bollocks. Martel had promised her reunion with Harry if they fled before I confronted him, and she’d chosen my son over me, trusting her resourcefulness over mine. Now I’d lost them both. “If it’s Astiza, a bastard of a Frenchman is taking her there.”

  “My sympathies, Monsieur Gage, but we must go now, to Dessalines, or risk being hanged or eaten. It may already be too late.”

  “No, it’s I who am sorry, Jubal, because we must go to the harbor instead, to rescue my wife. And you can call me Ethan. From now on we’ll be equals.”

  He groaned, not at all impressed by my offer of friendship. We heard cries of command in French. A bugle in the middle of the night. A rising chorus of baying hounds. “This is a very poor idea. Our rebels are the opposite way.”

  “We must, my new friend. I misplace my family like an old man his spectacles, and I want to prove I can hold on. Can’t you lead us to the harbor on a winding, twisting way in which we won’t be seen?”

  “There is no such path. The street grid was laid with the compass. A musket ball can carry down a street from one end of Cap-Francois to the other. They’ll cut us down like rabbits. And if we do get to the sea, we’re trapped between dogs and water.”

  “We’ll steal a boat.”

  “I don’t even think we can reach the sea. You’ve roused entire regiments.” He obviously thought me mad as well as stupid. But no, I was just faithful.

  I glanced about. A cluster of officers was in a cone of light spilling from Government House main doors, their sabers pointing as they tried to sort what the alarm was about. Rochambeau had disappeared, probably to put some clothes on. The barking was closer, and near the barracks I thought I could see lupine, leaping forms, their wolfish teeth white in the night. Down the Rue Dauphin toward the Caribbean a squad of infantry was assembling. In short order the dogs would sniff us out in the shadows and we’d join the men swinging on the gibbets, our odor adding to the city’s scent of corruption. Unless…

  “We can escape in that.” I pointed to a wagon stacked with barrels in a dark court adjacent to the park, the yard just off the main street to the sea. Each hogshead, I guessed, contained sugar, a remnant of wartime plantation production that had been too late for a ship with room for sweets. All departing vessels were crammed with fleeing aristocrats and refugee heirlooms.

  “We have no horses or oxen, monsieur.”

  “It’s a long, gentle slope to the Caribbean. We aim, push, and ride.”

  Now we could hear the clatter of hooves in the dark as men mounted. The barking of the dogs was getting closer. “You’ve left us no choice,” he admitted, looking dubiously at the heavy vehicle.

  “It will fly like a chaise.” I wished it would fly like Cayley’s glider, but it was several tons in the wrong direction. I released the lever brake. Alone, I couldn’t have maneuvered the ponderous wagon, but Jubal took up its tongue and dragged it out into the street with the brute strength of a bear. I kept his spirits up by pushing a little from behind. We aimed down the street like a boulder tumbling down a mountain. Lest the vehicle drag, I unlimbered the tongue by freeing an iron pin, and then used that pin to jam the front axle so it couldn’t turn. Then I threw the heavy tongue up onto the cargo of casks. “Now, push, push, push! Point her like an arrow!”

  Our chariot, weighing several tons, began to move.

  Slowly.

  As we ponderously accelerated, we came into faint light thrown by a house window.

  There were shouts as we were finally spotted, and the excited chorus of slavering dogs. The animals came on in a streak, eyes glowing in the night’s torch and lantern light. Men were running after them, holding glinting sabers.

  The wagon rolled faster.

  “Did you bring a gun?”

  “Too dangerous,” Jubal said. “I’d be flayed if caught. Of course, also dangerous not to, now.”

  “Hindsight is always sharpest.” I eyed the dogs. “We’ll use the wagon tongue. Pole like a boat.”

  Jubal swung the heavy timber down against the street, and we shoved. Our cargo gained more speed.

  Guns flashed in the night, and bullets made a familiar hot wasp sound. My ear had stopped bleeding, but still throbbed. I thought I saw Rochambeau by his officers, gesturing while he clasped a woman’s silk dressing robe around his body. A major-the wronged husband? — was shaking his fist at the general.

  We were now trundling rapidly downhill, aimed at the sea like a ball at pins, but the mastiffs grew out of the gloom with astonishing speed, sprinting for our wheels and snapping. A huge dog sprang to gain purchase on our cargo, but Jubal swung the wagon tongue in a huge arc as easily as a baton. It cudgeled the beast, knocking him sideways into a building, where he bounced and fell among his fellows. They paused to snap at him, and the distraction gave us precious seconds.

  Now we were rumbling with the terrifying momentum of Cayley’s flying machine, buildings blurring past, the Caribbean ahead aglitter under the moon, wind warm in our faces.

  “How do we slow?” Jubal asked.

  “The brake lever.”

  “It will work at this speed?”

  “Possibly. I’ll give it a pull.”

  There was a screech and the wood snapped, stinging my hands. We jerked and went faster.

  “Or possibly not. Drag the tongue!”

  He tried. The wooden beam bounced, threw up a fountain of dirt and mud, caught on something, and yanked away, almost pulling Jubal off the wagon with it. Now we were racing faster than any horse could run.

  The dogs and pursuing soldiers faded in dark behind.

  I heard a shouted command and turned to where we were rolling. Ahead, a file of French soldiers had formed to block the road. One had a glowing match he held above a five-pound fieldpiece. “Halt!” he called.

  We couldn’t. Jubal yanked me down. “They’re going to shoot!”

  The cannon barked. There was a terrific impact, almost bouncing us clear, and our speed momentarily slackened. A barrel of sugar exploded into a cloud of sparkling white-it had been refined to the costly color, and so no wonder they hoarded it, I thought absently-and then we gained speed again. We struck the cannon and smashed it aside, wheels flying and its spinning barrel scattering the yelling infantry. I think we thumped over one or two men, all of us covered in crystals like snowmen. A few had the wits to shoot, the bullets plunking into the casks. Spouts of sugar laid lines on the street like trails of white gunpowder.

  Where were Astiza and Harry?

  “More French!” my companion warned.

  I looked at the fast-approaching sea. There was a cluster of soldiers on the quay, and a longboat was pulling out from the stone steps and into the harbor. Sailors were pulling on oars, and I saw a woman facing backward at us and a man in the stern pointing something-a pistol? — at her. She lifted her arm to point and the man-Martel, it must be-turned to look at us. And then I saw she was holding a child.

  “We’re going over!” Jubal warned.

  We hit the stone balustrade that marked the edge of the quay, and everything shattered, stone and sugar hogsheads flying like Britain’s new fragmentation bombs. I’d read in the newspapers about their invention by a Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel, a name I’d never heard before. We flew, too, launched in a corona of sugar. There was a radiating cloud of white, and then I plunged into the dark Caribbean, the pieces of our vehicle splashing into the water all around us.

  Fearing gunfire, I swam away as long as I could hold my breath before surfacing. When my head broke water, I looked wildly about, catching a glimpse of the two people I most wanted to see in the world.

  “Astiza! Harry!”

  �
��Ethan!” She shouted from a great distance. “Swim away!”

  Little spouts erupted as Martel’s scattered henchmen fired at my voice. Then they paused to reload. I considered which way to swim, blessing the tedious nature of ramming down cartridges.

  Something seized me, and I almost panicked before realizing it was my black companion. He was dragging me away from the longboat as he swam with his other arm. “This way,” he hissed. “Your foolishness has ruined everything, but maybe there’s still a chance.”

  “I need to catch my wife!”

  “You’re going to outswim a launch? And then give them a chance to slit your throat as you try to climb aboard?”

  I let him drag me. “This isn’t going well.”

  “Our only chance is to escape to Dessalines, which I told you in the beginning.”

  “You’re not married, are you?”

  He stopped a moment, pulling me near, angry and impatient. “You think I never was? That because I’m black or an ex-slave I don’t know what you’re feeling right now? I killed the master who raped and murdered the woman I gave my heart to. But I haven’t survived the last fifteen years by blundering and boasting. I’ve used my wits. Perhaps it’s time you recovered yours.”

  That sobered me. I wasn’t used to being dressed down by an ex-slave, but I deserved it. Instead of cleverly trailing Martel, which Astiza had no doubt assumed I’d do, I’d charged about with a meat cleaver and aroused an entire city. What begins in anger ends in shame, Ben Franklin had warned me.

  Maybe I’d let Jubal lead for a while.

  We stroked east while staying a hundred yards out to sea, paralleling the quay of Cap-Francois toward the mouth of the river I’d seen earlier. Unfortunately, my wife and son were headed in the opposite direction. “She’s going to board a ship and I’ll lose her again,” I complained.

  “She’s away from the siege and the plague. Maybe it’s a blessing. Now you must seek black help to find her again.”

  “You mean Dessalines?”

  “Yes. And maybe me.” It was said grudgingly, but the offer was sincere.

  I was frustrated by my own confusion. Perhaps Astiza had tried to signal me before going off with Martel, but I had rushed upstairs. Why hadn’t she called for help to the French officers? They’d have sympathized with a mother and abhorred a kidnapper.

  I could see men running along the quay, shouting and pointing, but their shots went wild. Apparently we weren’t easy to pinpoint in the dark, with only our heads above water. Dogs were racing up and down the stone bulkhead, too, barking wildly, but all they could smell was the Caribbean.

  “I’m tiring,” I confessed.

  “Kick off your coat and boots and rest on your back. Here, I’ll hold you for a moment.” And he did, gently, as we both realized we had more in common than expected: tragedy.

  “A planter really took your wife?”

  “My love. To punish me. He saw promise when I was young and taught me to read and write, despite the fact my size made me a good field hand. But I used the knowledge to communicate with blacks conspiring toward revolution, and when he discovered I’d betrayed him with education, he decided to hurt me in a way deeper than any whipping. We’d become close, like father and son, and he’d promised eventual freedom. In punishment he raped her and threatened to sell her, to remind me of my station. So I killed him, to remind him I was human.”

  “But he killed her?”

  “I surprised him with her as you tried to surprise Rochambeau. She died in the struggle, all of us screaming. Emotions are complex on a plantation.”

  I began paddling again, slowly. “Emotions are complex everywhere.”

  “Never more so than with men who have power over you. It was like killing my own father. This entire uprising has been like the killing of fathers, the destruction of a monstrous, incestuous family. Slavery is not just cruel, Ethan. It’s intimate, in the worst possible way.”

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one with problems. And now I had dragged this poor soul into the sea.

  “I’m sorry, Jubal.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry for my history. You barely know me.”

  “I’m sorry for the entire bollocks of a world.”

  “Ah, that makes sense.”

  We stroked more steadily. “You’re a strong swimmer,” I said.

  “I grew up near the shore and pray to Agwe, the loa of the sea.”

  “I sensed your education. That’s why Dessalines uses you as a spy, isn’t it?”

  “I can do many things. And I have sorrow. Revolutionaries feed on hatreds.”

  “Sometimes there are happy endings.”

  “The ending, Ethan, is always death.” This statement wasn’t bitter, just matter-of-fact.

  We finally reached a spit at the mouth of the river that was across from Cap-Francois and out of easy musket or rifle shot. The two of us panted a moment while lying in the sandy shallows, looking at the city we’d fled.

  “Should we run inland?”

  “There’s a swamp beyond,” Jubal said. “Snakes. We need a boat.”

  “Maybe that’s one.” I pointed at what appeared to be a log.

  Disconcertingly, it moved.

  “Caiman.” His tone was more exasperated than terrified.

  “What?”

  “Alligator.” The beast, of scaly mail and reptilian guile, shook off its lethargy with a rippled of muscle, slid into the water, and came toward us, tail curling like calligraphy. “It smells us when the dogs cannot, and wants a meal.”

  Chapter 24

  What do we do?” The speed with which the monster swam was unnerving. It made straight at us as if we were reeling it on a string.

  “Stand and shout,” Jubal instructed.

  “But the French!”

  “Exactly.”

  We sprang up in the shallows, water only to our calves. “Does this scare caimans off?”

  “It draws fire! Here! Over here!” He waved.

  The beast’s body was flexing like the arms of a blacksmith and reminding me of extremely unhappy experiences with a Nile crocodile. But when we stood the moonlight silhouetted us. A great shout went up and muskets fired, bullets peppering the water. A small cannon banged. With a scream a five-pound ball struck the water and skipped like a stone before bounding up the beach.

  “This is your strategy?”

  “Look.” Jubal pointed. The startled alligator had turned and was retreating for the swamp. “Now run, on the sand!”

  I glanced a last time at the harbor. The longboat was still clearly visible, pulling for a ship, and I thought-or did I imagine? — Astiza half standing, trying to discern what the soldiers were shooting at in the night. Then we were dashing away upriver, my feet bare, the sand hard-packed, men following on the opposite bank and shooting from two hundred yards away. We were dim shadows against the jungle swamp. I squeezed in on myself as lead sizzled by us.

  “There, a fisherman’s boat,” Jubal pointed. A dugout canoe, again looking like a log, was pulled into marsh grass.

  “How do you tell boat from beast in this cursed country?”

  “If it bites.” He dragged the canoe and we jumped aboard, craft rocking, and seized the paddles. “Like those.” Suddenly other “logs” slid into the water. The river was thick with alligators, roused from sleep by our sound and sweat. I heard them plop, and then a snap of exercising jaws.

  “Paddle fast,” Jubal said.

  I needed no encouragement, making a fair imitation of Fulton’s suggested steamboats. The caimans followed, each sending out an ominous delta of intersecting waves. It was like being escorted to a dinner, with us the main course.

  We stroked upriver, still hard to pick out against the jungle. One musket ball thunked into the wood of our canoe, but otherwise the balls buzzed by like pesky hornets. A tide had turned the sluggish current in our direction. Dark reptilian shapes followed like escorting frigates, their prehistoric eyes gauging our pace and their primiti
ve brains calculating what we might taste like when we spilled. On the opposite shore, horses galloped and dogs loped.

  The city gave way to the avenue of shorn palms and then the French camps and outposts. Orders were shouted, torches lit, soldiers roused. Rochambeau was not going to let me slip by if he would help it.

  “This was a foolish way to escape, but after a mile the river bends away from their lines,” Jubal said.

  “Thank goodness. I did some canoeing in Canada but haven’t stayed in shape. I didn’t think it necessary for retirement.”

  “You should exercise, because trouble seems to follow you, friend. My plan was to walk quietly out of town, but with your plan, we have to fight through their entire army. This is your pattern, is it not?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a plan, exactly. More like an unfortunate tendency. I’m just in love.”

  “Then keep a better hold on your wife than you do.”

  I began to believe we were past the worst of it. Guns flashed, but the aim was almost random. Cavalry jingled but had no way to get to us. Dogs howled, but it was the howl of frustration. The alligators almost began to seem like a benign train, and a few slipped away as if bored.

  Then we neared a bright cluster of flames on the army’s riverbank, and my confidence faltered again. Artillerymen were building bonfires to cast light on the river, and an entire battery of field guns had been drawn up, pointing across the water. We had to paddle right past them.

  “Should we flee into the swamp?”

  “We’d be gator meat and snake chew.”

  “The French will blow us to kindling.”

  “Yes. So when I say, flip the canoe.”

  “Into the reptiles?”

  “We have no choice, lover Ethan. Come up under our vessel to breathe. The tide will help. Kick with your feet, and if you feel caiman teeth, try to hit them on the nose. But speed first, fast as we can.”

  We bent to it in our canoe, setting up a little bow wave and a respectable bubbling wake, me gasping from exertion. Yet we were simply hurrying into firelight. We could hear shouted commands and count the ominous row of cannon muzzles: seven, each one aimed at my right ear. The cavalry had pulled up to watch our extinction. So had the anxious dogs. They growled and whined. With that kind of audience we seemed to crawl across their field of fire.