Savage Lands

by Clare Clark

  IT WAS LATE afternoon. The shadows were lengthening and the bats swooped, scattering snipped-out scraps of black across the pink-gold sky. The men and the Negroes would soon return from their work. The women in the lower compound were cooking. Smoke drifted over the sun-baked ground, and the air was greasy with the smell of roasting meat.

  Elisabeth sat upon her bench, her hands desolate in her lap, and let her head fall back against the rough plank wall. Fuerst had been adamant. He had seen it before, he said, in the Rhineland and knew how it would be. The venomous quality of the child’s sick body was volatile as liquor and would quickly putrefy her breath and infect the outward air. Like a garment that retains the smell of sweat or of fire smoke, the air would bear the pestilence to the rest of them, insinuating itself through the tiny holes in the skin to corrupt the spirits and the humours within. The venom threatened them all, but Elisabeth, being with child and unnaturally inflamed with heat, would be most susceptible. When she had protested, he had simply shaken his head. The child must go.

  It was very quiet. Jeanne’s corn paddle idled against the wall of the cooking hut, and the mortar was closed, covered with a piece of wood weighted down with a rock. Her fire circle was cold, muffled with ash. Since the slave’s departure, the wife of the man they called Karl-zu-klein, who was near to her time and little use for outdoor work, had ground their corn and brought supper to the cabin. Her flour was coarse, her sagamity lumpy and indigestible. Fuerst made no remark of it, but only ate more fastidiously than usual, swallowing his mouthfuls with water.

  For years they had worked alongside one another, slave and mistress, bound by exile and by silence and by the child who had known no life but her own and could not mourn what was lost, their days as distinct and as appended as the oak and the cow byre. With Jeanne gone, the wind blew through Elisabeth and made her shiver. It seemed to her that the shadowed forest played a child’s game with her, creeping a little closer every time she turned away from it.

  She worked ferociously, making candles from tallow and scrubbing the cabin with sand till her hands were raw, but steadiness eluded her. Without Jeanne the silence was different. Elisabeth did not know who watched here when the slave did not. Quietly, when she had thought her mistress not looking, Jeanne had pulled the stray hairs from Elisabeth’s comb and buried them, and her nail clippings too. It was the savage belief that the bad spirits made powerful magic with such plunder. The previous morning, as she had combed her hair, Elisabeth had wrenched a knot from it. When she returned to the cabin in the evening it was still there. She had stared it at a long time. Then, pulling the tangle of hairs from the comb, she had walked down to the lower compound where the Rhinelander woman prepared the fire for dinner, and thrown it into the flames. The women had watched her warily, clumped together around their pots and kettles. The smell of burning hair had been powerful and unpleasant.

  In their pen beside the live oak, the cows shifted, swinging their bone-boxed flanks. In the hurricane months, when the wind whipped up from the river and tore across the bluff, the beasts pressed up against the tree as though the oak was a cow also, and the lichened bark striped their hides with green. They wanted milking. Marguerite liked to watch her while she worked, swinging from the rough bars of the pen. Often she got splinters in the palms of her hand and Elisabeth was obliged to work them out with a needle so that they might not become corrupted. In Burnt-canes, even scratches were slow to heal.

  Once an alligator had ventured from the bayou all the way into the yard and, when the child cried out, Elisabeth had turned on her stool to see it staring at the fire as though transfixed. It was a young creature, perhaps six feet in length, but its appearance was as ancient and appalling as the monsters of antiquity. Hissing at the child to stay quite still, Elisabeth stood very slowly and backed away towards the rear of the pen before slipping between the bars. The creature did not move as she ran to the cabin to fetch the musket, but it seemed to her that it watched not the fire but the child. She seized the gun, cocking it and raising it to her shoulder as Fuerst had taught her, but before she could shoot, she saw that Jeanne had taken up her corn paddle and was striking the alligator with great force upon the head. She lowered the gun, her arms shaking, but Jeanne only issued a final blow to the alligator, who sprawled senseless in the dust, and, smiling at her round-eyed daughter, carried the paddle to the bayou so that she could rinse it clean.

  The child turned in her belly. Elisabeth sighed and placed a restraining hand upon it. She wanted to be angry but the anger was not in her, only weariness and a tipping kind of unease. It was not only the savage spirits that were capricious.

  The arrival of the pirogue stirred the smoke-smudged air and set the birds to clattering in the trees. Elisabeth was halfway across the open ground before the Jesuit emerged from the canebrake, his small retinue at his heels. When she saw him, she stopped short, her face slackening.

  ‘Father?’

  ‘Elisabeth Savaret.’ He hastened towards her, his hands outstretched. ‘Look at you. It has been a long time.’

  ‘Yes. A long time.’

  There was a silence. Then, very slowly, Elisabeth reached out her hands. Rochon seized them, pressing them between his own.

  ‘We are headed for the mission at the Illinois,’ he said. ‘Might we beg your indulgence and lodge with you a while? We bring letters for your husband from New Orleans and supplies too.’

  ‘Why – yes. Yes, of course. I – forgive me, Father. It is so unexpected. I thought you returned to France.’

  ‘Oh, I went. Then I came back.’ He shrugged. ‘I missed the mosquitoes.’

  She did not smile. He studied her, his head on one side.

  ‘Are you well?’ he asked.

  ‘We manage.’

  ‘I had hoped to find you in Mobile. The place is full of strangers.’

  ‘I am here now.’

  ‘So I hear. They tell me that you have not once been back. I would not have expected you so devoted an advocate of the rural life.’ He smiled at her wryly. ‘Your husband, the Rhinelander, he flourishes?’

  ‘It would appear so. Like the indigo, he seems strangely well suited to this place.’

  ‘He is not alone. There is something about Louisiana that draws a man back.’

  When she did not reply, Rochon sighed.

  ‘How long since you have seen a priest, Elisabeth?’ he asked gently. ‘Since you have seen anyone at all?’

  ‘A while.’

  ‘Then I am glad I am here. You shall make your confession and in exchange I shall say Mass and fill you in on the latest news from town. You are a long way from life here, Elisabeth.’

  Elisabeth was silent.

  ‘I was startled to find Mobile moved,’ he continued in a lighter tone. ‘I had assumed its name an irony.’

  She looked up at him then. His smile was wry and very tender.

  ‘There was a flood,’ she murmured. ‘Not long after you left.’

  ‘So they tell me.’ Rochon shook his head. ‘You know the soil in the new town is all sand? Yet again they manage to settle in a place where nothing grows.’

  ‘Naturally. If the soil was fruitful, the good people of Mobile would have to till it. It is less wearisome to complain of injustice and to wait for white flour from France.’

  The Jesuit laughed.

  ‘My dear Elisabeth, I am so glad to see you. I have missed our friendship.’

  Elisabeth swallowed the cramp in her throat.

  ‘Will you stay long?’ she asked.

  ‘Three or four days. If we may beg your indulgence.’

  ‘I would be glad of it.’

  ‘And I.’

  They walked together towards the main cabin.

  ‘You know it is not only you that lures me here,’ Rochon admitted. ‘I have taken comfort in the thought of Jeanne’s cooking since I set sail from France.’

  ‘Then you shall be disappointed. She is not here.’

  ‘No?’

  �
��My husband has sent her away.’

  ‘Perhaps it is for the best.’

  ‘You misunderstand me. The girl is sick. My husband feared that – I am myself with child. Several months. He sent her away.’

  ‘A child? Praise God.’

  ‘I begged him to allow her to stay, begged him, but he would not listen. She should not have been required to travel, she was too weak, and the Bayagoulas are not her people. How may she grow stronger among strangers?’

  Her voice tore. Rochon laid his hand gently upon her shoulder.

  ‘Her mother is with her. She will be well cared for. And your husband is right to be prudent, though my stomach curses him for it. You have the child to think of.’

  ‘But it has been weeks. Still she ails. Oh, Father, what if she dies? What if she dies?’

  ‘She is baptised, Elisabeth. Guichard saw to that. When her time comes, she will take her place in Heaven.’

  Elisabeth’s shoulders crumpled.

  ‘She cannot die,’ she whispered. ‘She is all that I have left of him.’

  ‘Then it is time to let her go, whether she lives or nay.’

  When evening came they ate roasted roebuck with the Rhinelander woman’s rough cornbread. Rochon drank a good deal of Jeanne’s maize beer and described his failed attempts to settle back to life as a priest in provincial France. Elisabeth had forgotten the distinctive infectiousness of his laughter. Even Fuerst, weary and irked by the unwelcome encumbrance of company, unbent a little, nudged to grudging tolerance by the Jesuit’s generous wit and irrepressible good humour.

  When he came to relate the situation at the coast, however, Rochon’s tone grew uncharacteristically sombre. As a result of Mr Law’s pledge to enlarge the colony, he had plundered the streets and jails not only of Paris but of Lyon, Rochefort, Orléans and Bayonne, and heaped his finds into ill-provisioned and overcrowded ships. The confusion at Dauphin Island was indescribable. What lodging there was available was pitifully inadequate, hardly more than hovels of a few stones roofed with cane. The demands from hundreds upon hundreds of empty bellies were ceaseless and overwhelming, and the already insufficient provisions were frequently seized by organised gangs of felons or by bands of disaffected soldiers from the garrison. No food could be raised on the blinding white sand. The men who waded out to gather oysters a gunshot from the shore returned scarlet and half crazy from the burning sun. Most sickened; many died. Rats swarmed, reduced to gnawing on the stocks of guns. And yet still they languished there, the indentured and the pressed and the merely desperate, half starved and ailing, for there were no boats to spare to convey them onward.

  It was impossible to imagine how they might manage when winter came.

  ‘Mr Law is a charlatan,’ Fuerst said. ‘That or a damned fool. Can he not see that if we are to make something of this place, it is slaves we have need of, not felons?’

  ‘A felon has hands,’ Rochon observed. ‘He might be put to work.’

  ‘Except that it costs more to feed that manner of man than his work is worth. You cannot make gold from stones.’

  ‘That is true. But with enough picks you can hew it from the bare rock.’

  ‘If Law would treat Louisiana like a mine, then he should send miners. We are not a dunghill onto which he can throw all the dregs of France.’

  ‘These men have been spared the gibbet. A thankful man is a hard worker.’

  ‘And a thief is always a thief.’ Fuerst pushed his plate away and reached for his pipe. He nodded at Elisabeth as she rose and began to gather together the dirty dishes. ‘That wasn’t half bad.’

  Rochon watched her, sipping at his beer.

  ‘So, what other news do I have for you?’ he said at last. ‘The war with Spain goes on and the fort at Pensacola is French once more. Your old friend Renée Gilbert is married again. To Trégon, the merchant.’

  Elisabeth thought of little Renée Gilbert and the tilt of her chin as she had gazed up at her tall cannoneer. The cannoneer was long dead and her second husband too. Years of drudgery and famine had threaded white into Renée’s thick brown hair and set her jaw hard as metal. She would be glad of Zacharie Trégon. The merchant was prosperous, unflinching in matters of business.

  ‘Burelle sends his regards,’ Rochon continued. ‘His tavern licence has finally been restored and he has a fistful of new grandchildren, all nourished to unnatural good health by his strongest ale. More astonishing still, at the ripe old age of whatever she is, it appears that the schoolteacher has finally abandoned all hope of marrying the commandant. She claims infirmity and a large pension and petitions to return to France.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ Elisabeth replied drily, lifting the beer jug. ‘How shall the children of the colony get by without her?’

  ‘They shall not quickly find another to answer to her description, that is certain.’

  They smiled. Elisabeth refilled Rochon’s mug and offered the jug to her husband.

  ‘I must check on the Negroes,’ Fuerst muttered, frowning as he scraped back his chair. ‘I had thought priests not permitted to drink ale.’

  ‘Some prefer to avoid it,’ Rochon conceded. ‘But the Lord is merciful. He has my pledge of celibacy. He does not insist upon sobriety too. Or not every day.’

  Fuerst scowled.

  ‘I shall not be long. When I return I must sleep.’

  Without speaking, Elisabeth took the piled dishes and set them on the porch. The dusk was thickened with clouds of biting insects and the outline of her husband as he walked away past Jeanne’s empty hut was powdery and indistinct. Quickly she closed the door.

  ‘Forgive my husband’s discourtesy,’ she said, turning back to Rochon. ‘He is unaccustomed to company.’

  ‘It is I who should apologise. My tongue is too sharp.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  ‘No. Not for you.’

  It had grown dark in the cabin. Elisabeth reached up to take a tallow candle from the high shelf.

  ‘I shall be back directly,’ she said.

  ‘In a moment. I wanted to speak with you of Guichard. He is come?’

  Elisabeth fumbled with the candle, almost dropping it.

  ‘Come here? No, of course not. Why would he come here?’

  ‘You have not heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘That Guichard is finally married.’

  Elisabeth set the candle down. The saucer rattled on the table.

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not to the black-haired urchin, Le Caën’s daughter?’

  ‘No. Not her.’

  ‘Then whom?’

  Rochon hesitated.

  ‘Well?’

  The Jesuit sighed, spreading his fingers upon the table.

  ‘Before his death, Sieur de Chesse made plans to marry. Perhaps you know this. He arranged for a wife to be sent to him here, from Paris. As part of their contract of betrothal, he named her his sole heir in the event of his death.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What has this to do with Auguste?’

  ‘The wife is now in Louisiana. And married to Guichard.’

  Elisabeth stared at him.

  ‘Elisabeth, Auguste Guichard is your new master.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he will never come here. Not here.’

  ‘On the contrary, he has resigned from the Company. He is to come here, to reside here. Permanently.’

  ‘No.’ Elisabeth looked wildly at Rochon. ‘It is not possible. He gave his word.’

  ‘He comes all the same.’

  ‘Who comes?’

  Fuerst stood in the doorway, a lit torch in one hand. The flame painted his face like a savage’s, orange and black. Elisabeth covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Herr Fuerst,’ the Jesuit said gently. ‘All is quiet, I trust?’

  Fuerst gestured at him with the torch.

  ‘This will light your way. Goodnight, Father.’

  ‘Y
es, yes, of course. Goodnight to you both. And thank you for a fine supper. I am most grateful for your kindnesses.’

  The priest stood. Coming around the table, he stood for a moment behind Elisabeth’s chair. She did not look up as, very lightly, he set his hand upon her head.

  ‘May the Lord bless you this night and always. May I?’

  Taking the torch from the Rhinelander, the priest touched the flame to the wick of the tallow candle, filling the room with its smoky yellow light. When he made to leave, Fuerst stood in the doorway, his legs wide, blocking his path. Then he stepped to one side. Holding the flame before him, the Jesuit went out into the frog-shrill night.

  ‘Slippery bastard,’ Fuerst muttered, pulling off his boots.

  Elisabeth did not reply.

  ‘Who comes? The religious said someone comes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who comes?’

  ‘We have a new master.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I – I don’t know. I was not really listening.’

  Fuerst looked at her. Then he nodded.

  ‘To bed now,’ he said. ‘I tell you, I am weary to the bone.’

  Elisabeth stared into the tallow candle as her husband crossed the room behind her. The wick had been too hurriedly dipped and it burned fast and fierce, spitting sharp sparks of buffalo grease that stung her hands. She heard the crackle of the bed, the drawn-out sigh as her husband broke wind.

  ‘Elisabeth,’ he called to her, his words stretched into a yawn. ‘Come.’

  Slowly Elisabeth stood. Her back ached with weariness, and her shoulders too. Fuerst said nothing as she set down the candle and struggled with the fastenings of her bodice. Before she was free of it, he was asleep. Snores caught in his throat and whistled out between his parted lips. Cupping her hand around the flame, she blew out the light.