Hunting for the Mississippi
Page 14
Since I killed Hiens, avenging Marie-Élisabeth and her dad, I’ve felt good. Calm.
Happy.
Now, to improve upon the moments of peace that wash my soul, all that remains is for me to return to Fort Saint Louis. For Pierre and me to be reunited with our families. Once Pierre tells his mom why I couldn’t speak out, once he tells her about our revenge, she’ll forgive me for everything and we’ll be able to live together just like before: with Mom, in harmony, happy just to be together. We’ll be siblings again, and hold dear the memories of those we loved so much.
A few days after we killed Hiens—still in May 1687—Henri Joutel, the Recollects, and De Marle left with six horses and three Native guides in search of the Mississippi. After that, God willing, they’ll travel on up to Canada.
“You can’t go back to Saint Louis by yourselves,” L’Archevêque worries as he chats to Pierre and me one evening.
“We’ll ask the Native guides.”
“The warm season is almost upon us. The buffalo will cover the plains. They’ll be off hunting.”
“We’ll wait for them.”
And that’s how the first few months go by: living with the Caddo along with L’Archevêque and two other white men. To our great relief, Ruter—whom we have little in common with—goes off to live with another tribe much further west.
We quickly grow fond of the Natives and, even though we miss our families, Pierre and I decide to stay a while longer. Summer and fall pass so quickly, and winter is so cold, that we again put off our plans to leave.
“Happy birthday, Eustache.”
“It’s my birthday? My God! You’re right. I’m sixteen.”
Using the marks L’Archevêque scratches into a piece of wood, I conclude that it is indeed February 1688. I suddenly miss my mom.
“We’ll leave in March.”
But summer comes and we’re still there. And it must be said that the Natives become aggressive every time we mention leaving. We no longer seem to be entirely masters of our own destiny. It’s no real hardship: we’re enjoying our life of hunting and fishing, reaping and sowing. We’re learning how to live like Natives and we’re sure that the knowledge and skills we pick up will be a big help to our own people, once we’re back at Fort Saint Louis.
At last, using a hunting trip as an excuse, Pierre and I manage to sneak away from the families that welcomed us once the first cold of fall 1688 sets in. L’Archevêque and the others do not come with us.
And so we walk back the way we came. We retrace the steps taken by René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle, back when he still harboured outrageous dreams of rebuilding a little piece of France in the Americas.
* * *
We spend more than three months exploring each region we pass through, just like Mr. De La Salle would have done. We want to make the most of the plains and forests around Saint Louis in case we decide to move there later. We also become friendly with the Natives who live there.
Especially since we might need protection from an enemy common to all: the Spanish!
Talk turns to them everywhere we go. They are an increasingly common sight on these lands, and a source of preoccupation for the Natives. Some say the Mexicans have even learned that we’re here. That they’re looking for us.
Reason enough, then, to complete the last leg of our journey as quickly as we can.
We reach Fort Saint Louis in early January 1689. It appears in the distance, in the swirl of a damp morning.
Pierre and I would have liked to spend Christmas with our own, but we had to take a long detour. We skirted around Karankawa territory because, we were told, they had become increasingly hostile to our being on their land. Perhaps they have ties to the Spanish. Perhaps they’re still bitter about the murders that happened when we were there—a wave of murders that Hiens started, needless to say.
“Oh my God! My God, no!”
I’ve come to a halt, just as we’re about to walk down a hill that gives us an excellent view of the camp below.
“What is it?” Pierre asks, unable as ever to see much from a distance.
“The buildings. They’ve been... burned.”
“You’re... you’re sure? We’re still so far away.”
For a moment I wonder why there are no signs of life. No smoke from a fire, no flag flying from the pole by the entrance, no one out fishing on the shore...
“Pierre! Fort Saint Louis has been destroyed!”
We find a small boat on our side of the river, half eaten by worms. We launch it without thinking twice. Short of breath, our hearts beating wildly, we paddle to the far shore—bailing the water out with an old hat for the last quarter of the crossing. The extent of the damage is clear as soon as we reach the first buildings.
The wooden stakes and buildings haven’t burned to the ground, but they’ve been left unusable. The lean-tos are in pieces, the sleeping quarters have been gutted and exposed to the foul weather, the—
“Mom! Mo-om!”
Pierre Talon’s shouting shatters my eardrums. I give a start, lifting a hand to my ears. Young Pierre runs over to a nearby body, sprawled on the ground. And the body is wearing a dress we’ve often seen on his mom.
Only then do I notice the other bodies. They’re scattered across the camp, indicating that our people fled in all directions to escape the massacre. Broken arrows and spears, even a flint knife left behind after the plundering—it all points to an attack by the Natives.
“Not the Spanish,” I mutter to myself, as though that were reason to be happy.
As I step around Pierre, now collapsed on the ground and weeping over his mom’s body, I look for Mom. It doesn’t take me long. She never did stray very far from her friend Isabelle.
Blood stains her clothes beneath her left breast. The arrow that hit her right in the heart had been recovered by her attacker. At least she must have died right away; she didn’t have to suffer.
At first I look at her with detachment. It’s difficult to think that the wax-like face, the eyes pecked out by birds, and the crumpled cheekbones once belonged to my mom. The body looks nothing like her.
And the stench!
I presume the attack came a few days ago. Or maybe weeks, I don’t know.
Suddenly I think back to the vengeful God in the Bible. Why did he allow a massacre this time? To good Christians, too. Not even to monsters like Hiens or ungodly Savages!
Might it be to punish Pierre and me for killing the German? For not having done as the Recollects suggested? For not having respected the message of love brought by Jesus Christ? For having taken our revenge right when we thought we were pleasing God?
Religion is complicated!
“Eustache…”
It sounds like Pierre Talon has stopped crying. I don’t turn around. I stay there, lost in my thoughts over my mom’s body.
“Eustache…”
“What?”
“The Indians.”
I stand up straight. Pierre is standing, too. Facing a clump of shrubs that mark a corner of the garden. Everything is rotten, I notice, overrun with prickly undergrowth and creeping vines.
I also notice, dead ahead, the dozen or so Karankawa staring at us, looking angry and clutching their weapons.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Historians confirm that Henri Joutel and his companions reached the French outposts along the Arkansas River in the fall of 1687. They kept the circumstances surrounding René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle’s death a secret and continued on up to Québec. From there, Joutel and the Recollects set sail for France at the end of summer 1688. They reached La Rochelle in October.
Upon their arrival, they learned that Captain Beaujeu’s return and his report on De La Salle’s expedition had greatly displeased Louis XIV. To such an extent that the king had forgotten all about Louisiana for a time. Years would go
by before Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville finally founded the French land dreamed of by De La Salle on the lands claimed by the Spanish.
In spring 1689, several months after the massacre at Saint Louis carried out by the Karankawa, Spanish troops led by Alonso de León found the French post they had been searching for since 1686. A man by the name of Jean Géry, lifted earlier from a neighbouring tribe, served as their guide. The Spanish took the youngest three Talon children from the Karankawa, who had been spared during the attack on Fort Saint Louis. The youngest two boys no longer even spoke French. Their faces and bodies had been tattooed in the style of the Natives.
In 1689, Jean L’Archevêque and Jacques Grollet, tired of living among the Caddo, wrote a message that they entrusted to Natives allied with the Spanish. Alonso de León came to save them. The two Frenchmen remained prisoners of the Spanish for thirty months before serving in the Army of New Spain. L’Archevêque went on to marry twice, had children, and bought a property in Santa Fe. After an eventful life, he died in 1720, at a relatively old age, at the hands of the Pawnee.
ABOUT THE HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
The Talon family really did exist. The fate of each, recounted here, is true to the facts... aside from a detail or two that helped the novel along. For instance, young Lucien Talon, who shared his father’s name, was renamed Ludovic to avoid confusion.
Lucien Talon Senior did indeed disappear in mysterious circumstances in fall 1685. No one knows what became of him. Marie-Élisabeth did indeed die at the age of 12... but from an unknown illness. Fatal, contagious diseases were rife at the time.
All those involved in the drama surrounding De La Salle’s murder also really existed. Details of the ambush are true to historical events, as was the rivalry that led the rebels to start killing each other. I described them here using Henri Joutel’s account—his travel diary was my main source of information. Like most historians, I consider De La Salle’s lieutenant’s account to be the most plausible of those to have reached us.
We do not know what happened to Hiens. Did the German freebooter live and die with the Natives? We don’t know. I completely made up his murder by the two young men on the expedition.
History also lost all trace of Pierre Talon once Joutel left. No doubt the Caddo or the Cenis adopted him. It’s unlikely that he tried to return to Fort Saint Louis, even accompanied by an older friend. Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste Talon was found by the Spanish in 1691. The young boy was living with a nation that had possibly been given him by the Karankawa. A certain Eustache Bréman was freed along with him.
ALSO FROM BARAKA BOOKS
YA Fiction
The Adventures of Radisson
1 – Hell Never Burns
2 – Back to the New World
3 – The Incredible Escape
Martin Fournier
Break Away 1 – Jessie on My Mind
Break Away 2 – Power Forward
Sylvain Hotte
Adult Fiction
Speak to Me in Indian
David Gidmark
A Beckoning War
Matthew Murphy
The Nickel Range Trilogy
1 – The Raids
2 – The Insatiable Maw
Mick Lowe
History
A People’s History of Quebec
Jacques Lacoursière & Robin Philpot
The History of Montréal
The Story of a Great North American City
Paul-André Linteau
Soldiers for Sale, German “Merceneries” with the British
in Canada During the American Revolution
Jean-Pierre Wilhelmy
Journey to the Heart of the First Peoples Collections
Musées de la civilisation
Marie-Paule Robitaille