by Meg Hennessy
Loul nodded with confidence, even breaking his face with a slight smile. “I can do that.”
“All right,” Donato conceded, and without warning he scooped Colette up into his arms. “You can’t make the walk back.”
He tried to say it with indifference, as if the overture were simply in their best interest. But beneath his constructed facade, she caught the gentle tone he used to reserve only for her.
She placed a hand to his chest for balance, not wanting to feel the movement of his muscles beneath her fingers, nor the solid wall of strength he presented. He carried her with little effort, and he was right, she could not have made the walk back. But the close proximity to his body, being in his arms, brought on a rush of feelings more crippling than her leg.
She tamped them down with a deep breath and a hard swallow, refusing, simply refusing to feel anything as the heat of his body soaked through to hers. She closed her eyes, begging her body to stop feeling what her mind refused to remember.
As if hearing her thoughts, Donato looked down at her huddled against his chest.
“Get your rest, Colette. You’ll need it.”
“For?”
“You’re going into the Calaboose.”
…
Colette approached the Calaboose with Loul at her side. He played the servant; she, an Ursuline sister. There was something sinful in pretending to represent the Lord. Colette prayed Sainte Ursula would understand as she walked through the gates into the long courtyard, but thoughts of Enio made her capable of just about anything.
She had borrowed a change of habit from the Ursuline Sisters as well as a basket of tapers made by the orphans to raise money for their hospital. The long flowing black gown, covered by another black tunic, weighted down her steps. With a throat dry from nerves and a tight-fitting wimple, she could barely swallow. Her veil hung straight down her back, and she had tied the rosary to the cincture. She tried to walk with ease as if she wore this clothing on a daily basis, but it was heavy, warm, and cumbersome.
The plan was for her and Loul to gain entrance to the police prison by offering the tapers to sell to the civil guards and to offer spiritual nourishment to the prisoners.
Loul kept step beside her, holding the basket of tapers. Donato had laid out everything she was to learn as she walked through the courtyard, but the closer she came to the city guard’s office, the more muddled her mind became.
The Calaboose had a reputation that spanned the foreign seas. Anyone and everyone knew of the Calaboose, and most pirates were in fear of ending up there. Standing behind the Cabildo, the building was long, black, with grated windows.
The courtyard was the only entrance and exit, and many of the prisoners could see those gateways from their cells. To the rear of the yard were cells that housed prisoners from the war and some British sympathizers who found themselves on the losing side after the War in 1812. Loul had learned that Donato’s men, because there was a fear that Spain would become their next enemy, were considered political prisoners, meaning they would be accessible from the courtyard.
She approached the city guard’s office with care, adjusting her wimple and veil to not only cover her hair but offer a certain amount of anonymity. Not well known in the city, she still didn’t want the city guards to get a good look at her. Loul wore a hat that hung down over his forehead and obscured some of his dark face. She admired Loul’s countenance—steady, unwavering, committed to finding her son.
There were two city guards in the office when she entered. Both were overly respectful of the Ursuline Sisters, granting nearly every wish, but not before asking for a personal blessing of their own. They knelt before her, and she placed a hand to each man’s head and whispered a prayer in Latin asking for God’s blessing. The entire time, Loul kept glancing over at her as if he couldn’t believe her level of masquerading.
Though the officers tried to discourage her from seeing the prisoners, finally, in hopes of giving them redemption in their darkest hour, they obliged, starting with the far side of the prison, where the political prisoners were held.
After wading through British sympathizers and British soldiers, she moved to the last cell in that row, the farthest from the gate, but on the ground level. There were four men in one cell. It was large, with a bench along each wall and a view of the courtyard. She recognized most of the men as Donato’s, but motioned with her hand for them not to give her away.
“The sister is here to give you a blessing,” the city guard announced as he had in the previous cells.
“Ah… S’il vous plaît…I will speak with them, d’accord?” Colette motioned for the guard to leave her.
The guard knew he had been dismissed and seemed to give that a second thought before he nodded and pointed toward the office. “I will be very close if you need me, Sister.”
“Merci.” Colette bowed her head slightly as the officer left her standing to the outside of the cells. The moment he was out of hearing range, she turned to the prisoners.
“La senora.” Ramón came to the grated window. “How is it that you are here?”
“Donato sent me.”
“He is free then?”
“Oui, and this is my brother, Loul.”
“Where are the others?” Loul immediately started the questions. “There are only four of you here. What cells are they in?”
But Donato’s men were not so quick to trust her or her brother. She could see the excitement of seeing a face they knew fade the moment Loul started to interrogate them.
“Ramón, Donato sent me to find out information about all of you. Our son, Enio, has been taken.” Saying those words aloud brought on a rush of fear so crippling she nearly lost sight of where she was and why. Fighting to take a breath, she reinforced her needs. “Enio has been taken by Rayna. We—Donato, my brother, and I—are not sure why, but must give chase. Donato needs his crew to sail, even if he must break them out of here. But where are the others?”
“Rayna?” Ramón glanced back at the other men, as if to validate her story.
“You must help us get you out.” She could hear the fear in her voice. A plea that left her cold to think she desperately needed these men to help her. The same men she had left behind and the same men who had fought gallantly against her brother’s ship and lost. Men she had betrayed, like Donato, and that thought drained her remaining strength.
Loul seemed to sense she was folding under the pressure and again pushed for information. “We need to plan how to get you out of here, so where are they? We have seen all the cells on the ground level. Were they taken somewhere else?”
“No, senor, they are not here. It is only the four of us who were captured.”
Colette felt the blood leave her face as quickly as she saw the pale hue of Loul’s against his dark skin. “Then…where are they?”
“Gone. They took the tender and polly and scattered, left port before the U.S. soldiers were able to board. There is no crew to sail a ship. They’re gone.”
…
“They had to have gone upriver.” Donato paced back and forth; the heels of his half boots struck the wood flooring with every turn. The entire notion of nearly forty men crowding into two small boats and heading to the open sea was preposterous.
He couldn’t decide if Ramón was telling the truth or feeding Colette information that would throw her off track. Perhaps he thought Colette was working with the law to capture the rest. In the eyes of Ramón and most of his men, Colette was not to be trusted.
“They would not have gone into open waters in a tender,” Donato reiterated.
“The Calaboose strikes fear in every criminal.” Colette tried to add reason to the conjecture. “Maybe they believed they could do it. Like you said, Donato. You sailed a tender across the gulf.”
“I did, but no one sails like me.”
“Except Jordan.” Loul raised his hands in surrender the moment Donato whirled on him.
Donato flexed his fist, using all of
his strength not to swing it. Colette’s little brother had begun to wear on him; he had seen him on the forecastle of Le Vengeur when El Diablo and Jordan’s ship had crashed bowsprits. Had it not been for Jordan and Loul, Enio would not be on his way to Spain.
“We are brethren in this cause,” Loul asserted, as if reading Donato’s thoughts.
“Then don’t try my patience with the likes of Jordan Kincaid.”
Donato glanced over to Colette, having heard a slight intake of air.
She was sitting by the fire, still dressed in her sisterhood robes. From where he stood, he could see the mist in her eyes, the slight tremble to her lip, and how she forced her spine straight with every breath. Her pain so visible, he could reach out and touch it and damned if he didn’t want to. He wanted to pull her into his arms and promise to make this all right again. He had every right to. She was still his wife, he, her husband, but soothing Colette’s broken heart was for a man with an open heart who loved her. She had made her choice, and so must he.
He was not that man.
He pulled in a deep breath, sorting through their options. He had a missing crew and a questionable ship. He glanced at Loul. If Jordan had walked away from the life of piracy, why did he have a ship hidden in the bayous? Donato shook his head, staying on task. The only thing that mattered was the fact that Colette’s older brother did. Without a ship, Donato would never get Enio back.
“How many guards?”
“Two,” Loul answered. “The gate is unlocked. There is one locked door between the men we saw and Chartres Street”
“The guards were armed, Loul.” Colette added, “With flintlocks, I think.”
Loul confirmed. “They were.”
“Not as armed as I will be. This is the plan.”
Colette turned and watched. Loul slid to the edge of his chair and listened.
“You said you could get pirogues to go out the back way of New Orleans to get to Liberty Oak, ah…Yellow Sun?”
Loul nodded that he could.
“Good, draw me a map of where to meet you. Have a few ready to go by five this afternoon.”
Colette slowly stood as he continued to speak. Her body turned with his pacing, and she listened to his every word and watched his every step.
“You and Colette meet me there. Garner as much supplies as you are able. Do you need money?”
Loul shook his head that he did not. “There are supplies at Yellow Sun. And you?”
“Me?” Donato stopped pacing and looked at the two of them. “I’ll be at the Calaboose.”
Loul’s eyes widened. “That’s the plan?”
“No!” Colette came to life. She reached out to him, but when Donato’s attention swung toward her, she hesitated, pulling back her hand. He hated himself for having wanted to feel the light touch of her concern, but only a fool would think more of it. He was her only hope of getting Enio back, and that alone drove her to worry about him. “It is too dangerous.”
He dismissed her comment and faced Loul. “Meet me by five.”
With that said, Donato left Loul’s house, unable to shake that moment of concern Colette had and wondering, perhaps savoring, the underlying reason. His reaction to her sudden caring nearly blindsided him, and before he made a fool of himself, he left the house to focus on how to get his men out of the infamous Calaboose.
He headed over to the Café de Réfugiés, next to the Hôtel de la Marine, for a heavy rum and time to think, to distract his mind long enough to pack up those meandering emotions about Colette and stick them back into the dirty little box from which they had escaped. Colette care? Why do I care?
He stepped inside the small café. In spite of the hovering smoke, he found a table facing the only door and pulled back a rugged wooden chair that made tracks in the dirt floor and sat down, measuring up the room’s patrons with a glance. He wasn’t exactly in disguise, but neither was he dressed as most had seen in the past.
When a waiter approached, he took Donato’s order without giving him a second glance. Donato ordered food but mostly spirits, needing a wash down of anything stronger than Loul’s wine to settle further memories of Colette that still managed to stay afloat, in spite of his protest. He refocused his mind on his son, why his sister might have taken him, and how the hell he would get him back.
No sooner had his food arrived when a shadow covered his table. He looked up at the clandestine figure looming over him. He felt no need to pull his weapon or attempt an escape. Instead he awaited the man’s next move.
“Donato de la Roche,” came a hoarse, whispered voice with an American accent. “The most wanted pirate in New Orleans?”
“Si.” Intrigued, Donato motioned for the man to sit down. “Tomad asiento a mi lado.”
The man slid into a chair opposite and leaned his elbows on the table. Blond hair stuck out from under his hood and his eyes appeared blue in the darkened room. He looked straight at Donato.
“I know your situation,” the American whispered, then looked around at the other patrons before continuing. “As does most of New Orleans.”
With wall-to-wall sea rogues and smugglers, secrecy was always best. Donato leaned in to be heard. “Tell me why you seek me out. As no else in New Orleans would have such courage to approach me.”
The American smiled as he spoke. “I have a proposition that will benefit you…and me.”
…
Colette waited near the river’s edge, setting her small valise on the shoreline, inhaling thick, damp air that filled her lungs with worry. Taking care to stay out of the tall marsh grass, she paced under a large cypress tree whose shadow had killed off most of the foliage beneath the spread of its branches. A chilly wind brushed off the waters and rushed in beneath her sister’s habit, freezing her bones and making her body shake nearly as much as when she had foolishly marched into the Calaboose. But now, Donato had made that same march and had yet to return.
“Why isn’t he here? He said five.”
Loul had lined up three pirogues with their pilots and tied them at a wharf just off the inlet, little traveled, except by smugglers. As Loul explained, since the war, the smuggling business hadn’t been as good and many a pilot needed work. The men Loul had rented the pirogues from had often been used by him and Jordan during their smuggling days. But reassuring her that they were trustworthy and dependable and wouldn’t discuss their movements, even if they learned Donato de la Roche would be on board, did little to ease her nerves.
She again paced, wishing this were done, wishing Enio were home and safe, wishing Donato— She halted her thinking. What did she want Donato to do?
She had almost betrayed herself when she reached out to him, revealing her concern for him. That kiss in the street, though meant to ward off the police, had nearly melted her body into his. When he had pulled away from her, the cool morning air had chilled her to the bone, leaving her craving a kiss for which she had no right.
Her pacing added to the pain in her leg. She started to limp, but couldn’t stop her repetitive movement. On the water’s edge, they were surrounded by large cypress trees and underlying palmettos and brush. The bayou, which smelled swampy and thick, was shallow with rippling black waves of water. The pirogues had been pushed through the thick mud to the shoreline and now waited, hidden by the tall marsh grass and falling sun.
As day retreated into dusk, rayless shadows replaced sun-filled spaces, and the water around them turned inky. Colette hated the idea of getting on anything that floated over water, especially something as precarious as these boats looked. Unable to go back to Jordan’s home, she had little to pack. With the day nearing its end, the habit had some warmth, but she sorely missed the fur-lined coat she’d left at Jordan’s.
“Loul, something has happened.” Her impatience had overpowered her nerves, making her body feel the bite of a hundred mosquitoes when none had yet to find her skin. “It is well past five and getting dark.”
Loul nodded in agreement, but she knew he ref
used to buy into her fear. “He will come. We have no other option but to wait.”
“But with only four men, we cannot sail a ship that needs fifty.”
“We take this step by step, Colette. He must have a plan. We did our part. He’ll do his.”
“What if it is a trick and he is now sailing off with Enio?”
“It is not a trick and you know that.”
“If that is true, it might be worse, non? What if he’s in danger? What if they recognized him and he’s now in the same cell as the men he thought to rescue? Don’t answer me, I can’t bear to think of anything happening—” Colette sucked in her words before they spilled out for the world to hear, but it was too late. Loul glanced over at her.
“Who are we talking about, Colette? Enio or Donato?”
Colette drew a sharp breath, stunned her feelings had become that obvious. If Loul could read her soul, what did Donato know? “We are talking about my son.”
“Someone comes,” alerted one of the pilots.
Loul pulled Colette down next to him, hiding in the high marsh reeds until they were sure as to who approached. Soon she heard Donato’s voice.
The relief turned her knees to mush and lifted her heart to her throat. Before betraying herself, Colette tried to dismiss her response as having a simple need of him. She needed him desperately to rescue her son, but the denial lasted only seconds until other feelings bled through her defiance.
Loul stood. “Here he comes, and not with four men. He’s got many more.”
“From?” That should have been welcome news, but Colette hadn’t liked Jordan’s crew of pirates any more than she did the pilots waiting to leave shore. They reminded her of the awful men who had stolen her off the ship she had been on from France, who had nearly killed her brother and had sold her at auction. With what kind of men would she once again be immersed?
Colette gathered her strength and rose to stand next to Loul as the men and Donato approached.
“Oh my Lord, Loul.” Relief washed the strength from her legs; she fought to remain standing. “Those are his men, the ones who sail his ship!”
Donato halted at the water’s edge, surrounded by at least forty men. He grinned, something she hadn’t seen in a long time, and she realized how much she had missed seeing him like that.
