Elise tried to picture Reynaud as a part of such a rite, perhaps as one of the men who held the strangling cord. She could not. Once it would have been easy. Had a change of clothing made so much of a difference in her ideas of him?
“What are you called when you are among the Natchez?”
“My name? I’m known as Hawk-of-the-Night.”
“And your brother?”
“Now he is only the Great Sun. Once he was Diving Hawk.” He went on before she could comment. “You spoke not so long ago of the cruelty of the Indians, of their habit of torturing prisoners, male ones that is. There is no way to justify such a thing to the European mind and yet the custom serves its purpose. It allows the people of the victorious tribe to see that their foe is not a monster or a devil, but only a man who bleeds and dies as they do, plus it gives an outlet for the terror and horror of war endured by the women and children since they often participate.”
“You don’t condone it?” she asked, frowning at him.
“But neither do I condemn it as the practice of barbarians. That would be hypocrisy, for the annals of the world are filled with such cruelties. The ancient Phoenicians scalped their dead enemies, and some scholars think the Indians of the southern Americas may have the blood of these seafarers, blown off course long ages ago, in their veins. The hordes of Genghis Kahn and Tamerlane massacred thousands upon thousands and left their skulls to dry in the sun. The Gauls, the Franks, and the Crusaders put whole towns to the sword, not excluding the women and children, while rapine and pillage have often been the order of the day in the wake of such armies.”
“That was ages ago!”
“Perhaps, but even now the dungeons of Europe are filled with instruments of torture that are regularly used on the innocent in the sacred name of God or to achieve confessions for crimes as small as the stealing of bread — bread that would have been freely given to the hungry by any Natchez. The difference, you might say, is that the torture is done in concealment, the screams muffled. That is true. But criminals are flogged, branded, and hanged in public execution of sentence. Where then is the dividing line between those of European blood and the barbaric natives of the new world?”
“It — it’s just that they derive such inhuman pleasure from it, or so I’ve been told.”
“They enjoy their triumph, as do we all. Still, they can be just and even humane. The torture of a prisoner can be stopped. There is a way for the man — it is always a man despite the practices of some of the eastern tribes in torturing females and children — to be saved. It requires only a single woman, a widow who has lost her husband in battle. If she will ask for the man to be given to her — as a slave, servant, the husband she has lost, in way she desires — he will be handed over without question. From that moment he becomes one with the Natchez and is never again an enemy.”
“And he will be trusted not to harm the widow?”
“He will owe her his life and feel the debt to the center of his being. He will not harm her, but is likely to serve her with honor all her days.”
Elise lifted a brow. “What keeps him from creeping away in the night and going back to his own tribe?”
“Honor and gratitude, most of the time. But if the widow is old, or ugly, then he may disappear one day.”
“And no one minds?” The lazy humor in his tone gave her a peculiar feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“The widow cries since she usually enjoys owning a slave and now has no one to warm her bed or perform the duties she has assigned. She will have lost great prestige also, for you realize that a male slave is rare; most are women and children.”
“Yes.” Her voice was subdued as she thought of the French even now serving as slaves at the Natchez village. She thought Reynaud gave a soft exclamation of annoyance with himself, but she could not be sure, for in that moment there came a distant hail from the direction of the house. They swung to look and saw the figure of a man coming toward them.
Reynaud was on his feet instantly, every sense alert. He put his hand out to take her arm, drawing her behind him, but so taut was his stance that she could not be sure he was aware of making that protective gesture.
In any case it was unnecessary.
“Sacre bleu!” the man called as soon as he was close enough to be easily heard. “What has become of the great warrior that he sits under a tree stuffing himself on persimmons like a ‘possum? That I should live to see it! And with a pretty woman beside him? This is a sorry pass, indeed. It makes me want to cry — with envy!”
“Pierre,” Reynaud called and strode to meet him. They flung their arms around each other, buffeting each other on the backs and shoulders as they stood in the center of the trail.
Elise moved forward slowly. Reynaud turned, drawing her nearer. “Elise, ma chère, permit me to present to you my good friend Pierre Broussard. Pierre, Madame Laffont.”
“Enchanté … madame?” Pierre Broussard swept off his hat, revealing fine blond hair worn long around his face in the cavalier style. Of medium height and perhaps a year or two younger than Reynaud, he had an open, merry countenance. He lifted one brow in comical disappointment over her married state as he bowed over her hand.
“I am a widow,” Elise said, a smile coming unbidden to her lips. “It is a great pleasure to meet you at last, m’sieu. We have been waiting for you for what seems an age.”
“Waiting? Now how is this? Not even I know where I am going to be next.”
“Oh, but—”
“Shall we go back to the house?” Reynaud interrupted. “I am sure that you would like a drink to wash the dust of travel from your throat, Pierre, and I have other guests who would like to meet you.”
Did the two men exchange a steady glance over her head? Elise thought so, but when she looked quickly at Reynaud, his face was relaxed in a smile as if his sole thought was of his duties as a host.
Pierre Broussard, the orphaned boy who had been placed with the Natchez to learn their language for the good of the French government, had become a trader. He traveled from New Orleans up the great Mississippi and its tributaries as far as the Illinois country, and fanned out over the myriad Indian trails from the domain of the British on the east to that of the Spanish on the west, and sometime even beyond. In pirogue and on pack animals, he carried rings, boxes, brass wire, needles, awls, bells, combs, scissors, drinking glasses, looking glasses, Flemish knives, woodcutter’s knives, hatchets, mattocks, gunscrews, musket-flints, powder and ball, sabers, fusils, shirts, materials such as red and blue limburgs, and, often, bags of salt. He visited the forts, settlements and Indian villages, taking the pelts of beaver, fox, bear, deer, and smaller animals, and also the soft, cured and beaded leather of the Indian women and their decorated and baked pottery and woven baskets in exchange for his wares. Sometimes he traded for the stocky plains ponies with the Caddo farther north or for the horses of Spanish breeding with the Avoyels that lived to the southeast, well below the fort of Saint Jean Baptiste in the lands of the Natchitoches.
His friends were many, for he was well liked, and so he was welcome everywhere. Any chance-met stranger was invited to his fire, given a share of his food. Because of this, he was a repository of information, a traveling crier of the births and deaths, the feuds and scandals of the country. In common with most traders, he could always be depended on to know the latest news.
It was this secondary function that was of interest to the group from Fort Rosalie. The man had hardly been presented in the salon and a glass of wine put into his hand than they crowded around him. Elise was no less interested, though she stood back with an arm across the back of Madame Doucet’s chair. The older woman’s composure, gained during the last few days, was in jeopardy. She leaned forward with her hands twisting in her lap, her eyes red-rimmed and staring, and her face pale.
“What of Fort Rosalie?” Pascal demanded. “Have you news?”
“The fortification, the houses, all burned. I am told the powder magazine on the
side of the bluff made a magnificent explosion, awe-inspiring. As for the settlement, it is no more.”
“But the people?” Madame Doucet asked, her voice quavering.
“It is said eight men, perhaps other than yourselves, escaped death in the main attack. Four were killed in their pirogue on the river, two made their way to New Orleans to raise the alarm. These men arrived there in pitiful condition, weak from hunger and exhaustion, their clothing smoked and burned, their faces swollen from mosquito bites. The remaining two, a tailor and a cart driver, were taken prisoners, the first because of his usefulness and the last in order to drive the cart that took the spoils to the village. I regret to be forced to say that all others were killed.”
How many men had been at the settlement and the fort? Three hundred, four? Elise thought it nearer to the last number. Dead, all dead. They had known it must be so; still, it was a shock that left them silent for long minutes.
“And the women and children?” The words were little more than a whisper as Marie Doucet stared, trembling, at the French trader.
Pierre frowned, looking down at his glass. “The word is … They tell me that some one hundred fifty women and eighty children were taken to the Indian village as slaves.”
Two hundred thirty women and children. There had once been a counting at the settlement that had shown some seven hundred souls in residence there. The counting was not exact and yet it appeared that seventy or eighty women and children must have died on the day of the massacre. It seemed to Elise that for an instant she could hear the screams and smell the smoke that had been greasy with the taint of burning flesh.
St. Amant lifted his head from contemplating the wine in his glass and there was a blue line about his mouth. “What will become of them?”
It was a reasonable question. The French, due to the enlightened Indian policy of that wily old campaigner and founder of the colony, Bienville, had suffered little trouble with their Indian allies. Unlike the British Carolina colonies where such things were common, there had been few uprisings and therefore few French prisoners in Indian hands. But Bienville, due to political maneuverings in Paris and the general unproductivity of the colony, had been stripped of his position as governor, and now French women and children were at the mercy of the Natchez. All they had to go on as to their probable treatment were rumors and whispered stories of starvation, beatings, and maimings.
“They will be divided among the families according to rank and position. Young children will usually be-allowed to stay with their mothers, though older ones may be separated. Tasks and duties will be assigned — the gathering of firewood, grinding corn, cooking, the cleaning and preparing of furs — whatever is in need of doing. They will be treated well enough — after the first frenzy of victory — so long as they show themselves to be willing and cooperative.”
After the first frenzy of victory. That was the dangerous time when tempers and actions were out of control. It did not bear thinking of.
Pierre cleared his throat. His lips tightened as if he would not speak, then he said, “There is another story that came to me. There was a boy of six or seven, a fine lad, who was taken by an Indian family of the Sun class as a playmate for their son. The boys became friends, within days were inseparable. Then the Indian boy caught the measles from the French child. He died. It was decided that the French boy must be sacrificed in order that he continue as playmate to the Sun child in the afterlife.”
Madame Doucet cried out, her face a mask of sorrow. She rocked back and forth with her arms clasped over her chest as if she feared her heart would burst from her if she did not hold it in. Elise moved to lean over her, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulders, though she felt helpless before such grief.
Pascal swore. St. Amant set down his wineglass with fingers that shook. “Something must be done. They must be rescued.”
“Indeed,” Pierre Broussard said. “Governor Perier has sent a dispatch to France entreating the crown and the West India Company for reinforcements to put down the uprising. In the meantime, he has called for volunteers to join the militia and sent the Sieur de Lery as an emissary to the Choctaws.”
“The Choctaws?” Pascal demanded. “There was talk, before the attack, that they were to join with the Natchez against us.”
“The rumors were true in part, I think. It was to be a massive bloodletting, one planned in secret councils through the past summer and carefully timed, with every chief receiving a bundle of reeds of equal number, one of which was to be withdrawn at every dawn until the day of the attack. The reeds of the Natchez were tampered with and so they fell on the French early. The Yazoos, who with the Tensas were allies of the Natchez, massacred the French at the small fort in their country also, and in New Orleans there was a revolt of the slaves that is said to have been a part of the conspiracy. But the Choctaws were infuriated that the Natchez acted to remove the element of surprise from their own raids and that they have since refused to share the booty from Fort Rosalie. So the Choctaws will in all likelihood ally themselves with the French against the Natchez. At least that is the purpose of de Lery’s expedition.”
“So we sent Indians to conquer Indians.”
“It seems wise,” Pierre said dryly. “It is doubtful that Perier will be able to put more than a few hundred men in the field, and it is estimated that the Natchez have nearly a thousand warriors even without their allies. We need the Choctaws.”
“The Choctaws are not the equal of the Natchez,” Pascal said morosely.
“But there are more of them.”
There was a short silence broken only by the moaning of Madame Doucet. She drew in a ragged breath, then, with a vast effort, forced coherent words from her throat. “Please, m’sieu, have you been to the village of Natchez? Have you seen perhaps a young woman with long blond hair and blue eyes in a sweet face? And a boy of six years, a beautiful child, so husky, so quick?”
Pierre shook his head. “I am sorry, madame. I could not go to the Natchez village, for though I lived with them a dozen years and more and can call them by name, I am a Frenchman and am looked on now as an enemy.”
Reynaud had been standing in the shadows as if setting himself apart from the conversation. Now he spoke. “The revolt of the slaves in New Orleans. It was serious?”
“It caused a great deal of fright but few casualties. It’s left a bad taste in the mouths of many, however. Our fine Governor Perier, aghast that such a tragedy should happen during his period in office and feeling himself surrounded by enemies, decided to use the incident to ensure that such an alliance of Indians and slaves never occurs again. He first hanged several of the ringleaders of the revolt, then he armed a contingent of slaves and forced them to attack a village of perfectly harmless Chouachas. They put to death seven or eight of their number and burned the village to the ground.”
“The fool,” Reynaud said, his tone grating.
“Even so.”
The moans of Madame Doucet had turned to sobs. Elise thought she had heard more than enough. Gently she urged the older woman to her feet and led her away. It was a relief to leave the room. She had also heard as much as she wanted to hear, as much as she could bear for one evening.
She did not go into the dining room for dinner. Instead, she made her way to the kitchen where she asked that a tray be prepared for herself and Madame Doucet. Neither ate a great deal. The older woman rambled, talking of happier days, of the charming things her grandson had said and done, of the unruly way his hair had grown and the tooth he had been going to lose, speaking of him as of one dead. She worried about her daughter, of how she would endure being a slave, of her weakness caused by her injuries, of her spirit that might lead her to defy her Indian mistress. She was troubled that they might not have enough to eat, that they were cold or unprotected from the weather. When Elise tried to reason with her, saying how unlikely were her fears, she only nodded, then went on monotonously in the same vein. Finally Elise brought her a glass of warm mi
lk laced with cognac. Soothed by the potent drink, worn out by her own fears, she slept at last.
So weary was Elise by then that she wanted nothing more than her own bed. Once there, however, she could not sleep. The words Pierre had spoken echoed in her mind, bringing to vivid life once more the day of the massacre and all that had happened afterward. She lay staring into the darkness, thinking of Reynaud as he had been that day in the woods when he had demanded that she share his bed furs, of him standing naked, bathed in cold rain, of the moonlight on his body as he rose from the bayou.
He was half Natchez, with half the blood of the killers of her friends and neighbors, the men who had struck them down in the mellow light of a cool fall morning and torn the scalps from their heads. He had stood listening to that recital of horrors this evening and his face had shown nothing. Not anger, not disgust, not pity — nothing.
What kind of man was he? This afternoon he had dared to try to explain away the torture of men, had actually compared the exploits in the wars of Europe and the Far East with this dastardly murder of her countrymen. It was sickening.
Yes, sickening. But Governor Perier, a man of breeding and birth, had turned armed slaves loose on a village of innocent people simply because they were of Indian blood and he had a point to make. Ah, God, what horrors men were capable of committing. Turning her face into the pillow, she lay still, trying not to think.
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