She was awakened when the sun was high by shouts and cries coming up from the village plaza. Thinking it was only some kind of game, she did not look out, but struggled up and righted her clothing, then went to check on Reynaud. Finding him much the same with Little Quail now on guard, she moved with stiff steps to wash her face with warm water from a clay pot. She stopped long enough to rescue a puppy from Small Owl, who was dragging it around by its tail, though she knew with wry certainty that the poor little animal would probably wind up in a cooking pot soon enough.
She sat down and took the laughing child into her lap, washing his face while she scrubbed her own, playing with him, enjoying his chortling and his attempts to talk as a relief from her own distress. She felt no self-consciousness about her actions; it was something she saw everyone in the house do a half- dozen times a day, this gentle caressing of the baby boy. He was constantly underfoot, into everything, and had to be continuously moved out of the way, out of the supplies, out of danger of the fire. He was never shouted at, never slapped, but was always given some toy or utensil or bit of food to distract him. By the same token he was never allowed to disturb Reynaud or his father or to impede the progress of the tasks that were being done.
Behind her, Little Quail spoke quietly to Tattooed Arm, then came to Elise’s side. They were both in need of the freshness of bathing, she said. Would Elise care to come with her to the creek?
A short time later as they made their way across the plaza toward the creek, a woman stopped them. A scouting party had come across a French expedition that had been reconnoitering to the south. They had killed five of the French and captured two others, one of whom had been tortured on the spot. The other man had been brought to the Grand Village. She did not know his name, but he was said to be a trader. The woman thought it a good thing that the warriors should have something to shout and dance about to take their minds from the worry about what the French might be planning and about the matter of Path Bear.
There was nothing Elise could do for the captured man. With an effort, she tried to close her mind to what was going to take place. She and Little Quail did not tarry long with the woman, but continued toward the water. Elise was silent as they walked, wondering who the Frenchman might be, if it was someone she knew or if it was simply a man who had been doing his duty as a soldier. The Indians, she had discovered, had little respect for the regular French army, considering the men as little better in battle than the greenest of young warriors. They reserved their admiration for the militia, the colonist volunteers who had learned to fight in the Indian fashion, shooting from cover instead of marching in battle formation to their deaths.
On the banks of the running stream, they untied the squares of cloth and leather that covered them and struck out into the water. Its chill brought yelps and gasps from them, but after a moment that cold freshness gave them the vigor to stage a water fight and that activity soon warmed their blood.
Downstream some distance from where they had entered the water was another woman who had just given birth that day. She was washing her newborn infant as well as herself. Elise had heard it said that this practice contributed to the high infant mortality among the Indians but that the women could not be persuaded to discontinue a habit that was of such long standing, considering cleanliness more important. In the same way, the children who ran high fevers with the white man’s diseases of measles and colds also came to bathe, bringing on the pneumonia that often led to death. It was true that the survivors of the rigors of daily bathing were strong and healthy—so rare was it to see an Indian who was crippled or disfigured, other than with battle scars, that it was not unusual for Indian youths who first saw the scars of chickenpox or smallpox on them to do away with themselves out of horror.
There were no men in evidence. They bathed at a different place, Little Quail said. It was not that their mutual nakedness was an embarrassment; no, not at all. Boys and girls up to the age of puberty swam and bathed together as a matter of course. It was simply that it was deemed more likely that there would be less time wasted, time that should be applied to tasks, if dalliance between the sexes during the ritual of bathing was controlled. Elise, remembering a certain night some weeks before, found the argument reasonable.
Her step as well as her spirits were lighter when they started back toward the house on the mound. She and Little Quail were chattering, sharing a comb of carved wood as they walked. She looked up as they crossed the plaza, noticing a group of men to one side where a pair of posts stood, set into the ground with another across the top of the first two rather like a gateway. Her mind registered what they were doing and she looked away sharply, falling silent. An instant later, she came to an abrupt halt. She whirled around.
The Indian men were tying a Frenchman to the upright posts, making ready to torture him. He was naked, spread-eagled between the posts with his wrists being fastened at the two top corners and his ankles at the bottom ones. His head hung forward on his chest. His soft hair shone golden blond in the morning sunlight, lifting lightly in the breeze. There were marks of blows on the white skin of his body and traces of blood where his bonds had cut into him. One warrior stepped up behind him, prodding him with the tip of his knife. He made not a sound, but his head came up and he stared across the beaten ground of the plaza at Elise.
“It’s Pierre!” she said, her voice breathless with disbelief.
“So it is,” Little Quail agreed indifferently. “For a Frenchman once of the Natchez, he has been very stupid. He should never have returned.”
13
“YOU MUST DO it — please, Little Quail, I beg you!”
“If I ask for this man, then I am responsible for him always.”
“But you are a widow, you have no man to bring you meat or to clear the fields for you before you plant.”
“I have suitors enough to do these things.” The Indian woman gave a proud toss of her head.
“Yes, suitors always pulling at you, entreating you to let them share your bed furs, snatching at you in the woods.”
“You are mistaken. They do not snatch and grab as do the men of your race. With us, no man touches a woman in passion unless he is invited. It is a mark of a warrior that he has complete control of his desires.”
Elise stared at her in amazement, but remembering the delicacy with which Reynaud had approached her, she could not doubt that what the Indian woman said was true. “But — but they do entreat you and attempt to entice you into the woods, for I have seen them.”
“Yes, there is that. But I alone decide who will come to me and when, as do all girls as they reach womanhood. For this we are called harlots by the religious fathers in their black robes while the Indian men who refrain from women are called upright and extremely moral! They don’t understand that a man is expected to be able to ignore the promptings of his male needs while a woman has the right to satisfy her curiosity about men, even the one she will marry, before she is wedded for life. Our marriages are much happier than those of the French.”
“Sometimes, but not always. You were not happy with your Indian husband.”
“He could never forget that I had been a slave to a white man.”
“Now here is a white man who, if you wish it, will be a slave to you. You could at least take him into your hut! He could speak both your own language and French with you and would be there to warm you when the north wind blows.”
“But, Elise, he is a traitor, an enemy!”
“How so? He left the Natchez to trade goods throughout the wilderness, not to join the French. He went well before St. Andrew’s Eve, months ago, even years for all I know. To this day there is nothing that can be said against him. He has not informed the French concerning the Natchez, has not joined the military expedition they are gathering to send against you. He was only with the reconnoitering party because he had heard of Reynaud’s running of the gauntlet and feared for him. How can he be an enemy?”
“He is French.”
“Yes.”
The argument had been going on for what seemed like an eternity to Elise. Her great fear was that some time before the torture ended they would scalp Pierre. It sometimes happened. When she had first remembered the custom Reynaud had told her about so many weeks ago, that of stopping the torture of a prisoner if he was requested by a widow, it had seemed the perfect answer to how to save the Frenchman. She had not expected Little Quail to be so reluctant.
She took a deep breath, trying for patience. “He is a close friend to Reynaud; you know this. Can you think that Reynaud would not do everything in his power to free him if he were able? Don’t you know that he will be sick with grief if he discovers that Pierre died here in this village while he lay unconscious? Only think of how grateful he will be when he learns you saved him.”
“I want no man.”
Elise had first gone to Tattooed Arm. Reynaud’s mother considered the matter of torturing the Frenchman a thing of men; she could not interfere. Only the war chief or the Great Sun had the power to forbid it. Elise had then asked Reynaud’s brother to intercede, but he did not feel that it was fitting. There was suspicion on every side that he, as well as the new Tattooed Serpent, loved the French too well. It was best for him to remain aloof from this problem of the trader.
Elise tried again, catching the Indian woman’s arm, giving it a shake. “Don’t you remember when he lived among you, Little Quail? You were children together, boy and girl; have you no memories of how he was then? No affection from that time?”
The Indian woman frowned. Slowly she said, “He did carry water for me from the stream once when I sprained my wrist. And he gave me ten blue-jay feathers and ten blue beads to decorate a pair of moccasins.”
“You see?”
“He helped me to hide a fat white puppy that my grandmother wanted to cook. And he didn’t laugh with the others when she found it later.”
“He is the same now as he was then, a kind and generous man, one concerned for those he loves; he must be or else he would not be here. He came because he heard what had happened to Reynaud, I know it.”
“He was called Hair-of-the-Sun when he came because it was as pale as sunbeams, a color so fine and bright such as we had never seen.”
“It may be a little darker now, but it is still different from most men, certainly different from the hair of Natchez men,” Elise suggested.
“Yes. To touch it would be very nice.”
“If they don’t cut it off and his scalp with it! Oh, Little Quail, please!”
“He is counted a Noble among us, and when last he came had many rich trade goods.”
Elise made no answer, afraid that one more word might prejudice her case. Silence fell. The Indian woman sat with a look of deep consideration on her face. Abruptly she stood. Her tone brisk with determination, she gave her decision.
“Very well.”
Elise gave her no time to change her mind, but took her hand and dragged her to the plaza. A fire had been lit near where Pierre hung between the upright poles. The torture had begun, for already there were several livid burns on his body, though like the people among whom he had grown to adulthood, he had not made a sound.
Now that she had made up her mind, Little Quail seemed to accept the drama of the moment with aplomb. Her head held high and her hands swinging freely at her sides, she marched toward the men gathered around the prisoner. Stopping before Pierre, she looked at him searchingly, her appraisal as thorough as if she had been going to buy him, not even excepting that portion of his anatomy that proclaimed him a man.
The warriors gathered around Pierre swung to face her, a few annoyed by her presence, one or two hiding smiles, most showing expressions of polite inquiry. Little Quail stared at them without discomfiture.
“I have come,” she said clearly, “to claim this man. By the right of a widow who has lost her mate on the field of battle, I demand him as a replacement, to become one with me, henceforth flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.”
Elise, hanging back, saw Pierre raise his head to look at the Indian woman. There was in his clear blue eyes as they rested on Little Quail equal parts of gratitude and disbelief and something more that made Elise shiver in the cool morning wind.
The same warriors who had so callously spread-eagled Pierre between the posts for torture now cut him down with care, covered him with a blanket, and carried him to the hut of Little Quail. Then the Indian woman ordered them out and they went sheepishly, though once beyond the door their quick comments and smothered laughter could be heard.
Elise put wood on the cooking fire and set water to heat before inspecting the pots clustered nearby for food suitable for an injured man. There was a thin meat stew in one and she drew it nearer to the flames. Little Quail glanced at what she was doing, then filled a small pottery bottle with water and took it to where Pierre lay on the sleeping bench.
“Would you like to drink?” she asked, her tone abrupt.
A wry smile lighted his pale face. “Above all else.”
It was likely that he had been force-marched for miles from the place where he had been captured to the village and that he had not tasted water since he was taken. That Little Quail had divined his most pressing need was an indication of her concern.
Pierre tried to push himself to a sitting position, but he wavered and fell back in weakness caused by shock from the torture he had endured. Surprise flashed across his features.
The Indian woman bent swiftly to lift his head and with her aid he made the effort once more, grimacing a little as he shifted to one elbow in order to take the water bottle.
“Your wounds pain you,” Little Quail said, her voice quieter, softer. “We will tend them soon.”
“You are … kind, and I have not yet thanked you.” Little Quail drew back. “It is Elise whom you should thank. She is the one who begged that I claim you.”
“Then I do so most sincerely,” Pierre said, inclining his head with a look of gratitude toward Elise, though his gaze returned almost immediately to the Indian woman.
They bathed him, cleaned his burns, and spread them and his bruises with a healing balm. He made no complaint beyond declaring that they were fiends who meant to tickle him to death, a more terrible torture than that devised by the warriors, though in the next breath he extolled their gentleness. He assured them most solemnly that he was able to bathe himself, that only laziness and the great pleasure he took in having two lovely women do it prevented him, but he propped himself against the hut wall for support even as he spoke.
Once his hand accidentally brushed Little Quail’s breast as she leaned over him. She recoiled so abruptly that mischief leaped into his eyes. From that moment on he took delight in allowing his hand to rest on her hip or thigh or along her neck at every opportunity. Flustered and uncertain, Little Quail glared at him, but he managed each time to look innocent. Weak he might be, but there was nothing wrong with his spirit.
Finally their patient lay clean and comfortable, with the lines of pain about his eyes slowly fading and the color returning to his face from the rich broth he had drunk. He had fallen silent, letting his eyes close. Little Quail, sitting beside him, reached out as if drawn to smooth the strands of his hair that lay soft and shining, touched with gold, on his forehead. Alert at once, he caught her hand, carrying it to his lips as he lifted his lashes to gaze up at her.
“You do care for me,” he said, his voice low. “Admit it.”
“I told you—”
“You told me who bid you to save me, but not why you agreed.”
“I — someone had to do it since Hawk-of-the-Night could not.”
“What?”
When he had heard what had happened to Reynaud, Pierre lay stroking the back of Little Quail’s hand, which she had neglected to remove from his grasp. After a long moment, he said, “It is good that I came.”
“Good that you were captured and nearly killed?” Little Quai
l scowled at him.
“Good that I am here when Reynaud may have need of me,” he answered, smiling. “But I don’t regret the capture since it brought me to you.”
“You are delirious,” she snapped, jerking her hand away, “or else mad.”
“You were always most disagreeable when you felt the deepest,” Pierre said. “I remember once when I gave you a few blue beads and feathers. You kicked me in the shins.”
“I did not!”
“But you did, I remember distinctly.”
“So do I remember and—”
“Ah, you do love me!”
~ ~ ~
Little Quail jumped to her feet, turning from him, then swinging back again. “I knew how it would be! I knew that you would think I desired you to distraction because I chose to keep your body from torture and your hair from hanging on a warrior’s belt by bringing you into my hut. Conceited man! I only pitied you.”
“Pity being halfway to love, I will accept that,” he said quickly. “I have thought of you often, Little Quail, since we were children together. I saw you growing up sweet and dear, but before I knew it you were sold as a slave and afterward taken to wife. Did you ever think of me?”
She stared at him. When he reached for her hand once more, she permitted him to take it. At last she answered, “Sometimes.”
“In what way? I ask because I am intrigued by the words you spoke when you claimed me. ‘Flesh of my flesh,’ you said. What did it mean?”
The dusky red of a blush rose to Little Quail’s face. “They were but words.”
“Oh, no, that I cannot accept. You must tell me.” He drew her nearer and pressed his lips into the palm of her hand.
“You — you need not make love to me with pretty words and gestures just because I saved your life.”
“Not even if it pleases me beyond dreaming? Not even if it is but a reflection of the worship I feel this moment for you?”
Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 Page 26
