Louisiana History Collection - Part 1

by Jennifer Blake

  Tattooed Arm had cleared the breathing passages of the child while the midwife worked on the mother. Then the Indian woman had given the baby girl to Elise, for she had other tasks waiting at her own house and had delayed long enough. It was Elise who, when Tattooed Arm and the midwife had gone, had bathed the tiny girl-child and soothed her until she slept. Helene had looked at her daughter, smiled, and fallen also into the sleep of exhaustion.

  Many of the Sun women, having heard the cries of birth, had come to look at the new French child. They had made quiet noises, touched the small pink fingers as if there had never been such a baby before. They had brought small gifts: carved wooden animals, soft doeskin and mulberry cloth wrappings, rattles of small gourds. They had seemed uneasy that the child had not been bound immediately to a cradle board that would give her the handsome, flat contour of the head so admired among them, but they were willing to allow that the French were different. Of course it would be necessary, they seemed to think, when the mother returned to work; how else was she to carry a helpless infant about with her and still have her hands free for tasks?

  No sooner had the last of these visitors left than the door was thrown open once more. Elise looked up to see Red Deer in the opening. The woman surveyed the sleeping mother and the child that Elise held. She folded her arms, her face set in rage.

  “I had been told that my runaway slave was here. That you could be so stupid as to shelter her, I could not believe.”

  Elise carefully put the baby down on the sleeping bench before rising to face the woman. “If you speak of Helene, she is indeed here. As you must see, she was in the extremity of labor and needed help, something it seems she was unlikely to receive from you.”

  “For such useless a one, what should I do? It was my misfortune to be allotted a woman too far in pregnancy to abort so that I have had to put up with her weakness. It will be better now that she is rid of the baby. She will work much better.”

  “She will have to nurse her and care for her,” Elise pointed out. “Perhaps it would better if she remained here in the house of the war chief since she will be of so little use for months to come.”

  The woman gave a rude snort. “She will regain her usefulness soon enough without the baby.”

  “Without — What do you mean?”

  “Such a pale and weak thing as she must have brought forth will be better exposed in the woods.”

  Horror moved over Elise as she stared at the other woman. She had known that such things were done to newborns who were abnormal, but there was nothing wrong with Helene’s child, nothing at all. Instinctively she stepped in front of the sleeping baby. Her voice hard, she said, “No.”

  The mother of Path Bear laughed. “The child is my slave to do with as I will.”

  “You will not touch it.”

  “Who will stop me?” The woman put her hands on her hips.

  Helene, waking at the sound of their voices, began to cry with a hopeless, animal sound. Elise looked with loathing at the Indian woman, then stepped to where Reynaud’s musket hung on pegs over the sleeping bench. With it in her hands, she turned to face Red Deer.

  “I will stop you,” Elise said, her voice quiet. “I will stop you for now. You are a despicable woman who should have been banished with your son. I want you to leave this hut. If you return again, ever, I will not hesitate to kill you.”

  “I won’t leave without my slave. The Frenchwoman must get up and come with me.”

  The words were assured, but the woman had taken a step back toward the door. Elise shook her head. “She stays here. Get out.”

  The woman blinked at the masculine tone of command, then recovered to glare at Elise with hatred as she moved backward. “This won’t be the end of it, you’ll see! I’ll go to the council.”

  “You do that.”

  “I’ll make such a noise that all my friends will come with me and take her away.”

  “Will they? When they discover what you mean to do? I will tell them, you know, and I will make sure they know you could not recover your property by yourself. They will laugh at you instead of help you.”

  “No matter what happens, my vengeance will fall on you!” the woman screamed and, turning, ran from the hut.

  After much discussion they called the baby Jeanne. It was a common name, one that could be added to at a later time. Elise knew that Helene was thinking of the time when she might possibly be reunited with St. Amant and so applauded the suggestion as extremely sensible. If it encouraged Helene to dream of the future, so much the better.

  It was late, well into the night, when the decision was made, the baby given her first feeding, and mother and child settled once more. The day had been so busy that Elise had had little time to worry. But now as silence fell once more and the darkness of midnight crept close without Reynaud’s return, her fears grew.

  She stood for a long time at the door of the hut, staring into the night. Finally she stepped outside, walking to the foot of the mound of the Great Sun where she began to climb the sloping side. Near the top, she stopped. From where she stood, she could see the Choctaw camp. Fires still glowed there and the small figures of men could be seen passing back and forth in front of the flames. What were they celebrating? Was it a feast of mutual agreement or one of victory over the emissaries of the Natchez?

  Frustrated by not knowing, hoping to be able to identify Reynaud in the distance, Elise stood staring for long minutes. The night wind lifted her skirt and blew tendrils of her hair around her face. Its breath was cool and she turned her shoulder cape to the front, holding it close around her and wrapping her arms in its width. Overhead the moon was on the wane. It shed its light onto the village, silvering the roofs and leaving the crooked paths between the huts in shadow. Away to the left were the Indian forts. The pointed ends of the logs that formed the walls had the look of blunt spears.

  How long she stood there, she did not know. But after a time there was a stirring in the Choctaw camp. Men detached themselves from the fires and turned toward the sleeping Natchez village. A small party, they dispersed as they reached the outer fringe of houses, treading quietly, almost stealthily. Several turned toward the mound of the Great Sun.

  Elise watched them come. One, ahead of the others, looked up. The moonlight gleamed on the copper features of the man for whom she had been waiting. She did not pause, did not stop to think. Swift and sure, she ran down the slope with her short cape flying out behind her. Her face bright with welcome and relief, she met Reynaud at the foot of the mound and flung herself into his arms. He caught her, whirling with her, pressing her to him. The other men of the Sun class averted their faces, moving around them.

  A chuckle shook Reynaud as he held her close so that the cool globes of her breasts were pressed to his chest. “As shameless as a Natchez woman.”

  Elise suddenly remembered that she had twisted her cape around and that her breasts were bare. Rather than withdrawing in confusion, she only turned her upper body from side to side, rubbing gently against him.

  He caught his breath, then leaned down to slip an arm under her knees, lifting her against his chest. Setting his mouth to hers, sure of foot from long practice, he carried her to his hut.

  At the doorway, he ducked inside, threading his way with her through the dimness illuminated only by the coals of the fire to their sleeping bench. He placed her on it, then stripped off his clothes and joined her there. Elise thought of Helene, lying in the darkness at the end of the room. It did not seem to matter. She freed herself from her clothes and flung them aside, turning against Reynaud with blind need. They flowed together with curves and hollows matched and interlocking, legs entwined. Mouth to mouth, they tasted the essence of each other, and with their hands, they alternately teased and held, pleased and clasped close. Finally he drew her to lie on top of him, leaving it to her to take him inside her when she would, to set the depth and pace of their joining. But in the end it was his tireless strength and his hands upon her tha
t brought surcease to them and vanquished fear once more.

  Their breathing had slowed though they still lay with bodies enmeshed when the sound came. Rasping, imperious, it was as demanding as only a newborn dares to be.

  “What in the name of all that’s holy is that?” Reynaud asked, starting up to one elbow.

  “A baby, of course!”

  Elise rolled off him, then flung herself back across his chest to pick up her skirt, which had landed on the floor beside the bench. Pushing herself to a sitting position, she began to hunt for the ends she normally knotted.

  “What do you mean, of course? There was no baby when I left unless—”

  “It belongs to Helene.”

  “I should have known,” he said in resignation.

  She went still. “Do you mind that they are here? She’s such a small baby; she will be no trouble. Helene was in labor and had nowhere else to go. Now Red Deer means to expose the little one in the woods as if it were malformed so that Helene will be free to work. I can’t let that happen.”

  He lifted a hand to her lips. “Never mind. You can have a hundred babies and mothers if it pleases you. This house is now yours.”

  “But it was built for the war chief.”

  “I only reside here. It was waiting for you.”

  Her mind was tangled in a confusion of French and Natchez traditions. “It is you who must defend it.”

  “I defend those in it, not the house. It has no importance to me except as a shelter for the one who dwells in it.”

  The baby had been lying with her mother. Helene must have awakened and given her a breast, for the angry wailing had ceased, turning to small, grunting, gratified sounds.

  “You are too generous,” she said softly.

  “Because I give you what is yours by right? Hardly.”

  As a Natchez, he undoubtedly felt that the hut was hers, but would he be so generous with the lands he held as a Frenchman? It was not likely.

  Almost as if he divined the trend of her thoughts, he went on, “There is nothing that I hold that is not now yours.”

  “Also nothing that would not quickly become yours again if I should decide not to be your wife.”

  “I have no way to convince you otherwise, if you think that, for I would not risk losing you only to prove it.”

  The coolness of his tone sent a chill over her. She had no wish to question his word. What difference did it make in any case so long as Helene was permitted to stay? “Shall I thank you then,” she asked in a rallying tone, “or is it unnecessary?”

  “That depends on what form it takes,” he said and reached out to draw her down beside him, setting his mouth to hers.

  They were still wakeful, however, when the tiny noises of the baby’s feeding had died away. Elise asked about the embassy to the Choctaws and learned that it had been a qualified success. The Choctaws had a long list of demands, but they were far more concerned with gain than with fighting the Natchez. It seemed obvious that they could be propitiated by small concessions long enough for the walls of the forts to be finished. The Natchez had only to gather up some of the spoils taken from the French, turning over a portion-a few bales of silk, a handful of tools, a few slaves — every few days. In that way, an attack could be put off indefinitely.

  Elise listened closely as she lay with her head pillowed on his shoulder. She was relieved that there would be no need to defend the village against a mass rush of the Choctaws, but her mind was on other things. “Would it be possible for Helene and her baby, and perhaps Madame Doucet, to be among the slaves to be transferred?”

  “Possibly, but I don’t advise it,” he said, his voice grave. “The Choctaws are allies of the French, but that doesn’t mean that any captives they hold will be turned over to the French the minute they come into view. It’s far more likely that the Choctaws will hold them for ransom as a means of increasing their profit from the massacre.”

  “They wouldn’t!”

  “I assure you they would. In the meantime, the slaves would only change masters, working for the Choctaws instead of the Natchez. Since the Choctaws are living off the land while camped outside the village, the slaves will be better fed and better housed where they are, certainly they will not have to work any harder.”

  “How will you choose who to send to them then?”

  “It would be best to send the strongest and healthiest, but it may be that we will give the Frenchwomen the facts and see if there are volunteers. It’s always possible that the French will pay a ransom without delay, though I will be surprised if they even get here in less than another month.”

  “Why then have the Choctaws come so early?” Her hand lay relaxed upon his chest. She spread her fingers, lightly touching the lines of his tattoos, where there were the ridges of tiny scars to guide her.

  “For exactly what they will get: a share of the spoils.”

  “But I thought it was revenge they wanted.”

  “To them, taking a large part of the booty that the Natchez captured is revenge of a sort. It’s a mistake to think of Indians making war in the same way the white man does.”

  “Oh?”

  “For instance, Indians never attack against overwhelming odds, over open ground, or against a position obviously well guarded. So far as they are concerned, doing so is not bravery; it’s stupidity. They will die readily enough for good reason, but they value life too much to throw it away. Besides, among the Natchez the war chief is obliged to pay the families a sum of money for every warrior he fails to bring back from a battle. That discourages ordering senseless attacks.”

  “You will have to pay for every man killed under you? Can you do that?”

  “I must.”

  Elise paused in her explorations of his chest with the tip of her index finger resting on the tight button of one of his paps. “It certainly seems a sensible way of waging war.”

  “Only against people who have the same standards.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s seldom that the Natchez, or most Indians, kill women and children; they will do it, but usually only if they get in the way or endanger them in some way, such as attacking them or slowing down a march or crying so as to attract the enemy. A part of this is for the sake of the labor of such captives, naturally, but it is also because of the care they have for their own women and children. It has happened that the British have put whole villages to the sword, however, and I fear that the French will use cannons against the forts we are building. If that happens, I’m not sure how the Natchez will accept it. A man of the Natchez would rather die than submit to slavery, but he will also become a slave before he will let his women and children be killed.”

  “It isn’t much of a choice,” Elise said, her voice thin, her movements stilled.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No.”

  There was silence for some time. Sleep did not come, however. Finally Elise said, “If a war chief must pay for the men killed under him, then it’s no wonder the Suns are chosen. No one else could afford it.”

  “It’s true that a war chief seldom gets to keep his spoils.”

  “On the other hand, I understand there are criteria for the job that are more important.” She trailed her fingers slowly down his breastbone to his navel, pausing there to delve into that hollow.

  “Such as?” he inquired. He bent to brush his lips over the top of her head.

  “That of the women.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “Don’t you?” she asked, smiling a little to herself. “But you passed the tests with such ease.”

  “Tests?”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you.” She trailed her fingers lower over the hard flat muscles of his abdomen, following the thin line of hair to where it widened into a triangle. Gently, caressingly, she touched the smooth, warm length of his manhood.

  “Witch,” he murmured.

  Easing lower on the bench, she asked, “Do you re
ally want to know?”

  “No … yes.”

  “It seems,” she said, brushing the flat of his stomach with her lips, “that men sometimes use the same tactics with women that they do in battle.”

  “Profound,” he answered breathlessly. “Who says so?”

  “Your mother. The test then, you see, is how a man behaves in … intimate moments.”

  “I think I see.” His voice was rich if uneven with the laughter that made the muscles of his abdomen ripple under her mouth as he went on, “Will it damage my reputation beyond repair and lose me my office if I surrender now?”

  ~ ~ ~

  The days of the month of grace went by swiftly. Hunting parties were sent out more often than before and ranged farther, even across the Mississippi River. The fires that dried the meat burned constantly. The women searched for fresh spring greens and roots, cooking these rather than using the stores of corn. They also sought and preserved supplies of certain herbs that would be needed in case of battle injuries. Water was brought from the creek and stored in special huts inside the forts, the pottery jars stacked one on top of the other to the ceiling, while the wells, though producing water, were deepened still farther. For protection from the weather, a series of huts were built inside the forts so that each stockade took on the appearance of a new, though more crowded, village. In the center of the larger main fort on the west bank of the creek, a small mound had been constructed to hold the larger house of the Great Sun and his family.

  As the days grew warmer, the children were allowed out of the village to play in the woods, but were closely watched. Older boys were cautioned not to stray too far away and to listen always for the call to return. The women fretted that the fields were not prepared for planting, that the weather would grow too hot before they could put their seeds of maize, pumpkin, squash, and bean into the ground. None dared to think that they might not plant at all near the Grand Village that year, or if they thought it, did not say it aloud.