“I’m not going to hurt you,” Reynaud said.
She nodded, a weak movement of her head. Before she could relax, he shifted from her and pushed upright, releasing her mouth, drawing her with him. He thrust a hand beneath her knees and clamped an arm across her back, then surged to his feet with lithe strength. Elise snatched a hold around his neck as he swung around toward the door and ducked through the opening. A moment later they were out in the chill dark night.
“What are you doing? How did—” Elise began in low tones.
“Not now.”
The words were short, firm. They were a reminder that he was among enemies. If discovered, he would be killed, perhaps on the instant, probably at leisure, truce or no truce. Explanations would have to wait.
“Put me down, I can walk,” she whispered.
He paid no attention. It was probable, she recognized belatedly, that he could move much more quietly, even with her weight, than she could.
Reynaud quartered the night with his eyes, searching, listening for danger. For himself it mattered little, but he preferred not to brand Elise a traitor also, not if he could help it. He had done enough in that direction and would do no more. He was prepared to claim that he was abducting her, if caught, which was true enough. Her cooperation was unexpected; he would not have been surprised if she had kicked and screamed.
Her weight was little enough, but the soft resilience of her breasts and hips against him, the silken feel of her hair cascading over his arm was a definite distraction. Perhaps he should let her walk; but, no, it would not do for her to be seen aiding her escape in any way. He would give her that protection while he could; it was all that he could do.
Reynaud ghosted past the lean-to shelters of the other women, stepping within a few feet of a Choctaw hut. He skirted a sentry, then stood stiff and silent in the shadow of a live oak while another passed them. The canvas tents of the French glimmered palely in the darkness while the coals shone with a dull red gleam in a bed of ashes before the command post. With silent tread, he weaved among them, at last reaching the outside edge of the encampment. Still he did not release her, but picked up the pace to a lope. His strides easy, his breathing even, Reynaud left the French army and their Choctaw allies behind, heading toward the river.
Like all bodies of water in the darkness, the Mississippi seemed to gather and reflect the faintest trace of radiance in the sky, appearing lighter. The large pirogue that lay waiting at the river’s edge, the bundle in the stern and the man who stood beside it were silhouetted against the lightness. Pierre moved forward.
“Mon Dieu, my friend, you were gone forever.”
“I’m here now.”
“You have Elise?”
“Obviously. Let us go.”
Pierre replied something that ended, “—as cranky as a bear with a sore foot.”
“I have little to celebrate,” Reynaud said in clipped tones.
“You are alive, my friend,” Pierre said and, turning away, stepped into the boat, moving to sit near Little Quail who huddled there.
Reynaud set Elise on her feet, then took her arm, ready to hand her into the pirogue. She pulled back against his grasp, not enough to free herself, but enough to gain his attention.
“Where are we going?”
“We had a bargain; I was to take you to the fort in the Natchitoches country.”
The coldness of his tone chilled her, but she persevered. “What of the Natchez, your position as war chief?”
“The Natchez have gone.”
“What?”
“Gone, into the night with everything they own, pot, pail, and piglet. They want only to live in peace and so will leave this area where they have lived for countless years and seek asylum west of the Mississippi. They will fight no more, so they will no longer need a war chief.”
She swallowed. “Because of me, because I led the captives out of the fort and took away their bargaining power?”
“Because they distrust the French.”
“With reason,” she said, looking away.
“It is no surprise, not after thirty years and more of broken promises.”
“Reynaud—” Pierre said, a warning inflection in his voice.
“Yes,” he answered, flicking a look at his friend before looking back to Elise. “Will you come or would you prefer that I take you back to your people?”
“Why did you take me from them if you are only going to deposit me at Fort Saint Jean Baptiste now?”
“I keep my word and, besides, I — I watched you in the hands of the Choctaws tonight, saw you moving about their camp, a prisoner. I didn’t like it. An agreement will be reached on a ransom, but it may take days, weeks.”
That was not what he had started to say; she was sure of it. This was no time to press it, however. “I don’t like to leave the others, Helene — and everyone. Or Madame Doucet. Did you know—”
“Yes, I know,” he said and, bending, lifted her once more and walked into the water, setting her down in the bottom of the boat on a bundle of fur. He pushed off the heavy craft, then leaped into it at the stern, taking up a paddle to guide it into the river channel.
She was grateful to him. Duty, responsibility, even when she could do nothing, was a paralyzing thing. She had wanted to go, had been glad to see the pirogue, to know that there would be days with him ahead of her. And yet she had not been able to bring herself to leave without a word or thought for the rest of the women. Would he understand her gratitude, did he know it without being told? She suspected he might. She was a fallible human being; there were things she could not help, things she could not change. She had done the best she could and now could do no more. It was a relief that she would not have to try and so she sat in the boat and slowly bowed her head, resting her face in her hands.
Their progress was swift. Sunrise found them far down-river. The bright rays slanted across the water from a pink-lined horizon, penetrating the gray mists that rose from the water in soft, diffused shafts. Reynaud and Pierre paddled on, bending, straightening, dipping into the water with tireless rhythm.
The river was swollen from the recent rains and the beginning of snow melt from higher up the Mississippi valley. The water was swift-moving, heavy with silt, and churning with bits of bark and leaves and the trunks of uprooted trees. The mist beaded on their clothing and the wind across the water was chill, so that the sun felt good.
Elise, sitting in the bottom of the boat, turned to watch the unrelenting movements of Reynaud’s upper body as he and Pierre thrust the boat through the water and wondered how he could keep to such a pace. In his endurance, he seemed more than human, just as he had in those far-off weeks immediately after the massacre. His silence, the withdrawal she sensed in him, added to the impression. The need to explain, to banish the constraint between them was an ache inside her and yet she could not bring herself to broach the subject of how and why she had left him in front of Pierre and Little Quail. She could not begin to guess how he might react, what they might need to say. The matter was far too personal, though the other pair would be, she was certain, the most discreet of audiences.
An opportunity to speak to Reynaud alone came when finally in midmorning they pulled into the bank to stretch their legs, rest, and eat a cold breakfast. Little Quail and Pierre moved off into the woods while Reynaud lifted a bundle from the pirogue and began to unwrap it. Elise came up to help him, and shoulder to shoulder they spread out the wide cowhide that would serve as their table and took corn cakes and meat from the flat, woven baskets it had protected.
Elise paused in the act of pulling the corncob stopper from a clay water bottle. She took a deep breath, glancing at his averted face from under her lashes, then plunged into what she wanted to say.
“About the way I left the fort yesterday—”
“There’s no need to speak of it. You did what you had to do.”
“No, it wasn’t like that,” she said earnestly, her hands white at the knuckles o
n the water bottle. In words that tumbled and halted and went jerkily on, she told him what had happened. He paused in what he was doing to watch her, listening closely, but there was nothing in his face to show that the story gave him joy or even satisfaction. Finally she trailed off into silence.
Reynaud felt something hard and defensive inside him dissolve and yet he would not admit to belief. It could well be that Elise only thought her actions had been prompted by Red Deer. Perhaps her mind had seized upon the stratagem, using it as an excuse to do what she had wanted to do all along, to rejoin her own people. Even so, he wanted her. The need to reach out, to catch her close to him and press his face against her soft skin, to breathe her fragrance and lose himself in her was so powerful that he had to steel every muscle to prevent himself from acting on it. But the sight of her among the Frenchwomen yesterday morning and the way she looked at this moment with her hair on top of her head and her body concealed under the rich velvet of her French gown was enough to tell him that he must use control. She was a Frenchwoman. He was a half-breed traitor in flight from the French army. For them there was no hope.
“Reynaud—”
“Leave it, Elise.”
“But don’t you believe me?”
He stared at her, his eyes dark, and a muscle corded in his jaw. Abruptly he surged to his feet and, turning on his heel, strode away from her into the woods. Nor did he turn back or give any sign that he had heard, when she called after him.
To reach the Poste de la Saint Jean Baptiste, named for the patron saint of Bienville, who had founded New Orleans and been governor of the Louisiana colony for so many years, they had to descend the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red River, then travel up the Red to the country of the Natchitoches. The post and fort commanded by St. Denis lay on an island formed as the channel of the Red River separated into two sections. It was not an arduous trip in normal times, being traveled in a matter of days, but these times were not normal.
Twice during that day, they sighted Indians along the river bank, Choctaws and Tunicas by their dress. The hair and clothing of Reynaud, Pierre, and Little Quail just as surely marked them as Natchez, with Elise having the appearance of a French captive. They were hailed both times and the second time, when they failed to reply to an invitation to draw into shore to talk, they were fired upon. The shots flew wide and they were soon out of range, but it was an indication of the temper of the country.
Still, the twisting river miles dropped away behind them. Now and then they were able to cut miles from the distance they had to travel by taking the cross channels formed by the high water. The mists of morning lifted and the sky turned blue and clear. They saw deer drinking at the river’s edge and buzzards circling, heard the cracked calls of blue jays and the clear whistles of cardinals. There were wild plum thickets in bloom with the fine white petals floating in the water. The rose-red and purple mantles of swamp maples and redbuds were reflected in the current while the tangles of vines that twisted and trailed down from the trees were turning green with new growth. Passing the still water that extended into dead sloughs, they surprised the sunning blackish-green mud turtles so that they plopped from their logs one after the other.
The sun reached its zenith and began its downward plunge. The afternoon sped away behind them, and as the twilight deepened, the gurgle and rush of the water, the quiet splash of the paddles seemed to grow louder.
Pierre, in the rear of the pirogue, called out, “Shall we stop for the night?” Reynaud paddled on for two more strokes, then as if rousing himself from some dark reverie, he stopped with visible effort, nodded, and began to pull for shore.
They bathed, Reynaud and Pierre going a short way downstream, Elise and Little Quail remaining near the pirogue. The water was cold but refreshing, a boon to muscles stiff from sitting so long. To Elise it seemed to take her fatigue and wash it away downstream. Depression had gradually settled upon her during the day as she had accepted Reynaud’s silence, the fact that he did not seem to believe what she had said, and also the curious, anticlimactic ending of the meeting between the Natchez and the French expeditionary force. The river also took some of that depression away.
Little Quail, treading water, blew at a wisp of dark hair that persisted in falling into her eyes, smiling at Elise beside her. She slapped water at Elise and they indulged in a mock battle that served to warm them and work off some of their tension. Elise, blinded by water and exhausted by the game, plunged away from the Indian woman and, as her feet struck bottom, waded to shore. Little Quail came after her, giggling as she reached for a piece of leather with which to dry herself. Her humor faded slowly and site turned toward Elise.
“I don’t think I have ever said to you how much I am grateful that you asked me to save Pierre that day.”
“It was a good thing that you did.”
“For him, yes, but also for myself. I love him, Elise, as I have never loved before.”
Elise sent the woman a smiling look. “Indeed?”
“Ah! You know it is true. But I wished to say thank you in case there was not another chance.”
“Not another chance?” Elise asked slowly, her smile fading.
“We know not what we will find at the French fort. It may be the commandant will not accept me. He is known to be a wise and generous man, one who ignores the quarrels of New Orleans and the orders that come from there if it so pleases him. Pierre is well known to him, of course, and it will be understood that he had to fight alongside the Natchez after he was captured, but that does not mean he will wish to have us at his post.”
“And if he will not, what then?” Elise asked, frowning.
“It is agreed between us that we will go into the woods or perhaps to the Spanish at Los Adaes. Pierre will resume his trading and I will travel with him.”
Elise flicked the water from her skin and began to get back into her petticoats and gown. With her head down so that she need not look at the Indian woman, she asked, “And what of Reynaud? Has he said what he will do?”
“No. It is not quite the same with him, you see. He was not captured like Pierre, but led the Natchez of his own will. He is half French and a man of property, but this will not be forgiven. When he has taken you to the fort, he will perhaps remain with us or he may rejoin the Natchez. I don’t know.”
There was no time for more. The voices of the men, talking a little above normal to warn of their approach, were heard and the two women hurried to finish dressing.
They lighted a small fire, carefully shielded in a scooped-out pit, to heat their evening meat and warming drinks with which to wash it down. While Elise and Little Quail busied themselves around the coals, the two men constructed the usual shelters of saplings bent in a half circle over the bed furs and covered with cloth. Watching their work with quick, surreptitious glances, Elise saw that they were making only two, each of a width for two people. The sight brought back a wave of memories. It also brought an odd hope and an excitement that she suppressed as firmly as any Natchez woman.
Reynaud tried to send Pierre to sleep while he took the first watch. His friend refused and in the end they flipped a coin. The watch was Pierre’s and he took a musket and moved to squat beneath a tree in the darkness some distance from the fire. Elise crawled into the shelter and, thinking wryly of how easy it had been to get out of her Natchez costume, began to take off her velvet gown. She could hear the quiet murmur of the voices of Reynaud and Pierre as, naked, she slid under the furs. After a time, they stopped.
She was relaxed and warm, but wide awake in spite of her long day, when Reynaud slipped into the shelter. His movements were stealthy as if he preferred not to wake her or feared that he might. She spoke then, as much because the words could not be kept inside any longer as to save him the trouble of being so quiet.
“You didn’t answer my question this morning. Didn’t you believe what I said?”
“How can I?” he answered when he had thrown aside his breechclout and lain down
facing her with the furs over the lower part of his body. “I had told you that I loved you. Why would I send you away?”
“I thought — it might be out of nobility.”
He laughed. “You misjudge me.”
“Do I? I think not.”
“If you had known me as well as you think, then you would not have doubted me.”
“I … My doubt was for the — the madness of this war, the betrayal it might bring.”
There was no relenting in his tone as he answered. “You should have known I would never willingly have let you go.”
“Not even for my own good?”
“No, not even for that.”
She pushed up to rest on one elbow, facing him in the darkness. “And yet you are taking me to Fort Saint Jean Baptiste after which you will disappear into the wilderness.”
“Who told you — Ah, Little Quail.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“You would expect me to throw myself on the tender mercy of the French for your sake?” The dryness in his tone had a forced sound.
I would expect you to take me with you. The words rang in her mind though she did not speak them. With them rose such anguish that she thought she could not bear it. When had she come to love him like this? When?
“We — we are married,” she began.
“After the fashion of the Natchez, without the blessing of a priest. It means nothing.”
“Does it mean nothing to you?”
He ignored the question. “I am half French and half Natchez. In peace it did not matter, but now we are at war, one with the other. I left the French for the people of my mother and there is no ceremony, no test of the gauntlet, that will return me to a state of grace in this colony. I have no rights. I am an enemy and the reasons matter not a whit. St. Denis may receive me for the sake of friendship in other days, but it will be for a few hours only. After that, what is there for me but the woods?”
“And what about me?”
“You were born to the security of property and the benefits of civilization. It was wrong of me to take you from them. It would be wronger still to keep you away longer.”
Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 Page 36
