“Once again you leave me little choice,” she whispered.
“What?”
“It could be that I — prefer — to remain with you.”
He stiffened beside her in the dimness. It was long moments before he spoke and then his words were strained. “The inclination will pass. What you feel is only gratitude because I have protected you and perhaps because I—”
“—taught me to love.”
“—allowed you to set free your natural desires.”
There had been pain in his words; she would have sworn to it. Were the arguments he had brought forth meant to convince her or only himself? It mattered little since she could not seem to reach him with words alone. Instead she stretched out her hand to touch him, trailing her fingertips along his forearm to the hard planes of his chest. “You think all I feel for you is gratitude and desire?”
“I know it,” he answered, his voice deep and rough, “but for now, as in the past, it is enough.”
He drew her to him, holding her tightly, molding her to the long, hard length of his body as if he could absorb that essence of her through the thin satin of her skin. She clung to him in the anguish of fear for what he meant to do in the days ahead, for what would become of her without him, for the price that might be asked of them from an unforgiving world. Once before she had known the distress of thinking that their night together might be the last. Now the feeling returned a thousandfold. She wanted to take him inside herself, deeply, indelibly. She wanted to feel his strength plunging into her and, in returning it, know that they were linked, inseparable, two parts of a whole.
The need inside them was a spreading flame bright-edged with desperation. Fear for what the days to come might bring fed their desire, and the pain of a parting that seemed to be hurtling toward them gave it strength. Trembling, their eyes tightly closed, they sought in each other the ageless affirmation of life and the boon of momentary forgetfulness. They found both in the fierce and unmeasured rhythms of the passion that joined them, but though they lay with bodies closely entwined and panting breaths mingling as their mouths clung, they could not hold on to them.
Eight days later they reached Fort Saint Jean Baptiste. They knew they were coming near after they passed the Poste des Rapides, portaging around the rapids in the early morning without raising an alarm from the small garrison of the post. They entered the Natchitoches country, coming upon the cleared lands of the outlying settlement and the cabins with smoke trailing away from the mud-daubed chimneys. Finally they rounded a bend and saw the fort lying before them.
It was built in a rectangle with jutting, diamond-shaped bastions at three corners and at the fourth a rectangular one. The palisade was massive, but not as thick as that of the Natchez, primarily because it was not expected to withstand cannon fire. There was no sign of alarm; the gates stood open and people moved in and out freely. There was, however, a full complement of men on watch on the parapets.
By the time the pirogue had pulled into the landing and they had stepped on shore, a squad of soldiers had advanced to the gates and stood ready to meet them. A tall, handsome man with a soldier’s bearing and an air of authority moved to take his place in front of the squad.
Reynaud, his movements fluid and his back straight despite days bent over a paddle, strode toward the gate. Pierre fell into step at his side and Elise, with Little Quail, followed. Elise’s attention was on the officer who waited. He had to be the commandant here, Louis Antoine Jucherau de St. Denis.
St. Denis was reputed to be an intelligent man and a fair one, a man who paid only as much attention to the dictates from New Orleans as was necessary. Rather than adhere to a ruinous policy of trading exclusively with faraway France, he turned a blind eye to commerce with the Spanish at the fort of Los Adaes less than sixty leagues away to the increased profit of the colonists in his jurisdiction. It was not surprising, perhaps, since he had been a trader before being named commandant. Much good had come from his close ties with the Spaniards, including his marriage to his beautiful wife Manuela, who had been the granddaughter of the commandant of the Spanish Presidio San Juan Bautista. His policy toward the Natchitoches, Caddo, and Adaes Indians was fair and openhanded, and his grasp of the conflicting and shifting loyalties of the tribes was firm. The result was stability in this section of the colony. St. Denis enjoyed somewhat despotic power, due to the distance to the center of government, and was known to be unconventional. And yet he was also a faithful servant of his king.
How would he receive them, given his character and his duties? That was the question.
There might have been a snapped order to fire, a command for immediate arrest, or, at the very least, a refusal to allow them to set foot in the fort or to remain in the surrounding country. Instead, St. Denis returned Reynaud’s bow with a grave inclination of his head.
“My apologies,” Reynaud said, “for what must be an unwelcome visit. I ask only a small indulgence: a few minutes of your time.”
St. Denis’s eyes were narrowed as he studied them. Finally he asked, “You have come from the Natchez country?”
“Yes. We have news of what has taken place there if you care to hear it.”
“I’ve heard of the expedition, as who hasn’t? I have also had a dispatch warning us, quite unnecessarily, to hold ourselves ready in case of trouble. I had heard, too, that you had joined the Natchez. I can only assume that there has been a defeat.”
Reynaud inclined his head in agreement. “Of a kind.”
“Your presence is not, I take it, an indication that we should prepare to fight to the death?”
“Hardly.”
“Then come inside to my quarters,” St. Denis invited, adding with a faint smile, “I have an obligation to hear all reports that might aid in our defense.”
The commandant’s office, which also served as his living quarters, was directly in front of the gate, just forward of the center of the compound. To the right lay a long, low building that served as a barracks, with a separate dining hall at one end and a guardhouse at the other. Near the left rear bastion was a small building set with a steeple that marked it as a church. It, along with another one-room cabin that served as lodging for the itinerant priest, made a protective bulwark between a small powder house and the open block of the fort interior. On the left side of the compound was the kitchen from which issued the delicious smell of roasting beef, with a privy and servants’ quarters strung out beyond. The buildings were constructed of logs set in the upright fashion, chinked with mud thickened with deer hair and gray moss, and roofed with cypress shingles.
Elise and Little Quail followed the three men into the commandant’s quarters. When they were seated, an African servant brought wine, bread and butter, and also a heavy cake spread with plum jam. Madame St. Denis, Doña Manuela, with a child hiding behind her skirts, came to see that they had everything they needed, then left them again. Then followed a rapid fire of questions and answers. St. Denis omitted no detail. He wanted to know the size of both forces, the weapons, the kinds of trenching done by the French, the behavior and manner of the Choctaws, the number of casualties. His grunt as he heard of the departure of the Natchez indicated surprise mixed with cynicism and he appeared to think that someone, perhaps the Choctaws if not the French, had been bribed to be deaf during the night, a charge Reynaud neither refuted nor admitted. He asked in particular after several women who were related to the people who lived near Fort Saint Jean Baptiste and appeared grateful for anything Elise was able to tell him about them.
They had been there perhaps an hour when the crowd began to gather outside. The news of their arrival had spread and people had come to see them with their own eyes. St. Denis ignored the growing rumble and mutter of voices for as long as he could. At last he looked toward the sound with a frown.
“I must ask you, my friend,” he said finally to Reynaud, “what you intend here?”
Reynaud reached to take Elise’s hand as she sat in the rough ch
air with its cowhide seat beside him. “I want one thing only: to secure your protection for this lady. She has suffered much and harmed no one. There is a woman here that she once knew who may offer to stand as her friend, to give her shelter. If you would see that she speaks to this one and that no one else is allowed to disturb her, you will earn my eternal gratitude.”
“Done and easily,” St. Denis said. “But what of you?”
The question went unanswered, for a shout, hoarse, imperative, came from outside. “Your pardon,” St. Denis said and rose at once to go to the door, pulling it open.
Elise got to her feet, propelled forward by some unnamed fear. She was hardly aware of Reynaud beside her or of Pierre and Little Quail close behind. She stopped at the doorway, seeing beyond it a crowd of faces. In distraction, she recognized her old friend, Claudette, in the forefront, smiling, waving, as if she had been expected. There was also Pascal with his arms folded over his chest and grim satisfaction on his face. Beyond him was Henri, who moved forward with his eyes fastened on her face until he was stopped by the merchant.
The shout had come from none of these, however, but from a man who was clattering through the gate of the fort on the back of a horse he was guiding by plow lines, as if he had come from his fields. His hair had escaped from his queue and was whipping around his face and his eyes were hard and bright with excitement.
“Commandant St. Denis!” he yelled as he pulled his rearing mount to a halt. “Indians! The Natchez! Our Natchitoches brought the news. They saw them on the march. They’re heading this way and are painted for war!”
18
IT WAS STRANGE, watching the French pour into Fort Saint Jean Baptiste: the distraught women carrying their crying children or bundled belongings; the men leading pack animals loaded with whatever they had been able to gather up in the way of food and supplies. It was as if some playful god had decided to switch the roles, turning the besieged into the attackers and the attackers into the besieged. The dust and confusion was the same, however, as well as the fear.
There were also not as many people. The number who had settled around the fort did not exceed three hundred, including Indian and African slaves. Of this count, perhaps eighty were men fit for fighting; a portion of them regular troops, a portion colonists.
Another difference was that Elise had nothing to do. Doña Manuela and two or three of the older women brought order from the chaos, assigning space in the barracks to families, directing older children to look after crying youngsters, setting women to making huge pots of soup and gruel with which to feed the gathering, seeing to the collection of bandaging materials and medicines. Elise, standing to one side, felt both useless and conspicuous. She was aware of the many sidelong glances sent her way, of the whispers behind hands, of the lifted brows. At one level of consciousness it troubled her, but at another, deeper level she cared not at all.
Claudette, with three children in tow, one on her hip and yet another under her apron, found her where she stood on the porch of the commandant’s quarters. Her friend from her days as a correction girl was plump, her face rather blowzy and careworn from the strain of childbearing. She had always been a simple person. She smiled now, her brown eyes tired and rather anxious. “I have missed you, Elise.”
If the truth were known, Elise had hardly thought of Claudette during all the years since they had last met. It made her ashamed. She forced a smile. “How have you been?”
“As you see,” Claudette answered, indicating the children around her with a wry shrug. “You have no babies?”
Elise shook her head. “I am a widow now.”
“So I heard.”
There was a pause. Elise realized her friend must have heard much more. There were not so many French in Louisiana that news of those one knew could escape notice. “I am glad you are well and happy.”
“Yes. I know you were not so lucky, for I spoke of you to when St. Amant he first came here and to young Henri who escaped the massacre with you. I would like to help you if you will allow me. I would like for you to come and stay with me.”
“Claudette—” A hard lump formed in Elise’s throat and she could say no more.
“I mean it, every word. I want you to live with me for as long as you like. Since the company sent out the so modest and pure convent girls with their dowries in caskets the year before last, you would think that we correction girls were mere women of pleasure, unfit as wives for the colonists, though le bon Dieu knows the men here are far from saints. But we who came first must stick together.”
“Your husband, what would he say?”
“Jules won’t mind,” Claudette answered with a laugh. “There is very little that he minds.”
“There will be talk.” The words were blunt, but Elise could not help it.
Claudette shrugged. “When has there not been? I will feel privileged to hear the story of how you came to be the woman of the half-breed Chavalier. Now there is a man who could drop his pack outside my door any day.”
“It appears that your husband does that often enough,” Elise observed with dry humor.
“Yes,” Claudette said, sighing, “a rutting beast of a man.”
“Where is he?”
Claudette pointed and Elise, following her gesture, hastily suppressed a smile. Claudette’s rutting beast was short, balding, and potbellied, though the laugh lines around his eyes indicated a disposition that was tolerant and merry.
“Are you certain he won’t mind?”
“He will be delighted when he sees you, though you must be careful to make it clear that you do not like your bottom pinched.”
“I … may not be staying long.”
“But of course you will! Where else would you go?”
Where else, indeed? Elise did not elaborate, however. There was no need, for Henri, impetuous, stammering slightly with excitement, came toward them.
“Madame L-Laffont, what a r-relief it is to see you among us, though who would have d-dreamed we would meet again like this?” He lifted a hand in which he held a musket to indicate the soldiers closing the gates and the men lining up to receive ammunition for their weapons.
“Not I,” she said with a wan smile. “How have you been?”
“I am an a-assistant to M’sieu L-Lagross who has a trading post. I tend his horses and take care of customers, but also travel with him to New Orleans to buy goods. More, I am c-considered a man here and have been given this musket with which to defend the f-fort.”
Elise admired the weapon he was brandishing. It was good to see that he was recovering from the effects of the massacre.
“M-may I say that you are looking well, m-madame?” he went on. “In truth, you grow more b-beautiful every time I see you.”
“And you grow more of a flatterer,” she replied, smiling a little at his gallantry, though she wanted also to cry as she thought of the battle that must come. The young and inexperienced were the most likely to fall, whether Natchez or French.
“No, no, m-madame, I assure you,” he said, his eyes bright. “I must g-go now; I am needed.”
“Yes. You will be careful?”
“But, of c-course, madame!”
He hurried away with a backward glance and a wave. Claudette, looking after him, said, “A nice young man. Now. Come and let me introduce you to the others.”
There seemed no choice except to agree. In truth, it was not so bad; the women were suspicious, but their need to know about the welfare of the women who had been held by the Natchez, to hear details of their captivity, to question Elise about the massacre, who had died and who survived, was greater than their moral outrage. Few among them could afford to set themselves on too high a form, in any case. It was not polite to inquire into a person’s background in this backwater. There were more here who had been transported to the colony against their will than who had come by choice.
It was Claudette’s oldest child, a girl, who brought Elise the greatest pain, though not from embarrassmen
t but rather from a grief that seemed to squeeze her heart suddenly in an iron fist. She was playing with the girl, trying to keep from underfoot, when the child piped, “Look, Maman, the lady has on funny shoes.”
From under the hem of her wrinkled and stained skirt could be seen the moccasins given to her by Tattooed Arm on the night she and Reynaud had been wed. The moccasins of white doeskin decorated with freshwater pearls and blue beads were the only reminder she had of her Indian marriage. But for them, it would be as if it had never taken place.
A sentry sang out. A Natchez warrior had been seen at the edge of the woods that had been cleared away from the fort. The Indians were gathering. Tension rose inside the stockade, but no one fired. There was always the possibility that the Natchez wanted only to talk or trade.
Elise saw Reynaud and St. Denis in close conversation. Beyond them was Pascal, a derisive expression on his face. He had not approached her and apparently did not intend to speak to her. It was just as well; she had nothing to say to him. Still, she did not like his attitude of condemnation or the vindictive glint in his eyes as he watched Reynaud. Most of all, she did not care for the knowing lasciviousness of his gaze as it rested upon her.
A delegation of Indians was seen approaching the fort. St. Denis, with Reynaud beside him, mounted to the parapet. A number of the other men also ran for the steps that led up to the walkway, joining the soldiers already in place at their stations. Elise hurried after them. She had grown used to knowing what was happening and did not intend to sit back and wait to be told simply because she was once more among Frenchwomen. It was unladylike to elbow for position, so she did it discreetly, with murmured apologies. So surprised were the men to see her there that they gave way. One or two tried to persuade her of the danger, but she only smiled and nodded and turned her attention to what was taking place below.
Path Bear, chief of the Flour Village who had been in command of the second Indian fort, marched at the head of the half-dozen Natchez that advanced alongside the river, coming from the direction of the woods. He swaggered forward with his men at his back and his hands on his hips. When he was within hearing distance, he lifted his voice in speech.
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