The streets were laid out with military precision in blocks known as islets due to the ditches dug around them for drainage, each of which was bridged at the street crossings. The houses were constructed in different ways. Some were built of upright timbers covered by thatched roofs; others had rooftops of split cypress shingles covering walls made of crossed posts with bousillage, a plaster made of mud and deer hair, or the gray moss called Capuchin’s beard, between them, or else with bricks in a construction technique known as brique entre poteaux, brick between posts. There were even a few dwellings, those of the more well-to-do, which had a lower floor of brick topped by an upper floor of planking. A few window glasses sparkled here and there, but most openings were covered by simple shutters, or with oiled paper or thinly scraped skins to admit light and keep out cold in winter and with loosely woven linen that let in the air but kept out most of the hordes of flies and mosquitoes, moths, and other flying insects in summer.
The heart of the town was the Place Royale, which was an open square that fronted on the river. On the back side of it, facing the water, was the Church of St. Louis, with the house of the Capuchin fathers on its left and the town prison and guardhouse on the right. On each side of the square was a row of soldiers’ barracks. Not too far away was the Ursuline convent in a fine new building and a hospital operated for charity with funds provided by the estate of a sailor. To improve the flood problems of the town, always critical due to its low level, there was a moat outside the Palisade of the town which collected the runoff from the many drainage ditches, and the governor had issued strict regulations for extending and maintaining the levee.
Cyrene had no desire to live in the town, however. Compared to the flatboat, it was a place of incredible filth. The streets were seas of mud more often than not, making the blocks of houses islands, indeed, and when they were dry the gutters that cut down the middle of them were filled with garbage and the contents of the chamber pots emptied into them every morning. The sticky black mud that adhered to boots and shoes could not be kept from the lower floors of the houses; it made a solid layer that had to be removed with a spade. Dogs and cats, chickens and pigs wandered at will, scavenging in the gutters and fluttering and squawking out of doorways as they were waved away with brooms.
Along the riverfront, where the ships docked, there was the smell of spoiled grain, soured wine, and rancid salt beef and of rotting bananas off a ship just in from Saint-Domingue, as well as of the fresher odors of wood and pine tar and the tobacco and green myrtle wax for candles waiting in the king’s warehouses to be shipped to France and the West Indies aboard the king’s vessels, La Pie and Le Parham.
The riverfront was also where most of the taverns, cabarets, pothouses, and gambling dens were located. As a result, it was also where the soldiers who were off duty congregated, and where gathered the prostitutes, thieves, and vagabonds who preyed upon them. There, too, along the levee before the Place Royale, was where the market was held.
There was no formality about it. Sometimes a makeshift thatch shelter was erected to keep out the sun and rain, but when it blew down, as it generally did during the fall gales, there was no hurry to replace it. At this time of year, in midwinter, the farmers of the German coast brought their onions and cabbages and turnips to sell, while trappers supplied raccoons and squirrels, bear hides and rendered grease, and fishermen displayed their catches, from lake shrimp and fine fish to turtles for soup. Some good French housewives presented their extra chickens, geese, ducks, swans, and pigeons, and others offered baked goods for sale. There was a free woman of color who always sold confections made of boiled milk and sugar and chocolate or, when the last ingredient wasn’t available, of the first two plus wild pecans. And often there were the chattering Choctaw Indian women with their baskets and worked leather goods and dried woodland plants for medicines and seasoning.
Vegetables were in scarce supply this winter due to the slave-stealing raids of the renegade Choctaw along the German coast below the city this past November. Due to the unrest, many of the Germans had abandoned their fields for a time, coming into town for the protection of the soldiers; others had deserted them entirely in order to start over on new, less isolated lands.
The Indian troubles were still quietly fomenting. It was not a good time to be going into the wilderness from the standpoint of safety; hardly a month passed without some tale reaching town of a hunting or trading party being attacked with loss of life. On the other hand, with things so unsettled, many traders were staying home, so the Indians would be eager for the goods brought to them. There were risks in any enterprise. They simply had to be weighed with care against the benefits.
So it was with the situation in which Cyrene found herself. She wanted to be free of the supervision of the Bretons. To achieve that goal, she must be intimate with René Lemonnier. If it was not possible to arrange matters to bring this about in solitude and privacy, then it must be done without. The inescapable conclusion then was that the necessary physical contact must be made in the flatboat cabin, while the Bretons slept. Not only was the time allowed by Pierre for René’s recovery nearly gone, but her own strength of purpose was flagging; therefore the deed must be carried out tonight. It was amazing how clear everything was, once a person got far enough away from the problem to acquire detachment.
The people moving about the market were a motley assemblage. Housewives with baskets over their arms rubbed elbows with the African cooks from the more prosperous households and bewigged gentlemen who fancied themselves astute shoppers or else preferred to keep the purse strings in their own hands. A nun in a pure white wimple haggled with a woman in a gray and ragged coif over a bundle of fresh parsley. A half-naked Choctaw warrior stalked along, ignoring the commerce. Behind him came a pair of soldiers, one in uniform, the other still in his nightcap and dressing gown, a liberty in dress that marked him as a relative of Madame Vaudreuil, or so the jest went. Here and there was a woman ostentatiously gowned in silk who might have been taken for a great lady, but was more likely the mistress of one of the army officers. Such women were not only kept openly but were freely received, even at the Government House where, if their charms were sufficient, they might be placed above the more dowdy wives of colonists. The governor had an eye for an attractive woman.
The preferred method of doing business at the market was barter. Hard money was practically nonexistent, and the paper scrip issued by the crown fluctuated so widely in value that people accepted it with reluctance. Moreover, there had been a number of counterfeit notes floating about in the last year, making people even more leery. Many lived so close to the bone that the loss represented by even one counterfeit bill could be catastrophic.
Cyrene traded a beaded leather drawstring bag she had made herself for a pair of chickens, then swapped one of the chickens for a cabbage, a handful of scallions, and two long and crusty loaves of bread. Gaston took possession of the chicken, carrying it by its bound feet, while Cyrene swung the basket of vegetables and bread over her arm. They turned homeward.
They were nearing the flatboat when Gaston came to an abrupt stop in the road.
“What is this?” he asked, his voice unnaturally hard.
She followed his gaze. There was a man on the flatboat. He had just crossed the gangplank and was moving toward the cabin door that faced the front of the craft. Short and wiry, he wore a stocking cap and striped pantaloons with a blue coat, and was barefoot. He did not walk with a normal stride but rather was creeping over the logs, staying close to the wall. He was no friend.
“Hey, you!” Gaston shouted. He dropped the chicken in the road, where it flapped and squawked as he took off at a run. Cyrene started after Gaston, clutching her basket.
The man on the flatboat flung a wild look in their direction. He cursed, a sound that came faintly to Cyrene above the thud of her footfalls. From the waist of his pantaloons, the intruder pulled out a pistol and leaped for the cabin door. He shoved the door open and darted i
nside. There came the thunderous roar of a shot. Gray powder smoke billowed from the doorway. The man in striped pantaloons erupted through the smoke as if flung by a giant hand. He fell to his knees, then scrambled up again. Behind him, René appeared in the door with his hands clenched at his sides. The man in striped pantaloons gave a hoarse yell and took to his heels. He clattered over the gangplank and flung himself across the road into the swamp.
Gaston outdistanced Cyrene. Still, she ran on with her blood pounding in her ears and a suffocating knot in her chest. She saw the younger Breton bound onto the gangplank and grasp René’s arm, then after a few words clap him on the back. She knew it was all right, but she could not slow down. The gangplank sprang up and down as she ran across it. The two men turned toward her. Before she reached them, she was calling out, “What is it? What happened?”
“That one tried to kill René!” Gaston said, outrage vying with excitement in his tone.
“Pierre? Jean? Where are they?”
It was René who answered. “There was a message. They had to go into town.”
“Pierre would not do that.” Pierre Breton disliked towns and crowds of strangers; he never went near them if it could be avoided.
“Possibly a ploy.” Gaston made a fine gesture of contempt.
“At any rate, a note was delivered. They left. The man came.” René gave a light shrug.
Cyrene ran her gaze up and down René’s tall form. “You weren’t injured?”
He shook his head. “It isn’t easy to board a craft like this without some sign. I felt the boat rock, but there was no other sound, no footsteps, no hail. It seemed wrong.”
“So he got up to see about it,” Gaston supplied with satisfaction, “as who would not?”
“Exactly. I’m afraid you have a pistol ball in the roof.”
“A bagatelle, a mere nothing,” Gaston said expansively. “Tell us how you threw him out the door.”
“That was a mistake, an elbow in the wrong place when I pushed the pistol up, else he might not have got away.”
There was more, but Cyrene did not stay to hear it. She stepped into the cabin and put down her basket. For a moment she paused to stare up at the splintered place in the roof sheeting overhead where the ball had struck. It was not small; the charge behind the ball must have been enough to stop a bear. Cyrene poured water into a pan and washed her hands, then wrung out a cloth and pressed it to her hot face. Putting it down after a moment, she smoothed her hair. Only then did she go back out onto the deck.
“Why?” she asked into the first silence that occurred between the two men.
Gaston glanced at her over his shoulder with the light glinting on his earring and a good-natured grin on his face. “Why what, chère?”
“Why did the man try to kill M’sieur Lemonnier?”
“He was a thief who saw the two of us leave, then enticed Papa and Uncle Pierre away. He thought the boat was empty, ripe for plunder.”
“He took out his pistol before he stepped inside.”
“A precaution, and a most sensible one.”
“That may be,” Cyrene said, her eyes clear as she looked toward René. “Or it may have been that his sole purpose was murder, as someone tried to murder our guest before?”
As Gaston turned toward him also, René appeared to give the idea consideration. “It’s possible, of course, but I can’t think why.”
“I tell you the man’s a thief and a cutthroat, I’m almost sure of it,” Gaston said in disgust.
Cyrene turned quickly in his direction. “You know him?”
“If he’s the one I think, he used to work out of a tavern near the barracks in town, though I haven’t seen him around lately.”
“And I don’t suppose he will be seen again soon.”
“You can be sure of it.”
There were many places a man on the run could go, into the woods with the Indians, to the outlying French posts stretching from Natchitoches and Mobile to the Illinois country, to New France far to the north, or even to English Carolina or Spanish Florida. To make it to safety was the trick. The number of men who had vanished into the wilderness never to be heard of again was vast.
René resumed his place on his pallet while Gaston trotted back down the road to retrieve the chicken before a fox or some two-legged varmint made off with it. He ended the days of the fowl with an ax but brought it to Cyrene to be plucked for the pot, a job he despised. She was still at that task when Pierre and Jean returned.
Their errand had been no ruse, though it had not taken them all the way into town. It concerned a commission for an old friend who was bedridden, a Scotsman come to Louisiane by way of France and Culloden Moor who thought a pint or two of good Scots whiskey just might put him on his feet again if the Bretons could bring it to him — even if his coin did enrich the bloody English. Pierre was inclined to agree with Gaston that the intruder was a thief. The matter seemed to end there, though discussing it lasted them, off and on, until the evening meal of stewed chicken and dumplings had been consumed.
They sat for a time around the fire. Cyrene, knowing the Bretons now had money in their pockets since the Scotsman had paid them in advance for his commission, waited until a lull in the conversation. As artlessly as she was able, she said, “I’ve never tasted whiskey.”
Jean pursed his lips as if he had just swallowed a dram. “It can’t compare with good brandy.”
“Is it perhaps stronger?” She looked to Pierre, as to the oldest and therefore the authority.
“More potent, you mean? That depends on where it’s made, and how. But it has a bite, does whiskey, while brandy goes down as smooth as satin and lifts a man’s spirits until he can touch the sky.” He smacked his lips.
“But Scots whiskey must be powerful if it can cure your friend.”
A tolerant smile rose in Pierre’s eyes. “All spirits act on the mind, which is where most cures begin.”
“I think,” Jean said, “that I feel a sore throat coming on.”
Cyrene clicked her tongue. “I suppose you feel it would be wise to nip it in the bud?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“You shouldn’t encourage him,” Pierre said to Cyrene.
“No,” Jean said, “it’s most unnecessary.”
They left soon after for the pothouse, the two older men. Gaston, much to his disgust, was delegated as guard once more. He slammed from the cabin and threw himself down on the bench outside where he sat thumping his heels on one of the logs.
Cyrene sat listening to that regular thudding for long moments, then looked at René. He was watching her, and in his eyes were admiration and distrust.
His voice soft, he said, “That was a splendid bit of maneuvering, but I fail to see the point.”
There was no use in pretending with him. “The point is, Gaston sleeps at all times like a bear who has been in the corn, but Pierre and Jean do not. Except when they drink.”
Something bright and warm leaped into his eyes. “Ah.”
He needed no detailed explanations but grasped the implications at once. It gave her a secure feeling to know that it was so. Most people had to be told, and plainly at that.
“There will still be a certain danger,” she said.
“Did you not know,” he said, his voice a rustle of sound, “that danger adds spice?”
Time passed with aching slowness. There was no way of knowing how long the two brothers would be gone or how long it would take for Gaston to get over his chagrin and become cold enough to seek the fire again. It was not a cold night, but neither was it warm. The clouds that had been hovering all day pressed down, and what little wind there was had rounded and was coming mostly from the south. There was a heavy feeling of moisture in the air, and also of anticipation, as if the heavens might open at any moment and the rain come pelting down.
That feeling, Cyrene thought, might just as well be coming from inside herself. She was on edge, her nerves leaping under the skin
at the least noise, the slightest movement. She wanted the waiting to end and, at the same time, dreaded the moment when it would be over. Her heart beat high in her chest and her skin tingled. Never in her life had she been so aware of another human being as she was of René Lemonnier, of his presence, his size, the measured strength of his every movement, the rise and fall of his breathing, the shape of his face, his mouth, his hands.
She was mad to think she could go through with this, mad to question her lot. What was wrong with the way she lived? Didn’t she have a roof over her head, plenty to eat, generous, reasonable, and concerned companions with whom she had been happy? So what if they kept her close? It was for her protection. To rail against it was the most ridiculous ingratitude. To risk it for a chimera, such as her freedom might prove to be, was stupid.
Oh, but she was tired of being an unpaid housekeeper to the Bretons, tired of being secluded like a nun. There was more to life than pots and pans and an occasional foray into trade. There were things she wanted to do, ideas she wanted to pursue. Inside her were feelings she yearned to have brought to fruition, to share. For everything there was a time, and for her the time was now.
Virginity. What a burden it was for women. Why could they not be like men, able to accomplish their initiation into the rites of passion without pain or proof? Why should a tiny, thin piece of flesh that served to protect a young and growing girl’s organs of birth assume such importance? It mattered little, in all truth, except to allow men to establish their paternity by an obvious marking of a woman’s first time with a male.
Not that any great value was attached to it in the colony. The first shipload of women sent out as wives, most of them from the prisons of Paris, had hardly had a maidenhead among them. There had been, in fact, a midwife sent with them on the voyage who attended three birthings before they reached their destination. So scarce were females other than Indian women in the early days and so desperate the need for them, that purity was the last thing a prospective bridegroom inquired about when these so-called correction girls stepped onto the muddy shore. The casket girls who came later, middle-class women without family sent by the king and provided with a box containing their dowry of a few pieces of clothing and other goods, were all assumed, rightly or wrongly, to be untouched. But their greatest value was that they were strong and hard-working and, most important of all, able to bear children — for so far from purity had the first group been that disease such as the Spanish pox had made many of them sterile.
Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 Page 49
