Louisiana History Collection - Part 1

by Jennifer Blake

  At the same time, it was difficult to accept the events René described. Pierre and her father, friends all those years ago? There had never been a hint of it made to her. She could not believe it had been kept from her, could not think why that should be so. She turned her head to see Pierre staring straight ahead, his face as if carved from wax. As René began to speak again, she longed to scream at him demanding that he cease tormenting them, though at the same time she listened in tense concentration for what he would say next.

  “Louis Nolté carried the scar of a wound in his breast. He also had Pierre’s musket, which was engraved with his family insignia and known to be his greatest pride, and which he claimed Pierre had left behind in his flight. On Nolté’s side, too, was the fact that Pierre had, without doubt, emerged from the blizzard with the furs. Pierre claimed that he had fired in self-defense, that Louis had attacked him. But what else could he be expected to say? He could give no reason for such an attack except the furs, and Nolté came from a family that was, if not as affluent as Pierre’s, at least as respected. Pierre was convicted and sentenced to the galleys.

  “But just as Pierre survived the blizzard, he survived this most punishing of punishments. After a few months, while off the coast of Saint-Domingue, his ship ran into a storm. It was blown onto a reef and sank with all hands. Except for Pierre. He swam ashore, leaving his identity behind on the bottom of the sea. He was reported dead. The news reached Paris at the same time that his young wife, supported by Louis Nolté, arrived there from the New World. The scandal in New France had made her father decide to give up his interests there and return to the mother country, carrying his daughter and Nolté with him. They went first to Paris; her father had, naturally, to show himself at Versailles to pay his court to the king, though he meant to establish himself as a merchant at Le Havre. Pierre’s wife, supposing herself a widow, married Louis in a quiet ceremony. The couple decided to remain in Paris.”

  It fit. It fit all too well. The implications were almost too much to grasp, though Cyrene tried. There was no time for careful consideration, however.

  René, pacing slowly between the council table and the prisoners, stopped in front of Jean. He watched him closely, though he spoke to the room at large. “Pierre managed in some way to get word to his brother Jean in New France. They arranged to meet in Louisiane. It was probably when they were re-united that Pierre learned of his wife’s remarriage. He could not inform her that he was alive without risking a return to the galleys or even death for his escape. He may even have decided it would be best if he remained dead to her. He became Pierre Breton, a trader, and prospered after a fashion. The years passed. Then one day Louis Nolté, with his wife and daughter, walked off a ship from France. What happened then? How did it come about that the Nolté family, with both husband and wife ill with ship’s fever, took up residence on the flatboat with the man who had tried to kill Louis and who had been married to Madame Nolté? What made it possible for them to do such a thing?”

  Jean, returning René’s hard stare with his own gaze clear and even a little amused, made no answer. It was as if he dared him to discover the truth. Beyond him, Gaston looked as stunned as Cyrene felt.

  “Let us go back to France once again to see if the answer can be found. Louis Nolté was a man of means but not of wealth. He discovered in himself a passion for the amusements of Paris society: expensive parties, the theater and its actresses, and particularly the excitement of the gaming tables. His money did not last long, and he soon ran through his wife’s marriage settlement and her inheritance from Pierre. He tried to borrow from his father-in-law, but he was a wily old man; he gave his daughter sufficient to keep her and his grandchild who had been born, but not a piastre to Louis. Nolté went to the moneylenders, always a mistake. In order to pay those debts, he began to be involved in certain unsavory schemes, among them the circulating of counterfeit notes. Over a period of time, he worked out various means of doing this, one of which involved gaining the trust of callow youths from the wealthy families of France and Europe who regularly made their way to Paris as to the center of the universe to gain experience and polish. One of these young men, when he realized how he had been duped, attempted suicide. His family investigated. Nolté’s operation began to unravel. Fearing a scandal far worse than the one in New France, his wife’s father used his influence and money to send Nolté to a form of exile in Louisiane. When his daughter insisted on accompanying her husband, he washed his hands of the entire family.

  “By then, sixteen years had passed. Louisiane, once the privy of France, on the far edge of the world, indeed, had become more prominent with the appointment of the marquis as governor. Dispatches and letters passed back and forth as often as every six months. Perhaps Madame Nolté heard a rumor about a man who looked exactly like her dead husband. Perhaps Pierre could not bear not making himself known to her by some code, some form of communication. Possibly by this time the lady had begun to suspect that Nolté’s version of the affair in New France lacked something of the truth, therefore neglected to mention the communication to her husband. Or there could have been a confrontation during which Madame Nolté learned Louis had tried to kill Pierre for her sake, for love of her and her money. Armed with this knowledge, did she then force her husband to go with her to Pierre when they arrived in Louisiane penniless and ill? No matter. Madame Nolté died of her fever in the arms of her first husband. Nearly three years went by, enough to allay suspicion, then Louis Nolté quietly disappeared one dark night, presumed drowned.”

  “Enough!” Pierre cried out, his voice strained, desperate. “Let Cyrene go, and also Gaston. Take me, but let them go!”

  “Why should I do that?” René asked, his voice gentle.

  “Because if you will, I will confess to the murder of Louis Nolté as well as to the charge of smuggling. I will admit it was I who knifed you and threw you into the river. I will tell you anything you want to know, this I swear! Only let the young ones go. They have no real part in this, particularly Cyrene. She came with us, yes, but there was nothing else for her to do. Let her go, I beg of you. Let them both go.”

  20

  THE POWERS CONFERRED on René by the king were apparently without limit. No one attempted to gainsay him as he accepted a part of Pierre’s bargain, rejected part: Cyrene would be freed, Gaston would not. He directed that Jean and Gaston be returned to the prison and Cyrene with them so that she might collect her belongings. He effectively brought the meeting of the Superior Council to an end by dismissing the clerk who had been setting down the proceedings on paper and confiscating the records, declaring that for all purposes the council had not, in fact, been in session. He bid the council members a polite good day, then, with only a single guard in attendance, took Pierre away to be closeted with him.

  His orders were carried out with dispatch. Before Cyrene could collect her wits following Pierre’s outburst, she had been returned to the prison, then pushed out into the Place Royale with her bundle of clothing in her arms.

  She stood there in confusion, not sure where to go or what to do. After a moment, she began to walk slowly in the direction of the flatboat.

  It was a lie; she knew it.

  Pierre was not capable of killing. He might have injured the man who was her father in self-defense, but he could not have plotted as cold-bloodedly as René had suggested to drown Louis Nolté. Nor could he have waited like some assassin in the dark to catch René off guard, stab him in the back, and toss him into the river. It was simply not possible.

  She knew it was not possible because she had seen René thrown into the river. It had not been the job of one man but of two. She remembered it plainly. The way the men had carried him, the way they had swung him between them, tossing him into the current like a piece of refuse. The way they had turned and hurried away. No, it was not Pierre.

  Or was it?

  Could it have been Pierre and Jean? There was something frighteningly familiar about the figures s
he remembered. And then on the flatboat when the two men had seen René Jean had crossed himself as if he had need of protection from a ghost and Pierre had been less than pleased.

  But no, she couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. If they had wanted René dead, what had there been to prevent them from finishing the job while he was injured? No.

  As for her father, Pierre had often been short with him, exasperated that he had squandered the money he was given on drink and gaming and made no effort to contribute to his own maintenance, giving himself the airs of a gentleman while he lived off of Pierre’s and Jean’s labors. Why had Pierre let him stay? It must have been for her mother’s sake at first. Later, it had perhaps been for hers, because she was her mother’s daughter and he had grown fond of her. Because he had known that Louis Nolté would take her with him if he left and did not like to think of the kind of hand-to-mouth life she must lead with him.

  Cyrene had been embarrassed by her father’s lack of initiative, had tried so hard to make up for his shortcomings, for his sneers at the shelter over his head, at the menial tasks such as skinning animals and cleaning fish that were necessary to put food in his mouth. It was a sacrilege to speak or think ill of the dead, but if it had been her father who was supposed to have done Pierre an injury she would have sooner believed it. Certainly she had no trouble whatever featuring the man who had sired her as part of a counterfeiting scheme.

  Counterfeiting. At least she had an inkling now of why René had used her so readily, so insistently. It had been revenge that drove him. He had not mentioned him by name or relationship, but the young man whom her father had driven to attempt suicide could only have been his brother. He must have enjoyed exacting reparation from her since he could not reach her father. No doubt the notes she had found in his coat had some connection with that affair. He may have thought to confront Louis Nolté with them, then use his power as the king’s agent to bring him to justice. Balked of that, he had turned to her.

  Her father and Pierre, both of them married to her mother. It seemed beyond belief that she had not known, that she had never heard so much as a whisper of that incredible tale.

  But she had, of course, and recently. It was the governor who had spoken of her mother’s first husband. He had not known the whole of the story. How confused he had been when she denied all knowledge. Why had her mother not told her as a child? Was she so ashamed? Was it because her mother had known Pierre was not dead and had thought to avoid any careless mention of him, which might set gossip and inquiries in motion? Or was it because she had not learned of it until she reached Louisiane? Later, on the flat-boat, her mother had been so ill, had so quickly died. There had not, perhaps, been time to explain.

  Pierre could have told her. The past was not much discussed in Louisiane in general, however. Moreover, from what she knew of Pierre, Cyrene suspected he had thought to spare her the knowledge that her mother was a bigamist in the eyes of the law and an adulteress in the eyes of God.

  He was like that. His confession just now had been made, she was certain, to protect her and Gaston. He would have absolved Jean if he could, but it was not possible, so he had tried to save the young ones. In the same way, he had, she was sure, quietly permitted his wife to think him dead. It would have been an accident — the chance mention of some resemblance, an oblique reference to a man who had cheated the galleys — that had made her think he still lived. Further back, when Louis had tried to kill Pierre in New France during the blizzard, it had been that same instinct that had made him fail to tell exactly what had happened. Pierre had thought Louis dead at his hand, his body lost in the wilderness; he would have seen no reason to brand Louis an attempted murderer or become involved with the authorities over something that had been settled. It was a mistake for which he had paid dearly.

  Granted, it was his nature to avoid hurting anyone unnecessarily, to sacrifice his own happiness, even his life, for those he cared for, but she did not think he would kill for those reasons. She did not believe he had tried to kill René, whatever the cause. It could not be denied, however, that someone had, not once but twice. It was possible that Pierre and Jean had been present at the first attempt, had been drawn into disposal of the body. It followed, then, that by admitting to the crime, Pierre was trying once more to protect someone else. But who?

  Who?

  She stopped suddenly on the gangplank to the flatboat so that it bounced, nearly catapulting her into the water. The answer was so plain that it was as if she had known it all the time but had refused to see. She examined it with frowning concentration, her chest filling with the hard, deep breath of growing rage.

  Her face hardened, and she moved swiftly onto the flat-boat. She flung her bundle down inside the cabin, tore it open, took out a few things, added others, including her knife in its sheath. In less than a half hour, she was stepping into the pirogue, which had been returned to the flatboat following their arrest. She picked up the paddle and sent the craft gliding out into the river.

  Night came upon her miles away. She made shore and ate the cold sagamite she had brought, not daring to light a fire for fear of what, or who, it might draw to her. Rolling a bearskin around her, she curled up in the bottom of the boat and slept. When the gray and cloudy dawn came, she was on her way once more.

  Little Foot met Cyrene at the door of her hut. The Indian woman’s face was impassive as she watched Cyrene approach. She might have been expected to show surprise, even joy, at seeing her free. Instead, there was nothing except stoic acceptance.

  They exchanged greetings. Cyrene forestalled an offer of hospitality by saying first, “Where is Quick Squirrel, your daughter?”

  “Ah,” Little Foot said, a quick exclamation that expressed anger and pain and disgust, “I knew it would come to this.”

  “Yes. Why did you agree?”

  “It was the father of my son who asked.”

  Little Foot led Cyrene to her daughter’s hut, called out for permission to enter, then left Cyrene there. Quick Squirrel came to the door and stood looking at Cyrene for long moments before she stepped back to permit her to move inside.

  It was dim and smoky inside the hut, but it smelled of fresh-cut wood from its recent building. The furnishings were meager: a sleeping bench, a few pots and baskets, a bunch or two of dried herbs hanging from the roof poles. Food bubbled in a pot hanging over the center fire. On the sleeping bench lay Louis Nolté.

  He was unshaven and pale, and there was a wild look in his red-rimmed eyes as he stared behind her as if he expected to see a troop of soldiers at her back. He sat bolt upright, clutching a bearskin coverlet to his chest.

  “How did you find me?” he demanded, his voice no more than a croak.

  “All I had to do was think of the kind of man you are.”

  He hardly blinked. “Who have you told? Who else is coming?”

  “No one. They think you are dead.”

  “Good, good. You always were a good girl.”

  There was an ingratiating whine with an undertone of cunning in his voice that set Cyrene’s teeth on edge. “Pierre is in trouble over you; he has been arrested. You must come and help him.”

  “Madness! What makes you think I could?”

  “Because it’s Lemonnier who is behind it, as I think you know.”

  He cursed in virulent phrases. “I thought you were keeping him occupied.”

  “Not enough so, apparently.”

  “I am the one who needs help, Cyrene, ma chère. The man is seeking to destroy me. He — he is a fiend, hounding me here, following me all this way from Paris. He wants to see me dead.”

  “And what of you, haven’t you tried to kill him, too?”

  The man on the bench sent a sharp look at Quick Squirrel, who had lifted her head to listen. He jerked his head at her, and the Indian girl rose and left the hut. He turned back to Cyrene.

  “I had to stop Lemonnier, didn’t I?”

  “Why? You were supposed to have drowned.�
��

  “That was clever, wasn’t it? But he wouldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t go away. He made me stay here with these savages, hiding like some animal in the woods. I couldn’t see people, had no food worthy of the name, no drink, no amusements. It was intolerable.”

  “No doubt it was, for him. Cyrene looked at the man who was supposed to be her father, and revulsion moved over her. He had aged considerably since she had last seen him. His face was shrunken and his hands palsied, and there was about him the unmistakable look of pox-ridden debauchery. She wondered that she had never seen it before.

  “You were afraid of René,” she said with what she recognized in herself as conscious cruelty.

  “Yes, I was afraid! You don’t know him. He was watching, always watching. He won’t give up.”

  “So you stabbed him from behind, then ran away to Pierre and Jean for help in cleaning up the mess you had made.”

  “He was a danger to us all. If he had put me and Pierre and the others all in prison, what would have become of you?”

  “The others are in prison now,” she said, her voice cold.

  He shrugged. “It’s not my affair.”

  “You brought René Lemonnier down on them by destroying his brother.”

  He shifted his eyes away from her clear gaze. “He told you that? They were both too proud. His brother shouldn’t have gambled if he couldn’t afford to lose, shouldn’t have been so trusting. Gullible idiots, all of them, not smart enough for me.”

  “Not smart enough to recognize counterfeit when they saw it?”