Gabrielle

by Theresa Conway

  Gabrielle, hearing everything secondhand, did not dare to question Lafitte when she saw his set face the next day. The morning passed with him in a foul mood.

  “I swear I’ll set those bastards on their ears!” he thundered to no one in particular. “So I’m only fit to consort with common outlaws and pirates while a stinking-drunk, broken-down old general is too good for the likes of me!”

  He continued in this vein throughout the day, until by mid-afternoon he had worked himself into a fair lather. He snapped twice at Gabrielle, the second time very nearly sending her into tears. He spoke sharply to both You and Gambi, causing tempers to flare all around.

  “Can we help it if a man’s pride is hurt?” Dominique wondered out loud with growing irritation.

  Gambi looked positively ferocious, and when he saw Simmons walking up the path in order to report the day’s accounting to Lafitte, he seized upon this unexpected chance to even an old score and, so, divert Lafitte’s wrath to a better course.

  “I’ve brought the day’s accounting for your approval,” Simmons said by way of explanation, handing a long list to the man, and noticing immediately his foul frame of mind.

  Lafitte took the proffered sheet of paper without a word.

  “Boy! Hey, there, boy, before you go,” Gambi began, his mouth shaping a cruel smile, “wouldn’t you like to pay your respects to the lady?”

  Simmons hesitated, not quite sure just what Gambi was up to. “I’m certain she’s busy,” he returned carefully.

  “Come, come now, boy, I doubt she’s too busy to visit with you. You’re not forgetting that cozy little domestic scene I was witness to some time ago?” Gambi urged, catching him by the sleeve of his shirt.

  Simmons tried to wrench his sleeve away, but Gambi held him tightly.

  “Lafitte, you really should hear what I have to say. I do believe we’ve got ourselves a spy here.”

  Lafitte’s head shot up, and his brow lowered in anger. “Gambi, shut your mouth before you find yourself in trouble. I’ve no liking for your jokes today,” he answered.

  Gambi, affronted, brought a hand quickly to his sword. “By God, Lafitte, you’re an even bigger fool than I thought—not a man I care to call my leader. If you let a mere boy dally with your woman and then feed him information so he can spill it all to his brother in customs, then I think we should call for a change of command.”

  Gabrielle, her heart pounding painfully against her ribs, moved quietly to the door, her hands holding her apron tightly. Please, please, God, make him stop, she prayed.

  But Gambi was thoroughly enjoying himself, taunting Lafitte, and he was not about to stop both sacrificing the boy and making a fool of the man he hated.

  Lafitte stood up and started toying with the dagger at his belt. “Gambi, your accusations are of a most serious nature. I suggest that you either back them up with evidence or shove them back down your lying throat.”

  “Lafitte, you are a fool! With the truth plain in front of you! Look at him. The boy’s drenched with sweat. He’s shaking from head to foot because he’s scared. He knows I’m telling the truth. Ask him. One of my men saw him with one of the customs officials a few days before you and your brother were caught in the bayous. A considerable sum of gold changed hands. I thought then that this bastard was selling information to the officials, but I had to be sure. Then, when you were arrested, I only had to put two and two together. He’s made a fool of you, Lafitte. He’s pulled a trick on you that even a ten-year-old could have discovered.” Gambi began laughing, egging him on, turning the screw deeper, until Lafitte’s face went livid with rage.

  “Is it true, Simmons?” he roared, stepping close to the boy and delivering two vicious slaps to his face.

  The boy’s head jerked from side to side with the force of the blows. A thin trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.

  “No, no, it isn’t true! They wanted me to sell them information, but I didn’t. I told them lies, wrong dates,” he muttered feebly.

  Seeing the pathetic figure, Gabrielle could hold herself back no longer. She hurried as fast as her thickened figure would allow and grabbed Lafitte’s arm. “No, please, Jean. He’s telling the truth. Don’t hurt him, please.”

  Gambi’s laugh grew even nastier. “See how she pleads for his life. I’m telling you, Lafitte, I saw the two of them together in an embrace. Would you have the little bitch make a fool of you in the bargain?”

  His words added fuel to the fire of Lafitte’s fury, and he pushed the girl away, into Gambi’s arms. Struggling to free herself. Gabrielle found Gambi’s arms tightening around her, squeezing the breath from her lungs.

  “Quiet, bitch, the scum’s only getting what he deserves,” Gambi hissed, taking advantage of the situation to feel her breasts.

  Gabrielle kicked him furiously. “Don’t, Jean, please don’t. Gambi’s wrong. He—”

  Her words were cut off abruptly by a heavy hand on her mouth. She watched in horror, as Lafitte delivered a rain of blows on the helpless boy, who did not even try to defend himself. In a few minutes, his face was nearly unrecognizable because of the blood flowing from his pulpy flesh. Lafitte kicked the choking form as the boy knelt on the sand to cough up the blood that clogged his breathing.

  Tears fell down Gabrielle’s cheeks and spilled onto Gambi’s restraining hand. He was holding her too tightly, she thought, beginning to feel dizzy. She made a last effort to free herself and felt an agonizing pain sear her from the small of her back down her leg. “Don’t, Jean. If you love me, please stop it.”

  But Lafitte was beyond hearing her. The accumulated frustrations and disappointments of the past few weeks were releasing a fury of pent-up emotions. He had to seek release by destroying this boy in whom he had so much confidence and trust, only to find that he had sold that trust to the very authorities who wanted to put him behind bars.

  “Dominique, Renato, stop him!” Gabrielle begged, appealing to the other two men, but their hardened gazes and set jaws told her that they, too, were only too glad to find a scapegoat on whom to vent their frustrations.

  “Get up, you son of a bitch!” Lafitte said, his voice hard and cold.

  Hardly aware of where he was any more, the boy struggled to stand up but fell almost unconscious to the ground. Lafitte delivered a kick to his ribs, and the boy cried out in agony. With difficulty, Simmons finally managed to stand.

  “Now get moving, get out of here,” Lafitte snapped, pushing him towards the stretch of beach. When the boy had gone perhaps ten feet, Lafitte turned to Gambi, who was still trying to subdue Gabrielle, but with little success. “Give me your pistol,” he ordered.

  “No! No!” Gabrielle screamed helplessly, her eyes dilated with fear.

  “I won’t kill the bastard, but I’ll scare the hell out of him. I doubt that he’ll ever play that foolhardy game again,” Lafitte returned grimly, firing two shots at the sand around Simmons’ feet.

  Like an evil bird of prey, Gambi pulled out the other pistol from his belt and, chuckling, sighted down the barrel at the groping, lurching figure. “I’ll do more than scare the hell out of him,” he spoke between his teeth. And with that, he fired the pistol.

  Nearly numb with horror, Gabrielle saw Simmons sink to the ground, a splotch of bright red spreading uniformly over his back.

  “The bastard’ll never spread his tales any more,” Gambi said, satisfied.

  With a demented screech, Gabrielle grabbed for his pistol, meaning to shoot him in rightful vengeance. Gambi, springing away from her grasp, delivered a stinging blow to her jaw that nearly snapped her neck and sent her sprawling backwards to land with a sickening thud in a clump of bracken. A scream of pain tore through her, and she felt as though her whole body were suddenly on fire.

  “Oh, my God! Lafitte! The girl, she’s been hurt!” she heard Dominique say as if from a great distance.

  Her head was bursting with colored lights, and raging fires were burning in her back, in her abdomen,
in her legs. Someone was picking her up, but she had no idea who. Simmons—John—her tortured mind conjured up the still figure covered with blood, obscene against the whiteness of the blazing sand. Lafitte had killed him! How could he have done it! John had protected him at a risk to his own life!

  Another pain shot through her back and another, so that soon her mind refused to function any longer. All she wanted was to be free of the pain. She heard someone shouting—or were they whispering? for Hanna. Yes, yes, bring Hanna, she thought. Hanna would give her a soothing posset that would make the pain go away and let her go to sleep.

  Her mind wandered, and she thought she had been caught again in the fire at Renée’s. No one was going to rescue her now—Lafitte had barred the door, and Rosa was waiting outside to slit her belly if she tried to run out. She screamed at the sight of the woman’s crafty black eyes.

  “Help me, Rosa,” Gabrielle thought she cried out, but the woman only laughed and showed her the blade of her dagger, gleaming against the heat of the sand.

  The fire was closer now, it was choking her, cutting her breath off. She struggled to keep on breathing but felt the flames licking at her back, her legs. The pain surged through her, and she knew with certainty that she would not be able to stand it much longer. She told herself to relax, to flow with the pain, and it would be all right. And she was surprised when this actually seemed to help. A palpable warm spread out now from her belly and between her legs. Her legs were swimming in it, and the pain was almost gone now. She could breathe again, and she struggled back from her stupor. She must thank Mr. St. Claire, she really must, she thought. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, she would have died in the flames.

  She opened her eyes, and they registered the bent figure and wizened face of Mother Hanna. Now, where had she come from, she wondered, and tried to speak, to ask her, but nothing came from her working mouth. She tried to move her hand, but it wouldn’t obey her wishes, and so she could only watch with a growing dread, watch the woman’s hands kneading her body, the woman’s face perspiring heavily, the sweat dripping down to stain her thighs.

  Finally, the woman looked up at her, and there was a bitter smile on her worn face. “Now, my dear, you’re going to be all right. You’re stronger than I thought.”

  I’m going to be all right, Gabrielle thought, wondering why the woman had said that—what was wrong with me? She found that she could move her hands now, and they crept tentatively towards that warmth between her legs.

  “Careful, now. You just lie back and rest. I’m going to bind you up good and tight,” Hanna directed.

  Gabrielle raised her hands and looked at them curiously. They were sticky and wet. The fingers were smeared with red. Oh, my God, she thought. I’m bleeding! Her mind struggled to register what had happened.

  And then, with a terrible clarity, she knew. The baby!

  “M-my, my baby, where is he?” she screamed, but her throat crackled so that the sound was barely a whisper.

  Hanna shook her head wordlessly. “The poor little mite, he was just too small yet to make it on his own,” she said slowly, a wealth of sympathy in her voice.

  Dead! Her baby was dead! Gabrielle felt a large sob catching in her throat. Tears spilled carelessly down her cheeks. She wanted to cry aloud but didn’t have the strength. She felt suddenly terribly weary.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “It’s a lovely day, ma’am, are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit outside on the veranda for just a little while?” Janet cajoled, opening the shutters for the January sunshine to spill into the room and illuminate the face of the young woman who lay propped up on the pillows.

  “I think not, Janet.”

  Janet opened her mouth, then shut it again and sighed. “All right, I won’t talk of it any more today, but you can’t lie there in bed forever.”

  She left the room, making no mention to Gabrielle of the changes that had been taking place on the island since her miscarriage. Lafitte was finding it more difficult to sleep, was drinking more than had been his custom and was going around in a fierce temper. He no longer attempted to control his men and gave them free rein on their trips to the city.

  Gabrielle had kept to the confines of her room for nearly six weeks, and in this short space of time, Lafitte had grown morose and quicker to anger, more arrogant, and less caring about public opinion. He had been declared an outlaw and, it seemed, had decided to play the game to the hilt.

  But Gabrielle, suffering still from her anguish over the loss of her child, knew very little of this. She only wished that that terrible afternoon had never happened. All she wanted was to forget—escape! She must get away from the island, away from everything here. The place only served to remind her of things that could never be again. She must enlist Janet’s help and then make a plan.

  A few days later, she approached the girl. “Janet, I must get away—leave Barataria for good. There is no longer anything between Lafitte and me to make me stay.”

  “It’s impossible! You must regain your strength first—you could never make it through the bayous!” Janet argued.

  “But Hanna said I was recovered!” Gabrielle protested, glancing imploringly at the girl.

  “Yes, of course she did. But not fit for a three-day journey through treacherous swampland!”

  “Please help me, Janet.” The huge violet eyes were wet with tears, and Janet found herself torn.

  “All right, all right. I will help you escape, but not now, not today. We must wait. Lafitte has announced an auction at the Temple and he will be busy in the next few weeks transferring merchandise to the warehouse there. After he has left, you will be able to go.”

  It was the first week in February, and the day had dawned overcast. The threatening rain aided Gabrielle’s plans perfectly, for the weather would keep almost everyone indoors. She had decided to confiscate one of the little skiffs that was moored on the beach and use it to make her escape by water.

  Sitting now in the boat, she allowed it to draw its own course from the wind and the choppy waves while she rested in the stern, only directing the rudder in order to turn the boat into Barataria Bay and away from the island.

  She had no idea where she was going, or how she was going to get through the bayous without a guide, but anything was better than going back now, she thought with determination.

  Towards evening, the rain was coming down so hard that there was nothing for her to do but draw her blanket over herself and huddle beneath its warmth, finally dozing off so that the harsh cry of the gulls aroused her towards dawn. She glanced quickly at the dawning sun to make sure she was still headed in the right direction, realizing that she was on the open water of the bay now, and there was no sight of land anywhere.

  There descended about her an eerie silence that lasted through the close of the day, broken only by the cries of the sea birds and the splash of fish jumping in the water. That night the stars shone bright, fighting the water around her with a silvery glow. She shivered, feeling slightly spooked by the unfamiliar seascape.

  A little after dawn the next morning, she noticed the beginnings of a stretch of swamp, tall reeds poking above the waterline and here and there stray logs and lumps of rocky ground sticking up. She eyed the logs suspiciously, remembering from earlier travels through the swamp how swiftly innocent “pieces of wood” could turn into the long, flat snouts of deadly, silent alligators.

  The boat continued its course through the reeds, bumping once into a rock and so unnerving her that she screamed out loud, causing a flock of birds to take to the air, screeching harshly at her. She ate very little that second day, her appetite all but leaving her. As the night once more descended, she considered tying the boat to some jutting branch of a sunken tree but thought it might be too dangerous.

  By the next morning, she realized that she was very near exhaustion and forced herself to eat to keep up her strength. She had passed through a small lake the night before and had been able to take only s
hort snatches of sleep. The terrain became different again, changing from the tall marsh reeds to swamp cypress and heavy undergrowth. The vegetation was green and thick, and she realized that soon she would have to give up the boat for she was very near dry land.

  About midday, she saw that she could no longer continue with the boat and tied it to a tree, eating her lunch hurriedly. The food felt like a lump in her stomach, and she tied up her pack slowly, suddenly loath to leave the relative safety of the skiff. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the boat, immediately sinking in mud up to her ankles. The oozing slime filled her shoes, and with disgust she pulled her feet out of the muck.

  Finally she found firmer footing, and she set off in what she hoped was the direction of New Orleans. Later, it seemed as though she had walked for hours, heedless of anything but the driving force that sustained her, the need to survive. The terrain had changed once again. The ground was smoother, and there were broad-leaved trees and grass on the blessedly solid ground. With surprise, she saw that she was nearing the city’s edge. Gabrielle could see cattle grazing placidly and clusters of farm buildings on either side of her. A sprawling, six-pillared plantation house topped the crest of a hill. She felt better just seeing such evidence of civilization.

  Despite her harrowing experience of the past few days, she felt wonderfully alive and filled with a sudden optimism. She had beaten the swamp—hadn’t she? She knew already where she would go—to Renée’s, of course. Renée would look after her like a mother.

  In the near distance, Gabrielle could make out buildings rising from the cobbled streets of the town, and she would have started to sing aloud, but for safety’s sake she smiled secretly to herself instead. Now she must put away these last three years in the back of her mind. She would keep some of the fondest memories, and, certainly, she would never forget Lafitte. But, for the rest, it would be as though she had never existed on Grande Terre. Once again, a page in her life had turned.