Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 Page 4

  “Yes,” interrupted the merchant, Pascal, his voice harsh. “I seem to have heard a tale or two about these trails. Dangerous, they are, if I remember right, and long and hard.”

  “Regardless, it appears we have no choice.” St. Amant looked at Reynaud, but the other man only returned the Frenchman’s gaze without speaking.

  The merchant gave a hard nod. He spread his legs and put his fists on his hips. “Name your price, half-breed!”

  Until that moment, there had been no thought in Reynaud’s mind of profiting by the misfortune of the small band of French; he would have sworn it. Now something in the other man’s tone grated on his taut nerves like a flint knife scraping buffalo hide, mingling with the scorn shown him by the Widow Laffont to stir his anger. That they could despise him even while he was offering his help was bad enough, but that they should show it so plainly marked them as arrogant and bigoted ingrates who even in the deadliest of danger could not forget their prejudices. It would be best if their position was brought home in a single, sharp lesson.

  Still, he hesitated a moment as the idea took form in his mind. He was not certain whether it was prompted by the need to make these people aware of their dependence upon him, by sheer petty vengeance, or by something more that he did not care to name. Did it matter, in all truth? The impulse was too strong to be denied.

  “I have no price,” he said slowly. “All I require is the usual services.”

  “I don’t believe I understand.” The expression of the merchant who had become their spokesman was wary as he glanced from Reynaud’s intent face to the others.

  “It is the custom among the Natchez to supply male guests with a woman to see to their needs: to cook for them, to refill their food bowls, and to warm their bed furs on a cold night, whether in the village or on long hunts.”

  “You are saying that we should supply you with a woman, a Frenchwoman?”

  “What objection can there be?” Reynaud asked, one brow raised in polite inquiry. “There is one here who is acceptable to me, a widow not unaware of the ways of men.”

  “Why, you bastard!”

  Reynaud’s voice was soft as he spoke. “Is it too much to ask, too great an exchange for your lives?”

  Elise stared at Reynaud with the last vestiges of blood draining from her face and congealing in her veins. Madame Doucet stirred and gave a soft moan, but she did not notice. Coldness spread from the center of her being and she could hardly breathe. Her stiff lips formed a single word. “No.”

  Reynaud expected her swift objection, had set himself to listen to an impassioned appeal. If she had approached him in that vein as a civilized man, if she had asked him to reconsider, then he would have abandoned the suggestion on the instant, with apologies. Instead, he saw the horrified loathing in her face and felt his purpose harden. If she was so ready to think him the complete savage, what had he to lose by acting like one?

  “I am to understand you do not think it too much to ask?” His voice carried a hint of steel in its quiet irony. “How generous of you, Madame Laffont. I will accept your sacrifice.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “Wait, Madame Laffont, we must not be too hasty.” The merchant’s tone was soothing, almost oily, as if he thought her needlessly upset but considered it unwise to disturb her further.

  St. Amant, his face pale, looked at her, then away again. “It’s a question of — of life or death.”

  “It’s m-monstrous,” Henri declared, moving to stand protectively at Elise’s left shoulder as he glared at Reynaud. “That you c-can suggest it is beyond belief!”

  Indeed, it seemed so to Reynaud, and yet as he stated down at Elise Laffont he felt a tightness in his loins, an urgent need to hold her against him until the frantic disgust on her face turned to soft compliance. He wanted her, had wanted her from the moment her glance had clashed with his across the dining room of Commandant Chepart’s house the night before. That instant of self-knowledge played havoc with his resolve.

  “He can suggest it,” Elise said with venom, “because he is a monster indeed, a vile mongrel lower even than the Natchez who at least act out of righteous anger.”

  Reynaud’s head came up and his features hardened. “One capable of leaving you to meet that anger, if such should be your decision.”

  “Leave me then! Only take the others!”

  “Now how can I do that?” he asked, his voice soft. “Madame Doucet is a worthy woman, but no substitute for someone of your — charms.”

  Elise clenched her hands upon Madame Doucet’s arm and wrist so that the older woman groaned and opened her eyes to stare around in pain and bewilderment. There had been times before in her life when Elise had wanted desperately to strike out at a man, but they were as nothing compared to this moment.

  The merchant stepped forward. “She will go with us and she’ll be sensible about it; this I will assure you.”

  Reynaud transferred his gaze to the merchant and so dark with menace was it that the man stumbled backward again. “I want no unwilling woman, nor do I care for a damaged one.”

  “You think we would—”

  “I know not. I can only assume that you judge me by yourselves.”

  “I’m sure she’ll see reason.”

  “That may be. There are arrangements that must be made. I will return at dusk and will expect an answer then.”

  Reynaud directed one last glance at Elise where she still knelt at his feet. His features were hard, unreadable. Abruptly he swung around, moving away. Before he had taken a half-dozen steps, he had disappeared into the forest.

  Pascal argued with her in the long hours that followed, talking until he was hoarse with the effort to keep his voice down yet to convince her that she was a fool, that what was being asked of her was a mere nothing, a few days of unpleasantness soon over. When his temper rose, St. Amant stepped in to prevent the merchant from becoming abusive. Still, he conquered his own scruples enough to swear that he, St. Amant, would see to it that she was not ill-used, if that was her fear. Also, though the decision was, of course, hers alone to make, he would point out that she held in her hands the lives of four other people. For himself it did not matter, but she must remember that one was a woman like herself, another a young boy. It might well be a mistake to let pride and fear dictate a choice that she could live to regret.

  Elise was enough of a realist to recognize that they were right in their way; still, she could not overcome her revulsion. As the time grew shorter and Madame Doucet roused enough to add her tearful entreaties to their arguments, she began to feel the desperation of one cornered, left without a choice.

  In the end, it was the thickening pall of smoke, the sound of the drums, the piping of cane flutes, and the drunken shouts of celebration that forced her decision. There could be no doubt that the Indians were in command, that the vast majority, if not all, of the French were dead. There was no possibility of making a foray for food and water to sustain them without the risk of discovery. Every moment they remained where they were only increased the danger of some Natchez warrior walking up to them. If that happened it would mean torture for the men, without doubt, and for herself and Madame Doucet slavery at best. They had to get away and their best hope of doing so successfully was Reynaud Chavalier. As long as he was not before her, as long as she did not think of what she must do to assure his cooperation, she could convince herself that she could go through with it. Somehow. It could not be any worse than the alternative, could it?

  When she had given her assent, Elise was left alone, alone with her fears and her memories. She did not want to think about Vincent Laffont, not now, not ever. It was easier to think of France and of her father and their house on the Quai Malaquais.

  Her mother had died when she was thirteen, a difficult age to lose one’s maternal influence. For a year she and her father had consoled each other, then her father had begun to keep company with a certain Madame Rouquette. The Widow Rouquette had had a child, a boy of
eight years with beady eyes, a large moist mouth, and a nature that took pleasure in petty spite. He was the image of his mother. Within weeks, her father and Madame Rouquette had married, and the widow and her son had moved into the house that Elise had still thought of as belonging to her own mother.

  The months that followed were miserable. Elise’s father was completely under the thumb of his new wife, as much from an addiction to her overripe sensuality as from any overt domination. Her stepmother had disliked Elise on sight, partially because she was a constant reminder of her predecessor, but primarily because Elise, according to her father’s will, would inherit two-thirds of the estate on his death, should there be no issue of the new marriage. There had begun a slow campaign to make it seem that it was Elise who resented the new order and in time that was certainly true.

  The situation became harder and harder to bear, especially since her father, after a time, ceased to take her part. A month before her fifteenth birthday there had been a terrible quarrel over a lace shawl that had belonged to Elise’s mother. Her stepmother had taken up a broom handle to beat Elise and she had wrenched it from the older woman, striking back. The woman had run screaming from the house with blood pouring from a cut on her cheek. She had summoned the gendarmes and demanded that Elise be taken away to a house of correction.

  The days and weeks had passed. Elise had finally given up hope of being removed from the terrible correction house by her father. All she could think was that her stepmother must have told him she had run away. She hadn’t wanted to consider that he would allow her to be kept where she was, without protest, when his word alone would have been enough to secure her freedom. She had refused to think that it might be so.

  She had begun to listen to the women who were crowded into the correction house. Their tales were often, or so she suspected, a strange blending of fact and fancy, and yet there was enough horror in them to famish years of nightmares. A common thread running through them seemed to be the perfidy of men: men who took what they wanted with force or threats, without thought for the damage they caused; men with smooth tongues and consummate guilt who lied and cheated, then left the women behind. Much was made of their cruelty also, of their senseless rages and tortures, both physical and mental. As the stories she heard blended with the pain of her father’s betrayal, Elise came to despise the male sex.

  Then one day there had been a great bustle. Men had appeared with a proclamation that declared that they had the right to choose from among the correction girls, brides for the colonists of Louisiana. Those chosen would be given a small bundle of clothing, taken to the coast, and put on a ship for that distant colony. Once they had been signed up, there was nothing — no representation from parents or guardians, no bribe or legal maneuver — that could save them from the long journey to the new world. They had a quota to fill and none were exempt, though they preferred young females without vices or diseases. They had chosen a score or more of the women. Elise had been among them.

  The journey to the coast had been a trial of endurance. It had taken place in the dead of winter in an open cart. The women had been inadequately clothed, most wore thin summer stuffs, without capes or cloaks. They had been chained together at the waist, herded in and out of ordinaries and inns like cattle with little privacy from the soldiers guarding them while they attended to their physical needs. A fever had struck while they waited at Le Havre for a ship and several of their number had died. Other women had been brought to join the ship: women snatched off the streets and from the farmyards of small villages; women from the prisons of scattered towns, many branded with the fleur-de-lis that marked them murderesses, traitresses. Many more of them had failed to survive the storm-wracked voyage aboard the Mutine, and the rest were only half-alive when they finally reached port at Mobile.

  They had rested for a time, regaining their strength before continuing the voyage to New Orleans. In that city, the women had been taken in by the director of the Company of the Indies, Monsieur Jacques de la Chaise. Their wants had been attended to and they had been allowed to bathe, to wash their clothing, and to rest for a few days. During this respite, many men had come to stand before the director’s house, craning to get a look at them or to approach it with some trumped-up errand. At the end of a week, the women had been put on view at a reception.

  The women had been told that they would be able to choose their own life partners from the assembled men without coercion. It had not been that way for Elise. Vincent Laffont had swaggered into the room where the women were standing, looked them over like slaves at a market, and advanced at once upon Elise. He had given her no chance to refuse him, had not bothered to make a formal request for her hand, but had taken her at once to the director where he had made his choice known. Due to the unusual circumstances, the banns had been waived and the ceremony performed within the hour.

  Her husband, she had discovered, was a scoundrel. A man twenty years her senior, he was a merchant of sorts, though a more accurate title might well have been smuggler. His authority came directly from the offices of the Company of the Indies in France, as did his backing, so that he was able to circumvent the regulations — the regulations dig forbade trade with any except French vessels from French ports — of Governor Etienne de Perier and the Superior Council, and even of the company itself. It was this authority that had also permitted him to take piece-dence over the other men in his choice of bride. A swaggering man much given to food, drink, and the company of traders who shared his own lack of scruples, Vincent had made a fortune for the company trading with the Spanish and had also gained one for himself.

  He had given his bride no time at all to adjust to her new state. He had bedded her within minutes after the toasts to their healths had been drunk. It had been a painful and degrading experience. Vincent had not expected a virgin and so had used her like a common woman of the streets, without preparation or consideration. As she came to know him, Elise was not certain that it would have made any difference had he known it. He had enjoyed her shrinking and cries of anguish, had taken pleasure in forcing himself upon her. The act of sexual coupling had become a thing of horror for her. Long after it had ceased to be actively painful, it had been an invasion of her innermost being that left her sickened, something to be avoided at all costs. The coldness that she had adopted as a defense had only excited him, however. He had cared not at all for her passions, but had delighted in arousing her to anger and defiance just for the amusement of beating her into submission.

  He had overreached himself with the company, however, shortly after their marriage. Following an investigation into his affairs, instigated by the director, de la Chaise, his authority to trade was revoked by order from France. His ship and the goods that were on it at the time were impounded and sold, and he narrowly escaped charges of smuggling. He had been allowed to purchase land in the Natchez country near Fort Rosalie, the stockade and settlement named for the wife of the minister of state under Louis XIV, the Comte de Pontchartrain, and had retreated there to nurse his wounds and to plot ways of regaining his lost position.

  It was at this time that Elise had begun slowly to lose her fear of the man she had married. She had discovered that, in common with most bullies, he was a coward. So great was the rage that he had inspired with his spiteful comments and careless blows that she had ceased to care what damage he might do to her. She had refused to sleep in the same bed with him, and when he had tried to compel her, she had fought back, kicking, clawing, using whatever weapon came to hand. Once she had poured a pot of boiling sagamite, containing cornmeal, pork fat, ham, and beans, over his head. Another time she had chased him out of the house with an axe. It was after she had crushed three of his fingers with the heavy pestle she used in the pounding trough for turning dried corn kernels into meal that he had brought Little Quail into the house to serve his needs.

  Elise had lived for five of the seven years she had been in the colony unmolested by a man. In that time, the abhorrence sh
e felt for the physical act of love had grown rather than subsided. That it threatened her now filled her with as much terror as impotent age.

  Reynaud Chavalier was not the same kind of man that Vincent Laffont had been; she recognized that well enough. He was no braggart, no bully. The half-breed was a man of obvious strength, of implacable will, of deep-running desires that he controlled without effort. It would not be so easy to defeat such a man. There would be no bluster in his anger, no wavering in his determination to subdue her. That he was a half-breed mattered not at all, except that it was his Indian heritage that gave him the stoic hardihood that hid his emotions and made him, therefore, doubly dangerous. To use a man’s weakness, one must first find it, and as far as she had been able to tell in her brief acquaintance with Reynaud, he had none. It was these things that frightened her, these that she must add to the illogical terror she felt when she was near him because he was tall, overbearing, and had shown a flicker of interest in her as a woman; because the blood that ran in his veins had a fierce taint; but, most of all, simply because he was a man.

  3

  BY THE TIME the early dusk of November deepened into darkness, the small group under the magnolia was thirsty, hungry, and near dagger-drawing with each other from the tight stretch of their overwrought senses. They were no longer speaking. Elise, driven close to madness by the barrage of angry demands and strident pleas for her to rescue them with her cooperation, had withdrawn to sit alone with her back to the tree trunk and her hands clasped between her knees. Madame Doucet, told in a savage undertone to cease her moaning or be strangled, was sitting, staring at nothing, while her hands pulled and patted her dress as if it was a child’s blanket. Exhausted by his terror of the morning, Henri had fallen into a jerking, twitching sleep while St. Amant sat rubbing his injured leg and Pascal strode up and down, ostensibly on watch.