Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 Page 6

  It was an hour before dusk when they reached the river. It doubtless had a name on some map drawn by explorers sent out by the company of the Indies in their searches for mines of gold and silver, but what it was Elise neither knew nor cared. Smaller by far that the Father of Waters, the Mississippi, it was still a wide and deep stream. It would require a raft to cross it, and to build it would take more daylight than was left to them. They would make camp for the night and cross in the morning.

  The packs were opened, disclosing bed furs of bear and fox, closely woven lengths of cloth, and short-handled axes, as well as sacks of cornmeal and mixed dry sagamite, that universal dish of cornmeal, and chips of dried meat and dried beans. There was a basket of some odd tubers and another of ripe persimmons and also a crock of bear grease, without herbs, for seasoning the food. Included, too, was a pair of sharp knives, an iron pot, and a set of six hand-carved wooden bowls and spoons. Reynaud had spent the time that he had left them alone before their departure well.

  Henri gathered wood while they were unpacking and Reynaud kindled a small but hot cook fire. The half-breed leaned over to place at Elise’s side a pair of ducks that he had killed in the late afternoon using silent skill with bow and arrow. Detailing Henri to carry water for her, he set St. Amant as guard with the musket, gathered axes and Pascal, and went into the woods. Elise set Madame Doucet to cleaning the ducks while she mixed the sagamite with water and put it on to simmer in the iron pot. By the time the men had returned, the ducks, basted with bear grease, were roasting on spits that she had cut from stout limbs, the sagamite was sending its rich smell into the air, and the corn cakes lay baking on a pot lid placed among the coals. There had been no difficulty with the food. The French had long since learned to cook as the Indians did, though not all liked it by any means. Elise, tending the meal, watched from the corners of her eyes as Reynaud and Pascal made five tent-like enclosures using the saplings they had brought from the woods. They bent each sapling in a half circle, three per enclosure, then lashed three more lengthwise before covering the frame thus made with cloth.

  The enclosures were not large, being slightly wider than a man’s shoulders and only high enough for one to creep into them. Their purpose was to offer some protection from the weather, but most of all to prevent sleepers from being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Four of them had been erected near the fire, with a fifth, this one wider at the base than the others, a small distance away. It took no great intelligence to realize that the last was meant for her to share with Reynaud Chavalier.

  Elise tried to avoid looking at that shelter set apart. It seemed to her overactive imagination that the others did the same. So scrupulous were they in looking away that their very tact drew attention to it. She felt that they were each thinking of what must take place in it when night drew in, some with pity, some with anger, and some with lascivious interest. The quick glances they divided between the half-breed and herself made that much plain.

  Her appetite deserted her and she finally scraped away the food from her bowl into the fire. She thought to while away a little more time before she had to retire for the night by cleaning the iron pot, bowls, and spoons, but Reynaud took them from her. With Henri, he went to the river’s edge where he scrubbed the pot with sand and sent the boy back with it filled with water to be heated over the fire. He washed the bowls and spoons, too, rinsing them well. Returning to the fire, he helped Elise dry them and put them away, along with the extra cakes she had made for their breakfast.

  Darkness had fallen while they worked. St. Amant had crawled into his shelter, as had Henri and Madame Doucet. Pascal was sitting, puffing on a narrow clay pipe much like the calumets, or peace pipes, of the Indians and staring into the fire. Reynaud closed and strapped the pack with the food in it, then got to his feet, moving to hang it on a tree limb out of reach of nocturnal animals that might be attracted by the smell. He stood for a long moment with his dark gray gaze resting on Elise, then moved away once more, out of the circle of firelight, in the direction of the river.

  The pot of water on the fire still simmered. Elise stared at it, feeling the itch of dried perspiration on her skin and the film of bear grease and woodsmoke. She picked up the tail of her habit and folded it into a protective holder against the heat of the pot’s bail, then lifted the water, carrying it with her in the direction of the shelter that had been set apart from the others.

  Unlike her fellow travelers, she refused to think of what would shortly happen inside the enclosure. Insofar as it was possible, she readied herself for bed exactly as she would have if she had been in the bedchamber of her home that lay smouldering somewhere across the river. Keeping the bulk of the cloth-covered poles between herself and the fire, she removed her habit and petticoat, then, after a moment of hesitation, stripped off her shift. She dipped the shift into the hot water, using it as a bathing cloth, and held it to the soreness of her muscles. When she was done, she rinsed it and hung it to dry across the top of the shelter. Then calmly, without stopping to reason why, she pulled her petticoat and habit back on, ducked into the shelter, and lay down as far to one side of the spread bed furs as she could get.

  For some time she lay stiffly, with every muscle taut. By degrees she relaxed as the minutes ticked past. Perhaps this was her shelter alone, perhaps with his Indian blood Reynaud preferred to sleep in the open? Could it be that he had changed his mind in the face of her obvious reluctance? Was it possible for him to be that considerate? She lay for a time listening to the night stillness. There was a rustling sound as a small animal, a raccoon or an opossum, investigated the camp and the quiet clatter of beech leaves still clinging to the tree that spread its limbs above her shelter. Perhaps Reynaud had met with an accident, a panther or a wildcat, or even a surprise attack by pursuing Indians?

  Her thoughts were sent scattering like dry leaves before the wind as there came a soft footstep outside and the lifting of the end flap. Her breathing quickened and she felt the leap of her heart before it began to thud against her ribs.

  His broad form filled the shelter, a dark shape against the greater darkness, bringing with it the freshness of the night. He was close, so suffocatingly close, as he hovered for an instant above her, then stretched out full length on the furs. She could pretend to be asleep. She could if she could control her breathing. But it was impossible. She heard him shift, turning toward her. She thought he whispered her name, but could not be sure. He pushed himself up onto one elbow and reached out to touch her.

  She swallowed a scream. His fingertips brushed her shoulder through her habit sleeve and a shudder ran over her. They trailed across her collarbone to sear the taut line of her neck. She stopped breathing and lay with her eyes tightly closed as waves of tremors wracked her. She wanted to stop them. She wanted to lie with cool hauteur, uncaring of what the half-breed did to her. But she could not. At the edge of sanity, she felt him pause. Endless seconds stretched.

  Then with slow deliberation he skimmed his hand downward, touching, clasping the trembling mound of her breast.

  Rage exploded inside her. She flung up her arms, knocking his hand away, pushing, clawing at him with a single word bursting from her throat. “No, no, no!”

  Swift and hard, his hands found and caught her wrists, pulling them inexorably above her head where he held them with one hand. He found her mouth with the other, stilling her cry. His muscular thigh clamped over her knees, holding them immobile, bearing down until she ceased to move. His hold was firm, inescapable. She felt the brush of a strand of his hair, wet as if he had just come from swimming, as he leaned over her. In the sudden quiet his voice had a harsh, accusing rasp.

  “It isn’t just me, is it?”

  Where the tears came from so soon after her intolerable wrath, she did not know, but they rose in her throat with hurtful pressure, overflowing her eyes and spilling down her face to pool against his restraining hand. He jerked it away with a stifled oath, releasing her in the same movement, pushing from her
until he was against the far side of the shelter.

  “Why?”

  The heat was gone from his tone, leaving confusion and slow-fading tension. She heard it with a relief that she could not acknowledge. Her voice thick with tears, she said, “What does it matter?”

  “Someone hurt you, a man, maybe more than one.” It was a statement, tentative, but holding the beginning of hard understanding.

  “One was enough.”

  “Your husband?”

  “My — husband.”

  “It is,” he said clearly, “an excellent thing that you are a widow.”

  Surprise stopped the salty flow of her tears. “What?”

  “Else someone would have had to make you one.”

  Someone? Himself? She lay still, intrigued and puzzled by the thought. He shifted and as he lay down his knee brushed her leg. She recoiled, scooting away from him.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. His voice was tight once more as he spoke. “You need not fear me. I have no use for a cringing woman in my bed.”

  The description was hardly flattering. Perhaps that was the reason that she was able to believe him, able to allow her cramped muscles to relax; able, finally, to obey the will of her weary body and drift to sleep.

  The soft rumble of distant thunder woke her. She gave a soft moan as she opened her eyes, expecting to see the pale light of dawn. It was still dark. Indeed, so black was the night that she could not see the outline of the man beside her, though she could feel his warmth. Coming awake with a start, she discovered that the reason the temperature of his body was so apparent was because her head was resting on his arm and her hand was lying lax with sleep on his belly.

  She smothered a gasp. Contracting stiff muscles, she began to withdraw by degrees. If she could remove herself from him without waking him, all would be well. Wide-eyed in the dark, she inched away.

  Lightning flickered, a white glare that illuminated the inside of the shelter. In that instant of light she saw that Reynaud was awake, though lying infinitely still, awake and watching her.

  She stopped, her breathing suspended.

  “All men are not the same,” he said, his voice deep and pensive.

  “No?” It was not reluctance to believe so much as it was an inability to do so.

  “I don’t expect you to accept my word; it’s something you will have to discover for yourself.”

  There was an inflection in the measured reason of his tone that troubled her. “I would rather not.”

  “You don’t have that choice.” He raised his hand to capture her fingers that lay slackly against him.

  She pulled sharply against his hold. When she could not free herself, she clenched her hand into a fist. “What — what do you mean?”

  “We made a bargain and I hold you to it. You will serve me as I — as I desire.”

  “But you said—” she began in panic.

  “And I meant it. I will not touch you.”

  “I don’t understand you!” That was better, she thought as she felt the rise of anger and heard it strengthen her protest.

  His chest lifted in a deep breath. “You will touch me.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You can. You will, if you and your fellow countrymen want to reach Natchitoches.”

  She went still. This was not a whim, but some carefully thought-out substitute for what he had originally planned. All the time she had been sleeping, he had been lying there thinking of some way to bend her to his will. If it had been only her own safety at stake, she would have defied him, but she could not take such a risk for the others. It was true that they were not in as great a danger now, on this side of the river; still, there were many leagues of dense forest between here and the post on the Red River, forests that could be traversed only by those who knew the way, those who could follow the cunningly blazed Indian trails. To pit her strength against him would be foolish, as she had already discovered, and even if she should prevail there was nowhere for her to go, no one to whom she could appeal for succor. Pascal and even St. Amant had already made it plain that they expected her to placate the half-breed regardless of the cost. Anger and defiance would not serve her then. She would need something more.

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You know that I can’t — that I—”

  “I know, yes. But how else are you going to learn to trust if you are never near a man, never intimate with one?”

  “Trust?” she inquired with cold scorn. “Trust a man who uses blackmail to gain his ends, one who issues the most cruel threats against helpless people? You must think me a fool.”

  He turned his head. “You prefer to remain a terrified rabbit, cringing when a man comes near you?”

  “I am not a rabbit! As for men, I make sure none ever come near.”

  “Then you are missing the supreme pleasure of life, its most vivid joy.”

  “The physical use of a woman by a man?” she asked in bitter irony. “I’ve never found it so.”

  “The love of a woman and a man together, a sharing, one of the other. It’s a different thing, something I would wager you have never had.”

  For a fleeting instant she was aware of the stir of curiosity. Ruthlessly she subdued it. “And you in your vast experience know it well?”

  He did not answer. Instead, he pried open her tight, chilled fingers and, controlling her shrinking, spread them over his chest, holding them there when she would have snatched them away.

  Tremors shook her in waves and she closed her eyes, turning her face into the firmness of his shoulder. His hand was warm and strong over hers, the grasp gentle, though inescapable. Slowly her trembling subsided. Her hand warmed against the radiating heat of his body. Beneath her sensitive palm she felt a peculiar throb and realized that it was the beat of his heart. The sensation vibrated along her nerves, a hard jarring that warned her that he was not so undisturbed as he wanted to appear. The knowledge brought an unwilling fascination. Through her mind flitted the words he had spoken earlier. It isn’t just me, is it?

  Was it possible that he had been hurt, in his pride at least, by her rejection of him, first at the soirée and later in the woods? It did not fit the picture she held of his hard indifference and yet he was undeniably affected by her. Could it be, was it possible, that the cause of his disturbance was the simple touch of her hand?

  No. She could countenance neither supposition. It must be that the desire he felt for her was stronger than she had any idea that emotion could be for a man. Perhaps he was right, then, perhaps all men were not the same. Maybe she was wrong to judge all men by the vicious demands visited upon her by Vincent Laffont.

  Even as she made rational sense of Reynaud’s purpose, the sensitive tips of her fingers found the faint ridges of the lines of tattoos that marked his chest. They made a concentric pattern, those lines, like links in a chain design set in rows, one above the other. They had been made by the pricking of some sharp-pointed instrument, like a bone needle, with soot or some dark plant dye rubbed into the injuries and left to heal. Meant not for decoration, but as a proof of manhood, they should have been hideous to her. Somehow they were not. Instead, she wished that it was daylight so that she might see them at this close range. At least he did not have them on his face as many warriors did, particularly across the forehead and bridge of the nose. That much of the appearance of a savage he had forgone.

  There was another thing. Unlike Vincent, whose body hair had been as thick as an animal’s pelt, or most other men she had seen in their shirtsleeves who seemed to have thick tufts sprouting at their necks, Reynaud’s chest was bare. She had noticed the phenomenon among the Indians before and particularly on the half-breed that night at the commandant’s house. There was no coarse growth to prevent her from pressing her hand fully against his chest, none to obscure the sculptured molding of the muscles that swathed his rib cage or to disguise their smooth play under his copper-bronze skin.

  Once more lightning flare
d with the roll of thunder close upon it. In its bright light Elise saw something she had overlooked until now. Reynaud, lying so still under her hand, was without a particle of clothing. She jerked away from him as if he had been suddenly transformed to a glowing coal.

  He caught her wrist. “What is it?”

  “You’re naked!”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “It does, it just does!”

  “You have my word,” he said, the words rough.

  “You — you won’t touch me, you promise?” She could not prevent the question or the catch in her voice as hers were spoken.

  “It is a vow, one most sacred, sworn on any saint you please, on the veil of the virgin, the true cross, by the beard of Louis XV, most Christian majesty, by the shadows of the walls of Combourg chateau and my father’s tomb—”

  “All right,” she said to stop the flow of the oath, “I believe you.”

  “Then place your hand upon me now, of your own will.”

  It was a demand, but one that also carried a hint of supplication. He released her. She lay unmoving for a long moment, then, with a slow, jerking motion, as if the flesh and tendons she controlled were not her own, she did as he asked.

  She placed her spread fingers on his diaphragm, sliding them upward and recognizing, with a familiarity that was oddly shocking, the pound of his heart, the ridges of his muscles, the tracing of his tattoo lines. He did not move and gave no sign of triumph. His breathing was steady, an even rise and fall, and his hands were at his sides. In the glow of lightning that now came with more regularity, she kept her lashes lowered. She did not want to know if he watched her. She was unwilling to risk seeing his nakedness, though it seemed that the flat expanse of his belly with the turgid length of his manhood upon it and the long, well-formed length of his legs were imprinted upon her memory.