The Stone that the Builder Refused

by Madison Smartt Bell

  Dessalines came away from his conference with Toussaint looking well pleased. He swung onto his horse and rode to the town, while Toussaint remained in the fort throughout the day, with Placide and Guiaou following him, overseeing the digging of ditches and the placement of cannon that were being dragged in. Though the doctor, Fontelle, and even Placide besought him to rest, to seek the shade, to take a tisane brewed against his fever, Toussaint ignored them all; he would only crumple, for a few minutes, when the fever turned to wracking chill, and jumped back to his feet as soon as the chill had passed.

  Once the wounded were resettled, a little after noon, the doctor gave up the struggle with Toussaint and walked down to the town himself. Outside the priest’s house behind the church, he encountered Madame Dessalines, and made her his deepest bow. The lady returned him a nod and a warm smile. It had not been quite a year since Dessalines had married Marie Félicité Claire Heureuse Bonheur. The couple had begun to celebrate their marriage, the second for them both, here at Petite Rivière. Though the doctor had not been present, he was familiar with the tale. Everyone had been feasting and singing and dancing the carabinierwhen messengers arrived with the news of the Moyse rebellion. At once Dessalines had abandoned his bride to enter the field of those new battles. According to rumor, their courtship had begun on a battlefield too, when Marie Félicité had presented herself to Dessalines with a plea that he allow some water and medicines to be sent into the town of Jacmel, which he was then besieging.

  Père Vidaut stood in his doorway, watching her go. When she’d turned the corner, the priest motioned the doctor inside. They passed through two simply furnished rooms and emerged into a tiny enclosed garden at the rear, where they sat in the shade of the one almond tree. An acolyte served coffee, cassava bread, and some fruit. The doctor ate with a sudden hunger, and told the priest of the work under way at the fort. In the course of the morning more troops had arrived, one phalanx commanded by Magny and another by Lamartinière, and both Morisset and Monpoint were present, each with a squadron of cavalry, so there was a great concentration.

  “So,” said the priest. “On our side, with the help of Madame Dessalines the captives have been paroled to the town, though they may not leave its limits. As to what will follow . . .” He shrugged. “It’s rumored that Leclerc’s columns are not very far off.”

  “Toussaint doesn’t seem to mean to retreat,” said the doctor. He recalled Dessalines’s project to burn Petite Rivière, but maybe that plan too had been altered by Toussaint’s arrival; he did not mention it to the priest. From a few words dropped by Placide and Guiaou, he’d gathered that Toussaint had just come from a lightning tour of his posts inland along the Artibonite and through the mountains from Mirebalais—all these still held, but it appeared that Petite Rivière was to be the first point of strong resistance. The doctor began to wish he were elsewhere. But what were his chances now of slipping away? What Descourtilz had said weakened his confidence in the project of escaping into the mountains alone.

  He left the priest and went to call on Massicot. The house was calmer than the day before, with shutters open to the breeze. Massicot stood in the backyard, lowering blackened strips of banana peel to the grateful jaws of Fanfan. Descourtilz and Pinchon had found berths among the surgeons here. They’d had an unpleasant journey to Petite Rivière, the doctor learned, chivvied along by Dessalines’s troops on the retreat from the embers of Saint Marc. Many had seen their properties burned as they crossed the Artibonite valley, and a few had been killed, either for an example or only on the whim of Dessalines.

  “A terrible man,” Pinchon said tremblingly. “A savage! If he opens his snuffbox, one’s life depends on whether he finds his tobacco damp or dry . . .”

  “Condui li pissé,” Descourtilz muttered.

  “What?” said the doctor.

  “Take him off to piss,” Descourtilz repeated, smearing his thin, sweat-sticky hair back over his round head. “That is his phrase if one is to be killed—it’s your own blood you’ll be pissing.”

  “Or, fé pyé-li sauté tè!” Pinchon said with a shudder. “Make his feet jump off the earth—have you heard that one?”

  “Gentlemen,” said the doctor. “These strike me as unhealthy reflections.”

  “What would you?” Pinchon lapsed into a sulk. Descourtilz only shrugged and looked toward the rear window.

  “One might get away, perhaps?” the doctor said. “What do you know how it is in the direction of Ester, or further to the north?”

  “Oh,” said Descourtilz. “The arrival of French troops is rumored hourly, yet always they seem to come too late. The inhabitants of Saint Marc were butchered while General Boudet looked on, so we hear— from a distance just too great for him to intervene. Our guards drank themselves unconscious one night before we came here, but though we might have got away there was no place to run to—nowhere in all the country to hide from these marauders.”

  “And that old fool cares only for the safety of his pig,” Pinchon said, with a bitter jerk of his jaw toward the backyard.

  “It occupies his mind, I suppose,” the doctor said. “Well, Toussaint has come, at least—he is not likely to mistreat us.”

  Descourtilz snorted. “Toussaint prefers not to bloody his own hands,” he said. “He leaves that work to some other to do, and turns his face away.”

  “You oughtn’t to speak ill of him,” the doctor said. “He’s your best hope.”

  He took his leave and found Bienvenu waiting for him outside the back fence, ready with remonstrances for his leaving the fort without an escort, even by broad day. At this moment Bienvenu’s solicitude made the doctor feel all the more confined. His own chance of escape from this situation was probably no better than Descourtilz’s. Toussaint was also his own best hope, and Toussaint looked dangerously ill. With Bienvenu, the doctor climbed slowly to the fort, his limbs leaden in the afternoon heat. The ditch outside the walls was now so deep that Guiaou had to lay aside his shovel and span it with a plank for the two of them to cross.

  Men were dragging new cannon to the reinforced embrasures, but no one paid the doctor any mind. In the shade of his ajoupa, he furtively scratched a shallow trench by the wall and there interred his long rifle, wrapped in a cloth, then spread his sleeping mat over the loose dirt. His pistols he hid in his straw macoute, under the packets and bundles of herbs. If Dessalines should catch him armed—no, Descourtilz was right, at least for the moment. There was no flight, and resistance would certainly be fatal.

  The fort had emptied when he came out of the ajoupa; everyone was working on the ditches outside. The doctor set his hands on his hips and arched into the ache at the small of his back, turning in the direction of the sun that lowered over the powder magazine. A silhouette emerged from beside the building; the doctor squinted and shaded his eyes. The afterburn of the sun’s glare spread a black cross over his vision, and out of the cross Toussaint emerged, staggering blindly toward the doctor.

  “Dessalines!” Toussaint moaned, unaware that anyone looked or listened. “Sé Baron pou moin li yé. Dessalines will betray me to my death.”

  But this must be delirium. The doctor turned to track Toussaint as he passed, still incoherently murmuring. The illusion of the black cross still burned across his eyes; it must be only a sunspot. Toussaint passed through the gate and tottered over the plank that bridged the ditch. The doctor watched him wander into the twisting trails of the bitasyon beyond.

  That night he slept very poorly. A whistle of a night bird or the rustle of wind-stirred palm leaves was enough to bring him bolt upright, gasping, one hand scrabbling in the macoute for the blunt comfort of a pistol grip. For that, he checked his wounded often, though he did not go armed when he left the fort to find them in their new shelters on the edge of the bitasyon. Where Toussaint had got to, no one seemed to know. The doctor half suspected that he’d crawled off somewhere to die.

  But maybe it was more likely he’d gone in search of one of those
old women around the region whom he trusted to cook and care for him. When he rematerialized in the fort next morning, his fever seemed to have broken and his eyes were clear. He poured himself into the organization of the defenses with all his old accustomed energy. Though he would accept no treatment, day by day the doctor saw him strengthen.

  In the space of four days all was ready to his satisfaction, and on the morning of the fifth Toussaint called his commanders into the fort. By then they included Dessalines, Lamartinière, Magny, Monpoint, and Morisset, and as many men as the walls would contain pressed into the fort behind him. Toussaint addressed them formally, as he had at Ravine à Couleuvre. No one seemed to mind the doctor, who sat crosslegged under the leafy fringe of his ajoupa—or maybe Toussaint wanted a blanc witness.

  “I am returning to the north today,” he declared. “I must get news of Maurepas, and I will bring Christophe with me as I pass to Leclerc’s rear. If God wills it, I will return with Maurepas and the Ninth Demibrigade to relieve you here. Till then I confide the defense of this place to your valor!” He swept his arm toward the eastern mountains, which the rising sun had just cleared. “This place and all the lines it covers. There is a good supply of powder here, and Dessalines will get more from the reserve at Plassac. General Vernet is coming to you soon with dried beef and beans and urns for water. Bon courage!”

  Dessalines made no reply, but looked off over the parapet, rather moodily, the doctor thought. Perhaps he was thinking of his wife, who would likely have to leave Petite Rivière, if this sort of siege was to be expected. It was Monpoint who stepped forward.

  “General,” he said, “you may leave without worry—we who remain will be worthy of your confidence, dead or alive.”

  There was a cheer, then Morisset added—“All I regret is that I, your old companion at arms, will not go with you through the dangers you are going to meet!” But he was smiling as he spoke, and among all the men the mood was elevated.

  Toussaint stepped forward to clasp Morisset’s hand, then turned and kissed Placide quickly on both cheeks. The senior officers returned his salute, and Toussaint walked briskly through the gate and crossed the ditches. Astride Bel Argent, he touched his hat brim.

  “Kenbe là,” he called. Hold on. With that he turned the white stallion on the trail to the interior. One company of dragoons spurred their horses after him, and seven infantry companies marched behind. The balance of the force Toussaint had brought—one infantry batallion and the two cavalry squadrons of his honor guard—remained at Petite Rivière.

  So too did Dessalines remain. He stood looking dourly over the parapet at the slow muddy wind of the river below, half-consciously fidgeting with his snuffbox. If Toussaint’s oration had roused the same feeling in him as in the other officers, he concealed it well. The doctor watched the snuffbox move from one pale palm to the other. Dessalines looked up and caught his eye. Feigning unconcern, the doctor broke the glance. He gathered his instruments and herbs and, with Bienvenu, left the fort to walk to the new camp of the wounded at the edge of the bitasyon behind. If he felt eyes drilling into his back as he passed through the gate, at least no one moved to hinder him.

  Fontelle had established her cauldron in the spot to which the wounded had been moved. There proved to be as good foraging here as in the town, and it was more out of the way of the new influx of troops. Already she’d cooked a quantity of small yellow sweet potatoes for their breakfast. They ate and set to the work of changing dressings. The doctor kept away from the fort all that day, though it was near enough through the sheltering trees that he could hear picks slamming into the soil and men grunting as they dragged cannon into place. Toussaint had brought heavier guns, eight- and twelve-pounders mostly.

  At evening, with Fontelle and Paulette and Bienvenu, he walked down to Petite Rivière. Clouds were hurrying over the sky, blotting the stars as soon as they appeared. A stray guinea hen, covering her chicks, darted across the trail ahead of them. As the hen took shelter in the brush, a military drumbeat began in the town below.

  “They are beating the general.” Bienvenu cocked his head to the drum. His gait picked up the rhythm. The doctor felt a cold bolt run down from the top of his skull to the place in the ground where his heel struck. All day he had managed not to think of what Toussaint’s departure might portend. Now whatever it was had begun. He reached for Fontelle’s and Paulette’s hands and squeezed them briefly, then let go. Fontelle walked with her turbanned head held high, eyes fixed on the way before them, her long face angled toward the sound of forty drums. Though less obviously than Bienvenu’s, her pace seemed influenced by the beating.

  By unspoken accord they went to the church, circling to the rear, since the drums were loudest in the square in front. The door was shut but they found Père Vidaut in the house behind, stuffing a few garments into a cracked and moldy leather portmanteau.

  “What has happened?” the doctor said. “What is happening?”

  “I can’t be sure but I fear the worst,” the priest said shortly. Neither of his young black acolytes was anywhere in sight. “This morning they rounded up all the prisoners from the plain into the warehouse again, and now they are hailing them into the square—I interceded for the release of a few. But I can do no more here now. I am going to seek the protection of Madame Dessalines.”

  He pulled the portmanteau shut by the handles and turned to face the doctor. “You’d have done better to stay on the height,” he said. “Among your patients—where your value as a doctor would not be forgotten.”

  “What of the surgeons at Massicot’s?”

  “Gone to ground, if they are wise.” The priest paused. “I got Descourtilz out of the warehouse. He may have gone to Massicot’s—I don’t know. But follow me—there’s not much time.”

  They crossed the dooryard to the rear of the church—the priest darted in through a small portal behind the altar. In the stale darkness within he groped for chalice and salver and stuffed them into the portmanteau atop the wads of his clothing. The doctor could barely distinguish his movements in the dark. Fontelle and Paulette were pressed against his back. Through a chink in the closed front door came a bar of torchlight from the square.

  “Wait,” said the priest. “What’s that?” Voices had been raised beyond the church door—the doctor recognized Dessalines and Lamartinière. The priest moved lightly to the crack and the doctor followed. Their heads knocked together as they both stooped to peer.

  The doctor lowered himself to one knee and found a wider gap before his eye. He could hear the priest’s hoarse breathing above him. Through the crack he saw the hundreds of white prisoners who’d been herded into the square, half naked most of them, arms bound with rags of their own shirts. Their faces were drawn and haggard in the torchlight. Just below the church steps were two men who looked utterly possessed by panic, both wearing soiled and sweat-stained French uniforms, one army and one naval.

  “No,” said Dessalines. “From tonight, we hold no prisoners. These two will follow all the rest.”

  Lamartinière had turned to face him. “You will be answerable to the Governor-General if they are harmed,” he said. “As I will be.” He laid a hand on his sword grip. “As I am.”

  “Ah,” the priest breathed. “Sabès and Gimont.”

  “Who are they?” the doctor whispered.

  The priest’s lips rustled at his ear. “Prisoners—hostages. Lamartinière brought them here when he came. They have been kept under guard apart from the rest. Gimont is a naval officer, Sabès an emissary—they brought messages to Port-au-Prince before Boudet landed his troops there, but Lamartinière took them captive and has held them till now . . .”

  “And you know all this?”

  “Dessalines sent them to confession this morning,” the priest muttered. “Now I know why.”

  The doctor pressed his eye socket to the crack. Dessalines’s face was knotty and dark. His fingers fluttered on the lid of his snuffbox. But then he let out a short h
arsh laugh.

  “Your respect for Old Toussaint has grown,” he said to Lamartinière, who faced him, vibrating with resolve. “Well, save your blade to kill the blancs. You may send this pair to Toussaint’s camp at Grand Cahos if he wants them so much—only get them out of my sight, and quickly.”

  As Lamartinière loosened his grip from his sword pommel, Gimont, the naval officer, fell onto his knees, gasping. Sabès bore the shock of relief with less demonstration. A couple of Lamartinière’s men came up quickly to lead them away. But Dessalines had already turned to his men in the square. Though the doctor could not make out his words, they were received with loud shouting and wild brandishing of torches. Then the soldiers closed in and began to press the bound prisoners out of the square, toward the edge of town. More fifes shrilled, echoed by trumpeting conch shells, and many of the men began to thrust their torches into the eaves of the buildings that they passed. The drums had gone on beating the whole time.

  “We can’t wait longer.” The priest pulled away from the door and moved toward the altar. “They will burn the church too before they are done. Let me take these women to Madame Dessalines—they won’t be molested if they aren’t caught with you.”

  “What a comfort,” the doctor said drily. “Well, but you’re right.” He squeezed Paulette’s hand. Fontelle gave him a quick hard hug.

  “If you can get to Nanon or Madame Tocquet—” He forced a smile. “Tell them I am waiting out this trouble at La Crête à Pierrot.”

  “God defend you, then.” The priest made the sign of the cross. The alley behind the church was still calm when they came out. The priest led the two women quickly away; Bienvenu drew the doctor in the opposite direction, toward the fort.

  “Wait,” the doctor said. “First I want to see if there is anyone at Massicot’s.”

  Bienvenu tugged his elbow mutely; the doctor shook free. Bienvenu folded his arms, shook his head heavily three times, then followed him. They met no one on the way but white people scattering from their houses—apparently the local whites, as well as the captives from the plain, had been elected to the massacre. The back door of Massicot’s house burst open as they reached the fence.