Tainted Lilies

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  Pierre stood away from her for a moment and pressed his palm to the front of her apron, a look of wonder on his face when he felt his child moving inside her body.

  “I can feel the baby,” he said, as if witnessing a miracle. “A son, Marie Louise? How can you be sure?”

  “Oui, mon coeur,” she answered with happy tears in her eyes. “I talked to the voodoo woman. She cast a spell and foretold a manchild.”

  “Then we’ll name him Jean,” Pierre said.

  Nicolette watched Jean Laffite’s face glow with an awed pleasure she had never seen there before. She reached across the table and took his hand. She could detect the faintest trace of tears in his eyes.

  Pierre didn’t have long to wait to meet his son. Just before dawn on September 16, Marie Louise’s restless tossing awoke him.

  “Darling?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  For a few moments she didn’t answer, but he could hear her breathing deeply. When she spoke, there was a warm joy in her voice. “Pierre, please get Nikki. Our baby has decided to join us this morning.”

  Baby Jean was not the only early visitor. Six gunboats and an armed sloop lay just beyond the harbor, waiting.

  Marie Louise, who had midwifed hundreds of births, did most of the work herself. But Nicolette lent a hand, following the mother’s instructions precisely, fascinated by a miracle she had never before witnessed. At the exact moment when Nicolette slapped the tiny, red rump and forced out little Jean’s first cry, the ships opened fire.

  “Mother of God, do not let them kill my baby!” Nicolette heard Marie Louise pray fervently.

  “Stay calm,” Nicolette ordered in a voice that was anything but composed. “I’ll get Jean. He’ll tell us what’s happening.”

  But before Nicolette could leave the room, Jean Laffite burst in with Pierre fast on his heels. A babble of four voices and the cry of the newborn ensued. What came out of it all was as near total confusion as Nicolette had ever been a part of.

  Pierre was too overcome with joy at the birth of his son to care one way or the other about cannons booming in the Gulf. Jean, on the other hand, only glanced at his namesake and muttered the briefest congratulations to the mother and father. There would be time for that later. Right now, the important thing was that it appeared that Governor Claiborne had accepted Laffite’s offer of help.

  “Those are American ships out there, darling!” he told Nicolette excitedly. “Do you realize what that means? They’ve come down here to transport us all to New Orleans to set up the defenses!”

  Nicolette tried to share his enthusiasm, but she was worn out from tending to little Jean’s birth. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “You’ve spoken to some of them already?”

  “No, I haven’t talked to them, but that’s the only reason they could be here,” he insisted. “It’s Commodore Patterson’s Carolina.”

  “But, Jean, they’re firing on us!” Nicolette said.

  “Only a salute,” he answered. “Come with me. We’ll go to the veranda and hail them back with the American flag.”

  He half-dragged the weary woman with him to the front of the house. Only then did Jean Laffite realize his mistake. Grande Terre was under full attack from the American ships.

  Dominique Youx, already aware of their situation, was dashing about, getting the men in order to defend their island.

  “Get that cannon to the beach!” he yelled. “Haul up those palm trunks to make a barricade! We’ll show the bloody whoremongers!”

  “Dom, no!” Laffite shouted to his brother. “Don’t fire!”

  Youx turned toward the veranda with a black scowl on his face. “Christ, Boss! What are you talking about?”

  “This has to be a misunderstanding. I won’t have you firing on the American flag!” Laffite called back. “We’ll take to the swamps for the time being.”

  “They’ll find out their mistake soon enough when they taste a few of our cannonballs!”

  “No!” Laffite yelled. “I forbid you to fire on our country’s own ships!”

  The whole island rocked under explosions which produced a frenzy of pandemonium. Men dashed in all directions trying to find out what their orders were. Youx moved among them, telling them not to fire, though he thought his brother was insane for giving such a command.

  Nicolette and Pierre helped Marie Louise, her infant at her breast, into one of the pirogues. The baby screamed with fear at the hideous sounds around them—cannon blasts which shook the island and sharp cracks of gunfire.

  Mother of God! Nicolette thought. They’re killing our men!

  The cries of the wounded and dying still echoed in her ears after Laffite joined them and they headed back into the bayous, away from the battle.

  “How bad is it?” Pierre asked over the baby’s wails.

  “As bad as it can get,” Laffite answered grimly. “Before they’re done, the whole commune will be leveled.”

  The toll was higher than even Jean Laffite imagined. Every building on the island was destroyed except for the warehouses. From those, over five hundred thousand dollars worth of goods were confiscated. Scores were killed and eighty men captured—among them, Dominique You and Reyne Beluche.

  The little band of refugees from Grande Terre moved on through the swamps in stunned silence.

  “What now?” Nicolette finally asked.

  “God alone knows,” Laffite answered, his voice hollow with shock and disillusionment.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The gold of September faded into the chill gray of October. Rain poured down relentlessly, turning New Orleans into a sea of mud. The population, already depressed by the season of sickness and death just past, could only look forward to more misfortunes.

  The British Dragon was threatening. And still, no help loomed on the horizon. Women stayed off the streets, not only because of the foul weather, but fearful that spies were already in their midst and might snatch them as hostages. Men met at the exchanges and coffeehouses about the city to talk in guarded tones and grumble about the weather, the shortness of supplies since Grande Terre had been destroyed, and the very real possibility that they might soon be subjects of yet another cruel king.

  Laffite, who had holed up with Nicolette, Pierre, Marie Louise, and the baby in the cramped quarters at The Temple, soon ventured into the city and found it safe. Governor Claiborne and his troops had their hands too full with much more pressing matters to continue their pursuit of old grudges. Besides, the Governor reasoned, Laffite was powerless with so many of his men dead or imprisoned.

  So it was with some surprise that Governor Claiborne looked up from his desk one evening to find Jean Laffite standing before him.

  “How did you get in here?” Claiborne growled, noting that his aide was suspiciously absent.

  “I have many friends in the government house… friends who don’t mind opening a few doors for me.”

  “I could open a door for you myself—to the darkest cell in the Cabildo!”

  Claiborne remained seated. His anger showed not only in his voice, but in the clenching and unclenching of his fists on the leather top of his desk.

  “I’d assumed your lousy jail was filled to capacity after your commodore’s raid on Grande Terre. As for opening cell doors, that’s one thing I’ve come to discuss with you.”

  “Get on with it! Why are you here, Laffite?”

  “That’s a good question. Maybe I’ve come to give you a lecture on honor—on repaying the offer of aid with death and destruction. What I should do is offer you a cup of coffee at dawn, though I doubt you’d get to drink yours.”

  Claiborne’s naturally florid face paled suddenly. “See here, Laffite, if you think I’m going to fight a duel with an outlaw, you’ve lost what little sense you ever had!”

  “I only said maybe I should challenge you. I have more sense than you give me credit for. If I fought you, and if one of us were killed, that would leave one less man to defend this city. And, by God, whether
you realize it or not, you’re about to need every man you can muster—including my Baratarians!”

  The governor laughed, but the sound had a nervous edge to it. “You haven’t enough men left to defend a sandbar! At full strength you couldn’t even defend your own island! We took Grande Terre without a single casualty—a fine morning’s exercise!”

  Laffite, goaded beyond his limit, reached across the desk and caught Claiborne by the shirtfront, raising him out of his chair.

  “Do you know why you were able to take my land so easily? I let it be taken rather than fire on my country’s flag!”

  Laffite released the man before he was tempted to follow his urge and strangle him. He stepped back, a nerve in his clenched jaw twitching a warning as he struggled to gain control over his murderous anger.

  “I don’t see…” Claiborne began.

  Laffite cut him off with, “You certainly, by God, don’t!”

  The men stared at each other for several tense moments before Claiborne shied away.

  “Now you’re going to listen to what I have to say or I will have satisfaction and I won’t wait for the dueling field!” Laffite’s hand clutched his sword guard to emphasize his seriousness. “I offered my help defending New Orleans. Now I’m demanding that that offer be honored! I want my men released and in return I’ll call in the hundreds still hiding out in the bayous, arm them, and set them on guard at the four forts around the city. When the British come—and, mark my words, they will—we’ll be ready for them!”

  Claiborne hated Laffite. The man was everything he was not. But more than that, he hated his present position. The impotence of New Orleans in the face of invaders enraged him. Who did the great fathers in Washington City, or what was left of it, think he was going to send out against the redcoats? A few untrained men? A band of free men of color? Boys who spent their days stealing vegetables from the market? No! As much as he detested Jean Laffite, the pirate had offered him a better solution than anyone else to date.

  “You know that General Jackson is on his way here?” Claiborne asked.

  “On his way, yes!” Laffite replied. “But when will he arrive… with how many troops and what arms?”

  Claiborne shook his head. The feeling of defeat weighed heavily upon him.

  “I have muskets, flints, and above all else, men who know how to use them and are willing to fight.”

  “You make a strong case, Laffite. But I can’t give you an answer right now. I’ll have to contact Jackson. He’s the military commander for this region. I do promise you this, though—I’ll do everything in my power to get him to accept your offer. Not that it pleases me. God help me, it’s bitter as gall to have to rely on outlaws to save this city!”

  “I’m staying at my house in Bourbon Street. You can reach me there when you receive Jackson’s answer.”

  Laffite turned and left, his mission accomplished. He walked back to the Vernet house, where Nicolette was visiting her family, with his head held a trifle higher and his thoughts less troubled than they had been for months. Even the steady rain and the cold, ominous breath of the Mississippi failed to dampen his spirits. Jackson would say yes… he had to!

  Governor Claiborne was swift enough in sending Laffite’s message to “Old Hickory,” who was somewhere between Florida and Louisiana at the time. The final decision and the fate of New Orleans were out of his hands at last. He would trust in fate and Andy Jackson to make the right move next.

  But Jackson, on guard for any tricks from the “perfidious Britons,” interpreted Jean Laffite’s offer of aid as less than sincere. Hadn’t he already read the document from the British offering Laffite a handsome reward, a commission in the Royal Navy, and captured lands to his followers in exchange for their services against the United States? What kind of fool did they take him for? Did they think he would jump at the opportunity to have a gang of “hellish banditti” swell his meager ranks? Well, then, the king’s men were bigger bloody fools than they took him for!

  Andrew Jackson sent his answer back to Governor Claiborne—a resounding and unequivocal no.

  “The man’s out of his mind!” Laffite stormed when Edward Livingston brought the news from Claiborne. “Doesn’t he know the situation here?”

  Livingston gave Laffite a warning look. They were at a table in the smoky upstairs of Maspero’s Exchange and it was crowded with people—any one of whom might be a British spy.

  “I doubt seriously if Jackson realizes yet how desperate things are here. Claiborne’s not going to be able to raise more than two thousand men to fight—all civilians and three-quarters of them black. And that includes the two hundred and eighty-seven ‘soldiers’ in the Battalion d’Orleans. The British, we know, have at least twelve thousand seasoned troops!”

  Laffite sat scowling into his ale mug. “What more can I do?” He shrugged. “Tell me, Edward!”

  Livingston patted his friend’s shoulder. “Go home and spend some time with Nicolette. You haven’t slept two hours at a stretch or had one decent meal in the past month. Forget about all this for the night at least. Worrying isn’t going to solve the problem. Maybe when Jackson gets here he’ll change his mind.”

  An old light gleamed in Laffite’s eyes. “Maybe we can persuade him to change his mind, you mean!”

  Livingston winked and said, “Be gone with you now!”

  Nicolette paced the salon of the Laffite mansion. She hadn’t seen Jean in nearly two weeks. Would he be home tonight? From time to time he sent Xavier or Gator-Bait with a message for her—usually saying that he wouldn’t be home. But now she needed him. Her nerves were strung taut after her mother’s outburst earlier in the day.

  Nicolette had confided in the ailing woman that she was going to be a grandmother. Instead of the pleasure Nicolette had hoped her news would bring, her mother had become hysterical—screaming for Nicolette to leave her house and never set foot under her roof again.

  “Trollop!” Francine Vernet had yelled at her. “Guttersnipe!” and finally the name that cut the deepest, “Pirate’s whore!”

  Her father and Gabrielle had tried to calm Nicolette’s mother, but finally they had to send for the doctor. As Gabrielle saw her niece out, she had said, as gently as she could, “Perhaps, ma chère, it would be better if you and Jean stayed away for a time. Frannie takes several days sometimes to get over one of these attacks. It wouldn’t do for her to see you before she is herself again. I’ll come to your house and visit when I can get away. You know your maman didn’t mean all those awful things she said. She loves you, Nikki. Your papa and I love you too, dear.”

  But as Nicolette had walked the short distance from her parents’ home to the one she shared with Jean Laffite, each step had seemed to take her miles. It was terrible enough to be estranged from her family, but with the trouble brewing, she couldn’t bear it.

  Just as her tears and the heavy rain began again, she heard the carriage gate opening.

  “Jean!” she cried, running to see if it could possibly be him. It was.

  “Darling,” he answered, sheltering her with his arms when she rushed out into the rain to meet him. “You’ll be soaked!”

  “I don’t care! Just hold me… hold me close, darling. Never let me go!”

  They stood embracing in the courtyard, the gray November rain wetting them through. But neither seemed to notice. The warmth of their nearness chased ail the chills from their minds and bodies.

  Once again, Nicolette realized that everything in her life, especially her happiness, depended upon one person—Jean Laffite.

  On an afternoon in the first week of December, Nicolette and Laffite stood in a cold drizzle outside the three-storey house at 106 Royal Street. Everyone in town seemed to be crowded together to get their first glimpse of General Andrew Jackson.

  Nicolette did not know what she’d expected, but surely not the gaunt, cadaverous man standing on the second-floor gallery. “Old Hickory” was enormously tall and painfully thin, wasted by dysenter
y and the hard-fought Indian wars in Florida and Alabama.

  His uniforme—old, dun-colored britches and a blue Spanish cape—did nothing to enhance his image. Every threadbare stitch hung on his frame like rummage on a scarecrow. He was spattered with mud from the worn, leather cap, which only partially protected his wild mane of silvery-red hair from the rain, to his scuffed dragoon boots. Nicolette thought to herself that she had seen handsomer corpses.

  “Jean, he looks ill! How will he lead troops?” she whispered.

  “Half his army’s in no better shape than he is. But, they say, what he lacks in strength, he makes up for with sheer willpower and toughness. That’s why they call him ‘Old Hickory.’”

  Edward Livingston stood beside the general to translate his words into French, since many New Orleanians, including Mayor Nicholas Girod, spoke not a word of English. Livingston raised his hands for silence and General Jackson began in his gravelly Tennessee accent: “I have come to protect this city. I will drive our enemies into the sea or perish in the effort. Good citizens, you must all rally around me in this emergency, cease all differences and divisions, and unite with me in patriotic resolve to save this city from dishonor and disaster, which a presumptuous enemy threatens to inflict upon it.”

  His speech was short and to the point. Jackson was calling for Creoles, Americans, all citizens of Louisiana to band together and fight the British Dragon. To Jean Laffite’s way of thinking, Andrew Jackson could hardly refuse to allow the Baratarians to be a part of the defending force.

  “We’d better get home now, before those black clouds fall on us,” Nicolette said, tugging at Laffite’s sleeve.

  “Take Gator-Bait and go along, Nikki. I have a meeting scheduled.”

  He hurried away toward the courtyard entrance to 106 Royal. He would have his say!

  The last of the city officials cleared out of his headquarters and Andy Jackson sighed with relief. He’d been sick enough by the middle of November. But, he thought, I must have been out of my mind to plant this dysentery-wracked body in a saddle and travel over a hundred miles on horseback without a stop! Still, time was of the essence if New Orleans was to be saved.