“Mother? Mother, you’ve come at last.” Joseph grasped her hand, and she started at his scorching-hot touch. His glassy gaze did not fix upon her shamefully short hair but instead seemed to cling to her eyes, where she hoped he found the compassion she felt. She saw no reason to tell him they’d never met before this day. Let him believe her ministering hands were those of the woman who loved him most in the world. Surely his mother would want him to think she was there to comfort him. How Julianne wished she had been at Benjamin’s side at the end, in spirit if not in body!
“I’m here. Now please rest,” she whispered and gave his hand a light squeeze before placing it back down at his side.
He shifted on his pallet, and the dried Spanish moss crackled beneath his weight. After swiping her sponge over the thin wall of his bare chest, she laid upon it a poultice of roasted onions and crushed mustard seeds. She prayed such a remedy would be enough to break his fever—and the fevers of the five other soldiers she would tend after Joseph.
Julianne took her bowl and sponge to the next suffering soul. Lowering herself to the ground beside her patient, she nestled the bowl on her aproned lap and wet the sponge once again. Leaning over the young man, she brushed his hair from his brow. His eyes opened, slightly yellowed, and he sighed in relief as she cooled his skin with gentle strokes. Heal him, Lord. Restore them all to health. What she could not do for her brother, she would do for another woman’s son.
Dusty sunbeams spilled through the gaps between the pilings, and mosquitoes dipped in and out, tormenting those who hadn’t the strength or sense to swat them away. Red welts spotted the next patient Julianne tended, so after bathing him from the waist up and applying a poultice to his chest, she mixed a mud paste to smear on the itching sores. Tenderly, she dabbed the rustic balm on the man’s face, neck, arms, and chest.
He stirred, blinking at her.
“Does this feel better, soldier?” she murmured.
“Much.” Through half-lidded eyes, he examined her. “I’d ask if you’re an angel, but I know for sure we’re not in heaven.” He wrinkled his nose, apparently smelling the illness pervading the atmosphere.
She smiled. “You’re still in New Orleans, right where you should be. I’m Julianne LeGrange, and I aim to keep you out of heaven as long as I can.”
An eyebrow raised, albeit slightly, on his brow. “That so?” His lips began to curve in a smile, but they were so dry, she was afraid they would split and bleed. She reached into her apron pocket and drew out a small jar of olive oil, dipped her finger into it, and applied it to his lips. His sigh bespoke his gratitude. “You must call me Matthieu.”
Julianne fit the lid back onto her jar and slid it back into her pocket. “Very well. How are you feeling, Matthieu?”
“Better now that you’re here.” His voice was weak and low, so she leaned in to hear him. “I haven’t seen such a beauty in ages. But you came on the convict couples’ ship?”
He was certainly lucid. She cleared her throat as she sat back on her heels. “Some call it so. But I would be pleased if my husband and I, and our friends, were no longer identified by our pasts. We’re no longer prisoners. As you see.” She hoped her smile softened the edge she felt in her words. Had she been a fool to suppose that as long as her brand remained hidden, she’d be free of its stigma?
“I’m not squeamish.” He paused for breath. “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of in my presence.”
Matthieu was more right than he knew on that point.
“You don’t speak like one scooped up from the streets for beggary. So what was your crime?” Drawing a deep breath, his lips glistened with the olive oil as he regarded her. “Prostitution?”
She winced. “Heavens, no.” She laid the back of her hand on his forehead. “Your fever seems to have broken.” She rose, abruptly perhaps.
Matthieu brushed her skirt with his fingers. “Don’t go.”
“My work here is done. I’ll be sure to check on you again soon. In the meantime, don’t overexert yourself while your strength returns.” Encouraged by his prospects for recovery, she moved on.
Clouds billowed like sails against the deep blue sky. Sweat beaded on Marc-Paul’s brow as he marched east, out of New Orleans. Squinting, he scanned the edge of the swamp that pressed the boundaries of their settlement, looking for some sign of movement. All he detected, however, was a pair of squirrels chasing each other around a tree trunk.
“Marc-Paul.”
With a start, he turned to find Red Bird right behind him. “Greetings!” He should not have been surprised to find the Choctaw had noiselessly appeared, wearing nothing but a breechcloth and the moccasins he wore when not at home. Red Bird was a scout, a tracker, and a hunter. Fortunately, he was also an ally. Relief poured through Marc-Paul to find him still alive.
“I heard you were back.” The flawless French that came from Red Bird’s lips was a tribute to his teacher. Benjamin would have been proud, and rightfully so.
“I heard about the Chickasaw war. Have you—” But there was no need to finish the question. One glance at the leather thong tied around Red Bird’s waist supplied the answer.
Red Bird patted the scalps hanging at his hip. “Eighteen this time. But not all of these are mine. I’m here to collect on behalf of my friends as well.”
Marc-Paul swallowed, suddenly aware of the unpleasant odor. “I understand you’ll be paid at the commissary.”
Crossing his arms over his bare chest, Red Bird nodded. “I lost nine relatives to Chickasaw raiders years ago. Now I’ve taken twice as many of them. This is a good trade.” A rare smile tipped one corner of his lips. “And you? I heard you brought more settlers to New Orleans.” For the name of the French settlement, he used the Choctaw word Balabanjer: “town of strangers.”
“As it happens, not all of them are complete strangers. Benjamin Chevalier’s sister is here.”
Red Bird’s eyebrows rose. “Does she know?” The wind blew his long black hair over his muscled shoulders, revealing the large copper spools swinging in his earlobes.
“She knows he is dead.” Marc-Paul lowered his voice and switched to the Choctaw language. “But she doesn’t know exactly how it came to pass, and I’d just as soon leave those details veiled. They’d do her no good.”
The Choctaw’s lips pressed together resolutely. “If I had known your chief had no mercy, I would not have tracked Many Tongues down.”
Marc-Paul swallowed a sigh. He’d often wondered what Benjamin’s death had meant to Red Bird, given that it was his family who’d taken the youth in for fourteen months. “How does your village fare?”
Red Bird peered toward the swamp for a moment, his bronze profile marked by the flattened forehead customary of all Choctaw males. He steered Marc-Paul toward the riverbank, where they could see anyone who might be approaching.
“So far, the Chickasaw have not reached us. But some of my people grow weary of fighting. Especially when their own fields suffer from their absence. They say they should receive larger payment. In other villages too there is unrest regarding our French alliance. Those who waver in their loyalties say France has not enough supplies, trade goods, or presents because you lost all your ships to the English and were defeated in Queen Anne’s War. They say only the British can supply us properly.”
“We will supply you properly.” Even as he heard his own promise, Marc-Paul wondered how he would keep it.
“See that you do, for your own sake. We can fire British muskets as well as French.” Red Bird’s expression shifted. “Someone comes. I am away.” He headed toward the settlement, presumably to collect payment for his scalps.
Pascal Dupree hailed Marc-Paul after he passed by Red Bird. “Who was that you were speaking with just now?” he panted.
“One of our allies, giving me an update.”
“Choctaw?” Pascal removed his hat and fanned himself with it. “What did he say?”
“He said they need more guns.”
“Same
old story, eh?” Pascal clapped Marc-Paul on the shoulder. “Escort me home. We’ll have a drink.”
Marc-Paul unbuttoned his waistcoat, peeled it off, and threw it over his arm as he walked. “It was you I was coming to see, anyway. The guns and powder you said you’d replace in the commissary—unless you’ve come from there directly, it hasn’t been done. You gave me your word, Pascal. It’s been two months.” Time enough, and then some.
“Ah, that.” Pascal rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t get the guns, but I paid my debt in blankets.”
“Blankets?” Marc-Paul gaped. “Blankets will not arm the Choctaw for war.”
“For some mysterious reason, I’ve been unable to find any guns anyone is willing to part with.” Sarcasm dripped from Pascal’s voice.
“You should have considered that before you took them from the commissary to begin with. Blankets are an unacceptable substitute.”
“And what would you accept?”
“Guns!”
Pascal expelled a sigh. “I regret that you are disappointed. But that is the best I could do.”
“Where are the guns you took to pay off the card player? Does he still have them?”
Pascal looked straight ahead. “Didn’t ask. He’s not the sort of fellow who takes kindly to questions. Remember Le Gris? How volatile and paranoid he was in Mobile, and how eager he was to squeeze the trigger in any direction? Imagine him, but add about fifty pounds and take away one front tooth, and you’ll see what I’m dealing with here.”
“Fifty pounds heavier than Le Gris. A missing front tooth. It seems I’d have noticed such a character about the settlement.” Marc-Paul raised an eyebrow.
Pascal shrugged. “I’d not be surprised if he’s taken to pirating. May he never return to New Orleans!”
“Why you ever took him for an opponent is beyond all logic.” Marc-Paul simmered as they stepped into the shade of Pascal’s gallery. “Fine house you have here.” He couldn’t help but wonder if Pascal had gambled for the money to pay for it.
“Thank you. It’s ghastly hot, but worse inside, no doubt. Allow me to get those drinks.”
“Water’s fine.”
Pascal laughed. “Surely you jest. I can understand giving up brandy for Lent, but not for life.”
“You don’t have to understand it.” But Marc-Paul’s aversion to strong drink should be no surprise to Pascal, of all people.
The door slammed behind Pascal as he went inside, and Marc-Paul laid his waistcoat over the back of one of the two chairs. Sitting, he snatched his hat off his head and set it on his knee. He pulled his cravat loose and unwound it from his neck. Ghastly hot, indeed. Soldiers were dropping with fever now almost daily.
“Here we are.” With one boot, Pascal kicked open the door and let it thud behind him as he handed Marc-Paul a glass of water. He too had shed his waistcoat. “I had hoped the breeze would carry some refreshment today. Dancing Brook! Running Deer!” he bellowed as he sat in the other chair.
Running Deer appeared, gazing at the ground in submission. Marc-Paul could tell he was Chitimacha, a nation formerly at war with the French colonials until they brought the calumet and brokered peace in 1718. Though all French captives had been released, Bienville insisted that the French would keep the Chitimacha slaves as their own.
“There you are,” Pascal said. “Fetch Dancing Brook; tell her to bring the palmettos.”
Running Deer bowed in acknowledgment and disappeared again, and Pascal took a swig from his cup.
“I thought he was owned by the Company of the Indies.” Marc-Paul took a long drink of water, grateful for the cool relief.
“I own him. I rent him to the Company when it suits me. And it usually suits the Company to have a savage on board when they go upstream.” Pascal’s breath soured the air with the odor of eau-de-vie.
Marc-Paul traced his finger through the condensation on the outside of his glass in a pattern that matched the tattoo on Running Deer’s chest. “Was he with the party that just went to Fort Rosalie?”
“He was.”
“Successful trip?” With two more gulps, he downed the last of his water.
“Quite.” Pascal’s smile broadened, dimples deepened. “Ah! There you are. Stir up a breeze for me, would you?”
Dancing Brook, also Chitimacha, lifted her palmetto branch and began fanning Pascal. She was young, of no more than fourteen summers by Marc-Paul’s guess. Unlike other Indian women, who wore their hair in two plaits, her tresses hung loose to her waist. Her deerskin dress, decorated with scarlet woodpecker scalps in a double row across the chest, pulled snugly across her rounded middle.
Pascal caught Marc-Paul’s gaze and raised an eyebrow. “Exquisite, isn’t she? Do you have your own ‘Dancing Brook’ awaiting your return?”
Marc-Paul tucked his guilt behind his disgust and set his glass on the floor. “You haven’t changed at all, and more’s the pity.”
“Oh, this is too much! You’re not about to persuade me to holy chastity now, are you? Remember, this is me you’re talking to. I know you. Even if you don’t.”
Old sins, though long repented, reared up in Marc-Paul’s conscience, towering and formidable, until he could not see his way past them. Rising, he snatched up his cravat and waistcoat and placed his hat back on his head. “You must replace those guns you took.”
Pascal looked stricken. “Come now. We resolved that matter.”
“The matter will be resolved when the inventory matches the ledger again.”
“What’s a minor discrepancy between friends?”
“It isn’t minor.” And their friendship wasn’t what it used to be. With a hasty adieu, Marc-Paul stormed away.
By the time he reached his own home, a pounding headache had gathered between his temples. He tossed his hat on the hall table and headed straight for his bedroom. Sighing, he dropped his waistcoat on the chair, unbuttoned his gaiters and peeled them off, along with his shoes, and stretched out on the bed. Eyes closed, he shut out the world.
Moments later, the bed shook. The sound of heavy breathing filled the humid air. And then the licking began. Marc-Paul opened one eye to see Vesuvius the pug licking his own nose, over and over, his fist-shaped head jerking into the air each time. Ridiculous dog. Marc-Paul sank his fingers into the rolls around the pug’s neck and gave him a sound scratching. Vesuvius rewarded him with a sloppy, face-splitting smile and gyrating tail.
“All right, Vesuvius,” Marc-Paul muttered, and the dog’s black ears twitched forward, creating the trademark wrinkles on his face. “That’s enough now.” He folded his hands on his stomach, and Vesuvius turned in three circles on the bed before wedging his stout body against Marc-Paul’s side.
In minutes the dog began snoring, and Marc-Paul envied his slumber. This afternoon he’d share Red Bird’s report with Bienville. He could put those troubles out of his mind until then, at least.
Pascal’s words about Dancing Brook, however, still nettled him. Memories, long buried, resurrected.
Images drew themselves on the backs of Marc-Paul’s eyelids, flaying the last seven years from his life. A gaunt, twenty-three-year-old version of himself, wearing animal skins he’d been forced to fashion for himself when his uniform disintegrated. Staring out at the Gulf of Mexico for relief that never came. Hunger had gnawed at him, as it gnawed at all the French soldiers in Mobile. Louisiana was an infant colony in 1713, totally dependent on its mother country. Without any developed resources or system of cultivation, the colony relied upon supplies from France. But war raged in Europe, and shipments had dwindled, then disappeared. There were only sixty soldiers serving in Louisiana that year, just one-third the total from nine years earlier. Marc-Paul and the others might have been as lost as castaways on a deserted island if it hadn’t been for Bienville’s command to the greatly diminished garrison.
Following orders, Marc-Paul and Pascal had dispersed into the woods to live by hunting with friendly Indians and lodging with them over the winte
r. The Mobilian Indians took them in with generous hospitality, offering them sagamité and cakes of dried deer meet, and bearskin beds by fires kept burning through the night.
Unwelcome memories assaulted Marc-Paul. Flames licking the air, twisting and dancing together promiscuously. His belly burning with too much brandy. The taste of tobacco smoke still in his mouth. Soft fur beneath him. Long, smooth black hair entangled in his fingers. The crushing guilt when he woke up the next morning beside her.
Pascal never understood Marc-Paul’s regret. But then, Pascal had never fully subscribed to the teachings of the church. Marc-Paul, on the other hand, was devoted to both church and country. Not that he had a choice. Not that any of them did. To be French was to be Catholic. That was the law, by edict of King Louis XIV, for whom Louisiana was named. And Marc-Paul Girard obeyed the law, whether handed down by God or king.
Except for the times he didn’t.
Curled on her bed, Julianne pressed her hand against her stomach to still the pitching and yawing within. She’d already emptied it three times today. Surely there was nothing left. She closed her eyes and kept as still as possible, lest any hint of movement capsize her stomach.
Alone in her cabin, as she had been since falling ill, Julianne had ample time to measure her loss. How strange, she thought, that even though she had not seen Benjamin for four years, his absence grated on her with unseemly clarity.
Footfalls sounded outside, preceding a knock on the door. “Julianne?” A quiet voice. “It’s Lisette. I’ve brought Francoise.”
“Just a moment.” The ropes stretching beneath her bedtick creaked as she slowly slid her legs over the edge and stood on the warm dirt floor. She crossed to the door to unlatch it, relieved that her stomach did not protest. The storm inside her seemed to have calmed, at least for the moment.
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