The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  Diilcie had never seen anything so primitive. The dancers rested, allowing others to take their place, but the bamboula drummer never stopped. The calinda was a favored dance. Dulcie glanced about and saw that Robert and the others were entranced by the dancers. "Shall we get somethin' to drink, Adam?"

  He led her through the crowd, weaving among the hawkers with their trays slung around their necks. He got her a ginger beer and a mulatto belly.

  All afternoon he had dreaded telling Dulcie he was leaving New Orleans tonight. Now the moment had come, and he didn't know what to say.

  She talked about the dancers, then spoke of the small, unimportant ways she filled her hours when he wasn't with her. "Aunt Ca'line and Uncle Webster are havin' friends in this evenin'. Will you come, Adam?"

  He hesitated. "The Liberty sails tonight, Dulcie." She looked accusingly at him. "Would you have told me if I hadn't asked you about tonight? Or would you simply have disappeared and left me to wonder?" "I was going to tell you . . . today sometime." "Then surely you'll see me tonight—alone. It will be so long."

  "No, not long. Just one more month, Dulcie." "Why won't you let me be with you? Surely I mean that much to you!"

  "You mean everything to me. Dulcie, we can't talk here. People are already looking at you."

  "I don't care. Let them look! I want to see you tonight." "I have business to attend to, with Ben and Beau." "Ben and Beau! You're with them all the time!" "That's enough," he said harshly. "You've got to learn to trust me."

  "Whatever you say," she said, subdued; but her eyes glint^ed with determination. They rejoined the others. Smiling gaily, Dulcie stood by Ben, leaving Adam trapped by the excited chatter of her cousins.

  Dulcie was sweet flirtation itself as she pumped Bea for information about tonight's "business," hinting all the while that Adam had already told her about it. Piecemeal, Dulcie discovered that Adam would be attending Juneau Nuit's voodoo ceremony. To Dulcie a voodoo ceremony was just another version of the Circus Square dances, cer-

  tainly nothing to take Adam from her on his last night in port. She directed Ben's attention back to the dancers so that she could consider what she had learned.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As soon as the Tilden carriage rolled but of sight, Adam and Ben hurried to the Liberty. They checked the cargo, which had been arranged on deck so that the ship appeared to carry a full load. The hold was clear for the human cargo to board later that night if all went well.

  Dressed in gray, Adam and Ben blended into the night shadows as they approached the hut on the edge of Gray Oaks to join Juneau Nuit in her anxious wait.

  The room filled slowly with about seventy people. Twenty-five Negro man and women separated themselves from the others and sat with their legs crossed beneath them on the floor. The women's heads were adorned with the tignon, the seven points directed heavenward, but all were aware that prayers said in darkness were said to the Devil.

  In the center of the floor lay a small tablecloth at the comers of which were two tallow candles. Centered on the cloth was a shallow Indian basket filled with herbs. Outside the basket Juneau Nuit had arranged a number of small bones. Near the outer edge of the cloth were feathers.

  The rest of the slaves sat along the wall. One man played a fiddle. Others beat with their thumbs on gourd drums.

  Adam and Ben stood against the wall, watching Juneau Nuit go into hex trance. The old fiddler stamped his feet three times. "A present commencez!"

  From the shadows, near Juneau, a tall, heavy-set Negro of Herculean proportions stepped forward. His face strained with emotion, the Hercules began to sing in a soft, low voice. As the words flowed from him and the emotion built, he sang louder.

  I will wander into the desert, I will march through the prairie, I will walk upon the golden thorn— Who is to stop me?

  The man seemed to grow in stature, rising larger and more immense. His eyes rolled in wild frenzy. His words came fierce, his gestures defiant.

  I will wander into the desert,

  I will march through the prairie,

  I will walk upon the golden thorn—

  Who is there to stop me?

  Who is there who can resist me?

  The fiddlers and drummers kept time, growing in violence and rhythm. He waved his arms, and all tlie room cried, "Malle air ca ya di moin!"

  They got to their feet, joining him in a march. In a graceful, animal motion he picked up two candles and began to undulate around the room, the others following. Finally he stood before Juneau Nuit. With regal solenmity she put a bottle to his mouth, and he drank from it. With a blowing sound he spurted a mist from his lips, holding the candles to catch the vapor. The candles flared up, casting eerie fire reflections around the room.

  Then he entered a trance, communicating with the spirits of the dead, revealing the future. He spoke of their voyage on a dark sea and the land of freedom that rested at the end of that turbulent voyage.

  Juneau Nuit signaled four men. She formed cabalistic signs over them, sprinkling liquid from her calabash as she murmured incantations. From behind a black doll an old man brought forth a hidden receptacle. He withdrew from it an enormous serpent, holding it aloft. He talked to it, whispering, murmuring, mesmerizing. At every word the snake undulated, darting its tongue, eyeing the old man. Slowly the snake stood upright for about ten inches of its body. In that position the old man passed the snake over the heads of the four black men and around their necks. "Voudou Magnian!"

  Juneau snaked her way among the people, giving each of them the feather of a black swan, a talisman to hold

  them in the safety of her spell. Then she chanted, dancing around Adam, singling him out as an extension of her own power.

  The old man handed her a ceramic pot. Juneau Nuit lifted it high above her head. Then she painted symbols of the Black Swan on all four walls, enclosing them within the safekeeping of Adam, the man she had designated as the Black Swan.

  When it was over, the room reverberated with a howl of exaltation. The music began again, and they drank tafia, the rum of sugarcane.

  The old man took the snake again, forcing it to writhe around the crowd of people. Everyone in the room cried, "Voudou! Voudou Magnian!"

  Then the old man twirled the snake, tossing it into the fire.

  Immediately a woman began to dance like the snake, writhing and twisting. She tore off her kerchief, a signal for the others to join.

  The drum beat. Louder and louder. The fiddler thrummed faster. Adam felt as though the music were coming from inside of him. Burning herbs and weeds filled the air with a strange, heavy odor. His clothes felt tight, his body not his own. With the others he began to move, his body swaying.

  As the noise increased and the passion of the ritual built, the women tore off their clothes, dancing nude like the serpent.

  "Houm! Danse Calinda!

  Voudou! Magnian!

  Aie! Aie!

  Danse Calinda!"

  One by one the candles winked out, the only light coming from the pyre on which the serpent burned. The heat of the room was stifling, cutting off rational thought. Primitive passions unleashed controlled them now and drove the dancers on and into each others' naked arms.

  Dulcie endured supper with the Tildens and their guests. Her eye was on the clock. It was nearly eleven when the Tildens stood on the front veranda bidding their guests goodnight.

  Gay and Dulcie went upstairs, each retiring to her room. As soon as it was quiet. Gay slipped into Dulcie's

  room. Behind her trailed Jenny. "Go back, Jenny," Gay whispered. "I'll be there in a moment."

  "Let me in. Gay. I want to see Dulcie too! Open the door, or I'll tell Mama!"

  "Don't you dare!" Gay dragged her sister inside.

  Dulcie looked helplessly at Gay. "We'll only be a minute. Why don't you wait in your room?"

  Jenny's eyes were hurt and defiant. "Why can't I be here with you?"

  "Oh, you are such a nuisance!" Gay said. Jenny fl
ounced across the room with a flourish. "Jenny Tilden, you breathe one word to Mama, and I'll snatch the hair right off your head!"

  Jenny gazed at Gay open-mouthed. "Hey! What are you up to? I want to be part of it too. Can I? Oh, please—I'm old enough now."

  Dulcie, already in riding breeches, looked speculatively at Jenny. "You can come—" Jenny leaped up, smiling and clapping her hands—"but only if you're ready when we are. If you're not dressed quickly enough, then we leave without you. Agreed?"

  "Agreed." Jenny beamed and ran for the door.

  Dulcie nudged Gay. "Hurry up! Let's go. She'll never catch us."

  The girls raced down the stairs, carrying theu* boots. They slipped along the darkened halls, then out the French doors. They stifled nervous laughter as they sat down to put on their boots. Once again they were running.

  "Wait, Dulcie," Gay panted. "I can't run another step.'*

  Dulcie paced back and forth impatiently. "Oh, now look what you've done!" Jenny was running toward them as hard as she could.

  Gay jumped up. She and Dulcie zigzagged through the pines. Jenny's hoarse whispers followed them. "Gay, Dulcie, wait for me!"

  "Dulcie, I can't leave her. She's scared."

  "Gay, if you ruin this for me, I'll never forgive you!"

  "What's so important? We watched the darkies all afternoon."

  "That was different! I'm sure this is more excitin'."

  "Ha! It's damp, and I'm cold, and it's scary out here.**

  "It's important to me!" Dulcie snapped. "Are you com-in' or not?"

  Gay glanced back at her sister, standing undecided and

  frightened not twenty feet away. Hesitantly Jenny called, "Gay, Gay, where are you?" An owl hooted. Jenny squealed. She began to run for the house.

  Dulcie and Gay plunged on into the dark woods. Night shadows and sounds stalked them, hurrying their steps over the mile of uneven terrain. With relief they heard the noise of the ritual long before they located the hut on the edge of the bayou.

  "It looks creepy." Through the window they saw the eerie, licking flame-shadows of the serpent pyre. Dark forms of dancing, writhing bodies crossed and recrossed the shadow-flame. "Dulcie ... I don't think—"

  Dulcie moved closer. "Come on. Gay, it's nothin' but a dance."

  Gay stopped at the door. She covered her eyes, peeking from between her parted fingers. "Dulcie—they're naked! Don't look!"

  Dulcie looked. Near the front of the hut, his head back, eyes half shut, shirt open to his waist, Adam stood as Juneau Nuit danced before him with slow serpentine grace. Around them writhed naked blacks, crying out in ecstasy and the primitive "Voudou! Voudou Magnian!"

  Dulcie threw off Gay's restrained hand and darted in and out of the twisting, dancing, copulating bodies, her eyes never leaving Adam.

  Gay screamed for her cousin. Artless hands touched her. Drunken, half-understood words assaulted her ears, sinful, naked bodies assailed her eyes. She ran from the hut in panic, leaving Dulcie behind.

  Without thought to direction. Gay lunged for the protection of the cypress trees, knobby and strange in the darkness. Around her the familiar seemed transformed and alien. Dark, without the moon, she could see none of the familiar patterns of the terrain. Sounds she should recognize and couldn't until they were almost upon her, frightened her witless. She huddled against a cypress trunk, hearing the rumble of wagons but unable to see them.

  Gay spun and dashed in the other direction. She stifled a scream, her hand shaking uncontrollably. The black sky seemed to be breaking into a luminous arc. She watched as a column of horsemen, all carrying torches, came over the rise of a hill. They, too, headed for the hut. Gay ran deeper into the woods.

  Behind her the night burst with angry voices and shouted orders.

  Inside the hut everything happened at once. Adam opened his eyes to face Dulcie, trembling in excited anger. "Business!" she shouted over the rhythmic din.

  "Dulcie . . . Holy Mother! What are you doing here?" The impassioned drowsiness left him. He straightened, alert, his thoughts marshaling on how he could get her safely away before Beau arrived with the wagons. He grabbed her arm. "You little idiot. You don't know what you've walked into!"

  She struggled to free herself. "You lied to me! You said—"

  He heard the first angry shouts outside. A gun went off. Horses neighed in fright. The door to the hut burst open.

  Without looking, Adam knew what had happened. Pandemonium broke out inside the hot, incense-ridden hut. Someone kicked at the pyre, sending wild, weird shadows licking across the walls and ceiling.

  "Start them out, Ben!" Adam screamed. The blacks were shouting, frantically trying to escape Revanche's men armed with whips and chains.

  Under Beau's orders the Liberty^s crew charged the hut. Naked blacks rolled in fear, trying to avoid the indiscriminate lashing of the whips. Beau and the crewmen attacked and fought anyone clothed or having white skin.

  "Hold tight to me!" Adam shouted at Dulcie. He pressed her against him, shoving his way to the door.

  She screamed as a whip curled around Adam's back and bit the soft flesh of her arm.

  Adam held her safe, acting as a shield, ignoring the bite of the whip.

  She could feel his muscles involuntarily tighten at each lash. In the darkness she heard a man screaming, "Tremainr as though it were the most cursed word in the language.

  He shoved her out the door. "Run for those trees! TU come there!"

  She hesitated and saw him plunge back into the blackened hut. She ran for the trees, waiting, deathly afraid, until he emerged twenty minutes later. He grabbed the nearest horse, leaping onto the animal's back reining in

  only long enough to swoop down and grab her by the waist. Dulcie struggled, finally managing to get her leg across the animal's rump. She clung to Adam.

  Adam leaned down, his head on the horse's neck, riding with reckless speed through the forest. At the Til-den's slave quarters he dismounted quickly, nearly knocking her off the horse. "For God's sake, do as I tell you, Dulcie. You could have been killed!"

  "What was goin' on back there? Adam, you're hurt!" Her fingers were sticky from the bloodied ribbons that had been his shirt.

  "Forget that! I'm not hurt." He kissed her hard and quickly and turned her toward the house. "Run, Dulcie! I've got to go back."

  She took a step. "Let me go with you! I can help!"

  Strained taut as a bow, he said, through clenched teeth, "Damn you, Dulcie!" He mounted the horse, looking down at her from that height. "Go where you belong, where I know you'll be safe."

  "Adam!" she cried after him.

  "Go home to Savannah, Dulcie!"

  When he returned to the hut, the confusion had spread. Fighting, thrashing bodies rolled in the grassy turf. Beau's wagons filled and rolled into the darkness.

  Adam pulled free a slave who cowered under the attack of Revanche's overseer. Sleath spun, his whip whistling through the air, curling around Adam's body to bite the flesh over his ribs. A gasp of pain was forced out. Again the whip lashed. Adam braced for the split second when the pain would bite and at the same instant the whip would be caught and held by its impact on his body. Then he grabbed, jerking Sleath, wrenching the whip from his hand. With the heavy handle Adam beat him senseless.

  He tossed the whip away, racing for the area where Revanche's men had tethered their horses. Juneau Nuit and Dr. Beauregard followed. They freed and slapped each horse on the rump. The terrified horses snorted, scattering, then herded into the woods.

  "Can you do one more thing for me, Juneau? Then Ullah will be avenged."

  "You're de Black Swan, Cap'n. What's you wan' us to do?"

  He handed her a small box of sulphur matches. "Fire his fields. Set Gray Oaks ablaze." Juneau chuckled, an eerie, satisfied sound in the darkness. "I wish I could do it myself, but I've got to get your people safely aboard the Liberty"

  "Mebbe woan be yo* han' dat light de flame, but it be yo' matches an* yo' spirit dat do
ne it. You jes' look back. De night gwine come alive. Juneau gwine bring on de fire o' de night sun."

  As Adam raced for the v^^agons, Ben caught up with him. Running like madmen, they flung themselves onto the last wagon. They saw nothing until they were free of the woods. Then, like a halo in the heavens rose the hazy orange glow. The fire of the night sun. Gray Oaks was in flames.

  The yellowish glow from the cane fields spread, flames licking up in the darkness. For once, Edmund Revanche found himself victimized. Totally helpless, he watched his beloved Gray Oaks turn into a conflagration. With a sickened heart he saw the walls give way to the intensity of the hellfire that consumed them. His frustration and fury were pale, insignificant, compeired to the hatred he felt for the man responsible for his ruin.

  The Liberty was anchored in the Mississippi. Adam's troubles began again. The slaves wouldn't leave the wagons. He implored them to get into the jolly boats. Faces turned from him. Men kept their hands folded, hiding their nakedness. Women clustered together, knees closed tightly, arms covering bared breasts. Adam looked dumbfounded. "What do we do now? They won't move!'*

  Ben winked at him, then a great laugh erupted

  "Damn you, Ben! It isn't funnyl" he shouted, then burst out laughing. He leaned weakly against the wagon. A gargantuan hand clasped his shoulder.

  " 'Scuse me, boss, suh."

  Adam looked up into the dark, shining face of the Hercules who had communed with the dead spirits. He looked like a court jester with his head held rigid by a pronged iron collar Edmund had placed on him for being incorrigible. Bells on the ends of the prongs that clasped the sides and back of his giant head tinkled at every movement

  "What is it?" Adam asked.

  "Iffen you got coverin* to hide dey nekkidness, Ah km gets 'em on de boat fo' you, boss."

  "Ben, Beau . . . haul the bedding, linen, anything we've got on the Liberty. Bring it ashore. Hurry!"

  "Aye, aye, sir," Ben said, still chuckling.

  "You think they'll come if we cover them," Adam said skeptically.

  "Dey sho' 'nuflf will, boss. Ah be glad to he'p you. Dey ain't a nigger heah who ain't afeered o' dis black man."