“You hear me?”
Reynaud had been ranging some two hundred yards ahead. Now he slowed and turned, waiting for them to come even with him. “I hear.”
“Well?”
“You are mistaken.” The words carried the bite of temper. The half-breed had not been in the best of humors since early morning. It was as if he was holding himself on a short rein and the challenge of the merchant was an added irritant.
The merchant put his hands on his hips and stuck his chin out. “We may not be woods runners, but we know the difference between north and south. You’re leading us into the wilderness.”
“No. Merely to my home.”
“Your home?” St. Amant exclaimed. “But, mon ami, what is this? We were to go to the fort on the Red River.”
“And so we will, eventually. Nothing was said of going direct.”
“But it was understood—”
“By whom? You asked me to guide you and I remember no conditions.”
“We must get to the fort,” St. Amant said, throwing out his hands. “There are people there who don’t yet know of the up-rising, the massacre; people with relatives who are now dead. They must be told.”
“Or they can be left in happy ignorance a little longer.”
“It will seem odd if we tarry on the way.”
“Will it? You must blame me then,” Reynaud said with a shrug. “I go to my home to make arrangements that are necessary before going on to the fort.”
“You can’t do this!” Pascal shouted.
“On the contrary, I can.”
Elise, watching the arguing men, felt an odd tremor of fear and anger. Was it possible that Reynaud was doing this because of her? Had he taken her claim that she and the others could find their own course as a challenge to be met? Perhaps he thought to take them far out of their way, into the deep forest known only to the Indians and a few intrepid French trappers? They would be at his mercy then.
Reynaud turned his head, meeting her amber gaze. As he saw the accusation there, his features hardened.
“And what are we to do,” St. Amant was asking, “while you tend to your arrangements?”
“Do what you like,” Reynaud said, his tone abrupt. “You may come with me as my guests, you may wait for me here, or you may go on under your own guidance.”
Everyone fell silent. St. Amant looked from Pascal to Elise and away again. Pascal stood, frowning in unaccustomed thought. Madame Doucet was weeping, though more at the loud voices, Elise thought as she tried to comfort her, than from any understanding of the problem they confronted.
Henri stepped forward, his face white and his hands clenched at his sides. His voice shaking, he said, “Y-you are a bastard, Chavalier. Y-you demand and we m-must obey, all of us, e-especially M-madame Laffont. You lead and we m-must follow or risk d-death. You p-play with our lives and souls and d-defy us to stop you. W-what I would not give to s-strike you down, here and n-now.”
“I don’t doubt it, but I cannot allow you that pleasure. In the meantime, poor Madame Laffont is tending to your charge.”
Elise glanced up to find them all watching her. Pascal was scowling, and as her gaze turned in his direction, he gave a small, meaningful jerk of his head toward Reynaud. When she still stared, he did it again and she realized suddenly that the merchant wanted her to reason with the half-breed. That she was expected to have some influence with him after what had occurred between them that morning struck her as funny indeed, but she felt no real inclination to laugh.
She moistened her lips. “M’sieu … Reynaud, won’t you reconsider? The — the delay may mean the news will arrive before us and it could be weeks before people can be told that we are safe. That would cause much unnecessary grief. Besides, you must realize that we have deep concerns about recovering our property, concerns that must be placed before the governor at New Orleans as soon as some way of reaching that city can be assured.”
“Property?” Reynaud asked in scorn.
“It’s our livelihood, our only security.”
“Your security lies in yourself.”
“If you mean my body,” she began in tones thick with rage.
“No,” he said, making a hard, cutting gesture straight out from his body with his right hand. “No.”
She believed him; still, she had not another word to say in appeal. It would, she was sure, be useless. She did not know this man well, but she understood him enough to realize that much.
St. Amant cleared his throat. “I suggest we take a vote.”
“We must go with M’sieu Chavalier,” Marie Doucet said.
The older woman had understood more than they thought. There was a moment of surprise, then St. Amant, rubbing his chin, agreed. Pascal wanted to go on to the fort, as did Henri. Elise hesitated, uncertain what would be best.
“The choice, it would seem, is yours since the vote is even.”
She looked at Reynaud, seeing the grim amusement in his gray eyes as he spoke. For there was an added choice and he knew it well. If she voted that they go on alone, she would be free of him, while if she took the safe course of remaining with him, then she must continue to share his bed and keep their bargain. She opened her mouth.
“This is nonsense,” Pascal said. “Women have no vote.”
“Nor do striplings,” Reynaud said without looking at him, “which would leave you against St. Amant. What say you? Shall I cast the final vote? Or would you prefer to hear from the lady?”
She had decided to cast her lot with Henri and Pascal. Suddenly that seemed a foolhardy thing to do, trusting to a merchant and a boy to find their way through this tangle of trees, vines, and briers that stretched for endless miles. Why should she risk all of their lives out of pique? Far better to allow the half-breed his victory, to endure his company for a while longer, than to court death in this wilderness.
“Enough,” Pascal said with a grunt. “This place of yours, Chavalier, how far out of the way is it?”
“A matter of two or three days of travel at our present pace.”
“Then let us get started, the sooner to have done.”
The amusement vanished from Reynaud’s eyes, to be replaced by brooding annoyance as he was cheated of hearing Elise’s answer. He shouldered his pack and moved ahead with his long, loping stride, soon outdistancing them. Though he left them a well-marked trail of glaring, resinous blazes cut into the trees to follow, they did not see him again until dark. They came upon him then, outlined against a beacon fire that drew them in, a great leaping blaze that had been kindled beside a river that tasted of salt.
5
THE MOON ROSE low on the horizon: huge, yellow-tinted with shadings of orange, and circled with a blue ring. It had been another warm day and the night was cool, no more. A faint wind stirred the trees, sighing among the thinning branches, and the patter of leaves drifting down was like soft rain. Soon the cold and the frosts would come, but not yet. Not yet. These were the wine-sweet days of the autumn called Indian summer by some. How they lingered this year, and what a cruel jest it was that they did.
Pascal had gone to bed, as had Madame Doucet. St. Amant and Henri sat near the fire, talking in low voices. Reynaud had disappeared soon after they had eaten and had not returned. Despite the tiredness that hung about her like a cloak, Elise could not settle down. The fire was too warm and she was not sleepy enough to retire. She did not care to join the two males in their discussion. St. Amant, for all his gentlemanly reticence, had a cynical edge to his voice that wore on her nerves, especially when he mentioned the half-breed and herself in the same breath. Henri’s soft gaze was so doggedly worshipful that it made her uncomfortable, though this afternoon she had seemed to feel reproach when he looked her way.
She sighed, picking at one of the worn, bald spots on her once splendid velvet habit. Why was it so difficult to live with other human beings? Why must they continually appraise each other’s actions and stand in judgment of them? Why must there be quarrels and k
illings? What possessed men to turn and rend others of their kind? Why could there not be tolerance and peace and the cooperation that would bring prosperity to all? Was she so simple that she did not see the reason?
Men, and women, were as God made them, fallible creatures, and yet surely they had the intelligence to see that greed and betrayal, as in the case of the Natchez, led only to hatred and vengeance? How much pain and misery and death would there be before the French could live in peace once more with their former Indian allies? Injuries inflicted, for whatever reason, only brought more revenge in return, creating an endless cycle of bloodletting. Could they not see?
She drew in her breath as a sudden thought struck her. Fine words, but how did they apply to herself? Because of the hurt she had been dealt in the past, she had this morning taken her own minor vengeance and that against a man who refused to defend himself. He had deserved it, perhaps, for the way in which he had compelled her to share his bed, but after his forbearance when he had discovered her revulsion for lovemaking, had it not been a little unworthy?
She had taken unfair advantage of Reynaud Chavalier. Remorse, unwanted and unfamiliar, crept in upon her, a feeling that had been a vague disturbance in the back of her mind all day. The temptation he had presented with his demands that she caress him had been irresistible, but that was no excuse. She had known that he would not retaliate. He had given his word and she trusted him to keep it.
Trust. It was a strange word to apply to the half-breed with his barbaric dress, to the man who had demanded her favors as a right, who had forced her each night to sleep beside him and used blackmail of a most heartless kind to bend her to his will. And yet it was undeniable that she did trust him to keep the vow he had made. She believed implicitly that he would not touch her, had no fear that he would raise a hand against her in anger.
She had no fear.
Staring into the night, Elise examined that curious fact. It was not in her nature to fear many things, of course; thunderstorms and snakes, mice and crawling insects had never held any terrors for her. Her one secret terror, formed by the past few years, had been in being held by a man, subjected to his greater strength and unbridled desires. She had fought it, had fought the men who would treat her so, but it had always been there. With Reynaud Chavalier, it was gone. He had banished it with a few words and with the iron control that governed his every action, a control that had allowed her to accept his word and to depend on it.
Elise had a code that she lived by. It had evolved over the past three years since her husband had died, three years in which she had had to deal with men in a man’s world. The basic premise was fairness. In the produce of her farm, she had given good measure and expected the same in return. She had paid a reasonable price without argument for what she bought, but refused to set down a piastre more. She sold only healthy animals from her excess stock and any who tried to put a diseased beast off on her received short shrift. When she made a bargain, she kept it, and she expected others to do the same.
She felt now that she had not kept faith with the letter of her bargain with Reynaud. Her code required compensation in some form. That did not mean that she must confess her fault or give recompense in land. It would be enough that she performed some service for him, a just return, even if only she knew the reason for it.
Where was he? While she had sat thinking, St. Amant and Henri had banked the fire and retreated to their shelters. She knew that Reynaud always made a circuit of their camp before seeking his bed; perhaps that was what he was doing now. It was also possible that he was down at the bayou performing his nightly ablutions.
She got to her feet, stretching cramped muscles. She could hear Pascal snoring and the low moans that Madame Doucet made in her sleep. With the dying of the fire, the moonlight seemed brighter, a white light that washed the color from the night, leaving a landscape of black and silver gray. The woods around her were quieter now, with only a faint, almost secretive rattle caused by falling leaves and the foraging of small nocturnal animals. Then faintly the splash of water came to her.
Without conscious thought she moved toward the sound, skirting the embers of the fire and threading through the trees. She saw first the gleam of moonlight on the bayou. So slow moving was the stream that it seemed still, reflecting the starlit sky and the shafting path of the moon. The trees grew to the edge, hanging over it to make a skirt of black shadow. The water did not appear to be deep, though the banks were high, a mark of the greater flow of the winter and spring rains. It was, however, the glittering streaks, which were the arms of a fast-moving swimmer, that caught and held her attention. Smiling a little in satisfaction that she had found Reynaud, she moved to the water’s edge.
Her approach startled a frog and it plopped into the water. Reynaud rolled on his side, looking toward the sound. He saw her there in the shadows and lifted a hand, then began to swim toward her with strong, sure strokes.
“Is something wrong?” he called as he came near.
“No, no, I just … wondered where you were.”
Not far from where she stood was a slanting shelf in the bank that angled down to the water, a natural path where animals made their way to the water to drink. He started toward it, flinging back his wet hair as he struck bottom and rose to his feet. The copper of his wet skin was silvered by the light of the moon, sculpted in bold angles and hollows. It turned him from a man into a pagan deity, remote, savage, splendid in his nakedness.
He was naked! She had not thought — she had expected he would be wearing his breechclout at least. She looked away and heard his low laugh. Still, from the corner of her eyes, she saw his springing bound as he came up the bank, saw him bend to pick up the scant squares of cloth that made up a major part of his wardrobe. She had seen him unclothed before, and her husband also, of course, though Vincent had been modest, and with reason, of his barrel shape and stocky legs. Regardless, she felt easier when Reynaud had fastened his breechclout around him.
“Don’t you find it cold?” she asked, rushing into speech before he could comment. “I mean, with the night so cool and your skin wet?”
“No. The exercise is warming and I’m used to it.”
“I believe the Natchez make a great to-do about bathing.”
“More so than the French with their powder and perfume and tight velvet coats.”
She was reminded forcibly once more of the insult she had given him. The words tight, abrupt, she said, “I must apologize for what I said — that night at the commandant’s house. I didn’t mean it, at least not in the way it sounded. And — and I know it isn’t true.”
“A magnificent gesture. I accept it.”
The mockery in his tone was not lost upon her. She turned toward him. “Don’t you believe me?”
He moved his shoulders in a shrug. “It just strikes me that I am sorrier now than you are.”
“I doubt that,” she answered, an unspoken acknowledgment that if she had never made light of him then neither of them would be in their present situation. “But when you speak of velvet, I trust you are not thinking of my habit? I am heartily sick of it, but have no alternative.”
“You could always dress in the costume of the Natchez women.”
“Thank you, no.” The women of the Natchez wore no more than a square of woven material wrapped around their lower body and knotted on one hip, leaving their breasts bare. For warmth during this season, they swung a short cape of woven cloth or fur around them.
He moved to lean with one shoulder against a tree beside her. “It would give you ease of movement and be most becoming. I could make one for you from what we have with us.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Suit yourself.”
It was a curious thing how itchy her habit had become since they had begun talking. The need to take it off and never look at it again was strong, but she managed to disregard it. “Besides, though the costumes of your women may be comfortable, I don’t know what keeps them, or th
e men either, from freezing to death.”
“It can get a little drafty at times,” he said with humor threading his tone, “but the weather is seldom severe and, as with bathing, you get used to it.”
“The apparel of the Natchez is even more meager than that of other tribes, I think?”
“A little, perhaps. It may be a matter of tradition. They came here years ago from farther south.”
“Did they?” she asked, her tone distracted as she watched water drip from his hair and gather in the hollow of his collarbone before trickling in a silver runnel down his chest.
“The Natchez are different from the Choctaws or Chickasaws. It’s a difference you can see in their greater height, their broader foreheads, and especially in then customs. They are the last of what was once a tribe many thousand strong who, like themselves, built and lived on great mounds of earth. According to the ancient words of the tribe, kept by the wisest men, they came from the south, from the lands now claimed by Spain. They are of the same blood as the old mound builders, but arrived much later, at the time the older ones were dying out, between two and three hundred years ago as near as I can determine.”
Elise frowned. “If I remember the teachings of the good sisters concerning the Spanish excursions, that would have been near the time the adventurer Cortez conquered the Aztecs.”
“The Natchez claim to be old enemies of a great tribe with whom they fought many battles. Then one day white men came, as the legends had foretold that they would, moving over the water in ‘houses’ of wood. The Natchez became allies of the white men against their old foes. But when their enemies were defeated and their leaders dead, the white men turned on the Natchez. They fled, finally coming to rest here. There being no stones to use to build their ceremonial pyramids, they mounded up earth instead, as had their predecessors. Whether the story is true or not, I can’t say, for the ancients give no names to the white men who came or to their Indian enemies.”
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