Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (54 page)

The activity helped to pass the hours, but did little to stop the restless turning of her mind in its cycle of worry. Moreover, it was so unlike the usual occupation of women that it caused a ripple of censure through the village around the fort. The community was small and insular, rife with petty jealousies, quarrels and feuds. There was nothing a person could do that everyone did not know about immediately; nothing they could say that everyone did not repeat and someone resent. A single woman was an object of close scrutiny, of much discussion and a fair amount of manipulation. It was assumed that, rather than useful work, her greatest need was a husband or at the least a man.

Pascal, swaggering, cap in hand, had come to call on Elise. He had cornered her on the porch, suggesting that she should be well pleased to be asked to walk with him along the river. They would take a bottle of wine, some bread and cheese, and a blanket. It was some time since she had had the attention she needed; she must be ready and he was equally ready to supply it.

He had reached to fondle her breast. Elise had struck him an open-handed blow in the face and sent him away with heated words. Claudette, who had been shamelessly listening from inside the house, had come out carrying her babe to watch his departure and to call out spurious encouragement mixed with laughter. With the knowledge that his dismissal would be common gossip by morning, Pascal had packed his belongings and gone into the Tejas country to trade among the Spanish. He was not heard from again.

He was not the only man who thought Elise must welcome his advances, however. Every day they grew bolder, particularly those who could not understand why she did not leap at their offers of marriage while shouting hosannas to the Virgin. She tried to tell them that she was already married, but they only hooted, accounting the Indian rite she had shared with Reynaud as no more important than their own relationships with their Indian and African slave women. If they were willing to overlook so sordid an episode, why could she not do the same?

It was to escape such badgering, such close watch over every detail of her life, that Elise persuaded Pierre and Little Quail to take her with them as far as Reynaud’s home when next they traveled to the lands of the Caddo. She would visit with Madeleine for a few weeks until Pierre and Little Quail returned; the two of them, she and Reynaud’s cousin, could exchange news and perhaps comfort each other. And in the house where she had discovered a precarious happiness, where Reynaud had worked, eaten, and slept, she might feet closer to him. She would lie for a few nights in the bed where they had lain together and she would dream.

Madeleine had not changed. She was as thin and composed as ever. She welcomed Elise, gave her chocolate and cakes while speaking of trivialities, and showed her to her room to rest. They did not talk of Reynaud until the second day after Pierre and Little Quail had gone.

They were sitting on the loggia, enjoying the cool of the evening as the sun settled slowly behind the dark line of the trees behind the house. They waved palmetto fans and kept their feet under their skirts to prevent the mosquitoes that were beginning to gather from getting at their ankles. At their elbows were glasses of mint tea, an aid to digestion, or so Madeleine said, while on the air floated the aroma of baking bread and roasting pork. The smells of the food did not quite cover the strong, yet delicate scent of the small pale brown and white flowers with the look of fungi known as Indian pipes, which came from the surrounding woods.

The air was growing cool as September waned. They looked up at the sound of fluttering wings and saw a flight of passenger pigeons overhead. The sound grew louder and the sky darkened with the bodies of the birds for long moments before they finally passed and it was quiet again.

“Soon it will be fall,” Madeleine remarked.

“Yes. Nearly a year.” There was no need to elaborate; they both knew that Elise could mean nothing except nearly a year since the massacre.

“I haven’t told you how much I felt for your hardships during the siege. It cannot have been an easy time.”

Elise’s lips curved in a wan smile. “It wasn’t, of course, and yet I would change nothing.”

Madeleine nodded. After a moment, she said, “You are a different woman from what you were when your first came here.”

“If I am, it’s because of Reynaud — Oh, Madeleine, I’m so afraid for him!”

“As am I. There is no point, for he is a law unto himself, and yet—”

“Yes.” Elise was silent for long moments, waiting for the other women to go on. When she did not, she said, “I have been fearful about what might happen to you if he is caught. Will they not confiscate his property as a traitor?”

“If you mean this house and land, no,
chère
, though it is kind of you to be concerned. This property was placed in my name as a safeguard against such an eventuality some years ago since the laws are liable to change concerning the property rights of those of mixed French and Indian blood. As a spinster and a native-born Frenchwoman, there is not one who can challenge my ownership. Naturally I hold it only for Reynaud, as it is his birthright.”

“His birthright? I understood it was a gift from his father.”

“A legacy rather.”

“But as an illegitimate son, surely he had no birthright?”

“Who said he was illegitimate, pray?” Madeleine demanded, coming stiffly upright.

“Why, I assumed, as he is the son of Tattooed Arm—”

“You assumed that his parents were not married except, perhaps, in the Indian manner? I assure you, Tattooed Arm was baptized as a Christian and the union between Reynaud’s father and herself was solemnized with all possible pomp by a priest, who duly recorded it. This Natchez woman was my uncle’s first, his only legal wife.”

“Then, the woman in France—”

“Regrettably, she was but a — a concubine to my uncle, though in France she is known as his widow.”

Elise stared at her for long moments. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Not at all, though I will admit that I am surprised Reynaud should not have told you.”

“We touched on it briefly once, but I think — it may be that he did not care to go into it just then and there was never another opportunity.”

He had deliberately allowed her to think the worst of him in those early days. Why? Did he think she would not believe him or had he feared she would use it against him in some way? There had been Madeleine to consider and his half brothers and sisters in France.

“You are thinking of the title, I expect,” Madeleine said. “Reynaud is, of course, the count, or perhaps the man they call the Great Sun should be so designated; I doubt that Tattooed Arm herself could say with accuracy which is the elder. But it was Reynaud who renounced that title. He had no use for it here, nor did his brother. Neither cared for the estates in France or the position at court that they might have gained. The Great Sun considered himself a king and had power over the life and death of his subjects greater, perhaps, than our own King Louis. What use had he for property or titles? All he requested from the estate was a chased silver musket and a throne chair. Reynaud brought these things to him when he returned to take up these holdings that had been his bequest.”

“And you came with him.”

Madeleine took the comment as an inquiry into her motives. “I was tired of the strain of living as a poor relation, keeping a lie alive, being grateful to a false countess for her condescension knowing full well that she had no right to the title she bore. My disposition is not frivolous, but neither is it contemplative or as self-sacrificing as is necessary for a vocation as a nun. I discovered in myself, in fact, a positive longing for adventure, and here in this new world with Reynaud, I have not been disappointed.”

“You are not lonely here?”

“Never. There are always people coming and going: the guards, the traders, sometimes others visiting between the settlements, both Saint Jean Baptiste, and the
Prairie des Canots
on the Ouachita River above us.”

“And you have had no trouble here with all the unrest?”

“None to speak of. Oh, there have been a few stragglers, but they were soon sent packing. This house has always enjoyed the protection of Reynaud’s Indian alliance, of course, but more than that it is solid, a fortress once the shutters are closed, and is well protected.”

“I expect it is reassuring to Reynaud to know you are here watching over everything.”

“What else should I do? This is my life.”

“It would not be the same if you were to leave, but do you never think of marriage?”

A barking laugh left the Frenchwoman. “Who would have me at my age?”

“Many,” Elise said firmly.

“But I don’t want them. I fear I am too independent, too much addicted to having my own way to ever submit to the authority of a husband. More, I saw the countess betrayed by my uncle, Reynaud’s father. I well remember the day she discovered that she was not a married woman as she had thought, the day that Reynaud was presented. My uncle had not told her of his half-breed son, you see. It was a great shock. When I was younger, I might have been able to bring myself to trust a man enough to give my life into his keeping; but no longer.”

“You trust Reynaud, I think.”

“He is half Natchez, and though far from a simple man, he has still their simple honor.”

Elise waved her palmetto fan back and forth for a few strokes before she said, “It seems odd that a man who was trying to keep secret a previous marriage should make a son of that marriage free of his home.”

“At the time of the second marriage, Reynaud was away on a protracted journey with his tutor to Italy and Byzantium. His position as heir had not been made public at his own request, nor was it later. Only the close family knew — and finally the countess. My uncle announced it to her for revenge, I think, a punishment for his wife because of an affair at court.”

“He sounds a hard man.”

“A disappointed one rather. He had come to Louisiana with d’Iberville in 1698 and spent three years exploring the woodlands of Louisiana, pretending to be a
coureur de bois,
living with the Natchez. He was happy, but his duty lay elsewhere and he had to leave. France and civilization seemed so far away then that he thought he could forget his marriage with a beautiful
sauvagesse
. A mistake.”

A mistake, but one Reynaud had done his best to rectify. Just as he had tried to make things right for her. Elise considered it with care on the following evening as she walked along the path that led to the bayou. He was very good at the noble gesture despite his denials; it was one reason that she loved him. It would be tempting to think that on that day almost a year ago when he had made his proposal that she share his bed in return for the safety of the others and herself that his motive had been pure, a desire to help her discover sensual pleasure. But it was not so. He had wanted her and he had done what he had to do in order to have her. That certainty and directness was also a reason for her love.

Where was he now and what was he doing? Did he think of her? Did he yearn for her as she yearned for him? Did he ever think of this place here beneath the trees where she had invited his touch for the first time, where they had made love among the leaves? Did he wish that they could return to that moment, could live it again? Did he ever think of what might have happened if afterward he had stayed here at his home, refusing to become the war chief? Did he ever wonder if the result would have been any different?

He had not refused. He had saved his mother’s people, for a time at least. In the end, he had been forced to choose the Natchez as his own, though he had decided, in cold blood, that she would be better among the French.

Oh, but what would happen if Perier found the Natchez stronghold when he marched against them? Would it be the
Fort
de Valeur
all over again? Would Reynaud spend his life running, hiding in the woods from a French vengeance he did not deserve? Or would the new king’s general hunt him down like an animal along with all the rest, putting them to the sword?

Elise dropped to her knees and, stretching out a hand that shook with faint tremors, picked up a maple leaf, dry and half-crushed, left from the year before. It had been here on this spot that she and Reynaud had lain naked together like pagans, lost in the wonder of the senses. She bowed her head and tears welled over her lashes, dropping onto the dry leaf. It shattered under the gentle impact. She twisted the stem in her fingers, then let it fall.

She had been back with Claudette for over a month when they heard that Alexis Perier and his force of fire hundred and fifty men, divided into three battalions, along with another one hundred and fifty Indians of various tribes in a separate corps, had ascended to the mouth of the Black River. Christmas came and went without news, then in late January it was said that the French force had sighted the enemy and a siege was underway.

For long days nothing more could be discovered, though Elise questioned every trapper and trader who came near the vicinity of Fort Saint Jean Baptiste. Finally a man who had been at the battle itself came. The French had fired their cannons for two days to little purpose, he said, when by accident a shell had fallen into the center of the fort where the Natchez women and children were gathered. There had been terrible screams as many were killed or injured. Before the day was out, a warrior had emerged carrying a calumet.