All Souls' Rising (9 page)

The ground grew steeper, as they went on, Toussaint rehearsing the psalm from the beginning, over and over, till both boys could repeat the first five verses. They rode up over a spur of Morne du Cap, and down into the ravine on the far side. Here Toussaint saw fresh cow patties, new marks of gnawing on the bark of the trees either side of the path. The fresh sign continued to where the ravine opened out into what had been a small grassy field, overgrazed now and gone to dust in the drought. Beyond the small expanse of this
petit savanne
, cloud-covered mountains rose in the interior.

At the field’s edge he noticed a spear belonging to the herdsman, Ti-Paul, lying beside a tree and when his eye traveled up the trunk he found the young slave himself in a high fork.

“
Ki sa ou gêgnê?
” Toussaint said. “What’s got after you?”

“
Casques
,” Ti-Paul said, with a queasy smile. His lanky legs were twined around the tree’s bole like a vine.

“
Môntré mwê yo
,” Toussaint said. “Show me.”

Ti-Paul’s smile flickered, then went completely out. He slid down the tree, and at Toussaint’s gesture he stooped and recovered his spear. He had grown much in his sixteenth year, so that the diminutive no longer suited him; now he stood high as the stallion’s shoulder. Still mounted between his sons, Toussaint walked Bellisarius after Ti-Paul, who waved his spear at the lean-to
ajoupa
which the wild dogs had wrecked. The broad leaves that had roofed it were broken and scattered on the ground among the windfall stakes. Ti-Paul dug his spear point into the ground among the dog tracks faintly circling in the dust and Toussaint peered down from the saddle at the prints. There were three different sets he could distinguish, and one whose large tracks wound away from the others seemed to be missing a foot.

“Did they kill?” he asked Ti-Paul.

“They got my food,” Ti-Paul said. His Adam’s apple shuddered in his skinny neck. “I had it hanging from the top, so that’s how they came to knock down my
ajoupa
.”

“Ah,” Toussaint said. “What food had you?”

“What I’m given,” Ti-Paul said, puzzled. “Yams and maize cakes, a little molasses.”

“They came a long way to eat cornbread, these
casques
,” Toussaint said. “They’ve not been seen here for ten years or more…Where are the cows?”

Ti-Paul cut off the reply he would have made, raised his spear and pointed, superfluously, for Toussaint had already made out the puff of dust, halfway across the small savannah to the next spur of the mountain rising like a bare worn bone.

“Wait here,” Toussaint said shortly. He headed Belisarius around and made toward the cattle. The movement was sudden enough that Placide, who’d leaned over to look at the dog tracks, was almost unseated. He caught himself on a fistful of Toussaint’s green coat, and let go as soon as he’d regained his balance.

“He’s afraid, Ti-Paul,” Placide said. “Is he afraid of the dogs?”

Toussaint shrugged. “It’s lonely, out with the cattle. It would be better to have two men, in case of trouble, but the master doesn’t like to lose
main-d’oeuvre
from the fields at this time.”

“Were you lonely?” Isaac said.

Toussaint rode on silently a little way, watching the backs of the cows define themselves more clearly, reflecting on the time he’d spent as cowherd in his teens, before Béager brought him back to work with the horses. “No,” he finally said. “It didn’t bother me.”

As they came trotting up the cattle spooked, perhaps at the sight of three riders on one horse. Toussaint dismounted and lifted Isaac down. The cattle regrouped themselves, eyeing the people. They were long-horned, shaggy and scrawny in the flanks; some had bloody foaming mouths from trying to eat the spiny nopal when there was nothing else to eat. He counted. All the full-grown cows were there but he didn’t have any previous count of calves to go by.

Of a sudden the cattle began to shift and low, their eyes rolling. They circled tightly in on themselves, dust rising from their hooves as if drawn by a small tornado. The little scrub bull hooked his horn toward the ground and veered away, and out of the gap he left in the dust swirl came loping the wild dogs which were called
casques
. There were four of them and the leader was making good time on his three legs—all four of them stretching out a little faster as they made straight for the children on the ground. Toussaint, who was unarmed except for a two-inch penknife, sprang into the saddle quick as a cat, not even touching a stirrup. Placide was up behind him on the instant, but Isaac couldn’t make it, and Toussaint turned the horse tightly on his hindquarters to shield him from the dogs. The second of the pack made a lunge for the horse’s head, and Bellisarius reared and struck at it with his front hooves. Toussaint could hear Isaac screaming—he brought the horse down with an effort and snatched the child one-handed from where he clung to the stirrup iron, heaved and loosed his grip and caught him again by the seat of the pants and slung him across the horse’s neck like a sack of meal.

The dogs fell back. Again Bellisarius clenched hindquarters as if he would rear, and Toussaint loosened the reins and stroked him and talked to him until he was able to stand foursquare, though still snorting and trembling some. He lifted Isaac then, and set him astride before the saddle. Placide’s arms were locked around his waist, and he could feel the smaller boy’s heart thumping against the flat of his hand, but there were no tears and he was pleased by that. He took a long full breath and sighed it out. The
casques
had disposed themselves around the horse like points on the compass. Only the three-legged leader was still bristling and snarling. He was prick-eared and vulpine, the fur of his humped back gone to silver, and his teeth were worn and brown with rot. He stopped snarling and looked at the horse and riders with an expression of intelligent consideration. One of the other dogs sat down abruptly and began to pant, tongue lolling, lips pulled back in what appeared to be an amiable smile.

“So after all they exist, his
casques
,” Toussaint said. “Are you afraid of them? Like Ti-Paul?”

The boys kept silent; Placide tightened his grip. Toussaint touched up the horse and rode toward the cattle, who’d bunched again a couple of hundred yards away. The
casques
did not follow, but filed off back toward the mountain slopes, the old three-legged one still leading the line.

“But you saw the tracks on the ground before,” Placide said, twisting around to watch the dogs retreat. “I saw them myself,
m’pè
.”

“I saw them, yes,” Toussaint said. “But who knows for certain if it’s real or not, what he sees?”

At the edge of the savannah Ti-Paul stood in a frozen pose. He wore only a loincloth and with the long spear held butt-down on the ground, the blade sticking a foot or more above his head, he looked like a warrior of Guinée, though of course he was a Creole. There were more infants born at Bréda than at many plantations, and more of them survived. Still, when Toussaint looked at Ti-Paul, somewhere down at the base of his brain he felt the tidal memory of Africa, that country which he’d never seen. He pulled Bellisarius to a halt in front of Ti-Paul and laid the reins loose on the stallion’s mane.

“So,” he said. “All the cows are there that should be. It’s been a long time since I came here, so I don’t know about the calves. But when I next come, then I’ll know.”

Ti-Paul looked away, thrusting out his lower lip.

“Have you seen maroons?” Toussaint said.

“No.” Ti-Paul’s tone was sulky, and he didn’t look up.

“Ah,” said Toussaint. “I saw some, and not a day’s ride from here. Riau’s band—do you remember Riau? Well, you were just a baby when he ran away from Bréda.”

Ti-Paul jerked his head up. “They were
casques
,” he said. “Five or six of them, one with three legs. One red dog with a torn ear too. Didn’t you see their tracks everywhere?” He swept his free hand over the tracks.

“It’s as you say,” Toussaint said. “I saw them on the plain. The maroons also keep dogs, you know. When the weather’s hard like this, even a maroon’s dog might go wild.”

Ti-Paul’s head dropped again, in confusion now, Toussaint thought, rather than guilt.

“You mustn’t feed them if they come,” Toussaint said. “Keep them away from the cattle. Send them away, all of them. If the dogs come back, use your spear. And keep your fire up. The
casques
won’t rush a burning stick.”

“Yes,” Ti-Paul told the dust.

Toussaint reached into the square side pocket of his coat and took out the bag of food. The boys’ heads tracked in unison as he lowered it to Ti-Paul, and Isaac sighed, just audibly.

“Hunger is a bad master,” Toussaint said, “often it is. Tomorrow or the next day more men will come to drive the cows back down to Bréda. And all the calves will be here, will they not?”

“Yes,” Ti-Paul said, closing his hand around the neck of the bag. “Yes, all of them.”

They rode back to the main plantation more slowly than they had come out, for the heat was climbing to its peak. In the jungle Toussaint stopped once to cut some leaves from a bitter-bush and stow them in the bag he carried for gathering such herbs as he might chance upon. Even when they reached the road he didn’t gallop, for fear of overheating the stallion. Placide hadn’t asked again if he could ride him unassisted. Toussaint could hear both boys’ stomachs growling but neither of them complained. The field hands had already come in for their midday break, had eaten already and were resting.

Toussaint let the children off at the cabin, so that they could get a meal, and rode back toward the stables. A few slaves were sitting out of doors, their backs against the mud walls of the cabins, motionless as ironwood carvings; in this heat even the small children were still. The young cock had mounted a speckled hen in the middle of the way, and he rocked atop her with a feathery motion. At the water trough Toussaint dismounted and while the stallion drank he soaked his headcloth in the tepid water and retied it over his brows. He led Bellisarius into a stall and unsaddled him. Just as he finished a junior groom came to tell him he was wanted at the
grand’case
.

A fresh sweat broke out through his headcloth as he climbed the little rise toward the house. The heat shimmer sent ripples over the brick facade at the head of the knoll, so that the whole house seemed almost a mirage. He walked up through the garden of tea roses, faded and withering under the sun, climbed the gallery steps and went around to the front of the house. Between the pillars of the gallery he could look down across the wide expanse of cane fields, quiet and empty for the moment, since at Bréda the Code Noir was observed and the slaves were given their full two hours respite from the midday heat.

Bayon de Libertat turned his head as Toussaint creaked across the whitewashed boards. Beside him sat the Sieur Maltrot, and on the rail, one boot cocked up, was perched the freckled mulatto everyone called Choufleur, believed to be Maltrot’s son, or else his brother’s, out of a
griffonne
in Le Cap. Toussaint glanced at the others under a lowered eyelid and presented himself to Bayon de Libertat, heels together, hands at his sides.

“And what of the cattle?” Bayon de Libertat smiled and stroked his arthritic hand.

“
Casques
have come down from the mountains,” Toussaint said.

“
Casques?
” Bayon de Libertat passed his good hand over his forehead, then returned it to his lap to cover the other. “I thought they had all been destroyed years ago. We must send someone with a gun.”

“Yes,” Toussaint said. “It would be better to bring the cattle in as well.”

“There’s no grain to spare,” said Bayon de Libertat. “There’s no grazing here.”

“The pasture’s worn out where they are,” Toussaint said. “They’ll kill themselves eating nopal up there.”

“What would you do, then? How would you have it done?”

“I would kill a good few and dry the meat at once,” Toussaint said. “Corral the breeding stock and feed them as we can and wait until the drought has ended.”

Bayon de Libertat nodded.

“Good husbandry,” said the Sieur Maltrot. He took out his snuffbox and thumbed open the lid. “I’m told by your master that you have been equally provident in the other arrangements you have made.”

“Master,” Toussaint pivoted on his heels and faced him with a little bow. “Everything is in good order.”

“
Ma foi
,” said the Sieur Maltrot. “I believe you are the most remarkable nigger I have ever met.” He sneezed mightily into his handkerchief and snapped his snuffbox shut. “And the conditions, they are satisfactory?”

“Three days
congé
each week for all and freedom for the leaders,” Toussaint said. Behind him, Choufleur plucked a sprig of jasmine from the vine that twined around the nearest post to him, and twirled it in his fingers. Toussaint, distracted by the movement, shifted his feet slightly so he could see Choufleur from the corner of his eye.

“Three days a week is not a negligible price,” Maltrot said, musingly. He spun his sword stick in his hands, fidgeting with the catch that released the blade. “For all of the slaves on the northern plain.”

“They work more efficiently when they are well fed and well rested,” said Bayon de Libertat. “Well treated generally. As you yourself have remarked.”

“Of course,” said the Sieur Maltrot. “Still, even here you don’t allow
three days
…”

“Much of this time would be spent tending the provision grounds,” said Bayon de Libertat. “There would be a saving there…”

“And much of this time would be spent dancing the
calenda
,” Maltrot said. “No doubt.” He eyed Toussaint. “What of these leaders who will be made free?”

“Jean-François Papillon. Boukman Dutty,” Toussaint said. The Sieur Maltrot nodded at both names. On the porch rail, Choufleur stripped leaves from his jasmine sprig. He squeezed a drop of juice onto the inside of his wrist from the torn stem. The fresh sweet smell of it spiraled toward the others.