Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (28 page)

The horse was tired, however. It was not long before she began to flag. Elise rubbed her neck, whispering, urging her onward. It helped, but not for long. The pounding of the hooves behind her grew louder. There was fury in the sound and a threat. She dared to glance back. It was Path Bear who pursued her, riding his spotted plains pony as if they were one in strength and will, ignoring the flecks of foam that flew back from the animal’s neck and withers to dry on his body.

Then he was upon her, leaning in, catching her around the waist. His arm closed like a vise around her and she was dragged from the saddle, snatched brutally against him. He reined in his horse to a dancing stop and half dropped, half flung her to the ground. She caught herself on her hands and knees, feeling the sting of sharp limbs and twigs under her palms. She shook her head to clear it, clenching her teeth against the ache in her joints from the jarring fall, trying to catch her breath.

Path Bear spoke, the words harsh, with the sound of command. She looked up, a dazed expression in her eyes, to see that he had dismounted. He was telling her to get up, she thought. She did not like the way he was standing over her, so she pushed herself erect, swaying a little. Her mare had come to a halt a short distance away, standing with her head down and blowing. Instinctively she turned toward her.

The big warrior reached out to catch her arm, his fingers bruising as he jerked her around. She raised her head, giving him a look of cold scorn as she snatched her wrist from his grasp and stepped back. Once more he spoke, then, swinging away from her, he moved to a tree where he broke off a limb as thick as his thumb and studded with twigs and buds. He slashed it through the air once, twice, then turned and started toward Elise.

He was going to beat her. She felt the blood drain from her face as the realization struck her. Did he think she was a slave that he had the right to discipline or was this the treatment meted out to Indian women who caused trouble? It made no difference, she knew, as she backed away from him. The foolhardiness of her actions leaped to her mind. She should have known escape would not be so easy. She should have considered the consequences more thoroughly. Regardless of her error, however, she had no intention of submitting to the drubbing the Indian planned. With grim concentration, she looked around for a weapon.

There it was, a limb of pitch pine, the hardened core of a rotted pine trunk. She scooped it up and, with cold fury in her eyes, stood her ground. Path Bear stopped, a stunned look making his features blank for an instant before rage that she should defy him took its place. He threw his cape off, then advanced upon her, slapping the limp he held into his palm with whistling blows.

Abruptly he lunged, swinging the limb with hard strength toward her shoulders. She thrust her limb up and out with both hands to catch the blow. It sent splinters and bits of rotted wood flying and numbed her arms with its force. It was all she could do to twist low to parry the next blow that was aimed at her knees. Hard and fast they came. Elise stumbled back, panting with the effort to deflect them. There was no doubt that she would be borne down in short order for her hands ached, her shoulders burned, and there were sharp pains in the muscles in her back. First, however, she would strike at least one blow, though she knew beyond doubt that if it landed squarely Path Bear might well kill her.

The warrior drew back for a final effort that he expected to smash though her defense. In that brief moment, the way was open. Since there had been no retaliation from her, he expected none. With both hands on her stick like a staff, she swung to the side and thrust the jagged end straight toward his midsection. Glad triumph sang in her veins as it landed squarely in his solar plexus.

His eyes glazed and the air left him in a grunting rush as he staggered back a step. He looked down to see the ragged injury she had left as her limb skidded along his muscles to tear his skin. Blood rushed to his face, turning it purplish copper. He crouched to attack.

A command rang out, sharp, authoritative, and the black shoulder of the Spanish-bred barb was pushed between them. Reynaud slid down. He looked at Elise, his hard gray gaze running over her as if to check for injuries, but without a shred of softness as he met her look of startled relief. Without a word, he ducked under the head of his horse to confront Path Bear.

So intent had she and the warrior been on their minor battle that they had not heard the arrival of Reynaud and the other Natchez. Elise looked to where the warriors sat their horses with Madame Doucet among them, slumping in the saddle like a sack of cornmeal after the swift ride. The faces of the Indians held judicious patience, though she thought she saw also surprise edged with humor in the glances they exchanged as they looked from the limb she held to the wound on the top of Path Bear’s abdomen.

Of the exchange between Reynaud and Path Bear, Elise understood not a word. The Indian’s gestures in her direction were violent, accusing. He listened with scant respect to Reynaud, pointing to her once more with an obvious threat. Reynaud sidestepped, blocking the way, his voice firm. Path Bear dropped his stick and shook a fist in Reynaud’s face. Reynaud crossed his arms, his words suddenly flat and stern. The other man stood for a long moment, then dropped his gaze, backing away. He turned and with long strides went to his horse, mounting in a single movement. He looked back one last time, then swung his mount’s head, going to join the others. He spoke to them and in a body they wheeled and moved away at a walk.

Elise let fall the limb she had been holding and shut her eyes with a trembling sigh. Until that moment she had not known how tightly strung her nerves were. She felt weak suddenly as if she might fall if she tried to move. At the slight sound of rustling leather, she opened her eyes to see Reynaud standing in front of her.

“How good are you at screaming?”

It was not an idle question, she saw that at once from the grim cast of his face. Still, it made no sense. “What?”

“You must be punished. I have made it clear that you are my woman and that privilege belongs to me. As much pleasure as it might give me to turn you over my knee, it seems unjust and should be unnecessary if you can bring yourself to cry out at my command. Now.”

At the last word, he swung his hand to slap his open palm against the leather of his Spanish saddle. It cracked in the wooden stillness with the sound of a hard blow. The horse sidled, but did not shift from his position that hid them from the party of warriors.

He reached out to catch her wrist in a hard grasp, pulling her toward him, His voice soft, he said, “Cooperate or I warn you, I’ll be forced to pick up Path Bear’s stick and lift your skirts—”

“Don’t!” she said sharply.

“That’s better.” He released her. “Now!”

They played out the charade, though Elise turned away from him to lean her head against the warm and quivering flank of the barb. Tears gathered inside her, pressing against her throat. It seemed that she had become abnormally sensitive of late with emotions tearing at her that she had thought suppressed out of existence years ago. She wanted to be self-reliant, but fate had conspired against her, bringing loss and pain, fatigue and disappointment. Nothing happened as she expected or as she planned; everything seemed to show her how ill-equipped she was to protect herself.

The blows had stopped. There was an awkward moment of silence. Reynaud broke it.

  “Now if you can bring yourself to appear chastened,” he began.

She turned her head swiftly, stung by the jeering note in his voice despite the fact that it seemed directed as much at himself as at her. The tears she had been trying so hard to control rose in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. With an angry exclamation, she swung from him once more, scrubbing at them with the heel of her hand.

“Why?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this?”

“Call it a personal quirk; I am lifting my hand against a woman.”

“No, not that!”

“You mean why am I forcing you to come with me? The answer is simple. I want you.”

The words sent a peculiar sensation along her nerves. “It will do you no good.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“You need not think your — magnanimity this afternoon will make any difference.”

“No, I won’t. And you need not think that because I have stayed my hand this time that I won’t be able to overcome my quirk if it happens again.”

She allowed her lip to curl, though he could not see it. “I never doubted that for a moment.”

“Good. We understand each other.”

Did they? Elise could not be so certain. She mulled over what he had said as she permitted him to mount her on the barb and swing up behind her, leading her mare and riding with her before him like a captive to join the others. Resentment and gratitude warred within her, impeding her efforts to separate her thoughts. She wanted to despise him, but could not. She tried to feel incensed at his expression of desire for her and discovered instead a strange trepidation. She reached for her rage at his highhanded actions, drawing it around her as if for comfort. It was only that she was tired, she told herself, tired of riding, tired of this journeying back and forth, tired of conflict and of being sufficient unto herself. It was only a temporary lapse. Tomorrow would be better; it must be.

Reynaud held her slim and supple body in his arms, feeling the softness of her hips through the habit skirt and cloak shifting against him as the horse moved. He knew when she began to relax, leaning on him, and something tightly held inside himself loosened, began to dissolve. It was all he could do not to rein the barb into the woods and have her then and there, once more naked among the leaves with the salty taste of her tears on her lips. It was not the pride he sensed inside her that prevented him, but the sight of her hands lying with the palms turned upward in her lap. They were slowly becoming a bluish purple from withstanding the blows of Path Bear. She had courage, his prickly love, and strength. He must not destroy either by taking her by force, the only way he could have her now. But there was another reason, too. As much as he needed the sweet surcease to be had in her body, he yearned to know her mind, to seek deep within it and sense a welcome for him there. He wanted to share her thoughts, her dreams, her secrets. He wanted her to come to him with desire, to reach inside him and discover how open he was to her. It could not happen yet, if at all. He concentrated instead on what he would like to do to the great Indian bastard who had caused her bruises. The Natchez did not fight among themselves; no quarrel ever came to blows on pain of banishment. It was a pity.

Elise slept with Madame Doucet when darkness fell. She was not comfortable. The bed furs were chilly and dampish without the intense heat of Reynaud’s body to warm them. The older woman twitched and moaned in her sleep, waking Elise times without number. There was no shelter against mosquitoes, for they needed none. The misting rain had stopped; still, its wetness lingered like a heavy dew, turning slowly to frost as the cold of the night deepened. They lay in a circle with their feet toward the ashes where the small fire Reynaud had permitted had burned. If she stretched out her hand, Elise could have touched his furs, but he was not in them. He sat on watch during the darkest hours of the night. It was only toward dawn that she saw him lie down and pull the furs around him. She slept best during the same hours that he used for resting.

The days continued gray and cold. One night it rained and the next morning they crawled from the lean-to they had constructed to find every tree limb, leaf, and blade of grass coated with a glistening shell of ice. The ice crackled around their horses’ legs as they crossed streams and sparkled with a brilliance that pierced their eyes as the sun rose high. Numbed by the cold that crept under the cloak and took the feeling from her fingers, Elise ceased to think of escape. The journey became something to be endured: an unending vista of trees and more trees; of countless winding streams that wet her skirts and routed her carefully hoarded warmth; of poor meals of parched corn and dried meat; and of the unending feeling of being watched by the Natchez warriors that plodded behind her. She sometimes noted landmarks: the bayou that tasted of salt where she had swum with Reynaud in the moonlight; the river where they had built a raft for the crossing though they let the horses swim it now; the clearing where Reynaud had stood naked in the rain on that first night. She noted them, but could arouse little more than fleeting recognition, a faint smile of remembrance, so complete was her stupor of exhaustion and depleted emotions.

They came finally to the Mississippi one late afternoon. There were pirogues waiting, the large crafts of the Indians capable of holding sixteen men, along with the warriors to send them lunging over the placid, shining water. The crossing did not take long with the cold northwest wind at their backs. Still, by the time they had reached the eastern shore and brought the horses over by swimming them behind a pirogue, twilight had fallen.

It was just as well. The gentle lavender light softened the edges of the blackened timbers that lay at angles where Fort Rosalie had been and made the sagging barns and outbuildings still standing on a hill here and there, marking where homesteads had been, seem less forlorn. It hid the scattered bones, human and animal, that had been picked clean by buzzards, creeping animals, crows, and the blackbirds of winter. It made the cracked and dented kitchenware, the staved-in barrels, the broken hoops and torn cornhusk dolls, and the scattered bits of clothing that littered the road seem like mere refuse instead of the ruined belongings of the dead and the enslaved.