Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (43 page)

Their breathing had slowed though they still lay with bodies enmeshed when the sound came. Rasping, imperious, it was as demanding as only a newborn dares to be.

“What in the name of all that’s holy is that?” Reynaud asked, starting up to one elbow.

“A baby, of course!”

Elise rolled off him, then flung herself back across his chest to pick up her skirt, which had landed on the floor beside the bench. Pushing herself to a sitting position, she began to hunt for the ends she normally knotted.

“What do you mean, of course? There was no baby when I left unless—”

“It belongs to Helene.”

“I should have known,” he said in resignation.

She went still. “Do you mind that they are here? She’s such a small baby; she will be no trouble. Helene was in labor and had nowhere else to go. Now Red Deer means to expose the little one in the woods as if it were malformed so that Helene will be free to work. I can’t let that happen.”

He lifted a hand to her lips. “Never mind. You can have a hundred babies and mothers if it pleases you. This house is now yours.”

“But it was built for the war chief.”

“I only reside here. It was waiting for you.”

Her mind was tangled in a confusion of French and Natchez traditions. “It is you who must defend it.”

“I defend those in it, not the house. It has no importance to me except as a shelter for the one who dwells in it.”

The baby had been lying with her mother. Helene must have awakened and given her a breast, for the angry wailing had ceased, turning to small, grunting, gratified sounds.

“You are too generous,” she said softly.

“Because I give you what is yours by right? Hardly.”

As a Natchez, he undoubtedly felt that the hut was hers, but would he be so generous with the lands he held as a Frenchman? It was not likely.

Almost as if he divined the trend of her thoughts, he went on, “There is nothing that I hold that is not now yours.”

“Also nothing that would not quickly become yours again if I should decide not to be your wife.”

“I have no way to convince you otherwise, if you think that, for I would not risk losing you only to prove it.”

The coolness of his tone sent a chill over her. She had no wish to question his word. What difference did it make in any case so long as Helene was permitted to stay? “Shall I thank you then,” she asked in a rallying tone, “or is it unnecessary?”

“That depends on what form it takes,” he said and reached out to draw her down beside him, setting his mouth to hers.

They were still wakeful, however, when the tiny noises of the baby’s feeding had died away. Elise asked about the embassy to the Choctaws and learned that it had been a qualified success. The Choctaws had a long list of demands, but they were far more concerned with gain than with fighting the Natchez. It seemed obvious that they could be propitiated by small concessions long enough for the walls of the forts to be finished. The Natchez had only to gather up some of the spoils taken from the French, turning over a portion-a few bales of silk, a handful of tools, a few slaves — every few days. In that way, an attack could be put off indefinitely.

Elise listened closely as she lay with her head pillowed on his shoulder. She was relieved that there would be no need to defend the village against a mass rush of the Choctaws, but her mind was on other things. “Would it be possible for Helene and her baby, and perhaps Madame Doucet, to be among the slaves to be transferred?”

“Possibly, but I don’t advise it,” he said, his voice grave. “The Choctaws are allies of the French, but that doesn’t mean that any captives they hold will be turned over to the French the minute they come into view. It’s far more likely that the Choctaws will hold them for ransom as a means of increasing their profit from the massacre.”

“They wouldn’t!”

“I assure you they would. In the meantime, the slaves would only change masters, working for the Choctaws instead of the Natchez. Since the Choctaws are living off the land while camped outside the village, the slaves will be better fed and better housed where they are, certainly they will not have to work any harder.”

“How will you choose who to send to them then?”

“It would be best to send the strongest and healthiest, but it may be that we will give the Frenchwomen the facts and see if there are volunteers. It’s always possible that the French will pay a ransom without delay, though I will be surprised if they even get here in less than another month.”

“Why then have the Choctaws come so early?” Her hand lay relaxed upon his chest. She spread her fingers, lightly touching the lines of his tattoos, where there were the ridges of tiny scars to guide her.

“For exactly what they will get: a share of the spoils.”

“But I thought it was revenge they wanted.”

“To them, taking a large part of the booty that the Natchez captured is revenge of a sort. It’s a mistake to think of Indians making war in the same way the white man does.”

“Oh?”

“For instance, Indians never attack against overwhelming odds, over open ground, or against a position obviously well guarded. So far as they are concerned, doing so is not bravery; it’s stupidity. They will die readily enough for good reason, but they value life too much to throw it away. Besides, among the Natchez the war chief is obliged to pay the families a sum of money for every warrior he fails to bring back from a battle. That discourages ordering senseless attacks.”

“You will have to pay for every man killed under you? Can you do that?”

“I must.”

Elise paused in her explorations of his chest with the tip of her index finger resting on the tight button of one of his paps. “It certainly seems a sensible way of waging war.”

“Only against people who have the same standards.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s seldom that the Natchez, or most Indians, kill women and children; they will do it, but usually only if they get in the way or endanger them in some way, such as attacking them or slowing down a march or crying so as to attract the enemy. A part of this is for the sake of the labor of such captives, naturally, but it is also because of the care they have for their own women and children. It has happened that the British have put whole villages to the sword, however, and I fear that the French will use cannons against the forts we are building. If that happens, I’m not sure how the Natchez will accept it. A man of the Natchez would rather die than submit to slavery, but he will also become a slave before he will let his women and children be killed.”

“It isn’t much of a choice,” Elise said, her voice thin, her movements stilled.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No.”

There was silence for some time. Sleep did not come, however. Finally Elise said, “If a war chief must pay for the men killed under him, then it’s no wonder the Suns are chosen. No one else could afford it.”

“It’s true that a war chief seldom gets to keep his spoils.”

“On the other hand, I understand there are criteria for the job that are more important.” She trailed her fingers slowly down his breastbone to his navel, pausing there to delve into that hollow.

“Such as?” he inquired. He bent to brush his lips over the top of her head.

“That of the women.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Don’t you?” she asked, smiling a little to herself. “But you passed the tests with such ease.”

“Tests?”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you.” She trailed her fingers lower over the hard flat muscles of his abdomen, following the thin line of hair to where it widened into a triangle. Gently, caressingly, she touched the smooth, warm length of his manhood.

“Witch,” he murmured.

Easing lower on the bench, she asked, “Do you really want to know?”

“No … yes.”

“It seems,” she said, brushing the flat of his stomach with her lips, “that men sometimes use the same tactics with women that they do in battle.”

“Profound,” he answered breathlessly. “Who says so?”

“Your mother. The test then, you see, is how a man behaves in … intimate moments.”

“I think I see.” His voice was rich if uneven with the laughter that made the muscles of his abdomen ripple under her mouth as he went on, “Will it damage my reputation beyond repair and lose me my office if I surrender now?”

~ ~ ~

The days of the month of grace went by swiftly. Hunting parties were sent out more often than before and ranged farther, even across the Mississippi River. The fires that dried the meat burned constantly. The women searched for fresh spring greens and roots, cooking these rather than using the stores of corn. They also sought and preserved supplies of certain herbs that would be needed in case of battle injuries. Water was brought from the creek and stored in special huts inside the forts, the pottery jars stacked one on top of the other to the ceiling, while the wells, though producing water, were deepened still farther. For protection from the weather, a series of huts were built inside the forts so that each stockade took on the appearance of a new, though more crowded, village. In the center of the larger main fort on the west bank of the creek, a small mound had been constructed to hold the larger house of the Great Sun and his family.

As the days grew warmer, the children were allowed out of the village to play in the woods, but were closely watched. Older boys were cautioned not to stray too far away and to listen always for the call to return. The women fretted that the fields were not prepared for planting, that the weather would grow too hot before they could put their seeds of maize, pumpkin, squash, and bean into the ground. None dared to think that they might not plant at all near the Grand Village that year, or if they thought it, did not say it aloud.

There was some concern over a hunting party of four men and two women that did not return. Men were sent out to look for them. They returned with a tale of capture by the Tunica Indians on the west side of the river, a tribe related to the Choctaws and so allied now with the French. An embassy was sent to the Tunica chief, but the old man who led the tribe said that he had already sent the Natchez men and women to the great white chief, Governor Perier, in New Orleans.

The delegations to the Choctaw encampment were frequent. A few of the captive women were given into the care of the French allies, but, as Reynaud had predicted, they only exchanged one kind of slavery for another and with less protection from the elements. A few tools, bolts of cloth, looking glasses, crystal glasses, and brass teapots changed hands, along with a portion of the gold taken from the French. The Natchez also provided a feast of smoked pork, venison, and sagamite. In return for their generosity, they gained time, the most valuable thing they could get at the moment.

The forts were completed. They had no large gates since there were no wheeled vehicles to go in and out. Instead, there was only once place in each encircling wall, not much wider than the shoulders of a man, where the ends overlapped each other, creating an entranceway. Such a stockade could be easily defended since attackers could only enter single file, and if the opening was rushed, it would only admit one man at a time into the interior of the fort.

Suddenly it was March. The trees burst into new growth, their tender leaves like a green haze seen through the gray branches of the forest. The sweet scent of yellow jasmine floated on the warm breeze along with the delicate and delectable fragrance of wild pink azaleas near the water. Dogwoods opened their white bracts, looking like earthbound white clouds, and near St. Catherine’s Creek the jack-in-the-pulpits and violets sprang forth in profusion.

One evening at twilight, Reynaud ducked into the hut. In his hand he carried a branch of wild azaleas, the delicate pink flowers contrasting oddly with the copper strength of his work-roughened fingers. He came to Elise and, breaking off a stem of flowers, pushed them into place over her ear. She smiled up at him, engulfed in their scent and a sudden heart-stopping wave of pleasure. He took her in his arm and held her close for a long moment, resting his cheek on the top of her head, and she clasped her arms around his waist, holding tightly in a formless anxiety and an emotion she could not name.

Finally he released her, stepping back. His eyes were dark and desolate as he spoke. “The French are here. They landed this afternoon and are camped now on the ruins of Fort Rosalie.”

The French did not advance at once on the village. They rested at their leisure, cleaning their equipment, organizing, building crude scaling ladders and waiting for the remainder of their force to travel upriver. They were under the command of the king’s lieutenant, the Chevalier de Loubois. It was expected, due to the deliberation of the French, that the chevalier would send to ask for a meeting with the Great Sun and perhaps make some attempt to win the freedom of the captives. He did not.

The Natchez did not wait. By the morning of the third day, the Indian population of the countryside, swarming in from the outer villages, had emptied into the two defensive stockades. The Grand Village stood empty. The doors of the huts gaped open and the cook fires were cold. So complete was the removal to the forts that even the sacred eternal fire had been transferred to a small temple inside the larger palisade. Nothing stirred, no sound was heard except for the cawing of a crow as it lighted on the carved back of one of the wild swans on the temple roof. Looking back at the village, Elise thought it appeared deserted, with the desolate look of some place where a plague had come taking everyone in death.