Wet Grave, page 23
He tore hungrily into the bread and cheese with the sense of feeding the firebox of a machine on the coarse fare and having but little time to work up enough steam to continue to move. The day had been a long one, struggling along soggy and difficult terrain.
“You get a major feud in the family—and God knows I'm astonished it doesn't happen more often, with Creole families all living under the same roof the way they do—and the whole atmosphere of the place turns to poison. Everyone starts telling tales, trying to score off each other or gain some halfpenny-worth of imaginary victory. And all the petty vengeances fall on the slaves. We're—they're—the ones who pay for everything sooner or later. And it doesn't take much, under those circumstances, for someone to start asking Why put up with this?”
In the silence that followed, the strike of the axes rang loud. Where the marsh lay, visible through the trees from where they sat, the frogs' peeping rose to a clamor. The smell of smoke unfurled like a dirty ribbon from the direction of the river, then veered away with the veering of the unfelt winds beyond the ciprière.
“The folks at Boscage said the family lawyer was trying to put the murder on one of the slaves.”
“Probably our friend Jacinthe. The fact that they haven't jailed him already must mean he was in plain view of several people at the time of the murder. Maybe he was locked up in the plantation jail. That's the only alibi I can think of that would hold. But now with a new overseer, and the plantation not doing well, and no one knowing whether everything will be sold, the uncertainty will be a thousand times worse. And with Bertrand in jail in town, and Guifford's widow without experience and not taking advice from the one family member remaining, Burke must have a free hand, to put pressure on an already raw nerve. . . .”
“Pig,” Rose declared. She folded her arms around her knees and regarded him sidelong in the thickening light. It would be pitchy black once the sun set—January extracted a new candle from his bundle, fitted it to the lantern, and turned his back to the wind to strike light. “That brings us back to where we were this morning, Ben. What do we do now with what we've learned? How do we trap Mulm without killing the innocent? Because I'm willing to bet you that at least half the people on that plantation are innocent, and have no more desire to rebel than I have.”
“Are you? You're giving a lot of people credit for forbearance. Myself, I think the first thing we must do is learn one more thing: that the guns are, in fact, in the wood-sheds. Are you willing to do that tonight?” He stood, slung the meal-sack, and his rifle, over his back.
Rose swatted at a mosquito whining in her ear. “That's a pretty stiff storm coming up.”
“I know. But we may not have another night before things break. And even if the slaves don't rebel tomorrow or the next day—and I wouldn't put any money on Jacinthe's Christian forbearance—the longer we stay near Avocet, the more chance we have of being seen by someone or of running into Shaw. As it is, the rain should cover our tracks and keep any observers indoors.”
“Hmn.” Rose didn't sound any too pleased, but uncorked the gourd of citrus oil to smear on her face and arms. “And I don't even want to think about the number of things that can happen between now and tomorrow's sunset. Maybe not half the people on Avocet are in favor of holding on,” she added as they set off through the wind-thrashed gloaming. “I'm not sure what the ratio is, of women with children to men on a place like that. But any woman with young children, who is aware of what's being planned, must be in the most ghastly state of terror right now. Possibly frightened enough to go to the whites and tell all she knows, just to save her own skin and her children's. And what happens after the first shots are fired, and the whites are killed, and the slaves are free to go where they will—or where they can? What then?”
“That moss-gatherer back at Boscage said they'd arranged not only guns, but boats.”
“I seem to recall Spartacus being promised something along those lines when he tried this same thing with the Romans.”
“And I think Jacinthe is going to find exactly what Spartacus found when he gets to the rendezvous: a lot of empty water. Especially if he's dealing with Mulm.” A sky-wide flare of dry lightning silhouetted the trees at the edge of the sugar-fields. Though the dark afterward seemed more dense, it gave January a direction; his gear on his back, and Rose's hand slick with oil in his. “Which is why the first thing we need to do, after we get back to Grand Isle,” he continued, “is get word to Ti-Jon that Burke is working for Mulm. I tried to warn him before that the whole thing was a set-up. He said that didn't make a difference, but this may change his mind.”
“Will he trust you?” asked Rose. “Will he believe the message is from you? Especially if he doesn't want to?”
January was silent, knowing she was right.
She went on. “And do you think that, having the guns in hand, Jacinthe will simply disband his conspiracy? He can't, you know. Not if the guns are already there, waiting to be found. And if they're not, of course, you and I have no proof of anything.”
Again January could find nothing to say. Another burst of far-off lightning showed him her face, boyish under the hat-brim and under its coat of grime, save for the curious firm line of her mouth.
“Logically,” Rose said, “the only thing we can do is fire the sheds.”
That stopped him in his tracks. “What?”
“It's not like they're near anything but the sugar-house.” She hitched her rifle on her shoulder, then went forward toward the sullen iron-black of the twilight sky. By now the trees were barely visible, great columns of darkness, the leaf-matted earth no more than a suggestion of gray. Between flares of lightning only a frieze of darker-gray slats, like a sort of edgewise jalousie, indicated the open sky. But the wind, cold and eerie, flowed over them, and January could hear little over the surging clatter of the cane.
“The quarters are on the other side of the Big House.” Rose had to raise her voice to be heard. “There must be two hundred yards of open ground between the house and the mill. I think the fields are too green to burn, don't you?”
He did, but he also didn't give a spitball in a gale whether the white man's crop went up in flames or not. Guifford and Bertrand Avocet sounded exactly alike to him, both contentious, greedy men who didn't care what befell those around them so long as their precious Creole honor was satisfied. He and Rose darted across the path that divided the fields from the ciprière and plowed straight into the cane-rows. January had to unsheath the lantern's light to distinguish his way between the rows of leaves that flailed at them like razors. The wind would cover their movements, but it would cover those of an enemy as well. If the time of the rebellion was near, Mulm would have men in the ciprière, waiting for those frightened ones of whom Rose had spoken, those who dared not rebel but feared to stay.
And in truth, January thought, raising his arm to shield his face, he could think of no other way of averting the rebellion that must end in disaster for Jacinthe and all who took up arms at his side. But his stomach churned at the thought of simply stepping in and destroying the guns. What Rose suggested was exactly like him saying You can't come with me because it's too dangerous. . . . You'll only get hurt. . . .
Even if he had known she would get hurt, had known for a fact that she would be killed, to make the decision for her was to dishonor her courage and her choice. And to simply burn the sheds would insult men who would rather be free than live safe. It would make a mockery of his own beliefs that people were free to choose.
Damn it, he thought, hating the choice: did he really, REALLY believe these men—and a certain number of inevitable innocents—would be better off dead than dishonored?
Except, of course, that he didn't know they would die.
As he didn't know, for certain, what Mulm was planning.
Only God knew that.
So he fought his way along the rows toward the sheds, the sharp leaves cutting at his hands, turning on the horns of the dilemma and wondering how one would start a fire in a gale like this anyway.
Rose, he reflected with an inner sigh, would inevitably know. She'd been experimenting for years with ways to make a fire underwater.
Halfway across the fields, spits of rain hit them, then huge, juicy drops. By the time they reached the sheds, the downpour had begun in earnest, the winds whipping the rain now into January's eyes, now against his back, and though the cane-leaves sliced at his face he could only be thankful that they shielded him and Rose from the worst force of the blow. Lightning silhouetted the mill chimney in ghostly white, like a scene in a nightmare, and January remembered the storms of his childhood: lying in the single bed in the half-cabin where he'd been born, clinging to Olympe when the walls swayed and the pots and gourds hanging on them clattered like the champing of demon teeth. . . .
Listening to his mother's soft snores. It would take more than a storm to keep Livia awake.
Feeling his father's arms warm around them both.
They came out of the cane a few yards from the sugar-house. The wind blew so fiercely, it made January stagger and nearly swept Rose off her feet. So dense was the darkness, so blinding the rain, January could only guess where the wall of the sugar-house lay; he dared not uncover the light. Gripping Rose tight around the waist with one arm, he leaned into the wind until he reached the wall, and worked his way along it in what he hoped was the right direction. Lightning steadily punctuated the rain up until this time, the thunder like the splitting of rocks—so naturally, Jove of the Thunderbolts decided this was the time to rest up a little, and they clung to the corner of the sugar-house for what felt like an hour and a half but was probably no more than ten minutes, until the next bolt showed them where the wood-sheds lay.
Never trust a damn blankitte Greek god.
The stillness in the shelter of the wood-shed was profound, the noise of the rain on the thatch like water being poured from a bucket. Wind whined through the cracks, but unlike the shelters at St. Roche, these were proper sheds, like small barns.
“And if you tell me you let the lantern go out,” whispered Rose out of the darkness, “I will succumb to a case of the vapors.”
In spite of the danger, January chuckled. There wasn't much smell here of cut wood, and a great smell of dirt. At a guess the shed was empty, or nearly so. A flashing quick scutter of sound—rats, he thought. Or snakes. Or a six-foot alligator waiting for its dinner. He wiped the rain out of his eyes with a bleeding hand and fumbled at the lantern's slide. “I wonder if Jacinthe and his gang got—”
He raised the slide just in time to see a slave come at him with a knife.
He made a noise like Yuh! and felt the lantern slip from his hands. The ground, though covered with wood-chips and shreds of bark, was also soggy, sliding under his feet as a body hard and strong as a panther's collided with his in the ensuing dark. He felt the knife-blade skin his biceps, grabbed for the man's shoulder, twisting and rolling and knowing he dared not lose contact with the arm. A powerful hand grabbed at his cheek, fingers gouging for his eye; the thumb raked his lips and he bit with all the force of his jaws. Salt blood in his mouth. The man screamed; January slammed his knee up into his opponent's groin and hurled him back, hearing the wall creak with the impact. The shed door rattled sharply and he yelled, “Look out, Rose!” as wind and rain came roaring in.
An indistinct, dark shape against lighter darkness, and then a hollow, deafening boom, yellow muzzle-flash, and the stinging sear of shot ripping arm, calf, cheek. A clang, a curse, and Rose's voice shouting, “Out!” January plunged in the direction of her voice and tripped over someone rolling and scrambling on the muddy floor, fell himself, came up like a bullock from a mire with hands grabbing at his legs, his shirt, his ankles. “Here!” Rose yelled again. It sounded like she'd been near enough the entrance to thwack the gunman over the shotgun barrel with the butt of her own weapon. January ripped free, fell through the door into Rose's steadying grip and pattering, blowing handkerchiefs of diminishing rain.
They hit the cane-rows, plowing and swimming through the churning blackness, only the straightness and direction of the rows leading them back toward the ciprière two miles away. The shotgun roared behind them again—two barrels or a very fast loader—and Rose cried out, lurched forward, January catching her in the crook of his arm.
Her back was so wet, he couldn't tell how much blood there was in the rain-water, but he smelled it, strong.
She was breathing—panting, each gasp a stifled moan—and still trying to keep on her feet and run. January swung her into his arms and strode through the mud and wind and slashing cane-leaves, and cursed the rain that lightened and dwindled—DAMN it, can't you keep up long enough to cover our traces at least?
Mulm and his men—or Jacinthe and his sentries—would be waiting, out in the dark of the ciprière.
January rammed himself crosswise against the cane-rows. He stumbled in the rain-filled ditches, staggered up the mounded rows, and fought through the hedge of razor-leaved cane. Rose's arms went around his neck. She'd lost her hat, and her long hair hung thick and wet against his breast beneath the torn calico of his shirt and caught on every leaf of every cane of every row. . . . She never made a sound. Her blood felt hot on his arm.
Four or five rows upstream he turned again, heading in the direction from which they'd come, praying he hadn't miscalculated, that this row would go clear down to the water. Praying that the storm wouldn't raise the level of the river, that there'd be enough of the tree-covered batture to follow, so they wouldn't have to risk going in the water itself. In summer, the batture would be dangerous enough.
Don't let her die. Virgin Mary, don't let her die.
His own wounds smarted, but they'd been glancing, he'd been rolling aside already. Rose had caught part or all of a charge straight on. No telling how close the marksman had been, or how much of the shot had broken up or spent before it found its target, or what kind of shot it had been. Fear made all the soak of rain that drenched her clothing into blood.
Wind struck him hard as he came out of the cane, though not as hard as before. The rain had eased, no doubt to facilitate pursuit. In his arms Rose shivered violently, and murmured something indistinguishable when he spoke her name. No lightning had struck for many minutes, and he saw only the vaguest blur that was the shell road along the river. Beyond that, the levee and the sky were a sightless abyss, but he could smell the river.
Don't let her die.
And in his mind he saw Mathieu in his dream, grinning as he thrust her legs apart.
The batture was a solid granny-knot of brush, saplings, weeds, and snags—a nearly-impenetrable snarl of desiccated roots and branches, occupied by birds, turtles, snakes of every variety, alligators, and upon occasion runaway slaves. Carrying Rose and thanking God for the size and strength that made most Americans look at him with that dismissive glance that said field-hand, January stumbled along the outside of the levee, shivering himself now, until he estimated they were clear of Avocet. Then he stooped, and set Rose down, fumbling in his pockets for flint and steel even as he realized there was absolutely nothing dry in the entire world to light.
“Rose,” he whispered, bending over her, touching her hair. “Rose.”
He felt her nod her head.
Useless to ask where she was hurt, or how badly. His ear to her lips, he could hear her breathing, and it sounded steady, if shallow and swift. He had no idea how many men might come after them, or whether those would be Mulm's bravos or guards set by Jacinthe himself—in the end, it would come to the same thing. If they were still anywhere in the vicinity of Avocet at first light, they were doomed.
So he gathered Rose into his arms again and moved downstream. He stayed as close to the top of the levee as he could, and prayed the rain would be enough to keep the snakes under cover. They had lost both rifles, and all their food and drink. He found himself desperately calculating how far out of Burke's reach they must go against how much cold and exposure Rose could endure.
The rain seemed to fill the universe with water; the darkness before Creation, when God moved upon the surface of the deep. What time it was January had no idea, but far off, ahead of him and to his right, a light glowed through trees. He thought it must be a steamboat, seen around a bend in the river—there were steamboat captains mad enough to navigate on a moonless night in a storm, though not generally this far below town.
Still, he made his way along the shell road; in time the tossing oceans of dripping cane on his right gave place to rough open ground, dotted with native oaks whose leaves sounded wetly under the rain, and it was clear to him then that the light was indeed shining from the window of a house.
A Big House, but that would mean that at least a few servants were still awake. He came down off the levee and circled among the trees toward the kitchen yard and the outbuildings where the house-servants slept. As he passed the dark shape of what he guessed to be the overseer's house, a chorus of barks resounded from the gallery, and January stood still, to let the dogs come up. From the porch a voice called out in thickly Hibernian French, “Och, who's out there, then?”
January called back, “I'm a free man, sir. But the woman with me is injured, and in desperate need of help.”
He spoke in English, and in the same language the voice exclaimed, “The de'il you say!” And over his shoulder, back into the house, “Bide, Aggie, 'tis all right.” The overseer sprang down the steps and strode toward them, a lantern swinging from his hand and showing him to be a fat, sandy man with a face like a petrified potato and a mouth like a penciled line under a stiff red mustache. “Christ,” he added when the light fell over Rose. And well he might, thought January, utterly aghast: her blood soaked her clothing as if she had been butchered. “This way, man, get her to the hospital! What in the name of God . . . ?”
