A Rendezvous in Haiti (21 page)

McAllister pulled his shot, jolted his aim off true: the face from another world, his own startled twitch, Blanchard rising in the stirrups: McAllister caught him in the ribs, low and to the left, and was so surprised that he forgot to work the bolt, only gaped and wondered—for a second, two, but it was enough. He sprang to his feet, and worked the bolt and shouted, “Caroline!”

Martel saw Blanchard rise and twist, and fall against the woman, almost before he heard the shot. He vaulted from his screen of brush shouting, “For Fleury! For Fleury, you son of a bitch!” and stood flourishing his bullwhip, massive and exultant and happy, freed of this blanc at last! “For Fleury and for Haiti!”

Blanchard slumped to his left; his right hand went to the scabbard and yanked at the rifle; he fell against warm flesh, and the woman was shrieking, “No!” Down, he dragged her down, his foot was free and he was resting on the woman's body and fumbling for the bolt, the trigger, the safety, but he could not see, the sky had darkened. He took in a great breath, and bubbled; he lay across warm flesh in the shallows and he embraced the rifle.

Light returned; a vast blue sky glowed above him. He saw Martel, the huge man, the gleaming grin. And he saw the blanc, the rifleman. For one instant of pure serenity Blanchard's earth stood still; he sighted; he fired.

Caroline struggled free, shouted again, “No! Bobby, no!” Blanchard rolled onto his back and lay still, eyes open; his blood oozed into the stream. “No, no, no!” she shouted over and over, and tore at Blanchard's shirt, a bandage, the wound was bad; intact, the ouanga bag lay on a crimson pulp; and when an arm came around her shoulders she flung it off. “Down!” It was Bobby shouting at her; he grasped her by the upper arm, tugged her off Blanchard and shoved her flat.

Blanchard wheezed faintly. His rifle lay underwater, and his hand clutched it still. He worked to keep the sky blue. It dimmed to grey, flared once more to blue. He was bruised; he ached with every breath.

McAllister had seen Blanchard take wavering aim and had charged forward; heard the shot and seen Blanchard flop, drop the weapon, go limp; charged on, grappled Caroline down. She struggled and shouted, a savage scream, and then she was beating at him, jabbing at his face, whacking, backhanding, shrieking, “You! You!” Christ, the poor hysterical creature! He pinned her wrists, scanned the bank, glimpsed the fallen Martel. Caroline wailed. He slapped her once, hard, and roared, “You're all right! Blanchard's dead!”

She fell slack in his arms; she sobbed, and was still.

“He's not dead,” Blanchard breathed.

“Blanchard!” Caroline cried. “Let me see.” She tore herself free.

Blanchard closed his eyes and blew little pink bubbles; the sun struck rainbows from his lips.

McAllister knelt. “Blanchard. Can you hear me? You missed, man, you missed your aim. You've shot Martel.”

Blanchard strained for air, for the strength to speak. “Missed, hell.” His face twisted, a flicker of memory, recognition. He whispered hoarsely, “Seen you before. Tin soldier.” Then angrily: “Something wrong here.” In a queer strangled rattle he gasped, “I know you.” His hand rose from the water, and wavered toward Caroline, and he died.

McAllister sprinted. He pushed his way between Haitians. “Martel! Where's the wound?”

“In the belly.” Martel's breathing was shallow, his eyes were dull. “My own fault. For once I let myself be happy. Is he dead?”

“Yes. Dead.”

“I thank God for that.” The black face had paled: granite.

Caroline sat limp in the shallows, watching the gentle eddies suck Blanchard's blood away. She heard McAllister call, and did not care. She heard his step, his voice: “Martel's alive. Not for long.” She rose obediently and followed him. He said no more; nor did he touch her.

She knelt beside the guerrilla. His wound was neat.

He panted gently. “You are Mam'selle Barbour?”

She nodded.

“Speak up,” he said. “I can't see.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Ravi,” he said. His eyes searched for something far beyond her.

She accepted McAllister's bandanna, folded it in four, and pressed it carefully to the wound. She shook her head, rose, and returned to Blanchard's corpse.

Scarron arrived shortly, with an escort, two mounted Cacos. McAllister reported; he and the priest went directly to Martel. “Chariot.”

Martel opened his eyes. “Judas. Well, you have your blanche.”

“And you have your blanc, if it's any comfort.”

“It is, it is.” For a moment Martel was almost jolly. “Bring him here. Here beside me.”

Scarron nodded to McAllister.

The stream gurgled; Sammy and the mule had watered and now wandered onto the bank. The faint rustle and flow of forest and stream only deepened the hot silence. McAllister took Caroline's hand and urged her ashore. She was kneeling in the shallows and said, “Not yet.”

He slung his rifle, squatted on the bank beside her and turned her face toward his. He gazed at her for some time, and she at him, and he decided to say nothing. He touched her cheek, her forehead.

She closed Blanchard's eyes, and freed the ouanga bag. She slipped the rawhide over her own head, and freed her hair. The ouanga bag nestled between her breasts. McAllister salvaged the man's weapons, laid them against a bush ashore, and hauled on the body. Caroline followed him.

“Lay him here,” Martel whispered, and they stretched Blanchard beside him. Martel turned his head, and peered. “Salaud.” With effort, he spat toward the dead man; the thin spittle lay on his own cheek and chin. “Ti-Jean,” he said, “I had best have the last rites. I feel better now, but just in case.”

McAllister asked, “Shall we take you in? There are good doctors, and a military hospital.”

“I think not,” Martel said.

The villagers were arriving, women and children, armed men, trudging out of the forest and onto the broad bank. They paused, and some knelt, seeing Father Scarron at work; others gawked at the dead blanc, the living blanc, the mournful blanche. Scarron daubed the two men, one dead, one dying, with holy oils from his little black bag; he murmured Latin. When he said, “… deliquesti, Amen,” forty voices repeated “Amen,” and he sent the two rebels to eternity in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. The villagers stood in clumps then; some murmured to Martel. McAllister saw Faustine, who showed no emotion; he resisted the impulse to point her out. The Haitians crossed themselves and wailed. Oreste cried out fiercely, and bent to mutter.

Martel said, “No. I gave my word.”

Father Scarron embraced Caroline, and she clung to him. “We had best leave,” he said.

McAllister bowed his head in sudden desolation: we who are about to die salute you. He marched up the trail a little way, half expecting to find no horse: but there stood his mount, tethered and cropping, beside Martel's. He mounted and rode back to the stream. He kept his mind on his work: Blanchard's horse for Caroline, the mule of no importance. Take Blanchard's body in? Would the Cacos make a move?

“Bobby.” She was at the stream, where Blanchard had lain.

“Caroline, listen—”

“Come here.”

The stream flowed, placid, clear. Caroline sat on the bank, the empty ouanga bag in one hand. She showed him the other. “This was all.”

A small silver cross, with a lion standing on a crown, the cross dangling from a crimson ribbon; and the small crimson medal, tiny lion, tiny crown on the cross centered, for everyday wear.

Well up the bank, almost in the forest, shielding Martel and Blanchard, the ranks of Cacos and sullen villagers stood, in motley or cotton or half naked, leaden now and stunned. McAllister saw round faces, long faces, bald women, surly pot-bellied men, naked children shoving and giggling. The Haitians were watching the priest and his two friends. Voices rose, others hushed them.

Time to leave.

McAllister took Caroline's hand for a moment only.

“You killed him,” Caroline said.

“Yes, and would again.” He spoke sharper than he wanted.

“From ambush.”

“Did you want a hero? You know who I am.” He stood taller, unyielding. “He did his dirty job and I did mine. He was a killer.”

“Oh he was, he was!”

“Leave him in peace,” Scarron said. “The soul has departed.”

Caroline stepped to Blanchard's horse and said, “Come on, Sammy.”

McAllister said, “Sammy?”

Blanchard's rifle was in its scabbard, the slaughtering knife in its sheath, the pistol belt looped over the high pommel. Caroline grasped the belt, and McAllister said, “I'll take that.”

“I'll wear it,” she said. “I'll keep the knife too. It was his father's.”

McAllister let his hand drop. He checked his own tack, his rifle. He waited for Caroline to mount, and when she was up he saw her eyes moist.

“You never said a Mass,” he reminded Scarron.

“Another time,” the priest said.

“Good. Caroline: I knew him too.”

“You knew him too,” she said slowly.

“He wasn't French at all,” McAllister said. “He was British.”

Caroline said, “No. He was not.”

McAllister was perplexed and curious, but eased off again. He drew his silver bars from a pocket and pinned them to his collar. “There. No sense careering around the countryside like a bandit. We have much to talk about, my love. When you're ready.” He drew back. “You two wait here.”

Within a ring of fifty Haitians, he stood over Martel, who lay like an effigy, a brooding stone idol overthrown, huge and helpless. “Goodbye, big man.”

“Goodbye, Lieutenant. You'll lose. You know that. In the end you'll lose.”

“The end,” McAllister said. “That's a long way down the road.”

“Not for me,” Martel said. “Move out now, while I am still their leader.”

McAllister waved a salute, and turned away.

“I'll tow the mule and hang back a bit, just to keep an eye on these folks. All right, Caroline? Lead on, Father.”

Once more into the ford, and a score of rifles behind him on the bank, and his back a mile wide; the stream purling, the vast green plain beyond the farther shore. Against all instinct he turned in the saddle; he halted his mount and raised a sad hand in farewell. No one stirred, not even a child, and that was the last he saw of them: a grieving dark crowd of half-naked natives, among whom he had lived for a day and a night.

They traveled slowly, and Caroline said not a word. In an hour or so they heard tambors beating slowly. At another stream Caroline bathed, and washed her clothes and wriggled into the wet garments; they cooled her. She had restored the medals to Blanchard's ouanga bag and was wearing it. That night they camped quietly, like mourners or pilgrims, and he dished up rations. “We'll stand watch,” he said to Scarron. “I'll wake you in four hours or so.” And to Caroline, “Sleep. Will you take a cup of rum?”

She did, and he only said, “Good night now.” And in the morning he only said, “Good morning,” but when Scarron said, “Top o' the morning,” she smiled hazily; more, she was famished.

They rode, and took shelter from the noonday sun, and all day the tambors followed them. In midafternoon the breeze revived, and McAllister rode beside Caroline. Her hair was tangled and her shirt and trousers were wrinkled and stained, but her beauty would never fade, he knew that, not for him, so he said, “We should be married when your father arrives. All's well that ends well.”

“My father?”

“He's aboard a battle wagon now. Back in the real world, remember?”

“The real world. Ah,” she groaned, “ah, I did something terrible.”

He waited, and when she said no more he answered: “I doubt that, and I don't believe I'd care.”

“I have not excelled,” she said.

“You sure talk funny. Maybe you need a husband. Homely but honest.”

“I have not excelled in virtue,” she said.

“That's good news,” McAllister said. “You excel in other respects, and I'll just have to put up with your vices. Do you want to cry?”

“I don't need to cry,” she said.

“Splendid woman,” he said. “I do, now and then. It is sometimes the only reasonable reaction to life.”

“I'll think about it,” she said. The sun was setting before them, vast sheets of orange fading to yellow, and little humped green hills dimming to purple on the horizon.

“There's another reasonable reaction,” he said. “It's a long life sentence and what else is worth it but love?”

Father Scarron, behind them, called, “I can hear every word.”

So they rode on, and shortly they made camp again, not far now, home to Hinche in the morning. And over their evening meal Father Scarron said, “He called me Judas.”

McAllister said, “Of course. We all like to make much of ourselves.”

“Damn you for a shrewd one,” Scarron said. “You're older.”

They ate and drank, and drank again beneath the yellow moon and the scatter of stars, and then the priest said, “Do you know, once upon a time the bride and groom had to promise, ‘With my body I thee worship.' It is a good answer to death, though perhaps a priest should not say so.”

As the last light faded Caroline walked a little way apart, to be by herself. McAllister cleaned up their leavings, and scrubbed the mess kits with sandy dirt. “Wise, wise you are,” Scarron said. “Give her all the time she needs.”

“I don't care if she never tells me,” McAllister said, “but she has to let it out before it kills her.”

Later Caroline stood before McAllister and said, “Lieutenant, if you will take me away from all this I promise to be very good to you.”

“I'll think about it,” he said, and he seemed to hear their hearts beating like tambors.