Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (4 page)

The dry leaves of a post oak rattled overhead as she passed beneath an overhanging limb. The thudding hoofbeats of her mare on the damp track seemed loud. Elise looked around at the bright morning, allowing her gaze to rise to where a turkey buzzard circled lazily against the intense blue of the sky. It was indeed a turkey buzzard and not a hawk, and yet she was aware abruptly of the singing quiet in which there was no sound of other birds. The breeze died away. The woods that lined the sides of the road seemed to crowd the track, closing in. She felt a prickle at the back of her neck.

The cracking boom of a shot rang out, echoing through the woods. Elise reined in, staring toward where the sound had come from just ahead of her while the mare danced and sidled with nervousness. It could be anything: a man out hunting, someone shooting at a fox or weasel sneaking around their chickens, a signal to bring a man in from the fields for some emergency. Ahead of her was the Doucet place, Monsieur Doucet, a woodcarver by trade who had been employed in France making woodcuts for the printing of books before he signed up as a colonist for Louisiana, had been known to let off a few shots of a morning to perfect his aim.

Abruptly there came the scattered booming of more firing. Hard upon it could be heard distant cries that might have been either terror or exultation. They came not only from ahead of her, but also from behind her. Elise twisted this way and that on her sidesaddle, listening, her eyes widening with a terrible fear. Then, with sudden decision, she urged the mare onward though she held her to a walk.

The clearing of the Doucet arpents came into view. There was the Doucets’ farmhouse with smoke curling in a blue plume from the mud-and-stick chimney. For an instant the scene seemed peaceful, normal. Then Elise saw the body of Monsieur Doucet sprawled on the high front steps and the mastiff that served as his watchdog lying with blood-wet fur beside him. A fat billow of smoke came from the front windows. From the entrance door a pair of Indians emerged carrying bundles of clothing and sacks of food, one of them with a huge ham strapped to his back. Behind them came a third Indian who pushed a screaming woman with blood running down her face before him and held a wriggling, crying young boy still dressed in his nightgown under his arm. It was Madame Doucet’s daughter and six-year-old grandson.

For a stunned instant Elise allowed her mare to continue to walk toward the house. Then, with a gasp so sharp it hurt her throat, she pulled her mount up and around and slammed her heel into the horse’s side, kicking her into a gallop. Behind her came a yell. She had been seen. She did not look back. Putting her head down, she leaned over the mare’s head, urging her along the track back toward her own home. She scarcely gave a thought to the Indians in pursuit. They were laden with booty and captives and were without mounts. Her every fear was concentrated on the farm she had left, the farm she had worked so hard to keep and make prosper, the place where every single thing she owned or cared for was now endangered.

For there could be no doubt. In spite of the warnings and rumors, they had been caught unprepared. The attack they had not thought possible had come. It had come not with cries in the dawn but with a trick designed to put French arms into Indian hands. It had come with soft words and promises of meat for the winter, with trickery and guile worthy of the French themselves. The Natchez were rising, carrying, the French before them and leaving death behind.

2

M
OMENTS LATER, SHE was sitting her horse in front of her own home. There were flames licking out of the window openings and smoke billowing in a fog around it. Of her African servants there was no sign. If they were inside the house, they must be dead, but it was possible that they had been taken captive, depending on the humor of the Indians. Near the shed lay her cow that had been with calf, or what was left of it after it had been butchered hastily. Feathers were scattered around the chicken run as if the poultry had been scooped up. As she sat in frozen horror, she saw a goose come from behind the house, scurrying into low flight as it made toward the woods.

She thought of the food that had been inside the house, the eiderdowns and woven coverlets and all the other comforts that she had made with her own hands here in the wilderness; of her few gowns, the material for which had been brought at great cost from France. Were they gone, taken by the savages? Could she save any of it?

She could not think of what she must do. There was a tight feeling in her throat as if she might scream at any sudden movement or noise. She was grateful for the warmth of the mare under her and for the necessity of controlling the animal that was upset by the smell of smoke and death since it occupied her hands and quivering muscles.

Her mind moved in distraction to the Indians who had accosted her just a short time before. Why had they not attacked her then? She had been unarmed, defenseless, an easy prey for the three of them in spite of the fact that she had been mounted while they had been on foot.

But wait, the shot she had heard must have been a signal. The time had not been right then. How short was the span of moments that had saved her.

On the wind came the faint sound of more gunfire and distant cries. Smoke was rising above the treetops at all points of the compass. It was a concerted attack, then, not just an isolated raid. The men at the fort would fight if they could reach their weapons in time, but how long could they last? There were over two thousand Natchez and of that number probably seven hundred and fifty were seasoned warriors. Of the French there were only seven hundred in all, with less than half of them ready to bear arms. Even if all the able-bodied French men were able to reach the fort, which seemed unlikely, they would be outnumbered two to one. With the element of surprise firmly on the side of the Indians, it was all too likely to be a massacre.

Tears of rage and terror sprang to Elise’s eyes, and there rose inside her a corroding bitterness for the ignored warnings. She wiped her face with hard impatience. Crying would not help. Something must be done. She could not sit here on the main road to the fort when at any moment another war party might appear around the bend. There was no safety anywhere, not at the fort, not at any other holding of the French. The only place left was the woods.

With one last look at her house, she clenched her teeth and released her knee from the pommel of the sidesaddle, sliding down. The mare was a scrubby beast, traded from the Spaniards, and she hated to lose her; still, she dropped the reins and gave the animal a hard slap on the rump to send her galloping wildly down the road. A horse was of no use in the thick, encroaching woodland and would be too likely to attract pursuit with its whickering and heavy movements. The cavalier’s hat she wore, with its broad brim, would also be a nuisance. She took it off and sent it sailing as close to her own front yard as she could, then she picked up her skirts and ran swiftly toward the woods on the opposite side of the track.

It was colder among the trees and damp. Elise did her best to step on the matted leaves and gnarled roots so as to leave as little trail as she could and to ease herself beneath the saw briers and smilax that hung in wads without snagging her habit and presenting anyone who followed her with bits of velvet. It was not always possible. The falling leaves drifted into her hair and clung to the skin of her face. Long red scratches appeared on her hands and wrists, stinging as if with some poison. She stepped into a hole and wet her shoe and stocking with foul-smelling black water. Her breath rasped in her chest, sending sharp shafts of pain into her lungs and side with every step. Still she pushed on.

At last a huge magnolia tree rose before her. Its evergreen leaves were duck and glossy green on top, rust-brown on the undersides. The massive limbs grew low, twisted and arthritic, resting on the ground to make a pyramid of deep black green. Here was shelter. Elise pushed into the tree, stepping over the limbs and bending over to reach the more open center. There she sank down and put her back to the rough trunk. Drawing up her knees, she clasped them with her arms. She sat for long moments, listening to the stillness. Finally she put down her head and closed her eyes.

It might have been half an hour, it might have been two full hours later, when she heard the blundering crash of footsteps. She tensed, lifting her head and breathing deeply like an animal scenting danger. She came to her knees, parting the branches a minute amount to look in the direction from which the sound came. The first thing she saw was a moving shape, careening, staggering along. It resolved into the thin shape of a man. He wore nothing more than a shirt and breeches, and the linen of his shirt was splotched with blood. His face was white and his eyes staring. It was an instant before Elise recognized him as the teenage boy who was apprenticed to the man who had the cooperage and lived beyond the Doucets.

“Henri!” she called as loudly as she dared, “over here.”

He did not seem to hear. She called again, then got to her feet and pushed the limbs aside to wave.

He stopped so abruptly that he fell sprawling, then came to his hands and knees, scrabbling toward her in the fallen magnolia leaves so that they crackled like musket shots. She bent to help him through the limbs. As they reached the center, he fell against her and lay trembling.

“Are you hurt?” she said softly.

“J-j-just a g-graze.”

It was difficult to understand his speech through the stuttering and chattering of his teeth brought on by shock. “Are you sure?”

He nodded his head violently. “I w-was in the p-privy. The Indians killed them all, m’sieu, madame, the t-three little ones. They found the wine and c-cognac or else they would have k-killed me.”

It came out in bits and pieces. The boy had huddled in the privy while his master and his family were killed, had watched them being hacked to pieces through the cracks in its walls, and had seen their house fired. The Indians had saved the spirits and some food and proceeded to have a feast. The sparks from the house had set fire to the roof of the privy and Henri had been forced to emerge. He had run and they had shot at him. A ball had scratched him, but so drunk were the Indians that they had not pursued him when he ran into the woods.

Elise soothed him as best she could, persuading him to let her look at his wound. It was no more serious than he had said; still, he could not stop shaking. He had barely controlled himself to the point where he could sit up with his hands tightly folded between his legs when they heard the woman crying.

The sound was thin and hoarse, like the wailing of a newborn infant and yet fraught with the hopeless grief only heard in the sobbing of women. Henri looked at Elise and there was fear in his face, fear that the sound was a trick, fear that as the woman drew near she might bring the Indians down upon them with the noise she was making. It was easy to recognize the emotions that moved over his thin features for Elise felt them herself. She was torn between a need to make the woman be quiet at all costs and the pricking of compassion that urged her to do what was in her power to aid her.

It was neither one impulse nor the other that won, but a combination of both. Driven by anger and concern, she pushed her way out of the magnolia. She stood, getting her bearings for a moment, but before she could move, Henri was beside her. Her voice was curt as she said, “You stay here.”

“I-I can’t, not by m-myself.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“T-there might be.” Though his teeth had stopped chattering, his difficult speech remained.

“You’ll be safer,” she pointed out with reasonableness that was surprising, considering the state of her nerves.

“I don’t c-care.”

She could not force him. She gave a curt nod and started off in the direction of the crying.

They came upon the woman suddenly and from the last quarter they expected. It was a moment before Elise realized that the crying woman had been lost and was wandering in a wide circle. Hard on that understanding came the knowledge that she also knew her. Under the wild tangle of her hair, behind the sagging flesh of her face that seemed to have aged years, the woman was none other than Madam Doucet.

“Elise!” Madame Doucet cried on a fresh sob and cast herself upon Elise’s bosom with no more surprise than if the younger woman had stepped into her own salon at a time of mourning.

Elise held her, stroking her and murmuring, but the sobs continued. She had forgotten Henri until she felt him clutch her arm, heard his strangled sound of joy. She looked up then to see two Frenchmen striding toward them through the trees. One carried a musket in his hand while the other limped along with the aid of a stout limb, favoring an ankle that was badly swollen, perhaps sprained if not broken.