Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (79 page)

Cyrene had seen Little Foot only in passing that morning, and there had really been no time for a proper exchange of greetings and news the evening before. Such courtesies being extremely important to the Choctaw, she turned in the direction of the round shelter constructed of bent limbs, bark, and palmetto that she had seen Little Foot and her daughter enter.

Outside the Indian woman’s hut, she called for Little Foot in quiet tones. Immediately, there was a rustling inside, added to what sounded like a whisper and a scuffle. A few seconds later, Little Foot emerged from the small opening of the hut. Her color was high, but her face was stolid as she greeted Cyrene. “Daughter of the house of my son’s father, it gives me pleasure to see you.”

In the Choctaw manner, Little Foot would not say the name of her lover any more than she would have her husband. This Cyrene accepted, just as she had accepted the fact that Little Foot considered her an adopted daughter of the Bretons since she was staying with them. She had tried patiently to explain that she was no relation to Jean and Pierre, but Little Foot would not have it. If Cyrene was not a wife or a lover of the Bretons, then she must be a daughter; there was no other category.

“I hope I see you well,” Cyrene said.

Little Foot replied in the affirmative and there was a general exchange of other such compliments. A silence fell. Cyrene waited, expecting to be invited into the hut for refreshment. Such an expression of hospitality was a courtesy with the strength of a law. Only a hated foe would be denied.

Little Foot did not speak. She looked miserable, her face flushing with shame as she twisted her hands together. Still, she remained silent.

For Cyrene to demand to know why she was not offered hospitality would be as terrible a breach of manners as Little Foot’s failure to extend it. One did not demand that which was always given freely, nor did one hint at the lack. Still, there was a formula for getting at the root of the problem.

“Tell me how I have offended you, Little Foot, and I will discover a way to repair the damage.”

“Oh, Cyrene, there is no damage,” the woman said, the words a near wail.

A possible explanation presented itself. “Do you have sickness in your house?”

“Yes, that’s it.” Relief spread over Little Foot’s features and she tried to smile. “Come, walk with me and we will visit my sister.”

The Indian woman moved away from the hut a step, pausing for Cyrene to join her. Cyrene moved to fall into step at her side.

The Choctaw did not lie well. Their consciousness of an untruth was so acute that they could not speak it with any naturalness. Little Foot was lying, there could be no doubt of it. More, she wanted Cyrene away from her hut.

Cyrene searched her mind for what she had done wrong. She could think of nothing. She had not trespassed upon Little Foot’s conversation the night before with Jean. There was nothing in her life that was different except that she had become involved with René. It hardly seemed likely that Little Foot could have anything against the man; she could not know him. As for the moral question of Cyrene’s intimacy with him, Little Foot was unlikely to consider it a matter for concern.

The only reason important enough for Little Foot to lie would be to protect Cyrene’s feelings. Added to that was the intimation she had had that there was someone else in the woman’s hut. The most likely person was her daughter, but that would have been no reason to keep Cyrene out. But what if there had been another person? A man? If Little Foot knew that Cyrene had spent the night before in a shelter with René Lemonnier, she would be reluctant to permit her to see him closeted in her hut with Quick Squirrel this afternoon.

“Your sickness — I hope it isn’t serious?” Cyrene said as she walked beside the other woman. She did not listen to Little Foot’s attempt to reassure her, however, but searched the encampment with her gaze. There was no sign of René” or Quick Squirrel among the people milling here and there or sitting about in groups. That did not of itself mean anything, but it gave her a sinking sensation inside.

They reached the hut of Little Foot’s sister. The woman invited Cyrene and Little Foot inside and brought out coffee from a precious hoard kept for special occasions, boiling a little over the fire. This was offered with a few corn cakes sweetened with berries. The two Indian women and Cyrene sat talking of this and that in a mixture of French, Choctaw, and the Chickasaw that was the lingua franca of the southeastern Indian tribes. As Little Foot relaxed enough to laugh and tell a salacious story or two about her aging father, Cyrene began to feel that her suspicions were ridiculous. In any case, it was no affair of hers what René chose to do or with whom; there was certainly no reason for her to be upset.

She had no sooner come to that conclusion when a flicker of movement drew her attention to Little Foot’s hut. Quick Squirrel was just leaving it, whipping through the opening as if pursued. She straightened and moved away a few steps, then stopped to twist the wrapped leather of her skirt back into place and to smooth the braid of her hair. With a toss of her head, the girl moved on, swinging her hips as she made toward her grandfather’s fire. Cyrene looked after her, and there was a hot ache in the center of her being. It was some time before she could return her attention to the other two women.

The arrangement between the Bretons and Captain Dodsworth was concluded perhaps an hour later. The remainder of the goods owed the Bretons were brought to shore in the longboat, after which the captain retreated to his ship. Pierre and Jean spread their new wares on their trading blankets and invited the people of Drowned Oak to gather close. Business was brisk and a great many of the furs brought in were of fine quality. Before Captain Dodsworth sailed there would be more trading, though in furs instead of indigo. Other Choctaw villages above New Orleans were just as hungry for items of English manufacture.

The sun shone down, glittering with winter brightness. The air grew more balmy. It was one of the wonders of the colony’s climate, this change from winter to something like spring in a matter of hours, one of the things that most endeared the land to Cyrene. She left what had become an Indian village in miniature and wandered down to the beach. The water came rolling in onto the golden sand, gently lapping. Somewhere beyond the barrier islands was the tumbling turquoise gulf, but it did not intrude here. Overhead a shore bird called, a piercing cry. A pelican stood at the water’s edge, as motionless and brown and silent as a half-rotted stump. The wind in her face was pleasant, soft with moisture, scented with salt. A fly hummed around her and winged away again. She began to walk away from the bustle and noise behind her, following the shoreline.

She did not consciously intend to be alone; still, the solitude of the far-stretching water’s edge reached out to her, drawing her onward. The packed sand under her feet made walking easy, like an endless path. There was enjoyment in the movement of her body, the free swing of her stride. Now and then she bent to pick up a piece of driftwood, a curious bit of shell or fish bone. Always she moved on again.

She saw them in the distance, two men who stood talking with their heads bent and their shoulders almost touching as they faced the bay. The nearest one, alert to her approach, turned toward her, then said something to his companion. The other man seemed to make some answer before moving farther down the beach. The first man turned and began to walk toward her with a long, swift stride.

Cyrene’s eyes had grown sharp in the past three years, as had her ability to see more when she looked and to remember what she saw. The man moving in her direction she would have known anywhere, any time. It was René. The other one just vanishing among the trees that edged the shore was the marquise’s henchman, Touchet.

What had the two been doing together? Was it an accidental meeting, here away from everyone else, or was there some purpose behind it? René had been the marquise’s favorite, and Touchet was her hireling. René had not been in New Orleans long; still, it would not be surprising if he knew the other man. It was unlikely that they were friends, however; certainly they had not greeted each other as such the night before. If they had business together, it must concern the wife of the governor. Madame Vaudreuil had many and varied interests, but one of her main ones was to stop the smuggling that cut into her profits. If René and Touchet were involved in that, it did not bode well for the Bretons.

“You’re a long way from the camp,” he greeted her as he drew near.

Cyrene looked at him as he stood before her with smiling ease, the light from the water giving his eyes a silver-gray sheen and the breeze lifting soft strands of his dark hair. She thought of Madame Vaudreuil’s visit aboard the flatboat and also of Little Foot emerging from her hut, and her voice was cold. “I might say the same about you.”

He lifted a brow at her tone though his comment was light. “Yes, but I don’t require a guardian.”

“No, you are one, or so I was given to understand.”

“A post with little reward, though I would not have deserted it if I hadn’t thought Pierre and Jean, not to mention Gaston, were on duty. Did you miss me?”

“I didn’t come looking for you, if that’s what you think.”

“I should have known,” he mourned.

“So you should. The question is, did you come looking for Touchet?”

The amusement faded from his face as he stared at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come, I know he’s the marquise’s man.”

“Which means that I may be also?”

She lifted her chin. “The thought naturally occurs.”

“Naturally. And if I said that I had never met the man before last night?”

“Then,” she said a shade less certainly, “I would have to warn you against him. It’s known that he killed a man in Paris, if not more than one. He makes himself useful to Madame Vaudreuil, including purchasing opium and hashish for her, not for her use but for her steward to dispense, though she doesn’t scruple to measure them out herself when he isn’t available. They also say he is a spy, gathering information wherever he can and concocting out of whole cloth what he can’t discover.”

“A thoroughly disreputable character, one who must be avoided at all costs.”

“I don’t speak lightly.”

His face hardened at her sharp tone and there was a hint of swift thought in his eyes. “I can see that, though why you presume to advise me at all is less plain. I may be at a disadvantage in the wilderness, but it’s been some years since I needed to be coached in the ways of the world.”

She would not back down. “Am I now supposed to retire, defeated by your sophistication? It doesn’t explain why you were meeting Touchet.”

René hesitated. There were two options available to him as he saw it. He could either stalk away in a fine rage, which would remove him from her company, the wisest course, or he could mollify her with a show of surrender. Why was it she was always where she might be least expected? She was fast becoming his nemesis, albeit a lovely one, with the wind molding her clothing to her gentle curves and fine tendrils of hair blowing about her face.

“Forgive me,” he said, inclining his head in a bow of polished grace. “It’s been some years also since I have been asked to give an accounting of myself. It goes against the grain. The truth is, I met the man in passing, returning from my walk.”

Was it the truth? She would give much to know. She did not like the suspicions that jostled in her mind. Nor did she like the feeling that she was being humored, though there seemed little she could do about it.

When she made no reply, René spoke again. “Shall we walk on? Or would you prefer to return? I promise I will not neglect my duties again but will stick like a burr to your side.”

“That will, I fear, prove most inconvenient,” she said in stringent tones, and wished a moment later she had not spoken as she saw where the comment would lead her.

“For me or for you?”

Cyrene turned and began to walk so that she need not look at him as she answered over her shoulder, “For you, of course.”

René had no trouble in catching up with her, though he made no effort to bring her to a halt as he would like but merely kept pace. He watched her closely, however, as he asked, “How is this?”

“It will most certainly get in the way of your conquests.”

His brows drew together over his nose. “My what?”

“I speak of Quick Squirrel. It was hardly sporting of you to bed her with such haste.”

“Quick Squirrel?”

“Little Foot’s daughter, the granddaughter of Drowned Oak. You might at least have discovered her name.”

“I have not,” he said distinctly, “had the pleasure of either her acquaintance or her bed.”