Hunting for the Mississippi Page 8

I barely have time to straighten up before a huge rattlesnake springs out from beneath a stone. Its fangs, still glistening with venom, brush my face. Then, a second later, it turns away from me and slithers back into the grass. It disappears like a crocodile sliding into a river. I can see the crocodile in my mind for a moment and the similarities between both attacks send shivers down my spine.

  “The swine bit me,” moans the Big Man. “Right there, on my foot.”

  I don’t waste a second examining the wound that I can now see at last: a red cut that seems harmless enough.

  “Those devilish creatures are deadlier than a volley of Indian arrows,” says a Recollect behind me, a man not renowned for his tact.

  Beside him stand four fusiliers, nervously pointing their weapons in all directions. Barbier and Moranget arrive too, looking appropriately alarmed.

  “Will I die, Father? Will I die?” the Big Man asks.

  “It’s possible,” the Recollect replies, blessing the helmsman, while Barbier and Moranget lean in to grab him by the shoulders.

  “Of course you won’t!” I blurt out, turning to glare at the priest. “We know the Indian remedies. They’ve already proven their worth.”

  “On whom?” asks the Recollect, genuinely surprised.

  What an idiot!

  But before I can find a reply to comfort the Big Man, he cries out in pain. Barbier and Moranget are hauling him off to the fort.

  * * *

  The helmsman, after several days of fever and gangrene, succumbs to the venom. He dies to widespread distress, liked by all. We bury his remains in a little cemetery nearby. Then, on the same day, a fisherman drowns within shouting distance of our wharf.

  “Do you think we’re all going to die here, Stache?” Marie-Élisabeth asks me, one night when she’s particularly talkative.

  We’re walking along the path that links the women’s quarters to the depot and the chapel. We’ve just delivered the candles the Recollects had been asking for. We’d had to trim them since the candlesticks had been too narrow. The leftover wax was wrapped in a piece of cloth and now we’re carrying it carefully back to the storehouse.

  “Of course we’re all going to die here!”

  The answer surprises my friend and she turns to face me.

  “Are you serious?”

  “More than serious. Only it won’t be for another fifty years, as part of a prosperous colony, envied by everyone in Canada.”

  She laughs. Or rather, she stretches back her lips, revealing her pretty teeth, which hasn’t happened in months. For her, that’s the equivalent of a guffaw. We walk on for a little while, and then she asks:

  “Will we have children, Stache?”

  I’m so taken aback by her question that I stop dead in the middle of the trail. At the same moment, a shooting star, right opposite me against the pink of the setting sun, traces the curve of a raised eyebrow.

  “We’ll have… If God answers my prayers, Marie-Élisabeth, we’ll have more children than your parents.”

  I get another chance to admire her teeth as her fingers curl around my wrist. I resist the temptation to throw away the wax I’m carrying to take her hand in mine. Her shoulder snuggles in under my arm and I breathe in the dry smell of her hair as her locks brush against my face.

  My heart takes flight. My head spins, drowning the world in its pain and uncertainty. In a flash, I feel in control of my life and our destiny. I tell myself that no drownings, no explorers, no Natives, and definitely no German freebooters will ever jeopardize happiness and hope of such intensity.

  I don’t know it yet, but this is the only moment of true bliss I’ll ever have with Marie-Élisabeth.

  22

  THE NEW FORT

  “Mr. De La Salle has sent me to find settlers to build a new fort!” announces a man by the name of Villeperdry.

  He’s just arrived with a small group of men. Everyone in Fort Saint Louis has gathered around them. We’re in the sweltering heat of June, at the height of the fledgling season. Black-crested titmice, warblers, orioles, and green jays fly overhead, streaking the sky and the leaves around us in a frenzy of colour.

  “A new one?” asks Henri Joutel, who has worked so hard to make the current fort fit to live in.

  “Yes, sir,” replies Villeperdry. “Mr. De La Salle would like you to maintain a bridgehead here with thirty men or so, but Mr. Moranget is to follow us with all the others, women and children included.”

  “But you only have two canoes!” Moranget points out. “There will be eighty of us making the trip.”

  “You will have to come by land, sir,” explains Villeperdry. “On foot.”

  “The mouth of the Mississippi isn’t far then!” says Joutel, thrilled.

  “Twenty leagues away, sir.”

  “Twenty leagues?!”

  Moranget almost shouts the words.

  “With Mrs. Talon and her infant child?” he goes on, still almost shouting. “With the pregnant Mrs. Barbier? With a handful of kids under ten? Why ever didn’t my uncle send La Belle?”

  “With respect, sir, your uncle is increasingly severe concerning our conditions. A number of us have died from exhaustion. We would appreciate it if you came. Perhaps you will have him listen to reason.”

  I turn instinctively toward Mom. Her sad smile doesn’t fool me: she’s disappointed. I think that, despite its harshness, she has become attached to the life we lead at Fort Saint Louis. The chores have given meaning to her life. Same goes for the hope that has come from being in Louisiana. Leaving here for somewhere else where we’ll have to start all over again will require energy that she’ll have to dig deep to find.

  “It’ll be great, Mom,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. “The real Louisiana at last. We can wave goodbye to here—it’s been tough going since the start.”

  I look over at Isabelle Talon (as demoralized as my mom), Lucien Talon (teeth gritted), then Marie-Élisabeth. Her shattered expression brings me back to a reality I had lost sight of: being reunited with the other members of the colony also means living alongside Hiens the freebooter and his band of demons.

  * * *

  For days and nights, among the mosquitoes, snakes, and the constant threat posed by crocodiles, we march around lakes, marshes, and swampland. The women have trouble with their skirts and the priests struggle as their cassocks catch on prickly shrubs and bushes. Exhausted children seek refuge on the shoulders of the strongest men.

  “This stagnant water is blowing the putrid breath of disease all over us,” a priest worries.

  “Damn De La Salle! May his soul burn in hell!” a second Recollect replies.

  Fortunately, Moranget is too far ahead to hear, or else the priest would now be swimming with the frogs.

  “Are you OK, Marie-Élisabeth?”

  “I’m OK, Stache.”

  She scratches the side of her head. Her temples and forehead are swollen with insect bites. Her greasy hair, pulled into a braid, hangs heavily around her neck.

  “Two or three more days,” says Lucien Talon as he catches up to us, “and we’ll be there. Villeperdry just told me.”

  Madeleine, her tiny legs dangling in front of her father’s chest, is half asleep, resting a cheek against his head.

  “Only two or three more days,” he says again, before striding on toward his wife.

  It takes us five more days to at last reach the new fort. It’s also called Saint Louis. Like the one before. We assume that if Mr. De La Salle gives it the same name, it’s because the second one will be the real fort, the first nothing but a rough sketch, unworthy of our great mission.

  Our disappointment is in proportion to these expectations… and to our exhaustion.

  * * *

  “Welcome, my friends! Welcome!” cries René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle as the first of us arrive.
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br />   His warm approach—more jovial than is his custom—is no doubt designed to mask the surrounding desolation. The only building is nothing but a series of stakes arranged in a square and covered with animal hide. It contains a few kegs of brandy and powder. That’s all.

  As for the rest of it, the men have built themselves makeshift shelters from fodder and straw, across a treeless piece of land overrun with weeds. The closest forest is one league inland.

  “Where are we going to get the wood to build the fort?” wonders Lucien Talon in a low voice. “Why set up the colony here? And why send for us now, with the women and children in tow, when nothing is ready yet?”

  We’re at the top of a slope from where we can see the vast grassy plains stretching out all around. We also look down over a big marsh that’s home to an impressive gathering of curlews, turkey fowl, geese, thrushes, plovers, and other birdlife. And a broad river sets waves rolling off toward a bay.

  “We shall call it Saint Louis Bay,” trumpets De La Salle. “And the river shall be Rivière aux bœufs: Buffalo River. It’s the perfect name: there are buffalo everywhere. We’ll eat our fill every day.”

  Heads nod approvingly.

  Out on the water we can see the calm, indifferent silhouette of La Belle. The summer sun is suffocating. Mom holds me tight against her. When I half turn to put my hand around her too, I notice something I haven’t seen until now: I’m taller than she is!

  I’ve grown.

  Despite the hardships and the difficult life we lead, my body has at last answered the call of adolescence. In the space of a few weeks, I’ve grown to a size I thought would take me two or even three more years to reach.

  That must mean that now I’m taller than Marie-Élisabeth, too. I’m with her every day and I hadn’t noticed. Unless she’s grown at the same rate.

  I spin around to look for her… and my gaze falls on Hiens. There he is on the shore, standing with his back to the river, his feet a little apart, leaning over a fruit that he’s peeling with his broken knife. His eyes, though, are trained on our group.

  He’s searching for Marie-Élisabeth. When I spot him, he’s lifting up his head to get a better look at her. He gives a sinister smile as he greets her with the blade of his knife, holding it up in front of him.

  Marie-Élisabeth turns away and pretends not to have seen him.

  I forget all about wanting to compare our heights.

  23

  INSULTING OUR MOTHERS

  Villeperdry is dead, felled by a tree as he built the fort. De La Salle barely batted an eyelid. “We have no time to feel sorry for ourselves,” I heard him mutter to Moranget.

  Our leader is becoming more and more demanding, making us carry heavy loads of wood from the forest to the shores of Saint Louis Bay. It’s from here that the next expeditions are set to head up the Mississippi.

  “If it even is the Mississippi,” grumbles Jean L’Archevêque as he drops down beside us.

  I’m not far away, cleaning the carcasses of two rabbits I killed with my slingshot.

  While honourable, upstanding, and brave men die of exhaustion and fever, the dregs of society are beginning to make up a bigger share of the group.

  “How much do you want for them?” L’Archevêque asks me, pointing a finger at the animals as I skin them.

  “They’re for my mother, sir. Sorry.”

  “And how much do you want for your mother?”

  I look up so quickly it hurts my neck. It was Pierre Duhaut who said it, the older brother. He’s looking at me with his bulging yellow eyes, a mocking look hovering at the edges of his mouth. His brother is sitting beside him, his hands resting on his lap, looking down at the ground. He guffaws without bothering to look up. Liotot, Hiens, and two or three others allow themselves a smile.

  I fight back the urge to spit in Pierre Duhaut’s face. It takes me a good second or two to regain my composure, then I take a deep breath to better control my voice.

  “My mother isn’t the whore that yours was, sir,” I say, trying to sound calm.

  The Duhaut brothers stand up in concert. I leap to my feet just as quickly to confront them. They’re already eating into the ten paces that separate us, one with his fist clenched, the other rummaging around in his pockets for his knife. I’m quicker than they are, though, and I’ve already flung the rabbits to the ground and am spinning my slingshot. I can only hit one of them, but the threat’s enough to slow them down.

  L’Archevêque steps in to try to calm everyone down. He too is now on his feet, holding out an arm in front of his two companions.

  “Easy now! Let’s not give Moranget a reason to open a prison.”

  “I’m not going to let some snot-nosed kid insult my mother,” barks Pierre Duhaut.

  “You insulted his, didn’t you?”

  “I insulted no one,” the younger Duhaut bristles, pretending to take another step, without taking his eyes off my whirling slingshot. “There’s no way I’m going to let this little brat say that my mother is… was…”

  “What’s going on here?”

  We turn around in surprise to see Lucien Talon standing there. We hadn’t heard him coming.

  “Mind your own business, carpenter!” L’Archevêque warns him. “This is between us.”

  “If it involves young Eustache, then it concerns me, too. That’s my future son-in-law you’re talking to.”

  My slingshot loses some of its velocity as I stare at Marie-Élisabeth’s dad in amazement.

  “What are you talking about?” asks L’Archevêque in surprise. “Your daughter isn’t—”

  “My daughter will be twelve next spring. Old enough to marry. The boy will be fourteen then, and a suitable husband. He’s practically family already.”

  Lucien Talon’s words astound only me, but they have the advantage of taking up a second or two. It’s time enough for tempers to cool and, more importantly, for other settlers to take an interest in our group, including a few Recollect priests who happen to be walking by. Sensing a disagreement when they see my spinning slingshot, they draw nearer. The Duhaut brothers take a step back. They pretend to look frustrated, but they can see a way out here, a way to avoid getting on the wrong side of Moranget without losing face.

  “Everything OK here?” a priest asks.

  “Of course!” Lucien Talon answers cheerfully, diplomatic as ever. “Look at the two lovely rabbits these gentlemen were pretending to steal from my future son-in-law.”

  “Your future son-in-law? Will we have a wedding to celebrate, Lucien?” the priest asks, watching as I slide the slingshot back into the pocket of my pants.

  “Next spring, Father, next spring,” Talon replies, putting his arms around my shoulder and leading me away.

  I slip away from him long enough to pick up my rabbits. He smiles at everyone as he waits, but I can see an agitated finger tapping nervously against the cloth of his pants.

  When I get back up to follow him, I catch L’Archevêque giving him a grateful look. The Duhauts make a show of ignoring us. Liotot and the others look over in Moranget’s direction, but he’s too far away, off with our leaders, to have noticed the confrontation.

  Only Hiens’s snarl leaves me puzzled. He leers at Lucien Talon and at me in turn, and the crease that puts his mouth out of shape shows all his contempt, or perhaps even his hatred for us. The man terrifies me, partly because I can never tell what he’s really feeling.

  What he’s really thinking.

  24

  THE LAME

  In the fall of 1685, Mr. De La Salle decides to set off on a new voyage of exploration to ensure we are well and truly in the delta of his famous Mississippi. We might be distressed to see him go, were it not for the fact that it proves a good opportunity to calm the frenetic pace at which we have to carry heavy loads of wood from the distant forest to the top of our slope.
The rate at which the fort is built slows as men become exhausted… or die.

  “Mom, I want to be part of the expedition.”

  “You’re mad! You’re much too sma… too young!”

  We’re sharing a buffalo stew mixed in with mushrooms that Isabelle Talon picked in a dank and sticky copse.

  “Mr. De La Salle needs volunteers, Mom. And I’m not so small anymore. Have you noticed I’m taller than you now?”

  From the way she suddenly looks at me, I can see it’s news to her.

  “Me too, I wanna go too,” whines Pierre Talon, who’s only nine and a half. “I’m almost as big as Eustache and—”

  “Stop talking nonsense,” his mother interrupts, “and eat.”

  “But Eustache…”

  “It’s of no concern to you.”

  “Will you be part of the expedition, Mr. Talon?” I ask Marie-Élisabeth’s dad. He’s eating opposite me, on the other side of the fire.

  “Possibly. Under Mr. Joutel’s authority, only women, children, the lame, and fewer than ten soldiers will remain at the fort.”

  “See, Mom? I’m no longer a kid. And I’m not sick or lame. Nothing’s keeping me here.”

  As I speak, I sneak a look in Marie-Élisabeth’s direction. I hope she’ll think I’m brave and will look sad to see me go. But she’s not looking at us. A little off to the side, she’s half-heartedly eating her stew without saying a word, her jaw clenched in a rage that doesn’t ever seem to end. For weeks now, her attitude again seems to be at odds with her true nature. She is not passive and downtrodden as she was before the summer, but bad-tempered and irritable. It’s another Marie-Élisabeth that neither I nor her parents know.

  Once again I’d like to know if Hiens is no stranger to her condition, but not once—no matter how closely I’ve kept a discreet eye on them—have I surprised them together. Marie-Élisabeth spends her days with her mother and, if ever she has the chance to go off by herself—to go to the toilet, for instance, or to pick berries—I can always see the German freebooter in the fort or somewhere close by.