Hunting for the Mississippi Page 9

  As I try to reassure myself, it suddenly comes to me…

  What they’ve been doing is so simple that I’m annoyed not to have thought of it earlier.

  * * *

  The younger Duhaut brother has a fever and is exempted from going on the expedition. His older brother begs to stay by his side, but Moranget is having none of it. L’Archevêque, Liotot, and company also leave… but not Hiens. In a strange accident that no one was witness to, he seems to have hurt his foot.

  “That rotten German has probably found a way to wolf down more food with the rest of us gone,” sighs Lucien Talon as he drapes a buffalo pelt over his shoulders to protect himself from the north wind. This morning, it’s blowing with the fury of January. And it’s fall. It looks like we’re in for a rough winter. Perhaps we’ll have snow. It reminds me that Isabelle Talon promised Mom mild weather in America. What would things be like if we were in Canada?

  I’ve been kept off the expedition. I need to take care of Mom, even though she clearly has nothing more than a cold.

  I grumbled when I heard the news, but my heart wasn’t in it. Deep down I’m glad not to be leaving Marie-Élisabeth behind, not with Hiens in the vicinity.

  As he helps little Pierre measure the plank in front of him, Lucien Talon asks me without looking up, “Do you think Mr. Joutel’s trying to do me a favour by making me stay behind at the camp?”

  “Oh no, Mr. Talon!” I reply. “There are hardly any experienced workers left at the fort. Surely they need someone who can work with wood to make sure we progress with the buildings while the others are away.”

  “For all that I can get done alone with this band of lame men and incompetents to work with! You and my sons are my best apprentices.”

  I’m going to say something or other when I spot Marie-Élisabeth in the distance, carrying a bundle of clothes over her shoulder. She’s holding Madeleine’s hand and walking off to a nearby stream. Instinctively, as I do every time I see her walk away, I look around for Hiens.

  I find him in no time near the men’s quarters, smoking a pipe. He’s sitting against the outside wall, wrapped up in an ugly wool blanket. He doesn’t show the slightest interest in the two girls as they walk off.

  But I’ve guessed what he’s up to. And soon I’ll be able to unmask him.

  Very soon.

  25

  THE SOUND

  OF THE HUMMINGBIRD

  The new Fort Saint Louis doesn’t come close to even the basic comforts of the first settlement. Two crude constructions separate the men from the women and children.

  To move my bed closer to the door, I pretend the smoke from the fire that warms our shelter is bothering me. Then I move back part of the door’s cover until I can see outside. The sky is shining with so many stars that, even on this moonless night, it’s a dazzling sight. The silhouette of the women’s quarters stands out in such detail that I can make out the wisps of straw making up the roof.

  And so it couldn’t be easier, even though the evening fires are all put out at midnight, to make out a shadow moving across the skyline. No one but the sentries is allowed to be out walking, but as everyone—apart from Henri Joutel—knows, the watchers doze off between two pipes and so it’s no trouble walking around wherever we please. I know, for instance, that sometimes the lame—or those who claim to be—sneak off to meet the Native women.

  But not now.

  Set against the bright light of the stars and half stooped over to try to keep out of sight, a silhouette betrays the familiar outline, the gait, and the nervous movements of Marie-Élisabeth.

  I knew it! That’s why, even though Hiens is back in the picture, she’s stopped disappearing during the day. It’s to make sure they won’t be surprised again.

  I drag myself out of my warm blanket, shiver for a second against the icy onslaught of the night, then move outside beneath the dizzying gulf of the too-bright sky. The hair on the rabbitskin neckwarmer I made for myself tickles my neck.

  Hiding from view in grass that doesn’t come past my thighs is no mean feat. There are no trees, no palisades, no rocks to swallow up our shadows—could the sentries be any worse? The hunt is on, and it’s both difficult and easy: anyone can see me coming, but the same goes for Marie- Élisabeth.

  I first lose sight of her when she goes over a small hill. I run as hard as I can to catch up—not easy with my legs all folded up to make myself as small as can be. I catch sight of her again as she’s walking into a copse full of lush foliage. I know this jumble of weeds; there’s a big flat rock in the middle of them. We’ve seen rattlesnakes here no fewer than three times. What a risk she’s taking!

  I don’t dare go any further. I’d be too exposed going down the shadowless slope. Better to stay crouched down where I am. At any rate, if she passes through the copse and on toward the river, say, I’ll see her easily. And I don’t need to see what she’s up to on the flat rock surrounded by foliage. I know only too well.

  I know because I’ve just seen another silhouette. Hiens’s. He doesn’t even bother to hide. He plunges into the dark leaves, leaving a more distant path that leads to the forest.

  He shows no sign of a limp.

  * * *

  I spend the quarter hour it takes to satisfy the German freebooter’s primal urges tiptoeing my way down the hill toward the copse. Crouched down behind a clump of grass that’s somewhat higher than the rest, I wait for the two conspirators to reappear.

  Marie-Élisabeth gasps in surprise when I stand up as she emerges from the shadows and starts to walk up the hill. Hiens is ten paces behind her and simply stands still, legs apart in his familiar stance. I can’t make out his face, but it’s easy to imagine his usual sneer, both indifferent and mocking. His eyes send back the faint glow of two stars.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The voice of the girl promised to me is halfway between a whisper and an angry roar. I don’t answer. I don’t even look at her. I’m still looking at Hiens, making sure he doesn’t dash in my direction to make me regret my plan.

  “So you’re spying on me now?” she hisses.

  “I don’t know why you keep meeting this swine, Marie-Élisabeth.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  I can hear the bubbles of spit rolling around between her teeth. Her irritation at seeing me is slowly turning to her usual anger. The fury that roams between her heart and her lips. The fury borne of Hiens the rapist.

  “Why, Marie-Élisabeth?”

  “Go away. Don’t get involved.”

  I still don’t budge. Several seconds go by with nobody speaking, nobody moving. It’s the German who at last breaks the silence with his guttural accent.

  “Did you hear my friend? Stay quiet, just like you’ve been all along.”

  “Do you love this man, Marie-Élisabeth? Do you sneak off to meet him because you like him?”

  I’m being ironic, but at the same time I shudder to think that my sweetheart might answer yes.

  She turns to Hiens for a moment, then rests her eyes on me.

  “He’s a piece of shit,” she says simply. “But that doesn’t change a thing.”

  “It changes everything. Tell him it’s the last time you’ll see him like this. Tell him you’re no longer a frightened little girl, that he has no right to make you—”

  “You don’t understand, Stache!” she cuts in, her voice higher now. “It’s not that simple. Don’t play the tough guy. You’re no match for him. The two inches you’ve grown over the past couple of months aren’t going to help you lay out a killer like him.”

  Even from ten paces away, I can easily make out the German’s muffled laughter. He puts his hand in his pocket and for a brief moment the blade he whips out hurls the flame of its murderous intentions toward me.

  As though a warning sent by the light from the stars.
<
br />   My spinning slingshot sounds like a hummingbird. It all seems too unreal for me to be afraid. I feel like I’m in a strange dream. Two enemies are squaring up to kill, with the sound of a hummingbird for a war cry.

  “Don’t do it, Stache!” Marie-Élisabeth warns me, closing her hand over my free arm. “Hurl that stone and I’ll never speak to you again. And I’ll never… I’ll never agree to marry you.”

  The humming sound dies away.

  “So you love him then? That much?”

  “Your slingshot isn’t going to help you stop a man like that from slicing you up into mortadella.”

  “Says who?”

  Hiens’s cruel laugh rings out again. Louder this time, since I can hear it above the buzzing of my slingshot. But the freebooter just stands there, no more threatening than he needs to be, apart from the blade that continues to dazzle me with stars from the end of his wrist.

  “He killed the Indians, Stache. It was him.”

  I don’t know what she’s talking about and I take my eyes off the German for two seconds to turn toward her. The expression on her face is lost to me in the darkness. I only detect her fear in the slight tremble to her voice as she goes on.

  “The Savages who were murdered. It led to war with the village beside where we first lived. Remember? He killed them. To show me he wasn’t fooling around. That it was no big deal to him. He made me go with him and see the bodies, all covered in flies. If I don’t do what he says, if I don’t give in to his desires, he won’t think twice about doing the same to my dad. And my mom.”

  “Or with your mother, lad,” the freebooter adds.

  He’s becoming so sure of his own power that the blade of his knife is now hovering at knee height, pointed down toward the ground, no more of a threat than that. The hummingbird on the end of my arm hums louder. But instead of growing alarmed, Hiens adds, “And if ever I’m killed by some crazy fool, then Duhaut would be only too happy to have his way with the lovely Delphine.”

  This time, the hummingbird dies. Right there on the spot. I let the stone fall at my feet. Marie-Élisabeth’s tense fingers release their hold on my arm.

  “A wise decision,” Hiens concludes as a streak of stars climbs up to the pocket of his pants. “Now get lost!”

  I grab Marie-Élisabeth’s hand.

  “Come.”

  She gives in. Together we climb back up the hill, leaving the freebooter behind us.

  Suddenly I stop. I stare at a cactus to the right. Marie-Élisabeth, rooted to the spot, starts to wriggle on the end of my arm.

  “What? What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing. Let’s go.”

  We set off toward the fort again. I didn’t get a good look, but I’m sure I’m not mistaken.

  In the shadows of the prickly bushes, in among the plump stems, I recognized the silhouette of Lucien Talon.

  He must have followed me when I left. He must have witnessed everything. Maybe he’ll catch Hiens by surprise when he comes along behind us. I don’t do a thing that might reveal him.

  But I’m afraid. Not for Marie-Élisabeth’s dad, but for Mom.

  What will happen to her if Lucien Talon kills Hiens?

  26

  THE DISAPPEARANCE

  Lucien Talon’s bed looks as though someone got up without pulling up the covers and arranging his affairs. I lie down on mine and wait for him to come back.

  And I wait.

  As uncertain and afraid as I am, I end up falling asleep. The men stirring at dawn wake me. Lucien Talon still hasn’t come back.

  “The carpenter’s up early this morning,” a settler remarks. “Must’ve been in a hurry to get to work. Took his axe with him. How am I supposed to cut the firewood now?”

  The taste of vomit rises in my throat. Unease grabs hold of me just as tightly as two strong arms around my chest.

  “Hello, Eustache. Have you seen Lucien?”

  “N… no, Mrs. Talon.”

  “Strange. Usually…”

  She doesn’t get to finish her sentence. Robert, her newborn child, is screaming for attention. Pierre grabs me around the waist, trying to haul me into the kind of affectionate wrestling match you have with an older brother—which is what I am to him. Jean-Baptiste follows his lead behind me. Ludovic, all of six years old, comes to my rescue. But my heart’s not in it this morning.

  Marie-Élisabeth is off with Madeleine, both carrying wooden buckets to be filled down at the river. My sweetheart, as usual, is careful not to meet my eye. Even when Madeleine blows me a kiss.

  “Didn’t sleep well, Eustache?” asks Mom, pecking me on the cheek. “You look a sight!”

  I look all around. I look for Hiens, but I don’t see him. And yet at this hour he can usually be seen smoking his first pipe by the fire, not far from the shelter.

  I free myself from the boys, trying not to seem impatient, and move off in spite of myself, in spite of my foreboding, toward the path.

  “Don’t go too far, Eustache.”

  “I’m going hunting. I’ll be back soon.”

  I quickly reach the top of the hill and the thicket of thorns where I spotted Lucien Talon. Down below, bathed in the morning mist, I can also make out the copse of love that dare not speak its name.

  I scan every blade of grass, looking for a clue to help me find out what might have happened after I left. I find nothing.

  I pace up and down the surrounding area in the hopes of finding a flattened patch of grass, a piece of torn clothing, perhaps even a trace of blood. Strangely enough, my anxiety increases, not upon discovering signs of a struggle, but because I remain in the dark.

  I come across a series of trampled saplings, making me suspect that a man (or two) or an animal (or two) might have passed by here. The flattened path points to the river. I start off in this direction, to reach an out-of-the-way bend along its banks. I come to a steep slope, from where it’s impossible to get down to the water unless I clamber my way over uncertain rocks and prickly cactuses. Why would any animal come here?

  On the shore below, a glint of light suddenly catches my eye. Between two shingles, a ray of sunshine has surged through an opening upstream to land on a piece of metal—or perhaps polished stone—making it shine like glass. I forget all about my sense for danger. Without worrying about perhaps running into a bivouac shelter belonging to the Karankawa people—the Natives from the area—I set off to satisfy my curiosity.

  Halfway down, I come to a sudden stop. Off in the distance, a dark mass is floating in the river between two tree trunks. A human body? A dead buffalo? Clinging to two bushes, I strain to identify the outline. When a wave pushes against the tree trunks, the mass tips over and I can make out an arm, then a hand trying to grab hold of the branches.

  Is it Lucien Talon? Hiens? There’s no way to tell from this distance.

  I’m wondering where I can find a ford to cross in order to help the man when the scaly outline of an enormous crocodile moves into view. In a split second, the reptile races across the water. It reaches the man and snatches him with his huge mouth. I watch them melt soundlessly into the water, the only noise coming from the music of the river.

  Everything has happened so quickly that I’m still standing right there, hanging on to two bushes. When earth and sand begin to spill down over my wrists, I understand that they won’t hold my weight for much longer; it’s time to move on down. I reach the foot of the slope without taking my eyes off the spot where the crocodile disappeared. But from this lower angle, I can no longer see a thing.

  I’m all set to follow the river back when I suddenly remember what brought me down to the water in the first place. I turn around and find the glint of sunlight that caught my eye from the top of the slope: Hiens’s knife! The half-broken one with the bone handle. No doubt the same one he threatened me with.

  I pick it up
and gasp in horror: it’s covered in blood! So the freebooter stabbed Lucien Talon. And Mr. Talon, as he lay dying, was carried off by the river and swept out to the tree trunks, where he ended up in the crocodile’s mouth.

  Unless…

  Nothing says it’s the blood of Marie-Élisabeth’s dad. And even if it were, who says the wound was fatal? If the knife was lying here, perhaps it’s because it was Hiens who fell into the water, Hiens who was carried off by the crocodile.

  I stoop down over the water and clean the blade with the palm of my hand. I slide the weapon into my belt and retrace my steps.

  My chest is puffed up with renewed hope. It’s possible all right that the man I saw in the distance was Hiens. In the meantime, Lucien Talon must have returned to the fort and gone back to his family. I shouldn’t spend too long here. I should get back to them. Mom must be wondering where I am anyway.

  I climb back up the slope so that I don’t have to walk all the way around. When I reach the top, I glance back down below. I almost cry out in surprise as I see something move on the shoreline.

  His face to the ground and his body twitching nervously, a bearded man is making slow progress, scanning the ground around him. Hiens is looking for his knife.

  27

  DIVINE IMPOTENCE

  Isabelle Talon cries over her husband’s disappearance for no more than ten days. In a world as cruel and unstable as ours, we quickly resign ourselves to death. To absence. She and my mom, already close friends, become sisters in widowhood. Joutel sends men off to look for his carpenter, but they quickly conclude that he lost his way in the forest while out hunting rabbits.

  I keep quiet. I pretend to look for him with the others. I’m the only one to know we’ll never find the remains of this decent family man.

  And so I refuse to turn Hiens in. I would be accusing him without proof. And despite his powers, even Henri Joutel can’t condemn a suspect on the word of someone who claims to be a witness. Plus I risk… we all risk incurring the wrath of the German or those he hangs around with. Not only would Marie-Élisabeth and the widowed Mrs. Talon suffer, but Mom, too!