Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (27 page)

Wednesday night, two days before Phanor was due to return to
New Orleans, he accepted Madame Emmeline’s invitation to dinner. He combed his
short hair and wore his best shirt and jacket. His pants were fashionably long.
He’d seen older gentlemen in New Orleans who still wore silk stockings and
pants that stopped just below the knee, but with an eye for style, he’d chosen
the more elegant trousers that reached all the way to the ankle.

When Cleo admitted him to the parlor, she said, “And whom
shall I tell Madame is calling?”

Phanor held his arms out and turned around for her. “Me, I
am very fine, it is true.”

He took her hand and lowered his voice. “I leave on Friday,
and you must have Remy ready before that.”

“I’ll meet you in the pecan grove later.”

“No. In the underhouse. We’ll be quiet enough. There’s no
need for you to risk being out.”

Madame Emmeline’s office door opened and Cleo stepped away.

“Good evening, Phanor,” Madame said.

“Madame.” Phanor bowed over her hand with the grace of one
who was born to a life of gentility.

The two passed an amiable evening talking of New Orleans and
riverboats, sailing ships and wine. Phanor listened carefully to Madame
Emmeline’s tutorial on the intricacies of finance and markets.

Over their last glass of wine, Madame said, “Now I must
speak plainly, Phanor. Your writing, as evidenced in your ledger, is appalling.
Not only your penmanship, but also your spelling and diction. If you are to be
a man of the world, of which I believe you are quite capable, then you must
master the written language. I advise you to embark on a course of study while
you are in the city.”

Phanor acknowledged the truth of it. His mother had taught
him his letters, and he had been a willing pupil, but she could not teach him
what she did not know.

“I will give you a
grammaire française
for your
study.”

“You are very kind, Madame. I will learn it page by page, I
promise you.”

“And you will have to learn English,” she told him.

“
Oui
, Madame. I have made a beginning on
l’anglais
.”

“
C’est bon
. I expected you would.”

The evening over, the grammar book in his pocket, Phanor
took his leave. Cleo handed him his hat and opened the double doors onto the
front gallery for him.

“Five minutes,” she whispered.

Phanor waited on a stool among the wine racks. When he saw
Cleo’s silhouette against the night sky, he whispered, “Over here.”

She stubbed her foot against a barrel and reached a hand out
for him. He took it and guided her to the casks to sit next to him.

“You’ll help Remy?”

“Louis and I. Louis will have most of the risk, but he has
agreed to it. I believe he loves the possibility of danger as much as the idea
of helping Remy.”

“And you? I think you like it, too?”

“You know us Cajuns, Cleo. We take joy in a little peril.”

“How will we do it?”

Phanor explained the parts he and Louis and she would play.
Cleo had one suggestion. “Forgive me, Phanor, I don’t mean to offend. But Louis
must not look like a poor Cajun if he is to be Remy’s master.”

“I intended for him to wear one of my new shirts.”

“You don’t have to give up yours, Phanor. Monsieur Emile
left a dozen shirts moldering in the wardrobe. I’ll take one for Louis, and
maybe Louis will have an old blouse that Remy could wear, to better cover the
mess the cage has made of his shoulders.”

“And what about LeBrec?” Phanor said. “You’ll be able to get
to Remy in the night?”

“I’m ready for LeBrec. He won’t hurt me again.”

That sounded like the Cleo Phanor knew, but that didn’t mean
she could handle a man of LeBrec’s size. “I better come with you,” he said.

“No. That’s my risk, not yours,” she said. “First we have to
get the cage off Remy.”

Phanor did not want to tell her he had no idea how to get
the contraption off Remy. He’d not had a close look at it, and all his imaginings
had been disastrous. He’d thought of padding Remy’s neck and then taking a
hammer and chisel to the neck piece. But if the chisel slipped, or if the
hammer missed and hit his skull…Cleo had said there was a locking mechanism on
the base, and maybe he could smash it. Or maybe he couldn’t.

“We’ll get it off,” he said.

For weeks, Cleo had thought of nothing else but getting the
cage off Remy’s head. In desperation, she had gone again to the smithy. “You
don’t have to do anything, don’t have to ever touch the cage again,” she’d told
him. “Just show me how you made the lock.”

Smithy’s arm muscles bulged through his thin shirt, and his
black skin glistened with sweat from his furnace. But strong as he was, he was
afraid of LeBrec. He shook his head.

Through the days, Cleo wore him down. Smithy agreed to teach
her how the mechanism worked in exchange for various provisions Cleo would
steal a little at a time from the big house – oil, cotton cloth, candles, extra
meal.

Now she was ready. “I know how the lock works,” she said.

Phanor tried to see her face in the dark. “You know how the
lock works?”

“Yes. I can open it. But getting the cage off isn’t enough.
Remy has to have help getting away this time. If he’s caught again, well, he
must not be caught again. So I’ve waited.”

Phanor breathed in relief. “Well. That was the hard part,
the damn cage.”

Thursday night, Cleo found her way through the dark by
starlight. She carried a ball of wax from a honeycomb in her pocket to pack
into the bells on Remy’s cage. This she did while Old Sam and his grandsons
slept, or seemed to. She wondered about Old Sam. He lay very still on his cot,
but his breathing was not audible. It didn’t matter. Sam would never tell
LeBrec Remy was gone.

Once she was sure the bells would not ring in their wax
packing, she and Remy stepped from the cabin into the cold, damp night. They
crept through the sleeping quarters toward the western edge of the plantation
where Phanor and Louis waited for them in the woods.

“No one saw you?”

“I don’ tink so,” Remy said. “Least not de overseer. He de
one dat matter.”

“All right then. We’ll follow Louis.”

Light from the evening star and a sliver of moon filtered
through the canopy, but it was not enough to keep them from stumbling on tree
roots. Remy repeatedly was thrown off-balance by branches that snagged his
cage, and Phanor kept a hand on his shoulder in readiness.

As they approached the swamp, the cicadas and the frogs
hushed. The only sounds were the migratory birds overhead and their own
hesitant steps on the overgrown path. Now and then a creature rustled in the
undergrowth, and once Cleo was startled by the shining eyes of a raccoon not
six feet away. She was glad they hadn’t roused a skunk.

Louis led them to a hummock raised above the surrounding
swampland. Three miles and thousands of live oak, tupelo, cypress and sweet gum
trees lay between them and Toulouse. Louis lit a lantern and held it high. It
was his first look at the iron monstrosity Remy carried on his shoulders, and
Louis was shocked.

“
C’est inhumaine
,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” Phanor answered. “Cleo, get your tools.”

Remy sat on the ground and Phanor held the lantern near,
creating an oasis of light in the midst of the dark wet woods. Cleo pulled a thin
blade of metal from her pocket. It was not a key, but Smithy had explained how
the blade on which he’d welded a small nub near the tip could spring the catch
in the lock.

Cleo said a quick prayer and crossed herself. Then she
began. She inserted the slender tool into the keyhole and gently twisted.
Nothing happened. She twisted it the other direction, but still nothing in the
lock gave way.

Smithy had told her if she twisted too hard, tried to force
it, the nub on the blade could break off. Patience, she reminded herself. She
sat back and breathed. Then she tried again, feeling for the catch, imagining
the blade as an extension of her fingers.

“We may have to use the mallet,” Louis said.

“Give her time,” Phanor answered.

A mother possum waddled through their island of light, two
babies on her back. She ignored the humans and the lantern and chose a tree to
climb into.

Cleo looked up at Phanor, worried. He nodded to give her
confidence, and she re-inserted the blade. She pulled it back a sixteenth of an
inch so that the tip did not touch the back wall of the chamber, then twisted
it. There – she felt the nub fit into the notch. She held her breath and turned
the blade slowly and carefully. A little more.

In the silence and tension, the click inside the lock
startled all of them. Then Cleo laughed out loud.

“Well done!” Phanor said. He handed the lantern to Louis and
knelt down next to Remy to open the neck piece. Phanor held the weight of the
cage, and Remy undid the straps he’d devised to help balance the weight. He
shrugged out of the fastenings and pulled his head backwards out of the cage.
For the first time in months, he was free of the weight, the indignation, and
the horror of the iron trap.

He leapt to his feet and raised his hands as far overhead as
he could stretch them. He twisted his shoulders and rotated his head. “My God,
dat feel good! I tink I could run all de way to New Orleans.”

“No need for running,
non,
” Louis said. “We go to my
pirogue now, and the dogs not be able to follow us.”

Remy held his arms out to Cleo and whirled her around the
glade. “I gon’ be free, a free man, Cleo.”

She held him tight, afraid to let him go.

“Don’ you worry,” Remy said. “I send for you. You know dat.”

With one arm around Cleo, Remy held his hand out to Phanor.
“My friend, I tank you.”

“I’ll see you in New Orleans. Remember to play the part,
Remy. You still have to look like a slave, act like a slave when you’re on the
boat.”

“I know how to do dat, fo sho.”

Cleo handed him the bag with a wash cloth, soap, a razor,
and clean shirts. She kissed him and clung to him.

“They have to go, Cleo,” Phanor said. “The further down the
swamp and into the bayous before sunrise, the better.”

Louis and Remy left them on the hummock and quickly
disappeared into the forest. They had only a quarter mile, Louis had figured,
to where he left his boat. They would hide themselves among the maze of streams
and lagoons in the daytime, and at night they would paddle toward the river
where they would catch a steamboat. Louis had Phanor’s last month’s earnings in
his pocket, enough for their tickets, food, and a smoke or two.

On the hummock, Cleo stared into the dark long after she
could no longer hear their passage through the trees. Phanor picked up the
hateful cage and its straps. With all his might, he heaved the monstrosity into
the bushes.

Cleo was shivering. “Are you cold?” he asked her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’d better go.”

Without Louis as their guide, they kept the lantern alight
until they were sure of their terrain. Then Phanor extinguished the lamp and
they stumbled on through the fields of Toulouse.

The quarters were silent and still, no lights in the
overseer’s window nor in the big house. Phanor guessed it must be near four
o’clock in the morning. He watched Cleo’s shadowy figure climb the back stairs
and cross the gallery. If she waved to him then, he couldn’t see her.

Then he hurried back home. He had to clean the mud off, say
farewell to Lalie, Papa, and Nicholas, and present himself at the dock for the
riverboat to pick him up. By that time, it would be well into the morning, and
no doubt LeBrec would have discovered Remy was gone. 

Bertrand Chamard fidgeted as his man Valentine buffed his
nails.

“That’ll do,” Bertrand said. “I’m shaved and barbered and
trimmed. That’s enough fussing for one day.”

Valentine didn’t release the hand, however, until he’d
finished the last nail to his satisfaction. “Tomorrow I have to get at that
callous again.”

“Yes, Monsieur Valentine, sir.”

Bertrand and Valentine had been together since early
childhood, and their bond was easy and comfortable. It was true, Valentine had
borne his months in the stables at Cherleu with ill grace, freely reminding his
master he should be polishing silver, not rubbing oil into leather. But,
Bertrand noted, Valentine had worked hard mucking out stalls and repairing
harnesses and trying his hand at shoeing till Val’s hands were as rough as
Bertrand’s. One difference between them, though, was that Bertrand truly didn’t
mind the callouses.

Bertrand glanced in the mirror and pronounced himself ready
for the evening. He tossed the cape with the red satin lining over his shoulder
and accepted his hat and cane from Valentine.

“Don’t bother to wait up for me,” he said. “It may be dawn
before the game is over.”

“Then don’t come in here banging around and waking me up,”
Valentine said.

Bertrand smiled and planned to do just that. The ebony stick
he carried made a wonderful racket if he dropped it on the hard floor.

The gaming room at the Blue Ribbon was already smoky when
Bertrand arrived. He knew nearly everyone at the tables, most of them Creoles
from the lower Mississippi or from the Cane River further north. In recent
years, however, a prosperous Acadian or two and a handful of
américains
would join the gentlemen at the roulette table.

Bertrand sat down with his friends, two of them cousins, and
lit the first cigar of the evening. Young LaSalle dealt the cards, and each man
scrutinized his hand with an assumed air of indifference.

Toward midnight, the gentlemen took a respite to stretch
their legs. Bertrand carried his tumbler of whiskey on to the balcony to
breathe in some fresh air. He had never put much stock in the womanish worry
about night vapors or poisonous miasmas. He’d enjoyed all that Paris had to
offer in the small hours of the night, had often adjourned to the rooftop of
his friend Lafrènniére to gaze at Venus through the telescope. He had
discovered no substantial difference in the sunless air of the night. Why
should it be any different half a world away from Paris, here in New Orleans?