Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 (16 page)

“Calm down, Coltrane,” George was saying. “We’ll take care of Eldon. We’ll take him to my room and get these bones cleaned out of here. You just get some rest. You look like you’ve had a rough night.”

Travis gave the black man one long, contemptuous look, then stalked to his room. Tucking his gun in his belt, he grabbed his rifle from the corner, then returned to the hall.

The crowd was still gathered in the hallway. To hell with them, Travis thought bitterly. He was going to Santo Domingo to find Sam, and, for a little while, be in sane company. Eldon Harcourt would sleep it off.

Travis turned to give the crowd one parting glare, then ran down the stairs.

Chapter Eight

The old man at the stable spoke a mixture of French and creole, and Travis was able to understand that Santo Domingo was around a hundred and fifty miles away, and that it would be quicker to go by land than by sea. The trip would probably take four or five days on horseback, but it still would be quicker than taking a ship, which would stop at every port along the way.

Travis told the man to sell him his best horse and saddle and have everything ready within the hour. Then he left the stable and walked to the nearest store to buy supplies for the journey. He was looking at a blanket when the sound of heavy footsteps caused him to whip around, drawing his gun.

“You can put that away, Coltrane. We came to talk to you.”

He recognized two of the aides on the committee—Walton Turner and Vinson Craley.

“Orville Babcock is in town. He came in from Santo Domingo a couple of days ago to check on the committee work here. He wants to see you,” said Turner.

Travis put his gun away, squinting in thoughtful annoyance. “Yeah? And what would President Grant’s private secretary be wanting to see me about?”

The two men exchanged uncomfortable glances. Finally, after an awkward silence, Vinson Craley cleared his throat nervously. “Coltrane, what happened last night has spread all over. You know these natives talk, and it gets around.” He looked to his companion helplessly, not wanting to continue.

Walton Turner spoke up. “The fact is, Coltrane, that Babcock has heard about it, and he wants to talk to you about the situation.”

Travis’ reply was crisp. “There is no situation. There is nothing to discuss.”

“Babcock doesn’t think so,” Walton went on quickly.

Travis laughed. “What is this? Are you telling me Babcock believes in this voodoo nonsense?”

“Hell, it’s not that simple,” Walton snapped. He didn’t want to make Coltrane angry, for he had been wary of him since they had first met. Not that Coltrane was unlikable. Walton admired the man greatly, had heard of his many heroic feats during the war. But there was just an air about Coltrane that made a man want to stay on his good side.

“President Grant wants to acquire the Dominican Republic for the United States.” Walton spoke in a rush, wanting to get it all over with. “When Congress offered our protection to Haiti and the Dominican Republic, that didn’t include approving annexation. That’s why the President sent Babcock and the rest of the committee over here to try to arrange a treaty of annexation. Things aren’t going well, and your having this trouble last night hasn’t helped matters any.”

Vinson interjected quickly, “That’s why he wants to talk to you. There are a lot of people irritated. You’ve stirred up the locals.”

Travis raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Are they stirred up because I don’t choose to believe in voodoo or because I had a brief affair with a native girl?” He shook his head. “I dare say several of you have partaken of the fruits of the island.”

The men exchanged glances once more, faces coloring slightly.

“That’s not the point,” Walton said. “Babcock sent us to get you. You’re working for the United States government, and you should have the courtesy to answer the request of the President’s own personal secretary, especially after the fuss you kicked up last night.”

“I
kicked up?” Travis threw back his head, laughing. “I could have been killed, and if it hadn’t been for Eldon Harcourt, there’s no telling what might have happened.”

Vinson sighed, holding out his hands in a pleading gesture. “Look, Coltrane, I know you’re upset. We’d be, too, if it had happened to us. But now Harcourt is in some kind of a coma, the doctor says, and the natives are backing away from all of us like we’ve got the plague. Babcock doesn’t like the situation, and he wants to talk to you about it. He’s even got a priest waiting.”

“A priest?” Travis echoed in disbelief.

“Yes, a priest. They want to explain some of the customs. Now come with us, all right?” Vinson forced a coaxing smile. “We heard you were planning on leaving for Santo Domingo, and that’s fine, but you can at least take a few minutes and hear Babcock, okay? It might make things better for all of us.”

“It might even help Harcourt,” Walton murmured.

“Harcourt will come out of it,” Travis said quickly. “He’s exhausted. It was a rough night.”

Vinson asked impatiently, “Are you coming, or do you want us to go back and tell Babcock you just don’t give a damn?”

Travis agreed to go. He followed them from the store to the small wooden building that Orville Babcock was using for his headquarters while in Port-au-Prince. Two black guards stood outside, holding rifles, and their eyes darted suspiciously at Travis as he passed between them. Fleetingly, he wondered if they had been among those fools dressed in blue and purple, faces painted in macabre patterns. It would be good to get out of this place.

Vinson and Walton led him to the door of the inner office, then left. Travis knocked once, heard someone call out, then walked inside. He saw a somber-faced, dark-haired man seated behind a large desk, and a priest standing to the left of the desk. Travis nodded to the man behind the desk and bluntly asked, “What did you want to see me about, Babcock? I’m on my way to Santo Domingo to see Sam Bucher.”

“Sam Bucher seems anxious to see you, too, Coltrane,” Babcock remarked as he reached for his pipe and began to pack it with tobacco from a leather humidor. “He’s been wanting to take time off to get over here, but I haven’t been able to give him any time. Seems we’ve had more work to do there than you people have had here in Haiti. None of my men have gotten themselves into a…diplomatic situation with the natives,” he added meaningfully.

Travis glanced around the sparsely furnished room, spotted a chair, turned it around backward, sat, and faced the two men. He said tightly, “You’re
insinuating that
I
have gotten myself in a ‘diplomatic situation’? I don’t think it’s anything for the American government to worry about. The government here, if there is one,” he smiled sarcastically, “should be concerned. An American citizen was almost killed last night by a bunch of crazed natives.”

He propped his chin on his hands and stared straight at Babcock. “What do you intend to do about that?”

The priest, a tall, fat, balding man with condemning ice-blue eyes, spoke up. “Did you deflower a young native girl called Molina?”

Travis looked him over carefully, trying to decide whether or not to tell him to mind his own business. Never one to mince words, he snapped, “Yeah, if you want to call it that. She may have been a virgin, but she sure came on like a woman who’s known plenty of men. I didn’t force her. In fact, she offered herself in no uncertain terms. I’m only human.”

“You are also married!” The priest hissed like a snake, face reddening.

Travis made his decision. “That is none of your damn business.”

“Coltrane, this isn’t getting us anywhere!” Babcock slammed his fist on the desk. “You deflowered a native girl. In the eyes of her people, you shamed her. The rites they performed last night, if I have heard the gossip correctly, were meant to punish you.”

“They thought they were going to make me marry her. Oh, hell, I don’t know what they thought. All I know is I was drugged and woke up naked and tied down to a rock in a graveyard with a dead chicken bleeding all over my face. If that’s not enough to get pissed off over, I don’t know what is.” He pointed his finger at Babcock. “Did anyone try to take revenge on you like those bastards did with me last night? Sit there and tell me that if they had you wouldn’t be pissed off about it and I’ll call you a goddamn liar.”

The priest puffed himself out like a toad. “Have you no respect?” he whispered hoarsely.

“I’m sorry,” Travis said contritely. “I know you are a man of the cloth, but tell me, what is your interest in all this? No one has told me yet what this meeting is about, and I would like to be on my way.”

The priest sat down near Babcock’s desk and folded his hands in his lap. “I have been told by Mr. Babcock and others that you are a strong-willed man, Mr. Coltrane, and that you have a very nasty temper. I can understand why you are upset, but if you will refrain from further outbursts and hear me out, I will attempt to tell you the reasons for this meeting.”

“That sounds fair,” Travis nodded. “But let’s hurry up.”

The priest closed his eyes for a moment, as though praying for the right words to come. When he opened them, he stared at Travis thoughtfully, then said, “Let me explain how it all came about, Mr. Coltrane.”

He spoke in slow, even tones, clearly wanting Travis to understand everything. He told of how almost half a million slaves won their freedom in a struggle that ended with Haiti’s independence back in 1804. He explained that most of the Africans brought to the island before the middle of the century came from the Dahomeyton town of Ouidah, in West Africa, and later from the Congo. There were mulattoes, who had some education, and a few Europeans, and since 1804 there had been many immigrants, mostly traders and mechanics, along with a few priests and teachers, who had come first from the British Isles, then from America, to form part of a repatriation movement.

“Nine years ago, a concordat with the Pope,” he continued in the same slow tone, “gave Haiti an all-French clergy, which helped attract more French-speaking residents. Some came from France, others from Guadeloupe and Martinique.”

Travis interrupted, “I’m sure the history of the settlement of Haiti is quite interesting, but what does all this mean now?”

The priest assumed the air of a man who is not accustomed to being questioned. “Mr. Coltrane, if you will listen, I am quite sure you will understand. Since Haiti was left without a regular clergy until nine years ago, a syncretic cult was formed in 1860. This is what is called voodoo. To explain as simply as possible, voodoo is a religion whereby the Catholic God rules over an African pantheon.”

Travis viewed the priest skeptically. “Then you are trying to tell me that voodoo is, in fact, a religion? And that it has its roots in the Catholic Church? I find that hard to believe, and even harder to understand why the Catholics would admit it. Who would want to claim any association with a bunch of lunatics?”

“They believe in a single God and other elements borrowed from Roman Catholicism,” the priest continued, ignoring Travis’ criticism. “They believe in the saints, but this becomes confused with voodoo gods, which, to those who believe, are objects of all kinds of veneration. The power of performing evil and good comes with the permission of God, whom they call the Great Master. This is what I mean by ‘syncretism,’ which, basically, is an accurate description of the mixture of all elements in Haitian voodoo—the belief in a universal, sovereign, supreme God, but, at the same time, belief in secondary gods, whom they call
loas.

“The most important
loa
is Legba, entrusted with guardianship of the temple,” he went on. “Then there is Erzulie, goddess of love.”

Travis sighed with disgust, stood, and slung his chair across the room. “I’ve heard about the
loas,”
he said in a clipped voice. “I have also heard you out. I still don’t understand what all this has to do with us.”

“What he is trying to tell you, Coltrane,” Babcock said impatiently, “is that these people have deeply rooted beliefs. It’s serious business to them. That is why the American government, in the process of trying to gain military and commercial privileges here and also in discussing annexation, cannot afford to have one of its emissaries involved in a scandal. Sherman himself recommended you for this committee, and—”

“Whoa, now!” Travis held up his hand in protest. “Sam Bucher got me on the committee, after I asked him to. I was having a few personal problems, and I wanted some time away. So don’t go telling me I was
selected
for this job to try to make me feel like I’ve disgraced my country. I asked to come here.”

Orville Babcock stared down at some papers on his desk and spoke without looking up. “I have your records right here. Your name was recommended by Sherman back in March when the committee was first being formed. You were selected on the basis of your illustrious service to the Union during the war. Sherman recommended you very highly and wrote a long letter to President Grant citing the reasons why you should be appointed.”

“Let me see that, please.” Travis held out his hand. Babcock shrugged and gave him the papers.

As Travis scanned the correspondence, his gray eyes narrowed. Why hadn’t Sam told him about this? Why had he kept it from him? Slowly, an uneasy feeling began in the pit of his stomach. Something was not right, and whatever it was, he sensed that all of it had to do with Kitty’s strange behavior. She had changed so suddenly. Was this why?