The Pelican Bride (9 page)

I tried to tell him.

But Bienville never listened to anything he didn’t want to hear. He would simply thunder his arguments at greater volume until one had to give up or go deaf.

Desiring to present his best work, Tristan had first shown his initial drawings—carefully executed maps of the Alabama river system—to La Salle. Seated at a drafting table in his warehouse office on the island, the commissioner had pored over the parchments, clicking his tongue as he ran an ink-stained finger over each detail.

“The Indians are lying to Bienville. The settlement would better be located on the lower bluff.” He adjusted his wig in that nervous way of his. “I suppose they would have their own reasons for wanting the fort higher up the river.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Tristan sighed. “But I can’t prove it.”

“We’ll just have to make a good case. He can’t be
that
bullheaded.”

But, as Tristan knew all too well, Bienville could and would insist on his own way. The fort had been built to Bienville’s specifications at the upper location, while La Salle dug in like a particularly vicious flea under the commander’s collar.

It had been a mistake, Tristan now realized, to press La Salle’s support. So here he was, cramming supplies onto a too-small boat in preparation for another long season of isolation, while his only brother remained in service to the executor of his exile.

Consoling himself that he no longer had to listen to their sniping and conspiracies, Tristan jumped onto the warped pier that spanned the marsh below the bluff. Wearily he climbed the wooden steps that staggered up from the pier to the landing at the top of the bluff.

There he paused long enough to button his shirt and scrape the mud from his boots. Exile or no, he could pass for civilized when
he tried. He almost removed the leather thong that tied his hair back at his nape, but opting for coolness over fashion, he set off at a brisk pace for the fort’s main gate, set a scant quarter mile back from the landing.

It was odd to approach the stockade without bracing himself for disaster. The hole in his heart where Sholani had lived seemed to be shrinking to bearable size. Never would he forget her, nor could he forgive those who had taken her. But the hard-won return of sanity had brought with it a watchfulness that would surely protect him from the soft, insidious disease of affection.

At the gate, Tristan saluted a young cadet named Lafleur, who responded with an insolent stare as the gate swung open. Everyone here knew him as Marc-Antoine Lanier’s brother and the commander’s nemesis. He wasn’t sure which gave him the most notoriety.

Whistling, he strode toward the dining hall adjacent to the warehouse, where he found his brother wolfing down a plate full of fried eggs mopped up with a chunk of bread. Marc-Antoine hailed him with a tankard of ale and gestured toward the bench opposite him. “Thought you would be miles downstream by this time, my brother.”

“Soon.” Tristan straddled the bench and accepted a tankard from a passing adjutant. He grinned as Marc-Antoine stuffed the remainder of the bread into his mouth and blissfully chewed. “I see Mademoiselle Gaillain has been sowing her talents abroad. I hope she hasn’t sold off what she promised to me.”

Marc-Antoine’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “If I’d known she was for sale, I might have put in an earlier bid. Are you taking home a bride after all?”

“Just her bread. And keep your voice down.” He looked around and found the handful of men there addressing their food with apparent absorption. “Where is she?” He lifted the tankard to his mouth.

“Who?” Marc-Antoine’s expression was innocent.

Tristan cuffed him. “Don’t be stupid.”

Marc-Antoine laughed. “She’s in the kitchen harassing Roy. He can’t quite admit that a woman makes better bread than he does.”

“It wouldn’t take much.” Tristan eyed the doorway into the kitchen. If he sought her out, she might assume too much. But he could hardly sit here all day, hoping for a glimpse of the woman. He should have arranged for someone to deliver the bread to his boat. He glanced at his brother, who was openly grinning. “What are your duties today?” he asked, summoning his dignity.

“Translating for some Chickasaw envoys who want to trade pelts for guns.” The grin faded as Marc-Antoine shook his head. “The
Pélican
brought Bienville a letter from Pontchartrain, warning him His Majesty is set on protecting the Quebec fur trade. As you said, La Salle watches him like a hawk, but he insists a few pelts here and there can’t hurt.”

“I wouldn’t worry about Bienville. He enjoys walking in quicksand.”

Marc-Antoine leaned forward and lowered his voice. “He does. And if anybody understands his weaknesses, I do—but, Tristan, if anything happens to him, this colony will fall apart. Bienville is the only man capable of holding off the British, the Spanish, and the Indians, and keeping the religious from cutting each other’s throats. Do you know he deliberately brought over this Jesuit Father Mathieu as chaplain, over Pontchartrain’s objections? Father Henri is near apoplectic.”

Tristan steepled his fingers against his chin in thought. “I talked with Father Mathieu on the trip upriver last week. He’s a good man and seems to have no desire to take Father Henri’s place.”

“Then why choose him to accompany us into Indian territory on the peace mission?”

“Perhaps because he is neither fat, lame, nor speech deficient.”

Marc-Antoine choked on his ale. “Could you be a little more forthright, my brother?”

Tristan shrugged. “You asked.”

“I did indeed.” Marc-Antoine pushed away from the table. “I just wish you were going with us. Nobody knows the river like you do, and another interpreter wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Marc-Antoine, I cannot—”

“I know, I know.” Marc-Antoine stood up. “You have a garden to harvest and cows to milk. But if you change your mind . . .” He rapped the table with his knuckles. “Kiss the pretty bakery queen for me.” He was gone, chuckling, before Tristan could untangle his tongue.

Tristan got to his feet just as a deafening clamor crashed from the kitchen, followed by a woman’s shriek. He dropped the tankard and took off running.

Skidding into the kitchen, he found a young Indian wielding a meat cleaver scowling down at a cast-iron kettle lying on its side in front of the fireplace—the obvious source of the crashing noise. The Indian blew on the palm of his free hand as yellowish-white hominy spread in a thick, steaming puddle on the floor.

Geneviève, backed against the far wall, stared with patent horror at the string of scalps hanging at the brave’s hip. The cook stood between the woman and the Indian, regarding the mess on the floor with an expression of immense disgust.

Tristan was relieved to see that, for the moment, no one was being murdered. “What’s the trouble, Roy?”

“Grits pot fell over. Chief here decided to help himself and got in too big a hurry.”

“Is he going to scalp us?” Geneviève’s voice was high and breathless.

The cook shook his massive head. “Not if I give him something to eat.” Using a wooden-handled pot hook, he lifted the kettle and set it back over the fire. He jerked a thumb toward the countertop. “You taking this bread off my hands, Lanier? Sooner it’s gone, the better. Can’t keep wandering cadets and savages out of my kitchen.”

Tristan glanced at the rows of beautiful brown loaves. “Is that mine?”

Geneviève nodded.

As the Indian stalked toward Tristan, he returned the murderous obsidian stare. He didn’t recognize the fellow, but the copper bells and yellow leather bands laced into his hair, as well as the design of his breechclout, were Mobilian.

He extended a civil greeting in the fellow’s native tongue, then added, “If those are Alabama scalps, Bienville will buy them.”

“It is as you say,” the brave answered in his own language. He cast a contemptuous glance at Geneviève. “Crazy white woman.” Dropping the cleaver onto a table, he snatched a loaf of bread and slipped out the back door.

Geneviève’s light freckles stood out against her pale cheeks as she sagged against the wall. “I was going to give him some bread, but he grabbed the knife and shouted at me. And those horrible scalps . . .” She shuddered. “What is he doing with them?”

How to explain to this sheltered young woman the brutal realities of seizing a territory? Tristan remembered the first time he’d come upon a pile of scalped corpses left behind after the massacre of Irondequoit Bay. He’d had nightmares for weeks. “Several months ago,” he said, picking his words, “the Alabama ambushed a priest and a party of Mobilians who were guiding them up to the Little Tomeh. You’ve heard the term ‘savage law’?” At her jerky nod, he spread his hands. “Bienville insists that we Frenchmen won’t be respected as leaders if we don’t repay such attacks in kind, so he offered to buy Alabama scalps from our allies.”

She pushed away from the wall, her hands clenched the soft white fabric of her apron. “If we behave no differently than the savages, how can we call ourselves a Christian nation?” Accusation flared in the grayish-green eyes. “If we return cruelty for cruelty, massacre for massacre—”

“Lady,” Roy interrupted, “life here ain’t gonna be all sweet and
clean like it was in that convent back in Paris.” He ran the flat of his hand along the sideboard, swiping crumbs onto the floor. “Better get used to scalps and bugs and Indians and all kinds of ugly creatures, or you might as well sail back home on the next boat.”

The girl’s lips parted as she stared at the cook. Tristan halfway expected her to slap him—or to at least defend herself. He knew that many of the
Pélican
girls had escaped difficult if not impossible circumstances in France, else they never would have braved that long, harrowing voyage. He suspected the Gaillain sisters’ lives had been harder than most.

Without thinking, he picked up the cleaver abandoned by the Indian and flung it end over end to stick in the table, quivering, right where Roy’s middle finger had been three seconds earlier.

The cook leaped backward, stumbling into the puddle of hominy. His feet flew out from under him, and he landed on his rear.

“Some creatures are uglier than others,” Tristan said, winking at Geneviève. “I’ll take my bread now, if you please.”

6

J
ulien Dufresne, seated at his desk in the outer office of the Le Moyne brothers’ warehouse, leaned over his account book as he totaled the receipt column. He wished his father were here to witness the respect with which he had come to be regarded in the settlement. As the commander’s accounting officer, second only to La Salle himself, he was privy to exclusive information regarding Bienville’s dealings with the local savages, as well as the commander’s profits from the sale of His Majesty’s surplus supplies.

Interestingly, many of the supplies were not so surplus as Bienville claimed . . . and his profits had climbed to quite eyebrow-raising proportions of late. Not that Julien had any intention of spilling such golden information until the time was right. Besides, he could only admire such enterprising leadership.

For the moment, he was quite content to slip some of those profits into his own pocket and call it a fair exchange.

He looked up as the door opened and one of the savages Bienville was so fond of stalked in. Without a word the man flung a string of scalps onto the account book.

For a stunned moment Julien stared at the tails of long, coarse
black hair, still attached to brownish skins curled like dark parchment at the edges. Each lock, he had been told, represented its owner’s stolen soul, and Bienville had given clear instructions that only scalps of the warlike northern Alabama tribes were to be treated as bounty. His own scalp prickling, Julien gingerly picked up the leather thong that bound the scalps together and examined the arrangement of hair and decorations. These were definitely Alabama. He made himself count.

After recording the number in his account book, he wiped his pen and looked up at the scowling young Indian. Dressed in the familiar Mobilian breechclout and beads, he stood, arms folded over his sleek brown chest, bare feet spread in an aggressive stance. He smelled like an animal.

Julien had learned enough of the Mobilian tongue to transact business without resorting to a translator. “Ten
ecus
each. Coins or powder?”

The Indian hesitated, then his mouth tightened. “Powder.” He cupped his hand, then showed four fingers.

Julien shook his head once, vehemently, then cupped his own hand. “No, two.”

“Three.”

Julien pretended to think about it. “Very well. Three.” In the account book he wrote
four handfuls powder, worth two hundred ecus
. He would sell the extra powder off the books and pocket fifty
ecus
from the transaction. “Name?”

“Mitannu.”

He looked up at the Indian. He knew the name. He was the son of the chief, and the mate of a particularly lovely Mobilian woman, with whom Julien had attempted to strike a certain bargain. Because the man was a prolific and renowned hunter, rarely in the village, Julien had not crossed paths with him until today. He silently assessed the hawkish, alien features, the almond-shaped eyes and arched nose, comparing them to Nika’s small twin sons,
who were always dashing around underfoot when Julien was in the village conducting business with the chief.

Mitannu’s posture shifted with suspicious aggression, and Julien transferred his attention back to the account book. After all, what difference did the parentage of a couple of Indian whelps make? Finishing the entry, he capped the pen, then rose and unlocked the warehouse door behind his desk.

An hour after the Indian left with the powder in a leather pouch tied at his waist, André Ardouin came in to purchase a smoked turkey. The ship’s carpenter studied his receipt with suspicion. “Ten
ecus
is an exorbitant price for such a small smoked turkey.”

Ardouin was one of a handful of colonists who could both read and write, so Julien was always careful not to cheat him. “The
Profond
is due to arrive any day now. Until it does . . .” Julien shrugged. “Supply and demand, my friend. Are you planning an entertainment?”