Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [371]
They had made a slightly late departure and, because of the boy, they did not press too hard, eager as the doctor was to reach their destination. In the afternoon they stopped at Marmelade. The doctor spent the evening exchanging botanical notes with l’Abbé Delahaye. He also learned that Moustique had been there not so long before, to return the stole and the silver chalice, and to claim Marie-Noelle and her child. Beyond these scraps of information, Delahaye had no remark to make on the subject of his rebel protégé.
At first light they saddled their horses and reloaded the short pack train; Tocquet had three donkeys, bearing coffee and some panniers of indigo he had scouted out somewhere, for trade across the Spanish border. They rode out through the morning mists and up into the mountains. Toward noon they were stopped on a high narrow trail by a patrol of Moyse’s men, running out from Dondon. The officer, unknown to any of them, made a close inspection of Tocquet’s goods, and asked him a number of narrow questions about where he was going with his wares and what he meant to do when he got there—they were not headed in the direction of a port.
Dismounted by the head of his mare, the doctor waited, irritated at the delay. He took off his straw hat and untied his sweat-drenched headcloth, then began to massage his peeling scalp with his fingers. One of the black soldiers looked at him closely, then went to whisper to his superior, who was interrogating Tocquet. The officer listened, then seemed to put a question; Tocquet nodded his assent.
“Ou mèt alé,” the officer said. You may go on. He closed the packs which had been opened for inspection, and ordered his men to clear the trail.
They rode on. Tocquet was leading, the parrot rocking on his shoulder. Paul followed directly behind, then the doctor, finally Bazau and Gros-jean, flanking the pack animals. An hour later, when they stopped for water, the doctor asked Tocquet what he had said to the patrol.
“Nothing,” Tocquet told him. “It was you. You are a person of influence—Toussaint’s doctor. It may be that you are even a wizard of some kind. In any case you are not be impeded on your way.”
Though he supposed he ought to have been pleased, the doctor had a rather uncomfortable feeling of exposure. He had come to prize the anonymity of his passages. Tocquet rinsed out his mouth and spat.
“Everything is very regulated nowadays,” he said. He flipped his long hair back over his shoulder; the parrot squawked and shifted its claws. “I suppose that for a family man, and a man of property, it is a good thing.”
They rode on. Tocquet would now meet both of those qualifications, the doctor reflected, though he did not seem to have been speaking of himself.
Toward evening they came into Dondon. There was an air of tension in the town, as if some action were in the offing, but no one interfered with them, and they found lodging for the night without difficulty. The doctor called upon Moyse at his headquarters, and put a question about the Fortiers.
“Caché,” Moyse said briefly. Hidden.
“Oh?” said the doctor. “At their place near here, or at Vallière?”
“Pa konnen,” Moyse said. He did not know, or would not say. His good eye was fixed firmly on the doctor’s face; the loose lids wrinkled round the gray socket of the missing one. Moyse was not inclined to wear a patch.
“No one will harm them,” Moyse finally said. “They are safe enough, wherever they are.”
Accepting this statement, the doctor withdrew. He knew that the amnesty Toussaint had declared for the mulattoes was observed with less than perfect fidelity. In fact, there were rumors of massacres, though these were more likely to happen in the south, or along the coast. The Fortiers were remote from