Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [130]
There was no news of Port-au-Prince either, or none that came to the ears of Riau. None that I could trust. Because I wanted to take the long way around Port-au-Prince, I rode my horse to Croix des Bouquets, but this way was not long enough. I ought to have gone further into the plain of Cul de Sac, and passed around Croix des Bouquets in the open country, instead of trying to ride through the town, though that way was a little shorter. There were men of the Third Demibrigade who stopped me in the square. I told them I was carrying messages for Toussaint, but I did not have any letter to show them by that time, only the words that Toussaint had stored in my head.
Now my intention was to try again to carry those words to Laplume in the south, because it seemed to me that maybe I had been wrong not to have done it sooner. These men of the Third did not arrest me, but they would not let me pass, or not until I had come before their commander. They were tired and dirty and stained with mud and sweat, and one of them had brown bloodstains splattered on his shirt, so I thought they must have been in some fighting not long ago.
It was as well to rest my horse, I thought, since it did not seem I could do anything different at that time, and find him some water and some grain. While I was doing these things I thought about the hatte which Toussaint kept across the border, where we had been not long ago. So many fine horses were raised and trained there, but it seemed a long way off to Riau now. I knew I would have to make this horse last. In the days to come I would not be able to get another, unless I had the luck to capture a horse in the fighting.
The commander they brought me to was Lamartinière, of course, and it was well that he knew Riau. He called me to eat with him at his officers’ table, because it was night by the time they brought me to him. Lamartinière wanted to know everywhere I had been since I left him last, and especially if I had seen Toussaint in any of those places. I told him only that I had been to Dessalines at Saint Marc, and that I did not yet know what Dessalines was going to do. I did not tell him anything more than that, but Lamartinière seemed satisfied with my answer.
Lamartinière was angry and ashamed that night, and I think that maybe he was a little afraid too. The General Boudet had beaten him at the Fort Piémont, as I had thought was going to happen, and driven him out of Port-au-Prince later that same day, as far as Croix des Bouquets where I found him. So he had not been able to defend Port-au-Prince as he’d sworn he would, and he had not burned it either. The French blancs had it now, with its roofs and its stores. Lamartinière was not afraid of French blanc soldiers or their general. He was ready to fight them again as soon as he might. I believed he would have fought ten thousand Frenchmen himself all alone sooner than he would face Toussaint, when he had not done the thing Toussaint had ordered.
It seemed to me from what Lamartinière said that the French soldiers had not left any strength at Léogane, since they were all busy running up the road to Port-au-Prince from where I had last seen them. I thought that I could go on my way the next morning, and pass through the mountains above Léogane by paths that the blanc soldiers would not know, and so go on to the south to find Laplume, or maybe I would meet Jean-Pic again, with the bands of Lamour Dérance. That was the thought I took into my sleep that night, and when I woke at dawn I was ready to ride, but the sound that woke me was Dessalines coming into Croix des Bouquets with all his division and more men besides.
I think Lamartinière was not ready to see Dessalines so soon, after what Riau had said the night before. But many, even those who know him well, could be surprised by Dessalines