Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [177]
No time for that. With the rain shutting out any light from the sky, it was almost impossible to see anything, but Guizot locked onto Tocquet’s shadow: a deeper patch of darkness on the dark. Or maybe he’d deceived himself, for when he reached the crossroads at the edge of town there was nothing. He looked to the right—nothing at all. To the left a vague shape that might have been a tree, with horses beneath it? More than one horse, and a Negro voice spoke in that patois that Guizot had not yet learned to understand.
He stumbled in a puddle as he moved toward the sound, and at once something coiled and tightened around his throat, hauling him up backward on the balls of his heels. Tocquet’s tobacco smell surrounded him. Guizot groped with his good hand but could get no purchase—his hand grasped nothing but rainwater and he was running out of air. Then the grip shifted. He gasped a breath and felt a knife point pierce the loose skin just above his windpipe.
He tried to recall a prayer, could not. The Negro voice said something incomprehensible. Then Tocquet whispered, in clear French, I think I’m getting old.
At the instant of release something round and hard struck Guizot beside the temple. The knife pommel? That was what he pictured as he collapsed. Though the blow was glancing, he let himself fall headlong into the mud, feigning unconsciousness, lest Tocquet think better of his moment of compunction. The rapid splashing of hooves was out of earshot within seconds, but Guizot lay still for a longer time, thoughtfully probing the lump on his head and the shallow cut on the skin of his gullet. Tocquet had spared his life, after all, and Guizot waited ten minutes, possibly fifteen, before he ran back to raise the alarm.
19
Charmed as she was by her new infant grandson, Fontelle had never meant to remain at Habitation Arnaud for long. The mistress Claudine was kindly intentioned, but her head was ever a little off balance, and she could not control the lwa bossale which so often climbed unbidden to seat themselves on the saddle of her head. Disorders followed, and while Fontelle admired the patience and grace of her son Moustique in guiding those wild spirits into useful or harmless channels more often than not, the commotion was wearing on her after a few days. Also, soon after Michel Arnaud had come stumbling in at the gate with his injured ankle, rumors began that a large number of French soldiers were on the march south from Le Cap.
She left an hour before first light, kissing Dieufait where he slept on his pallet. Over Moustique’s snoring head she made the sign of the cross. Marie-Noelle was awake, quietly nursing the baby, whose name had not been finally chosen. Fontelle kissed them both and went silently out of the case. She meant to bring news of Moustique and his increased family to her daughter Paulette, at Ennery.
On the road just beyond the gate of Habitation Arnaud she fell in with a gang of cattle drovers, taking their herd up into the mountains, ahead of the French blanc soldiers said to be advancing, not half a day’s march behind. There was much discussion among the drovers as to whether these new blanc soldiers had come to restore slavery or not, but all agreed it was better to hide the cows from them, since it had been proven that these new blancs would slaughter and roast the beef without paying. Fontelle made no comment, but sat her little donkey in silence, now and then touching it up with a short stick she carried in her right hand. In her mind she tumbled possible names for the baby. Jean-Paul. Jean-Mathieu. Possibly Jean-Pierre, in honor of his grandfather. The drovers did not pay her much attention. Her face was too long-jawed and sallow to hold their eyes, though one of the older men seemed to notice that her body was still supple and limber under