Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [215]
“He is safely on the road to Petite Rivière, with those of our wounded who can still walk.” Toussaint saw from the corner of his eye how the pretty quarteronne Nanon seemed to wilt at his words; Tocquet’s white woman moved to support her. “I do not hold him against his will, but you must know how urgently his skills are needed.”
He turned to Suzanne. “Madamn mwen, you must go now to Pont d’Ester, while I—”
“Wait.” Suzanne’s eyes flashed up at him from under her blue headcloth. “I will not go on so alone, and risk another mishap.”
“But I must return to Gonaives, if the fighting continues there.” Toussaint checked Placide with a glance, as Placide lifted his foot toward a stirrup. “No—stay here to protect your mother and the others.” Toussaint drew out his watch on its chain. “If I have not returned by three, you must bring them all to Pont d’Ester, where I will join you.” He glanced over the five dragoons that Morisset had left there. “Keep watch on the roads to the north. If you see French troops, you must go sooner.”
Toussaint reached down for a brief clasp of Suzanne’s hand. Then he turned his horse back into the trees and began riding back down the trail as quickly as was prudent. He swayed in the saddle, reins gathered in one hand, sometimes licking away the blood that ran between the knuckles of the other.
He had required to be alone, to hide from the rest of them, his dependents, the awful hollowness that had seized him. An emptiness he could now understand to have been left by the unexpected loss of Saint-Jean. But that was not all. No matter the strategic sense of it, to lose Gonaives was like giving up the ribs that covered his heart. For years he’d maneuvered to win control of this port. But that was not all either. He almost wished Placide were still with him, to hear the explanation: the loss of Gonaives would break Toussaint’s communications with Port-de-Paix, where Maurepas, with the Ninth Demibrigade, had been making the most brilliant and successful resistance of any before today. Following Toussaint’s orders to the hilt, Maurepas had burned Port-de-Paix at the first appearance of French ships and retreated to the gorges of Trois Rivières, where he’d handily whipped every French general so far sent against him, including both Debelle and Humbert on more than one occasion.
Toussaint held on to the thought of Maurepas as he pressed his horse to gallop on the main road north to Gonaives. He met a portion of his own troops, falling back from Périsse toward Pont d’Ester; their startled faces turned to follow him, but he did not pause. There was no fighting at the lower entrance to Gonaives, and only the lightest guard. From the few men there, Toussaint learned that there were two battles under way, one on the road that came straight from Plaisance, the other at Pont des Dattes. He walked his horse through the town to cool it, through the square before the church. Headquarters was also almost deserted, with practically every man who could walk thrown into battle. From the stable behind, he heard the racket of Bel Argent whinnying and kicking his stall door. Toussaint felt his gloom disperse a little. The white stallion might return him some portion of his inner strength, if anything would or could. He sent a runner to warn General Vernet of his coming, and saddled and bridled Bel Argent himself.
“We have fought as well as we can,” Vernet said when Toussaint had reached him. “Morisset led a charge that drove them back as far as La Tannerie for a time. But there are too many for us to hold. It is Leclerc himself who presses us here, and Hardy has his whole division in the line at Pont des Dattes.”
“How do you estimate their strength?”
“In all? Twelve thousand, it must be,” Vernet said. “And we but fourteen hundred, and that at the start of the day.”
Toussaint removed his hat and massaged the bone of his head, through the sweat-soaked