Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [237]
“Tear down the fort, and retreat to Grand Cahos.”
“A moment,” said the doctor. He walked to the open gate and looked out. Dessalines was coming up the slope from the town, in his general’s dress regalia, riding a big bay stallion. The doctor hurried back to his ajoupa and stooped in to find his shirt. At the same time he flipped over the mat he slept on to cover his long gun and two pistols. By the time he straightened, tucking his shirt, Dessalines had dismounted and stood beside his horse, squinting into his silver snuffbox.
“General.” The doctor bowed. Dessalines stirred his tobacco thoughtfully with a fingertip, then closed the box without taking any.
“Your orders are?” the doctor asked.
“Destroy the fort so that the blancs cannot use it,” Dessalines pronounced.
“But these wounded are here by order of the Governor-General.”
Dessalines’s eye bore down on the doctor. “Toussaint ordered you to bring them to the fort?”
The doctor swallowed. “To Petite Rivière.”
“Well, ti blan, little white man, I give you time to move these wounded while my men tear down the walls.”
“And your orders for the town?”
“N’ap boulé tout kay yo,” Dessalines said carelessly, glancing toward the screen of trees below the gate. He clicked a fingernail on the snuffbox lid. We will burn all the houses.
The doctor spread his empty hands in the air. His mouth opened, but no words came. The image of Descourtilz’s face, caught in the small bricked window of the cotton warehouse, flicked across his memory. Fontelle approached, with the boiled egg and two steaming plantains arranged on a banana leaf, but the doctor’s appetite had fled. He dropped his hands and nodded in the direction of Dessalines.
“No, better that you offer it to the general.”
But Dessalines shrugged off the food. At his gesture, his captain stepped up and took the boiled egg from the leaf, then broke off half a plantain. The rest was divided bite by bite among the men who held the mattocks. The last man sailed the empty leaf over the parapet. Bienvenu, who stood quietly with his coutelas hanging behind his left thigh, watched the leaf go fluttering down over the river.
Someone raised a pick and brought it down. The point drew sparks from the stone, but dislodged only a few shreds of mortar. The man who’d struck looked disconsolately down at his jolted arms. Dessalines shifted his stance and cocked his head. The doctor’s ears strained for whatever sound he heard: horses. Dessalines dropped the snuffbox into his coat pocket. A moment later, the first horseman was pulling his mount up sharply within the gate. “Look out, the Governor is coming!”
The doctor recognized Guiaou, holding one of Toussaint’s pennants on a whipping bamboo staff. Then Toussaint rode in himself, flanked by Placide and Morisset, and followed by two dozen riders of his guard.
At once the doctor was washed in relief. But when Toussaint slipped down from Bel Argent, he crumpled against the saddle skirt—only his grip on the stirrup leather held him up. Dessalines watched, his posture emptied of all intention, his face entirely blank. Finally Toussaint pulled himself upright and took a shaky step away from the white stallion. He was pouring sweat, but his face was bloodless.
“Sir, I see you are taken with fever—” the doctor began, but Toussaint passed him stiffly, unheeding. The doctor glanced up at Placide, whose grave face hung above his horse’s head.
“What is this work?” Toussaint demanded.
Dessalines repeated what he had told the doctor.
“No,” said Toussaint, “no.” He fisted a hand, then opened it, then wet a forefinger with his tongue and raised it to the wind. He turned on his heels, holding the raised finger to the points of the compass. When he’d completed the revolution, he was again facing Dessalines. The movement seemed to strengthen him a little, or at any rate when he next spoke, his voice no longer quavered.
“Let them deepen the ditches around the fort,” he said, gesturing at the men with their mattocks. “Shore up these walls, within. I have brought a few more cannon.