Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [276]
“Christophe,” he said. “There is Christophe—he is chasing Boyer.”
The noise swelled as it approached. Arnaud sensed the sentries in the earthwork were attending to it also. He touched his pistol grip for a moment, then pulled the masking cloth from his nose and mouth and dropped it, then dismounted, letting the reins trail. He took a step away from his horse.
“I am Michel Arnaud,” he said. “If you have some account with me, we may settle it now.” He opened his empty hands, a few inches away from the pistol and coutelas strapped to opposite sides of his belt. “But let these others pass on to the town.”
The branded man was hesitating. He still seemed to be distracted by the noise of the fighting beyond the slow brown drift of the river, though nothing had yet come into view. The cane, and smoke rolling over it, obscured everything. Arnaud coughed. Behind him there was a crash, and though he didn’t like to take his eyes off the branded man and the others he faced, he risked a quick glance over his shoulder. At Elise’s urging, Sophie and Zabeth had rolled one of the rum barrels over the rails of the wagon; it spurted a little bright liquid through a cracked stave as it landed, and a good number of the band swarmed eagerly over it. Claudine, meanwhile, stood up from the box, her skin pulled tight to the bone of her face, staring a thousand miles through the horizon, her left hand with its missing ring finger raised palm out as if to test the wind.
Arnaud faced forward. Now he heard Claudine’s name, whispered around the band. Some of the men who blocked their way were looking up at her with a kind of awe.
“Give us all the barrels,” the branded man said.
Arnaud shook his head. “One.”
“Don’t be a fool, man!” Tocquet had ridden up to the head. “Give them the rum and get on your horse.” He turned to the branded man. “Take all the barrels and welcome to them, but as we go.” As he spoke he leaned down to catch the harness of the lead mule in the team. At his urging the wagon creaked slowly forward. Arnaud vaulted into his saddle with the verve of a youth of twenty. The branded man made a fishtail motion with his arm, and the men in front of them began to shift out of the road.
Two of the band had jumped into the wagon and were rolling barrels off to their fellows who walked behind. They paid no attention to the women and children crouching in the straw of the wagon bed. Ahead, Arnaud saw with enormous relief that the sentries were dragging the heavy wood gate of the earthwork open. Half a dozen muskets were leveled in their direction, though, and one little four-pound cannon.
“Get those brigands off your wagon!” one of the sentries shouted. One of the men jumped down at once, though three barrels remained to be unloaded. The second man ignored the call. Grunting, he hefted a barrel to the rail and rolled it over. Gros-Jean rode up and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Fok ou desann,” he said, and pointed to the soldier who held a lit fuse above the touch hole of the little cannon. You must get down. The second man glanced in that direction, flashed Gros-Jean a quick grin and jumped off the wagon, leaving the last two barrels behind.
Arnaud counted his party as they came through the earthwork— all were present and accounted for. The guard was very light here, as he’d suspected, no more than a platoon and short-handed at that. A little determination would suffice to overrun this post. But through the closing gate he could see that the men of the band were doing nothing more than rolling the rum barrels further out of musket range. Then the gate was closed, and the sentries had waved them on their way. Around the next bend of the road appeared the stone gate posts of the town itself.
“Ah, Michel . . .” Tocquet rode up alongside Arnaud, and reached to touch him lightly