Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [349]
Romain walked toward him. A pair of men loosened the strings that secured the skin and unrolled it, backing away from each other to keep it from dragging on the ground. The slack skin of the cayman’s legs went dangling; the onlookers murmured as they circled it. At the release of the raw odor, the mule pulled to the length of its lead and stood tossing its head, fighting the man who held it.
Romain touched the cayman’s eye hole, on the groove where the bullet had entered.
“Ki moun ki té touyé’l?” he said. Who killed it?
“Him,” Riau pointed out the doctor. Romain raised his head to survey him again, and took another long look at the heavy rifle. His eyes were as murky yellow as the cayman’s had been.
“This blanc is a doctor,” Riau announced. “Also a doktè-fey. He is a doctor for Toussaint. He was with Toussaint at Ravine à Couleuvre, and with Dessalines at La Crête à Pierrot.”
Romain walked the length of the cayman’s skin, heel to toe, his hand gliding over the surface of the green leather. The ends of his hair locks were finished with small white cowrie shells that ticked together as he moved.
“With Dessalines too? Kon sa, sé pa blan li yé. ” At this remark several men laughed, Riau included. Like that, he is not a blanc. The doctor let himself relax a little, though he also wondered what credit this statement would be worth to him if and when they returned to precincts controlled by Leclerc’s army.
Maillart had untwisted in his saddle and loosened his reins. At Romain’s signal, the two men furled the cayman’s skin, fastened it, and began to load it onto the struggling mule where it had been before. The mule settled down once the bundle had been securely tied.
“Kité tout moun yo pasé,” said Romain. Let them all pass.
They rode on, escorted now by a couple of dozen of Romain’s men, a few of them mounted on donkeys or small ponies, most trotting along on foot. In an hour’s time they could see, from the heights of Limbé, the red sun lowering over the calm expanse of the Baie d’Acul below them. By the time they had reached the low ground, darkness had covered. Heavy clouds had rolled over from the mountains and blotted out all light. Riau and Romain’s men seemed to make their way onward by sense of smell; the doctor simply let his horse be carried along in their current.
When they reached the gateway of Habitation Arnaud, they heard drumming beyond it. The wind stirred in spirals in advance of the coming rain, and the air in the doctor’s lungs felt thick as water. Romain’s men scattered across the compound when they emerged from the allée; cries of excitement now mingled with the drums. The doctor and his group hurried for the shelter of the barn, with raindrops already smacking the dirt around them. Once inside, they turned to face the deluge that came down. Now there was nothing to see but roaring water. The doctor took a calabash bowl from his medical bag and held it at arm’s length into the rain, then drank and passed it among the others.
When at last the rain had stopped, they left their horses tethered and walked out under a canopy of stars. The drums had not resumed, but there was some hubbub in the direction of the cane mill. The doctor glimpsed a flicker of lamp or candle light on the rise where Arnaud had rebuilt his house. He walked in the direction, and the others followed him.
Cléo and Isidor sat on the narrow puncheon porch, each smoking a small round pipe. A bowl of well-picked fishbones sat between them on the floor, with a little cat watching it from beyond the eaves of the roof. Cléo looked at them indifferently as they came toward the small circle of light; she did not rise.
“Monsieur and Madame Arnaud?” the doctor inquired.
“Tout blan-yo pati,” Cléo said. All the whites have left. She squinted at the shadow where he stood, then nodded, with a half-smile. “Is it Doctor Hébert? You are welcome. You may stay.”
The doctor