Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [37]
Couachy called across the river to Guiaou, who beckoned them to follow. They went at a walk, since Toussaint’s horse was blown. The roan had run something more than a mile downriver, Maillart realized. It was at least that far when they reached a ford, and above it on the farther shore was a long oval corral which penned about thirty more as-yet-unbroken horses.
Maillart had heard from Tocquet and others that Toussaint maintained a hatte like this, somewhere across the Spanish border. Apparently Tocquet had once been charged to herd a string of these horses down across the Central Plateau to Gonaives. Maillart splashed across the ford and raised his hand to salute the others. Riau returned the salute smartly. Toussaint, smiling more openly than was usual for him, was buttoning his shirt with his free hand. Soaked with sweat, the white cloth clung transparently to the ribbed muscle of his torso. Only a tuft of grizzled hair at the throat betrayed his age.
“Mon général,” Maillart said. “When you risk yourself so, you risk the colony.”
Toussaint wiped away his smile with a hand and looked at Maillart closely. In truth it had been a heart-stopping moment for the major. As in the case of many French officers in a similar position, Maillart felt a strictly personal loyalty to Toussaint: the prospect of any of his black subordinates succeeding him was enough to give one an uneasy pause.
“Oh,” said Toussaint, “if I make a brief return to the work of my youth, it is only for a moment’s refreshment.” The smile flashed again, then disappeared. By then they had come to the edge of the corral. Toussaint dismounted, stroked the neck of the gentled horse, clucked his tongue reprovingly when the roan tossed its head at his touch. He passed the reins to a bare-chested groom who’d appeared, smiling, beside him, nodded to Maillart and the others, and walked up the slope toward the cluster of low buildings above the corral.
A couple of hours of daylight remained, and Maillart spent them watching the horse-breaking. He was offered a try at the game himself, but declined it. He might have ridden one of these animals to submission in an enclosure, but that mad dash downriver was not for him. The method certainly did work, however, and no one seemed to get killed in the process, though one man was thrown to the grassy verge, and some time was spent recapturing the horse with the lariat. Riau, who’d worked under Toussaint long ago as a slave on Bréda plantation, took a horse out and brought it back tamed. Guiaou was offered the same opportunity, but only ducked his head, teeth tight in a grin, and slid down the fence rail closer to Maillart.
They dined rather splendidly that evening, though in the open air. Chairs and tables were set out on the grass, and platters brought from the kitchen fires. In that cool altitude there were no insects to annoy them and they had a fine view of the evening settling on the mountains across the river. Wild pig had been roasted on the boucan, garnished with baked fruit and supplemented by rice and brown beans and a rich callaloo. Maillart fell on the food with enthusiasm, ravenous after the long day’s ride. All thought of Le Cap and the people who lived there was now far from his mind. Toussaint, he noticed, ate less sparingly than usual, taking a fair portion of meat and a bowlful of callaloo, along with his usual bread and whole fruits. He must have one of the old women he trusted to cook for him tucked away nearby. But when the rum went round he let it pass, drinking only cool water drawn from a spring above the hatte.
At the end of the meal, Maillart presented Tocquet’s note, and as Toussaint cut the seal with his thumbnail, he went to fetch the musket from the shipment he’d brought along to show. The demonstration struck him as a little excessive (and the extra weight had been irksome), but Tocquet