Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [38]
“It is not new,” he said. “French—the M-seventeen-sixty-three. But the condition is good.” He whistled sharply at one of the barefoot men who had served the tables, and when he raised his head, Toussaint tossed him the musket. Maillart’s eyes tracked its flight. The barefoot man caught the musket in both hands.
“Ki jan ou relé?” Toussaint said. What is your name?
“Guerrier, parrain,” said the barefoot man with a broad smile. “Guerrier,sé mwen-mêm.” Maillart realized he was, most likely, witnessing a promotion from worker to soldier—all the more enviable just now when for the first time in ten years they were not actually at war. He noticed too how naturally the man had addressed Toussaint as godfather.
“Lè ou wé envahissè, ki sa w’ap fé?” Toussaint inquired. What will you do when you see the invader?
“Tiré, tuyé.” Guerrier had brought the musket to his shoulder with an air of sufficient competence and was sighting down at the shoals of the river. Shoot to kill.
“Byen, kenbe’l,” Toussaint said. Good, keep it. Then, almost as an afterthought, he told Guerrier to report to Riau for an assignment and a horse.
Next morning Guerrier rode out among Toussaint’s guard, well mounted though without the silver helmet. He wore a ragged pair of Revolutionary trousers with the horizontal stripes, which was his only sign of a uniform. But he was a horseman, Maillart took note, his carriage in the saddle as presentable as anyone’s. Toussaint rode third in their single file, with Couachy and Guiaou in the lead. As usual in the field he wore a simple blue uniform coat without epaulettes, and today he had put aside his general’s bicorne for a round hat, a plume fixed to it with the tricolor Revolutionary rosette. The change of headgear altered his appearance considerably, though of course Bel Argent was almost as recognizable nowadays as his rider.
By the end of that day they’d reached the town of Santiago, occupied by the mulatto general Clervaux and garrisoned by about half of the four thousand black troops posted this side of the border—the rest were in the hands of Toussaint’s brother Paul, in Santo Domingo City to the south. At Santiago there was no feast to mark their arrival—Maillart and the guardsmen were left to forage, which they accomplished with a fair success. Toussaint was closeted with Clervaux for a long time, their candles burning deep into the night, with no one else invited to their council, white or black. Next morning they were off at dawn, riding eastward along the River Cayman into the wide expanses of the Consilanza Valley. The area was sparsely populated with Spanish cattlemen and their few black retainers, who were nothing so numerous as on the French side of the island. The Spanish herdsmen stood in their doorways or turned in their saddles to stare at the passage of Toussaint’s guard, with never a hail or a greeting. Black rule was not popular in these parts, though it hardly seemed to have had much effect on those who lived here. Maillart had never been so deep into Spanish Santo Domingo, and the vast plain struck him as desolate, though the grass was lush and green, seedheads flowing knee-high on men well mounted as they were.
They sought no civilized shelter that night, but camped out in the open, beating down the grass to spread their bed rolls and hobbling the horses, that they would not founder on the unusually rich pasture here. To Couachy’s great delight he was given leave to fell and butcher one of the half-wild grazing steers; there was bœuf marron that night to everyone’s content. Toussaint scrupulously sent a gold portugaise to the nearest hatte, in payment for this meat they’d requisitioned. Next morning they rode out as the first mist was rising from the dew-bowed grass, swinging down