Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [439]
Cyprien approached him again, standing near enough that Isaac could smell rum and rot on his breath. “Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know,” said Isaac. “I thought that he had started for Gonaives.”
Cyprien cursed and turned from him. “If we have let him slip away . . .” he said to Brunet’s aide-de-camp, who was just coming out of the house. “This one’s no worry, but the other will fight.”
Cyprien bent to scoop Isaac’s sword belt from the floor and handed it to him. “Go on,” he said shortly. “Get into the wagon.”
Isaac’s face burned as he buckled on the sword. That aide-de-camp was grinning at him, and the bayonet was gouging him in the back again, and all of them knew that his weapon was no more dangerous to them than a loaf of bread. Slowly he clambered into the wagon, his ribs paining him with every breath, and took a place among the others, facing backward. The sobbing of his cousin hurt his head. His mother and brother were silent, and there was no sound except the creaking of the wagon as the mules began to pull; speechless, they all watched the grand’case of Descahaux shrink away from them.
From the moment they rode out of Habitation Thibodet, everything ran contrary to the progress of Maillart’s detachment. Huge gommiers had blown down across a section of the road, making it impassable. A normally negligible stream had somehow risen to a flood, so that they must work their way nearly two miles down the bank before finding a place that horses could cross.
Worst of all was the doctor, who had no understanding of their errand (Maillart had not wanted him to understand it) and so behaved as if the whole journey were a hunting expedition—whenever he was not straying from the trail to harvest herbs. At last he deployed his long American rifle to bring down a wild goat from a crag some five hundred yards distant, so that the half of the detachment who’d bet on his success shouted their enthusiasm, while even the losers groaned a grudging admiration. Maillart collected from both Daspir and Aloyse, but whatever pleasure he took in his winnings was tempered by knowing that now there was nothing for it but they must recover the carcass from the inaccessible crevice into which it had dropped, and then it must be bled and gutted and dressed . . . The doctor’s mule was inured to carrying butchered game, but the blood smell panicked the horses.
It was dusk when finally they came to Habitation Georges, and Brunet’s sentries were seething with impatience.
“My Christ,” one of them hissed. “Where have you been?”
“No use telling it,” Maillart sighed, squinting at the house. “Is he here?”
“He has been here for some time.” The sentry looked over his shoulder. “He’s in the house—but he’s impatient. He brought more guards than we expected—take your positions quickly, will you?”
Maillart nodded and looked back the way they had come. The doctor had not yet materialized—he was trailing the others by a couple of hundred yards, to keep his blood stench away from the horses. Maillart gave a few quick orders, and as his men dispersed to their duties he walked up toward the grand’case with Guizot and Daspir and Aloyse, toward a couple of Toussaint’s guards who were talking quietly below a tall hedge that covered them from the house. Young Captain Ferrari had already gone inside, with a couple of Brunet’s people.
As Maillart drew near enough to pick out the faces of Toussaint’s men, he let out a quick breath of dismay.
“What is it?” Daspir said, bumping his shoulder.
“Nothing,” Maillart whispered. “Only—that one with the scars is a fanatic. We’ll take Toussaint over his dead body.” But it was Riau whose presence really troubled him—if only Riau, above all, had not been there.
Half a mile north of Morne Saint Juste, Placide pulled up his horse. César, one of his father