Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [79]
I jumped down from my horse, letting the reins fall so I could wrap my arms around Jean-Pic. He had a beard now, which rubbed against my face. When we let each other go, the other men seemed easier, and I did not worry about them any more. I had not seen Jean-Pic for a long time, since I left him in Bahoruco long ago, when I went back to Toussaint. But I had known Jean-Pic for a long time before that, years and years before the rising. Jean-Pic had been with the maroons in the north when I, Riau, first ran away from Bréda plantation to join them.
Jean-Pic and I walked together to the camp of these maroons, with his hand lying in mine as lightly as a bird. Someone else was leading my horse, because all these men were friendly to me now. That was a big camp they had on the plain, among banana trees and plantain, corn and manioc. Many hundreds of them were there, with children, and women working around the cookfires now that it was night. Jean-Pic had found a woman when he came out of Bahoruco the year before, and there was a baby sleeping in their ajoupa, and the woman stirring sweet potatoes in a pot. Some goat meat was cooking too, and callaloo.
When we had eaten, Jean-Pic and I told each other our news. I told him about Merbillay and the children I had made with her, because Jean-Pic had known Merbillay from the time before, when we were all maroons together in the north. But I did not tell him anything about Guiaou, and I did not say much about the fights that I had been in, or the army, or Toussaint. It gave me sadness to think that now there were a lot of things I could not easily tell Jean-Pic. Afterward when the fire had died and I lay looking up at the stars and waiting for sleep, this sadness grew larger. I had not felt such a big spreading sadness since I had stopped remembering Guinée, that time before Riau was stolen and sold in chains onto a ship and brought as a bossale to Bréda. The sadness I felt was as large as that, though I was happy to find Jean-Pic, and the devil had stopped biting me for a while.
In the morning, Lamour Dérance came. Lamour Dérance was leader of all of these maroons now. He wanted to know what was happening on the coast, because there were rumors about the ships. I told him about the ships with their guns that blew up the forts, and how Lamartinière had looked like he would lose the fight outside Léogane, even though a lot of the French soldiers were killed in the first shooting.
When I had told all I knew, Lamour Dérance asked for my name again, and when he had it, he stood with his arms folded and his eyes very deep. His nose came open and closed as he breathed in and out, as if he wanted to catch the odor of my spirit. I did not flinch when Lamour Dérance looked at me so. I kept straight, like a blanc soldier almost, as Maillart had taught me, and I did not let my eyes fall down until Lamour Dérance had stopped looking into them, but I felt shame inside my body. When Lamour Dérance had gone away, I told Jean-Pic that Riau must go also, because we were going to have to fight the blancs again.
That was true. But when I had left the camp of the maroons, I did not think of going to Laplume any more, partly because of the way Lamour Dérance had looked at me. I went north again, in the direction of Saint Marc. I had to go around Port-au-Prince on the road past Morne Diable, because the French soldiers had taken the town. As I passed I learned that Lamartinière had got away with most of his men to Croix des Bouquets, but he had not managed to burn Port-au-Prince, so now the white men had it whole. I did not go at once to Dessalines, but kept on north beyond Saint Marc, until I came to Ennery.
I reached Habitation Thibodet after dark, and kept away from the grand’case there. I did not even go in by the