The Emerald Storm

Chapter 18

While we waited for an audience with the French general, Astiza and I mapped a plan to explore Cap-Francois, hoping to sight our son. Given her interest in religion, she’d start at a church and ask about orphans, runaways, or odd parishioners. I didn’t think Leon Martel was likely to turn up in pew or confessional, but it was possible a wayward child or a newly arrived adult of poor character might come to the attention of nuns.

Given Martel’s past, I thought a hunt of brothels would be likelier to find him than a hunt of cathedrals, but I’d been married long enough now to know not to propose that as a beginning. I decided instead to master the military geography of the city in hopes I’d find something useful to take to Dessalines. How we’d cross French lines to this Negro Hannibal I’d no idea, but my experience is that if you poke into a bear den you might find a bear, which had happened during my sojourn with the Dakota Sioux. I don’t believe things always work out, as Sidney Smith claims, but I do believe trouble will find you easily enough, should you go looking.

So I began to stroll, trying to make a crude estimate of the garrison while keeping an eye out for Harry. I’d try to flush Martel out with my mere presence. It didn’t occur that far from hiding, Martel had made himself part of the French government and likely knew of our arrival as soon as we climbed the steps of the quay.

So did others. Survival had become precarious in Saint-Domingue, and the key for all sides was using eyes and ears to prevent surprise.

At first my foot patrol seemed fruitless. The town was desultory, traffic listless, weather sultry, and clouds mounded on the peaks and then clawed overhead like a drawn tarp. There was a growl of thunder to echo the occasional boom of siege guns. Then afternoon downpour turned the streets of Cap-Francois into temporary rivers. Raindrops as heavy as musket balls rattled while I stood on a boardwalk under a porch roof, watching a slurry of silt and garbage flow toward the sea.

How was I to cross this deluge to continue my scouting?

Someone dark and gigantic came striding out of the murk from the middle of the street, as impervious to the pounding water as a bull in a paddock. “Can I offer you a ferry, monsieur?” A strapping black looked up at me on my boardwalk with a smile that glowed, each tooth dice bright and his gums pink like an orchid.

I peered into the curtain of rain. “Where is your carriage?”

“My shoulders, adventurer.”

I glanced down the street. Another white was boarding the shoulders of another Negro like a toddler climbing aboard his father, the human foot ferry keeping his cargo’s feet clear of the mud. And another, and another. It was clearly the odd custom of this place. The first passenger was carried to the boardwalk on the opposite side of the avenue and deposited like a delivery of mail. A coin changed hands.

“There’s an entire company of carriers,” my entrepreneur explained. “Even in a revolution the black man has to make a living, yes?” I saw another duo go by, the human mule singing African songs with the gusto of a Venetian gondolier while the white hunched with hat streaming. It seemed a parody of oppression. But when in Rome…

“What’s your name, broad shoulders?”

“Jubal, monsieur.”

I’ve always found it convenient to have big friends, or quick little ones. This fellow was an extraordinary specimen, six and a half feet tall, with polished skin the color of coal, muscles like a dray horse, and broad smile as brilliant as a snowdrift. He wore a tattered and patched infantry coat that was wet as a washcloth, his pantaloons cut off at the knee so that he could wade barefoot in our tideland of a street. A red kerchief gave his neck a jaunty air, and his belt was wide as a pirate’s. There was poise to his posture completely different from the hunch of the wary slave, and his eyes sized me up with the calibration of an engineer. I was impressed but not surprised. While my race has no shortage of philosophers arguing our God-given superiority, such arrogance has been contradicted by the sheer capability of brown Arab, red Indian, and black African I’ve met in my travels. The races aren’t very different at all, but Europeans seldom believe me. It’s easier to sort people out by pigment.

“Come, monsieur, we will make the voyage to the Left Bank together! I am the Mercury of mire, a Columbus of navigation! Climb on my shoulder and Jubal will take you where you need to go.”

“You seem a very erudite porter.”

“I can read, and even think. Imagine that, from a Negro.”

“And why would an educated freeman work as a mule?”

“Why do you assume I’m a freeman?”

“By your bearing and industry.”

“Maybe I’m just cocky. Climb aboard and find out.”

“And how much for this favor?”

“A franc. But Jubal is the best carrier, so you may wish to give me two.”

It was like mounting a sturdy horse, and off we went into the rain. I’d kept my planter’s straw hat from Antigua, and looked out at the world through a veil of water dripping from its brim. My shoulders were instantly soaked, but the downpour was warm and the ride enjoyable. I felt ridiculous, but at least I wasn’t calf-deep in mud.

Jubal set his own course. Rather than wade straight across to the other side, he splashed to the middle of the avenue and trudged parallel, making us drift toward the harbor.

“No, no, I want to go there!” I pointed. He might not even get his franc.

“You will get there. But perhaps you wish to talk to Jubal first. Out here in the street, in the rain, where no Frenchman can hear us.”

I was immediately alert. “About what?”

“Yes, talk to mighty Jubal, who knows both mountains and sea. Jubal, who has heard of an American diplomat arrived at the harbor with his striking wife, seeking information on the liberation of Haiti. Jubal has heard about this electrician who walks into the lion’s mouth, to ask about the lion.”

My heart beat faster. “How did you learn that?”

“The black man knows all in Cap-Francois. Who rows first to a ship, hoists a trunk, or drives a carriage? The black man. Who mops out a meeting room, serves at a banquet, or digs new entrenchments? The black man. But should an American ambassador talk only to the French side? Or should he seek information from the African legions as well, the ones who will soon rule this country?”

I looked down on his woolly head, glistening in the wet. “You mean Dessalines, who trades with the United States for weapons.”

“The Washington of our revolution. Yes, Jubal knows.”

“You’re a soldier for the other side?” The last men I would consider for that role were human camels.

“It’s the rare black man in Cap-Francois who doesn’t serve two, three, or more masters. It’s necessary for survival, yes? The mambo Cecile Fatiman foresaw that a white man is coming who knows our hero Toussaint L’Ouverture. Is this true?”

“Yes. But who is Cecile Fatiman?”

“The wise witch who preached our revolt a dozen years ago in the Bois Caiman, the Alligator Wood. That’s where it all started.”

“You mean the war?”

“She danced with the rebel Boukman and slit the black pig for blood. I saw the slave frenzy with my own eyes, because I’d already slain my master and become a Maroon who hid in the jungle. Cecile is led by the voodoo spirit Ezili Danto, the seductress who knows all. Our mambo prophesized that an American would come, and here you are.”

I was still trying to get straight the complex history. “What happened to Boukman?”

“His head was put on a pike. His revolt, though, goes on.”

Here was opportunity with broad shoulders. I was in an odd position for negotiation, but also felt a glimmer of hope. “I was the last to see Toussaint L’Ouverture alive.”

“And he told you something, no? This is what Cecile sees.”

“He told my wife. She’s a bit of a priestess herself.”

“The dead Toussaint now waits for us in Africa with all our loved ones and ancestors. If we fall in battle, we go to L’Ouverture. Dessalines promises that.”

“I envy such conviction.”

“We rely on it, which is why we will win. Did you know that our soldiers are so inspired that they put their arms into the muzzles of the French cannon? What do you think of that?”

“That it’s as risky as it is bold.” When it comes to faith, I’m wary to a fault.

“When the cannon fire, their souls fly to our homeland. Then the comrades who are left hack the cannoneers to pieces.”

“I admire such courage. Although I’m cautious about self-sacrifice, unless there’s a real need. Not cowardly, exactly, but prudent. It just seems practical to preserve oneself for another day.” My self-assessment fell short of being ennobling, I suppose.

“No one knows if the next day will come. You are an instrument of Fa, monsieur, our spirit of fate, but you are also in grave danger. Men have heard these prophecies and might be jealous or fearful. So you need Jubal. Bad men will send Death against you, the dark loa we call Baron Samedi. Or seek to make you a zombi.”

“What’s a zombi?” We’d now circuited a block, as if I couldn’t decide where to go. I was wet as a sponge, but I must say the conversation was more interesting than dinner at a planter’s house.

Jubal ignored my question. “Dessalines will meet you, Monsieur Gage, if you can bring him something worth knowing.”

“I hope to inspect the French lines.”

“We blacks have built the French lines. You must do better than that. You are to speak to the French? Then keep your ears open, and perhaps we will keep our eyes open for you.”

For an escaped slave, this fellow was quicker than a clerk. I wondered at his background. “It’s true I saw L’Ouverture, and it’s also true I may help the rebel cause. But my wife and I are looking for our kidnapped son, a three-year-old named Horus.”

“I could keep an eye out for him.”

“His mother would be grateful.”

“For her, I would look even harder.”

“How about a swarthy man named Leon Martel. Heavy-jawed, with the look of a weasel?”

“I haven’t seen him. The French do not invite me to their parties.”

“Martel is a renegade policeman. Cruel, like Rochambeau.”

“But I may have heard of him, because the black man hear everything.”

“You have?” I bounced on his shoulders.

“I will ask,” he said enigmatically. Now he changed direction to finish crossing the street.

By a gunner’s ramrod, what else did this creature know? “And I want to learn island legends that might help you and me.”

That stopped him. “What legends?”

“About treasure recovered by escaped Maroons that was hidden, lost, and awaits rediscovery by the right cause.”

“If I knew about treasure, would I carry you?” He laughed. “No, Jubal knows no legends. Maybe Cecile does. Listen, we need the key to Cap-Francois, not old stories. Bring that, and I will take you to Dessalines and Cecile Fatiman. Then we will help find your son.” He finally set me on the opposite boardwalk, dripping as if I’d fallen into a river, my boots still clean. “These are cruel commanders you’ve come to, Ethan Gage. After a dozen years of war there is no mercy. Take care to recognize who is your friend, and who is your enemy.”

“How do I do that?”

“By how they treat your wife.”

“They’ll treat her correctly or pay with their lives.”

“You must treat her correctly, too, because you never know when she might be taken from you.”

“What does that mean?”

“To take care. Good-bye, now.”

“Wait! How will I find you again?”

“I talk with Dessalines. Then I will find you.”

I turned to go, both enlightened and mystified.

“Monsieur?” he said.

“Yes?”

“A franc, if you please.”

I gave him three.