The Sacred Shore Page 12

  Their company numbered ten and included two Spanish soldiers assigned to Charles by a nervous New Orleans mayor, fearful that his disappearance might spark an international incident. Besides Albain and himself, there were also two French mercenaries and four of the trader’s most trusted servants. The ship’s captain had wanted to send a bevy of his own men, but the trader had adamantly refused to include them; English soldiers, the trader had insisted, would never come out alive.

  Charles had left his own clothes behind. He was dressed as the others, in dark longcoat and homespun shirt and sweat-stained hat. All the men save Charles carried arms. Charles had decided he should arrive with hands open and empty. It was the one time Albain had looked at him with anything that approached respect. As it was, their three skiffs sprouted a multitude of long-barreled rifles.

  They held to small rivulets, never entering large bodies of water except in the dead of night. When Charles had asked about it, Albain had tersely replied that the best way to make sure nobody took his scalp was to not show it.

  Up ahead their bayou joined with a larger river, one great enough to permit direct sunlight. Charles took an easy breath, glad to leave behind the suffocating tunnel, at least for a little while.

  Albain muttered, “Be ready.”

  “What?” Charles looked about in alarm. “Why?”

  Albain watched as the two mercenaries lifted their muskets and checked the triggers and the prime charges. “We have arrived.”

  Charles searched ahead. He saw nothing but sun-dappled water, more forest, and Spanish moss. “Arrived where?”

  Albain gestured with his paddle, motioning to the skiffs behind him to move closer to the side bank. “Plaquemine.”

  Charles’s first impressions of this southern Acadian settlement were of woodsmoke and the sound of wailing. Long before he could see it, he could hear it and smell it. Bacon fat, woodsmoke, and voices drifted in the still air. Their three skiffs joined in behind nine larger vessels, all headed for the grassy embankment at the edge of a steep-sided bayou. Their own boat closed near enough that Charles could see most of the shipboard faces, immigrant Acadians who carried shadows so penetrating they seemed frozen in granite. He did not understand their words, but the emotions were clear. The immigrants were dismayed by their first sight of Plaquemine, the women in particular. Charles could well understand why. The settlement did not offer a welcoming first impression.

  The village, large and haphazard, was built of wood and mud wattle as gray as Spanish moss. Smoke from dozens of fires rose and drifted in the windless air, forming smudges above the rooftops and the high branches of the trees that had been left standing among the houses. Dogs and pigs and chickens clamored about the lanes along with the villagers.

  No one paid their arrival much mind, suggesting that such overcrowded vessels as those ahead of them, or overarmed skiffs like their own, arrived here all too often.

  Charles murmured, almost to himself, “What is this hamlet?”

  “Plaquemine,” Albain repeated. “The first Acadian settlement off the great Mississippi.”

  “This place is dreadful,” Charles said, unable to hold back the feeling.

  Albain seemed to find that amusing, at least enough for his eyes to squint in a smile that did not touch his mouth. “They say all the sorrow we have carried is brought and laid to rest in Plaquemine. Only then can we go ahead to a new future.”

  The village improved slightly upon closer inspection. Charles climbed a rickety landing platform and at Albain’s direction moved to the shelter of a neighboring tree. An older man hurried over to inspect Albain and his motley band, dismissed them just as swiftly, and turned to the people disembarking from the other boats. He ordered his three assistants forward to help the women and children. The platform was swiftly covered with tattered holdalls and salt-stained chests and bulky tarpaulins knotted around belongings. The villager began to speak in rapid French, clearly welcoming the forlorn group and pointing to where a pair of women tended a great black pot over a smoldering fire. Several of the older children moved over to the pot and were given wooden bowls and spoons. The villager kept speaking, pointing north, pointing west.

  A piercing cry captured everyone’s attention, and Charles turned with the others as a middle-aged woman stumbled across the village’s central lane, her eyes wide in what could have been wonder or terror. She would have fallen directly into the cooking fire had one of the cooks not saved her. The woman probably did not even feel the arms that gripped her, for her entire being remained focused upon the landing platform.

  A man standing by the boats shouted hoarsely in response. And another. They broke free of the gathering and raced up the bank. The woman shook off the arms holding her and lurched forward. The men ran to meet her, shouting, embracing, crying. The cries were taken up by two women on the landing, who also ran to embrace the trio. They in turn were joined by half a dozen children, wailing and frightened by what they clearly did not understand. When the village woman saw the little ones, she broke free and dropped to her knees, holding her arms out to them. The men and women from the vessel gently urged the children forward, until all of the family were reunited upon the banks, holding one another and crying aloud.

  A hand touched Charles’s arm. Albain’s eyes glittered darkly as he leaned forward and said, “This was true what you said about giving my people land?”

  Shaken by the scene, Charles said, “Y-yes. Find Henri Robichaud and I will give these people money enough for a new village.”

  “Come,” Albain said, turning away. “We must find a safe place to wait.”

  “Wait for what?” But Albain was already moving down the lane. The men closed in around Charles, scouting the village with warriors’ caution.

  Albain settled them at the back table of a squalid inn, then departed. The tavern’s midday crowd was mostly male and all were armed. Their crew received more than a few glances, all of them malicious. The innkeeper walked over and slapped down two pitchers and a stack of clay mugs, casting Charles a darkly vicious look before turning away.

  One of the French mercenaries muttered something that Charles did not understand. He turned to the trader’s senior man, a slight fellow with the look of a bookkeeper. “What did he say?”

  The servant acted as the trader’s interpreter, and he spoke a precise English, though accented. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and replied, “The soldier, he says this place has the odor of a killing ground.”

  Charles leaned against the back wall, resigned to the wait. He felt utterly powerless, friendless, nameless, bereft of all that shaped his world and his life. And for what? Because everything in his heritage had taught him that it was essential to have an heir. Someone to whom he could leave all his earthly possessions. His land, his title, his wealth. And someone to carry on the Harrow bloodline.

  Charles sat and watched smoke from the inn’s cooking fire drift up to the raftered ceiling. Where was his land and his wealth now? What worth did his title have here? The inn’s dank gloom reflected his own mental state.

  For some reason the clear eyes of his brother seemed to pierce this dismal half-light. Charles thought of all Andrew had that he did not and found himself wondering what it would be like to pray.

  Out of this same half-light appeared two figures, one their guide, Albain. The other man had a stocky build and looked solid as a fortress wall. The men about Charles stiffened, then relaxed at Albain’s gesture. The man stood by the table and looked down at Charles for a long moment. His features were chiseled with the same deep sorrow lines as other Acadian faces Charles had seen. Yet his eyes held a deep glow that seemed unfazed either by the inn’s gloom or the hostility surrounding them.

  The man slid onto the bench directly opposite Charles and asked in a voice as soft and deep as his gaze, “Do you understand me?”

  “If you speak slowly.”

  “How are you called?”

  “Charles. Charles Harrow.”

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bsp; The man nodded. His raven hair was streaked with silver but thicker than a formal wig. Pulled straight back from his face, it framed his powerful features with age and wisdom. “I did not believe it when they told me. But I believe it now.”

  “What …” Then in a flash Charles understood. He looked up to Albain standing behind the stranger and said, “You knew where to find him all along.”

  “All Acadia knows Henri Robichaud,” Albain replied. “All Cajuns know this name. The question was not where to find him. The question was if Henri Robichaud wished to be found.”

  Henri drew his attention back with the words, “I see your brother in you.”

  Charles gripped the table’s edge. “You knew my brother?”

  “We met but once. But, yes, I think it is true to say I know him. How is he?”

  “Good. He is doing well.”

  “And his wife, Catherine?”

  “She is fine.”

  “And …” Henri’s eyes took on a deeper intensity. “The daughter?”

  “Anne. She is fine.”

  “Tell me of her.”

  Charles shifted, not certain where the conversation was headed. The light suddenly dawned. Of course. Andrew and Catherine had this man’s blood daughter. He understood now the expression on the face before him. He took a deep breath and leaned forward.

  “She is not only well, m’sieur, she is a lovely, gracious young woman. She has brought much joy to the home of my brother.”

  For one moment the man before him closed his eyes tightly, a shudder shaking his sturdy frame as his lips moved soundlessly. When he lifted his gaze, Charles noted that his deep-set eyes held tears that he could not totally hide. He said, “I thank you,” with such deep feeling that Charles said, “Yes, I understand.”

  The two men exchanged a long look. Then Henri asked, “Is it true what Albain told us? That you offer land?”

  The land. Charles bit down on his impatience. Henri was not the negotiator here—he was. The land. Though there was none of the desperation in Henri’s question that he had seen outside, the intensity was the same. “Yes,” he finally answered.

  Albain looked down at the seated stranger. “Do you believe him?”

  “This man I do not know,” Henri said, cocking his head to one side. “But his brother I know. And his brother I would trust with my life.”

  Charles felt the words strike deep. Even here, in a circumstance so removed from his own that it might as well have been drawn from a different world entirely, even here his brother was known and revered. Not Charles with his wealth and his power and his titles. No. After eighteen years apart, with only one meeting to go on, still this man held Andrew close and called him a friend. “My brother is one of the finest men I have ever known,” Charles grudgingly acknowledged.

  His words seemed to have been the ones Henri was awaiting. With a tiny glimmer of a smile, he said, “I see a hint of her in you.”

  “Who is that?”

  “My daughter.” He rose to his feet. “Come. We go.”

  Chapter 17

  The group traveled all that day through sweltering heat. Even so, Charles took his turn at the oars, challenged by the silent, sturdy Frenchman to push himself more than was comfortable. He was not at ease with the silence of these Acadians, their sparing use of words or sounds of any kind. But he did not break it. The surroundings through which they traveled were too strange, too hot, too close.

  The shock totally unarmed him when Charles had heard Henri’s statement concerning Nicole. His heart had leaped within his chest when Henri had spoken of his daughter and the glimmer of likeness she bore to a Harrow. Charles had the immediate hope that she was someone who could easily bear the family likeness and carriage, the same regal manner. To find an heir was a great relief. To have one he could be proud of was an unexpected blessing.

  Now, facing Henri’s broad back, Charles carefully brought up the subject of the young woman, wanting to know more about her. Without turning around, Henri had replied, “Oh, she is not here. She has already left.”

  “Left?” Charles did not want to believe his ears. “What do you mean she has left? When will she return?”

  Henri had sighed at that and shaken his head. “I do not know. It is a long journey—that I know all too well. We pray that with God’s mercies it will go smoothly and swiftly.”

  “But where did she go?” insisted Charles. “To New Orleans?”

  Henri had turned to face him then. The rhythm of his oar did not miss a beat as it swept in long strokes, disturbing only momentarily the calm surface of the deep, dark bayou waters. “New Orleans? No, no. She has left for Acadia.”

  The burly man had no idea how his news smote Charles. For one moment he bowed his head in defeat. He had come so far, at such cost—and the girl was not here. Then the truth grasped his attention. She was heading for Acadia. With his swifter vessel he might still catch up to her there. Charles felt an urgency overtake his entire being. He must return to New Orleans and turn his ship northward again. He wanted to be on the scene if and when she found her parents.

  But in spite of his desire to change course and continue his quest for the girl, something kept him silently rowing behind Henri deeper into the bayou. And of course Henri did not know of the full extent of his search, his ultimate goal in coming here. Or if he had guessed, he gave no sign.

  In the hour after sunset they drew the canoes to a grassy embankment and made camp. They worked by torchlight, so weary they scarcely had the energy to gather firewood, much less talk. They ate a dinner of cornmeal baked on a stone, along with crawfish netted that afternoon and roasted over the fire. When the mosquitoes gathered like a swirling black cloud, Spanish moss was pulled from the trees and cast upon the fire. Charles followed the others’ example and drew in close to the smoke. When he had finished eating, he lay down on the ground and drew an oily blanket about his head and shoulders. He had time for a single silent complaint about the smell and the sticky heat, then was asleep.

  He was awakened by someone kicking his boot. Charles tossed back the blanket, rose, and stretched. A dawn mist had gathered and closed in about them. One of the men returned carrying three snakes, as long as he was tall. The fire was banked up high, the snakes were skinned and their meat skewered upon long branches, and Charles joined the others as they cooked and ate their breakfast.

  As he was finishing, Albain pointed over to an opening in the mist and a passing alligator in the bayou. The guide and Henri exchanged quiet humor over Charles’s and the Spanish soldiers’ fearful fascination. The beast was eighteen feet long from spiny snout to the end of his swinging tail. Teeth as long as Charles’s hand jutted from the long mouth, and the gator seemed to hold a hungry smile as he passed.

  Charles really did not feel rested after the night on the ground. As they continued up the mist-clad bayou, he felt that he was becoming disembodied. The tunnel of moss-hung trees stretched on endlessly, like his quest. There was no end to his journey, no answer to his questions. None. He was doomed to travel for the rest of his life, without purpose, without meaning. Charles drank water from the gourd offered by the man in front of him, took his turn at the oars, endured the heat and the insects and the strange cries rising from the forest. He sweated and he rowed and he felt that all his life had been leading him to this moment.

  The journey became a time of facing the utter hopelessness of his plight. Lonely and friendless and poor. He seemed to float outside his body, removed from all the trappings that had captured his attention and purpose all his life long. It was not merely that this journey had taken him away from all he owned. In truth, he had never possessed anything of value at all. He saw that now. The wealth and the responsibilities and the power had done little more than blind him to what he had carried within him. His heart had been as empty as the green tunnel through which he now traveled. He had lived a truly barren life.

  A quiet murmur from his fellow travelers brought his attention back to the present.
Charles focused with an effort and saw a mirage rise from the mists. White houses with tall roofs stood in orderly rows, surrounded by limewashed fences. A dog ran down the bank and barked, only to be silenced by Henri’s quiet command. The banks were green and as well tended as the houses. Henri pointed, and they pulled into the well-built landing stage and halted.

  Henri stepped lightly from the skiff, then halted the others with a single motion. He looked at Charles but spoke to them all. “You must wait here while I tell my wife and … wait here.”

  The stocky man then turned and vanished into the mist and the growing silver light of the morning.

  Chapter 18

  All the way home Henri wrestled over the words to tell Louise. He tried one phrase, then another. None of them sounded right, none even the slightest bit adequate. How did one tell a mother that her daughter, lost for all these years, was as they had prayed, alive and well? How did you break a heart at the same time that you mended it?

  At last he drew aside from the path and bent to his knees by the stump of a tree. Clutching his hands before him, he bowed his head and cried out his anguish and his joy. “God, I have such good news. Our prayers of many years have been answered—and I thank you.” Tears began to stream down the creased face as the reality of the words sank deeper into the heart of the father. “And now I need to tell the news to Louise. The pain of loss will come again. She has just told the daughter she has known and loved good-bye, and now … now she must hear this. That her first daughter, the one she bore and fought to save, is still of this world … but not of our world. Help me to choose the right words, my Father. Give me wisdom, Lord. Prepare her heart for the news. Even now. Before I walk the path. Before I enter the stoop. Give her calm and quiet and peace so that she might receive this great news as heaven’s blessing.”