Chapter 4 #3
Gingerly, Marguerite reached down to touch his black hair. The coils were softer than she’d expected. The width of his nose worried her, but perhaps age would improve it. He must be Gabriel’s boy, with those eyes; that was in his favor.
This boy was all that remained of Gabriel, of any of her children—of Matthieu.
He had planned to free René. If the girl had been lying about the manumission papers, why would she have returned here?
It was just like Matthieu. Marguerite could still carry out his wishes.
This boy was what he’d meant: Find our grandson with the remarkable eyes.
Marguerite assessed the girl as coldly as she could, setting aside what the little whore had done to her sons to conceive this child.
With the corner of her head kerchief sticking up like a feather and those high cheekbones, she did look part Indian.
If étienne’s theories about their nobility had any merit, then that was in the boy’s favor also.
Indian blood would explain the girl’s melancholy, and why her shade was more like a griffonne than a true mulatresse.
Whether quarter or half, she clearly had some French blood, so altogether the child was more white than anything else.
The best in him simply needed to be nurtured.
To let this girl take him up into the mountains to be lost among the drumming and dancing of the negroes would be like tossing a pearl among swine.
Marguerite simply had to invent a new mother for him.
She had lied to her children all their lives and they’d never suspected; she could lie to one grandchild with ease.
Stiffly she knelt before the boy, who stared back at her with the curiosity of his uncle étienne.
Marguerite smiled. “Bonjour, René.” Re-né.
Re-born. She could not have chosen a better name.
The girl snatched up her knife again. “You get away from him,” she ordered, as if she had the right.
Marguerite scooped the boy into her arms and backed outside. “I can take better care of him than you ever would.”
“Let go of my son!” She was only a child herself. But as the girl stalked toward Marguerite, she looked more like a panther than a kitten, baring her single metal claw.
René began whining at once, but Marguerite had to clasp him tight in one arm in order to access the pistol. She wrested it from the pocket and pointed it between the girl’s eyes.
They widened at once and she hesitated, so close to Marguerite that the end of the barrel nearly touched that chestnut skin.
Whining in her ear, René pushed against Marguerite’s shoulder and chest, trying to twist around.
“Please don’t take him,” the girl whispered, obsequious at last.
Marguerite glanced down the steps to the animal waiting below.
A baroness riding in a mule-cart… She would do what she must. With her injured leg, Marguerite could never outrun this girl, and she needed those provisions.
But how in the world would she untie the mule and keep the pistol steady, while holding a flailing child?
The girl guessed her thoughts. “Let me come with you! You sit in the cart, and I’ll lead the mule.”
She might be useful, it was true…
“There’s food and water already, and I’ll get more, whenever you want it!”
She would run off the first chance she got, and probably take the boy with her. He was fussing worse than his father ever had, blubbering nonsense in Creole. Marguerite would soon correct that.
The girl seemed to think Marguerite had agreed. She hurried down the steps ahead of them to spread a blanket on the seat of the mule-cart.
Without lowering the pistol, Marguerite followed and climbed inside with René. Before she’d even set him down, he crawled toward the girl. Marguerite gripped the neck of his shift to keep him from going too far, which only set him to wailing louder.
“I’m here, trezò mwen!” the girl babbled, swiping at his tears with the pale undersides of her thumbs. “It’s all right.”
This would never do. “Take off your kerchief,” Marguerite ordered, motioning with the pistol barrel.
The girl pulled the cloth from around her neck and swabbed at René’s snotty nose.
“The one on your head, then!” Marguerite clarified through her teeth. “Tie him to the rail.”
She only stood there slack-jawed while the boy continued struggling, proving Marguerite’s point.
“He’ll fall out otherwise!”
Finally, the girl unwrapped the large green kerchief from her braided hair. She tethered one corner of the cloth to the rail on the side of the cart.
René slipped from Marguerite’s grasp and stood on the seat to fling his chubby arms around the girl’s neck, sobbing something that sounded like “Maman! Maman!” His paler skin against hers was a startling contrast, proof they did not belong together.
Great crocodile tears began to splash down the girl’s cheeks as she disentangled him and bound his wrist to the cart. “It’s only for a little while, trezò mwen.”
Marguerite swallowed and picked up the reins in her left hand. She did not let go of the pistol. “Now untie the mule.”
The girl obeyed. René cried even louder, if that was possible. “I’m not leaving you!” she assured him. “I’ll never leave you!” She looped the mule’s tether around her wrist.
Marguerite waited till the girl had walked the rope’s full length, till she was as far away from the animal as possible.
The girl’s back was to her. That made it easier.
She had no chance to react or dodge. Marguerite knew she was a terrible shot, even at this range, and she couldn’t be certain the pistol would still fire.
But it did. The explosion startled Marguerite as well as the mule, making her drop the reins.
The animal bolted and dragged the body of the girl several yards before the rope came loose and they were free of her.
Marguerite retrieved the reins, but she let the mule run. She did not look back.
She tried not to worry. Even if the girl lived, everyone knew negroes had minds like sieves. In a day or two, the girl would forget René entirely. She’d throw herself at other men and get more children. Marguerite never could.
Beside her, René strained against his binding, but he was only making it tighter. She wished he would stop screaming.
“Shhh,” Marguerite soothed him. “Your grandmother’s here now.”