Cane River Part 12

13.

T he sky was dark, threatening rain, and Clement was anxious to be off before the storm broke. Dressed in his everyday pantaloons and loose s.h.i.+rt, he carried his only pair of shoes wrapped in his Sunday jacket. He hoisted the heavy packet of bearskins over his shoulder and stopped at Tessier's big house for last-minute instructions. he sky was dark, threatening rain, and Clement was anxious to be off before the storm broke. Dressed in his everyday pantaloons and loose s.h.i.+rt, he carried his only pair of shoes wrapped in his Sunday jacket. He hoisted the heavy packet of bearskins over his shoulder and stopped at Tessier's big house for last-minute instructions.

A full season of planting and harvesting and planting again had pa.s.sed since he and Philomene had married, and today was his day to present her with a real gift. He had gotten permission from Tessier to work on a rocking chair after his own duties were done, and from Ferrier he had permission to allow Philomene to keep the chair. He and Philomene, who were allowed to own nothing by law, not even themselves, would own this. Clement had taken to calling it "the moonlight chair," since his labors were more by the light of the moon than by daylight.

Tessier, hat pulled low over his head, bushy eyebrows still visible, sat on the front gallery, braiding a horse's leather rein. He bit off a large chaw of rich, dark tobacco and stashed it in his cheek before turning his attention to Clement.

"I'm going to trust you to get my boat back to me, boy," Tessier said, using his tongue to adjust the wad in his cheek. "Narcisse Fredieu is waiting on those skins. Starting this early, you should be able to beat the storm coming. You got the pa.s.s?"

"Oui, M'sieu Tessier," Clement said in his singsong slave voice, keeping his head bowed. "You can count on me, like always. I'll look after that boat like it was one of my own baby girls. I'll come rowing back on Sunday night, without it being none the worse for wear." M'sieu Tessier," Clement said in his singsong slave voice, keeping his head bowed. "You can count on me, like always. I'll look after that boat like it was one of my own baby girls. I'll come rowing back on Sunday night, without it being none the worse for wear."

"So, today your woman sees the chair, eh?"

"Oui, M'sieu Tessier," Clement said. "I count on her surprise. Thank you for letting me work on it." M'sieu Tessier," Clement said. "I count on her surprise. Thank you for letting me work on it."

"It was your own time, boy, and your money from smithing. Didn't take anything away from me."

For the last two years Clement had been serving as a blacksmith's apprentice. His training came only when he could be spared from the field, but he made good use of what time he had. Mastering the shaping of hot metal in the barn gave him a feeling of working his head as well as his body, and a skilled man was more in keeping with the high-yellow woman he called his wife. He had earned a little money taking on extra tasks for some of the neighboring farmers in the evenings. The serious jobs went to either the gens de couleur libre gens de couleur libre who hired themselves out or to the regular blacksmith, but an occasional small job came his way that allowed him to save four bits here and a few picayunes there. Tessier let him keep half of all he earned and held the money for him. who hired themselves out or to the regular blacksmith, but an occasional small job came his way that allowed him to save four bits here and a few picayunes there. Tessier let him keep half of all he earned and held the money for him.

"You be careful," Tessier said. "The water is rising, and by the look, this one is more than a squall. I don't want to see you lose my boat and get yourself drowned in the bargain. You, the boat, and the furs are worth good money. Get on before the storm takes hold." He let loose a stream of tobacco juice in the dirt.

Clement carried his cargo to the landing and quickly covered the chair, the bearskins, and his extra clothes with an oilskin tarp, las.h.i.+ng them down with a cord around the cypress plank in the back of the dugout. He elevated the packet as high as he could get it away from the water slos.h.i.+ng in the boat bottom, making the narrow dugout harder to balance.

Clement struck off, imagining the look that was sure to come over Philomene's face when he brought her the chair. She was the root of his world.

Clement hummed to himself, an upbeat melody to challenge the darkening of the morning sky. He pulled at the oars, making his way downriver, recognizing plantations and farms on both banks of Cane River. The river had a bite to it today, giving unexpected tugs in first one direction and then another as the currents changed.

He thought about the months it had taken to make the moonlight chair. Finding the oak wood had been easy, since trees and newly felled branches were plentiful in the woods surrounding the quarter on his plantation. The curves of the supports had been the most difficult for him to master, getting them to come out even, and he had redone them several times before he got it right. When he finished the construction he painstakingly carved two images along the wide back of the chair, the full-faced boldness of a brown bear near the top and, directly underneath, the silhouette of a deer in flight. On the front panel Clement carved the likeness of an owl. They were all a little more crude than he would have liked, but he was satisfied they could be recognized as what he had intended, and he was sure Philomene would appreciate the effort. The arms of the chair he studded with melted-down pieces from used horseshoe nails, and he fitted the bottom of the seat with the hide from one of the cows that ran free in the woods, caught and slaughtered at Tessier's order. Tessier kept the meat from the cow and deducted several bits from the money he held for Clement in exchange for a piece of the hide. Clement cured the skin himself, a stinking job that left his hands tender from the salt brine. He worked by the light of the fire in the evening. The others in the quarter teased him about his moonlight chair as they went off to bed, but there was envy in their voices, too.

The dugout lurched. Tessier had been right. The water was rising dangerously, and it was difficult to keep control of the oars. Before he was even halfway down the river, the water started to swirl in strange patterns around him as he paddled. The sky opened suddenly, hurling rain, and the sun vanished behind the clouds at almost the same moment, giving the river a dark and sinister look.

Because he had grown up on the river, Clement respected its moods, but he was also confident of his skill with a boat. He pulled strong against the oars. Normally that would have been enough, but the front of the boat kept getting caught up in furious little circular pockets, carrying him in directions he did not intend. Clement started to sweat through his clothes, even though the weather was cool and damp, and he realized that his body was telling him what his head had not yet registered. He was afraid and was having trouble steering to either sh.o.r.e. Landings dotted the river every hundred yards or so, wherever there was a plantation or farm large enough to need access to the river. Although he was always within sight of land, he couldn't get to it.

The water moved faster beneath him, and sheets of lightning crackled threateningly around him. Clement tried to scoop water out with the bailing gourds, and then his hands, but neither made any difference. He needed to put ash.o.r.e anywhere he could manage and wait out the pa.s.sing of the storm. The river slipped from dingy gray to black, now and then becoming so dark that it seemed nighttime, and the storm beat back the sun. At times he could judge his position only during frozen moments when a crack of lightning brightened the sky. By the time the booming echoes followed, Clement was back in the dark. Water began to come rus.h.i.+ng at him from every direction, seeping up from below, falling from above, driven from the side by the wind that drove the wet into his face and eyes. Lurching waves brought water in over the low sides of the dugout, as if he were out in open sea rather than on a river.

A strong blast of wind blew off one corner of the tarp, leaving it snapping menacingly in the changeling wind. He could hear the play of tarp against wood, tarp against cargo, and the light rope that had held it in place was a dangerous nipping thing, at the whim of each sharp gust. The only way to save the cargo would be to bring the boat safely to sh.o.r.e without tipping over in the choppy water, a task advancing in hopelessness as the storm wore on and the waterlogged dugout rode lower in the water.

All at once he felt an insistent tug of the water, different from the random tossing he had managed to control so far. Clement looked in front of the boat to his right and saw a suckhole forming, widening in its greed to pull everything it could to its core. He gave up on the idea of being able to save the boat and, in the same instant, yielded to a wink of recognition. It was Philomene's glimpsing of the end for him, by water. The thought did not keep him helpless for long. He had no intention of dying just yet, leaving the wife he had always wanted and two daughters. If it was his time, it would have to fight to take him.

He made his choice, working the chair free from under the tarp by feel, the heavy oilskin and the free end of the rope snapping and las.h.i.+ng at him. It caught him several times on his body, he couldn't distinguish where, but he felt a sharp sting as something caught the soft flesh under his eye, opening him up. It was raw. There was no time to investigate. Standing as high as he dared, and straddling the boat with his feet placed flat against the cypress planks on the side that made up the hull, Clement balanced in the boat the best he could. He threw the chair as far as his strength and equilibrium would allow.

Heart beating wildly, he dove into the cold, rain-pocked river in the same direction as the chair, as far from the drag of the suckhole as he could get. When he broke the water's surface, his lungs pulling in fresh air that came mixed with blinding drops of rain, Clement b.u.mped into something solid. It was the rocking chair, still afloat and bobbing in the roiling river. Clement grabbed hold of the chair with one hand and used the power of his legs and one free arm to swim with all of his capacity, feeling the current ma.s.saging his body as if innocent of harmful intent. When he felt he must have swum far enough from the suckhole, he lifted his head to take a quick look around in the water to get his bearings. The rain was varied now, beating down on him hard and soft by intervals, driving into his eyes, and Clement made his plan to swim to the opposite sh.o.r.e, away from the suckhole. His muscles had begun to ache, and a cramp in his left leg formed a hard knot of pain that set his teeth on edge.

When the bank was close the choppy water came to his aid, pus.h.i.+ng him this time toward the safety of solid earth. He never let go of the chair, paddling and swimming as best he could, until his toes gripped the slimy mud that let him know he had reached the bank at last.

Clement clawed his way up the slippery slope, aware that he had to keep moving, pulling his knotted, worthless leg behind him. He hung on to the chair, crawling out of the water as if separating himself from the underbelly of the river. He fell back as often as he moved forward, inching his way in stuttering forward progress. He used whatever seemed strong enough to support his weight, cypress knees, branches, palmettos that cut at his hand but propelled him forward, although slowly. He pulled himself closer and closer to safety, away from the reach of the waters that in some spots spilled over the bank completely. At one point he slithered like an alligator on his stomach in the red clay, one hand and arm for pulling, the other for protecting and keeping the chair close to him.

At last he came to rest, when he was sure the wet he felt around him was rain and not the river. He closed his eyes for just a minute, to rest and gather strength, but opened them again with a start as he realized that if he did not keep moving, he would curl himself along the forest floor and drift off to sleep.

Clement knew well the lay of the land along the banks of Cane River from making so many deliveries for Tessier, but he wasn't exactly sure where he was. He was certain that he was on the left bank, instead of the right bank where he needed to be, but it wasn't clear to him how far down he had gone. The sky had ripened into a pale red color, as the sun fought to escape, and he was able to make out shapes better than he had before. He looked back in the direction of where he thought the suckhole should be, but he couldn't see it. It had changed its location or perhaps disappeared entirely. He saw what could have been pieces of smashed wood floating on top of the water near the other bank, but the pouring sheets of rain obscured his view. Even though it was the middle of the day, it was dark and dim, and he wasn't sure of anything. If it was the boat, he thought, he could not have gone back for it anyway.

His muscles complained. The spurt that had allowed him to escape had played out, run its course, and it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other and move himself forward, he and the chair. Incredibly, the chair looked to be whole, except for gouges in the wood he knew he could fix. It was soaked through, as was he, but of the two of them, the chair was in better shape.

He walked through the woods uncertainly at first, following the line of the bank, until he came to the splayed live oak tree he recognized as marking the Greneaux plantation, on the wrong side of the river. He carried his trophy chair, weary, until he came to Monette's Ferry. The regular boatman sat under the protection of his lean-to wrapped in oilskin, a wiry gens de couleur libre gens de couleur libre who bit off a plug of tobacco as Clement approached. who bit off a plug of tobacco as Clement approached.

"I need to get to the other side, M'sieu. I got caught in the storm."

"I can see that myself. You're lucky. It's only habit got me out here today. I can get you across, but you tell Monsieur Tessier that's twelve and a half cents added to his bill."

There was a posted sign, which Clement could not read, but he knew that it advertised the rates for pa.s.sage across to the other bank of the river. Twenty-five cents for a man and a horse, $1 for any four-wheeled vehicle pulled by two horses, and $1.50 for a loaded wagon or coach with four horses, including the driver and pa.s.sengers. He had been across many times with Tessier and just as many without him.

"Where you going?" the boatman asked.

"I need to get across to M'sieu Narcisse Fredieu's and then back home. I lost my load to a suckhole, and the boat is gone."

"Only a fool would go out in that storm this morning. By the looks of you, the storm won."

The boatman offered Clement a grimy hand rag, and Clement wiped his face and cleared his eyes. When he pulled back the towel, it was stained with streaks of brownish red, and he cautiously touched the spot at the crest of his cheek where the skin had opened. The gash was tender but not too deep, and still running red. It had missed his eye.

"Well, the river is calm enough now to take you across. Won't charge you extra for the baggage, neither," the boatman said, motioning to the moonlight chair.

Clement stepped forward onto the platform boat, and the boatman pulled him across to the other side of the river by the hand winch and thick rope tied to the st.u.r.diest post on the far sh.o.r.e. As the boatman strained, Clement began to worry about Tessier's reaction to his loss of the boat and Narcisse Fredieu's reaction to the lost bearskins.

It was dawning on Clement that perhaps he had made the wrong choice, between the bearskins and the chair.

Once Clement got to the other bank of the river, he didn't even stop to dry out. He still had a distance to go, and the rain was showing scant signs of letting up. It seemed reckless to him somehow to accept any delay, and it was inevitable that he would get soaked again in a few minutes. Better to keep walking. He walked on along roads and through woods to get to Narcisse Fredieu's farm.

When he reached the familiar markings of the Fredieu plantation, he waited at the back of the house while someone went to fetch Narcisse. He was so tired and so cold that he could hardly tell the difference when the rain stopped its pounding and worked its way into a steady drizzle. Red clay from the river clotted in his hair and, despite the rain, had embedded itself deep into the pores of his skin and his clothes. He was bleeding from cuts he didn't remember, and he concentrated most on swallowing the torment of the random spasms that seized up his right leg, carrying him from numbness to pain and back again. He was shaking uncontrollably as he held the rocking chair to his chest and waited for the white man to come out of the house.

Narcisse came out of the back door, standing dry under the shelter of the eaves overhanging the gallery, dressed carefully in his normal style. "You look a fright. Where are my bearskins?" he said, looking Clement up and down.

"M'sieu Narcisse, something has happened, not my fault," Clement began. "The storm came up so quick and the water had already been rising and M'sieu Tessier's boat was lost. I couldn't save it. I was to deliver the bearskins to you, but they went down the same as the boat. It wasn't my fault. A suckhole tried to drag me down. M'sieu Tessier told me not to let anything happen to the boat or me either, but the river was too strong." Clement waited. There was nothing to do now but wait.

"What are you holding on to there, Clement?"

Clement was bewildered for a moment. The chair was more of a thought to him than a physical presence, and he was almost surprised to look down and see it. He saw his mistake at once, as soon as Narcisse called attention to the chair, but it was too late. He was right in coming to Narcisse Fredieu first, but he should have left the chair in the woods and come back for it later.

"This is a chair I was bringing to my wife on M'sieu Ferrier's farm."

"How is it that you ended up with that chair, and with the same breath you tell me that my skins and Tessier's boat are at the bottom of the river?"

Clement had spent his life tuned to the changing moods of white folks, and the man before him was ready to lash out. Any interchange with him now was like being forced to play with a cottonmouth snake. The outcome was predictable.

"When the boat pulled toward the suckhole, everything spilled out, M'sieu. The chair must have been thrown free of the pull. I just grabbed at whatever I saw when I was swimming away." Clement made his voice contrite. "I could have gone down, too."

"You were afraid for your life, but you just happened to grab for the chair?" Narcisse sneered. "Why not just happen to grab for my skins?"

"It was all so fast, M'sieu. I lost my good clothes and my shoes, too." Clement looked down at the ground as he talked.

"What do I care about your worthless shoes? I needed those skins. I needed them today."

"I'm sorry, M'sieu Narcisse. I was just trying to follow M'sieu Tessier's orders and save myself." Clement didn't dare look up into Narcisse's face. "I wanted to get here as soon as I could to tell you what happened, so you wouldn't be waiting on me. I should head on back and account to M'sieu Tessier now. He's going to be powerful upset."

Narcisse paused, a long pause full of thought. Clement kept his eyes on Narcisse's boots, but as sure as he was that Narcisse kept his stern, disapproving face, he recognized something different in his voice as soon as he started to speak. Narcisse's voice was peppered with some personal pleasure he could not disguise. It was like the s.h.i.+fting of the river that morning, first sucking him in and then throwing him toward the safety of the sh.o.r.e.

"If it was up to me, you'd pay for the loss in more ways than one. But, unfortunately, you're another man's property, not mine. You make your way on over to Ferrier's farm now, and stay the night, like you always do. Get someone there to dress your cuts. You can't go back to Tessier's looking like that. Go on now."

Clement backed away from the house, slowly at first, not understanding the nature of his good fortune. Narcisse Fredieu was unpredictable, sometimes generous and sometimes harsh; he knew that from quarter's talk. He had expected to bear the brunt of Narcisse's anger, and instead Narcisse had let him go untouched.

He limped on toward Philomene, his moonlight chair cradled in his arms.

14.

P hilomene knew the driving rains and the lightning that lit up the inky darkness of the sky would not stop Clement from coming to see her for their permission days. Despite the storm and the warnings from her mother inside their cabin, she went out to check both paths each hour that pa.s.sed, battling the rain and the winds. The landing was swollen with water. She hoped Clement came on foot. hilomene knew the driving rains and the lightning that lit up the inky darkness of the sky would not stop Clement from coming to see her for their permission days. Despite the storm and the warnings from her mother inside their cabin, she went out to check both paths each hour that pa.s.sed, battling the rain and the winds. The landing was swollen with water. She hoped Clement came on foot.

"You worry those floorboards to death, Philomene," Suzette said. "All you can do is have a warm fire waiting and something ready for him to eat. You cannot get him here faster. Be useful, sit down and work this quilt with me. We will pray for him."

Midmorning the sky had opened of a sudden and poured a dizzying amount of rain. The water came fast and hard, partnering with the wind in first one direction and then another, delivering more than the waiting earth could drink. Exploding light followed by deep thundering booms did not interrupt the flow and the intensity of the rain, and the sky became a mockery of both day and night. Fleeting light produced silhouettes and transient shapes instead of three-dimensional objects with texture and detail. At last the sounds became ordinary, and the rain changed to a steady flow.

In the middle of the afternoon Philomene finally made out Clement's figure coming from out of the woods, hunched and hatless. He moved toward the cabin like a wounded animal, with a slow and dogged determination. He was covered head to toe with red mud, favoring one leg over the other, awkwardly clutching a chair in front of him. Philomene rushed out into the rain to lead him into the cabin, but when she tried to pry the chair from him, he would not let go.

"For you," he kept repeating through chattering teeth.

Clement made puddles on the floor where he half sat, half collapsed, next to the fireplace. Suzette wiped at his face with a washrag while Philomene began to remove his drenched-through clothes. He wouldn't release his hold on the chair.

They toweled him as dry as they could and wrapped him in both of their sleeping blankets before he stopped shaking enough to talk again.

"I had to choose," he said, still clutching the chair.

Slowly he began to tell them what had happened to him. He started with the early-morning warnings from Tessier about taking care of his boat and kept on all the way through to the anger that turned itself into a reprieve from Narcisse Fredieu, with his instruction to come to Ferrier's farm.

"I have to get back to M'sieu Tessier, let him know how it happened," Clement said, and tried to stand. His legs were weak, and he had to sit back down on the pallet.

"Not until the storm pa.s.ses through," said Suzette. "You are unwell."

"No," Philomene said. "Clement is right. Something is false, M'sieu Narcisse sending Clement here too easy. We cannot leave this to chance." She paced the floor. "We must take the matter to M'sieu Ferrier without further delay. Clement has to convince M'sieu Tessier he did everything he could to save the boat and the bearskins."

Philomene took Clement's cold, clammy hands into her own. "If M'sieu Ferrier takes you back in the wagon today, and renews his offer to buy, you might escape punishment. There is advantage to M'sieu Tessier seeing you as you are now." She held his gaze. "Clement, are you able enough? Two white men bargaining is stronger than any appeal from us."

"I can make it," Clement said.

Philomene turned to Suzette. "Maman, you must persuade Madame Oreline to stand up for Clement. Strong enough for her to convince her husband. Do you think you can?" you must persuade Madame Oreline to stand up for Clement. Strong enough for her to convince her husband. Do you think you can?"

Suzette looked from Clement, s.h.i.+vering, into Philomene's pinched face. "We will see," she said.

Clement leaned unevenly on Philomene in the slow walk to the farmhouse, while Suzette ran ahead. By the time they reached the back door of the kitchen, Suzette had brought Oreline to the large back room.

"Come in, sit him down," Oreline said.

Clement shook off help and sat heavily on the bench in the kitchen.

"Madame, if you might listen, and report to your husband," Suzette began, and poured out the story.

Within the half hour after Oreline first saw Clement, with his battered face and sickness already coursing through his body, Ferrier had hitched up the wagon.

They watched with both hope and fear as Ferrier urged the horse forward out into the final throes of the storm, taking Clement back to Tessier's plantation.

15.

A s soon as Narcisse saw Clement head back to the woods toward Ferrier's farm, still clutching the chair, he called for his horse to be saddled. The boy would make a beeline to Philomene and stay until Sunday dusk before heading back to Tessier's plantation. By the time he gave his account of what happened on the river that morning, Narcisse would have already done what he needed to do. s soon as Narcisse saw Clement head back to the woods toward Ferrier's farm, still clutching the chair, he called for his horse to be saddled. The boy would make a beeline to Philomene and stay until Sunday dusk before heading back to Tessier's plantation. By the time he gave his account of what happened on the river that morning, Narcisse would have already done what he needed to do.

Narcisse would have preferred to be in front of the warmth of a steady fire with a touch of bourbon, and not out on horseback in this kind of weather, but it was time to pay Jacques Tessier a long overdue visit. If he managed it well, Clement could be visiting Philomene for the last time.

Narcisse rode through the bower of cedars marking the entrance to Tessier's home site, and a young honey brown man in flapping shoes came running out to take care of his horse. Narcisse took a quick look around as he approached the house. Tessier had done well for himself. His plantation was twice the size of Narcisse's own.

Tessier himself appeared at the front door as Narcisse shook out his dripping coat and knocked the water off his slouch hat under the eaves of the wide gallery.

"Narcisse Fredieu," Tessier greeted him warmly. "This is a pleasant surprise. Come in, get warm. What brings you out in weather like this? I certainly didn't expect any visitors today."

"Too foul a day to be out, that is the truth," Narcisse said as they pa.s.sed into the front room with the comfort of its blazing fire. "I thought I should get over here as soon as I could about that fool Clement of yours and the damage he's done."

"I sent him out this morning to settle us square on the bearskin business. I've been regretting it since the storm blew in. What's happened?"

"He dragged himself over to my place with some story about losing your boat and not knowing what happened to my skins. You're out a pretty piece of change behind the two of those. But the whole while, he's hugging some chair he claims is his that he managed to save when everything else is lost. The chair looked as good as new. What do you make of that?"

"You say my boat was lost?" Tessier did not look happy. "Is Clement whole?"