Stone That the Builder Refused by Madison Smartt Bell

Author:Madison Smartt Bell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Generals, Revolutionaries, Fiction, Literary, Historical, Slave Insurrections, Haiti, General
ISBN: 9780307427977
Publisher: PANTHEON
Published: 2004-01-01T10:00:00+00:00

Nanon’s going to look for water

but her jar is broken . . .

With a last clap and a giggle he broke off.

“Li pa blan,” Bienvenu said authoritatively. “He doesn’t sing either. Now, let us pass.”

“Ou mêt alé.” The leader stepped aside and nodded. You may go.

Halfway up the slope to the fort, they were overtaken by several horsemen. The doctor had no more strength to run; he turned around to face his doom. But the patrol was led by Placide Louverture.

“Doctor Hébert!” Placide blurted. “You should not have left the fort. It is not safe for you tonight.”

“No.” The doctor’s exhale was almost a sob. He looked down at the blazing roofs of the town. It was not so spectacular as the fire at Le Cap, because Petite Rivière was so much smaller. However, a few of the screening trees had caught fire from the roofs. From the darkness of a shallow gulch to the north of town came frequent intermittent screaming.

“No,” said the doctor. “It’s not safe.” He felt sure that if he began to laugh or cry he would never be able to stop, so he did neither. With one shaky hand clutching Placide’s stirrup, he made the rest of the climb to the fort.

Next morning he woke to an aching head and a pall of ill-smelling smoke rising from the charred foundations of Petite Rivière. On the hilltop, all was quiet. The sentinels in the fort went about their business in good cheer, quite as if there’d been no massacre the day before, and they let Bienvenu and the doctor through the gate without any questions.

Bienvenu assumed Fontelle’s place at the kettle; he insisted that the doctor clean and compress his own wound before he attended the others in the camp. When he’d completed the morning round, the doctor returned to the fort in time to see Descourtilz walking up the hill, a lancet held high in his right hand and a roll of bandages spooling from the crook of his left arm. These medical emblems gained him an unchallenged admission at the gate. He found the doctor by the wall above the river.

“Ugh,” he said as he came to a stop and looked over the walk in the direction of the fuming ruins. “So you too made it through, I see—we are the lucky pair. What a bloody business—have you got anything to eat?”

“Of course,” said the doctor and produced a couple of small potatoes from the morning meal. Descourtilz laid down his bandages, stuck the lancet into his belt, and bit into the first potato savagely. “Forgive me,” he said, glancing sidelong at the doctor, as wind from the river riffled his black hair around his head. “I—”

The doctor waved away the apology. He’d awakened himself to the wolf-like hunger that a brush with death inspired. Unconsciously he fingered the stain on his bandaged head.

“What happened?” Descourtilz mumbled through potato.

“Someone wanted to chop off my head,” said the doctor. “The program of the evening, as you know.

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