Bayou Baby Read online

  “I don’t have time for that I’m afraid.” Rowan turned from her and walked to the door. “They must die as soon as possible.”

  “Mebbe it be you who will die,” Claire called, stopping Rowan at the threshold.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Be careful what it is you wish for, chile. You might get it.”

  “I hope I do.”

  Rowan left the hut, ignoring the stares of the others. She counted at least twenty settlers in the camp, but knew there were more who already left the camp for the trees beyond on various errands. Most were colored or of mixed blood. Only two others, aside from Henri and Justine, were white. She gazed around the clearing until she found Reo, who dragged wood to the center for the fire.

  “Reo,” she called.

  He paused. Seeing her wave, he frowned and continued to drag his burden.

  “Please, can I help you?’

  “Women don’t carry de wood. You supposed to cook de food and clean up.”

  “But there are enough women to do that. There’s only you carrying wood.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  Rowan stood back as he laid the wood atop a pile he must have started before the sun rose. Turning, he walked back into the trees.

  Rowan followed.

  “Sakes woman, can’t you see I be busy here?”

  Rowan reminded herself he was just a child and she tried to sound chastened for bothering him. “I know. I just wondered about the white people.”

  “You are de white people,” he said and laughed.

  “Hardly. I mean the others. The women.”

  “Oh dem,” Reo began cutting branches off a large tree as he considered her question. She didn’t think he’d answer, but he paused and then looked at her, his eyes fearful. “Witches. I don’t know why Alique and Claire allow dem to stay here. Dey tell me we must care for all God’s children. I say God doesn’t care for dem, why should I? God be smart, so I trust His judgment in de matter.”

  “Witches aren’t bad people Reo, not all of them.”

  “Oui, but dey aren’t right. Something about dem makes me feel funny. When I feel funny about someone, it’s a bad thing.”

  “Do you feel funny about me?” Rowan asked.

  Reo searched her face, his large brown eyes serious, stern. “I feel sorry for you.”

  “There’s no reason to feel sorry for me.”

  “Your heart is black with hate for dat white man. He don’t deserve dat much of your soul. You should forget about him and move on. He be your ruin if you don’t.”

  “I will be his ruin.”

  “So you say.” Reo gathered up his sticks and turned from her once more. “I say you enjoy de blackness, cause it fills de empty inside you.”

  “You’re a child, what do you know of emptiness and hate?”

  “We share de same father, don’t you forget dat. I know enough about hate. Was born full of it. I chose to let it go and I be better for it.”

  “Don’t you want him to pay for what he did to your Mother?”

  “Oh if I see him in dis swamp, all by his lonesome, you can be sure he never make it out.” Reo puffed his chest as though to prove his point. Rowan had to look down so he didn’t see her amusement at his efforts to appear grown. “But I do not live my life thinking about him. I got too much else to think about just surviving.”

  “Well, maybe it’s still too fresh for me. I want him dead as soon as possible.”

  “Claire say hate like dat eat you up inside, an she be right.” Reo gathered up the sticks he’d cut and walked away, forcing Rowan to jog just to keep up with him.

  “So, what does Claire say about the women?”

  He stopped so abruptly, she nearly fell over him. “Claire be blinded by her pity, dat’s de only thing I can fault her on. Her heart be too big for common sense sometime. De women used to belong to Dumas too, but dey run away. Dey evil whores, an I bet dey bring ruin upon us all.”

  “Maybe they had no choice.”

  “Dat be why they try to get next to every man here? Cause dey have no choice? Well den, seems okay to me.”

  “Maybe it’s all they’ve known. You can’t help what you are, Reo.”

  “So you be a whore for Dumas. Dat mean you gonna part your legs for all de men too?”

  “No.”

  “Den I be right. Everyone have a choice to be different dan what we know. You choose to be who you are, just like I choose not to be no one’s slave.”

  Rowan remained silent, and he turned to walk once more. She followed him to camp, thinking how very young and foolish he was. He didn’t understand how the world worked. If he did, he’d know there wasn’t always a choice in what happened to a person. She didn’t want to be someone’s whore, just as she didn’t want to be a murderer. Lucien and his friends made her that way.

  She chose not to be a whore at the moment, but if it mean surviving to see Lucien pay… Could she have done anything else? She couldn’t have escaped while Rosaline and those men breathed. It was be a whore or a murderer.

  But were those your only options?

  Rowan hated the voice in her head sometimes. She was relieved when her thoughts were interrupted by Henri calling her name. And what about him? The voice said Henri should pay as well, but he was different from the others. She wanted him to suffer, but a part of her couldn’t stand the thought of a world without Henri in it.

  Perhaps she had gone mad.

  CHAPTER 25

  “No, you’re not going anywhere alone,” Henri said, blocking the doorway of Claire’s hut. “The water is too high. Even Alique doesn’t go on the river unless he has to.”

  Rowan seethed, she couldn’t stand one more day in this wretched, and disease infested camp. They’d wasted a month. Day in and day out, she cooked, cleaned and stared at the river, wishing she’d never come there. She’d washed her dresses so many times they gave way at the seams. Justine’s fell apart completely and she’d had to wear one of Claire’s sacks, cinched at the waist so her legs were bare clear to her knees.

  Their first morning, the heavens opened up with a raging downpour. The others took it in stride, gathering what they could and taking shelter in the tiny huts. Rowan shivered the entire day and night, huddled with Justine in their dark corner. No matter where they sat, the rain managed to find a way in, dripping through tiny unseen cracks and soaking the dirt floor until mud covered everything. The following morning brought sunshine, but everything remained damp and muddy for days after. Henri convinced her to stay a few days.

  She regretted agreeing to put her plans on hold when the skies rained down again two days later. Outside the dark hut, a curtain of water blurred the trees beyond. For the past few weeks, they alternated between blistering wind and rain and smothering, bug-ridden heat. Of course it never stayed hot long enough to dry anything, and Rowan grew more anxious about getting out of there and finding Lucien so she could be finished.

  “Claire told me the worst of the season was done,” she said to Henri. “We won’t get rain like that again for months, so I’m leaving while I can. I don’t understand why you’d want to stay.” She tossed her clothes into the tattered bag. Her stomach tightened and she rubbed it absently.

  “Did it move?” Henri’s eyes widened and he stared at her belly.

  “No, you fool. You can’t feel that until you’re nearly ready to give birth.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I just know, okay. The baby isn’t even big enough to move yet. I’m tired and sore from sleeping in the mud and my stomach is worn out from eating garbage. My head aches all the time and I’m hungry.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You might be ill. You should rest. Going on the river if you’re sick like the others will kill you and the baby.”

  “I’m not sick. I’m pregnant.”

  Rowan shivered at the thought of coming down with the sickness that plagued the camp. The two white whores Reo hated so much had fallen ill first. H
e blamed them for all of it, of course. He believed they brought the illness with them.

  One night, about a week into their stay in the settlement, the blonde one, Mary, had run out of their hut screaming. Alique calmed her; afraid her cries would carry across the water. Once she’d stopped bawling, they followed her into the hut to find her friend in terrible shape.

  Entering the hut, the rancid smell of vomit assaulted them. Alique ordered everyone to cover their mouth and nose and not to touch a thing. Rowan didn’t want to go in, but Reo pushed her forward so he could see. When she came close to the woman on the floor, she recoiled at the sight.

  When Alique lit a candle to see her better, gasps sounded behind Rowan. The woman was a frightening sight. Her skin had taken on a yellow hue, and dark smudges circled her brown eyes and her mouth. She lay there, staring at them, barely moving. Covered in vomit and feces, a puddle of urine around her body, she panted, unable to breathe normally.

  “Were you lying with her?” Alique asked Mary.

  “Yes, she vomited and then she did all that.” She pointed to the soiled bedding. “I jumped up and she just kept doing it, like she couldn’t stop.”

  Rowan stared at the woman. She had to be dying. Her black hair hung in clumps around her face. Now and then, a tremor went through her body, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

  Alique stood, facing Mary. “You cannot leave dis room. Do you understand?”

  “I can’t stay here with her. I’ll get sick. I’ll die.”

  “You may already be sick,” Rowan murmured.

  “No, I’m fine. I’ll clean up and I’ll be fine. Please, don’t make me stay here with her.”

  “Isn’t she your friend?” Reo asked. “You survived the white bitch, escaped here together, and now you’d abandon her cause she is ill?”

  Alique placed a hand on Reo’s shoulder, silencing the boy. “It don’t matter. I can’t have you infecting de rest of de camp. If you don’t stay willingly I be forced to lock you in.”

  “Please,” she whispered, dropping to her knees.

  Rowan turned away. She felt an ache in her chest at the sight of the woman’s weakness, and didn’t like the feeling.

  Alique waved his hands at the rest of the group huddled in the doorway. “Everyone out. Der be nothing we can do for her now.”

  Rowan turned to go, pausing when Mary wailed. She didn’t know what the other one had, but if Alique thought it deadly enough to isolate them, Rowan didn’t want to find out.

  The dark haired girl, Violet, died two days later. By that time, Mary had fallen gravely ill, moaning and crying day and night until finally she too passed on. They didn’t enter the hut, not even to remove the bodies. Alique and the other men set it ablaze with the bodies inside. When it was no more than a pile of smoking ash, they threw damp earth over it, burying the women’s charred remains, and leaving a small mound as a reminder of what happened.

  The following week three more people, two boys and a woman, fell ill. Then a few more after that. Rowan had lost count of how many of them had succumbed to the illness. The camp dwindled to half the number it had been when they arrived. Only four of the infected had survived, and one, Claire, had gone blind from it.

  Rowan turned to Henri, casting the memories of those poor souls from her mind. “If I had the fever I’d be lying in here half-dead by now. I’m fine, but I won’t wait for the sickness to come back. We have to leave, don’t you see that?”

  “Claire says the danger is over. We haven’t had anyone sick in more than a week.”

  Rowan stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Until the next disease comes along. I’m not waiting for this squalor to kill me. I’m going. I’d think you’d want far away from it as well.”

  Henri folded his arms over his chest and shifted so that he stood with his legs slightly apart.

  Rowan sighed. If he thought he would stop her, he must be ill as well. Didn’t he know by now she’d do what she pleased?

  “You’re welcome to come with me,” she said. “Justine too. Please don’t ask me to stay here any longer. I have unfinished business and I’ve already lost more than a month.”

  “You don’t have to do anything. Why don’t you let it be?”

  “Because of this child,” Rowan placed her hand over her belly. “And because every time I look at the scars on my body, I feel the whip biting my skin, and I feel him inside of me.”

  Henri winced as if stricken and looked away.

  Rowan continued. “Because I will never be whole again thanks to him. Because he ripped my soul apart night after night in that pit of Hell, and I can’t get those pieces back. Because I hate him with every fiber of my being and because it is my right to see he suffers at least half of the pain he caused me.”

  Rowan’s eyes burned with unshed tears and she blinked them away. Hefting her bag, she pushed past Henri. His shoulders slumped and he followed her outside.

  “Justine,” he called.

  She looked up from the fire. Her hair clung to her face as the steam from the boiling pot she stirred billowed around her.

  “We need to talk.”

  Rowan waited by the trees that bordered the camp, hiding it from the river beyond. Justine handed the wooden spoon she’d been stirring the broth with to another woman and stood. She walked toward them, a worried frown on her dirty face.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing. We’re leaving,” Rowan said.

  “Now?”

  “When would you like to leave? Tomorrow? Next week? How about next year?”

  “Rowan,” Henri’s tone warned her not to push.

  “Maybe we’ll wait until your skin is so dirty you look like one of them. Or we’ll wait until you fall ill and die like the other white women.”

  Justine’s cheeks reddened. She looked at Henri and then turned back to Rowan again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how we can leave now.”

  “The rain has stopped, the river is going down, and I won’t wait here another minute. All we need to do is cross the water, and then we’ll be on foot from there.” Rowan turned to walk into the trees.

  Alique’s voice stopped her as she stepped outside the clearing. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” Rowan said.

  “It’s not safe. The gators be out der thick in de water. You want to risk dat?”

  “It’s moving too fast for the gators, and even if it wasn’t, they won’t bother us if we stay in the boat. Thank you for your hospitality, and your kindness, but it’s time.”

  “You won’t forget dis nonsense?” Alique frowned, his brown eyes condemning her as though her need for revenge were sinful.

  Rowan felt a twinge of anger. She had every right to see Lucien pay for what he did. They didn’t know what kind of torture she’d endured. They had never seen the hate in his eyes, or the delight in her suffering.

  “You have no idea what I’ve been through,” she said. “You weren’t there. I’ve lost everything: my mother, my pride, my soul. Even if I hadn’t, you said almost everyone here has been hurt by Lucien Dumas. How long should he go unpunished?”

  Alique shook his head. “You going down a bad road. Dis is not for you to judge. It is for God.”

  “Believe what you want.” Rowan turned away, tired of arguing with him. “I’m going to see that he dies, and then his reign of terror will be over. No one will suffer at his hands again, not if I can stop him.”

  “Rowan, you’ll kill yourself. Please, listen to reason,” Justine begged.

  Rowan walked, ignoring her pleas. She continued until she came to the boat, and knelt to clean the leaves and dirt off so she could flip it over. The river was high, the current swift. She watched it ripple and swirl, licking high up the banks on both sides. She’d crossed high water many times in the past, but this part of the bayou was narrow, causing the water to flow faster than she was used to.

  “Good Lord. We cannot get across that.” Henri muttered from behind h
er.

  “If we can find another pole, and two of us control the boat, we can.” Rowan turned, smiled at him and Justine, and then searched the trees for a branch large enough to use as a pole. She wouldn’t return to ask Alique for one.

  Mosquitoes buzzed through the moist air. It warmed steadily, by afternoon the late spring heat would settle in and they’d be wishing for the rain. Rowan swatted at them as she searched, and Henri sighed from behind her.

  “You won’t find anything suitable here. I’ll be fine with one pole.”

  “You aren’t strong enough for that current.”

  “Thanks for the confidence,” he grumbled and knelt to turn the boat over. After pushing it to the edge of the bank, he stood. “We’ll probably capsize and wind up breakfast for the gators, but you must have your way, so my weak skills are your only option.”

  Rowan frowned. She grew weary of their resistance. If they didn’t want to help, why did they stay with her? She asked them to leave her alone many times. “You can stay. This isn’t about you anyway.”

  “It is as long as you carry a child that might be mine.”

  “It’s not your baby.”

  “You can’t be sure,” Henri said.

  Justine crept past Rowan, her gaze on the ground until she joined Henri at the boat. Rowan shook her head, taking a breath to calm herself. The child wasn’t Henri’s, she knew it wasn’t. The timing wasn’t right. She’d had a cycle after Henri raped her… or she thought she did. The days between were muddled in her memory. It didn’t matter. Even if he were the father, she’d never allow him to claim it, not that he would. Henri was a white man, a rich white man, and no matter how times had changed, white men did not acknowledge half-breed bastards. They’d flaunt the affair but never the result.

  “This is my child, not yours and not Lucien’s. It doesn’t need either of you. I’m all it will need. You’ve done enough damage, thank you.” Rowan grabbed the pole that leaned against a large cypress stump. She tossed it to Henri, narrowly missing Justine’s face and then walked toward them.