All Souls' Rising by Madison Smartt Bell

that’s how it is,” Jean-Pic said. He asked another question and the slave began to tell him how they planned to meet at night and dance the petro dances. But I was not much listening any longer. Though I understood now how it must have been with the woman and the baby, I was not thinking of that either, but I was remembering those many years when I myself had been dead to life.

    T HAT NIGHT there was a big calenda with food and plenty of clairin. I danced, but Ogûn did not come to me. In the dark outside the circle of the fires I lay with Merbillay, then slept. At dawn I woke when Merbillay slept on, and nearby Achille lay on his back with his arms thrown out and snored. Ghede had carried him all the way into the dark. I got up and walked down toward the grand’case all alone, to the edge of the stable yard where the cabins of the house slaves were. It was in my head that there might be things to take from here, salt or sugar or even gunpowder, but also I was a little afraid to go among these cabins because the house slaves would know me for a stranger. Also I could hear a dog somewhere close by, barking in a loud deep voice.
    While I was thinking there at the yard’s edge the horseman we had seen on the road the day before came out of the barn leading his horse. As he was mounting I heard the dog stop barking and then the dog was charging and leaping at the horseman, not barking anymore because this dog was trained to kill in silence. I never saw the horseman shoot, only the pistol pointed at the sky with the sharp powder smell smoking out of it, and the dog lying in the dust of the yard. I did not believe this whiteman had killed the dog of his own power, such a shot from the back of a bucking horse—it was the work of a loup-garou . The dog’s big paws were kicking the dirt and his jaws were snapping and he still wanted to get up and kill the horseman. It was the only thing he wanted. The house slaves had come out and stood near the dog, though not too near. The horseman had gone. Then I went away myself and ran into the cane field.
    The hooves of the horse were still beating down the allée . I could not catch him up no matter how I ran, but I knew where the road turned alongside the cane field, and I thought that I might meet the horseman there, if he chose to ride back the way he had come. I went running through the cane field with the broad leaves stroking along my back, crossways toward the orange hedge at the far corner. Then I ran into an irrigation ditch and fell and bruised my arm against a stone. When I got up again my arm was numb because my elbow had struck, and I saw that the horseman had turned and was still going at a canter, so that I would never reach him.
    But they were coming into the bottom of the cane piece now, and I heard the voice of the commandeur calling “ Chantez! Chantez! ” Silence, and the whip’s braid uncurled through it and snapped, and snapped again at the end of a long uncoiling. I heard one voice take up a weary song and then another, I could not make out the words. I got up out of the irrigation ditch and shook myself and began to hurry out of the cane piece.
    When I came near the orange hedge I could hear harness jingling and the creak of the wheels of a coach. I hid myself behind the trees and bent down a branch. The horseman had stopped to ask his way and I could see him, sitting his horse, who was still nervous, shifting and turning, like his hooves were on coals. The rider sat well, but he didn’t try to stop the horse from shying. He was a small man, with small neat hands, pale on the reins. He had taken off his hat and I could see that he was balding, the top of his head round as an egg, but speckled and peeling from sunburn. His beard was rust brown and clipped to a short point. I didn’t know why I had wanted to see him again, to see him nearer and remember him. There was nothing strange to see him near. What power he had came from his pistol, I thought then, but