All Souls' Rising by Madison Smartt Bell Page B

said. “You have the coach and the horses and the ear of the master. You understand what there is in books.”
    The horse nipped at the green cloth of his forearm and Toussaint slapped him lightly on the nose. “Stop it,” he said.
    “I don’t understand why you are here,” I said. “Bayon de Libertat is a kind master, as it goes, and Arnaud is a cruel master.” I was wondering if Toussaint knew about the woman and the baby, and what he would have thought. But after all it was not so far from Haut du Cap, and I had heard the stories about Arnaud at Bréda when I was still a slave there.
    Toussaint took a curry comb from his coat pocket and began to work out the tangles from the mane of the gray. The horse tossed his head against the pulling.
    “Yes,” Toussaint said. “And if he catches you, Riau, he will bury you to the neck in the ground and wait till the ants have eaten your eyes.”
    “Truth,” I said.
    “Where will you go?” Toussaint said.
    “Why?” I asked him. “Have you begun to ride with the maréchaussée? ”
    Toussaint stopped his combing and turned toward me, one hand still knotted in the horse’s mane. He looked at me till my knees grew weak. His eyes looked yellow, in the dim.
    “I think we are going south,” I said. “I don’t know where we’ll go.”
    “Go where God sends you, Riau,” he said. It was the pompous voice he used when he was reading Bible verses.
    “Where else could I go,” I said. We did not mean the same thing, and he knew it. So I turned and went out of the barn, and heard my heart stop.
    Arnaud, the master, was standing in the stable yard, switching his cane at the dark place in the dirt where the dog had lain. He looked at me, but he didn’t see me. He saw something, but not Riau; he saw something like a chicken or a horse or an ox. When I could breathe again I walked past him, under his eyes, until I had put a cabin between us. Then I began to run and I didn’t stop running until I had come all the way up the first slope among the wild trees, to the clearing where Arnaud’s slaves had their provision grounds.
    Merbillay and Jean-Pic were digging up sweet potatoes with pointed sticks; already they had a heap between them. The two small boys were gathering greens and stowing them away in a sack. Achille stood at the edge of the clearing, propped on his gun barrel, its stock braced against the ground.
    “Did you get any powder?” I said.
    “It’s all locked away in the grand’case ,” Achille said. “No, I couldn’t get any.”
    “There was powder last night for the petro dances,” I said.
    Achille stared at me. His eyes were unclear, they didn’t meet, he looked like his head was hurting him. “And you know what they did with it,” he said.
    “They burned it for the petro loa ,” I said. “Yes, I know. When does Arnaud let the people go to the provision grounds?”
    “Two hours at midday,” Achille said. “We have already stayed too long.”
    “Truth,” I said.
    “I would be gone before now,” Achille said, and pointed. “Jean-Pic wanted to wait for you until the sun was there.”
    We shared out loads of sweet potatoes and filed out of the clearing. We went along the lower slope, following the curve of the morne , moving as quickly as we could on the uneven ground away from Habitation Arnaud. By the noon hour we were far enough away that we could not hear the wailing and shouting of Arnaud’s slaves when they discovered all we had stolen from them. There was nothing to hear except birdcalls in the brush until the evening had turned purple, and Jean-Pic caught at my arm.
    “Listen,” he said.
    I stopped, but there was nothing to hear, only insects singing in the twilight.
    “No, listen,” said Jean-Pic.
    I could hear the others going away from us along the slope, passing out of earshot. Then a long long way away, down on the plain, there was something barking.
    “That is a mile from here, or more,” I said. “That is only some