Master of the Crossroads by Madison Smartt Bell Page B

Pinchon and the colored youth called Moustique. He saw the general’s uniform, stiffly formal and correct, the general’s hat with its white plumes laid on the table. It was odd, he thought again, how one noticed Toussaint’s uniform first—the man inside it reserved into a sort of invisible stillness, until he moved or spoke. Now Toussaint reached across the table to take the sheet of paper Pinchon had been writing on. He sat back, holding the letter close to his face.
    The doctor stopped at the table’s edge and remained standing. He was a familiar of such scenes. Most likely it was the same letter he had drafted himself the day before. Toussaint liked his various secretaries to compose in ignorance of each other’s efforts—he himself would decide upon a final synthesis.
    Now Toussaint frowned at the paper. His free hand unconsciously adjusted the knot that secured his yellow headcloth, then dropped below the table, to his waist. Pinchon leaned back, elbow on the gallery rail, a smirk on his face—he seemed to wish to catch the doctor’s eye. Toussaint stood up and away from the table with a silent cat-like movement, crumpling the letter with his left hand while with his right he flourished out a flintlock cavalry pistol as long as his own forearm and leveled it at Bruno Pinchon’s forehead. He held the pistol rock-steady for just long enough for the Frenchman to register what was happening and then he pulled the trigger.
    The firing mechanism snapped. The doctor was acutely aware of a crow calling, then gliding to light on the eave of the cane mill. Pinchon’s Adam’s apple worked convulsively in an eerie silence. The pistol had not fired. The doctor looked into Toussaint’s face, rigid as some inscrutable wood carving. In the yard, Bel Argent kicked and half-reared. Guiaou cried out and broke away while Quamba followed the horse, dragging at the reins.
    Toussaint thrust the pistol into its holster, put on his hat and walked quickly down the steps, hitching up the scabbard of his sword. He said something low, indistinguishable, and Bel Argent calmed instantly. Toussaint put the reins over the stallion’s head and turned back to the gallery.
    “Moustique! Find a donkey.”
    The boy jumped up and ran for the stables. By the time he returned, astride a small donkey, Toussaint had checked the girth buckles and mounted. He wheeled the stallion and rode out of the yard. Moustique followed on the donkey, at a jouncing trot.
    Pinchon had propped his elbows on the table and covered his face with palsied hands. The doctor sat down in the chair Toussaint had occupied. He unfurled the wadded letter, read a line or two and tossed it away with a snort.
    “So you didn’t write what he dictated.”
    Pinchon peered at him through the cage of his trembling fingers. “I hardly supposed the man could read.”
    “Your suppositions are most inexact,” the doctor said. “You’ve insulted his intelligence.” He looked down; a large red ant was just surfacing through one of the wider cracks between the boards of the gallery floor. The pistol might have misfired by chance, but the doctor did not much associate that sort of accident with Toussaint Louverture. If he had intentionally spilled the powder from the firing pan before aiming the pistol, he might also have wiped it into a crack with the edge of his boot.
    Pinchon took his hands from his face and forced them to steady by bracing them hard against the tabletop. “What must I do?” he said.
    “I don’t know,” the doctor said. “You can’t stay here.”

3
    Moustique’s legs were longer than the donkey’s; astride, he could hardly keep his bare feet from dragging on the ground. He leaned forward, throwing his own slight weight up the steepening grade, stroking the donkey’s mane to encourage it. They were mounting through the coffee trees, Moustique following Toussaint, who rode the white charger. At the edge of the cultivation, high on the hill, Toussaint