Gone to Texas (26 page)

Texas was pure paradise—or as close to paradise as a man could get on this earth. So said Robertson. In glowing terms he described the land: good black soil ideal for farming in the bottomlands. Why, he had seen with his own two eyes corn grown ten feet tall. An abundance of game, wild horses, and cattle, and more buffalo, deer, and antelope than a man would believe. The woods were thick with bee trees—a man could have honey on his biscuits every morning if he was of a mind to—as well as wild grapes, cherries, plums, and persimmons, walnuts and pecans. The climate was so mild a man did not really need a house, or very many clothes.

Robertson waxed eloquent about the many virtues of Texas, but remained discreetly quiet regarding the
ever-increasing danger from the Indians, whose traditional hunting grounds were being invaded by the settlers. Nathaniel had already been made aware of this growing problem by others, and he figured these tribes, the Comanches and the Kiowas, might put up a harder fight than the Mexicans when the time came.

The empresario invited Nathaniel to bring his party to the colony and settle there. He pointed out that he had recruited most of his colonists from Kentucky. "Best pioneer stock around," he said. "No doubt they will all know you, Mr. Jones, and be glad to have a man of your reputation living among them."

Nathaniel didn't bother trying to explain to Robertson why settling in a colony sounded so unattractive to him. He was hankering after the wide open spaces, where a man could travel for days on end and not see, hear, or smell another living soul. But he did express interest in taking up Robertson on his offer of embarking for Texas on the brigantine the empresario had chartered to transport the supplies he had come to New Orleans to purchase. There would be a fortnight's wait, but once under way the journey would have a swift conclusion. The frontiersman assured Robertson that he would talk it over with his traveling companions. Robertson said he was staying at the Hotel de la Marine, down on the riverfront, an old hangout for Baratarian smugglers.

Discussing it with the others that night, Nathaniel found Robertson the following day—not at the hotel, but at Peychaud's, indulging his appetite for the cocktail. He informed the empresario that they would be pleased to take him up on the offer. Robertson was delighted. As for the thoroughbreds, the Texan convinced Nathaniel that it would be best for him to bring the horses overland. There would be no room for them on the ship; besides, such fine animals would be too great a temptation for Mexican soldiers, if any were met along the way. "They wouldn't dare take them from me," said
Robertson, "but they might try to steal them from you. That's the kind of trouble you won't need." Nathaniel agreed. His instincts told him he could trust this man.

As it would require Robertson at least ten days to purchase the supplies needed by his colony and have them loaded into the holds of the brigantine
Liberty
, Christopher found himself with a lot of idle time on his hands. His only responsibility was to go once daily to the livery on Iberville Street, located a few blocks from the hotel where they were staying, where the thoroughbreds were being kept. So he was happy to accept Noelle's offer to give him a tour of this exotic and romantic city.

She knew it well, having been born and raised in the Vieux Carré, the Old Quarter, living there for twenty years. It was here that the French explorer, Jean Baptiste leMagne, Sieur de Bienville, had founded La Nouvelle Orleans. Thirty-six years earlier, in 1682, La Salle had claimed all the lands along the Mississippi River for France, calling this vast new territory Louisiana in honor of his king, and Bienville's vision was to create a capital city to secure that claim. A strange blend of settlers came to populate what began as a collection of squalid huts surrounded by swamps, battered by hurricanes, and beset by perennial floods and fevers. There were a few aristocrats among them, some entrepreneurs, and a large number of undesirables from the prisons of Paris. And, too, there came the "casket girls," poor young women willing to brave the perils of the New World in order to find husbands. There were the Ursuline Nuns, who took it upon themselves to bring some order and decency to the community. Later, Acadian trappers and fishermen, driven out of Canada by the British, settled the surrounding countryside.

In 1762, Louis XV gave Louisiana to his cousin, Charles III of Spain. Alexander O'Reilly arrived in New
Orleans with three thousand Spanish troops to occupy the town. Some of the residents, rendered unhappy by the prospect of Spanish rule, talked about revolt and independence. The Spanish commandant became known as Bloody O'Reilly when he nipped this talk in the bud by executing a number of French patriots.

Eventually New Orleans adjusted to being part of New Spain. Spanish and French families intermarried. Children born of such unions became known as Creoles, a name which was soon applied to an entire culture, as well as the cuisine of the community.

In 1803, when Spain gave Louisiana back to France and Napoleon Bonaparte sold the territory to the United States for funds he desperately needed to continue his war with Great Britain, the Creoles of New Orleans again found themselves under a new flag and subject to new laws. They considered the Americans to be barbarians, and it is little wonder, since the only Americans with whom they were acquainted until then were the rough and rowdy rivermen. Unwelcomed by Creole society, the Americans established their own community on the other side of the Canal. It took a common peril—a British invasion fleet in 1814—to bring these disparate halves of the city together. Yankee, Creole, slave, and pirate set aside their prejudices and differences and fought side by side at Chalmette, under the dynamic leadership of Andrew Jackson, to save the city from the redcoats.

At the same time, the success of an experiment in granulating sugar created the extremely profitable sugarcane industry. This, coupled with the advent of the steamboat on the Mississippi, heralded a golden age for New Orleans. By 1830 the city had become the fastest growing and richest commercial port in the United States. The Yankees made their fortunes as brokers or shippers, while the Creole aristocrats monopolized the sugar trade. The Yankees built their mansions on St.
Charles Avenue, while the well-to-do Creoles built their townhomes along the cobbled streets of the Vieux Carré. Gambling houses flourished in the Old Quarter. There was French opera and the theater, duels and fencing masters, opulent balls and banquets, slave dances and the Mardi Gras. Built on the foundation of the slave trade and river commerce, New Orleans prospered.

Christopher's tour of the Old Quarter began at The Square, the Plâce d'Armes, a rather barren piece of ground near the levee, encompassed by a low fence of wrought iron. Nearby stood the St. Louis Cathedral, with its Spanish-style bell-shaped towers. To one side of the cathedral was the Cabildo, the old Spanish government house, now the city hall. It was here, Noelle told him, that the documents of the Louisiana Purchase had been signed.

Between the Cabildo and the cathedral was Pirates' Alley. Noelle wasn't sure where the name had come from. This narrow street was bordered on one side by a row of two-story townhomes and on the other by the beautiful garden which had been kept by Père Antoine, the priest who, since 1779, had performed the baptisms, weddings, and funerals for almost all the Old Quarter families.

Pirates' Alley emptied into Royal Street. Most of the homes here were built around courtyards luxuriant with oleander, bougainvillea, jasmine and azaleas. Porte cocheres allowed horse and carriage to pass from the street into the courtyards; these entryways were usually secured with heavy double doors of age-blackened timber or gates of ornate wrought iron. Every house sported wide galleries on the second and third floors, with tall shuttered French windows. Most of the buildings were constructed in the style known as brick-between-post, and covered with a layer of stucco for protection against the elements.

Turning north along Exchange Alley, Noelle pointed
out that many of the buildings along this side street housed the
salle d'armes
of the city's fencing masters. Such men were in great demand in New Orleans, where the
affair d'honneur
flourished as it did nowhere else. Denis Prieur, the current mayor of the city, was a duellist of some repute, who had recently slain a man over a disagreement about the merits of the two political parties. Bernard Marigny, an old Creole with an infamously volatile temper, had fought fifteen successful duels. William Claiborne, the first American governor of Louisiana, had fought the first duel in New Orleans under the American flag. Many a headstone in the local cemeteries bore the inscription "fell on the field of honor." Though forbidden by law and the Church, dueling was commonplace, and every young gentleman profited from learning the use of the rapier.

This innocent commentary opened the floodgates for unpleasant memories which intruded upon Christopher's contentment. Noticing his troubled expression, the perceptive Noelle asked him if he had ever fought a duel.

He told her grimly that he had. "And it ruined my life."

"You are an accomplished swordsman?"

"I used a cutlass. My adversary used a saber. We hacked away to one another for a little while. I was thrown out of West Point as a consequence."

"You attended West Point? There is so much you have kept from me, Christopher," she said with mock reproach, and then, with a lilting little laugh, put her arm through his.

Thinking about the Military Academy brought Greta Inskilling to Christopher's mind, and he experienced a twinge of guilt as they walked on, arm in arm.

Christopher was astonished by the sheer number of street vendors who plied their wares in Vieux Carré. Men offered sun-dried Spanish moss, ideal for mattress and pillow stuffing, palmetto fronds perfect for the
cleaning of chimneys, and clothes displayed on long poles. Women balanced wicker baskets on their heads, singing out the identity and price of the baskets' contents—vegetables, blackberries, pralines, and delicious hot rice fritters called
callas
. Fruit, oysters, fish, and lamp oil were sold from two-wheeled carts and horse-drawn wagons.

Of particular interest to Christopher was the Salle d'Orleans, next door to the popular Théâtre d'Orleans. It was here at the Salle that the quadroon balls were held. Nearby, in a small garden called the Dueling Ground, was the place where arguments were settled and insults repaid at the point of a sword. Noelle did not say so, but Christopher could surmise from the look on her lovely face that it was here in this garden that Trumbull, the Elm Tree overseer, had died because he objected so strongly to Noelle becoming the mistress of some young gentleman.

At the end of Orleans Street, just beyond the Ramparts, was Congo Square. Noelle took him there on a Sunday afternoon to watch the slaves dance. Over a thousand slaves congregated that day to cavort to the sometime sensuous, sometimes frenzied rhythm of the drums, while hustlers and vendors worked the crowds, and soldiers on horseback discreetly patrolled the perimeter. At dusk a cannon was fired in the Plâce d'Armes, the signal for all the slaves to return to their quarters.

Noelle showed him the blacksmith shop on Bourbon Street which had served as a front for Jean Lafitte's smuggling business. Importing slaves into the United States had been outlawed in 1807. This was done, in part, to keep out slaves from the Caribbean islands, where numerous bloody servile insurrections had occurred, and for fear that this troublesome island breed would encourage the more docile American-born slaves to rise up against their masters. Then, too, whites in the South were becoming alarmed by the fact that in so many areas they were greatly outnumbers by blacks.

But the law had never concerned the pirate Lafitte, who made a fortune taking slaves off foreign ships and smuggling them into New Orleans to sell to the sugar and cotton planters. Frustrated in his attempts to apprehend Lafitte, Governor Claiborne resorted to offering a five-hundred-dollar reward to the man who delivered Lafitte to the sheriff. Not long after that, Lafitte mockingly posted his own reward: fifteen hundred dollars in pirate gold for the delivery of the governor to Barataria, his stronghold.

Christopher marveled at the cemeteries in the Old Quarter, at the tombs made of stone and wrought iron, some of them quite elaborate, like palaces and cathedrals in miniature. Noelle took him with her when she visited her mother's grave. Cilia's final resting place was marked only by a small stone, inscribed
CILLA TRUMBULL, BELOVED MOTHER.

"She never had a last name," said Noelle, "so she took Trumbull's. They weren't lovers, though. There was a bond between them much stronger than that. He was pleased when she asked him if she could use his name. She did it, not so much for herself, but for me. I prefer Trumbull to Cooper."

"Considering the circumstances, that's understandable."

As they were leaving the cemetery Christopher noticed something odd lying on the threshold of an iron gate which accessed an above-ground tomb. He leaned closer to get a better look in the gloom of twilight. It was a feather tied to a bone.

"What is this?" he asked Noelle.

"Gris-gris."

"What?"

"Gris-gris. An object which can cast a spell over someone. It can bring good luck or bad. It can be used to make someone fall in love with you. Or you can use it to bring harm down upon your enemies. It might be a
bone, or salt poured in the shape of an X, a powder of brick dust, yellow ochre, and cayenne pepper."

Christopher straightened. He felt a sudden chill in his bones. "Voodoo."

She nodded. "It is practiced here, though prohibited by law."

"Just like dueling. You folks don't pay much attention to the laws down here."

"Even respectable, churchgoing people sometimes seek the help or advice of one who practices voodoo. You have perhaps heard of Marie Laveau?"

He shook his head.

"She is a voodoo Queen, and she has great power. Some say she is evil. Her name is much maligned. But this is because people fear what they do not understand. Voodoo is a religion. It originated in Africa. Among the tribes there, the god Voodoo is an all-powerful being. Everything that happens is his doing. Often he can be malicious. His symbol is the snake. One who practices voodoo is able to communicate with this god. Like a priest. Only, in voodoo, one can ask for a curse as well as a blessing. The god Voodoo will always answer a true believer.