24

Chanm Mouri Nan

Pointe Picolet

Near Cap Haitien

North coast of Haiti

Tuesday, 21 August 1888

We formed a column outside the cave. Rork, Adolfus, and I in front. Corny, Dan, and Absalom followed immediately behind. Roche and Cynda were carried on litters. In the rear were litters carrying Billot and Claire.

The route was even more treacherous than before, a series of ever-ascending stepping-stone boulders with deep crevasses between. Boys with torches were stationed along the way, so that the blancs could see the perils of uncertain steps. Other boys waited to help us at the worst places, one of which involved stepping over a small stream plunging down into the sea. Aldolfus led the way, periodically conversing with me in his language, none of which I could decipher beyond his tone, which was attentive for our safety.

No, actually it was beyond mere concern—the man was visibly scared that we would be hurt. I’d seen that look in the Orient. It was as if he had been made personally responsible for us, at his own peril.

We finally made it up to a level place with wind-bent stunted trees, perhaps ninety feet above the crashing waves, and rested there. We blancs fell in exhaustion, massaging legs and ankles. I didn’t think I, or any of us from Delilah, could go much further on foot, but there was no place a wheeled vehicle could have traveled. The Haitians stood around nervously, exchanging comments and watching us. It was clear they didn’t want to linger there.

“What time is it?” I asked Corny, who had his watch out. We were sitting together on a rock ledge, the sea surging below. A torch nearby showed how little room there was.

“Little after three o’clock. Another three hours till daylight.”

“So what was it you wanted to tell me back there?”

“You were angry, Peter. I needed to stop you before you got that mambo woman annoyed to the point of ordering her men to do something violent.”

“I didn’t like her threat, Corny. We’re shipwrecked seamen. Human decency dictates that civilized people help us, allow us to retrieve our belongings, not threaten us with mumbo-jumbo from their petty tribal warlords.”

Corny lowered his tone. “These people are civilized, Peter, but it is a very different kind of civilization than what we’re used to. And she wasn’t referring to human warlords, she was referring to spirits.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Corny. Not you, too. I expect this sort of drivel from young Absalom, and Rork, but you’re an educated man—”

“—who has studied exotic cultures, including this one. Peter, we’re not in the Western Hemisphere anymore, culturally. Make no mistake about it, my friend. We are in Africa and what she was talking about is voudou. Every Haitian’s soul is purest Africa. Their voudou is not magical entertainment—it’s their religion from Africa. If we violate that, or dismiss it, we do so to our mortal risk. Agwè is a powerful loa, or spirit, here—the patron saint, as it were, of sailors and the sea. They think he saved us. Don’t make light of their beliefs.”

Absalom joined us, listening as Corny continued his elucidation. “And Kalfu is the loa of the night. He is one of the most powerful and sadistic of their spirits, the guardian of the crossroads from one world to another. Most of all, he controls the evil forces of the night. Her warning about him was very real. She was upset.”

“One of his signs is the moon,” added Absalom, who shifted his gaze upward. Above us to the west, the full moon began to shine through a thin area of the charcoal haze hiding the stars. Several of the Haitians were pointing it out to Adolfus.

Corny exhaled loudly. I noticed his hands trembling. The man was seriously worried. “So Peter, let’s just be very cognizant that the Haitians believe in this, and let us try not to antagonize them. When we get to a city, we’ll probably find sophisticated Christian people that will help us. Until then, we need to go along with whoever we find in charge.”

“You agree with this?” I asked Absalom.

“I am a Christian like you, sir. But, just as I said at Andros Island, there are some things we can’t explain. The obeah of the Bahamas is like this voudou in Haiti. Christians in the Bahamas do not make light of it.”

***

After a short rest, we started up the cliff again, my crew barely able to move at this point, tottering stiffly along in line. When we reached the top, Adolfus stopped and pointed with his right hand toward a higher outcropping set back from the edge. A boy ran off with a torch and halted fifty yards away, illuminating an object.

It was the lighthouse. Made of an iron cylinder with thick support braces and a checkerboard black and white paint scheme, it poked above the surrounding trees and faced north, across the sea. A useless silhouette in the dark. Seeing streaks of rust in the paint, I wondered how long Salomon’s lighthouse would remain standing.

We tramped inland, now moving on a real path through ever thickening foliage. The ground was relatively level, a bit easier to negotiate. At a wide part of the path, after hearing his charges in constant pain, Adolfus proclaimed another rest stop, gesturing for us to sit along the path. My people did so, groaning with the effort.

Rork nudged me and walked fifteen feet away, to the edge of the torch light, where he sat down and leaned against a tree. I joined him, apart from everyone else. The Haitians gathered in a group on the far side of the path from us, much more agitated, and glancing around into the dark for some reason. Several looked our way, and none too friendly.

“Methinks we’re bein’ led somewhere evil, sir. The native lads’re getting’ a might testier the farther we go, like they’re knowin’ what’s acomin’ for us. We’d better be ready to fight.”

“Yes, I’ve perceived that, too. But it’ll be a damned short fight in our condition. Where are our seabags?”

We had our personal weapons in the seabags, but Rork pointed out that the bags were over next to Adolfus and his men, who had been carrying them. Thus they weren’t within reach. Then he had an idea. “We could get some deadfall limbs to use for cudgels. If it looks like a fight, we bash ’em over the head, grab our bags and get the weapons out. Until then, we use ’em as walkin’ sticks.”

“Good idea. Let’s find some and pass them out to our men, along with the word to stay alert. But don’t let anyone know about our pistols and shotguns.”

I surveyed the ground around me, seeing off in the dark a good five-foot-long branch. It was straight and would serve our purpose well. While bending to get it, I caught sight of a radiance, indistinct and barely discernible, in the woods perhaps forty feet away. I thought it maybe a village, the light deflected by a trick of jungle shadows, where we might find some government authority. The Haitians were having an animated discussion among themselves, so I beckoned Rork and we walked toward the curious glow.

Halfway there, we saw that it came out of a fissure in the ground, a crack perhaps four feet wide and twenty long. We exchanged glances. I looked back at our Haitian escort—they were still engrossed in conversation. “Let’s see what this is,” I murmured to Rork.

We cautiously trod to the very edge of the fissure, where a bamboo ladder led down ten feet into a cavern eroded into the rock. It was a large space, the volume of a ship’s launch. The light came from candles like those we’d see in the mambo’s cave, but that is where the similarities ended, for her abode was positively benign compared to this place.

The candles shared space on a crude table with bottles and animal parts and feminine personal belongings, but the most bizarre item was centered in the middle of the cavern. It was the decaying body of a black woman in a white dress, the grinning face of whom was a frightening vision of decomposition. Her hands, folded across her chest, held something, though I could not tell what without descending to get closer, something I felt no urge to do. In fact, I had to fight the urge to flee in panic.

“Oh, Saint Michael an’ Saint Patrick, don’t fail me now! Me’s ne’er seen the likes o’ this,” Rork said breathlessly, mesmerized by the gruesome sight below us. “Ah, sir . . . methinks ’tis time to return to our shipmates, straightaway.”

“My thoughts exactly, Rork. Now I know why the natives had us stay on the path to rest.”

We headed back but were too late.

“Rete! Pa bouje!”

The furious shout came from Adolfus. He stood arms akimbo on the pathway, glowering at me. I dropped the stick. Four of his men ran over and seized Rork and me by the wrists, dragging us back to the path and into the torchlight. They then backed away, leaving us standing there alone, as if afraid to be associated with the transgressors.

His eyes fierce, Adolfus indicated where I’d been and growled, “Chanm mouri nan! Blanc ensolan! ”

Corny quickly stood, held up his hands in submission, and blurted out, “Non! Sivouplè, Mesye Adolfus—adon! Padon. Nou regrèt . . .”

Adolfus was so angry he was shaking. He flung his arm forward and marched down the path, his men pulling the whites up off the ground and pushing us along behind him.

“What the hell was all that about, Corny?”

“I’m no expert on this language, Peter, but it’s a version of French. I think what he said was that you and Rork saw something outsiders shouldn’t: Chanm mouri nan —the Chamber of the Dead. He also called you insolent. From what I remember of my studies long ago, the voudou people have a place their deceased go before burial, where prayers and offerings are made to ensure a peaceful afterlife. You violated that place, though unintentionally.”

“What did you say back to him? You spoke the lingo pretty good.”

“Based on my French, I’ve picked up some basic Creole words tonight, so I begged his pardon, saying that we were sorry.”

A truer statement was never made.

***

We arrived an hour later. Fort Picolet was a four-tiered stone and brick fortress perched on the cliff at the very end of its namesake point. As we entered on the second tier, by the light of our torchbearers, I saw a row of century-old French 32-pounder cannons mounted along the parapet. Around us, the interior buildings—barracks, officers’ quarters, cookhouse, guardhouse, et cetera—were in a dilapidated condition, none of them having so much as a roof. The entry port was guarded by an impossibly young Haitian in a quasi-French uniform from the previous century. His musket was a contemporary of the cannon. He gave the impression of a theatrical chorus member, rather than a military man.

Adolfus, whose attitude had reversed completely from attentive to hostile disregard, motioned contemptuously for us to wait within a bricked ruin, uncovered like the others. He and his men then disappeared, leaving us one sputtering torch to see by. There we assembled—the living, the wounded, and the dead, from Delilah’s wreck.

It appeared that, like many small countries, the Haitian army did not garrison the fort, for that would take a thousand men. Instead, a small lookout detail was posted there. The boy soldier had two older comrades stationed on the uppermost tier of the fortress, overlooking our place of rest. They spent what was left of the night sitting on a parapet above us, discussing the bedraggled visitors. Most of their attention was directed at me and Rork. Word, it would seem, had already circulated about our transgression.

True to his nature, Rork at once began building a pile of small rocks, for use as missiles in defending our miniature stronghold, should the situation deteriorate. Dan and Absalom assisted. Even Corny, the previously ever-optimistic member of the crew, joined in. Meanwhile, our seabags were once again in our possession, and as the others were piling their stones, I checked the readiness of our weaponry inside. Cynda, still on the litter, lay there staring at the torch, her only sound a forlorn moaning.

I am sure that at this point the reader can well imagine the thoughts occupying each of our minds right then, so I will forgo that most depressing description and forge ahead to the next phase of our odyssey.

Now that our immediate defense was secure, my primary task was to find shelter, food, clothing, and medical care. After that, we would push on to find Luke. In order to accomplish any of that, I would need to meet, and get the support of, some Haitian in a senior official position.

Instead, I met a man who was to prove far more valuable than all the senior officials in Haiti, combined. His unique name and background were a great amazement to us, but those characteristics formed only a small part of an exceptional individual.

As the reader will soon understand, Sergent-Chef Vladimir Noel Yablonowski was a soldier who knew how to get things done. No small feat in a place like Haiti.