Master of the Crossroads Read Online Free PDF Page A

over his head, tied in the back above his short gray pigtail. The cloth was a little sweat-stained at his brows. His lower jaw was long and underslung, with crooked teeth, his forehead was high and smooth, and his eyes calm and attentive.
    So, he told the man, so you can read.
    No, the man replied. It was read to me.
    You learned it, then.
    Nan kè moin. By heart. He placed his hand above the organ he had named.
    Toussaint covered his mouth with his hand, as if he hid a smile, a laugh. After a moment he took the hand away.
    It was yourself who made those words, the man said, hint of a question in his voice. Those are the words you made at Camp Turel.
    It is so, Toussaint told him, solemnly, with no smile this time, nor any gesture of concealment.
    That is good, the man said, lowering his eyes.
    Tell me your name, Toussaint said, and your own story.
    The white men called me Tarquin, but the slaves called me Guiaou.
    Guiaou, then. Why did you come here?
    To fight for freedom. With black soldiers. And for vengeance. I came to fight.
    You have fought before?
    Yes, Guiaou said. In the west. At Croix des Bouquets and in other places.
    Tell me, Toussaint said.
    Guiaou told that when news came of the slave rising on the northern plain, he had run away from his plantation in the Western Department of the colony and gone looking for a way to join in the fighting. Other slaves were leaving their plantations in that country, but not so many yet at that time. Then les gens de couleur were all gathering at Croix des Bouquets to make an army against the white men. And the grand blancs came and made a compact with les gens de couleur because they were at war with the petit blancs at Port au Prince.
    Hanus de Jumécourt, Toussaint said.
    Yes, said Guiaou. It was that grand blanc.
    There were three hundred of us then, Guiaou told, three hundred slaves escaped from surrounding plantations that les gens de couleur made into a separate division of their army at Croix des Bouquets. They called them the Swiss, Guiaou said.
    The Swiss? Toussaint hid his mouth behind his hand.
    It was from the King in France, Guiaou said. They told us, that was the name of the King’s own guard.
    And your leader? Toussaint said.
    A mulatto. Antoine Rigaud.
    Toussaint called over his shoulder into the house and a short, bald white man with a pointed beard came out, carrying a pen and some paper. The white man sat down in a chair beside them.
    Tell me, Toussaint said.
    Of Rigaud?
    All that you know of him.
    A mulatto, Guiaou told, Rigaud was the son of a white planter and a pure black woman of Guinée. He was a handsome man of middle height, and proud with the pride of a white man. He always wore a wig of smooth white man’s hair, because his own hair was crinkly, from his mother’s blood. It was said that he had been in France, where he had joined the French army; it was said that he had fought in the American Revolutionary War, among the French. Rigaud was fond of pleasure and he had the short and sudden temper of a white man, but he was good at planning fights and often won them.
    The balding white man scratched across the paper with his pen, while Toussaint stroked his fingers down the length of his jaw and watched Guiaou.
    And the fighting? Toussaint said.
    There was one fight, Guiaou told him. The petit blancs attacked us at Croix des Bouquets, and fighting with les gens de couleur and the grand blancs, we whipped them there. After this fight the two kinds of white men made a peace with each other and with les gens de couleur and they signed the peace on a paper they wrote. Also there were prayers to white men’s gods.
    And the black people, Toussaint said. The Swiss?
    They would not send the Swiss back to their plantations, Guiaou told. The grand blancs and mulattoes feared the Swiss had learned too much of fighting, that they would make a rising among the other slaves. It was told that the Swiss would be taken out of the country and sent to live in Mexico or