He was handsomer than L’Ouverture, a Negro of forty-five years, with high cheekbones, a firm chin, powerful torso, and the erect carriage of the French army officer he’d been. His sideburns extended into muttonchops, kinked hair cut close to his skull: in the heat, skin glistening, he looked as chiseled from black marble as a Roman statue of a Nubian lord. His gaze was predatory as an eagle. The general had set aside on the sofa a bicorn hat with ostrich plume, and wore an unbuttoned full military dress jacket with epaulettes and braiding. He was African chieftain crossed with military marshal, but his look of fierce intelligence exceeded either. Dessalines was reputed to be cruel, quick, and brilliantly determined.
Jubal had told me the general was made overseer as a young man because of his obvious cleverness, had been purchased by a free black named Dessalines, and had taken his Negro master’s name. When the slave uprising began in 1791, the opportunistic slave joined the revolt. Through courage, ruthlessness, and strength of personality, he became a key lieutenant to L’Ouverture. He followed Toussaint through a complex web of alliances and rifts with Spanish, British, French, and rival black armies, each side betraying the other again and again as the island’s tangle of ethnicities jockeyed for power. Dessalines was L’Ouverture’s fist, taking no prisoners and burning enemy homes to the ground. Just the year before, he’d heroically defended a fort against eighteen thousand French attackers, retreating only after an epic twenty-day siege. He then succeeded Toussaint when that general was betrayed in June of 1802. Now, in November of 1803, this general had squeezed the last whites into Cap-Francois. He met every atrocity the French could invent with cruelty of his own, and hanged, shot, burned, drowned, and tortured.
It was to this man that I’d fled for mercy and aid.
“We fished the American,” Antoine announced. “He decided to swim instead of walk. Jubal was good enough not to leave him for the caimans.”
“The reptiles spat him out,” my black friend said.
Dessalines studied me skeptically. “Is he useful?”
“He is famous,” said Jubal.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“And handsome!” called a black woman back in the crowd, leaning lazily against a tree. More people laughed, which I hoped was a good sign. I straightened, trying to look the part of resolute savant instead of desperate refugee. Maybe I could interest them in electricity, share some of Franklin’s aphorisms, or teach them a game of cards.
“Silence.” Dessalines held up his hand, and the laughter snuffed like an extinguished candle. He turned to me. “So you’ve come to the winning side.” His voice was low and sonorous.
“I believe we have common interests,” I replied with more confidence than I felt. “The United States wishes to see you victorious so that Napoleon will complete the transfer of Louisiana to my country. The British hope you will deprive their archenemy of Saint-Domingue, France’s richest colony. And the French are in pursuit of a legend they think will help them conquer the English. You’ve become not just the most important man in the land you call Haiti, General Dessalines, but one of the most important men in the world.”
I’d rehearsed this bit of flattery because I wasn’t certain how I’d be welcomed. Around me was Africa in all its dark power, and somehow I had to enlist help. His officers looked as skeptical and opportunistic as medieval earls. One whom I’d learn was named Cristophe was an imposing seven feet tall, while another named Capois tensed like a coiled spring. Even when resting, he seemed poised for attack. They were shrewd-looking, hard- muscled, swaggering men, with pistols in their sashes and tattoos on arms and faces. Some were as gaudily clothed as Dessalines, but one slim giant wore epaulettes on a cord slung around his neck so that his torso was bare in the heat. He displayed scars of an old whipping on his back.
They were still men like me, I reminded myself. Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours, old Ben Franklin had once observed.
“Indeed,” Dessalines replied to my speech. “The whole world knows the importance of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. And men come to me now that I have power for only one reason, the hope that I can help them.” He looked at me narrowly. “Is this not true?”
It would do no good to deny the obvious. “It’s true of me.”
“Hmph.” He let his eyes roam the assembly, keeping attention on his performance with the skill of an actor. “I’m told you were the last to speak to Toussaint L’Ouverture.”
“I tried to rescue him, but he was shot in prison.”
“Yet he told you something.”
“A secret to my wife.”
“He was the first of the blacks, but now he presides over his fallen brothers in Guinea. It is I, Dessalines, who is first of the blacks now.”
“Which is why I’ve come to you, General.”
“But I only help those who can help me.”
“You and I can help each other.”
“The French have stolen his wife and son,” Jubal spoke up. “He has reason to join us, Commandant.”
“Indeed?” The general took up a French snuffbox, a pretty thing of silver and pearl, took a pinch of tobacco, and sneezed.
“Revenge,” Jubal said.
“Hmph.” The black leader pointed to a red and blue banner hanging from a tree. In the middle was a coat of arms. “Do you know what that is, Monsieur Gage?”
“A battle standard?”
“It’s the new flag of Haiti. Do you see what it is missing?”
I glanced, but shook my head. “I’m poor with riddles.”
“It’s sewn from the French tricolor, but I had the white removed.”
“Ah.”
“I hate whites, white man. I hate mulattos, the arrogant gens de couleur who fought us and pretended they are our betters because of the lightness of their skin.” His eyes darted at some of the followers he had just insulted. “I hate the French, I hate the Spanish, I hate the British, and I hate the Americans. I and my slave brothers have been whipped and hanged by white-skins for two hundred years. I have flayed and burned and stabbed and strangled a thousand in return, with my very own hands. What do you think of that?”
This wasn’t going well. Despite my battles, everyone seems more belligerent than me. I cleared my throat. “I do not want to be number one thousand and one.”
There was dead silence, and I feared I’d said the wrong thing, immediately hoping for a quick shooting over a slow roasting. Then Dessalines abruptly barked a laugh, Jubal guffawed in relief, and the other rebel officers joined, too. Laughter rippled around the encampment as my joke was repeated, women shrieking with the men. I smiled hesitantly.
It’s always flattering to be the center of attention.
Dessalines put his hand up, and everyone instantly went silent again. “Then you will earn your keep, as every other soldier does in my army. Are you my soldier now, Ethan Gage?”
When drafted, it’s wisest to make the best of things. “I certainly hope so. I want to liberate Cap-Francois.” I tried to make my nervous smile broader, straighten my shoulders, raise my chin, and otherwise mimic martial traits. “I support blacks, and admire what you’ve accomplished.”
“And maybe I’ll let a white man help us finish, should he prove useful.”
Here was my chance. “I can help you defeat the French fortifications.”
He raised his brow. “How?”
“But if I do that, there’s something you must do for me as well.” My experience with tyrants is that they admire a bit of cheek, so I mustered what courage I had. Bonaparte responded to my cockiness, and Sidney Smith, too.
“You dare bargain with me?” Dessalines glowered like a thunderhead. The whites of his eyes had a faint yellowish cast, and the pale underside of his fingers tapped the hilt of his sword with the rattle of drumsticks. But my bet was that he was acting, too.
“I’m in pursuit of an ancient secret,” I proclaimed, forcing my voice louder. “It’s possible that your people, and only your people, can help me. If I find it, we can share it, and it’s so fabulous you can build your new nation with it. I’m the key. You’ll be greater than Spartacus, greater than Washington, greater than Bonaparte.”
“I want to be an emperor.”
