Legacy

his mind now that he was. Youthful passion on both sides had turned to love unexpectedly, and now Jean was totally, madly, passionately in love with Wachiwi, a girl from the Dakota Sioux nation, whom he had met beside a lake. It would be a story to tell their grandchildren, if they had any. He knew what he wanted to do now. He wanted to keep her with him. But first he had to make her suitable to bring into his world.

He redoubled his efforts in speaking to her in both English and French as they rode more sedately toward St. Louis. They stopped often to make love in the forest, and their coupling was pure joy. They got to St. Louis two days later, and by then she had learned several phrases in both languages and many words. She didn’t always use them correctly, but she tried ardently to please him, and she was doing surprisingly well. She learned quickly, and she looked fascinated and a little daunted when they reached the hotel, and he led his horse to the barn, and they checked in. She was amazed by their surroundings. He asked for two rooms, which seemed more respectable, and the clerk stared at Wachiwi in disapproval, but he said not a word as he handed Jean both keys. They walked up the stairs, and she followed him, as he led her into the rooms. They were only going to sleep in one; the second one was to protect her reputation. But she had none, to the people in the hotel she was just an Indian girl traveling with him, and they would have thought it a waste of a good room. True to his upbringing, Jean was noble to his core, even with a young Indian girl, and she sensed his respect.

They had dinner in the dining room of an inn that night, and Wachiwi began eating, as Luc Ferrier had taught her, with a spoon. She copied Jean when he put his napkin on his lap, and he showed her how to use a knife and fork. She speared her food with the fork, but the knife made no sense to her, and the food was complicated for her. Jean could only imagine how foreign everything must seem. But that was nothing compared to the adventure they had the next day when he took her to a dry goods store and a dressmaker and outfitted her.

He bought her several simple dresses at the dry goods store, and the dressmaker had three gowns that had never been picked up and fit Wachiwi as though they’d been made for her. There were two dresses that were suitable for dinner at his cousin’s house, four demure ones for the daytime, proper shoes that he could tell Wachiwi didn’t like, and five bonnets that looked beautiful on her. There were mysterious undergarments that she had no idea how to put on until the saleswoman showed her. She was wearing more clothes at one time than she had ever worn in her life. There were gloves, several shawls, three purses, and a fan. They had it all delivered to the hotel, and Jean was relieved that they were taking a boat to New Orleans. It would have taken several horses or a mule train to carry everything he’d bought her. The boxes were stacked in their rooms. He bought two trunks to put it all in and made arrangements for the horse to be returned to Luc.

By the end of the day, they were both exhausted, and Wachiwi spoke to him in her few words of halting French and thanked him for everything he had given her. She looked more than a little dazed, and when they got back to the hotel, she put her elkskin dress and moccasins on again and looked relieved. At least that was something she knew how to wear. She had insisted on keeping them, and she looked like the little Indian girl he had first met when he saw her in the elkskin dress again, with the deep blue porcupine quills on the front, and she touched his heart again.

He had taught her jolie robe and chaussure and chapeau that day, along with gown, bonnet, undergarment, shoes, and gloves. She knew the names for everything he had bought for her. She was slowly learning to speak to him, mostly in French, but in English too. When they ordered dinner in their rooms, she ate with a knife and fork to please him, but when he lit a cigar, she wanted to share it with him. He laughed as he let her do it, but explained that she could only do it with him. Her father had let her share his pipe with him from time to time when no one was looking, so she knew what Jean meant, and put her finger to her lips to show that it was a secret… like the dead man they had left in the bushes. Neither of them wanted to think of that again, but it was his death that had brought them together.

They made love in Jean’s bed that night, with the same passion as they had before. The love that they shared was visceral and sensual and explosive. It was something he had never known before, and that was a mystery to her. She had no words for it, and they didn’t need them. What they shared when they made love to each other was magical.

The next day, he helped her dress, and with her new trunks full of the clothes he had bought her, they boarded the keelboat to New Orleans. Wachiwi looked excited and was smiling happily. She knew of this river, but had never expected to see it. She had heard of it in the lodges. Her people called it the Great River. The trip to New Orleans was going to take three weeks, with good winds and fast currents if they were lucky, while the boat made many stops and people got off and on.

There were canoes, flatboats, barges, and other keelboats all along the river, which was teeming with activity. Wachiwi was fascinated by it and beamed at Jean. He had reserved two cabins for them to look respectable once again, as he had at the hotel. They put all her trunks in one, and slept in the other. And when she got confused, he helped her put the undergarments on and laced up her corset. He laughed as he did it, and had never had so much fun. She was horrified by how tight the corset was and made him loosen it. He couldn’t expect her to learn everything at once. Only days before she had been swimming naked in the lake where he met her, living in a Crow village, and now she was dressed like a lady, on the way to New Orleans to meet his noble cousins.

He was slightly daunted by the prospect, and mildly unnerved by the stares of people on the keelboat when they saw that he was traveling with an Indian woman. She was so beautiful that the men understood it, but the women didn’t, and turned their backs on her the moment they saw her. Jean was startled by it and hoped that people in New Orleans would be more understanding, and captivated by her beauty. She was so innocent, so delicate, and so mesmerizing that he couldn’t imagine anyone being able to resist her. He certainly couldn’t, and his nights with her for three weeks on the Mississippi were passionate beyond belief. The trip to New Orleans gave them the time they needed to get to know each other, and improve her English and French. She was so bright and eager that she made rapid strides in both.

They had passed Fort Prudhomme and Fort St. Pierre, and finally arrived in New Orleans.

Wachiwi looked particularly beautiful that day. She wore a pale blue day gown he had bought her that looked like sky next to her skin, and a matching bonnet he tied beneath her chin for her, and gloves that he helped her put on. And her undergarments were in perfect order, thanks to him. She was part child and part woman, and what he loved most about her was that she was entirely his. Not his slave, but his woman. The chieftain’s daughter. Wachiwi. The dancer. Luc had translated her name for him. When the boat reached the dock in New Orleans, he helped her off and she walked with silent grace right behind him.

They took a carriage to a guest house Jean knew on Chartres Street, with all their belongings. He wanted them to wait in a comfortable room while he sent a message to his cousins at their plantation just outside of town, explaining that he was back and had a friend with him, a young lady. He didn’t want to impose on them and assume that they could stay with them. Within two hours a note was returned to him, from his cousin’s wife, Angelique de Margerac, insisting that they come at once and give up their rooms in town. She didn’t mention the young lady, but Jean presumed that there would be a room for Wachiwi too, since he had been clear in his note that she was traveling with him. It was an unusual occurrence, but he felt sure that his cousins could accommodate them both, and would be glad to do so. Angelique’s note had been welcoming and warm.

She sent her carriage for them, an elegant French-made Berline drawn by four horses, and a separate carriage for their trunks. Jean smiled at Wachiwi as they set out for the long ride to the plantation, thinking how far they had come. He looked at her proudly, and took her hand in his own. He didn’t doubt for a moment that his cousins would fall in love with her too. It was the first time he had ever traveled anywhere with a woman, but the New Orleans Margeracs were his family, and had always been wonderfully hospitable to him. He was sure that this time would be no different.

Chapter 10

Angelique de Margerac was actually married to Jean’s father’s cousin, and she was from an illustrious family of aristocrats in the Dordogne herself, directly related to the king. She had married Armand de Margerac forty years before, and he had brought her to New Orleans under protest. She had been willing to live in Paris, but not the New World. He had fought hard to convince her. New Orleans had been founded by the French thirty-five years before they got there, and her husband had done everything imaginable to make her happy. He had bought her a house in