Marriage to Zombi

Jean Zombi gazed into the eyes of the amazing angel who had just submitted herself to him without reservation or restraint while her husband lay dying beside them. He was wise enough to understand that her submission was motivated by her desire to save her own life as well as her child's. However; he also understood that such total submission would not have been possible if she had not forgiven him for murdering her husband. Zombi knew that he was in love.

When Marie collapsed on the ground beside him, Zombi rose up to gently take her nude body in his arms and lift her. One of his acolytes retrieved her discarded nightgown and gave it to him as he carried his new bride into the lowly hovel that had been a brief refuge for her and her husband whom he had just murdered. As he laid her on the bed, his men withdrew from the courtyard then went on their way, seeking more whites to murder. Jean Zombie laid down with his wife and wrapped his powerful, ebony arms around her protectively.

Jean Zombie knew that the mob was coming for them when he saw the torches off in the distance. Jean Jacques Dessalines himself had rescinded the amnesty. Haiti's ruler had decreed that the freed Negros of his kingdom would never be truly free as long as any white men lived among them. Any white women who were allowed to live would inevitably give birth to half white or even three-quarter white mulatos. If allowed to breed amongst themselves, the mulatos would give birth to white men.

Jean Zombie savored the weight of the cutlass he was holding. The cutlass gave him confidence, but after a thousand lifetimes of killing he was no longer so eager to kill. The Gold cross that Marie had given him hung on a chain around his massively muscled neck to admonish him, "though shalt not kill." The mob was large but he had no doubt that he could defeat them. Another man who had bravely defied another such mob only a few months earlier had needlessly demonstrated how this narrow passage could enable one man to defeat many. Zombi had also built a new gate and repaired the rear gate and built parapets from which he could defend the wall. It was no longer so easy to outflank a man holding the gate. He also had the option of simply barring the gate and holding the wall.

Zombi had been bemused when his beloved Marie had told him the story of King Leonidas and the Three Hundred who stood off the Persian hordes at Thermopylae. She had been amazed when he recounted the version of events that Herodotus had ignored or gotten wrong. His bride had then realized where Kings Cyrus and Xerxes had gotten the inspiration for their ten thousand Immortals. Only when Zombie had castigated Leonidas for foolishly trusting the Thespians to guard the path through the mountains had she realized that her new husband had also been the general who had commanded the immortals.

Jean Zombie felt Marie embracing him from behind. As she wrapped her arms lovingly around him, he noticed that she was wearing the same, white nightgown that she had been wearing when he first met her. His hand was drawn to her rounded belly. He could feel Louis' child, no, his child moving inside her. "I could make my stand here at this gate, just as Louis did. Perhaps my reputation could deter them? If not, I could defeat this mob. Unfortunately; this mob would be followed by another then another. The freed Negros of Haiti are consumed with hatred. They will grant no absolution to the whites who had once enslaved them. There can be no reconciliation without forgiveness. This land and its people will be cursed by God for seven times seven generations. Not even I can kill enough people to change that. We must flee."

"Where would you have us flee to?" Marie asked with hope, "would the Spaniards risk granting us sanctuary now that they have witnessed the unrelenting brutality of the Haitians? You speak perfect Spanish for a man who first learned the language when the Moors conquered Spain, but I don't think that even you could persuade them."

Jean Zombie chuckled at his bride's unexpected linguistic insight. "We could flee to the Eastern half of Hispaniola, but we could not make our home there. The slaves of the Spaniards are growing restless and the Haitians threaten to conquer the entire island."

Marie speculated again, "would you take us to the United States?"

"No. We will not flee to the United States. Their slaves are also growing restless and the commoners of the free states resent the aristocracy that slavery enables. There is a storm coming to America within even your brief lifetime."

"Where then shall we go?"

"We will go to a place where we can wait for America to come to us," Jean Zombi explained. "A ship has docked at Port-au-Prince that is going on to Fort Astoria in the Oregon territory. The civil war that is coming to America will not touch us there. We will make our home in the Oregon territory while we wait for America to fulfill its manifest destiny."

Marie asked, "how then will we get past this mob?"

Jean Zombie chuckled, but not evilly. "Not all of the people that it is claimed that I have resurrected are undead. I know tricks that can make it appear that the living are dead. That coffin that I have constructed is for you. Do not fear, you will only appear to be dead. Once I have convinced this mob that they need not kill a white woman who is already dead, I will take us to Port-au-Prince where we will take passage on the ship to Fort Astoria. Before we board, you will gift me with Louis Javier's name so that they will not know who I am."

Marie responded by kneeling before her husband to take his ebony penis in her mouth. It was no longer as intimidating as it had once been, but Jean Zombi had become content to have her pleasure him with her mouth to ensure that he did not injure their baby. The approaching mob motivated him to easily surrender his seed.

Jean Javier, as he had become known, and his wife surveyed the land that they had agreed that they would dwell in. Gently sloping terrain and twin peaks surrounded a high mountain lake that surrounded a small island. "This island will be a defensible home. There is plenty of room for gardens to feed us. I will build us a log fortress on the island so that we can live safely without having to fight to often. Few would dare attack us and any who do would just die tired."

The man who had once been Jean Zombi gazed at his wife. The sight of the white baby nursing at her breast evoked pride and hope. Marie had assured him that his willingness to raise the baby as his own had absolved him of the sin of murdering the child's father. When the child was satiated, his mother laid him down in his papoose. She then reclined on the ground to lift her skirt and spread her thighs invitingly. "Give me your baby." Who was he to refuse her?