Under the Cajun Moon (37 page)

Travis and I stood frozen in place, our arms filled with supplies, our backs to the man with the gun.

“I want you to put everything down on the ground real slowlike, ’specially that shotgun, and then raise your hands up in the air,” the man instructed.

I did as he said, but Travis surprised me by barking out a sudden laugh.

“Wait a minute,” he cried. “Is that Tee Noon?”

More noise followed to our right and left, and then suddenly I realized that we were surrounded on three sides by men bearing guns. The extra two had been hiding on each side of the cabin, in the shadows.

“Travis?
C’est toi
?”

Suddenly the guns were lowered, and all four men began laughing and talking at once. It took me a minute, but from what I could tell, these were three of Travis’ cousins, and they had come over here to stop what they thought were intruders robbing his cabin. Apparently, from across the bayou they had heard the crashing of my chair and then seen a strip of light behind one of the windows. Coming over to investigate, they had arrived and slipped into place for an ambush just as we were heading out the door.

As the laughter and the explanations subsided, the guys seemed to
take notice of me, and they began eyeing me curiously, obviously waiting for an introduction. Travis moved next to me protectively, and then smiled and winked at me, saying I was a new singer he had been working with at the studio.

“We just came out here to get some of my Boozoo and a little Chenier,” he added.

“You ain’t got Boozoo up at your house,
cher
?” one of them asked, a twinkle in his eye, as the others laughed.

“
Non
, not ‘Paper in My Shoe,’” Travis replied easily.

That earned another laugh, as all three cousins asked if he had never heard of iTunes. I wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about, but I had a feeling that “Boozoo” and “Chenier” were either singers or songs. The cousins weren’t buying Travis’ explanation that we had come here to get some of his music, especially given that he could simply have downloaded it onto his computer from the Internet. Obviously, they seemed to think that he had used the music as an excuse and had brought me out here to the cabin for a little hanky-panky instead. As long as they didn’t know the truth, that I was Chloe Ledet, accused murderer and probable target of Josie Runner’s unnamed accomplices, I didn’t care what assumptions they made. Travis, on the other hand, seemed offended on my behalf.

“My friend here is a lady,” he said, his jaw firm. “I’d appreciate it if you’d treat her as such.”

The others swallowed their laughter at that point, and one of them even took off his hat and said it was nice to meet me, a gesture I appreciated.

“Well, now that you’re here, why don’t y’all come over and make some music wit’ us?” one of the cousins said. “We gots
sac-a-lait
and
breme
, and Tante B just brought out a
gateau de sirop
.”

“Oncle Dennis even said he’d make us up some
oreilles de cochon
if we want,” another one added.

My mind was racing to translate, but all I could make out was “syrup cake” and “pig’s ears.” Good grief. I left it to Travis to figure out a way to decline, but he surprised me by accepting their invitation instead.

Soon we were in our canoe and the cousins in theirs, paddling together across the black waterway. I didn’t know what Travis had in mind, but I
shot him a few stern glares when the others weren’t looking. Giving me a slight nod, he seemed to be saying that he had things under control.

At the house, the three cousins returned to their game of glow-in-the-dark Frisbee on the lawn as the back door swung open and a woman in her fifties appeared there.

“Travis!” she cried gleefully, sweeping him into a hug and calling to her husband to come say hello, that their way-too-busy nephew had stopped by for a visit.

The uncle appeared and warmly greeted us both, and when the aunt finished hugging Travis she hugged me as well. There in the glow of hundreds of white twinkle lights, Travis introduced me as his “singer friend.”

The aunt and uncle were both very sweet, and as they welcomed us inside, I could hear even more voices coming from further within. Their house was bigger than it looked, rambling along in a haphazard style that had likely come from addition after addition being built on over the years. Following the aunt and uncle, we ended up in a large, screened-in room, where several kids, a teenager, and an older man were clustered around a board game. They gave us a hearty greeting and then returned to what they were doing. Nearby sat several abandoned instruments, and at the other end of the room sat a table overflowing with half-empty platters of food.

Even though I was still full from our can of stew, they insisted we eat something, and soon Travis and I were both seated at the table with plates of food she had made up from the platters and then reheated in the microwave. Travis dug in, but I was afraid to try anything, lest I find myself munching on a pig’s ear.

“You are too skinny,
cher
. You gotta eat,” the aunt urged me, taking a seat next to me and practically feeding me herself.

“It all looks so delicious,” I replied. “What is everything?”

She named the foods, pointing to each one in turn, as Travis translated. Apparently,
sac-a-lait
was a type of fish and
breme
was simply the Cajun word for eggplant, which in this case had been battered and fried and looked delicious.

“Did I hear something about
oreilles de cochon
?” Travis asked. Pig’s ear. Great.

“Yah, yah, I make de
oreilles de cochon
for everybody,” his uncle replied eagerly, jumping up from the table and stepping out of the screen door into the darkness beyond. As he did, I could only pray he hadn’t gone back to a pig pen to do some quick butchering.

Seeing the concerned expression on my face, Travis’ aunt explained that in Cajun households, the men could cook as well as the women, but they preferred to do their cooking outside, on the grill or the barbecue pit.

“I guess dat’s more macho,” she laughed. “He got his deep fryer out there tonight. Y’all ’scuse me while I brings him some paper towels and the sugar.”

She got up and went to the kitchen, leaving me free to whisper to Travis across the table.

“Whatever you do, do
not
make me eat a pig’s ear,” I hissed.

He just laughed and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

“I’m thinking we can hang around just a little bit, then maybe I can borrow my uncle’s car and we’ll hit the road, find somewhere safer by car.”

“That’s not a bad idea, considering that the last anyone heard we were in a boat. I just don’t want your family endangered by us being here,” I whispered, looking toward the happy group at the other end of the room.

“You kiddin’? There’s more firepower in this place than you could imagine—and every person here knows how to use it too.”

“What’s that about firepower?” his aunt asked, bustling through the room with a roll of paper towels and a box of confectioners’ sugar.

“I was just saying how you used to make Sunday dinner,” Travis replied, giving me another wink.

“Not that old story,” his aunt laughed, shaking her head as she moved out the back door.

“How did she make Sunday dinner?” I asked Travis, curious.

“The chickens ran loose in the yard, and when she wanted to cook one up, she’d just go upstairs, open the window, pick out a good one, and shoot it. She had such good aim, she’d always get it right in the neck.”

I thought maybe he was exaggerating, but then we were joined by the teenage girl who had been at the other end of the room, playing the game. She nodded adamantly in agreement, saying that Tante B was such a good shot with a rifle that the local gun club had to change their rules.

“She kept winning in the competition every year, and the men were getting mad because they were being shown up by a woman.”

“Of course, that was a long time ago,” Travis added. “Things aren’t quite that bad anymore.”

The screen door opened and the woman in question stepped inside. She was so small and unassuming, I had a hard time picturing her with a rifle in her hand, picking off chickens in the yard.

“Yes, indeed, it’s a different world. It’s nice that women have more opportunities and things nowadays, but I kind of miss some of the old-fashioned ways too.”

“That’s why a real man does both,” Travis said. “I fully respect women as equals, but don’t ask me not to open doors for them or stand up when they come in a room, because that’s going to happen regardless.”

“That’s a good boy,” his aunt cooed, pausing to pat her nephew on the shoulder. “Your
grandmere
done raised you right.”

As an expert in etiquette, I didn’t comment, but I couldn’t help thinking that Travis’ chivalry might fly here in the South, but if he insisted on holding doors and pulling out chairs in certain parts of this country, his actions might be misconstrued as condescending or even disrespectful.

I thought of the fight Travis and I had had about what had happened when we were teens, the argument where he claimed I’d had no respect for Cajun culture and that I had overlooked a people group that was essentially right under my nose. Sitting here with this group, I realized that I wanted to know more about Cajun rules of behavior, those unwritten rights and wrongs that could convey respect or disdain without saying a word.

“So if you had to describe Cajun culture to an outsider,” I said to the aunt, “what would you say is unique about it? Besides the obvious, I mean.”

“The obvious?”

“Language, food, music. Other than that, what’s different about Cajuns than the rest of the world?”

She stared at me blankly, obviously not understanding my question.

“My friend here is an expert on good manners,” Travis explained on my behalf. “I think she just wants to know what proper behavior looks like inside a Cajun home.”

“Proper behavior? We’re civil to each other,” his aunt said, still confused.

“I know what you’re asking,” the teenager added, “like how it’s rude to put your fingers in your mouth in China?”

“It is? Even if you have a hangnail?” the old man called from the other end of the room.

“That’s right,
Grandpere
,” the teen answered back to him.

“Yes, exactly like that,” I said, smiling encouragingly at the teen. “Are there any rules like that for Cajuns, ones that are unique to this culture?”

“Well, goodness, if I couldn’t put my fingers near my mouth, I couldn’t eat crawfish,” the aunt said, shaking her head.

“What do you think, Travis?”

He had a bemused expression on his face, and while he looked as though he would rather observe the conversation than take part in it, he nodded, saying that for one thing, Cajuns never left anybody out, no matter their age. Whatever they did, wherever they went, the whole family was almost always welcome to tag along, from the very youngest to the very oldest.

That led the aunt to explain why a Cajun dance was called a
fais do do
. Literally, the term meant “go to sleep,” because that’s what the women would say to their babies on Saturday nights at the dances, waiting for their kids to drift off so they could keep on dancing.

“They brought their babies into bars?” I asked.

“Not bars,
cher
, dance halls. They was clean, family places, not sleazy joints.”

Travis and his teenage cousin began brainstorming about other Cajun rules of etiquette. In the end, they actually thought of quite a few, from hospitality to the use of “practical charities,” to the food-centric way that they socialized and entertained.

“What’s the rudest thing I could say or do to a Cajun?” I asked. My question seemed to stump them, as they looked at each other and shrugged.

“I guess that would be if you turned down a good meal,” the aunt said finally.

“Acting like you’re better than us,” the teen added.

“Failing to see that the best thing that could ever happen to you might be right in front of your eyes,” Travis said slyly.

I was startled by his words, but he simply grinned. Across the room the old man made catcalls, the teenager burst out laughing, and the aunt simply beamed and patted us both on the arms. Before anyone could say another word, the screen door swung open and Travis’ uncle burst in bearing a platter of deep-fried pigs’ ears smothered in confectioners’ sugar.

Soon, everyone was gathered around the table, grabbing at the disgusting treats and eating them rapturously. Even the three cousins showed up at that point, the delicious smell apparently strong enough to have enticed them in from their game of Frisbee.

“I’ve got to say,” Travis declared, “now that I think about it, the rudest thing you could do to a Cajun is to not eat one of their pig’s ears.”

Up to that point, there had been such a commotion around the table that I’d been able to avoid partaking of that particular delicacy. Now, thanks to Travis and his big mouth, all eyes were on me, waiting to see what I would do. Though I didn’t appreciate being put in this position, Travis had underestimated me. In my travels to various countries, etiquette had required me to eat more than my share of unusual or even repulsive foods. When faced with a choice of personal revulsion and proper etiquette, for me etiquette always won.