Postmark Bayou Chene (15 page)

Truth be told, she didn't mind the work. It was satisfying to help customers shop for the things that made their lives more comfortable. She particularly enjoyed researching various catalogs for specialty items. And there was real satisfaction in balancing the sales against the cash on hand at the end of the day.

With the increased mental stimulation and physical exercise, Roseanne felt more alive than any other time in her life. At times she found herself in spirited arguments with Adam over books that she had yawned through in school. She also felt free to express her own opinions with Adam, Loyce, and the customers in a way she never could back home. But she had to be careful about that, she reminded herself. Talking too much about her past could lead to trouble. The most important thing was to make sure no one from her old life found out where she was and what she had gotten herself into. Toting her own bathwater was nothing compared to that!

Roseanne filled two kettles from one of the buckets and set them on the stove, before adding a stick of dry ash wood to the firebox. She poured the remainder of the water into the dishpan. Watching the pan fill brought to mind the first time she had done that—the morning she cleaned the kitchen and nearly fainted from the exertion because of her corset. Surely that was a lifetime ago! In her looser corset and soft shoes, she could breathe and move with near-scandalous alacrity.

Now, as the water heated, she removed the pins and shook down her hair. Bending from the waist, she vigorously brushed it out, reveling in the freedom of its movement. She removed her dress and corset, folding them neatly over the back of a chair. Then standing in only her chemise, she poured the hot water into the dishpan and swirled it with her hand before bending again. Her hair floated like a dark cloud on top of the water. She relaxed with her scalp below the surface for a minute, enjoying the sensation of warmth. Then she lifted her head and poured liquid castile soap into her palm. Starting from the scalp, she massaged the suds through her wet hair, working toward the dripping ends.

She dipped her entire head beneath the surface again, swirling the hair around and then squeezing the soapy water back into the pan. As she lifted her torso to pour the used water into the pail, warm streams coursed down the side of her face and neck under the thin cotton chemise. By the time she bent again into a fresh pan of water, the wet cotton plastered the curve of her bosom.

Had her head not been under water, she may have heard Adam's step at the screen door. His breath caught at the sight of her breasts swinging in the sodden cloth, the ridge of her spine, still straight, even as she bent from the waist. Her hands scooped water that ran across her white neck.

Adam caught the door for support. When his strength returned, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to walk in and rinse the spot of suds she kept missing. Instead, he forced his arm to close the door, and he walked around the back of the house to the store entrance. Where was that damn fool husband of hers?

Out front Drifter lay panting under the roof overhang, where the sun had moved from the east side of the porch to the west.

“C'mon, Drifter,” Loyce said. “The clothesline is in the shade by now.”

The little black dog stretched and yawned as Loyce felt her way down the steps to the plank walk connecting the porch to the back lot. Before Loyce had made it to the walk, Drifter was already sniffing ahead of her on the path. When the walk forked—right to the cistern, left to the outhouse—Loyce bore to the right and counted six steps before leaving the security of the planks. Angling her body even more to the right, she felt ahead with each foot before committing her weight behind the move. Coals from the washday fire gave her plenty of warning with their heat, but experience had taught her that tubs, buckets, logs, or a sleeping cat could be anywhere in the lot. Steps were not precise on the open ground, so she didn't bother to count but relied instead on waving her outstretched arms slowly up and down, until her fingers brushed the first stiff, sun-dried garment. She continued following the clothesline and feeling the ground with her foot until she located the wicker basket.

Laundry was a communal task. Soon after daylight Adam built the fire under the cast iron washpot he had filled with rainwater from the cistern. As it heated, he carried more water for the two galvanized rinse tubs. Roseanne did the actual washing, while Adam waited on customers. She grated Octagon soap into the tub of hot water and agitated the suds with a paddle. Stains were rubbed on the washboard with an extra dab of soap. Each piece was dropped into a tub of cold water and rinsed once, then again in a second tub. During lulls between customers, Adam helped with the wringing, wrapping long pieces around a young sapling to squeeze them nearly dry. Sometimes Mame would wander up to help with the washing or pinning the individual pieces to the cotton lines stretched between cottonwood trees. This time of year the sun dried their combined labor in a few hours.

Now feeling her way along the lines, Loyce removed clothespins from the garments, placing the pins back on the line before dropping each piece into the wicker basket on the ground. She pushed the basket along with her foot, often bumping into Drifter, who snuffled around the yard under the lines. When she felt no more weight on the lines, she lifted the basket to her hip and turned left, feeling her way back to the plank walk, finally making her way to the porch. Well, that was her big excursion for the day, maybe even for the entire week!

Placing the basket on the bed Fate had slept in as a little boy, she removed each piece of laundry, making stacks for each person. She folded her own stack as well as the items for the linen closet. She had noticed that linens were refolded and stacked precisely on the shelves since Roseanne's arrival, but she didn't take it as a rebuke on her own casual folding. Before Roseanne came, Adam and Mame didn't think to do laundry until everyone was wearing dirty clothes. When they did get around to it, one tub full of washing could take all day to complete, what with Mame wandering off and Adam tending to customers. Yessir, Roseanne's past was a mystery, but Loyce hoped she'd come to stay.

Loyce settled into the porch rocker and tested the rolled-up newspaper in the palm of her left hand. She was waiting for the lone bee droning around the porch rafters. Otherwise, the afternoon was so quiet she could hear the
chk, chk, chk
of Mame's butcher knife coming from behind the house, where she was weeding a patch of lilies.

Suddenly she felt that prickle behind her neck, the one she had come to think of as The Watcher. While she couldn't comprehend visual observation, she understood that someone was deliberately withholding all cues from her. She felt vulnerable and exposed for the third time in as many weeks. It always happened when there was no one around except Drifter. She held her breath and concentrated on listening.

Then she heard the swish of a paddle. It was followed, seconds later, by Fate's voice coming from the dock.

“Hey Loyce, is the coffee water on?”

Relief flooded the tension out of her muscles, and she let out the breath she had been holding. It must have been her imagination after all. Maybe that's all it ever was.

“Well, it's three o'clock, so where'd you expect it to be?” she replied, slapping the rocking chair arm with the newspaper for emphasis. “Roseanne should be down to drip it in a bit. I think she's pinning up her hair now that it's dry. The
Golden Era'
s docked, so Val should be along too.”

The boat clunked against the dock, and she heard Fate's step, hollow sounding as he walked from stern to bow and then more solid as he strode the plank walk toward the porch. She couldn't stop herself from counting the twenty steps. When Fate bounded onto the porch, she stood up from the chair but kept her grip on the rolled newspaper. He swept an arm around her waist and untied her apron, hugging her to him when she tried to retie it.

“Get on now,” she said. “I've been laying wait for that whining old bee since morning, so don't go scaring him off.”

“What makes you think it's a he and not a she?” Fate queried. He held her close until she returned the hug. His familiar body was a comfort after her scare, and she stayed in his embrace longer than usual.

“'Cause he just makes noise and never produces anything useful,” she laughed.

“Hey, there's no cause to say that. I'm on to something useful right now! Been up to Atchafalaya Station, where Wambly showed off about smoking fish—not the way the Indians do it but the way scientists do it.”

“You mean like bacon?”

“That's right, Loyce. It's another one of those things he learned up at that World's Fair in St. Louis. Take most any of your big fish and cut it into strips. Soak it in a brine, then lay it on these racks over a smoky fire. No different really from making bacon. Be able to keep it for the longest time, so you don't have to sell it right away. Get more for it than for fresh too! I'm gonna make me some money—I can feel it.”

“Ugh, fish bacon sounds like the nastiest taste I can imagine. Who's gonna buy it?”

“Wambly says the government will buy it to feed prisoners. Plus, other people might develop a taste for it if we can talk them into trying it somehow.”

“Not around here, they won't. Why would they eat something that nasty when there's fresh fish any day you want it? Might be a caution against going to prison, though.”

“Well, another thing we could do is ship it to places where they don't have fresh fish. Once they get that railroad finished up at Atchafalaya Station, won't take no time at all to send it north. Plus, it'll keep.”

Loyce jabbed the front of Fate's shirt with her index finger, a gesture he knew well.

“If you keep listening to Wambly Cracker, you'll never—”

Ka wooom!
A blast shook the trees in the woodlot between the store and York's property. Loyce's finger stopped in midair, and she cocked an ear toward the sound. Drifter leaped protectively in front of her.

“That can't be nothing but York's still!” Fate shouted as he jumped off the porch onto the ground.

12

Loyce plopped down but didn't rock. She needed to concentrate on listening. It was easy enough to follow Fate's footsteps down the woods path a piece, but then they jumbled up with other boots pounding from every which way. Seemed that everyone in hearing distance was running toward York's, but Loyce would have to wait until someone thought to tell her what had happened, even if somebody was hurt or dead. She slapped her thigh until it stung and started up the rocking chair again. Rocking always helped unknot her frazzles.

Shouts rang out from every direction until she was dizzy with sound. Then the noise settled down in one place. After that the voices mixed up with scraping and thudding. Wood? Metal? She was trying to puzzle it out when the shouts got louder. Headed toward the post office!

“Loyce, clear off the downstairs bed and get some water!” Adam's voice rose above the other noises.