Postmark Bayou Chene (23 page)

“No one on a boat would kill a cook, no matter what,” said Cide with conviction.

“So, what happened to the body?” asked Loyce.

“Buried him right there, back from the riverbank a piece,” replied Cide. “So long ago, I think Mary Ann's chicken yard is over him now.”

“You know, Val, this could be your chance to get off those boats once and for all,” C.B. said to him over the top of Sam Junior's head.

Loyce's heart skipped a beat. She cocked her head to catch the fullness of his answer. Val had longed to quit boats and settle down to raise bees, but both sides of his family always worked on the rivers, and he felt he'd be letting them down.

“C.B., I been sitting here thinking the same thing, me,” Val replied. “I could help Adam in the kitchen even with my broke leg. After it comes better, I could pretty much start over. Raising all the bees I want, collecting the honey, selling it right here at the store. Get myself a little houseboat.”

“That's what you've always wanted to try,” said Adam.

“Once I start making a living—prove I can do something besides plow them rivers,” said Val, “maybe Mama would understand. She just throw a fit when I talk about trying that before. She say we was always riverboat people, and that was all we knew, and the river was good to us.”

“Well, if you've a mind to stay around here, we'd be proud to have you,” Adam said. “In fact, to make you feel at home and help overcome your run of bad luck, I'll make you a present of that squeeze-box I never learned to play. You made it look so easy, I thought sure I could do it, but all I ever did was make the hens squawk and the dogs howl. As for Fate, he's not been around in a coon's age. Sam takes the fish from the Chene to him on Wednesdays now, so he don't come this far down himself.”

“Oh, but word drifts in now and again,” Alcide chimed in. “Sometimes about him making money and other times just making a mess somewhere when he takes over the run from Sam now and again. You know he ties up and spends the night at his last pickup place, different places depending on what route he's running. Heard tell he had made a deal with Dieu Cavalier to pick up some cleaned ducks on his way back upstream to Atchafalaya Station the next day. Well, the next morning he got to daydreaming, I suppose, and went right on by Dieu's dock. Couldn't hear Dieu yelling at him over the noise of his engine. Dieu was waving a duck trying to get his attention. Well, Dieu didn't have no other way to get rid of nine cleaned ducks so he just took matters into his own hands. He grabbed his shotgun and fired in that direction a little above Fate's head. Dieu, not being used to gasoline boat speed, over-guessed how fast Fate's boat was going in the slack current. Blew Fate's hat right off, gentlemen! Got his attention all right, and they made the trade. I suppose those ducks made it to the station in time to get packed down in ice and travel first-class up north.”

Everyone except Loyce enjoyed a laugh at the absent Fate's expense.

“Val, how do you feel about bunking with Mame on the houseboat now that Fate is gone? She'd appreciate the company,” Adam offered.

“That sounds good to me, if Mame don't mind,” Val said.

Loyce took her first deep breath in months. The fresh October air filled her lungs to near bursting with joy.

19

Val, his cast removed, sat on a low stool repairing wooden frames that held the wax foundation in his beehives. Loyce was shelling dried peas. Their tapping and rustling provided industrious background music to the conversations going on around the porch. Benches and chairs were filling up as fragrances from the kitchen told everyone Adam would soon be serving up plates for early diners. Word had spread quickly that his kitchen was open, and true to Roseanne's predictions, a sizable gathering had started milling around the porch near mealtimes. In fact, riverboat captains had been known to flirt with the wrath of their own cooks by sneaking away to sit at Adam's table.

That day Cairo Beauty squirmed in the rocking chair next to Loyce and settled Sam Junior on her lap, pulling his blanket tight against the November breeze. She had told the story so many times that most people on the Chene had heard it firsthand, and everyone had heard second- and thirdhand versions. Since interest wasn't lagging, she enjoyed retelling it with new details each time around to keep it fresh.

“Let's see, about a week ago now, the whole thing started with the mop water,” she commenced. “Hadn't rained enough to keep the cistern full, so I was saving what was left for drinking and cooking. For everything else I just drew a bucket full right out of the bayou, which that morning was so muddy you could cut bricks from it.

“I remember thinking it must be raining upriver somewhere—Memphis, St. Louis, Natchez, or one of the other places I'd lived. More than likely it had been a room over a saloon, that same kind of rain pouring down on the tin roof, making so much noise I couldn't even hear if shooting broke out below. Didn't matter, I wouldn't be there for long. Seems like I was always running crossways someone whose rules I couldn't make sense of, and it was me who had to move on.

“But not now! I had me a husband and a houseboat of my own, plenty of sunshine and all the time in the world. I hauled up a bucket full of water and knew there was nothing I could do but wait for the dirt to settle before I could mop. You can't hurry muddy water.

“Like I said, I had plenty time. My beans were on the stove, had been since early. They'd be tender by the time Sam got home. I stuck in another chunk of wood and figured I might as well use that waiting time to get off my feet and let Sam Junior get some sun. But not me. I tied my bonnet good and tight and turned my back to the sun, to boot. Don't matter if I am a married woman and a mother, ain't no sense ruining my skin and looking like a field hand.

“I always did enjoy that view on Graveyard, upstream and downstream both, nothing but trees bending over the water. Now, it's true that just as I was setting down I noticed that line from the stern to that live oak on the bank was stretched tight; the water'd been falling some the past few days. Well, I wasn't about to get right back up, take Sam Junior inside, and loosen the line right then. It wasn't enough of a slant to make my beans slosh out of the pot. It could just wait until I got up again.

“We was so comfortable. It seemed like that rocking chair was keeping time with the current, so peaceful like. That old willow snag in the bend was bobbing along with us. It was getting on toward noon and had that midday quiet 'cept for now and then a thud whenever a log bumped up against the hull. Then a few seconds later it'd jostle out from under there and head on down toward Morgan City.

“I'd gotten the hang of Sam Junior suckling, and it worked out for both of us. He needed the milk as much as I needed to be rid of it. I kept him clean, full, and comforted best I could but didn't really dote on him like you see some mamas do.

“That morning in no time at all he dropped off to sleep, and I got a kick out of watching his hair lift like a little bird wing every time the chair dipped. I guess I dozed off, too, or maybe it was because my bonnet made like mule blinders. For whatever reason, I never noticed that old chair was creeping downhill toward the edge of the deck. Fact is, I was in the middle of trying to decide between rice and cornbread for supper when the next thing I knew that same bonnet was parting the water like the rod of Moses.

“It seemed like I fell forever, following that bonnet to the bottom. My skirt and petticoat wrapped all around my head and arms so I couldn't tell up from down. I fought and kicked deciding any direction was better than none. Right about the time I figured I might's well just suck up a big old chest full of water and be done with it, I broke through. That goaded me into one more good kick, all I had left in me. I lurched ahead and even touched the hull, but it swept past with nothing for me to grip, not even a splinter. Then my foot snagged a line. It was the fish cart! Well, I didn't do nothing but wrap one leg around that line. While I was working to catch my breath, that skirt tail swept downstream and tried to pull me right on to Morgan City, which was where that old chair was headed by then.

“I could feel the fish swimming and bumping in the slats of the fish cart. Funny what goes through your mind. I found myself wondering if they always bump around like that and we don't know it, or if it was just because someone was standing on them. Well, anyway, I just kept hanging on and worked my way up to the top of the cart. That line stretched and squeaked like it would break straight away, but it didn't. Then when I just started building confidence in it, the knot slipped on the spike!

“I figured then it was all over. But somehow that rigging held just enough for me to hook elbows over the edge of the deck. You know how heavy it is to pull a dress up out of a washtub and try to wring it? Now add a current to that and try to pull it up with just your elbows and with you in it, to boot! I couldn't do more; I just hung there.

“Finally, my breath came back, and I started creeping a little bit at a time on my elbows till the rest of me was finally all the way up on the deck. I laid there facedown no telling how long. I could feel them wooden planks warming my face and pushing the water from inside my clothes. I lay there a while longer wondering why feeling alive had no gladness in it. Something was wrong still. Sam Junior!

“I jumped up then and looked all around the deck. No sign of him. I didn't want to look out there in the water, but I had to, and all I spied was those rockers bobbing up through that old willow.

“Let me tell you all the air went out of me again. I couldn't even holler. And I knew if I did, there wasn't no one to hear. I couldn't even move then. I figured I never would be able to move again. How could I ever go back inside and face his crib, the blankets and little dresses? I could never look at the water again without wondering if he might still bob up. No telling how long I set there wishing I could trade places with him. How I wished I was in that cold water with the weight of my skirt pulling me on down and he was safe in his crib Sam built out of sweet-smelling willow poles. That was when I realized how much I loved him. More than I ever loved anybody, even my own self.

“Then I heard ‘C.B.! C.B.? You all right?' It was Alcide paddling from down around the bend. I knew it was too late, but still I jumped and waved and hollered for him to hurry. Then I saw it—that little bundle wrapped in his shirt. It was laying on the bottom of his pirogue. Let me tell you, a wave colder than the water passed over me then. I couldn't decide whether to jump out there and snatch up that little bundle or wave at him to pass on by so I wouldn't have to see Sam Junior's still little face and body. I was froze in place.

“Alcide tied off his boat and stood up before I could move. I was still standing there when he reached down and picked up that bundle. Next thing I knew, Sam's little fist poked out and him squawling like a nest of yellow jackets got under his blanket.”

Alcide had been listening intently, as if he hadn't been there in person. Now he broke in.

“I think he was mad about having his nap broken. I was baiting my crosslines when I saw this white blob coming my way. I figured for sure it was a dead heron ready to foul my lines, so I paddled around to head it off. Instead, it was this little fella with his dress all puffed out with air, floating high as a cottonmouth. He wasn't none too happy about being in so cold a bath, but when I wrapped him up in my shirt, he calmed down and went right to sleep.”

The listeners let out their collective breath and started remarking to each other about the miraculous end to the near tragedy and how the story got better every time it was told. Alcide grinned, and C.B. proudly pulled back the blanket to show off Sam Junior's sleeping face. Only Roseanne was silent. She stood apart with her arms folded across her chest. Then she sniffed and turned away into the store.

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