Laron chuckled and shook his head. "I remember that first time myself," he said.
"I didn't see the tobacco until Friday," she continued. "We had a bit of a row. Or at least he did. I refused to discuss the subject and he lit up very defiantly, as if he were trying to force me to lose my temper."
"You and Karl argued?" Laron seemed surprised.
"He just . . . well, there are things ... we do not always agree."
His expression slowly changed from confused to amused as he gazed down at her discomfiture.
"We do not always agree," he quoted her. "So you have made your home a democracy these days, Madame? The influence of consorting with the Acadian men, no doubt. And I have always thought of you as a very autocratic German empress."
Helga was grateful for his humor. "I still say what goes on under my own roof and you had best not forget it," she told him.
He grinned. "You may have total dominion of the roof, Madame, if I may have an equal say under the bedclothes."
She smiled back at him as they reached the porch. "Nothing will go on under those bedclothes tonight, monsieur," she told him. "As long as my son lays in the chair by the hearth, you and I will lie as chaste as nuns."
"As nuns?"
They stepped in through the back door. Young Karl was where they had left him, still sprawled uncomfortably in a chair that was never meant for sleeping.
"Maybe I could carry him upstairs," Laron whispered.
Helga looked up at him. "And if he wakes are you ready to sit until dawn continuing your history lesson?"
Laron made a disagreeable face. Helga stifled a giggle.
Stalling, she silently straightened the items stowed on the kitchen shelves as Laron divested himself and hung his garments on the hook beside the bed. There was virtually no light within the cabin and she couldn't see the man across the room from her, but she didn't need to see him. She knew the width of his back, the length of his thigh, and the breadth of his shoulders with more familiarity than she knew her own life. He was her man and she loved him. She had never meant for that to happen but it had.
The creak of the ropes sounded as he crawled into the bed. She moved toward the sound. He had scooted to the far side and held the blanket open welcomingly. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.
"I must look in on the little ones," she whispered. "Go on to sleep."
He didn't argue as she made her way across the room and up the ladder to the loft. In the dim light seeping through the shuttered window she checked on her son. He slept peacefully on his mat, his sweet blond curls tousled around his head. She squatted down beside him and gently removed the thumb that was tucked so securely in his mouth.
Quietly she made her way to the larger sleeping mat. Elsa, too, was lost in dreamland.
Helga began removing her own clothes and hanging them beside her daughter's. She loosened and undid her braid. Finding Elsa's brush, she began drawing it through her hair, not bothering to count the strokes.
"I know why Monsieur Boudreau travels all this way."
In her heart she heard Karl's words once more. She had never meant for her son to know. She had never meant for it to go on this long. She had never meant—but what had she meant? A simple thank you. That should have sufficed.
Helga put the brush aside and lay down with her daughter. She was eager to sleep but knew it would not come easily. She listened intently, hoping to hear the snores of her lover. Laron expected her to come to bed. If he fell asleep he would not know that she had not.
She hadn't meant to fall in love with him. She hadn't meant to take him as a lover. She had only been saying thank you to the man who had saved them after her husband deserted her.
Helga closed her eyes, willing sleep, but none came.
She had seen him first on the day Jakob was born. She had been far along in labor when a very frightened Karl had brought him into the house. By his manner of dress she recognized him immediately as one of the Acadians that lived on the river.
"Lazy, worthless people!"
That's what her husband had called them. And Helmut certainly should know lazy and worthless when he encountered it, they were so much his own personal traits.
But this Acadian had proved his value when her child came into the world and into his arms. She remembered those first moments watching him hold her son, cooing to the child and speaking to him in French. She wondered tiredly if the Acadians were like the Gypsies she'd heard stories about. Did they perhaps steal children? Might being stolen possibly be the best thing for Jakob? She wanted what was best for her baby. She wanted what was best for all her children.
It had been less than a year before Jakob's birth that Helmut had dragged them to this place. He had said it was a farm, but it had been only a decrepit hut in the wilderness.
She knew that they must be hiding out. Not she and the children, of course, but Helmut. He must be hiding out again from a judge or a posse or an angry citizen whom he had cheated. Helga had spent much of her life with Helmut hiding from someone. They had lived in a half-dozen places in the strange new country. Helga would settle in, try to start a life, and then it would all be over. Someone would be robbed or cheated and they would hurry away in the dark of night.
But never again. With two small children and one on the way she had said, "No more!" And Helmut Shotz had taken his gun and their stores and merely rowed out of their lives.
It hadn't taken long for Laron Boudreau to realize that they were hungry and destitute. He began to provide for them. He brought salt and flour, meat and game. He taught them to fish and forage and get by in the wet inhospitable climate that was Louisiana.
But she had had things to teach also. He had been an innocent, inexperienced young man of barely twenty. She had taught him to be her lover.
Chapter 5
Fall was branding time in Prairie l'Acadie. Traditionally all herds, cattle and hogs, were set free on All Saints' Day to winter as they would. For this reason careful marking would ensure that all animals would be returned to their rightful owners when spring was upon them.
Armand loved working the cattle. The horses were well trained to turn and cut the cows from the herd. As drover, Armand sat high in the saddle, letting the fine bay gelding do the work of separating the animals out one by one.
Then all that was left to do was to throw a lasso around the cow's neck, a skill at which Armand excelled. Once it was roped, Jean Baptiste or Laron or one of the other men who were larger and stronger than he would throw the animal to its side, tie up the legs, and endeavor to keep it still while the white-hot metal of the brand was sizzled into the tough hide of its flank.
A half-dozen men had come at dawn to help with the branding, with more joining them as the day wore on. Friends, neighbors, those who had just needed or would soon need help themselves. The women, as expected, were cooking up a feast to reward them. And children cavorted and played as if the day were a celebration rather than merely hot, hard work.
The Sonnier brothers were considered highly successful cattlemen with a combined herd of nearly a hundred head. They had always worked together since the day their father had gone off to fight with Andrew Jackson to liberate New Orleans. The two boys had stood together at the dock as he packed his pirogue. Jean Baptiste had been twelve, already lanky and tall, his skinny legs still clumsy for him. Armand had been nine, very small and thin, but sturdy, his father insisted. Armand had grown sufficiently sturdy.
Sonnier kissed them goodbye and spoke to them as men.
"It is duty that bids me go," he said. "A man must always follow his duty."
The boys nodded, too young to fully understand.
"It is my duty to go and your duty to stay and care for this farm and for your mother."
"I will, Poppa," Jean Baptiste promised.
"And I can help," Armand assured them both.
He had nodded proudly. "A man is lucky who can count on such sons," he told them. "I trust you to do your
duty until I return."
The boys did as he had bid. But he was never to return.
It had been a frightening time and a crushing blow to two young boys. And the grief of their mother had been harrowing to witness. The brothers, who for most of their lives until then had been separated in age and experience and temperament, now clung together solidly to do their duty as they had promised.
They cared for the farm, the land, the herd. And they had dutifully, lovingly cared for their dear maman until the day three years earlier when they laid her for all time in the solemn silence of the churchyard.
Perhaps these experiences made them closer than other brothers. Whatever the reason, the two worked well together in the saddle, cutting and moving the herd with dexterity.
A scraggly young bull slipped around Jean Baptiste's horse unexpectedly and was headed with determination for the safety of the brush. Armand heard his brother's curse and set chase. The young bull had too far a lead for his own horse to cut it off. Skillfully Armand twirled the rope above his head until he was certain of its velocity and threw the looped end true and right around the animal's neck.
There was a cheer of approval as Armand led the bawling angry miscreant toward the branding fire.
"Well done," Jean Baptiste congratulated him.
"We'd best make a steer of this one," Armand suggested. "Or we might not catch up with him next year."
Jean Baptiste considered a moment and then shook his head. "No, I rather admire the ones that try to get away. He'll make us a fine breeder bull in a couple of years."
Armand bowed to his brother's decision, although something about the reasoning bothered him. He returned to his work, only to be distracted a few moments later by the arrival of Aida Gaudet.
She was in the midst of the gathering, laughing and looking pretty and capturing the attention of all the men. Armand doffed his hat and gave her a polite nod, then he quickly looked over at his brother.
Jean Baptiste had ridden up to greet her formally and to look down into her eyes and tease her. Mademoiselle Gaudet was delightfully attentive and giggled several times. Armand felt his entire body tense. He was thinking to speak to her, to distract her, to distract his brother when a movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention.
"Sacre!" he cursed. His nephew Gaston and little Valsin Hebert had moved in close to play a game of "I Am Not Afraid" with the teeming cattle. Armand raced over to scold the boys and scoot the little ones back away from the dangerously unsettled herd.
The drama caught everyone's attention and not a moment later Armand heard his brother's voice raised in anger.
"Madame Sonnier!" Jean Baptiste called out to his wife. "Can you not watch your children?"
Armand turned to see the flushed face of his sister-in-law. She hurried the children back to the relative safety of the cooking women beyond the fires.
Her husband continued to scold and curse as he returned his concentration to the herd. Armand moved closer.
"You should not yell at Felicite, Jean Baptiste," he said for his brother's ears alone. "The boys always want to be near the cattle. We were just the same. Drovers must keep an eye out for that. It was not her fault."
"She is my wife, Armand," Jean Baptiste answered him. "Who else am I to yell at?"
It was not a reasonable answer and Armand kept looking at him.
Jean Baptiste shrugged. "I was frightened," he admitted. "You know I often yell when I am alarmed."
He nodded; it was and had always been his brother's nature to fight fear with anger. "Go easy on your wife," Armand suggested. "Felicite just looks so tired and so ... so pregnant."
Jean Baptiste chuckled with agreement. "Indeed, she looks like one of the cows. Try not to rope her by mistake."
His brother was still laughing at his little joke as he headed back into the herd. For Armand there was nothing funny about any part of this situation. Jean Baptiste loved his wife; he had always loved her. But this newfound enmity and ridicule was unsettling.
Orva Landry's words of warning echoed in his head. He glanced back toward the crowd by the cook fires once more. Unerringly his gaze found Aida Gaudet. He recalled her smiling up delightedly at Jean Baptiste. She was foolish and naive, but surely never would she be so unwise as to become involved with a married man.
Even if her fiancé was involved with a married woman . . .
"Armand! Armand Sonnier!"
With a sigh and a heavy heart Armand turned toward the speaker. He dug heels into the bay's flanks and loped over toward the wooded area away from the herd.
"Father Denis," he said, forcing a smile. "How are you this beautiful day?"
Armand eased the horse over to where the fat priest stood and resisted the desire to pull his hat from his head. Father Denis greatly disapproved of
men wearing their headgear in his presence. When Armand was a child, the good priest had caned his palms so frequently for that very offense that even now he could feel the burn on the inside of his hands. Deliberately he asserted what Acadian men thought was their right to show deference to God alone and not to the men who merely serve Him.
"I am very well, Armand," the priest answered.
Father Denis was robed in the traditional garb of his order, making no concessions to the humid Louisiana weather. He eyed Armand's hat, still upon his head, with some displeasure, but today he said nothing.
Clasping his hands together before him, he spouted thankfulness that resonated more pompous than prayerful. "I am grateful, this day as every one, to our Most Righteous Father and Blessed Mother for both the state of my health and the fairness of the weather."
Armand gave the priest a wan smile. "That is good to hear, Father," he said.
No one knew what unfortunate alliance or political faux pas had sent a promising young French Jesuit into the Louisiana wilderness twenty years ago. While most of the prairie and backwater parishes made do with the prayers of laywomen and annual visits by a circuit priest, Prairie l'Acadie had been blessed with the constant presence of clergy.
And Armand was more closely tied to him than most since as a boy he had studied both French and Latin with the father. He was kept upon his knees for hours on end. His education was broad and his discipline harsh. It was the priest's assumption that his young charge was being readied for a life in the church. Nothing could have been further from Armand's desire. The boy's stubborn rejection of a monastic vocation and his overwhelming interest in the secular life had proved a stinging disappointment to his teacher. Still, the good father considered his former pupil a useful link between him and the other parishioners.
"I've been hoping to speak with you about a concern of great importance to you and the community," Father Denis said. "I have made several inquiries with your friends and family."
"Oh?" Armand feigned ignorance. A lie, however small, came with difficulty from young Monsieur Sonnier's lips.
The priest didn't bother to question the younger man's pretense of ignorance. Armand dropped the reins of his horse, knowing the well-trained bay would stand where it was until Armand returned. With the priest at his side Armand began to walk away from the boisterous crowd of chattering friends and neighbors. Away from the dust and heat of cattle branding.
Father Denis gazed with near-theatrical majesty into the heavens above them and began a deep-throated, well-rehearsed oratory. "I have asked myself and my Heavenly Father what work I might humbly apply myself toward in this parish," Father Denis continued, "and I believe now at last that my prayers have been answered."
Armand waited with expectation.
"And do you know in what direction He has led my footsteps?" the heavily robed cleric asked him.
Armand did not know and shrugged in lieu of reply. Fortunately Father Denis did not require an answer.
"I have been led in the direction of enlightenment," the old priest said dramatically. "Enlightenment. One of God's finest gifts." He sighed and turned his gaze to Armand once more. "Not my
own enlightenment, which I seek unceasingly, of course, but the enlightenment of this parish."
Armand personally considered the parish sufficiently enlightened already, but he kept his silence.
"I inquired meekly of my Lord," Father Denis continued, his voice gaining conviction. "What can I do for these most lowly people? And the answer was sent me in His Holy Writ. Do you know the answer, my son?"
Armand shook his head mutely.
"The children. It is the children."
"The children?"
"Yes, the only way to enlighten this parish, these people, is through the children."
Armand felt a wave of uneasiness settle upon him. "What is your interest in the children, Father?"
"I want to teach them."
The wave of uneasiness became a churning in his stomach. "Teach them?"
"All of them. The way that I've taught you." He paused dramatically. "I want to begin a school."
Armand's jaw dropped in shock. There were schools in Vermilionville and large parishes in towns, but there were no schools among the small farmers of the prairies. There was no need for them.
"We will build a school by the church. All the boys in the parish will come here to learn their letters."
Armand shook his head, gathering his thoughts. It seemed to him that the old priest was going to be mightily disappointed.
"I'm not sure that all the families would be interested in schooling," he said.
The old man nodded sagely and patted at nonexistent lint on the length of his robe.
"That is why I have sought you out, Armand," he said. "I have talked to a few of the parents and, as you say, there is some resistance."
Some resistance, Armand thought to himself, was undoubtedly an understatement.
"Many cannot spare their boys for school," he told the priest diplomatically.
Father Denis huffed in disapproval. "Well, they certainly will learn to. We shall require that all attend."
Armand's brow furrowed.
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