Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

Aida was still blushing.

  "I . . . I, too, have one cracked," he said, showing her a lower incisor. "Laron once hit me in the mouth with a poling tool."

  She smiled broadly.

  "You must learn to duck," she told him.

  Her humor was unexpectedly contagious and Armand actually grinned back. "With my lack of height, mamselle, I had never before needed to!"

  She actually giggled at his joke.

  It was a warm, pleasant moment. Reminiscent of the friendship long past. Perhaps Monsieur Sonnier did not really like her, but he was willing to tolerate her ignorance for the sake of Prairie l'Acadie and Orva Landry. And he had seen her, he had seen her flaw. Strangely she found that pleased her.

  "I promise to do my best to learn what Madame Landry tries to teach me," Aida vowed to him. "And for your sake, I will not act any more silly than I can help."

  Those words raised his eyebrows and Aida wished she could call them back. She would look smarter, of course, to pretend that she didn't know that she wasn't smart. Oh how she wished he were more like the other fellows, like Placide or Ignace or even Laron. If she could just tease and flirt with him then it would be so easy. But Armand Sonnier was much too intelligent to be fooled by such nonsense. And nonsense was all that she had to offer.

  "Are you two conjuring up a love affair?" Orva Landry called out to them.

  Armand jumped back as if a shot had been fired, clearly horrified. Aida swallowed hard and kept her chin high as inwardly she writhed in humiliation, wondering if Madame Landry had somehow known the direction of her thoughts.

  With deliberate purpose she forced a little giggle from her throat. "Oh, we are going to be much too busy for that this morning," she said. "You have promised to show me how to lessen Poppa's joint pain with potato shavings."

  "That I will," the old woman said. "I will indeed. Well, mon fils," she said to Armand. "Go fetch your pen and paper if you are to write down my words."

  "Oui, Madame," he answered and headed for the house.

  Aida watched him go for a moment and then moved to Madame Landry's side, seating herself in the cool earth at her feet.

  "I am so glad he is going to help me," she said. "I could never remember all this."

  "Of course he will help," Orva said waving away her concern.

  "I was afraid for a moment that he would not," Aida admitted.

  The old woman smiled vaguely. "Things always work out exactly how they are meant," she said. "Remember that, young one, exactly how they are meant. Fate. It's just that at times we are so stubborn, we cannot trust in that to be."

  Aida frowned at her words, not understanding. The voices themselves couldn't be any harder to comprehend. She hoped that Madame Landry would speak more plainly. It was going to be difficult enough to fathom the treater’s knowledge without the rarities of language.

  In fact, the afternoon proved to be a lot less difficult for Aida than she would have imagined. She was honestly surprised at how much she already knew about the herbs. Santolina and tansy. Marjoram and feverfew. They were as familiar to her as jasmine and marigold. And even the cures themselves seemed rather straightforward and commonsense. Not at all the strange spiritual world that she imagined.

  "To get rid of head lice, you wash the hair in whiskey and powder it with sand," the old woman explained. "The lice will get drunk on the whiskey and the sand will make them think they are down on the ground. They'll fight each other to the death over territory."

  "Really." Aida shook her head in amazement. Then resolutely committed the story to memory. Drunk lice will fight on sand.

  "Now if it's body lice," Madame Landry continued, "it's a completely different problem.

  Aida nodded, listening, deliberately trying to commit Madame Landry's words to memory. It was challenging and very difficult. She was so very grateful that Monsieur Sonnier was writing everything down.

  She glanced momentarily in his direction. He was sitting nearby them on a cane-seat chair. His legs were crossed, right ankle on left knee, with the breadboard he'd appropriated from Madame Landry's kitchen serving as a writing surface.

  The tiny bottle of blue-black ink was uncorked and held securely with the two fingers that also steadied the paper. He was obviously listening, but he kept his eyes on his efforts, writing continuously, with only occasional hesitations to re-ink his point.

  His face, shaded by the wide-brimmed hat, was not visible to her. So Aida allowed herself to look more closely at the rest of him. From her place on the ground and with the distance separating them, Armand didn't appear little or boyish. It was curious actually how people talked of him as if he were a small, frail man. He may have been ill in his youth, but now, in fact, he looked to Aida to be anything but.

  Normally he wore trousers, which Aida generally preferred on men, being so much more fashionable. Today however he was clad in Acadian culotte and buttonless cottonade shirt. The traditional costume suited him somehow. He looked natural. He looked attractive. Aida was somewhat surprised at her own thought. She scrutinized his appearance more carefully as if checking her conclusion.

  His shoulders were actually quite broad. Oh, certainly not as broad as perhaps Laron's, but much broader than his hips, which were narrow and lean. The afternoon sun was warm and the sweat-dampened cottonade of his clothing clung tightly to his form. Aida found herself measuring the length of his torso and the width of his chest. He was fit and healthy, robust even. There was no evidence of the sickly scholar.

  Her glance skittered past the frighteningly foreign territory at the crotch of his pants, lingering along the thick muscled length of his thigh, at the very top of which she could detect just the hint of a round masculine backside. Oh how she would love to touch it.

  The idea shot through her like the heat of lightning and she wiggled a bit uncomfortably on the hard ground where she sat. What a strange notion to have!

  Determinedly she tried to concentrate once more on what Madame Landry was saying.

  "Put a small piece of mutton tallow to a jigger of snake oil and set it near the fire. When it's melted, add in twelve drops of attar of roses."

  Aida's attention once more strayed to the man seated at a distance from her. Primly she withdrew her gaze from the not quite proper perusal of his nether person to the much more socially acceptable view of his limbs.

  His culotte was tied neatly at the base of his knee. Below them his calves were bare, or mostly so. Even at a rail length or more, Aida could see the profusion of tawny brown hair that festooned the well-muscled curve of his leg.

  Aida swallowed, but her mouth was surprisingly dry.

  Short men should have short legs, stubby legs, she thought to herself. But Armand was not built so. He was perfectly proportioned, as if his growth had not been stunted as everyone said, but as if God intended for him to look exactly the way that he did. And what God made, He made perfectly.

  Aida allowed her eyes to wander the length of his naked limbs, curious and admiring. With the wearing of culottes Aida was familiar with the shape of men's legs. At the fais-dodo or special dances the younger fellows often tried to draw attention to them by tying multicolored bows at their knees, occasionally with flowing streamers. Even in the coldest part of winter when their nakedness was covered by durable thigh-high Indian moccasins, leather fringes were attached to draw the eye. And the action of the gentlemen's bow was obviously designed to show the male limb to best advantage. Aida had cast her glance on many legs, but none had ever before held her attention.

  The intriguing fleece of masculine hair stopped abruptly upon the top of his foot, which was rather long and narrow. His toes were well-shaped and lean, the second one slightly longer than the first. The sole she observed was callused and rough, a testament to the roads he traveled. His instep was high-arched and graceful, somehow giving the perception of both beauty and strength.

  Beauty and strength. She had never associated either word with this man. No, not Armand Sonnier. Yet somehow, sud
denly now, she knew both words described him. She allowed her gaze to wander back over the length of leg, the thighs covered in closely clinging cottonade, the curve of his handsome derriere, the strong muscled chest, the deceptively broad shoulders, the noble jut of his chin, those brightly honest blue eyes. His—

  Brightly honest blue eyes!

  He was staring straight at her.

  Aida lowered her gaze immediately, but couldn't keep it down. Glancing up again, she saw she had been right. He was looking at her, straight at her, right at her. She couldn't turn away. He must have seen her watching him, examining him. He must be able to see right inside her. He must know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. The flesh on her body mottled with goosebumps. Her womb quivered like jelly. Her bosom was tight and high, the nipples puckered beneath the covering of her clothes. She didn't even know what she was thinking or feeling. Aida wasn't sure if she could still breathe. Her lips parted, inviting air into her lungs, but the lower one trembled, trembled with something akin to fear.

  "Of course, if all else fails you can rub parsley into it. Armand? Are you not writing this down?"

  Madame Landry's words penetrated to both of them. When he glanced away, Aida found that she could, too. Determinedly she concentrated her attention upon her own lap. She ached there. It was unfamiliar, unfathomable, and physical. Her hands were trembling. She clasped them together.

  He didn't like her, she reminded herself. He thought her foolish and frivolous. He wanted her to marry his best friend. But what did that look, that intensity, what did it mean? She was the most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River. A lot of men had looked at her. But no man had ever looked at her like that.

  Tears welled in her eyes. She wasn't sure if the emotion she felt was sadness or joy. Armand Sonnier looked at her and her whole world was changed.

  "Now to make a charm against it," Orva continued, "you slice a real thin piece of old smoked bacon, the older the better. You stitch it into a piece of flannel and blacken it all over with pepper. Warm it until it's all as one and then fasten it with a string right into the craw of a man's throat."

  "We are going to the fais-dodo," Armand told Laron determinedly. "And you are going to patch things up with Aida Gaudet."

  Laron was poling the pirogue in the right direction, the evening's entertainment was to be at the home of Thertule Guidry, but he was distinctly uninterested in the outing.

  Armand was sitting in the bottom of the boat. Armand was his best friend in the whole world. But Armand didn't have any idea of the way things were in his heart.

  "I will go," Laron told him. "This is my community and family. I never want to be separated from them. But I no longer intend to wed Aida Gaudet. I will have Helga, Armand. I will have Helga or no one at all. You are my friend and the sooner you accept that, the better it will be for everyone."

  Armand shook his head. "Laron, it just cannot be. I know that you love her. I have known that for a very long time. But you cannot have her."

  "You once said that I could."

  Armand nodded. "I did say it, careless words, I said. But I was wrong."

  "Perhaps you are wrong now," Laron suggested.

  "I don't think so," he answered. "I don't think so. She is married, Laron. That cannot be changed. He may have been no good, he may have left her, but he is still her husband and there is just no way that it can ever be undone."

  Laron didn't reply. There was a way it could be undone. Laron had thought long and hard about that way. But he did not mention it to Armand. There were things a man knew about himself that he could not reveal even to his best friend. Laron knew that he was going to have Helga Shotz, openly, honestly, sanctioned by God and man. She was going to bear his name and he was going to be her husband. He knew that.

  And he also knew the only way for it to happen was for her to be a German widow indeed. Laron had decided. He must kill Helmut Shotz.

  "I think you have underestimated Mademoiselle Gaudet," Armand continued. "She is so very pretty that we have all failed to notice all the other fine things about her."

  "Hmmm." Laron was noncommittal.

  "I myself have been guilty of this. Certainly the woman is no great intellect. But I have allowed myself to be so blinded by her physical appearance that I have not noticed her innate good sense. I told you that Madame Landry is teaching her the charms and cures."

  "So I have heard."

  "She may not be clever, but she is diligent and determined," Armand continued. "It is the most a person could expect of another human being."

  Laron was no longer listening. He was remembering.

  He had tried to stay away. He knew that it was the thing to do. Until he could offer himself, until he had something to offer, he should keep his distance. Not just for her sake, or for his own, but for the children.

  He ached for Jakob's loving little-boy kisses, for Elsa's wide-eyed admiration, even for Karl's oft-times sullen companionship. The children loved and needed him and he realized, perhaps too late, that they were part of his heart.

  But even more he required Helga. He could not recall the day, the hour, the moment when he first knew that he loved her. But he did and there was no stepping back from it.

  The previous day he had been able to stand it no longer. He'd poled his way up Bayou Tortue hoping for a glimpse of her. He could be content with not even a word but he was starving for the sight of her. But it was not to be.

  As he approached the house a longing stirred inside him as familiarity warred with separation. He noticed a section of rotting shingles on the roof and thought to himself that he'd get Jean Baptiste and Armand to help him replace them. Then like a direct blow to the chest he recalled that it was not his house and that his help, even his presence, was no longer welcome. Who would help Helga now? Who would see that the roof over her head was sturdy and that she had stores for the winter?

  Elsa was in the yard pounding grain with the pile et pilon. She was young and strong and straight. A daughter any man would be proud to call his own. Her blond braids swung and slapped her back like ropes as her arms worked the pestle up and down into the hollowed-out log mortar. Across the distance of the water, Laron could hear the pop and shatter of corn being cracked. In memory he could taste once more that strange German version of fried coushe-coushe that Helga had so often served him for breakfast.

  "Oncle! Oncle!"

  Laron heard the cry before he saw the little fellow who uttered it. Jakob had come around from the far side of the house. He carried a carved gourd crawfish trap, but he cast it aside carelessly and raced to the end of the dock when he spotted Laron.

  "Oncle, where have you been?" he called out. "We have missed you so much."

  Elsa, too, had set her work aside and followed her brother, a little uneasily, to the end of the dock.

  Laron had not intended to stop. He had thought merely to pass by, to see from a distance those joys that he used to hold close with such casual unconcern. But he could not merely pass by. Not with young Jakob jumping up and down with delight on the dock. He steered the pirogue in the direction of the children. He even cast the line to Jakob to secure for him, but he did not disembark.

  That did not matter to the little boy who eagerly threw himself into Laron's arms. It took all his balance to keep the pirogue from tipping, but he wouldn't put the boy aside. It felt much too good to hold him close. Tightly the child hugged his neck, punctuated by a smacking kiss at his temple.

  "Mama said that you would not come back," he told Laron. "But I knew that you would. You love us and I told her so."

  "I do love you," Laron whispered as he felt the tears well up in his eyes. "I do love you all, and that is forever."

  "Karl said you are going to be like our poppa," he continued. "Not dead really, but as good as dead to us."

  "I am not at all and in no way like your poppa," Laron assured him, deciding for himself as the words came from his mouth. "No matter what happens between your mother and me,
I will never be dead to you until I am dead in fact."

  "Oh Monsieur Boudreau!" Elsa tearfully threw herself into his arms also. "Mama is so unhappy. Now you are back and everything will be wonderful again."

  The misery in her tone belied the hope in her words, but Laron could only press her tightly against him and pray that it could be so.

  "Get in the house!"

  The command was forceful and abrupt. All three looked up to see Helga's oldest son standing on the porch steps; the flintlock rifle Laron had given them for protection was in Karl's hands at the ready.

  "You children get in the house!" he repeated.

  "Shut up, Karl," Elsa hollered back. "Who made you the boss of anything?"

  "Oncle is here," Jakob told him. "I'm not going into the house without him."

  "You two mind your brother," Laron told them quietly. "Go on into the house. He and I need to talk."

  "He thinks he's the man of the house," Elsa complained. "Ordering us all around and Mama crying every night."

  "Go on inside, princesse," Laron said. "Your mother is in the house, is she not? She may need you beside her."

  Reluctantly the two stepped away. Elsa took Jakob's hand and they made their way past their older brother. Elsa didn't resist snapping one more word of dissent at Karl. Jakob took that opportunity to look back in longing at Laron, still standing in his pirogue.

  The children hesitated momentarily on the porch and then passed through the curtained doorway into the house.

  "Hello, Karl," Laron said finally.

  "Mama wants you gone from here," the boy answered.

  "Did she tell you to bring the gun?"

  The youngster was momentarily nonplussed. "It's your gun, I know. Do you want it back?"

  Laron shook his head. "No, no, certainly not. But it is meant for killing game and birds, not Acadians."

  Karl raised both his chin and the rifle muzzle in challenge. "Any Acadian who comes here to make my mother cry deserves killing."

  Laron almost smiled. The boy was a defender, a protector of the family. A man could ask no greater thing from a son.