Laron: He had fled to Texas.
Himself: A widow has rights over her husband's property.
Laron: I want to kill him.
Helga: I wish he were dead.
Aida: There must be some other way.
Madame Landry: You, mon fils, are the center of it.
Laron: There is a price on his head. He won't be back.
Helga: I would marry you in a moment.
Laron: I want to kill him.
Helga: I wish he were dead.
Aida: Armand, you are the answer.
Madame Landry: They call you the veuve allemande, the German widow.
Armand sat up immediately; he held himself still a long moment, thinking, waiting. Madame Landry was not one to speak careless words.
"I have told no lies about my marital status," Helga had answered her.
"It was I who first called you the German widow," the old woman replied.
Armand's eyes narrowed. She'd said something else. Something else important. Something that day, that very day she had said something else.
Armand strained his memory trying to recall. They were still sitting at the fire. They were drinking the badly brewed coffee and chatting about the house and Madame Landry had said . . . she'd said . . .
"No one knows what happened to him. The syndic, the judge we had then, had to declare him dead."
"The Spaniard," Armand whispered to himself.
He'd moved on or was killed in a drunken brawl. His belt buckle was found in a gator's belly.
Armand sat there, still, silent, waiting, waiting for a long, long moment. Then he jumped to his feet and whooped for joy.
"Armand?"
He heard Aida call to him and he turned in her direction. She was sitting up wrapped in the blanket, looking sleepy disheveled, and incredibly desirable.
"Armand, what is it?"
"I've figured it out!" he hollered, running toward her. "I understand the vision!"
Chapter 20
Felicite had finally given in to sleep. And the new baby, the one his wife had decided to call Jeanette, for him, was tucked in and sleeping soundly in the little reed-woven creche that had cradled her brothers and sister in their first weeks of life. Jean Baptiste had done what he had to do. He had cleaned up the baby, then his wife and the bed. He had taken the afterbirth and buried it in the fence row. He had fired off two rounds to announce to the neighbors that they had a new child, and it was a girl. He had done all this between frequent and hurried trips to the outhouse. The "love charm" that had been so unkind to his stomach intended, it seemed, to be equally unpleasant to his bowel.
"Are you still not feeling well?" his wife had asked him.
"I am fine," he told her, leaning down to brush her cheek. "I am as fine as any man can be."
"She's a pretty baby, isn't she?"
He nodded. "Oh yes, all our babies are."
"But she is especially so," Felicite insisted.
"She will always hold a special place in my heart," he said.
She smiled at him and her brow furrowed slightly. "I know that you were not happy about another baby so soon."
"I never said—"
"You don't have to say things, Jean Baptiste. I am your wife in all ways. I can sense how you feel."
"Well, I was wrong," he told her.
"I promise that we won't have another so soon."
"I don't recall that you are solely responsible for these children," he said. "And unless you wish to live apart from me I don't know how we are to stop them from arriving."
Felicite lowered her voice to a whisper, as if she feared the baby might hear. "Madame Landry says that I will not get pregnant if you pull yourself out before you expel the semen."
Jean Baptiste gave a wry shake of his head. "I begin to think that old woman doesn't like me much."
Felicite's expression registered surprise. "Why would you say that?"
"Never mind. I ... I was aware that a man can . . . withdraw his seed ... to spare a woman childbearing. Father Denis, of course, speaks against it. But when a wife is weak or ill . . . well, Acadian men say, what does a priest know of marriage?"
"I am not weak or ill," Felicite admitted.
"Do you want more children?"
"I want what you want."
"No Felicite, speak plain; you did so when you were in labor with our Jeanette. Speak plain to me now."
She swallowed hard and then looked him in the eye. "I love you, Jean Baptiste. I want you as my husband and I will do whatever it takes to keep you." She looked down at the tiny child she held in her arms. "I love babies. I love to hold them and touch them, they smell so good and smile so sweet. I would willingly have a dozen. But I can be content with these four if I have you in my arms."
He looked at her for a long, long moment. She was his Felicite. The girl that he had loved when they were too young to love. Yet she was not. She had become a woman. When he hadn't been watching, she had become a woman. If no other lesson was learned this night, he had understood at least that. She was a woman. And until now he had remained a boy.
He looked back over the last months, the last years, as time had left him untouched. He had longed for the warmth and security of marriage, but had grumbled under the weight of its responsibilities. He had relished the pleasure of having a wife and whined about the burden of keeping one. Not anymore.
"Felicite, do you ever worry about all those Boudreau children?"
"What?" She looked at him, puzzled at his question.
"Laron's parents, old Anatole and his wife, had fifteen children."
"Yes, I know."
"And all those children, except for Laron, are married now and having children of their own."
"So?"
"So who are all those Boudreau children going to marry, I ask you? They can't marry each other, and come mating time the Boudreau children are going to want to wed."
Felicite looked at him askance.
"Why, you get those frisky Boudreau boys desperate for loving," he continued, "and they are liable to marry some fat French woman or a Creole or, heaven forbid, an Americaine."
"Oh surely not."
"It could happen, my dear. It could happen." He leaned down and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her against him. "Who is going to marry up all those Boudreau children?"
"Who indeed?"
"Why, the Sonniers, of course," he answered.
"What exactly do you mean?" she asked.
"What I mean, my dear wife, is that perhaps it is our God-given duty to produce as many children as heaven sees fit to send our way."
"Jean Baptiste—"
"We won't do this selfishly, we'll do it for the poor Boudreau children."
Slowly, ever so slowly, she grinned. "I suppose we could, just for their sakes, of course."
"I love you, Felicite. Have I told you that recently?"
"Not recently enough."
"Well, Madame, it is very true. I love you. I love being the father of your children. And if we have only these four or fourteen more, I will love and want and cherish each and every one."
"I love you, Jean Baptiste."
He kissed her then, really kissed her, in a way that he hadn't done in months.
She looked up at him and sighed, starry-eyed, and he leaned down to place a tiny kiss on little Jeanette.
"Sleep now and rest, my love," he told her. "There will be little time to do so later."
He was right about that and she followed his suggestion. Now with night waning Jean Baptiste sat in the small hide-seat chair and watched the two of them in quiet, almost reverent repose. As soon as the sun was up there would be friends and family everywhere. There would be noise and music and jubilation. But right now, in the little room where Jean Baptiste had been born, in the room where he'd brought his young bride, in the room where he had seen with his own eyes the miracle of his daughter Jeanette, in this room and in this time there was wonderful peace.
He bowed his head.
It was full dawn when the baby awakened and Jean Baptiste brought her to her mother to nurse.
"Jean Baptiste," she noted with concern, "you did not sleep at all and you were so ill earlier in the evening."
"Don't worry, it was only a passing thing, something I ate. I'm feeling much better," he assured her.
"You're still looking quite pale."
He shrugged and gestured toward the baby clinging greedily to her breast. "You two look very lovely."
Felicite blushed with pride.
The sound of a boat bumping against the dock captured their attention.
"Someone is here," Jean Baptiste said.
"Already? It's hardly morning."
"I'll see who it is and keep them at bay if I think I should," he said from the doorway, turning back to give her a teasing wink.
With all his running outside every few minutes through the night, he'd never bothered to close the door, and the curtains twirled lightly in the morning breeze.
"Poppa! Poppa!" He heard Gaston's voice before he saw him. Sure enough, Jacque Savoy was tying his pirogue at the dock. It was full to bursting with his three children, Madame Landry, and Tante Celeste.
"Monsieur Savoy says he heard the shots and that Mama has had the new baby and it's a girl," Gaston continued shouting.'
"Gaston has Pierre, now I have someone, too," Marie declared. "What's her name, Poppa? What's her name?"
His two oldest children had jumped from the pirogue and were running toward him. Jean Baptiste hurried to meet them. Gaston got there first and he grabbed the boy up and kissed him. He did the same for little Marie, delightedly informing her that yes indeed the new baby was a girl like her and that her name was Jeanette.
"Jeanette!" Marie exclaimed. "That's pretty."
"And so is she," Jean Baptiste answered. "Your mama is feeding her, but if you tiptoe in and are very quiet, she will let you have a look."
The two scrambled toward the house.
Jean Baptiste leaned down to take Pierre from Tante Celeste's arms and helped her and then Madame Landry up onto the cypress planking.
"We could hardly believe the child came so soon," Tante Celeste told him. "We just had to hurry and see."
"Go ahead," he urged her, and the old woman followed the children with the hope of seeing the newborn.
"Mighty bad stroke of luck," Jacque Savoy commented. "Taking Madame Landry upriver on just the night you was going to need her. Did you find some other woman to help you?"
"No," he answered. "My wife and I managed on our own."
The man shook his head and wandered off in the direction of the house.
Jean Baptiste propped young Pierre on his hip and turned unhappily to face Madame Landry. She was grinning broadly.
"You're looking a little pale this morning, Jean Baptiste. Could it be something that you ate?"
"What the devil was in that 'love charm'?" he asked.
She snorted inelegantly. "There is no such thing as a love charm. Folks think that there is, but it's just foolishness."
"You said it was a love charm," he pointed out.
"Oh no, I said that I wanted Armand to tell you that it was a love charm."
"You wanted Armand to lie to me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"So you would eat it," she said.
"You knew it would make me sick," he said.
She nodded. "I knew it would make you sick," she admitted. "Just miserable sick, not sick unto death."
"Why would you want me to be sick?" he asked.
"I knew that your wife would be delivering last night; all the signs were there. Once you ate my little surprise, you'd be too sick to go for help, but not so sick as to be no use at all."
"Let me understand this," he said, getting testy. "You knew my wife was to give birth last night and you purposely went upriver where I couldn't get you and fed me something to make me sick?"
The old woman was thoughtful for a long moment. "Yes," she agreed. "That's about right."
"Why?"
"That's how love charms work."
"You said there is no love charm."
Madame Landry gave him a long look and chuckled. "You're in love with her again, aren't you?"
Jean Baptiste didn't answer.
They had reached the porch and he heard his wife telling Tante Celeste about the night's events.
"It was the easiest labor I ever had," she was saying. "Not more than a couple of hours altogether and the baby just slipped right out. I didn't even tear at all."
He felt his lips pulling into a grin. He glanced toward Orva Landry, who was still gazing speculatively at him.
"Oh yes, Madame," he answered. "I am very much in love with her again."
It took two days to pole back up the Vermilion River to Prairie l'Acadie. Neither Armand nor Aida had cause to regret the time. They were together and it gave him ample opportunity to convince Laron and Helga that Armand's plan would work.
"The point is that he probably is dead," Armand told them. "Madame Landry obviously thinks that he is or she would not have taken to calling Helga the German widow. Madame Landry never does anything without purpose."
Armand's words were confident and certain. Aida felt sure that he had found the answer and that he would make it work out.
She gazed up at him, loving him.
They had tied the pirogue to the back of the skiff. While she and Helga sat in the middle, Armand and Laron on either side used their poles in unison to propel the little craft and its passengers back upstream.
They were going back together, together forever. She and Armand and, she trusted Armand enough to believe, Laron and Helga, too.
"A declaration of death is as legal and indisputable as a corpse in the churchyard," Armand told them. "More so, for the corpse could be misidentified. Once the paper is written up, signed, and filed, Helmut Shotz will be the deadest man in Louisiana."
Clearly the two lovers were trying not to be overly hopeful. They wanted to believe, but were too frightened of the potential for disappointment.
"You wanted to kill him, Laron," Armand said. "You cannot. Even if you were to find him, you are not the type to take another man's life. Well, as your friend, I want to kill him, too. And unlike you, I may kill him with impunity, no knife or bullet required."
Aida felt pride swell up inside her. A man need not be big and forceful and dangerous to protect his family, to help his friends. If a man was smart enough and used his good sense and the knowledge he'd gained in the world, he could be as effective as the most able and valiant fighter.
"As judge appointed to this parish," he explained to them. "I can honor or disallow contracts. I can probate wills. I can rule on disputes of property or violence. And I can certainly declare one missing German dead. I need only to inscribe the appropriate papers and send them by messenger to the office of parish governance in New Orleans."
Laron and Helga glanced at each other, not speaking. It was as if both were holding their breath.
"Once that is done, Helmut Shotz will officially be as dead to us as he truly is."
Laron reached over to take Helga's hand. She looked near tears, but she raised her chin bravely to ask Armand the question.
"What if he is not dead? What if he were to return here?"
Armand's tone was tender, but his words were sure. "Then we shall take him into custody and send him down the river to the German coast to be executed."
"But he would be alive again," Laron pointed out.
"Not long enough to even bother to change the paperwork," Armand assured him.
The men looked at each other, silently assessing. Aida remembered what people had said of the two as boys when they got into trouble. When Laron couldn't bust them out, Armand would talk them out.
Sl
owly, so slowly, Laron began to nod his head.
"Do it, Armand," he said finally.
Aida watched the grin spread across her husband's face. "Once we've declared him dead," Armand continued, "then all of his property becomes yours,
Helga, free and clear. You can remarry and your children can be adopted by your new husband."
"If you want to," Laron pointed out, his mood now teasing. "You can still reject me like any woman anywhere."
The look in her eyes said that she would not.
"Will . . ." Helga hesitated, worried. "Will Laron's family accept this, accept us?"
"My family loves me," Laron told her quickly. "Because I love you and the children, they will also."
"And the entire community will accept you once Father Denis has given you his blessing."
Father Denis. Aida felt a nervous flutter herself. The old man was difficult and a stickler. It would be very hard to convince him to do anything that he thought might be remotely in the wrong.
"The old priest is the rub," Laron said, voicing Aida's own concern and shaking his head. "How will you ever get Father Denis to bless us? To marry us?"
Armand's expression turned sly. "I have a plan," he assured them. "Oh yes, I have a plan."
Chapter 21
Armand had not been able to talk with Father Denis immediately upon their return. Facing old Jesper Gaudet's wrath at not being present at the wedding of his only daughter and learning that he had a new niece took up most of the first day back.
There were almost as many congratulations for him and Aida as for Jean Baptiste and Felicite.
"You sly devil” his brother said to him. "All these last weeks every time I'd mention that woman's name, you'd talk like you thought she was dumb as a post and bow-legged besides. Now I find out you were secretly stealing her away from Laron."
"There was nothing between us before their engagement was broken," Armand assured him.
Jean Baptiste grinned. "Nothing spoken I am certain. But I've known you too long, my brother. You do nothing on impulse. For you, things are always thought through."
Armand found that he couldn't deny that.
The two were standing together near the barn, surveying what they had on hand of timber and brick, pulleys and building materials. Jesper Gaudet had looked horrified when Aida had suggested that perhaps they live with him. Both she and Armand had thought the old man would be loath to allow his only child to move from home and leave him to fend for himself. To their surprise he indicated with absolute conviction that the newlyweds should have a separate house.
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