Under the Cajun Moon

by Mindy Starns Clark

  The irony was not lost on Jacques. After all that the two hundred fleurde-lis had cost him, now he was heading across the sea with a fleur-de-lis of his very own. Too bad it was one he didn’t want.

  It wasn’t until the boats were untied and continuing on their journey that he allowed himself to take in the vast skyline of the city where he had always lived, the city he loved. As they passed under bridge after bridge, Jacques looked up at the faces of the people who were lining the rails. Word had obviously spread about the seabound newlyweds, and everywhere along the way folks were staring down at them in curiosity.

  As the boat approached the Pont Royal, Jacques turned his face downward, fearing that if the royal goldsmith saw him he might have him pulled from the journey and returned to the asylum. Once past the bridge, Jacques dared to steal a glance toward the Tuileries, the place where he and Angelique had first met.

  What he saw there on the riverbank would haunt his dreams forever.

  Standing alone, a dark cape draped around her petite shoulders, was Angelique herself. Their eyes met, and even from that distance he could see the hurt and the loss and surprise there. She really had loved him, but in the end it made no difference. Jacques realized that their love was never meant to be, that what had been doomed from the start was never going to happen.

  Still, that knowledge didn’t stop Jacques from loving her with all of his heart, a heart that was now breaking in two. As they floated past, Jacques turned so that he could keep watching her as she stood there alone on the banks of the Seine looking back at him. He stayed that way for a very long time, until Angelique was nothing more than a single dot on the horizon, and then she disappeared.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Half an hour later, we reached what Travis called Duck Lake. We still hadn’t heard back from Wade about Josie and the police, so Travis suggested that we make landfall. He said we could wait things out at his cabin, which was a short way up a nearby bayou, but that we’d have to be very quiet getting there, lest one of his friends or relatives hear us out on the water and spread the news on the local grapevine, news which might eventually leak out to the police.

  If Wade eventually called with good news, telling us that Josie had confessed or the killer had been found or the charges against me had been dropped or anything along those lines, then all we would need to do next would be to get across the bayou to Travis’ aunt’s house, which offered a choice of several vehicles we could borrow and access to a road. If Wade called with bad news, well, at least we would be safe and dry in the meantime and in a far better position to regroup and plan our next course of action.

  When he finally turned in toward a dock, I was pleased to see that his place was much nicer than I had expected. From what I could tell in the moonlight, it was more like a cute little house than a camp, set back from the water with a covered picnic area along one side.

  We got out of the boat and tied it there, but instead of heading up toward the house, Travis simply looked around for another big stick on the ground, picked it up, and began whacking at some bushes near an upside down canoe.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Where are we?”

  “This is my cousin T-Ray’s house. He’s out of town for a while, so I know he won’t mind if we borrow his canoe.”

  “But why?”

  “I tol’ you, cher. Noise. We got to go up the bayou to get to my camp, and we can’t risk running a motor.”

  Travis Naquin was simply pushing me too far. An aluminum fishing boat was bad enough, but now he expected me to climb aboard a canoe and paddle the rest of the way? Incredible!

  “You honestly expect me to go out in that little thing in the middle of the night, in the dark, in the swamp?”

  Travis seemed genuinely perplexed at my objections. As he flipped the canoe over and pushed it toward the water, he asked me what on earth was wrong with it, that this was a birchbark canoe, worth far more than the old motorboat we had just gotten out of.

  “This is a gorgeous piece of equipment.”

  “Travis, I don’t care if it wins a beauty contest. I am not getting in that boat.”

  Ignoring my objections, he simply climbed into the back and settled himself there.

  “Okay, cher, then you can just stay here and take your chances with the snake that’s hanging in the tree over your head.”

  With a squeal I raised my purse over my head as protection and got into the canoe. Once I was safely settled inside, purse tucked under the wooden slat, I looked back toward the tree. Sure enough, a snake was clearly visible there on a branch directly above where I’d been standing, its red, black, and white bands practically glowing in the moonlight.

  “Don’t worry, cher. It’s just a milksnake. Even if it bit you, it wouldn’t kill you.”

  I was fuming after that, astounded that he could be so insensitive about this on the very day I had almost been bitten by a poisonous snake. At first I wasn’t sure if Travis didn’t notice the intensity of my emotion or simply didn’t care, because he handed me a paddle and told me to pick a side and a rhythm and he would follow. I did as he said, silently working out my anger with the paddle against the water. After we were well underway, Travis surprised me by suddenly apologizing for what had happened back there, saying that we had to keep moving and that meant doing whatever it took to get me into the canoe. Before I could even reply, he told me that we shouldn’t talk from there on out.

  Taking a few deep breaths, I acknowledged his apology with a nod and forced myself to calm down. The snake hadn’t been poisonous and it hadn’t bitten me. That’s all that mattered—that and the fact that I was currently paddling through waters that held far more dangerous creatures. At least Travis had had the decency to apologize, which was something I encouraged often in my etiquette lessons but that many people found almost impossible to do.

  With the sharp bow of the canoe smoothly moving through the water, I focused on my paddling rhythm and how good it felt to work the muscles in my arms and shoulders. At least the moon was nearly full, so we didn’t have to use the flashlight. The night noises were in force here too, but I had almost grown accustomed to them by now. It helped that as my eyes adjusted to the light, I could spot a jumping fish now and then, which was one reason for the incessant plops. I didn’t see any alligators, though they were probably lining our journey on both sides of the bayou.

  As we paddled along, I decided that I might survive. I was still scared, but the bayou was smooth as glass here, and the canoe felt more stable than I had expected, so at least I wasn’t afraid that we might end up capsizing into the black void below. At one point, I spotted another snake, this one zigzagging down the waterway. It was long and black, but as it was swimming away from us, not toward us, I wasn’t going to let myself panic.

  Mostly, I tried to focus on all we had learned and all we still needed to know. My mind kept going back to the treasure, the very thing that had started all of this, not to mention my new knowledge that an old salt mine existed underneath Paradise. The two had to be connected somehow. Either my father had first found the treasure down inside the mine or he had hidden it there later—or maybe even both. Treasure or not, I wondered who also knew about the source of the secret salt. Surely Alphonse Naquin was aware of it, but perhaps no one else was.

  In any event, I could only hope that Travis had a Louisiana map at his place. We still lacked two of the numbers we needed in order to find the treasure, but at least we had four: my father’s, which was 45; Conrad’s, which was 16; Sam’s, which was 18; and Ruben’s, which was 29. Using the coordinates of Paradise as our starting point, my hope was that we could juggle around the numbers and narrow down the range well enough to pinpoint the general location of the treasure.

  On the other hand, if the numbers we had so far in no way matched any of the coordinates of Paradise, then we’d know that we were on the wrong track and Paradise hadn’t been the site of t
he treasure’s hiding place after all.

  We rounded a wide curve of the bayou, and I could hear a stereo playing not too far up ahead. I turned and looked at Travis, but he merely held a finger to his lips. The closer we got, I realized that the music was live, not recorded, and that it was coming from a large, well-lit camp up on the right. It looked as though the dock and structures there were decorated with hundreds of tiny white lights, and they reflected on the water’s surface like stars. Given how far out that light projected over the water, I couldn’t imagine how we were ever going to make it past that house without being spotted. I needn’t have worried. Before we reached the light, Travis tapped me on the shoulder and pointed off to the left, to a dock that was hidden in the shadows.

  Aiming our craft toward that dock, we paddled silently until we pulled alongside and Travis leaned forward, whispering in my ear.

  “I haven’t been here in a while, so you had better stay in the canoe while I clear the way.”

  By “clear the way,” I thought he meant he wanted to straighten up inside, as in throw the dirty clothes in the hamper or something. Instead, he got up on the dock still holding his oar and softly tapped it against the boards, making his way toward the porch. That’s when I realized that when he said he would clear the way he was talking about snakes. The tapping went on so long I was afraid the people across the bayou might hear, but their music was playing so loudly that I realized it wasn’t likely. When Travis finally gave me the all clear, I gingerly climbed from the canoe onto the dock and then we both hauled the craft up onto the grassy bank, got our things out of it, and turned it upside down.

  Once inside, Travis propped his gun beside the door and then pulled back the curtains to let in the moonlight. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for us to be able to see, so he fumbled around in a closet and ended up hanging towels and blankets over each window, even though they all had shades on them already. He went outside to do a sight test and I flipped on the overhead light for the count of three and then back off again. When he came back in, he fixed the corner of one window and then put the light back on for good, saying that except for that one corner, you couldn’t tell from outside that the light was on inside.

  “And we can talk in here?” I whispered.

  “As long as we keep it soft,” he replied.

  Now that the place was illuminated, I looked around to see that it was a simple cabin consisting of one large room that functioned as a bedroom, living room, and kitchenette all in one. To one side was a bathroom and to the other was an exterior door that likely led to some sort of yard. I had been curious to see Travis in his element, but this place didn’t tell me much about him. With its tan walls and light brown couch and bedspread, it seemed sort of bland and boring—words that I would never have used to describe Travis himself.

  About the only decorative touches in the whole place were old record albums that had been framed and hung on the walls. Looking at them more closely, I realized that they were all Louisiana related, mostly jazz interspersed with Cajun and zydeco.

  “Lache Pas La Patate?” I asked, reading one of the album titles.

  “Yeah, it’s an old Cajun saying: ‘Don’t drop the potato.’”

  “What’s it mean?”

  Travis went to a cabinet in the kitchen area and began rooting through the cans, obviously hoping to find something we could eat for dinner.

  “I’ve heard it used two ways. Sometimes it just means ‘don’t give up’ or ‘hang in there.’ Most of the time, it’s more specific than that and means ‘don’t let go of what’s truly important, particularly your Cajun heritage.’”

  I came over to the counter and sat on the bar stool there, watching as Travis pulled out several types of soup, chili, and beef stew.

  “I can’t imagine what that would be like, to belong to something that way.”

  “What do you mean, cher? You’re French Creole, aren’t you? That’s something to belong to.”

  “Not these days. In the beginning, of course, early Creoles formed a very tight-knit people group, from what I understand. But that’s back when ‘Creole’ meant one thing, someone who was born in the New World to parents who were from the Old.” I added that over the years the term had slowly shifted and changed so much that nowadays most people weren’t even sure what Creole meant anymore. “Some people think it’s just a style of cooking. Others think that’s what you call someone of mixed race, or anyone in Louisiana with a French surname. Take your pick. How can I belong to something that nobody even knows what it is?”

  Smiling, Travis admitted that I had a good point.

  “Listen,” he added, “I could go outside and run lines or do some frogging or something and catch us a nice dinner, but I just don’t dare, considering how busy things are across the water. Somebody might spot me. Right now, I think the best I can offer is this enticing array of canned goods.”

  “At least it’s food,” I said, realizing that I was hungry. “My vote’s for the beef stew.”

  “Beef stew it is,” he replied, returning the other cans to the cabinet.

  “Anyway, from what I can see, being Cajun is really significant—it’s an identity, a community, a way of life, a style of music, a form of cooking, a language…” My voice trailed off as I couldn’t think of how to say what I wanted to say. How could I explain that I had spent my entire life on the outside looking in, in almost every circumstance? Whether at school, work, or play, I had never found a place where I belonged. Even in my own nuclear family I was the third wheel, the one left out in the cold while my parents enjoyed living in their little nation of two. “I’m just envious, I guess. It must feel good to be a part of such a thriving people group, even one that has suffered persecution as the Cajuns have. The whole Cajun experience defines you. It lets you be who you are within a safety net of absolute acceptance.”

  Travis was quiet as he opened the stew, dumped it onto two paper plates, and heated the first one in the microwave.

  “Chloe, do you know what people called you behind your back when we were teenagers?” he asked suddenly.

  The microwave beeped.

  “Ice Queen?” I replied, stiffening.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t sure if you knew.”

  Pulling out the plate, he added a fork and a paper towel for a napkin then slid both across the counter to me. I looked down at the stew, my appetite suddenly waning, wondering why he had brought that up.

  “Even back then,” he explained, “I knew it wasn’t true. The guys all said that you were snobby and aloof, but that’s not the Chloe I could see. The Chloe I saw made herself an outsider on purpose, not because she was a snob, but because she didn’t know how to be an insider. Just now, to hear you talking about Cajuns like that, I have to wonder if that’s what the problem was, the whole safety net thing. Have you never had in your whole life the feeling that you belonged somewhere and that you were totally loved and accepted?”

  I was dumbfounded, not just that he had had the nerve to say that to me, but that he had been so incredibly perceptive. I’m not sure why I was surprised. He was, after all, the first one to fully believe my innocence after I was released from jail. Obviously perceptiveness was his special gift.

  “Eugenie and Sam. They gave me lots of love. But even as a very little girl I can remember standing at the sink with Eugenie, washing dishes together, and wishing my arms were dark brown like hers instead of pale and freckled like mine. Of course, I was just a kid. I didn’t understand the issues they faced, had never heard of civil rights, and didn’t know what prejudice was. All I knew was that I wanted so much to be their daughter. I guess, even then, I didn’t really belong. One look at my blue eyes and blond hair made that obvious. An outsider yet again.”

  A beep announced that the microwave was finished, and Travis pulled out his plate of stew. He set it on the counter and then surprised me by reaching out and taking both of my hands in his. I thought he was going to say something important to me, but instead he
simply bowed his head and asked a blessing for our food. After his “amen,” he gave my hands a squeeze and let go.

  “Ah, well, at least you always have the love of your heavenly Father,” he said before taking a bite of his stew. “He is love, after all.”

  “Yep, as long as I follow all the rules.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I swallowed my bite of the stew and dabbed at my mouth with the paper towel.

  “Religion. It’s filled with rules. Do this, don’t do that. Don’t get me wrong, that’s one of the things I’ve always liked about the Bible, that it lays things out very clearly. I guess you could say it was the original guide to etiquette.”

  Travis looked at me, his mouth agape.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The Bible might have rules for living a more godly life, cher, but not for being loved. God’s love doesn’t hinge on anything. It just is.”

  Leaving his stew to get cold on the table, Travis moved to a small desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a Bible. For the next ten minutes, he went through it, reading me verses about the nature of God’s love, ones that he said showed how it was unilateral and undeserved and unearned and unfailing and unending. As he read and talked, I began to think that he was right: God’s love wasn’t earned, as I had assumed, it just was. Here I’d been afraid to pray for fear of seeming like an ingrate, when in fact Travis said God didn’t care what I came to Him about as long as I came to Him!

  “This is what real love looks like, cher. It’s about grace, not rules. Yes, there is judgment, and that judgment is fierce and eternal. But even that comes out of God’s love. He sent his Son so that whosever believes can come. You don’t have to be on the outside looking in on that one. There’s your safety net, cher. There’s your acceptance. If you’re a believer like you say you are, then you’re in.”

  In any other situation, I might have felt that I was being preached at or talked down to, but Travis was just so genuinely enthusiastic that it didn’t come across that way. In fact, as he continued to share with me from the Bible and from his heart what the character of God really looked like, a new understanding began to dawn on me. Many of the things Travis told me I had heard before, but somehow the way he explained them made sense in a whole new way.