Under the Cajun Moon

by Mindy Starns Clark

  I wanted to call down to Travis and my mother and tell them what I had found. First, though, I tried climbing up the salt boulders a short way, just to see if they would be stable enough to hold me. Torn between wanting to go further and wanting to let them know that for the first time we had real hope, I was ecstatic when I heard the sound of my mother’s voice coming toward me and then I saw her approaching with her lighted phone.

  “Chloe, you’re okay!” she cried, coming to a stop at the bottom of the pile of salt boulders. “You were gone so long I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  “Look!” I cried triumphantly, pointing toward the ceiling. She looked up, and when she spotted the sunlight coming through the crack, her filthy, exhausted face burst into a beautiful smile.

  “Mom, my phone died. Can you try sending the text with yours?”

  As she did, I started to make my way back down the pile of rocks toward her, ignoring sharp edges digging into the skin of my feet. One of the rocks tilted when I put my weight on it. Scrambling to regain my balance, I knocked against one of the biggest chunks, dislodging it from near the top and causing it to roll down the back of the pile. It landed with a crash against the tunnel wall, busting through a surface I had thought was salt but sounded more like wood. As the dust settled, I peered into the cavern that the collision had exposed.

  “It worked, Chole! It sent the text out!”

  Standing atop the pile of rocks in my bare feet, I was torn between wanting to explore the newly opened cavern and wanting to see what text messages my mother might get in return. Looking from her to the opening, I was about to make a decision when I thought I heard Travis calling to us from far away.

  Scrambling down the rock pile, I told my mother to stay there and wait for any return messages while I went to answer Travis. Of course, I had only gone a few feet when I realized I had no way to illuminate my path. I could have borrowed my mother’s phone, but we needed it to stay where it was in case texts came back to us.

  Keeping one hand on the wall and inching one foot at a time out in front of me, I proceeded through the darkness. Except for a few scrapes and bumps, that worked well, though I was still afraid I might walk right past the end of the tunnel and fall to the main chamber one floor below.

  Using the sound of Travis’ voice, I was able to call back and forth to him until I was fairly close—at least close enough to make out his words without an echo. As I did and I understood what he was saying, my stomach lurched.

  “Water, Chloe! Water is pouring in!”

  Dropping to my knees, I crawled the rest of the way until I reached the overhang and could look down at him. There, by the light of his iPhone, I could see Travis struggling to make his way up the ladder despite his injured arm, ribs, and knee. Below him at least a foot of water swirled furiously around the chamber.

  “How?” I cried. “Where’s it coming from?”

  “It’s like Lake Piegneur all over again,” Travis replied, looking up at me. “I should’ve known they were going to do something like this. They’re trying to drown us.”

  Horrified at this new turn of events, I tried to reach down and help Travis up the ladder, but the distance was just too far. With only one good arm, even if he made it to the top, he would never be able to heft himself up on the ledge and I had no way to pull him.

  But that was one bridge we didn’t have to cross. When the rung he was perched on cracked under his weight, he fell back into the water, the cell phone in his pocket dimming and then going black.

  Terror gripped at my heart at the return of complete darkness, but I had to remain calm for his sake.

  “Travis! Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  “I’m here, but I’ve got terrible news.”

  “What?”

  “It looks like I probably violated the warranty on my iPhone.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh despite the circumstances. Leave it to him to make a joke at a time like this.

  “My mother got a text out. Someone will come and rescue us soon.”

  “If we don’t drown first,” he replied, his voice echoing against the walls.

  “Try climbing up again,” I urged, wishing desperately that I could see. “Can you find the ladder?”

  “I think it fell. Let me see.”

  I heard splashing sounds.

  “Found it. No, wait. This is just part of it. Feels like it split clean in half.”

  My heart sank. Without a ladder, he couldn’t come up—and I couldn’t go down.

  “This is not our lucky day,” I said.

  “With one arm, a bad knee, and some broken ribs, I think I was out of luck anyway.”

  Lying down on my stomach on the salt floor, I reached out into the darkness, wishing I could lift him up beside me.

  “Maybe the water will float you up,” I said. “By the time it reaches this level, you can swim right to me.”

  “Guess that’s the only option we have left, cher.”

  As the water continued to rise, I asked Travis where it was coming from and what he had meant about Lake Piegneur. He gave the short version, explaining that about forty years ago an entire lake in south Louisiana had been lost down a salt mine. An oil company had been drilling in the wrong place by mistake when their drill bit punctured through the ceiling of a mine. Like pulling the stopper from a bathroom drain, the lake began to pour through the resulting hole, filling the empty caverns of the mine and forming a whirlpool in the lake that sucked down the drilling platform, eleven barges, and something like sixty-five acres of surrounding terrain.

  “Is that what you think the Henkins did here? Punctured the mine?”

  “They must have. I don’t know how much time we have, but if help doesn’t get here soon, Chloe, we’re done for.”

  “Hang on, Travis. I know you can do this.”

  Unable to see anything, I had no way of knowing how quickly the water was coming in. I refused to think about drowning. Most of all, I just wanted Travis to be safe, to be next to me on this level, where we could make our way together through the darkness to my mother.

  “How high is it now?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “It’s at my waist. You may be right. In the end I might just float up to you, if I can tread water that long.”

  All I could do was lie there and keep talking to the man I loved as the water rose around him. He continued to update me on its progress, and finally it was too deep for him to stand. Treading water with his injuries was harder than he had expected, and though I tried to keep him talking, I could tell by his voice that he wasn’t going to last long.

  “Listen, Chloe,” he said in a voice filled with pain, “if I don’t make it, tell TJ—”

  “No!” I cried. “Tell him yourself. I’m coming in. Watch out.”

  Before he could reply, I scooted off the ledge, feet first, and passed through what felt like a mile of air before I hit the cold water. Plunging down into it, I forced myself not to panic lest I forget which way was up. Instead, I simply held my breath and let my body rise to the surface until it popped out and I could breathe again.

  “Where are you?” I called as my teeth began to chatter, though whether from cold or fear I wasn’t sure. Floating in complete blackness was a horrifying feeling—scarier, even, than jumping off the ledge had been.

  “Right here,” he replied from not too far away. “Chloe, you’re crazy.”

  “About you, yeah,” I said, paddling toward his voice until I felt his hand reaching for me. Moving closer, I slipped my arm around him to hold him up, and together we managed to propel ourselves to the wall. There wasn’t much there to hold on to, but at least we could stabilize ourselves against something solid.

  “Got any more boats handy?” I joked, thinking of the endless series of watercraft we had gone through yesterday. But then the image of that sideways boat outside filled my mind, the one that had long ago washed ashore in a hurricane. Trying to distract us both, I asked Travis to tell me more
about it, if he had any idea what the C and M still visible amid the faded letters stood for.

  “That boat belonged to my grandparents. I can’t quite remember, but now that you say C and M, I’m thinking it might’ve been called the Cajun Moon.”

  Something bumped against my leg underwater. Trying not to imagine what might be floating in there with us, I kicked it away and focused on the man I was holding in my arms.

  “The Cajun Moon? Travis, do you know what that means?”

  “No, what?”

  “My father’s poem. That boat is the thing ‘gone amiss.’ ”

  “ ‘ ’Tween hill and dale and dock and dune, It’s out there, under the Cajun moon,’ ” he replied slowly. “The treasure.”

  “The treasure. It must be buried under that boat, under the Cajun Moon.”

  Chuckling, we managed to hug there in the water, relieved at least that we had followed the recipe to the end.

  “Ah, cher,” Travis said, his breath warm and close. “Whether we make it or not, I want you to know—”

  “Shhh,” I whispered, holding a finger to his lips. “We are going to make it. I promise.”

  But, of course, I wasn’t nearly as sure as I made my voice sound. If this really was the end, more than anything I wished I could see his face one last time, that I could look into his eyes. I wanted it so badly that my imagination even began playing tricks on me, for it was as if I really could see him.

  I realized suddenly that I really could see him.

  Whipping my head upward, I blinked at the sight of blue, blue sky. The cap was sliding away from the mine’s opening.

  “Depending on who that is,” Travis whispered, “we’re either saved or we’re dead.”

  Peering upward, I watched as several faces appeared at the opening and voices called down to us. I held my breath until I knew for sure that these were friendly faces and not the Henkins. Sure enough, it sounded to me like the state police. With them was an old man, calling down to Travis.

  “Grandpere?” Travis replied. “C’est toi?”

  Could it possibly be Alphonse Naquin, the missing man himself?

  “Oui, c’est moi. Looks like I got here jus’ in the nick of time too. Pouyee, you two sure picked a strange place to go for a swim.”

  At least now I knew where Travis had come by his sense of humor.

  Soon a rope was dropped down and a rescue worker began descending into the shaft. He tried to take me up first, but I insisted that Travis should go. Travis, however, would have none of that, despite his injuries. Finally, I compromised by letting the guy lift me first, but just to the level of the tunnel my mother was on. Once there, I borrowed a waterproof flashlight from the rescuer and promised I would be back right away.

  “You and your mother should be able to get out at that end,” the man replied. “You’ll see what I mean when you get there.”

  Dripping wet, playing the light’s beam on the white walls, I raced back up the tunnel toward my mother. I found her standing atop the pile of rocks, looking up to where more rescue workers where breaking through the ceiling at the crack.

  “We did it, Mom!” I cried, mounting the pile of rocks to climb up and give her a hug. “We made it.”

  Despite my wet clothes, my mother surprised me by wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. She stopped short of saying she loved me, but somehow I knew that she did. A voice called through the widening hole above us, telling us to hang on just a few more minutes and they would have us out of there. My mother released me from the hug and sat down on one of the huge pink rocks.

  As we waited, I pointed my flashlight toward the small chamber that I had accidentally busted open earlier. From where I stood, I could see what looked like a very old wooden trunk, almost completely crusted over in salt, sitting inside. If my father’s treasure was buried under the Cajun Moon, then what was this?

  Holding my breath, I approached the trunk and forced open the lid. Nestled inside was row after row of fleur-de-lis statuettes. Even there in the semidarkness, their surfaces sparkled with gold.

  FORTY-ONE

  LOUISIANA, 1768

  With a smack, the baby’s first cry rang out loud and clear. Jacques could hear it through the window from where he sat out on the front porch in the rocking chair.

  “It’s a boy!” someone cried from inside. Like an echo, the words were repeated all over the house, upstairs and down, in voices both young and old.

  A boy, Jacques thought, grinning. After four great-granddaughters, it was good to hear that someone had finally given him a great-grandson. Angelique had never cared whether the newborns were boys or girls, merely that they were healthy. Judging by the chatter coming from the window, the child and mother were doing just fine—and that was good news for all.

  “Papa, did you hear? It’s a boy,” Simone said from the doorway. “Should I wake Maman and tell her?”

  “No, dear, I’ll do it. You take care of your new grandchild,” he replied, reaching for his cane.

  Gripping it tightly, Jacques rose carefully to a standing position. The old injuries ached even more today than usual, but somehow he didn’t mind. In one way or another, this family was going to continue forward through the generations. His four daughters had all married good men and carried on the bloodline, if not the Soliel name, to children of their own. Now the grandchildren were having children, and life was rolling along as it should.

  Moving slowly, Jacques ambled across the porch, down the front steps, and around the side of the house, choosing the well-worn path that led to the smaller home he and Angelique shared out back. She had been having a bad day and had taken to her bed soon after breakfast. Knowing their granddaughter was in labor, though, she had asked Jacques to keep vigil for both of them and to give her the news as soon as he had it.

  Pushing open the door to their house, Jacques stepped inside, hobbled across the main room, and entered the bedroom. An oil lamp glowed on the table there, bathing the room in a warm light. Angelique was asleep, but she stirred when he came in, waving him over and giving him a tired smile.

  Propping his cane against the wall, Jacques carefully slid onto the bed next to her, took her hand, and entwined her fingers with his. He asked how she was feeling.

  “Not well, but that’s not important now. What of the baby?”

  “It’s here, it’s healthy, and it’s a boy.”

  That seemed to wake her up a bit more. Shifting her weight so that her head tilted against his shoulder, she gave a long, contented sigh and thanked Jacques for being the bearer of such good news.

  “How time flies, eh, my love?” she whispered. “It’s been forty-nine years since our first child was born, but I remember it like it was yesterday.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing all day, Angelique. These children, they don’t know how good they have it. How you did it, caring for me and the baby all at the same time, I’ll never understand.”

  “You pulled through, Jacques. That’s all that mattered to me. That’s all that has ever mattered, that you lived, that you hung on even though you wanted to die.” Her voice grew shaky with emotion as she continued. “I’ve been trying to do the same for you now, but I’m afraid I can’t hang on much longer. I’m just so tired, you know?”

  “Shhh, don’t talk about that,” Jacques said, holding her hand more firmly in his. Truth be told, lately he had begun to think that it was a race to the finish for both of them. While he couldn’t bear the thought of losing his precious wife, he, too, had been hanging on for her sake, just to spare her the pain of losing him.

  “We’ve been blessed with far more years on this earth than either of us had the right to expect,” he said gently. “Most folks never see sixty—or even fifty, for that matter. Yet here we are, both still alive at seventy-one. I’d say that’s pretty amazing. We still have each other, we have our family, we live in this beautiful place…”

  “Coming here was the right decision,” Angelique agreed, a co
mment she had made often in recent months. Though it had been difficult to pull up roots from the German settlement where they had raised their family, the move down to this region had been the right choice in the long run.

  The whole shift had begun several years ago when three of their granddaughters had fallen in love with a trio of handsome young Acadian refugees who had been temporarily stationed at their settlement. None of the girls had ever found suitors among their mostly German neighbors, but those three Acadians, cousins by the name of Naquin, were another matter altogether. Handsome and hardworking—not to mention French-speaking—there had been an instant attraction on both sides.

  Soon, all three couples had married and moved down to the Atchafalaya Basin to live among other Acadian families there. The government had been encouraging all Acadians to establish themselves along the buffer zones and had even given them land, seed, guns, and tools in order to help them do so. It had taken a while to carve out a new life from the wilderness, but with the Acadians’ strong bonds of community—not to mention a lot of help from local Indians—they had managed not just to survive but thrive. When their new settlement was firmly established, they began sending for others to come down and join them.

  When an incredibly beautiful island was discovered in the midst of the swamp, Jacques and Angelique’s oldest daughter had come to them and asked if they might consider purchasing the entire tract of land so that they could all settle near each other there.