Under the Cajun Moon

by Mindy Starns Clark

They had been such careful stewards of the gold over the years that it was not a decision they had made lightly. Their intention had always been to make the gold last as long as possible, passing it down through the generations.

  Years ago, in the beginning, they hadn’t touched the gold at all. Consumed with Jacques’ recovery and Angelique’s pregnancy, they had simply had the trunk stashed in a corner of the bedroom, where it sat, if not forgotten, at least ignored. They were both ambivalent about the statuettes, anyway, considering how much grief and pain they had caused them both.

  Eventually, though, as the effects of Jacques’ injuries had made it nearly impossible for him to work more than a few hours a day even after he was healed, he had broken down and melted one of the statuettes and turned it into an ingot. Selling it to a wealthy Indigo dealer had netted him even more money than he had expected. By his calculations, if he and Angelique continued to live frugally, they could survive for several years from the income of a single statuette. He had created a better hiding place for the gold then, and though he had never been truly happy with where it was kept, at least it had never been discovered inadvertently by anyone else. As time went on, he would melt down another statuette here and there to supplement the income from his part-time work in the tool shop. Many of his injuries were permanent, so the gold helped to compensate for his disabilities.

  As each of their daughters reached maturity and married, Jacques and Angelique had enlightened them and their husbands about the treasure, its history, its value—and its true cost. To their credit, the children had never taken advantage of that knowledge. They knew the treasure would be theirs to administer eventually. Thus, when one of them came to their parents and asked for them to purchase the land, serious consideration was given to their request.

  Angelique hadn’t been sure she could bear to live out the rest of her life in a swamp, even if her home was on high ground, but then they went there for a visit, and she had fallen in love with the place at first sight, with the rolling hills and the massive, gracious oaks and the dark, lazy water, much as the others had done. That left only Jacques, who wanted to be absolutely sure before making any such commitment. He prayed about it and soon his prayers were answered in two ways.

  First, he learned that the nearest settlement to the island had recently been christened “Charenton.” Apparently, the rumor went, it was so far out of the way that people who chose to live there were obviously crazy and belonged in Charenton, referring, of course, to the institution back in France.

  Though Jacques shuddered at the thought of the month he had spent in that institution, his revulsion was eventually overcome with gratitude that the Brothers there had taken in his dying papa, nursed him in his final days, and buried him in the cemetery. Somehow, living near a town called Charenton made Jacques feel connected with his father’s final resting place.

  The second reason that Jacques felt like the island would make a good home was because it offered a perfect hiding place for the remaining statuettes.

  As they had toured the entire property with Simone and her husband, Jacques had noticed one very unique characteristic of the geology there: open pits dug into the ground that revealed what looked like white sheets of ice underneath. But it wasn’t ice, they said, it was salt. The pits had been dug by the Indians, who liked to break off great chunks of it with picklike implements and use them in trade elsewhere.

  When they reached one such pit, Jacques was surprised to see that the salt there wasn’t white but pink. Simone said that the Indians weren’t interested in the pink salt. As far as she knew, that particular mound had been dug up and then abandoned.

  Studying the marks that had been made by the picks and the stability of the mineral, Jacques couldn’t help but think that a hollowed-out chamber inside the salt might make a perfect place to hide the treasure—especially if he could use his metalworking skills to fashion some sort of waterproof seal. If the Indians didn’t want the pink salt, his hiding place could go undetected for years.

  As Jacques had been very impressed with the place as a whole, this final discovery made it too good to resist. In the end, he and Angelique had melted down some of the treasure and used it to purchase the land and supplies for the construction of several houses there, including their own. The other Acadians in the region had surprised them with a coups de main, a community effort that made short work of the house-building process, and soon they were all getting settled into their new homes. All that remained was to name the island that was now theirs. The whole family was always tossing around ideas, but so far nothing had seemed quite right.

  Later, Jacques had supervised his sons-in-law in the secret excavation and construction of a sealed, hollow chamber in the pink salt, one to hide the trunk with the remaining treasure. It had gone even better than expected, though getting in and out of that chamber was more trouble than he had thought it would be. To solve that problem, they finally decided to take some of the statuettes out of the trunk, put them into a canvas bag, and place that bag in a separate, smaller, more accessible spot, also underground. That way, the bulk of the treasure remained deep in hiding, while they could still easily get to a portion of the treasure should they need it. They found a place about twenty feet away where the salt was also pink, though perhaps not as vividly so, and created just such a chamber.

  Thus far, everything had gone according to plan. Jacques’ biggest concern wasn’t that someone might find the treasure but that there would come a day when someone might not find it, when for some reason word was not passed down to the next generation and knowledge of the treasure and its location somehow got lost. Jacques supposed he couldn’t worry about that but instead would simply have to trust that each of his descendants would handle that responsibility on their own.

  “We did okay, didn’t we, Jacques?” Angelique said suddenly, startling Jacques from his thoughts and giving his hand a squeeze.

  “What do you mean?”

  “With the children. With our life. With the treasure.”

  Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, his hip, his back, Jacques moved fully onto his side and took his beloved into his arms. She went willingly, a perfect fit in that spot right under his chin where she had always belonged.

  “You are my treasure, Angelique, and always have been.”

  She tilted her head up and kissed him sweetly on the lips.

  “As you are mine, Jacques Soliel. I do love you so.”

  Moving even more tightly together, they both closed their eyes and rested.

  Later, much later, Jacques awoke to the feel of a hand on his arm.

  “Papa,” a voice was saying softly beside him. He opened his eyes to see his daughter Simone and her husband, hovering there next to the bed.

  “What’s wrong? Is it the new baby?”

  Clutching a handkerchief, Simone stifled a sob.

  “No. It’s…it’s Maman. She has passed.”

  Jacques looked beside him in the bed to see the very still form of his beautiful wife. Reaching out a hand, he touched her face, and though the skin was still soft, he knew that her soul was gone.

  “You two didn’t come up to the house for dinner, so we got worried,” Simone explained, crying harder. “As soon as we came in the room, I could see that we were too late.”

  “It’s okay, though,” Jacques said, smoothing the hair from Angelique’s lifeless face. “She knew it was her time. She was ready.”

  “Let us help you up, Papa, and then we can tell the others. My sisters and I can prepare the body. You’ll sleep up at the house.”

  Instead of rising, Jacques laid his head back on the pillow. Looking up at the ceiling, he was surprised to see that his vision suddenly began to fade just like it had so long ago, after the stoning, when everything went blurry and white.

  “Can you give me a minute, sweetheart?” he said. “You don’t have to leave the room, just don’t make me get up right away.”

  “Of course, Papa,” Simone whispered.
“Take your time.”

  They stepped away from the bed, turning to give him privacy.

  Lying there next to Angelique, Jacques closed his eyes and tried not to think about how he was going to survive without her, without this woman he loved more than life itself.

  As he thought about that, an odd warmth began flowing through his limbs. Though it was strange, he almost thought he could hear the tinkling laughter of angels. That laughter grew until it turned into song and became the music of the heavenly hosts. Was it possible that he was dying too? Dare he dream that when he opened his eyes, it would be to behold paradise? How could that be, when he felt no pain at all?

  “Paradise,” he whispered with his final, physical breath, and then amazingly, he let go.

  When at last he did open his eyes, it was, indeed, to view paradise: the glory and the golden, sparkling magnificence of holy splendor.

  Best of all, waiting for him there was Angelique. Just as she had come to Louisiana to find him so very long ago, now he too had come to find her, to join with her in heaven.

  Behind Angelique stood others, many who were waiting to see him as well. And at the very front of the line was Papa. He was there waiting, just as he had promised, smiling and welcoming Jacques home.

  EPILOGUE

  Because of the potential for rain, an outdoor wedding in Louisiana in April could be a risky thing to do. We decided to chance it anyway, and in the end it paid off: On a beautiful spring Saturday evening at five o’clock sharp, under a canopy of live oaks and Spanish moss, Travis Naquin and I vowed to love and honor and respect each other forever and the minister pronounced us husband and wife.

  My groom thoroughly kissed his bride. After that, nearly bursting with joy, we joined hands with each other and with TJ and headed down the aisle, ready to begin our new life together.

  We would be a blended family, but if I had learned anything in the past year of dating this man and getting to know his son, it was that finding our way through the ups and downs of that scenario was a journey worth taking. These days, whenever I looked at the two newest loves of my life, I couldn’t fathom that I had ever thought I didn’t want children. I already loved TJ as if he were my own, and our hope was to give him a baby brother or sister in another year or two.

  Even the logistics of merging two such disparate lives hadn’t been as complicated as either one of us had expected. Though Travis had offered to make the move to Chicago, we both knew Louisiana was the better choice for us. Not only would that help TJ remain closer to his extended family, who lived in Houston, it also allowed me to be near my parents, especially my father, who had aged greatly in the past year.

  At least my business was easy to relocate, and much to my surprise, Jenny chose to follow as well. Tired of the snowy Chicago winters, she had been eager to move south and start a new chapter in her life. Already she was becoming an expert on all things Louisiana, and the fact that she had recently begun dating one of Travis’ cousins was simply icing on the cake.

  The past year had not gone nearly so well for my father. After the shooting, his coma had ended up lasting for ten days. When he finally came out of it, though he still looked like his old self, it was obvious to those who knew him well that he wasn’t quite the same. He didn’t laugh as hard or yell as loud or engage with life as he had before. Even after he was out of the hospital and back home, he moved slowly and carefully, as if he had aged ten years in those ten days. In a final, tragic irony, the saddest aftereffect of his whole experience wasn’t the way in which it aged him. It was that somewhere through that physical trauma, he permanently lost the ability to smell and taste.

  It had broken my heart to learn that, knowing that for him such a tragedy was akin to a master pianist losing his hands or an Olympic runner losing his feet. Though he could still cook for others as magnificently as he always had, Julian Ledet had now been denied the single greatest pleasure of his life. Making matters even worse was the fact that the Henkins had destroyed the salt mine at Paradise when they flooded it, thus putting an end to the source of Chef Julian’s Secret Salt forever. Because the mine was relatively small, the impact on the surrounding terrain wasn’t nearly as severe as it had been in the Lake Piegneur disaster, but the damage inside the mine itself was permanent. Once the flooding had ceased and the water pressure equalized, officials had capped off the openings with cement. At least they successfully removed the trunk I had found and its contents first, but the salt was a lost cause.

  After that my father had sunk into a deep depression, one that had lasted for months. During that time, as sad as it was, at least some healing had taken place as well. He and Alphonse managed to patch up their differences and reestablish their friendship—an especially good thing considering that our families were now going to be joined together in marriage.

  My father also took great pleasure in getting to know Travis better, and I was deeply heartened and touched to see how patient Travis was with him, how sweet. He spent a lot of time talking with my dad about the Lord and sharing with him from the Bible, and though my father hadn’t exactly fallen to his knees in surrender and repentance, he was at least willing to listen. Travis and I both prayed that someday soon my dad might finally take that final step and come to accept the truth that would set him free.

  My mother had also changed in the past year—or at least our relationship had changed. Though she would probably always be self-centered and shallow, the time we endured together down in the salt mine somehow managed to soften our hearts toward each other. We would never be the best of friends, but I felt that we had finally at least made our peace and found a way to start over again.

  Travis was a big part of that. As he helped me understand what forgiveness really looked like through God’s eyes, I realized I had been carrying around for many years the burdens of my own unforgiveness. Surrendering my anger and frustration and resentment at both of my parents had been a huge step for me. Once I did that, many of the elements of my spiritual walk fell into place more fully as well.

  By moving back to Louisiana, I felt that my life had come full circle. In the months leading up to the wedding, I had managed to develop a whole new appreciation for my home state. Though I still didn’t like snakes or alligators, I couldn’t get enough of the beautiful scenery and the colorful culture and the extended Cajun family that seemed to welcome me in with open arms as if I had always belonged.

  My snake bite had left a scar, two shiny circles on the back of my hand, and I considered them my badge of courage. As a private joke, Travis had given me the honorary Indian name of “Twin Fang.”

  The wedding of Twin Fang and Cajun Boy was held at City Park, but, of course, there was only one place the reception could be, and that was at Ledet’s. My parents had gone all out for the event, even surprising me by closing the restaurant for the day.

  Once the private party was fully under way, Travis and I had fun simply meandering from room to room, greeting our guests, listening to the strains of the Cajun and zydeco music wafting in from the courtyard, and dining on the Creole high cuisine my father had chosen to serve. Out of respect for Travis, my dad had tailored some of those courses to the Cajun palette. Had there been a restaurant reviewer there that night, no doubt the Michelin guide would not have had enough stars for the rating Ledet’s would have received. My father had outdone himself that much.

  Ironically, our wedding had fallen on the one-year anniversary of our discovery of the treasure, so in a way we were celebrating both. When we finally understood that the treasure had been divided into two parts, everything that had happened one year ago made much more sense. The portion my father had found in his youth had been discovered in a pink vein of the mine in a disintegrated canvas bag. At first, he and Alphonse Naquin had decided to leave it right there where he had found it, thinking it would be safe. Later, when they chose to tell the investors about the treasure, they moved it to a better location, one they felt sure no one would ever find unless they had
the coordinates. Thanks to Hurricane Betsy’s handiwork with the Cajun Moon, they had been able to create a hiding spot underneath the upturned boat, one that was accessible only to the two men who knew how to climb inside, get to it, and open it up.

  The wooden trunk I had discovered in a different, pinker vein of the mine contained a treasure no one had ever known about before. Inside the trunk were one hundred more of the statuettes, the value of which was legally halved between me, as the finder, and the Naquins, as the landowner. Now that Travis and I were married, it didn’t really matter as it was all in the family anyway.

  Once news of the treasure came out, the truth of its origins finally surfaced as well. A French historian who read about it contacted us to explain, saying how the gold had originally been created as an enticement for settlers to the New World but was supposed to have been switched out for gold-plated statuettes instead. Having that information to go on had made the rest of the research easier. Eventually, we were able to uncover the story of two of Travis’ ancestors named Jacques and Angelique Soliel. From what we were able to piece together, Jacques Soliel had been a goldsmith with ties to the treasure and at one point had nearly been killed by an angry New Orleans mob over its mix-up. The Soliels’ Creole grandchildren had married the Acadian Naquins and relocated the whole clan down to the Atchafalaya Basin. Obviously, they had brought the treasure with them, though we would probably never know why it was divided and hidden in two different parts of the mine. Legend had it that Jacques and Angelique were so deeply in love that they died in each other’s arms. The last word Jacques uttered before death was “Paradise,” so that’s what his children named the island where they lived in his honor.

  Knowing that whole story made a big difference in refuting Wade Henkins’ territorial claims to the land. In fact, his family had bought Paradise from one branch of the Naquin family in 1925 and sold it back to another just a few years later. We weren’t sure why knowledge of the treasure hadn’t passed down through the generations, but with further research we hoped one day to find out.