Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball

by Lynn Shurr

  “He needs to stay here and take care of his family. Let some of those young National Guardsmen go. They seem to spend more time flirting with the women than working. I don’t see why he is bothering you about this.”

  “Claude is my brother’s brother-in-law. Ursin has gone to check on my parents, and Ursin’s wife is watching the children. He wants me to help search.”

  “Tell him you are needed here. It’s out of the question.”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Please fit this man with crutches.”

  “I said you can’t go.” Nurse Strictland puffed up to twice her normal size like an offended cat.

  “I’m a volunteer here, and I said I’ll be back. Wake Doc Spivey to take my place.” Giving no more assurances, Pierre Landry followed Claude Arton from the medical tent.

  “We can take my Ford, but we may need a boat, Claude.”

  “Un bateau, oui. I get, me.”

  At the base of the hill, Claude gestured toward a pile of surfboats brought in from the Atlantic coast and stacked up like a pile of turtles in the Louisiana mud. A youthful guardsman sat under a nearby oak tree, his Great War rifle propped against the trunk, his eyes half-closed with boredom until Claude and the doctor started to lift a boat from the heap.

  “Hey, hey, you can’t take those boats!”

  “I’m a doctor. We need this boat to deal with an emergency.” He and Claude muscled their unwieldy burden toward the car. As the guardsman grabbed his rifle and started toward them, the two men managed to heave the surfboat on to the roof of the Ford. It dwarfed the small car. Claude Arton disappeared beneath its overturned stern and searched the trunk for rope to tie the boat in place.

  “You need written permission from the commandant to take a boat.” The guardsman rapped on the stern. “You come out from under there.”

  Claude did. He came out low to the ground, knocking the boy down. In seconds, he had the rifle with the bayonet pointed at the solider’s throat. Men with wooden legs were always underestimated.

  Casually, Pierre Landry took the rope Claude offered, threw it over the boat and drew it through the cab of the car. He translated as he worked. “He says his wife and baby are out in the flood, and your life isn’t worth shit compared to theirs.”

  When he finished with the boat, the doctor borrowed the knife sticking out of the top of Claude’s boot and cut off lengths of rope to tie up the guard. He used a wad of gauze from his bag for a gag. With the bulk of the auto and boat hiding them from view, they dragged the young man back to the shade of the oak tree and went on their way. Claude kept the rifle and helped himself to the man’s canteen, sniffing it first to make sure it contained water, not booze.

  Once they turned off the Teche ridge road, the water rushed to meet them. Where cane fields and pasture had filled the land, now there was the flood. Off in the distance, the broken levee held in water on both of its sides. Claude and Pierre found a gap in the submerged tree line and launched the surfboat. Rowing proved difficult as the oars snagged in barbed wire fences lurking below the surface of the opaque, muddy waters. A coffin that had popped from a graveyard bobbed by carrying a desperate possum as a second passenger. Claude crossed himself and muttered a prayer to ward off bad omens.

  The men searched for landmarks, but the flood had erased them. Finally, skirting along the base of the levee, Claude cried out. The roof of a sunken truck broke the surface of the water. They rowed alongside and peered through the windshield. Both of them let out a breath when they found it empty.

  “Your truck, Claude?”

  The other man nodded. Getting wet to their waists, they beached the surfboat on the side of the levee and scrambled up the crumbling barrier. From its top, they could see the splintered stilts where the Arton cabin once stood.

  “Let’s get the surfboat and see if we can find them,” Pierre said without any hope in his voice.

  “No, no! Look!” Claude limped down the levee road. Stranded high and dry by the whim of the flood, his flat-bottomed swamp boat rested across the path. He was already bailing a few inches of water and muck when Pierre caught up with him. Grinning, Claude held up the gas can wedged under one of the seats.

  “Incredible! Let’s see if the engine is working. We can let the water take us wherever it took our women and use the gas to come back here.”

  Grinning, Claude bailed faster. They dragged his boat down the levee’s east side and continued their rescue mission. They hadn’t gone far when cries for help came from the top of an oak tree submerged to its bottom branches. A colored man in baggy overalls sat on a sturdy limb, his shoeless feet dangling inches from the water. Pierre fired the engine to cross the current to reach him.

  “Been up here all night wit’ de crawfish and a real nasty raccoon for company. Praise God you come for me ’cause I can’t swim a stroke.” As the Negro lowered himself into the boat, Claude argued with Pierre.

  “We can’t just leave him. We’ll take you over to the levee. If you walk north a short way, you’ll see some stilts sticking out of the water. On the other side of the levee is another boat. Wait for us there. If we aren’t back by high noon, take the boat and get to a Red Cross shelter. Tell them Dr. Landry and Claude Arton are out here searching for family.”

  The black man eyed the army rifle Claude had slung over his shoulder. “Whatever you say, mistah. My brother and me, we was commandeered by de sheriff to sandbag de levee a couple of miles from here, but it broke somewheres else and washed us all away. I grabbed aholt of a wagon slat and rode it to dis here tree. My brother, I ain’t seen him since. He gone. Da water and da Lawd done took him.”

  The flat-bottomed boat bumped against the levee, and the colored man jumped out and made his way up the bank with frequent backward glances at the silent Claude. He hadn’t reached the top before Claude kicked the boat away from the levee and used the oars to regain the current. They drifted southward and saw nothing but wreckage and a bloated dead mule floating by.

  Past noon, the sky clouded over, and the wind kicked up. Small whitecaps formed on the surface of the sullen gray water, but on the breeze came the cries of a baby and the voice of a woman shouting for help. They turned the skiff in that direction, took up the oars, and rowed with energy.

  A homemade boat, gray and resting so low in the water it blended in with the sky and the flood, bobbed in the waves. A blonde woman, her hair straggling from its bun, waved frantically. A tow-headed two-year-old and a bald six-month old baby sat on her lap while her own feet rested in several inches of foul water. A pair of shabby shoes sat beside the woman on the bench, and a baby blanket draped the shoulder of her shapeless calico dress patterned with tiny blue flowers.

  “Praise God you come for us! My man went into town for supplies. Said we was gonna hunker down and wait out the flood if it come our way, but the water started risin’ fast. I just about had time to get the boys into the boat. Forgot the oars was in the house to keep people from stealin’ it. Guess you could say we went up the crick without a paddle. We been drifting a day and a night, and the boat’s been aleakin’ bad. Been scooping out water with my hands and nursin’ both my babies so they won’t drink it. You got water? I’m so dry.”

  Pierre handed over the military canteen. The woman drank so rapidly, water dribbled from the side of her mouth. He had to pry the container from her hands. “Not so much, not so fast. You will be sick. We will take you over to the levee. Walk north if you can manage until you come to some stilts in the water. A Negro man should be waiting there with a boat. If we don’t return by high noon, he’ll take you to a camp.”

  “Don’t know if my husband would like that. He said life would be easier here than in the Ozarks with no rocks in the soil and no snow on the ground come winter. So, here we are surrounded by niggers and Catholic Frenchies, no kin to take us in. Sorry!” She clamped her hands over her mouth.

  “I know you’re a Frenchie, but you speak English real good. I’m Lizzie McDonald, and these are my boys
, Luther and Virgil.”

  Pierre Landry took the baby, handed him to Claude, and coaxed the shy toddler into his arms. He opened his medical bag and gave the child a lollipop while his mother crossed between the boats. He gave another lollipop to Lizzie McDonald.

  “Ain’t that sweet,” she exclaimed. “Say your thanks, Virgil.”

  The little boy kept his eyes downcast and mumbled a single unintelligible word.

  “He don’t talk too good. It’s his lip.”

  “I see. Virgil, would you like another lollipop for later? Let me take a look at your mouth, then.”

  The boy nodded and raised his face. He was a beautiful little boy except for the slash of a harelip marring his pale, freckled face.

  “This can be fixed though there will be scar. Bring him to the camp at Spanish Lake if you can and ask for Dr. Landry.”

  “My husband says we don’t take charity. We don’t have no money for fancy doctoring.”

  “Madame McDonald, in times like these, everyone must take charity. You will repay it when you are able. Claude, start the engine.”

  Claude grumbled under his breath about the water wasted and the gas spent, but did as he was asked. He continued to hold the baby in the crook of his arm and let the child tug on his mustache. Finally, he sang a chorus of Alouette so boisterously that both children and their mother laughed.

  Pierre helped Lizzie to climb the levee with her family while Claude steadied the boat. He pressed more suckers into her hand.

  “They will keep your mouth from feeling so dry and give you some energy. Go this way. I hope to see you and Virgil again soon.”

  “Thank you. Mercy. Isn’t that what you Frenchies say—Mercy.”

  “Close enough, Madame McDonald. Close enough.”

  Back in the boat, Claude expressed his opinion that they could not save the entire world in one day.

  “Here, I saved a cherry one for you.” Pierre stuck the lollipop into Arton’s mouth. “We can’t forsake the living in favor of the—never mind.” He chose a lemon sucker from the few left in his bag and put it in his own mouth.

  A slow drizzle began to fall. They drifted on using the oars now and then to avoid clumps of debris caught in the trees as they entered a wooded area. In the distance, a large raft of boards and branches had accumulated around a copse of cypress trees. A whole house seemed to have come to rest there with only its roof above water. A lumpy tarp draped over the ridge, and a small iron pot straddled the beam.

  “We might have to use the engine to steer around that mass. We don’t want to get snagged, or our search will be over,” Pierre said reasonably.

  Claude ranted back that their search would be over if they ran out of gas or gave away more water or if they were caught in a hard rain because they had wasted time saving a nigger and a redneck. He raised his arms in the air and shouted into the doctor’s face.

  A voice shouted back. “Claude, mon amour!” The outburst was followed by the thin wail of a newborn. The men looked across the raft of debris. A nurse in a stained white uniform and a limp head veil sat next to a bare-legged woman wearing only a light nightgown. By the size of the bulge in her lap, the second woman appeared to be hugely pregnant, but the crying baby could be clearly heard. The tarp lay bunched around them.

  The woman in white waved her arms and put her hands to her mouth. “Pierre, you came. My God, you came for me!”

  The men started the engine and moved as close as they could come to the house. Slowly, carefully, Pierre Landry made his way over the mass of shifting debris. The women shinnied down the roof and sat on the eaves waiting for help. Pierre tied a rope under Cherie’s arms and tossed the end to Claude. Balancing on her white, hairy legs and brown, sun-tanned feet, modesty forgotten, Cherie Arton took one wobbling step at a time, one arm outstretched, the other cradling the baby tied up in her nightdress. Pierre and Roz waited as she climbed into the boat and hugged herself to Claude.

  Sighing, Cherie called back to the others. “Me, I don’t swim. You want da rope, Pierre?”

  “No, I think we’ll be fine together.” He took Roz’s hand, and they started forward.

  “Watch for da cocodrie,” Cherie cautioned.

  “Cocodrie?” said Claude.

  Cherie pointed to the small alligator. Lying log still a moment before, it opened its jaws and hissed at her motion. Claude unslung the rifle, brought it up smoothly, and shot the gator through the eye. The small boat rocked and shifted the raft of debris. A hole of dark water opened under Pierre’s next step. He went in and under.

  Roz started to sink with him but caught herself on a branch of an uprooted basswood tree. The opening in the debris began to close over a hand groping upward. She grasped and pulled Pierre to the surface. He grabbed the trunk of the tree and, that quickly, a snake hidden in the branches struck his left hand. A second later, the snake was hacked in half by a machete that barely missed Pierre’s fingertips. The blow tipped Roz into the water next to him.

  “Eh, Pierre, you want dat rope now?” Cherie called.

  “A rope would be helpful, yes.”

  Hand over hand, Claude towed Pierre with Roz clinging to his back to the skiff. He dragged Pierre in by his coat collar and Roz more gently with a grip under her arms. She forgot to thank him.

  “My God, Pierre, you’ve been bitten.” Roz bent over his hand. “Take my knife and cut it open. I’ll suck out the venom.” She offered him the massive machete still attached to her wrist by its cord.

  “Thank you, dearest, but I’d like to keep my hand regardless of your Girl Scout training. That was only a water snake. See, no fang marks. But, it is good to know you’ll come to my rescue if I ever need it.”

  “Always, Pierre.”

  “Claude, hand me my bag. No sense in getting blood poisoning. Who knows what bacteria lurked in that water, not to mention the snake’s mouth.”

  Claude, however, ignored him and cooed over his new son who had been fished from the bodice of Cherie’s nightgown. The small bundle shook his fists and kicked his legs as he lay with his head cupped in his father’s palm.

  “Mon fils, Bartolomé.”

  “No, no, Claude. Grandeau.”

  “Grandeau?”

  “Oui, Grandeau Pierre Arton,” Cherie said happily, looking at her other savior, who had made a light cut across his snake bite with a sterilized scapel and was letting the wound bleed itself clean.

  “Allons, Claude. We need to get back to the camp before dark.”

  Pierre gestured toward the motor, and Claude opened the throttle after he carefully maneuvered the boat close enough to the debris to sling the dead alligator into the bottom. Over the racket of the engine, Cherie and Claude continued to argue.

  “I can’t follow that. They speak too fast, but I gather she wants to name the baby High Water Pierre Arton,” Roz said as Pierre swabbed his snakebite with alcohol.

  Without looking up, he translated. “He says Grandeau is a crazy name. They agreed on Bartolomé after his grandfather. Why not Claude for his second name? Why Pierre? She says they already have a T-Claude. How many does he want? He says he wants a woman who is less trouble. Well, she says, he got trouble. This is a special baby delivered by a midwife during a flood, and he should have a special name to go on the birth paper they are going to get. This time, she isn’t just going to write the name in the family Bible. Here, let me clean your wrist. That thong has rubbed it raw.”

  Roz sucked in her breath as the alcohol bit into the scrapes. Suddenly, silence reigned in the boat. Grandeau Pierre Arton had gone to sleep, but his mother sat with tears running down her face.

  “My Bible, she is gone. My home, gone.”

  Claude put his free arm around his wife. He spoke to her again most gently.

  “He is saying he will build her another house, a better house, on high ground, and if he can get the smell of baby piss out of the muskrat hide, he will trade it for a new Bible with colored pictures of the saints. She can write down the nam
es of all their children in it, even the name of Grandeau Pierre Arton, crazy as it is.”

  “He does love her, then.”

  “It takes a hard man to make a living from the swamp, but yes, he does love his wife and children.”

  Pierre paused. He raised Roz’s chin and swabbed the cut on her chin. “Yes, he does love her.”

  Looking into his eyes seemed to take the sting from her wound, but Roz quickly turned away. She lowered her voice even more. “I’m worried about Cherie. I did my best to keep her clean and hydrated, but what if infection sets in? She was able to nurse the baby and keep him warm and dry. I believe he will be fine, but what if he loses his mother?”

  “You did all that you could for your patients and kept them safe as well. I suspect if we hadn’t come along, you would have built a boat from the loose boards and paddled back to the levee when your water ran out, Peep. That’s what the other midwives call you, isn’t it? I like it.”

  “I think it was intended as sort of an insult implying that I was nothing but fluff and noise.”

  “Around here, if you are given a nickname, you have been accepted. Many of them are insulting. Consider Henri’s friends, Tubbs and Boozoo.”

  “They call Henri, Bebe—the baby. He’s dying for a better name.”

  “He may graduate to Bubba, but I doubt it. And I think you will always be Peep, one tough chick. You were right when you said you didn’t need my help anymore.”

  “Your help, no, but I could use your shoulder to rest on. I’m so tired.”

  Pierre Landry tucked her head under his chin. She slept and slipped gradually down his chest until her head rested in his lap. Not the time or place for sexual feelings or even wishful thinking, but Claude leered at them and made an obscene comment that earned him a jab from his wife.

  Cherie told the story of how Roz delivered the baby, chopped their way out of the sinking house, and killed two serpents congo. Yes, Claude agreed, the midwife was brave, but he was willing to bet she would not mind sleeping with the snake in Pierre’s pants. Another argument started, but Roz slept through it all.