A Twisted Ladder

by Rhodi Hawk

  “Your old man lookin at us?” Ethan said.

  Madeleine’s gaze flicked to the skiff and back. “Can’t see through that drift of flowers if we’re down low in the water.”

  They simultaneously sank to chin level. He touched her waist underwater, fingers on bare skin.

  She grinned. “I hope you both realize he has no business being nosy or playing chaperone. I happen to be a grown woman.”

  “Oh, yes ma’am. I realize you’re a grown woman all right. I got that message loud and clear.”

  Then, in those shadowed waters of Bayou Black, their legs intertwined, their arms tangled, their frames loosened and became weightless. He pulled her close. She felt his chest press against hers, and then felt his lips press against hers. Water lapping softly, with garlands of irises lacing around them. Their bodies bobbed in gentle unison with the current.

  “Your hair looks real pretty when it’s wet, Madeleine.”

  “I like the way your skin smells in the sun.”

  And then he kissed her a second time, his legs fitting with hers. She let her eyes close and the world fall away, with no care to creatures beneath the surface or whether smoke was smoke. He held the small of her back and it seemed that her spine unwound in an arch toward him, her muscles forming a magnet to his, their bodies suspended outside of gravity so that they were two coiled strands winding around one another, twisting to become a single unit. Fitting together with perfection as though they could zip into place. She ran the tip of her fingernail gently up his neck.

  “Kissing you in this bayou was a baaaad idea, Madeleine,” he whispered.

  “Mm?” And then she felt his erection press against her. The sensation sent an immediate wave of heat that caused her to draw in her breath. An internal flash of openness, a mental image—no; her body’s imagined kinesthesia of completing the fit. Her mouth and her eyes widened.

  “Time to cool down.” She turned and swam away from him, reaching for the collection basket and moving on to another clump of flowers.

  He gave a bearish growl and shook his head. “Alligator ain’t the only thing that can make this old bayou boil.”

  THREE COLLECTION BASKETS STUFFED with water hyacinths and irises rested in the skiff. Ethan eased on his sunglasses. Daddy Blank had caught nothing.

  “Yet,” he qualified. “I know a secret place.”

  He started the motor and Jasmine licked the swamp water from Madeleine’s legs. Madeleine did not bother to towel off because she knew the water would soon turn to sweat, and she would never really be dry in between. Her cutoffs flapped wet in the breeze. The boat eased into the shipping channel, the wide, flat stretch of blue nestled between the swamp and the marsh.

  Ethan pressed an ice cold beer against her knee. “Want one?”

  Madeleine kept her voice low, knowing her father couldn’t hear them over the roar of the boat. “No thanks. I’ve long since cooled off.”

  He smiled back. “Guess we’re doomed to keep it that way for now.”

  She laughed. Her hair blew wild and she felt like a teenager the way she and Ethan were sneaking around right under Daddy’s nose.

  Ethan popped the top of the beer and took a sip, looking back toward the heart of Bayou Black. “Scads of flowers on both sides, but this stretch here doesn’t have a one. It’s like the boating equivalent to a freeway.”

  Madeleine said, “It is. We’re in the Intracoastal Waterway—runs from Texas to New Jersey.”

  “They keep it clear for the ships then, I guess.”

  She nodded. “The smaller channels around here in Houma get overrun with water plants. It’d be the same in the Intracoastal if it weren’t for good old government intervention.”

  “Suppose that’s all right. But I always wonder when you try to mess with Mother Nature.”

  “I know. We’ve got this clear path for our boat but it also means we have a problem with saltwater intrusion in Bayou Black. The plants are a natural barrier against the Gulf—it’s already the perfect pattern of saltwater to brackish to fresh.”

  “Is that why I saw a lock back there?”

  She nodded, and realized that Ethan probably knew as much about the wetland balances as she did if he recognized the saltwater intrusion lock.

  “Doesn’t lock out often. Just when there’s a good storm surge blowing in from the Gulf.”

  A barge loomed toward them. Daddy Blank turned the skiff off the Intracoastal and down another, slightly hidden waterway formed by cheniers, long fingers of high ground that ran from the mainland to the coast. The bayou seeped between the cheniers to create a labyrinth of aquatic arteries that seemed to change shape each time Madeleine traversed them.

  She felt a quiet stab of unease. Looking into the vast shaded coves, trying to keep her memories locked away, she told herself that Daddy was just taking them on an aimless journey. True enough, a tropical storm might cause whole stretches of land to disappear permanently, and sometimes fields of aquatic plants multiplied so rapidly they choked off entire byways. These changes often happened in a matter of days, even overnight. And yet this particular byway had remained the same since Marc and Madeleine were kids.

  “Wait. Where are you taking us, Daddy?”

  He looked over his shoulder and winked at her.

  The waterway narrowed as the boat drifted in. The forest loomed overhead, with trees reaching up twenty and thirty feet, their boughs draped in long, graceful ribbons of Spanish moss. Cypress knees, the roots of the tree, rose up out of the water to form a gnarled miniature mountain range. Daddy cut the speed of the boat, and the wind gave way to heat.

  “Daddy,” Madeleine said. “Let’s not go in there.”

  “Don’t worry, kitten, I know this place.”

  “Something wrong?” Ethan said, looking into her face.

  “No. It’s fine.” And even as she said those words, she realized she was keeping the LeBlanc family legacy alive by telling their heirloom lie: “It’s fine.”

  Ethan took her hand. It felt cool and damp from the bottle.

  Daddy Blank carefully navigated past a spider city, and turned to the right, down a narrow, hidden opening in the cypress trees. Madeleine wrapped her free hand around her waist. Although the trees crowded around tightly, the skiff was still able to squeeze into the passage, and they pressed forward until they could go no further.

  Daddy Blank grinned. “Best fishin in Bayou Black is right here in this slough.”

  “I know,” Madeleine murmured, but she did not say, Marc and I were the ones who showed it to you about fifteen years ago.

  “Man, this is something. Maybe I’ll throw a line in the water too,” Ethan said.

  Sparse pearls of sunshine filtered through shrouds of Spanish moss. When they were children, Madeleine, Marc, and Zenon used to come here. The perfect place to play, catch bass, and check crawfish traps. They’d named it Crawfish Cove. To most folks, the bayou seemed like a feral maze. To her, its haunts and nooks were just as familiar as a town center, with Crawfish Cove being the favored saloon. It had been a place of comfort. A refuge. Though Daddy didn’t know it, it had been where Marc had come to die.

  Daddy baited and cast his fishing line with shrimp and Ethan joined him. A whir and a splash. Their faces shone with certainty that they’d catch something. And they would, Madeleine knew. They would in this fishing hole.

  As children, Marc and Madeline had vowed that if the Child Protective Services officer ever came for them—which he never did—they would come and hide out here. Madeleine envisioned her strong, freckle-faced brother as a boy. Those angled blue eyes, the skinny arms. She was surprised to realize she felt warm with his memory. Surprised she could think about him without the familiar chokehold of grief.

  A bright green carpet of duckweed stretched across the narrow waterway in front of them. It looked like she could hop out of the boat and stride across it like grass on dry land. She leaned over the side and picked up a clump. White, succulent roots tumbled below spon
gy, dime-sized green pads. She scooped up several clumps of duckweed and added them to the collection basket.

  Suddenly, the green plane broke and something splashed at the end of Daddy’s fishing line.

  “Son of a gun,” said Ethan.

  “It’s a good one!” Daddy said, his rod bending toward the water like a dowser. The line flashed and Daddy pulled, then let it run out again. The three of them strained their eyes but could see nothing but green. The air was hot and thick.

  Daddy pulled again. “It’s puttin up a good fight.”

  “Don’t let it snap the line.”

  Daddy said, “Wouldn’t it be something if there was an alligator hangin onto that fish when I pulled it in?”

  Ethan and Madeleine blinked at him for a moment, then looked back at the duckweed turf, still and placid and innocent. As though nothing was happening down there.

  “He still on the line?” Ethan asked.

  Daddy said, “Hell yeah he’s on the line!”

  He pulled back and reeled, then pulled back and reeled again until the first charcoal flash of fish scales broke the surface and then disappeared. Daddy whooped and reeled like mad. Madeleine stretched the net out. And as she waited, she recalled hundreds of these same moments spent in this very cove. She felt grateful to realize that she didn’t have to dread this place or her brother’s memory. She could recall the good without staring at the awful.

  Daddy gave one good lusty pull and the creature came flapping out of the water. Madeleine scooped it with the net. A good-sized bass.

  “Looks like a ten-pounder!” Ethan cried.

  Madeleine grinned. “It’s about time.”

  THEY STOWED THE LILIES and hyacinths and duckweed in tubs filled with water, then dropped Jazz off with the Thibodaux kids next door.

  Ethan slipped his hand into Madeleine’s as they crossed the parking lot to Thibby’s. “Those flowers’ll keep fresh in the tubs?”

  Madeleine nodded. “Sure. They’ll easily last to tomorrow just the way they are. Samantha can take it from there.”

  “Well give me a call before you run them over to the flower shop in the morning. I’ll help you load them up.”

  Ethan opened the glass café door and gestured Madeleine and Daddy inside. They were greeted with warm hugs from Nida Thibodaux and a welcome blast of cool air conditioning. Nida ran the café but kept a second part-time job selling real estate. Thibby sauntered out from the kitchen to see what Daddy and Ethan had caught: a catfish, a redfish, and two bass.

  “Might as well serve’m all up, don’t you think, Ethan?” Daddy said, handing them over to Thibby.

  “Sure.”

  “All of it?” Madeleine said. “Don’t you want to hold some of it back for later? I could fry it for you tomorrow.”

  “Nah.”

  She shook her head. In Daddy’s world, tomorrow didn’t exist.

  The bus boys were stripping the red-and-white checkered vinyl cloths from the folding tables and pushing them to the perimeter so they could clear the dance floor for later that night. Cotton cobwebs and rows of crawfish string lights stretched across the wood paneling. A zydeco band was already setting up for the Halloween dance, and soon couples would be shuffling around the scarred laminate tile floor that was sprinkled with sand. Nida brought out frosty glasses of sweet tea and beers, along with a plate of sandwich bread and butter. Sheriff Cavanaugh appeared and sat down with them, happy to share a taste of fish, though he declined the beer.

  “Gotta keep an eye out tonight,” he said. “People get a little funny on Halloween sometimes.”

  “Spirits are restless,” Nida said.

  Cavanaugh shrugged. “Maybe. I know people are restless.”

  Ethan leaned over and whispered to Madeleine, “I like you this way.”

  “Which way?”

  “Here in your element. Never seen you so relaxed.”

  “Is that so?” Madeleine was surprised to realize that she was indeed relaxed to her toes.

  “Mm hmm. You always look like you’re about to bolt. Had to run you all over the zoo just to keep you calm on our first date.”

  “What!”

  He was grinning at her with pure, devilish delight.

  She said, “So that’s why you dragged me all through Audubon Park before we made it to Monkey Hill!”

  Nida brought out biscuits and fried green tomatoes with herbed mustard for dipping. They ate lustily and swilled sweet tea—except for Daddy, who was downing beer as if it were tea—and as the band revved up Daddy explained to Ethan the nuances between Cajun music and zydeco.

  Sheriff Cavanaugh turned to Madeleine. “I seen that Zenon round here th’other day.”

  “Well, he does have a fishing cabin out on the bayou.”

  Cavanaugh looked doubtful. “He live in Plaquemine and he work in Baton Rouge. There plenty a water in either one of those places. Why you think he come alla way the hell out here to do his fishin?”

  She shrugged. “He’s from here. Maybe he just wants to come home sometimes.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “That boy ain’t thinkin bout no home sweet home. He come from mean stock and he mean hisself.”

  The band burst forth with music, guitar, and drums, a spoon sliding over washboard, vocals wailing.

  Well, the little mosquito fly high

  And the little mosquito fly low

  If that little mosquito gonna light on me

  Be the last damn thing he do!

  Madeleine eyed the empty beer bottles that had collected in front of her father. His hand was slung over Ethan’s shoulder, and Ethan, who’d only had the one beer out on the bayou, seemed to be taking it in stride.

  “All right then,” Ethan was saying. “If that’s so, which one uses a washboard?”

  “They both use washboard,” Daddy replied.

  Ethan chuckled. “Oh, and the washboard is such a common instrument. Come on now, there idn’t any difference between Cajun music and zydeco.”

  “Sure there is! Cajun music was influenced by Scotch. Irish. German. French.” He counted each on his fingers. “. . . American Indian. French.”

  “You said French already,” Ethan pointed out.

  “I know I said it, son, you ain’t listenin. French. Anglo-American. Afro-Caribbean. And French. That’s Cajun music. Now zydeco, that’s black Creole music, plain and simple. It’s bluuuesy.” Daddy waggled his fingers.

  Ethan looked skeptical. “Bluesy. With a washboard. Because the washboard is such a sad, soulful instrument.”

  Sheriff Cavanaugh winked at Madeleine.

  Madeleine bent her head toward the sheriff. “Has Zenon done something wrong?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know he do somethin wrong, particularly, but he have a whole lifetime of not doin right. I got a call from some detectives in Baton Rouge, got their eye on him. He always gettin in trouble, baby.”

  He took a sip of beer. “That Zenon is bad news. I knew his mama, mean as hell. She beat that boy all growin up. Then his daddy just disappear one day. His mama say he run off, but the gossip says otherwise.” Sheriff spread his fingers and smoothed them over the table.

  Madeleine shifted in her seat. She’d heard all this before.

  Nida refilled Madeleine’s tea and addressed the sheriff. “He just out there fishin, Keith. He may have had it rough growin up, but he got his own shop out there in Baton Rouge, got a nice normal life now.”

  “Yeah, he got a shop,” Cavanaugh said. “Got a gun shop.”

  “What’re y’all talkin about over here?” Daddy said.

  “Zenon Lansky,” Sheriff answered with a dip of his head.

  “Zenon Lansky. That kid used to live next door? Aw, now why don’t you leave that poor boy alone.”

  Cavanaugh shook his head. “I have not harassed Zenon Lansky, I was just cautioning your daughter here to look out for him.”

  “Maddy, why?” Daddy looked at her. “You see him lately, baby?”

  She shrugged. “He
was at the gala.”

  “He was? I didn’t see him.”

  She nodded, shifting uneasily. She recalled the intensity of the conversation, how quickly it had spun out of control.

  Her father pursed his lips. “That young man’s had it rough, now honey. You probably better off making a wide circle when you see him. I know y’all was good friends growin up, it’s too bad.”

  They sat quietly for a moment, and then Daddy turned abruptly to Ethan. “You know, zydeco means ‘green bean.’ ”

  “Green bean!” Ethan said. “What language?”

  “Creole.”

  “That ain’t the French word for green bean. Green bean is . . . it’s . . .” He sighed. “Aw hell, Maddy, what’s French Creole for green bean?”

  The entire table answered in unison: “Haricot vert.”

  “See?” Daddy said.

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure, now it all makes sense to me. Come on now, Daddy Blank, how in the hell you get ‘zydeco’ out of ‘haricot vert’?”

  “Zydeco, ‘aricot, they sound the same when you pronounce’m like you s’posed to. Put a ‘les’ in front of it and there ya go. Zy-de-co, les har-i-cots.”

  Cavanaugh gestured to Madeleine and lowered his voice. “Anyway you be careful. Glad you brought them with you today but I know sometimes you go out in that swamp alone.”

  “I’ve been doing that forever. But I hardly ever go anymore.”

  Cavanaugh grimaced and wiped the back of his neck. “Well if you do go out there and you see Zenon Lansky in that fishin cabin, I’d appreciate it you let me know. And it wouldn’t hurt you to keep that phone of yours close to you when you out in that swamp.”

  She shrugged. “My cell phone doesn’t work too good out there. But I will tell you if I see him, if you think it’s that important.”

  sixteen

  HAHNVILLE, 1912

  HELEN KNELT IN THE spongy soil and used her shears to snip a sprig of sage. Her fingers shook and her mouth was parched, and her wide-brimmed hat did little to combat the sun. The sage dropped through her fingers and fell soundlessly to the earth.