Under the Bayou Moon

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  Doc steered them off the main channel of Bayou Teche and into a narrow tributary. It was peaceful and serene, completely shaded with tall trees. Houses on stilts began to appear, clinging to the banks, where they perched as if they had grown right out of the bayou. People on their porches waved and called out to Doc with what sounded like a friendly greeting, but it was all in French. He answered back in kind with a smile and a wave.

  Soon they came to a small cove with just two cabins on stilts—one at the mouth of it, facing the channel, and another tucked deep inside it. Doc steered them to the more distant cabin, which had a long, wide dock with a built-in wooden bench near the end. It looked a lot newer than anything else on the property. Another bass boat with a motor was tied to one side of it. Up on the bank near the water was a long, narrow wooden boat, sharply pointed at the bow and stern, with low sides and a flat bottom.

  Doc helped Ellie out, then set her luggage on the dock and climbed up to join her. “Right this way,” he said, picking up her suitcases. Ellie grabbed her overnight case and followed him to the cabin with a screened porch all the way across the front and a gingerbread-framed screen door. On the porch, Doc opened the heavy wooden front door, which was decorated with a carving of an alligator painted white, and held it open for Ellie.

  The floors and walls were made of wide cypress boards, well chinked to keep out the elements. All the kerosene lamps scattered about told Ellie there was no electricity.

  A small rectangular wooden table with four chairs anchored the room near the center. Against the back wall were a woodstove, a sink with a hand pump, an icebox, and open shelves filled with dishes, canned goods, sacks of flour and sugar, boxes of salt and pepper, a bread box, and a couple of tins that likely contained coffee or tea. Onions and garlic hung in bundles from a beam overhead, along with an iron rack that held a few pots and pans and a cast-iron skillet or two. A small worktable was tucked into the back corner.

  Against the right-hand wall, beneath one of the tall front windows, was a twin bed with no headboard or footboard. It was covered with a cheery red-and-white quilt and five or six throw pillows.

  On the wall to the left was a huge stone fireplace with cast-iron kettles mounted on hinges that could swing them over the flames. Floor-to-ceiling bins on either side of it were filled with firewood. Facing the fireplace was a piece of furniture that looked wildly out of place in a bayou cabin—the longest, poufiest sofa Ellie had ever seen, covered in forest-green fabric, an attempt, perhaps, to accommodate its rustic surroundings.

  “Florence says a living room needs a sofa,” Doc said with a grin. “And who am I to argue? I’ll put your things in here.”

  Ellie followed him through a doorway next to the woodstove and into the only other room, which was as long as the one in front but not as deep. One end held two iron beds with a nightstand between them. At the other end, Ellie saw a pine wardrobe with double doors next to a washstand, which had a mirror hanging above it. Against the back wall was a galvanized bathtub with a bucket and a brick next to it.

  “Here’s a convenience my father thought of,” Doc said. He walked over to the tub and pulled out the drain plug. “There’s a hole in the floor beneath the tub so it’ll drain by itself. You’ll only need the bucket to fill it, not to empty it. Just remember to replace the plug afterwards or a snake might decide to crawl through and join you. Florence puts that brick on top of it, just to be on the safe side.”

  Ellie shuddered at the thought of a water moccasin in her bed. “Believe me, I won’t forget that plug. Or the brick.”

  Doc opened what looked like a closet door next to the washstand. “And this is something Florence insisted on if I ever wanted her to spend a weekend out here fishing with me. She said she was done with outhouses.”

  Ellie peeked inside and saw an actual functioning toilet. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, which made Doc laugh.

  “You have to fill the tank with the bucket, but it works. One day, Florence will have me plumb the whole cabin, but she’s satisfied for now, no more time than she spends here,” Doc said as the two of them returned to the front room. “You had written that you’d likely arrive today, so Florence put some fresh eggs and butter and a bottle of milk in the icebox, and I put a big ice block in there this morning, so everything should stay cool. There’s a little smokehouse out back where you’ll find plenty of bacon and boudin.”

  “What’s that—boudin?” Ellie asked.

  “Never had it before? It’s a Cajun sausage. Best thing you ever tasted, ’specially when you dip it in a little cane syrup. We also took the liberty of leaving you a jug of Florence’s homemade muscadine wine—strictly for medicinal purposes if you happen to be very Baptist.”

  “Good for what ails you?” Ellie said with a grin.

  Doc winked at her. “Absolutely. That cabin we passed on the way in—it belongs to an older couple. Everybody calls them Tante Dodo and Mr. Hudie. Tante Dodo took it upon herself to learn English for the sake of her grandkids, so she can communicate with you. I’ve told them you might be staying here. If you ever needed anything or had any kind of trouble, you could just go straight to their cabin and they’d do anything in the world for you.”

  Ellie stepped onto the porch and peered across the water. From here, all she could see of the other cabin was its chimney, barely visible through an opening in the trees. “Doc, I’m not sure I feel right about this, taking your fishing cabin away from you and your wife,” she said as he came out to join her.

  “Ellie, you have no idea how happy we would be to host you, for as long as you’re willing to stay. I can fish anywhere. This is Louisiana, for heaven’s sake. And Florence only comes down here to humor me. You aren’t taking a thing in the world away from us. Just the opposite, in fact. So what do you think? Could you be happy here for a while?”

  Ellie looked out at three ducks swimming across the cove as a heron took flight from a cypress tree. “Yes, Doc,” she said with a smile. “I think I could be very happy here.”

  FIVE

  RAPHE STOOD ON THE SCREENED PORCH of his cabin, took a sip of coffee, and looked out at the downpour pelting the bayou. He had always loved the rain, even though it hindered fishing. He relished the stillness it brought. There was something so peaceful about that.

  Peace would be hard to come by after this week. Another school year was beginning, and though Remy tried his best to hide it, Raphe knew he was terrified of going back and would likely be miserable every minute he was there. The boy would stop eating again. And he would cry into his pillow at night, which Raphe could hear when he sat on the porch underneath Remy’s loft up above. He was always torn: Should he interrupt the tears to comfort Remy or allow him privacy to spill his sadness into a pillow without the embarrassment of being seen doing it? A real father would know the answer to that.

  Remy was such a gentle soul, always trying hard to please, never asking for anything, determined to endure without complaint—as if abandonment lurked like an alligator in high grass, waiting to snatch him away from home if he made a wrong step.

  Raphe had done all he could to alleviate his nephew’s fears, but they were buried so deep he couldn’t touch them. And now Remy had to go back to that school and face whatever poor excuse for a teacher the parish school board had persuaded to come way down here for a year, one who would no doubt work daily to instill fear of something as harmless—as beautiful—as the language his people had spoken for centuries. If he thought it wouldn’t bring all kinds of trouble down on them, Raphe would keep Remy away from school and do his best to teach him to read and write at home. But it wasn’t possible.

  He heard the door open behind him.

  “More coffee, Nonc?” Remy had the pot in his hand.

  Raphe smiled as he held out his cup and let Remy top it off. The boy returned the pot to the stove and then came back out.

  “C’est une grosse pluie, non?” Remy immediately slapped his hand over his mou
th.

  “Yes, it’s a big rain.” Raphe put an arm around his nephew. “Come over here. We can sit in the swing and watch it.”

  They took a seat in the porch swing they had built together, Raphe rocking it back and forth as they listened to raindrops splashing outside. Remy was only seven and small for his age. His feet didn’t reach the floor.

  “Listen to me, Remy. I’ve been tryin’ to make sure we speak English at home so you get in the habit because I know you gonna get into trouble if you speak French at the school. But there’s nothing wrong with French. That’s just other people telling us what to do. The law lets ’em get away with it for now, but I bet you it won’t always be that way. You got to do what they say while you’re in that school, but at home—we’re not gonna let anybody make us feel ashamed o’ who we are. You understand?”

  Remy smiled up at him and nodded.

  “And I’ll tell you this,” Raphe went on. “If that teacher thinks she’s gonna hurt you or make you feel scared, you let me know. You and me, we can stop that right away. You tell me anything, and we gonna handle it together. D’accord?”

  “D’accord.” Remy smiled again and rested his head on Raphe’s shoulder. “Will you tell me the story of L’esprit Blanc, Nonc?”

  “Oui,” Raphe said, looking out at the darkened bayou and listening to the rain. “Long time ago, there was a boy named Jacque Babineaux who spent so much time deep in the swamp, watchin’ the alligators and listenin’ to the sounds they made, that he learned how to talk to ’em . . .”

  SIX

  ELLIE HAD MADE HERSELF BREAKFAST FOR SUPPER, with scrambled eggs, some boudin from the smokehouse, and a small pan of biscuits with cane syrup she found on one of the kitchen shelves. Doc was right about the boudin. Ellie had never tasted anything like it.

  Tomorrow she would try to catch some fish for supper, but tonight she just wanted to relax and let herself sink into the bayou. Kerosene lamps were burning in the front room, filling the cabin with warm light. She finished eating, washed her dishes, and put them away, then put on her nightgown and poured some of Florence’s muscadine wine into a coffee cup. Wrapping herself in a shawl Mama Jean had brought back from a trip to Scotland, Ellie went onto the porch. She sat down in a rocking chair and pulled the shawl a little tighter. It was made of lightweight wool, plaid, in peacock shades of blue, wide enough and long enough to swathe her whole upper body.

  She put her bare feet up in the rocker and took a sip of the wine, which reminded her of all the times she and her brother had trekked through the Alabama woods, picking up muscadines that fell from wild vines and eating them on the spot. She would write Lanny a letter as soon as she settled into school. Hard to believe he had already graduated and was helping work the farm.

  Relaxing in the rocker, Ellie closed her eyes, listening to the rain and the night sounds of frogs and crickets. A cool wind was blowing through the screens wrapping the porch. She heard something, distant but clear as a bell, drifting across the water from somewhere upstream. It was a plaintive fiddle playing a tune Ellie couldn’t describe—like a sad song trying to be happy, or maybe a happy song that couldn’t mask a touch of sadness. It was beautiful. A man’s voice, aged but strong, began to sing. “Parlez-moi d’amour . . .”

  She thought about Gunter. Nagging doubt, Heywood helped her to see, had kept her from accepting his ring for many months, but when she finally said yes, she had felt happy, hadn’t she? The minute he made it plain, though, that he intended to be the decision maker in their lives, that what was important to him would always come first, some sort of switch flipped inside her. She hadn’t cried about their parting—not once—because she didn’t feel sad. Mostly she just felt foolish.

  If she really dug down deep and thought about it, there had been signs, things she dismissed as overprotectiveness on Gunter’s part. In fact, he had been slowly, over time, exerting little bits of control, imperceptible when taken one moment at a time but painfully obvious when she looked back on the accumulation. Maybe she, too, was guilty of deception, only she had deceived herself, not her intended. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

  Ellie took another sip of wine, set the cup on the porch, and closed her eyes again. Tomorrow she would go to the school and do her best to transform those two dreary classrooms into a proper space for children. She would plan every minute of her first day—how to make it fun and interesting so her students would look forward to school instead of dreading it. She would find a way to make every child feel safe and special. But for now, she would simply breathe in the night, listening to the crickets and the night owls. She would follow Heywood’s advice: Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow and enjoy the here and now.

  SEVEN

  RAPHE GRABBED A COKE FROM THE RED COOLER on the porch at the general store and went inside to pay Emmett Chalmette at the register. It would be good to get out of the midday heat. Just inside, he found Emmett on his hands and knees, gathering up white alligator carvings. They had been displayed on a small table near the front of the store. Now the table was lying on its side, the wooden alligators scattered everywhere.

  “What happened?” Raphe asked as he set the Coke and his money on the counter and started helping Emmett.

  “Scoot the table back a little closer to the register where I can watch it better if you don’t mind, mon ami,” Emmett said.

  Raphe moved the table back and began gathering up the larger carvings.

  “That preacher Lester done come in here,” Emmett said, shaking his head. “I won’t let him on my property no more, but he stands ’cross the street preachin’ about what he calls graven images and sayin’ we all goin’ to hell on accounta we worshipin’ the white alligator.”

  “What made him think that?” Raphe asked, setting a stack of carvings on the display table and then spreading them out.

  “Somebody musta just put the notion in his head, ’cause he done seen these carvin’s o’ Freeman’s alligators on doors an’ porches ’round the bayou for over a year now, an’ he ain’t said a word,” Emmett said. “But here in the past few months he’s gone on a tear about the white alligator. Says it’s bad enough us Catholics worship statues—that same ol’ crazy business—but now we done bowin’ down to a reptile. Come in here shoutin’ about it just now and turned my table over ’fore I could stop him.”

  “He still putting up a reward for anybody that kills it?” Raphe asked.

  “Oui,” Emmett said, replacing the smaller carvings while Raphe grabbed a broom from behind the counter and swept around the table. “I don’t know where a preacher woulda got $5,000 to spend on an alligator reward. But they say he draws big crowds to his tent revivals. That collection plate must be fuller’n my crab traps on a mighty good day.”

  “You still seeing a lot o’ hunters from the outside?” Raphe asked as he returned the broom.

  “Naw,” Emmett said. “They made a big noise ’bout gettin’ the white gator and collectin’ all that money, but folks like that got no idea what they doin’ when they come down here. Most of ’em just rode up and down the main channel—like you’d ever find a white alligator out in broad daylight. They’ve all ’bout give up.”

  Raphe took a sip of his Coke. “Why people got to meddle with things they don’t know about?”

  “You go on and figure that one out, Raphe, so you can explain it to the rest of us.”

  “Freeman’s carvings still selling good?”

  “Oui,” Emmett said. “Most people buy the smaller ones for the kids, but some o’ the ladies get the bigger ones to put on their front door. Leta’s got one nailed to ever’ post on her porch. Looks real nice.”

  “That’s good,” Raphe said. “Helps Freeman bring in a little extra money. Even harder for a colored family than the rest of us. Knowing his daddy, Freeman’s been raised to work hard.”

  “How long you an’ Lawyer been playin’ music together?”

  Raphe took another sip of his Coke as he tried to remember. “Don’t know
. Since way before Freeman was born. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

  Emmett smiled at him. “That’s ’cause you ain’t picked up your fiddle in a long time, Raphe. What’s it gonna take to get you back on that stage at the dance hall?”

  “Time,” Raphe said with a long sigh. “Ain’t got any.”

  “I hear you, mon ami.”

  “I see le conseil is meeting today.” Raphe pointed at the five men gathered around a long piece of plywood resting on sawhorses at the back of the store. They were peeling boiled crawfish and sipping from cold bottles of beer that Emmett iced down in a galvanized trough.

  “Aw, they really got it goin’ today,” Emmett said with a grin. “Didn’t hardly look up when ol’ Brother Lester tipped my gators.”

  “What’s got ’em so stirred up?” Raphe asked.

  “The new schoolteacher. She come in here to buy supplies, and when I rung her up, she said ‘merci’! Even bought a white gator. I thought Leo and Andre was gonna hit the ground! They near ’bout ran to the Teche to fly the flag so they could tell the others. Goin’ on two hours now, they been back there hashin’ it out, talkin’ over each other ’cause they so excited. I’m gon’ make me a killin’ off all the beer they drinkin’ while they eat them crawfish and work on this new development.”

  Raphe smiled and shook his head. “Reckon I better get back there and see what they decided. I left my Coke money on the counter.”

  “Merci, Raphe.”

  He had known the group of men around the table since he was a boy. They were good friends to Raphe’s father before the storm took him away. Leo and Andre Castile were brothers, both in their seventies and both fishermen. Clayton Menard, Binkie Melancon, and Clifton Chavis were their cousins—all about ten years younger than Leo and Andre, and all three alligator hunters. Because the five always seemed to know everything about everybody in the whole parish, the community affectionately called them le conseil—the council. To make it easy for one to summon the others for discussions like these, Leo had erected a flagpole at the town landing and had his wife fashion a white flag with a big purple fleur-de-lis. When the flag was flying, news was breaking, and they all knew to gather at Chalmette’s.