Under the Bayou Moon

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  Ellie shook her head. “It’s a thousand wonders Southern children can sleep at night. You grew up with the Rougarou, and I grew up with Rawhead.”

  “Rawhead?”

  “Daddy told us he lived in the barn at night and would eat us if we went anywhere near him,” she said. “Definitely kept us away from the poison he had to keep stored out there to keep the bugs off his cotton. Can we think of something a little less horrifying, maybe?”

  Raphe rocked for a few seconds, thinking before he spoke. “Remy’s favorite is a story about le cocodrie blanc—the white alligator.”

  “Cocodrie means ‘alligator’?”

  “It does.”

  “What does Teche mean?”

  “It comes from an Indian word that means ‘snake.’”

  “I live on Snake Bayou?”

  “You could say that.”

  “That oughta keep me from dangling my feet in the water. And I’m guessing the white alligator in your story is the one I keep seeing everywhere—the one I bought at Chalmette’s?”

  “That’s the one. We call it L’esprit Blanc—the White Spirit. Nobody knows where it came from or how long it’s been in the swamp. Some people say it’s not real at all—just an old Indian tale to scare white men away. Others swear they’ve caught a glimpse of it—the tip of its tail before it disappeared into the swamp grass or a peek at its snout right before it vanished into the Teche. They say L’esprit Blanc is snow white, with eyes the color o’ sapphires.”

  “He must be mighty old if the Indians saw him.”

  “Either that or there’s more than one.”

  “Is L’esprit Blanc good or bad?” Ellie asked.

  Raphe raised his eyebrows. “That’s always the question, non? I’ll leave that to you. There’s all kinds o’ stories about him. Some say he’ll cast a spell on you—un gris-gris. Others say he’s pure goodness—that’s why he’s so hard to find. Remy’s favorite goes like this: A long time ago, there was an orphan boy named Jacques Babineaux who lived all alone on the Atchafalaya. One day, Jacques gets so lonesome, livin’ all by hisself, that he decides to leave the river—which he knows like the back of his hand—and paddle deep into the swamp, lookin’ for some company. All the callin’ birds and the singin’ frogs, they make him feel a little less lonesome. But most of all, he loves the alligators. And he spends so much time listenin’ to the sounds they makes that he learns how to talk to ’em. A lot o’ people don’t know this, but alligators are fine company.”

  Ellie grinned. “Is that a fact?”

  “Pretty good card players too.” Raphe slowly rocked in the chair as he continued the story. “Jacques, he loves bein’ with ’em so much that he don’t ever want to go home. He stays and he stays, and he talks and he talks till he starts gettin’ on the alligators’ nerves, but they don’t want to hurt his feelin’s, you know?”

  “I’ve heard alligators are very sensitive,” Ellie said with a straight face.

  “Absolutely. So the gators, they wait till Jacques falls asleep, and then they hold le conseil to decide what they gonna do ’bout dis boy ’fore he runs ’em all crazy. Well, they bicker and they fuss, till finally the oldest one of ’em says they oughta send Jacques out to search for the white alligator. Now, L’esprit Blanc’s got the powerful gris-gris—whenever you see him, he gonna make hisself look like the thing you want most. You spot him when you want a new shotgun, that gator’s gonna look like the finest Remington at Chalmette’s, only soon as you reach for it, he gonna show hisself—pull you in the water and drown you fo’ sure. Dat’s how come he never been found, never been caught, never been killed. You sure you wanna hear this whole thing?”

  “If you stop now, I swear I’m gonna sing to you, and we both know you don’t want that,” Ellie said.

  “Even the gators, they can’t say for sure if L’esprit Blanc is real,” Raphe went on. “They just wantin’ to keep the boy occupied long enough to give their ears a rest.”

  “Do alligators have ears?” Ellie asked.

  “They do. So the boy, he wakes up and the alligators tell him they got a big job for him. They need him to catch this white alligator and bring it back alive so it can give ’em the gris-gris. Well, Jacques, he can’t wait to go—here’s a big adventure on the bayou and a chance to prove hisself to the alligators.”

  Raphe stopped rocking and leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees. “Right away, Jacques, he lights out in a pirogue. Minute he’s gone, the alligators go to celebratin’—they throw a big boucherie, dancin’ on the banks o’ the Teche and playin’ music and roastin’ a pig. They can’t imagine what it’s gonna be like to sleep late without Jacques wakin’ ’em up early to talk about the weather or keepin’ ’em up late to talk about what they gonna do tomorrow. They fill up on barbecue and go to bed, thinkin’ they ain’t got a care in the world, and they gonna sleep till lunchtime the next day ’cause Jacques, he’ll be out lookin’ for that white alligator for a real long time.”

  “Something tells me things won’t go as planned.”

  “Don’t be jumpin’ ahead now,” Raphe said, leaning back in his chair. “The next morning, all the alligators are havin’ the best rest they had since the boy turned up on the bayou. They all dreamin’ and snorin’ and sleepin’ so fine. But then right at daybreak, they hear the awfullest commotion out on the water—something splashin’ and Jacques singin’ at the top o’ his lungs and playin’ his accordion. That sleepy bunch o’ alligators, they come staggerin’ down the bank to find Jacques standin’ on the back o’ L’esprit Blanc, ridin’ him like a pirogue as he glides down the Teche, with Jacque’s boat tied to his tail. Jacques unties the boat, hops off the white alligator, and leads it up the bank to where the others are all waitin’, half-asleep and yawnin’, ever’ one of ’em. You ever see a whole bunch o’ alligators yawnin’ at the same time?”

  “As a matter of fact, no, can’t say that I have,” Ellie said, laughing.

  “The oldest gator, he says to Jacques, ‘How you find that white alligator when nobody else in the bayou could?’ Jacques, he just smiles and says, ‘Guess I wanted it more than they did.’ That’s when the white alligator speaks up and says, ‘I’m fixin’ to give y’all the only gris-gris you need: You gonna find what you want most ’cause you gonna see it like nobody else.’ And before they could stop him, he backed into the bayou and swam away. Nobody’s seen him since. But one o’ these days, somebody’s gonna want that white alligator more than anything else. And when they do, they gonna find him.”

  Ellie applauded from her perch on the desk. “That’s a fine swamp tale, Mr. Broussard,” she said with a big smile. “And I’m especially excited because I don’t think an alligator will be all that hard to draw. I’d be in a real pickle if you’d told me a story about a panther or a bear or something. By the way, do you realize your accent changes when you tell a story?”

  He smiled and nodded. “My sister says I speak in my own voice, but I tell stories in our papa’s. I don’t do it on purpose. It just happens.”

  He could hear the soft thud of her heels against the desk as she sat there, slowly swinging her legs back and forth. He sat silently for a while before he said, “What you having for supper tonight?”

  “Me? Well . . . I guess it’s too late to catch a fish, so I’ll probably have the same thing I ate last night—scrambled eggs, boudin, and biscuits. And before you ask—yes, I can cook.”

  “Will you let me and Remy cook for you? We can drop your boat off at Doc’s cabin, and I can get you home after so you don’t have to travel the bayou at night.”

  She looked down at her overalls and bare feet. “Can I clean up a little at the cabin?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then I’d love to.”

  NINE

  ELLIE STOOD BEFORE A MIRROR HANGING over the washbasin at Doc’s cabin. She had hurriedly splashed a little soap and water on “the critical regions,” as Mama Jean called them, and changed into a lavender cotton dress. T
here was no time for her hair, so she just brushed it and pinned it into a twist on the back of her head. Slipping on a pair of gray leather flats, she went out to join Raphe. He stood up when the door opened onto the porch.

  “Well, at least I’m clean—sort of,” she said. “Is there anything I can bring?”

  “Just your company,” he said. “You got a porch lamp?”

  “A what?”

  “It’ll be dark when we get back,” he said. “Good idea to leave a lamp on your porch so you don’t have to try and find your way in a dark house.”

  Ellie stepped inside and grabbed a lamp and matches from the table. She set them on the porch next to the screen door. “All set.”

  Raphe held the screen door open for her, and they walked down to the dock, where he helped her into his boat. Once he cranked the motor, they were off, skimming across the slough and back into the main channel of Bayou Teche, traveling farther south over water Ellie hadn’t seen before. The sun was low in the sky, casting the whole bayou in dusky twilight and cooling its bright daytime greens to the softer shades of early evening.

  “I think it would be hard to live someplace else if you grew up here,” Ellie said to Raphe, speaking up so he could hear her over the motor.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it’s not like anyplace else, not even close. I think I’d miss it if I left, and I haven’t even been here a heartbeat.”

  Raphe smiled at her. “Mamou would’ve said the bayou water’s done got in your blood.”

  They hadn’t traveled very far—maybe five or ten minutes—when Raphe steered the boat into a canal off the Teche and slowed the motor to an idle. As they glided under a cypress tree with a low-hanging curtain of Spanish moss, he took an oar from the boat and used it to hold the moss off of Ellie.

  The banks of the bayou were dotted with cabins on pilings about six feet off the ground. Outside one of them, Ellie saw the woman from Doc’s office, the one who had paid with chickens Raphe brought. “Is that your sister’s house?”

  “Yes, my sister Kitty,” he said.

  The channel made a bend to the left and emptied into a small slough. It held only one cabin, long and narrow, with a steep roof, shutter-framed windows, and a screened porch across the front. It sat on heavy posts about six feet off the ground, close to the water. Raphe steered the boat to a small dock and tied it up. He offered Ellie his hand and helped her to the ladder on the dock, then followed her.

  As they climbed the steps to the cabin and stepped inside the screened porch, a boy came out to greet them. “Hey, Nonc!” He stopped and stared when he saw Ellie. He was a pretty child, with dark, short-cropped hair and big brown eyes. He was wearing dungarees, a light blue T-shirt, and sneakers. What looked like a St. Christopher medal hung around his neck.

  “Remy, we’ve made a new friend,” Raphe said. “This is Miss Ellie. She’s the—she’s our new neighbor stayin’ over at Doc’s cabin.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Remy.” Ellie held out her hand and smiled.

  Remy timidly shook it. “Hello.”

  “We’re gonna cook supper for Miss Ellie—make her feel welcome,” Raphe said.

  “Okay,” Remy said. “I got the oysters and the shrimp shucked. Put the rice on too.”

  “Well, you already did the hard work. All I got to do is stir it up.” Raphe gave Remy’s hair a gentle tousle. “Why don’t you show Miss Ellie to the table and I’ll get things going?”

  Ellie followed Remy inside. The cabin was laid out much like Doc’s, with a main room that held a kitchen, fireplace, and table, and a door on the back wall, likely leading to a bedroom. Ellie had noticed stairs on the front porch. There must be a loft.

  Remy pulled a chair out for her.

  “Why, thank you,” Ellie said, smiling at him as he sat down next to her.

  Raphe got busy at a small butcher block next to the sink, chopping vegetables that released the savory aroma of celery, onion, and bell pepper.

  “How old are you, Remy?” Ellie asked her table companion.

  He was studying her face as if he were trying to make up his mind about her. “I’m seven.”

  “So you’ll be in second grade this year?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Remy stared down at the table, tracing the wood grain with his finger.

  “If you don’t mind my saying, you don’t sound too happy about it.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Ellie glanced up to see Raphe looking at Remy before he resumed chopping a rib of celery. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Is there anything at all you like about school?”

  Remy looked up at her and scratched his jaw, just as Raphe had done when he was trying to think of a story to tell her. “I like story time, but we don’t get to have it if the teacher thinks we’ve been bad, and she pretty much always thinks we’ve been bad.”

  “But you won’t have the same teacher this year, right?” Ellie asked.

  “No, ma’am, but she prob’ly won’t like us any better than the other one did. That’s what all the older kids say. Just thinkin’ about school makes my stomach hurt.”

  Ellie reached over and laid her hand on his. “That makes me sad, Remy. I think school should be fun.”

  “Fun?” Remy said, his eyes wide in disbelief.

  Ellie had to laugh at the stunned expression on his face. She could hear Raphe stirring something in a cast-iron pot as a nutty fragrance drifted from the stove.

  “It’s true,” Ellie said. “What could be more fun than learning how to read? And how to count things and tell what color they are? You get to hear stories about the settlers who came here to farm and fish—people from faraway places like Germany and France.”

  “France?” Remy said. Ellie knew she had his attention now. “You can’t talk about nothin’ French in school, Miss Ellie.”

  “You mean ‘anything’—you can’t talk about anything French in school—but I’m not sure that’s true.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am, it’s true!” Remy said, as if he needed to warn her away from the Rougarou. “If the teacher hears you say anything en français, she’ll yell at you and maybe hit your hand with a ruler and tell the whole class you’re acting un-American.”

  The nutty fragrance from the stove was growing stronger. Whatever was in the pot sizzled and hissed as Raphe poured the chopped vegetables into it.

  “Well, I think that’s wrong,” Ellie said. “And I know your new teacher fairly well. She’ll think it’s wrong too.”

  “She will?”

  “Mm-hmm. So I don’t think you should worry too much about getting hit with that ruler.”

  “Sure hope you’re right,” Remy said.

  “What else? Besides the ruler, I mean. Is there anything else that makes you dread going to school?”

  “I still can’t read. Not good anyway. Everything I learned to read, Nonc taught me. He likes books a lot.” Remy pointed to a bookshelf on the wall opposite the fireplace. It was probably six feet tall and four feet wide, filled to overflowing with books. “In school, the teacher said we oughta be able to pick it up from hearin’ her read to us and followin’ along in our books, but three of us had to share one, and it was hard to see. I just can’t get the hang of it.”

  Ellie saw Raphe retrieve what looked like a large glass jar of stock from the icebox and add it to the pot. Whatever was in there smelled divine. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was till just now.

  Leaning over to the boy and lowering her voice, she said, “I’ll let you in on something, Remy: There’s a secret code to the alphabet, and once you learn it, you can read anything.”

  “Vrai?” Remy asked, his eyes wide as saucers.

  “Now it’s your turn to teach me,” Ellie said. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means ‘really’ or ‘truly,’” Raphe said as he lifted a bowl from the sink and poured its contents—fresh shrimp and oysters—into the pot. “Is what you say really true?”

  “It’s def
initely true,” Ellie told Remy. “There are five magic letters that sound different depending on where they land in a word. Once you learn which spot makes which sound—boom—you’re reading, because most of the other letters always sound the same. Want to say the magic letters with me? A-e-i-o-u.”

  Remy smiled and repeated the letters.

  “A-e-i-o-u—back to you,” Ellie said.

  “A-e-i-o-u,” Remy echoed with a grin.

  Raphe set steaming bowls of rice and gumbo in front of Ellie and Remy, then brought one for himself and put three glasses and a pitcher of cold sweet tea on the table. “I never heard that before—about a-e-i-o-u. And I guess you know it’s gonna be running through my head all night long.”

  “I had what you might call a radical language professor in college,” Ellie said. “And I do apologize for disturbing your mind after you were kind enough to invite me to supper.” She poured the tea as Raphe placed a crusty loaf of bread on the table and sat down to offer thanks.

  Remy looked at Ellie. “You don’t sign the cross?”

  “Remy, we don’t pry,” Raphe said.

  “Sorry.” He stared down at his bowl.

  “It’s okay, Remy,” Ellie said. “I grew up in a different kind of Christian church, that’s all. You might say they speak different languages—my church and yours—but they’re saying the same thing. Oui? Yes?”

  Remy smiled and nodded, then pulled a piece of bread from the loaf and dunked it into his gumbo.

  Ellie dipped a spoon into her bowl and tasted fresh shrimp flavored by the oysters she hadn’t managed to scoop up yet, and a broth so rich she couldn’t begin to describe what was in it. She could taste the onion, celery, and bell pepper for sure, but there was so much more going on. “Holy cow!” she said.

  “It’s my favorite,” Remy said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Ellie saw Raphe motion toward Remy’s napkin and wink at him. Remy took the napkin and wiped his mouth again. “Nonc makes it for me all the time.”

  “What’s that mean—Nonc?” Ellie asked.

  “Uncle,” Raphe said.

  “How about that, Remy? I’ve only been here a little while, and already you’ve taught me vrai and nonc.”