Under the Bayou Moon

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  At the landing, she pulled the pirogue onto dry land and walked to Chalmette’s. “Bonjour, Emmett,” she said as she went inside.

  “Ah, bonjour, Miss Ellie!” he said. “What can I do for you today?”

  “You can let me roam aimlessly around your store. I’m afraid I might have a touch o’ cabin fever.”

  “Ah, well, we can fix that fo’ sure! Roam around my store much as you like. Buy ever’thing you see or nothin’ at all.”

  “Merci, Emmett,” Ellie said.

  She picked up a basket from a stack by the front counter and meandered the well-organized aisles of Emmett’s massive store, which held everything this community could possibly need: fabric, dress patterns, yarn, and thread; galvanized washtubs, seed, and shovels; shotguns, fishing rods, boat parts, and tackle; dry goods, soft drinks, and beer. There was even a toy section, she was surprised to discover.

  Ellie smiled as she walked past metal trucks and spinning tops and paper-doll books. She lightly ran her fingers over the pink ruffled dress and white apron of a doll with brown eyes and long dark curls spilling from underneath a pink bonnet.

  “Did you have such a doll as a little girl?”

  Ellie turned to see Raphe at the end of the aisle. “Not exactly, but close.” He came and stood next to her. “My doll’s name was Suzy, and she had a navy-blue dress and bright red shoes that really buckled. I was pretty impressed with myself when I learned to buckle them without any help. Unfortunately for Suzy, when I was about five, I decided she needed a haircut. She was never quite the same.”

  Raphe smiled as he reached up and touched one of the doll’s brown curls. “She looks a little like you.”

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead in that bonnet,” Ellie said, which made him laugh.

  “Good, because it would cover your hair, and that would be a shame,” he said, looking down at her. Then he frowned and asked, “Why are you here on a Saturday when you walk by Emmett’s every day of the week?”

  “Trying to cure the heebie-jeebies.”

  Raphe looked confused. “Heebie . . . jeebies?”

  “You know—when you’re anxious and worried and generally out of sorts, you’ve got the heebie-jeebies.”

  “What brought them on?”

  “My mind won’t stop turning around and around—” Ellie stopped herself and lowered her voice. “Around something you showed me not too long ago.”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders. “Will you come outside with me?”

  Ellie followed Raphe to the back door and set her basket down. They went into a backyard of sorts, where Emmett had a big circle of benches, most of them just plank seats—the kind you’d see with a picnic table—but there were two with backs like park benches.

  “What’s this?” she asked him.

  “It’s where the men gather to talk—to complain about a small catch or brag about a big one. And lie about both.” Raphe motioned her to one of the park benches, where they sat down together. “You’ve been thinking about the alligator?”

  “I have a hard time thinking of anything else.” Ellie absently fidgeted with one of the buttons running down the front of her skirt.

  “Was I wrong to take you there?”

  “No,” she said, looking up at him. “Not at all. I can’t believe I got to see such a thing. Only now—”

  “Now you don’t know what to do with what you saw?”

  Ellie nodded.

  “It was the same for me the first time. And every time after that, I guess.”

  “I can’t explain it,” Ellie said, struggling to make sense of her own thoughts. “There was something about the tunnel we went through to get there and the full moon and then that gleaming white . . .”

  “Maybe you crossed over something when you went through the tunnel. Now you can see something you couldn’t see before, but at the same time, you can’t go back.”

  “What is it that I’m seeing, Raphe—that we’re seeing?”

  “Something perfect trying to survive in a world that isn’t. Something pure always in danger of ruin. Breaks your heart a little, non?”

  She felt her eyes sting as she nodded.

  He put his arm around her and covered her fidgeting hand with his steady one. “Mine too, Juliet. Mine too.”

  NINETEEN

  THERE WERE NO CHILDREN on the bayou when Ellie paddled into Bernadette on Monday morning. Not a single pirogue or canoe. But when she arrived at the landing, there were all the boats. Approaching the school, she saw the older children gathered around Bonita and the younger ones circling Gabby in the schoolyard.

  “Y’all ready now?” Gabby called out.

  “Ready!” came the answer from all the students.

  “Alright then, y’all go play till you hear the bell,” Gabby called out. “Oh, hey, Ellie!”

  “What are y’all up to?” Ellie asked her as the three women walked into the school together.

  “We just gettin’ ’em ready for the super,” Gabby said with a grin.

  “They ready, alright,” Bonita agreed.

  “Should I be worried?” Ellie asked.

  “Naw, but that man oughta be,” Gabby said.

  Bonita laughed and shook her head. “I could feel sorry for him if I wanted to, but I don’t.”

  Inside the younger kids’ classroom, Ellie saw that Gabby and Bonita had covered the alligator with quilts and stacked the little “dreaming pillows” Ellie brought for the children in a box hidden under her desk. Anything that might make learning look fun had been stowed away, and the interior shutters that normally opened onto the dogtrot were closed.

  Ellie was unpacking her tote bag when two men came into her classroom. One didn’t look much older than she was. He was tall and a little on the thin side. His light blond hair was neatly trimmed, and he was clean-shaven. He had pale blue eyes and a face Ellie would describe as kind if she didn’t know better. His navy suit and tie looked very expensive. So did his leather shoes.

  The other man was a different story altogether. He looked like a tough customer—that’s what Mama Jean would say—with deep lines in his tanned face, khakis smeared with dirt, and a fedora. His dark eyes were cold, and he had a bowie knife strapped to his belt. The handle of the knife was bloodred, with silver rams’ horns at the hilt.

  He caught Ellie staring at the knife and laid his hand over it, sending a chill down her spine.

  “Miss Fields?” the younger man said, approaching her desk.

  “Yes?” She tried to gather her wits. “I mean yes, I’m Ellie Fields.”

  “I’m Boone Strahan, the superintendent of education.” He extended his hand, which Ellie shook.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said.

  There was an awkward silence as Boone stood there, offering no information about his intended goal for the day.

  “Is there . . . something in particular you’d like to discuss?” Ellie asked him. “Something you’d like to see?”

  He seemed surprisingly nervous. Ellie had expected someone brash and arrogant. This man looked and acted more like a professor than a politician.

  “I got things to do,” said the other man, who was standing in the doorway, his arm propped against the frame.

  Glancing at the bowie knife, Ellie calculated how quickly she could make it out one of the open windows. She wanted to keep the children away from him.

  “This—this is my assistant, Mr. Gig Luetrell,” Boone said. “He’ll be surveying the, uh, the community surroundings while I evaluate the school. Please don’t let us keep you, Mr. Luetrell.”

  As Luetrell turned to go, Ellie stepped into the corridor and looked out the front door to make sure he left the children alone. He showed no interest, hurrying past them to the landing. She immediately rang the school bell to bring her students inside, using the distraction to alert Gabby and Bonita about Boone Strahan and Gig Luetrell—one she believed to be a far greater danger than the superintendent.

  “Boys and girls, take your s
eats and we’ll get settled,” Ellie said. “We have a special guest this morning.”

  They were all staring at the stranger, who took out an expensive-looking silver pocket watch and flipped open the cover. Perhaps he was on a tight schedule.

  “That’s a beautiful watch,” Ellie said, trying to put him at ease.

  He gave her a nervous smile and turned it around so she could see its luminescent face. “A gift from my mother. She always loved mother-of-pearl.”

  “So does Mama Jean—my grandmother,” Ellie said. “Why don’t you take a seat in the rocking chair and make yourself at home?”

  Boone virtually fled to the sanctuary of the rocker, where he seemed painfully aware of the children’s scrutiny, repeatedly adjusting his tie and brushing at nonexistent lint on his trousers. Here was someone who clearly hated being the center of attention.

  Gabby had come into Ellie’s class this morning, leaving Bonita with the older children. She stood in the back of the room as Ellie made the introductions. “Class, this is Mr. Strahan, our school superintendent. Can you say good morning?”

  “Good morning, Mr. Strahan,” they said in unison.

  “Good morning.” He forced a smile.

  “Why don’t we begin our morning lessons, Mr. Strahan, and you can just stop me if you have any questions or advice?” Ellie suggested.

  “Very good,” he said. “I believe my primary purpose is to monitor their English, to ensure that—that strong measures are—are taken to eradicate French in this school.”

  “We understand,” Ellie said.

  “I promise I won’t—that is—interfere with your teaching. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t know how.”

  Gabby cleared her throat to get Ellie’s attention and gave her a wink.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention, Mr. Strahan—this is one of my assistants, Gabby Toussaint,” Ellie said. “She and her sister Bonita, who’s with the older children right now, are in charge of keeping our lessons in English—using whatever measures they deem appropriate.”

  “My pleasure.” Boone cast one of his awkward smiles in Gabby’s direction.

  Ellie didn’t know what to make of this man. He seemed far too gentle a soul to be in politics at all, much less the rough-and-tumble kind his father was famous for. And he didn’t appear to have any idea how to do his job. He was the last person on earth you would expect to see in the company of somebody like Gig Luetrell.

  With Boone looking on, Ellie had the little ones practice writing their ABC’s on slates while she began the morning history lesson with the older kids. They were studying Bayou Teche.

  “Now, does anyone remember which Indian tribe named the Teche?” Ellie asked. She saw Gabby discreetly nudge Antoine Doucet, whose hand shot up. “Yes, Antoine?”

  “C’est la Chitimacha,” he said, wincing a little as if he knew what was about to happen.

  “No French!” Gabby reprimanded him, grabbing him by the ear and leading him out of the classroom. Once they were outside in the corridor, everyone could hear what sounded like a paddle striking a backside, each time followed by a wail from Antoine. The older children were doing their level best not to laugh, while all of the younger ones, as if on cue, began to wail along with Antoine, though Ellie didn’t see any tears.

  Antoine returned to the classroom, bowing his head and rubbing his backside, with Gabby following behind, carrying a wooden paddle the size of a rolling pin. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Strahan,” she said, “we gon’ beat the French out of ’em if it’s the last thing we do.”

  A horrified Boone stood up from his chair. “Do you—do you mean to tell me—you beat children for speaking French?”

  “It’s the law,” Ellie said, hoping Boone didn’t notice that the first and second graders had grown bored with their wailing and were back to writing their ABC’s.

  “What law?” he demanded.

  “Y’ Papa’s,” Gabby said.

  “The law says no French,” Ellie added. “But my instructions from the school board said no French by whatever means necessary. This is what’s necessary if you want children to forget a language their people have spoken for hundreds of years.”

  “Well, that just can’t be,” Boone insisted. “As your superintendent, I—I’ll be back. I need to think about this.”

  Boone hurried out of the schoolhouse. Ellie went to the window and watched a brand-new Chevy speed away from the school. She wondered how Gig Luetrell planned on getting back to Baton Rouge.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “Antoine, honey, you did so good,” Gabby said. “Step on in the broom closet and take them dream pillows out your britches.”

  The class howled as Antoine grinned and did a little dance to the broom closet at the front of the class, swishing his very poufy rear end back and forth.

  “I tell you what,” Gabby said, “Antoine just about had me believin’ he was gettin’ a whoopin’. That boy can holler fo’ sure.”

  TWENTY

  ELLIE RANG THE DISMISSAL BELL, waved goodbye to most of her students, and thanked the Toussaints for their help. Then she went back inside and spent a couple of hours giving extra help to Marceline Ardoin, who had confessed a dream of going to college. Ellie meant to do whatever she could to help her get there.

  She and Marceline walked to the landing together before saying their goodbyes as Ellie climbed into Doc’s pirogue. After that first day of school, she had left the bass boat tied to the dock, instead taking the pirogue, which she paddled up the Teche each morning with an armada of schoolchildren traveling in a similar fashion. The pirogue made her feel at home in the bayou.

  About half the students had peeled off to their family cabins when Ellie waved goodbye to the others and paddled into Doc’s slough. She waved to Tante Dodo.

  “Bonjour, Eh-LEE!” called the old woman in her heavy French accent, briefly pausing the handmade broom she used to sweep her front porch.

  “Bonjour, Tante Dodo!” Ellie called back. When she first came here, Doc had told her to go to Tante Dodo and Mr. Hudie if she had any kind of problems at the cabin. That had proven sound advice, with Ellie and the elder Cajun woman becoming close friends almost immediately. It was Tante Dodo who had helped her master the pirogue, which Ellie now easily steered to the bank, then jumped from boat to land as naturally as she put one foot in front of the other.

  She carried her schoolwork in a handsome leather tote Mama Jean had given her “because a professional woman should look the part.” It seemed out of place in the bayou, but it made Ellie feel as if her grandmother were right there, watching over her.

  Inside the cabin, she changed into a T-shirt and overalls. Her mother never could abide this particular outfit, but the worn cotton and denim were soft against her skin and the fit was wonderfully loose and comfortable. They were hand-me-downs from her brother, several years her junior but nearly a foot taller. She rolled the legs up to her knees and put her hair in a ponytail. It had grown too long to style much, but maybe the beauty parlor in town could do something about that.

  After building a fire in the woodstove to warm a pot of chicken and rice she had made the night before, Ellie chipped off a few chunks from a block of ice in the icebox, put them in a glass, and poured it full of sweet tea, then went out on the porch to sit in her swing. Her mind kept drifting back to Raphe. Staring at the pirogue that rested on the bank, she pictured him standing in it, rowing in the moonlight. What would she do if he were to suddenly appear in the slough and row right up to her dock? What would she say to him?

  Sudden movement on the edge of the slough caught her attention. It was Tante Dodo, in her usual cotton dress, white apron, and white bonnet, leading a parade of older ladies from her cabin toward Ellie’s. They must’ve been waiting for her to come home. The ladies were taking their time, some walking strong like Tante Dodo, others hunched over and a little more feeble, leaning on walking sticks. Ellie watched as they slowly made their way around the water and into her front yard, if
you could call it that—the banks here were far too shady for grass to grow.

  Ellie opened the screen door to her porch. “Bonjour, mes dames!” she called.

  “Bonjour, Eh-LEE!” the women called, waving to her.

  Ellie welcomed them—five in all—onto her porch. “Would you like to come inside? Can I get you anything—a glass of tea, maybe?”

  “Non, merci,” Tante Dodo said. “We sit?” She pointed to the swing.

  “Of course.” Ellie motioned for three of the ladies to sit in the swing and pulled her two porch rockers together for Tante Dodo and another woman who carried a long walking stick. Ellie grabbed a chair from the table inside and took a seat with them.

  Tante Dodo folded her hands in her lap and began explaining their mission in halting English dipped in French. “Maintenant,” she said, “we come to ask you help, Eh-LEE.”

  “What can I do for y’all, Tante Dodo?”

  “Ils—” Tante Dodo began in French. She paused, and Ellie watched the old woman’s lips move as she silently translated to herself before speaking again. “They want learn the anglaise. They want you teach. I . . . would like . . . to get better.”

  “You ladies want to learn English?” Ellie asked.

  Tante Dodo smiled and nodded, looking relieved to be understood. “Oui! Learn English.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “Pour notre petits-enfants,” Tante Dodo said. “You say . . . grand . . . grandchildren. They talk the français at home—for us,” she said, gesturing around the circle of women. “But they talk the français in school—” Tante Dodo slapped one of her hands with the other. “We talk the anglaise, they talk the anglaise, they no more—” Again she slapped one hand with the other.

  Ellie felt a knot in her stomach. “You mean you ladies—you want to learn English so your grandkids can speak it all the time at home? So they won’t slip into French and get punished at school?”

  “Oui!” Tante Dodo smiled broadly and clapped her hands together. “You teach?”