Under the Bayou Moon

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

“None. What about you? Are you sure you want to spend your life with an impatient, bossy schoolteacher who still hasn’t mastered gumbo?”

  He bent down and gave her a soft kiss. “I can make my own gumbo.”

  Raphe was still smiling down at Ellie when something suddenly caught his attention, and his expression changed. He was looking over her head toward the bayou.

  “Juliet!” he said, turning her in the direction of an unnerving sight. The sky was glowing orange, not just in one spot but several, scattered down the bayou on either side of the water. And now Ellie could smell smoke drifting through the air.

  Without another word, they went running hand in hand back to the dance hall, where everyone had gathered inside as the musicians began tuning up.

  “Non!” Raphe shouted. “Don’t play!”

  The crowd parted, and the musicians stared openmouthed as he and Ellie ran to the stage.

  “Remy, come here!” Raphe shouted. “Everybody! Bayou cabins on fire!”

  As the crowd rushed the front and back doors of the dance hall, Raphe and Ellie anxiously searched the crowd, looking for Remy and hoping the slight elevation of the stage would help them spot him. The dance hall quickly emptied, but there was no sign of Remy. They ran outside, toward the landing, and were relieved to see Remy and Footsie scrambling up the bank nearby. Heywood was helping Gabby into a boat with her parents.

  “Remy!” Raphe called out.

  Remy came running, with Footsie close behind him.

  “What’s happening, Nonc?” Remy looked terrified.

  Raphe picked him up and held him tight before explaining their situation. “We’ll be alright, but some of the cabins in the bayou are on fire. We don’t know which ones, so we need to get home right away.”

  Footsie seemed frantic, looking right and left, scanning the landing for his family. Ellie put her arm around him. “Honey, why don’t you stay with us till we find your mama, okay?”

  He was speechless. All he could do was nod and cling to Ellie’s skirt as Heywood joined them.

  Heywood took one look at the distraught boy and tried to distract him. “We need a lookout! Climb up, Footsie!” He knelt down and helped Footsie climb onto his shoulders. “You hold on tight and let us know if you spot your mama or anything else we need to know about, okay?” He grasped Footsie’s legs to keep him steady.

  “Okay, Mr. Heywood,” Footsie said.

  They hurried to the landing with everyone else. Those with motors let the pirogues tie onto them so they could move faster down the Teche. Raphe tied the Richards’ pirogue to his boat and pulled out into the bayou, going as fast as he could while keeping both boats steady and steering wide around any snags to make sure the pirogue cleared them as Lawyer helped guide it with a paddle. Remy and Footsie sat next to Ellie in the center of the boat. She grabbed a quilt from beneath the seat and wrapped it around them as the night air brought a chill.

  The first fire they came to appeared to be on the same tributary as Doc’s fishing cabin, Ellie’s first home in the bayou. As Raphe steered them toward the glow in the sky, they saw a heartbreaking sight: Tante Dodo and Mr. Hudie, clinging to each other as they watched the roof cave in on the cabin they had shared for sixty years. The little house was engulfed in flames.

  Doc and Florence pulled up beside Raphe’s boat. Watching the old couple, beloved by the whole community, lose their home, Florence burst into tears.

  “Raphe,” Doc said as he put his arm around his wife, “you all keep going and see who else needs help. We’ll take Tante Dodo and Mr. Hudie home with us for the night. Everything’s so wet from all the rain we’ve had, I doubt we have to worry about the fire spreading.”

  “Okay, Doc.” Ellie heard Raphe’s voice break as he said it. She turned and reached out for his hand. He took hers and kissed it before turning his attention back to the motor while Heywood kept a lookout from the front of the boat.

  Soon they could see that Raphe’s cabin and his sister’s were both fine. They traveled on toward the next glow in the sky and found it at the house of Leta LeJeune, the town beautician. All that remained was a corner of her front porch and one post with a white alligator—now charred—nailed to it. Leta and her husband were climbing into a boat with some of their neighbors.

  Raphe kept going farther down the bayou, where most of the Creole families lived. Ellie saw tears rolling down Footsie’s cheek and reached across Remy to pat the boy’s hand. “Don’t you worry, Footsie,” she said. “Everything’s gonna be alright.”

  “Looks like Lawyer’s place is okay!” Heywood called out. They heard a shout go up from the pirogue in the back and a “Thank you, Jesus!” from Lawyer’s wife, Minerva.

  Raphe towed them to the bank and waited as Lawyer helped his family out of the pirogue. On the bank, Freeman Richard turned and looked at Ellie. He raised his hand goodbye. She forced a smile and waved back.

  “I thank you, Raphe,” Lawyer said.

  “I’m glad for you, mon ami,” Raphe said.

  Lawyer untied the pirogue. “Be careful. Fires don’t start by theyself, ’specially in wet weather.”

  Once Lawyer had freed the boat, Raphe steered back into the Teche, down the main channel to the last fiery glow on the bayou.

  Ellie watched Footsie point as they passed the houses between Lawyer’s and the fire. When he realized his own house was burning, his face crumbled and he began to cry. Remy put his arms around his friend. Neither child said anything. They just held on to each other as the boat drew closer and closer to the fire.

  Near the bank in front of the burning cabin, Ellie could hear the terrified voice of a woman calling out, “Footsie! Footsie, baby, where are you? Footsie!”

  “We’ve got him!” Heywood shouted.

  Footsie’s mother came tearing through the crowd of relatives watching her house go up in flames and ran down to a rickety dock. “Footsie!”

  Heywood picked up the boy and handed him to his mother.

  She knelt down and held him tight against her, saying over and over, “Oh, my baby. My sweet baby.”

  “You find him, Davinia?” a man called out.

  “He’s alright!” she answered as Footsie’s father ran to the dock and picked him up.

  Her child safe, Davinia collapsed. Her sobs echoed over the bayou, piercing through the roar of the fire as it devoured her home. One by one, the timbers supporting the roof of the cabin fell into the flames. What had once provided this family shelter, humble though it was, quickly disintegrated into a fiery heap of rubble, leaving them exposed, covered only by a blanket of smoke.

  “Where’s a family this size gonna go?” Heywood asked.

  “They could sleep at the dance hall,” Raphe suggested, “till we can find ’em something better.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Heywood said. “The women already made a bunch o’ pallets for the children at the picnic—should be enough to keep the Taylors warm and dry for the night.”

  Remy had climbed onto Ellie’s lap and put his head on her shoulder. She covered him with the quilt and rocked him back and forth. “I’m worried about Footsie,” he whispered in her ear.

  “He’ll be alright, sweetheart,” she whispered back. “Nonc and Mr. Heywood will make sure o’ that.”

  “Lemme run up here and see if Virgil and Davinia agree to the dance hall,” Heywood said. “If they do, y’all can take me back to your house and I’ll go get their family in the Whirlygig. It’ll be tight, but it oughta hold everybody, and we don’t have to travel far.”

  Raphe nodded. “Sounds good.”

  Heywood hurried out of the boat. They watched him relay the plan to Virgil, who stood still for a moment, then shook Heywood’s hand. Within minutes, Heywood was back in the boat and they were under way.

  As they journeyed back up the Teche, the smell of smoke and charred wood filled the air. Ellie kept rocking Remy, who was falling asleep in her arms, as she thought about the first time she had traveled the bayou with Raphe and
her sweet boy in a pirogue, slow and peaceful. Back then she wondered if this Louisiana waterway would carry her to a new life. It had. Speeding across the Teche now, its banks marred by homes destroyed, Ellie remembered what Raphe had told her about the white alligator—something perfect trying to survive in a world that wasn’t, like a home in a blaze, like a loving community assailed by hate or greed or just plain meanness.

  “Raphe, look.” Ellie saw Heywood pointing at yet another horrifying glow in the sky and a pillar of smoke much higher than any they had seen on the bayou. She gasped at the sight of it. Remy stirred but didn’t awaken. Raphe opened the throttle, speeding up the bayou as fast as he safely could until they reached the landing and saw what they knew they would see yet desperately hoped not to. St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church was ablaze, its roof disintegrating, its soaring steeple toppled onto the ground and in flames.

  Heywood jumped out of the boat and tied it up. Raphe climbed over Ellie’s center seat and knelt down beside her. “Juliet? Will you be alright here? Do you want to come with us?”

  Ellie could hardly form a thought, let alone speak. She just stared helplessly at Raphe and shook her head.

  He kissed her on the cheek. “I won’t be long.” He followed Heywood up the street.

  RAPHE AND HEYWOOD PASSED CHALMETTE’S, where they could see the windows of its double front doors had been broken. A pile of Freeman’s white alligators were burning in front of the store. Up ahead, they saw Father Timothy, pastor of St. Bernadette’s, watching the church collapse. The men who had tried in vain to save it were now pumping water from the creek to hose down Doc’s office and the dance hall, safeguarding them from the fire. There was nothing else anyone could do. The church was gone.

  “It was fine when we left,” Heywood said, never taking his eyes off St. Bernadette’s.

  “Nothing that big burns so fast without some help,” Raphe said.

  Heywood nodded in agreement. “I’d bet the Whirlygig there’s fuel on that fire. And I’d bet my next birthday I know where it came from.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH JULIET. She had stayed at the cabin to put Remy to bed while Raphe and Heywood went back for the Taylor family and ferried them to the dance hall. Leo and his wife were there to help Virgil and Davinia get their children situated for the night. Heywood told Raphe he needed to be on the water tonight to clear his head. He promised to be there for the morning meeting at Chalmette’s.

  Now Raphe was pulling up to his own dock, thinking over and over about the strange expression on his wife’s face as they watched the church burn, and again as she said goodbye when he carried Remy up to his loft before returning to the dock to join Heywood. It was as if she were in a trance, unable to fully hear him or see him or feel his touch. He was so worried that he asked Doc about it. Doc said it wasn’t unusual for some people to go into shock after a tragedy and urged Raphe to get home as soon as possible.

  He quickly secured the boat and hurried up the dock to his cabin, which was completely dark except for a dim light coming from Remy’s window. Juliet always left a lamp burning for him.

  Raphe quietly ran up the stairs and peeked into Remy’s room. He was sound asleep. Back downstairs, he stepped inside the silent cabin and felt his way to the lamp and matches that stayed in the center of the table. Even a little glow from the lamp was reassuring.

  “Juliet?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Raphe carried the light into his bedroom and found his wife in her nightgown, sitting on the floor against the back wall, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. He went back into the kitchen, pumped cold water onto a dish towel, and then knelt down beside her, placing the towel on the back of her neck. She seemed startled by the chill.

  “Juliet?” he repeated, blotting her face with the towel.

  She looked at him—he could tell she was finally seeing him now—and squinted as if she were trying to recall his name.

  “Juliet, it’s me.”

  She nodded and laid her hand against his face, but then she grew agitated. “Remy? Is he alright?”

  Raphe kissed her forehead. “He’s fine. I just checked on him.”

  She nodded and attempted a smile. But then tears were flowing down her cheeks. He lifted her off the floor and carried her to their bed, lying down next to her and holding her as she wept and sobbed what was surely the worst shock of her life into his shoulder. And it broke his heart to know—as a great storm had taught him long ago—that this was just the beginning.

  IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING, well before dawn, Ellie awoke to the sound of rain. It was accompanied by the peaceful rise and fall of Raphe’s breathing, his skin warm against her face as she rested her head on his shoulder. She tightened her arms around him—gently so he wouldn’t awaken. But the slightest movement from her always drew his attention. He opened his eyes, turning on his side to face her. He ran his fingertip down her cheek.

  “Are you alright?” he whispered.

  “No.” She felt the tears coming again.

  “Come to me, Juliet.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  “BOONE! BOONE! YOU BETTER ANSWER ME, BOY!”

  Big Roy was fit to be tied. Boone was supposed to help him work a fundraiser at the River Club tonight, but he never showed. He wasn’t there for cocktails at six, and he wasn’t there for dinner at seven, and he wasn’t there for Big Roy’s speech at nine. It was flat-out embarrassing, that’s what it was, to have your own son—one you had worked mighty hard to get placed just right—skip out in front of some of the richest donors in Louisiana. Boone might hold a special place in his heart, but enough was enough. For this, he would answer.

  “Boone!” Big Roy charged into his son’s apartment in the east wing of the kind of mansion only oil money could buy. “What the—”

  He was locked and loaded, ready to lay into his son, but Boone wasn’t there. His bed was still made, and his lunch—uneaten—still sat on the silver tray that had been brought up for him. Now anger turned to concern as Big Roy looked around the apartment. Finally, he saw it—an envelope on Boone’s desk, the one Big Roy had imported from Italy. The envelope was addressed simply “Daddy” in Boone’s precise hand.

  Ripping open the note, Big Roy expected some lame apology for missing the dinner but instead found something that made his blood run cold. Boone had overheard his conversation with Luetrell. He had gone into the bayou to try to stop the fires. And once this was over, Boone wrote, he would resign his position and go out on his own.

  Big Roy sat down at his son’s desk and ran his hand slowly back and forth over the fine wood grain. Boone had likely left right after Luetrell did. It was now well past midnight and his son hadn’t come home. There wasn’t a doubt in Big Roy’s mind that his son would never come home.

  He picked up the phone and dialed. “Lura? I’m sorry for calling so late, but I need your help . . . It’s time to do something about Luetrell . . . No, not jail. I want him gone . . . That’s right . . . And Lura, tell those cousins of yours he took something that belonged to me. No mercy.”

  FORTY

  ELLIE WAS SETTING THE TABLE when Remy came downstairs and took his seat. Raphe had insisted on cooking breakfast for her, and he was busy at the woodstove as she readied the table.

  “Morning, honey,” Ellie said as she set butter and a small pitcher of cane syrup on the table.

  “Morning.” Remy yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  Ellie poured him a glass of milk and was putting the bottle back in the icebox when she realized he was intently watching her. “Something the matter, Remy?” She sat down next to him at the table.

  He looked down, apparently embarrassed that she’d caught him staring at her.

  “It’s okay—you can tell me,” Ellie assured him.

  Remy looked up at her. “You were different last night.”

  Once again, Remy had observed what they thought he’d slept through.

  “Yes. You’re righ
t, I was.”

  “How come?”

  “Did you ever feel so sad or so scared that all you could do was cry?” Ellie asked him.

  He nodded.

  “Well, last night I think I was so sad and so scared that I couldn’t even do that. You might believe grown-ups can handle anything, Remy, but that’s not true. Sometimes we get scared and sad too. Sometimes we don’t know what to do, even though we think we’re supposed to. That’s why I was different last night. Did I frighten you?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “I was just worried about you.”

  Ellie smiled at him and held her arms out. Remy climbed onto her lap and hugged her. “You’re my special boy, you know that?” She kissed the top of his head and held him tight.

  Raphe set a platter of biscuits and boudin on the table. He looked at her and laid his hand against her cheek. The kettle on the stove whistled. The morning went on like so many others. But it wasn’t.

  FORTY-ONE

  AT THE TOWN LANDING, Raphe helped Ellie out of the boat and carried the large basket of biscuits and boudin they had made for the Taylors. Remy ran ahead to find Footsie as Raphe and Ellie followed the same crowd that just yesterday had joyfully gathered for the town picnic. But today’s procession had taken on a somber, funereal air.

  Some stopped to hold their loved ones close and stare at the charred remains of St. Bernadette’s. Others, like Ellie and Raphe, went straight to the dance hall to carry the Taylors their breakfast.

  Though this gathering space was big enough to accommodate the whole town, Footsie’s family had huddled together in one corner of the building, the spot where the Creole families had clustered the night before, leaving undisturbed the pallets of their Cajun neighbors. The younger children, excited by the breakfast baskets streaming in, seemed to temporarily forget that they were sheltering, not celebrating. Virgil and Davinia sat quietly on a quilt with their two oldest daughters.

  Emmett Chalmette came into the dance hall and greeted Raphe and Ellie. “They’s so many people comin’ out this mornin’, I figure we might as well meet here,” he said. “I don’t think my store’d hold ’em all. Reckon we oughta start pullin’ in some chairs?”