Postmark Bayou Chene (14 page)

The pan slapping against the picket fence was enough to break into Mame's thoughts. Some days it didn't take much. Other times she kept her mind shuttered from daylight to dark. That day she stopped stabbing the earth and watched the hens tackle the pile of corn shucks. They finished scratching for stray kernels and then went on to block Loyce's way on the plank walk, hoping for better pickings. The little black dog rushed back and forth, back and forth, barking, trying to make a path for the blind girl.

“Shoo, shoo, you're just making it worse,” Mame heard her fuss in that voice so much like Josie's.

The sound of that voice almost sent her back, but then she was caught up watching how expertly Loyce kicked one foot at a time out in front, fighting her way through the chickens and dog.
Determined
, Mame thought. Like Fate says, a force. That boy might as well try to smooth the hackles of a coon caught in a leg trap as to watch out for Loyce.

The shuffling, barking, pecking crowd, absent a few feathers, was almost to the house when Mame heard the pony cart coming faster than usual down the woods path. She squatted back on her heels and pushed her bonnet up to see.

“That's it—he's done it now!” The voice was even louder than the rattle of the cart shaking to a stop at the edge of the garden.

The old woman squinted up. Mary Ann. Married to York Bertram, son of Mame's brother, Martin Bertram. Wasn't she usually smiling? Mame couldn't remember for sure. Maybe she had someone else in mind.

Heat or no heat, Mary Ann wore a long-sleeved shirt tucked into men's pants that flared out and then dipped into the top of her rubber boots. She mopped her face with a bandana that was hanging around her neck. Blue eyes burned from under her hat. Pirates came to mind, and Mame glanced around to get her bearings. It didn't take much for her to drift off track. She wanted to keep up in case there was something she could do to help.

Mary Ann's goat Fredette bleated from the back of the wagon, hooves clattering to keep balance through the stop. Shiny brown like a mink, a black stripe bristled straight up from her backbone. She tossed her bony little head bearing a swoop of horns sharp as daggers.

Looking every bit the demon York swears she is, Mame thought. Or did she say it out loud? So hard to tell anymore after years of talking to the dead.

“Has anyone around here seen or heard my litter of red hogs?” Mary Ann shouted to anyone in hearing distance. “The gate was open, and nary a one was around this morning. I know he did it a purpose—that's the spitefullest man I know.”

Fredette cut her short by crashing into the back of her knees. Mary Ann scrabbled for balance in the rubber boots but plopped down anyway. Anger whooshed out of her. That seemed real enough to Mame.

“Mame, does meanness just run in the men of your family?” The wagon seat groaned under her shifting weight. Fredette clattered back and forth.

“Oh, I'd say it's mellowed some in the passing down.” She removed her bonnet for an unobstructed view of Mary Ann's face. The younger woman's eyes softened and focused back at her. Mame took that to mean she really was talking out loud, so she worked more on that thought before it got lost again.

“York's got a ways to go if he's gonna catch up to his daddy in meanness, better yet his grandpa—Father Bertram. Since you didn't grow up here, you had the pleasure of not knowing York's grandparents. Martin and me had to call them Mother and Father Bertram, if that tells you anything. I still got the scars on my knees from the hours we spent kneeling on shell corn as young'uns. I tried to shield Martin from the worst of the whippings, but when the notion would take over, there was no stopping Father Bertram.”

Mary Ann's eyes shifted from Mame's face to the path ahead. Did that mean her words had already curved in on themselves and were thoughts again? Whether she was thinking or talking, the stream had to run its course.

“And Mother Bertram was no bosom of kindness for her part,” she kept going. “Many's the time she not only whipped me but made me do the entire day's wash over again because of one bird dropping on a piece of clothes. Like I could help that! And while she was too frail to do a lick of housework herself, she could get around good enough to crawl under the beds with a candle to make sure I got all the dust. She'd even whip me for whistling! Said a whistling girl and a crowing hen were headed for a bad end, or some such. No wonder Martin and me both left home as soon as we were able. I went to work for Elder and took over raising Josie like she was my own. Never regretted it a minute.”

“I didn't know you wasn't Josie's mama,” Mary Ann said, a little calmer. Mame pushed ahead through the fog that was closing in.

“Of course. I suppose you wouldn't.” Even she could hear her voice beginning to drift.

“All that happened so long ago, most people who were born here don't even remember it. Elder's first wife, Maudie, died of the typhoid right before the war. She was as jolly as my own Mother Bertram was mean. Fact was, I called her Ma. It was short for Maudie and made up a bit for having to call my own mama Mother Bertram. I found reasons to hang around the store even before Maudie came down sick. Josie was born around that time.”

Mame's voice dropped to a mumble, but her mind kept running.

Still happens a lot out here—what with no doctors, even young women die, leaving a husband with kids. And what with drowning, hot tar, snakebites, card games, and such afflicting the men, some wives outlive two or three husbands. People marry up again, and after a few years no one keeps track of who the different kids came with
.

Especially that year Maudie died . . . '60? '61? I can't remember for sure, but it was so pitiful. The typhoid was like an epidemic that spring—so many people got sick and died. Right about that time Father Bertram just seemed to sprout meanness like the horns on that goat. My brother, Martin, took off for the war, along with Josie's brothers and most of the other young men around here. I started out taking care of Maudie till she died and then raising Josie
.

It worked out for everyone when Elder asked me to stay on permanent by marrying. Not one of Elder's boys made it back from the war, so Josie and I were all he had. He was some proud when Lauf come along so quick the next year
.

Lauf was a good baby and a happy boy. Maybe because he got so much attention. Anyway, whatever the reason, when he got older, he liked helping around the store like Josie did in the post office. He just never did get the hang of fishing and swamping like most of 'em do around here. Storekeeping seemed to suit him better than that hard dirty work
.

He would have made good with the store, and Adam could have kept on fishing and swamping if things had stayed the same. Beatrice and Josie shared the care of their young'uns, making it easier on both of them. Those were happy years
.

I remember the night they found the last of the bodies. Beatrice. I finally went to bed. I was tossing around trying to rest somehow, but my mind was just too tortured. Then all of a sudden I heard crackling, just like willow sounds when it burns. My scalp felt like it had ants crawling all over it. I didn't think no more about it until a few weeks later—Adam noticed my hair was growing out white as cotton at the roots
.

Everything was different after that. Adam couldn't be gone off fishing if we was to keep the store and post office open. I wasn't any help; my spirit just left me. I couldn't rouse up even to help with the young'uns
.

Mame noticed Mary Ann was looking at her like she was expecting something. Was she talking? Was Mary Ann? The old woman brought all her mind to bear and finally caught it—Mary Ann's question about York's temper.

“I swore I'd never treat my kids like Father and Mother Bertram treated Martin and me,” she said, snatching up the thread of conversation before it unraveled even more. “But I guess Martin might of forgot because I heard he was mighty hard on York growing up. I was so glad to have family again when you and York moved here, but sometimes it does seem like he is Father Bertram come back in the flesh.”

“So, what's that got to do with me?” Mary Ann fumed. “I married York; I didn't take him to raise.”

“I guess what it means is, it's probably for the best that you and York don't have no young'uns. Just stop that mean streak of Bertrams right here and now.”

Mame's voice dipped again as her train of thought wobbled back on itself. She couldn't tell whether Mary Ann heard her over Fredette's hooves on the floorboards, but then the young woman slapped the reins and yelled, “Well, I can tell you right now, I ain't got no babies on my mind. I'm just thinking on some way to get him back. I can give as well as I get!”

Fredette spread her legs and braced. Devil eyes flashing, bleats trailing behind, they were gone around the bend.

Mame was left standing, bonnet in hand, still thinking about Martin living up there in Plaquemine all those years. Could've seen his son, York, every day but didn't. She never treated Josie and Lauf like that, but she lost them just the same. Just the same. There was naught to do but get back to digging.

11

On a July afternoon two weeks after Mary Ann's angry visit, Roseanne was carrying buckets of water from the cistern to the kitchen. Early afternoons were generally quiet, so she had asked Loyce to mind the store. Now that the business and household were set up to run smoothly, Loyce could be there for customers while Roseanne enjoyed a few hours off.

Roseanne's help, in turn, gave Adam a chance to return to fishing after more than a decade of being land bound. How he had missed prowling those quiet bayous! In their shadowy depths he found more than catfish, blue crabs, and river shrimp. He rediscovered a vitality he had thought was gone forever. These days his step was quick and light on the boardwalk to the dock. His arms muscled up from rowing boats and pulling nets. Shirt buttons strained across his chest, until he had to leave the top ones unbuttoned. The sun bronzed his face, making his gray hair and eyes shimmer in contrast.

He rowed home smelling of green cypress, bringing a merriment Loyce barely remembered and Roseanne had never seen. Just last evening he had been whistling softly while cleaning fish on the dock. Roseanne walked out to bring him the dishpan.

“Ah, Mrs. Barclay, you always anticipate my needs,” he said, with a mock flourish of the fish skinners. “Have I told you how much you relieve me of burdens I didn't even know I carried? I'm a century younger than before you stepped out of the woods. Was that just two months ago?” His gray eyes twinkled to match the playfulness in his voice.

“You probably didn't think events were headed in that direction when you saw me dragging those valises!” she said, catching his humor. “If you had laughed at me that day, I would have died of humiliation! How did you refrain?”

“You clearly were a damsel in distress, Mrs. Barclay,” he continued in a theatrical voice, opening the screen door to the kitchen with another gallant flourish. “Seeing as how I learned to read on the great chivalric novels, I couldn't shame my heroes by making light of your situation. And now you have repaid me many times over.”

Together they looked around the neat kitchen, so different from the chaos she had stumbled upon back in the spring. Gone was the jumble of goods, clothes, and papers strewn across both floors of the old house. No more iron pots of scorched food soaking at the water cistern until the insides turned to rust. They both took in the serenity of the well-ordered household. Likewise, they both avoided the question of how and when it might end.

Now as she easily carried two full buckets of water across the yard and up the steps, Roseanne realized she had changed as much as the household, maybe more. Before coming to the Chene, Roseanne had never lifted more than a croquet mallet and then only when she couldn't get out of a Sunday afternoon match. She was grateful that her family and friends couldn't see how she spent her time now. They'd probably try to rescue her!