Postmark Bayou Chene (25 page)

Loyce felt Val nod in commiseration. He always knew when to just sit and listen. Unlike Fate, who had to talk instead of thinking or listening.

“What makes it worse is they are both good, good friends for me,” she continued. “Roseanne can be testy sometimes, sure, but she has made a different place out of the store and our house. And C.B. brings so much fun when she comes. Anyone would look forward to seeing her. Anyone except Roseanne.”

Val chuckled.

“For true, C.B. rubbed Roseanne the wrong way since the first time they laid eyes on each other,” he said. “I see that happen on boat crews. No telling why, but now and then one person will just find another person makes them mad for no reason anybody else can see. Most often it ends with one of them leaving, but not before they mess up the whole crew with their fighting.”

Loyce's hands rested on the arms of her rocker. Suddenly she felt Val gently slide his own hands beneath hers. Palm to palm, he guided her up and out of the chair.

“Ah,
cher
,” he said and pulled her close. “You got youself a new dress and a new haircut to go with it. Let's leave the fighting for them two to sort out amongst them,
enh
?”

Loyce straightened her shoulders, shook back the fluff of hair framing her face, and then stepped out to the sprightly waltz Val was already humming. Alone in the twilight, they glided and dipped around the porch.

21

Some years autumn drizzled in, starting the dark, wet winter early, but in 1907 it was all a swamp autumn should be. Bayous ran blue with reflected sky. Hardwoods growing along the natural levees turned red and orange against the green background of live oaks. Flat, crinkly cottonwood and sycamore leaves drifted down and skittered on top of the current. Out in the lakes, cypress trees turned rusty red and maroon before dropping their needles in the still water.

Oaks of all kind rained acorns—small and round, large and oblong, from almost black through brown, sienna, and tan. Squirrels, hogs, goats, deer, and small furbearers grew fat and shiny on the oily nuts.

Children were sent out with buckets to vie for the muscadines and coon grapes that would be made into jelly, pies, and wine. Around the homesteads oranges, satsumas, and lemons showed their colors among the leathery green leaves. Pomegranates and Japanese persimmons filled buckets and baskets, proving that at least some of Wambly Cracker's suggestions had worked for the Cheners. Sweet potatoes, onions, hard-shell squashes, and pumpkins were set out to dry on rooftops of houses and houseboats alike, before being stored for winter eating. Even as the summer crops were still bearing, fall gardens were already bright with young winter greens that would produce leaves and roots for months to come.

The Cheners didn't put much food by, Val noted. When he had been up the river in winters past, he lived on dried beans or wilted vegetables from grocery stores, getting by just like the local residents. At the same time he knew his friends on the Chene would be feasting on fresh lettuce, spinach, or other greens tossed with green onions, a dab of bacon grease, and vinegar. Beetroots stewed in sweet vinegar spiced up plates of wild duck and turnips. Suppers on a cold night might be rutabagas cooked in a brown roux with squirrel, venison, or pork from the smokehouse. Deer, possums, coons, and rabbits were baked, roasted, or smothered in onions until they fell apart, making their own gravy. Even in winter the bayous gave up some fish, and the woods were always full of game.

The swampers prepared for winter in the simplest fashion. Children gathered wax myrtle berries for candles. Even though the candles weren't as bright as lamps for close work like reading or sewing, they reduced the amount of coal oil needed for extra hours of darkness. Men repaired traps and snares to set out in late winter, when pelts were at their finest. Women carried quilts outside and slung them over picket fences or porch banisters to air. Careful housewives ripped open moss mattresses to fluff and add more stuffing.

Some women preferred the fresh smell of corn shuck mattresses that crackled enough to wake a restless sleeper. Families that didn't grow corn bartered or bought from their neighbors. They ground most of it into meal, keeping only a portion of it whole for livestock. Great stores of livestock feed weren't needed because vines, evergreen shrubs, and some grasses grew throughout the warm winters. Chickens, hogs, and dogs also ate trimmings from the garden and the fish cart as well as a bounty of offal when game was killed.

Val had rarely stayed in one place long enough to watch seasons change. In past years he might leave St. Louis during a fresh snowfall only to arrive at Bayou Chene in a heatwave two weeks later. That autumn on the Chene he walked the paths between homesteads as much to feel the rhythm of the changing year as to deliver honey and beeswax to customers. It was the longest time he'd been around to manage the hives he had set up in different locations around the island.

As he watched his bees store the last pollen and nectar before bedding down for winter, Val pondered the fact that he could finally settle down too. No more roaming the rivers, living out of a duffel bag, spending holidays with strangers. He chuckled over the irony that his near death had provided him the chance to live out his dream. Bayou Chene would be his home from now on.
Mais oui!

After the initial relief of not having to plan his life around the next boat whistle, Val felt a restless energy in his limbs. That was another reason he roamed the footpaths and rowed Adam's skiff along the bayous. Maybe he wouldn't feel settled until he married and built a house or houseboat of his own. Maybe he'd talk to Loyce about it.

Val had never broached the subject of a closer relationship; he assumed Loyce felt the same exhilaration he experienced when they played music or playfully argued with Fate over some unimportant difference of opinions. What if she didn't share his feeling? He thought of the other young women living around the Chene. He had danced and laughed with them. He spent time visiting when he delivered honey. But he never felt the buzz of excitement, the jubilation, he felt around Loyce. Maybe he'd bring it up tonight. If not tonight, soon.

During his rounds through the community Val crossed paths with dozens of people every day. As autumn stretched out toward winter, he couldn't avoid the growing controversy over Roseanne and C.B. More of the neighbors began taking sides. It seemed every one was talking about the possibility of C.B. being arrested. Had Roseanne carried through with her threat to mail a letter of her suspicions to the sheriff in St. Martin Parish? Could officers be on their way right now to take C.B. in for questioning? What if they came while Sam was away on a fish-buying trip? What would become of Sam Junior? Did they let babies go to jail with their mamas? It seemed everyone had a different opinion on that as well. Some were of the opinion they needed to close ranks around C.B. and hide her from the law. Others said let her take her chances like anyone else accused of a crime in the United States. After all, she wasn't even a Chener. Val felt relief when December closed in on the community and no law officers showed up in the Chene.

The discord faded in anticipation of Christmas. He couldn't remember being so excited about the coming holiday, even as a child. He had started work on boats as a teenager, so most Christmases found him on a boat with crew members and passengers who would have preferred to be home with their own family and friends.

True to his Irish and Cajun natures, Val had always made the best of the holidays by playing music to cheer up the crowds. Soon strangers in a public hall or on a boat would be singing and dancing in time to his music. This year was going to be memorable because he had a warm circle of his own.

The post office and store started bustling early in November, with customers making special orders for gifts and seasonal food. When the first steamboats of December arrived, bananas from South America and apples from upriver filled the building with holiday fragrance. Nuts from other states, and even other countries, were measured out by the pound. Children and grandparents all along the bayous were set to work with nutcrackers and warned not to eat more than they put in the dish for fruitcake. In the final two weeks before Christmas, mysterious packages were tucked under coats or slipped into lard cans for the anonymous journey home in a pirogue or skiff.

Val knew that Mame, Adam, Loyce, and Fate usually joined York and Mary Ann for Christmas dinner at the old Bertram home. This year they welcomed both Val and Roseanne into the family gathering. Val wondered if Fate would make it home for the holidays. Most people who left the Chene to try life outside the swamp never made it back for visits. To them the Chene receded until it seemed a world from another time—quaint, backward in its ways, a place to be from. Oh, they spoke of it fondly whenever he ran into them in the towns along the river. They asked about friends and relatives. They just never made it back. It appeared that Fate, with all his notions, had turned out to be one of those.

Surely he would come back for the wedding, wouldn't he? Val couldn't imagine getting married without Fate standing next to him. He must talk to Loyce soon. They would need to plan plenty of time for Fate to get back.

On Christmas Eve, Mary Ann delivered a pork roast and a fat hen for Adam to cook the next day.

“I knew you'd be wanting to start on them before daylight, so I just brought them on over,” she said with a grin. “That way I don't have to listen to York grumble in the morning when you show up pounding on my door.”

“Whoooeee! This is some fine hen,” Adam exclaimed. “Come see this, Mrs. Barclay.”

Roseanne tapped in from across the dogtrot, where she had been closing up the store.

“So, it passes muster with you, Mr. Snellgrove?” she asked, almost playfully.

Val glanced up from where he was putting last-minute touches on Loyce's gift—a lightweight chair made of cypress that she could easily move around the porch to follow the sun or the shade.

“I'd say it could be the prettiest and plumpest baking hen I've seen in all my Christmases, Mrs. Barclay.” Adam's smiling eyes lingered on hers until she glanced away, back down at the hen.

Val looked harder at the two of them standing closer together than the inspection of a dead chicken warranted. Was Roseanne blushing at that last remark? He noticed her hair was not so tightly bound as it once was. She looked softer than when she had arrived last spring, Val thought, and definitely rounder. Maybe she was feeling the same Christmas gaiety that he felt. Maybe it would extend past the season and she would get over her vendetta against C.B.

“And how many Christmases might that be, Mr. Snellgrove?” Roseanne continued to look down.

“Take a guess,” he chuckled.

On the other side of the room Loyce was listening too. She smiled while Roseanne studied her father. She could feel Roseanne measuring him with her eyes. His height. The loose limbs at ease inside his long-sleeved shirt and sturdy work pants. The soft drooping mustache that tickled when he kissed her cheek. The longish hair that swooped back from a wide brow and then tried to part in the middle.