Under the Cajun Moon

by Mindy Starns Clark

  As we puttered past, I studied the dock and nearby terrain for signs of blood or even police tape but didn’t see anything. I did catch a glimpse of the lawn and the old white picket fence that delineated the garden. From what I could see, the fence was in disrepair, the slats faded to brown, the lawn and garden both overgrown with weeds. Remembering what a busy, well-tended place it had once been, looking at it now felt kind of sad.

  Continuing along the banks of Paradise, I noticed that the property was hilly, in the same way that that retreat center had been hilly. I asked Travis how that happened, how hills could suddenly be a part of terrain that was elsewhere completely flat.

  “Salt.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Wherever there’s an underground salt dome, you can get hills like this. Haven’t you ever been out to Avery Island, the place where they make Tabasco sauce? That whole island is one giant salt dome.” He went on to explain that coastal Louisiana was full of underground salt, and that in many cases a single salt dome might extend two or three miles out—and up to eight or nine miles down, whether it was obvious at the surface or not. “I think Avery is supposed to have something like a hundred and fifty billion tons of salt. It’s really amazing when you think about it.”

  As he talked about the geology of salt and how it had been left by evaporated ocean waters thousands of years ago and then pushed underground by the shifting of alluvial sediment, all I could think of was my father and his famous Secret Salt.

  “Is there a salt mine here at Paradise, Travis?”

  “There used to be, back in the early nineteen hundreds, I think. It’s all sealed up now, but there are still a couple of good ponds here, where the salt from inside the earth leaches out into the water to create brine. That’s where I learned to track animals, because they’re always coming there, licking the salt where it crusts around the sides.”

  I studied the wooded shore, several puzzle pieces suddenly clicking together in my brain. My whole life, my father had been coming down to Paradise on a regular basis to hunt and fish. Sometimes he’d be gone for a week or two, yet he almost never came home with much more to show for his adventures than a few fish and maybe a rabbit or a duck. On one occasion my father had returned from just such a trip bearing his meager bounty and our new maid had actually laughed, saying that her husband could go off hunting for a single afternoon and come back with ten times that much.

  The maid was summarily fired, of course, but later I got up the nerve to ask my father why he never brought back venison or buckets of catfish or ice chests filled with crawfish like the maid had described. He had brushed me off, saying that for some men—especially men who slaved over a hot stove day after day at work—the expression “hunting and fishing” often meant mostly “relaxing and resting.” Later, my mother had scolded me for even asking him, saying that my father couldn’t help it if he was a bad shot with a rifle and a rotten fisherman, and that I wasn’t to embarrass him like that ever again.

  Now, looking out at Paradise, I finally understood what had really been going on. The expression “hunting and fishing” had been a euphemism, all right, not for “relaxing and resting” but for “mining salt.” My father had been coming here for years, going down into the old mine, and coming out with a bounty of pink salt. The south Louisiana company that packaged and shipped Chef Julian’s Secret Salt was likely not just a packaging and fulfillment plant but also a salt cleaning and processing facility. No wonder he kept coming here after the Naquins moved away, and even after he and Alphonse had had a parting of the ways. My father had to keep coming here if he wanted to continue to acquire the central ingredient in Chef Julian’s Secret Salt.

  That also explained exactly why my father wanted to buy Paradise from Alphonse Naquin. According to Kevin Peralta, my father called him on Monday morning, before he was shot, sounding very excited and saying he was willing to lose the battle over the treasure with Alphonse Naquin as long as Naquin would finally sell him Paradise in return. I just knew that the excitement in my father’s voice had come from something salt related, perhaps the discovery of a whole new rich vein of especially pink salt. Regardless of what my father had found here, it was important enough that he was willing to do whatever it took to buy this land and its mine, even if that required him to capitulate in a battle of wills, something Julian Ledet would otherwise never have done. Knowing my father as I did, I realized that for him the real treasure of Paradise wasn’t made of gold and shaped like a fleur-de-lis at all. It was pink and crusty and came from a hole in the ground!

  As we reached the upper boundary of Paradise, Travis turned left into the narrow channel that would bring us to the river on the other side. Our little boat chugging along slowly, I told Travis my theory, but he didn’t seem convinced.

  “Louisiana salt isn’t good enough for food, cher. It’s mined for rock salt. You know, like for deicing bridges and roads?”

  “I live in Chicago, Travis. I’m familiar with rock salt and icy roads.”

  “Well, then, chances are you’ve been driving safely up there thanks to rock salt that came to you from down here. We’ve got a couple of big salt mining operations in the state.”

  “Okay, so Louisiana has its share of salt mines,” I said, “and what they get from those mines is used as rock salt. That still doesn’t mean edible salt couldn’t be here too, at least in a limited quantity.”

  “I suppose,” Travis replied, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  We reached the end of the channel and turned left onto the river, passing back down the other side of Paradise. More than anything I wanted to go ashore, take a look at the old mine, and see if I could find the pink vein my father had been secretly exploiting for years. But considering that he had been shot here just three days before and the person who shot him hadn’t yet been apprehended, it simply wouldn’t be safe. Instead, I contented myself with looking out at the wooded, hilly terrain from our motorboat and listening as Travis described how this land had been passed down through his family for many generations. Sooner or later, once it was safe, we would come back, and I would get my chance to explore.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing toward a crumbling structure on the bank nearly hidden by weeds and brush.

  “That’s the old mine office,” Travis said. “Nothing left of it now but ruins.”

  There was a dock at the water’s edge and I studied it closely, but again I didn’t see signs of blood or previous policy activity. Passing further down the property, I could see what looked like the white tip of a rooftop in and among the trees.

  “Is that more of the mine?” I asked.

  “No, that’s an old houseboat that washed up in Hurricane Betsy.” We continued puttering past, and as we did I realized he was right. What I was seeing wasn’t a roofline at all, but the crumpled, rotting bow of a big boat that had long ago been pushed from the river onto the land and set straight up on one end, like a toy boat cast aside from a bathtub.

  “And that’s about it,” Travis said now. “The property line ends down there just ahead of us. See that big cypress tree? That marks the boundary. Everything beyond that belongs to somebody else, a timber company, I think. Looks like they’re building something.” I looked where he pointed to see some heavy equipment in and among the trees, a big crane and some bulldozers.

  Travis sped up the motor again and we were off. I was glad he had taken the detour to show me Paradise, as it helped orient me to the place even without setting foot onshore. It also led to my revelations about the salt, something I felt deep in my bones wasn’t just a theory but fact. I wasn’t sure where we would be going once we left Ben’s house, but if following the recipe reached a dead end, maybe we could follow the trail of the salt instead.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  FRANCE, 1719

  JACQUES

  Papa was gone.

  Not just Papa. Everything was gone.

  The trunk, the cart, the worktable, the cot, the food, the supplies
, the clothes. Everything. Gone.

  Jacques ran to the back door and looked out, but there was nothing and no one to be seen. He returned to the gathering of men in the main room, nearly hysterical, demanding they speak with the farmer and his wife next door.

  Two of the men stepped out to do just that, and while they were gone Jacques continued to probe every corner, every nook and cranny for some evidence of what had been here only hours before. The furnace had been doused with water, so there wasn’t even any proof of hot ash at the bottom.

  Finally, the men who had gone to question the farmer returned.

  “They say they don’t know what we are talking about. They said this old blacksmith shop has been empty for two years at least, and no one has come or gone on this road all day.”

  “They’re lying!” Jacques cried. “They were paid to say that! The woman has been bringing my father two meals a day for over a month!”

  It didn’t matter what Jacques said; no one believed him. For the return trip, Jacques was no longer perched up front. He was forced into the back carriage and held there under guard. Before they even reached Paris, the caravan came to a stop and he was told to get out.

  There, on the dusty road he had already traveled twice today, he stood face-to-face with the royal goldsmith, who had climbed out of the middle carriage. The man looked at him with a mix of pity and sadness.

  “I don’t know what has motivated you to perpetrate such lies today,” he said, “but I can only hope your father might be able to shed some light on this. In the meantime, we have decided that it will be necessary to keep you under watch. There is great concern about your mental health, not to mention the damage that can be done by someone who is obviously so impassioned in their lies. Once I have a chance to speak with your father, I will make a final decision as to how we will proceed in this matter.”

  With that, Jacques was taken away, his wrists bound in chains, his body led into the Charenton institution that loomed so darkly in front of him, the home for the insane.

  TWENTY-SIX

  We finally reached our next destination about a half hour later.

  The sun was sitting lower in the sky by that point, and I hoped we wouldn’t be there too long. I didn’t relish the thought of having to set out again in this tiny boat in the dark.

  Travis studied the GPS screen as we puttered along past a broad curve. About half a mile past that curve, he turned left into a break in the trees, heading up a narrow channel that was probably too shallow for our previous boat anyway. We passed a small dock on the left and then a few minutes later spotted another.

  “That should be it,” Travis said looking from his GPS screen to the dock ahead. “According to this thing anyway. See how God provides? We couldn’t have come here in the Sea Ray.”

  We tied up the boat to the rickety dock and headed up a narrow walkway. The bushes were so overgrown near the water that we couldn’t see the house until we were practically on top of it. It was a standard ranch home, single story and made of red brick with white trim. We knocked on the door, and as we waited for someone to answer it, I looked around, deciding that the whole place looked like it needed some TLC. Besides the overgrown shrubbery, there were rotted boards and peeling paint and even a tangle of wires where the carport light used to be.

  We could hear noises from inside, so we knew someone was home. We knocked again, and finally a woman appeared at the door. She looked to be in her late fifties, and though she was attractive with dark eyes and wide, smooth cheeks, the overall impression she gave was that of exhaustion. Suddenly, I felt very bad for this breach of etiquette in not calling ahead. Given the situation we hadn’t dared, but it still seemed awfully rude.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear a car in the drive. Did you come by boat?” the woman asked, looking nervous.

  “Yes, sorry about that. Hope we didn’t scare you.”

  “No problem,” she replied, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “How can I help you?”

  “We’re here to see Ben Runner. Does he live here?”

  “Yes, but who are you?”

  I was hesitant to say my name or explain my connection, so I was glad when Travis replied with his own, adding that he was Alfonse Naquin’s grandson. That seemed to be enough for her because she opened the door, probably assuming I was Travis’ wife.

  “Follow me,” she said, and we did just that as she led us through the living room and toward a hallway off the other side.

  “I’m Ben’s daughter,” she said as she walked, and I was glad she was ahead of us and did not see the look Travis and I gave each other.

  “Heidi ho!” someone called from the other side of the living room. Startled, I glanced that way to see an old woman waving at us from a chair. I wondered if that was Ben’s wife. I waved to her in return but couldn’t stay to chat because Ben’s daughter was moving too quickly.

  The hallway she led us down was dim and smelled kind of like a hospital or a nursing home. There was more noise in a room off to our right, and as we passed the open door I looked inside to see two beds, an elderly person in each of them. Ben’s daughter stopped in front of the last door on the left, gave it a knock, and swung it all the way open.

  “Sometimes I think he knows what we’re saying, but of course he can’t really reply,” she told us.

  Travis and I both stepped inside to see an extremely old man sitting in a chair beside the window. He was surrounded by medical equipment, and again that antiseptic institutional smell assaulted my nostrils. Ben’s daughter obviously provided some sort of in-home elder care.

  “Daddy? Here are some people to see you. ’Member Mr. Alphonse Naquin? This is his grandson.”

  The man didn’t move or make a sound but simply continued to stare out the window.

  “Come on in, it’s okay,” the woman urged us. “He’s real quiet, but he always enjoys having visitors.”

  Travis and I moved farther into the room even as we heard the old woman calling from the living room.

  “Y’all excuse me,” Ben’s daughter said. “I was just about to give her her dinner when you knocked. My name is Josie, by the way. Holler if you need me.”

  With that, she left us alone with her father.

  Though Travis sat directly across from the man and spoke to him, there seemed to be no recognition or response. As he did that, I wandered around the room, looking at the many cards and photos that had been taped to the wall. Obviously, the man had a full life, filled with people who loved him.

  There was a sign hanging near the photos, one that was obviously written in another language, more than likely Chitimacha. It said Caqaad kaskec nama qaxt xahyte. I made a mental note to ask Josie what it meant. If we were lucky, it was Ben’s measurement of filé for the recipe.

  Travis paused in his talking to Ben to whisper that I should poke around a little more thoroughly. I felt creepy doing it, but it didn’t seem as though Ben would notice or care. Tiptoeing to the doorway, I listened for Josie, and when I heard her talking in the living room, I summoned my nerve and began rifling through the drawers.

  By about the fifth drawer, running my hand under a stack of boxer shorts and T-shirts, I couldn’t help but think how very low I had sunk. Sliding it softly shut, I told Travis that was enough, there wasn’t anything here that would point us to the treasure or the killer.

  Bidding the old man goodbye, we went back up the hallway and emerged into the living room to see Ben’s daughter sitting there across from the old woman who had greeted us earlier. Josie was holding a bowl of what looked like creamed corn and urging her to take a bite.

  “Heidi ho!” the woman cried again eagerly.

  “Heidi ho!” Travis replied, crossing to sit on the couch and give the old woman’s hand a squeeze. “Got yourself some macque choux there, huh cher? That smells good.” The old woman didn’t reply, though she stared at Travis with sparkling eyes.

  Though it seemed rude to simply insinuate ourselves into the r
oom this way, we didn’t really have much choice. After a moment’s hesitation I joined Travis on the couch. Josie apologized for the mess, saying she didn’t have enough time to get to everything. I wanted to reply that the place didn’t seem too messy to me, just in need of repairs. Instead, I simply asked her about her father’s condition. She said he’d had a stroke a few years ago and had been like that ever since.

  “I noticed an interesting sign in his room. I’m guessing it’s in Chitimacha?”

  “‘Caqaad kaskec nama qaxt xahyte’? Yes, it means ‘Welcome to the village by the bend in the river.’” She went on to explain that the Chitimacha language had actually become extinct back in the forties, once “Miz Delphine,” the last living speaker of it, had died. Lately, however, the language was being revived, thanks to a grant that was allowing the tribe to access old recordings of the language and create for the first time a written version of it. The children were learning it in school, and all of the tribe members were encouraged to use it whenever possible. She had bought the plaque for her father, hoping it might stir some memories of the language he had heard spoken in his own childhood, even if he never had seen it written out.

  In reply, I brought up the subject of my father, who was also incapacitated at the moment. I told her I was the daughter of her father’s old friend Julian Ledet and asked if she had heard about his accident. She replied that she hadn’t, saying that with caring for four elderly patients around the clock, she barely had time to breathe, much less watch the news. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth or not, but I acted as if I believed her.

  As she spooned more corn mush into the old woman’s mouth, I explained that my father had been shot on Monday, and that after he was shot he had left a phone message for my mother at their house, one that referred to “Ben” and “Ben’s daughter.”

  “Referred to us in what way?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. He was calling from up in the swamps, and the message is pretty garbled. He’s in a coma now, and so we’re trying to figure out what he said and what that has to do with him getting shot.”