Under the Cajun Moon

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “With any luck, Josie Runner will spill everything tonight and you’ll be totally in the clear by morning,” Wade continued. “She’s pretty motivated, you know, because the old folks that were in her care have been taken away by social services. If she wants to get her dad back, trust me, she’ll talk.”

  “She seemed so sweet at first. I really hoped she wasn’t culpable in all this, at least not intentionally.”

  “Yeah, but as you said yourself, she was threatening an old lady, trying to shut her up. That tells me that even if she didn’t know beforehand, she sure figured it out after the fact—and she didn’t report it. One way or another, she’s an accessory.”

  “As long as the police eventually get to the bottom of things, I’ll be happy.”

  “Me too. Listen, wherever you are tonight, Chloe, make sure you’re safe—and that you stay put. I know you want to see your father, but you have to lay low for now, at least until these guys are rounded up.”

  “Do you think I’m in danger?” I asked, looking at Travis, who was standing nearby and listening, concern wrinkling his brow.

  “There’s no way to know that for sure, but I wouldn’t do anything careless if I were you.”

  Suddenly, I felt exposed, as if coming here to the swamp cabin of Travis Naquin was about the dumbest thing I could ever have done. Surely, if anyone was after me, they could easily have learned about Travis’ involvement in the situation—and drawn the most logical conclusion, that if we weren’t at his home or his studio then we were likely at his cabin.

  I thanked Wade for his help and made him promise to call me if anything changed. After we hung up, I explained the situation to Travis. Though I didn’t relish getting back in the canoe in the dark, it was still a better alternative than waiting here like sitting ducks even as the bad guys might be heading in for the kill.

  “We have to go somewhere else, Travis. Somewhere no one would think of or expect.”

  He seemed to understand my request, and soon he was tossing out ideas, saying that our most logical choice was simply to break into a friend or relative’s cabin or camp and wait things out there. From the way he talked, it sounded as though he knew where more than one key was hidden—he just needed to figure out which cabin to choose, based on proximity and safety and the untraceability of the connection.

  We gathered a few supplies, including some clothes and towels and food, and then we turned off the light, slipped out the front door, and began to make our way to the canoe.

  We didn’t get very far.

  After only a few steps, the distinct click-click of a cocking gun could be heard immediately behind us. Obviously, someone had already been there, waiting and watching from the front porch until we came out.

  “Stop right there,” a man said in a low, guttural voice.

  Freezing in place, we did as he said.

  I could only hope that Travis wouldn’t do anything stupid. In his desire to protect me, I feared most of all that he just might end up getting himself shot.

  THIRTY-ONE

  LOUISIANA, 1721

  JACQUES

  “Look out, Jacques!”

  Jacques turned just in time to see a sack of rice flying toward him, and he reached out his arms to catch it. Ten more bags followed in succession, coming in a rhythm that allowed each man to toss it down the line to the person behind him. Having five men in a row made short work of unloading the supply ship. After the rice came salt, which had been sent from Europe in tins and would be one of their most popular items, despite the hefty price tag.

  Everyone enjoyed it when the supply ships came through, even the men like Jacques who had to work out in the noonday sun to do the unloading. Soon the shelves in the mercantile would be stocked again, settlers from miles around would to come into town to replenish their supplies, and the mailbag’s contents would be carefully distributed by Jacques himself, who could read and write and thus doubled as postmaster.

  As he unloaded the supplies now, Jacques wondered if there would be anything in the mailbag for him. He hoped so, but then again he always hoped so. Jacques had been writing home regularly for two years now, maintaining his innocence, outlining events as they had taken place, and trying to find news, any news, of his father. Though there was no doubt that Papa had died soon after Jacques last saw him, his body had still never turned up. Jacques could only assume that Papa was dead when the men came to hide the evidence in the converted blacksmith shop out there in the country. If so, they would have quietly disposed of the body, just as they had disposed of everything else.

  Once the unloading was finished, Jacques took a break with the other men in the shade to cool off and drink some water. He knew that the store would be bustling with activity, so finally he put on his apron and went inside to work, helping the customers who seemed almost giddy with the range of choices the new ship provided for them.

  Except for the fact that almost everyone here spoke German instead of French, it wasn’t a bad job, and the German couple who owned the store seemed to appreciate his hard work and his rapport with customers despite the language barrier. Using skills well honed in his father’s shop, Jacques found it easy to convince folks to part with their money for the right objects at the right price. The only problem was that the supply ships from Europe were still few and far between. Most of the time he had willing buyers but nothing to sell them. At least here upriver, folks seemed to face the challenge of shortages with determination and ingenuity—which was far more than anyone could say of the people in New Orleans.

  From the moment Jacques’ ship had arrived at that town’s dismal shore, he understood why everyone called New Orleans the “wet death.” Jacques could not imagine a more ridiculous location for a town, much less one that was supposed to become the capital of such a vast territory. Almost everyone who came there said the same thing, that this swampy, infested land between the lake and the river was uninhabitable. Even the Indians considered the region to be useless.

  The site had been chosen specifically because it offered the shortest distance between the two bodies of water and thus would allow for easier portage. In Jacques’ opinion, that might have been reason enough to establish an outpost there, but he couldn’t fathom why anyone would choose to build an entire town in such a damp, mosquito-infested, flood-prone pit of muck. Had Lily lived to see it, she would have been as appalled as he was.

  In their own way, the people of New Orleans were even more problematic than the bloodsucking mosquitoes that feasted on them. It seemed to Jacques that the colony was being populated with all the wrong people. There was the upper class, the moneyed French who had come expecting to live in the manner to which they had always been accustomed back home. Those folks had had a rude awakening, but circumstance alone was not enough to transform the lily white hands of aristocrats into the red, worn hands of one accustomed to work. The ladies of New Orleans, in particular, wanted to be waited on hand and foot, but there was no one to wait on them. They wanted to dine on rich foods as they had back home, but there was no one to cook for them. They wanted to dress in finery and strut around in their bonnets and lace for all to see, but there were no dressmakers, and scarce little fabrics and trims. Even if there had been, there was no strutting to be done in a town that was basically wall-to-wall mud anyway.

  At the other end of the spectrum, New Orleans had more than its share of the lower classes. Numerous prisoners, the homeless, the insane, and the poor had all been rounded up and summarily shipped here from France. Some had been forced into weddings, as Jacques had, but the more desperate John Law had grown to populate his floundering colony, the more outlandish his schemes had become, according to the news that was brought from home. At one point, the French government was allowing anyone to be seized in the streets of Paris, and unless they could prove they had had gainful employment in the past four days, they were forced on board ship and carted off to the New World.

  Like the upper class, most of these lowlifes had no
desire to work. They were used to getting by, whether from prostituting or outright thievery. Here in New Orleans, there weren’t enough pockets to pick or values to steal. Thus, the city was quite a miserable place, populated by the two ends of the spectrum and devoid of almost anyone from the mechanical classes, the blacksmiths, the shopkeepers, civil servants, and others who kept a community going.

  Jacques hadn’t stuck things out there for very long. The city was surrounded by natural resources, abundant with fruits and vegetables, its waterways teeming with seafood, but the people were practically starving. Gathering indigenous food and learning how to prepare it was far too much trouble for them. They would rather import their goods from France, even if the prices were obscene. Jacques, on the other hand, was no stranger to hard work. He enjoyed going out into the countryside, hunting and fishing and learning from the Indians how to harvest and prepare the strange products that were so unfamiliar, such as sweet potatoes and catfish.

  When Jacques heard about a settlement of German farmers fifteen miles upriver, hardworking folks who intended to cultivate the land and become the very breadbasket of Louisiana, he had left New Orleans without looking back. Here in the German settlement, he had found work in the store and had made a friend or two. These people had been recruited and sent here by John Law as well, and though the man hadn’t offered them golden statuettes, he had widely distributed a pamphlet throughout Germany, one filled with all sorts of falsehoods and undeliverable promises.

  Thus, Law was a frequent topic of angry conversation around here too. Jacques couldn’t understand German well enough to catch everything that was said, but the man was despised everywhere. Today his name had been popping up a lot, and everyone’s glee was so evident Jacques had to assume that he had finally been paid back for all of his dastardly deeds.

  The last ship that had come through told of the crumbling French economy, the great rise and fall that was already being called the “Mississippi Bubble.” With the backing of the regent, John Law had almost single-handedly converted the currency of France from gold to paper and then driven the value of that paper high, far higher than their stores of actual gold could back up. Just as Papa had predicted, with all of the speculating and inflation and sudden mass wealth, there had been a run on the bank, and the economy had begun to topple. Angry fingers were pointing to John Law, of course, but Jacques could have told them all along that the man was nothing but a swindler and a cheat.

  Law had destroyed many lives. Here in the New World not a day passed that Jacques didn’t miss his father or think of Angelique, though at least the sharp pain of the early days had faded into something a little more manageable, a little more dull. Poor Lily, his “wife,” really had been sick that day they met and were joined in marriage. On the ship, she had been one of the first to die, and a quick burial at sea had left Jacques feeling sad and relieved at the same time.

  Death was by far the most prominent passenger on board that ship. Of the 210 who embarked that day at La Havre, only 40 had still been alive by the time they reached Biloxi, where they disembarked for the final transport to New Orleans. Jacques didn’t know why he had been one of the lucky ones to survive, but after watching so much death in so short a period in such prolonged quarters, he learned not to make friends too deeply or take for granted each day that continued to bring him new breath.

  Now, as the surge of activity in the store lessened somewhat, Jacques turned his attention to the distribution of the mail. There was a big bag this time, and it took him a while to sort everything. As he did, he ran across not one but two letters addressed to him. Surprised, he tucked them into the pocket of his apron to save until he had time for another break.

  Finally, in the glow of late afternoon, Jacques took that break. Sitting against the trunk of a tall tree out behind the store, he opened the first letter with trembling hands.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Travis and I stood frozen in place, our arms filled with supplies, our backs to the man with the gun.

  “I want you to put everything down on the ground real slowlike, ’specially that shotgun, and then raise your hands up in the air,” the man instructed.

  I did as he said, but Travis surprised me by barking out a sudden laugh.

  “Wait a minute,” he cried. “Is that Tee Noon?”

  More noise followed to our right and left, and then suddenly I realized that we were surrounded on three sides by men bearing guns. The extra two had been hiding on each side of the cabin, in the shadows.

  “Travis? C’est toi?”

  Suddenly the guns were lowered, and all four men began laughing and talking at once. It took me a minute, but from what I could tell, these were three of Travis’ cousins, and they had come over here to stop what they thought were intruders robbing his cabin. Apparently, from across the bayou they had heard the crashing of my chair and then seen a strip of light behind one of the windows. Coming over to investigate, they had arrived and slipped into place for an ambush just as we were heading out the door.

  As the laughter and the explanations subsided, the guys seemed to take notice of me, and they began eyeing me curiously, obviously waiting for an introduction. Travis moved next to me protectively, and then smiled and winked at me, saying I was a new singer he had been working with at the studio.

  “We just came out here to get some of my Boozoo and a little Chenier,” he added.

  “You ain’t got Boozoo up at your house, cher?” one of them asked, a twinkle in his eye, as the others laughed.

  “Non, not ‘Paper in My Shoe,’” Travis replied easily.

  That earned another laugh, as all three cousins asked if he had never heard of iTunes. I wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about, but I had a feeling that “Boozoo” and “Chenier” were either singers or songs. The cousins weren’t buying Travis’ explanation that we had come here to get some of his music, especially given that he could simply have downloaded it onto his computer from the Internet. Obviously, they seemed to think that he had used the music as an excuse and had brought me out here to the cabin for a little hanky-panky instead. As long as they didn’t know the truth, that I was Chloe Ledet, accused murderer and probable target of Josie Runner’s unnamed accomplices, I didn’t care what assumptions they made. Travis, on the other hand, seemed offended on my behalf.

  “My friend here is a lady,” he said, his jaw firm. “I’d appreciate it if you’d treat her as such.”

  The others swallowed their laughter at that point, and one of them even took off his hat and said it was nice to meet me, a gesture I appreciated.

  “Well, now that you’re here, why don’t y’all come over and make some music wit’ us?” one of the cousins said. “We gots sac-a-lait and breme, and Tante B just brought out a gateau de sirop.”

  “Oncle Dennis even said he’d make us up some oreilles de cochon if we want,” another one added.

  My mind was racing to translate, but all I could make out was “syrup cake” and “pig’s ears.” Good grief. I left it to Travis to figure out a way to decline, but he surprised me by accepting their invitation instead.

  Soon we were in our canoe and the cousins in theirs, paddling together across the black waterway. I didn’t know what Travis had in mind, but I shot him a few stern glares when the others weren’t looking. Giving me a slight nod, he seemed to be saying that he had things under control.

  At the house, the three cousins returned to their game of glow-in-the-dark Frisbee on the lawn as the back door swung open and a woman in her fifties appeared there.

  “Travis!” she cried gleefully, sweeping him into a hug and calling to her husband to come say hello, that their way-too-busy nephew had stopped by for a visit.

  The uncle appeared and warmly greeted us both, and when the aunt finished hugging Travis she hugged me as well. There in the glow of hundreds of white twinkle lights, Travis introduced me as his “singer friend.”

  The aunt and uncle were both very sweet, and as they welcomed u
s inside, I could hear even more voices coming from further within. Their house was bigger than it looked, rambling along in a haphazard style that had likely come from addition after addition being built on over the years. Following the aunt and uncle, we ended up in a large, screened-in room, where several kids, a teenager, and an older man were clustered around a board game. They gave us a hearty greeting and then returned to what they were doing. Nearby sat several abandoned instruments, and at the other end of the room sat a table overflowing with half-empty platters of food.

  Even though I was still full from our can of stew, they insisted we eat something, and soon Travis and I were both seated at the table with plates of food she had made up from the platters and then reheated in the microwave. Travis dug in, but I was afraid to try anything, lest I find myself munching on a pig’s ear.

  “You are too skinny, cher. You gotta eat,” the aunt urged me, taking a seat next to me and practically feeding me herself.

  “It all looks so delicious,” I replied. “What is everything?”

  She named the foods, pointing to each one in turn, as Travis translated. Apparently, sac-a-lait was a type of fish and breme was simply the Cajun word for eggplant, which in this case had been battered and fried and looked delicious.

  “Did I hear something about oreilles de cochon?” Travis asked. Pig’s ear. Great.

  “Yah, yah, I make de oreilles de cochon for everybody,” his uncle replied eagerly, jumping up from the table and stepping out of the screen door into the darkness beyond. As he did, I could only pray he hadn’t gone back to a pig pen to do some quick butchering.

  Seeing the concerned expression on my face, Travis’ aunt explained that in Cajun households, the men could cook as well as the women, but they preferred to do their cooking outside, on the grill or the barbecue pit.