Postmark Bayou Chene

by Gwen Roland

  Now it seemed that Loyce knew as little about one side of her family as the other. She couldn’t count the times that she had gone over it all in her mind since the day that letter came. If Elder and Mame were not Uncle Lauf’s parents, then she wasn’t even kin to her dead Uncle Lauf, whom she had mourned along with her mama.

  And Fate! His granddaddy was not really the long-dead Grandpa Elder but some old man in France that could be alive or dead. And did all this new information mean Grandpa Elder was not her grandpa either? No, wait a minute—Elder was still Josie’s father, Josie was really her mama, so at least Grandpa Elder was safely still in her family. But not Mame, whom she had loved all her life. It hadn’t mattered that Mame was a bit touched. She was there every day if Loyce needed to climb in her lap.

  So, Fate got Mame, while Loyce was left with only a grandfather who had died before she was born. Fate also got a grandpa in France who might even still be alive. It seemed she was getting shortchanged no matter which way you added it up.

  She shook her head to clear the confusion and then tilted an ear toward the bayou. “What’s that, Drifter? Sounds like a cross between a woodpecker banging on a tin roof and dried corn running through the sheller.”

  She felt the dog’s attention rivet in the same direction. They stood listening together, until Loyce moved to ease the pull of a knot of hair caught in her collar. The noise closed in on the landing, bringing an unfamiliar smell with it. Sort of like coal oil but not quite. They sniffed the air and tried to figure it out. Then there was a thump and a familiar shout.

  “Hey Loyce, you ain’t gonna believe this!”

  Somehow she had known it was Fate even before she heard his voice over the racket, which was now sinking down to a sputter and finally a cough before giving back the blessing of silence. Then the stomp of his boots coming up the walk. Her shoulders lifted, and an unconscious smile played over her face.

  “I ain’t paddling, and this ain’t goat power!” Fate bounded toward her. “This is a gasoline boat, and it’s gonna take the work out of working for a living.”

  The vibration of the plank walk thrummed his steps right through the porch into her feet. A split second more, and his hands would encircle her waist, lifting her up to his level. His embrace would tighten. She would fuss before giving up into laughter.

  But the letter slid between them like a knife. She backed up. He stopped short. She felt the breeze as his hands dropped back.

  “Hmmph” was the only greeting she could muster. “So, you’ve been off looking for an easy way to make a fortune! Suppose to be the reason you hadn’t been around since York like to blew himself up? And what’s that smell? Rank enough to make me go for the paregoric or peppermint water to settle my stomach.”

  “That’s the gasoline you smelling,” Fate said. “It explodes inside a jacket just like a gun shooting off inside a drum would make it raise up. Explode it fast enough, and it can move a boat as good as two men paddling together but keep it up day and night without getting tired.”

  “Fate Landry, you just keep setting eggs with nary a rooster in sight. Where are you needing to go in such a hurry, and where are you expecting to get gasoline?”

  She couldn’t help it if she sounded more out of sorts than usual. She was.

  He recovered some of his swagger but stepped to the edge of the porch, away from her.

  “Been thinking about what Val said about all those Jews in the cities that eat scale fish and how we got all them frazzling buffalo crowding our nets, but they won’t live in a fish cart like catfish do. If I could figure out how to keep them fresh, I could make plenty of money selling something we got a lot of. So, I went to Baton Rouge and dropped in on Wambly to see if he had any more new ideas—something that tastes better than the fish bacon—he might of picked up from that World’s Fair or some other place.”

  “Yeh, fish bacon, I remember that one,” Loyce broke in, trying to recapture their old rapport. Her effort fell flat, and Fate continued like he was reciting a piece for school.

  “Well, he told me scientists have found out that packing fish in ice is almost as good as keeping them alive if you don’t hold them too long. And he told me the railroad’s just about finished on that line that’ll cross the swamp right up the river at Atchafalaya Station. Cross right on over the swamp to Baton Rouge. Supposed to be finished by fall. I figured if I could pack them in ice as soon as they come out of the water and then get them to the railroad stop at Atchafalaya Station inside a day, I could sell a whole lotta buffalo. I mean more than anyone out here ever thought of selling before. I could probably sell all the buffalo anyone catches out here. Not just me but every fisherman out here could get rich!”

  Loyce felt that old toss of his head. The one that let on he was telling more than he knew.

  “And so this noisy, stinking gasoline boat is how you’re gonna do it? Where’d you get money for a contraption like that?” she shot back to tone him down a notch. “I’m sure no one’s handing them out to just any daydreaming fool who thinks he’s going to make money shipping ice and fish from the swamp way up north!”

  “Wambly knows some researchers working on using automobile engines and what all to turn a propeller to move a boat through water. He even saw some up at that St. Louis shindig. I figured if the experts could put together a gasoline boat good enough to show off like that, I should be able to think my way around one good enough to haul fish from here to Atchafalaya Station. This here is what I come up with. Now all I gotta do is get some fishermen to give me their catch to sell for them.”

  Someone had to set him straight, and she didn’t notice anyone else around who qualified.

  “If you think any fisherman is going to put in the work and then give their catch to you on the word of Wambly Cracker, you’re a bigger fool than I took you for. We don’t have enough people out here as dumb as you. They would rather sell a few fish to a buyer with a tow car whenever a riverboat comes along than risk so much on the word of you and Wambly Cracker.”

  “Well, my boat made it all the way back here, didn’t it? Don’t that prove it works?”

  “Don’t prove a thing except trouble’s bound to come from it,” Loyce countered.

  He stepped back, widening the gap between them. For the first time Loyce could remember, Fate Landry didn’t have one word to say.

  The kitchen screen door opened, and Adam stepped into the breezeway.

  “Well, look who found his way home!” he said, with way more welcome than Loyce thought the visitor warranted. “Did all that noise have something to do with you? And look at that—is that Sam Stockett’s old skiff? I noticed it had gone missing but figured it just broke loose and drifted off.”

  “You got it, Uncle Adam!” Fate said. “I talked a mate on the Annette into hoisting it onboard and dropping me off at Atchafalaya Station.”

  “Is that a pump sitting in the middle?” Adam was working at sounding hopeful.

  “Well, it was on a pump one time.” Fate was stepping all over himself in his excitement. That usually meant trouble was hot on his boot heels. Even if he couldn’t tell, Loyce could.

  “Now it’s my boat engine!”

  Just as proud as if he had given us a new Jersey calf, she fumed to herself. He blathered on.

  “Those high sides on Sam’s boat wasn’t good for fishing, but it’s just what you need for running in big water with a load, especially if you gonna get some speed up, like four or five miles an hour.”

  “And where are you planning to go so fast?” Adam sounded somewhere between interested and worried.

  “Hauling fish, Uncle Adam, hauling fish—buffalo mostly.”

  It was like old times again with the pacing and the waving. Drifter stretched out on the floor, and Loyce sat back down to hear where this was going. She didn’t catch much of the talk because the two men followed the plank walk back to the boat dock. Only a word or two drifted back up the bank. Once they cranked up the noisy engine, she went indoors,
slamming the screen door with enough force to bounce the old spring off its catch.

  Supper wasn’t any better. Fate talked. Adam and Roseanne asked questions. All of it centered around that hubbub up at Atchafalaya Station and the railroad. Then they got off on the price of ice and what fish might sell for in New York City, of all places.

  Before the night was over, Adam said he would keep a drum of gasoline in stock for Fate’s trips upriver to Atchafalaya Station. He said he knew some packet boats that could bring it, but only by special order, since a stray spark from the smokestack could make it blow up like a drum full of dynamite.

  Loyce wanted to tell Adam he might as well throw that money in the bayou because Fate wouldn’t be in business long enough to use up one drum. The last she heard, her ex-cousin was rattling on downstream to let Sam know that his discarded skiff had made him a partner in the latest doomed-to-fail scheme in the swamp.

  16

  Adam dropped the coffeepot and waved his burned hand. Scorched coffee smell hung on the morning air. He tossed the contents out the back door with his good hand and was trying to refill the kettle when he noticed customers lining up in the store, at least twice the usual number, certainly more than Mrs. Barclay could handle alone. He clanged the kettle onto the stove and crossed the dogtrot to help out. Too much, just too much going on at one time.

  Adam wanted Fate’s bold venture to succeed, but Loyce’s warning proved true, at least for the first run. While most mornings at the post office started off slowly, building speed until midday, then slacking off again through the afternoon, Fate’s big event had skiffs and pirogues jockeying for space around the dock shortly after sunup. When there was no more room to toss another bowline, they started tying to each other, leading Alcide to exclaim, “If one line had broke, we’d a lost the whole fleet!”

  Looking ahead with a good manager’s eye, Mrs. Barclay had figured that most of the men would come inside either before or after delivering their fish.

  “Be ready from that first day. Invite them to think of this as their meal stop on fish trading days,” she had pronounced with authority.

  That’s how Adam found himself trying to cook dinner before breakfast was finished. And that’s how the coffee boiled over. Confound it! How did he let that woman talk him into trying to cook for customers in addition to running a store, post office, and fish dock! It was more than one man could tend to, even with her help.

  During a lull he stopped by the kitchen to pour boiling water over the new pot of coffee. Then he hustled down the walk to weigh his own fish. First, he kneeled on the wooden dock and pulled on the cotton line. His burned fingers bumped into everything he didn’t want to touch, but finally the slats of the fish cart broke the surface.

  “That’s a fine crop of blue cats you got there, Uncle Adam,” said Fate, jiggling around with excitement.

  Even though he planned to ship mostly buffalo, Fate was sending a sampling of catfish up north to test the market.

  “Not bad for low water, but don’t know how much longer they’ll last,” Adam replied.

  Adam knew that only about half the fishermen milling around had actually brought fish with them. Most were holding out to see if Fate made enough to pay out. He hoped his own confidence in Fate was well placed.

  A hesitant voice broke into Adam’s concentration.

  “Mr. Snellgrove, can you put a dime’s worth of coal oil in here before I leave. I almost forgot it.” Wuf Neeley held out the gray, spouted can identical to the one every Chene family had on their back porch. It held the precious fluid that kept the lamps burning and started cook fires on damp mornings.

  “Sure, Wuf, hand it here.” Adam started to get up, but his foot slipped on fish slime, and he crashed into the tub, sending his catch spilling onto the dock. Everyone pitched in to re-catch the fish before they splashed back into the bayou.

  “Tell you what, how about taking it yourself and filling it from that barrel,” Adam panted. “Be sure and turn it off tight, now, so it won’t drip. Mrs. Barclay can write it down on your daddy’s bill.”

  “Yessir, I can do that,” Wuf said. “Come on, Drifter, gimme a hand.”

  “Now, where’d that big blue cat go,” Adam muttered. “Alcide, you hiding that big one in your overalls?”

  “No such thing! You already put ’em in the scale.”

  The wet slap of flapping fish drowned out conversation for the next minute.

  “Wuf, what you got there?” Loyce’s voice was louder than usual. “It’s okay. I told him to fill it up himself,” Adam shouted up the bank.

  “If they put that stuff in a lamp, won’t it blow up the whole house?” Loyce replied. “It’s that gasoline you keep for Fate; I can smell it.”

  “Lordy, I think she’s right!” Alcide had stumped up the plank walk and was sniffing the spout of the gray can. “It smells different from usual. Is this that gasoline, Adam?”

  “Let’s see it, Wuf,” Adam said, reaching for the can. He smeared a few drops over his burned fingers and sniffed. Coal oil was a good treatment for burns. But this wasn’t oily; it was thin. Vapors shivered off it.

  “By god, she’s right! Which drum did you get this out of?”

  “That one on the right, same as usual.” Wuf pointed to the old drum raised on a dais made from a cottonwood stump.

  Adam’s spine shivered like the vapors off his hand.

  “Mrs. Barclay, has anyone else bought coal oil since the delivery yesterday?” He shouted up the bank in what he hoped was a calm voice. No sense in adding more fractiousness to the morning.

  “Mary Ann filled up a can, that’s all,” she replied.

  Just the one! Adam breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Wuf, you’re quicker on your feet than the rest of us—run tell Mrs. Mary Ann not to use that can, run now! Don’t go in the house, just yell from outside.”

  The men on the dock stood still as death watching the boy disappear into the woods. Adam held his breath for every second that ticked by without the second explosion of the year coming from the Bertrams’. He didn’t exhale until the pony cart came rattling through the woods. A welcome sight! Wuf sat tall next to Mary Ann on the seat, his bony chest reared back straight and proud through his overall straps. Even that brown goat bleating and stomping looked beautiful to Adam.

  The cheering from the dock brought Roseanne to the porch.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Wuf saved the Bertrams from getting blowed up is what happened!” Alcide shouted. “That’s right! That boy always did have more gumption than the rest of them Neeleys put together.”

  Now that the danger was over, banter on the dock picked up again.

  “Remember when the church ladies pitched in and made O’Lamp Neeley a moss mattress?” a voice started off. “Someone had seen that the young’uns was sleeping on bare floorboards.”

  “I remember that,” someone else chuckled. “Well, those church ladies was some mad when they found out O’Lamp didn’t do nothing but rip it open and sell the moss to buy a watermelon!”

  Laughter rang out over the water and up the bank. With all the commotion no one heard Loyce slap the arm of her chair.

  “Hey, don’t forget I’m the one who smelled it and saved the Neeleys as well as the Bertrams,” she grumbled. “And Fate’s the reason that frazzling, dangerous stuff is here anyway. Him and his fancy boat. Gonna just cause trouble for everyone.”

  17

  August came to a close with no more mishaps at the dock during the weekly fish transports. Fate chugged in, loaded up, and disappeared in a cloud of fumes and noise. During the few minutes he was weighing fish and paying out money, Loyce could hear his voice, as usual, over everyone else’s. But something was different.

  Men were not just laughing at his carrying on as they once did. They were asking questions and hushing for his answers. What were fishermen pulling in at other spots in the river? What was selling best up north? And of course there were umptee
n questions about that gasoline boat. How fast, how far, how much time, how much load could it carry, on and on. Seems like they all had a notion of what could be done with such a contraption. Loyce knew what she’d like to do with the noisome, foul-smelling thing if anyone asked, but no one did.

  “I bet you don’t know who this is.” The voice broke into her thoughts. It came from the path rather than the dock.

  “Cairo Beauty,” said Loyce. “Even a seeing person could pick out the only Mississippi drawl on the Chene, and I don’t need Drifter’s nose to follow the trail of your Blue Waltz perfume. Come on in and let me feel that baby.” Her mood lightened when Cairo Beauty dropped by.

  Cairo laughed and climbed the steps to the back of the breezeway. Entering the porch, she stood in front of Loyce, who felt around her stomach. It had expanded since Cairo’s last visit just two weeks ago.

  “Well, how you doing there?” Adam spoke up from where he sat peeling potatoes and reading a book propped against the dishpan. “What’s the water doing down on Graveyard?”

  “Come up just a tad the last few days,” she replied, settling into another chair on the porch. “That’s how come Alcide was out that way setting some lines. I caught a ride to the back side of the island and walked up. I wish it’d raise faster and make it easier to tote things from the shed to the cabin we’re building on the flatboat. The bigger I get, the harder all that hauling gets to be. That’s what I come for today, some bigger clothes. Done let out all mine far as they’ll go.”

  She patted the bodice of her chartreuse frock, which was filled to capacity and a little more. Then she tugged at the buttons gapped open at the waist.

  “I still have what Josie wore before Loyce was born,” Adam said. “Let me go see if I can find ’em. That’ll save your money for building the houseboat and putting together Sam’s nets.”

  He sat the book on top of the potatoes, placed the pan in the seat of his chair, and left the porch. Soon the women could hear him moving boxes and barrels inside. Presently, he came back with two cotton jumpers designed with tucks over the bosom that spread out into roomy skirts. One was a slate blue, and the other was dark green. Each jumper came with a long muslin shift that could be worn as a nightgown or as a blouse-petticoat combination. The garments were well made and strong.