by Gwen Roland
“I figured then it was all over. But somehow that rigging held just enough for me to hook elbows over the edge of the deck. You know how heavy it is to pull a dress up out of a washtub and try to wring it? Now add a current to that and try to pull it up with just your elbows and with you in it, to boot! I couldn’t do more; I just hung there.
“Finally, my breath came back, and I started creeping a little bit at a time on my elbows till the rest of me was finally all the way up on the deck. I laid there facedown no telling how long. I could feel them wooden planks warming my face and pushing the water from inside my clothes. I lay there a while longer wondering why feeling alive had no gladness in it. Something was wrong still. Sam Junior!
“I jumped up then and looked all around the deck. No sign of him. I didn’t want to look out there in the water, but I had to, and all I spied was those rockers bobbing up through that old willow.
“Let me tell you all the air went out of me again. I couldn’t even holler. And I knew if I did, there wasn’t no one to hear. I couldn’t even move then. I figured I never would be able to move again. How could I ever go back inside and face his crib, the blankets and little dresses? I could never look at the water again without wondering if he might still bob up. No telling how long I set there wishing I could trade places with him. How I wished I was in that cold water with the weight of my skirt pulling me on down and he was safe in his crib Sam built out of sweet-smelling willow poles. That was when I realized how much I loved him. More than I ever loved anybody, even my own self.
“Then I heard ‘C.B.! C.B.? You all right?’ It was Alcide paddling from down around the bend. I knew it was too late, but still I jumped and waved and hollered for him to hurry. Then I saw it—that little bundle wrapped in his shirt. It was laying on the bottom of his pirogue. Let me tell you, a wave colder than the water passed over me then. I couldn’t decide whether to jump out there and snatch up that little bundle or wave at him to pass on by so I wouldn’t have to see Sam Junior’s still little face and body. I was froze in place.
“Alcide tied off his boat and stood up before I could move. I was still standing there when he reached down and picked up that bundle. Next thing I knew, Sam’s little fist poked out and him squawling like a nest of yellow jackets got under his blanket.”
Alcide had been listening intently, as if he hadn’t been there in person. Now he broke in.
“I think he was mad about having his nap broken. I was baiting my crosslines when I saw this white blob coming my way. I figured for sure it was a dead heron ready to foul my lines, so I paddled around to head it off. Instead, it was this little fella with his dress all puffed out with air, floating high as a cottonmouth. He wasn’t none too happy about being in so cold a bath, but when I wrapped him up in my shirt, he calmed down and went right to sleep.”
The listeners let out their collective breath and started remarking to each other about the miraculous end to the near tragedy and how the story got better every time it was told. Alcide grinned, and C.B. proudly pulled back the blanket to show off Sam Junior’s sleeping face. Only Roseanne was silent. She stood apart with her arms folded across her chest. Then she sniffed and turned away into the store.
20
The November sunlight thinned, keeping pace with the shedding leaf canopy overhead. A breeze stirred around Loyce’s face, and the rays across her lap didn’t burn like they did just a few afternoons ago. She usually looked forward to changes in the seasons but not this year. After the excitement and relief of Val’s return, she missed Fate more than ever. It had been weeks since they had heard from him. She stabbed the spindle into the cotton twine and yanked the loop shut, again, then again.
Shoes clattered down the bare wooden stairs and across the hall to the porch.
“Loyce, stand up and let’s look at this,” Roseanne said.
“Well, you can look. I’ll get by with just feeling,” Loyce muttered as she stood up from the rocking chair. Her rumpled cotton shift was pinned together at the top where a button was long gone. Frayed apron strings pulled in a semblance of a waist from the folds of fabric.
Ignoring her cross tone, Roseanne surveyed the perimeter of the porch and, seeing no one, helped Loyce step out of the rag. “Hold up your arms,” she prompted, pulling the maroon worsted traveling dress over Loyce’s head when the girl responded. “This doesn’t fit me anymore, and you could use another dress for winter.”
“I can do it,” Loyce said, slapping Roseanne’s hands from the double row of buttons and fastening the opening from waist to collar, smoothing the fitted front as she worked. The waistband fit her slight figure with room to spare but still hung more gracefully than the shapeless dresses she usually wore. The heavy skirt skimmed her hips and fell closer to the floor than her shifts. Roseanne noticed that Loyce stood a little straighter in the tailored dress, but all she said was, “It’s likely to be cold for New Year’s, and this’ll keep you a lot warmer at the dance.”
“Oh my goodness, what is this?” Roseanne exclaimed, as she picked up Loyce’s heavy braid in order to rearrange the dress collar.
Loyce raised a hand and felt the back of her neck before shrugging. “Just a tangle I can’t get out.”
“Here, let me see.” Roseanne fingered the solid mass of hair, fine as silk and as big as her fist. “Loyce, there’s nothing to do but cut this. It’ll never comb out.”
“Well, why not just cut it all?” Cairo Beauty stepped through the hall carrying Sam Junior on her hip. “There’s plenty of ’em in the cities now just have their hair skimming their shoulders or thereabouts. Be a lot easier for a blind girl to keep up, if you know what I mean. Now some of them get these marcel waves, but with a little body like you got, Loyce, it’ll just wiggle around like moss in the wind. Look real pretty to my mind.”
“Cairo Beauty, it’d be just like you to come up with something like that,” Roseanne sniffed. “A woman’s hair is her crowning glory; the Bible says so.”
“Well, does it say how long that crown’s gotta be?” C.B. retorted. “Seems to me it don’t signify long over short.”
“If you’re gonna cut a hunk out, why not make it match all over?” Loyce entered the fray. “I’d just soon have it out of my way, and I sure can’t see what it looks like.”
“I can do it for you—seen it done plenty times,” Cairo Beauty offered. “Mrs. Barclay, you got some scissors in there somewhere?”
“If you’re sure you want to do this.” Roseanne sounded doubtful as she handed the scissors to Cairo Beauty and took Sam Junior.
“Go ahead,” Loyce said.
Taking up the wide-toothed comb, C.B. first smoothed the tangled hair into a white part, gradually approaching the fist-sized knot at the nape of Loyce’s neck. Hair draped around the knot, flowed down the maroon worsted shoulders, and pooled in her lap.
“We’ll have to start with this tangle and then even it up to match,” C.B. figured out loud. She closed the blades of the scissors across the knot and started sawing. “Ummph. It can’t get a purchase on this much of a bite. You got a knife handy there, Mrs. Barclay?”
Roseanne carried Sam Junior into the kitchen and returned shortly, proffering a wood-handled kitchen knife. “This is sharp. Mr. Snellgrove uses it to clean fish.”
“That’ll do it,” C.B. said. She grasped the knot again and began sawing. The hair above the knot sprang up.
“Ooooh lookidat!” C.B. exclaimed, giving it a fluff with her free hand. “Now I think I can use the scissors again.”
She combed down from the part on Loyce’s left side and lined up the scissors with the bottom of the fringe on the nape of Loyce’s neck. Snip, snip, the hair sprang up again, about two inches shorter than the hair on the back.
“Look what you did, you fool!” Roseanne snatched the scissors away. “You pulled down too hard. Let me fix it.”
She thrust Sam Junior back at C.B. and took the scissors. Working on Loyce’s right side, she pulled a two-inch width of hair just tigh
t enough to hold it still and made a cut. The result was one inch longer than the hair on the back of Loyce’s neck and three inches longer than the cut C.B. made.
“It feels a little uneven,” Loyce offered, passing inquisitive fingers over each ear.
“Oh, it’s not so far off. All you have to do now is tilt your head to the right, and it’ll look just fine,” C.B. advised.
“This won’t do—it won’t do at all!” Roseanne waved the scissors. Loyce leaned away from the snapping sound near her right ear, but Roseanne grabbed the top of her head and held it firmly in place. “Just look straight ahead. I mean, just keep your nose pointed straight ahead, and I’ll fix it.”
“How can you fix it when you’re the one messed it up!” C.B. countered, jiggling her hip to distract Sam Junior, who was trying to grab the scissors from Roseanne.
Distractions held no fear for someone as focused as Roseanne. The scissors clipped around the circle of Loyce’s head, creating an even bob swinging around her chin.
“This side has to come up a tiny bit more,” she said at the same time C.B. was saying, “That’s perfect.”
“No, not quite,” said Roseanne, trimming another inch.
The scissors snipped away another row so that it hung precisely even with each ear tip.
“Mrs. Barclay, you getting it too short. She gonna look like a boy,” warned C.B.
“It has to be straight—how can you not see that!” Roseanne exclaimed, backing away to view her work. “Just a little bit more. Oh drat, now this is longer. Just hold still, Loyce. I’m almost finished.”
“Now she looks just like one of them Polish chickens of Mary Ann’s,” said C.B.
Loyce shook her head from side to side and front to back. Sure enough, the cropped hair sticking straight out from the center part flopped above her ears like a splayed feather duster.
“Makes no never mind to me,” she declared. “It feels good, not so heavy. I won’t have to bother with braids and such from now on. I don’t know anyone my looks would matter to, and I can’t see what it looks like anyway.”
“Well, at least Fate ain’t gonna be hanging ’round making fun of you.” C.B. plopped down in the neighboring chair and settled Sam Junior in her lap. “Sam says that boy’s so busy he can’t find time to shake a stick at a snake.”
“Well, he can thank me for putting the notion in his head about selling those scale fish.” Roseanne stepped back from fluffing Loyce’s hair and waved the scissors for emphasis.
“Oh, it’s a lot more than that now!” C.B. said with authority. “Wambly Cracker told him there was a market for paddlefish eggs! It’s something called ‘caviar’ that posh folks usually have to get from way overseas. Sam says Fate’s making deals with big fish buyers from up north and lining up fish from down here, bedding it all down with ice from his own new icehouse in Atchafalaya Station. Makes it right out of river water. Sam says he don’t even see Fate, except on payday. Thinks he might be living in Baton Rouge—it’s just a few minutes’ train ride from Atchafalaya Station, you know. Seems he’s been seeing a woman Wambly knows. Sam said her name’s Rona Castille and she’s come to the station a couple of times with Fate.”
“Well, I miss him,” Roseanne said. “He could always jolly up the place; it was good for business. Customers liked to linger in the store when he was around. Not the same without him.”
Loyce didn’t say a word, but her feet came down harder in the rocking chair, and her cropped hair lifted on the breeze of the motion.
“You know, he ain’t ever seen Sam Junior. So, I guess that’s about three months since he’s been around here,” C.B. continued, as if Roseanne had not spoken. “He don’t even know about me and Sam Junior falling in the bayou and nearly drowning.”
Roseanne sniffed. “There’s no doubt if Alcide hadn’t come along when he did, that baby wouldn’t be here today. But you seemed safe enough up there on the deck.”
For the next few seconds only the rockers of Loyce’s chair broke the silence. C.B.’s own rocking chair was still.
“What you getting at, Mrs. Barclay?” C.B.’s voice dipped low.
“Well, everyone knows you tried to get rid of that baby before it was born, and that was a mighty convenient accident with nobody to tell the tale but you,” Roseanne countered. “If Alcide hadn’t come along when he did, you’d be free and clear to go on back to your showboating life or whatever it was you did. Let me tell you right now, I’m not the only one who thinks this whole matter needs looking into by the law!”
“The law!” Loyce’s chair stopped in mid-rock. “Roseanne, the law don’t even come out here except during election years to talk up votes.”
“Well, maybe it’s time they did. That’s right, now just may be the time.”
C.B. jumped to her feet, slamming the rocking chair against the porch wall.
“Mrs. Barclay, you going too far this time. I put up with you looking down your nose at me and mine, acting like we ain’t good enough to be in the same room with you. But you go and start messing with my baby or calling the law in here, and you gonna have more trouble than you ever expected. I was gonna wait here to catch me a ride to the turnoff, but I’d rather wait out on the dock. Loyce, I’ll see you next time.”
Her feet stomped down the steps and along the plank walk to the dock.
“Roseanne, that’s some serious accusations,” Loyce ventured.
“Well, it’s a serious matter,” Roseanne replied, and walked back across the dogtrot to the store.
The next day Loyce recognized Val’s whistle and soft step onto the plank walk as he came out of the woods.
“Why do I smell honey this time of year?” She breathed deeply again to make sure.
“Been so warm this fall, they made more honey than they’ll need to see ’em through the winter, so I relieved them of a few jars. Here’s one for you, and Adam can sell the rest for me in the store, enh? What happen to your hair?”
“I got caught between Roseanne and C.B. Even I can tell it looks like a yellerhammer nest,” she said.
“Not that bad. I never noticed how much your hair looks like mine. If you got some scissors, I straighten it up for you. I gotta cut mine all the time to keep it out of my face.”
“Look in the post office over by the string.”
Val returned and stood in front of Loyce’s chair.
“Now sit up straight, cher. Bon! First I just rake my hands through like this,” he said, so as not to startle her with his touch.
His fingers pressed her scalp from front to back and tugged her hair experimentally.
“Then I measure by the thickness of my fingers to shorten the front like this.”
He started snipping ends of curls, one at a time. The bits fell to the floor around them. The effect was a fringe of light brown framing her face, with full waves lifting the back and sides. When he finished, Loyce explored the new coif with her fingers.
“It does feel like yours, just not as curly,” she said.
It was the first time he had seen her smile since he returned from the dead. Impulsively, he pressed her head against his middle before stepping back. Her cheek rested briefly where his shirttail tucked into his worn canvas pants.
Loyce felt a rush of both comfort and exhilaration in the embrace.
“From what I hear, more than just your hair done got caught between those two women,” Val chuckled, stepping back to look at her face. “Seem like everybody taking sides on whether the law needs to come out.”
“Oh Val, I know C.B. didn’t try to hurt her baby, but Roseanne is sure as anything that she did. Worse than that, she’s bound and determined to make the law a part of all this. We’ve always taken care of our own differences on the Chene.”
Val sat down in the chair next to Loyce and held her hands in his.
“Seeing as how Roseanne and C.B. both come in here from somewhere else makes it another whole mess,” she continued. “If an outsider came in accusing someone who lives her
e, we could deal with that. But one outsider accusing another outsider of a serious crime is different. No family here has a stake in the outcome, and no one knows the facts except C.B. The word of one outsider against the suspicions of another outsider. Makes some people think Bayou Chene is getting big enough to need the law stepping in.”
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.
