Postmark Bayou Chene (11 page)

She learned words like
authority
up there at the Blind School, going all the way through the grades like it was nothing. Book learning came easy for her.

Fate put aside his thoughts and met her at the bottom of the steps.

“Here, let's get set up in the right direction,” he said, taking her by the hand and facing her toward the cow lot. Drifter turned with Loyce and looked from side to side.

“I think she's catching on!” Fate said excitedly. “Now just hold this rope while I put the other end around her neck.”

Fate carefully arranged both ends of the rope, took one more look at his subjects, then pointed while shouting, “Drifter, cow lot!”

The black tail waved, but nothing else moved.

“Maybe if there was something to get her attention,” Val said from the porch.

Fate narrowed his eyes at Val, trying to determine whether his pal was making fun or being helpful. Well, nothing else had worked. In one smooth motion Fate picked up a stick and tossed it toward the Jersey cow. Just as quickly, Drifter shot after it, hit the end of the rope, and flipped backward, jerking Loyce down on top of her.

Drifter's squeals were nearly drowned out by “Fate Landry, what'd you do!” Loyce pushed against his hands as he lifted her from the ground and dusted the back of her dress before leading her back to the porch.

“Whoahoa! I'm guessing someone taught her to retrieve. This here is some kind of retriever dog. Loyce, we could make some money just renting her out to hunters. I've seen pictures in the papers of rich men who pay to—”

“No one in Bayou Chene is going to pay to rent a dog!” she said, plopping hard into the seat of the rocking chair for emphasis. “For the last time I'm telling you to find that dog a home.”

Loyce's fuming was cut short by the scraping of Val's chair on the porch floor.

“Would you look at that?” He stood up and took off his cap as if it helped him see clearer. He always did that. Fate thought maybe it was something they taught him on the river.

Val squinted again and continued, “Some real sights have drifted around that bend, but this might be the strangest of all.”

“What? What is it?” Loyce tilted her ear, her version of Val taking off his cap.

“Is that a silk parasol? What color would you call that outfit?” Fate said, adding an extra dose of wonder to his voice. He knew he was aggravating her but couldn't help himself.

“Fate Landry, you tell me what it is this second, or I'll sic Drifter on the seat of your baggy britches,” she said. Drifter thumped her tail at the sound of her name.

“It's a flatboat, Loyce,” he explained. “Just a regular old flatboat poled by a regular-looking fella. Looks like they got everything they own with them.”

“He's toting a parasol?” her voice slid up, suspicious, alert, feeling her way one step ahead of Fate.

“Nope, that's the girl with him. Or woman. Can't tell which. Skinny, skinny little ol' thing. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the flat dressed in something shiny about the color of a lemon. Holding a purple parasol like she's scared to death of the sunlight hitting her face, which from here looks white as a catfish belly. Her mouth is moving, but it don't appear he's paying any attention to what she's saying. Just keeps poling that flat like his life depended on getting to our dock.”

“Chartreuse, Fate. That color is chartreuse.” Mrs. Barclay had heard the commotion and walked out to the porch. “I've seen fabric samples like that but never imagined someone buying anything that color. And that violet parasol!” She sniffed and went back inside the store.

Fate and the others watched as the man squeezed past the woman in the chair to reach the bowline at the front of the flat. He hopped onto the dock and snubbed the line to a post. The woman continued to talk, but instead of replying, the man walked silently to where she sat and took her proffered hand. Then he led her carefully through their stacked possessions. After helping her onto the dock, the man stood back to let her pass. He followed her up the plank walk, blocked from view by her parasol.

“Josie Landry?” was the first two words out of the man's mouth.

Before anyone could say anything like “Josie's been dead for more than ten years,” Drifter shot off the porch, just like Fate had been trying to get her to do for days. She scooted around the woman, right into the man's arms. From that vantage point she licked his face while squealing in a high-pitched way. Her tail drummed against his thigh. Fate noticed the stranger didn't back away from her tongue; in fact, he looked like he might start licking her back.

“Maggie! Maggie! Girl, I thought you drowned, but I guess you thought I did too! How'd you get here before me?”

The man talked as if he expected an answer from the wriggling black mass in his arms. The dog squealed louder, sliding into a yodeling howl. If it was too loud in the stranger's ear, Fate couldn't tell it by watching. Before the man buried his face in the fur under Drifter's neck, Fate saw he was covered with fresh pink scars as if the skin had been peeled away from his forehead, cheeks, and nose. The dog didn't notice the man's face had moved; her tongue flicked the air above his head, unable to stop the frenzied greeting.

“I guess you own a blue and black skiff? I'm Lafayette Landry, but everyone calls me Fate. Where you coming from, and how'd you lose your rig? What kind of boat is that anyway?”

The stranger blinked slowly, looking for all the world like one of Mary Ann's calves, thought Fate. The whiteface kind with the wide-spaced eyes. The bovine resemblance grew when he blinked a few more times before answering.

“Sam Stockett of St. Louis, and my wife here is C.B. McKernan Stockett of Natchez. Is Josie here?”

Fate noticed that besides being taller, the flamboyant woman was also somewhat older than the man, who appeared to be in his early twenties. Putting on his best manners, Fate nodded to her in greeting and then opened the screened door into the store.

“Please to meet you, ma'am. Mrs. Barclay's in there to take care of you. Tell her to send Adam out, if you don't mind.”

“Thank you kindly,” she said as she swept through the door, flourishing the parasol closed only after she was safely out of the sun.

Fate leaned against the screen door frame in order to follow the conversations in both places. Mrs. Barclay looked up from the far side of the room, where she was unpacking canned goods and putting them on a shelf. This was gonna be worth paying attention to.

First of all, Mrs. Barclay didn't bother saying “Howdy” or “Kiss my foot” or anything else but just sniffed and stood looking at the woman from the flatboat. Even if that had not been Mrs. Barclay's reaction to most anything new, it was easy to get struck dumb at the sight of the stranger.

Her skin was pale to begin with, even lighter than Loyce's, who never went outside. But on top of that, Fate noticed her face was coated with something like whitewash. It caked into the creases around her lips and eyes and then ran kind of ragged around her ears and jaw. There were bright orange spots on each side of her face and dark smeary circles around her eyes. He thought her yellow hair was right jaunty but so thin in some places that her pink scalp showed through. Pieces of hair that had squirmed loose from their pins were uneven and cottony like singed feathers from a yellow parrot.

She twittered around the store, her chest jerking from side to side without ever touching the stiff top of the low-cut frock, which anyone could tell had been made for a full bosom like Mrs. Barclay's. The bodice had a mind of its own, too, pointing straight ahead no matter which way the bony little chest turned inside of it. She flitted around until her eyes lit on Mrs. Barclay standing in the gloom. She never noticed the sniff nor the glare coming from that direction but just launched right into talking as if she had been invited to speak her mind.

“Howdy! You must be Roseanne. I'm proud to meet you. My name's Cairo Beauty, but everyone just calls me C.B. Named after a jar of pickles, I was. By the time Mama had eight boys she was wore-out and about half-crazy. I guess the surprise of having a girl baby was just too much for her, and she saw that pretty little label on a jar in a store and just stuck that label on me as well. Never could afford to buy a jar of pickles in her life, but being poor didn't keep her from looking.” She stopped for breath and then added, “Oh, that young man out there said to send Adam out.”

“I'll have to go get him,” Mrs. Barclay said. Then she nodded as much to tell Fate to keep an eye on things as to excuse herself across to the kitchen.

While waiting for Roseanne to return, Fate cocked an ear toward Val and the others on the porch, asking questions of the stranger. The man, Sam, talked so low Fate couldn't make much of the answers.

When Adam stepped out, trailed by Roseanne, Fate noted the stranger offered his hand right away. Even if he didn't talk much, Sam Stockett had his manners; Fate would give him that. Adam finished wiping his own hands on the flour sack tucked in his pants before accepting Sam's greeting.

Fate also noticed that Mrs. Barclay didn't waste any time getting back inside the store to keep her eye on the woman.

“I'm looking for Josie Landry—ain't this the post office?” The stranger just couldn't get past that subject, Fate thought. Well, Adam would put him straight.

“Landry was my wife's maiden name.” Adam's voice was soft, even for him. “She died more than ten years ago. How did you know her?”

“She and my granny wrote back and forth for years. Granny being housebound, her biggest pastime was reading letters people sent her from all over. Pen pals, she called them. Said you found out stuff newspapers didn't think worth printing. Josie's letters made this sound like a place where a fella with not much but gumption could make a go of it. After Granny died, I kept her box of letters.”

“What do you know about that!” Adam shook his head and smiled at the memories the man's story jostled up for him. “Josie couldn't get enough of reading and writing. She found pen pals like your grandma listed in magazines that came through the post office, and she sent her own name and address to every magazine that kept pen pal lists. I teased her that she was the reason the post office saw fit to keep a branch open way out here.”

Lost in memories, Adam stood silently for several moments. Never one to let a conversation lag, Fate jumped in to keep the talk moving. It was a job that fell to him uncommonly often, but he could handle it; in fact he was good at it.

“How'd you know to find Bayou Chene? Did Aunt Josie draw your grandma a map?” he prompted.

“I worked at a shoe factory in St. Louis since I was a kid. Got a map from the Corps of Engineers office right there near the wharf. I could tell it was all downstream from St. Louis to Bayou Chene and with any luck at all I should be able to find my way. When I saved enough money, I bought a used skiff and started saving again for food. The other stuff I scrounged from alleys and along the docks. When I figured I had enough to make the trip, I just went to my skiff one morning instead of to the factory.”

Sam seemed worn-down by the long spell of talking, so Fate pitched in to give him a rest.

“That's the one I found, Uncle Adam. The blue and black one. I told you it come from up north with them high sides and wide bottom.”

By now Sam was squatting on the porch. Fate noticed that his heels were flat on the porch floor. Most men around the Chene squatted in just the same way. They could sit on their heels for hours, giving them a solid base for running lines or working with nets. Fate never could get the hang of it, blaming his long legs for taking up too much room under his chin.

Right then he noticed that the dog—Drifter or Maggie, who-ever she was now—sat as close to Sam as she could get. Her head was tucked under his arm for good measure.

“What's Drifter—uh, Maggie—got to do with it?” Fate asked.

“She was hanging around the factory. I used to throw her a bite of my vittles now and then. On the day I left, she seemed to figure there wasn't much of a future there without me, so she just hopped in the boat. We did pretty good coming down, made it off the Mississippi and into the Atchafalaya with no trouble.”

He stopped to rest again. Fate opened his mouth to stir things up with another question, but Sam had gathered up enough words for another run at his story.

“We was so close to here when trouble hit. Right up there above Bayou Tensas. It was mainly for Maggie I tried to rope that deer for supper one evening. Swum across right in front of us. Venison seemed pretty good to me, too, after days of beans and bread. Almost worked, too, if that buck hadn't wrapped the line around my arm and liked to pulled it out of socket. Next thing I knew I was on a showboat heading back upriver, every mile undoing the work I had already put in. The crew said they found me on a sandbar being dragged around by one mad buck. I don't know if they'd a stopped just for me, but they had in mind getting some of that deer for supper. Natchez was their next stop. They put me off there.”

“Whew, boy! And a sight he was too!” His wife had joined them on the porch. Now she jabbed the folded umbrella in Sam's direction. “We'd just closed down a show, and there wasn't nothing to do till we got to Natchez, so I took him upstairs to my cabin for the rest of the trip. Skin was rubbed plumb off his hide everywhere except his privates, which I guess even unconscious it's a man's instinct to protect. There's this Royal Princess Face Cream that's really good for bruises and cuts—I used it plenty of times, myself. He didn't seem to be in a position to put up no fuss about what I smeared on him. Kept saying the name Maggie over and over. Well I figgered that was his woman, but as days went by and he got better, I found out Maggie was his dog! My own situation had recently turned sour as a green persimmon, and it was time for me to get off that boat, if you know what I mean.”