Bayou Beginnings Read online

  Had he somehow discovered that she planned to visit the postmaster on her trip to deliver eggs this morning? She cast a glance from beneath lowered lashes and found he’d gone back to his numbers.

  “You want some breakfast?” he asked as he tallied a column and wrote a figure beneath it.

  In truth, she did, but sitting across the table from Uncle Joe and enduring his cross-examination did not set well. An empty stomach suited her much better.

  Her uncle whirled around to face her. “Any particular reason you’re avoiding that young man?”

  The swift change of subject startled Cleo and sent her thoughts spinning. “No, sir.” She stuffed her hands into her apron pockets, then felt a pang of guilt when her fingers came into contact with her letter.

  “You’re not going to forget my penny candy, are you?”

  Her uncle’s sweet tooth was a secret to no one, but every week he felt the need to remind Cleo to fetch his favorite treat. Cleo smiled despite the worry gnawing in her gut. How she loved the familiar routine of life in Latagnier.

  He stood and reached into his pocket. “Bring your aunt back one of those fancy magazines, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.” She accepted the coins he held out, then dropped them in her pocket alongside the letter.

  Uncle Joe returned to his seat and continued to stare, all the while drumming a furious rhythm on the table. Another moment under his scrutiny and she’d spill her plan for sure.

  “That you, honey?” Tante Flo called from the parlor.

  Cleo suppressed a sigh of relief. “Yes, ma’am. It’s me.”

  Tante Flo met her in the hallway, a dish towel in her hand. “You going to fetch eggs to folks?” she asked as she smoothed back iron gray hair.

  “Yes’m.” Cleo looked away. “Did you need something in town?”

  Tossing the dish towel onto her shoulder, Tante Flo peered into Cleo’s face, then pulled a letter from her apron pocket. “Mail this one with yours.”

  For a second Cleo could only stare at her aunt. When the words came, they emerged as more of a string of sounds rather than an actual statement of some sort. Finally, she gathered her wits enough to construct an entire sentence and speak it aloud. “How did you know?”

  Tante smiled. “I didn’t.” She took Cleo by the elbow and led her outside. “Now don’t you set your cap to worrying. I was young once, too, and I know a natural-born teacher when I see one. I just thought I ought to let that fellow at the teachers’ college know, too.”

  Cleo opened her mouth to say thanks but once again found the words had escaped. She wrapped Tante Flo in a tight hug and held on until the tears ceased.

  “Hush now and dry your eyes or your uncle’s going to wonder what we hens are cackling about.” She lifted the hem of her apron to dab at Cleo’s tears. “Now, here’s how we are going to handle this. I’ll talk to your uncle, eventually, and until I do, you will keep your peace on the subject. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to pray, too.”

  “I will, and I promise.” Cleo kissed and hugged her aunt one more time before fairly floating to town to post not one letter to the teachers’ college but two. After filling her pocket with penny candy for Uncle Joe and tucking a Godey’s Lady’s Book under her arm, she headed for home on the path that wound beside the black bayou water.

  Anyone who didn’t know better would think the bayou looked like a good place to spend a warm spring afternoon. Cleo knew differently, though, especially after the snake episode of last week.

  She shuddered at the reminder of the black monster. While growing up on the bayou meant dealing with the ever-present snake population, she’d never seen one as large as that one.

  Thoughts of the snake brought forth thoughts of the man who had dispatched it to its doom. Theophile Breaux. Now there was a man who. . .

  Who what?

  Before she could complete the thought, the sound of hammering echoed across the quiet of the bayou. Cleo stopped short and looked around. Had she strayed so close to the cabin that she could hear the sound of the Breaux fellow as he went about making repairs?

  The familiar landmarks told her she had. Strange, but she hadn’t intended to go this direction.

  “Well, as long as I’m nearby, perhaps it would be a good time to see what sort of progress is being made on my school.”

  My school. She rolled the thought across her brain. Yes, that did sound good. And with Tante Flo’s endorsement, she all but had the job sewed up.

  Smiling as she headed toward the school, she toyed with the idea of letting the big Cajun know that she was the one for whom the repairs were being made. Wouldn’t that just irritate him to no end?

  As she reached the clearing, she cast a quick glance down at the spot where Theophile Breaux had saved her from the giant cottonmouth. Instantly she felt ashamed of herself. He really wasn’t such a bad sort, just a bit grumpy and rough around the edges.

  Of course, the last time she’d seen him, he’d just pulled his foot out of the steps. She looked up to see him perched atop a ladder, hammering a nail into the eaves of the cabin.

  Perhaps she’d best alert him to her presence so she wouldn’t startle him. A shout of greeting would probably take him by surprise, so she decided to whistle.

  Six

  Where in the world was that infernal whistling coming from?

  Theo continued to pound nails into the roof, patching places where the rain had once too often entered the little building. He’d been at it most of the morning and intended to keep going until he finished. Once the roof was in place, he could begin work inside the building.

  Reaching for another nail from the pouch at his waist, Theo soon let his hands work at the task while his mind roamed. The Lord had been good to heal his papa right quick. Already he hobbled around with his leg bound up, and just yesterday he told Mama he was ready to see to his traps again.

  Mama’d had a fit, of course, but soon she’d not be able to keep Papa sitting on the porch when he wanted to be out working. “A man has to work, Nellie,” Theo had heard his papa say that morning. “You take a man’s livelihood away, and he’s got nothing.”

  As the screen door closed behind him, Theo heard his mama’s reply, “A man’s always got his family, Gaspard, and don’t you ever forget that, you hear?”

  Theo smiled. Nellie and Gaspard Breaux bantered like children in a schoolyard sometimes, but no one who knew them doubted their love. Thirty years of marriage come this fall, and they still held hands.

  Thirty years of daily routine, of too little money and too many mouths to feed, and yet they acted like theirs had been the easiest life imaginable. He shook his head.

  Papa had come back from the war with a bright future. He’d made his plans to go east to the agricultural and mechanical college in Texas. He meant to build great things that would advance civilization.

  Instead, he’d come home to the bayou to say good-bye to his mama and papa and ended up falling for Nellie Boudreaux, the pastor’s daughter who’d unaccountably blossomed into womanhood during his absence.

  Nellie’s people were here, family with roots dug down so deep that uprooting them—and Nellie—would be unthinkable.

  What in the world did a man have to do to find a woman worth giving up everything he held dear? He once asked his father that very question. His response had been characteristically vague: “I looked at Texas, I looked at Nellie, and I’ll tell you, Son, Nellie looked a whole lot better. And. . .” He paused as if to draw out the moment. Theo remembered watching Papa’s smile broaden then narrow as he pressed his lips into a thin line. Surely the next words out of Papa’s mouth would be words of wisdom.

  “And?” Theo had asked, impatient as ever.

  “And besides, signs pointed to a cold winter, and it was nigh on the fall.”

  Mama had walked up during the middle of that statement and threatened to go after Papa with a rolling pin. Instead, the moment they thought Theo was out of sight, the pair had locked lips like newlywed
s.

  Theo banged another nail into the roof, then leaned back slightly on the old ladder to admire his handiwork. A neat row of shingles covered the place where a hole the size of a full-grown coon had been.

  He thought about his own plans, important things to do that had been set aside for this trip to Latagnier. If he had his way, he planned to do just what he promised his papa all those years ago.

  Canada. Yes, wouldn’t that be something? If the pastor hadn’t roped him into this repair job, he’d practically be packing his bags. Instead, he’d bought another month or so in Latagnier, paid for with good intention and plenty of persuasion on the part of the pastor and the elders, chief among them, Joe Trahan.

  Again the whistling teased his ears. No bird sang like that, at least none he’d heard in Latagnier. Leaning over, he slammed the hammer atop a nail that hadn’t gone in to his liking.

  There, that’s better.

  If a man couldn’t be known for the quality of his work, well, what was the purpose of doing a job at all? It got all over him when he was called in to fix something that hadn’t been done right the first time. At least that was not the case here.

  “Hello? Monsieur Breaux?”

  What in the world? Theo dropped his hammer onto the roof, then managed to grab it before it slid out of his reach. He turned in time to see a woman in a yellow dress emerge from the thicket. As he moved, his feet slipped, and he reached for the roof. Failing to get a grip, he settled for holding on to the only solid thing he could latch onto—the ladder.

  With his heart pumping furiously, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he returned his attention to the work he needed to do on the roof. Releasing the ladder with a shaking left hand, he wiped the perspiration from his brow.

  He’d narrowly escaped disaster this time, and he still bore the bruises from their last encounter. What was it about the Trahan woman that invited disaster each time they met? If he ignored her, maybe she’d go away, and he could leave at the end of the day without doing himself—mind or body—further damage.

  “Do be careful,” she called.

  Several choice responses came to mind, but Mama had raised him better than to say any of them. Instead he settled for a brisk nod and a quick, “Sure will.”

  Once again the crooked nail caught his attention. Somehow it didn’t look right anymore. He palmed the hammer and adjusted his position on the ladder. If he gave the troublesome nail a couple more hits, it would lie flat against the shingles like the others.

  “That doesn’t look safe, sir.”

  Theo jammed the hammer into his belt and cast a glance over his shoulder. She’d almost closed the distance between them, and she strolled along with a basket hanging from her elbow. The sight of her caused his mouth to go dry. If he didn’t find her so irritating, he just might find her. . .what?

  Attractive? Noonday sun glinted off blue-black hair that hung in a thick braid reaching nearly to her waist. Yes, he did find her quite pretty.

  So what?

  Pretty girls were a dime a dozen. He’d seen his share and would most likely see a good number more before Jesus called him home. Canada probably had a whole slew of them just waiting for his arrival.

  So what if a girl in yellow caught his eye?

  He’d be gone in no time, and she’d just be a memory. Whether she was to be a good memory or a bad one remained to be seen.

  Clothilde Trahan stood at the bottom of the ladder now, and he had to lean down to see her face. “How about I do my job and you go do yours, whatever that may be, eh?”

  “I am doing my job.” She shaded her eyes and squinted up at him. “I’m going to be the teacher here, and this will be my school. As such, I felt I should come see how you were getting along.”

  “Your uncle and the pastor agreed to this? To you being the new teacher, that is.”

  She dropped her hand and looked away. “They will.”

  Theo chuckled. “That’s what I thought. You’re no more the teacher here than I am.”

  He whirled back around, using his left hand to steady himself as he stretched to reach the crooked nail once more. Realizing too late that he’d wiped his brow only moments before, he scrambled to keep his damp fingers wrapped around the wooden bar.

  In a valiant effort to keep from sliding down the ladder, he dove for the safety of the roof. Had he been a smaller man, this might have been a good move. Unfortunately, he took after his papa’s side of the family.

  His last thought before crashing through the roof was that whatever happened, it would all be the Trahan woman’s fault.

  ❧

  Cleo dropped the egg basket and picked up her skirts, hurdling over the fallen ladder to reach the newly repaired porch steps. Throwing open the door, she stepped inside the semidarkness. The room smelled old and musty, and dust threatened to choke her. Obviously the carpenter’s work inside had not yet commenced.

  “Monsieur Breaux?”

  No answer.

  The cabin had been laid out in a rabbit warren of rooms, and she now stood in what remained of the largest of them. Several odd pieces of furniture—a chair here, a small table there—had been stacked into a corner, remnants of her grandmother’s years living in the building.

  Ahead she could see threads of light spilling around a door not quite plumb on its hinges. From memory, she knew the area where the carpenter had fallen through would be the small front room on her right. Long ago, the space had served as a formal parlor. In more recent years, it had been the sickroom for Grandmother Trahan.

  Making her way carefully around the corner and into the hallway, she stopped short at the scene unfolding before her. A brilliant shaft of light illuminated the shadowed room as if heaven itself had opened up in just one small spot. At the center of the spotlight, surrounded by a fine mist of dust, sat Theophile Breaux.

  Seven

  The Breaux fellow had landed intact, it seemed, and unharmed and currently sat upright atop her grandmother’s ancient feather bed. Pieces of shingles and lumber littered the bare mattress and spilled onto the old wood floor.

  Covered in dust, the carpenter’s dark curly hair resembled the powdered wigs she’d seen in history books. His dark clothing appeared as white as an angel’s robes.

  This man, she reminded herself, was no angel. She gave him a long look.

  While he appeared unharmed, he held his eyes shut tight, his head slightly bowed. He seemed as if he were caught in prayer rather than as the lone survivor of a recent fall through the roof.

  Cleo inched nearer, sidestepping the debris to stand at the end of the iron bed. The ornate metal felt cold beneath her fingers.

  “Monsieur Breaux?”

  He neither spoke nor moved. If she could move closer, she might be able to see if he still breathed.

  “Sir? Are you harmed?”

  Silence. Gripping the cold metal of the bed, she leaned a notch forward to nudge his oversized booted foot. Nothing.

  Cleo’s heart sunk, and tears stung her eyes. She’d really done it this time.

  As a young girl, she watched a baby bird fall from its nest and land, seemingly unharmed, outside the parlor window. When she rushed to its aid, she found the tiny creature sitting as if it hadn’t a care in the world. Only when she picked it up to return it to its nest did she realize the precious baby sparrow was dead.

  Theophile Breaux could have suffered the same fate. She suppressed a groan. Why hadn’t she gone straight home?

  If the carpenter did not survive the fall, it would be her fault. After all, if she hadn’t allowed her curiosity to get the better of her, she would have gone straight home and not stopped at the cabin. Had she not stopped, she and the carpenter wouldn’t have exchanged words, and he wouldn’t have fallen through the roof.

  It all seemed so. . .preventable. If only she could tame her persistent curiosity.

  What a can of worms she’d opened by asking the Lord to help take care of the problem. First the giant snake and now t
his. While she fully expected to bear the cost of her improvement, she never expected someone else might be hurt along the way.

  Cleo moved to the side of the bed, kicking a rather large piece of the roof out of her way. Slowly, she knelt, then peered up at the Breaux fellow’s face. Traces of blood glistened from a tiny cut just beneath the fringe of dark lashes on his right eye, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

  “If you can hear me, sir, please say something.” Still no sign of life.

  Taking a deep breath, she bowed her head and began to pray. “Father, I really did it this time. I killed a man, or at least I hurt him badly. Lord, he didn’t deserve this. He was helping us to build a school and doing a good work so the children could learn and, well, You know my part in things. I probably don’t have the right to ask but—”

  The mattress shuddered slightly. She paused to open her eyes and stare up at the carpenter once more. Still no sign that either Theophile Breaux or the Lord had heard her prayers.

  Dropping her chin again, she continued her plea. “If You are listening, please forgive me and heal Monsieur Breaux. He might be a bit cranky, but he is one of Your children and should have a long and happy life instead of having it end just because I fooled around and got in the way. I’m the one who should pay the price for my curious nature, not he.”

  “Amen!”

  The carpenter’s chuckle seemed to shake the very floor Cleo knelt on. She jumped and nearly fell backward. As she caught herself with her elbows, she looked up to see the smiling face of Theophile Breaux.

  “Well, of all the nerve.” Cleo scrambled to her feet, her heart racing, and shook off as much of the dust as her trembling hands would allow.

  “I’m sorry, but I am still very much alive.” He dabbed gingerly at the cut beneath his eye. “Although I must say, if ever I need someone to write my eulogy, it will be you.”

  Realization dawned, and her eyes narrowed. “You were fine all along.”

  He shrugged and, for a moment, had the decency to look almost contrite. “I’m afraid so. Other than a little dust in my mouth and a few bruises in places I can’t show you, I think I’ll live. You look disappointed.”