WEBVTT

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If the signal has found you,

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you are right where you belong.

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Welcome to Stories Through the Static.

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104.7… The Between.

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Tonight: The Bayou Remembers.

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Chapter One: Before Daylight.

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She came before daylight, with three boats
and a buyer for

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cargo she hadn’t stolen yet.

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The flour was for the kitchens. The cloth
would pay the crew. The coffee, she

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insisted, was essential.

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I knew my girl.

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Broussard stood in the first boat in blue
work trousers and a dark shirt, leather

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guards secured over her shins. Her long
curly hair was braided and pinned close.

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Nothing hung loose. She watched a pale
ribbon of mist lift off the water.

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Behind her, the others waited with their
oars resting across their knees.

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Nobody needed the plan explained again.

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She had explained it yesterday. Twice. The
second time because she enjoyed explaining

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the part where the captain discovered his
mistake.

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Rémy pushed his dark hair away from his
eyes and touched

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two fingers to the gunwale.

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She looked toward the bend.

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There. The cargo boat came slowly around
the cypress, riding low. Its captain stood

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beneath a lantern he should have put out
already. Light on his face. Darkness

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everywhere he needed to see.

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Broussard lifted a hand.

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“Mind your passage.”

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He leaned over the rail.

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“What?”

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“The water’s falling. You’ll want somebody
who knows the way.”

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He looked at the barefoot woman in the
little boat. Then at the channel ahead.

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“How much?”

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She smiled. Well.

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He had asked.

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By the time he noticed the second boat,
the third was alongside his stern.

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Her people came aboard with their weapons
where he could see them. Ignace watched

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the deckhands. Marcel secured the boats.
Her cousin Baptiste, who knew cargo best,

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went straight to the covered stacks.

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Marcel’s hat had seen more rain than its
maker intended. Dark curls escaped beneath

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it; his mustache and the beard along his
jaw had begun to grey. He tested each knot

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before leaving it.

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Ignace stood seven feet tall, broad
through the shoulders, with dark skin and

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short black curls. His dark green shirt
was worn pale at the elbows. He held his

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musket low. His eyes moved from the
deckhands to the companionway and back.

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Broussard stepped onto the deck.

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Ignace made room for her.

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The captain looked from her to the armed
men, then back again.

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“You said you knew the way.”

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“I do.” He had paid good money to keep
that shipment quiet. There would be no

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comfortable explanation for a quarrel loud
enough to bring company.

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She knew that, too.

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He folded his arms.

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“What are you taking?”

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She told him.

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He objected to the flour. He objected to
the salt. By the time she reached the

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cloth, his objections had become quite
inventive.

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She listened while her people worked.

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The tools went into the middle boat. The
flour was wrapped and laid where it would

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stay dry. The coffee passed across in a
sack that Broussard received herself.

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Ignace gave her a look.

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“It’s essential,” she reminded him.

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He went back to watching the captain’s
hands and her back.

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Once, she had asked why he thought she
needed quite so much looking after.

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“No matter how strange, you’re still tiny.
Who knows when the strange fails, girl?”

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She had objected to tiny.

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He had gone on with the looking after.

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My girl liked a full kitchen. She also
liked having money left after

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the fixings were bought.

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The captain watched a bundle of cloth
disappear over his rail.

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“You’ve done this before.”

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She glanced up at him.

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“You’re taking it remarkably well.”

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“I’m trying to remember your face.”

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“Oh, you will.”

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While she enjoyed herself, the water kept
falling.

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A dark stripe appeared beneath the roots.
The little boat settled lower as the cargo

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went in. Rémy tested the passage with his
pole, then looked at her.

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“We’re near our weight.”

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“Espère.”

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He lifted a hand as a man reached for the
next sack.

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The hand stopped.

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He shifted the load toward the middle and
tested the passage again. Broussard

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watched his pole. He knew what those boats
would bear; she had chosen him for it.

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She nodded. Then the last covering came
off the cargo.

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Beneath it lay another bundle of cloth.

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Good cloth.

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Even in that poor light, she could see
what it would bring.

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She looked at the bundle. Looked at the
boats.

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Did a little arithmetic that favored her
wishes.

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“One more.”

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Ignace held her gaze.

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She knew what he was telling her. She knew
the turn they had to make, the shallow

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place beyond it, and how much harder a
loaded boat was to persuade.

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Still, she reached for the cloth.

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I touched the hull beneath her hand.

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“Broussard.”

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She went still.

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The captain was watching his cargo. Her
people were waiting for her order.

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My girl looked down at the water.

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“That boat has to get home,” I told her.

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Her mouth tightened.

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“I know.”

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She said it softly. Nobody on the deck
troubled themselves over whom she meant.

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I let her hear the water slipping past the
wood.

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She looked once more at the cloth.

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Her back straightened.

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“Lâche ça. We’re away.”

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The bundle went back beneath its covering.

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Her people moved immediately.

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She was last off the cargo boat. The
captain came to the rail as she settled

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into her place.

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“Oh, so even you have a limit to what you
can take?”

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For one moment, I thought she might climb
back aboard simply to have the last word.

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Instead, she pushed them clear.

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I was proud of that.

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I did not mention it. She was in no mood
to appreciate me.

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The passage out was narrow enough that the
branches brushed their shoulders. Rémy

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took the difficult turn. Broussard shifted
the load when he asked, then leaned into

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the work beside him.

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The hull whispered, then began to drag
over mud. Everyone felt it.

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For several breaths, there was only the
scrape of poles, the soft knock of wood,

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and the sound of people putting all their
strength into a thing.

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Then the boat moved freely.

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Nobody cheered. They still had flour to
keep dry.

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By the time the first smoke rose from the
kitchens, all three boats were pulling

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close to home.

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Folks met them at the landing. Hands
reached for sacks. One counted tools.

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Another was already asking which cloth had
been promised to whom.

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There were no strangers among them. All
along my banks, people asked who you

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belonged to before they asked what you
wanted. If they did not know your mama,

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they generally knew someone who did. By
the time you had explained yourself,

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somebody was finding you a chair and
pouring the coffee.

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Augustin Landry, ninety-two years old last
Saturday, took a sack from her before she

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could swing it ashore.

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“Girl, don’t you have men enough for the
heavy things?”

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“Oui, but you complain when I don’t
supervise.”

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“And don’t you forget it. Supervise.”

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He had taught her to mend a net before her
feet could reach the floor. She’d improved

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on his method at once, and tied her
sleeves into the mesh doing it.

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He left her sitting there, furious, while
he finished his coffee.

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She reached for the next sack.

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He moved it out of her reach.

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“You here to take my place? Or just swing
sacks out of my reach?”

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Broussard stood wearily on the bank, wet
to the knees, now she was no longer needed

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to supervise the unloading. That brought
her aunt Cecelia, CC to anyone who had

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ever eaten at her table, to look her over.

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“T’as mangé ?” “In a minute.”

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“That wasn’t what I asked.”

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My girl, who had just relieved a smuggler
of a handsome investment, accepted a piece

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of bread without argument.

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She could learn.

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Ignace carried the last sack into the
house. People made room, then resumed

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their conversations around him.

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He was older than Broussard and Rémy.
Those two had grown up together. The

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retelling of their stories could and often
did end with both of them

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shouting, red in the face.

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Ignace had stories, likely more than most.
He seldom troubled to tell them.

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A look usually sufficed.

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Ignace lived out at the edge of the
settlement, with no family of his own.

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Most people who first met him were afraid
of him.

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My girl had never been.

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She had been pulling him into dances for
years. He would settle himself beside the

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door. She would find him there and hold
out her hand.

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“I can hear it just fine from here,” he
told her once.

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“You can hear it better over there with
me.”

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He sighed, took her hand, and let her pull
him closer to the sound of the fiddle.

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Once, somebody visiting a cousin had
questioned whether he belonged among the

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dancers. The visitor thought a man that
tall must mean a man that dangerous. Add

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to that, no family to speak of him or for
him.

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“Is this your house?” Broussard asked.

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It was not.

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“Then you may dance with whoever pleases
you, or not. So will I.”

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Ignace had looked down at her.

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She was already counting him back into the
steps.

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When a high fever laid him low, she went
out to his house.

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He could not hold the cup steady.

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She sat beside him and helped him drink.

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Toward morning, he woke and found her
asleep in the chair.

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He moved his hand.

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Her eyes opened at once.

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“De l’eau ?”

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He nodded. She reached for the cup.

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He had only gotten more protective since.

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Now he came back down the steps, and she
counted his share into his hand.

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The rest of the crew were paid. The
provisions were carried inside. The cloth

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she had taken would sell well enough.

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Well enough did not stop her thinking
about the bundle she had left behind.

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She came back down to the landing while
the coffee boiled. She pulled the pins

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from her hair and loosened her braids.

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For a little while, she sat with her feet
above the water and

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watched the morning open up.

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Then she dipped her fingers beside the
lowest step.

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“It was very good cloth.”

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“I know it.” “We could have managed.”

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She waited.

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I remembered darkness before the first
dawn.

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I had time.

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At last, she sighed.

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“Perhaps not that last turn.”

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I moved gently around her fingers.

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She stayed there another moment, her hand
resting in the water.

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“You’ll hear about this again,” she told
me.

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Of course I would. She was about to stand
when the wind came through the trees.

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It lifted the damp hair from her neck and
brushed close enough to whisper.

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A visitor.

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Broussard tilted her head.

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“Ils après venir ici ?”

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Yes. On a ship. Headed this way.

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She waited.

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A man. Asking for Broussard.

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Her mouth curved.

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“Is he, now?”

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The wind slipped through her curls while
she considered this

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addition to her morning.

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“I wonder who he thinks he’s looking for.”

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From the house, her aunt called that the
coffee was ready.

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That settled her immediate arrangements.

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“Well,” she said, rising, “he still has to
find me.”

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She went up the bank with mud on her
trouser cuffs and

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curiosity beginning to spark.

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I stayed beneath the landing.

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Inside, somebody said something that made
her laugh.

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I carried the sound along the banks.

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My girl was home. And the coffee, I
understood, was essential.

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Farther out, salt water moved against the
hull of a particular ship.

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My attention followed it and then so did
I.

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Be kind to yourselves and each other
out there.

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You’ve been listening to
Stories Through the Static.

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104.7… The Between.