by Pat Laster
Before Bryan knew what had happened, Rhoda had removed his binocs and placed his camera on a bench. He wailed, “But alligators!”
“Alligators run and hide during September,” Doke answered and laughed. “Can you swim?”
“No!”
“Then we’ll hold your feet and dunk you. Anything in your pants that might fall out?”
The smelly man knew he was caught. He emptied his pockets and climbed the railing. “Don’t let go, for God’s sake!” he said, and held his nose as the two laughed and pushed him under then quickly hauled him up. His slightness was no problem, but his wet baggy clothes added a little bulk.
He sputtered and shook his head like a dog, wiping the water out of his eyes with dirt-encrusted knuckles.
“Next time you decide to join a group of folks,” Rhoda said, “for goodness sake, shower. Have a little respect for your neighbors.”
Doke picked up a beach towel and tossed it to the dripping photog-painter. “Let’s go get our mudbugs,” he said, and turning the boat in a wide arc, revved the motor. Rhoda and Bryan grabbed the railing and Henry Elmas rolled off the seat. He woke up.
“Wha . . . ?” He tried to speak as he rubbed his neck. When the boat was running smoothly again, Rhoda reached out to help him to the bench.
“You had a little fall, that’s all,” she lied. “Does your head hurt?” She patted his bald pate; his hat had rolled off when he fell.
“How do you know where to go back to?” the still-wet Bryan asked Doke.
“The trees guide me,” he answered. And soon, he slowed the boat and nosed in to the bank where Timothy waved from the sand bar. His sack bulged and he grinned broadly.
Doke opened the gate, reached a gaff out to a sapling and pulled the boat in as close as he could. Timothy pitched his sack into the gate and climbed in after it.
“Good eating next week, Miss Rhoda,” he said, smiling at his success and patting his bag. She kissed his muddy cheek. “Would you like a permanent job at my restaurant?” she asked.
The trip back was quiet. Doke pointed out an eagle that seemed to nod at them as they passed. Bryan Creston did get a photo of the gate of the boat, but he saw no other gates. He realized his mother was right and he determined to take better care of his hygiene.
Henry Elmas would have to wait on alligator shoes. He couldn’t remember what happened after he spotted the reptile swimming in the bayou. But he would need to order another hairpiece––one with better adhesive.
Rhoda got her crawfish and found someone who could keep her supplied with the delicacy. She kissed Doke’s cheek and slipped something into his shirt pocket as she exited the boat.
After all his passengers had departed, Major Doke Amos––feeling the thickness of the bills in his pocket––smiled at yet another experience with the weirdness of the non-Cajun species. From now on he would hide his rifle from the passengers.
Suddenly, he remembered something and reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a bright red business card with silver letters. Rhoda’s Restaurant, it said, and included a street address and a phone number. An arrow pointed to the back. He read the hand-written note.
It said, “Call me sometime.”
The end
© 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press
Showing posts with label bayous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bayous. Show all posts
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
You remember old newspaper serials?
by Pat Laster
How about a modern-day newspaper serial? My short story, "Swamp Tour," can be divided into four installments. I realize this week begins the new year with all its prognostications, but other bloggers will do that. Here goes.
SWAMP TOUR – by Pat Laster, lately published in CALLIOPE: A Writer’s Workshop by Mail based in Tucson. The story was a finalist in the latest fiction contest.
ON A PLEASANT DAY in September, Major Doke Amos of Major Doke’s Swamp Tours Inc. hosed the gray hull of his pontoon boat. Then he wiped down the wooden seats where his passengers would sit. He knew those benches weren’t as comfortable as pads, but they were cheaper. He built them himself. With any luck, the passengers’d be off their duffs most of the time gawking at eagles, herons––maybe even an ibis––or taking pictures of dead cypress skeletons, or blooms of the ubiquitous water hyacinths.
DOKE AMOS, A CAJUN born in a floating cabin at the bayou’s edge, had been around. His grandfather––when he was younger––could pick off an alligator quicker than any coon-ass Cajun in the parish. Doke learned the skill well. His rifle stood at the ready by the helm. Each
September during alligator season, he led daily trips up to the Haxawaxie River and back down the bayou Greeno.
AT NINE O’CLOCK SHARP, Major Doke helped one of the four passengers--and the only woman--down the steps of the boat. He smiled broadly at the redheaded beauty. He would check her ring finger later, as if that mattered. “Sorry for the hard benches,” he said.
RHODA CULLY, A BELLE from a Nebraska soybean family, had moved to south Louisiana with her Cajun husband after a whirlwind courtship. She found out afterwards that he couldn’t keep his hands off the Gullah girls, no matter how beautiful his Midwest missy. She ditched him, and her daddy wired her money to buy a house.
ALWAYS INTERESTED IN FOOD, she learned the native cuisine and studied under Chef Grella who hired her. When he died, she mortgaged her home, bought Grella’s Grill and soon ran a successful business.
HER GOAL FOR THIS TRIP was a harvest of crawfish. She had paid a dear price: her cost plus that of Timothy Creed, a storied local yokel who knew how to bring in the mudbugs.
TIMOTHY BOARDED NEXT. “My boots and gear,” he told Doke, who turned questioning eyes at the young man’s tow sack.
TIMOTHY CREED HAD BEEN a beverage-company driver who wore nothing but brown uniforms. He had come from the school yard of hard knocks. Short on book-learning, he knew every inch of the area around the bayou. He was known to his compatriots as “Duke of the Bush and Reed.” He had no fear of the native wildlife. He knew the plants and their uses and never had even a remotely close call involving a snake or alligator.
HIS BUDDIES TOLD HIM about the ad for a “mudbug harvester” and he applied. He knew how to collect crawfish all right, so Rhoda of the renamed Rhoda’s Restaurant hired him for this trip. His waders and jury-rigged tools lay in the sack that he pushed under the seat. © 2012
TO BE CONTINUED.
How about a modern-day newspaper serial? My short story, "Swamp Tour," can be divided into four installments. I realize this week begins the new year with all its prognostications, but other bloggers will do that. Here goes.
SWAMP TOUR – by Pat Laster, lately published in CALLIOPE: A Writer’s Workshop by Mail based in Tucson. The story was a finalist in the latest fiction contest.
ON A PLEASANT DAY in September, Major Doke Amos of Major Doke’s Swamp Tours Inc. hosed the gray hull of his pontoon boat. Then he wiped down the wooden seats where his passengers would sit. He knew those benches weren’t as comfortable as pads, but they were cheaper. He built them himself. With any luck, the passengers’d be off their duffs most of the time gawking at eagles, herons––maybe even an ibis––or taking pictures of dead cypress skeletons, or blooms of the ubiquitous water hyacinths.
DOKE AMOS, A CAJUN born in a floating cabin at the bayou’s edge, had been around. His grandfather––when he was younger––could pick off an alligator quicker than any coon-ass Cajun in the parish. Doke learned the skill well. His rifle stood at the ready by the helm. Each
September during alligator season, he led daily trips up to the Haxawaxie River and back down the bayou Greeno.
AT NINE O’CLOCK SHARP, Major Doke helped one of the four passengers--and the only woman--down the steps of the boat. He smiled broadly at the redheaded beauty. He would check her ring finger later, as if that mattered. “Sorry for the hard benches,” he said.
RHODA CULLY, A BELLE from a Nebraska soybean family, had moved to south Louisiana with her Cajun husband after a whirlwind courtship. She found out afterwards that he couldn’t keep his hands off the Gullah girls, no matter how beautiful his Midwest missy. She ditched him, and her daddy wired her money to buy a house.
ALWAYS INTERESTED IN FOOD, she learned the native cuisine and studied under Chef Grella who hired her. When he died, she mortgaged her home, bought Grella’s Grill and soon ran a successful business.
HER GOAL FOR THIS TRIP was a harvest of crawfish. She had paid a dear price: her cost plus that of Timothy Creed, a storied local yokel who knew how to bring in the mudbugs.
TIMOTHY BOARDED NEXT. “My boots and gear,” he told Doke, who turned questioning eyes at the young man’s tow sack.
TIMOTHY CREED HAD BEEN a beverage-company driver who wore nothing but brown uniforms. He had come from the school yard of hard knocks. Short on book-learning, he knew every inch of the area around the bayou. He was known to his compatriots as “Duke of the Bush and Reed.” He had no fear of the native wildlife. He knew the plants and their uses and never had even a remotely close call involving a snake or alligator.
HIS BUDDIES TOLD HIM about the ad for a “mudbug harvester” and he applied. He knew how to collect crawfish all right, so Rhoda of the renamed Rhoda’s Restaurant hired him for this trip. His waders and jury-rigged tools lay in the sack that he pushed under the seat. © 2012
TO BE CONTINUED.
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