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there at the end of the day to bring him a steaming cup
of Cajun coffee or help him put away his gear. Between the money he was making and the
good season Mama and I were having selling our
wares at the roadside, we were doing better than ever.
Daddy repeated his promise to take us all on a holiday
to New Orleans real soon. The prospect excited me,
especially when I thought about the possibility of
walking through the Garden District and perhaps
seeing the Dumas estate. I even imagined seeing
Pierre without permitting him to see me.
Mama said I shouldn't count on any of Daddy's
promises.
"One day he'll dig into his pocket, see how
much money he's got buried under his cigarette paper,
and go off on a bender to gamble and drink away his
hard-earned profits. I try to take as much from him as
I can, claiming we need more for this and more for
that, and I hide it because I know that rainy day is
coming, Gabriel. Storm clouds are looming just on the
other side of those trees," she predicted.
Maybe she was right, I thought, and tried not to
dwell on New Orleans. And then, one afternoon, I
took my usual walk along the bank of the canal. It was
a beautiful day with the clouds small and puffy
instead of long and wispy. The breeze from the Gulf gently lifted the palmetto leaves and made little ripples in the water, now the color of dark tea. There seemed to be more egrets than ever. I saw two great snapping turtles sunning themselves on a rock, not far from a coiled-up water moccasin. White-tailed deer grazed without fear in the brush, and my heron glided from tree to tree, following me as I ambled along, really not thinking of anything in particular, but just pleased by how well everything in Nature seemed to coexist and enjoying this relatively untouched world
of mine.
Suddenly I heard my name. At first I thought I
had imagined it; I thought it was just the low whistle
of the breeze through the cypress and Spanish moss,
but then it came again, louder, clearer, and I turned.
