Rebel Without a Cake by Jacklyn Brady Page B

with delight and throw her arms around Bernice. Two other women came to see what all the commotion was, and Bernice was swallowed up in a round of hugs and excited chatter.
    Eventually the dust settled and the excitement died away, and Bernice introduced Miss Frankie and me to her family. Aunt Margaret was a tiny woman with hair the same snowy white as Bernice’s. She had a narrow face covered with a network of wrinkles and kind eyes.
    The squealer turned out to be Cousin Bitty, a friendly woman with a wide smile and arms like bands of steel. Her sister Tallulah was a bit more reserved. She was as short as her mother, but three times as wide, and her brown hair was cut short in no particular style. Tallulah watched us with wary eyes, sparing only the slight curve of her full lips before returning to what she was doing.
    I couldn’t tell how old any of them were. Life on the swamp had given them all a weathered appearance. Aunt Margaret might have been anywhere from sixty to ninety, and I thought Bitty and Tallulah were probably in their fifties, but I could have been off by ten years in either direction.
    I’d expected to walk into a house hushed with worry, but nobody seemed terribly concerned about Eskil’s fate. Aunt Margaret certainly didn’t look as frail and fragile as Bernice had led me to believe.
    After a few minutes Bitty herded us into the kitchen and passed out aprons while she explained the menu and assigned chores. Miss Frankie and I were put in charge of a tossed salad and stationed at one end of a massive pine table so scarred it had to be a family heirloom. Bernice started stirring together a batch of cornbread large enough to feed everyone in Terrebonne Parish, and the other three went back to what they’d been doing when we arrived.
    Once we were all working, I broached the subject uppermost in my mind. “Is there any news about Eskil? Have they found him yet?”
    Bitty shook her head. “Nothing yet, but the swamp is a big place. There are a thousand and one places to look for him. They’ll find him yet.”
    Tallulah gave her sister an irritated look. “He went out fishing like he always does. He would have gone to the places he always goes. If they were going to find him, they’d have done it already.”
    I glanced at her mother to see how she’d react to such a negative prediction, but Margaret just kept rolling out a piecrust and barely glanced at Tallulah. “This isn’t like when your daddy disappeared,” she said. “Eskil’s careful.”
    Tallulah
tsk
ed her tongue and chopped a large sausage link into bite-sized pieces. Some wonderful aromas were coming from the pot she had on the range, and suddenly I was glad Bernice had invited us to share their dinner.
    â€œMama, I don’t know where your head is. Eskil’s been butting heads with Silas Laroche over that hunting lease for months. And you know Silas. He’d as soon shoot you in the back as look at you. What if Eskil got up in his business?”
    â€œYour brother isn’t stupid,” Aunt Margaret said patiently. “Now stop fretting and get that gumbo ready. Eskil is fine. If he was gone, I’d know it.”
    I wanted her to be right, but I thought the potential for something bad to have happened out there in that wild and rugged land was huge.
    â€œAre there many people searching?” Miss Frankie asked.
    Bitty bobbed her head up and down. “Most everybody in town, except probably Silas. I didn’t see him leave with the others, but he’s not as social as most. He likes to keep to himself.”
    â€œHe keeps to himself all right,” Tallulah said. “Except when he’s setting lines over somebody else’s. He doesn’t believe in rules and regulations,” she explained for our benefit. “He doesn’t think people can own land or lease rights. He doesn’t care one bit what the law says. If he wants to