Chapter 6: Early

Mardi Gras came on a cold Tuesday, and the whole parish went out to the prairie on horseback to chase chickens.

I had not been to a Courir since my mother died.

Blake had put Seb on a gray quarter horse called Boudreaux.

Seb sat him stiffly, with a flour-sack mask pushed up on his forehead and a paper cone hat that Margot had colored red and green.

The riders wore patched costumes and pointed hats.

They rode in a long ragged line across the plowed field behind a man with a flag, and they stopped at every farm gate to beg for a chicken.

The old men shouted verses in Cajun French, and the riders sang back.

I stood at the fence with Margot's hand in mine, in a crowd of women with thermoses and children on their shoulders.

"There's your daddy," I said.

"He looks like a very tall elf."

Margot looked at the gray horse.

She did not smile, but the corner of her mouth moved, and she squeezed my fingers once.

The farmer at the nearest house threw a hen into the air.

Thirty riders went after it.

The hen flapped over the field, and the whole line of masks yelled and wheeled, and the crowd at the fence shrieked.

I laughed out loud.

Beside me an old man in a canvas coat said, "Marie's girl."

I turned.

He tipped his hat.

"Your mama would have liked to see it."

"Yes, sir," I said.

"She would."

He looked toward the field, where Seb had pulled the gray up beside his brother's bay.

Blake leaned over and slapped his back, and Seb took off the paper hat and put it on his brother's head.

"I'm told the girl is the real thing," the old man said, without looking at me.

"The men at the table say it's the first time Monsieur Seb has looked up from his boots since Celeste."