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Lafayette, Louisiana, USA
1st of February, 6:00 a.m. (GMT-6)
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The alarm went off at six sharp, and this morning Martinez heeded its call. The first thing she did was check her phone for a message from the Salt Mine. The analysts worked around the clock and it had been hours since Morris had requested a dig. She blew raspberries at her mobile when there was nothing new from them.
That was the way it was in the field—spurts of action with lots of waiting in between. It took a certain temperament to go 110% one moment, and null the next. However, she was well acquainted with the ebb and flow. It was yet another situation where her time in the FBI unwittingly trained her for the Salt Mine.
Martinez had honed strategy over the years to give her days order and direction while she was waiting for leads to pan out in the field. The key was incorporating flexibility into routine even though they seem diametrically opposed. She straddled the line by keeping busy doing productive things, but nothing that couldn’t be dropped at a moment’s notice when the case picked back up again.
If there was nothing new or pressing, she liked to start her day working out. Sometimes her accommodations had a gym, but it was just as easy to do calisthenics using body weight and things present in any hotel room—think Charles Atlas with more yoga. This morning, she put on her sneakers, popped in her earbuds, and went for a run. It had been months since she could run outdoors in fifty-degree weather, and she made room for serendipity in her routine.
It was still dark when she left, entirely too early and too cold for Louisianans to even consider exercise based on the look the night clerk gave her on the way out. They hadn’t even set up breakfast or put out the complimentary newspapers. She decided to circle the long block because it gave her well-lit pavement lined with trees that avoided major intersections, even though there were few cars on the road at this early hour. It also meant she wouldn’t be far from the hotel if her phone blew up with an update. She stretched out and found her stride.
After the first circuit, she picked up the pace; the path was known to her and she could anticipate patches of uneven pavement or curbs that suddenly dropped off. She found the steady rhythm of her breath and footfall therapeutic. She often went for a run when she was trying to clear her mind, work through some feelings, or solve a conundrum, but she had no such need at the moment. Today, she was just running for the joy of it.
When she returned, she headed to her room to do a long stretch and a quick shower. In case of a hasty departure, she draped her sweaty clothes over hangers to get them to dry faster before turning on the hot water. When she pulled back the curtain and stepped in, there were still grains of salt at the far end of the tub. She kicked warm water toward them to wash away the final traces of last night’s summoning before soaping up and rinsing off. She dried off with the clean towels she had left and immediately checked her phone—still no word from the Salt Mine.
Martinez returned to her routine; after exercise and a shower, it was time for breakfast. She rubbed her hair vigorously before brushing it. She decided to go au natural and passed on the hair dryer and makeup. She pulled on jeans and a sweater because she had too much self-respect to roll into the dining area wearing pajamas. That was forgivable for children, petulant teenagers, sick people, and people that were coming in the last fifteen minutes of the breakfast, but grown-assed adults with time should know better.
The dining area had just opened for breakfast, and the first of the scrambled eggs, bacon strips, and home fries were under the heated lamp. There was a bank of toasters, and the breadbaskets were full of options. There was even a waffle maker—with cups of pre-measured batter—for the adventurous next to the cereals and the drinks station.
Martinez had stayed at the entire spectrum of lodgings in her professional career—some of them real dives—and this was the cream of the crop as far as complimentary breakfasts go. Alas, after yesterday’s food fare, none of it looked particular appetizing this morning. She grabbed herself a banana, a carton of yogurt, a box of corn flakes, and a hot cup of coffee with French Vanilla creamer before returning to her room.
Today’s paper was waiting for her when she returned, and she tucked it under one arm as she made the same observation everyone does while standing in front of their hotel room: I don’t have enough hands to pull this off. She juggled everything to one side and coaxed the key card in and out of the slot. Once inside, she dropped everything on the table. She kicked off her shoes and hit the mini fridge.
Cold fried chicken was the best leftovers for breakfast known to man. The only other food that came close was cold pizza. She fished out a thigh and bit down. The crust had lost much of its satisfying crunch, but it was still deep fried batter on chicken skin. Even when it wasn’t great, it was good.
Had she been eating something less greasy and hands on, she would have taken this time to read the newspaper or reports on her phone. But since she was finger-licking deep in chicken fat, she decided to indulge in a little mindless TV. She found the remote and knuckled through the channels.
She skipped over the twenty-four-hour news stations, which were little more than a vehicle to dish out advertising, and it was too early for reality TV. That was “unwind at the end of the day with a glass of wine on the couch” sort of viewing. Then she hit kid’s programming.
She was glad to see that Saturday morning cartoons were still a thing, but she didn’t recognize many of the shows. When she tried the classic cartoons, they had been revamped for an entirely different generation. The characters basically looked the same, but the animation was different, the voices were slightly off, and the humor was more sophisticated than she remembered. When she found something that wasn’t too manic, she sat back and giggled. It had been decades since she woke up early just to park herself in front of the TV, often with a bowl of cereal for breakfast.
She was halfway through her yogurt when her phone buzzed. She immediately contemplated if she could eat more in case it was Morris calling about breakfast out—maybe not the entire spread, but she was definitely good for a plate of fried oysters and another cup of coffee. She perked up when she saw three attachments from the Mine.
She sat up and switched off the TV. It was time to work. Crossed legged with her coffee close at hand, she scanned the brief message and opened the first attachment.
More than twelve thousand Acadians were expelled from Acadia between 1755 and 1764—seventy-five percent of their total number. In the summer of 1758, the British took Louisbourg and began the deportation of Acadians off Île Saint-Jean, now called Prince Edward Island. While the British had made previous attempts to resettle them in one of their thirteen colonies, they had largely abandoned the scheme to integrate the French-speaking Catholics into British colonial life. Instead, they decided to return them to France.
Nearly a thousand Acadians were loaded onto three ships in Louisbourg: Violet, Ruby, and Duke William. In October, they set sail in a convoy of nine but were separated from the other ships during a bad storm. They licked their wounds in the bay near Canso and left there in late November. Again, they ran into foul weather, and again they were separated.
Ruby crashed in the Azores, and 213 of the 310 Acadians aboard died. Violet sank at sea December 10, 1758. Duke William had Violet in their sights, but they’d sprung a leak themselves and couldn’t come to their aid. All 280 Acadians loaded onto Violet drowned.
For three days, Duke William mounted a pump brigade, and it was all hands on deck, including the Acadians. The long boat and cutter were sent out to look for passing ships. While there was traffic, none stopped. On the third day, Captain Nichols abandoned the effort and the ship. He was not aboard Duke William when it sank twenty leagues from the coast of France on December 13, 1758 with 360 Acadians aboard.
“So much for the captain going down with his ship,” Martinez muttered. She did the quick math in her head—that single attempt at expulsion killed 5% of the entire Acadian population in North America in deaths-at-sea alone.
One of the few Acadian survivors from Duke William was Jacques Girard, a priest on Île Saint-Jean that the captain took with him on the longboat. Father Girard carried with him the names of the dead, which he committed to record upon his return to North America. Among them was Hugo Dubois.
Martinez put two and two together. Jean à Hugo—John, son of Hugo. Finally, the man with the intense brown eyes had a name. Now she better understood the look in Hugo’s eyes. Being close enough to see Violet go down but not being able to help. Bailing for three days, and seeing ships pass but never coming closer to help. Watching the captain and your priest save themselves while you died with the crew of your deporter. Succumbing to the cold vast blue somewhere between where your people came from and where they had made their home. What a terrible way to spend one’s final days.
But what about his Pauline? Martinez wondered as she moved to the second attachment, which had a more substantial message. Usually, the analysts were brief and to the point, but they had a lot to say about the lack of Acadian genealogical records online and how frustrating searching them for usable information was. After a noble effort, they were unable to find records of Hugo’s marriage to his auburn-haired bride, or the birth of their son.
However, in their quest, they stumbled upon the Acadian Research Center of Prince Edward Island, housed in the Acadian Museum. It was in possession of more than 4,000 Acadian family records—things like birth, marriage, and death dates—in addition to censuses and village parish records. Much was lost in the Grand Dérangement, and if those records existed, they would probably be there.
Martinez sipped her coffee and opened the second attachment. It was a series of articles pulled from the online archives of L’Acadie Nouvelle, a newspaper based out of New Brunswick owned by the largest French-speaking media company in the Atlantic. The analysts provided the original French content as well as an English translation.
The article series was equal parts puff piece and advertisement that chronicled the saga of returning Acadian artifacts from the wreck of Duke William to Prince Edward Island. For the past forty years, they had been housed in a dusty display in some provincial museum in Poitou, the western coastal region of France where many of the original Acadians hailed. After years of petitions and negotiations, they agreed to repatriate the items to the Acadian Museum for their permanent collection. As per the final article, they were now on display as part of a larger exhibit on the impact of Grand Dérangement on Île Saint-Jean. Martinez searched for the final article’s date of original publication: November 20th of last year.
Before she could open the final attachment, Martinez got a DM from Morris. U reading? popped up in the dialogue screen.
Yeah. WTF Britain?! she typed back.
SM booking travel, he gave her a heads up.
France? she tapped out and included prayer hands.
Lol! he replied immediately. PEI. Going in as IT. Martinez wistfully sighed and said goodbye to the warm weather and sunshine. Prince Edward Island was one of the maritime provinces of Canada.
K dibs on window, she answered back before opening the last attachment. It was a primer on Acadian history and culture. She started reading while she waited for a travel itinerary. This time tomorrow, she would be Tracy Martin, plucky correspondent for the Institute of Tradition.