The Hard Blue Sky (12 page)

“I been hearing you.”

With the Arcenaux the Livaudais had always been the roughnecks of the island. All those who had the name, right down to second cousins, were always the first men in a fight, always loving it.

“Hell,” Henry said, “I’m plain tired being tough. I’m gonna rest up and then I’m going out hunting.”

His mother shrugged. “All stubborn too. They got to do what they got to do.”

“Yea,” Henry said. “That’s me, for sure.”

He spent most of that morning right in the side yard, under the mulberry tree, cleaning and fixing his two shotguns. And he spent most of the afternoon sleeping stretched out full length in the front-porch shade. He ate supper early—his mother fixed it specially for him—and he went upstairs straight after, pulled off his pants and his shirt and went to bed. He didn’t even stir when his father and his brother came in around eight o’clock, yelling at each other and furious after a bad day.

Pete finally climbed up to the attic where they both slept and stuck his head inside the little partitioned cubbyhole where Henry was. (Henry had built that himself not two years ago. He had wanted a room for himself. So he had divided the attic exactly in half. He had even painted the wall—one coat of pale yellow.)

“Hey,” Pete said, “listen at me.”

Henry, who was sleeping face down, turned over. “Jesus …”

“You shoulda come with us.”

Henry grunted.

“You give us bad luck.”

“Jesus.”

Pete sat down on the edge of the bed. “Ma said you been fixing the guns. … You going out?”

“Yea,” Henry said with his eyes still closed.

“I’m coming too, me.”

Henry shook his head.

“Old man ain’t going out tomorrow,” Pete said. “I got nothing to do.”

“Not with me you ain’t.”

“Aw,” Pete said, “sure I can.”

Henry didn’t answer.

“You think I can’t take it?” Pete asked.

“Sure, kid,” Henry muttered finally.

“Be more fun with two, huh?”

“No,” Henry said.

He had always gone alone, ever since he was twelve and big enough to have a shotgun and handle a pirogue.

“Ah, hell,” Pete said.

“No,” Henry said.

He had never worked on the boats more than he had to. He didn’t like fishing. He was a hunter. Because of him the Livaudais had meat when nobody else did.

He always came home with duck and sometimes with deer, all neatly cleaned and stowed up in the bow of the pirogue and wrapped up, against the flies. When he brought back deer it meant only one thing—that he had gone beyond the salt marsh and into the swamp that lay to the north of it. Very few people ever went in there, and almost none went beyond the edges.

There was some talk when he first brought back a deer. But people got used to it.

After all, they thought, it was the kind of thing you expected of a Livaudais. They were real tough. All of them.

“You said you was going to take me.” Pete sat down on the foot of the bed.

“Get off,” Henry said, “I got a clean sheet.”

Pete hopped up. Henry rolled over on his side and closed his eyes again.

The following morning Henry went down to the grocery to get supplies for his hunting trip. His mother saw him leave with the empty oyster sack slung over his shoulder.

“You don’t got to buy stuff,” she said, “when we got it here.”

Henry put one hand on the door frame and stretched himself carefully. His thin pimpled face looked younger this morning with its high cheekbones and the deep hollows under them in which a definite beard line was beginning to show. “I got money,” he said. “I’m gonna eat it, and I’m gonna buy it.”

The grocery had been cleaned up. It was even hard to tell that anything had been wrong, if you didn’t look too close. Cecile had picked up the glass and buried it. And two of her brothers had come and boarded up the smashed windows. Julius himself had straightened up the inside. He’d spent the whole preceding day in there, clucking and muttering to himself.

“Looks all right, no?” Julius asked.

Henry took the cans he had bought from the counter and dropped them in the oyster sack.

“Man,” he said, “you still hold on tight to them paper bags.”

Julius stopped on his way to the cash register and squinted over his shoulder. “They didn’t send me bags with the last order—I only just barely got enough.”

“Yes,” Henry said, “ever since I remember, you didn’t have enough bags, except when people come in and yell for them.”

Julius rang up the sale and did not answer.

Henry put the last of the cans in the sack and swung it up on the counter. Then he propped his elbows on it and, bending down, put his chin in his hands.

Julius came back with the change.

“I wonder,” Henry said, “how much you make on them bags.”

“I been telling you,” Julius said, “they ain’t sent. …”

“Jesus,” Henry said, “I can go right now and put my hand on a big pile of bags.”

“I got to have some,” Julius said, “for big orders.”

“Gimme my change.” He held it in his hand for a minute, rattling the coins, staring straight ahead at the tarnished silver buckle on Julius’s belt.

“I reckon I need some sunburn cream too,” Henry said.

“Huh?” Julius fingers tapped the buckle.

“Tube of sunburn cream.”

“Who for?”

“Who you think?”

“I don’t think nothing.”

“I’m going out for a while.”

“You don’t want it, sure.”

Henry straightened up slowly and went around the counter and took down the lotion. He stood looking at it, turning the box in his hands. “Hey,” he said, “this is fancy for sure.”

Lengthwise across the box was a sticker that said: “Arcenaux Grocery. Always the Best.”

“Bought ’em,” Julius said. “Got to use ’em up.”

“Right glad to see somebody could sell you something.”

“Waste,” Julius said, “sinful waste.”

“How much this?”

“Forty-nine.”

“Vieux couillon … that a dime more than over in Petit Prairie.”

“I got to pay freight.” Julius rubbed his belt buckle. “Couté les yeux d’ tête.”

“Okay,” Henry said and held out a half-dollar. “Quit crying. And gimme the penny back.”

Julius walked heavily across the creaking floor to the cash register.

“I wonder where you got it hid,” Henry said to the thick sweat-streaked back.

“Huh?”

“All the money you got.”

“You talking like a crazy kid.”

Henry sat on the edge of the counter. “Lemme figure now. You don’t go to the bank at Petit Prairie more than once a month, most times. And you must have a heap of money around.”

Julius waved his arms. “Like all the people—telling me, Julius, you got so much money, Julius, what you going to do with it? And me just barely making a living out this place.”

“Yea?”

“And the whole building near to going down with the next strong wind.”

“Tough titty, man.”

Julius sighed and handed him back the penny.

Henry added it to the change he held and rattled the coins in his closed fist.

“You know,” Henry said.

“What?”

“I’m going to get me one of them cigars there.”

“First you buying sunburn lotion and now you buying cigars.”

Henry opened his fist and picked out a nickel and a dime. He put them down on the counter. “You going to sell me one?”

Julius opened the back of the case and picked out a cigar. When he held it out, Henry shook his head.

“Gimme the box and let me pick.”

Julius got the box out.

Henry picked carefully, turning the cigars over and over. “Looks like the mice been at some of these.”

“Ain’t no mice in that there case,” Julius said shortly.

“This one’ll do for me.” Henry put it in his shirt pocket.

Julius put the box back in the case. “I seen Pete around here just before you come in.”

Henry swung his legs back and forth, kicking the counter with his heels. “Maybe he can figure it.”

“What?”

“Where you keep all you money.”

Julius hissed.

“Maybe we ought to go hunting for it.”

“Maybe,” Julius said.

“And you be the son of a bitch to take a shot at us.”

“I wouldn’t be surprise, me,” Julius said.

Henry tilted back his head and stared at the ceiling. “Maybe you got it buried in you back yard.”

“Maybe,” Julius said, and went over to his rocking-chair by the window and sat down.

“You could be keeping it most anywhere on this island, no?”

“Maybe,” Julius said.

Pete came in the store. “I been looking for you.”

Henry scratched his close clipped head. “What you want me to do?”

“I got this motor, and I can’t get it right.”

“I said you was crazy to buy that.”

“Come look at it and see.”

“Ain’t got time now.”

“Say …” Pete stared. “How come you buying cigars?”

He reached out to touch the cellophane wrapping and his brother’s fingers grabbed his wrist.

“Leave it alone,” Henry said.

“Since when you buying fifteen-cent cigars?”

“He did today,” Julius said.

Henry said: “I been trying to get him to tell me where he keep all his money.”

Julius lit a cigarette and settled back in his rocker.

“Let the old bastard alone,” Pete said, “and come fix that outboard.”

“I been telling you no.” Henry swung the sack of groceries to his shoulder.

“Jesus,” Pete said. “All
that.”

“I’m taking my time,” Henry said.

Julius chuckled. “You got enough for two week.”

Henry held the bag on his shoulder. “I’m tired eating the stuff Ma buys.”

“She going to like that like a hole in the head.”

“Ask him what he going to use the sunburn cream for?”

“Huh?”

“Squibb sunburn cream,” Julius said. “You ask him.”

“What you buying that crap for?”

Henry started for the door. “Jesus,” he said, “can’t I do anything?”

The two boys walked home.

“When you going to smoke that cigar?” Pete asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Sure you do, or you wouldn’t bought it.”

“I tell you,” Henry said, “when I get all through shooting and I got a pirogue full of duck, then I’m gonna sit back and have that cigar.”

“Man,” Pete said, “for two cents I’d come with you, me.”

Henry shrugged and did not answer.

“I get the screen, man.” Pete held open the door.

Still carrying the sack over his shoulder, Henry crossed the hall and began to climb the steep ladder-stair that led to the attic.

“You ain’t going to put the stuff in the kitchen?”

Henry shook his head. He disappeared through the small square hole in the ceiling.

Pete went over and yelled up the steps: “Just out in the back yard if you want take a look.”

A thump on the floor and Henry answered: “What the hell you talking about?”

“The outboard, man.”

“Screw you.”

“Come take a look, huh?”

“I’m trying to get going.” The bedspring creaked.

Pete laughed. “Man, I hear everything you doing—you flat out on you back.”

“Look,” Henry said, “I’m gonna be up all night and working. I got to get some sleep.”

“Just take one look.”

Henry said: “When I get back.”

“You fix it?”

“Yea,” Henry said. “When I get back.” He lay still and breathed the heat and the quiet. Finally he began to count his own breaths.

It was near five when Henry left the house. He had slung his two shotguns in their leather-and-canvas cases over his left shoulder and he carried the sack in his right hand. Pete was just coming in. His shirt was streaked with grease.

“Be a son of a bitch if I can do anything with it,” he said.

“You quitting?”

“I got a date, man. I got to change my shirt.”

Henry started down the steps. “You going to get any?”

“How’d I know?” Pete shrugged.

“Who you going out with?”

“None of your business.”

“Efetha?”

“Maybe.”

“You ain’t going to get none, man.”

“Quit,” Pete said.

Henry walked along the docks, the planks shaking under his steps. One of these days, he thought, somebody would fix the boards, but that would be a long time coming.

He passed the sloop, where they had nearly had the fight a few days earlier. It was a pretty hull, he thought, and somebody sure spent a lot of time painting at it. Those would be teak decks too, he thought. It was something to see with the
Hula Girl
tied up alongside: the big high bow that was kept painted all right, but looked like somebody had whittled it out of a big block of wood, and hadn’t done a very smooth job at that.

The man sitting in the cockpit of the sloop nodded to him. Henry nodded back, wondering idly what kind of a fight he would have made that day.

He was kind of sorry now that he hadn’t. Kind of sorry …

He could feel his shoulder tighten, and he hitched the shotguns higher. “Jesus,” he told himself silently. And for just a minute his steps slowed down.

Then he remembered and began to walk even faster than before.

It would be stupid, he told himself, when he wanted to get going. …

At the end of the dock, Henry picked up a coil of rope, dropped it into the sack, then headed along the island. He kept his pirogue over by the little rickety landing his father had helped Al Landry build.

He walked along the top of the shell mound that ran the length of the north side, a kind of levee for the island against the back bay. The sun was beginning to go down and it would be an almost cool night, with maybe a little breeze. That was good, he thought, it would help with the mosquitoes.

Fifty feet or so in front of him a long dark shape slipped over the shells and into the marsh of the bay side. He wondered if it were a cottonmouth.

He put the sack carefully in the bow of the pirogue. A couple of bronze-colored mosquito hawks that had been perched on the pier flew up around his head with a tiny, dry crackling of wings and bodies. He watched them: they had found a pillar of gnats, almost stationary in the air, and they shot back and forth through the pillar, dipping, weaving, eating. Higher up in the sky a couple of pelicans pumped slowly along.