The Hard Blue Sky (45 page)

“I want the gas,” Pete said.

“Sure … sure.” He plunked the nozzle down. “Lemme get you some lube.”

“No,” Pete said.

“Huh?”

“Just the gas.”

“How you going to use that in an outboard?”

Pete took the nozzle and began filling the first can. Fornest grabbed it away from him.

“You spill any,” Pete said, “you ain’t charging it to me.”

“Never did spill a drop in my life.”

“Don’t go starting now.”

With his ear down on the can to listen to it fill, Fornest said: “How you going to use this without no lube beats me.”

“Got lube back at the house.”

“Huh?”

“Got lube.”

“Where from?”

“How’d I know?” Pete said. “It’s just there.”

Fornest began the second can. “Reckon you can always come back for it,” he said. “Tell you what, man—bet you a dollar bill, there ain’t no lube back at your place. Ain’t like your old man to keep more stuff around than he’s going to use.”

“Okay.”

“Plain gas ain’t no use.” Fornest screwed the top on the last can and stood up.

He stopped arguing, all of a sudden, when he saw Pete’s face. The boy looked like he was about to cry.

W
HEN THE
H
ULA
G
IRL
came back, around one o’clock when there was an old moon just beginning to rise, the men did not notice anything. Maybe it all happened after that. And maybe they weren’t looking. They were beat and just wanting to get to bed. Old man Boudreau and Hector and Perique did only the things they had to on the boat and then went their three separate ways.

Old Boudreau limped slowly up his steps: his crippled hip hurt more than ever when he was tired. Wore out like a bull, he thought, at the spring servicing. Just inside the kitchen door, he stepped on the cat, which yeowled and scratched at him. He kicked at it, but without any real energy or direction. His wife did not even wake up.

There was a light in the little back room where Hector’s son slept. Even as he came up the steps he could hear Cecile explaining: “There ain’t no painter here, che’ … open up you eyes and look now.”

So he’d been having another dream, Hector thought. And why did kids always have the worst ones? That boy now, he’d seen his whole body shake … just like a branch somebody was beating.

Hector dropped his pants and shirt alongside the bed. The sheet was still warm where Cecile had been lying. He stretched out waiting for her: she was still talking to the boy. “Open you eyes. Come on now.”

His hands were full of grease and dirt, Hector thought. But he’d probably marked up the sheet already. And it was such a long trip to wash them.

The light went out—he could see that through the cracks of the boards. And he could hear Cecile close the door softly. She was talking to herself. “God damn,” she was whispering, “god damn to hell!”

And wouldn’t she be surprised, Hector thought, when she found him.

Perique wiped the sweat off the back of his neck. The nights weren’t even cool. But that was September. It was always like that.

He had taken off his shoes and tied them by the laces to his belt so that they flopped against his thigh. He stopped now and loosened them.

In the room where he slept, Jesus, it would be hot. The screens kept out more air than mosquitoes.

The houses had their doors and windows all wide open, and those who had them had the electric fan going all night long. If you stood still and listened you could hear the buzzing all around. And just walking past the houses, you could smell the heat and the closeness that was coming out of them. Odors hung in the air like ribbons. And you could tell what they had had for supper.

The Robichaux place, he was passing that now, they’d had meat, fried meat. Tina Robichaux always used lots of onions and garlic. And if you stopped you could hear the old man snoring away like somebody was choking him.

And the Landry place, that was shrimps for sure. …

He found himself staring at the window he knew was Annie’s. He found himself trying to remember—he’d been in only once since he was a man grown: that evening he’d been drinking with Hector. … Wasn’t much over a month ago, but it seemed longer. He kept staring at the dark window, wondering.

He put down his shoes, carefully, one next to the other in the very center of the path, slipped open the gate. There was a bucket by the front steps—the shrimps would have come in that—and he picked it up, carrying it in both hands so it wouldn’t rattle. He walked around the house carefully until he came to the window, which was slightly over his head. Then he up-ended the bucket and stood on it. It sank a bit in the soft ground, but held. He put both hands on the sill and peeped in. He couldn’t see much through the mosquito netting, not with the moon behind him. He reached out one finger and moved it slowly, wondering if it would catch on anything inside, lifting one fold after the other. He had it up finally, and he held it back with his left hand. Now the moon fell straight into the room.

He leaned on the sill, sniffing the warm heavy female odor which hung on the still air. He blinked his eyes quickly, getting used to the soft half-dark. The bed was under the window, but pulled out a little, to get the best of the air. Annie was there, feet toward him, sleeping on her side.

She wasn’t at the boat. He felt relieved.

He let the netting fall back across the window and, quickly as he could, he put the bucket back by the steps and slipped out the gate. His heart was pounding, the way a kid’s would, who’s just had a beating.

Son of a bitching fool, he told himself silently.

On his own back porch, on the railing there, was an extra piece of netting. His mother had left it there a week or so ago, intending to use it for something. … Whatever it was, Perique thought, it would die waiting for her.

But the net would do for him now. He took it and headed for the oak grove not too far behind. The smell of houses made him sick, there in the back of his throat.

He hung the net—carefully so it didn’t tear—on the lowest dead twig of a little oak. Then he held out the edges with pieces of brick he found. He took off his shoes and crawled under. There were a few mosquitoes left. He set about killing them, and then he fell asleep.

He was too tired to notice the sky to the west.

Story LeBlanc saw it first, coming in on the
St. Christopher.
But by then you couldn’t miss it, if you had any eyes in your head.

“Jeez,” he said, “they got a hell of a fire over there.”

And Placide Arcenaux looked over and grunted.

Beyond the west tip of Isle aux Chiens you could see the low hump of the other island, the low bumpy outline of its scrub trees. You could see it outlined dark against the red glow.

“On the north side, huh?” Placide asked.

“Somebody got careless.”

“Yea,” Placide said.

But by the time they had gone in and were fastening their lines, there was another sound, a sharp flat thudding sound. Shotguns.

Placide Arcenaux looked at Story LeBlanc and scratched his ear. “Look like they having a real fight over there.”

And Dick Millier shook his head. “I’m too old to go bothering about what they doing.” He went stumping off: he had rheumatism all down one side. He carried a big bottle of aspirin; when the pain got too bad, he would gulp three or four.

Placide and Story took the skiff with the outboard and went down to the west to have a look. They lay just off Caminada Point, and they could see plainly from there: the fire was on the north side, along the wharf. They could see two boats standing off, and there might have been more in the dark behind them. And they could hear the yelling.

“Jeez,” Story said, “they got themselves a beaut.”

There were a couple more outboards coming up from Isle aux Chiens: they weren’t the only people who’d been curious. The skiffs bobbed there, softly in the gentle swell. And the surface of the water reflected in broken planes the glow of fire.

Back at the island most everybody had gone to the north side. They stood watching very quietly on the long shell mound that was the island’s backbone.

The older kids were running up and down, yelling at the glow in the sky.

“Burn the crap out them!” Tim Milliet yelled and his mother gave him the side of her hand on the back of his neck.

“Jeez,” he yelled, “you going to kill me.”

His mother just lifted her chin and didn’t answer.

In the houses under the trees, the babies were screaming. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to them.

The
Captain Z
put in, the last of the luggers. As he swung his bow in, Eddie Livaudais called: “They roasting over there for sure.” And he was chuckling so hard that he fumbled his stern mooring-line and dropped it in the water. So that the kids on the dock had to throw it to him again. He caught it this time, but it left a smear and a spatter of wet and seaweed on his pants.

Perique was over on the north side, looking, like everybody else. The noise had got him up. But he hadn’t seen anything interesting much. And he was turning to leave when Cecile spotted him.

He grinned briefly at her round eager face. Hector had himself a girl there for sure, he thought.

“Where you going?” She was breathless and panting and grinning

Like a baseball game, Perique thought, and she was having a grand time. “Nowhere,” he said, “in particular.”

“You want to do something for me?”

He squinted up into the sky. It wasn’t a very clear night after all. The stars were misty. Or maybe it was smoke.

“Like what?” he said.

“Take me over there to see what going on.”

Perique sighed. “And me so beat.”

“You want to see, no?”

“I been working,” he said. “And I don’t give a god damn if the whole place over there burn up.”

Adele was passing them. In the dim light she hesitated before her timid hello.

“You want to come with us?” Cecile asked.

Adele looked from one to the other.

“Tell her where we going,” Perique said.

“Perique is taking us over to see what going on.”

Adele was looking at him. He could feel her steady calm brown eyes. “Maybe,” she said softly, “Perique don’t know that.”

He snorted. “She call you bluff, che’.”

“But then,” Adele said, “maybe you will take us?”

He thought: pretty eyes, pretty teeth, in a face that wasn’t much and a body that was too thin.

She reminded him of his mother. Not because she looked like his mother—she didn’t, not at all. But because she looked just the way his mother should look.

“Okay. …” He gave up. “We going to use the
Tangerine?”

“Nope,” Cecile said, “my old man’s outboard.”

“Go get it,” he said. “Me, I’m going home and get some coffee or I fall asleep.”

He walked home, not hurrying. Let ’em wait, the bitches. He was swearing softly under his breath all the way. A man didn’t work twenty hours and then go chasing around. “Sal au pri,” he told himself aloud.

In the houses he passed the lights were all on; some of the kids had got tired of watching already and had come back home. The littlest ones sat on the front steps, nodding with sleep, but not going to bed. And some of the older ones played Devil on the Banquette on the shell walks.

The night was hot and still. The roosters had got mixed up: they were strutting and crowing just as if it were dawn.

“Mammyjammer,” Perique muttered to himself, “getting talked into something when I’m beat up enough.”

His mother had made some fresh coffee. It was standing on the back of the stove. He took the pot and a cup over to the oilcloth-covered table and sat down: he’d have this much in peace, for sure. He drank two cups and was pouring a third when he remembered something.

All the houses had lights on, except one. Except one …

He was sure of that. He had noticed it, but it hadn’t meant anything to him at the time. One house where nobody was up: the Livaudais house.

He turned it over in his mind. Eddie Livaudais, now, he’d be still down at the boat, or talking with the people along the wharf. They hadn’t come back more than ten minutes ago. But there was Belle, and there was Pete. And they were, neither of them, ones to miss an excitement.

Perique finished his fourth cup of coffee. Maybe he should go see … but it wasn’t any of his business.

He headed back to the wharf.

Even as he climbed down in the skiff and yanked at the cord of the outboard, Perique kept wondering about that dark house where the people were such hard sleepers. …

There were five outboards bobbing in the little pass off Caminada Point. Perique headed over for them and cut the motor. They sat watching silently for a while. There was a little current here and the skiffs were drifting slowly back into the bay, but it was so slight a movement you hardly noticed it. And behind them, on Caminada Point, some kids were yelling. “They run all the way down here just to see,” Cecile said.

After half an hour they turned and went in, all the skiffs together.

By this time most of the people had gone back to bed. Only some of the older kids, the ones in their teens, were still wandering around. And they wouldn’t be likely to go to bed at all.

Perique noticed that the lights in the Livaudais house were on now, every single one was blazing out.

And the surrounding houses were beginning to go dark.

They just didn’t seem to catch up, Perique thought.

He would have to go over tomorrow and see if anything was wrong. But right now he was too tired. And so he forgot.

T
HE KIDS WHO WERE
still up did not pay any attention to the outboard. They heard it, they remembered later, but they hadn’t been interested. It was a hot summer night and they had a bottle of whisky—and they were more interested in each other. They felt excitement burn between their legs. And so most of them crossed over to the south shore to build a big bonfire on the sand.

Inky heard it too. He was almost asleep under his netting-tent in the cockpit. But he listened carefully: that outboard wasn’t too far off. By its sound it would be running in fairly small circles: the rudder must be jammed over.