The Hard Blue Sky (49 page)

Annie felt herself stop breathing. She had been thinking that and wondering. “He knows I can take care myself. …”

Annie crossed the island, scarcely noticing where she walked. And when people yelled at her, she answered them without really knowing what she said.

The shore lights at the wharf were off—she was a little surprised. The telephone wouldn’t be working either, she thought. One of the luggers, it looked like the
Bozo
from where she stood, had its big searchlight on, shining it right down the line of the boats. And at the other end, the
Pixie’s
high spreader lights were on.

She squinted in the glare: the boats had not been touched, none of them.

“Inky,” she called, “Inky!”

“By the icehouse.”

She went over, her eyes drooping against the glare. “Quit playing games,” she said.

“Come around the back.”

She didn’t see him until she was close enough to touch him. He was sitting on a box, leaning against the wall. She blinked rapidly to get her eyes used to the dark again.

“Figured you’d be coming down,” he said.

Adele’s question was still echoing around in her mind: he does not come to see how you are?

“How’s the boat?” she asked.

“They didn’t even come close to this side.” He answered her slowly, not understanding her angry tone.

“What are you hanging on to that for?” She pointed to the automatic in his lap.

“In case they get over this way.”

“They gone,” she said. “And everybody’s putting out the fires.”

A boat cost a lot of money, she thought. And it didn’t belong to him. So he had to be careful. More careful than he’d be for himself.

“Won it off a guy, couple years ago. Out at Milneburg one night.” He rubbed the short blued barrel.

You always had to be more careful of things that weren’t yours. And if it hadn’t been for the boat, he’d have come. …

“We had a fire,” she said.

He whistled. “I wondered about that!”

“Side of the house got scorched.”

“I figured that you weren’t exactly all alone, with your old man right there, and your stepmother.”

“We put it out in no time at all.”

“They didn’t come near the boats, none of ’em .”

“Burnt down our fence.”

“Jesus,” Inky said, “it’s beginning to look like a war.”

She shook her head. “They had to, I reckon.”

“Huh?”

“With Pete Livaudais and all.”

“Hell,” he said, “it’s getting too rough for me.”

“They had to.”

“The electricity’s off.”

“Line down, I bet.”

They could hear people yelling, and toward the western end of the island more shots.

“What’s that all about?” Inky asked.

She shook her head.

“Look how red it makes the clouds right up there.”

“Rain clouds,” Annie said.

“Time for it.”

“You going to take me with you?” Annie asked.

“When?”

“When you leave.”

“You still want to go?”

“Seems like.”

“Okay,” Inky said.

She squatted down on the shells. “Give me time to pack, huh?”

He bent forward and peered at her. “You feel all right?”

“I’m tired,” she said; “I been working.”

“Sorry,” he said, “but I couldn’t help it.”

Her little finger was aching, just the way it always did when she was terribly excited. She rubbed at it, hard.

“You going to stay here?”

He nodded. “Me, and the one guy down in that lugger there: Ozzie something-or-other.”

“Pailet.”

Inky nodded. “Just in case.”

“Where’s Dan?”

“Went home to see what was going on.”

“I better go back,” Annie said.

“Sorry I can’t go with you.”

“Nothing much to do back there now.”

“Okay,” he said, “so kiss me good-by.”

Annie went back to the house. The fence was still burning. Claudie, armed with a long green leafy branch was watching it.

“What are you playing at, stupid … King of the May?” she asked him.

She stumbled through the house until she came into the kitchen where there were two kerosene lamps lit on the table. Adele was bent over at the stove, trying to see if the coffee was dripped.

“I wish they’d make a glass pot,” she said, “so you’d know.”

“I been down by the boats.”

“I was thinking you would.”

“They didn’t even go near any of them.”

“I have heard that,” Adele said.

“How?”

“People passing by.”

“I’m sleepy,” Annie said, “I’m going back to bed.”

“You watch the fire and Claudie for me,” Adele said. “I heard the LeBlanc roof is burning.”

“Jesus,” Annie said, “what could you do?”

“You just sit on the front porch and watch the fence, no?”

“God!” Annie said and scratched over her ear. “I’m going to bed.”

“You just sit and watch.”

“All the same to me if the whole island burn up.”

She found her way to her room in the dark and stretched out on the bed. She was yawning and arching her back when the door opened. The fire flickering outside gave just enough light for her to recognize Adele.

“
Jee
-sus!”
And she waited.

“Are you fixing to leave here?” Adele asked.

“Huh?”

“Way you acting nobody’s going to want you around here.”

On the tin roof overhead began the first little knocking thuds of the rain.

“There it comes,” Annie said, “and that is going to solve your problem.”

Adele was quiet for so long that Annie lifted up her head to see if she was still there.

She was. “When people find out what you do,” she said slowly, “when …”

“Jesus,” Annie said.

Annie did not hear her leave; but she knew by the silence that she must be gone.

The first thick fat drops of rain were plopping into the dirt and smashing into the flat sides of leaves. A sharp clean odor began to come from the ground.

With a flashlight Adele hurried along, noticing only: there’s no lightning, none at all. And it’s coming down a little faster.

A couple of dogs were growling and snapping in the underbrush. All of them, Adele thought, and not a one began the barking in time.

She passed the Arcenaux house and waved to Philomene Arcenaux who was sitting on her front porch, rocking, as if nothing had happened. There was a kerosene lantern burning on the floor by her.

“Nothing happen here?” Adele called to her.

She shook her head, slowly, so that even in the half-dark Adele could see the fat chins tremble. “Didn’t come this far in.”

“Didn’t do no real harm with us.”

“Over by LeBlanc’s now,” Philomene said, “they have some doing and some trouble.”

“I was going by there,” Adele said.

“I don’t go,” Philomene said. “And I be no use, leastways.”

“I got to see,” Adele said.

It wasn’t more than a couple of hundred yards away. She could see the glow over the trees. But when she finally saw it, there wasn’t a house any more, just the outlines: the studs dark against the yellow flame.

She stood staring, fascinated by the light, shaking her head slowly.

“You left the kid?” Al said.

She jerked her head around.

“You leave Claudie?”

“Annie’s there.”

His shirt was torn and a long black line of soot smeared across his forehead and down his left cheek.

“This here was the only one,” Al said. “The only one.”

There was a ring of people standing back from the fire, quietly watching.

“They went after this one,” Al said. “And they done a job with it. Never had a chance saving it.”

“Oh,” Adele said, “they got a lot of their stuff out.” She pointed to a pile of things, “Even the icebox.”

“Everybody here was carrying. Even the kids.”

“I meant to come down,” Adele said. “Only I was afraid to leave till Annie got back.”

“Feel rain, no?”

“Maybe that stops the fire?”

Al shook his head. “And even if it does now, it ain’t no use. They still got to start over and build a new house.”

“It’s coming harder.”

Al said: “They starting to move that stuff to a dry spot. What the fire didn’t get the water ain’t going to ruin.”

There was a crowd yanking at the stuff. Al grabbed the end of a sofa. “Vieux couillon …” he yelled, “gimme a hand.” Adele tried, but he pushed her away. “Go get something light.”

She got herself a market basket of china. And she found herself following two girls who lugged a baby’s crib between them. At night the paths still confused her, and she didn’t quite know whose shed they turned into.

The girls put the crib down in the far corner. She stood at the door hesitating, until she recognized them: the Schesnaydre twins.

“Put that in the crib, and it be safer,” the one whose name was Polly said.

Adele tried: the basket was too heavy.

“Here we come,” Polly said. And the two other pairs of hands got under the basket and lifted. “Maybe we didn’t break just all of it,” Polly said. And her twin giggled.

They ran back, the three together. It was really raining now, hard, big drops that splashed cold on your hot skin. But the rain hadn’t made any difference yet to the fire: it had only set up a little sizzling sound.

The pile of chairs and tables and pots and clothes was gone.

“That was quick, so quick,” Adele said, to herself, but aloud.

“For sure,” Julius Arcenaux said, patting himself on the belly. “Lots of hands carrying it in all directions, so it go poof!”

Adele could feel the rain on the back of her neck now. She stepped back under the shelter of a broad-leafed mulberry tree.

“Good,” Julius said, “the harder the better.”

Cecile was standing there too. The rain had slicked her short black hair down until it shone like patent leather in the firelight. “They didn’t do no more than pitch some gas at the rest—over by us they burn up one old skiff.” She nodded to the burning house. “They fix this, dirty mudders!” She spat down between her own bare feet.

Adele’s hair was hanging in wet, tickling strings over her ears. When she pushed it back her hands were trembling. She tried not to have it show.

Julius noticed; he had a quick eye. “Why you don’t go home?” he asked. “Nothing much more to do here, and plenty people still around to do it.”

“Maybe.” All of a sudden she was very tired, as if she’d been up for days: her legs were aching.

“Why they pick this one?” she asked.

“Wrong house,” Julius said and pointed fifty yards to the west. “That the house they really want.”

“The Livaudais place,” Adele said.

“Bastards got the wrong house,” Julius said. “Simple like that.”

She nodded and moved off. Once out from under the tree, she felt the rain slap into her face, she felt the shoulders of her dress go soggy in half a minute.

Just where the path turned, she stopped again and looked back. The rain was beginning to have an effect: the fire was dimmer, much dimmer, with a kind of orange color. There were columns of blue steam rising straight up. And over the rattle of the rain a steady hissing.

She could only see one figure standing out in the teaming rain (the others would have got back under the trees for shelter): Story LeBlanc. Straddle-legged, arms folded, watching his house burn.

A
L TOOK A BOTTLE
of whisky and two packs of cigarettes and went out on the front porch. It was raining harder than ever; you couldn’t see ten feet ahead, you couldn’t see the burned-out sticks of the fence line.

Looking out to where he knew that fence was, Al shivered, unscrewed the bottle and took a drink. They’d been in too much a hurry when they threw the gasoline, or maybe they’d stood too far back. Most of it had gone in the yard or on the fence. But for that the whole place would have gone up like the LeBlanc’s. Just that one side was burned. He’d have to rip out those clapboards—but that wasn’t too bad.

They hadn’t got to the boats. Hadn’t even tried. Down there it was like nothing had happened. And that was the best news of all. A house was easy enough to build—maybe they could even use those same foundations—but a boat now, that was a different matter. When you didn’t carry insurance. And who could afford insurance? He’d seen people live close to the line when they’d lost a boat.

He started a cigarette. They had got wet, somehow. And they weren’t drawing. He used another match and shrugged to himself: But they will dry.

Beside the rain, there wasn’t a sound. Though there wasn’t a person on the island asleep, except maybe the kids … and Adele, he added. Passed out, almost, on the sofa. She wasn’t all that strong, he thought. He’d tell Annie that she’d have to do the heavy housework.

And Annie now. … She wasn’t in the house. She’d gone out again.

He yawned, and stretched his back in the chair. He ached all over, inside and out, like a tremendous hangover.

Would she be marrying him, he wondered. And what sort of a guy was he? Would he take her off to New Orleans, and after a while walk away, leaving her stranded and having to go on the Welfare to get back home?

That was the trouble marrying away.

He stretched again and sighed.

It would be light before too long now. And a man could see what was really happening around him. Flashlights and lanterns and even spotlights—they didn’t do much good. Wherever you put them, you saw only one little place and the others were just that much deeper. You’d almost be better without any.

He rocked slowly back and forth and waited. … That Livaudais kid, he thought, done it all. And what for? … Somebody shoulda figured on that. And somebody shoulda watched him.

Al finished one cigarette and started another. It was funny, he thought, moving the words carefully and slowly through his mind, when he’d been younger he’d never been one to think of missing a fight. He’d looked for them, for sure. Maybe it was part of getting old. … He didn’t want them now. But he had them, they all had them this time, unless he could talk down the LeBlancs … and they wouldn’t be likely to forget about that burned house. …

“I’m getting too old for all the fighting,” he said aloud.