The Hard Blue Sky (6 page)

God, he thought, I’ve got a bad case.

He rolled over.

He’d have to get the topside covers up by tomorrow for sure, before the sun got to the brightwork.

And for a few days or a week he could play at being on his own boat. Until Arthur gave him his orders. … He opened one eye and stared at the white-painted wood. It was a pity he didn’t have a girl on the island to give the perfume to.

He’d have to spread out the sails tomorrow, the ones stowed up forward—the storm jib and the spinnaker—the ones they hadn’t used at all this trip. No use letting mildew get in them. He’d have to get the mattresses up in the sun too. And dry out the cockpit cushions.

I’ll have to do that before the sun is too high, he thought. There’s an alarm clock around here somewhere.

He’d have to find it and set it.

He closed his eyes again and listened. There was just the little sucking sound of water against the hull (and he thought about the girl—Cecile, she said her name was—who said the Gulf had sucked away the beach: it was just exactly that sort of sound) and the little creaks of the mooring-lines. He wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his arm. Now that he was alone on the boat, he realized what a large shape it was.

All those planks, he thought sleepily, pointing up to a bow. And there’s a keel right under me and a couple of tons of lead.

Lying there, he imagined he was in the stomach of some big animal.

He heard the feet jump lightly down to the deck. The boat rocked a little with their weight. He swung his legs out of the bunk. He lay for a minute without opening his eyes, trying to wake up.

It would be the kids, he thought. They never got tired and they never went away.

He scrambled up the ladder, fast as he could.

Halfway up, his head and shoulders above the hatch cover, he stopped. There, sitting on the aft seat in the cockpit, grinning her bright hard smile, was Cecile Boudreau.

“You surprise to see me?”

“Yea,” he said, “sort of.”

“We just come calling.”

“Matter of fact,” he said, “I was thinking about you.”

“Man, man,” she said over Inky’s shoulder to the man who stood on the deck, leaning against one of the pilings. “Ain’t you getting jealous?”

“Ain’t nobody else want you, che’,” he said.

She threw back her head and laughed. Those missing side teeth, Inky thought, made her face look more like a child’s.

“This is my husband, Hector.”

Inky came one more step up the ladder and held out his hand. Hector’s palm was hard, very hard, and very warm.

“Pleased to meet you.”

Hector was fairly tall, tall as most on the island, and very broad with a back so heavily muscled it seemed stooped. He was sunburned too, burned until the undercolor was no longer red but gray. He had black hair, perfectly straight, cut short in front and long in back so that it fell over the collar of his paint-spattered shirt.

His face was broad, with black eyes set very far apart. He wasn’t good-looking and he certainly wasn’t ugly.

Women might find him attractive, Inky thought. And men wouldn’t trust him.

Maybe, Inky told himself, that wasn’t such a bad way to be.

“And over there on the dock,” Cecile said, “that’s Annie Landry.”

Inky saw a small thin face under blond hair. Just a kid he thought. She had something of the funny pinched look around the nose that kids often have.

“Hi,” Inky said, “I didn’t see you back there.”

Annie grinned and didn’t say anything.

“She shy,” Cecile said, “don’t pay any attention.”

“You sure cause a mix-up,” Hector said.

Inky scratched the side of his head. “None of it was my idea.”

“The damn tooth,” Cecile said, “that what you told me yesterday.”

“Rivé, now, he going to be right glad to pick up that extra money running them over there.” Hector said.

“He ought to be.” Inky climbed out the ladder and sat down on the hot bare boards of the cockpit. “He charged them enough to live a year on.”

Hector shrugged.

“Look,” Inky said, “don’t get me wrong. I don’t give a damn how Arthur spends his money. Right now, he’s spending some of it on me.”

“Dan can use some of that, for sure.”

“Me, too.”

Hector came aboard and walked slowly forward. He was wearing heavy work shoes. They scratched over the boards.

Inky thought: He’s walking harder than he needs to.

But he did not turn or look or give any sign that he noticed. To hell with the decks, Inky thought: If that’s deliberate it won’t bother me.

Hector walked the full length of the boat and turning settled himself on the pulpit rail. “This is a fancy one, for sure,” he said.

Inky looked over his shoulder. “Sure it is.”

“Teak decks.”

“Yea,” Inky said, “I noticed.”

“Sure looked pretty sailing out there yesterday.”

“We had a fair breeze.”

“All that white canvas … prettiest thing.”

“Yea,” Inky said, “I like it all right.

Hector didn’t answer, so Inky turned back to Cecile who was still stretched out in the cockpit.

“What do you think about it?”

“Me?” She lifted her heavy eyebrows. “I don’t know nothing about boats.

“You think it looks pretty?”

“I do,” Annie said from her perch on the wharf.

Inky turned around—he’d forgot she was there. “So pretty you don’t want to come aboard?”

She lifted up her chin. He wondered if she was nervous or if she only needed glasses.

“It won’t sink if you get on,” Cecile laughed.

“I got hard shoes on,” Annie said, “and I don’t want to cut up the decks like Hector’s doing.”

The kid surprised them, Inky thought. And he rubbed his nose to cover a smile.

“You want me to jump overboard,” Hector said, “place of walking back?”

“No,” Annie said. There were nervous red splotches across her chin now. “You just got no right to stomp along.”

Hector left his seat on the pulpit rail and tiptoed back across the deck, arms stretched out at his sides in an exaggerated balance.

Annie looked off across the bay. Her lip was trembling, but her eyes were dry and staring.

Inky took a quick look at Cecile. She was still sitting draped out across the back seat; she did not even seem interested.

Hector climbed back on the dock and squatted down alongside Annie. “Now you satisfied, no?”

“I didn’t say come off.”

“Like hell you didn’t.”

“I just said take off your shoes.” She was following the clumsy heavy flight of a brown pelican.

Hector looked over at Inky. “Something, ain’t she?”

“I don’t know,” Inky said cautiously, “you tell me.”

“I got a mind to push her in the bay,” Hector said.

Annie swung herself out of reach.

“Quit,” Cecile said, “she got on a new clean dress.”

“That a fact?” Hector tilted his head looking at Annie, “you got all dressed up.”

“It’s stuffy down there, huh?” Annie said to Inky, pointing below.

“Hot as hell.”

“You’re going to sleep there?”

“It’ll be better when I get the air scoop up.”

“What’s that?” Cecile said.

“Goes up by the forward hatch—you’ll see.”

“Where you going to sleep tonight?”

He pointed to the side seats.

“We got mosquitoes,” Hector said.

“I got mosquito-netting.”

Cecile said: “You could find a place to stay on the island.”

“I don’t know,” Inky said, “I don’t think so.”

“We got an extra room at my house,” Annie said. “You could have that for free.”

“Thanks,” Inky said. “I don’t want to put you out.”

“It’s no trouble,” Cecile said. “They got this empty room.”

“Thanks,” Inky said. “I just think I’d rather stay on the boat.”

Annie was buffing her fingernails against her skirt. “You got the best part of that deal,” she said.

“If I had a boat like this,” Cecile said, “I’d want to stay on it.”

Annie said: “It’s just a little old back room that my cousin used to sleep in when he lived with us before he went away. And you can still smell the turtles and the rabbits he used to keep back there.”

“Now that just ain’t true,” Cecile said.

“I live there,” Annie said. “I can smell it.”

“Hush up, now.” Cecile said.

“You wouldn’t like this room,” Annie said, “I don’t know why I ask you.”

Two more boats were coming in, heading for the stretch of dock just to the
Pixie’s
stern.

“The whole house got to be scrubbed out,” Annie said, still holding her hands in front of her, “only I don’t want to ruin my, hands doing it.”

“Lord, how you talk,” Cecile said and stared straight up at the bright blue sky.

“The dirt is just that thick,” Annie said, “and I never did look to see what’s under the beds.”

Cecile began to whistle softly.

“If you don’t believe it,” Annie said, “just you come see.”

“Look,” Inky said, “I like living on the boat. I know where everything is and I can put my hand on it. And I can do whatever I want and there’s nobody around to get bothered.”

“I don’t know why I ask you,” Annie said, “now that I come to thinking about it.”

“There’s all sorts of gear on board,” Inky said, “that needs looking after. And if anything went wrong, I want to be right here.”

Cecile said suddenly: “You tied where the
Bozo
always comes, you know that?”

“Rivé said they’re so low they could tie up right here.”

“Alongside?”

“I got the fenders out there, if they want to.”

“I see, for sure.” And Hector rubbed his upper lip hard.

Cecile started to say something, then changed her mind.

“Hector, man!” a voice called.

Hector walked over to that boat. When he had gone, Inky said: “That’s a good-looking man you’re married to.”

“Me, I think so,” Cecile said.

Inky looked around. “Where’d she go?”

Cecile grinned. “Annie? She just up and disappeared.”

Hector called over:
“Bozo’s
coming back.”

Cecile said: “You can hear them engines a mile off.”

“I got the fenders out,” Inky said.

Cecile grabbed a circling mosquito out of the air and peeped cautiously in her clenched fist. “Sure you got fenders,” she said.

“Now what’s so funny about that?” Inky said.

Hector wandered back, stopping finally with one foot on the stern mooring-line.

Inky looked up at him.

“You got a fixed keel and no centerboard?” Hector asked.

“Yea,” Inky said. “You can come see if you’re interested.”

“How much?”

“Huh?”

Hector scratched his eyebrow. “How much lead you got?”

“Two tons.”

Hector stared at the stern of the boat. “Looks pretty from back here.”

“You like it, huh?”

“What you draw?”

“Near five.”

Hector shook his head.

“Four eleven.”

“There ain’t much water that deep around here.”

“If you stay offshore.”

“Sure,” Hector said, “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“That’s why we had to be so careful with the channel.”

The sound of engines was very loud now. The
Bozo
must be nearing the dock. Inky turned around. For a minute he stared at the rough paint-blistered hull of the fishing-boat.

“Jesus Christ,” he yelled, “stay off!”

Cecile rolled over slowly and looked at him. She was grinning.

Along the side of the
Bozo,
acting as fenders, was a row of old rubber tires.

“Don’t come in here,” Inky yelled. “Keep the god-damn tires away.”

Hector laughed. “Going to be a big smear for sure.”

Inky was jumping up and down, waving them off. The men on the
Bozo
did not seem to notice. One of them waved calmly to Hector. “Hi, Hector man,” he called, “what you say?”

Hector waved back.

“Keep the fucking god-damn tires out of here,” Inky yelled. He was standing on the cockpit seats now, stuttering with rage.

“All that pretty white hull,” Hector said softly, “just all going to be smeared up.”

The
Bozo’s
bow came around and her engine reversed and she swung gently in. The two hulls touched very gently, the smaller canvas fenders useless against the thick tires. At that precise minute the
Bozo’s
engine went into forward and the line of black tires dragged and scraped along the sailboat’s freeboard. Then the engine was idling and two men were calmly fastening the lines.

Inky was very quiet now; he stood watching them, his mouth pursed. Then he leaned over and looked at the side of his hull. The white freeboard was a smear of black rubber.

Inky straightened up. “That was real funny,” he said, “and now who’s gonna help me clean off the freeboard?”

There were three men on the boat. They looked so much alike they might all have been brothers. Inky looked from one to the other.

“Son of a bitch,” he said, “who’s gonna help me clean that off?”

They went on with their jobs, appearing not to hear.

“There’s a whole day’s work cleaning there.”

One of the men, the shortest one, with light brown hair cut so short it looked almost shaved, said: “You yelling at us?”

“You god-damn right I am.”

“You got you fenders out,” another man said. He was older, fifty-five or so, and his hair had balded away to a bristly fringe around the edges. “It wasn’t none of our fault they wasn’t enough.”

“Son of a bitch!” Inky said softly.

The third man, who was tying his shoe on the caprail looked up. “What was you calling us?” He was just a kid, Inky noticed; and he had a kid’s pimply face, big red splotches across his cheeks and down his neck. He had long thin arms with streaks of muscle and criss-crossing veins.

“What was that now?” the brown haired man said.

The three were looking at him—two were hostile, a clear fighting look; and the older man was looking at him appraisingly, not hostile, but not exactly friendly either.

In its hook by the side of main hatch was the long bronze winch handle. Inky’s fingers closed on it softly. He grinned to himself: that would make the fight more even.