“He didn’t have to go running off like a tramp,” he said.
Hector nodded.
“He could brought her back,” Eddie said, “and gone up with one of the boats, the regular way.”
“We coulda got him on that bus for New Orleans all right,” Hector said. “Ain’t no family going to stop us.”
“A crazy kid. Born crazy.”
“Yea,” Hector said.
Eddie sighed and rubbed the palms of his hands down the length of his thighs. “No,” he said, “I don’t believe he could come back, him. We wouldn’t done that.”
“Maybe.”
“Musta thought he could figure the way through.”
“Seems like.”
Eddie looked up and over at the distant marshes again, and he squinted and rubbed his face in his hands.
“She must been pretty,” he said.
Hector nodded.
“He always had eye for pretty girls.”
“Yea,” Hector said.
“He didn’t got to go sneaking out across the swamp. … August Claverie going up the next morning. He’d took them.”
Hector didn’t answer.
“He’d took them,” Eddie said. “And we’d gone along to make sure nothing happen.”
Still closer the pelicans were riding on the water, brown ones and gray.
“They still waiting,” Hector said, pointing to them.
“I don’t reckon they could come back,” Eddie said, “after all.”
Hector kept his eyes on the pelicans.
“We wouldn’t done it.”
Hector just nodded.
“There wasn’t no way to go but through the swamp.”
“He ought to been sure he knew which way he was going,” Hector said.
“I never seen her,” Eddie said.
“Yea,” Hector said.
“Cottonmouths out there … they the only thing don’t bother running when a man comes along.”
“I know, me.”
“You figure it was a cottonmouth?”
“I don’t know. How’d I know?”
“You can see the trees from here, just barely.”
“I never noticed that before,” Hector said.
“Those’d be the ones just east of Rabbit Bayou, no?”
Hector nodded. “Around where we got the crawfish last March. The black ones, that was all heads and no tails.”
“That wasn’t fit for nothing more than bait,” Eddie said.
Hector said: “I wonder, was she pretty, her?”
“She ain’t now,” Eddie said, “not after she been feeding the gars and the crawfish.” And because he couldn’t help himself, he shivered, shivered hard, his whole body shook.
Hector didn’t look, trying not to see.
When the spasm had passed, Eddie said: “You figure they bring him back here, if they do find him?”
“Yea.”
“You believe the old guy?”
“Yea,” Hector said.
Eddie looked down at his hands. The skin on their backs was still prickled. “Shivering in the sun,” he said, “maybe I got the malaria again.”
“Maybe,” Hector said.
“You got things to do,” Eddie said. “Why you don’t go do them?”
“Me?” Hector said. “No. And I’d just as leave stay here.”
Eddie reached in his pocket and found a pack of cigarettes. They were bent and crumpled. He put the pack on the top of the piling and took a single cigarette. He smoothed and straightened it between his fingers, then took a light from Hector’s butt just before he threw it away.
They spent all afternoon there, smoking. Every time they dropped a cigarette down into the water, there was a flash of small transparent fish up to the surface to nibble on it.
IT HIT YOUNG PETE Livaudais hard. He wasn’t home for a couple of days. He stayed down in the west end of the island. Annie saw him once, but it was only at a distance and only for a second before he ducked behind some palmettos.
“Leave him,” Eddie said. “He don’t want to see nobody.”
The people who lived in the most western of the houses—the Cheramies—they thought they could hear sobbing and crying. But it was so far away they couldn’t be sure.
Cecile said: “If he don’t come out soon, somebody got to go get him.”
And Hector shook his head. “He got a right to it.”
Cecile looked at him, squinting. “You know something? You been strange ever since it all come to light.”
“How strange?”
“If I could tell,” she said, “maybe I wouldn’t be worrying.”
“Nothing wrong with me.”
“I guess so, maybe.”
“Tell you what,” he said suddenly and began to grin, wide and bright, “let’s us go in to Petit Prairie.”
“Now? In the middle of the weektime?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’m gonna borrow the Tangerine from Perique. And him and your old man, they can work if they want to without me. Or they can get somebody else.”
“Right now?”
“Sure,” he said, “we ain’t that hard up for money.”
“What we do?”
“What we do?” he mimicked. “See what going on. Go to a movie.”
He was on his feet. He flipped a cap on the back of his head.
“You never done this before.”
“So we do it now. … I’m gonna talk to Perique.” She called after him: “You got to shave.”
Adele felt dreadful. She had a headache, and four aspirins had done nothing for it. Al was out working; he had left at three o’clock that morning. There was no telling when he’d be back—it always depended on how his luck was running.
She walked down to the grocery and bought a small pack of tea bags. Julius Arcenaux put them in a little paper bag and rang up the cash register. “Somebody sick?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Why?”
Julius grinned. “Nobody buys tea, unless somebody’s sick.”
He had a good smile, she thought, very gay. And his reputation as a lady’s man, she thought, well, maybe …
“I was thinking it might be nice.”
“It is, for sure,” he said.
He wasn’t making any play for her … but Al said he liked the young girls. …
Claudie tugged on her skirt. “What?” she asked.
He kept tugging, giggling.
Julius leaned over the counter. “Hey there, brother-in-law!”
Claudie looked up and began to grin. One thing about Julius: kids liked him, liked him at once.
He reached over and swung Claudie up to the counter. “You getting heavy, brother-in-law,” he grunted.
“He’s growing up,” Adele said.
“God damn,” Perique said.
Adele jumped. He was over in the corner, behind the counter, and he was looking through a series of small paper boxes. “Jesus God,” he said, “you old bastard, it ain’t here.”
Julius did not even bother to turn around. “I bought some, not five months ago. And they got to be there.” He said to Adele: “He looking for a special kind of screw.”
“Oh,” Adele said.
“I hope Al is having good luck.”
“Thank you.”
“They went down to the west,” Julius said. He had a pair of field glasses and he would often watch the boats—to see if they put over their nets or to see what direction they were going in. “And you going to go fishing, dogaree?” he tugged at Claudie’s hand.
“Mostly he follow Annie around all day,” Adele said with a small smile. “The other kids don’t play with him.”
Julius scratched his belly. “Kids go slow,” he said, “they will one day coming.”
Adele tapped Claudie’s bare leg. “Let’s us go, beau.”
He whimpered and would not jump down from the counter.
“I get him,” Julius said. “And how you going to be a fisherman, and afraid of such a little
thing?”
“He’s not going to go fishing,” Adele said quickly.
“So …”Julius said and put him on the floor, “after Henry, nobody want their kids to go out much.”
“Yes,” Adele said. “Maybe he will get a job in New Orleans.”
And she went home.
While she waited for the water to boil, she walked around the living-room. Too much furniture, she thought.
“Claudie,” she said, “now your papa’s away, you help me, huh?”
He grinned and nodded.
“And we going to move furniture, if you do what I tell you.” The water began to boil. She raced out and poured it, then brought the cup back.
“How we have live with this so long, I don’t know … a month since I been here and it never occur to me!”
They tugged the two chairs out into the middle of the room, she pulling and Claudie pushing. “Now,” she said, “we get down the pictures. …”
She stopped to drink the tea. Claudie dropped down on the floor and panted, pretending to be a dog, lolling his head from side to side.
She grinned at him at first and then the smile faded off. He paid no attention to her but went crawling around on his hands and knees, growling and panting.
“You going to want to get married,” she said, not so much to him as to herself, “one of these days, if I am alive to see it, and no matter who you got, it going to be all right with me. And if they don’t like it where we living, I give you the money to go somewhere else. … You hear?”
He looked over at her. And began to bark. “You not going to go sneaking around, you hear?” He threw back his head, and howled, the long hunting howl. “Quit!” She put the teacup on the window sill. “Now let’s us go back to work.”
Perique slammed out of the store. “You find the fucking bolt,” he said. “God damn if I can.”
Julius shouted after him, “You said screw, man. You ain’t said bolt. …”
“You find it!” And Perique turned and threw the piece of metal.
Julius caught it and held it up between his two fingers looking at it. “That what it is, for sure,” he said. Perique was gone. He sighed and went back in the store. He put the bolt down on a shelf carefully: Perique would be back for it. Maybe, Julius thought, if he had time, he’d look too. That might be a good thing to do. … Everybody was so nervous. They’d all be having strokes if they didn’t calm down.
He sat down and turned on the radio.
He’d have to remember to pull closed the heavy shutters on the front of the store. With everybody in a mood like that, there were liable to be fights. And the store windows might get broke—just for fun. It had happened before: smashed both windows, just to get a couple of packs of cigarettes. Left the money on the counter. It was a penny short too.
He’d close those shutters.
Annie came home in the late afternoon. Adele found her in the middle of the living-room.
“I didn’t hear you,” Adele said. “I got a start.”
“I forgot,” Annie said, “you were so delicate.”
If Al would just come home, Adele thought. It wouldn’t be so bad. But if she had the girl all evening alone …
And she was immediately furious with herself for thinking that. She put on her brightest smile. “You like the room?”
“I was just looking at it,” Annie said.
Claudie had heard her too and came scooting into the room. He grabbed her legs. “Go way, stupid,” she said.
“He likes you,” Adele said and was surprised how silly that sounded.
“You got paint in your hair,” Annie said.
“Painting the back steps.” She reached up, trying to find the place.
“Probably have to cut it out.”
“I got lots of hair,” Adele said, “it don’t matter.”
“When we going to eat supper?”
“I was waiting to see when your father come back.”
“We all going to starve waiting for him.” Annie scratched at her forearm. “I’m going get something out the icebox.”
“There’s some cold brisket.”
“I’ll find something, don’t worry.”
Adele bent forward looking at her arm. “That’s poison ivy.”
“No,” Annie said.
“That big patch there. Put some soda on it.”
“I don’t get it,” Annie repeated. “I keep telling you.”
Adele leaned back again. “You see any sign of your father’s boat?”
“I don’t keep track of him,” Annie said; “he’s a big boy now.”
“Oh,” Adele said, “I was just wondering.”
She sat down in one of the armchairs and began to unravel the sleeve of a maroon-colored sweater.
Annie finished letting her eyes run around the room. She brought them back to Adele. “What you ripping up the sweater for?”
“The elbow wore through.” Adele held it up. “I’m going to knit it up again. Cuff’ll be a little narrow, that’s all.”
“Lopsided.”
“You won’t notice it.”
Claudie had got his ship model. He stood in the door, holding it to his stomach, looking from one woman to the other.
“Kid’s beginning to get a pot,” Annie said without looking at him.
“Kids do,” Adele said.
“His’s worse.” Annie crinkled up her nose. “And he does smell,” she said, “phew.”
Claudie giggled. “Don’t.”
“Get out here,” his mother said. “Go take the boat on the front porch.”
Claudie hesitated.
“Go on, stinky,” Annie told him.
He grinned over his shoulder. And went.
“You oughtn’t to talk to him like that.”
“It’s true,” Annie said.
Adele went back to her ripping. Her fingers went too fast. The yarn knotted. She held it up close to her eyes, trying to untangle it.
“You need glasses, huh?”
Adele shook her head.
“Sure you do.”
“It’s just—hard—to—see—this color.” And she shook out the tangle. “Now.”
Annie turned on her heel, studying the room, again.
“You like it?” Adele asked without looking up.
“Nope.”
“Oh,” Adele said. “Why you don’t like it?”
“Looks like a whorehouse, that’s why.”
It was so quiet you could hear the butterfly bushes on the side of the house brush against the boards.
“Oh …” Adele said softly.
“You ask me,” Annie said.
“I never been in one,” Adele said, still softly, “so I don’t know. … But I guess maybe you have.”
You could hear Claudie singing to himself on the porch. It was a minute before Annie understood. When she did, she flashed out of the room, kicking over the closest table as she went.
When Al came home, Adele had not quite had time to get the puffiness and the red away from her eyes. And the powder which she put on quick when she heard him coming, did no good at all.
“Now look,” Al said, “you going to stay still and listen to me, if I got to hold you.”
“Okay,” Annie said. “Okay. Quit yelling.”
He found her coming along one of the paths not far from the house.
“You ain’t too big for whipping now,” he said. “And I got to, I do it right out here.”
“Oh hell,” Annie said. She managed to swagger her shoulders.
“You give me just one good reason you got for walking in the house and calling Adele a whore.”
“Oh Jesus,” Annie said, “I didn’t call her that.”
“Don’t go lying.”
“I didn’t.”
“You say it look like a whorehouse in the parlor.”
She tilted her head and squinted at the top of the young palm trees.
“Answer me.”
“She asked me if I like it.”
“What you tell her?”
“Told her the truth.”
“What?”
“Looked like a whorehouse.”
Al lit a match against his nail and touched it to a cigarette. “Now I got something to tell you.”
“What?” She screwed up her mouth and tried to look uninterested.
“You going back to the house and make you’ apologies. And you are going to start being polite.”
She shrugged and looked away.
“And you are going right now.”
“Can’t make me.”
He looked at her.
“I’m going to make the biggest yell you ever did hear.”
“And who going to interfere … Inky?”
She jumped a little. She had been thinking that, though she had not realized it.
“That what you thinking?”
“Not thinking nothing,” she said.
“He ain’t going to do nothing.”
“I don’t need him,” Annie said. “I can take care myself.”
“You going back if I got to carry you.”
“Okay,” she said, “okay. But don’t be surprised if one of these days I’m gone.”
“Where?”
“None of your business.”
“With him, no?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the north side of the island and the wharf.
“None of your business.”
“Well, maybe,” he said. “Maybe you get to starve in New Orleans. But if I was betting, I give odds you ain’t going to get there.”
“Shows how much you know.” She tried to pull free and did not succeed. “If my mother was around, you wouldn’t go acting this way. … Leggo!”
He didn’t pay the slightest attention. He was dragging her steadily along the path to home.
“Leggo!” she yelled.
And Claudie came scuttling out of the bushes to stand wide-eyed.
“You going to be surprised,” Annie said. “I wouldn’t stay around here for nothing.”
It was easier to walk. And her feet began moving. “Wild horses wouldn’t keep me here.”
“Maybe,” her father said quietly. “Maybe not.”
“I’m telling you!”
Therese Landry stood leaning on the door of the kitchen talking to her mother.
The Hard Blue Sky Page 33