• • •
Trent surveyed the camp at dusk. Although the wind blew hard enough to ripple the cabin walls, it did nothing to freshen the air. He had ordered the heavy equipment at the bridge site to be weighed down with concrete rubble. If the storm was anything like the twisters of his childhood, there was no telling what could take to the sky.
He had left yet another message for Norbert Grimes, to say that a relief train was now urgently needed. Grimes had not returned his call. Trent’s eye traveled over the flimsy structures of the camp. Waves already dampened the cabins closest to the surf line, which advanced much faster than a normal tide. Trent had done all he could. A delivery of fresh water had arrived at the station and awaited transfer into the storage tanks. He would deal with that later. His priority was to get the men out of Heron Key…and he just might not come back. He was tired, tired of the heat, and the rain, and the mosquitoes, and the Conchs. He was tired of the stinking latrines, the lousy food, and the petty annoyances that kept the men in a constant state of agitation. He was tired of being told what to do. Yes, the money was okay—and he had to admit that any money in the current economic situation was a blessing—but he figured there had to be less miserable ways to make a living. The only thing that raised his spirits was the knowledge that Henry Roberts was locked up.
The waves deposited a line of dirty foam at his feet. Sand stung his face. So much for the tropical paradise. More than anything, he yearned for the vast, empty plains of Kansas, nothing but open fields stretching to the vast blue horizon. There, a man could see weather coming a long, long way off. He ground his cigar into the damp sand and went back to his cabin to complete his log for the day—and make another phone call.
• • •
About ten miles south of Miami, Henry and Jimmy stopped for the night. Their progress had been slow on the little back roads, and Henry had intended to continue while it was dark. But after he fell asleep and woke with a start to find Jimmy had pulled over, he realized the need for rest could not be ignored.
The truck was parked under the spreading branches of a huge old oak tree. Gray clumps of Spanish moss gave it a forlorn, unkempt look but effectively hid them from the road.
“Uncle Dwayne be real mad at you,” said Jimmy around a mouthful of sandwich. “You in big, big trouble.” Just before dusk, they had found a food store that served coloreds. Henry bought some dried-out sandwiches and bottles of warm Pepsi-Cola for them.
“Yeah.” Henry slurped from his bottle. “I had worked that out.” The sweet, fizzy liquid soothed his parched throat. They had not stopped since leaving Heron Key, not even to piss. He had made Jimmy hold it until he was sure they hadn’t been followed. They sat in darkness to conserve the truck’s battery and remain invisible.
“When you gonna let me go?” Jimmy asked for about the fifteenth time. The boy’s voice had a whiny, fretful edge that ran along Henry’s nerves like a cheese grater.
“Georgia. I’ll let you go when we get to Georgia.” He glared at Jimmy. “Or, if you ask me again, the answer is Kentucky.”
All afternoon, the sky behind them had continued to blacken as they made their way north. When Henry looked back, all he could see was a curtain of dark purple clouds that stretched right down to the ground. The rain had followed them. It tapped with insistent fingers on the roof of the cab. The wind moaned softly through the old tree’s branches and made them creak and sway. Henry thought he’d never heard a more mournful sound.
Jimmy gave him a sideways glance. “So I guess you is Roy’s daddy after all. Otherwise, you wouldn’ta run.”
“No, Jimmy, I ain’t.” There was no moon. No stars shone through the thick foliage above. The darkness was complete. Henry felt suspended in time and place. He figured the only way to shut Jimmy up was to tell him what he wanted to know. And what did it matter, anyway? Once they got to Georgia, he would never see Jimmy again.
“But you did beat up Missus Kincaid, didn’t ya?”
“Nope.”
“Then why you run? Why the hell we here?” Jimmy’s voice was thick with exasperated confusion. He smacked the dashboard with his fists. “Ow.”
“Because, Jimmy, what I did, or didn’t do, ain’t the point. Only thing folks care about is what they think I did.”
“But Uncle Dwayne ain’t like that! He a good man, really—”
“All men is animals inside, Jimmy. Best you learn that lesson fast. Some just have thicker hides than others. And when they get angry, well, they capable of anything. And I do mean anything.” He could feel Jimmy listening intently. Somewhere close by, a peacock cried. It always sounded to Henry like a woman’s scream. “I seen it myself, in the war, so many times. And what was that you told me about your uncle? How he beats on your aunt Noreen?”
“Yeah, but—”
“You saw what happened at the jail, Jimmy. Would you have stuck around, in my shoes? Truth, now.”
Jimmy said nothing, just stared into the darkness beyond the windshield. Henry could almost hear the wheels and cogs turn inside the boy’s head.
“He ain’t been himself since Roy came along. But it cain’t be as bad as you say. You trying to trick me. Uncle Dwayne said you was tricky.”
Henry stretched his cramped limbs and yawned. He would have to let Jimmy go soon, for his own safety. The temptation to beat some sense into his thick head was very strong, but he had promised Campbell not to hurt the boy. “Go to sleep now. We can probably make it to Jacksonville tomorrow.”
“I cain’t sleep, not like this.”
“Okay, then watch me sleep. And just to make sure there’s no funny business…” He locked their wrists together with Dwayne’s handcuffs.
“Aw, c’mon, you don’t have to do that!”
“Good night, Jimmy.”
In a few minutes, he heard the boy’s deep sleep breathing. Henry thought of Missy, safe in the shelter of Mitchell’s store, surrounded by family and friends. They would tell her what she needed to hear: that he had to go, that she was better off without him, that he would always be in trouble of some kind. It was no life for someone as special as Missy. She would find someone who would treat her well, someone she could rely on. And she would forget about her old friend Henry. She is better off without me.
He thought of his boys, settling into their bunks for the night. After their experience in the war, nature held no fear for them, but they had never seen what a hurricane could do. Trent Watts might be sadistic and cruel at times, but he could not be accused of stupidity. He must have organized a way to get the men out of the storm’s path. There would be no room for them to shelter in town, even if the townspeople had been willing to spend hours at such close quarters with them. Given the state of the weather, he figured the evacuation train must already be on its way. In a few hours, they would be enjoying themselves in Miami. Good luck to you, boys. We meet again someday.
As for his own future, the only option was to put as much distance as possible between himself and Heron Key. He would figure out the rest later. Missy’s face appeared to him, her eyes bright with tears.
Suddenly overwhelmed by the magnitude of his loss and frustration at the pointless ruination of his hopes, he wanted to smash up the truck until it was nothing but twisted metal. What had he said to Jimmy? All men are animals. With that thought, he fell into a deeply troubled sleep…
…and dreamed he was back at the bridge site, working with the boys to sink the huge pylons into the sandy soil. Everyone was there, even Li’l Joe, Sammy, and Tyrone, dead all these years. They laughed in the sunshine, heads thrown back, and moved the huge chunks of concrete around as if they were cardboard props in a play. Their strength was limitless. They could finish the bridge in a few hours, and then they would stride across the land to the next task, Paul Bunyan–style. Heroes all, just as they had hoped.
But then the earth just collapsed under them,
like a sinkhole big as Lake Okeechobee. It opened up and sucked them down into a huge, dark emptiness, and their laughter turned to screams. It was like the screams he had heard often in the war, born of a terror so pure that it produced sounds almost unrecognizable as human.
He jerked awake. The sound was inside the cab with him. He had slumped against the truck’s window. A layer of sweat adhered his face to the glass. He looked across at Jimmy, whose mouth was open, his eyes stretched wide. Henry followed his stare. The soft, slanting light of early morning shone on a pair of naked legs dangling from one of the branches that arched over the truck. Some of the toes were missing. The body’s face was hidden up in the gloom of the tree. It must have been there, gently turning in the breeze, while they slept, oblivious, so dark was the night.
A group of five white men arrived and stood beneath the carcass, gazing with interest at the truck.
“Shut up, Jimmy! Shut up!” Henry ordered. Jimmy ceased screaming, but it looked like he might cry. Henry’s sleepy brain struggled to make sense of the situation. Hysterics from Jimmy would not help. “This is what we have to do. Jimmy, listen to me.” The boy swallowed. His Adam’s apple juddered. His hands shook. “I’m your prisoner, Jimmy. You’re taking me to Miami, on instructions from the deputy sheriff. You got to make them believe, Jimmy. If you do this, I will let you go as soon as we’re clear of them.”
There was no response. Henry unlocked the cuffs. “Jimmy, you’re okay. You’ve had a shock. Nod if you can hear me. And breathe, just breathe.”
Jimmy nodded, but his hands continued to shake, his eyes fixed on the body that turned gently in the wind.
“Can you do this, Jimmy? Tell me now.” Henry’s hand was on Dwayne’s gun.
Jimmy exhaled. “Yes, I can do this.” He breathed loudly through his mouth. “I can. Do this.”
Henry considered briefly whether to trust the boy, then quickly decided it was beside the point. But just in case, he prepared to move into the driver’s seat. “Here, put the cuffs in your pocket. Make it look official. And take this.” He handed the gun to Jimmy.
The boy looked at the gun for a long moment. His resolve seemed to falter. “Uncle Dwayne never let me touch his gun. I only ever used my daddy’s shotgun for hunting deer. I ain’t never fired a pistol. Like as not, I’ll end up shooting myself.”
“You carry a gun so you don’t have to fire it. Remember what I told you: it’s not what you do but what people think you do. You just gotta look like you could shoot the buttons off their shirts. Wait.” He removed Jimmy’s John Deere cap. “That’s better.”
Jimmy took a pinch of chewing tobacco from the glove compartment and shoved it in his gum and jumped down from the cab. He looked so young. We are dead. This is never going to work. But then he left the truck and approached the group of men with a swagger that was pure Uncle Dwayne, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, gun stuffed in his pocket. I should have removed the bullets. He’s going to blow his foot off.
Jimmy strode into the group with a big smile and shook hands all around. A long conversation ensued, none of which Henry could hear properly. The men regarded Jimmy with guarded expressions as they stood casually beneath the hideous form in the tree. They barely glanced at Henry. He might as well have been luggage. Henry cast his eyes to the floor of the cab and hunched his shoulders in a posture of surrender. The image of the mutilated feet stayed in his head. Trails of blood wound around the legs like black worms.
More muffled conversation. Henry sneaked a quick peek. Jimmy’s head was up, his shoulders back. He laughed at something and clapped one of the men on the shoulder. Don’t push your luck. They looked like people at a normal social gathering. Jimmy’s hand rested comfortably on the gun. He spat liberally on the ground.
After more shoulder slapping and handshaking, Jimmy made his way back to the truck with a fond wave. His grin looked like it had been carved into his face. He waved some more to his new friends as they drove away. It was several miles before he spoke. All he said was, “I need a drink.”
• • •
With no hope of finding a liquor store at that hour, he had to make do with strong coffee from a diner. Since they could not be served in the same establishment, Jimmy brought the steaming cups out to the truck. The waitress watched suspiciously from the window, hands on hips.
“You did it, Jimmy,” said Henry after a gulp of the bitter liquid. He tried to banish the thought that it tasted of someone else’s saliva. “Your uncle woulda been proud of you. Thank you.” The homey smell of coffee filled the cab, which only increased his sense of unreality. Here, just a few miles away, it was a normal morning, where people did normal things. They drank coffee, had breakfast, went to work. Meanwhile, not far away, a vision of horror swung from an old tree.
Jimmy said nothing, just gripped his coffee cup as if he needed the warmth, although his freckled cheeks were shiny with sweat. He was most likely still in shock, Henry figured, and not only because of what he had seen, but also because of what it meant. Henry knew how it felt to have his certainties, those treasured things he believed to be true, yanked from under him. The boy would need time to adjust to that loss.
Henry’s own pulse was still ragged. When his eyes had first flown open, for a fraction of a second, he had thought the legs of the slowly turning corpse were his own, that he had somehow become a bystander at his own death. It would not have surprised him, as he had felt fate’s soft wings brush against him many times. But this time was close, closer than ever before. Had he not run from Heron Key when he did… A chill passed through his body, like a cold jolt of electricity, as he took in the full realization of what might have happened. The murderous fire in Dwayne’s eyes had stayed with him. The memory remained undimmed with every mile they traveled.
Jimmy cleared his throat. “They said—they said they had come to harvest, that he was just about—ripe. Been there five days.” Jimmy’s voice was dull and flat with none of the youthful squeakiness. “One of them said—he said he wanted a toe. As a souvenir. For his granddaughter.” He slurped his coffee. “When they saw me, with the cuffs and the gun, they thought I was there to…interfere. But I told them I was just passing through, not interested in anyone’s business but mine. They wanted to know…they wanted to know what I planned to do.” He eyed Henry askance. “With you. Asked if I needed any…assistance.”
Henry was acutely aware of the danger they had faced during those few long minutes. The thought struck him that Jimmy was probably safer, at that moment, with an escaped black prisoner than with his own kind. For those locals to carry out a murder so brazen, they must have had no fear of the law. Jimmy had been very, very lucky to pull it off. Henry studied him. Jimmy’s face was different, not as soft as before. “Do you really think they bought it?”
Jimmy turned toward him and Henry saw that his eyes had aged overnight. There was a new, sad seriousness in the lines around his mouth. “Yeah, I think so. Yeah.”
“What did he… What did they think he’d done?”
“Raped a white girl.” Jimmy stared through the windshield again, like he could still see it. “Maybe. They weren’t real clear about that. Henry,” he said as he threw the dregs of his coffee out the window, “you were right. Let’s get outta here.”
• • •
They made the outskirts of Miami at midday, following the railway tracks, by which time hunger demanded another stop. There was a store near the depot with some black men at the window lined up to buy food. Jimmy swung the truck around and Henry joined the line. He had not asked again when Henry would release him but seemed content to just keep driving.
Two men in overalls stood at the front of the line. One of them nodded. “Howdy.”
Henry nodded back. A harassed old woman was busy dispensing food for their lunch pails through the open window. “You together?” asked Henry.
“Yeah,” said the man, “but don’t w
orry, we’ll leave some for you.” His eyes took in Henry’s gaunt frame in its dingy clothes. “Plenty left, ya see? Hey, Moses,” he said. “What time you make it?”
His companion squinted at the sky. Dark, fast-moving clouds obscured the sun. It felt like early evening rather than afternoon. “Time we be gone, Clarence. Got to make the Keys before the storm.”
“Where you fellas headed?” asked Henry.
“Going down to pick up some army boys, ya see?” asked Clarence. He scuffed his boot in the dirt. “Was supposed to see my gal in Lakeland, but they pulled me in for this instead.”
Henry had started to understand that “ya see?” wasn’t really a question. It was Clarence’s way of ending a thought. But he needed to know more. “Did you say army boys? In the Keys? Whereabouts?”
“We got to make a few stops, ya see?” asked Clarence. “The last stop is the bird one, can never remember the name. Raven? Pelican? Moses, you remember—?”
“Heron?” asked Henry.
“That the one,” said Moses. “Some asshole up in J’ville thinks you can get a relief train down there in three hours. Gonna take that long just to get her juiced up. Train shoulda been sent yesterday. We got to get in and out fast, and this shitty weather won’t help.” He shut his lunch pail. “Thank you, ma’am. Come on, Clarence.”
Henry looked over at the truck where Jimmy waited, eyebrow raised quizzically. He pointed to his watch, clearly keen to be off. They had made good time through the morning. It should be possible to get most of the way to Georgia by morning. He would be free. Safe and free. He could start again, somewhere fresh, where no one knew anything about his past, or the veterans, or Heron Key. He could go back to France. He could go anywhere. He was free. He should have been looking forward, toward a new life somewhere. But all he could do was look back, toward the black horizon.
He imagined them—Jeb, Franklin, Lemuel, Sonny—waiting patiently for rescue while the storm bore down on them. He imagined Missy in the shelter. He had abandoned her to face its fury on her own. He thought of the clearing, with the old oak tree and the horrible fruit hanging from its branch. And he thought of Dwayne’s face, teeth bared in rage, his fist pulled back to strike.
Under a Dark Summer Sky Page 19
