The Hard Blue Sky

by Shirley Ann Grau

  “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.

  AL 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.

  And he could add, silently: But there plenty kids to do it.

  The rain was falling so hard that there were little rivers of it running through the dry grass of the front yard: he could see that much by the little yellow square of light from the kerosene lamp in the parlor window.

  The whole island smelled burned out. He wondered if Terre Haute had smelled that way too, after Pete Livaudais had been there.

  It wouldn’t be long before daylight.

  SOON AFTER ADELE HAD gone, Annie slipped out the back door. The rain was just starting then: a couple of fat drops sprinkled her hair. She started to go down to the dock, but then changed her mind and began walking west on the little shell ridge.

  It was very still, the way it always was before a rain. The slowly dripping clouds w
ere right close overhead. She wanted to stretch and see if she couldn’t touch them. Instead she reached down and flicked away the piece of shell that had got caught between her toes.

  Good thing my feet are tough, she thought, or I’d have to wear shoes all the time.

  In spite of that thought, she snapped on the little flashlight she was carrying and, squatting down, inspected her big toe. It was cut all right, there on the side. She sat down, put the flash still burning on the ground beside her and, taking her heel into her left hand, lifted her foot to her mouth. She sucked at the little cut, tasting the salty blood and the rather sweetish dust.

  She sucked and spat. Wonder, she thought, would I have stuff enough to do this with a Congo bite? If Inky got bit?

  Holding the foot up to her mouth, she stopped and imagined: Inky in a pirogue. And the long dark snake that they sometimes called a Moccasin. She saw it, on the low hanging branch, and with one quick jab of her paddle danced her pirogue aside. Inky was looking at her; he didn’t see. She opened her mouth to call to him, to yell to him: get out, get out the way, don’t you see, can’t you see? But the top of his head brushed the branch. And the long dark shape fell. … She heard him cry and she saw the pirogue shake and ship a little water. And the shape went over the side and into the dark oily hyacinth-spotted water. … And she could see herself: crossing over in a couple of strokes. She could hear the rough wood sides of the pirogues rubbing together. And Inky was holding his thigh, just below his bathing-trunks, holding it with both hands, pressing with all his strength. And he took his hands away and she could see the little round holes. She watched him take his knife and make slashes over the holes, x-shaped slashes and the blood came out red as ink. But he couldn’t reach to suck it. He couldn’t reach. She ran her tongue around her mouth, to see if there were any cuts or sore places for the poison to enter. And he was looking at her, asking her. … The pirogues bumped together, very gently, and she couldn’t figure what was making the dead-quiet water move in little swells. She looked and could see nothing but the swamp. He was watching her, asking her. She started to, she bent forward to begin to suck the poison into her own mouth … but she couldn’t. She couldn’t. She stayed bent over, staring at the ink-red wound, but couldn’t touch it. … The pirogues began to slide apart and she was staring down at the water, the thick slimy water.

  Annie sat on the crushed shells, still holding her cut toe in her hand. The rain splattered around her ears.

  A man shouted: “Over by LeBlanc’s!” She jumped and the dream was gone, leaving only the heaviness in her stomach. She put out her hands, one on each side of her, and patted the sharp shells.

  They were clams once, she told herself, and oysters. Clams swim but oysters don’t, somebody’d told her that. And her father now, he’d told her: the Indians left those little heaps of shell and stuff; garbage heaps, a man from the state university had told him.

  Annie flicked a crumbled piece of shell away between her fingers. All the stuff the Indians had thrown away. A long long time ago: a thousand or a million years.

  She flicked another shell away. And tried to imagine the Indians. They’d eaten the shellfish or maybe they’d used them for bait. It was so far back she couldn’t even imagine.

  She stood up and shook back her hair. The rain felt almost cold. And it would put out the fires too, if it came much harder and nobody would have to bother. …

  Inky now, he would think she was completely crazy walking around in the rain. Not even a hat. … She could just hear him now: “You lost your god-damn mind?” And those close-set blue eyes of his would be staring at her and there’d be just a touch of impatience in his tone.

  She got to her feet and began walking along. There wasn’t a soul out, though she’d expected to meet lots of people. The rain had sent them hurrying inside. Annie snapped on the flashlight and pointed it straight up at the sky, into the rain that was more streams than drops.

  “Oh, hell,” she said and snapped off the light. “Nobody can stop me. If I want to be out. Nobody can.”

  She put her hands to her waist. Even my stomach’s wet, she thought, even that.

  She moved down toward the west, going slowly, feeling her clothes get wetter by the minute.

  Wasn’t nobody could stop her. Not if she wanted to be out. She took a big swallow of the wet air. Wasn’t nobody …

  She heard the dogs off in the bushes to the right. There weren’t more than one or two. But they had something and they were worrying at it. Not fighting, no. But she could hear their rumbled growlings.

  She listened for a minute, balancing the flashlight on the tip of one finger. Just the sound of the dogs. And the heavy rustle of the rain on trees and grass and ground, a sound that was almost like breathing.

  That was what they told little kids sometimes when they took them to the window: listen to the world breathing.

  She went on. This was the highest point of the island: a little mound. If you climbed up any of the trees here, you could see all over the island and way out to sea. The pirates had kept a man here, all day and all night, people said, those days when their ships were moored safely back in the curve of the harbor. And down there at the foot of the hill, not more than two feet under the ground, Leon Caillet’s father had found six gold coins. That was all; just the coins. The bag or the purse they’d been in had decayed clean away.

  “You know,” Annie whispered to herself, “if you could just take off the top layer of this island here, you’d have yourself a lot of money. A real lot.”

  She was standing on top the mound now, the thick grove of wind-shaped oaks to the south. On the other side the mound fell off sharply, giving way to the marsh that fringed all this side of the island, a little strip of marsh, and beyond that the wide now-smooth expanse of the back bay.

  “Bet there’s a lot of money on this island,” Annie said to the rain. “You just can’t ever get at it.” There were little flickers of lightning, way off there to the north, maybe way over by Petit Prairie, but it wasn’t very much.

  “A lot of money.” If you could just take the top layer off, the way they could do with a muskrat. Just one slice down the middle, and one on each leg, and pull it off. And the things you would find. … “And the Indians too,” Annie said, “skeletons maybe.” She shivered in spite of herself. “And the pirate money, all the things they hid and won’t ever find.”

  She thought of climbing a tree. She went over and touched the trunk. Then changed her mind and went back the way she had come. She went very quietly. The same dogs off in the underbrush were still at it, still growling. She was passing them when she heard something else: muffled curses, which she didn’t catch, and then a dog’s yelp. A growl and another muffled word.

  She stood absolutely still and bent her head forward, straining to hear. Just rain moving the leaves. And then the dogs started again: a low steady growl.

  “Micmac. …” she whispered to herself. “Du micmac. …” She moved a few yards up the path so that she could turn back and come at an angle to the spot where the dogs were. She stepped off the path, moving slowly and carefully. There were a whole mess of old blackberry vines back in here, and they could tear you to ribbons, just those little thorns could. And back in here, too, were all the trenches Oliver Robillard had dug years ago when he had his idea for growing terrapins in his own back yard. That hadn’t worked. But the trenches and pits did fill up with fresh water—not salt, the way some people predicted. And he finally put crawfish there. He spent a good day paddling around in the rice fields south of Petit Prairie just to get the crawfish that grew there, the light gray-green ones with the thick tails. He brought them back and dumped them in his trenches. And it worked. It worked fine. Only, one dry July the water had shrunk all back into the main pool. And when the rains finally did come, the ground had cracked and changed so the water never did run back into the proper trenches. They were still there, but covered over by Jerusalem oak: rabbits lived in them now mostly. They were a
couple of feet deep and you could go sprawling in them before you had time to think—flat on your face in the bushes. And maybe even poison ivy at that.

  She moved very carefully, feeling with her foot ahead of her. There—the first trench. She could follow it down now easily: the connecting trenches were all on the other side.

  The dogs were snuffling not too far ahead. “What you got?” she called. “What you got there?”

  One of them began to bark, short snapping yaps.

  “Okay,” she said. Jesus, she thought, nothing but poison ivy and me with bare feet. Jesus Christ.

  A tangle of little mulberry trees and chinaberry trees and creepers grown all over everything—bread-and-butter vine with its thin mean thorns. She saw the rear quarters of a dog, a brown and white dog. “What you got, hey?”

  The dog backed out and stood, barking. She stepped around him. The clump was thick and matted with old grape vines. One of the dead twigs scratched her cheek. “Damn.” She got down on her hands and knees to peer through the little hole the dog had found. It was too dark to see. “Jesus,” she said and, standing up, began to tug away the vines and clear a spot.

  The second dog had come out now, a white animal, fair-sized. It sat very quietly, waiting, and working at its muzzle with paw and tongue.

  “Hurt yourself, huh?”

  The dog went on licking; he had begun to whimper softly. The brown and white one went over and stood alongside him, head cocked, ears pointed up.

  Annie cleared the vines and pushed aside the little trees and snapped on the flashlight.

  It was a small light, a narrow beam. But it picked up the black T-shirt and threw a faint glow on the face above it.

  Annie was not surprised. It was as if she’d known what she would find. She was only curious.

  She didn’t lift the beam into the face. She could see it clearly enough: not young, not old, a wide square face with slanting cheek bones, and wide-set eyes.

  They all look alike, Annie found herself thinking. Those people from the other island.