The Hard Blue Sky

by Shirley Ann Grau

  Not too far off a woman called: “You seen Tina?”

  “That’s a kid,” Annie said to the T-shirt. “Wandered off, I guess. Or hiding somewhere, scared right stiff.”

  Behind her the dogs snorted and licked. There was the soft lapping sound of their tongues. Softest sound she’d ever heard, Annie thought.

  “A Congo bite you?” she asked.

  And then she remembered herself. No dream, this.

  The man had not moved.

  “What happen to you?”

  She held the light steady, staring at the smears of brown and black on the shirt.

  “Nothin’,” he said finally.

  One dog whimpered again. “You hit him? No?” Annie pushed back her straggling hair. In the shelter of the bushes, the rain was not falling so heavy, but you could hear it roar. “But maybe they bit you,” she went on. “Sometimes they bite anything that’s out flat on the ground.”

  The same woman’s voice called: “They want you down by LeBlanc’s.”

  Annie stared into the narrow stick of light that was speckled and criss-crossed by the falling rain. “Goes on raining like this, you going to be swimming back here.”

  She stopped and waited. The man said nothing.

  “How come you got left behind? What you waiting to burn down?”

  He snorted, shortly, and with his left hand wiped the rain off his face.

  “Yea,” Annie said, “I reckon I know, me. I reckon I can put it all together. You want to hear?”

  The man still did not move.

  “Running in the dark,” Annie said. The glass of the flash was streaming; the light was wavery and crooked. “You thought it was the same way you come in.” She could see it now, plain as if she were there. …

  She wondered whether a leg breaking made any sound.

  “People died from broken legs before this.”

  He grunted.

  “Hurts I bet.”

  She shivered.

  “Broke my finger once … hurt all the way into my back.”

  He still did not answer. And Annie, uncertain, snapped off the light, felt her way back to the path and started home. She did not quite know what else to do.

  The rain was coming down so hard now you couldn’t hear anything else. Her jeans were soaked through and they stuck to her legs and made it hard to walk. The force of the rain on her head was like a weight.

  I got to go home, she told herself. Her thoughts paraded very slowly across the front of her mind so that she had time to size up each one before it disappeared.

  I’m so tired I can’t hardly tell where I’m walking. And there’s a burning in my head. Like I had a fever, only not quite. Like I had a fever behind my eyes. It felt sort of like this back when I had the malaria, and how long ago that was that, back when I was a kid, and a little kid too, small enough to be lifted up out of bed. Somebody lifted me up, only I don’t remember who. And it felt like this, the burning. … You’d think the rain now would cool it off, only it doesn’t touch it. Maybe it’s getting near my period, and getting wet now’ll stop it for sure. And cuts you get during your period are always three times slower to heal, I can tell that, me. … Or maybe something went wrong, and I’m having a child. Maybe this is the way you tell first. … Haven’t been to sleep at all, just a little doze. I kept dreaming then that somebody was looking in the window. If it wasn’t raining I could sleep out here. I’d rather sleep out here. The whole house … she’s got such a musky smell. You can tell it even on the front porch; you could tell it anywhere. If it wasn’t raining I could stay out. …

  The rain’s been slow coming. For September. There’s no lightning. Just a little, maybe. Not much for storm season. September storms.

  And back there, just a little way back there, is a guy from Terre Haute. And when they find him, when it gets light in the morning, I don’t want to see what they do. Won’t look. …

  She stumbled: a plank across the path. She looked up, squinting into the rain and recognized: a fishing-platform. Sure. Arcenaux’s. He like to fish, him, and crab. And he built this one specially strong for himself: he must have weighed 250 if he weighed a pound.

  And she saw something else: under the walk a faint whitish shape. The dinghy, the one from the Pixie, the small one, the one without an outboard. She walked out on the platform, keeping her balance carefully. No oars. She bent down and squinted closer: but the oarlocks were there, dangling by their chains.

  Then she was running. She could feel her feet moving and she could see trees and bushes race past her. But she didn’t seem to be within herself any more. She was going along for the ride. Like a hair ribbon that’s perched on top a head, looks out and flutters.

  The Manint house was closest. They had the lamps on in the kitchen. And they’d be sitting there, coffee or breakfast. The yard dogs were gone, scattered. The gate stood wide open: it had even got pulled off one of its hinges.

  She wondered how that had happened.

  The oars were under the house, on little racks, right where everybody kept them. There were several pair: she took the closest to hand. A little scraping sound when she pulled them out, but nobody seemed to notice.

  She had them over her shoulder and back to the landing, at a steady jog this time: they were heavy and she was beginning to be winded.

  She put the oars quietly in the dinghy, loosened the line, and stepped down into it. It was unsteady. And she had stepped in wrong. The shell ducked and shivered and shipped a little water. She grabbed at the sides, and nearly fell over; a little of the brackish bay water splashed into her mouth.

  She spat it out, wondering if what her grandmother used to say was true: if you drank five glasses of bay water it would kill you.

  She settled herself and fitted the locks into their rings. She pushed off with an oar and began rowing down the island, going slowly and very quietly.

  If there was any wind, she thought, I’d swamp in two minutes. Inky said this dinghy wasn’t good. But there isn’t any wind.

  I’m glad it isn’t his boat, she thought. If it was his, I couldn’t take it. Even with an insurance company to pay him back. I couldn’t do it.

  She found the place, though it was hard to tell in the rain and the dark. And she rowed in. The dinghy struck bottom a good fifteen feet off shore.

  And me with no shoes, she thought. She took one oar and churned up the inch or so of water and reeds. “Congos get away from here,” she whispered. “Get away from here.”

  She threw over an oar, and clinging to the round handle with her bare toes, walked its length. The rest of the way she picked along over the sharp reeds and shells.

  She found the man, not in the spot she had left him, but a good ten feet away.

  “You walk?” she asked.

  He held perfectly still.

  “Look, stupid idiot, there’s a dinghy just over there.”

  He was rubbing his jaw now and squinting to see her.

  “Get yourself over there and I’ll give you a shove off. There’s nothing wrong with your arms, you can row.”

  “You don’t turn off the light, I can see nothing.”

  She snapped it off.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why you doing this?”

  There was a sharp ache across the back of her neck, just the way it had felt, years ago, when one of the boys had rabbit-punched her.

  “Get yourself up,” she said, “I ain’t coming close enough for you to get a finger on me.”

  A dog howled, short and close by.

  “It’s this way,” Annie said. “I’ll wait up by the path for a little while.”

  She stood in the middle of the path and waited. She held her left arm out in front of her and watched the heavy drops bounce off. The oar was floating in the very shallow water, not even seeming to move.

  I’ll wait a little while, she thought, and then I’ll go call people. If he doesn’t come. …

  But he came, sliding himself backwards along the ground, in wormlik
e movements.

  If his leg is broken, Annie thought, it must be nearly killing him.

  He got himself to the path and stopped, one hand clutching his leg. He wasn’t making a sound but you could tell from the arch of his back that he was screaming.

  “Gimme you shoes,” Annie said.

  He didn’t answer. He just waggled his head back and forth a little.

  “Oh hell,” she said and waded out after the oar.

  She brought it back to him. “You can use this to stand up with.”

  He took the oar. And she stepped back.

  He jammed the handle in the ground and shifted himself for balance. The oar slipped away and almost fell on his leg. He hesitated again, panting.

  “Quit stalling,” she said. “I ain’t coming near you.”

  He planted the oar more firmly this time, got his balance and stood up. For a minute he swayed so she thought he would fall. And she snapped on the light. He stared into it and made a hissing sound, like a sick animal. She turned it off, quickly. But she had seen his face: it was red, bright red, and sweat, not rain, was pouring down it.

  He got himself set firmly, and wiped off his chin with the back of his hand.

  “I can’t get it any closer in,” she said, and pointed.

  Using the oar for a crutch, he moved out into the shallow tangle of reeds and water. Each step the oar sank deeper and he had to yank it out.

  Already back in the tangle of chinaberry trees the birds were beginning to squaak sleepily: it was that near daylight.

  He got himself in the dinghy, and down on the seat. He gave one short muffled cry and the oar dropped from his hand and went overboard.

  Annie waded out, wincing against the shells. She got both oars and put them in the locks.

  “Hold onto them. Just hold on and I’ll give you a push off.”

  His weight had sunk the boat slightly. She pushed and nothing moved. She had to get down, kneeling in the oozing mud, put her shoulder to it and push with all her strength. The boat floated free, and she landed, chin first, in the muck. She scrambled up—thinking: If there’re Congos here, they get me sure—and ran back to the solid ground, this time not noticing the shells and afraid to look down, afraid of seeing the long black shape.

  On solid ground she took a deep breath and wiped the mud off her chin. They miss me, she thought, they miss me. She wanted to laugh. Instead she called, still softly: “You clear now. Go and start rowing.”

  A shape turned gray by the rain, he pulled once on the oars: the boat moved. Then he leaned forward, holding the oars high up in the air like wings. “Bitch,” he said clearly, “bitch.” And spat toward the land.

  IT GOT LIGHT VERY slowly with the clouds. There was just a kind of faint gray glow over the rain.

  Annie was going home, hobbling slowly because her feet were cut and hurting. Even as she walked, her eyes kept slipping closed.

  As she was turning off the back path to the one that would lead to the house, she met Julius Arcenaux. He had just got up and just come out: she noticed he was wearing a pair of dark blue tennis shoes that were only beginning to get spotted and splashed with the rain.

  “Bébé,” he said, “how come I find you out here?” He was wearing a black raincoat and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Annie could smell the strong odor of fresh coffee on his breath.

  “I was all nerves, me,” Annie said.

  “Rain is good for nerves, huh?”

  She shrugged.

  “You been out long?”

  “I didn’t bring a watch.”

  “Wet straight through.” She could feel his eyes fasten on her breasts, so hard it was like a touch.

  “I was chasing Gigi, me. She got loose last night.”

  “Ain’t a dog on this island in his yard,” Julius said.

  “And her about ready to drop too.”

  “Come on by the store and get warm.”

  She shook her head, “No thanks.”

  “You need a drink.”

  “Not before breakfast I don’t need nothing.”

  “I got coffee down there,” he said and winked. “And a bottle of rum too. Good rum.”

  “Lemme pass.”

  “Taste mighty good. Taste real good for sure.”

  “Look,” she said, “I got to go home. … Move!”

  He stepped aside. As she passed, he patted her behind.

  “And that going to be the closest you get too,” she said.

  He scratched one side of his nose. “You ain’t been looking for no dog.”

  “Go to hell,” she said and walked away.

  At the house the lamps were all out and the kitchen was empty. That shaking feeling in her stomach now, it might be hunger. But the table was clear except for a blue box of Morton’s salt and the stove lid was down. She went over and touched the oilcloth, with the tips of her fingers. Then, holding her head a little sideways, she went to her room. The singing in her ears was so loud now that she couldn’t hear anything else.

  The room was just as she had left it: the unmade bed had its sheet creased into little puckers. The window was open too, as she had left it, and the rain had come in, leaving a dark smear on the wallpaper under the sill and a puddle on the linoleum.

  It was still coming in. She went over and closed the window, hard, so that the glass shivered and almost broke. She stood, head against the frame, looking out. The day was the silvery-gray luminous color of the underside of a pompano. The trees were black wet stems splotched with green. And the yard was gumbo mud: a single brownish-yellow puddle, churned by the drops and completely empty except for a couple of floating sticks and little specks of floating white chicken feathers.

  She took off her wet clothes. They clung to her and she yanked at them, bruising her own flesh. She found some dry ones: a long-sleeved cotton-flannel shirt and another pair of jeans. And she let herself drop face downward on the bed.

  She was almost asleep. One thing was nagging at her, keeping her awake. She sat up, scrubbing at her eyes. The bed … that was it. The bed was wet. Even this far from the window … there must have been more wind than she thought. The sheets were soggy, and the moss inside the ticking was giving off its faint sweet-sour smell.

  Oh God. … She climbed out of bed. She got the two towels that were hanging behind the door and threw them on the floor in the corner farthest from the window. She took a couple of shirts from the drawer and threw them down too. Then she emptied the drawers completely, pushing the clothes into a heap with her bare toe.

  She stopped and stared. There was a long cut across the instep. Blood and mud were smeared up to her ankle. She’d have to do something about that. Later.

  She stretched out on the mattress of clothes, face down. She smelled the cold paint odor of the linoleum. And then nothing else.

  The opening door hit her thigh and stopped. She rolled over from it and peered up. Inky slipped through the small opening.

  “Jesus,” he said, “what are you doing there?”

  She moved her tongue slowly. It felt heavy but all right. So she said: “The bed got rained on.”

  “Oh.” He squatted down on his haunches beside her. “Poor kid,” he said, “you really had a night.”

  It was hard work to talk, very hard work. So she just nodded. And her eyes slipped closed.

  “Look,” he said, “will you wake up and listen?”

  She got her eyes open. And not quite knowing why she said: “I hear somebody in the kitchen.”

  “No,” he said, “you don’t. Nobody in the house at all.”

  She wanted to ask: Where did they go? But her throat was tight and stiff.

  Inky said: “Are you listening to me?”

  She nodded.

  “Sit up then.”

  She pulled herself up and propped her back against the wall. “Okay,” she said thickly.

  “Couple of things,” he said, “now listen. They took my dinghy. The one I was keeping at Arcenaux’s pier.”

 
She remembered. … She wouldn’t be likely to forget ever. But it was so faraway.

  “Didn’t touch another thing on the island far as I can see. Just my dink.”

  She swallowed a couple of times and said: “Yea.”

  “We’re taking the Pixie in.”

  She thought, if I could feel anything, that would surprise me.

  She said: “Who’d you get to take you in through the channel?”

  “Jesus,” he said. “I knew you weren’t listening.”

  She didn’t argue. Just went on staring straight ahead at the wall. There was a mosquito squashed there, a dry black smear.

  Inky took her chin and turned it in his direction. “You real punchy.”

  She shook her head but he held on. “So I’m telling you again.”

  She nodded, blinking her eyes rapidly because they were so dry they stung.

  “Sure enough Arthur gets one of the guys from the club in New Orleans and pays him to come down to Petit Prairie—and I bet he’s paying him good for that too—and this guy picks up somebody in Petit Prairie who knows the channel and who wants to make some easy money. And early this morning they start out and not ten minutes ago they get here. … See? Got it?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s luck, huh? … Once we get to Petit Prairie it’s no trick to get on the Intercoastal right to New Orleans.”

  Her eyes were slipping closed.

  “Hey, look now,” he said, “I thought you wanted to go.”

  Yes, she thought. Sure.

  “God damn, keep your eyes open.”

  She hadn’t noticed. So she put a finger to the corner of the left one, holding it up by the lashes.

  “You look sorta sick. … Nobody’s been that tired just from staying up all night.”

  She said: “I’m just tired, nothing else.”

  “I thought you wanted to go.”

  The wallpaper was beginning to peel off too, behind the door. Maybe the roaches were eating the paste behind it again. “Maybe,” she said.

  “I don’t get it,” he said, “first you want to and then you don’t.”

  She swallowed and got ahold of her voice. “I been up and I been working and I hadn’t been asleep more than five minutes.”

  “Sure,” he said and rubbed her shoulder, very gently.