In the back of the boat, JoHanna held the basket I’d used to sell sandwiches at Tommy Ladnier’s. This time it was packed with a picnic lunch for us. JoHanna said we would walk the white sand of the island, wade in the aqua surf, picnic, and return to Biloxi before Will’s train arrived at three. I allowed my mind to go no further than the image of Will, stepping off the train with his bag in one hand and his hat in the other.
A burst of laughter and applause came from the back of the boat and I turned to see Duncan, without the benefit of any music, on the deck of that lumbering ship, marking off the steps of the Charleston while a tall young man with freckles imitated her every move.
“That’s much better, Michael,” Duncan said, giving her chin a jerk of satisfaction. “If you could come to the house where we have music, I could teach you in ten minutes flat. You’re a natural.”
Duncan was the most popular passenger on the boat. The crew and spectators all talked with her, all charmed by the devil-may-care smile that was so much like Will’s. JoHanna sat and held the basket, and I could see her continued worry in the stillness of her posture.
“Pecos can dance the Charleston,” Duncan told her audience, and then launched into a story about the rooster.
Pecos had been taken in by a farmer several miles from the Seaview who promised to let him have the run of the henyard for the day. That rooster needed something to boost his spirits. The afternoon before he’d encountered another seagull and met with the same disappointing response, and he was so low his comb was about to drag the ground. No matter how he strutted and swaggered, the gulls showed no interest in him. JoHanna had said that a day with some attentive hens would soften the bitterness of the gulls’ rejection. As I listened with half an ear to Duncan’s story, I couldn’t help but smile. Duncan loved that ornery rooster, but I think even she secretly relished the idea of being free from him for a day. Pecos could be very demanding.
The boat crested a larger than normal wave and dropped into the trough, eliciting a few cries of alarm from the other three female passengers. At first the motion of the boat had frightened me and caused me to stagger against the rail, but I’d gotten used to the lurch and roll. I even liked it. My only complaint was that the boat was full, and the sides seemed so close to the water. If we hit a wave wrong, it seemed water would spill over the sides of the ship, pushing us deeper into the Sound, where more water would come into the boat and on and on until we sank. I shook my head at my own morbid fantasies and looked back to JoHanna.
The young man who had been dancing with Duncan was headed my way. There were at least twenty-five passengers, all going out to see what damage the hurricane had done to the barrier island. Some of the passengers were more than sightseers. They carried equipment to chart and mark and document what the high winds and tide had done to the small island. The young man walking toward me was one of those men. He’d spent the first fifteen minutes of the ride telling me how the island was only half a mile in width, a mere spot of land that marked the Gulf from the Sound. He said there were other islands. Petite Bois, Horn. One called Dauphin, off the coast of Alabama. He said they had probably all been one land mass, but that big storms had cut them into smaller pieces that were constantly shifting in size, moving about in the water.
I liked listening to him talk. He spoke softly, but with such intensity about the islands, that I knew he loved them. With his curly auburn hair and freckles, he reminded me of Adam Maxwell, a boy I went to school with for a spell. Even in the first grade he’d talked about learning how to be a doctor for animals. He’d talked in the same softly intense way of the man who now stood beside me. Adam’s daddy had been hurt when a log fell on him and Adam had quit school in the fifth grade to go help his ma work the farm. He said he’d come back, but he didn’t. I’d heard his daddy was crippled.
“Mattie, Mrs. McVay wanted me to ask if you were warm enough?”
JoHanna had insisted on buying us all thick sweaters, but it was colder at the front of the boat than the back. I knew my cheeks and nose were red from the wind as the boat plowed into it, but I didn’t want to go to the back where it was so much more crowded. I liked being up front, more alone.
“I’m fine.”
“Do you mind if I keep you company?”
His question startled me, and it shouldn’t have. I’d seen him looking at my hands earlier. I had taken Elikah’s wedding ring off. Somewhere between the past and the present, I had slipped the thin gold band from my finger and let it go. I could not remember the exact moment of doing it. I didn’t care enough to try to remember.
“I’d be delighted for your company,” I told him, and meant it. “Tell me more about the island.”
His name was Michael Garvi, and he walked with us along the beach, rolling up his pants to stand in the surf and let the waves suck at his toes. We all did it and listened to Duncan scream with delight. I wondered how it was possible that I’d pictured the azure water and the rolling hills of white sand so accurately. I didn’t have Duncan’s gift of prophecy, but the water and beach were exactly as I had dreamed them. We had walked across the entire island, and it was only as wide as Michael Garvi said. The contrast between Sound and Gulf was magical. We played in the pure white sand, where the water foamed up at us, hissing and laughing. We built castles that the incoming tide knocked down with the dancing waves crested in white. When we were exhausted and the hems of our dresses thoroughly soaked, we spread the red-checked cloth for lunch.
Michael ate our picnic with us, and while I repacked the basket, JoHanna and Duncan went to search for shells in the brief time we had left upon the sand.
“Mattie, would it be okay if I called on you next Sunday? Maybe I could take you to church?”
This time his interest didn’t take me by surprise. “I don’t think so, Michael.” I packed the cloth on top of everything else and looked at him. Why hadn’t I met him in May? Why hadn’t I met him before Jojo sold me off to Elikah? “I’m married.”
The words sounded like a death sentence to me, but it was something that had to be said. No point in dragging another innocent into the mess of my life. I didn’t know if I’d ever be rid of Elikah. By law, I was still his wife. I held up my hands. “I threw my wedding ring away, but I’m still married.”
He looked down at the picnic basket. “Mrs. McVay told me you were married.”
“What else did she tell you?”
He shrugged, then finally looked at me. “That life has some bitter twists. She said it wouldn’t hurt for me to ask, that you would make your own decision.”
“I don’t have a future.” I shook my head at the startled look on his face. “Not like that. What I mean is that I can’t see one step down the road ahead of me.” A vee of brown pelicans burst over us from the Sound side of the island. Their formation was perfect, their ungainly legs tucked up tight and their necks pulled in. When they angled down toward the beach they looked like prehistoric creatures. “I have to go back to where I lost the thread of myself.”
“You’re going back to your husband?” The light brushing of freckles across his nose darkened with his disapproval. “Mrs. McVay said he wasn’t a very nice man.”
“I don’t know that I’m going back to Elikah, but I am going back to Jexville with the McVays. We have a friend we have to find. Then I’ll decide what I’m going to do.”
“If you come back to Biloxi, can I call on you?”
I smiled. “I’d like that very much.”
Duncan lurched over the top of a small sand dune, screaming and running toward us as she looked back over her shoulder. Behind her JoHanna leaped out of the grass Michael had told me was called sea oats. In her hand she waved a gruesome creature that had huge pinchers for claws. It snapped at Duncan’s head, sending her into a new series of high-pitched shrieks. Her legs churned in the sand and sent her sprinting in our direction.
“Save me! It’s Crab Mama!”
Panting, JoHanna minced toward us, waving the blue c
reature which she held tightly by the back. The claws snapped in the air.
“Get that thing away from me.” I moved so that Michael was between us, since he seemed to find JoHanna’s creature so amusing.
“My little friend is hungry. He wants a bite of Duncan for dessert.” JoHanna crept forward, the snapping thing extended.
Duncan shrilled and clung to my back.
In a few moments we were all tumbling in the sand, laughing and trying to get away from the snapping creature that JoHanna held always just out of reach.
The whistle of the boat brought us all to our feet, and JoHanna released the crab, now angry and afraid, back into water. “How’d you catch him?” Michael asked.
“With some string and a bite of chicken from the picnic. Greed got the better of him and he grabbed it and wouldn’t let go.” JoHanna was chuckling.
“Mama reeled him in, and then chased me.” Duncan shook her finger at JoHanna. “I’ll get you back. Just wait. I’ll catch a jarful of those big roaches and dump them over in your bed!”
“And I’ll cook you and that rooster of yours in a pot full of dumplings.”
I had stepped a short distance away from them to say good-bye to the water. I had imagined it for so long, and here it was, just in front of me, a force that would continue no matter what occurred in my life. Michael had told me that a few people had built shanties on some of the barrier islands. He said the houses were little more than shacks, but that sometimes they could be rented out for a weekend. On Horn Island, which was larger, there was a small stand of pines and wild deer and rabbits that somehow managed to survive the hurricanes.
Even without one of the shanties, a person could camp on the island. Just pitch a tent and sleep under the stars with the sound of the water not ten feet away. As I watched the water moving and shifting, never still, my heart responded to the rhythm of the surf, and I felt a quiet that I knew I wanted again. No matter what happened with Elikah, I would come here at least one more time, to spend the night and have a full day of the water, the sand, and the stars. I would return.
“Ready, Mattie?” Michael touched me lightly on the shoulder. The boat whistle sounded again, three sharp blasts.
“I’ll be back.” I whispered the words to the water, and to myself.
Michael carried the picnic basket as we walked across the spit of sandy island to the boat. On the ride back, he sat beside me and told me of his childhood growing up on a farm twenty miles north of the beach. I said little about my past. I had cut it loose in order to survive, but it was pleasant to hear him recall his love of the water and the barrier islands and his determination to live in Biloxi. Through sheer will, he’d made his dream come true. In comparison, it might not seem like much to anyone else, but I had at last realized my dream of seeing the blue, blue water. I had also made a promise.
The train depot in Biloxi was little more than a narrow room with a few chairs and a green wooden platform. The big black engine with the fearsome cow-catcher on the front pulled in from Hattiesburg with a puff of dark smoke and a hiss. Will was the first passenger to step off, his brown leather case in one hand, his coat over his arm, and his hat in the other hand. Like a moving-picture star, he opened his arms and JoHanna ran into them. Duncan attached herself to his leg and hugged with all her might. Even in the midst of that welcome, he sent me a wink and a “Good to see you, Mattie,” before JoHanna kissed him. I turned away, my heart pounding and my face burning.
All around was the general confusion of people leaving town or arriving. A woman with seven small children had gotten off the train behind Will, and the young-uns were running and screaming back and forth on the platform, dodging here and there and generally acting like hellions. The conductor, exasperated at the children, swiped at one boy’s head as he shouted “All aboard,” and the wheels of the train began to turn, creating such noise that I was able to slip back into the station house and allow the McVays a moment to reunite. Through the dirty station window I watched Will bend to lift Duncan into his arms as the train pulled away.
JoHanna, Will, and Duncan swept into the station on a tide of stampeding children, but they didn’t seem to notice. They were a laughing, hugging whirlwind that swept me into it, and we blew out into the yard beside the station and piled into the car. With Will at the wheel and driving slowly, JoHanna and Duncan told him about the storm as we passed sites where trees had been removed and debris gathered. Will had an acute knowledge of the coast and told us who owned what property and how long they had been there and the probability of whether they would rebuild or move on. For a man who spent most of his time in Washington or New York or Natchez or Memphis, Will knew Biloxi.
We arrived at the Seaview to collect our things. JoHanna had packed our bags but left them in the room. She also wanted to “show her appreciation” to the maid who had managed, somehow, not to find Pecos in the room. “I won’t be long,” she said as she got out of the car.
Duncan ran into the gardens to say good-bye to the workmen she had made friends with while JoHanna hurried upstairs. I didn’t want to sit in the car and wait, so I started in to make one last check of the room when Will’s hand caught my elbow.
“How are you, Mattie?” he asked, his chocolate eyes void of all humor or teasing. Either JoHanna or John, in his telegram, had told him about my beating and my sickness afterward.
“Better.”
“You can stay here. We’ll keep the room.”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t.”
“Are you certain?”
I met his gaze, noticing again how the outer rim of his iris was darker than the center. “I’m certain.”
He didn’t release me. Instead he looked beyond me, making certain that JoHanna was not coming down the steps.
“Who is John Doggett?”
It was the question I dreaded, though I had not expected him to ask it of me. JoHanna was his wife. She held the answer to that question.
“He’s a writer. We met him up at Fitler.”
“What is he to JoHanna?”
I remembered very clearly the first time I’d ever heard JoHanna lie to Duncan. It was a lie to protect her. I had not expected dishonesty from her, not even to protect her child. But I didn’t know the truth of what John was to JoHanna. I could not even confront the truth of my own feelings for Will. I had fallen in love with him, knowing he was the husband of the only person who had been my friend. To admit this, even to myself, was more truth than I wanted to swallow. Who was I to decide the truth of JoHanna’s feelings?
“When JoHanna heard that Elikah had beaten me so badly, she got John to come with her to take me away from him. You weren’t here, and I think she was afraid that Elikah would hurt me, or her. Or both of us. Then he was stranded by the storm.”
Not a single feature of his face changed, but something in his eyes darkened. “Excuse me, Mattie,” he said as he walked past me and followed the route his wife had taken up the steps into the hotel.
I got back in the car and waited. Duncan found me there. She wore a crown of coral-colored spider lilies that the old gardener had made as a going away gift for her. She radiated happiness, casting glances at the front door of the hotel as she chatted and waited for her father to come out. As much as she loved her mother, Duncan worshiped Will. I tried not to imagine what was being said in that second-floor hotel room, where the curtains lifted and floated on the breeze that swept across the aqua water of the Gulf of Mexico, over the spit of land known as Ship Island, skimming the top of the dark gray Sound and finally into the window.
“What are they doing? We were already packed. And we have to get Pecos.” Duncan got out of the car and slammed the door with impatience. “I’m going to get them.”
“Wait here with me, Duncan.”
“We have to get to Jexville. It’s going to be dark and we won’t be able to hunt for Floyd.” She started up the drive, shells crunching beneath her determined step.
“Wait, Duncan. Please.”
She stopped and turned slowly. “What’s going on?”
“I think your folks need some time to talk. Give them a minute.”
“About what?”
“Things that have happened. Will has missed a lot. JoHanna has to tell him things so he can figure out the best plan.”
“She can tell him on the way.” She started toward the hotel again.
“Duncan …” I looked up to see JoHanna standing on the front steps, both of our suitcases in her hand. My heart stopped. Will was not coming with us.
The door behind her opened and he came out. Taking the bags he took steps longer even than hers and left her behind as he came to the car and stowed the luggage. “It’s time to go home,” he said as he cranked the motor and slid behind the wheel.
Will did not object as JoHanna gave him directions to the farm to get Pecos. He said nothing at all. Duncan leaned on the back of the front seat and talked a blue streak to him, but when he answered her only in monosyllables, she settled back and looked at me. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.
I shook my head.
We pulled into the farmyard, and Duncan climbed out of the car and went around to the back to call her rooster. Will got out and went to the front door to pay the farmer the amount due for Pecos’s board.
Left alone in the car with JoHanna, I wanted to tell her what I had said. I had gone over it again and again in my mind, and I had not said anything that implied JoHanna and John were involved. I had not meant to imply that. Surely I had not. “JoHanna, I didn’t say anything about John,” I finally blurted.
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