Under a Dark Summer Sky (16 page)

This was different.

There was nothing better for keeping a small town happy than a scandal, and they didn't come much juicier. It was one of the reasons why he'd left Heron Key all those years ago, to find someplace where people cared about ideas and world events, rather than just who stole whose milk cow back in 1895.
And
who
dallied
with
whose
wife.

He searched his memory for some reason why Dwayne would think he had done it. He couldn't recall ever speaking to Missus Campbell. It made no sense. And then came the realization that winded him like a punch: reason had nothing to do with it. If the deputy sheriff thought Henry was the father of his baby, all bets were off. A white man would have paid a heavy price. For a black man…there was no limit to the price he would pay.

Things suddenly fell into place: the smoldering looks from Dwayne, like he could barely control himself; the delight on his face when the bloody T-shirt was discovered at the camp.

Henry sat down heavily on the bench, more dispirited than at any time since his return, and stared at the stained concrete floor. There was a brown patch shaped like an eagle, its beak open, talons extended to skewer its prey. It made horrible, brutal sense.

This
isn't about the attack on Missus Kincaid at all.

His boots didn't match the print they found. There was nothing to connect him to the attack. The bloody shirt was just an excuse to bring him in and get him alone. And he had walked right into the trap, high on happiness after his night with Missy. He might as well be the mouse, impaled on the eagle's claws.

Doc
was
wrong. The deputy is just another hick lawman who uses his badge to settle any old score.

Henry sunk his head in his hands. He had completely misjudged the situation, his normal defenses down. There would be much sympathy for Dwayne among the townspeople, who were already minded to blame the veterans for any trouble. Henry had heard what white mobs in Florida did to men like him. There was no worse crime, in their world. The jail's thick concrete walls would prevent any sounds from escaping into the street.
And
that
will
be
just
the
start
of
it.

Nothing Henry said would make a damned bit of difference. There was no way to prove his innocence, nothing definitive that Dwayne would accept. And Henry had known plenty of decent men driven to savagery in extreme circumstances. He had seen them rip flesh from their enemies' bodies with bloody howls of joy. Good men who, when at home, would lift a grasshopper out of harm's way. Decency, he knew, was a veneer, hair-thin in places.

No, the idea had clearly caught light in Dwayne's mind and already burned too bright for Henry to extinguish. The only answer was to escape, to run, as he had so many times before. He would head north and be out of the state in a few days if he traveled by night.

From the next cell came a soft, malign chuckle.

Henry said, “Yeah, Ike, like you ain't up to your ass in it too.”

Ike stuck his grizzled chin between the bars and leered. “You gonna burn, baby. You gonna burn.”

Henry thought of Missy, of what they could have had together, what they could have built. He pictured the look on her face when she heard he had gone. It would mean the end of all his newly hatched plans. To have come so close to happiness, only to lose it over a damn fool deputy sheriff with a wayward wife was too much. His chest ached with the disappointment of it all. He became aware he was gasping for breath.

But wait… His heart lifted as he realized there was a simple answer.
She'll come with me, and we'll start a new life together, somewhere away from all this.
Yes, that was it. It would be hard for her, at first, to adjust to a new place, but he counted on the look he had seen in her eyes last night. And hadn't she said she wanted to do something with her life? Well, here was her chance, with him. He would show her the great cities of the north, maybe even go to France. He didn't care where they went, if they were together. What had seemed desperate and hopeless suddenly became bright with promise. His breath came more easily, and his vision cleared. There was still a chance, if he was smart enough. And lucky enough.

But first he needed to focus on the job at hand. His training came back to him, and he scouted the contours of the jail, looking for weaknesses, assessing his options. Jimmy eyed him curiously from across the room.

And Henry knew what he had to do.

• • •

Sometime later, Dwayne returned to the jail. He strode over to Henry's cell, where he stood quietly for a long moment. Henry's demeanor had changed completely while he was out. The relaxed confidence was gone and in its place was extreme wariness. Through narrowed eyes, Henry followed Dwayne's every move. A vein pulsed in his forehead.

Dwayne turned to Jimmy. “What's been going on here?”

“N-nothin', Uncle Dwayne.”

Dwayne just raised an eyebrow and waited.

“Well,” said Jimmy, “I just wanted to show you I can get people to tell me stuff too. So I told him…”

“You told him what?” Dwayne's voice had gone deep and quiet.

Jimmy straightened his cap, swallowed hard. His large Adam's apple bobbed. “I told him…I told him that people sayin'…they sayin' he's Roy's daddy.”

Dwayne said to Jimmy, “I'll deal with you later. Bring him to my office, then go back to your momma.” To Henry, he said, “You and me gonna have ourselves a little private talk.”

Dwayne sat at his desk and shuffled some papers to calm his temper, collect his thoughts. On the way over from Doc's office, he had tried to make sense of what the evidence was telling him: that no boot had made the mark on Hilda's face and that Henry was not involved. There was still the matter of the bloody shirt, which had to be explained.

And as for the other business he had with Henry… He felt tired, just tired to his marrow. He was tired of the way Noreen flinched when he came near, tired of the whispers and knowing looks from people in town, tired of feeling like every step he took led him deeper into the swamp. He had been fighting to get at the truth of what Noreen had done. Now that he was so close to finding it, he wondered why he had bothered. What would he do, once he had the knowledge? How would it make things any better?

He felt much more in control this time. Things were clearer in his mind. Roberts would not get the better of him again.

He heard the heavy cell door creak open on rusty hinges, then slam shut. Henry said, “I don't feel so good.”

“Come on,” said Jimmy. He led Henry into the office, where he appeared to stumble. In a flash, Henry snatched the paper spike off the corner of the desk and pressed its vicious point hard against Jimmy's throat.

Dwayne was on his feet in an instant, hand on his holster. “You idiot,” he hissed. “What do you think—”

“Put your gun on the desk, Deputy. Slow now.” Henry's eyes were wide but in control, his voice level. “I got no interest in hurting this boy, so don't make me.” He jabbed the spike harder, his arm around Jimmy's neck. Jimmy yelped.

Dwayne obeyed. “Henry,” he tried, “listen, you don't want to do this. I know you weren't involved in the attack on Missus Kincaid.” He spread his hands. “We can work this out.”

“Yeah, like they worked it out in Tallahassee, and Tampa? Like they did in Greenwood?” He began to shuffle back toward the door, still with Jimmy in his grip. “No offense, Deputy, but I'd rather take my chances in a swamp full of gators. Your key ring, please.”

“Henry, you have my word. Just put the spike down and let Jimmy go. No harm will come to you. We'll forget all about this.”

Dwayne thought back to their previous meeting, how he had come so close to beating Henry senseless, had wanted to with a desire akin to lust. He saw that Henry read his thoughts. In that moment, the argument was lost.

Henry said quietly, “Now, Deputy Campbell, you and I both know that ain't so.” He stuffed Dwayne's gun into his pocket. “Keys. Now. Give them to Jimmy. Now get into that cell over there.”

And with that, he locked Dwayne into his own jail cell. Dwayne sat miserably on the bench.

Henry continued toward the front door. “Now, Jimmy, you gonna lock the door behind us, you understand?”

Jimmy's throat bulged against the spike. “Yes,” he gasped, his eyes rolled back in terror.

“If you hurt him,” said Dwayne, hands on the bars, “I swear—”

“He won't be hurt,” said Henry. “I just need to borrow him for a spell. And your truck. Good-bye, Deputy Campbell.”

He heard the cough of his truck's engine, followed by the scrape of tires as they drove away. Then there was silence. Dwayne was left alone with his thoughts, and Ike's gleeful cackle.

It was that funny time of day when late afternoon turned to early evening. But there would be no colorful sunset tonight. Thick, dark clouds had been rolling in all day. An irritable wind had sprung up to worry the laundry on the line. Then came a series of miserable squalls, so Missy had moved Nathan inside. She rocked him and sang:

Precious Lord, take my hand,

Lead me on, let me stand,

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;

Through the storm, through the night,

Lead me on, to the light:

Take my hand, precious Lord,

Lead me home.

He seemed fascinated by her voice. His legs kicked and he stared at her mouth with those round blue eyes while she sang. She touched his nose with his favorite wooden elephant. He grabbed it from her hand and gummed the trunk. His teeth had started to come through, so that lately everything went into his mouth—seashells, driftwood, even Sam's bone. The dog had looked on in affronted confusion while Nathan chewed contentedly until Missy had whisked it away.

As a girl, she had always expected to have children one day. It was just what folks did. Then as she got older and more settled on her own, she had let go of that certainty with some sadness. It was just part of the bigger sadness of being alone. Over time, she had come to accept that there would always be other Nathans who needed her, and that would be her place.

“It ain't too late,” she said to Nathan and wrestled the elephant from his grip. It was time for a bubble bath and then bed. Hopes she had long abandoned, things she had thought impossible, had come back into focus since Henry came home. It was like she had been looking through a dirty window for a long time. The glass was clean again. “Only too late when—”

Mama burst into the kitchen, hat askew and sweat on her upper lip. “They arrested Henry,” she panted. “Dwayne brought him in from the camp, something about a bloody T-shirt they found in his cabin. People say he the one that—”

“Course he ain't, Mama!” Missy leaped from her chair. “We got to go down there and straighten this whole thing out.” But she felt a weight land heavy on her heart. The arrest would be proof enough of his guilt for the kind of folks who already believed.

“Take Selma with you,” said Mama as she collapsed into Missy's vacant chair. “I stay here with the baby. And, Missy,” she said, “watch yourself. There's an ugly mood out there, and I ain't just talkin' about the weather.”

• • •

Missy shuffled along beside Selma. The sky matched her thoughts: dark gray and heavy with rain. Why would God bring Henry back to her, only to snatch him away like this? Despite her brave words, she was scared for him. Mama was right about the mood in town. Folks on street corners stared at them as they passed, muttering behind their hands.

The weather got worse as they walked. The wind pulled at their skirts, sprayed sand on their bare legs. She studied Selma's profile. Everyone knew she practiced the old ways, with knowledge inherited from Grace. Just talking about such things would give Mama apoplexy. For her, there was the one true church, and all else was blasphemy. The devil's work. Still, she had to ask. “Selma, is there any way…is there anything you can do…I mean, can you…?”

Selma said nothing, just trudged on. Then, very quietly, she said, “I brought him back once, and look how good that turned out. Got to work with man's law on this one.”

A pickup truck appeared ahead, driving fast right toward them. Just before they jumped out of the way, it skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust. At the wheel was a young white man in a John Deere cap with a shocked, frightened expression, and Henry was on the passenger side, looking grimly determined.

“Missy!” he called. He took the keys from the ignition and jumped down. It was then she saw the gun in his hand. “Now just stay calm, Jimmy,” he said, “and everything gonna be all right.”

The white boy stared straight ahead, hands clenched on the wheel. Missy thought she saw his lip tremble.

“What's happened?” demanded Selma. “Where you get that gun?”

“They let you go?” Missy asked. She didn't know what to think, filled with equal parts hope and dread.

“Not exactly,” said Henry with a look over his shoulder. He was fairly humming with tension. “I ain't got time to explain. I got to leave. Now. Missy, you trust me?” he asked, more seriously than she had ever seen him.

His eyes were focused on hers. They were filled with desperate longing, deep as the sea. She nodded. “Yes, but—”

“Then come with me. We'll go away together, anywhere you want. Start over. You can go to college, or do whatever—”

“Wait, I cain't think!” For years she had dreamed of something like this, but it was not how it should be. His excitement had the metallic shine of desperation, like the gun in his hand. The boy at the wheel of the truck seemed turned to stone. It was wrong, all of it—every part of her body said so. Yet he stood there in front of her, Henry, saying these things. His words came too fast; she needed more time.

“Missy,” he said with yet more urgency and another look over his shoulder. “I explain everything once we away from here, but we got to go
now.
You comin' with me?”

Her whole life, the things that felt so solid and kept her tethered to the earth were all in Heron Key. Without them, how would she live? Wouldn't she just float up and away, to be lost forever?
But
I
be
with
Henry. He keep me safe
. She squeezed her eyes shut tight but could not picture it. It was not real. This was real, this dusty street lined with familiar stores, and their little house, and the beach, and… “What about Mama? And Selma? What about Nathan? I got to say good-bye. I got to get a bag—”

“Don't you see, Missy?” He was trying to smile but only managed an ugly grimace, which turned him into a stranger. “We ain't got time for any of that. You got to come right now, as you are. Missy,
please
.”

She stood still. “Why? Why we need to go like this?”

“You know what they think I done,” he said, close to her ear. “All of it. I ain't waitin' around for their so-called justice. I got no choice, Missy. I got to run. You got no idea, no idea what they'll do to me if I stay.”

They had attracted the attention of a small knot of people, storekeepers and customers, drawn outside by the commotion. Henry shoved the gun in his pocket. She had never seen him so afraid. The acrid sweat of fear dripped from his face. “But how this gonna help?” She gestured at the truck. “If you run, they just say it's 'cause you guilty. And takin' a white boy with you? That just gonna make it worse. You always sayin' things won't change till we change 'em. Stay—stay and fight.”

“I cain't win, Missy,” he said with a dejected shake of his head. “Not this fight.”

A group of men left the barbershop and strode in their direction, frowns all around. Henry said, “We got to—I got to go, right now. Come with me. Please.”

She tried to reach out for him. If she could just touch him, maybe he would see there was another way. But Selma's arm went around her shoulders, as much to hold her back as to support her. “He right, Missy,” she said. “He got to go. Let him go.”

“No, wait, don't go, please.” It was all happening too fast. A minute before, her biggest worry was him being in jail. Now she realized this might be the last time she ever saw him. Tears of frustration and loss scorched her eyes. “If you run, if you go, like this,” she said as she strained against Selma's arm, sobs choking her voice, “you won't never be able to show your face here again. Never.”

“I know,” he said, but he was already turning away from her. “I sorry, Missy. I so sorry.”

And then he was gone. The truck headed off just as the clouds released their burden. She watched the pickup until it disappeared behind the heavy curtain of rain. Fat raindrops splashed down her face, but they were not enough to wash away the tears. Not nearly enough.

• • •

Henry held Dwayne's revolver to Jimmy's side as they made their way up the coast road. The truck's engine coughed and slowed. “Keep drivin',” he said.

“Wh-what you gonna do to me?” Sweat darkened Jimmy's collar. His voice was hoarse with fear, and his cap drooped forlornly. The dashboard lit his face with a sickly glow.

“Don't talk.”

Rain spattered the windshield and mixed with the dust on the glass. The coast road brought them alongside the camp. He would not be able to stop to say his good-byes, but at least he could see the place one more time, imagine his boys in the mess hall with their first beer of the evening. They thought he was in jail, which was bad enough, but not as bad as being on the run. Yet more people he had let down… He thought of their familiar faces, creased with confusion and worry when they heard what he had done. As the truck passed the camp, the wind carried to him the sound of laughter from the mess hall.

What
am
I
doing? Leaving all this behind?
He wondered if Missy was right, if he could have stayed and argued it out. She seemed so certain, but she had not seen the homicidal glint in the deputy's eyes. He was a man barely in control of himself—Henry had seen enough of them in his time to recognize that look—and it would only take the tiniest excuse to push him over. Had Jimmy not been there to intervene, Henry might already be just a smear on the jail cell wall.

He wanted to think that he would make it up to them, to Missy, to all of them—one day. But deep inside, he knew it was the last time he would see Heron Key. He had an infinite capacity to accept disappointment and despair, built up over long and bitter experience, but hope—hope fairly ripped the heart out of him. For a brief moment, Missy had given him hope.

Of all the journeys he had been forced to make, this one was the hardest. He had always been in a hurry to leave places, to keep going, always in motion. But now all he wanted to do was stay. It had not been long since he returned to Heron Key, compared to how long he was away, but the place held on to him with a grip of steel. The only way to wrench himself free was to leave the best part of himself behind. And that, he decided, was where it belonged.

“Where to?” asked Jimmy.

“North,” said Henry. He had never felt so weary in his life. “Just north.”

• • •

Trent's day had started so well. Roberts was in custody and the other men were subdued. They had gone off meekly to work that morning, leaving him free to catch up on paperwork. Things were under control again, just as he liked them to be. He had allowed himself a sigh of satisfaction and a fresh cigar.

Then the weather deteriorated. The rain blew in sideways. The storm flags were out, which replaced the lanterns during the day. They crackled in the stiff wind. And then Jenson Mitchell had called again to advise Trent that the storm was now officially classed a hurricane, although still not predicted to hit Heron Key.

“Mr. Watts, you have to get your men out of here,” he had said. “They're very exposed. If—”

“But, Mr. Mitchell, you've just said it's not headed here.” He stared at the rotting canvas roof of the cabin. A spider had built a nest in the frame. Out of the fluffy white ball would soon pour hundreds of tiny beasts, rushing to infest his gear, trail across his face while he slept.
God, I hate this place. This ain't purgatory. It's hell.
He fried the spider's nest with the end of his cigar. Mitchell's calm, soft-spoken voice nearly drove him crazy.

“Whatever the weather center says, my bet is on the barometer. I've never seen it drop so fast. I urge you to get the men out. Just think of the potential consequences.”

Trent had done little else since midafternoon. The sky was a washed-out noncolor he had never seen before, a kind of yellowish gray. The wind seemed to blow hard from several directions at once. The surf was a disorganized mess of brown and white. “I can't order an evacuation based on your gut, Mr. Mitchell, but I will confer with my superiors. Good day to you.”

His first conversation with Norbert Grimes up in Jacksonville had not gone well, and he did not relish a second. Yes, the sky looked strange and angry, but that could just mean the daily downpour was on its way. Trent had become accustomed to them. Towering thunderheads of darkest purple would barrel in, deluge them for a few minutes, and the steamy sunshine would return. It could simply be more of the same.

Before the war, where he spent several weeks in a freezing trench, Trent had always thought of himself as a cold weather man. As a boy, he felt more alive during the winter than any other time of year, like he was energized from the inside out. The crack of falling ice, the swish of his sled, the deep, total silence of falling snow, more quiet than anything in the world…these were his favorite sounds.

That all changed during the winter in France. For a time, he had ceased to remember what it was to be warm, that there even was such a thing as warm. He lost three toes to frostbite and would have lost more if his tour of duty had not ended. The Heron Key contract had seemed just the thing for his scarred old body. A tropical sojourn was just what he needed, with palm trees, clear water, white sand, and friendly local women with suntanned faces.

He scratched at the mosquito bites on his arm. It seemed that the local insects found him a lot tastier than the women did. They regarded him as no different from the veterans, whom they considered to be dangerous drunks and criminals. He realized that his bald head and armfuls of tattoos might not help, but he still resented being lumped in together with the crazy sons of bitches under his supervision.

The phone rested on his desk like a genie's lamp. How to make it work for him? How could he communicate to Grimes, up in the civilized world, what life was like on Heron Key? How precarious it was, on this little spit of land, barely above sea level? He doubted that Grimes had ever considered it, from the vantage of his safe, hygienic metropolis. And what if Mitchell was right and the storm did devastate the camp? Whose name would forever be associated with it? Not Norbert Grimes. He picked up the phone. The remains of his lunch curdled in his gut.