Under a Dark Summer Sky (21 page)

He looked around at the faces, shiny with sweat in the yellow glow of the lanterns, and decided there was no benefit in telling them what he knew. It would not help and could make the situation much worse, if there was a panic. There was nowhere safer to be.

The Conchs' basic good humor prevailed, despite the increasingly crowded conditions. People played Go Fish with the older children.

The hot, moist air gradually sent the younger ones to sleep, drooped over their parents' shoulders. The Conchs had seen off many a storm in this fashion. It almost felt like a party, a chance to socialize and swap stories of hurricanes past. As he moved around the store, Jenson caught snatches of conversation, all relating to the hunt for Hilda's attacker. He shook his head wryly. Nothing helped pass the time like juicy gossip.

“I've been saying all along, it must have been a crime of passion,” said Warren Hickson. “Stands to reason. Got to feel something real strong to mash someone's face in like that.”

Mabel Hickson said, “That kind of shameless carrying on never ends well. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Potato salad, anyone?”

Just then, the building was rocked by an enormous gust of wind that sent water spraying right through the tiny gaps in the walls.

Still more people came. It was dark as midnight outside, although it was barely 6:00 p.m. The good humor deteriorated. The party atmosphere dissolved into apprehension as the crowding got worse and the wind grew stronger.

Ronald burst in through the door with Cynthia in his arms. The bandage on his cheek was no longer white but grubby gray.

“Tree branch hit her,” he said, panting. “Right when we left the country club. The kitchen blew up. The whole back side of the place is gone, just gone.”

Cynthia moaned softly as he deposited her on the floor. Feet shuffled to make room. “Where's Dolores?” Ronald asked. “She was right behind us, but I lost her when Cindy got hit.”

“Not here yet,” said Warren.

Next through the door was Marilee Henderson with her young son, Tim. She was soaked through, dress mostly torn off her body. Mascara made thick black tracks down her face. Tim's face was pale as milk. He stared fixedly at his mother, as if afraid to take his eyes from her.

“Where is Ed?” she called as she searched the mass of faces. “Where is he?”

Trudy yanked down a curtain from the window to wrap around Marilee's shaking shoulders. Someone found a chair for her. “He's not here yet, sweetie.” She knelt beside her and wiped rain and tears from her face. “What happened?”

It was several moments before she could speak. “I begged him to leave, but he wouldn't. He had—he had to check on her, one more time. He had to make sure she was okay. I told him, I said we could always get another boat. He looked at me like I was crazy.”

Trudy exchanged a glance with Jenson. The
Princess
was not a big craft. Others of similar size had fled up the coast to safer moorings when the hurricane alerts came.
We
are
all
foolish
about
things
we
love
, thought Jenson.

Marilee covered her face. Her body heaved with sobs. She said, so low that only Jenson heard, “You know, I always said—I always said she'd kill him one day.”

Water pooled beneath the door. Jenson tasted it. “Salt,” he said. He saw comprehension in the taut faces of the crowd. The store was nearly half a mile from the beach, raised up three feet off the ground.

The sea was coming for them.

For the first time, his confidence in the shelter was shaken. Heron Key had never seen a storm like this before. Sam's whining rose in pitch and volume.

Cynthia came to and sniffled. “Ronnie, make it stop. My nerves can't take much more.”

“You either shut that dog up,” Ronald said to Cyril, “or it's going out, I swear.”

“You lay a hand on him,” said Cyril quietly, “and I'll finish what Ike started.” The lantern's light flashed on the metal claw of his prosthesis.

“Keep calm, everyone,” said Jenson. “Anyone who wants a fight is welcome to go outside.” He looked hard at Ronald and Cyril. “No takers? All right then. Now let's behave like civilized people. We're all friends here.”

He watched his mother rock a crying child. It would serve no purpose to alarm her, but as always, she could read his face. “What is it, Son?”

“We've got no more room, but there are still people missing.” He scanned the faces. There were other shelters, like the one out at the fruit-packing warehouse, but most of his regular customers would come to the store. There were plenty more still to arrive.

“We'll make room somehow,” said Trudy. “We always do.” She turned her attention back to the child, whose eyelids had started to flutter.

But Jenson knew the worst danger did not come from the wind, however fearsome. Earlier that day, he had seen big waves clawing at the beach, as if trying to return it to the depths. As the wind grew stronger, so the waves would get bigger still. Even a moderate storm surge could inundate low-lying Heron Key. This storm was anything but moderate. His barometer had bottomed out at the lowest reading on its scale: twenty-six inches. He had inherited it from his grandfather, who had lived through some terrible storms, one with a reading as low as twenty-eight inches; twenty-six was unheard of. The barometer, the instrument by which he had lived every day of his life, was now just a useless hunk of metal and glass.

Surrounded on all sides by a sweaty crush of people, he had never felt so alone.

• • •

“Leave it, Noreen,” said Dwayne. “We got to go.”

She was still filling a bag with Roy's favorite toys and clothes and food, as if they were off to spend a day at the beach. On the drive back from the country club, Dwayne had heard the roar of the incoming waves, seen the angry way they tore at the beach. At the marina, the mooring lines still held, but the boats jostled about like fat ladies at a buffet. Back home, their house creaked on its foundations. It felt like the whole world was shaking apart. Still she would not be hurried. Such was her concentration that she did not ask why he was so late, for which he was grateful. He did not want to tell her about the country club, or about Nelson's death. It was too much at that moment, and they needed to focus. He had seen the damage already wrought by the wind.

“You know what it will be like,” she said and pushed Roy's stuffed tiger into the bag. “All those sweaty people, kids getting fractious with nothing to do.”

“Noreen,” he said, beyond exasperated, “it's a store. It'll be full of food and drink.” He took the bag from her hand and hoisted Roy onto his shoulder. “Come on.”

“I wish we knew where Jimmy was.” She tied a scarf around her hair. It was patterned with honeysuckle, his present to her on their first anniversary. He had spent hours choosing it, on a rare trip to Miami, and far too much money buying it. But it had all been worth it to see the expression on her face when she opened the box. “When they catch that Henry Roberts,” she said, “I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind.”

“If he has any sense,” said Dwayne, “Jimmy'll be in Pensacola with his folks.” He did not doubt that Henry by now would have dumped the boy somewhere safe, if inconvenient. “And you can thank Henry Roberts for taking him away from this storm. Wherever he is, he's better off there than here. Now come
on
.”

Finally he had everyone and their belongings loaded into the truck. Noreen scooted along the bench seat, Roy in her lap, bags stuffed around their ankles. The headlights shone through horizontal rain so heavy and thick it looked like shards of glass.

Dwayne held on tight to the steering wheel, which kept trying to twist out of his hands. A couple of times, he thought they were going over, as the two windward wheels left the ground, but the weight of the truck restored its balance. Water sloshed around their feet. Roy, clinging to Noreen's neck, whimpered each time something struck the pickup. Missiles appeared from nowhere, chunks of buildings and trees, fences and tools, suddenly illuminated as they entered the headlights' beams. He had no time to swerve, could only hope they would bounce off. A coconut smacked the windshield hard enough to craze the glass, but it held.

Everything receded from his mind except the two beams of the headlights on the flooded, debris-choked road. It all fell away, everything that had so consumed him recently—finding Hilda's attacker, finding Roy's daddy, bringing Henry to justice. It seemed part of another life, someone else's life. There was only the whine of the engine in low gear, the barrage of missiles, and the headlights piercing the darkness ahead. Something strange happened to his sense of time. It had only been a few minutes since they left home, but such was his concentration that it seemed like they had spent their whole lives in the truck, forever trying to reach the safety of the store but never quite getting there. He could see little through the windshield and instead relied on the tires to tell him they were still on the road.

“Not far now,” he said with a forced lightness. “Almost there.” The speed with which the storm had overwhelmed the town was staggering. And still the wind blew harder and the waters rose. Dwayne kept his speed low to avoid slamming into something big or flooding the engine. “And when we get there,” he said to Roy, “Momma's got a bag full of treats for you.” Roy gave him a weak smile. He already had a fondness for sweets, especially orange blossom honey.
Just
like
his
daddy
, Dwayne thought to himself, then grimaced at the absurdity of it—everything, all of it. Ever since Roy's shocking entrance into the world, he had turned Dwayne's life inside out. “That's my brave boy,” he said. To Noreen, “After this is over, everything's gonna be different between us, you'll see.”

“You mean that?” she asked, one arm around Roy, the other braced against the door. Her voice shook with anxiety. She really, really hated water and they were now surrounded by it.

“I do.” He had said things like that in the past, more than once. The whole business of Hilda's attack had changed him in ways he did not understand or have time to examine. But he did mean it, maybe for the first time. That she still had the capacity to believe him warmed his heart.

He silently urged the truck on.
Keep
it
together, old girl.
The water only had to rise a little higher to drown the engine, and then they would be stuck. Totally at the mercy of the beast.
God
help
anyone
out
on
foot
in
this.

It took all of Selma's strength to put one foot in front of the other. The wind tore at her clothes like Jerome on payday. The scariest thing of all was that, unbelievably, the wind was still getting stronger, the water on the road deeper. In all her years in Heron Key, she'd never known a storm of such power.
I'm damned if I gonna die naked in public.

Elmer was gone and so was her bag of necessaries. Eyes narrowed, one hand up to protect her face, the other holding her dress together, she plodded on. Missy and Mama would be at the store by now, she figured, and they'd be wondering where she had gotten to. Rain stabbed like needles at her skin. She'd never seen such rain before. She pictured Jerome back in their cozy little house, asleep with his bottle. Quickly she shoved the picture from her mind. In her heart, she knew it was gone, and him with it. She should feel sadness, but her mind had room for only one thing: left foot, right foot. First one, then the other. Sadness was a luxury to be indulged once she was in a dry room with the lights on and a big cup of coffee in her hand. Then would come the time for sadness.

Already she had passed several poor souls who had lost their grip on life. One was buried beneath a collapsed water tank, only the legs visible. Another had a metal beam where her face should be.
I
did
this. I summoned you, Agaou. A fresh start, that's what I wanted for this place.
As with everything else, there was always a price to pay for wishes granted. And it looked like the price would be terrible this time.

Stones and broken glass tore at her. A chunk of coral flew past, narrowly missing her head. She shuffled forward, bent parallel over the rising water. A stuffed rabbit floated by, still clutched by a neatly severed child's hand. Inside the scream of the wind, she could hear other screams, but there was no way to find their owners in the treacherous blackness.

She should be within sight of the store by now. What little she could see through splayed fingers was unfamiliar. All the landmarks were gone. Had she taken a wrong turn?

She cast an eye at the malevolent sky. Selma had never minded storms in the past. She liked the brilliance of the lightning flashes, the fierce boom of the thunder. As a child, Henry had taught her to count out the lightning's distance by the time it took for the first crack of thunder. Hunkered underneath Grace's kitchen table, they had counted together: “One one hundred, two one hundred, three one hundred…” They had squealed with delight when the thunder's boom shook the air.

Are
you
watching, Grace?
Her mother always warned of the dangerous powers to be found in the tattered pages of the old book. But once Selma had tasted them, she had grown bold. There was nothing to do now but face the consequences, however fearsome. She had thought to reshape Heron Key, drain the swamp of bad blood, break the shackles of the past. Well, it was happening all around her. The wind was taking the town apart, reducing it to its basic materials. And she sensed in its destruction a purpose, even a personality, like a gigantic, evil child smashing its toys in a fit of temper.
Of
course, it is you, Bade.
The
loa
of the wind shared his duties with Agaou. It meant that Sogbo, the
loa
of lightning, would not be far away.

Sure enough, just at the moment when she thought to set herself down and wait for the gods to deal with her, lightning shattered the sky. Something white caught her attention among all the gray and brown and black. An island of white. No, not an island. Faint sounds came from the white thing, barely audible beneath the incessant yowl of the wind. It sounded almost like singing.

She stumbled closer and stopped.
I
know
that
uniform.
And she gave thanks to Sogbo. “Missy!” she shrieked, loud as her voice would carry, which was usually enough to stop a grown man in his tracks at fifty paces.

Missy raised her head to reveal the small bundle beneath her. Selma sloshed toward her, arms outstretched. “Give him to me. Come on, girl, we almost there!”

Missy handed Nathan to Selma. He started to cry, which gladdened Selma's heart almost as much as if the sun had shown his face right there and then. “Good boy, Nathan,” she cooed, baby on one shoulder, hand reaching for Missy.

Missy pushed through the water, uniform caked with mud and weeds, stinking like a swamp. “Oh, Selma,” she began, eyes full of tears. “When the ditch flooded, I thought—”

“Ain't got time for that now, Missy. Almost there. C'mon.” She put her free arm around Missy's shoulders and propelled her forward in what she prayed was the right direction.

And then it was there, right in front of them, like it was just waiting to be discovered: the familiar outline of Jenson's store. Missy let out a sob of relief. Selma stormed up the steps.

But something was wrong.

A crowd of maybe fifteen people was crammed into the remaining corner of the front porch. They held on to whatever they could find—railings, shutters—anything to keep from being blown into the rising water. Violet was there with her small son, Abe, tucked between her body and the wall of the store. Lionel clung to Ike, whose thickly muscled arms were twined around the only roof post left.

“Where's Mama?” Missy called. “She inside?” No one answered.

Selma tried the door. It was locked. “Let us in!” she hollered. “Let us in!” But the wind tore the sounds from her mouth.

The door opened a crack and Ike put his shoulder to it. They tumbled inside, into the mass of people packed together tighter than bristles in a brush.

“What the hell kind of foolishness is going on here?” asked Selma. “Why the door locked?” The air was thick with the smell of bodies and cigarette smoke and…something else. She searched the faces for an explanation. Trudy Mitchell looked like she wanted to murder someone, which was highly unusual. Jenson would not meet her eyes—equally unusual.

Ronald stepped forward. “Because, Selma, as you can see, there's no more room.”

“There is
always
more room,” growled Trudy.

“Momma—” Jenson began.

“Trudy,” said Ronald, “we agreed to abide by the will of the majority.”

“The will of the…” Selma studied the people in the dimness, taut faces shiny with fear. All white. And she knew every one of them, knew more about them than even their own families did. Secrets, they told them all to Selma. They had to, if they wanted her help. No one else knew Warren Hickson had another wife and child in Fort Lauderdale, who he visited every two weeks. No one else knew Cyril's mother, after her eleventh child, put saltpeter in her husband's coffee. No one else knew Ed Henderson spent all his time on the
Princess
because he was fascinated by one of the deckhands. The secrets twinkled in their eyes, little pinpricks of light. “And what might that be, Mr. LeJeune?”

Nathan began to wail, as if to remind them he was there. Missy soothed him. “Quiet now, my boy. We safe now.”

But Marilee Henderson reached for him. “Give him to me, Missy. You're done in.”

“He fine,” said Missy and shifted him higher on her shoulder. Her limbs shook with exhaustion, but he weighed nothing as far as she was concerned. She would carry him forever if need be. “We got this far together. We fine,” she said firmly.

Ronald turned to Selma. “You must see the sense of it. The shelter isn't big enough to hold everyone, so we have to choose.” He paused, as if unsure what to say next. “So I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We decided, all of us.” He gestured to include the whole room. No one spoke. He cleared his throat. “The coloreds…you folks, will have to go.”

“Go? Go where, Mr. LeJeune? You know what it's like outside. You'd send us out into that banshee storm?”

Violet sniffed. Abe wiped his nose on her skirt. Lionel put his twig-like arm around her shoulders.

Cynthia said, “Ronnie, can't we—”

“You know we can't, Cindy,” he said quietly.

The wind slammed into the building. The force was like the impact of a solid object. Water sprayed through the walls. The lanterns went out. Children cried out in the dark, and women screamed. Someone turned on a flashlight.

“This isn't our way,” said Jenson. “These people are our neighbors. We'll make room. We'll—

“You idiot, you'll kill us all!” said Ronald. “We made a decision, all of us.” The bandage on his cheek cast strange shadows on his face, like it was some kind of malignant growth. The crying subsided into quiet sobs. “It's agreed. We all agreed.”

Ike stepped forward into the circle of light. “I should have finished you when I had the chance.” There was no mistaking the menace in his voice.

A metallic click. “Take one more step, Ike,” said Ronald. “Just one more.” The flashlight's weak beam glowed dully on the barrel of the revolver. “I don't want it to be this way. It doesn't have to be this way. Not if you go now. Please. Just go.”

Selma looked around but no one met her eyes. The store shook like a die in a cup. Her skin prickled with the electric tingle of imminent panic. She stared into each face, willing each to remember this moment. Her gaze settled last on Jenson, who looked like a man torn apart from the inside.

She straightened her shoulders. “We going,” she said. “And when we gone, y'all best think on how you gonna explain this to your Maker. Because you be seein' him soon, I promise you that. Real soon.” On her way past Jenson, she murmured, “For shame.”

“Where's Mama?” cried Missy in desperation. “Anyone seen my Mama?”

Violet said, “I ain't seen her since she went to Doc's.”

Missy buried her face in Nathan's neck. Marilee stepped forward. “Missy,” she said gently, “you've got to leave the baby here, with us. He belongs here. He'll be safe here.”

“No! No, you cain't. I won't let you. I—”

But Selma took him from her arms and handed him to Marilee. Nathan howled in distress, stretched pudgy hands out to Missy, and kicked his feet. Selma said, “She right, Missy. You got to leave him. These his people. And he safer here.”

And with that, Selma opened the door to…silence.

Traitorous stars shone within a circle of swirling cloud. Their light touched only water, as far as she could see, punctuated by a few blasted trees and pieces of wood, where there should be dry land. Houses, businesses. Just piles of timber and crushed concrete.

“It over!” shouted little Abe. “We can go home now!”

“It ain't over,” said Selma. “We under the eye.” She made a quick study of the circle of clear sky above them. It was devilishly small, which meant the back side of the hurricane would be upon them soon. She reckoned they had maybe twenty minutes. Probably less. There was only one place she could think of where there might still be room to shelter. “Run, everyone!” she yelled. “Make for the station! Get in them boxcars quick, and stay there!”

“But what about Mama?” said Missy. “I gotta find Mama.” She clutched at her empty, Nathan-less arms. “I got to find her.” Her bare feet stumbled around in an aimless circle.

“Missy!” But she did not seem to hear. Selma took her by the shoulders and shook her, hard. Missy's eyes were wild with grief, her mind poisoned by it. She had lost too much, too fast. Doc's office was not far. While things were calm, she had time to get there and back. Just about enough time. To be caught in the open, once the eye passed over, was…
Well, no time to think on that now.
Despite the humid heat, Selma shivered. “I'll find her if she at Doc's. You take the others to the station. You hear me? Get in them boxcars and don't come out, not for anything, you understand?” Missy acknowledged her with a nod. “Come on, girl,” Selma said. “MOVE!”

As Selma's splashes faded into the distance, Missy looked around at the scared, tired faces of the others refused a place in the store. Old Lionel looked about ready to drop, but he had an arm around a tearful Violet. Something was wrong with Ike. He seemed to be arguing with someone who wasn't there. None of the others were in much better shape. Several had already been hurt on the way to the store.

She didn't want to run anymore. She wanted to be alone, with her memories of Nathan and Henry, and pray for Mama and wait for Selma.

They all stood in a miserable huddle, looking expectantly at her.

A small hand tugged at hers. Abe said, “Selma say you take us.”

“Go on,” she said. “I be along soon.”

But Abe would not release her hand. He began to pull her in the wrong direction. The rail yard was not too far, maybe two miles away, but it would be easy to get lost in the darkness with all the familiar landmarks gone. For her whole life, she'd had an unerring ability to find her way, wherever she needed to go. So much so that the other kids used to leave her deep in the swamp to see if she made it home, and she always did. Just about the only learning she ever got from Billy was how to steer by the stars, but more than that, she could always tell the right way from the wrong way by how it felt.

She cast a look at the sky. The storm's eye had begun to move away. Nothing but darkness behind.

“Not that way,” she said. “This way.”

And just like that, they were off.

• • •

Dwayne had lost his bearings. Impossible to do, he would have said, a few hours before. They should have reached the store by now, but the absence of landmarks meant they could have been driving in circles. There was no beach to use as a reference point. All was wind-whipped water, in every direction.

The truck's wheels thumped into something hard. He tried to back up but there was only the grind of metal on metal. And then a wave broke over the hood and poured into the cabin. They were submerged up to their waists. With an angry hiss of steam, the engine died.