“Call the warden and tell him to get the state police moving in from the other side,” he answered.
“What about us?” Claxton said.
“You’ll stay here till we catch them,” Evans said.
“It’s getting cold. Let us get in the truck,” Daddy Claxton said.
“I’m going to send Rainack over here to watch you. Don’t move till we get back.”
“We didn’t help them. How come we can’t go to the barracks with the rest,” the old man said.
“Because you all think you’re so goddamn smart playing closemouth,” Evans said.
“Go get Rainack,” the captain said.
Evans walked down the line and came back.
“He’s coming. I told him to get a couple of rifles out of the pickup,” he said.
“I’m an old man. I can’t stay out in the wet like this,” Daddy Claxton said.
Rainack came through the rain with two rifles that were slung upside down over his shoulder to keep the barrels dry. They were ’03 Springfields that had been bought from the government. He swung them off his shoulder by the slings and handed them to the captain. He reached under his slicker and took a handful of shells out of his pocket.
“This is all there is,” he said, giving the cartridges to the captain. “The rest is corroded.”
The captain handed one rifle to Evans, and they opened the bolts and loaded. The heavily grained military stocks were rubbed with linseed oil. There was a thin spray of rust on the butt plate of Evans’ rifle.
They went around the farther end of the ditch to the far side of the clearing and moved into the trees with the other guards. The captain spread his men out through the woods. Rainack got in the back of the truck and sat on one of the benches. He took out his tobacco and rolled a cigarette. He struck a match on the wall of the truck, covered the flame with his hands, and exhaled the smoke into the damp air.
“They’re gone now,” Claxton said. “Let us get out of the rain.”
Rainack smoked in silence.
“Come on, nobody will know the difference. We ain’t going to say nothing. I’m soaked plumb through.”
“You heard the orders. You got to stay there till they get back.”
“They ain’t going to know,” Claxton said.
“I got my orders. If it was just me I wouldn’t mind,” Rainack said.
Claxton stepped towards the truck.
“Stay where you are.”
“I had pneumonia once. I ain’t strong enough to pull through it again.”
“I can’t do nothing for you.”
“Don’t expect a bastard to act like a decent man,” LeBlanc said.
“What did you say?”
“I said you’re a bastard.”
“The box didn’t seem to teach you nothing,” Rainack said.
“Let the old man out of the rain,” LeBlanc said.
“I’m going to tell Evans about this when you get back.”
“Come out here and do something yourself.”
“You should be in a crazy house,” Rainack said.
“Why didn’t you go with the others? You’re going to miss the shooting.”
“I don’t want to hear no more from you.”
“You can hit a man through the eye at two hundred yards with a Springfield,” LeBlanc said.
“Shut up.”
Daddy Claxton began to cough.
“Let him get in the truck,” Toussaint said.
“I got my orders.”
“Don’t ask him nothing. He’d let the old man spit blood before he’d do anything,” LeBlanc said.
“Take my hat,” Avery said.
“I’m obliged to you,” Claxton said.
He put it low on his head. The wet locks of gray hair stuck to his forehead. He began coughing again. The rain poured out of the sky in steady swirling sheets. The irrigation ditch was almost filled. The embankment was washed smooth with the level of the ground. Roots and pieces of broken tree branches floated on the water. A moccasin slithered across the surface. The red water rippled back in a V behind his black head. He tried to work himself up on the bank and the current sucked him out again. He reared his head up as though climbing into the air and struck at the bank and tried to coil his body on the clay. He slipped out and was caught by a floating branch and pulled under.
The rain stung Avery’s eyes. His fingers were pinched and white from the water. He felt the cold beginning to numb his feet. Brother Samuel looked straight ahead at the trees. His oversized clothes hung wetly from his body. Toussaint, Claxton, and LeBlanc stood with their heads slightly bowed, the rain sluicing off their hats. They looked blankly at the rivulets running through the mud. Brother Samuel stared at the place in the woods where the guards had entered.
“They ain’t coming back,” he said.
“They’ll be in Mississippi come morning,” Claxton said.
“He was carrying a spirit. I seen the sign. I shouldn’t have used my powers to heal him.”
“Don’t worry about them boys. They’re young. They can take care of theirself,” Daddy Claxton said. “It’s us old ones got to stand out in the rain and die from pneumonia.”
“I thought I was doing right and I done wrong,” Brother Samuel said.
“You didn’t do nothing wrong,” Toussaint said. “If they get shot it’s their bad luck. You didn’t have nothing to do with it.”
“I went back on my promise to the Lord and had dealings with the Black Man. I should have knowed better. Billy Jo and Jeffry is going to pay for what I done.”
He took the wood disk and its leather cord from around his neck and held it in his hand. The letters on it were cut deeply in the wood. He wound the cord tightly around the disk.
“What are you doing?” LeBlanc said.
“I’m giving up my powers.” He threw the disk across the clearing into the canal. It splashed into the water and floated along in the current. He took the snake fang and turtle foot from his pocket. He jabbed the fang into the shriveled foot and threw it against the opposite bank. It hit and rolled into the ditch.
“You mean you ain’t got no more powers now?” Daddy Claxton said.
“I done renounced,” Brother Samuel said.
“Just throwing them things away and you can’t heal no more?”
“I done it too late. Jeffry and Billy Jo is going to stand before judgment today.”
“They can take care of theirself. They ain’t old and wore down,” Claxton said.
“They’ll go before the Lord with the evil spirit clinging to their souls, and the Lord will look down at them and turn His face away. He’ll point His finger at them and lightning will strike from His hand and the spirit will drag them down to the shade.”
An hour passed. The rain lessened and then began again in a fresh downpour. The trees shook in the wind. Bits of dead leaves lay in the pools. The clearing was rutted with deep tire tracks where the trucks had passed. The warden, the parish sheriff and two deputies had driven out to the line and had become stuck. The car sunk down to its hubs and the tires spun and whined deeper. The smell of burnt rubber filled the air. The deputies got out and pushed and the mud splattered their uniforms, but the car didn’t move. Gang five was ordered to push them out. Toussaint got the jack from the trunk and jacked up the rear end. They put leaves and brush under the wheels and let the jack down. They lifted up the rear bumper, and while the warden accelerated they bounced the car out of the ruts. Then Rainack took them back over to the truck, and he got inside and they remained in the rain.
It was two o’clock and Avery’s legs felt weak under him. He had his eyes closed and his face tingled from the steady beating of the rain. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He thought of when he used to work on the exploration crew on the Gulf. It seemed long ago. He remembered the hot, clear days on the drill barge and the easy roll of the swell, the few whitecaps in the distance, the long flat blue-green of the water and the way the trout jumped in the morning, their sides silver and speckled with red in the sun, and at night when they laid the trotline out. The next day it would be heavy with catfish, and there was the good feel of rope in his hands when he moored the jug boat to the rusty bulkhead of the barge, and the pitch of the deck when the weather got rough and they had to put on life jackets because someone was always getting washed overboard when they went out to pick up the recording cable, and the cans of explosives that were screwed end to end and were run down through the drill pipe below the floor of the Gulf, and the battery and detonator that the shooter used to set off the charge and the way the iron barge would slam and jar when the explosion went off, and the acrid yellow smoke that floated back off the water and would give you a headache if you breathed it, and going back inland on the launch after the hitch was over with everybody getting drunk and talking about going to whorehouses and staying there until the next hitch began, and the island off the coast with the pavilion among the cypress where they served chilled wine and the beer came in beaded mugs.