Instead of using the bridge, drop down the soft cliff, using a boy’s trick of walking along the face dropping two steps for every step forward.
Now behind the “Quarters,” a long rowhouse, a ruin of soft warm brick which housed sugar-plantation slaves and which, set just above water level on the bayou, was thought of by the Paradise developers as a kind of Natchez-under-the-Hill and so restored and reroofed for domestic servants, even a chapel added so that strains of good old spirituals would come floating up to our patios in the evening, but the domestic preferred their Hollow, dank and fetid though it was. So back to the jungle went the Quarters, new tin roof and all.
A crashing in the vines ahead of me. My heart stops: if it is a sniper, there’s an army of them. Wait. Yes, whew. I spot Colley’s pith helmet and Gottlieb’s fishing cap. It is the Audubon Society, on the trail of the lordly ivorybill.
Moving swiftly in deep shade and without sound on the moss bank of the bayou, I reach the hogback of the island, high and dry now, and climb its gentlest slope, angling for the path and keeping an eye peeled for the roof of the pagoda.
There it is, directly above, but the loess loam, soft as meal, has eroded badly under the near quadrant of the pagoda so that one may no longer walk into it but has to climb up through the vines. Thunder rumbles. A big sour drop spatters on my hand. The wind smells of trees. It is a simple matter to climb into the quadrant, put bag on seat, hold pistol, stand on seat to see over the partition.
Is anyone there?
The two adjacent quadrants are empty. The opposite quadrant? It is difficult to see because the angle between partitions is choked with potato vine and dirt-dauber nests. The space between the eaves and the intersecting rafters allows a view of a stretch of the coast with a church steeple and parade ground. There the Kaydettes are drilling, the sun is shining. By a trick of light and distance, the field seems to be tilted like an Andes farm. Tiny figures march up and down. The twirling batons make silver coins in the sunlight.
Safe in the thunder and wrapped in potato vine, I wait The wind is sour with raindrops but the storm is veering off.
In a brief quiet between thunder rolls, close as close, a man clears his throat So close that I feel my head incline politely as if he were addressing me. In a panic I grip the center post and hollow my throat to keep breathing quiet
“That’s a pretty sight now.” The voice is so close that the dry wood of the partition vibrates like a sounding board.
“They fixing to parade.” A second voice, the sentence uttered civilly, an observation.
“They’ll parade all right.” A third voice, even closer, grim, rich in ironies.
Thunder rolls, covering the voices. Dropping slowly, I sit in the angle, feeling behind me the press and creak of wood as bodies shift weight
“What do we need with him?” asks the third voice.
“Victor’s all right now. He know how to get along with people. Victor what you call our contract man.” First voice: a familiar two-layered voice, one layer speaking to meaning, the other risible, soliciting routine funniness: we might as well be funny as not.
“Contract? Do you mean contact?”
“Contract, contact.”
I recognize two voices but not the third.
The rolling thunder becomes more discrete, coming after lightning cracks. I count the intervals. Two seconds, three. The storm is going away. At the next crack I count four and stand up in the thunder.
Use the potato vine as screen, crane up and over into it, far enough to see through the leaves but not be seen.
The man sitting at the end of the seat, facing the path toward the club, is, I know already, Willard Amadie. Bent forward, forearms on knees, he can look up and see the others, see the path, only by wrinkling his low wide welted forehead. He wears a Marine camouflage coverall. Beside him, propped against the bench, butts grounded, are a rifle and shotgun fitted with straps. Then it was they, not golf irons, that clinked.
Stretched out on the bench, only its forequarters visible, head lolling to the ground, tongue smeared with dust, is a young buck deer.
“No reason why people can’t get along,” says the first voice in the style of uttering platitudes agreeably.
“People?” Voice number three. “What people? I’ll tell the truth, I never know what he’s talking about.”
I know what he’s talking about. People uttered so, in a slight flatting of tone, means white people. Uttered another way, it means black. A third way means people in general.
“I’ll tell you this!” exclaims the first voice, shouting a platitude. “I’m not going have anything to do with people”—second meaning—“who looking to hurt other people.” First meaning. “That’s not what the good Lord intend.”
“The good Lord,” says the third voice. “What is it with this dude? Jesus.”
“Victor is all right. He’s with us. In fact, we couldn’t do without him,” says Willard, looking up from his black welted brow. “He’s for the plan, he’s for the school, don’t worry. Aren’t you, Brother?” The brother too I recognize, though I doubt if number three does. This is Baptist brother: Victor is a deacon in Starlight Baptist Church.
“Sure I’m for it! Education is good for everybody and everybody is entitled to it!”
“I’ll tell you this, Uru,” says Willard. “We need Victor more than he needs us. Where do you think we get our medicine? People respect him.” All kind of people.
“I don’t understand anybody down here. This dude sounds like some old uncle from Memphis.”
“Those old uncles in Memphis are tougher than you think,” says Willard, grinning.
Victor Charles sits opposite Willard, feet planted flat on the ground, hands prone on his knees. A strong, grave, heavy-thighed man, he is purple-black and of an uncertain age. He could be forty and looking older for his dignity. Or he could be sixty and flat-bellied from his life as a laborer. Dressed like a hospital attendant in white duck trousers, white shirt, white interne shoes, he does in fact work in the animal shelter as caretaker. A black belt circles his wide, flat hips, buckle worn to the side and I recall why: so the buckle won’t scrape against the high metal table when he holds the big dogs.
“Look like he not coming,” says Willard after a pause, squeezing his fist in his hand.
Who’s not coming? Me? A corkscrew tightens in my sacrum.
“Where are they going now?” asks the third man.
The other two look toward the coast.
“They marching over to the club for a show this evening,” says Willard. Willard has a slight stammer. Once in a while the words hang in his throat, he touches his eye and out they come, hooting.
“All right Now you know the route Tuesday.”
“Sure I know the route,” hoots Willard.
“How about the brother here?”
Willard and Victor look at each other and laugh.
“I know,” says Victor gravely. “Here,” says Willard, bending over. Something scrapes in the dirt. He’s drawing a map. “Intercept the bus here. Brother, we counting on you to watch them.”
“I’m going to be watching more than them,” says Victor, spreading his fingers over his knees.
“What does he mean?” asks the third man.
“He means you, Brother Uru,” says Willard, laughing.
“Ain’t nobody going to hurt anybody long as I got anything to do with it!” cries Victor. “I mean nobody!”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know,” mutters number three to himself. “What kind of damn country is this?”
“Victor’s going to lead them to Honey Island.”
“That’s right and I’m staying there.”
“What you worrying about, old man?”