The Hard Blue Sky by Shirley Ann Grau Page A

with streaks of muscle and criss-crossing veins.
    “What was that now?” the brown haired man said.
    The three were looking at him—two were hostile, a clear fighting look; and the older man was looking at him appraisingly, not hostile, but not exactly friendly either.
    In its hook by the side of main hatch was the long bronze winch handle. Inky’s fingers closed on it softly. He grinned to himself: that would make the fight more even.
    He could feel the muscles in his stomach tighten and he hunched his shoulders slightly. He had the silly desire to giggle. He could feel his mouth move around, trying to stop it. The three were staring at him, and he realized he must be making faces.
    He forced himself to take deep slow breaths. Inside his shoes his toes curled downward—to get a better hold on the deck.
    Slowly the indecision in the older man’s face faded. When he makes up his mind, Inky thought, they’ll come.
    He waited.
    Then it changed. All of a sudden. He saw it change.
    It was the pimply-faced boy who did it. Inky was watching him. The face that was angry one minute turned confused and then, all of a sudden, guarded.
    With that same careful strange expression on his face, the boy straightened up and laughed, a sharp little laugh that made the others turn to look at him.
    Inky saw it and wondered. He’s remembering something, he thought, you can see him remembering. And it’s changing everything. And he doesn’t want anyone else to know.
    Inky told himself: He’s not going to fight. He’s not afraid, but he just made up his mind.
    “Jesus,” the boy said, “it got to be the heat.” He gave a shrug with one shoulder. Cut across the Pixie and climbed on the dock.
    For a minute the others just stared after him. Then the older man said quietly: “Nothing here that won’t wait for tomorrow, Chep boy. … Lets us go.”
    “I got to get the cigarettes.” Chep got them from the wheelhouse and, with the other, crossed over the Pixie to the dock. As he went, he lit a cigarette, dropping the match, which flickered for a second on the deck and then went out.
    The two of them headed down the dock. Inky picked up the match and tossed it to the water. “Jesus,” he said, “everybody takes it out on the decks.”
    The pimply-faced boy had not gone. He was standing a couple of feet back on the dock, talking to Hector.
    Inky picked up the chamois and rubbed the spot: there was a small burned mark. He threw the cloth through the open hatch, angrily.
    “It wasn’t that bad,” Cecile said. She was still stretched out on the cockpit seat, looking as if nothing had happened.
    “Everything’s swell,” Inky said. “Now who were they?”
    “Livaudais,” Cecile said. “Eddie Livaudais, the old man, and his boy Henry there,” she pointed over her shoulder, “and his brother-in-law.”
    The boy finished talking to Hector and started off. After a few steps he turned and asked: “You know the date?”
    “Who?” Cecile said. “Me?”
    “It’s the ninth,” Hector said.
    “You sure?”
    Cecile said, “I wrote a letter yesterday and I looked at the calendar—that’s what it is, for sure.”
    The boy lifted one hand to rub his cheek, remembered the pimples and dropped the hand again. “Just what I wanted to find out,” he said with a little grin. “The date was bothering me.”
    “How come?”
    “I been working enough these days here,” Henry said. “And I’m figuring to take it easy for a while.”
    “Hell,” Hector said, “wish I was doing it.”
    “Can’t go getting in a fight,” the boy said with that same nervous laugh. And he deliberately didn’t look over toward Inky. “Can’t go getting bashed up when I’m taking a couple of days off.”
    “Wish I was doing that,” Hector said.
    “Going hunting, maybe.” And the boy left.
    “What I don’t get,” Cecile said quietly, “is why they changed their minds.”
    “You got me,” Inky said.
    “Ain’t like a Livaudais.”
    “You saw