Richard Ford - A Piece of My Heart

He was disgusted for not thinking any respectable boy would keep a 30–06 behind the door on the chance some old buck might lose his bearings and decide to browse the front yard, in which case you were entitled to a shot just to protect your property from depredation. He picked a little sliver out of his cheek and pinched it through the glass pucker and took another look at the Plymouth, which was nothing but a hump in the dirt spray. Water had risen higher now than last year’s rows and just the woody plants were visible above the surface.

When he pulled up at the junction he could barely see W. barreling down the straight stretch of road a mile and a quarter in the field.

He turned right into the force of the rain and beat the accelerator and got the truck hissing back down the phone lines toward Elaine.

He knew already from the old man’s map that 185 just quit, kicked out into a rat’s nest of farm roads and hog trails that he knew nothing about and that W. stood a better chance of knowing about and using to an advantage. He figured he could go on into Mississippi, but that there was just the chance somebody would be manning the boll weevil quarantine at the other end, and he’d get tied up on account of his plates, and W. would come off the ramp shooting every direction and killing people. And then, too, if he got across, there wasn’t anyplace to go where he knew anything.

It would be best of all, he figured, if he could just open enough distance between him and W. to get back onto the island, and hold him off from the shore with the old man’s pistol, and hope in a while he’d forget about it and go on home.

He could see W. lagging back, still bracking down the farm lane in a mud fury, like a tornado dragging the tailpipe. At eighty-five the chassis began agitating, and wind funneled in the holes and stirred up more glass, and he let it back to eighty, considering the small good it would do to slide off in a ditch and have W.W. pot him like a sparrow in a birdbath. Which made him think for the first time how much serious peril there was of getting swept off exactly like his old man. And after he’d already decided he’d made it out, by staying clear of the evil Beuna wanted to get him into, as a way of convincing him that inasmuch as they were in the same bad way they might as well enjoy it. Because he’d seen the trap already. If he refused whatever included her little plastic bag, then he refused that he and she were in the same boat. And that was what had made her lead him right to W.W., a desire to end the dispute by cutting the knot. She was just determined that if she had to live with herself, she was going to let everybody else see how their lives had brought them as low. And in his case she was ready to have him see it just as he drew his last breath with her sitting in the mud shrieking.

He lit a cigarette. The blood dried on his temples and he could feel his skin crusty. When he passed the turnoff for Mississippi he couldn’t see W.W. anymore. The highway bent around the course of the old river, then wound back toward the west, obliterating his view of the road and making him feel apprehensive since he couldn’t gauge the distance and couldn’t gauge his chance of getting across before W. could start pounding away at the lake.

The road sprung back east, passed over a cypress bayou, then fell along the straight open stretch of highway toward Elaine, where he could see the store bumped in the low distance above the cotton fields.

He tossed the cigarette and got a look at the road behind him, and saw nothing in the drizzle. To the west were long latitudinal flecks of waxy light at the rear of the storm, which still grayed the sky for miles. He thought the day would turn warm and be clear by nightfall.

He turned down off by Goodenough’s and glimpsed the window where the old lady stood and watched the sky develop, but no one was there, and he aimed straight out toward the levee.

It bothered him about Newel and he wished he hadn’t remembered it, inasmuch as there wasn’t anything. At one time it might have been Beuna, though she hadn’t ever had a real hold on him and couldn’t have wormed inside enough to break his heart.

He passed the two foundered machines. A car was just out of the cypress, a pillar of rain behind it, but he couldn’t make out who it was. He wiped the glass, but couldn’t see.

He set off down the lee side of the levee, getting a little anxious about taking a boat without asking. The road flattened through the sycamores and crossed the gap. There were no lights in Gaspareau’s little house and none of the dogs was out, and the row of cabins seemed as empty as they had been. He drove up under the willows and stared quickly at the last of the cabins, where he thought he saw some motion and color behind one of the torn screens, though it didn’t materialize.

Mr. Lamb’s Traveler was hitched at the end of the dock, the All State still fastened to the transom, dipping in the rain. He put on his jacket, stashed his clothes behind the seat, and got out.

He listened for the wheeze of W.’s Plymouth, but he could hear only the sough of the rain and the pearls of water dropping off the sycamore leaves.

He went down and surveyed the bottom of the boat and decided he’d have to go without bailing. He untied the painter, stepped in, and kicked away from the dock into the water. The boat began to drift backward in the breeze, and he balanced in the back, gave the motor a jerk, and let it flood out. He looked back at the row of cabins and whipped it again, and it bawled and kicked up smoke and lake bottom and rose partway out before he could catch the throttle and push the cowling down.

He wheeled and started down the lake the way Landrieu had approached free of the shallows, admitting that much more space between him and W., if W. arrived while he was half across and decided to go ahead and start shooting right away.

He took a look, expecting to see back up through the willows to the levee top, and instead saw someone who was not W.W. and was not Gaspareau, and didn’t seem to be anyone he’d ever seen before on earth. He came clear of the shallows and piloted toward the middle of the lake and opened the throttle. The rain had started again full stream, and the boat slipped out over the tiny white wavelets that were headed toward the shore four hundred yards away.

He looked at the figure on the dock. The man was tall and built slenderly and wore only a T-shirt and pants and no provision for the weather. He held a long slender rifle he was just fitting to his shoulder with a fat bulb-ended scope bolted to the receiver. He stared at the man, wondering what he might be doing and who he was, and had it break on him it was the boy from the road sale, the boy Gaspareau had sent over for the old man’s guarding job. It seemed clear he was left to guard the camp, and was probably right now under the impression he was stealing a boat to get over, since the island was as vacant as the camp appeared to be, and open season for whoever could get across and create mayhem.

The boy stood for a long time with the gun to his shoulder, sighting in the scope as the boat slid farther and farther out onto the lake. He scowled at the boy, trying to figure out measures to take, without having to turn around and go back and risk getting cornered by W. before he could make it clear he wasn’t converting anything and get back on the water.

The boat passed the quarter way in the lake, and the size of the boy was diminishing, making him feel better. Though he could still see the boy clearly, sighting the scope, dropping the barrel periodically and looking out on the lake with just his eyes as if he were estimating the real distance to what he could actually see in the glass. He looked up the levee but couldn’t see anything, and it made him uncomfortable again.