Half of Paradise (18 page)

“I ain’t worrying.”

Somewhere in the distance a train whistle blew. They could hear the rush of the engine and the rumble of the wheels. They never saw the train except the day they rode it to prison and the day they left. There was an old story that if an inmate saw the train’s headlamp shining at him out of the darkness he would be released from the camp soon. The whistle blew again and the men sat in silence. Even Jeffry did not speak. The train was closer now and the whistle shrieked once more in the quiet of the night.

“The midnight special going to glory,” Brother Samuel said. “Shine your light on me.”

Three weeks passed and the sky became like scorched brass. The air was hot and dry, and the wind blew across the land like heat from an oven. Dark thunderclouds were spread over the horizon, but the rains didn’t come. At night the heat lightning flashed in the sky, and black strips of rain clouds floated across the moon. The earth was cracked from lack of water. The grass in the fields was burnt yellow and whispered dryly in the hot wind. The men waited for the rains to drench the parched ground, and the thunder clapped and rattled over the horizon like someone beating a sheet of corrugated tin against the sky.

Gang five was still working on the irrigation canal the day LeBlanc was brought to camp. A pickup truck ground along the right-of-way in second gear and stopped close to the ditch. LeBlanc sat in the front seat between two guards. He got out on the driver’s side, and the other guard slid out behind him. LeBlanc’s face was marked with scars and the bridge of his nose was crooked. He hadn’t had a haircut since he had been arrested, and the hair along his neck stuck down over his shirt collar. The two guards walked him to the area where gang five was working.

“Here’s a new one, Evans. He just got in from Angola. The warden told me to bring him on down and get him started,” the driver said.

“What’s his name?” Evans said.

“LeBlanc.”

“I been expecting him. You all can go on. I’ll get him a pick and put him to work.”

“Watch him. He spit on the cop that brought him on the train.”

“He won’t do that here.”

The guards got into the pickup, turned it around, and drove back along the right-of-way towards the gravel road.

“Come with me,” Evans said.

They went to the line shack and LeBlanc was issued a pick. They went back to the ditch.

“I ain’t eat breakfast yet,” LeBlanc said.

“You should have told them when they checked you through the office.”

“I did. Them guards was supposed to take me to the mess hall.”

“They was probably in a hurry. Get down in the ditch and go to work. You can eat at lunch time.”

“I ain’t used to working on an empty stomach.”

“You’ll get used to a lot of things around here. You come into camp with a bad record or they wouldn’t have put you on my gang. Step out of line and you’ll wish you was back in the hospital. Now start sweating some grease into that pick handle.”

“I ain’t got much use for people that wear uniforms.”

“Get down in the ditch.”

He climbed over the mound of clay and slid down the embankment.

“Hi, LeBlanc,” Avery said. “When did they bring you in?”

“I come on the train this morning.”

“How was it at the hospital?”

“They sewed up my face and put my ribs back together. I still got to wear some tape around my sides.”

“I wasn’t sure you were going to make it. You looked pretty bad when they carried you out of the jail,” Avery said.

“I’m going to even up things back there sometime.”

“You better forget about it for a while.”

“I aim to get things straight. I owe some people for messing up my face.”

“What was Evans talking to you about?”

“Who’s Evans?” LeBlanc said.

“The hack.”

“I give a cop some trouble.”

“What did you do?”

“I spit on him at the front gate.”

“Who’s the new guy?” Billy Jo said. “This is LeBlanc,” Avery said. “He came in from Angola.”

“What happened to your face?” Jeffry said. “I fell on the sidewalk playing hopscotch.”

“I was in Angola,” Billy Jo said. “So was Daddy Claxton.”

“I was there when they was going to set fire to the hacks,” Daddy Claxton said.

“Who done that to your face?” Jeffry said. “Them stitches ain’t been out very long.”

“He was in a fight,” Avery said.

“The other guy must have been using a ball bat.’

“My face ain’t your business,” LeBlanc said.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“Stare at something else, then,” LeBlanc said.

“This is the best gang in camp,” Billy Jo said. “Everybody here is doing life or they showed the hacks they don’t take crap.”

“You got a cigarette on you?” Daddy Claxton said.

“They took them away from me at the office.”

“What are you pulling?” Billy Jo said.

“Three and seven.”

“Daddy and Brother Samuel is pulling life,” Jeffry said.

The dust rose from the earth as the men worked. LeBlanc rested his pick and took off his shirt. There was a wide band of tape around his ribs and stomach. He swung the pick into the ground.

“You got something busted?” Billy Jo said.

“It’s healed up now.”

“Brother Samuel can heal it for you if it ain’t right,” Jeffry said.

“There ain’t anything wrong with me,” LeBlanc said.

“Who done it to you?” Jeffry said.

“Let the man be,” Brother Samuel said.

“I was only asking.”

“Listen to the thunder. Maybe we’ll get some rain tonight,” Daddy Claxton said.

“It ain’t going to rain. We’ll be breathing this goddamn dust the rest of the year,” Billy Jo said.

“Not us. We only got a week to pull,” Jeffry said.

“Shut up,” Billy Jo said.

“Why is everybody on my ass today?”

“Because you ask for it,” Billy Jo said.

“I ain’t done a thing and everybody is getting on my ass about it.”

“Then shut your mouth and we’ll leave you alone.”

“I can smell the rain in the air,” Daddy Claxton said. “Like a paper mill. They say it means somebody is going to die when it stays dry a long time and then it rains.”

“This weather ain’t natural,” Brother Samuel said. “I only seen it like this once before. The sky was yellow and the sun was like a red ball. When the rains come the fever come too, and people was dropping dead in the marsh like sick rabbits. They was still finding bodies two months later.”

“It’s a drought. Ain’t you guys ever seen a drought before?” Billy Jo said.

“This one ain’t natural,” Brother Samuel said. “It means something.”

“Where do you get a drink of water around here?” LeBlanc said.

“Call for the trusty.”

“Where is he?”

“Down the ditch someplace.”

“Don’t drink too much water if you can help it,” Avery said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It makes you sick.”

“Trusty! Bring the water barrel,” Billy Jo said.

“Why ain’t there any decent water?” LeBlanc said.

“The state don’t want to pay for digging a new well,” Jeffry said.

The trusty brought the water can. LeBlanc drank from the dipper.

“I wouldn’t water stock with this,” he said. He threw the dipper inside the can. The water splashed over the rim.

“What the hell!” the trusty said. “You got my shirt wet.”

“Go put some clean water in the can,” LeBlanc said.

“That’s all there is. You drink the same as everybody else.”

“What’s going on down there?” Evans said from the top of the ditch.

“This guy don’t want to drink the water.”

“Let him go thirsty,” Evans said.

“This water come out of a swamp,” LeBlanc said.

The other men had stopped work to watch. LeBlanc’s eyes shone hotly at Evans. The scars and the holes where his cuts had been stitched were pink against his face.

“You’re starting off your stretch the wrong way,” Evans said.

“Was you ever in the army? You look like the kind they got in the stockade,” LeBlanc said.

“Cool down,” Avery said.

“You always got a uniform and a gun, and sometimes they let you carry a stick to bust somebody’s ribs with. I seen them like you in the stockade.”

“You want to spend your first day in detention?”

The trusty started to move off with the water barrel.

“Come back here,” LeBlanc said. He grabbed the water barrel and pulled the lid off. “Look at it. It’s swamp water.”

“That water come out of a tap,” Evans said.

“You try it.”

“You’re talking yourself right into detention.”

“Drink it,” LeBlanc said. He held the barrel up at Evans. “Drink it, you fat swine. Drink it till your fat belly is full of worms.”

“God damn you. Get up here. I’m going to make you sweat your ass off for that.”

“You filthy swine.” LeBlanc hurled the barrel at Evans’ head. The water whirled out in a shower over the men.

Evans had his pistol in his hand and was blowing his whistle. Two guards came running from further down the ditch. The inmates had scattered along the canal when Evans drew his weapon. Picks and shovels were strewn over the ground. The wheelbarrow lay overturned on a mound of dirt.

“Bring him up here,” Evans said.

The guards slid down the side of the ditch and came towards LeBlanc. He stepped back and raised his pick over his shoulder. They stopped and one of them, a lean rough-skinned man named Rainack, drew his revolver and cocked the hammer and aimed it at LeBlanc’s head.

“I won’t miss,” he said.

“For God’s sake, put it down, LeBlanc,” Avery said.

“It’s three to one, and you ain’t got but one swing with that pick,” Evans said.

“Come closer and I’ll pin you to the ground,” LeBlanc said.

“Quit while you got a chance,” the other guard said.

“I seen your kind in the stockade. They know how to use a billy club real good. They know how to jab you where it hurts and it don’t show.”

“Let go of the pick.”

“They’ve got you. Put it down,” Avery said. “You can’t beat them like this. LeBlanc, listen to me. For God’s sake. He means what he says. He’ll kill you.”

“I ain’t waiting much longer,” the guard named Rainack said. “A few more seconds and you’re a dead man.”

Avery broke towards LeBlanc in an attempt to grab the pick. Toussaint dove into his body and dragged him against the wall of the ditch and held him there. Avery fought to get loose, saying, “He’s sick, he was in the war and his mind’s not right, don’t you understand, he should be in a hospital, you can’t shoot him down, Evans, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he thinks you’re somebody in a stockade—”

“Be still,” Toussaint said.

“Make your play one way or another,” Rainack said.

LeBlanc remained motionless, the pick held in the air above his shoulder, while his eyes moved slowly over the two guards in the ditch and then looked up at Evans. He lowered the pick and dropped it by his foot.

“I ain’t going to let you kill me,” he said. “You wouldn’t have to worry about me no more. You’d like to shoot me. You want me to make it easy for you so there won’t be no kickbacks from the warden or an investigation. Well, I’m going to stay alive, because when I get out of wherever you lock me up I’m going to kill that man standing on the ditch.”

“You ain’t going to do nothing,” Rainack said, “except lay in the box and pray Jesus you was dead.”

“I’m going to kill you,” he said to Evans. “Do you hear me? I’m going to get you, or I hope I die and go to hell.”

The guard jabbed his revolver in LeBlanc’s side and shoved him towards the embankment.

“You’ll think you’re in hell when you’ve been in the box a few hours,” Rainack said. “Get up there.”

LeBlanc picked up his straw hat and his shirt and climbed up the embankment with the two guards behind him. He draped his shirt over his shoulder and put on his hat. Evans still held his pistol in his hand.

“Did you hear what I said? I’m going to kill you, you fat-bellied swine.”

Evans whipped his pistol barrel across LeBlanc’s taped ribs. He grabbed at his sides with both hands and doubled over. His teeth were clenched and his eyes glazed in pain. His black hair hung down over his face, and his knees were buckling as though he were going to fall.

“You goddamn, I’ll get, oh you goddamn, oh goddamn.…”

“Get him out of here,” Evans said.

A guard took him by each arm and led him, doubled over, to one of the trucks. The sweat on his back glistened in the sun. The tape around his ribs was moist and pulling loose from his skin. His hat fell from his head and rolled on the ground. Rainack stooped to pick it up, and threw it inside the cab of the truck and pushed LeBlanc in after it.

“Pick up the tools and go to work,” Evans said to the men.

He put his revolver in his holster and snapped the leather strap over the hammer to hold it secure. Daddy Claxton turned the wheelbarrow right side up and began to refill it with his shovel, and the rest of the men picked up their tools and went to work. Evans watched them a minute and then walked farther down the line.

“Did you see Evans’ face when he called him a fat swine?” Billy Jo said. “He would have shot him if the rest of us hadn’t been here.”

“He’s mean enough to do it,” Daddy Claxton said.

“I never seen him so pissed off. Not even at Toussaint,” Jeffry said.

“He don’t like to be called fat,” Brother Samuel said. “He always wears his pistol belt over his stomach to hide it.”

“I seen it in his face. He would have shot that guy dead if we wasn’t here,” Billy Jo said.

“That guy was talking like he was ready for the nut house,” Jeffry said. “What was all that about the stockade and the army?”

“He was in a military prison somewhere,” Avery said.

“You liked to got in the middle of it yourself,” Brother Samuel said.

“It wouldn’t make no difference to Evans who he shot. He don’t care. He likes to hurt anybody,” Jeffry said.

“The water can didn’t miss Evans’ head but about two inches,” Billy Jo said. “God, I’d like to seen him catch it full in the face.”

“You think he means it about killing Evans?” Jeffry said.