Margaret turned to Lydia. “I’ll be right back.” She took Theodore’s hand, and they ran across the clearing toward Hank’s hut. The sun had just set, and there was nothing but a small pink and gold glow in the purple sky. She stepped inside the dark hut.
Hank lay in the corner.
She moved swiftly, Theodore right behind her.
“See?”
Margaret squatted down and looked at Hank. He was frighteningly still.
“Is he dead?”
She laid her ear on his chest, which suddenly shuddered as he inhaled in a loud snore.
Theodore jumped.
“It’s okay. Stand back a bit.” She crawled forward, and squinting, she brought her face close to Hank’s. Her eyes teared from the whiskey fumes.
He’s dead all right, she thought, sitting back on her heels and waving his breath away. Dead drunk. She leaned over him and spotted a half-empty bottle of whiskey clutched tightly in his hand. Theodore shifted closer.
“He’s asleep,” she lied, prying the bottle from his rough hand.
Hank snorted like a pen of hungry pigs and flung his other hand over his head, then muttered a string of words that turned her face bright red.
She carefully hid the whiskey bottle in the folds of her skirt. She placed her hand on Theodore’s shoulder and blocked his view of Hank. “Come along. You can stay with us. We should leave Mr. Wyatt to hisrest.”
“But I was s’pposed to stay here tonight.”
She couldn’t see the boy’s expression, but she could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“He said I could ’cause I helped build the hut. He said he’d let me play his harmonica.”
“I know.” She slid her arm around his shoulder and gently guided him from the hut. “Another night, okay?”
There was a loud snore from behind them. She wanted to clobber Hank Wyatt.
Theodore walked quietly beside her, his head down and his feet dragging through the sand. Again she felt a rush of anger at Hank.
Kicking sand in front of him, Theodore scuffed over to a palm tree where they had tied up the goat for the night. He talked quietly to the animal.
She took a deep breath and looked around, because she knew that the anger she felt wouldn’t help any of them.
There was no moon yet, and just a few stars had begun to glitter in the vast blue-black sky. In the nearby bushes, night bugs chittered while the waves methodically pounded the beach like war drums.
She watched Theodore say good night to the goat and reluctantly enter the tepee, his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulders sagging. It just ate at her to see disappointment in a child, especially a little boy who already had more pain than any five-year-old should.
Pausing at the entrance, she looked across the clearing to the hut. How could anyone be so selfish? She lifted the half-empty whiskey bottle and stared at it for a long time, then shook her head in disgust. What a complete waste.
* * *
By the timethe moonhad risen, the temperature dropped by several degrees and the wind had picked up. The cracks in the thatch of the tepee glowed with golden light from the tilley lamp. Inside Margaret sat with Annabelle in her lap while Lydia and Theodore were huddled under blankets.
According to Theodore, it was story time.
“And then the wolf said”—Theodore lowered his voice--Open up, little piggy, and let me in or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!’ “
“Assault, unlawful entry,” Margaret murmured. Theodore nodded. “He was a bad wolf.”
“Bad wolf!” Annabelle said. “Sit! Sit! Sit! Bad wolf!”
