He gave her a long, unreadable look. “My education came from the streets, Smitty. There were no Charles Darwins.” He stood straight and tall, his look challenging. “I don’t use my mind to question life. I use it to stay alive.”
She watched him and realized he was truly angry, and his voice was even more bitter. She moved toward him, then placed her hand gently on his arm. “Hank?”
He stared down at her from a face that gave nothing away.
“You have no reason to be ashamed.”
He looked at her hand, then stared off some place over her head. “The children need you.”
She’d been dismissed. “Hank...”
He turned and said nothing, just walked past her and across to a brow of rocks that jutted out over a crescent of white beach sand. He jumped down into the sand and stood there, his back to her, his hands shoved into his pockets, staring out at the lagoon.
“Hank, please...”
“Who the hell said I was ashamed?”
She’d said exactly the wrong thing. She stared at his hard back and took a couple of steps. “I’m not trying to fight with you.”
“Good. Because you’d lose. Now get the hell outta here.”
20
Over the next few days, the weather was their friend. The winds had been only light island breezes, and to Margaret’s relief, there had been no rain. They had started the new hut—a combined project. Within a couple of days, the hut had a frame sturdy enough to withhold the monsoon storms Hank grumbled about, and it had strong walls of woven leaves and tied bamboo.
Like a neutral country, the new shelter sat in the clearing on a spot exactly halfway between the original huts. It was a long and narrow bungalow type structure with window shutters that could close the hut off tightly from the driving tropical rains, yet could be propped open with levers of bamboo to let the sunshine and trade breeze through.
There was one door, and like the shutters, it was made from rods of strong bamboo tied tightly together. A barrel filled with fresh water sat near the door. There were hammocks woven of copra for sleeping and mats for sitting.
A flat-topped trunk was a table and smaller barrels served as stools. The tilley lit the hut, but the fuel was quickly disappearing. They had little in the way of comforts.
There was some argument about a kitchen. A comment from Hank about needing a volunteer fire department. Margaret conceded when she burned five mangoes, then spent an hour making notes in the sand about what island foods were eaten cooked and what were eaten raw.
Hank’s dark mood hadn’t much changed. For some reason, Margaret was certain that their Darwin conversation wasn’t the reason for his brooding.
His resentment wasn’t against her, but at the world in general. He remained silent, a man who looked as if he wanted to pick a fight with anyone who would oblige.
In an angry, cutting voice, he’d told Theodore to keep the genie inside the bottle, blustering that Muddy got in the way and distracted everyone—everyone being Hank, who groused about all that damned purple smoke.
But Hank had worked hard, and finally, because they all hounded him, he even let Muddy out of the bottle to help with the roof thatching. That was, however, after Hank had fallen through the roof twice. Purple smoke was nothing compared to the blue air around Hank.
At night, though, he would disappear. In the morning, when Margaret awoke, he would be asleep in one of the hammocks they had made, snoring and sleeping off a binge of drinking.
By the third night she decided to follow him. She figured luck was in her favor since she had only burned half the fish and three breadfruit that evening.
Margaret stepped outside the hut and walked toward the beach. A quarter moon hung high in the black sky, making the sand a little darker and the sea more gray than silver.
In the distance the waves rumbled against the rocks. But other than the booming sound of the sea and the slosh and sizzling sounds of the water hitting the sand, there was nothing else. No gulls, no clicking of the insects, no human voices, just the powerful voice of the Pacific Ocean.
She walked along the beach, her feet padding silently on the spongy sand. The wind picked up and whipped her skirt and hair She searched the high beach and the rocks. She searched the dark corners where the coconut palms looked like open hands against the night sky.
Finally she climbed up onto a stack of rocks near the end of the cove and she saw him sitting on a small crescent of beach, hemmed in on every side by either rocks or sea. There was sheen of moonlight on him and she could see his black hair flow back in the night breeze. He sat in the sand, his arms resting on his bent knees, staring at the black miles of the Pacific.
She didn’t move. Some sixth sense warned her. There was something bleak about him, something that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps she hadn’t noticed it before.
For a few minutes, he looked as if he were part of a vast and distant place. She could see his face, just the outlines, the hard ridges of his jaw, neck, and shoulders. He was like a silhouette on glass—only the solid black outline and no clue as to who or what the person was. Just lines that drafted one’s shape but defined nothing.
She took a step, and some pebbles rattled down the face of a rock.
