eyes, tears of pain and anger, tears that would poison his mind against me. How I wished I could throw myself into his arms and stop what was happening, but I was thwarted and muzzled by reality. 'You don't want to be an artist; you want to be a whore.'
'Paul!'
'That's all, a whore. Well, go on, be with as many different men as you like. See if I care. I was crazy to waste my time on a Landry,' he added and pivoted quickly, his boots kicking up the grass behind him as he rushed away.
My chin dropped to my chest and my body slumped on the cypress log bench. Where my heart had been, there was now a hollow cavity. I couldn't even cry. It was as if everything in me, every part of me had suddenly locked up, frozen, become as cold as stone. The sound of Paul's motor scooter engine reverberated through my body. The old marsh owl lifted his wings and strutted about nervously on the branch, but he didn't lift off. He remained there, watching me, his eyes filled with accusation now.
After Paul left our house, I got up. My legs were very shaky, but I was able to walk back to the roadside stall just as a carload of tourists pulled up. They were young men and women, loud and full of laughter and fun. The men went wild over the pickled lizards and snakes and bought four jars. The women liked Grandmere's handwoven towels and handkerchiefs. After they had bought everything they wanted and loaded their car, one of the young men paused and approached us with his camera.
'Do you mind if I take your pictures?' he asked. 'I'll give you each a dollar,' he added.
'You don't have to pay us for our pictures,' Grandmere replied.
'Oh, yes, he does,' I said. Grandmere Catherine raised her eyebrows in surprise.
'Fine,' the young man said and dug into his pocket to produce the two dollars. I took them quickly. 'Can you smile?' he asked me. I forced one and he snapped his photos. 'Thanks,' he said, and got into the car.
'Why did you make him give us two dollars, Ruby? We haven't taken money from tourists in the past.' Grandmere asked me.
'Because the world is full of pain and disappointment, Grandmere, and I plan to do all I can from now on to make it less so for us.'
She fixed her eyes on me thoughtfully. 'I want you to grow up, but I don't want you to grow up with a hard heart, Ruby,' she said.
'A soft heart gets pierced and torn more, Grandmere. I'm not going to end up like my mother. I'm not!' I cried and despite my firm and rigid stance, I felt my new wall start to crack.
'What did you say to young Paul Tate?' Grandmere asked. 'What did you tell him to make him run off like that?'
'I didn't tell him the truth, but I drove him away, just as you said I should,' I moaned through my tears. 'Now, he hates me.'
'Oh, Ruby, I'm sorry.'
'He hates me!' I cried, and turned and ran from her.
'Ruby!'
I didn't stop. I ran hard and fast over the marshland, letting the bramble bushes slap and tear at my dress, my legs, and my arms. I was oblivious to pain; I ignored the ache in my chest and disregarded the puddles and the mud into which I repeatedly stepped. But after a while, the pain in my legs and the needles in my side brought me to a halt, and I could only walk slowly over the long stretch of marshland that ran alongside the canal. My shoulders heaved with my deep sobs. I walked and walked, past the dried domes of grass that were homes to the muskrats and nutrias, avoiding the inlets in which the small green snakes swam. Fatigued and drowning in many emotions, I finally stopped and gasped in air, my hands on my hips, my bosom rising and falling.
After a moment, my eyes focused on a clump of small sycamore trees just ahead. At first, because of its color and size, I didn't see it. But gradually, it formed in my field of vision, seemingly appearing like a vision. I saw a marsh deer watching me with curiosity. It had big, beautiful, but sad looking eyes and it stood as still as a statue.
Suddenly, there was a loud report, the explosion of a high caliber rifle came from the blind, and the deer's knees crumbled. It stumbled a moment in a desperate effort to maintain its stance, but a red circle of blood appeared on its neck and grew larger and larger as the blood emerged. The deer went down quickly after that and I heard the sound of two men cheering. A pirogue shot out from under a wall of Spanish moss and I saw two strangers in the front and Grandpere Jack poling from the rear. He had hired himself out to tourist hunters and brought them to their kill. As the canoe made its way across the pond toward the dead deer, one of the tourists handed the other a bottle of whiskey and they drank to celebrate their kill. Grandpere Jack eyed the bottle and stopped poling so they could give him a swig.
Slowly, I retreated, following my footsteps back. Yes, I thought, the swamp was a beautiful place, filled with wonderful and interesting animal life, with fascinating vegetation, sometimes mysterious and still and sometimes a symphony of nature with its frogs croaking, its birds singing, its gators drumming water with their tails. But it could be a hard, cold place, too, wrought with death and danger, with poisonous snakes and spiders, with quicksand and sticky, sucking mud to draw the unsuspecting intruder down into the darkness beneath. It was a world in which the stronger fed on the weaker and into which men came to enjoy their power over natural things.
Today, I thought, it was like everywhere else on earth, and today, I hated being here.
By the time I returned, the showers had begun and Grandmere Catherine had begun to take in most of our handicraft goods. I hurried to help her with what remained. The rain fell harder and harder, so we had to rush as quickly as we could and we had no time to speak to each other until everything had been safely stored. Then Grandmere got us some towels to wipe our hair and faces. The rain pounded the tin roof and the wind whipped through the bayou. We ran around the house, closing the batten plank shutters.
'It's a real tosser,' Grandmere cried. We heard the wind whistle through the cracks in our walls and saw brush and anything else that was loose and light being lifted and driven every which way over the road and lawn. The world outside became very dark.
Thunder clapped and lightning scorched the sky. I could hear the cisterns overflowing as sheets of rain came off the roof and collected in the barrels. The drops fell so hard and thick, they bounced when they hit the steps or little walkway in front of the house. For a while it sounded like the tin roof would split. It was as if we had fallen into a
