Courting Miss Hattie (49 page)

Murmurs of agreement went up and down the line as the workers gathered up buckets, rakes, shovels, and other tools. Taking their leave, man after man stopped at Reed's side to offer a handshake, a word of consolation, or a ray of hope. Reed accepted each stoically and with the good grace that was intended.

Slowly the men made their way up the slope, joining their women and adding a word of comfort to Hattie as they headed out. The press of wagons, buckboards, and teams disappeared quickly, leaving only bent grass and muddy tracks as witness to the outpouring of neighborly spirit.

It was nearly dark by then, and Hattie began packing her wagon. She could barely make out Reed's form as she watched him working mechanically to reinforce the south bank and heighten the ridge between the cuts.

She hurt
inside,
the kind of angry hurt when you want something so bad for someone and know you haven't the power to give it. Was a good crop of rice so much to ask? Apparently it was. The rain showed no signs of letting up, and praying for a miracle was about the only solution left.

Stowing the last of the camp gear on the wagon, she glanced at the levee again to see if her husband was on his way. He continued to work steadfastly. A wave of tenderness washed over Hattie as she watched Reed gamely continue the struggle as if unaware that he was alone in the fight with night settling around him like a dark blanket of hopelessness.

Blinking back tears that stung her eyes, she headed down the slope to help him. If Reed thought there was still a chance to save the crop, she would not dissuade him but would stay beside him.

The river raged wildly and
slapped against the top of the levee, occasionally spilling over in a persistent reminder that victory over the forces of nature was hard-fought and rarely won. She took up a shovel that leaned against a tree. Her intent was more to keep herself steady on the muddy slope rather than work on the levee.

Picking her way carefully to the levee, Hattie noticed a widening crevice in the north bank. Water was beginning to rush in, and she realized it needed to be stopped immediately. The small break would quickly become a gulf, and the muddy river would spill into the rice. It was not a sight she wanted to witness.

Having watched the men for two days,
she knew exactly what to do. She dug up a shovelful of mud,
then
pounded it into the widening crack. Her immediate success encouraged her, and she quickly went after the other cracks that were forming up and down that part of the levee.

In just a few minutes, though, she saw that the levee was dissolving faster than she could daub it back in shape. With a glance at the roaring river, suddenly so close on her left, she realized she was
in trouble.

"Reed!" she shouted. He glanced up. Their eyes met for an instant, but it was like a lifetime. Before she could call out for his help, she felt the ground shift beneath her and water rush across her shoes. She watched Reed's eyes widen in horror, but his cry was lost to her as the levee fell away below her and she was pulled down into the wild, muddy torrent of the river.

Clawing and kicking frantically, Hattie strove to find the surface. But where was up?
Which way was up?
She fought the current that pulled against her as her lungs burned like fire, craving air. In a vortex of water and debris, she struggled against the heavy clothes that encumbered her. Railing pointlessly in the water with energy born of panic, she was disoriented by the dark torrent that engulfed her. She knew only that she must find air. Her head suddenly broke through the surface, and she was just able to catch another breath before the raging river pulled her into its depths once more.

Gathering her strength and will, she rallied her senses and exhorted herself to remain calm.
You're a strong swimmer, Hattie. Panic will kill you, but swimming will get you to the shore.

Determinedly, she forced her legs to kick
and her arms to
stroke.
You can swim,
she assured herself.
You can swim out of here.

The violently rushing water and the fallen tree branches and
wreckage that struck and
impeded her said no, but she
continued the calm, deliberate strokes.
You can swim out of here. You can swim out to Reed.

It was working. Again she broke the surface and glanced
quickly toward the bank. It was a long way, but she wasn't deterred. She didn't see Reed yet knew he was there. He was waiting, arms open to hold her and comfort her. Sweet peaches and tender words were only a watery distance away.

Just as her confidence rose, a hidden branch gouged her thigh painfully. She cried out as pain stormed through her body and she submerged, grabbing her injured leg. The fallen tree enveloped her like the tentacles of a malicious river monster. Ignoring the eerie ambience, she massaged the screaming agony in her leg and assured herself that she was all right.

Throwing off the fire that seared her thigh, she swam again for the surface. Her progress was abruptly halted. At first she was merely startled by her immobility. Her torn dress was caught in the branches that enveloped her so closely. Annoyed, she jerked at it. As precious seconds passed and the dress remained entangled, she realized she was hopelessly trapped by the underwater limb. Frantically she pulled at the wet sturdy calico, but the vicious talons would not release her.

* * *

"Hattie!" Reed screamed as he saw his wife being swept into the river. A cold chill of terror spread through his body as he jumped onto the levee and ran down the bank. Ceaselessly he searched for some sign of the woman who had been his friend from childhood, the woman he had married, the woman he had pledged his life to,
the
woman he loved. Nothing in his life had prepared him for the cold shaking horror of his helplessness. In the back of his mind he saw her wide toothy grin and heard the echo of her warm artless laughter.
Hattie!
Wild-eyed, he raced up the south levee and tore through the underbrush as field turned to untouched riverbank.

"Come up, Hattie," he whispered as he ran, his gaze never leaving the whirling water. "You've got to breathe, my Hattie. Come up now!"

When he saw her head surface a good hundred yards downstream from the rice field, his joy was balanced by the practical realization that he could never catch up with her at the rate the river was carrying her downstream.

Racing along the bank, his eyes ever watchful, he begged feverishly that she somehow get hold of a rock, a branch, anything so that he would be able to get to her. "Take my farm, my future, my life, Lord, but don't take my Hattie farther downstream," he prayed.

The reality of his love for her, his need for her, the void that would be his life without her enveloped his entire
being,
and he fervently stared at the water as if to draw her to him with his will.

He saw her come up again. She was farther downstream but closer to the bank. Hope blazed brightly in Reed as he ran on. She was trying to make it to shore. She was coming to him.

"Swim, Hattie!" he screamed over the torrential sound of the turbulent river. "Swim!" If she could get closer to the shoreline, she'd find something to hold on to.

His breath rushed from him in frightened gasps as he ran onward. Like a racehorse in the last furlong, he no longer thought of the pain of the run, only of the victory at the end.

He saw her again, closer now. "Hattie!" he called, but his breath was stolen by his efforts to reach her.

Suddenly he saw her jerk strangely, and a cry of pain floated across the water to him. "Hattie! Hattie!" he screamed as she sank from sight.

He ran on. She didn't come up. He scanned the swirling water, frightened, shaking, sweating with fear.

"Hattie!" he screamed again to the roaring river, his arms outstretched in a plea to nature. "Hattie! Where are
you!
"

Hurrying back to the place where he'd seen her go under, he jerked off his
workshoes
and without a thought for the futility or the danger, dove into the wild water.

Immediately he gashed his brow on a fallen tree hidden just below the surface. Dazed, at first he nearly allowed himself to be pulled downstream. Then, with a gasp of understanding, he desperately clawed for a hold on the tree. She was here. She was trapped on one of these limbs. He knew it.

Groping blindly in the muddy water, he clung to the submerged branches as he searched for his wife. Hattie was here, and he would find her. He couldn't allow the waters to pull him away. He would never let anything keep him from Hattie again.

When he felt the sparkly light-headedness of lack of oxygen, he surfaced quickly, keeping a grip on a tiny branch to hold him to the tree.
She's here,
he told himself,
and I will find her.

* * *

Hattie felt the fire in her lungs building unbearably as she acknowledged at last that she was not able to free herself. Anger surged through her.
Why me? Why now? I was finally so happy.
In a fit of temper, she struggled uselessly once more.

Relax,
she told herself.
Fighting will only wear you out more quickly.
Pain was searing her lungs, and the dark muddy water around her turned blue, then green, as she slipped through consciousness.

Her life flashed before her in bits of nonsensical detail. A pretty bit of ribbon from Turpin's store. Mama showing her when to dig the potatoes by looking at their withered leaves. Her father's
horsey
grin as he spun her in the air like a whirligig. And Reed. Reed young, Reed now. Her mind filled with visions of Reed as she had known him. The sparkle in his eyes, the tender touch of his lips. Reed had made her laugh. Reed had made her love. For this sweet short time, she had known bliss. Could she ask for more than that? Happiness for only a day was worth more than decades merely lived.

She felt herself relax. The pain in her thigh was gone, completely gone. All physical sensation had disappeared, and she felt strangely unburdened by her body. Gently, without touching or feeling, she began to move through the maze of limbs that imprisoned her. She was no longer bound to the tree. She was tied to nothing on earth, and she surged upward, floating above the river, above the pain and danger.

The merciless flow of water was like a vision of mighty power in the moonlight. Watching it, entranced, she felt her fear dissolve as she admired its strength and majesty. It was so strange that she, who had thought herself plain and ordinary, should finish her life absorbed by something so wild, unfettered, and beautiful.

In that moment of peace and contentment her attention was captured by the sight of her husband's head breaking the surface of the water below her. Fear again poured through her as she watched the man she loved struggling to save her.

"Save
yourself
!" she attempted to cry, but she had no voice and knew that he couldn't hear her. He dove once more, and she watched anxiously. Surely he must see that the cause was lost. She could never live without breath for so long.
Stop, Reed. I'm not there anymore.
Her heart seemed to break as she watched him dive and surface only to dive again.

At last she understood. Reed Tyler loved her. It was as clear to her now as her love for him. Reed would not save himself. He would lose his life in this river just as she had lost hers.
Oh, no!
she
pleaded to heaven.
He is so young! He's worked so hard. He deserves to see his dreams, his future,
his
children.

But she knew he would not save himself. She must save him.

* * *

Reed's strength had almost given out. His arms ached from the frantic fight with the river, and a haze of tears and terror blinded him as each precious second slipped quickly toward a terrible end.

"Hattie, I love you, I need you," he pleaded to the river, and again dove into the dark blackness to see nothing, find nothing. Reaching, grasping, he silently begged the branches to relinquish the prize he sought.

Faint and disheartened, he was ready to surface for a hurried taste of the air when a hand suddenly grasped his leg. With unexpected joy, he reached down, touched the cold lifeless body, and pulled it to him. His hands swept eagerly over the tangle of clothes that held her. As if all the power of heaven were with him, he ripped the dress from the confining branches.

Immediately they were wildly coursing down the river. Hattie was like a bundle of sticks in his arms, as still as death, but Reed remembered the strength of her grasp on his ankle and promised
himself
that she would live. Not twenty feet down-river, a log lay as if in wait. Pulling
himself
and Hattie against it, Reed made it to shore, exhausted and gasping for breath, carefully holding her head above the water.

He rolled her onto the bank before dropping beside her. Ignoring his dizziness and fatigue, he turned her over on her stomach and worked to pump out the water that clogged her lungs.

Choking, coughing, and moaning in pain, Hattie rid herself of the horrific water,
then
lay panting beside her husband.

"Alive," Reed whispered to himself as he used the last of his strength to touch her brow, assuring himself that it was no dream.