Dark Water Rising (13 page)

“People are trapped back there. We need saws!”

They continued to stare but never offered a word.

“I
said,
” yelling louder, “there are people back there, trapped, still alive!” I pointed behind me, breathing hard. “I heard them calling for help.”

The bearded man nodded slowly. “We heard you, son.”

“We ain’t got no saws,” another man said, pulling a dirty rag from his back pocket.

I felt an angry heat building inside me, and my glare bounced from one set of hollow eyes to another. “So we’ll find some,” I hissed.

Pain swept across the bearded man’s face. He hung his head, pulled in a breath, and when he looked up
again, the grief I’d glimpsed only a moment ago had been veiled. “Don’t worry, son,” he said. “Go on home. We’ll take care of those people.”

“No, sir.” I shook my head hard. “I made a promise.”

The man with the dirty rag mopped sweat from his neck. “We already told you boys,” he said quietly, “we ain’t got no saws.”

The rest of the men shifted uneasylike, avoiding my eyes.

“We’re doing all we can, son,” the bearded man said.

I stared past them to the wagon, to the pile of bodies, the muddied arms and legs, already stiff under the hot sun, and just stood there till Josiah backed away, his head bobbing.

“Thank you, sir,” he said to them. “Mister Seth here sure do ’preciates all you is doing.”

They nodded, and Josiah pulled me away.

“The man be right,” he whispered. “We needs to get home.”

“I can’t, Josiah. I promised her.”

“Yessir, I knows that, but the girl, she already sees how things really is.”

I stood there while the hot sun beat down on us, breathing in the terrible odor of mud and death, and squinted up at him.

“My mama tole me right ’fore she died last winter
that angels whispered to her and showed her heaven’s own gate. She
knew
she be crossing over real soon.”

I peered toward the ridge, trying to make sense of what he was saying. It was true the girl hadn’t asked for help. She’d asked only that we remember her name.

The shard of mirror caught the sun, and I flinched from the glare.

“So she knew?” I whispered.

Josiah nodded, and the heavy truth of it slowed my heart till I thought I might die right there with her.

Josiah waited, but I knew I couldn’t go home. Not yet.

“I can’t leave her,” I said.

Sweat trickled down his forehead, and he wiped it away with the back of his sleeve. “I knows,” he said, squinting against the sun.

I headed back to the ridge, and without a word, Josiah followed. We began the slow climb, but this time I heard no voices. Not one. I reached the broken mirror and kneeled over the opening. “Sarah Louise!” I shouted. “We’re back, like we promised.”

Josiah kneeled beside me, listening.

“Sarah,” I called again. “Sarah Louise Ellison!”

Wind whistled over the ridge.

I glanced at Josiah, afraid to even breathe, and he hung his head.

Leaning close over the opening, I called again.

And again.

16

I sat on the ground, staring up at the broken mirror, not remembering the climb down at all. Josiah let me be for a short while, then pulled me to my feet and led me stumbling toward home. Hot wind gusted around my ears, billowed scattered clothing, blew muddied photographs and bits of paper rattling past my feet, but I hardly noticed. My head was still full of the sound of Sarah Louise’s name. I didn’t know what color her hair was, if her eyes were blue, or brown, or green, but I knew I’d carry her voice with me the rest of my days.

Debris-filled pools dotted streets, even though the gulf had retreated, and a thick layer of foul-smelling slime coated everything. Horses and cattle strayed into yards and wandered up to everyone they encountered, eager to find their owners. I didn’t see a blade of grass for them, but I was soon searching for it, just as they must have, longing for a glimpse of green, just one wisp of something fresh in the air.

We passed two dead boys in an alley, twins about five years old, still holding on to each other. I stared at their small bodies, not willing to leave them, hoping my own family wasn’t lying like this somewhere, too. Josiah found a busted shovel nearby and offered to help me bury them.

It was what I wanted, and what I would’ve wanted someone to do for those I loved as well, but I shook my head. “How will their mother ever know what happened if we bury them?”

Josiah started digging. “She ain’t alive or she woulda already been ’round.”

I blinked and stood aside.

While Josiah dug a shallow grave and buried them, I scratched the words, “Twin boys, age 5,” on a board and drove it into the ground with the back of the shovel. I was finally able to turn my back on them, but on the next corner we found another body, a woman this time.

A man sat near her on the curb with a bottle of whiskey in his hands. I asked if he knew who she was, and he shook his head.

“I’ve been looking for my wife all day, but that ain’t her.”

He sipped at the bottle but didn’t appear drunk. I waited to hear more, and just when I figured he’d said
all he wanted, he added, “I couldn’t get home last night and now everything is gone, just washed away.”

I tried to get him to go on, but he refused, saying he wanted to help us lay her away. He used a board to pull back the wet sand Josiah shoveled, all the while mumbling a name—his wife’s, I reckoned.

When we’d dug the hole large enough, he helped me lay her in the grave with such tenderness, it near made my heart break in two. I found a corrugated washboard to place over her face and refilled the grave. We stood over her a moment, quiet, then the man thanked me and turned south toward the gulf.

Up ahead, gangs of men loaded bodies onto mule-drawn drays that only yesterday had hauled groceries or grain or beer, and on every street corner we saw people, cut and bruised, clothes in shreds, asking about missing children, husbands, wives.

We passed a mule impaled on an iron fence, a cow bawling from the top of a shed, and a man dressed in a nun’s habit. He said the sisters at the Ursuline convent had pulled his bruised and naked body through a window, saving his life, and had given him the only clothes they had.

Another man who had lost his wife and four children claimed he’d been swept into the gulf where he floated all night hanging onto a steamer trunk before
being washed miraculously back to shore. And soon after, we came across a lisping boy, no more than eight, who told without a single tear how he’d watched his mother die.

Stories crowded the streets, and through all these tales and others, I saw not a trace of emotion. Eyes stared, glazed and without light. Hearts appeared numb. The panic and loss that had gripped us all seemed to have been replaced with a bewildered calm.

Doors swung open to the houses that had withstood the storm, and anyone, rich or poor, white or colored, merchant or servant, was welcomed and fed. A woman who’d been carrying water to the men working in her street offered me a ladle and didn’t hesitate to let Josiah drink, too. We had our fill, gulping greedily, almost emptying the bucket.

By the time we finally turned onto what was left of Thirty-fifth Street, I figured we must’ve been walking for at least six hours, maybe more.

Right away I saw that Ella Rose’s house had been swept away, as were most homes along that side of the street. Ezra and Josiah’s place was gone, too; only pilings marked what once had been. But most of Uncle Nate’s house still stood. Even the big ash tree sat anchored in the front yard with its stark limbs stretching skyward for leaves long gone.

As we neared the house, I could see more. The barn
out back was gone, and there was no sign of Archer or Deuce, Uncle Nate’s horses. The dray or buggy, either. The neighbor’s house on the south side had been swept up against the wall, leaving a mangled pile of lumber as high as Andy and Will’s bedroom windows. In this case, it may have protected the house. Only a portion of my uncle’s roof and veranda appeared damaged. The front stairs had been swept away, but the north stairs, which led to the kitchen door at the side of the house, had remained intact. Oddly, the screen was still attached.

Gratitude swelled inside me. The house looked far better than many. Surely everyone was safe inside.

Josiah grinned when he saw Ezra clearing debris from the kitchen stairs. “My granddaddy look fine,” he said.

I nodded and smiled back at him. “I bet he’ll be surprised to see you.”

We moved as fast as we could, helping each other over the splintered roofs and broken furniture that stood between us and Ezra, but there was no sneaking up on the man. He heard us coming, and when he saw Josiah, he dropped his armful of litter and laughed out loud.

I stood back a moment, watching Ezra and Josiah hug and laugh and hug again, then I bolted up the steps, forgetting all about my aches and pains, lost in one thought, one wish.

I burst through the screen door and saw Aunt Julia scooping mud from the kitchen floor and scraping it into a bucket. She just stood there for a moment, mouth open, blinking at me.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” she whispered. The muddied dustpan hit the floor, and she threw her arms around me. “We thought you were dead.”

She turned me loose and cradled Josiah’s face in her hands. “Thank God you’re both safe.” She pulled us through the dining room, toward the parlor, hollering all the way. “Everyone, come see! Come see who’s here!”

We picked our way across the muddy warped floor, and before we got to the parlor, Andy and Will let out a whoop. “It’s Seth and Josiah!” they yelled. I heard feet on the stairs, and seconds later Matt and Lucas had me in such a tight hold I could hardly breathe.

“Mama, Papa,” I gasped between squeezes, “Ella Rose—are they okay?”

“Sure, they’re all okay,” Matt said, grinning.

Then Mama was there, wrapping her arms around me, covering me with kisses, leaving my cheeks wet with her tears.

“Where’s Papa?” I asked.

She hesitated, then smiled up at me. “We expect him soon.”

She’d said it with conviction, but I’d caught the
moment of uncertainty. I’d seen the shadow in her eyes.

I glanced at the broken windows, the shredded curtains, the muddied carpet and furniture. I saw the hole they’d chopped in the floor to let in the rising water so the house wouldn’t float away.

But I didn’t see Kate.

I jerked back around to Mama and noticed for the first time that her eyes were red and swollen. Aunt Julia’s were, too. My heart splintered, and I swore I could hear it breaking apart, just like the crunching of houses I’d heard during the crystal lulls last night. I remembered the child on the beach, the sand on her lashes and cheeks. I saw the mangled snake of debris, heard Sarah Louise Ellison’s faint calls all over again, and the room swam. Mama called my name, but I couldn’t answer.

She slid her hand over my forehead. “I bet you boys haven’t eaten a thing these past two days.”

“No, ma’am,” Josiah said. “There weren’t much to be had.”

In Josiah’s apologetic tone, I glimpsed just how much he’d been watching out for me since we’d left work yesterday. I pushed Mama’s hand away. I couldn’t think about that now. “I’m okay, Mama. Just tell me about Kate.”

“Kate?” She gave me a puzzled look, then sighed with understanding. “Oh, Seth, you needn’t have worried. She’s asleep upstairs. Ella Rose is up there, too, looking after Elliott for your Aunt Julia.”

I closed my eyes and let her words settle inside me. They were all safe. But when I glanced at Aunt Julia, I knew there was more.

“What else?” I asked, looking from face to face. “Where’s Uncle Nate? And Ben?”

Aunt Julia’s eyes filled with tears, and Mama pulled in a deep breath. “Your papa has been out looking for them all day,” she said, “for Mr. Covington, too. None of them made it home last night.”

I remembered the flying slate, the rushing water, and I put my arms around Aunt Julia. “Josiah and I made it back,” I whispered. “They will, too. We’ll head out right now and help look for them.”

Josiah nodded, but Aunt Julia gave us a grateful glance and said no.