Dark Water Rising (8 page)

I looked at the way her eyes shone and realized that there was nothing I’d like better than to experience my first island storm with Ella Rose.

We turned back toward Avenue N, passed Ursuline and the Garten Verein, then headed up Thirty-fifth Street. I saw Andy and Will playing on the veranda at Uncle Nate’s. I waved, then glanced down the side of the house to the alley, curious to see if Josiah had made it home. He’d stirred something uneasy in me, leaving quick the way he had. I caught a glimpse of him helping Ezra in the garden as we passed by. He’d walked straight home after all. Just not with us.

I said good-bye to Ella Rose at the foot of her stairs, but she insisted that I come up to meet her father. My stomach rolled like one of those giant swells rushing toward the beach. I glanced at my dirty fingernails and scuffed shoes and shook my head. “Another time, maybe, when I haven’t been working.”

She laughed. “You don’t know Daddy. He’d much rather see you grimy from working hard than all spiffy and clean.”

I pulled in a deep breath, smoothed my windblown hair, and followed her up the stairs.

She took her books from me, set them on a side table
in the foyer, and dragged me into the parlor. I tossed a quick glance at the piano in the corner, the artwork on the walls, and the family portrait of Ella Rose and her parents sitting on the mantel in a gilded frame.

“Daddy?”

Mr. Covington looked up from his newspaper.

“I’d like you to meet Seth Braeden. He’s new to Galveston and already has a fine job working for Mr. Farrell. You remember Mr. Farrell, don’t you, Daddy? Henry works for him, too.”

Mr. Covington nodded. “So you’re a builder, are you, Seth?”

“Yessir,” I said, rubbing my sweaty palm against my pants. “At least I’d like to be.” I held out my hand, hoping like everything that it was clean enough to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” His warm grasp eased my mind somewhat.

Ella Rose gave her father a shiny smile. “I stopped by to see if Henry and the others knew about the storm warning, and Seth was kind enough to see me home.”

“Ah, yes. Isaac Cline raised the flag above the Levy Building this morning.” He shook his head. “But you know how those weathermen are. Always making a big to-do over every little blow.”

I nodded, the last of my concern about the storm finally gone. Even Mr. Covington wasn’t worried.

For the next few minutes, he asked the kind of
questions I suppose all newcomers are asked, and I answered the best I could, acutely aware that his impression of me would determine whether I saw his daughter again or not. When we finally said our good-byes, I blew out a relieved breath and headed home. With a storm coming, I might not see Ella Rose again till next weekend. But if her father didn’t like me, I might not see her ever again.

When I got home, it appeared that the Vedder children had become the envy of the neighborhood. Their daddy’s ragged hearse bumped along behind old gray Whiskers, and a solemn procession of mourners followed, heads bent, hands full of jasmine and oleander blossoms.

I laughed. “Hey, who died?”

Up popped Kate, grinning from behind the hearse’s ragged velvet drapery and waving a bunch of jasmine vines at me. “Look at me, Seth!”

I waved back and headed for the stairs. Matt sat sulking on the bottom step beside Lucas, his baseball in his lap.

“They’re playing funeral,” Lucas grumbled.

Matt huffed his irritation. “Ain’t that just about the dumbest thing you ever saw?”

I looked again. They’d pulled Kate from the hearse and laid her in the grass. She lay deathly still while they covered her with flowers.

Something cold and sick squirmed inside me, and I found myself wanting to chase the brats home, grab Kate up, and bring her into the house with me. But I turned my back on the scene instead, and squeezed around Matt and Lucas. “Yeah, pretty dumb, all right,” I muttered, and headed upstairs to find my cold supper.

That night I pulled Ella Rose’s handkerchief from my pocket. The scent of lilac water still clung to it, making me wonder if her skin smelled as sweet. I folded it, set it on my night table, and turned my thoughts to the storm.

Mr. Covington hadn’t been worried at all, but in the dark, the house seemed to creak and sigh more than usual. And when I was very still, I could feel the deep thudding of gulf swells falling upon the beach just blocks away. The shock waves vibrated up the walls, through the floor, and right into my bones.

9

I took Broadway to work Saturday morning. The north wind remained brisk, and the dawn sky took on a mother-of-pearl iridescence unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I stumbled more than a few times, foolishly staring at the sky instead of watching where I was going.

I turned south toward the construction site and soon found tidewater over the tops of my shoes. Startled, I searched the faces around me but didn’t see a flicker of concern. A light rain swept in, and still people walked to work, trolleys ran, and horses pulled loaded delivery wagons same as always, splashing through the shallow overflow. I glanced down the street to the gulf where great waves broke on the beach, sending showers of white spray into the air. Storms and overflows might be a normal occurrence around here, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it. It made me feel like the whole island was sinking into the sea.

When I got to work, Mr. Farrell was already there on the fourth-house gallery, ignoring the rain, looking out over the beach. I climbed up beside him, and he pointed toward the streetcar trestle strung across the surf. Swells crashed against pilings and across rails, hurling plumes of white spray as high as telephone poles. Farther down, spent waves had already reached the Midway. Fingers of foam raced around the ramshackle restaurants and shops as if searching for something to drag back into the sea.

We watched till everyone arrived, then Mr. Farrell put us to trimming doors and windows inside the first two houses. Concentrating on work wasn’t easy, though. Even Zach had a hard time with such a spectacle going on outside.

Streets and yards around us filled with rain and tidewater, yet people trickled in from trolleys, buggies, and on foot. Men in suits, dressed for work, and women gripping the hands of children gathered to see a sight as grand as fireworks on the Fourth of July.

As the morning wore on, the storm increased, and so did the crowds. Streetcars stopped three blocks short of the beach, no longer venturing out over the wild surf, and still people braved the rising water to see the show. Some of them even wore their bathing suits.

Skies darkened. Wind stripped umbrellas inside out and blew hats tumbling toward the surf. A driving rain
soaked sightseers’ backs and peppered the north side of the house where I’d been working, striking like pebbles against windows and siding.

I heard cries as waves picked up the two-wheeled portable bathhouses and flung them into the row of flimsy buildings that made up the Midway, showering brightly painted pieces of wood over the roofs. Farther down, swells rolled in, one upon the other, exploding against creosoted pilings under the Pagoda and slamming against floor joists with such force, I could feel the gallery railing shudder beneath my hands.

Mr. Farrell shouted from the house next to us. “Looks like it might get worse before it gets better. You boys best get on home.”

Zach nodded and waved. We dropped our tools inside the unfinished parlor and headed out into the rain.

“You live pretty far out, don’t you, Seth?” Zach asked. “You’re welcome to come wait out the storm with us if you want.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’ll feel better knowing that things are okay at home.”

“I guess I would, too.” He held up a hand. “Monday morning, then.”

I nodded. “I’ll be here.”

We all struck out in almost knee-deep water, headed toward higher ground—Zach with Frank and Charlie,
and Henry with Mr. Farrell. Josiah and I trudged behind them but stopped when we heard excited yells behind us. We turned in time to see the Midway buildings lift on the waves and crash to the ground like kindling. Josiah gave me a stunned look as debris washed toward the shocked crowds. Many people turned to leave, but some stayed on, their faces lit with excitement.

“Let’s go!” I yelled over the sound of the surf. Josiah nodded, and we bent our heads into the rain, wading toward the higher ground on Broadway where I hoped we’d have an easier time of getting home.

Rising water and high curbs had turned the south streets into rushing brown rivers, but buggies and drays still moved along them as if overflows were a daily occurrence. Kids floated by on homemade rafts or paddled along in washtubs, bumping into broken tree limbs and odd bits of bobbing lumber. They laughed while wet hair whipped around their faces.

Everywhere I looked I saw tiny green frogs, thousands of them, covering floating debris, sitting on fence posts and porches, and even riding astride a horse’s back.

We waded out of the water just one block shy of Broadway and made our way west toward Thirty-fifth Street. It wasn’t long before I saw whole families struggling in from the beach roads just like we had, leaving their homes for higher ground. They carried clothing, food, and framed photographs, and ahead of them
they pushed muddy kids hugging kittens and puppies to their chests.

“The bay and the gulf have joined!” one of them yelled, pointing to the street.

I looked and saw water rushing in from Galveston Bay on one side and from the gulf on the other. The two seas met in the middle of Broadway, swirling over the wooden paving blocks, and I couldn’t help but shudder at the sight. All of Galveston appeared to be under water.

When we reached Twenty-fourth Street, I looked south toward the gulf, trying to keep an eye on the stalking sea. Wild waves rose up like a great hand and wrenched loose the Pagoda’s long staircase, sending planks tumbling through the air. With horror I watched the end of one twin building sway and dip into the surf.

I yelled at Josiah, but my words disappeared on the wind. I grabbed his arm, pointed, and we stood together, shoulder to shoulder, mouths gaping, watching the impossible.

Like a wounded Goliath, the great bathhouse shuddered, folded in on its long legs, and collapsed into the sea.

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