Under a Dark Summer Sky (22 page)

Noreen's eyes told him she understood what it meant. They would have to make it on foot. He would carry both her and Roy. She was far too slender to stand up to the current that barged against the side of the pickup.

Just as he was considering the logistics of this, all went quiet. There were splashes as airborne objects dropped into the water, like puppets with their strings cut. His ears rang with the absence of sound. No wind. Nothing.

He leaned out of the window and looked up to see the malevolent eye circling slowly above them. With each turn, it brought a new bout of destruction closer. The back side of the storm could only be minutes away. Once it arrived, they would have no chance in the open. They would have to stay in the flooded truck.

But Noreen was struggling to open her door. “Come on,” she said. “We cain't stay here. We got to be close to the store by now.”

He pulled her hand away. “We have to stay here! There's more coming. The truck is big and heavy enough to hold together. Noreen, it's the only way.”

Too tired and scared even to cry, Roy had made no sound for some time. His dark eyes were alternately wide with fear and droopy with fatigue. The supplies so carefully packed for him floated in a sodden mess around them.

“We got to get Roy inside,” she said. “He's hungry and thirsty.”

“Hang on,” said Dwayne and plunged his hand into water around his feet. He felt around until his fingers found the outlines of a milk bottle and raised it from the black water with a smile of triumph. “Here you go, my boy.”

Roy sucked on the bottle without stopping until it was half-empty.

“That's better,” said Noreen and wiped off his milky mustache. She kissed his cheek. “Hard to believe it ain't over,” she said. “It looks so calm out there now.”

Indeed, without the wind and with the water smoothing over the damage, what was left of Heron Key looked placid, even serene in the starlight. But Dwayne knew beneath the surface lay the wreckage of buildings, homes, and lives. Probably many lives.

“Noreen…” he began. How to start? It felt like there was too much to say and not enough words to say it. “I'm—I'm sorry. I mean, for everything, for—”

“I know, Dwayne,” she said and squeezed his hand. It was the first time he had felt her touch for months, maybe since Roy was born. “I'm sorry too.”

Something bumped against his door. He looked out of the window and down into the sightless eyes of Dolores Mason, who floated on her back, her red lipstick black against the gray pallor of her face. The current pushed her body into the side of the truck with a solid
thwack
.

“What is it?” Noreen asked.

“Nothing,” he said and sent Dolores on her way with a hard shove. “Just a branch.”

• • •

The veterans arrived at the train station to find it dark and empty. Trent peered up the tracks for sight of the locomotive's headlight, but there was only rain and wind screaming in the blackness.
It
should
be
here
by
now. Something's gone wrong.
In the pale flashlight beam, he could see waves lapping the embankment, which was the highest point on Heron Key. Carl was unconscious and Stan was on the way there, moaning in pain. The post remained in his stomach, on Trent's instructions. He had seen too many men bleed out when such projectiles were extracted by well-meaning comrades. His only chance of survival was to leave the wooden stake right where it was until they could get medical attention…which could be a long time.

A gust caught the roof and tore half of it away. The rest of the structure began to tremble. The realization struck him that even the solidly constructed station would not protect them for much longer. They had to move. He swept the flashlight across the yard. An empty train stood on the siding. The heavy boxcars would be safer while they waited. Assuming, of course, the wait was not long.
Where
is
that
damn
train?

But it was going to be tricky to get the men inside, given the strength of the wind. They would have to form a chain to make it across. He explained the plan to the men nearest to him and hoped the rest would follow.

Big Sonny was the first to attempt the crossing. He stepped off the platform into the full force of the wind and was blown off his feet and left clinging to the rail. The rest of the men hung back, unwilling to follow, especially those without the advantage of Sonny's bulk.

The remainder of the station began to disintegrate around them. This was clearly too much for Two-Step, who hollered, “I'm not staying here! There's no train coming for us.”

“We've been left here to die!” said Sick Bay. “We've got to save ourselves!”

“Wait!”

It was the one they called “Kraut.” Trent struggled to recall his real name. Mick? Mo? No, Max. Max Hoffman.

“Mr. Watts is right,” said Max. He stood between Two-Step and the edge of the platform, hands spread wide. “Everyone just stay calm. We're safer waiting here. We've got to stick together and—” A chunk of masonry flew right into the side of his head, and he was felled like a tree. He landed on his back, eyes unseeing and open to the rain.

Angry voices surged around Trent. Wet, terrified faces jostled, ghostly in the flashlight's beam. He recognized the smell from the trenches: fear had overwhelmed some of their bladders. He could see Two-Step's point entirely. It looked like he had led them into a death trap. “No!” he shouted. “That's not true, I promise you—”

“Another lie!” said Two-Step. “We can make it, fellas! Look, over there. Shannon's filling station!” The concrete building was maybe a hundred yards away. Part of the roof was gone, but the walls were intact. “Who's with me, boys?”

Trent figured there was room for maybe twenty people inside—if they made it across the open ground, which did not look likely. Huddled on the platform were close to two hundred men. And how long before the wind flattened that structure too? No, he had to stop them. He made one last attempt. “Wait, I've got a plan—”

But it was too late. A group of men jumped down with Two-Step, running toward the gas station. When they were almost halfway there, one of the fuel pumps took to the air and slammed into them. Several bodies lay unmoving, facedown in the dirty water. Another grabbed hold of a telephone pole and clung there grimly. The wind simply lifted the pole from the ground and sent it hurtling into the sky. Two-Step let out a high, girlish scream as a piece of window glass cleaved right through his thigh. He fell, then tried to get up, but the wind pushed him down again. He grabbed the severed leg and began to pull himself through the mud.

Trent could see his mouth screaming “Help me!” over and over, but no one moved.

Two-Step flailed on, like some deranged swimmer, sliding in the mire. And then the wind lifted him up and carried him away into the night. A few men made it to the gas station. The remainder of his group flung themselves behind the bulk of a massive water tanker, still full of ten thousand gallons.

When Trent turned to face the rest of the men still waiting, they appeared ready to follow him almost anywhere.

“What's the plan?” asked Sick Bay.

On the other side of the platform, Sonny had managed to regain his feet and reach the boxcar. He grabbed hold with one hand and stretched the other toward the waiting men. Trent set about getting the biggest ones onto the tracks first. They would have to carry the wounded. The dead would be left where they lay.

“Sick Bay, grab hold of Sonny,” Trent yelled. “The next one grab hold of Sick Bay, and so on, until we get a solid line of men. The others use them to cross. Got it?”

Sick Bay set off toward Sonny. He was blown over twice but got up each time. A cheer went up when he clasped Sonny's outstretched hand. Others followed, and soon the line was complete. Men began to cross, holding their comrades for support.

Jeb stared wide-eyed. Each man had to fight his way across, and they were all easily twice as heavy as him. “Guess this is the last stop for me,” he said in Franklin's ear.

“Come here,” said Franklin. “Get on my back.”

Jeb climbed on, arms tight around Franklin's neck. “All aboard,” said Franklin. And he stepped off the platform, to be met by waiting hands.

Franklin stumbled. Jeb clung on, eyes narrowed. The wind clawed at his shoulders, tried to loosen his arms and pull him off. Franklin held on, legs wide apart to maintain his balance. He took another step along the line, which swayed under the might of the gale. It was clear that Jeb's weight was holding him back. Jeb knew what he had to do. He loosened his grip on Franklin's neck. Franklin's eye swiveled around in surprise, his lips formed to say, “No!”

Jeb closed his eyes and let go. A big hand grabbed his collar and wrenched him from the wind's grasp. He just had time to register Lemuel's grin before he was flung bodily into the safety of the boxcar.

On the relief train, still several miles away, Ken Cramer stared through the deluge. He nudged the locomotive forward, as much by touch as by vision. It was impossible to gauge the depth of the water covering the tracks. Moses, Clarence, and Henry leaned out of the windows with no more success. “Can't see a goddamn thing,” Moses complained.

“Fellas,” said Ken, “this is about to get real interesting.”

After they had freed the train from the crane's cables, it had sped south to collect veterans from two other work camps on its way to Heron Key. It had been a slow and dangerous operation just to get them on board, as the wind lifted people right off their feet. Included in the wet huddle of humanity were a few locals who had decided, with uncharacteristic alacrity, to evacuate as well.

Shouting came to the engineer's cabin from the passenger carriage. Ken dispatched Henry. “Go calm them down, Roberts. You're one of them.”

On his way through the swaying carriage, a hand grabbed Henry's arm. “What the hell took you so long?” demanded a sunburned blond bull of a man with USMC tattooed on one bicep and a bloody rag wrapped around the other. “We had no chance out there.” The man's face was flushed with rage as much as sun. “Sitting ducks, that's all we were. Sitting fucking ducks.” He nodded at a sodden woman with a bedraggled dog on her lap. “Beggin' your pardon, ma'am.” He passed a hand over his face. The atmosphere in the carriage was a strange mixture of seething resentment and relief.

Jimmy turned around in his seat. Water dripped from the brim of his cap. “It weren't our fault,” he said. “The crew couldn't have worked any harder. It's them assholes up in J'ville, left it too late to order the train, ya see?” He also nodded to the woman. “Beg pardon, ma'am.”

Henry noticed Clarence's distinctive cadence in Jimmy's voice. The boy was very taken with the train and the men who made it run. He seemed to be having the time of his life. Henry had forgotten what that felt like, the thrill of adventure. And Jimmy had been a tremendous asset in the effort to free the train from the cables. The operation was considerably speeded by his youthful strength and energy. In fact, Henry wondered if they might not still be stuck were it not for Jimmy. He had whooped and hollered as they hauled on the cables under the merciless, pounding rain. After an hour of this, he and Clarence and Moses were all panting and fatigued, while Jimmy looked as fresh as when they started.

Henry said, “Take it easy, Marine. We doin' the best we can.” He took in the man's bandage, his eyes wide with barely controlled fear. One of his legs shook but he seemed not to notice. Henry had never seen a marine so scared. He knew them to be the toughest sons of bitches around. “What happened to y'all?”

The marine's massive head hung down. “The camp killed our men when it blew apart. We had nowhere to hide. It just cut us to pieces. We expect that, in a war. We trained for it. You can attack, take the other guy out. But not here. There was no way to fight back, nothin' we could do. Just nothin'. It ain't right.” He wiped angrily at his eyes. “It just ain't right.”

“No, it ain't,” Henry said through clenched teeth. “Someone is gonna pay when this is all over.” All he could think of was Lemuel, Sonny, Jeb, Franklin, left out there to face the same thing. Why weren't they evacuated sooner? At least the locals had shelter, but the men had none.
I
should
never
have
left.

He stared into the blackness outside, trying to get some sense of the train's momentum. Rain clattered against the glass. It was impossible to tell, but it felt like they were moving forward with agonizing slowness. No doubt Ken was intent on avoiding another collision. It felt like Henry's blood could boil from the frustration of it. Although he could do nothing to stop the slaughter—neither in war nor in the storm—his men looked to him for leadership, even after all this time. And he was not there. Were it in his power, he would have jumped down onto the tracks and pushed the train all the way to Heron Key.

“You think anyone gives a shit about us?” asked the marine. The woman with the dog just gave a tired wave of her hand at his language. “Hell, I bet those bastards in Washington are having a party—”

Henry was thrown to his knees by the train's sudden deceleration. Jimmy helped him up and they looked out the windows. “I think,” said Henry, “we've arrived.”

Ken entered the carriage. “This is as far as we go, can't make it to the depot. Water's too deep ahead, already higher than I ever seen, and getting deeper. Roberts, you need to get your people on board right now. We can't hang around.”

“Listen,” said the marine.

Complete silence pounded Henry's ears. Empty not only of train noise, but of any noise at all.

“Hey, everyone!” the marine called to his comrades. “It's over! Come on, we've got to help get the rest of the men on board.” And he moved toward the carriage door.

Henry peered at the sky and quickly moved to bar his way. The marine was easily a head taller and fifty pounds heavier, but Henry held up his hands. “No, wait, y'all got to stay here.”

“We'll be fine. You could use our help. The storm's passed.” The other veterans scuffed their boots, plainly torn between their duty and wanting to dry off in the train.

“It's not safe!” Henry said. “It's not safe. If you want to save yourself and your men, you will not get off this train.”

The locals in the carriage stayed put. The woman with the dog said, “He's right. We're under the eye. Only a fool would go out now.”

“There's worse to come,” said Henry. “Much worse, in only a few minutes. Please, wait here.” He jumped down into the black water.

“Where you going then?” asked the marine.

“To get my people.”

The other man appraised Henry for a moment. “Then we're coming too. You're going to need help, if they're anything like mine. As a famous marine once said, ‘Who wants to live forever?' Come on, men, we've got work to do.”

With a grin, he jumped down beside Henry and was instantly swallowed by the darkness.

• • •

Missy peered into the darkness ahead. The stars were almost gone, covered by rolling coils of cloud, and the wind was up again. She reckoned they still had about a mile to go, but it was slow. The ground beneath their bare feet was a treacherous maze of debris, and the water that covered the road hid chunks of wood, glass, and cement. Abe had already fallen into a deep hole and emerged with a gash across his arm. There was a lot of blood that showed shiny black against his dark skin, but he did not cry. Violet bound it with a strip torn from the hem of her dress and they carried on.

It felt to Missy like they had been walking for hours, such was the concentration needed for each step forward, feeling with her toes for the safe place to put her feet. They were badly cut but she ignored the pain.

The road itself had been washed away in several places, leaving fast torrents that they could only cross with their arms linked together. They were right in the middle of one such torrent, up to their waists in it, when Lionel cried out and went under. In an instant, he was gone, swept into the blackness by the white water. The others were nearly knocked off their feet but somehow managed to right themselves.

They stood there for a few moments, clinging together and calling Lionel's name. There was no answer.

“Missy,” Violet asked in a trembling voice, “maybe we should turn back?”

The wind blew harder. Only a small circle of stars remained visible in the sky. Ike held a sputtering Abe on his shoulders, clear of the rushing river that had torn the bandage from his arm. The others braced themselves as best they could against the force of the water, but it was clear that they were not able to hold their positions for much longer.

They could not go back; there was no shelter there. They could not stay still. The only way was forward. Missy said a prayer for gentle, harmless old Lionel…
He
don't deserve this
. It was so utterly unfair. She didn't deserve it either. All her life, she had done the right thing. Every time fate had slapped her in the face, she had just carried on without complaint. Lightning crackled in the clouds above, followed fast by the bass boom of thunder, like the storm was tuning up its instruments, ready to play its big final number.

And that was when it happened. Something inside her just broke apart under the weight of fear and helplessness. She was suddenly and completely overwhelmed by a determination, hard and clear as glass, that they would make it to the station. Her grief and fear turned to anger at her powerlessness against the forces that hurt the people she cared about. She was tired of being blown around like a leaf, with no say in anything that mattered. Anger rose up her spine like a column of molten steel. Her back straightened. She was angry at the storm, for destroying her home and wreaking havoc on her town. She was angry at the small-minded people who accused Henry and forced him to flee, and those who had turned them out into the storm. She had failed to stop any of it. She had failed to stop Henry leaving. She had failed to protect Nathan.

By
God, I will not fail at this.

“We cain't go back!” she yelled above the rush of the water and wind. “We got to keep going! Ain't far now!”

“You heard Missy!” said Abe. “Ain't far now!”

With an enormous effort of will, Missy braced her feet and pushed forward against the weight of water, pulling on Violet's arm to bring her along. And so they began to move. Far above them, the stars disappeared.

• • •

At the remains of the train station, the veterans were hunkered down miserably inside the boxcars. The air was sour with their breath, from the exertion of getting everyone inside, and the fumes from their filthy, soaking clothes. Rain slanted down so heavily outside that it obscured what was left of the station. They were surrounded by a wall of water reaching up to the sky. Trent felt many pairs of hostile eyes focused on him.

“This is your fault,” said Tec. “You've known this storm was coming for days. You coulda got us out before. Two-Step was right. There ain't no train comin'. We're stuck here.”

Trent took a moment to choose his words. The atmosphere was a combustible mixture of terror and anger, which could ignite at any moment. Although the accusation stung, he could see Tec's point. It would serve no purpose to defend himself, would probably just inflame them further. And it made no difference to their situation for them to understand who was really responsible. Tec was right—they should have been evacuated sooner, and now they were stuck.

Lemuel said, “Ain't no good pointing fingers, Tec.” He removed the Bible from inside his shirt. Water dripped from the pages but the binding still held. “As the good book says—”

“Shut up, Lemuel,” said Sick Bay. “Tec's right. Since it looks like we're all gonna die here, I vote that you go first, Trent. You are the leader, as you keep telling us.” When sober, Sick Bay's disposition was sunny, even placid, but when drunk, he became bad-tempered and downright aggressive. He had been drinking since early that afternoon.

Trent shifted away from the group into the corner of the boxcar. There was no mistaking Tec's intent. The faces of the others told the same story. He could see it in their eyes: for all those times he had imposed his will on them, driving them to work harder under the awful conditions of the camp. This was probably their one and only chance for payback. And in the chaos of the storm, no one would ever know.

“Fellas, hang on a minute,” he said, hands up ready either to placate or punch them. “You have every right to be angry. But I'm angry too. I've been trying—”

Tec's fist sent him to the floor of the boxcar. There, the heavy boots found him. The first kick went to his kidneys, the second to his stomach. He curled into a ball, hands over his face. The next kick would be to his head. What bothered him most was not the pain, as he had felt much worse, nor even the unfairness of it all. No, what bothered him most was that, for all the times he had come close to death, all the times in France when he expected to be taken, it was always in the service of some purpose, with even some dignity. Not curled up on the floor of a stinking boxcar, getting stomped to death like a cockroach by his own men.

He looked up to see Sick Bay's boot raised, ready to smash down on his head. In a flash, Trent realized he had only one chance, while the man's balance was off. He flung himself at Sick Bay's leg and bit down as hard as he could. The skin tasted salty, the blood metallic in his mouth. Sick Bay staggered with a howl to fall on his back with Trent straight on top of him, hands around his throat. It felt good—the pulse of the artery under his fingers, the springy firmness of the windpipe between his palms. Arms pulled at him but he retained his grip. Months and months of frustration congealed in his hands and he squeezed harder. Sick Bay's face turned a satisfying shade of brownish red, like a bruised apple.

“Fellas, listen!” Sonny cried. “Listen!”

While they had been fighting, the rain had stopped, like someone had turned off a faucet. The wind had ceased.

The men who had been shouting encouragement fell silent. Intent on strangling Sick Bay, Trent had not noticed the lack of noise from outside. He had no idea how long it had been since the storm finished. It felt like they had been cooped up in the boxcar for hours already. He released his hold on Sick Bay.

“Hey,” said Sick Bay rather hoarsely, hand to his throat, “you can see the stars!”

“Let's go, fellas!” said Tec and jumped down onto the tracks. “It's over!”

The men stumbled out into the still night air, the absence of the train no longer a concern, now the storm was over. They were jubilant, smiling, arms around each other's shoulders. They had survived the worst night of their lives.