The Elephant Mountains

by Scott Ely

  When he dropped the last shovelful of sand on top of the little mound that had risen over the grave, he tossed the shovel aside and took off his sweat-stained work gloves. He sat down on the sand, breathing hard. For the first time in his life, he wished he had been in the habit of going to church, because there he might have learned some words to say.

  “Now you won’t ever have to leave paradise,” he said.

  That sounded foolish, especially set against the croaking of the frogs and the insistent mindless hum of the insects. But somewhere, deep in the swamp, whippoorwills were calling, and he knew his father would like that. And maybe the calls of those night birds were better than any words he or anyone else could say.

  He calculated it would take him the rest of the night to bury the others. He considered pouring gasoline on them, but he knew it would take an extraordinary amount of gas to consume the bodies. He did not have it to waste. He sat down and cried again, out of despair for what lay before him. But then he thought he had a solution. He would use the johnboat to tow them to the creek. Once in the current they would float down to the river to join the dead man in the suit, turtles and catfish their undertakers. He recalled his father’s words about there being too many dead things to bury.

  So he dragged them to the water. He roped them together, heads to ankles, and then brought the john-boat from the dock and tied the free end of the rope to a cleat. He started the engine and carefully towed them into the nearest channel. He was surprised that his plan was working so well. He considered how, at the beginning of the summer, this scene would not have been a part of his wildest nightmare.

  I killed them, he thought. How can that be?

  And he discovered revenge was sweet. In fact, he wished he could kill them over and over again. Now he understood why sometimes men at war mutilated the bodies of their enemies.

  Once at the creek he worked the boat through the line of cypresses and towed the bodies out into the slow but powerful current. He steered the boat upstream so the bodies were strung out behind him. The motor strained as it felt the tug of them. He put the engine in neutral, took out his knife and cut the rope. He played a flashlight over the bodies as they floated off down the creek, thankful they escaped becoming entangled with the timber on the flooded banks or the midstream snags.

  Back at the house he stood over his father’s grave. This time he did not cry. He did not think he had a tear left in him. Again he tried to think of the right words to say, but nothing came. He knew there was a burial service in one of those church books, but despite all the books in his father’s bookcases, he had never seen one like that.

  By the time he lay down on his cot, it was well after midnight. He picked up the Saiga and lay it beside him. He tried to close his eyes and sleep but found even closing his eyes difficult. He should not have spared that man. All the things they killed his father for were still right here, and at any time that man might collect a new group of looters and come back to take them.

  Now there was just his mother. She at least was safe, protected by the security people who had been paid to take care of her along with the paintings and furniture. He considered how she would react when she learned of his father’s death. He supposed he would be the one to tell her. Would she cry? Would she laugh?

  He wondered what it would be like to just stay here, live alone. After all, his father had lived out here alone for a long time, first in a tent and then in a trailer. He had built the house himself.

  No women. He realized that could not be true. His father was a man like other men. He was building a myth of him for reasons he did not understand.

  No, I have to go back, he thought. She’s my mother. She might need help.

  And he realized he could now give her real help. He knew how to shoot. He had killed. He would be like an extra security man. He recalled his father’s words about the dangers of killing, the words he did not completely understand. He did not think they would apply to him. He lay there turning these things over his mind, examining them from various angles. Giving up on sleep, he lay there wide awake, waiting for morning, when he would walk out to stand by his father’s grave.

  But even though he thought he would never go to sleep, he finally did. He woke to the birds’ morning songs, the shotgun cradled in his arms.

  THREE

  He had breakfast on the screened porch and considered his options. But his mind kept returning to thoughts of his father. He imagined how good it would be to see his father, returning from a morning hunt in the marsh, come walking along the edge of the water, his shotgun in one hand and a duck in the other. It was pleasant to indulge in such a dream, but he suspected doing things like that would make it all that harder to accept that his father had died brutally not forty yards away. He did hope his father had not been the one who was screaming. The location of the wounds in his chest suggested he had died quickly.

  He turned and looked at the grave. He realized he had sat with his back to it. He wondered if he had done that on purpose. The grave was unmarked. He had considered what might make a good marker, but he could not come up with anything. All that came into his mind were things like engine blocks or tools. They would mean something to him, but people would laugh when they saw the grave decorations. Yet his father deserved some sort of remembrance. He would think about that.

  He thought again of the man he let escape returning. He suspected his mother would have been in favor of him killing all of them. She would have done it herself if she had been there and known how to shoot. That man he spared and his friends could come in the night when he was sleeping, and he would not have a chance. Maybe if he had a dog? But the only dogs he had seen were dead ones.

  After he ate he went out and looked at the grave. The first rain would wash away the patches of blood on the sand, and future rains would level the mound. He turned and looked toward the creek, wondering if the bodies he dumped there had already made their way to the river.

  He would repair the airboat and go to New Orleans and find his mother. Those security people she had hired would keep her safe, but he could imagine them abandoning her if things got too bad. His father would have wanted him to go. He wondered what the difference would be between the security people and his mother’s collection of artists. Former Navy Seals would be—unlike most of the artists—athletic men, the sort of men who were the stars on their high school football team.

  By now she had probably installed one of them in her bedroom. And that seemed to him something that should not disturb him. His mother was doing nothing wrong, breaking no promises or vows.

  So why does it bother me so much? he thought.

  He was less disturbed with the thought of her in bed with one of the security men than with one of the artists.

  He recalled his mother taking him in bed with her when they lived in New York. He must have been about four or five. He had been sick and kept waking with fever and nightmares. That recollection of her scent, that woman-smell of perfume and scented soap and flesh, different from the scent of men. Then there was the heat of the fever and the soft feel against his body of the cotton sheets. They were a cluster of sensations that every time he was in her presence seemed to hover about her. In her absence he could call them up anytime he wished.

  If she was not there, perhaps someone in the neighborhood would know where she had gone. Surely by now troops were in New Orleans and there was order. Getting the carburetor should be easy. He did not expect to find anyone in the town.

  So he loaded the johnboat with extra fuel and water and food for a few days. He took the Saiga and plenty of ammo and an AK-47. He poled the boat out of the marsh and then along the flooded road that was marked by power poles. As the road neared the bridge over a tributary of the big creek, he started the motor and eased the boat along the flooded road. Soon he reached the paved road that ran into town. It had several feet of water over it, and he was able to run the boat at a slow, steady pace, watching out for debris.

 
He came upon a body in military camouflage and steered around it and then another and another. Bloated carcasses of cows and goats were scattered among them.

  So this was what it was like, he thought. My father must have viewed scenes like this in Iraq, although not watery ones.

  He realized there was no difference between the dead men and the dead animals. They were just dead. He recalled his father’s words about the danger of cultivating an indifference to the dead.

  Vultures sat on the power poles. In the middle of a flooded field was a dead tree filled with them. He did not expect they could feed on dead things in the water, but they would have a feast when the water went down. It made no difference to them whether they were eating a goat or sitting on a dead man’s chest and dining on his liver.

  His father’s shop, unfortunately built on low ground, was a little outside of town. Someone had stolen the boats from the fenced lot beside the shop. He saw where they cut the fence. That was not surprising. Boats had become a precious commodity. The water was still up to above the top of the door. He did not even bother going inside. But the auto parts store was on high ground, and he was hopeful. He expected some water. It all depended on which shelf they kept the carburetors. He hoped it was a high one.

  As he approached the auto shop, the water got shallower. He became even more hopeful about a successful trip. As he turned a corner, he saw a red canoe, paddled by a girl, moving up the street away from him. She was working hard with the paddle as if her life depended on putting some distance between them. He opened the throttle a little and caught up with her easily.

  He used the boat to block her passage, forcing her into a chain-link fence. She tried to back the canoe out and escape.

  “Whoa,” he said as he put the engine in neutral. “Just wait.”

  She put down the paddle and turned to face him. She was dressed in a pair of chest-high waders whose top came almost up to her neck. Her face was covered with sweat from the exertion of paddling on the hot day. She bent over and picked something up from the bottom of the canoe. When she turned back to him, she held a butcher knife in her hand.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”

  But she was still scared, so scared she was trembling and breathing hard, taking in great gulps of air. She looked at him closely and then gradually grew calmer.

  “Why, you’re just a boy,” she said.

  “I’ll be sixteen in December,” he said.

  “Do you have any water?”

  He tossed her a full canteen. Her hands shook as she unscrewed the top. Then she started gulping down the contents.

  “Careful,” he said. “Don’t drink too fast.”

  But she ignored him. He guessed she was twenty, maybe a little older. It was hard to tell with her dressed in waders and one of those broad-brimmed hats decorated with flowers women used when they gardened. She finished the canteen and sat there breathing hard.

  “More,” she said and tossed him the empty canteen.

  “In a minute,” he said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “I’ve had nothing to drink for two days.”

  To let her know that he had plenty of water and more was coming her way, he started to fill the canteen from one of the big water coolers. He took his time doing it.

  “I’ll give you this,” he said. “But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll just take sips.”

  She nodded her head and reached out for the canteen. He tossed it to her. To his surprise she did as he asked.

  He asked what she was doing in the canoe.

  “Looking for some bottled water,” she said. She pointed at the muddy water. “If you drink that, you’ll die.”

  They both looked at the trash-strewn water around them. Here and there were oil slicks.

  She told him her father owned an appliance store in the town.

  “When everybody left, he decided to stay. To protect his washing machines. The store is in an old building downtown and has a second floor and an elevator. He moved everything up there. We all thought the water would go down in a few days.”

  She went on to tell him that their house was close by, on high ground, and they thought they could live upstairs. They were running low on food and water and getting nervous because the water was rising, not falling, when one day she heard the sound of a motor.

  “I thought it was the National Guard,” she said.

  She had been in the attic and was preparing to come downstairs to investigate the motor when she heard a shot and then her mother’s screams. Then there were two more shots. She heard the sound of men laughing.

  “I knew they’d be coming up to the attic,” she said.

  But there was a place to hide, a secret room her father had built for her when she was a child, concealed behind a fake wall.

  “Just like in the movies,” she said. “You push this hidden button and the wall swings away.”

  She had sat there in the dark on the floor of the tiny room, no bigger than a closet, her arms wrapped around one of the stuffed animals from her childhood.

  “They rummaged around the attic for a while,” she said.

  One wanted to set the house on fire, but the others talked him out of it. That would just call attention to themselves. Any military helicopters in the area might come to investigate.

  “I heard them leave,” she said. “But I sat there on the floor for a long time. I cried but tried to do it silently just in case one of them stayed behind. Finally I decided they weren’t coming back. I had to go downstairs.”

  She described finding her parents’ bodies. Her mother had fallen in an awkward position across a chair. One hand was thrust upward as if she were trying to turn on the lamp. That was why the men had laughed.

  He told her about his father and how he too had cried.

  “I think maybe there’re no more tears left in me,” he said.

  “Me too,” she said.

  She had no way to bury her parents so she abandoned the house and went to live downtown in the store.

  He told her about the purpose of his trip to town and that he was planning to use the airboat to go to New Orleans. He explained to her that his mother was there, the house protected by security men.

  “You come with me,” he said.

  “I’d be crazy not to,” she said. “Your family must be rich.”

  “She’s got paintings and furniture to protect.”

  “Like I said your family is rich.”

  He supposed what she said was true. His mother had done well in New York. She had told him she had done well. But his father had not had money. He built the house himself. He worked long hours repairing outboard motors and boat engines. It seemed to him his father was much happier than his mother.

  She climbed into the johnboat and took off the waders. She was a plain-looking girl. He could smell the unwashed stink of her. Her brown hair was greasy and matted. He might not even recognize her if she had a shower and put on makeup and a dress. He still could not tell exactly how old she was, only that she was considerably older than he.

  “I’m Angela Marks,” she said.

  Then he introduced himself. She recognized his father’s last name.

  He put the motor in gear, and they went off down the flooded street to the auto parts store. When it came in view, he was pleased because there was only a foot or two of water in the doorway. He put on his waders. He took the Saiga in case somebody showed up. His supply of water would be a good enough reason to kill them.

  Inside there were some parts cartons floating about, along with the swollen body of a dead man. He smelled pretty bad. Stephen made his way around him carefully, not wanting him to start breaking up and smell even worse. He went behind the counter and back into rows of shelves where the parts were stored. He had to go down four rows before he found the carburetors. They were on a shelf just within his reach. He also took a couple of water pumps and some belts, because these were things that could easily break an
d would be impossible to repair. Then he retraced steps past the stinking dead man, whose bloated body bobbed a little in the slight wake his passing made. Now he saw the wisdom in his decision to tow the bodies to the creek.

  The trip back was uneventful. The dead soldiers and cows and goats were still in the same place. The vultures were still patiently watching. Angela looked at the dead men as they passed, the boat’s wake causing the bodies to bob. At least here in the open there was not much of a smell. He hoped Angela was not thinking of her parents.

  Then Angela turned from the dead men to look back at him.

  “The dead stink,” she said.

  “I know,” he said.

  “My parents are like them.”

  He had no idea what to say so he just nodded. He wanted to say that they were dead, that now it did not matter. But he thought better of it.

  “Don’t you think so?” she said.

  He hated it that she was pressing him. He wondered why she would ask him a question like that.

  “They’re dead,” he said.

  “Yes, they are,” she said.

  He opened the throttle a little.

  “You watch out for trash,” he shouted. “I don’t want to run into somebody’s dead cow.”

  She turned around and fixed her eyes on the water ahead of them.

  By the time they reached the house it was late afternoon. He brought the boat up to the dock slowly, looking for any sign of the return of the man. He did not want to tell Angela about him. His letting the man escape would make him look foolish.

  Perhaps he had enough time before dark to install the carburetor.

  “If you wish, you can take a shower,” he said to her.

  “You have a shower?” she said.

  “And plenty of water and power to heat it.”

  He told her he would switch on the water heater and then go work on the engine.

  It was almost dark when he finished with the engine. When he turned it on, it purred, no sign of any problem. He walked up the steps and smelled something cooking. She had found the leftover venison stew his father had made. She had transformed herself into a nice-looking girl, not exactly pretty but nice-looking: brown hair that was close to blond, nice breasts, long well-shaped legs. She looked good even dressed in a pair of his shorts and one of his T-shirts.