by Scott Ely
He lowered the Saiga.
“How did you get here?” Stephen asked.
He told them he was from New Orleans. He had fled the city by boat. He went across the lake, following the ruined bridge. Sections had collapsed when some barges got loose and were driven by hurricane-force winds against it.
“These men come up in a big inboard and took my water, food and gas,” he said. “Then they shot my little boat full of holes while I was in it and told me to swim for it.”
He explained how, when he was at the end of his strength and thought surely he was going to drown, he came upon a big chunk of Styrofoam. He was able to use that as a life preserver until it broke apart beneath his weight.
“I climbed right up on this limb,” he said.
“Why did you leave New Orleans?” Stephen asked.
“Because it’s full of water,” he said. “The levees broke. Most of the people are gone. The National Guard has pulled out.”
Stephen asked him what he thought the area around Audubon Park might be like.
“I imagine it’s under about twenty feet of water,” he said. “But I don’t know. I never had a reason to go there. That’s where rich people live. Besides, it’s foolish talking about high places. There’s no high ground in New Orleans.”
If the man was telling the truth, it confirmed what he had heard on the radio. Perhaps he should be more inclined to trust what he heard from the mystery station.
Stephen considered what he should do. One thing was certain—going across the lake would be dangerous. On a day when the lake was perfectly smooth, they would probably be able to outrun many boats. But he could not count on that.
“Boy, are you gonna leave me up in this tree?” the man said.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“A dry place,” he said.
“Us too,” he said. “Come aboard.”
He did not know how Angela felt, but he just could not leave the man in the tree to die.
Stephen expected him to climb out along the limb to where it trailed off into the water. Instead he simply dropped out of the tree. He swam to the boat, and Stephen helped him climb over the side.
“I thought I was going to be in that tree until Christmas,” he said.
After he drank plenty of water, ignoring Stephen’s warning about drinking slowly, he told them his name was Byron Williams and that he worked in New Orleans as a bartender.
“When they closed the bar, I should’ve gotten out,” he said. “But I thought I’d just hole up in my apartment. It’s on the third floor. I wasn’t counting on those new levees breaking. That damn Corps of Engineers can’t build a levee that’ll hold.”
Stephen decided they would head west through the swamps and flooded farmland toward Baton Rouge and high ground. If they were lucky, they would find Interstate 12 and follow it to Baton Rouge. There he would find out for sure if New Orleans had been completely abandoned. Perhaps his mother was in Baton Rouge.
With Byron in the bow to look for debris, he took a seat in the passenger’s seat in front of Angela, the Saiga across his legs. He was glad he had stowed the other weapons away. And he would insist that Angela and he would pull watches and let Byron sleep. Angela would wake him if Byron got up. The first dry ground they came to he was going to drop him off and tell him goodbye.
He set a westerly course by the sun. Sometimes they ran through flooded towns and sometimes through swamps. Late in the afternoon Angela guided the boat up into some flooded timber. Somewhere out to the west was Interstate 55, but he would not be surprised if it was completely underwater. Stephen realized it was going to be hard to find Baton Rouge unless they went all the way to the levee on the Mississippi and followed it down to the city.
Byron insisted on being the cook for their supper of beans and rice.
As he cooked, he began to talk about New Orleans, how everything was underwater. Angela told him Stephen’s mother was staying and about the security company who was guarding her house, protecting valuable paintings and furniture.
“She’ll really appreciate having you home,” Byron said. “Maybe she’s there. Maybe she’s not. Who’s to say how high the water is. We can go take a look. I know the way. I guess if I can escape from New Orleans then I can help you get back in. If I can’t get you there, I’ll get you to Natchez or Baton Rouge. I know Natchez ain’t flooded. If it is we need to be on the lookout for Mr. Noah.”
“I can get myself home,” Stephen said.
He suspected Byron was trying to take over. Perhaps he expected a reward from Stephen’s mother.
“I know you can,” Bryon said.
“He fixed the motor on this boat,” Angela said.
“He’s a smart boy, all right,” Bryon said.
After they ate, Stephen took the first watch, sitting in the driver’s seat with the Saiga across his legs. Angela was under the mosquito netting and Byron, who said he was not sleepy, sat in the bow. Pretty soon they could hear the sound of Angela snoring.
“She’s your girlfriend?” Byron asked. “I know she’s not your sister from the way you look at her.”
“What way is that?” he said.
“Not the way you’d look at your sister.”
He told him how he picked her up in the flooded town.
“You got a big heart, boy,” Byron said. “A big heart.”
Byron asked how old he was, and he lied and told him he was sixteen. He considered telling him about the men he had killed so Byron would be wary of him. But he feared it would sound like a boy’s bragging. Better to let Byron underestimate him.
Then Byron spent considerable time telling him about all the women he had had in New Orleans.
“A different one every weekend,” he said. “I’ll bet you just tear it up with them high school girls.”
Stephen shrugged.
“I do okay,” he said.
Now Byron had maneuvered him into lying and that made him uncomfortable. The next thing he knew Byron would be pressing him to provide details.
Byron laughed quietly.
“I bet you do,” he said.
But then he was back to bragging about his exploits with women.
Stephen wanted to tell him he did not see how Byron had time to tend bar and service all those women. But he kept his mouth shut and pretended he was impressed. Finally, to Stephen’s great relief, Byron crawled under the mosquito netting and went to sleep. Stephen wished he could hear him snoring like Angela, but he told himself that perhaps Byron did not snore.
He did not wake Angela, pulling a triple watch instead. No sound came from Byron. He tried finding the mystery station on the radio again, but there was nothing but static. Finally, when he was reduced to fighting to keep his eyes open, he woke Angela.
“Byron moves, you wake me up,” he said.
“We should’ve left him in the tree,” she said. “I don’t like the way he looks at me.”
Stephen had not been aware Byron had been looking at her in any particular way. If he were looking at her in that way, she would know, just like she knew about Byron. After all, even Byron had noticed. He slipped beneath the mosquito netting and lay down with the Saiga. He expected to have difficulty sleeping, but instead he fell immediately asleep.
When she woke him, he struggled to sit up, the Saiga in his hands.
“It’s all right,” she whispered to him. “Nothing’s wrong.”
The rest of the night their watches went smoothly. Once it looked like Bryon was awake, but he was just turning over. Then it was Angela’s turn.
“You watch him close,” he told her.
“I will,” she said.
“Don’t you go to sleep.”
“I won’t.”
She put her hand on his arm.
“Don’t worry, you can count on me,” she said.
He woke to the smell of beans and rice cooking. Byron was doing the cooking, and she was sitting beside him.
“Get up, boy,” Byr
on says. “Let’s eat and get out of this damn swamp.”
FIVE
They worked their way through a labyrinth of swamps, always moving to the west, navigating as best they could by the position of the sun. He liked the swamps because the water was free of debris in places. Occasionally they hit a fast-moving current of brown water, thick with mud and filled with debris: a rocking chair, plastic containers, an occasional dead body. The currents formed rivers within the swamps. Byron thought the currents were from breaks in the main levee along the Mississippi. Stephen recalled the Swamp Hog on the radio saying that. Another indication that what he said was reliable.
He would not have thought he would get used to dead bodies floating around, but he had. He could tell Angela had too. Sometime he wanted to talk with Angela about his father’s warning, to see what she thought he meant. But he felt uncomfortable doing that with Byron around. Mostly he had a view of Byron’s back, his T-shirt stained with mud, as he sat there on lookout for a clear path.
He was still being careful with Byron, making sure he always had the Saiga in his hands and that Byron did not start hanging around the place where the guns were stowed. Stephen liked him in the bow, where he had a good view of Bryon’s back and the man could not keep track of what he was doing. Byron was not a big man. He was nervous and twitchy.
Byron yearned for a cigarette.
“If I just had me a smoke,” he kept saying.
The second night on the airboat Byron showed no signs of going to sleep. Angela immediately went off to sleep. He offered to stand his share of the watches, but Stephen refused. Byron acquiesced.
“You’re the captain,” he said.
Stephen was surprised he did not argue or protest.
“I don’t feel much like sleeping,” Byron said.
“Angela and I’ll stand the watches.”
“She’s a good-looking girl.”
“I know that.”
“Maybe you do. Boys like you sometimes don’t appreciate girls the way they should.”
“I appreciate her. She’s a good driver.”
“Well, ain’t you the cool one.”
Stephen said nothing and pretended to be concerned with adjusting the sling on the Saiga.
Byron crawled under the netting. After only a few minutes, he sat up and threw it off.
“I ain’t sleepy.”
“Then don’t sleep.”
Stephen gripped the stock of the Saiga tightly and felt the reassuring weight of the magazine full of shells. He would not sleep until Byron slept.
“I wish I had me a smoke,” Byron said.
“You could swim to New Orleans for one,” Stephen said.
“I appreciate you pulling me out of that tree, but you’re being mighty unfriendly. I’m just trying to do my share.”
“The best thing you could do would be to go to sleep.”
Byron sprayed more mosquito repellent about his head.
“Want me to spray you?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” Stephen said.
“You been thinking about your mama?”
Stephen said nothing.
“She’s got them mercenaries taking care of her,” Bryon continued. “Pretty lady and her mercenaries.”
“How do you know she’s pretty?” Stephen asked.
“I expect she is. She ain’t an ugly woman, is she?”
“No.”
“See, I was right. A boy like you should be paying more attention to what I say.”
“I’ve been listening.”
“I’ll bet yawl have a safe in that house.”
“There’s no safe. Just paintings and furniture. It doesn’t matter. It’s underwater.”
“I’d have my money in gold. Wherever she is, she’s got mercenaries to guard her gold.”
“She has no gold.”
Then for a long time Byron was silent as if he were actually contemplating having gold to put in a safe. He lay stretched out on the deck. Stephen wondered if he had dropped off to sleep. Stephen was having a hard time staying awake himself. But then Byron stirred and sat up again.
Stephen had just about made up his mind not to sleep at all this night.
“These mosquitoes are not so bad,” Stephen said.
“They’re bad enough,” Byron said.
He woke Angela for her watch. Byron yawned.
“Maybe I am sleepy,” he said.
He crawled back under the netting.
Stephen gave Angela the Saiga.
“I…,” she began.
He expected she was going to tell him again that she knew nothing about guns.
“Just hold it across your lap,” he whispered in her ear. “Keep your fingers off the trigger. He wakes up or starts to move around, you wake me. Don’t wait until he comes out from under that mosquito net.”
She said she understood. He crawled under the netting.
In the morning he found himself standing watch and listening to Byron talk about his life as a bartender. Angela was asleep under the netting. Stephen thought he had gotten enough sleep to get himself through the day.
They were forced to move in a more northerly direction by a stiff current to the west that swept through an impenetrable tangle of underbrush. Logs and trash were caught up in the lower limbs of the trees. It was a dangerous place. He planned to get above the levee break and then, he hoped, with parts of the levee in sight, follow it down to Baton Rouge. There he would search for information about his mother. If it turned out she was still in New Orleans, they would go there. There was also no sign of Interstate 55. It seemed to him they had come far enough west to have crossed it.
They had learned from the radio that Baton Rouge was untouched by the flood. The new levees there were holding. New Orleans had been abandoned.
“Your mama is high and dry with her mercenaries someplace,” Byron had said. “Keeping them paintings dry. I’ll bet they ain’t used to guarding paintings. Won’t she be surprised when she sees you.”
“I expect she will,” Stephen said.
Up ahead he spotted the tops of pine trees through the cypresses. That meant high ground ahead.
Bryon was elated.
“I gonna get myself to the Smokey Mountains,” he said. “I don’t care if I never see the ocean or the Mississippi River again.”
Stephen wondered if he had been listening to the Swamp Hog. Maybe going to Baton Rouge was not a good idea. As they moved toward it, the water would be deeper and the currents perhaps unmanageable. It was hard to decide which way to proceed. Perhaps they could get to Natchez or Jackson, some place on high ground the flood had not touched, and find out about his mother’s whereabouts. It seemed to him that the National Guard might know.
Angela worked the airboat through the cypresses. She had become an expert driver in just a few days. Then ahead of them he saw smoke. Somebody was on the ridge.
Since he did not know exactly what they were going to find on the ridge, he elected to proceed cautiously. He decided to arm Bryon and Angela. After he learned from Bryon that he was familiar with rifles, he gave him an AK-47. He gave one to Angela too but with an empty magazine. It had been a mistake not to give her at least one shooting lesson. But just having the rifle in her hands would make people think she knew how to shoot.
“I know you don’t trust me,” Bryon said. “I can’t say I blame you. But you’ll see. I ain’t forgotten how you took me out of that tree.”
They heard people shouting to them. As Angela worked the boat through the trees, the ridge rose above them. Then they saw a group of people standing by the water. A johnboat was pulled up on the bank. It was a family: a man, a woman and two children. The man had a shotgun slung over his shoulder.
“Watch that shotgun,” he said to Bryon.
“He tries anything and he’s a dead man,” Bryon said.
“What’s the matter with you,” Angela said. “Can’t you see it’s a family?”
The people were dirty and desperate-look
ing. The children looked frightened.
“Could you spare some water?” the man asked. “My children are mighty thirsty.”
“There’s water all around you,” Byron said.
“Drinking that swamp water has made us sick,” the man said.
“You should walk to a road,” Stephen said.
“We can’t,” the woman said. “There’s water all around.”
“Then go to the next ridge,” Angela said.
“We’re out of gas,” the man said. “I’m afraid to pole or paddle. There’s some tricky currents out in the swamp.”
Angela gave the man a canteen. He handed it to his wife who gave it to the children. They took great gulps from it until the woman took it away from them.
“My stomach hurts,” the boy, who looked like he was eight or nine years old, said.
“Mine too,” the girl said.
She was somewhat younger.
The woman flopped down and started to cry, her head between her knees. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed.
The man, after taking a few careful sips from the canteen, told them how he stayed behind to protect the convenience store he owned. It was on high ground that had never been flooded. Then someone stole their boat, leaving them stranded. The boat pulled up on the bank belonged to his neighbor, now dead.
“Heart attack, I think,” the man said.
He explained how the man had come to him for food. As he was getting out of the boat, he collapsed. Then the rising water had driven them out of the store. The family headed north, looking for high ground.
“You sure you didn’t murder your neighbor?” Byron asked.
The man’s face turned red. “I’ve never harmed another person,” he said.
“But you do agree that boat wouldn’t hold another person?” Byron said.
“Yes, but Dexter was dead,” the woman said. “We couldn’t carry his body around. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop that sort of talk. You’re scaring my children.”
Stephen told the man he would give him some gas and water and rice and beans.
“Keep heading north,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to do.”
He took their gas can from their boat and climbed back into the airboat to fill it from one of the containers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Byron moving along the bank. As he turned to see what Byron was up to, automatic rifle fire erupted, the sound rising up and overwhelming everything, making it difficult for him move or think clearly. Angela began to scream. He grabbed the Saiga but slipped and fell backward. Then he struggled to his feet and brought up the shotgun. He intended to catch Byron before he reloaded.