The Elephant Mountains

by Scott Ely

  But Byron still had his back to him. He had dropped the empty magazine and was slipping a fresh one into the rifle. The man and his wife and children, alive and hopeful only moments ago, lay sprawled about in grotesque poses. He had a momentary impulse to will them back alive. If he had kept the rifle out of Byron’s hands, they would be alive. If he had left Byron in the tree, they would be alive.

  Byron turned to him and grinned.

  “They won’t be needing anything now,” he said. “We’ve got nothing to spare.”

  Angela was still screaming and had fallen to her knees. He wondered if she had taken a bullet.

  “Hush up, girl,” Byron said. “You’ll see worse before this is over.”

  Byron was holding the rifle with one hand over his shoulder. Stephen stepped off the bow of the airboat onto the bank. He brought up the shotgun.

  “No, don’t,” Angela screamed.

  As she moved toward him, he sidestepped away from her, not wanting his field of fire encumbered.

  “Don’t!” she said. “Please!”

  “Put the rifle down,” he said. “I won’t ask you again.”

  Byron bent over and set the rifle on the ground.

  “Now step away from it,” he said.

  Byron backed off a few paces.

  “More,” he said.

  Byron moved far enough away to satisfy him.

  “Thank you,” Angela said. “Thank you.”

  “We didn’t have food and water for them too,” Byron said.

  Stephen could tell from the way he said it that he believed he had made a perfectly logical and rational decision.

  “You murdered them for no reason,” Angela said. “No reason.”

  Stephen told Angela to go pick up the rifle and to be careful because the safety was likely to be off, the selector switch still set on automatic.

  After she retrieved the rifle, he told her to put it in the airboat with the barrel pointing toward the swamp. She did the same with the man’s shotgun. He directed Byron to step away a few more yards. Stephen slung his shotgun. While watching him over his shoulder, he pushed the airboat out into the water. He knelt in the bow and told Angela to start the engine.

  “Hey, wait,” Byron said. “What about me?”

  “Don’t remind me you’re alive,” he said.

  “What were those people to you?” Byron said.

  “They were people,” he said.

  The engine started, and Angela swung the airboat out into open water. Byron ran up the edge of the water and was screaming something at them, his face all contorted, but Stephen could not make out a word because of the noise of the engine and the propeller.

  They went up the side of the ridge, their backs to Byron. Then the ridge swung to the north, and Stephen knew that even if he turned to look in Byron’s direction, he would be unable to see him.

  The land continued to rise with pine-covered ridges interspersed with cypress swamps. Finally they found their way blocked by a ridge, and after following it for miles to the east, he realized that moving north was not a good idea. Perhaps they should just take their chance with more water and tricky currents. When they hit a creek that flowed to the west, he directed Angela to turn into it. He thought it would be better to try to reach Baton Rouge than to press on north. Late in the afternoon he had her run the boat out of the creek and into a cypress swamp.

  They ate and sat in the boat and waited for it to turn dark so they could sleep.

  “Why did he kill those people?” she asked.

  He liked it that she, a grown woman, was asking him, a boy, a question like that.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess because he could.”

  “You should’ve killed him,” she said.

  He reminded her she was against his doing that and asked her why she changed her mind.

  “He gets a chance, he’ll kill another family,” she said.

  He imagined she was thinking of her parents, but he did not say anything.

  Then they had a discussion about killing people who are likely to kill innocent people for no particular reason.

  “Doing that is another side of anarchy,” he said. “But he sure deserved it.”

  “But you didn’t. Why did you pay any attention to me?”

  “You sure ask hard questions.”

  He considered why he had not filled Byron full of buckshot. He thought of the men who killed his father and of the one he let escape. He wondered if he should tell her about that and then he did.

  “I’ve killed enough people,” he said. “Let somebody else come along and kill him. I don’t want to start deciding who’ll live and who’ll die.”

  “I could’ve killed him,” she said. “I just didn’t know it at the time.”

  He told her about his father’s observations on the effects of killing and how he did not understand.

  “Do you now?” she asked.

  “Not really,” he said. “Do you?”

  “I’m not sure. I think I could kill a hundred Byron Williams and still love the rest of the world.” She paused and looked off into the darkness. “Do you think those people your mother hired have had to shoot anyone?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “If somebody tried to steal a painting or a fine piece of furniture.”

  “Or some water or food. All that stuff could be sitting in the house, underwater. Maybe the only thing they could save was themselves.”

  Byron had called them mercenaries. Stephen supposed that was as good a name for them as any. He wondered if there were four or five of them or just one. By now they could have removed his mother from New Orleans.

  “They’d be happy to pull the trigger on somebody,” he said.

  That was an expression he had heard his father use.

  He remembered he needed to teach her to shoot. One problem with that was everyone for miles around would hear the sound. It was something he would do in the morning. He also decided they would not stand watches. She was exhausted and so was he. Both of them could use a good night’s sleep. He wondered if she regretted not having the opportunity to pray over the dead family. One thing for sure, if Byron had killed Angela and him, he would not be doing any praying.

  “I’m so tired,” she said.

  They went to sleep. He wrapped his arms around the Saiga.

  “Good night,” he said.

  But she did not reply. She was already asleep. He lay awake for some time, listening to the sounds of the swamp: splashes, night-birds, the rustle of the breeze in the cypresses. There was absolutely no sound to indicate the presence of people. He liked that. His opinion of human beings had been in steep decline, and the experience with Byron took it to the bottom.

  He considered getting up and listening to the radio. But he felt too tired to move and too anxious to sleep. Perhaps it was a mistake not to have set a watch. He shifted the Saiga a little to one side, feeling the satisfactory and comforting weight of the box magazine. He smelled the stink of his unwashed body. He told himself over and over they were safe in the darkness of the swamp. Finally he calmed down enough to feel safe closing his eyes. He hoped the sleep that awaited him would be deep and uninterrupted.

  SIX

  After breakfast, he gave Angela a shooting lesson. He started her out firing one of the AK-47s at a big cypress knee perhaps twenty yards away. Gradually she worked up to a smaller knee at fifty yards. By the time she had shot a hundred rounds, she was hitting most of the targets. He told her for the time being semiautomatic would be fine. He did not like to contemplate the idea of her panicking with the selector switch on automatic. Now anyone who planned on causing them trouble would have to deal with two instead of one. She would no longer be all bluff. He did wonder if she could actually shoot someone.

  “You have to use that rifle, you just think about that bartender,” he said.

  “I will,” she said. “I won’t let you down.”

  “I don’t want to have to shoo
t another person. But sometimes there’s no choice.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “Me neither.”

  She chambered a round and then worked the bolt to eject the round from the chamber. She dropped the magazine and then reinserted it and chambered a fresh round.

  “See, I could do it blindfolded,” she said.

  “You’re ready,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  He hoped she was ready. He hoped he was never going to have to find out if she was.

  After he took his position in the bow, Angela maneuvered the boat out of the swamp and into the flooded creek. They had traveled a mile or so when they came around a bend and saw a barge moored on the slack-water side of the creek. It had a house built on it. Someone had given the house a fresh coat of white paint. It shimmered before his eyes in the sunlight, a stark contrast against the muddy water of the creek and the rusted metal of the barge. A couple, dressed in white bathrobes, were standing at one end of the barge with coffee cups in their hands. First the woman and then the man waved. He waved back. The couple were all smiles. They looked relaxed and peaceful.

  “Go in slow,” he told Angela.

  He settled the Saiga into a comfortable position. As far as he could see, they were not armed. When they got closer, he stood up and slung the shotgun over his shoulder to appear less threatening. Angela steered the airboat up to the side of the barge and put the engine in neutral.

  “You the ones doing all the shooting?” the man asked.

  “That was us,” Stephen said.

  “Any trouble?” the woman asked.

  They were tall and blond. The woman had long straight hair that fell down her back. The man’s hair was long and curly. They were two of the most beautiful people he had ever seen.

  “No trouble,” he said. “Target practice.”

  “Target practice?” the man said.

  “She’s learning to shoot,” he said.

  “He says I’m already a good shot,” Angela said.

  “I imagine you are,” the woman said.

  He wondered if they knew what had been going on in the flooded countryside around them. Surely they had spotted bodies floating down the creek. He wondered if they had a radio. If they had weapons, they were keeping them out of sight.

  “Come aboard,” the man said.

  They climbed aboard. He took the Saiga with him, and Angela her AK-47.

  The man’s name was Fred, and the woman was Holly. They were locals who had been living on the barge for a year. Holly had a teaching degree from LSU, but she had temporarily taken a break from teaching. Fred did some commercial fishing. A johnboat was moored to the barge with a stack of hoop nets in it. A blue kayak was sitting on the deck at the far end of the barge. They had a garden, now underwater, on a strip of high ground between the creek and the swamp. They had a generator and some solar panels set up on one end of the barge. And a cistern for drinking water. They had recently painted the house and replaced the windows broken by their brushes with the hurricanes.

  “We’ve decided there aren’t going to be any more hurricanes,” Holly said.

  Fred laughed.

  “I hope so,” he said. “We’re out of glass.”

  Stephen imagined his father would have been pleased with their setup.

  “Honey, you can get yourself a shower,” Holly said to Angela.

  Angela started to cry. Holly put her arm around her, and they walked off into the house together. Angela still had the rifle slung over her shoulder.

  He told Fred how Angela and he came to be on the airboat together. Fred had not heard anything of what was going on in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. There was dry land and access to the highway far upstream, but he cautioned Stephen that it was too dangerous to go up there.

  “Bunch of drunks with automatic rifles,” he said. “I watched ’em through field glasses. They never knew I was there.”

  “Aren’t you worried they’ll come down here?” Stephen asked.

  “Too much fallen timber in the creek. If you go through the swamp, you have to know the way. We’re safe here.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You can depend on it.”

  Fred thought it would be some time before the army started restoring order.

  The creek flowed into the Mississippi. They were well north of I-10 and west of I-55. There had been many breaks and overtoppings of the levee, flooding the flat cropland and swamps. They had seen dead bodies of both people and animals in the creek.

  “You might could get to Baton Rouge,” he said. “But who knows what you’re gonna find there. We’d be pleased for you to stay with us until the water goes down. The army will be back in here, and people will have to do right.”

  Stephen wanted to tell him he was lucky no one had showed up to kill them both and take their water and food. But he said nothing. Fred was a grown man, perhaps thirty or thirty-five years old, and he was just a boy. He would not be eager to listen to a boy’s opinions.

  “I’ll stay for a while,” he said. “I don’t know about the girl.”

  “You do what you want,” he said. “I know you want to find your mother.”

  He did want to find her but not necessarily live with her. He just wanted to make sure she was all right.

  Holly and Angela came out on the deck. Angela’s hair was still wet. She was dressed in some of Holly’s clothes.

  “I thought she was going to take a shower with that rifle,” Holly said.

  “You’re safe here,” Fred said.

  Angela looked like she was going to start crying again. He imagined she was thinking of her parents. He supposed he would do the same if he thought too hard about his father. But he also believed he had done all his crying.

  He went off to take a shower, leaving the Saiga on deck. He showered with his clothes on before stripping them off and wringing them out. None of Fred’s clothes were going to fit him, all of them way too big. He lingered in the shower, feeling the pleasant drum of the hot water against his skin. He began to think of how his father would have been proud of the way he had conducted himself. Even his father could not have prevented Byron from killing the family. Then he found himself thinking of his father lying there on the sand, and he began to weep. He sat down on the floor of the shower and sobbed, his whole body shaking.

  Then he tried to focus not on his father’s body on the sand but on the grave, colorful fish darting about over it. He seized on this image. Gradually, as he concentrated, he grew calm.

  He put on a bathrobe and went back out onto the deck. As he walked through the house, he took a close look at it for the first time. One whole wall was mostly windows, stained-glass ones scattered among the clear panes. There were skylights in the ceiling. It had the feeling of being outside. He liked it that they had found a way to live amid all this chaos in such a beautiful space. But he knew just one random passing of a boat with the wrong people in it, and all of this would disappear.

  He went out onto the deck and found them having wine. They offered him some, but he said no. He had had his first glass of wine last Thanksgiving in New Orleans. It was something he did not care for. Then Holly produced a bottle of Coke and ice. They had ice. It had been a long time since he had had a Coke with ice.

  As he sat there drinking the Coke slowly and watching the older people drink their wine, he realized that he was quickly slipping back into his status as a boy. He put his bare foot on the Saiga resting at his feet. And he knew that he was never going to be that boy again, not since the night his father was killed.

  At dinner that night he did drink some wine. They had dinner with candles. First it was turtle soup and then wild boar Fred had shot.

  “Better than anything you could buy at the store,” Fred said.

  They all agreed it was.

  The table was covered with a white tablecloth. They had cloth napkins. There were several forks and knives for him to choose from. He was glad his mother had taught him what
to do. No one mentioned the flooded countryside around them where dead bodies floated. Instead Fred told funny stories about catching big catfish. Stephen did not know if he believed the story about the catfish that towed the johnboat down the creek and wrecked it on a cypress knee. But it was funny, and he laughed along with the others.

  That night he was awakened by the sound of music. It was Bach. His mother played it on the piano. He supposed for a moment it was a recording, but then it started and stopped again. He slipped out of his room and followed the music. Holly, dressed in her white bathrobe, was sitting in a dining-room chair, her back to him, playing a cello. He listened for a long time before he went back to sleep. As he lay in bed, he knew he wanted to leave soon. There was no future for them here.

  The weather was hot but calm, the sky blue and filled with harmless-looking white clouds. They learned from the radio no hurricanes were wandering about in the Gulf. New Orleans had been totally evacuated, and people had been forbidden to return. Baton Rouge was filled with refugees. For the first time he recalled his mother had friends in Baton Rouge.

  He and Fred listened to the radio one night after Angela and Holly had gone to sleep. Without telling Fred, he tried to dial in the mystery station. But for his efforts he was rewarded only with static.

  “Nothing much up at that end of the dial,” Fred said.

  So he tried the Texas station, but that failed to come in too.

  “Whose idea was it to live on this barge?” he asked.

  “Holly’s,” Fred said. “We were thinking about building a cabin on a patch of high ground further down the creek. Then she heard about the barge for sale.”

  Stephen wondered if he could persuade Angela to live with him in his father’s house. It could be that the water would go down and the march of the hurricanes cease and the sea rise no further. He could work on motors, just like his father, in the shop. He wondered if Angela would want to go back to the little town if the water went down. He doubted if she could ever stay in the house where her parents were murdered. She might be willing to come live in his father’s house. But with a boy like him?