by Scott Ely
They tried the radio a few more times but then gave up and went to bed. But he found himself unable to sleep. He sat on the edge of his bed in the darkness and searched for stations on the radio. The result was the same: nothing but static. He wondered, if he climbed to the top of one of the big poplars on the creek bank, would that be enough to draw in the mystery station or any station at all? Finally he gave up and went to sleep.
Every day he made sure to keep the Saiga close and listen for sounds of gunshots or motors in the creek. But there was nothing. He did not even hear an airplane fly over. At night he slept in a real bed with the Saiga by his side. Angela was sleeping in another room. He wondered if she slept with the AK-47. He had heard Fred and Holly making love. That made him think of his mother and her young men. It also made him think of Angela. He wondered how many lovers she had had. He wondered how it would feel to put his hands on her. Because that was something he had never done with any girl, he found it hard to imagine.
At breakfast one morning, Stephen talked about going to Baton Rouge.
“Why not stay here until the army returns,” Holly said.
“Yes, then it’ll be safe,” Fred said.
He told them what he thought, that they had been lucky so far. One day someone was going to come down the creek and kill them.
“My father thought we were safe,” Angela said.
“But that was in a town,” Fred said. “No one has a reason to come here or even think someone would be living on a barge.”
“We came here,” he said. “If we were some of those people, you’d be dead.”
He imagined Fred and Holly floating facedown in the creek, borne by the steady current toward the Mississippi.
Holly and Fred argued against their leaving for a time but finally gave it up.
Angela wavered about his decision.
“They’ve got plenty of food,” she said.
“Someone can come here at any time and take it,” he said.
“The army could come.”
“Like I said, anybody could come here and take it.”
“You don’t trust the army.”
“Not when folks are hungry.”
She finally agreed that maybe he was right.
When they left one morning, Fred gave Stephen a six-pack of Cokes.
“You’ll have to drink them warm,” he said.
“I don’t care,” he said.
It was not going to be pleasant to return to a diet of rice and beans. But if all went well, they should be in Baton Rouge in a few days.
They headed down the creek. He planned to cross over into the swamp when they got close to the river and then follow the levee down to Baton Rouge. They had traveled two or three miles when he looked back and saw a plume of black smoke against the sky. He told Angela to run the airboat into an eddy next to the bank and cut the engine.
The only sounds were those of the birds. Far off toward the river, he thought he might hear the sound of an airplane. He asked Angela if she heard it, but she said she did not. Angela thought the plume of smoke seemed to be back off toward the pine-covered ridges, not along the creek at all. He wanted to believe that, but he was not so sure.
“Should we go back?” she asked.
“For what?” he said.
He explained that if the smoke was coming from the barge, whoever started the fire might decide to continue on down the creek. They would be better off when they were out of the creek and into the swamp.
Angela lowered her head into her hands and sobbed.
“Those people,” she said.
He knew what she meant. They were so beautiful. Amid all the chaos, all the death and suffering, they moved as if some god had placed a magic spell on them.
“Nothing’s happened to them,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean that I think you’re right. That smoke is more in the direction of the ridges.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
But he was thinking of all those windows shattering: blood on bathrobes, white tablecloths floating in the brown water.
“I’m going to believe you,” she said. “Don’t you be lying to me.”
“When have I done that?” he asked.
She had to admit he had not.
“I’m telling no lies now,” he said. “But we need to get down this creek and into the swamp.”
She started the engine. Before she turned the boat back out into the creek, she looked in the direction of the smoke one more time. It was still thick and black and showed no signs of diminishing. She turned her back to it and concentrated on piloting the boat.
He took up the Saiga, glad talk was now impossible. He was pretty certain they were far enough from the barge so no one could hear the sound of the engine. But he would not relax until they were out of the creek and into the swamp.
SEVEN
They finally found a passage. Once beyond the screen of trees bordering the creek, he saw they were in an enormous flooded field. The river was somewhere off to the west. He looked up at the sun and turned the airboat to the south and Baton Rouge. They ran for several hours. From time to time they came upon dead animals, both wild and domestic, but no humans.
Then up ahead he spotted a tree-covered mound of earth rising out of the submerged field. He had Angela stop the boat while he scanned it with the field glasses. A house was built on the truncated top of the mound. Off in an open space between some pecan trees a helicopter sat.
At any moment he expected to see someone launch a boat from the tiny island to have a look at them or even for the helicopter to venture out. He had Angela stop the airboat.
“The National Guard?” Angela asked.
“Looks like it to me,” he said.
The helicopter had military markings. But just because it was a military aircraft did not mean it was in the hands of the military. He expected by now someone on the island was looking at them with field glasses.
“What’s that hill?” Angela asked.
“Someone built a house on an Indian mound,” he said.
He got out of his seat and took up a position in the bow. He laid the Saiga on the bottom of the boat. He wanted to make it clear to the people on the mound that they had peaceful intentions. No doubt the inhabitants of the mound had food and water to protect.
“Take us in slow,” he said.
As they drew closer, he saw two johnboats drawn up on the grass and several people, both men and women standing there looking at them. Two of them waved, and he waved back. Down near the water’s edge, the grass was charred black in a band running both ways.
He turned to Angela and motioned for her to go slow.
“Anything happens, give it full throttle,” he said. “Run south.”
As they drew closer he scanned the people with his field glasses and saw that none of them was armed. They were all dressed in civilian clothes. He would have preferred to see them dressed in National Guard uniforms. Several of them carried long poles to which gigs were fixed. Perhaps they were living on frogs or were spearing fish in the shallow water.
They were only a hundred yards away now. He looked down at the Saiga and rehearsed in his mind how he was going to pick it up if anyone threatened them. He smiled at the people and waved at them. He turned his head and saw Angela doing the same.
Angela ran the bow of the airboat up onto the grass. There were two women, about his mother’s age, and three men. One of the women grabbed the bowline. He stepped out of the boat, followed by Angela, and then everyone was talking at once.
“Where did you children come from?” one of the women asked.
So he gave them a quick summary of their journey, how his father was dead and Angela’s parents were dead. He mentioned nothing about the men he killed or the murder of the family or of the couple on the barge. He hoped Angela would keep quiet about those matters too.
The people had been plucked off the levee
by the National Guard helicopter. After developing engine trouble, it had been forced to land on the mound. The pilots had given their position but had been told not to expect rescue for a long time. Resources were needed elsewhere, and they were on dry ground.
The refugees were all from some small Mississippi town he had never heard of. One was a banker, another an insurance agent, and the third owned a funeral home. One of the women was married to the banker and the other to the insurance agent. The undertaker had lost his wife in the flood.
“Mr. Parker is beginning to think he made a big mistake staying,” the banker said.
Mr. Parker owned the mound and the house on it and the land for miles around. He was determined to ride out the flood just as his ancestors had ridden out previous floods and the Indians before them. The mound was already a large one when the first settlers cleared the land. It had been further enlarged over the years, first with slave labor and then with a bulldozer.
Stephen discovered that the poles and the frog gigs were for snakes. They were having a bad problem with snakes. Mr. Parker had somehow acquired a flamethrower. He made a circuit of the mound every night and killed snakes. The black band near the water was scorched grass.
“I didn’t imagine there were that many snakes in the whole world,” the other woman said.
“You had to shoot anybody with that combat shotgun?” the insurance agent asked.
They had moved off from the women and were standing in a group by the bow of the boat.
“No, sir,” Stephen said. “Just snakes.”
“You can’t blame us for asking,” the undertaker said. “Looks to me like you’re all set to go to war.”
“He’s got an AK-47,” the insurance agent said.
“It’s dangerous out there,” Angela said.
“I expect it is,” the banker said.
Stephen wondered if they were going to be interested in his supplies. Now he wished that he had carried the Saiga ashore. And again perhaps it would have been a good idea to let them know he had killed a few people. But it was too late to start telling stories like that. They would think he was making it all up. To them he was just a boy.
“Let’s go find Mr. Parker,” the undertaker said. “He’ll want to talk to them.”
“That helicopter is broke,” the insurance agent said. “I don’t care what those pilots say about trying to fix it. It’s not gonna happen. But it’s gonna be tough getting out of here in a johnboat. There’s some mean currents and snags out there.”
A man wearing knee-high snake-proof boots was approaching. He carried a pole with a gig on the end. He wore a pistol at his hip. Stephen guessed this was Mr. Parker.
Mr. Parker, like all of them, was dirty and tired-looking. He stopped before them and looked them over, digging the gig from time to time into the soft earth. Then he lifted one of the charred snakes, a big rattler, and tossed it into the water.
He introduced himself and shook both their hands. When Stephen said his name, the man looked at him closely.
“You live in New Orleans?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said.
“Over near Audubon Park?”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said.
“Your mother is Anna Hudgins?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know her. She’s been to dinner right here. She works with my brother.”
He went on to explain that his brother designed Mardi Gras costumes. His wife was one of Stephen’s mother’s friends. Mrs. Parker was in Baton Rouge.
Stephen told him how he had gone to spend the summer with his father.
“Where’s your father?” Mr. Parker asked.
“Dead,” Stephen said.
He gave a detailed account of his father’s death.
“You killed them with that combat shotgun?” the insurance agent asked.
“No, sir,” Stephen said. “Like I said, I was coming back from hunting ducks. It was a Browning.”
Then Mr. Parker asked him about his mother.
“She’s in New Orleans or maybe Baton Rouge,” Stephen said. He explained how she had hired security people to take care of the house and its furnishings.
“Yes, I expect there’s been plenty of looting in New Orleans,” Mr. Parker said. “Most folks have pretty well given up on that city. Don’t you worry about your mother. She’d hire the best.”
Then he asked Angela a few questions. She told him how Stephen had rescued her from the flooded town.
“You folks are mighty clean,” he said.
Stephen wondered what he was going to say. Angela looked at him.
“Why’s that?” Parker asked. “You must have been wandering around these swamps and flooded fields for days.”
So he told them about the barge. The moment he said the word barge, Mr. Parker interrupted him.
“Fred and Holly are still alive?” Mr. Parker said.
“Yes, sir, they are,” Angela said.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t kill them just to get a hot shower,” Mr. Parker said.
He laughed at his own joke along with the others.
“I’ll like a hot shower,” one of the women said. “I want to get to a hotel someplace. A bath would be better than a shower. A long bath.”
Stephen wondered exactly how far a person had to go to find that hotel and that bathtub. He expected it would be a long way.
“Stephen, you and Angela come on up to the house,” Mr. Parker said. “I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
“I’ll sleep on the boat,” Stephen said.
Angela decided she would sleep in the house. He watched her walk off with Mr. Parker.
He went back to the boat and retrieved the Saiga and the radio.
“Worried about snakes?” the insurance agent asked.
“That’s right,” Stephen said.
“That radio work?” the banker asked.
“Most of the time,” Stephen said.
He went up to the house and found that Angela would be sleeping on the screened porch that ran the length of the back of the house. It had begun to grow dark. They were cooking something in an enormous iron pot over a gas grill. It turned out to be a venison chili that Mr. Parker had made. There was corn and beans and squash from his garden.
The pilots and their crew chief appeared. They announced they thought they had repaired the helicopter. They would be able to fly out in the morning. The refugees were elated.
“We could go to Natchez,” the banker’s wife said.
“I don’t care where we go just as long as it’s dry,” the insurance agent said.
Stephen cranked the generator and turned on the radio. He found a station out of Baton Rouge. The announcer advised that relief was on the way just as long as another hurricane did not appear.
“What about that station you keep trying?” Angela said.
Stephen wished she had kept quiet about that. He wondered how he would feel if the station came in loud and clear and the Swamp Hog started making those wild statements. He spun the dial and set it on a place where he was sure he would find nothing but static.
“No, that’s not the place I mean,” Angela said.
She pushed him away and set the dial on the station. To his relief there was just static. Not a single word came out of the speaker.
“I wonder if you dreamed that station,” she said.
“You and my father would have gotten along fine,” he said. “That’s what he told me.”
They all ate and watched the sun set over the flooded fields. Mr. Parker hoped the water would go down, and he would be able to plant in a month or so. But he doubted that was going to happen. He expected there would be more hurricanes and more floods and more levee breaks, and pretty soon things would be back to when the Indians inhabited the land and the river spread out over its banks at least once or twice a year, doing whatever it wanted to do.
When it was completely dark, Steven took up the Saiga and the radio and started dow
n to the boat. Mr. Parker offered to go with him. He carried the flamethrower. He wore a gas-powered headlamp.
“Nothing like going out and frying a few snakes after a good dinner,” he said.
He followed Mr. Parker down to the water. Halfway down the hill they began to encounter snakes. Mr. Parker left the harmless water snakes alone. He was looking for cottonmouths, rattlers, and copperheads. He held up his hand. Stephen saw a cottonmouth coiled up directly in their path, displaying the white lining of its mouth. Mr. Parker trained the flamethrower on it. He pulled the trigger and the flame leaped out at the snake with a whoosh, illuminating the night, and Stephen smelled a gasoline stink. He imagined he could hear the snake sizzling like a sausage on a grill. Mr. Parker played his light over the charred remains.
“The way it’s gotten so hot all the time, pretty soon I’ll be killing cobras and pythons,” he said. “They were starting to have a serious problem in Florida. Now that Florida’s gone, I expect they’ll eventually move up this way.”
He incinerated a few more cottonmouths and a big rattler on the way to the airboat. Stephen climbed on board.
“Worried about your boat?” Mr. Parker said.
“It’s been on my mind,” Stephen said.
“Well, I don’t blame you. But those folks’ll fly out on that helicopter in the morning.”
“That suits me just fine.”
“You know, I wouldn’t be ashamed to have my sons grow up like you.”
Stephen did not know what to say. He supposed the sons were in Baton Rouge with Mr. Parker’s wife.
“I’m not grown up,” he said.
“Oh, I think you’ve gone as far as it’s possible to go,”
Mr. Parker said.
Stephen wondered what he meant.
Mr. Parker played his light over the grass. It illuminated a couple of small gators, their eyes shining red in the light. There were plenty of snakes.