“Who’s there?” I said. There was no answer. I pulled my hand away from the wet boot. “Is that you, Hank?” I said.
Suddenly there was a flash of lightning from outside, and in the glow from the doorway reflected from the water I looked up and seen it was Hank above me. He was holding the shotgun, and he was trembling and had a terrible look on his face.
“I thought you was drowneded,” I said.
“You almost pulled me under,” he said.
“You let go of me,” I said.
“I couldn’t help you,” Hank said. He sounded like a little boy that was scared.
“I thought you was drowneded,” I said.
“I’m going to shoot myself,” he said. It was dark and I couldn’t see his face, but it was like I could see his face in his voice.
“Don’t talk crazy,” I said.
“I didn’t go to leave you,” Hank shouted.
“I know you didn’t,” I said. I was glad I couldn’t see his face.
There was a flash of light, and at first I thought the shotgun had gone off. But it was just another lightning.
“I ain’t no good for nobody!” Hank hollered.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. I was afraid of what he might do with the gun in the dark. I didn’t know what else to say. I had never seen Hank in such a state, or anybody else for that matter. There wasn’t anything I could think of to say.
“You go on back home,” Hank hollered. “I have ruint your life.”
“You ain’t ruined nothing, yet,” I said. “This is all the flood.”
Tears was mixed with rain in the corners of my eyes and down my cheeks. Lightning flashed again and I seen the water outside the door like wrinkled satin pulled away. Hank had had his moods, but he’d never done anything this crazy before.
“I ought to kill us both,” Hank shouted.
“No!” I screamed. “You’ll feel better tomorrow. The Lord will help us, if we pray,” I said, my teeth chattering. I was jerking I was so scared and cold. The horse whinnied and rammed against the side of its stall.
I expected Hank to answer, but he didn’t.
“The Lord loves everybody,” I said. I was saying whatever come into my head. I couldn’t think of what to say.
“The Lord has kicked my ass,” Hank said.
“Don’t talk like that,” I said. I expected the lightning to hit the barn and burn us up. Instead thunder boomed on the roof like it was a drum. The pressure hurt my ears. I put my hand on Hank’s dripping pants leg. “Come on down,” I said.
There was a blast of fire and a deafening roar and I heard a crash and tinkle on the barn roof. Heavy drops sprinkled around me. It took me a second to understand that Hank had fired the shotgun straight up at the roof.
“Please, Lord, help us,” I said. “Help Hank to calm down, and show us what to do.”
It come to me what Ma Richards would say to Hank. I heard her say it in my mind. “You think you’re so important the Lord would make a special flood just for you?” I said. “This flood is happening to everybody.”
Hank didn’t answer. I could smell the burned gunpowder.
“There ain’t nothing special about your troubles,” I said. It was hard words, but they was the truth. I was so scared there was nothing to say but the truth.
“Don’t make no difference what I do,” Hank said.
“You’re just feeling sorry for yourself,” I said.
“I should kill us both and have done with it,” Hank said. The cow bawled and thunder slammed the roof of the barn again.
“You won’t do it,” I said. “You’re just showing out.” It was a chance I had to take, to shame him back to his senses. I had to do something to get him calmed down.
The gun fired again, and it sounded like sand was ricocheting around inside the hayloft. I hoped that was the last shell Hank had.
“Think of the baby,” I said.
“I can’t think of nothing,” Hank said.
“Let’s go back to the house,” I said. “We’re going to freeze to death out here.”
“We’ll get drowneded,” Hank said.
“I think the water’s going down,” I said. It did seem the water in the hallway of the barn was not as deep as it had been.
“Might as well get washed away,” Hank said.
“Do you want the baby to die?” I said. “Do you want the baby to freeze to death?”
“This ain’t no world for a baby,” Hank said.
Anger boiled up in me. All the confusion and scaredness in me started turning to anger now that Hank was a little calmer. “Get down from there and act like a man,” I said, and pulled at his leg.
“Wait till the water goes down,” Hank said. “Be foolish to go back now.”
I seen he was right. I was so cold and angry I was jerking, and I couldn’t stop. I had to get out of the freezing water. “Let’s climb up in the hay and get warm,” I said.
My feet trembled on the rungs as I pulled myself up the ladder in the dark. Even when there was a flicker of lightning you couldn’t see much up there except the cracks between boards. I took Hank’s hand and we felt our way to the pile of hay and crawled into it. I covered us up with straw and leaned against Hank and tried to stop shaking. The hay smelled like must and old apples. I hadn’t been inside a hay pile since I was a girl.
The flood roared outside and the horse whinnied and banged the stall below us. But I didn’t hear the cow anymore. She hadn’t bawled since Hank fired the shotgun the last time.
“You don’t need to blame yourself,” I said, and pushed up against Hank and held his waist.
Hank didn’t say nothing. I guess he was wore out by all that had happened. He put his arms around me and we laid there in the scratchy straw. I quit shaking finally, and I must have drifted off to sleep, for I thought somebody was calling to me. They was calling from a cellar, or down in a holler. And then I found it was the horse neighing.
I jerked up and listened. The floodwaters wasn’t so loud around the barn as before. Hank had dozed off too and I shook him.
“Listen,” I said.
“What?” he said and twisted hisself around.
“The water is quieter,” I said.
“I can still hear it,” Hank said.
“We’ve got to get back to the house and put on dry things,” I said. “We’re liable to catch pneumony.”
“You don’t want to go back out in that,” Hank said.
“We’ve got to,” I said.
We pushed the hay aside and felt our way to the ladder. I was stiff and sore, but no longer jerking as I found the rungs with the tips of my shoes and lowered myself into the water. The flood had gone down some, but was so cold it burned my ankles. I held on to Hank’s leg and then his hand as he climbed down. When we got to the barn door everything was so dark we couldn’t even see the house.
“We’ll have to feel our way,” I said, “the way we come out here.”
“I ain’t no good,” Hank said.
“It don’t matter if you’re any good or not,” I said, “we’ve got to get back to the house.”
The flood tore at my legs as I stepped into it, but I pushed my feet hard against the ground and held on to Hank’s arm, both steadying him and steadying myself.
“If I fall down just let me go,” Hank said.
“If you fall down I’ll fall down too,” I said, “and we’ll all be drowneded.” But I knowed he wasn’t going to fall down. Hank was strong as a big Percheron horse. He was shaky in his head, but he wasn’t shaky in his big shoulders and powerful back. He was strong as a rock wall. Without a lantern we couldn’t see the crazy water, but it splashed up on my chest and took my breath away. I held on to Hank’s arm like it was an oak tree.
“Oh!” I said when an icy splash hit my neck. The shock of the cold water on my chest and belly made me forget myself and stop.
“Come on,” Hank said and jerked my arm. I held on to him as the flood thrashed between my legs.
Now that he was out in the wild stream Hank come back to hisself a little. Lightning flashed and I seen the porch was not where I’d thought it was. We had been pushed by the current below the corner of the house, past where the washpot and clothesline was. We swung to the left in the ghostly light, and then it was dark again.
By the time we got to the steps my feet was too numb to feel anything. Hank had to help me up and across the porch.
“Let’s go upstairs where it’s dry,” I said.
“I’ll have to find a lamp,” Hank said.
• • •
WHEN WE GOT to the bedroom in the attic everything looked cold and damp. The day of rain had made everything clammy, and with the fire out the house was getting cold. I stood at the top of the stairs to let my muddy shoes and the bottom of my skirt drip as much as they would. In the bedroom I put the lamp on the table and went back to the stairs and wrung out the hem of my filthy skirt. It was a good thing we had not moved downstairs to Mr. Pendergast’s room after Lou and Garland visited us. Thank goodness most of our clothes was upstairs.
“There’s nothing to do but take off our wet things and get under the covers,” I said. But Hank didn’t answer. He had set down on the bed and put his face in his hands, and he was crying. A chill went through me, like an icicle had been drove down my spine. I went to Hank and took him by the shoulders. He sobbed into his hands like a baby. It didn’t seem possible a man as big and strong as Hank could be so unstrung as he had been that night.
“Let’s jump in bed and get warm,” I said. I got down on my knees and untied his wet boots and pulled them off. I slipped off his soaking-wet socks. “Get out of them wet overalls,” I said. He let me undress him like he didn’t care, like he was a sleepy baby that didn’t pay no attention. I was shivering with cold as I got his flannel nightshirt on him. I took off my own clothes and put on my flannel gown and got in bed beside him. Our feet was cold as snow. Hank had turned on his side away from me. He wasn’t sobbing anymore; he was just sullen and quiet.
“We’ll be warm and dry up here,” I said. I listened to the rain and to things rubbing and knocking on the house. I reckon boards and trees in the flood was washing against the walls. Once I felt the walls jar, and wondered if the house had broke loose from its foundations. It was strange to think that I was stronger than Hank. He was wore out and I still felt like fighting. I felt of my belly where it had begun to swell a little. I cupped my hands around my belly like I was protecting it.
“I’m afraid,” Hank said.
“I’m afraid too,” I said. The fact that he was so scared made me feel less afraid. I couldn’t explain it. Hank turned and put his face against my breast, and I pulled the gown to the side so the nipple was exposed. The nipple got hard and long and he put his lips to it. I run my fingers through his hair.
He leaned his head over and nibbled at my other breast, like he was hungry. He was so hungry he could never be filled.
“You don’t never need to be so afraid,” I said.
When I put out the lamp it was so dark in the bedroom you couldn’t see the dark. Most times you can see the dark because there is just a little bit of light. But it was so dark I might as well have been blind. The sight had been took away, and there was no way of seeing. The house shuddered as big trees or logs washed up against it. The house creaked and groaned, as if something was pushing it. There was a kind of bark, of one board slapping another. And suddenly there come a flash. And I seen the one window in the bedroom lit up with blinding chalk dust. It was lightning again. The brightness burned my eyes.
Thunder hit the air like a timber slammed down on the roof. The house shook and seemed to rock on its foundation. Thunder followed thunder, as though a pile of big rocks was falling on the roof. Doors was slamming all over the sky. And as soon as it quieted down there was another flash of blue. And thunder followed like a train busting out of a tunnel. It sounded as if the sky was crumbling in big chunks and crashing down the mountainside. Thunder echoed off the ridges and repeated itself and echoed again.
And just when it felt like I couldn’t stand to hear another thunder, I heard the wind. Suddenly wind brushed the house like it had been released by the thunder. Wind appeared as if it had been turned out of a cave and shoved up against the house. The eaves whined and windows shook. And trees across the valley and on the ridges above roared. I could hear another roar too, of a waterfall further up the valley, where floodwater was dropping hundreds of feet in the dark and breaking trees and churning up roots and boulders.
“Sounds like the end of the world,” Hank said.
“Nothing is the end of the world,” I said. I said it off the top of my head, but then I seen how true it was. If everything in the world come crashing down, the world would still go on. It would start all over again. The creek would go back to its banks and broke things would rot and turn into mulch and fertilizer. The sun would dry out the mud and silt, and weeds would start growing again.
Wind hit the side of the house again and flung drops pinged on the window. “It’s Christmas,” I said.
“Don’t seem like Christmas,” Hank said.
WHEN I WOKE up, Hank was gone from the bed. The place beside me was cold and everything about the bedroom seemed wrong. I looked around and tried to see what it was that was so bad about the room. Everything looked ordinary, except for our wet clothes on the floor. And then I thought that it was light, which meant it was much later than I was used to getting up. I had slept too long and I was uneasy in my stomach.
Another thing that was odd was the wind had stopped. The windowpanes was quiet and there was no rain on the roof. It had rained so long it sounded eerie not to hear drops on the tin roof. It was the quietness that was so strange. There was no dripping from the eaves. I listened to see if Hank was stirring around in the rooms below. The house was still.
• • •
WHEN I GOT dressed my shoes was still wet, but I put on dry stockings and climbed down the stairs. Opening the door into the living room I expected to see water standing on the floor, but there was none. Instead there was things laying on the floor, scattered here and yon, like an animal had been loose in the room. It was stuff that had been floating and was left when the water went down: soaked cardboard boxes, pieces of wood, bottles and jars, corncobs from the kindling box, clothespins, a broom. But the thing that struck me was not the look of the living room: it was the smell. There was the smell of a place wet and already sour. It was a stink of moldy rotting things. The water had only stood in the house a few hours, yet the house smelled like it had been rotting for months. It was a stink of soot and charred wood in the fireplace, and bitter soaked ashes. It was a stink of wet cloth and filth and festering mud. The floor was slick with a film of mud, and silt stuck to the bottoms of the curtains. The Christmas tree had mud on its lower limbs.
“Hank,” I called. I looked in the kitchen and seen the floor was littered the same way the living room was. “Hank!” I hollered. But there was nobody in the house. The kitchen smelled worse than the living room. The wood was all soaked and sticks was beginning to mold and sour. The water had brought out all the stink of the charred wood and soot inside the stove. And there was the stench of rancid grease and bits of rotted fat and crumbs from the table that had been found and loosened by the water. The floor was slick with red silt.
I put a hand over my nose and hurried to the back door. I expected to see water standing in the yard, but there was only a few puddles. The yard had been tore and scrubbed by the flash flood, and most of the grass had been peeled away. Wood had floated out of the woodshed and was scattered over the yard and pasture. A chicken coop had been carried away and washed up against the pasture fence. The outhouse had been knocked over. Otherwise the buildings was all in place, and sun sparkled on the puddles. But I didn’t see but six or eight chickens pecking in the mud.
“Hank,” I called.
My voice echoed off the side of the barn. The air was so warm it felt like early fal
l, but the trees on the mountainside was bare. The ice was all gone and the trees flashed silver in the sun. It had indeed turned warm after the sleet. I called for Hank again, and then I seen him come out of the hallway of the barn. He was leading the horse, and he took the horse to the pasture and turned it loose. After he put up the bars of the milkgap, he started back toward the house carrying the milk bucket. I could tell something was wrong by the sag of his shoulders.
“The cow is dead,” he said when he got closer.
“Drowneded?” I said.
“Hung herself,” Hank said. “She climbed up to the top of her stall as the water rose and caught her collar on a nail. Then hung herself when the water went down.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“I didn’t believe it either,” Hank said. “But the cow is dead, strangled by her own collar.”
“We got a baby coming and there won’t be no milk,” I said.
“I never heard of a cow hanging herself before,” Hank said.
“Can we eat the meat?” I said.
“It has already started to rot in this warm weather,” Hank said. “And beef won’t keep the way pork does.”
“You can’t salt it down?” I said.
“It has already started to rot,” Hank said, “because the blood is still in the carcass.” I wondered if the meat could be boiled and canned, but I didn’t say nothing. I didn’t want to argue with Hank, now that he was calm, after the way he had acted the night before.
When I went back into the kitchen I had to adjust my eyes to the dark. But the stink hit my nose quick. It was a sweet, sickening smell, worse than mildew. It was the smell of rotten things.
“First thing is to mop the floor,” I said.
Hank raked the wet ashes out of the stove and went to find some dry kindling in the barn. He didn’t mention what he had done in the flood, and I didn’t either. I got the bucket of fresh water from the back porch. It was clean and clear and had only been touched by rainwater. I took a drink, for I was parched from the long night of worry.
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