hyperventilate. How bad could it be? It was all an adventure as Mia had reminded me, so
quit the chickenshit worrying, I told myself. Still, looking back, my sixth sense had
kicked in early and I knew from the start it was a bad move.
The truck came to a halt before a heavy, metal gate. We heard it scrape the ground as
it opened on the rough terrain. Jefe Hombre drove us a further half-mile or more over the
rocky surface and into the compound. He pulled the truck to a stop, switched off the
engine, opened his door and climbed out. I waited, frozen in place as he walked around
and released the handle of the rear passenger door and roughly untied our blindfolds,
mine first, then Mia’s. We looked out into the dark, like a pair of timid lambs to the
slaughter, taking in our first glimpse of what would be our stark new reality. “Get out,” he said, gruffly, in Spanish. We climbed out, clinging on to our backpacks
and sleeping bags in our last, false sense of fast-dwindling security. The sky was
moonless and starless. I squinted through the inky black. Where the hell were we? And
what had we done?
The heavens opened as cold rain turned into small, hard, ice-bead balls of hail, pelting the windshield and all but blocking our view of the road.
Chapter 17
Maggie
The heavens opened as cold rain turned into small, hard, ice-bead balls of hail, pelting the windshield and all but blocking our view of the road. Marcus continued to adjust the airflow, slowing the damp breeze that flowed in through the air vents. He turned on the radio, tuning the dial to a news station with a sufficiently strong signal to reach this far out along the coast.
Maintaining a steady 50 miles per hour, his thick tires hissed on the wet asphalt. We snaked our way north. The road was our own.
A female newscaster with a husky voice employed her best “keep calm and carry on” tone, reinforcing our worst fears. “Severe storm weather conditions are set to persist through the coastal region this afternoon and into this evening,” she warned.
She listed, in her perfectly polished on-air cadence, a series of notorious highways already closed or likely to be closed due to hazardous driving conditions, cautioning drivers that a one-way traffic control had gone into effect a few miles to the north of us. Mudslides on the road above the small seaside village of Jenner had made the highway an impassable mess.
We were a few minutes south of the slides at the precise point where the coast highway intersects with highway 116 to weave along the curve of the Russian River, inland towards the cities of Healdsburg, Windsor and Santa Rosa.
The newscaster wrapped up her traffic report with a series of flash flood warnings in Sonoma, Marin and Napa Counties, issuing further terse instructions. “Do not, under any circumstances attempt to drive through any rising water,” she warned.
Bobby concurred, although still somewhat begrudgingly, that his preferred route was now completely out of the question. “If we push forward and the mudslides worsen, we’re gonna find ourselves in trouble,” he admitted.
Marcus suggested a second and a third option. We could head back south to wait out the storm or, if we were all in agreement, take the river route east.
“If we’ve timed it right,” he said, “We oughta be able to make it through to the freeway before the river crests.”
The size of the truck and its grip on the road was reassuring. It seemed to me that Marcus was an extension of the vehicle, in tune with its every vibration. He’d driven in war zones for heavens sake.
He signaled, though there was no other vehicle in sight, turning off the ocean road, heading inland at the mouth of the river where it meets the State Marine Conservation Area.
The breathtaking beauty of the watery vista was teeming with wildlife despite the dire weather. It had been years since I’d ventured this far north on this especially scenic stretch of coastline.
We passed a scattering of rudimentary shacks with tarps tied over ramshackle rooftops. The countryside was drenched to the core. This whole lonely ledge on the edge of the world was all ours for want of any other vehicle in sight. I suddenly wondered where do the woodland creatures take shelter when the earth is swollen to this extent? Come spring and summer, it’s a different landscape entirely, a shaded wonderland of redwoods and warm, rippling water, a safe haven for foxes, jackrabbits, deer. The rainy season on the other hand, is dark and foreboding, frequently transforming this remote outreach into the inhospitable, sodden, danger zone it proved that day.
A shiver ran along my spine. I checked my streaky reflection in the rain soaked passenger mirror. Black Irish. The old man claimed the dark complexion he and I shared came from a Spanish shipwreck off the coast of Ireland. That’s a load of bull, a popular tale, nothing but an Irish American myth.
I tilted my eyes to steal another look at Marcus. Truth be told, I’d found it hard to take my eyes off him the whole time we’d been on the road. Even without me looking directly at him, his physical presence next to me proved intense. I closed my eyes and breathed him in through my nose, a potent mix of Old Spice deodorant and soap, an oldfashioned manly drugstore scent that Andres would have snobbishly described as a trailer trash aroma or something similarly mean. And you know what, I love the way that Marcus smells. It reminds me of the squeaky-clean scent the ranch guys, young and old had about them on churchgoing Sundays back when I was coming of age. To me, it’s the lure of an honest aroma, the washing off of the week’s hard work in preparation for the next.
A tangle of his thick, sandy hair rested on the frayed edge of his shirt collar, a softly worn flannel, unbuttoned to the point of exposing just the slightest tuft of flaxen chest hair. Marcus’ beard is the same golden hue as his thick head of hair with its flecks of a paler blonde color. His dark-rimmed, blue-gray eyes mirror the color of the line at the outer reach of the ocean.
I drank in every detail of him as he maintained his steady focus on the road. It felt almost preposterous, the chances of my rapid and completely unexpected feelings being real and reciprocated. Hadn’t I given up on the idea of such a thing? I sat back and savored the moment anyway. Blissing out on my luck in landing there beside him did not last for long.
Storm conditions had worsened; the heavens jolted me out of my doe-eyed, dopey zone. I gripped the bar on the glove compartment, bracing on instinct for the aquaplane ahead.
Marcus swiftly maneuvered the wheel to the left. We were headed uphill on an elevated side road carved into the rocky hillside. He pulled the truck to a sharp stop beneath a canopy of overhanging trees.
“We won’t not make it through,” he warned. “Either we turn back now and hope for the best or we wait it out for the next few hours.”
We sat in silence. Bridget was the first to speak. “I’ve put us in this position,” she said. “Damn it, I waited too long. I should have gone to look for her when she first took off, back when it was warm and sunny and safe out on the roads.”
I twisted around at the waist as Bobby took her hand, tipping it upside down and gently tracing her palm with his nicotine-stained forefinger. “I’ll go take me a look,” he said as he pushed open his door, dropping his cash-stuffed wallet onto the seat beside Bridget. He unfolded his big torso and lumbered out onto the surface of the streaming dirt road, pulling a pair of baggy, black, waterproof pants and a pair of rubber waders from a plastic tub in the covered shell of the truck bed.
“You all — stay put,” he barked, that damn hacking cough starting up again as he stepped into the waders. Bobby turned back to throw his heavy, leather boots onto the floor of the truck, grabbing a flashlight from the rear pocket of the driver’s seat as he closed the door. The sky had darkened from the heaviness of the cloud cover.
A cold blast off the Pacific sent a second heavy shiver up the back of my neck and down along the length of my spine.
As I remember it, there
was no single glance back, not the briefest goodbye, just a man, who, for once in his life, had made up his mind to take charge.
Marcus made a move to go after Bobby. He opened his door and jumped out. “Don’t either of you leave the truck. Not for a minute,” he warned as he made his way around the front of the vehicle.
The storm was sweeping violent sheets of cold, dark water through the heavy redwood canopy and the forest, soaked to its core, emitted a stench of wild, green life layered with the rank odor of death. The open door strained on its hinges. I imagined we were seated in the path of an oncoming train as a deafening vibration shook the very metal of the truck.
Sounds of screeching forest life woke from its trembling shelter. The bank of the river breached.
“Bobby!” Bridget screamed, flinging open her door.
“Stay inside,” Marcus yelled, as he clambered back inside and slammed the door shut behind him. “Holy shit! It’s . . . nobody move.”
I strained my eyes and caught my last sight of Bobby, his flashlight held above him, way down below. He reached up, lurching in an instinctual, desperate attempt to grab on to any sagging, sodden limb. I saw it coming in that moment and there was no way to stop it from happening.
Something vile rose up in the back of my throat. Bridget slumped forward, her body pushing into the back of my seat — she blacked out.
Later, she asked me what I had seen. A powerful curtain of liquid mud — sludgy and ravenous — a flood of water swallowed the scene in a vicious onslaught of trees, tents, television sets, shopping carts, trucks, all sorts and sizes of floating debris from paint cans to the side view of an almost entirely submerged Airstream trailer, sweeping below us in an angry, dark brown current of hell.
Bobby was there and then he was not. Rapid and relentless, the furious floodwaters overpowered him at shoulder height, sweeping him under and over in their wake.
Flash floods occur when the ground is saturated from excessive rainfall and is unable to absorb a single drop more. It came on in reality way faster than I ever would have fathomed.
Bridget came to and went into an immediate state of shock. We all did, in our own way. I lost track of how much time passed before a first responder air rescue crew swooped down further along the side road we’d taken shelter on. An hour or more at least. There was no designated landing spot to speak of. I would not have believed they could have made it down into such a narrow space if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. By that time I had climbed into the back of the truck to hold on to Bridget, the both of us shocked, horrified and disbelieving at the same time. She’d been silently rocking for what had seemed like forever.
Marcus’ reaction to this sudden freak tragedy was to shut down, slowly, staring into the dark. He’d desperately tried to call 911 immediately after Bobby was swept under, but to no avail. And I’d made several frantic attempts on both my and Bridget’s phones but reception was sketchy.
There’s no way to undo a trauma such as this. I’m afraid we’re going to be dealing with these grainy flashbacks, mired in the horror of the scene for the rest of our lives.
We sat there, the three of us, frozen with horror and fear, praying for the floodwaters to subside as heavy rain continued to pound the truck from the canopy above.
Eventually, after I’d persisted with our phones, one bar of cell reception on mine enabled me to make it through to 911. The dispatcher had calmed me down enough to take note of our location and the basic details of our situation and our panicked SOS as to Bobby’s slim chances of still being alive. I was told to stay in the truck and wait our turn. Help was on the way, though there were several others being picked up in the region and we had no option but to be as patient as possible. Later, after we were briefly medically assessed, the rescue crew took us by helicopter to an emergency evacuation center, the county’s largest, the monolithic 1950s Veterans Memorial Building in Santa Rosa. With no concern for traffic or road conditions, air transportation was scary but fast. All I remember is looking down at the ravaged scene as the helicopter whirled its direct route, the same as the bird flies — super fast and further vomit inducing. Army engineers had already been sent out to deal with the foot of sandy loam and detritus of all kinds that lay beneath the diminishing floodwaters where the water had crested on River Road.
We landed on a makeshift helipad. It wasn’t clear at first, in all the confusion, how to differentiate well-meaning volunteers from incoming evacuees. Red Cross workers at least wore the red vests that set them apart. It was sheer and utter chaos all around initially as dozens of vehicles lined up in a slow crawl to file into the large parking lot. A bunch of kids, some confused, others jostling and pushing one another, excitedly, almost, the way only kids do, oblivious to what was going on, spilled out of a yellow school bus. I watched their unflustered teacher gather them into some semblance of a line and calmly take a roll call. She methodically counted them, her hand on each head, one by one, child by child.
I still couldn’t tell who was in need of emergency shelter and who were the ones who had come out to help. A mad jumble of people jostled for position. Looking back, I can understand the Red Cross position of pissing off well-meaning folk by discouraging unauthorized help in and turning away random donations in fraught situations like this. Cavernous old buildings, funded by the government after World War II, are not exactly the safest spots for too many folk to shelter in place, given the age of the structures and the types of materials that were used to build them. I guess when it comes to putting a roof over the head of a mass amount of people in any emergency situation, there’s not a whole load of options. I can’t help but think if there’d been an earthquake in the aftermath of the flash flooding, Jesus knows what may have rained down from under that roof.
Take it from me, when you find yourself in a fight or flight situation, the mind starts to imagine all sorts of fresh horrors coming your way. Personally, I was praying for no more than we were already dealing with. Being on the receiving end of emergency services is a wild, out-of-body experience I’d never thought to experience. One minute I’d been awash in admiration for Marcus as he handled the rough terrain of the coastal road, the next we had watched his best friend disappear in a horrifying, nightmarish splitsecond, the same guy who’d given my sister reason to keep fighting. I was grappling hard with reality. I still could not believe what I’d seen, the sheer, deadly power of the river.
We somehow made it through the paperwork at the front of the line, as a fleet of efficient, pre-approved volunteers hauled heavy-duty foil food containers onto a makeshift production line of foldout tables at the entrance to the main hall.
A growing crowd milled around under the grim glare of commercial florescent light, old people, young people, the disabled, families, homeless tent dwellers, kids; nobody seemed to know what to do with themselves other than simply follow their basic human instinct and line up in an orderly fashion for food. I didn’t yet have the stomach to even contemplate eating.
We were handed folded squares of bright red blankets wrapped in plastic. I took the blanket from Bridget’s outstretched hands, shook it open and draped it around her shoulders.
“Listen to me, we’ve gotta to stay right here and wait for Bobby,” she begged. “They’ll find him, they must. I’m sure of it.” She gripped me on the forearm with a force that left a series of small, round purple bruises on my skin.
Marcus pulled the two of us in toward him, protectively. He had barely spoken the past few hours. “We’re not going anywhere tonight, Bridget. We’re staying here, together, the three of us. I don’t know where he is, but what I do know for sure is that Bobby was looking out for us. We’ll do right by him, I promise.”
I was shaking. I tried to hold my raw emotions in but I burst into tears. Though the initial hysteria I’d felt back in the truck had worn itself out, I was only just beginning to absorb what had happened. Bobby wasn’t coming back. I knew it. Marcus knew it. What I didn’t know was how we’d even beg
in to deal with having witnessed such a swift and brutal end.
If I felt this way, what private hell was Bridget going through? And how would we ever make it out of here with enough strength to go forward?
Evening turned to night. I kept on thinking if there was the slightest chance he had survived, then poor Bobby was out there on his own. If he hadn’t drowned, he would surely have died of hypothermia by that late hour. The temperature outside had dropped below freezing.
Some faceless person herded us into a new line. Single file we trooped past made-up cots set up in neat rows of military precision.
A soft voiced, efficient, elderly man had been put in charge of moving us around. He suggested the three of us make our way into a second, smaller room that was less populated and not nearly as pungent with the odor of the unwashed. I focused on a bingo wheel stored on an open shelving unit as we entered. I wondered how many times in its three-quarter of a century existence, this room had been cleared for emergency use.
I figured it was a meeting room, used for small gatherings and budget weddings and such, with its high ceilings, long, narrow windows and institutional, waxed floors. Not a room in which I’d describe in any way as festive or even inviting in as far as spending the night, though, I told myself that being safe and dry, sheltered and somewhat secluded from the bigger crowd was the best we could ask for in such terrible circumstances.
Bridget was in no position to argue and Marcus was looking decidedly green around the gills. We stuck together, the three of us.
“You’ll rest better in here,” the people-mover man said. “First we need to transfer your details to a crisis counselor and a nurse, if you should continue to require these services.”
Evidently, the room had been reserved for those of us who had been caught up in the core crisis of the flash flooding zone — several other small groups and individuals who had assumedly and inconceivably lost their loved ones and pets to the rising river waters. I’d caught sight of a slew of handwritten notices posted on the walls as we’d walked through the auditorium, the most striking of them had been scrawled in desperation in the hands of the young, adorned with hearts and question marks, colorful childlike stick figures and beloved dogs and cats.
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