Landfall

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “I liked him, too. I really did,” Wyatt said. “But, it’s against Sheriff’s Office policy.”

  Axel shrugged. “Well, I’m against policies.”

  “Then you’ll understand if I ask you not to tell anybody about it, right?”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Axel answered, lighting another cigarette. “I don’t actually like to talk to people.”

  Boudreaux sort of crouched in the water, leaning his head against the trunk of a very young oak. He’d told Maggie he needed to stop and rest a moment, but he suspected that she did, as well.

  He turned his head and looked at her. She had an arm wrapped around the tree, and had laid her forehead against the trunk and closed her eyes.

  He was struck, as he often had been over the years, by how much she favored her mother. He couldn’t see anything physical of himself in her, but over the last couple of months, he had come to see that, as far as her personality, she did resemble him somewhat.

  She was strong and she was direct, she had a very dry sense of humor, and she was fiercely protective of those she loved. He knew that she could push herself past the point at which she became afraid, and that she didn’t become close to people easily.

  He supposed that some of these things could be attributed to some of her experiences, as both a teenager and a cop. But he liked to think that at least some of it was genetic.

  She opened her eyes and looked right at him, not even a foot away, and he almost felt as though she’d heard him thinking.

  “How old is Miss Evangeline?” she asked him.

  It took him a moment to understand what she’d asked him. “I have no idea,” he said. “Almost a hundred. Why?”

  “She’s really important to you, isn’t she?”

  Boudreaux stared at her a moment. He felt a shaking in his chest, a fluttering like a small bird in a very large, otherwise empty space, and he noticed that the tingling sensation that had been in his feet had also now started in his hands. It felt a lot like fainting without falling down.

  “It occurred to me not too long ago that she’s the only woman I’ve ever loved,” he said finally.

  Maggie blinked at him a few times. “You’ve never been in love?”

  “No.” No, I apologize. Not even with your mother. I didn’t even know your mother.

  “That’s sad.”

  “I suppose it is,” he admitted. “But it’s also probably just as well.”

  He turned around, put his forehead against the tree and grabbed it with both hands.

  “Miss Evangeline is going to be quite put out with me,” he said, though he wanted to say something important, something he would want her to remember.

  “Why? Because you ruined your shirt?”

  He tried to smile at her, but he was losing his peripheral vision. “Something of that nature.”

  “Come on, we need to get moving again,” she said.

  He turned back around to face the direction they’d been heading, but he found it too tiresome to actually push away from the tree. “How much further to your house?” he asked her.

  “Not far, maybe a hundred yards or so, to those evergreens, then once we get around those, we’ll be behind my chicken house.”

  “Okay. Lead the way,” he said in a near whisper, though he couldn’t see the evergreens, or her for that matter.

  Maggie turned and waded a few steps, then looked over her shoulder as Boudreaux slipped sideways into the water.

  She turned around and sloshed her way back to him, reached down and grabbed his shirt collar with both hands and pulled his head back out of the water.

  “Stop it!” she yelled stupidly. She got one arm under one of his and tried to pull him upright. “Boudreaux!”

  His eyelids didn’t even flutter, and she couldn’t tell for certain if he was even breathing. She put two fingers of her free hand to his neck, and thought she might feel something, but it was hard to hold him still, and her hand was shaking.

  She looked back over her shoulder toward the house. She’d been cursing the flood water, but now she wished there were just a little bit more of it. It wasn’t deep enough to swim, and swimming him back would be so much easier.

  She looked around hurriedly for something she might be able to float him on, but there was nothing. Just water and bushes and trees. She put her fingers on his lower lip and pulled his mouth open, put her ear next to it. She was pretty sure she couldn’t feel or hear any breath, but she was also pretty sure she wasn’t sure. At least, not sure enough to leave him there. There was also no way to do CPR in the damn water, at least not that she knew.

  She stared at him a second, then reached underwater with her free hand and grabbed at his belt. It took her a minute to get it undone and then pull it out of the belt loops, but she finally yanked it up out of the water.

  She pulled it across his chest and pulled each end under his arms, then held on as she moved behind him. She buckled it as close as she could to his upper back, then she grabbed onto the buckle, turned around, and started wading.

  Wyatt tried not to hold his breath as Axel’s truck tires rolled over yet another bony pine tree lying across Bluff Road.

  They’d been climbing over trees for the last hour it seemed, and Wyatt’s hip was screaming from all of the jolting. He supposed driving four hours and wading around downtown might have contributed as well, but he mostly blamed Axel’s ridiculous truck.

  Once the back tires rolled over the tree, Wyatt leaned his head against the window jamb. Axel looked over at him.

  “You’re not getting seasick or anything are you there, Wyatt?”

  “No. It’s the damn hip. I think it might have come loose.”

  He had a sudden vision of himself climbing down out of Axel’s truck and falling to the ground, his left leg missing and inexplicably naked, like an unwanted Ken doll.

  “Hey, look at the bright side, man,” Axel said. “You might qualify for a discount on one of those Hoveround things.”

  Wyatt tossed him a look. “You’re adorable. I can’t imagine why you get divorced so frequently.”

  “Yeah, I’m a real enigma,” Axel said back.

  Sky and Kyle had left the window seat only to use the restroom, get a bottle of water, or take turns wiping up rooster poop.

  After a while, Kyle had leaned against one side of the window and nodded off, and Sky was left alone, and able to stop trying so hard to look or sound hopeful. She had no idea how long it had been since she’d watched the truck slide past the chicken house with her mother’s body sprawled in the back of it, but it had been a long time.

  It was still raining but not nearly as hard, and she had been able for the last little while to see most of the yard pretty clearly. She had stared through the trees until she was sure she saw something every time she blinked.

  She had stared at the chicken house, or what was left of it after the roof had blown away, waiting for her mom to come to around the corner, but she’d never materialized. For the last several minutes, Sky had been planning what she could say to Kyle when he woke up, to keep him from getting too discouraged. She had even started seeing the two of them in her head, moving into Grandma and Granddad’s guest room when their mother failed to return.

  She rubbed at her eyes and gave herself a good mental shaking, then reached out and scratched at Coco’s jaw when the dog started whining. Then she got up and went to look for something to eat, more to occupy her mind than to fill her stomach.

  She was halfway to the kitchen when she heard Coco let out a sound that was half baying wolf and half dying lawnmower. Sky turned around as Coco scrambled up onto the window seat and started pawing at the window.

  Sky ran back over, as Kyle sat up and looked around, then looked out the window. They spotted her at the same time.

  “Mom!” Kyle yelled.

  Maggie had just cleared the trees beside the chicken house and waded into the open when she heard the slightly muffled sounds of Coco going berserk. The sound was a
lmost too joyful, too welcoming for Maggie to bear, and something like a balloon came up from her chest and out of her mouth, sounding half sob and half laughter.

  She looked up toward the house as Coco continued to call out to her, and tried to smile. “I’m trying,” she said, but she was so out of breath that even she could barely hear it.

  Her right arm was numb and yet shaking violently, and she stopped to turn around and change the hand that gripped Boudreaux’s belt. Then she trudged on, at least feeling a new strength in her legs.

  She focused on the area of water just in front of her, made herself not look at how far she had to go yet, even though it really wasn’t that far at all.

  Then she heard Coco barking, and it was much louder and clearer, and when Maggie looked up, she saw Coco running back and forth on the side deck, saw her two children, saw Sky doing something at the rail, and then realized that her daughter was throwing the rope ladder over the side.

  Maggie almost cried from the sight of it, but then she turned and looked at Boudreaux, and looked back up at Sky with resignation. She wanted to call up to her, but she just didn’t have the air. But then she saw Sky look beyond her to Boudreaux, and seconds later the girl was over the rail and climbing down the ladder.

  Maggie wanted to yell at her not to come down, but she couldn’t do that, either. Instead, she just watched, hanging onto Boudreaux’s belt buckle, as Sky almost ran through the water, calling out to her.

  “Mom!” she yelled one last time as she threw her arms around her Maggie’s neck. The force of it almost knocked Maggie down. She wrapped her free arm around Sky’s back, buried her face in her hair, but she found she couldn’t say anything at that moment. She thought so much—so much—but couldn’t say any of it until Sky pulled away and looked down at Boudreaux.

  “Is he dead?” Sky asked.

  “I don’t know,” Maggie managed. “But I can’t get him up there.”

  Sky spun around, looked around the yard and then turned back to Maggie. “Here, give him to me,” she said, and reached down and snatched at the belt buckle. Maggie let her take it.

  “Come on,” Sky said, grabbing Maggie’s wrist with her free hand.

  She pulled Maggie toward the driveway, and Maggie noticed David’s old Toyota truck, submerged almost to the tops of the tires, but only about three feet closer to the house than it had been when Sky had parked it the day before. It was then that Maggie realized that Sky had parked right in front of the pile of gravel that Gray had brought to widen the driveway. The truck must have been pushed up against it instead of being carried away.

  They made their way over to the back of the truck, and Sky reached up and pulled down the tailgate. It was a few inches above the surface of the water, but Sky turned around and shoved her arms underneath Boudreaux’s.

  “Grab his legs,” she said to Maggie, and Maggie reached under the water and took hold of Boudreaux’s calves. It took two tries, but they finally slid him on to the bed of the truck. He landed with a wet thump, and Maggie looked for signs of pain or discomfort on his face but saw none.

  “Do you have a beach blanket or anything in the truck?” she asked Sky.

  “No. Wait,” she said, and spun around and ran to the cab as Maggie picked up one of Boudreaux’s wrists and felt for a pulse. She thought she felt one, a very weak one, but her own heart was pounding so hard, and her hand shaking so much, that she wasn’t certain of it.

  Sky came running back with a bundle in her hands, and Maggie’s chest ached when she saw that it was one of the tarps David had used to cover his lap during culling when he sometimes went oystering.

  She pushed the thought from her mind and took the tarp, then climbed up into the bed of the truck. She wanted to cover Boudreaux’s face to shield it from the rain, but that would be too much like covering a body, so she spread it over him and tucked it underneath his shoulders and legs.

  “Mom, we need to get you inside,” Sky said, and Maggie turned around to look at her.

  “I can’t just leave him out here, Sky.”

  “Yes, you can. You’re bleeding.”

  “Where?” Maggie asked, reaching up to feel her nose.

  “The back of your head, Mom.”

  Maggie reached up and placed a palm to her head, but she’d been wet for forever. If she was bleeding, she couldn’t feel it. But when she brought her hand back, it was red.

  “Oh,” she said quietly. “Wow.”

  Sky reached out and took her mother’s bloody hand and pulled. “Come on.”

  Maggie slid back out of the truck bed and into the water, and she and Sky made their way to the rope ladder. Maggie was to go up first, and when she looked up at it, Kyle was leaning over the rail, staring down at her. He was soaked anyway, but she could tell that he was crying.

  She took a deep breath, then climbed the ladder, which seemed twice as long as it should have. When she got level with the deck rail, she grabbed onto it and threw a leg over. Kyle grabbed her upper arms and helped her get over the rail, and Maggie sat down hard on the deck floor. Then, without planning to, she collapsed onto her back, wishing that she hadn’t as soon as her head connected with the wood.

  Kyle knelt down beside her and she pulled him down with one arm, clutched him to her and buried her face in his hair as he laid on her chest. Coco bounced from one side of them to the other, then flopped onto her side next to Maggie and furiously licked her face.

  Over Kyle’s shoulder, Maggie saw Sky vault over the deck rail, and it was at that moment that Maggie felt like she could breathe again. They were all out of the water.

  As Sky knelt down next to her on her right, Maggie’s eye caught movement to her left and she turned her head. Stoopid was standing there, and even though the rain was falling almost softly now, he hated any form of precipitation, and Maggie was touched that he’d braved it to come out and give her the one-eyed rooster stare.

  He emitted a couple of his hen-like brrps, updating her that he was stuck upstairs, or out of grit, or that they’d been having some weather.

  “I know already,” she said quietly, and he shook the rain from his feathers, put his wings partway out, and tapped away awkwardly, looking like a day-old paper airplane.

  A short time later, Maggie sat on the edge of the old trunk they used as a coffee table, in dry yoga pants and a sweater, holding a wet cloth to the back of her head.

  She had drunk two bottles of water, thrown one up, and was trying to drink another when she heard something outside, and Sky and Coco jumped up together to go look.

  Sky opened the front door and just stood there for a moment. “Dude,” she said finally.

  Maggie got to her feet with some effort and followed Kyle over to the door.

  “Whoa,” Kyle said softly.

  Maggie looked over his shoulder, and watched as the biggest, bluest truck she’d ever seen pulled into the front yard, on tires that were taller than she was.

  It stopped in front of the house, and they walked out onto the front deck. Maggie was still trying to figure out who was driving when Wyatt stuck his head out the passenger window.

  “Where the hell are your stairs?”

  Sky pointed toward the side deck. “There’s a ladder,” she called down.

  Wyatt pulled his head back in and the truck backed up, turned around, and then slowly backed up to the gaping opening where Maggie’s stairs used to be. The bed of the truck couldn’t have been more than a foot below the deck.

  When it stopped, Axel Blackwell opened the driver’s side door and stepped out onto the running board.

  “I don’t need your damn stairs,” Axel said. “You look pretty crappy there, Maggie.”

  “Thanks, Axel,” she said.

  The passenger door swung open, and after a moment, Wyatt slowly stepped onto his own running board, grabbed onto the side of the truck bed, and gingerly turned to face her. His thick brows scrunched together as he looked up at Maggie.

  “What the hell happened?” he
demanded.

  “Pretty much everything,” she said weakly. She pulled the washcloth down from her head and swallowed as she saw that it was pretty well bloodied.

  “What the hell, Maggie?” Wyatt yelled. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

  Maggie nodded, and Axel waved his arm at the bed of the truck.

  “Climb in. Let’s go!” he called.

  “Go, Sky,” Maggie said, then turned around to Kyle, as Sky jumped down into the back. “Kyle, make sure Stoopid has food and water and shut the door.”

  “He’s crapped like all over the planet,” Kyle said.

  Maggie ignored the language for a change and shook her head. “Put him inside, please.”

  He hurried back inside, and Maggie watched as Axel held a hand out to Sky. “Come on, Sky, climb down here and get inside.”

  Maggie looked over at Wyatt. She wasn’t sure if he looked scared or just angry. He looked a lot of things.

  “Can you get down?” Axel called to her after he’d helped Sky into the cab.

  Maggie nodded as she heard Kyle’s footsteps behind her. “Yes, but take Kyle first,” she said. “Go on, Kyle.”

  Kyle jumped down into the truck, and Maggie watched until he was in the cab, then she tossed the washcloth and grabbed the deck rail before jumping down into the back. Then she turned around and looked at Coco, who was waiting on the deck.

  “Come on, baby,” Maggie said. Coco’s eyebrows wrinkled with concern, but after a little toe tapping, she jumped in beside Maggie. Maggie turned and looked at Axel. “We have to get Boudreaux.”

  “Boudreaux where?” Axel asked.

  “Boudreaux!?” Wyatt yelled simultaneously.

  “He’s in the back of David’s truck,” Maggie said to Axel. Axel looked over that way, then climbed back into his seat.

  She looked at Wyatt and saw his shoulders slump as he dropped his head. Then he looked back up at her, and he looked unhappy.

  “Freakin’ Boudreaux,” he said.

  Maggie could hear Axel saying something in the cab, and Wyatt ducked down a bit to look inside.