Flash Flood

by Susan Slater

  At first the headlights looked like they were in his lane. He blinked his lights then wrenched the wheel to the right. It was the truck again, the same one that was on the heels of the Caddy. But that had been no kid driving. He could be mistaken, but it looked like Ray. Good ol’ Sheriff Ray who saw an alien now and then. Sure was a shitty night for sightings, must have other reasons for burning up the back roads.

  Dan goosed the Tercel up a steep incline and suddenly at the top, the headlights picked up nothing but water. “Holy shit.” He slammed on the brakes and jumped out. The roar of the water was deafening. In the surreal light, the twisted steel cross bars of the bridge looked like bad Modern Art. It had been one of those Roosevelt era wooden plank one-lane jobs with concrete supports and steel reinforcements. The sign that should have said Elm Creek had disappeared. Creek? Right about now it could put the Mississippi to shame.

  Dan watched full-grown trees tumble forward where the bridge had been, tossed like toothpicks up then down, singly or in criss-crossed piles of three or four. He thought he saw the four stiff legs of a cow push up through the black water to twirl in a circle before the suction of undertow pulled her down. Was he watching United Life and Casualty’s millions spread across the surrounding fields? This was a killer, an expensive killer.

  Then it struck him. The pink Cadillac. Had it made it across? Only Sheriff Ray had come back. Timing put it just about here when the bridge was wiped out. It’d be tough to survive all that force. If he were religious, he’d come up with something to say now, but nothing profound came to mind. He got back into the Tercel hoping that there hadn’t been a loss of life. So much for a night of snooping. He’d reassess tomorrow, maybe try a new tactic: corner Billy Roland and get some answers.

  ***

  “Just a minute.”

  The pounding had disoriented him. It wasn’t light yet. What could be so important? Dan pulled on his jeans before opening the door of his motel room.

  “Mr. Eklund thought you might like to ride with us this morning. Survey the flood damage. This one was a bad one. We’re meeting at his place. Daybreak, ’bout an hour.”

  Sheriff Ray filled the door. This time there was a shiny badge on the flap of his shirt pocket right over his first name stitched in bright yellow floss. Behind him the Dakota was parked next to the Tercel. No mistake, Ray was the one who ran him off the road last night.

  “Sure. Firsthand look sounds good.”

  “We’re assuming you won’t mind a little all-day horseback ride?”

  “Hey, my choice of transportation.”

  Jesus. He’d worked summers for a dude ranch during college and the last time on a horse had cost him two broken ribs. But he’d wipe that smirk out of Sheriff Ray’s voice if he died trying.

  “See you there.” Ray started toward the pickup. “Oh yeah, almost forgot. Bridge over Elm Creek washed out last night.” Ray took his time getting the rest of the message out, waiting for Dan to react? Give himself away? “Take the highway, three turns past the Co-op, then left thirty-seven miles. Can’t miss it.”

  Dan kept his face impassive. God, he hated this “he knows that I know” game. He saw me out there last night. But the question is why was he chasing the Cadillac? Speeding teenagers? An old pink Caddy surely couldn’t be confused for a spaceship. He watched Ray leave the motel parking lot. He’d skip breakfast and get going. Could be Miss Iris would be serving up something hot off the griddle. He caught himself humming in the shower.

  If he were the type to reflect on nature’s injustices, the havoc of a flood had to be second or third on the list behind, maybe, a tornado or hurricane. The early morning sun revealed acres of gray-brown silt. Silt was clinging to everything. Milo lay flat in a field with a gray-brown mud wash plastering it to the earth. He’d spotted two dead calves, bloated, tongues swollen, eyes covered with flies, their coats scruffy and mud-stiff.

  The county road was surprisingly well-drained, a puddle or two in low spots, but overall, safe going. It’d be awhile before anyone could get equipment into the fields though. He didn’t try to hurry; he figured the inspection team would wait. He had a sneaking feeling that this ride was organized for his benefit, anyway. A chance to meet Mr. Billy R. Eklund in action, a lord of the manor scenario—let me show you how much of mother earth I own. See the good old boy in the midst of devastation and then out of conscience pay off those claims and go home. He’d see.

  Dan counted about twenty cars, mostly pickups, lining the drive in front of the house. One was a vet truck; the enclosed back made it a clinic on wheels. Lot of the large animal docs were going to that—a portable phone and an outfitted truck. Progress. Always something new.

  He hadn’t reached the top step before the front door was thrown open.

  “Mr. Mahoney. I understand we’ve been missing each other. Billy Roland here.”

  Like it had to be announced. The beefy hand he held out sported a two-carat diamond pinky ring.

  “Glad we’re finally touching base.”

  “You just let me know how I can help. You need any information, I want you to know that you can come to the source. That’s important. No need asking questions of others, just come right on out here and chat with ol’ Billy. Now, come along. There’s a buffet in here that’ll knock your socks off.”

  Well, it hadn’t taken Judge Cyrus long to share their little conversation. Dan followed Billy Roland into the house. A gaggle of male voices—excited laughter, a couple bass guffaws, the back-slapping kind, probably the judge—boomed out from a room off the end of a long hall. Was this some sort of Old West thing? Eat hearty, then ride out to survey the damage? Count the dead livestock? His own appetite waned thinking about what was ahead.

  He followed Billy Roland past the polished oak bannister at the foot of the stairs that curved upward out of the parquet oak floor. The chandelier threw rainbow chips of light across the Persian entry rug. No adjectives came to mind that quite captured the opulence. This sure wasn’t his apartment in Chicago.

  “Everyone? Listen up. This here’s Mr. Mahoney. I ’spect you all to show him some kindness.” Billy R. had pushed open the two paneled doors and entered a massive study, a man’s room all hunter green and brass, dark stone fireplace, marble bar, walnut desk to match the walls.

  Dan acknowledged the hellos and shook hands with half a dozen friendly types who pushed toward him. Judge Cyrus led the pack. There was a stale smell of tobacco and bourbon. Even Billy Roland was nursing a tumbler of pale golden liquid over ice. Dan checked his watch. It was seven nineteen. He didn’t need to bolster the old testosterone this early. In fact, he’d have a hard time putting away the heaping plate of scrambled eggs and biscuits someone had handed him.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll just trade this in for a cup of coffee, black.” The uniformed servant didn’t bat an eye; the plate disappeared and Dan had his mug of steaming coffee before he could be urged to take seconds on the eggs.

  He watched Billy Roland work the room. A slap on the back here, a whispered word and an explosion of laughter there. One of the servants interrupted and indicated the phone. Billy Roland took the call at the bar. Must be difficult to get away from business. There was no sign of Iris. Probably wouldn’t be at these all-male gatherings, sort of a cross between a roundup and a foxhunt.

  “Let’s you and me push back from that buffet table and think about getting this show on the road.” Billy Roland had returned to stand by him. Dan was wondering how the man could look just like he thought he would. A combination of a past President, someone who could get into swinging a beagle by the ears, and his grandfather who looked over his glasses, fixed him with a stare like he was taking a sighting off the end of his nose, a bulbous large-pored thing that dominated his face.

  But that’s where the comparison to his grandfather stopped. Billy Roland was something else. His posture screamed intimacy. An arm thrown around Dan’s shoulders, leaning just close enough to rub that belly-muscle slack paunch against him, vo
ice conspiratorially low when he wanted his attention. Dan fought back an urge to make sure he still had a billfold.

  “I’m going to take Dan here on down to the barns. You all join us real soon now, you hear?” With that pronouncement Billy Roland steered Dan through the kitchen, a high-ceilinged monstrous room with assorted clerestories, ignored the genuflecting servants whose jabber in Spanish had abruptly ceased, pushed through the back door, crossed the porch, a screened affair filled with expensive outdoor furniture, and covered the distance from the house to the closest barn in a dozen strides.

  “Hank. Thought you’d be saddled up by now.”

  Hank must be the vet, Dan thought, unless all the ranch hands wore a lab coat over chaps, but Billy Roland was more intent on walking down the long row of stalls than introducing him.

  “Here we go. Baby Belle. Hell of a smooth ride, just like her long-backed mama. She’ll do you just fine.”

  Dan thought that Hank blanched and started to say something. But knowing which side the bread was buttered on probably buttoned his lip. Baby Belle in the meantime had reared and struck the front of the stall a couple times and Dan hadn’t seen her ears stand up once.

  “Ray was saying you know your horseflesh.” He was handing him a halter and lead. “Saddles over there, tack room on the left.”

  One time forty years ago when his parents moved to the suburbs and he had had to change schools he felt this same way going out at recess. The wall of sixth grade boys had bloodied his nose, kicked him in the shins, bruised a kneecap but accepted him because he didn’t yell “uncle.” Was it too late to yell now? He slid the stall door open wide enough to step inside and eased the lead rope over Belle’s neck. The horse eyed him, sized him up, let him buckle the halter in place before lashing out with a sidewinder-fast front hoof, catching him a glancing blow below the knee.

  Without dwelling on what he had to do, Dan stepped her out into the walkway, grabbed her head, a hand on each side of the halter, and muscled her backward, pushing hard, not letting her get her bearings.

  “Coming through. Little attitude adjustment.”

  He backed the mare through the crowd entering the barn, wheeled her around and headed her backward to where they started. Then he released her, leaned close and whispered, “One more kick and you’re Alpo, sweetheart,” in his best Bogart imitation.

  But the mare had broken a sweat on her neck and had both ears forward. Leery respect, Dan decided. He’d won one and might not be tested again. He tied her to the stall door and went to get tack. Was it his imagination or was Billy Roland struck dumb? That’s a man doesn’t like his fun ruined.

  The riders waited in twos and threes before falling in behind Billy Roland. Sheriff Ray was conspicuously missing but, as if on cue, a rider appeared to the right beyond the strand of poplar and cantered toward them.

  “Most damage seems to be in the back forty. Lots of fences down, twelve calves dead or dying.” Ray’s horse breathed heavily. Ray must have been in a hurry to report in. It seemed strange that the county sheriff would ride fences and not a foreman.

  “I’ll pick up some extra syringes. Y’all go on. I’ll catch up.” The vet turned back toward the barn.

  The first couple miles were uneventful. The damage was extensive to crops, but they had only seen one dead calf, the distraught mother standing guard, bawling her anxiety. Telephone poles were down or leaning precariously. The creek water had receded but wasn’t contained. The sun was now almost overhead, and the swollen earth steamed. And so did Dan. He had taken off his jacket, next the vest and rolled his shirt sleeves above his elbows.

  At the first sign of black gnats, he’d rolled them back down. The gnats were merciless. They hung in the air in undulating swarms sometimes drifting over the horse’s ears, sometimes humming above his head. He moved Belle out away from the others and sought relief from the insects by steering her to higher ground.

  The ridge seemed to please Belle, who stretched her neck forward to catch a nibble or two of grass and gave Dan a vantage point from which to survey Elm Creek and its path of destruction.

  At first he missed the pink Caddy mired in the mud listing badly to the right, water running freely through its windows. Only the hood, the roof, and the left rear fender were above water. With a coating of silt, it blended with other debris choking the edges of the field.

  “Over here.” Dan yelled and pointed, then goosed Belle down the slope, keeping her at a trot until they were a few feet from the car.

  “Oh Lord.” Billy Roland sloshed around the perimeter of the Cadillac. “This here’s the Lott girl’s car, isn’t it? You don’t think she could be in there, do you?”

  Sheriff Ray seemed reluctant to act or offer an opinion.

  “I think it’d be a good idea for you to check, Sheriff.”

  Dan watched as the sheriff eyed the water and muck then handed his reins to the man closest to him and dismounted with a splash. This called for a new pair of Justins; as Dan watched, the water rose over the tops of Ray’s boots.

  “Need help?” Two others were wading toward Ray. Then the three of them circled the car in the now waist-high water, one man taking a gulp of air and ducking under the surface to check the car’s interior.

  A hand broke the surface of the water. You didn’t need to be a coroner to know it belonged to someone dead, Dan thought, a dead woman not very old. It took the three men another five minutes to bring the body to the shallows and then pull it out of the water. The vet did a cursory once over and offered an opinion that her neck had been broken. Probably one of those point of impact things, instantaneous, no suffering.

  “Should we check for anyone else?” Dan thought Sheriff Ray gave him a long look. Probably with good reason. Dan could have sworn that there had been someone on the passenger side last night. He urged Belle closer to the wrecked car. She shied at the upended tree that held the Caddy anchored, and it was then that he saw the manila envelope stuck in its branches. The envelope had had time to dry but the contents were stuck together. Dan pulled a couple pages apart, ordinary prison release papers, and then he saw the bank book.

  Seven years ago someone had deposited two million dollars into an account at Midland Savings and Loan in Tatum, New Mexico, Judge Franklin Cyrus’s bank. Some sixth sense nudged Dan to commit the account’s seven-digit number to memory. Could be worth looking into, but he didn’t quite know why.

  “Looks like we might find an Eric Linden, if we look a little longer.”

  Dan watched Billy Roland move his horse toward him. He had tucked the flap of the envelope inside to suggest he hadn’t opened it. Something told him that was safer. Just read the name off the front. Billy Roland’s expression wasn’t pleasant, and he knew without being told that Billy Roland was familiar with this Eric Linden. Knew him and didn’t think much of him. Odd. According to the papers, Mr. Linden had been locked up for seven years.

  “Oh Jesus, that’s just like Andrea. Give a lift to any poor soul needing it.”

  Billy Roland reached for the envelope, opened it, quickly checked the contents, then stuffed it into his saddlebags. Someone had ridden back to the Double Horseshoe for a winch and tractor. Dan and the others waited on dry ground. There was a sack of sandwiches and a cooler of iced beer, but Dan couldn’t have found an appetite with both hands. There, that sounded Texan. He was getting better at this.

  Someone must have called the dead girl’s father because he arrived with the tractor. A short swarthy man who had to be restrained. He seemed more angry than grief-stricken. But who could say how anyone should act at a moment like this. The Creek reluctantly gave up the Caddy. After four or five false starts the car pulled free and slid to shallow water.

  It was empty. Probably a miracle that the girl’s body stayed put even with seat belts. There wasn’t one square inch of glass left in the car and the passenger side door was doubled back against the front fender. Dan tied Belle to a tree branch and walked over for a closer look.

 
There had been a time when he’d pulled this kind of detail every day. Rookie claim adjuster, appraise the damage, assess a dollar value….Something was bugging him about the Caddy. Left rear wheel was gone. Not just the tire, the whole damned rim. Where the water had washed it clean of mud, there was bright metal, like someone had lifted the wheel off. Other than the front right tire being flat, the other tires were still on the rims.

  Dan bent down to take a closer look and his hand bumped across a groove in the car’s fender. He straightened to look.

  Fresh crease in the paint. He’d bet just about everything he owned that Andrea and her passenger had been a shooter’s target. Might explain the left rear wheel being gone. If so, someone had come out here pretty early and rearranged the evidence.

  “Got something there?” Billy Roland leaned over the saddle horn.

  “No. Just reflecting on how severe nature can be.” Dan heard the creak of leather as Billy Roland shifted his weight in the saddle.

  “Just plain awesome.”

  “Any idea who this Eric guy was?”

  He thought Billy Roland started to say something, then changed his mind.

  “Just somebody who wanted a ride into town, I’d say. Ray says he saw ’em at the Double Diamond around seven. As to why they were out here, well, son, I hope I don’t need to spark your imagination.” Billy Roland turned his horse toward the road, then suddenly wheeled the big gelding back around. “I can’t believe my lack of hospitality. I meant to say something this morning. I want you to pack up and get out of that motel. Spend your time out here at the Double Horseshoe. I know there’s some paperwork needs going over.”

  Conflict of interest came to mind, but Dan also saw the benefit of snooping in the open. “I’ll take you up on it.”

  At the moment he couldn’t get this Linden guy out of his mind. Spend seven years locked up with two million waiting and then get gypped out of spending it by some freak act of nature…or a bullet. Dan would probably never know which.